Manitou Canyon (28 page)

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53

F
ox stood with his back to the fireplace and listened as John Harris explained the situation of the Manitou Canyon Dam. Fox had probably heard some of it before, the part about the dam itself being a hopeless target. The possibility of blowing the rock that served as anchor on either side was a new and, judging from the look on Fox's face, intriguing twist.

“There's no guarantee it will work,” Harris said. “But in my opinion, that's the only chance you have of bringing that dam down.”

They'd all gathered in the main room. Cheval and Mrs. Gray stood beside the map of White Woman Lake that hung on the wall. Cork and Lindsay sat together on the divan. Behind them, still holding a rifle, loomed Brown, whom Cork now knew as Isaac McQuabbie. Harris was alone in a chair. Aaron stood near him, the rifle still in his grip. Indigo was tending to the fireplace, using an iron poker to move and resettle burning logs.

“If it works,” Fox asked, “will it go right away?”

“It might. I can't say for sure. But it will certainly screw with the integrity of the dam. Its viability will have to be completely reassessed. They'll have to cease filling the reservoir behind it. At the very least, your Manitou River will be given a reprieve.”

“What do you think, Mr. Indigo?” Fox asked his cohort.

Indigo rose, the iron poker still in his hand. “I think he's telling the truth. If he isn't, we can still kill O'Connor.” He gave Cork a pleasant smile and lifted the poker in his direction.

“All right. Let's get started,” Fox said.

“We need to get word to Gordonville,” Aaron said.

“Why?” Fox seemed surprised by the suggestion.

“If that dam goes, those people will be wiped out.”

“Many of those people helped build the dam.”

“It was a good-paying job,” Aaron said. “Rare up here. I don't hold that against them.”

“And some of those people in town are relatives,” Isaac McQuabbie protested. “We're not killing family.”

“In this war, sacrifices will be necessary,” Fox said. “Mr. Gray understood that.”

“It was Flynn's choice,” Aaron said, emphatic about the man's real name, as if it gave his death weight and meaning. “That's something you haven't offered those people in Gordonville.”

“And I don't intend to,” Fox said. “If that dam goes and those people are killed, the message it sends to Ottawa is all the more powerful. I thought you wanted the dam gone. Otherwise, why am I here?”

“You're here because it serves your own purposes,” Aaron said. “Don't give me a lot of crap about caring about us. Before we set off those charges, we send word to Gordonville. That's all there is to it.”

“You'll never be a true warrior, Aaron.”

Without warning, Indigo swung the poker and clipped the tall man a glancing blow across the side of his head, not hard enough for serious damage but enough that he dropped his rifle and fell back upon the floor. Cheval jumped to his feet, but Indigo had his Glock out.

“Don't anyone move,” he said.

Isaac McQuabbie raised his rifle. “Drop your gun, Indigo.”

Indigo didn't.

“I thought you were one of us,” Fox said.

“I'm not like you,” Isaac said. “I just want to save the river. You promised no one would get hurt.”

“Things change.” Fox slowly bent and reached for the rifle Aaron had dropped.

“Don't,” Isaac said.

Fox ignored the warning and lifted the rifle while Isaac stood wavering.

“You can shoot me, or you can shoot Mr. Indigo, but you can't shoot us both,” Fox said. “If you kill me, Mr. Indigo will shoot you, then he'll shoot Ms. Harris. We don't need either of you anymore. If you choose to shoot Mr. Indigo, then I'll be the one to kill you both. If, on the other hand, you put that rifle down, I promise no one gets shot. We do our work tonight, and we're gone. The choice is yours.”

The struggle of decision was clear on his young face, but Isaac finally set the rifle on the floor.

“All right,” Fox said. “We've got a lot of work ahead of us tonight.”

As Fox had indicated, they'd stockpiled plenty of high explosives. In one of the empty cabins, there were cases of dynamite, TNT, and C-4. Stacked against one whole wall, like sandbags in a bunker, were sacks of ANFO, ammonium nitrate. There were boxes filled with boosters, detonators, caps, and fuse coils. Two new Cobra gas-powered rock drills stood in a corner, with a dozen carbide bits arrayed on the floor around them like goods in a bazaar.

John Harris decided on the dynamite. “Considering the conditions we'll be working under, it's the safest choice,” he explained.

Fox and Indigo, always with their weapons at the ready, kept a watchful eye as the others loaded a pickup parked near the cabin. When the truck bed contained everything Harris thought necessary, Fox said, “Okay, everyone back into the lodge.”

