Primal Scream (21 page)

The North

Zinc Chandler, too, was engrossed in reading a police file. As he sat drinking coffee black in a Force plane winging toward Totem Lake, he scanned a report by the psychiatrist on the crisis management team, hoping to grasp what motivated the standoff rebels holed up in the sundance camp.

Wounded Knee?

In America's Southwest in 1889, a Paiute medicine man named Wovoka had a vision. One day God would cause all Indians to float up into the air, so He could cover the earth with a new land, crushing all white men; then Indians would drift down to once more hunt the buffalo. His Utopian vision, which called for patient peace, led to the Ghost Dancer movement, which quickly swept the West. If they danced and kept on dancing, Ghost Dancers believed they could dance whites away, and magic ghost shirts would make them impervious to bullets. The Sioux were steeped in the culture of war, so the ghost dance they picked up was a bellicose one. Afire with it, Big Foot led his 350 Minneconjou Sioux off the reservation. The culmination was the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, where, on December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army slaughtered 300 Sioux, 230 of them women and kids, with machine-gun fire.

Across a century, Black Elk spoke to Zinc:

"The snow drifted deep in the crooked gulch, and it was one long grave of butchered women and children and babies. When I saw this I wished that I had died, too, but I was not sorry for the women and children. It was better for them to be happy in the other world, and I wanted to be there, too. But before I went there I wanted to have revenge. I thought there might be a day when we should have revenge."

The second Battle of Wounded Knee in 1973 saw the FBI face off against the American Indian Movement for seventy-one days in South Dakota. FBI agents were shot and killed. From that sprang a new hybrid spirituality that spread in a diaspora across the United States and up into Canada. As natives emerged from the rubble that whites had made of their lives, they sought to rebuild what remained of their cultures by reviving traditions, including traditions from distant bands their ancestors never met.

Pan-Indianism.

Sweat lodge, ghost dance, and powwow were revived, but it was around the sundance—most important of all Plains tribe rituals—this hybrid spiritualism gelled. The sundance was embraced by Navajo at Black Mountain and Paiute out West, and eventually by Moses John here in Canada. A ritual of four-day fasts with pain-induced visions, traditionally it was danced by piercing chest muscles with wooden pegs strung from the top of a pole, against which dancers writhed until the pins were torn loose. A ritual of self-sacrifice and suffering for the people, it had a profound effect in weaving together political threads for natives ground down by whites and yearning for self-worth.

Chandler had walked the despair of too many Indian reserves not to grasp the pull. Suicide rates among the young were fifteen times greater than elsewhere in the country, and unemployment stood at eighty percent. With life expectancy down by a third, what was there to lose in adopting a ritual which sought to redeem honor? If he were native, would he follow the lure of the sacred sundance?

Perhaps.

The peril in hybridization was the mutant at Totem Lake. Moses John, a Plains Cree, had gone searching for one of those rare "power" sites suitable for a sun-dance and found it on Gitxsan land. Totem Lake became his retreat to connect with spiritual roots. The sundance, however, was seen by some as a prelude to "taking up the lance," so Grizzly and his Doomsday cult arrived to graft their conspiracy theory onto the hybrid spirituality at the lake, beliefs usually associated with right-wing groups in the States, but which also resonated among Indians paranoid a white-dominated New World Order was plotting genocide.

Grizzly had been at the second Battle of Wounded Knee.

For him, was that proof?

The way Chandler grasped it, this New World Order was big business, government, and news media conspiring to form a monolithic global dynasty. Opposition was to be "defanged" in ways that made Hitler seem a bleeding heart. Reserves, concentration camps, and leaders elected under the Indian Act collaborators, the Mounted Police were Gestapo in red. The millennium was when it would all go down, and only survivalists entrenched on sacred land would be free.

With Moses John and Grizzly killed, who knew what group dynamic was going on in camp?
Intercepted radio calls were paranoid. "Everybody's against us, but at le
ast we got a handle on it now."
Yesterday's ultimatum had demanded the queen intervene. The communique before had insisted all advancing land-claim talks be arrested for selling out. One thing for sure, they were constructing their own reality.

