The Darkening Archipelago (5 page)

“Cole,” said Denman.

“Well, so long as you're not getting into it.…” said Martin, finishing his juice, still smiling.

“You know, you guys really —”

“Cole,” Denman said more forcefully. The sound of his voice stopped Cole's train in its tracks.

Blackwater looked up. “What?”

“Cole, not tonight,” Denman said more quietly.

Cole searched the bar for a waitress and further refreshment. Distracted, he said, “Yeah, yeah, sorry.” He caught the waitress' eye and made a circling motion with his hand to indicate that they wanted another round.

Dusty caught Cole's attention. “So, you're heading up to Lostcoast. When is the service?”

Cole drank deeply from his pint glass. “Don't know,” he said, eating another fry. “Grace tells me they still haven't recovered his body.”

“How do they know he's dead?” asked Dusty.

“He's dead. Archie Ravenwing isn't the kind of guy to just wander off. It's been a week since he went out in his boat to do some sea lice survey work for that researcher, Cassandra Petrel, and he hasn't been seen since. Gracie tells me there was a hell of a storm that night, and that he didn't come home. The Coast Guard has been up and down Knight Inlet, where he said he was heading, along with Tribune Channel, Nickol Pass, and as far south as the Johnstone Strait. At first they thought that maybe he'd had some kind of trouble, lost power, couldn't motor or even call for help, but Grace says they've searched every cove and there's no sign of him. The sea called Archie Ravenwing home.”

The waitress brought their drinks, and Martin paid for the round.

“When did you last see him?” asked Martin, knocking back another oj.

“A little while ago,” said Cole, reflecting. “Archie hadn't been a client since, well, since last June, I guess. Right around the time I got back from Alberta, he lost an election and was no longer the band councillor for Port Lostcoast. He was just a private citizen. The new councillor, a fellow named Greg White Eagle, asked Archie to stay on as the North Salish First Nation representative on the Aquaculture Advisory Task Force, but that didn't last long. I guess the last time I talked to Archie was in August. He called to tell me he'd just been booted from the Task Force. Said he and White Eagle didn't see eye to eye, and that Greg had shown him the door. He seemed pretty pissed, but I was in the middle of things on the Spotted Owl file, and I guess I didn't give him much of my time. I meant to call him back but never did. You know how it goes,” said Cole, looking at his friends.

“Anyway, it had been awhile. I know Archie always felt guilty about not paying me and all, but I wrote that debt off long ago. I really had put that out of my mind. I guess Archie never did. The little Lostcoast band didn't have any money. Those people are as poor as most of Denny's clients here. Difference is
they
don't have anybody watching their six. They live in the middle of nowhere. An island off an island off an island at the edge of Canada, and nobody could care less if unemployment is seventy percent or if nobody finishes grade six in that little God-forgotten town. The only people who seem to pay them any attention are the logging companies who want access to their timber and the salmon farmers who want access to the Broughton Archipelago.”

Cole stopped and took a hearty swallow from his beer. He looked around at Dusty and Martin. “Sorry, Denny made me promise not to get into all that tonight.”

“It's nothing. Neither of us has anything to do with salmon farming.”

Cole looked down at his hands, as they gripped the pint glass. “I did what I could for Archie, but it never seemed like we could drive a wedge between the so-called Liberal government and salmon farming. When the moratorium was lifted in 2002 those buggers flooded the Broughton with dozens of permit applications. There must be thirty new salmon farms just in that little group of islands. Archie told me that the salmon runs were decimated. Sea lice, he said. Imagine that.” Cole swilled the beer in his glass, his head down, his eyes dark and distant. “Sea lice. The size of your pinky nail.” He held up his little finger, looking at it closely. “Something that tiny is wiping out a salmon population that is as old as time itself.” The fever pitch of the bar suddenly seemed very distant.

“What do you know about this new band councillor?” asked Denman.

“Nothing but what Archie told me. He's originally from Alert Bay, but moved to Parish Island and Port Lostcoast maybe twenty years ago to fish. I think he's a booster of salmon farming, but I really haven't been following it. Archie wondered if White Eagle was on the pad with the salmon farmers, but I didn't take it too seriously. Archie could find a conspiracy under every bush and shrub in the forest.”

Martin chuckled. “No wonder the two of you got on so well.”

Cole finished his beer and searched for a waitress.

“So, you're going up?” asked Martin seriously.

Cole was still looking for a waitress. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

“Anything you need?”

“I need another beer,” he said, distracted.

“Cole.” Martin put his hand on Cole's arm and Cole turned to him. “Is there anything you need from us?”

Cole looked at his three friends.

“I don't know. I don't know what I need. This is new for me.”

“Cole, you've been to funerals before,” said Dusty.

“This is different.”

“How?” asked Dusty, looking at Cole over his glasses.

“This isn't a funeral. It's a potlatch.”

3

One thing Edmonton and Ottawa had in common was cold, hard winters, winters that seemed to stretch from November right through to April, even May in a bad year. But if Nancy Webber was honest with herself, she would admit that Edmonton's winters were even worse than Ottawa's. They were longer and the city was bleaker, lacking the romance of skating on the Rideau Canal and the quick escape to the pretty Gatineau Hills. Sure, you could drive to Jasper, but it took about four hours if the roads were clear. And from November until well into spring, you couldn't count on bare roads.

