Read Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas Online

Authors: M. J. McGrath

Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas (6 page)

Some time later, Edie sensed Bonehead begin to stir and scrape about inside his ice kennel. Andy Taylor had fallen asleep. Wagner was still, though breathing. Throwing on her sealskin parka, she clambered through the entrance tunnel. Outside the air was alive with darting crystals and ice smoke, the wind roaring like a wounded bear. Edie edged her way around the snow shelter, took out her and cut a hole in Bonehead's kennel. The dog burst from his confinement in a spray of snowflakes, greeted her briefly, then rushed off into the gloom to meet Joe.
Clambering back inside the snow shelter she woke Taylor to tell him that Joe was on his way. Neither of them heard his snowbie until it was already very close. Shortly afterwards Joe himself appeared at the entrance to the shelter.
‘What happened?' Before anyone could answer, Joe crawled over to the wounded man. Removing his gloves, he pressed the index and middle finger of his right hand to Wagner's neck, counting the pulse in the carotid artery. He took out a blue clinicians' notebook from his daypack and wrote something down.
Edie raised her hand in a thumbs-up but Joe only shrugged. She watched him inspecting the wound and felt the familiar surge of pride in her boy.
‘How much blood has he lost?'
‘A lot, maybe more than a litre.'
Joe turned to his daypack, pulled out some antibacterial wipes and began washing his hands. Five minutes later Felix Wagner was on a saline drip with codeine for the pain. The situation was pretty grave, Joe explained. The injured man was now in full hypovolemic shock. His chances of survival depended on the severity of the shock and that could not be established until he was properly hospitalized. If the shock was severe enough, kidney failure would set in and gradually, one by one, the organs would begin to shut down. It might take a few hours or as long as a week, but, unless Wagner was extraordinarily lucky, the outcome would be the same.
‘We need that plane, Sammy.' Edie was on the sat phone again.
‘We're still being pummelled over here.'
‘Can you get Thule out?' It was a big ask. The US airbase across the water in Greenland had bigger planes, built better to withstand Arctic conditions than Autisaq's Twin Otters. They were usually unwilling to intervene in what they saw as Canadian problems, except in the case of an outbreak of TB or measles or some other some infectious illness, but Wagner was one of
them
, an American.
When the response came moments later, she could barely hear it and asked Sammy to repeat, then abruptly lost the signal. After a few minutes' wait the phone rang back. This time the signal was poor but Edie could just about hear a man's voice through the crackle, something about visibility.
‘Sammy, listen.' She had to shout above the shriek of the wind. ‘What about Thule?' But the phone had already gone dead.
‘They flying?' Joe looked hopeful.
Taylor opened his mouth to speak.
‘Don't.' Edie held up a hand. ‘Just don't.'
They finished up the tea in the flasks and waited. It was rough still, but the wind moved across to the north-west and began to ease off. A little while later, Bonehead began scratching about and barking, Edie put her ear to the ground and detected an engine vibration. Martie. It had to be. No one except her aunt would be crazy enough to fly through the tail-end of a blizzard.
 
In no time, they were loading the patient, the snowmobiles and equipment on board Martie Kiglatuk's Otter. Martie was large, at least by Inuit standards, with skin the colour of an heirloom suitcase and a voice like a cartoon train wreck. She also happened to be Edie's best friend.
The plane hugged the shore-fast ice of South Cape and turned west along the Ellesmere coast. Before long, it had cleared sufficiently for Edie to be able to watch the land sail by. She was struck, always, on her rare flights, by how much the Arctic was shrinking back into itself, floe by floe, glacier by glacier. Witnessing it was like watching a beloved and aged parent gradually and inexorably come apart. Every year a little more death and dying and a little less life. In thirteen years' time, when Joe was her age now, she wondered if anything would be left at all.
 
