The Darkening Archipelago (16 page)

“Sounds like you're some kind of angel avenger,” said the man again. Cole paid for the jugs of beer and sipped his whiskey. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He could feel the blood flowing in him, and the heat of the Irish whiskey warmed his throat and stomach.

“You're not going to introduce yourself?” said the man, looking at him intently.

Cole turned and smiled. “You haven't.”

“Dan Campbell.”

“Cole Blackwater,” he said, offering his hand, which Campbell shook.

“You must have been Archie's man in Vancouver.”

Cole smiled. Archie liked to advertise.

“He told me that he had some help down in the city. Said he was getting some help when he was trying to shut down the grizzly hunt.”

Campbell's name suddenly came back to Cole. Dan Campbell was part of a vocal group of local guide-outfitters who was often on the radio and in the newspaper trying to keep the grizzly hunt open. When the c bc needed to hear from someone in support of the ongoing hunt, they called up Dan Campbell. He represented bc's version of the Wise Use movement, a collection of industry-financed, kitchen-table, and back-room organizations conceived to paint a thin, green veneer over the ongoing exploitation of natural resources. About two years back Archie had been working to shut down the grizzly hunt in Knight Inlet and along the mid-coast of BC. He had turned to Cole once or twice for advice, and to help broker a relationship with the larger provincial environmental groups who were also working on the issue. “A real motherfucker,” had been Archie's blunt description of Dan Campbell.

“See you're drinking with the Indians tonight. Why don't you come and join us over here for a few pints?” said Campbell, grinning under his ball cap.

Cole sized him up. Super middleweight at best, he thought. Strong enough looking, and likely the veteran of many a bar brawl, given his charming disposition and outright bigotry.

“Men are men,” said Cole, not looking at Dan Campbell's face.

Campbell laughed. Cole watched as he turned back to his friends and grinned. “I'd think a guy like you, coming from the big city, would know otherwise. Just a bunch of drunks on the street corners in Vancouver, aren't they?”

Cole felt the pulse in his wrists quicken. He threw back the rest of his whiskey. “How's a guy like you live in a place like Port Lostcoast?” Cole asked him, his voice quiet.

Dan laughed. “What do you mean? Live here with all the Indians?”

Cole didn't smile.

“They mind their own business, I mind mine.”

“This town is a First Nations town,” said Cole, looking around him.

“Half-and-half. They keep to their side. We keep to ours. We meet here in the middle.”

“You're the minority here.”

“Maybe. Maybe in numbers. But not up here,” he said, tapping the side of his head with his forefinger. “Up here, we still call the shots.” He grinned.

Cole felt his vision narrowing. It was always like that. He felt his heart beating in his throat and his muscles tense. He tried to breathe, to flood his body with oxygen before his muscles sprang into action.

Dan went on. “You see, the Indians may have some say in what goes on here on Parish Island and at Alert Bay, but the government still listens to
us
. Maybe you Indian lovers want to help them shut down the grizzly hunt and fuck over the fish farmers and stop us from cutting in the so-called Great Bear Rainforest.” Dan wobbled his head mockingly. “But the government is not listening to
you
.”

“Best government money can buy,” said Cole.

“It isn't just the money. Those fucking Indians are just stupid savages,” said Dan, spitting the words. “Sure, we closed down the residential schools, but we're still having our way with them — ”

It was too much for Cole to take. As Dan pointed his chin, Cole brought his fist up from the bar in a neat, clean uppercut that took Dan Campbell right off his feet. A trail of blood followed him through the air in a graceful parabola. Campbell's hat came off, and, when his feet touched the floor again, he stumbled backward, his left arm grabbing for the bar, knocking over stools and falling back into an empty table. He tumbled over it and onto the floor. It was a spectacular scene. Cole stepped toward him as Dan, mouth leaking blood and spit, picked himself off the floor and hurled himself at Cole, catching him in the mid section and driving him into the bar. Cole managed to get his arms around Dan and, as he collided with the counter, wrenched his body sideways and half pulled him onto the top of the bar. Dan thrashed his head and connected with Cole's sternum, knocking some of the wind from him. From below, Cole quickly landed two right-hand jabs to Dan's face, and another spray of blood leaped across the plywood.

“I'm going to kill you, you motherfucking Indian lover,” Dan hissed, spitting blood into Cole's face. Dan kicked himself off the bar, and he and Cole crashed into a second table. Darren First Moon and his friends leapt to their feet, grabbing pint glasses and pitchers as they did. Cole ended up on top of Dan on the floor, but Campbell brought up his knee into Cole's gut and Cole rolled to the side, winded and in pain. Dan threw a flurry of left- and right-hand punches at Cole, who absorbed them with his shoulder and arms as he struggled to his feet. Dan landed a right on Cole's cheek before Cole got his feet under him and stepped in with his own quick left-right combination, sending Campbell into the wall, his nose mangled.

The bar was quiet. Every man in the place was standing. Dan Campbell's five friends had stepped to the middle of the room, but didn't come any closer. Darren First Moon and his friends stood in silence watching the fight, but didn't step toward either of the fighters. The bartender stood at the centre of the room, watching both groups of men. Dan Campbell was hunched over, his back to the wall, his nose twisted and bleeding. Blood ran down his shirt from his mouth. Cole was three arm lengths from him, hands up and ready. His left cheek was glowing red, and a small cut at the corner of his mouth bled. He wore a spray of Dan's blood across his face. The adversaries stared at each other.

“I think that's about enough,” said the bartender. “You boys take this outside. You're going to bust up the furniture.”

