Northwest Passages Read online

  “We’re going to have to find someone in charge here, and tell them we’ve got a missing passenger. And you’re the one who can give the best description of her.” Ron squinted out into the rain. “Come on, mate; ready when you are.”

  Charlotte stumbled down another dark alleyway. Her umbrella had long since been discarded as useless, and her plastic mac hung open. Rain soaked her hair, rolled down her neck in clammy tracks, streaked her face, blurred her vision. The ground underfoot was slick and treacherous; several times she had stumbled and fallen, and from the pain in her left ankle she thought it likely that she had done some fairly serious injury to herself. Twice now she had found herself back in the centre of the maze; the second time she had stood and cried, uselessly and helplessly, until the sound of laughter had cut through her tears like a knife.

  She looked up quickly, as something at the end of the alley caught the edge of her vision, although she knew it was no use; whoever it was was always too quick for her. She didn’t think it was the boy from the coach party; he had been big for his age, bulky. This person was smaller, thinner. She thought back to the figure she had seen in the ruins at Snaresbury, and the face she had seen in the window in Brindford; even the boy distributing leaflets. Yes; that was who it looked like.

  But how could that be? asked a small, tired voice. He couldn’t be in all four places, could he? Well?

  But the part of her that would once have looked seriously at this undeniably sensible question had gone away somewhere, and could not be reached.

  “Go away!” she screamed into the rain. “Go away, do you hear me? Just leave me alone! Why are you doing this to me?”

  As if it had at last tired of its game, the figure sidled back into view, slowly, almost shyly. As she finally got a full look at its face, Charlotte realised, belatedly, that she did not really want an answer to her question. It was undoubtedly the boy she had seen in Brindford; the boy whose face had radiated malevolence, and something else she had not been able to place. Now, however, she saw clearly what it was.

  Hunger.

  Ron and Frank hurried along the path to the grotto, flanking a large, burly man in gum boots and a wax jacket. The rain had stopped a few minutes earlier, but they remained huddled inside their jackets, hands in pockets, heads down. They came to a junction, where a smaller path led away to the right.

  “That’s the way to the grotto, down there.” The burly man pointed ahead of them along the main path. Harry Wainwright had been in charge of the grounds at Wynsford for nine years, and this was hardly the first time that someone had gone missing; but usually the someone was a youngster who got separated from his parents, or teens larking about, not realising how big the grounds really were. Respectable, sensible, intelligent women did not, as a rule, disappear in Wynsford’s grounds, and Wainwright was more concerned than he cared to let on to the other two. He turned to Frank.

  “What makes you think she might have come down here? It’s a long way from the house, and you didn’t have a lot of time, did you?”

  Frank shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just—well, it seems like the sort of place she might have been interested in seeing, somehow. I can’t explain it any better. Besides, she isn’t anywhere closer to the house.”

  “No.” Wainwright knew that for a fact. Several of his staff were searching the grounds, and he was in constant radio communication with them. If Charlotte had been found, he’d have been told.

  “We’ll go on to the grotto—it’s not much further—and search there. Then, if we don’t find her, we’ll head back to the house. No point in staying out here; it’ll soon be too dark to see anything anyway.”

  “What’ll happen when we get back to the house?” Frank thought he knew the answer already, and didn’t really want to hear it pass the other man’s lips, but something forced him to ask the question.

  “It’ll become a police matter then.” Wainwright saw the look on the other men’s faces and shrugged. “We can only do so much. Of course, I don’t know how seriously the police will treat it; people, at least adults, have to be missing for a certain period of time before they’re legally missing, if you see what I mean; but under the circumstances . . . ” His voice trailed away.

  “What about checking down there?” Frank pointed in the direction of the other, smaller path. “What’s along there, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” said Wainwright. “Used to be the maze. Still is, technically, at least until it comes out next month. The only way she’d find it is if she went down there, and she’d have no reason to do that. All the old signposts were pulled up last year, and replaced with the wrought-iron ones. And the maze isn’t marked on any of them.”

  Frank looked around. Wainwright was correct—there were no signs to be seen. “Still,” he argued, “she might have followed the path, just to see what was there. Shouldn’t we check?”

  Wainwright shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s not very far; we’ll check, then go to the grotto—after that it’s back to the house. Come on.”

  It was not, as he said, very far to the maze. The dark clearing was oppressive, and did not incline them to linger; once they had checked the gate they turned and retraced their steps to the main path. It was, after all, abundantly clear that no one had been inside the maze for some time: a thick chain and stout, rusty padlock held the gate firmly, unflinchingly, uncompromisingly shut.

  NORTHWEST PASSAGE

  How then am I so different

  from the first men through this way?

  Like them I left a settled life, I threw it all away

  To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men

  To find there but the road back home again.