After they'd assembled, he said, “We'll need lots of muscle tonight. Harris, Cheval, O'Connor, Aaron, you're coming.”

“What about the rest of us?” Isaac said.

“You, your girlfriend, and Mrs. Gray will stay here.”

“No,” the sour woman said. “I want to be there. It's what we came for, what Flynn died for.”

Fox studied her and finally said, “All right.”

“So Lindsay and me, we just stay back and wait?” Isaac said. The young man clearly liked that idea.

“Yes, but in the cooler in the kitchen.”

“What?”

“Dress warm,” Indigo said with a grin. “We might be a while.”

After they'd donned their coats and gloves and stocking caps, Lindsay and Isaac were herded into the small walk-in cooler.

“If we don't freeze, we might suffocate,” Lindsay said.

“There's plenty of air for a few hours. That's all we'll be gone,” Fox assured them. “This is just a little insurance, so we know you won't be tempted to interfere.”

Before the door was shut and locked, Lindsay looked beyond Fox to where her grandfather stood. “I'm sorry,” she said again.

“Forget it,” John Harris said. “It's on my shoulders.”

Fox shut the door.

“I'll never see her again, will I?” Harris said.

“Don't be such a Debbie Downer,” Indigo told him. “All this goes well, who knows? You both may be lying in the Maui sun next week. Let's go.”

They took two vehicles. Cheval drove the pickup, transporting with him Mrs. Gray and Indigo. Aaron drove a new-looking black Yukon, Cork at his side, hands bound with duct tape. Fox sat in back with Harris, whose hands had also been bound. Fox held a threatening handgun.

They followed a gravel road that skirted White Woman Lake, then tunneled east through thick forest, roughly paralleling the course of the Manitou River. Snow fell heavily, and Aaron moved the Yukon slowly because the road was rough and twisting and because the snow sometimes made the way ahead difficult to see. With the storm, night had come early. The taillights of the pickup stared back at them out of the dark and the falling snow like the eyes of a demon.

“I'm sorry we dragged you into this, O'Connor,” Aaron said as they bounced over the rugged road.

“How'd they talk you into it?” Cork asked.

“We didn't have to talk much,” Fox said from the back. “A very nice convergence of mutual interests. The people of White Woman Lake wanted to save their sacred canyon, and we wanted to make a statement to those blind fools down in Ottawa.”

“There you go with that ‘we' again,” Cork said. “Who are you?”

“The RCMP has taken to calling us the Warrior Cohort. I like that. And who are we? We are the Native underground. Indigenous people fed up with feeling powerless. And not just here in Canada. Thanks to modern technology, the only good thing White people gave us, this war is worldwide.”

“Terrorism,” Cork said.

“Justice,” Fox replied.

John Harris asked, “How exactly is destroying the Manitou Canyon Dam justice?”

“It was sold to the Canadian people as part of the nation's great push to become the world's leader in producing hydroelectric power for its citizens,” Fox explained. “But the truth is that almost none of the electricity those generators produce will ever reach a Canadian household. It was built to power Caldecott's Highland Mine, a mine that will eventually dwarf any open-pit iron operation on this continent. Am I right, Aaron?”

Aaron nodded. “It'll devastate the Manitou Highlands. It'll kill the land and almost certainly contaminate the Manitou River and everything downstream.”

Fox said, “The Caldecott Corporation, of course, insists that it will have in place all kinds of safety measures to keep that from happening. But we all know about that kind of promise. You know the Mount Polley Mine in B.C., O'Connor?”

“Never heard of it,” Cork said.

“The ecosystem of the entire region was contaminated by heavy metals from the spill of a massive holding pond there. The same thing with the spill at Caldecott's West Caribou Mine in Alberta. Their high-tech holding ponds ended up releasing billions of liters of slurry into the Caribou River. The leakage has poisoned hundreds of First Nations people in Fort Saint Antoine. You can ask Mrs. Gray about that, eh, Aaron?”

“Her entire family is sick because of it, Cork. Dying,” Aaron said.

“But have the Canadian people learned any lessons?” Fox went
on. “I look at the Manitou Canyon Dam and this new Caldecott mine, and I think not.”

“And you find justice in blowing up the dam and killing the people in Gordonville?” Harris said.

“The world paid very little attention to the spills in B.C. and Alberta. Know why? Nobody died, or at least not immediately. It was Grandmother Earth who suffered. When Gordonville is destroyed, people—White people—will notice. And something will be done.”

