Across Frozen Seas (12 page)

By this time, my dreams had become like a horror movie that I was compelled to watch. Every night I was drawn back, fascinated, to the story created by the dark imaginings of my overwrought mind, but I did not want to follow where they led. The sense of loneliness was almost overwhelming and it took an enormous effort of will even to get out of bed in the morning.

After the holiday disappointment, Mom and Dad's fights just kept getting worse. It seemed like they argued every day and it didn't matter whether I was around or not. When they weren't actually arguing, they were bickering at each other. The pressure began to build again.

It was Friday night and their third fight of the week. I was watching TV and they were going at it behind me.

“That place is like an albatross around our necks,” my Mom was saying. “You have to get rid of it.”

“No,” my Dad shouted. “I have to give it a chance.”

“You've given it a chance. It's not working.”

It was the same old stuff as before. Their voices were mingling with whatever I was watching on TV

“Look.” Mom was trying to calm down and try a different approach. “I can get a job. Dorothy says she needs some help at the store. It wouldn't pay much, but it would help us over this spell. But I won't do it to support the chicken place. We have to get out from underneath that.”

“All I need is more time.” Dad was still being defensive. “I know it will work out.”

“No it won't,” I hadn't planned to say anything, it just came out. I certainly hadn't planned to take anyone's side. “Dad, no one is going to go there. The place is a joke. My friends wouldn't be caught dead there. How many people under sixty do you see there in a week? Without a younger crowd, it doesn't have a hope.”

There was an uncomfortable silence while both my parents looked at me in amazement. Mom was about to say something, but Dad got in first. He was furious.

“What do you know about running a business?” he screamed. “It's damned hard work, and I do it for you. You're just some ungrateful, smart-assed kid who should learn to keep out of other people's affairs. You can't even get decent grades in school any more. All you do is hang out with that no-good bunch of layabouts. You should get out and get a job.”

I had had enough. My anger got the better of me.

“Well, at least it's better than being a loser that
everyone laughs at,” I shouted. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet and heading for the door. With every step, I expected to hear a shout. I expected, no I wanted, him to come running after me. But he didn't. He never said a word and the silence when I closed the door was worse than anything he could have said.

I felt I was the only person in the world. That was why I didn't go to the mall, hang out for a few hours, and then sneak back in after they had gone to bed. That silence had scared me.

It was almost dark, and it was the middle of February. All I had were the clothes I wore and the baseball jacket I had grabbed on the way out, and it was beginning to snow. It wasn't how I had planned to run away. Then I had an idea—Jim's place. I hadn't seen him since the time he came around to visit. He had dismissed my dreams in the past, but a lot had happened since then. Perhaps now he would believe me. In any case, he would give me a bed for the night and I wouldn't have to listen to the shouting through the wall.

I walked down to the highway and stuck my thumb out. I didn't have to wait long (the advantage of a small town). A truck soon stopped for me. It was an old farmer I'd seen a couple of times at the market. He was driving a beat-up 4x4, but the cab was warm.

By the time we got to Jim's road, it was snowing pretty hard and the old guy warned me about the storm. He wanted to know where I was going dressed in such a light jacket. I told him it wasn't far and I'd
walked it a hundred times, even in winter. He still wasn't happy, so I pointed out some lights that we could just see through the snow and said that was Jim's place. It wasn't, but there was no way I was going to let this guy stop me.

Eventually, he let me out but he sat there for the longest time, I guess until he couldn't see me any more. I made as if I was heading for the lights and then, when I heard him drive off, I turned back onto the dirt road.

It seemed a lot colder than it had been in town, but I figured that was just because it was dark now. I was soon wishing I had grabbed my down parka. The baseball jacket was beginning to seem awfully thin. The snow was getting heavier too, and was already drifting in the ditches. Still, I wasn't worried, all I had to do was follow the road until I came to Jim's mailbox.

By the time I recognized the carved squirrel, it was snowing so hard that I couldn't see Jim's house. In fact, if I looked down I couldn't even see the ground in front of me. I guess it's what's called a white out. It was like being wrapped in a huge, soft, white blanket, except that there was no warmth. My feet and hands had gone numb and I was so cold I had even stopped shivering. The only reason I found the mailbox at all was that I was staggering along holding onto the fence beside the ditch. It meant wading through the drifts which was hard work, but in the centre of the road I could have been walking through downtown Saskatoon for all I could see. Plus, I couldn't keep to a straight line and was always stumbling into the ditch.
Anyhow, I had found the mailbox. Now all I had to do was find Jim's front door.

I'll never know how I missed the house. When I left the mailbox I was walking straight towards it and it couldn't have been more than fifty metres away. Even in a white out I was sure I could walk straight for that far. But I couldn't. Once I missed the house the first time I was completely lost.

I kept falling over fences and banging into broken-down walls. Once I was sure I had found the house, but it was just the side of the old ramshackle barn and as soon as I left it I was lost again. By the time I stumbled over the pigsty I was getting pretty scared. Jim hadn't kept pigs for years, but I crawled in anyway just to get out of the snow. Then a funny thing happened, I began to feel warm. It was still twenty-five degrees below zero and there was still a blizzard raging, yet I felt warm. So warm that I could curl up and go to sleep. I'd sleep the storm out and then I'd find the house in the daylight. I crawled into the corner and pulled my knees up. The snow was blowing through cracks in the wood, but it didn't seem to matter. I was warm and my eyes were getting heavy.

