The Middle of Everywhere (14 page)

I don't realize I'm talking out loud.

Lenny grabs my elbow. “Can you quit saying ‘maybe' all the time?” he says. “You're driving me nuts. But I'll tell you one thing: Etua shouldn't have gone off by himself. What was he thinking?” Lenny releases his grip.

“He's just a kid.”

“A dumb kid. Can you believe he thinks he's Spiderman?”

I don't like Lenny calling Etua dumb. “He's got an imagination. Usually, that's a good thing.”

“Not if it gets you lost in a whiteout, it isn't.”

I try imagining what might have made Etua wander off without telling any of us where he was going. “Maybe Etua was thinking like Spiderman,” I say, thinking out loud. “Maybe he was trying to save somebody.”

Lenny groans. “Now what are you going on about? You sound like an old lady.”

I decide to ignore him. “I'm just thinking maybe Etua had a reason for taking off the way he did.”

We're getting quite close to whatever it was we saw from out on the lake.

“Looks like some branches that musta got loose from a snare trap,” Lenny says. “But it's not Etua.”

I'm not so sure. If Etua thinks he's Spiderman, maybe he saw—or heard—something out here he thought needed saving.

“Spiderman!” I shout. My voice is getting hoarse.

“Spiderman!” Lenny joins in.

The snare trap is only a few feet behind the branches. It's a wire noose attached to a small stump with some greenery around the wire. The trap is empty.

“See that?” Lenny says, leaning down to inspect it. “It's got fur on it. Over here. Looks like there was something in this trap not too long ago.”

“Spiderman!” I call again.

I think I hear rustling in the low brush up ahead, so I head there. But Lenny pulls me back. When I turn to look at him, he's holding his index finger to his lips, leaning forward. He's listening, straining to hear sounds my own ears aren't trained to pick up.

Could be a bear
. Lenny mouths the words.

At first, I think he's kidding. I know he'd enjoy seeing me panic. But Lenny's not smirking, and when he looks up at me, his pupils look really big. That's how I can tell he's scared.

So am I. The panicky feeling I had when I heard those heavy steps—that turned out to be Geraldine on snowshoes—and when I thought Lenny was going to beat the crap out of me comes back. Polar bears aren't like the ones you see in the Coke ads. They don't wave or smile when they see you coming. They hunt and stalk their prey. Sometimes for days in a row, waiting till the time is right to attack. I know because I've seen them do it on the Discovery Channel.

What if Lenny is right and there's a polar bear out there? What if he's been stalking us since we arrived at Short Lake? And what if Etua is out there too? My whole body shivers, and this time it isn't because of the cold.

Lenny is Inuit. He's lived here all his life. He'll know what to do. I look at him and mouth the word
Etua
.

Lenny raises his hands to chest level, then lowers them slowly, as if he's pressing down on the keys of an imaginary piano. I know that means there's only one thing to do: wait.

I've never been much good at waiting. In Montreal, when there's a line at the store or the bank machine, I usually take off. I've got better things to do than stand around staring into space. I like to think of myself as a man of action.

Lenny closes his eyes, which strikes me as a weird thing to do. Now he's rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. What in the world is he doing—going into some kind of trance? If I were a polar bear, I'd go after Lenny first. The thought makes me feel a little better. Lenny's big. He'd make a square meal even for a polar bear. Unless it was a really hungry polar bear. One who hadn't caught a seal recently. In that case, Lenny might just be an appetizer.

I have to fight an overwhelming urge to scream. I know I can't. The last thing you want to do when a polar bear is around is draw attention to yourself. But inside my head, I'm screaming.

Lenny opens his eyes and leans forward again. I can tell he's still listening. I try listening too, tuning in the way Lenny is doing.

All I can hear is the wind, and the soft
ping
the snow makes as it lands on the ground. And now I hear the rustling sounds again. Only now, those sounds are getting farther away. Is it a polar bear?

When Lenny sees me open my mouth, he shakes his head. I'm going to have to wait some more.

The first noise that comes out of Lenny is a sigh. A long, deep sigh. That must mean the coast is clear. “D'you really think it was a polar bear?” I whisper.

