Icefields (23 page)

He looks up to see Byrne watching as well, perched on a boulder at the terminus, a rucksack on his back. Trask calls to the foreman and has the work halted.

—Call it a day, boys.

The men toss their shovels and pickaxes in the back of the stake truck and climb in after them. The truck rumbles to life and crawls slowly up the winding road to the work camp.

Trask climbs down the moraine, crosses the bridge over the meltwater stream, and waves to Byrne. He makes his way over the loose stones of the till plain towards him.

—Ned, you look like an old raven. You look like you're thinking Now
what are those strange humans up to this time?

—What do you want, human?

—Let's take a walk, on the ice.

—I was just on my way down.

—That's too bad. I haven't done any ice-scrambling for years and I'd rather not break my neck if I can help it. Truth is I haven't set foot on the glacier
since the expedition. I want to see what the tourists will see when I send them up there.

—Are you courting me, Frank?

—Fine, forget it. If you won't take me I'll go by myself. And my frozen carcass will be on your conscience.

Byrne slides down from the boulder.

—It's too late in the day to go scrambling around up there.

—You won't be overrun, Ned, that's all I wanted to tell you. The tourists will be driven out to the turnaround point, they'll be allowed to leave the vehicle and have a quick look around, ten minutes at the most. It's nowhere near this hermit's cave of yours. There aren't going to be any restaurants or lavatories or billboards on the glacier. I want these people to feel like they're going back into the ice age. It's got to be
wild.
As far as safety allows, it's in my best interest to keep this place just the way it is.

Byrne nods.

—Where's this turnaround point going to be?

20

They climb the ice slope, until the distant lower icefall rises into view.

—You can't really see the spot from here, Trask says. It'll be above the icefall, on the plateau.

Trask raises his hand, traces a serpentine pattern in the air.

—The road will come down the moraine in switchbacks, like this, and then run about halfway across the ice. We'll clear a space, like a skating rink.

He drops his hand, glances at Byrne and frowns.

—What worries me right now are the melt streams up there. According to you, they change course all the time. How are we supposed to. keep track of that? If somebody fell into one he'd be gone,
whoosh,
and down a mill hole quicker than a rabbit.

—I won't be using the shelter anymore, Byrne

says.

—What?

Byrne tugs at the strap of his rucksack.

—I'm bringing everything down. It's going to take a few trips.

Trask shakes his head.

—I don't know what to say to you, Ned. I never do. I guess I've been wasting my breath.

—I'm heading down now.

—Are you leaving Jasper, then?

—No. I'll still be nosing around the terminus once in a while. I'm just getting tired of the climb.

—Well, I won't hold you up. So long.

—You should stay here for a while, Frank. Look around. It's quiet. You might enjoy it.

—I might at that.

21

The sky has clouded over, and the rising wind carries spits of rain.

Trask watches Byrne make his way across the till plain below.
I'm not going to follow after him like a lost tourist.

Instead he starts off at an angle across the ice, skirting a small crevasse, in the direction of the work site. He reaches the far edge of the glacier and picks his way down through the rubble at the base of the lateral moraine.

After a few minutes he realizes his mistake. He has entered a deepening gully of loose rock, slippery with meltwater. The gully quickly becomes a ravine. The chalet and all other familiar landmarks are hidden from view. He stops and looks around for a moment, cursing his own stupidity.
Trask's guided
walking
tours.
He has little choice but to scramble up the steep side of the gully. He slips twice on the way, scraping his hands and knees. Climbing out again onto the glacier, he is shocked to find himself bent double, gasping for breath, his head spinning. Too
much time spent at a desk the last few years.

The sky has grown darker, and the wind is rising. A true juggernaut of a rainstorm is on its way over the mountain wall. Trask scans the till plain. The sullen red glow of the fire drum is like a beacon to him in the distance. At the drum he will at least be able to warm up before hurrying back to the chalet. He descends, his bootheels sinking in the soft ice of the terminal slope.

