She paused. “Not the kid who went crazy and heard voices coming
from inside the cliffs and killed all of those people?”
“The very one,” Billy said. “He was on our crew that summer.”
“You mean that really happened? I mean, we all heard that story, but
I always thought it was just made up to scare kids.”
“No, it happened,” he said. “But he didn’t kill any people—that part
must be from the campfire story version. But he did attack one of the
other guys on the team and hurt him pretty badly.”
“But why did you come back? What does this have to do with your
father’s death? I’m sorry,” she said, chastened. “I don’t mean to pry. I
know what it feels like to be asked these questions. I should know better.
I’m sorry.”
Billy’s first impulse was to tell Christina the story he’d shared with
the two cops, Thomson and McKitrick, but thought better of it. He had no
doubt that Christina would treat it with respect, unlike the two officers
had. At the same time, he realized that every time he told the story in
Parr’s Landing, it stood a better chance of getting circulated as gossip in
a way that didn’t flatter him. While he didn’t give a damn whether or not
he was thought of in flattering terms by the residents of the Landing, if
he was going to find any answers here, his personal credibility and status
would have to stand on its merits and history in the face of people’s
prejudices. His encounters with McKitrick and Thomson had shown that
the ice was thinner than it looked where that was concerned.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just a hunch. Probably nothing to it.”
“You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
“Not really,” he said, sighing. “Is that OK?”
“Sure,” Christina said. “But can I at least ask about what happened
in ’52? I’ve never had a chance to hear the story from anyone who wasn’t
actually just trying to scare me with some dumb ghost story.”
Good compromise,
he thought.
And I don’t really want her to leave,
anyway
. “Of course. What would you like to know?”
“Well—what happened?”
“In a nutshell,” he said, “the young graduate student, Richard Weal
thought he heard voices coming from inside Spirit Rock. He attacked one
of the team members and put him in the hospital.”
She sounded disappointed. “That’s it? That’s all there is?”
“Pretty much,” he replied. “The interesting thing is the history
behind
Spirit Rock. That’s something that would make a good campfire
story for the locals.”
Christina perked up. She leaned forward, and Billy caught a whiff of
violets when her hair moved. “What history?”
“Well,” he said, “there have been some similar incidents reported
over the years—and by ‘the years’ I mean over the course of the last three
hundred years or so, so we’re talking in historical terms now, so maybe
‘legends’ is better than ‘history,’ since the source of some of the stories
are a little obscure, not to mention unverifiable.”
“Now you really sound like a professor,” she teased, but it was teasing
of an unmistakably gentle variety. “Go on, please.”
“The St. Barthélemy mission was attacked and decimated by an
Iroquois raid in 1629 or 1630,” Billy explained. He was trying not to
sound professorial, but doubted he was succeeding very well. “Everyone
was killed, including the priest, a Father de Céligny, There seems to be
precious little information on what actually happened, which is odd
considering what great historians the Jesuits were when it came to their
missions in New France. They never rebuilt on that site—as far as my
father could tell, the site encompassed the area around Bradley Lake.
More or less where Parr’s Landing is today.”
“Go on,” Christina said again. “Please.” This time, there was no
teasing, only what appeared to be genuine interest on her part. “This is
really interesting.”
“Well, it’s interesting stuff,” he said, warming to the topic. “Around
1702, two members of a brigade of trappers were camping on the shore
of Lake Superior and wandered inland—the area in the account suggests
that if it wasn’t actually nearby, it was close to here—and disappeared for
a week. Only one of the pair found his way back to his brigade, and he was
half-starved and raving about demons—do you know what a ‘Wendigo’
is?”
“I think so,” Christina said dubiously. “It’s some sort of evil spirit,
isn’t it?”
“Something like that,” Billy said. “It’s a spirit that possesses a man
and makes him crave human flesh. Anyway, the trapper told them he’d
murdered his friend and drank his blood. At least that’s what the story
says happened. The other members of the brigade were terrified and they
turned on the fellow and killed him. When they returned to Québec, they
were exonerated at trial because all of them testified that the man who
murdered his friend had been insane. The court believed them. It wasn’t
unusual in those days for people out here to lose their minds because of
the isolation.”
