Primal Scream (39 page)

He brought the bow to full draw and let the string slip off his fingers.

Shhhhewww . . .

You can't get your hunting heads too sharp. Katt ducked the sweep of claws to curl up in the snow as the arrow whistled over her, burying itself to the feathers in the grizzly's throat. The paw veered to its neck and snapped off the nock end of the shaft. Thundering roars bellowing from the wound avalanched snow down the slope above the mouth of the cave, spewing sprays of white at Katt and the Medeek. Heaving down across her, the beast strode over Katt and came for Winterman Snow. The White Man loosed another razor-head, for in a showdown with a grizzly, you don't stop shooting as long as it moves or twitches.

The arrow struck the Medeek in the shoulder. Round and round spun the bear, biting at the feathers on the metal shaft, blood streaming out of the puncture in its throat, before it charged again. Muzzle jutting forward and jaws open wide, growls rumbling from the pit behind its fangs, the beast came plowing through the snow like an icebreaker, chunks of frozen crust hurled right and left. Winterman Snow nocked another arrow on the string and hooked it with the first three fingers of his hand, extending his bow arm toward the oncoming fangs as he drew the shaft back to anchor feathers at the corner of his mouth.

Twelve feet . . .

Ten feet . . .

Eight feet . . .

The White Man loosed the shot.

The slingshot effect of the bow picked up the peak weight of forty pounds stored in both arms to drive the razor-point down the bear's throat. No bones to; deflect it, the arrow ranged the length of the beast's body and tore it apart inside, slicing through the heart, lungs, liver, and intestines before it lodged somewhere in the bowels. Bleeding to death deep within still Medeek came on, eyes glazing as front paws stumble then the bloody jaws of the grizzly crashed into snow at the archer's feet.

When the white man first arrived in North America there were about 200,000 grizzlies here. The numbe has dwindled to about 25,000 today, a quarter of whic roam the north of British Columbia. Now there ws one Medeek less.

"Katt!"

The White Man turned.

From the woods sloping down to the iced-over river glazing the valley floor, DeClercq stumbled frantically toward the curled-up girl. Snow was halfway between the Horseman and Katt. He could easily take both down with the bow, but he hadn't gone to all trouble for an easy hunt.

Not when he could torment, strip, rape, hunt, Saint Sebastian Corporal Spann's friend.

No need for bait now that he was here.

Snow yanked the beheading knife from his belt and went for Katt.

"Katt!"

At first she thought his voice was her imagination running away with her. Curled up in a fetal ball will her face between her knees, sound muffled by arms hammerlocking her head, she thought her "Dad" shouting "Katt!" from far away was her mind hallucinating under stress. Time had slipped to slow-mo again. Waiting for the pissed-off grizzly to maul her, would amazing grace deliver her from life wrapped in the voice of the dad she had yearned for so long and had finally enjoyed for such a short time?

She wished she had Scratch Bear.

To love to death.

So disoriented was she that Katt had no idea where the grizzly was. Its roar had boomed like thunder high above. Then its fur had brushed her skin as it stepped across. Then it had bellowed repeatedly on this side of her. If traversing her was so it could attack from over here, why was it taking forever for the grizzly mauling to begin?

Katt peeked and saw the bear dead in the snow.

Trudging toward her from the woods was Bob yelling, "Katt!"

And closing fast between her and him was the madman of the north.

"Katt!"

"Jane!" he cries, and tries to run to her from the maple trees, but his legs feel heavy, so very heavy, as if forged from lead, while he must run fast, very fast, if he's to get from here to there in time to wrench his terrified daughter from impending death
. Doomed to live the prophetic nightmare in real life, Robert floundered through the snow impeding nun, having pushed his leaden legs past the point of slave driving long ago, and now as he staggered the last hundred feet of the marathon, they failed him.
With mounting anxiety he stares down to see what's holding him back, and discovers both feet are planted in the ground. He drops the crossbow and grabs one leg with both hands to tear it free. Unable to budge it, he switches legs and tugs with all his strength, straining until his rooted flesh begins to upheave, clod
s of earth clinging to the fila
mented ankle he weeds from soil groaning under the maple leaves, a tug-of-war waged with Mother Nature for his daughter's life
. Gone was the shuffling glide required to slide his snowshoes across the ice pack, for only if he ran fast, as fast as he had ever run in his life, would he reach Katt at the same time as the killer. But more haste, less speed, says the proverb, and running sank the tips of his snowshoes into the snow, the crust beneath the powder catching them, while he gripped both legs behind his thighs to pump like a railway engine, using his upper torso to power his exhausted feet
. "Let go o
f me!" he orders.
"DAD-DYYYYYYY!" cries Jane
.
"Bob!" yelled Katt as the psycho grabbed the hood of her parka and wrenched her from the ground, swinging Katt halfway around so she landed on her knees facing DeClercq, hood torn from her head to release her ash-blond hair, which the Decapitator grabbed and jerked up to stretch Katt's neck, the arm with the beheading knife sweeping back to slice.
Now his legs are free and he is lurching forward, dragging half the forest floor toward the cabin. Chunks of sod weigh down his botanic feet, which rustle like snakes through the fiery leaves. Pains of overexertion shoot up and down his arm
. Now his feet tur
ned up chunks of ice instead, the
crust beneath groaning as it cracked and buckled, t
he
powder on top puffing like breath from below. Desperately trying to free himself of his dragging feet, his body leaned forward like the Roadrunner in cartoons, snow churning behind with hands outstretched in a last-ditch effort to save Katt which he knew was too late.