At the foot of the glacier he halts again to catch his breath. He hears the faint creak of ice pinnacles nudged by the wind. Around him in the waning light lie fissures and spines of congealed icy mud, wet boulders, still pools of grey water.
Well, you're right in the middle of it again.

He leans against an upthrust pinnacle of dirty ice, on a shelf at the edge of the meltwater tarn. The first fat raindrops begin to fall around him, onto his coat, the back of his neck. The pinnacle, sculpted by water and sun, rises in a graceful curve over his head. He nestles for a moment within its scant shelter.
Just like a folded wing.

22

Trask makes it back to the chalet in the evening. The rainstorm has drawn off to a few scattered droplets.

The sky is clearing again.

He finds Byrne sitting on the stone steps below the front entrance, his field glasses hanging around his neck.

—I thought you'd be coming right behind me.

Trask shakes his head and climbs past Byrne. At the door he pauses.

—Yeah, it's quiet up there.

In his office Trask shuts the door and hangs his wet jacket on the hook. He unlocks the corner cabinet, takes out a pony glass and a bottle of whisky, pours himself a full measure. He sits at his desk, the glass in front of him, but does not drink.

There must be an artist in the construction crew, he muses, a man who missed his true calling in life. An undiscovered Michelangelo. Most of the workers are Greek and Italian, after all. They grew up in villages with that sort of thing on every street corner. Myths. Icons. Religious to the point of mania.

All that work for nothing, as it turned out. When he reached the fire drum, he had heard behind him the familiar groan and crack of ice giving way, then a heavy splash. He had turned to see ripples spreading out across the meltwater tarn. The shelf of dirty ice along its rim had collapsed. The pinnacle was gone.

But ice floats,
he thought at the time.
Where did it go?
The rock and mud clinging to the pinnacle must have weighted it down.

Trask shakes his head. The wasted effort. Didn't the fellow realize how short-lived his creation would be? He probably did. That's why the thing had been unfinished, looking as if it was just emerging from the ice.

Better stick to building roads and bridges.

He gulps down the whisky, then holds the glass at eye level, his elbow resting on the table. A framed photograph of Jim sits on his desk. He looks for a long time into the eyes of his son, and then glances up at the window. Shadows of raindrops slide down the thin curtains.

There is another possibility, he finally admits, one that instinct tells him to keep to himself. There are enough odd characters around here already. Loners, drunks, an eccentric doctor. He wouldn't care to be thought one of them. And Byrne would tell him that what he saw could easily be explained as a natural phenomenon of ice erosion. Condescending blather. No, he decides, he won't be turning this into one of his incredible tales to entertain guests at the chalet.

Trask pours himself another glass. He raises it in the air. A toast, to the anonymous artist.

23

In the new year a telegram arrives from Byrne's stepmother, telling him that his father is ill and wishes to
see him. He packs a suitcase, buys his train ticket, and then rides out to the chalet in one of Trask's motor-coaches to see Elspeth. He finds her in the glasshouse. Kneeling in front of a planter, cutting roses. He tells her he is leaving the day after tomorrow.

—I'd like you to come with me. To meet Kate. And my father.

—How will you introduce me?

—This is my friend, the woman I don't see for days, who leaves flowers on my desk while I'm out. The woman who comes to my house in the middle of the night, then disappears the next morning.

She says nothing, turns back to her work. He picks up one of the tools lying on the potting table, a slender metal cone with a wooden handle.

—There's one of these in every garden and nursery I've been in, but I have no idea what it's called.

—That is a dibble.

—Not a very grand name, is it?

—It does a humble job. Making holes.

He smiles.

—It's a good thing I didn't make botany my life's work.

She sets down the garden shears and stands up, wiping her hands on the front of her apron.

—I'll go with you, she says, but I have to see to a few things around here before I can leave.

—I'll wait.

24

They return in the spring, having stayed with Kate for almost a month after the death of Byrne's father.