“I think I heard him breathing. But he's gone now.”

“Do you think it's safe to start calling Etua again?”

“Soon,” Lenny says.

In the end, though, we don't have to call for Etua. Because just after we turn to head back out onto the lake, Etua walks up to us as if he was there all along. “Etua!” Lenny and I cry out at once.

“Hi, Noah. Hi, Lenny,” he says as if he has no idea we've been searching for him.

The fur collar on Etua's red parka is covered with snow, and his cheeks are as red as the parka. He's carrying something he holds out to show us. At first, I think it's a stuffed animal or a baby in a fur coat. Of course that makes no sense. A baby in a fur coat?

It's an animal, just not a stuffed one. It's an Arctic hare. A small dead white Arctic hare with black ear tips and strong sharp claws, freshly caught in the trap we spotted. Etua must have pried him loose. He probably shouldn't have done that. The hare must belong to whoever set the trap.

“I heard a squeaking noise,” Etua says. “I thought someone needed me. But it was just a hare. He squeaked when he got caught in the trap.”

“You shouldn't have gone off without telling us,” I say.

“Especially not in weather like this,” Lenny adds.

Etua isn't paying any attention. He's pulled back one of the hare's furry white front paws—as if the hare is a hand puppet—and is waving it at us.

Part of me wants to throttle him. He gave all of us a bad scare, and he almost made Geraldine cry. But he's back now, and there's something about the sight of that dead hare waving its paw that cracks me up. I laugh so hard my side hurts.

TWENTY

T
he trap belongs to Matthew. He has two more snare traps and a couple of leg-hold traps set up in different spots around the lake. The leg-hold traps are all metal; they are meant for catching foxes. The Inuit don't like to shoot foxes because bullet holes spoil the fur.

So Etua has to surrender his new toy. He doesn't want to. But Etua also knows we're upset with him for taking off, so he must sense it's not a good time to argue. “Okay,” he says as he hands over the limp animal, waving its front paw one last time.

I watch later as Matthew skins the rabbit. He makes a slit under the rabbit's bum, then pulls the skin off like it's a glove.

Matthew hands the pelt to Geraldine. “It's pretty, but not as valuable as fox,” she explains to me, running her fingers through the silky fur. “Now we keep most of the fox fur to make trim for parkas. But in the old days, we traded our fox fur with the
Qallunaat
for food and rifles. Those
Qallunaat
sure ripped us off,” Geraldine says. Then she blushes. “Sorry,” she says, “I didn't mean you.”

“I don't mind if you call me a
Qallunaaq
,” I tell her. “That's what I am. A white guy.”

“I don't think of you like that.” I can tell Geraldine is embarrassed from the way she's holding her head a little to the side.

“You don't?”

She blushes again.

“So how
do
you think of me?”

Geraldine pauses for a moment. “As Noah. Just Noah.”

I figure that's a start. A good start.

We lay out the fish so they can freeze through. That'll make it easier to load them up when it's time to go back to George River.

We make a point of not storing the fish too close to the tents. Lenny and I told Matthew how we thought we heard a polar bear when we were searching for Etua. “If there's one out there,” Matthew said, looking at the lake, “I'd rather let him have our fish than us.”

Lenny is playing with the trigger on his rifle. Something tells me he'd like to shoot a polar bear.

Jakopie is hauling a block of ice up from the river. It's so big his arms barely reach around it.

“Need some help?” I ask him.

“Nah,” he grunts.

“What's he need ice for anyhow?” I ask Tom.

“For making ice water.”

“Didn't we bring drinking water with us?”

Jakopie turns to answer my question. “That's tap water. I can't stand the taste. It's not real water.” I wonder what Jakopie would think of all the bottled water they sell in the grocery stores in Montreal. Probably not much.

We eat fried Arctic char for supper in the Snowflakes' tent. Everyone's there—Tom, Lenny, Jakopie, Etua, Roy and me. There's no shortage of fish. It's the first time I've ever tasted fresh-caught Arctic char. The flesh is peach-colored and it has a gamey, almost sweet taste. The crispy skin is good too. Geraldine and her dad rubbed the outside of the fish with salt before they put it on the stove.