March in the nation's capital meant that tulips were just around the corner. It meant Saturday mornings in ByWard Market, shopping for that night's dinner, buying fresh flowers, and stopping for a coffee to read her own reporting in the
Globe and Mail
. March in Edmonton meant grey skies and sleet. Sometimes Edmonton would catch the northern edge of a chinook and the snow would melt, but a hard freeze would still turn the city into an ice rink the next day, and not the kind where Beaver Tail shops were just around the next frozen bend.

Nancy sat at her favourite table in the window of the Star-bucks at the corner of Jasper Avenue and 100A Street, just a dash through traffic to the editorial offices of the
Edmonton Journal
. She sipped a latte — nothing fancy, just a latte, thank you — and read the Saturday papers.

Outside, the sky hung like a tattered grey tapestry over the city. The temperature hovered around freezing, but the wind off the Saskatchewan River made it feel much colder. If it would only warm up a little, thought Webber while sipping her coffee, she might be motivated to go for a run along the river valley that afternoon. But as it was, she was more likely to end up at her office, working on a feature about homeless people in the capital.

She finished the front section of the
National Post
and began to leaf through the
Globe and Mail
. The paper still held a strong allure for Nancy Webber, though it had been more than four years since she had penned a story for it. She read an article about the country's new prime minister, who was doing what every prime minister since Pierre Elliot Trudeau had done — concentrating power in the Prime Minister's Office. Nothing new. No news. She read a story about the everlasting conflict between Israel and every other country in the Middle East, and about the war in Iraq. It seemed to Nancy that there was no
news
anymore. Just
olds
. The same old stories told again and again and again. Maybe that was why she felt like her job was becoming harder and harder.

She sipped her coffee and flipped the page. She scanned the “Canada in Brief” section. Three stories down, she stopped and read a short blurb.

“Fuck,” she said out loud, and a woman reading a novel at the next table looked up. Nancy smiled apologetically and dug out her cellphone.

She held the phone for a full minute before flipping it open and activating the search function, scrolling for the number. Finding it, she hesitated so long that the phone turned itself off again.

“What the hell,” she said, eliciting another curious look. She turned on the phone and dialled the number.

He answered as he always did. “Blackwater.”

“Cole, it's Nancy.”

There was a momentary silence. Then, “Hey, Nancy.”

“Cole, I just read that Archie Ravenwing is presumed dead. I'm so sorry.”

“Yeah, it's some pretty bad news. I'm sorry, too.”

“When did you talk with him last?”

Cole told her. “It's been a while.”

“Don't be hard on yourself, Cole. That's the way the world is. Some people we talk to all the time, some we don't.”

She heard him draw a long breath. Exhaling, he said, “It's a bad habit with me, Nancy. I let things slip. Let people slip.”

Nancy drew a breath. “How is Sarah?” she asked, knowing that Cole was sensitive about staying connected with his daughter. “How old is she now? Like ten?”

“She's nine, going on nineteen. And she's good, thanks for asking. She's actually here right now, cooking me breakfast as usual.”

Nancy laughed. “I hope she didn't have to drag your sorry ass out of bed again, Blackwater.”

“My butt isn't so sorry these days, Webber. I'll have you know I came this close to winning a fight last night.”

“Another Friday night at the Cambie, Cole?”

“In the ring, wise guy. I almost had Frankie Fingers on the mat when I got the call about Archie.”

“Frankie Fingers? You're kidding me.”

“No, really. I had him on the ropes, and, well.…”

“The fights just haven't been the same since they let you guys take your cellphones into the ring, have they?”

Cole laughed. “You know what I mean. Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good.”

“That's saying something for you.”

“It is.”

A silence hung there for a moment. Then Nancy said, “Well, I just wanted to call and tell you how sorry I am. He was a good man.”

“You met him when he was at the a fn?”

“That's right. I covered a couple meetings he attended when he was on the Assembly of First Nations. Back in the bad old days.”

“Right,” said Cole, not wanting to delve too deeply into just how bad the old days had been.

“He was a stand-up guy as I recall. Always high class. Eloquent. Really cared about his people.”

“He was also a pompous prick who got under the skin of nearly everybody who knew him,” said Cole.

“Well, there's a lot of that out there,” quipped Nancy. “I know a few pompous pricks myself.” She took a breath as Cole didn't respond. “Are you going up? The paper said there would be a traditional ceremony this week.”

“I am. I'm actually flying as far as Port Hardy tonight, then catching a charter to Parish Island and Port Lostcoast in the morning. I guess some muckety-mucks arranged for a few flights straight into Lostcoast, so I lucked out. Maybe I'll be sitting next to the minister or some other big cheese. You're not covering this by any chance, are you?”

“No. I don't know if the chain is going to have someone there or if they'll just make something up and file from Vancouver.”

“Okay,” said Cole, distracted.

“Why?” she asked.

“No reason. Just asking.”

“You sure?” she pressed.

“Of course I'm sure. I was just making conversation,” he said, sounding testy.

Talk about pompous jackasses, she thought. “Sorry. Forget I asked.”

Silence again. Finally Cole broke it. “Look, I'm sorry. I'm just still in shock about Archie. I need to get my things together, hang here with Sarah for a little while, and then head for the airport. I'll call you from Lostcoast and let you know how things go at the potlatch if you like. Keep you in the loop.”

“Only if you want to. Otherwise, give my condolences to his family, will you?”

“I will. I'm staying with his youngest daughter, Grace, at Archie's place. It's going to be a little strange.”

“Take care of yourself, Cole,” she said. What she wanted to say was, “Don't drink and get in too many fights,” but she knew there was no sense trying to change that.

“Okay, Nancy. Thanks for calling.” The line went dead.