"Daddy's coming! Don't leave me, Jane!"

Ten feet short of the psycho and Katt, Robert fell to his knees.

"Freeze, white man," snarled Winterman Snow. "And forget the gun. I know it's empty. I watched you fight the wolves. But to be sure, toss it away."

On hands and knees Robert saw the knife poised to behead Katt. The Decapitator stood behind her, gripping Katt's hair. No way could he cross the distance between before the knife hacked. He withdrew his gun from his parka and threw it away.

The Mountie was unarmed.

Tears flowed from Katt's eyes as they locked with his, not a sound uttered by the great lone land as fate hung in the balance.

"You came," Katt whispered.

"I knew you'd come, Daddy. I Knew you wouldn't fail me."

The hacked-off head on the pole isn't Jane's.

The hacked-off head is Katt's.

"Hear me, white man," spat Winterman Snow. "It was your friend Corporal Spann who betrayed me. He found me when I ran away from the reverend's school, and said I was lying when I told him what the holy man did to us over the desk in his office. He returned me to Reverend Noel, who raped me with this ring on his cock from then on. For years after I was released from that school, my bowels let go and I shat myself every time I was around whites.

"Hear me, white man," spat Winterman Snow. "It was you who denied me revenge. You killed Corporal Spann's kid before I could. All you whites do is steal from us. You stole our land. You stole my life. And you stole my revenge.

"Hear me, white man," spat Winterman Snow. "I have her and I have you, and this is my land. I'll treat you no worse than you treated us. First I'll hack your arms off so you can't defend yourself. Then I'll strip your culture from who you are inside. Then I'll have your ass like the reverend did me. Then I'll hunt you down like the animal you are, and like we should have every white who set foot on our land. I'm the hunter. You're the hunted. And may Saint Sebastian be with you at the end."

"Let her go," DeClercq said. "This is between you and me."

"Learn to share, white man. Learn to potlatch your wealth. You can have her head to mount atop your totem pole."

"NOOOOO!" yelled DeClercq as the knife swept down, his body leaping from the snow as every muscle strained to hurl him across the gap, the snowshoes tearing from his feet as he sprang, while blood exploded like a halo around Katt's head, and a crack that must be a vertebra smashing shattered the brittle air.

Katt's body tumbled to the blood-spattered snow as DeClercq lunged for the kidnapper ducking behind, seizing him by the neck as he had that kidnapper long ago, crushing vessels that fed life to the brain, eye popping out of both sockets and tongue sticking out of the mouth. Then hands encircled his legs fron below and clung for dear life, and blood squirted on of the holes in the head staring vacantly back at hir

Cyclops eye in the forehead.

Back of the skull blown away.

"You came," Katt gasped as she clung tightly to him, and Robert released his grip on the dead man embrace her.

Dumbfounded, he watched the body crash back the snow.

The White Man was white man Rafe "Bush" Dodd

Then turning to sight back along the trajectory the shot, he saw the source of the crack he had thought was Katt's spine smashing, for there at the edge of the woods sloping up from the frozen rive below, standing behind a silent dog sled halted in the trees, rifle to his shoulder for a hell of a shot, was Mountie in the winter dress of the Force.

The son of a Yukon trapper raised in the wood Ed "Mad Dog" Rabidowski could take the eye out a squirrel with a .22 at one hundred feet before he was six.

Sometimes even in real life the cavalry comes ove the hill in the nick of time.

Hazelton

They watched the news, the three of them, on TV in Ghost Keeper's hospital room.

"Sundown saw the end of the sundance at Totem Lake today. Rebels in the armed camp walked out peacefully, finalizing the largest police operation in the 125-year history of the RCMP. Twenty rebels, two of them whites, were led out of the stronghold by four native spiritual leaders. They were advised of their Charter rights and searched at a checkpoint near the Kispiox Road, before police drove them to New Hazelton Detachment. There, as the rebels were ushered into custody, they were greeted by chants and beating drums as supporters raised their fists in a power salute or waved eagle feathers along fence lines draped with flags from the Mohawk Warrior Society. The militant known as Grizzly, who had vowed he would leave the camp in a body bag, did. Moses John, the spiritual leader whose sundance led to the showdown with police, also came out dead."

The camera cut from the talking head of the BCTV reporter fronting the scene at the detachment to one of a native with black shoulder-length hair in braids. He wore a leather jacket painted with an image of Almighty Voice.

"Nothing is ended. The issues remain the same. But now the Horsemen have martyred two shot brothers to the cause."

"Wrong," said Chandler to the TV. "Bush Dodd shot Moses John."

"We know that for sure?" asked DeClercq.