  —Stan Rogers, “Northwest Passage”

  They vary in detail, the stories, but the broad outline is the same. Someone—hiker, hunter, tourist—goes missing, or is reported overdue, and there is an appeal to the public for information; the police become involved, and search and rescue teams, and there are interviews with friends and relatives, and statements by increasingly grim-faced officials, as the days tick by and hope begins to crack and waver and fade, like colour leaching out of a picture left too long in a window. Then there is the official calling off of the search, and gradually the story fades from sight, leaving family and friends with questions, an endless round of what ifs and how coulds and where dids pursuing each other like restless children.

  Occasionally there is a coda, weeks or months or years later, when another hiker or hunter or tourist—more skilled, or perhaps more fortunate—stumbles across evidence and carries the news back, prompting a small piece in the “In Brief” section of the Vancouver Sun which is skimmed over by urban readers safe in a place of straight lines and clearly delineated routes. They gaze at the expanse of Stanley Park on their daily commute, and wonder how a person could vanish so easily in a landscape so seemingly benign.

  Peggy Malone does not wonder this, nor does she ask herself any questions. She suspects she already knows the answers, and it is safer to keep the questions which prompt them locked away. Sometimes, though, they arise unbidden: when outside her window the breeze rustles the leaves of the maple, the one she asked the Strata Council to cut down, or the wind chimes three doors down are set ringing. Then the questions come back, eagerly, like a dog left on its own too long, and she turns on the television—not the radio, she rarely listens to that now—and turns on the lights and tries, for a time, to forget.

  The road was, as back roads in the Interior go, a good one: Len had always ensured that it was graded regularly. Peggy, bumping her way up it in the Jeep, added “get road seen to” to her mental checklist of things to do. She could not let it go another summer; next spring’s meltwater would eat away even further at the dirt and rocks, and her sixty-three-year-old bones could do without the added wear and tear.

  She followed the twists and turns of the road, threading her way through stands of cottonwood and birch and Ponderosa pine. Here and there
the bright yellow of an arrowleaf balsam flashed into sight beneath the trees, enjoying a brief moment of glory before withering and dying, leaving the silver-green leaves as the only evidence of its passing. Overhead the sky was clear blue, but the breeze, when she pulled the Jeep in front of the cabin, was cool, a reminder that spring, not summer, held sway.

  Peggy opened the rear of the Jeep and began unloading bags of supplies, which seemed, as always, to have proliferated during the drive. There was nothing to be done about it, however; the nearest town was an hour away, and she had long since learned that it was better to err on the side of too much than too little. Even though she was only buying for one now, the old habits died hard, and she usually managed to avoid making the journey more than once every two weeks or so.

  She loaded the last of the milk into the fridge, which, like the other appliances and some of the lights, ran off propane; the light switch on the wall near the door had been installed by Len in a fit of whimsy when the cabin was being built, and served no useful purpose, as electricity did not extend up the valley from the highway some miles distant. The radio was battery operated, but seldom used: reception was poor during the day and sporadic at night, with stations alternately competing with each other and then fading away into a buzz of static. Kerosene lanterns and a generator could be used in an emergency, and an airtight fireplace kept the cabin more than warm enough in spring and fall. In winter she stayed with a nephew and his family on Vancouver Island; Len’s brother’s son, Paul, a good, steady lad who had given up urging his aunt to make the move to the Island permanent when he saw that it did no good. She would move when she was ready, Peggy always replied; she would know when the time came, and as long as she was able to drive and look after herself she was happy with the way things were.

  Supplies unloaded, she set the kettle to boiling. A cup of tea would be just the thing, before she went out and did some gardening. It was not gardening in the sense that any of her acquaintances on the Island would understand it, with their immaculate, English-style flowerbeds and neatly edged, emerald green lawns which would not have looked out of place on a golf course; she called it that out of habit. She had learned, early on, that this land was tolerant of imposition only up to a point, and for some years her gardening had been confined to planting a few annuals—marigolds did well—in pots and hanging baskets.

  Of course, she now had the grass to cut, and there were the paths to work on. It was Len who had suggested them, the summer before he died, while watching her struggle to keep the sagebrush and wild grass at bay. The cabin was built on a natural bench which overlooked the thickly treed valley, and was in turn overlooked by hills, rising relentlessly above until they lost themselves in the mountains behind. On three sides of the cabin the grassland stretched away to the trees, and Peggy had fought with it, trying, with her lawn and her flowers, to impose some sense of order on the landscape. She had resisted the idea of the paths at first, feeling that it would be giving in; but about what, and to whom, she could not have said. Still, she had started them for Len, who had taken comfort, that last summer, in watching her going about her normal tasks, and then she had continued them, partly because she felt she owed it to Len, and partly to fill the hours.

  The paths now wound through a large part of the grassy area around the cabin. They were edged with rocks, and there were forks and intersections, and it was possible to walk them for some time without doubling back on oneself; not unlike, thought Peggy, one of those labyrinths in which people were meant to think contemplative thoughts as they followed the path. She was not much given to contemplation herself, but keeping the existing paths free of weeds occupied her hands, and she supposed vaguely that it was good for her mind as well.

