Belle gave the dog, Tracker, a quick pet as she and Ed shed their helmets and heavy jackets before entering the small main building. Inside were a large kitchen, a dining room with a homemade industrial drum woodstove and four pine tables, and the entrance to a sleeping nook for the family. High over the stove hung a simple but effective clothes dryer: a metal bed frame for wet mittens, scarves and boot felts. A black bear head with whimsical antlers bore a brass plate reading “Old Ned, 1982.”
Mrs. Burian greeted them, face flushed from the steam and flour dusting her apron.
“Hello, Meg. I finally made it. What’s cooking?” asked Belle.
“Spaghetti, garlic bread and apple crisp, with plenty of country cream to fatten you up, Ed, from my brother’s dairy in New Liskeard,” the woman replied as Ed snapped his suspenders. Her gray hair was yanked into a sensible bun, but in her dervish toils, wet tendrils framed her face. Belle had rarely seen her sitting; if she weren’t preparing food or cleaning, she was hanging washing out to freeze-dry. A minute later Meg plopped two chipped, steaming mugs before them.
“Jim stopped by and told me to get myself up here,” Belle said. “He seems to be doing well at the university. You must be proud of him.”
She had hit the right chord. Meg’s face lit up like a generous April sun, hands framing her ample hips. “Likes his course in Forestry Management real fine. All As last semester. Right now he’s at one of our hunt camps to write up some project. Had the big storm, so I guess he’s taking his time getting back. Sunday supper, he’ll make it. Moose stew’s his favourite.”
“What do you people think about that new park?” Belle asked her as two more snowmobilers came in with a rush of cold.
Meg opened up the stove and tossed a birch log into the flickering flames. “None of us is too happy, I guess, more people, more trash, more problems. In the summer, of course, it might bring canoe trade, but that’s our vacation time. And then there’s the pictographs.” She pointed to some black and white photographs on the wall which outlined vaguely human shapes, stars, circles and crosses on a rock face. “Ben took me up there canoeing on our honeymoon. Better than Niagara Falls. Those red ochre images have been on that old Champlain canoe route since God knows when but won’t last long now, people get to rubbing at them. Jim tell you about that rally at the university?”
“Sounds like a good idea for us cottagers to go, too. It’s rush hour every Saturday night the Beaverdam is open. The noise never stops,” said Belle as she and Ed dug into the spaghetti. Alphabet letters dotted the tangy sauce, but it tasted sublime. And the dessert surpassed all promises, thick swirls of cream over tart apples.
As they paid the token five dollars each, Belle asked after Ben. Meg opened the door and peered out, shielding her eyes from the reflected sun off the snow. “Here comes Pop. Took the sled over to the ridge to pick up some down-and-dead.” In certain wilderness areas, the Ministry issued permits to harvest fallen trees and widow-makers.
“So where have you been? First time all year,” Ben said, hitting the kill switch on the small sled designed for light bush work. He picked up an axe and lifted a five-gallon gas can over his shoulder. “Loading up on Mom’s special, I’ll bet.” A lean sixty, his face tanned and creased from outdoor work at the small lodge on weekends, Ben had retired early from Falconbridge, Inco’s little brother, a mining corporation. He passed a few minutes with Belle and Ed complaining about the weather.
“Don’t go yet,” Meg called as she ran up bearing a small jar wrapped in a calico cloth. “Wild gooseberry jam. Jim picked me a bounty last summer, and I forgot to give you one at Thanksgiving.” Belle thanked her and wedged the jar firmly into the carrier.
“I could have stood a nap after that meal,” Ed said.
“No wonder Hélène calls you an old bear.”
The slap of -10° C revitalized them as they topped up the machines from a carrier jug. Ed and Belle had marked a trail north through a ridge system, down through Laura Lake and back to Wapiti. After a half hour, they stopped at an unusual pine loop. “Might make a good picture,” she said. Then they noticed a track snaking into the bush. Not many drivers left the main routes, and with good reason. Without a snowshoe path, machines had rough going breaking trail, especially on fresh, heavy snow. Travelling unbroken lakes was even riskier, since a layer of melt often lurked under the pristine snow blanket. Yet it looked sooooo good, so tempting, that a rider just had to make a track across, put his mark on the landscape, cut the birthday cake. A machine could, however, be trapped in this treacherous slush until a freeze allowed its owner to round up burly friends to chop it out of the ice. Rescue by helicopter was an expensive proposition. “Looks firm enough. Trapper’s cabin? Good fishing hole?” Ed wondered as he backed up, then revved his engine like a young kid. “Might lead somewhere interesting. Want to have a go?”
“Why not? It’s only two o’clock,” Belle said. “At the first sign of a problem we’ll stop. Neither of us has the muscles to budge these machines if they bog down.”
“Speak for yourself, little lady,” Ed snorted, though he rubbed his hip thoughtfully. Already a few yards past the cut, Belle began the laborious process of turning the Bravo, first shifting the skis by tugging on the metal loops, then lifting the heavier rear of the sled. “I’ll have reverse next time even if I have to mortgage the dog. No more bullwork for me,” she said, wincing at an ominous twinge in her back.
Following the path was a jerky trip, with Belle’s skis slipping in and out of wider ruts, drifted over in places. Shimmying and sliding, they followed a roller coaster trail through heavy spruce, the laden boughs dropping snow down their necks as they passed. One sharp turn cut around a massive glacial outcropping of rock twenty feet high, shrouded in snow. Finally they spotted the frozen lake, ringed with dark firs, cloudless cerulean blue above, the picture of serenity . . . except for a ragged, refrozen hole with a hand beckoning, pointing at that same blue sky.
THREE
Someone’s gone down!” Belle cried, braking at the shoreline. A round pool of new ice, a lake within a lake, had formed in the older snow cover. A sled had travelled perhaps forty feet before breaking through and left only the pale blue hand locked into the new surface.
“Looks like he never even swam for it. Jesus, poor bastard,” Ed said, testing the edge with his boots and shielding his eyes against the glare. “See anything?”
“A flash of red just below. That fresh ice is a couple of inches thick already, but I’m not walking out on it. Too deep to spot anything else. We’ll have to go back for help. The police will bring a diver. And they’ll need an axe.”
They drove back quickly, pushing into the lodge as a surprised family of four lowered forks from their spaghetti. Belle called toward the kitchen. “There’s someone broken through about a half hour north.” She chose not to mention the hand.
“I’d better get Ben ready,” said Meg, a small line worrying her forehead as she gave a huge iron pot a stir. “You don’t think . . .” she murmured as she rushed out in search of her husband, leaving her coat hanging on the rack.
Since the area was well outside the city’s jurisdiction, Belle used the radio-phone to call the Ontario Provincial Police, then stood by helplessly while Ben packed his gear and rounded up some sleds, speaking softly to his wife as he gave her a hug. “I know what’s on your mind, and you can stop it right now.”
“But where is he? He’s always back way early for Sunday dinner.