Geraldine sprinkles more salt on her fish.

“I hope you get a discount at the Northern,” I tell her. “You must go through a lot of salt.”

Geraldine covers her mouth when she laughs.

Jakopie hands me a tin cup of lake water and watches my face as I taste it. “See what I mean?” he asks.

“It tastes like a lake,” I tell him. Which it does—fresh and cold.

“I like tap water better,” Tom says. “I guess it's what I'm used to,” he adds after Jakopie gives him a disapproving look.

Etua falls asleep before dessert: Arctic berries he helped pick last summer and that Rhoda froze. He slumps over, his thumb in his mouth. Even in his Spiderman pajamas, he doesn't exactly look like your average superhero.

“Little guy had a rough day,” Geraldine says as she covers him with a blanket.

“We all had a rough day,” Matthew adds.

That gets me wondering about Joseph. Did he make it to the airport in time? Did the flight leave for Kuujjuaq, and if it did, were the doctors able to reattach his thumb? We have no way of knowing, since Steve took the satellite phone. If he and Joseph made it to George River in time, Steve should be able to get back to Short Lake tomorrow. If the weather doesn't stop him.

There isn't much to see through the window of the Snowflakes' tent. Just darkness. But the wind is still gusting, and it was snowing hard when we made our way over for dinner. At this rate, we may get a couple more feet of snow before morning.

None of the others mention Joseph and Steve, but I have a feeling we're all thinking about them, hoping the same thing: that they made it back safely and that Joseph's thumb is back where it belongs. I try not to remember spotting the thumb on the snow, or picking it up and wrapping it in the strip of towel.

In the distance, one of the dogs howls—a long, low howl that pierces the night air.

“Sounds like P'tit Eric,” Tom says, sprinkling some more salt over his fish. “I guess he's reminding the others who's in charge.”

“If there were no more Inuit sled dogs in George River, how did Steve get P'tit Eric and the others?” I ask. It's something I've been wondering since Steve told me about what happened to the dogs.

Jakopie, who's in the corner of the tent carving a chunk of caribou antler, looks up. I sure hope he won't chop off his thumb. One thumb on the ground is about all I can handle.

How could I have forgotten that Inuit sled dogs are Jakopie's favorite topic of conversation—maybe his only topic? “They come from all over,” he says. “Steve looked up Inuit sled dogs on the Internet, and then he phoned up some of the people raising them. P'tit Eric and his brother came all the way from Minnesota, some of the others came from Yellowknife. Two are from Iqualuit.”

“How did Steve get them all the way up here?”

“Air Inuit helped,” Geraldine says, joining in the conversation. She's gathering up plates, and I hand her mine. There are only small bones left on it, so pale I can almost see through them. “The airline gave the dogs a discount on their tickets.” Geraldine laughs, as if she's imagining P'tit Eric waiting at the airport, with an airline ticket in his mouth. “Steve talked the airline into it. Just like he talked some of the breeders into giving us the dogs for free. He told them it was a way to help our community.”

Jakopie lays his carving down on the floor next to him. He's working on what's going to be the handle of a knife. He still doesn't look up when he speaks. “Then he and Joseph bred some of the dogs. That's how I got mine. Two of 'em are P'tit Eric's sons.”

Now I'm impressed. “They are?”

Jakopie raises his eyebrows. “I hope they'll be tough like their
ataata
.”

“Sons usually are,” Matthew says softly. “Sometimes even tougher. Especially if the sons are born in the North. The elders say being born up here toughens dogs—and people—up.” Matthew looks over at Lenny when he says this. But Lenny is busy picking a fishbone from between his teeth.

I want to know more about what happened to the Inuit sled dogs that used to live in George River. “Steve told me the RCMP killed the dogs.” It's as if I can feel the letters RCMP hanging heavy in the air. At first, no one says anything. But it's too late to take back what I've said. Besides, I really want to know, even if it's a bad story.

“
Kill
's the wrong word,” Jakopie says softly. “They massacred our dogs. Came into town and shot 'em.”

I suck in my breath. In my mind, I hear gunshots and dogs yelping. I shake my head to make the sounds stop.