Christina shuddered involuntarily. “What a horrible story.”
“There are more,” he said. “In 1850, a minor British men’s adventure
writer and explorer named Timothy Gentry came to this area to produce
a revised map of the lake systems and islands in this part of Lake
Superior. His brother, Adam, came with him as a sort of secretary and
record-keeper. When neither they nor their guides had returned by the
expected time, another set of guides was dispatched. The guides found
Adam roaming the forests at night with his brother’s head in his rucksack.
Adam’s fingertips had literally been worn down to bloody stumps. Before
he died of his infected wounds, he told the Indians that he’d been trying
to claw a hole through the rock.” Billy pointed to the window of the café.
“Up there. Those rocks.”
“How do they know it was those rocks?”
“There were Gentry’s maps and diaries—none of which mention
what happened to him and his brother, mind you, because the entries
stop after they landed. But the Indians described the area perfectly,
including the cliff paintings.” He paused. “There is at least one verifiable
account from the nineteenth century of occurrences involving miners
working up there, including one that dates from the early years of the
Parr family—your family—buying the land and starting to develop it.
“In the 1895 instance, the miner in question disappeared. It was
considered to be an accident, and the mining company was held liable.
In another separate instance in 1902, a brawl apparently erupted
underground between two of the men. One man killed the other with a
rock and hid his body for three days before another member of the crew
found it. They charged the miner in question—Rod MacNeil, I think his
name was—with the murder. They hanged him in 1903, even though his
lawyer argued at trial that he was insane. The body was described as ‘torn
and plundered, as though by furious beasts.’
“And yes,” he added, winking. “That’s a direct quote from the
Port
Arthur Chronicle
in 1903. I don’t talk like that in real life.”
“Jesus,” Christina said in a hushed voice. “I had no idea. I grew up
here all those years and didn’t have a clue about any of this.” She took
another sip of her coffee. It was cold, so she put the cup down. “Is this
what your father was studying in 1952?”
Billy laughed, a big full-hearted laugh that made Christina smile,
and made a few of the other patrons of the café turn around to see what
the ruckus was about. Billy waited until they’d turned back to their own
companions before answering her. “No, he was studying the settlement
itself, looking for artefacts,” he said. “My father had a great passion for
that part of Canadian history. He always felt that the Jesuits, though
well-intentioned, did a lot of damage when they arrived on these shores.”
“May I ask . . .” Christina began, then blushed. “I’m sorry, it’s too
personal and invasive. I apologize. Never mind.”
“No,” he said kindly. “What is it?”
“Is that why . . . well, is that why your father adopted you? Because
of what . . . well, because of history?”
Billy was quiet for a moment. Christina was sure she’d offended him
and was ready to apologize again, and leave before she said anything else
equally stupid. Then Billy said, “No, he adopted me because he loved me.
Really. Don’t feel bad, it’s a natural question after what I just told you.
Don’t worry about it. It’s OK.”
Christina was moved by the simple, unadorned love implicit in
Billy’s statement. She thought of Jack and Morgan, naturally, and how
much he’d loved his daughter. She looked down at the plain gold wedding
band on her left hand and, when her eyes began to fill in a way that was
becoming altogether too familiar and commonplace, she mentally shook
her head,
No
.
“Oh, I really have to get going,” she said briskly, looking at her watch.
“It’s later than I thought. Billy—thank you for the coffee. It’s so nice to
speak to somebody from Toronto.”
He hesitated, then thought,
What the hell? Nothing ventured, nothing
gained.
“Christina, do you think . . . I mean, would you like to have dinner
sometime while I’m here? You know,” he said, “just to hear some more
horrible Wendigo stories, if nothing else?”