There are days in Jasper when all the faces Byrne sees on the street are those of strangers. He overhears scraps of conversation in languages he cannot identify. He finds windows of restaurants and gift shops inscribed with new and unfamiliar names. Old wooden shop fronts and hotel doors refurbished with bright awnings, lit with flutings of turquoise and pink neon, a novelty that the park administrators loathe. He wonders if somehow he lost his way and wandered unwittingly over an unknown pass into another town, in some more prosperous valley.

On a cool evening in April, the most disorienting sight. Sara, stepping lightly from an automobile on Connaught Drive. The Sara of a quarter century ago. A mirage, an impossibility. He approaches, heart pounding, and then she turns.

Byrne can only stare in wonder at this youthful ancient woman. Sara's daughter, Louisa. And her husband, a tall, soft-spoken man whose name Byrne forgets moments after they are introduced. The two of them have just returned from their honeymoon.

—Doctor Byrne is a friend of Mom. And Dad. One of the few who'd sit through their endless stories.

—Louisa, I'm sorry about your father. I was in
England for two months and I didn't hear about it until I got back.

Louisa's grey eyes are like Sara's. They gaze back at him without fear or scorn.

—Mom's selling the homestead. Dad asked her to. She's moving into town, and she says she's buying one of those new phonographs. She's going to sit on her porch and listen to opera.

Byrne shakes his head.

—I don't believe it.

—She's been in Edmonton closing the sale on the land. We're meeting her at the station.

—I'll go with you. I haven't seen her since last summer.

Louisa smiles.

—I remember something Mom said, when we were visiting Dad at the hospital. He was hoping to come home in the spring, and Mom said that in Jasper there used to be two sure signs that winter was over. One was the glacier lily poking up through the snow, and the other was Doctor Byrne stepping off the train.

—I never thought she'd ever go anywhere near the station. Or the town for that matter.

—Here she is now.

Byrne follows her gesturing hand. Sara is there, on the far side of the busy street. At her feet a bulging leather satchel, the one Swift had called his portfolio, in which he had kept all his important papers.

Sara waves, waiting for a slow cavalcade of automobiles to pass before she crosses. He has seen that look in her eyes before. She has something to tell them. Something that happened on her trip, a story worth sharing.

He steps into the street, propelled by the ingrained habit of courtesy, to help her across.

At that moment, dodging through the stream of traffic, he understands that her woven fabric of legend and history includes him, like a figure in a crowded tapestry. The same way he had thought of her. With her words transcribed into his notebook, he had set her aside as he would a museum artifact. One facet of a design he hoped to complete when his long vigil came to an end.

Now he sees himself as a character in a story told to her daughter, and perhaps some day to her grandchildren.
The doctor, Edward Byrne. The one who fell into a crevasse.
He wonders how the story she tells them, the one he is moving through now, will end.

25

Watched Elspeth yesterday in the glasshouse, her hands delving and turning in rich, dark earth. She says she would never use a fork or trowel for this task. While I always seem to have something in my hand, a tongue
depressor, a magnifying glass, a stick. Something to hold between me and the cold, wet hide of the world.

She never asks about the glacier, about whether I'm still keeping on with the vigil. Sometimes I think I've come around to her way of thinking on the matter, but a twenty-five year habit isn't easy to break. Right now I can hear the sound of water running outside my window. The snow is melting.

26

June 20, 1923. Jasper is flooded with the sun's heat, but spring warmth has scarcely touched the Arcturus valley. To travel from one region to the other on this day, one must pass a threshold of low clouds shedding ice rain. On the far side the sky clears, but the sun's heat is diminished.

This year Byrne is a guest at the opening ceremony of the Glacier Tour. He had agreed to act as an advisor during the trial run three days before, so that none of Trask's machines, or their important passengers, would end up at the bottom of a crevasse. Now that the road and the turnaround point are ready, Trask has invited him to be the first person to step from an ice-crawler onto Arcturus glacier.