The crags softened then gradually fell away to flat shoreline and the northern hamlet of Autisaq rose into view like a set of ancient teeth, jagged with age and wear, clinging on uneasily to the bony foreshore. Behind her, Joe whooped.
Martie said: ‘Seatbelts on, folks, we're coming in.'
Edie felt a familiar ear-pop as they began to descend and then, muffled, but unmistakeable, the sound of Joe's voice again, only this time alarmed, and when she looked back over her shoulder she could see Felix Wagner foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling back, his whole body quaking and jerking and Joe frantically signalling Andy Taylor to hold the wounded man steady while he filled a hypodermic. Time warped and bent. Edie was aware of the plane's steep descent and a bunch of fractured shouts and barked instructions. She tried to loosen her seatbelt to help but could not get a grip on it. Behind her, Joe was pumping at the man's heart, blowing into his mouth, and the plane was pitching and diving towards the landing strip. Suddenly, Martie was shouting; ‘Seatbelts on
now
, people.
Tuarvirit!
Quick!' and the two men fell away from Felix Wagner like old petals.
Moments later, the familiar skid and grind of the tyres on gravel signalled their arrival and as Edie swung round she saw Felix Wagner's arm escape from underneath the blanket.
Martie taxied to the end of the strip, shut down the engine.
‘What we got?'
Joe said: ‘Trouble.' He was out of his seat, kneeling beside the body of Felix Wagner, looking crushed. ‘The
qalunaat
just died.'
‘
Iquq
, shit.' Martie glanced out of the window at the welcome party of Sammy Inukpuk and Sammy's brother, Simeonie, Autisaq's mayor, heading towards them.
‘I guess I'd better go spread the good news.'
The pilot's door opened and Martie climbed down onto the strip. A moment of discussion followed, Martie signalled for someone to open the main door and let down the steps and Sammy and Simeonie came on board.
Simeonie, slyer and more calculating than his brother, turned to Edie:
‘Does the skinny
qalunaat
understand Inuktitut?'
Andy Taylor did not respond.
‘I guess there's your answer,' Edie said. She didn't like Simeonie. Never had, even when he was her brother-in-law.
‘Did he have anything to do with this?'
Edie could see the man's mind already at work, cooking the story, working the facts into whatever version of the truth best served Simeonie Inukpuk.
She went through it all in her head. Andy Taylor had two rifles with him, a Remington Model 700 and a Weatherby Magnum. Felix Wagner had insisted on three: a Remington, a 30-60 Springfield and a Winchester, most likely a 308. Both men had discharged their Remingtons in the morning during an abortive hare hunt, but not since. She briefly considered the possibility that Felix Wagner had shot himself, but from the position of the wound it seemed so unlikely it was hardly worth the expenditure of energy in the thought. Then there was the zig-zag footprint with the ice bear at its centre. A theory suddenly came together.
Edie said, in Inuktitut: ‘The way I see it, someone out hunting mistook Wagner for game and took a shot at him.' The hunter was probably on his way back to Autisaq or one of the other hamlets right now. Most likely he'd lie low for a few days, then fess up. It had happened before; the
qalunaat
had signed a release form, absolving the community of responsibility in the event of an accident. It was unfortunate, but not catastrophic. The elders would shrug
ayaynuaq
, it couldn't be helped, there would be a generous insurance payout to Wagner's family and the whole episode would be forgotten. The Arctic was full of dangers. She'd made sure Felix Wagner had understood that.
Simeonie coughed, glanced at Taylor to make sure the man wasn't following, then, drawing himself up to his full height, said:
‘Speculation is a white man's disease. Take the other
qalunaat
back to the hotel, make sure he's got whatever he needs.'
She nodded.
‘One thing, he hasn't got a sat phone, has he?'
Edie shook her head
‘Good, then don't let him make any calls.' He turned to Andy Taylor: ‘We're very sorry about this accident, Mr Taylor. We have to ask you not to leave until we've made some investigations. Small stuff, just details really.'
Andy Taylor blinked his understanding.
Joe leaned forward and spoke in a low voice: ‘Uncle, none of this is Edie's fault.'
Inukpuk ignored him, reverting to Inuktitut:
‘There'll be a council of Elders meeting tomorrow to decide what steps to take next,' he said, stepping out of the plane and back onto the landing strip, something threatening in his tone.
Joe shook his head. ‘
Aitiathlimaqtsi arit
.' Fuck you too.
 
Back at the hotel, Andy Taylor showed no interest in making phone calls. He only wanted to have a shower and get some rest. A man not used to death, Edie thought, watching him heave his pack along the corridor to his room at the rear of the building. It occurred to her that she ought to go home and wait for Joe. She'd been bothered by a sense of foreboding, the feeling that she and Joe were somehow being drawn into something. It was nothing she could put her finger on yet, but she didn't like the way Simeonie Inukpuk had spoken. Never trusted the man much, even when he was kin. Trusted him even less now.
She waited downstairs in the hotel until she could hear the sound of Taylor's snores, then went home. The moment she reached the steps up to the snow-porch door, she knew Joe was already inside waiting for her. In the same way that a frozen ptarmigan would gradually revive when put beside the radiator, it was as if the house gradually came to life when Joe was there. She pulled the door open, peeled off her boots and outerwear in the snow porch and went in.
Joe was sitting on the sofa staring at a DVD. Charlie Chaplin was playing table ballet with two forks stuck into two bread rolls. She plunked herself down beside her stepson and stroked his hair.
‘I can't help thinking this is my fault, Kigga.'
‘Are you crazy? No one's going to blame you, Joe, not for a minute. And if they do, they'll have me to answer to.' On the TV Charlie Chaplin continued to twirl the bread rolls into pirouettes and
pas de bourées
. ‘This was an accident. Someone from Autisaq, or maybe one of the other settlements. Maybe he couldn't see, maybe he'd had a bit to drink. It happens.'
Joe said: ‘You think?'
‘Sure,' she said. ‘It'll blow over, you'll see.'
The bread roll ballerina took her bow and Edie flipped off the player. A moment of regret drifted between them.
Joe said: ‘Only thing is, a man's dead, Kigga.'
She looked at him, ashamed at her own momentary lapse of principle. She was her best self when she was with him, he made sure of it.

Read on for chapters 1–3 of M. J. McGrath's novel,
THE BOY IN THE SNOW
, also available from Penguin Books.

Praise for
The Boy in the Snow
by M. J. McGrath

“McGrath's characters are both motivated and ruthless. It is Edie's cunning intelligence and quick decision-making that keep the story moving.”

—Oprah.com, selected as one of “7 Compulsively Readable Mysteries (For the Crazy-Smart Reader)”

“McGrath has a firm grasp on a little known culture, its values and language. . . . This affecting novel should melt even the most frozen human hearts.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Edie is fierce in her desire for justice. . . . [She] finds herself at mortal risk from the cold, so masterfully described that it chills the reader.”

—
Booklist

“Edie is blunt and tenacious, the plot compelling and the settings mesmerizing. McGrath is a fresh and compelling voice.”

—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“The stoic Edie is a strong, determined heroine, though McGrath does tend to subject her to a lot of dire peril. But what would an Alaskan mystery be without frostbite and snow caves?”

—
Houston Chronicle

“[McGrath] is an author with a quietly impressive command of character. . . . Yet the author's real skill is in the astonishing evocation of the frigid landscape. . . . What's more, McGrath is able to keep all these elements satisfyingly balanced.”

—Express.co.uk (London)

“One of our most gifted younger writers . . . The snow-laden wastes of Alaska are so brilliantly evoked that it almost makes you shiver reading it, and the plot is every bit as chilling, laced as it is with politics, sects and modern greed.”

—
Daily Mail
(London)

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