“Do you know what will be done?” Cork said. “They'll simply spend a great deal of time and effort hunting you down.”

“If they find me and kill me, they'll have accomplished little. In Iroquois myth, there are creatures called
kanontsistonties
. They're disembodied, flying heads that wreak vengeance. That is the Warrior Cohort. No body but many heads. In this, one man is nothing.”

The pickup ahead suddenly pulled off the road onto what looked like a logging trail.

“What the hell?” Fox said. “Follow him.”

Aaron turned off the road, too. The pickup ahead stopped and killed its lights.

“Turn your lights off,” Fox said.

In less than a minute, a vehicle passed on the road they'd just left, heading toward White Woman Lake.

“Any idea who that was?” Fox asked.

“Somebody from Saint Gervais probably,” Aaron guessed. “Heading home before the storm locks them out.”

“All right. Get us back on the road.”

Half an hour later, an electric haze appeared through the gloom of the night, like a light in the swirl of a snow globe. They came to a place where a great upthrust of rock burst from the forest cover. It was split as if with an ax, and in the narrows of that divide lay the Manitou Canyon Dam, brightly illuminated. Cork recalled from the earlier flyover that it wasn't a particularly broad dam and tapered as it dropped toward the power station at
its base, where the river continued cutting its way down Manitou Canyon. Behind it, the rising water of the new lake pressed against the massive concrete formation. The surface was brilliant topaz where it caught the light, then quickly faded to black and finally disappeared altogether behind the curtain of the falling snow.

The pickup stopped at a place where the rough road from White Woman Lake met the smooth pavement of the road that came up along the canyon from Gordonville. The Yukon stopped behind it.

Indigo left the pickup. Fox lowered his window, and Indigo leaned in.

“One truck in the parking lot. The night watchman. I'll take care of him,” Indigo said.

“That'll be Harold Welles,” Aaron said. “Don't kill him.”

“Is he Indian?”

“No.”

“Then what do you care?”

Aaron opened his door and stepped out.

Fox said, “What do you think you're doing?”

“I'm going with Mr. Indigo.”

Fox pointed the big handgun at him. “I'm warning you.”

“Shoot me and you give us all away. I just want to make sure about Harold.”

Fox weighed this and finally gave a nod. “But don't get any ideas about trying to call Gordonville. Mr. Indigo took care of the phone line earlier today.”

“Let's go, Aaron,” Indigo said. “You first. And stay ahead of me.”

It was a long twenty minutes until they returned. Between them, they carried a man's body. They tossed it in the back of the sole pickup in the lot, and Indigo climbed into the bed and bent over him for a couple of minutes. Then he and Aaron walked together to the Yukon.

“Not dead,” Indigo said. “But out good. I bound him up tight. He's going nowhere soon.”

“Okay,” Fox said. “Let's blow this dam.”

C
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54

“I
don't know a lot,” Constable Markham said as he negotiated the winding road that followed the Manitou Canyon west out of Gordonville. “Those guys in Thunder Bay, they hold on to info like it's money from their own pockets. Never mind I'm all the law there is out here.”

“What exactly do you know?” Daniel asked.

A fierce wind funneled down the canyon, driving blinding snow at the Tahoe. Rainy had endured more winter storms than she could possibly remember, but this one was different. Although she knew it was ridiculous, this storm felt like an adversary, something bent on keeping her from Cork.

“These people we're facing, if they're really up there, aren't like an organized group or anything,” the constable explained. “The guys at NSCI are calling them the Warrior Cohort, whatever the hell that means. Here in Canada, they're First Nations. Other kinds of Native people elsewhere, I guess. They don't have any sort of hierarchy, apparently, and no formal organization. They communicate entirely electronically. Emails, texts, Instagram, phone calls, all from sources difficult or impossible to track. Sounds like they never meet face-to-face. Sort of modern guerrilla warfare, you might say. If it hadn't been for you, NSCI wouldn't have any idea about the threat to the Manitou Canyon Dam.”

The road ahead curved suddenly, and as Markham fought to make the turn, the Tahoe drifted on the pavement. The river loomed dark at their side. In the brief sweep of beam from the
headlights, Rainy could see angry white water leaping over boulders in the channel.

“Jesus,” the constable whispered under his breath. “This is going from bad to worse.”

“How much farther?” Stephen asked.

“Twenty kilometers from the town to the dam. So maybe twelve more ahead of us. New road, this. Before they built the dam, it was all washboard gravel. Only thing up that way was White Woman Lake and Saint Gervais. Mostly floatplane visitors up there, flying into the lodge to fish the lake or the upper Manitou. Only ones who ever really used the road were Aaron and the other Odawa.”

