best intentions, not to develop the gold mine. There was no gold on Whispers Island, at least not enough to justify the high cost of development.
Aunt Aggie wrote that she had discovered what looked to be a seam of gold and brought in experts to determine the extent of the deposit. But the drilling had proved the vein was worthless. No doubt CanacGold would have discovered this, but not before destroying the soul of the ancients’ forest.
Whispers Island still had one last secret to reveal, the final tragedy of Agatha Harris, her confession, which once read explained so much.
I killed my husband, Johann. There, I have finally written it down in indelible ink. It has taken me ten years to face up to what I did that dreadful day on Minitg Kà-ishpàkweyàg.
Day in and day out I spied on my husband and that native girl, watching every move of their indecent behaviour. Until one day I could no longer endure it. I took my rifle and skied over to the island.
I surprised them in the act of rutting. Something inside me snapped. Wanting only to wipe out the evil, I fired. In my frenzy, I knocked drying clothes into the hearth fire. Within minutes, the lodge was in flames. I fled outside, but once outside I heard the wail of the small child, the living child for whom Johann had left me. I wanted to rid myself of this evil, too. But I couldn’t. Thank goodness my reason returned and I was able to save this tiny daughter of my husband’s from the fire.
With the crying child in my burnt arms, I stood and watched the fire consume the lodge and all that was within. I then took her to Rushing Bear and said she was by rights his child and should grow up in the Algonquin culture she was born to. I promised him I would ensure that she never wanted. And through the years I have looked out for Whispering Pine, providing her with the means to prosper.
And on that day I also made a pact with God. As punishment for the terrible sin I had committed, I would condemn myself to a life of loneliness and isolation. Three Deer Point would be my prison. And this I have done. I have lived here these last ten years, cut off from my family and friends, and shall continue to do so until the end of my days.
At my trial, there will be only two, God as my judge and me as the defendant. Now you, my heir, have become my jury. I leave this secret in your hands to do with as you will.
And what could I do? Revealing the secret to Tommy would achieve nothing. Though I believed Marie had known. Either from the murmurings of her ancestors or the whisperings of the pines, she had known our pasts were inextricably linked through the tragedy of the crosses. But whether out of friendship or a fear of angering the spirits, she had kept this to herself.
Long since dead, Aunt Aggie was well beyond the reaches of the law. Besides, I believe she had served her penance the sixty years or more she lived in complete isolation, using the remoteness of Three Deer Point as her prison.
No, I would keep this between Aunt Aggie and myself. But I would also use it as a warning to ensure Three Deer Point didn’t become my prison.
And it looked as if Eric could very well be the key.
one
I could feel his eyes drilling into my back. I stopped walking and turned around. The old man remained on the trail, where he’d blocked me and my work crew from going further. His orange hunter’s vest was an angry blot against the web of the leafless November forest, his shrunken frame as gnarled as the ancient maple he stood beside. Light glinted off his rifle.
A few steps beyond him stood his daughter, Yvette, in her bulky duffel coat, its metal buttons bright in the afternoon’s dull light. She hadn’t moved either, not from the spot where he’d grabbed her arm and dragged her from our midst.
For several tense seconds, he and I glared at each other, then he slowly raised his rifle and pointed it directly at me. The rustling behind me stopped.
Dead silence but for rapid breathing behind me, then John-Joe yelled, “Hey, put that stupid thing down! Someone’ll get hurt.”
Another voice muttered, “Crazy old man.”
“Madame Harris!” the old man yelled. “Allez-vous-en!”
His pointed rifle was enough translation to tell me to get out of there. Even at this distance, I could feel his daughter’s eyes pleading, her silence saying, “Go, I’m afraid.”
I turned to leave and collided with John-Joe. He stood rooted next to where he’d dropped his chainsaw on the trail, his arms crossed over his chest, his long bowed legs spaced apart, a look of pig-headed stubbornness on his bronzed face. His hawk feather lifted in the late autumn breeze, then dropped back to its place on the brim of his orange cap.
“John-Joe, don’t make it worse,” I said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“Who does the old bastard think he is?” John-Joe retorted, clenching his fists. “Why, I could—”
“Forget it. Fighting won’t solve anything.” I pushed my way around him. “Come on guys, let’s go.”
I clamped my long-handled clippers onto my backpack and started walking back along the section of new crosscountry ski trail that my crew of four volunteers and I had just finished clearing of brush and trees. I motioned Chantal and Pierre to follow. If John-Joe wanted to tangle with the old man, then Eric Odjik, the brains behind this ski marathon venture, could pick up the pieces. I wanted no part of it.
Despite John-Joe being too handsome to be credible, I’d come to view him as an okay guy after he’d helped Eric and me prevent a gold mine from destroying our West Quebec wilderness. Now I wasn’t so sure. Several times since we’d begun cutting this section of marathon trail through the dense bush, John-Joe had kept the rest of us waiting. Overslept, he would say. Yeah, sure. Probably just crawled out of the sweaty bed of his latest conquest. Most likely Chantal, if the hungry eyes he was casting in her direction were anything to go by. Twice he’d forgotten his chainsaw and kept us drumming our fingers for over an hour while he returned to his apartment to retrieve it.
Damn Papa Gagnon. And forget about Eric and his hot-air promises. He’d vowed to get the old man’s permission to cross his precious land. “Sure Papa Gagnon’s ornery, but he owes me one. I’ll do my part, Meg. You just make sure you do yours,” Eric had said in that officious manner he assumed when trying to be the big chief, a card he rarely played although fully entitled to as the Band Chief of the Migiskan First Nation.
Yeah, well, Eric, you blew it.
I stomped through the dead leaves, kicked a stump in my way and slashed at it again with my axe.
“What do you do now?” gasped Chantal as she struggled to keep up with me. Her young, ripe body tugged at the seams of her stretch pants. One look at her shocking pink outfit the first day we’d met had been enough to tell me I didn’t want this Québécoise femme fatale on my crew. We had enough work without having to carry excess baggage. But Eric had insisted, with a look in his eye that had set my insecurities jangling. Since it was his ski marathon, not mine, I’d complied.
“Beats me.” I decapitated a young spruce.
Now we had a ski trail that led nowhere. It had taken the five of us a week to get this far, one back-breaking week of chopping, sawing, clipping and hauling, and we’d only managed to clear half the planned five-kilometre distance. And what did we