Waco, but more complex.

Oka, with more at stake.

Gustafsen Lake with casualties. Oklahoma City.

This was the mess Chandler had to straighten out.

The Force Citation 550 landed at Smithers.

Smithers—the name says it all—is not your boom-town. Famous for the size of its steelhead trout, this primal area draws anglers like Bob Hope, and Americans and Germans who can no longer find true wilderness back home. Grizzly country. Big-game hunting. The population of five thousand huddles at the base of Hudson Bay Mountain, an eight thousand-foot peak with two-mile-long by one-mile-wide icy blue Kathlyn Glacier feeding twin falls that after thaw would tumble into Glacier Gulch. Bavarian architecture, redbrick sidewalks, a town like Smithers thinks a bad traffic jam is two cars lined up behind the Main Street stop sign.

Smithers is the metropolis of the Bulkley Valley.

From here it gets rustic, folks.

Yodel time.

The airport was two miles northeast of town, forty miles south of New Hazelton. At the Yellowhead Highway the police car sent to meet Chandler and George turned north up the valley. Frozen, the Bulkley River was on the right.

At Moricetown Canyon the rock walls of the river narrowed to five yards, through which would surge foamy falls in spring. The Wet'suwet'en Indians-called the Carriers by whites because widows used to carry around their dead husbands' ashes—still descend the slippery rocks with ropes tied around their waists to gaff salmon struggling upstream to spawn.

Ten miles past Moricetown, up by Strawberry Flats, Porphyry Creek joined the Bulkley to mark the southern boundary of traditional Gitxsan lands. Their territory stretched north for one hundred eighty miles as the crow flies to the headwaters of the Skeena, and west for one hundred twenty miles toward the Alaska panhandle.

The Gitxsan were almost the last natives forced to face whites. What had made their realm a nucleus for ten thousand years was also what isolated them from contact with the "ghost men" haunting the coast. Surrounded by buffering nations—the Coast Tsimshian between Kitselas Canyon and the ocean, the Nisga'a on the Nass River above, the Wet'suwet'en inland toward the Rockies—they received blankets, cast-iron pots, and guns from Indian traders for more than half a century before whites ventured up the Skeena.

Smithers to New Hazelton was a forty-five-minute drive. Four miles on, where the Bulkley and Skeena met, was old Hazelton. Its eight hundred to nine hundred people mainly white, New Hazelton had four restaurants, three gas stations, two pubs, and one horse. Its eight hundred to nine hundred people mostly native, old Hazelton had the theater, library, liquor store, bank, and one horse. Together, New and old was a two-horse town.

The village of Gitanmaax—now Gitanmaax Reserve—surrounds old Hazelton. There in 1889 the Department of Indian Affairs established dominion over and set about bleaching the Gitxsan people.

Dominion continues.

Over their land.

From New Hazelton to old Hazelton arcs Highway 62, which spans the Bulkley River on Hagwilget Bridge. Over the bridge and a right turn north off Highway 62, the Kispiox Valley Road, flanked by six-thousand-foot peaks, ran eight miles up the Upper Skeena to Kispiox village. In summer it would be common to see a hundred logging trucks a day lug timber pillaged from Gitxsan land down the valley.

Totem Lake was a few miles east off the Kispiox Valley Road.

Access to it was blocked by Mounties at Checkpoint Alpha.

Beyond the roadblock was Zulu base.

And beyond Zulu base was the rebel camp.

Map in lap, Zinc Chandler had the lay of the land by the time the car descended the hill to New Hazelton. The town was built along the Yellowhead Highway. The 28 Inn on one side, a mall on the other, they angled left on McLoed Street and drove a block down to New Hazelton Detachment on Eleventh Avenue. The cop shop across from the elementary school was an older twelve-room house with a steep roof, three cells, and a drunk tank. Until 1992 married quarters had also been in the building. A sergeant, two corporals, and eight constables, three of whom were native or half-blood Metis, New Hazelton Detachment was part of Prince Rupert Subdivision. It policed all seven Gitxsan villages: Gitanmaax, Gitsegukla, Guna-noot, Glen Vowell, Gitwangak, Gitanyow, and Kispiox.