The most mournful sound in the entire world is the flap of a heavy canvas tent in a biting Arctic wind. It is as if the devil is snapping a towel at your heels. And the devil must have played a large part in this disaster.
How could so much hope turn to such tragedy? I thought my life was beginning anew when George and I escaped from Marback's....

Mister Fitzjames is now only occasionally conscious. I have wrapped him in as much clothing as I can find, but he is still frozen. I fear he will not live long. This storm will be our last. When it hit, our boats were exposed in shallow water. We were through Simpson Strait and near the mouth of the inlet which leads to Back's Fish River. But we couldn't stay together. The last I saw of Crozier's boat it was being driven out to sea and the men in it were fighting to keep it from being swamped. We seemed to derive more shelter from a spit of land and were not in such serious difficulty. But still Mister Fitzjames was having trouble keeping us level. The waves were breaking high over the gunwales and we had to bail continuously to keep from swamping.

“We must try for a beach to see this out,” Fitzjames could barely be heard above the wind although he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

With all the white water around, we could see little and could only hope that the water would calm as we proceeded up the inlet. At least the wind was driving us in the direction we wanted to go. But it was driving us too fast and we did not see the reef until the jagged rocks crashed through the bow. In an instant we were all in the icy water.

Fortunately there was a beach nearby and four of us managed to crawl up onto it. It was rocky and
inhospitable, but better than the water. Equipment and pieces of boat were washed up all around us. One man was badly hurt and died before we could get a tent up. The three of us huddled here and waited for the end. The following day the other man died. He just let out a sigh in his sleep and that was it. I managed to drag him outside and now it is only Mister Fitzjames and myself sitting huddled here as the devil torments us.

Mister Fitzjames is sometimes delirious and talks of his sister Elizabeth back in England. He clutches a journal he has kept for her these many hard years and which she will never see. At least I have no one to worry about back home. I should like to know what happened to George though. I sit and clutch the cold form of Jack Tar.

The devil is getting braver. He is fumbling with the tent flap. It must be time for him to come in. He has it open now.

Why does the devil have George's face?

This is strange. How can George be looking into my tent? I see now. It is George and the devil is behind him, pushing him hard into the small, wind-battered space. George falls across my legs. The devil pushes the flap aside and comes in. The scars on his left cheek twist his features into a horrible grin. The devil has Seeley's face.

“George?” My mind seems to be working very slowly. “Is that really you? You don't look well.” George's face is impossibly thin. His cheek bones stick out and his eyes seem sunk far back in his skull.

“Yes, Davy,” he replies. “It is me. A sorry state we have all come to now, eh?”

“What a touching reunion.” Seeley is sneering across at us. He looks far better fed than my friend. I shudder as I remember why that probably is. “I see you are still with your officer friend. A lot of good it will do you now.”

“How many are you?” I ignore Seeley and direct my question at George.

“Just us,” George looks down at the floor as he answers.

“What happened to the rest?” I have to know.

“They died.” George doesn't want to explain, but Seeley has no qualms.

“They died all right,” he says almost gleefully, “and I helped a few of 'em along with this.” He grins horribly and produces a long, evil-looking knife. “But some of the boys are still with us, ain't that right George? Loaded on the sled outside they are.” Seeley throws back his head and lets out a hideous laugh.

“But don't you boys worry. You won't feel nothing and I'll make sure they build a nice big memorial to you all when I gets home.”

“You're not going to get home Seeley.” I have no fear left of this man. “None of us are. This is the end, the last camp. None of what you have done, or will do, matters any more. No one will ever know what happened to us or where or how we died. This place has swallowed us as if we never existed. Your petty insanities count for nought now.”

Seeley seems confused by this. For a moment he sits looking at me with a puzzled frown. Then, raising the knife, he begins to crawl over the bedding towards me. I don't have the strength to defeat him, and I don't care. What difference does it make now how the last of us die?

Seeley is almost over me now. The knife is raised even higher.

“Elizabeth! Is that you? It is perilous cold, can you bring an extra blanket for my poor legs.”

Fitzjames, in his sad delirium, has seen a figure moving. Sitting suddenly bolt upright, he grabs ineffectually at Seeley's clothes. Startled, Seeley turns and slashes down with the knife. It sinks deep into Fitzjames' chest. With a sigh, he falls back, half-pulling Seeley with him.

Suddenly I want to do something. Even if no one will ever know, I must not let the last act of this tragedy be Seeley's. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion; Seeley is struggling to regain the knife and I am fighting the heaviness of my limbs. The clothes and blankets feel like glue holding me back. Under my knees I can feel the hard, rounded shape of poor Mister Fitzjames' telescope. I don't know what I'll do when I reach Seeley. Nothing much if he gets the knife free before I get there. The knife is almost free now; I will not make it in time.

George has always been faster than me. In a sort of funny half-crawl, half-hobble, he claws his way past me and grabs hold of Seeley. The blow is weak, but it is enough to knock Seeley off balance; as he falls the
knife pulls free. It is insane. We are possibly the last three people alive for hundreds of miles and we are trying to kill each other. George is trying frantically to get a grip on Seeley's wrist. The knife slashes wildly, catching George on the side of the face and ripping the clothes at his shoulder. He falls aside. I rise to my knees and swing the heavy brass telescope as hard as I can.

For a moment Seeley looks surprised. Then he drops the knife and puts his hand up to the spot on his forehead where a thin trickle of blood is running down from his scalp. He tries to turn and look at me, but the effort is too great and he slumps over in an untidy heap. The weight of his falling body is too great for the already strained tent and it collapses on top of us.