Darren walked over to Cole and put a hand over his left forearm. “Come on, Cole,” he said. “Let's buy a round for the house. Keep peace in the village.” Cole looked at him, then back at Dan Campbell.

“Why not?” Cole said, breathing hard. “What do you say?” he asked Campbell. Campbell looked at his friends, at the group of men around Darren, and then at Cole.

“Fuck you,” he said. He straightened up and walked out the door. Cole caught the words, “You're a dead man,” as Campbell exited.

Cole dropped his arms and looked around the room to see if any of Campbell's friends wanted to continue where their buddy had left off. Nobody indicated as much.

Cole walked over and picked up the table that had been knocked over, looking up at the five remaining white men as he did. He righted the table, took one of the empty pitchers to the bar, and, when it was filled with frothy beer, placed it at their table. Then he stepped back to the bar for refills. He bought another whiskey and sat down next to Darren First Moon, his heart still pounding, his cheek and fists sore.

“Okay, who wants to fight Cole next?” Darren said, grinning, and everybody laughed.

— When he left the bar, it was two am. He was drunk enough not to feel the pain in his face or hands, but not so drunk that he couldn't walk or be aware of what was happening around him. Darren and two other men walked him home. “Just to be on the safe side,” they said. Cole grinned. It was good to have friends to watch your back.

He stumbled in the door, expecting everybody to be asleep at Archie's. But the light was on in the study, so he stepped cautiously to the door and looked in. Grace was sitting at the desk reading a book. She looked up when he entered and frowned.

“What happened to you?” she said.

“Had a disagreement,” Cole managed.

“With what? A cruise ship? You look awful.”

“Thanks.” He grinned, not feeling the tightness in his face that would ache in the morning. “I feel just fine. Why are you up? It's two am.”

Grace put down the book. “The Coast Guard called. Someone found the
Inlet Dancer
.”

12

The heat of August had passed. September ushered in temperate days and cool nights. Archie Ravenwing stood on the deck of the
Inlet Dancer
and sorted through tackle that he and Darren First Moon used on fishing trips with tourists throughout the summer. It had been a busy season, and this was their first day off in more than two weeks. The gear was a mess. Stowed quickly, late each night, and brought out early each morning, some disorder had crept into the workings of the operation. Archie was no stranger to disarray — his office at home was a working experiment in chaos theory. But here on the
Inlet Dancer
, order was required for smooth operations, both during the tourist season and during the salmon runs.

Archie sipped a cup of strong, black coffee from the lid of his thermos as he worked. Every few minutes he paused to look out beyond the harbour to the rounded hills on the nearby islands. A dozen tiny islets dotted the passage between Parish Island and the northern reach of Knight Inlet. The scent of gutted fish and salt water hung in the air. During the hectic summer months it felt to Archie like he had hardly any time to sit and contemplate those hills and the sea that circled them. It had been a busy summer, and he was glad for the work, knowing full well that the commercial salmon season might be a complete bust. The added challenge of the minister's announcement that more fish farming would be allowed in the Broughton made that reality almost unbearable.

After the August meeting in Port Hardy, Archie, Cassandra, and Carrie Bright had driven back to Port McNeill, debating their next move. Bright was clear about her role to hammer Stoboltz and the government in the media and in the markets. “We've got to take the market away from this industry,” she said, piloting her Toyota Corolla down the hill to the ferry that would take her across to Sointula. “We've got the campaign all ready to go. It's time to start playing hardball.”

“What does that mean?” asked Cassandra Petrel from the passenger seat.

“Newspaper ads in the
Los Angeles Times
and the
San Francisco
Chronicle
, and an on-the-ground campaign to approach restaurant chains and supermarkets to stop selling farmed fish. We'll go on a speaking tour and try to raise the profile of the issue. We'll get supporters to walk into their local stores and upscale restaurants with handbills about the facts of farmed salmon and the alternatives. We've already got an email list of two or three thousand people. We'll start with those folks and recruit more through the tour and the ads,” said Bright, her voice sounding confident and determined.

Petrel nodded.

Archie was silent in the back seat, watching the harbour come into view beyond the motels and discount stores, listening. He admired Carrie Bright for her determination and enthusiasm. She had built the sos coalition with her bare hands, bringing together oftentimes fractious groups like sport fishermen, First Nations, and environmentalists for the common cause of stopping fish farms.

“We need to keep up the pressure on the provincial government,” she continued. “They need to be held accountable for this decision. We'll work with the environmental groups in our coalition based here in bc to put pressure on members of the legislature, especially those sitting on the Task Force that is looking at fish farming.”

Carrie Bright looked in the rearview mirror at Archie. “You're awfully quiet back there, Archie. You okay?”

Archie took his eyes from the sun-speckled water and looked at the two women in the front seat.

“You okay?” Bright asked again.

“I'm okay.”

“You're pretty quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“I know it's hard on you,” said Petrel, “sitting at that table and not having a say anymore.”

“Never did, really.” Archie smiled and looked back out the window.

“We were expecting this decision. This government is pro-business. It's ideological for them. We didn't really expect them to say no. We're going to have to fight them all the way on this,” said Bright.

“That's not what's bothering me.”

“Dan was his usual charming self. Don't pay any attention to him,” said Bright.

“That's not what's bothering me, either. He's full of hot air. He's a racist and a bigot, but that's not what's got me thinking.”

“What is?”

“Something that Greg White Eagle said — or didn't say, I guess.”

“But he didn't say
anything
,” Bright said, glancing in the mirror at Archie.

“Exactly. That's what I mean. He didn't say a bloody word the whole time. Not a word. It was like he knew what was coming, and that everything was copacetic. Like he had no worries whatsoever.”