Here we go
, Zinc thought.

The Alamo.

The circus had come to town.

During World War II, Zinc read somewhere, six reporters covered FDR and the White House strategy. During the O. J. Simpson case, the number was six thousand, and that led him to wonder—after wondering: What's wrong with this picture?—where they all went?

Well, now he knew.

Most of them were here.

As with any modern multimedia event, a tragicomic air hung about the town. The doughnut shortage was the biggest crisis. Can't get 'em. Too many cops. Overnight Totem Lake Detachment—which hadn't existed a week ago—had become the largest in the Force, surpassing the four hundred Mounties in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver. Close to five hundred here. So: reporters could intercept negotiations between police! and the rebels, all phone scanners were stripped from I high-tech outlets in Prince Rupert on the coast to LPrince George inland. A coffee vendor serving reporters corralled at Checkpoint Alpha had made up his truck to look like a covered wagon. A fat man in a limousine had tried to crash through with a gift of chow for the dogs he thought were starving in camp. Lodged in the cells, he was screaming for the U.S. ambassador. A local hotel had offered its meeting room to police, except when the Rotary Club met for lunch. Indian crafts peddled on the street depicted whites as ghosts without eyes and ears. The steak shortage was a crisis for reporters returning at night. Can't get 'em. Too many cops. They were left with fish.

The circus had come to town.

Under the big top of the Command Center it was the same. Headquarters for Operation Ironhorse was a series of trailors strung from the detachment p
arking lot out onto the street.
Communications, Serious Crimes, Ident, GIS, Special I, Special O, Air Coordinator, Personnel, Stores, Logistics, Computer Systems, and Special X were cramped here. This was the brain for Operations up at Zulu base, where fifteen ERT teams, thirty dogs, and two armorers from Depot Division in Regina, brought in to keep the AR-15s, MP5s, and sniper rifles in service, were ready for action. The woman running Communications was "The Quartermaster," a standing joke because she had to find "quarters" for the hundreds of Members in town. Three million dollars worth of telecom equipment bulged her trailer. Twelve-hour shifts by the four data-entry workers in the Computer trailer barely kept up with reports. They recorded every incident and who was involved to marshal evidence for when this went to court. "Put it this way," Zinc was told. "It doesn't fit on one disk."

Zinc's trailer was the eye of the hurricane. It was filled with decision makers. Lured by the need to be "in the know," Members constantly coming and going was the background noise. Media Relations by the door fed the sharks. Air Services juggled seven planes, four helicopters, and Bush Dodd. Phones rang and photo-phones issued pictures. The CPIC computer ran criminal records. The ERT commander paced paced paced and chewed his nails. Photocopiers hummed and strobed their lights endlessly.

As O.C. Chandler had his own room, a cubbyhole the size of a toilet cubicle. Felt-penned on the wall was: ILLIGITEMUS NON TATTUS CARBORUNDUM.
Translation: Don't let the bastards wear you down!
For approval, a pile of expense claims was on his desk:

Required to purchase six (6) mousetraps and cheese for the Mobile Command post. They have critters munching at the wiring system.

Six (6) Mousetraps @ $1.09 per package—3 packages purchased: $3.27

One block of Kraft Cheese @ $3.69

G.S.T.: $0.23

P.S.T.: $0.23

Total expense: $7.42

The circus had come to town.

The Circus of Blood.

The briefing room was a trailer parked next to the detachment, crammed with rows of folding chairs facing a podium backed by maps, corkboards, blackboards, and a projection screen. On the chairs sat the leaders of the ERT teams, except those currently patrolling from Zulu base, and negotiators with the crisis management team, who were in contact with the rebels by radio phone, and anyone else at Command Center interested in briefing by the new O.C. As officer in charge, Chandler stood at the podium.