“Billy—things aren’t very good at the house right now,” Christina
said. She saw the disappointment in his face and kicked herself for being
the cause of it. “My mother-in-law is a difficult woman.”
“I know,” he said. “I remember.”
“You remember?” She frowned. “What do you mean, you remember?
You know my mother-in-law?”
“No, not personally,” he said. “But she gave my father a pretty hard
time about permits in 1952, when he was setting it up. I know they spent
some time together that summer at the beginning of the dig. He didn’t
ever talk about it so I assume it was more of the same.”
“She’s not an easy woman to get along with. And we’re on
tenterhooks up there at the house. My brother-in-law, Jeremy, has a
difficult relationship with her, as well.”
“I understand,” Billy said, feeling embarrassed for having put her in
the position of turning him down, let alone for having put himself out on
a limb like this. “Don’t give it another thought.”
After they had shaken hands and parted, each went about their own
particular business, Billy walking back to the motel to change into his
hiking gear, and Christina aimlessly circling the town limits of Parr’s
Landing in the Chevelle to delay her inevitable return to the house. Both
were surprised that each could still feel the other’s hand in theirs. For his
part, Billy had memorized her face and heard her voice in his head as he
walked.
Christina felt only that she was the tiniest bit less vulnerable since
Jack’s death and her arrival in Parr’s Landing, and that Jack would have
really liked and trusted Billy Lightning.
At the moment
Billy Lightning and Christina Parr went their separate
ways, Elliot McKitrick was parking his cruiser behind the Parr’s Landing
police station in his accustomed spot. The distance between the Pear
Tree and the police station was less than five minutes, but when he’d left
the café, he was too angry to get back to work, so he did what he always
did when he was angry—he drove.
He circled the town limits once, twice, three times. As he was about
to go around a fourth time, it occurred to him that the visibility of the
cruiser was making him conspicuous to anyone who happened to look up
as he drove, loop after unvarying loop, along the same route. He turned
the cruiser towards the town limits and drove out in the direction of
Bradley Lake and the cliffs.
His town was suddenly getting far too small for his comfort. With
Jeremy Parr in Toronto all these years, and the past . . . well, in the past,
he’d made a good life for himself in Parr’s Landing. He commanded
respect. It wasn’t an exciting life, but all Elliot had ever wanted to be was
normal. Now, he
was
normal. And he occupied exactly the echelon he
wanted to occupy, and no one challenged it.
Now, in a matter of days, the entire structure of his world seemed
under attack from all sides. This mouthy, jumped-up Indian—whom,
he’d just realized, he actually hated—was challenging his authority and
had actually threatened him—an
Indian
had threatened
him
. Jeremy Parr
was back in town trying to stir up the past, Elliot’s past. It didn’t occur
to Elliot to think of it as Jeremy’s past, too, because Jeremy had gotten
away, leaving Elliot to do all the work of self-recreation and the rewriting
of his—their—history. Even Jack Parr’s girlfriend, Chris—his wife, or
widow, whatever she was—was back in town. It had been obvious from
the cold tone she’d taken with him that Jeremy had gone home last night
and cried on her shoulder about what had happened between them at
O’Toole’s. Typical. So
she
knew, too.
A sudden thought occurred to Elliot.
What if she told the Indian
?
He’d seen them talking through the window of the Pear Tree as he
drove off. What if she’d inclined her head towards the Indian and said,
“Don’t worry about that cop—he’s a fag. He and my brother-in-law had a
‘thing’ ten years ago, and as you may have heard, the cop never married
anybody.” What if she’d laughed at the point, laughed with high, shrill
insight—and what if the Indian had joined her in her laughter at his
expense, promising to himself that the next time Elliot crossed his path,
he was going to let Elliot know
exactly
what he knew and threaten him
again, this time with the one thing that truly terrified Elliot—exposure?
His knuckles on the wheel of the cruiser were white. Elliot made a sound
somewhere between a sharp intake of breath and a soft yelp, startling
himself. For a moment, all he heard was the sound of his own heartbeat
and the blood thundering in his temples.