“What do you think of the dam?”

The constable shrugged. “Doesn't do us any good. Hell, all that electricity'll be going to Caldecott's Highland Mine. Aaron and his people are sure the mine'll pollute the river, and it probably will. That's one of the big reasons they're upset. It's a special place to them. Sacred, you know. I get what they're saying. I love this river, too, but what do any of us matter?”

“A little bee matters, when it stings,” Henry said.

“Yeah, and Aaron tried to sting. What did it get him? Nothing but a few days in jail.”

“And the knowledge that he fought,” the old man said.

Markham shook head. “Look, there's such huge money involved in this and so many powerful people in Ottawa, a regular guy doesn't stand a chance.”

“That does not mean a regular guy should not try.”

Inside the Tahoe, it was quiet for a moment. Then Constable Markham said, “You're right, old-timer. Right as rain.”

“His name's Henry,” Rainy said.

The bull moose came out of nowhere. Or rather, the curtain of snow kept it hidden so that when it was suddenly revealed in the headlights, standing in the center of the narrow road, broadside to the Tahoe, Markham had no chance to avoid a collision. Rainy saw the great animal turn its head. It seemed to observe the inevitable with amazing calm.

Constable Markham hit the brakes at the same moment the Tahoe hit the moose. The impact jarred them all, and they were shoved forward against the restraint of their seat belts. Up front, the air bags deployed. There was a shattering of glass from the windshield. The Tahoe jerked to a stop, and for a long moment the only sound was the crackle of hot metal and the hiss of steam.

Markham finally said, “Is everybody okay?”

“Yeah,” said Stephen, who sat in back with Rainy and Henry.

“Okay, here,” Daniel said. He was up front with the constable.

“Uncle Henry?” Rainy asked. In the sudden dark, she could barely see.

“I am all right, Niece.”

They got out one by one. Markham pulled a couple of big flashlights from the gear in the back of the Tahoe, and Rainy stood with the others as they inspected the damage. The front end of the vehicle was crushed, as if it had hit another vehicle head-on. In the flashlight beams, tendrils of gray steam rose up from under the crumpled hood.

“There goes my transport budget,” Markham said.

“Uncle Henry?” Rainy called, because she was suddenly aware that he was not with them.

“Here,” she heard him say.

Daniel swung a flashlight beam in the direction of the old man's voice. There was the Mide, kneeling beside the fallen bull moose, which lay on its side at the edge of the road. The animal wasn't dead yet. Rainy saw the great bellows of its lungs working and heard the suck of air through its nostrils. She also heard the voice of her great-uncle, whispering. She took a step toward him.

“It would be best if you all stayed back,” the old man said quietly.

He rose and stepped away. A moment later, the moose trembled, struggled up on its impossibly gangly legs, and stood, as if gathering its wits. It turned its face to the flashlight beams, shook its body, gave a warning snort, then trotted off down the road toward Gordonville and disappeared into the storm.

“My God,” Markham said. “The hell with the Tahoe. I should be driving one of those.”

Daniel turned back to the ruined vehicle. “What now?”

“I radio Gordonville, if the radio still works, and we wait for a tow.”

“What about the dam?” Stephen said.

“What do you want me to do?” Markham replied. “Fly?”

“We can walk,” Rainy said. “How much farther now? Maybe ten kilometers? A couple of hours?”

“I'm with you,” Daniel said.

“And me,” Stephen chimed in.

“Maybe you should stay here, Uncle Henry,” Rainy suggested.

“Like a moose,” the old man said and thumped his chest. “I will go.”

“Give me a minute,” Markham said. “Let me try the radio, see if I can get an update to Gordonville and Thunder Bay.”

He slipped back into the Tahoe. A minute later he slid back out.

“Nothing,” he said. “And there's no cell phone service out here. So we're on our own.” He returned to the rear of the Tahoe and began pulling out gear. “I've only got two vests. I'll wear one, you wear the other.” He gave the armor to Daniel. He took out two rifles and a box of cartridges. He gave a rifle to Rainy. “I figure you'll provide cover fire if we need it. You better have told the truth about handling one of these.”

Henry said, “Her eye and her heart are true, Constable Markham.”

“All right, then.” The Mountie settled his cap on his head. “Guess we've got a dam to save.”

They began walking up the road, with only the vaguest notion of what might be coming at them down Manitou Canyon.