"My name is Zinc Chandler. My rank is inspector. I have been assigned command of Totem Lake Detachment. If this operation goes wrong, I take the blame. Since the buck stops with me, all encounters with the rebels get my prior okay. Field personnel will continue to adopt a defensive stance. We fire only if fired on. Let no one be able to say we didn't do everything we could to end this peacefully."

Murmuring.

"Yesterday's ambush will have some of you thinking it's time to bring in the army. Except in a passive way like driving APCs, Armed Forces intervention requires a request from the attorney general to the chief-of-staff under the National Defense Act. Such a request can only be made if there's a riot or disturbance beyond police powers. If we push the panic button, it's automatically an admission the rebels are too important and dangerous for police to handle. A victory like that will inspire others to take the warpath.

"So we must hold the line.

"Three lines actually," Chandler said, shifting to a relief map of the Hazelton area. Like a bull's-eye, three rings circled Totem Lake.

"The outer ring takes in a huge chunk, cutting off the Yellowhead and Cassiar highways. Locals may travel subject to checks. Outsiders can be excluded. This ring is to catch supporters trying to rearm the camp, and is how we intercepted the weapons onscreen. A side effect is it has made local business suffer, and as whites get steamed, they'll pressure for an assault.

"The clock is ticking.

"The middle ring is our roadblocks on every byway to the lake off the Kispiox Road. Checkpoint Alpha is where media and locals are kept at bay. No one but us beyond that point.

"Except bush smugglers.

"The inner ring is our cordon around the camp. The rebels know if they come outside, it will be deleterious to their health. Patrols we send in are shot at. This is the line in the sand ... in the snow."

Chandler returned to the podium.

"So, who are the players we are up against? I see four groups. The 'ideologues' aren't in camp, but they spout the rhetoric followed by those who are. Dooms-j day advocates who fear the New World Order have! brainwashed some rebels to fight to the death. The photos pinned to the corkboard reveal guerrilla mentality. They've dug a bunker into the hillside over the camp, which offers a clear shot at anyone approaching from the lake or paths along its shore. Vehicle routes are blocked with fallen trees. Foxholes and snipers' nests abound in the woods. Ideologues have turned an assertion of native spiritual and land claim rights into a last-stand declaration of war.

"Storm the camp and we'll lose Members.

"Lots of Members.

"The 'leaders' are those who took direct action in camp to advance Sundance or Doomsday beliefs. Now Moses John and Grizzly are dead, leaving us to deal; with the 'followers.' Our only hope to end this peacefully is a stick-and-carrot approach to the leaderless vacuum left in camp before a Doomsdayer takes control. The stick is to maintain superior firepower so they don't have means to decimate us, and the carrot is the crisis management team. Through negotiation i by radio phone, we find a way to accommodate Sundance spiritual concer
ns, and isolate the Doomsdayers
from legitimacy. Make it easy for them to come out and hard to remain.

"All of which will be undermined if the balance of power shifts.

"Which it will if high-tech weapons and explosives reach camp."

Chandler turned to the projection screen, on which was displayed the cache of weapo
ns seized in the ran
dom check: AK-47s, Clocks, Remingtons, tomahawks, garottes, et cetera.

"This confrontation has taken on intense symbolism for interests not originally involved. Some—white and native—see it as a means to derail treaty talks about Indian land claims. Mass martyrdom in a fiery end like the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, would suit their political agendas to a T. And the best way to ensure a Wounded Knee is smuggle Armageddon arms to the Doomsday cult.

"This fourth group is 'the wild card."

"There may be several wild cards in the deck. Tips picked up by Criminal Intelligence Section indicate two or more. Yesterday saw the theft of an entire explosive magazine from Abbotsford by hijackers who knew exactly what they wanted and how to get it. They got away with six cases of dynamite and a hundred kilos of Amex. It's a fertilizer-based explosive similar to what blew up in Oklahoma City. Complete with detonators and detonating cord, the safelike magazine was hauled off in a pickup truck.

"Imagine an assault with that in rebel hands."