Chandler nodded. "The first thing Ident did at the camp was dig the bullet that killed John out of a tree by the lake. The Firearms tech who serviced our weapons matched it to the rifle found in Dodd's plane. Irony is it's the same gun Bob grabbed to shoot Grizzly from the air. One way or another, we'd have recovered both slugs from the camp, giving us ballistic evidence tying Dodd to the crime."

"For years extremists in the Indian movement have hoped for a martyr killed by a bullet from the Canadian government," Ghost Keeper said. "Now they have Grizzly, and his face can replace Almighty Voice on that brave's jacket. Too bad the media know who shot Grizzly. From the ballistics, they might conclude that Dodd made both shots."

"Thank God you shot Grizzly and saved Rabidowski," said DeClercq. "Had you not saved the Mad Dog, Katt and I would be dead."

"Amen," said Chandler.

"Dodd was cunning," Ghost Keeper said. "The day he and Spann landed on the lake, he overheard me tell her Moses John had denied anyone in camp had shot the headless man frozen in the ice. He knew someone from the rebel camp had seen him stalking Vanderkop in the woods above the falls just before the freeze. From what the witness was doing at the time, he guessed it was the spiritual leader we were off to meet. So after we helped unload his snowmobile and supplies from the plane, instead of heading for Zulu base along the road to the west, Dodd angled northwest to the woods near the Sundance circle just beyond and outside the rebel camp. It was snowing, but the wind opened sightlines. When he saw Moses John talking to Spann, he shot the spiritual leader through the head. The Sundancers and Doomsdayers were at odds in camp, so not only did the bullet shut Moses up, but it made us think Grizzly or one of his ilk pulled the trigger."

"Dodd had horseshoes up his ass. The noise of your snowmobile approaching camp masked his. The curtain of snowflakes hid him. The roar as your snowmobile escaped drowned out his. And soon the snow covered his tracks," said Chandler.

"He may have planned to kill Spann, too," DeClercq said, "but missed the shot when his sightline from the sundance circle closed. Not only would her death avenge his hate for Corporal Spann, but killing her would also erase what John told her."

"Dodd reached Zulu base ahead of us, and was there when I brought in Spann. As we were standing around the body cut from the ice, the Mad Dog said, 'I know lots of bow hunters who'd shoot this arrow, and all of them are
white
.''

Ghost Keeper related the conversation that took on new meaning now:

"That jibes with what John told me just before he was shot,' Spann agreed. 'He said he may have spied the archer hunting above the falls at twilight prior to the freeze. When I asked who, she said, 'the last thing he said was "The white man . . ."

" 'The white man?' I said.

'Not a lot to work with. But maybe someone knows a Caucasian who bow-hunts near here.'

"That's when Dodd said, 'Unless he meant the White Man. In which case you're looking for a native trapper with lines around here.'

"A native called the White Man?' said Spann."

"And Dodd said, 'He's albino, and whiter than you or me.'

" 'Real name?' I asked.

" 'Winterman Snow.'

" 'Met him?'

" 'A few times, when I landed hell and gone in the bush. He's a lone wolf who survives off the land. Comes out occasionally to sell furs.'

"Then Spann said, winking at Dodd, "The good old' days might not be over yet. We may get to bush-hunt our own Mad Trapper.' Evidently, in the plane, while flying north, they'd discussed the 1930s' manhunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River."

On-screen, the camera cut to a Gitxsan elder withi a wrinkled face.

"Our children have been taunted and bullied,"
said the chief
. "Members of our community have been beaten up. Others have received serious personal'm threats. Now we are left to pick up the pieces. We must work to heal the rifts among both Indian people and whites caused by the standoff."

The camera cut back to the BCTV reporter.

"Events at Totem Lake have exposed deep divisions within First Nations over leadership, spiritualism, anam militancy as the means to the end. Future battle lines seem to be drawn between
traditionalists and the tribal
councils elected under the Indian Act."

"You're right, Bob," agreed DeClercq. "Cunning is the word. Dodd wasn't original. He was sly. Dodd picked up and used whatever was at hand. He heard! the story of an Alaskan businessman who forced women to satisfy him sexually and, if they didn't,! hunted them naked through the woods. Using that M.O. to avenge childhood abuse at the reverend's school, he kidnapped or waylaid stand-in white menT to bugger and bow-hunt in the northern woods. When Moses John witnessed 'the white man' on the hunt, that white man slyly turned our attention to the albino boy he'd known at school, and aged him into 'the White Man,' Winterman Snow. Then Dodd adapted the legend of the hunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River to launch a modern manhunt for another Mad Trapper who was actually
him
."

From the St. Sebastian file of the RCMP task force investigating abuse allegations at residential schools. DeClercq withdrew a witness statement and a photograph. The photo was the one George had studied on the wall of the task force office before he flew north. Snapped in 1955, it was the class photo for that year. The sullen Indian kids dressed in uniform were flanked by Reverend Noel and the white families who ran the school. A boy with Indian features and skin as snow white as his hair stood at the end of one row of native kids, next to a white boy of the same age. Standing guard in the photo was a Mountie in Red Serge.