  Now she stood looking at the paths, wondering whether she should do some weeding or check the mower and make sure it was in working order. It might have seized up over the winter; if so, then a good dose of WD-40 should take care of matters. She knew precisely where the tin was—Peggy knew precisely where everything in the cabin was—and was just turning towards the shed where the mower was stored when she heard the unmistakable sound of a vehicle coming up the road.

  It was such an unusual sound that she stopped in her tracks and turned to face the gate, which hung open on its support, the only break in the fence of slender pine logs which encircled the property and served to keep out the cattle which occasionally wandered past. The road did not lead anywhere except to the cabin, and visitors were few and far between, for the simple reason that there was almost no one in the area to pay a visit. Peggy stood, waiting expectantly, and after a few moments a ramshackle Volkswagen van swung round the curve and started up the slight incline which levelled off fifty yards inside the gate, not far from the front of the cabin where her Jeep was parked.

  It pulled to a halt just inside the gate, and Peggy watched it. There were two people in the front seat, and for a minute no one made a move to get out; she got the impression that there was an argument going on. Then the passenger door opened, and a boy emerged, waving a tentative hand at her. She nodded her head, and the boy said something to the driver. Again Peggy got the impression that there was a disagreement of some sort; then the driver’s door opened slowly, and another boy emerged.

  She would have been a fool not to feel a slight sense of apprehension, and Peggy was not a fool. But she prided herself on being able to assess a situation quickly and accurately, and she did not feel any sense of threat. So she stood and waited as they approached her, taking in their appearance: one tall and fair-haired, the other shorter and dark; both in their late teens or early twenties, with longish hair and rumpled clothing and a general impression of needing a good square meal or two, but nothing that made her wish that the .202 she kept inside the cabin was close to hand.

  The pair stopped a few feet from her, and the fair-haired boy spoke first.

  “Hi. We, uh, we were just passing by, and we thought . . . ” He trailed off, as if appreciating that “just passing by” was not something easily done in the area. There was a pause. Then he continued, “We heard your Jeep, and were kinda surprised; we didn’t think anyone lived up here. So we thought that . . . well, that we’d come by and see who was here, and . . . ”

  The trickle of words stopped again, and the boy shrugged helplessly, as if making an appeal. It was clear the other boy was not about to come to his aid, so Peggy picked up the thread.

  “Margaret Malone,” she said, moving forward, her hand extended. “Call me Peggy.”

  The fair-haired boy smiled hesitantly and stuck out his own hand. “Hiya, Peggy. I’m John Carlisle, but everyone calls me Jack.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jack.” Peggy turned to Jack’s companion and looked at him evenly. “And you are . . . ?”

  There was a pause, as if the boy was weighing the effect of not answering. Jack nudged him, and he said in a low voice, “Robert. Robert Parker.”

  Something about the way he said it discouraged any thoughts of Bob or Robbie. The conversation ground to a halt again, and once more Peggy took the initiative.

  “So, you two boys students?” she asked pleasantly. Jack shook his head and said, “No, why d’you ask?” at the same moment that Robert said sullenly, “We’re not boys.”

  Peggy took a moment to reply. “To answer you first,” she said finally, nodding towards Jack, “we sometimes get students up here, from UBC or SFU, studying insects or infestation patterns, so it seemed likely. And to reply to your comment, Robert,” she said, looking him directly in the eye, “when you get to my age you start to look at anyone under a certain age as being a boy; I didn’t intend it as an insult. If I want to insult someone I don’t leave them in any doubt.”

  Jack gave a sudden smile, which twitched across his face and was gone in an instant. Robert glared at him.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what brings you to this neck of the woods? Seems kind of an out of the way spot for two . . . people . . . of your age, especially this time
of year.”

  Nothing.

  Really, thought Peggy, was my generation as inarticulate as this when we were young? You’d think they’d never spoken to anyone else before.

  Again it was Jack who broke the silence.

  “We’re just, well, travelling around, you know? Taking some time out, doing something different, that kind of thing.” Seeing the look in Peggy’s eyes, he added, “We just wanted to go somewhere we wouldn’t be bumping into people, somewhere we could do what we wanted. We’ve been up here for a few weeks now, staying in an old place we found over there.” He pointed an arm in an easterly direction. “It was falling to pieces,” he added, as if he was apologising. “No one’s lived there for ages, we figured it’d be okay.”

  Peggy held up a hand. “No problem as far as I’m concerned, if it’s the place I think you mean. Used to be a prospector’s cabin, but no one’s used it for years. You’re welcome to it. Last time I hiked over that way was some time ago, and it was a real handyman’s special then. You must have done a lot of work to get it fixed up so that you could live in it.”

  Jack shrugged. “Yeah, but we’re used to that. Lots of stuff lying around we could use.”

  “What do you do about food?”

  “We stocked up in town; and there’s an old woodstove in the cabin. We don’t need a lot; we’re used to roughing it.”

  Peggy eyed them both. “Seems to me you could do with something more than just roughing it in the food line for a couple of days.”

  “We do okay.” It was Robert who spoke, as if challenging Peggy. “We do just fine. We don’t want any help.”

  “I wasn’t offering any, just making a comment. Last time I checked it was still a free country.”