Mathilde says we’ll need a surgeon to reattach Joseph’s thumb. If it wasn’t so stormy up here, she’d try to arrange for a medevac plane to come out to Short Lake. But in conditions like these, it makes the most sense for Steve to try and get Joseph back to town. There’s a flight scheduled to leave for Kuujjuaq this afternoon. If the sky stays clear in George River and the winds don’t pick up too much—and if Steve can make it to George River in time—they can get Joseph on the plane. Mathilde will call ahead to the Kuujjuaq hospital so they’ll be ready to operate as soon as Joseph arrives.
It sounds like a good plan, but of course it depends on a lot of things going right. I pack Joseph’s thumb in a plastic bag that’s half-full of snow. The bag goes into a cooler that Tom helps me strap down to the back of Matthew’s snowmobile. We also pack water, food, a portable stove, tarps, a pup tent and the satellite phone. If all goes well, the trip should take about two hours by snowmobile, but if anything goes wrong, Steve and Joseph will need emergency supplies.
“We’ll be fine,” Steve keeps saying when we tell him what we’ve packed. But the way he repeats himself makes me think he’s worried too.
Matthew offers to come along, but in the end, he and Steve figure the extra weight on the snowmobile will only slow things down. “Besides,” Steve tells Matthew as the rest of us gather to see Steve and Joseph off, “I’m going to need you to keep an eye on these guys. And I don’t just mean Spiderman here.” Steve leans over to hug Etua. Then he turns to Lenny and me. “You two behave yourselves, okay?”
I nod my head.
“Sure thing, man,” Lenny mutters.
Joseph lifts his good hand to wave good-bye. He’s too weak to speak. I sure hope Steve can get him on that plane to Kuujjuaq and that the plane won’t be grounded. The snow is still coming down hard, and the wind is as strong as it was when I got up.
Steve and Joseph are headed into the wind. Steve lowers his face as he turns the key in the ignition. Then he presses down with his thumb on the throttle and the two of them take off.
When Etua squeezes my hand, I squeeze his back. I’m supposed to be looking after him, but in a weird way, being responsible for him makes me feel a little better too.
At first, Matthew doesn’t say a thing as the snowmobile heads away from the camp. But once the buzzing sound of the motor fades, he turns to face us. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, calm. “We’re going to need to empty those nets and feed the dogs,” he says. “It makes the most sense for us to work together as a group. But let’s clean up first. The sooner we get rid of the smell of blood, the better.”
We hear a thud, followed by an echo that is almost as loud. Somewhere not too far from us, another heavy branch must have fallen to the ground. My shoulders tense up.
Am I the only one thinking about Kajutaijug?
Because Etua is getting tired of hanging out in the tent— even after we’ve washed away all the blood—we decide to let him come out to the lake with the rest of us. “Just as long as someone keeps an eye on him,” Matthew says.
“No problem,” I say.
“Sure thing,” Tom adds.
Geraldine and Lenny raise their eyebrows.
Etua knows more about net fishing than I do. A bit of net is still caught under the ice, and when we lift it out, we find more fish. When we turn the net over on the ice, some of the fish are still thrashing from side to side as if they’re trying to swim.
Etua uses a short heavy stick to kill them. One swift whack to the head, and the fish stop moving altogether. Etua laughs as he whacks the fish.
If someone had told me two weeks ago, when I was still in Montreal, that today I’d be watching a laughing five-year-old clubbing fish to death, I’d have been disgusted. But now that I’m up here, things look different. We need to eat, the dogs need to eat, and there’s no point making the fish suffer any more than they have to. It’s better to kill them quickly than to let them suffocate on the ice.
That gets me thinking about how the kids at school— even Geraldine—were surprised when we didn’t put Tarksalik down. With all the snow, it’s impossible to see the dogs, but I know from the occasional yelp that they’re still out there, ready to get back to work when it comes time to bring us home.
For the Inuit, dogs aren’t pets the way they are for us in the city. Maybe we’re the weird ones—keeping dogs on leashes, taking them for walks in the park and training them to sit or shake a paw. Until now, I never gave much thought to how we treat animals in the city.
Once all the fish are dead, we pile them onto the back of the qamutik. Most are already half-frozen. “When we get ’em back to the camp, we’ll lay them out in rows so they can freeze through,” Tom says. The wind whips the wool pompom hanging from the woolen string on top of his nassak, so the pompom lands on his forehead, just over his nose. Tom shakes it off his face. “Once we’re back in George River,” he says, “Steve’ll bag the fish and Joseph… er…” Tom catches himself. “Maybe not Joseph. Not for a while, anyhow.”
“D’you think he’ll be able to carve again?” I ask Tom. Dad told me Joseph is one of the best carvers in all Nunavik.
“I hope so,” Tom says. “Joseph sells his stuff to some fancy art gallery in Quebec City. That helps pay for dog food.”
Geraldine and her dad are helping us load fish too. “No sense in worrying about Joseph,” Matthew says. He looks out at the snow and then up at the sky. “What happens now ain’t up to us. Joseph’s in bigger hands.”
Afterward, we all go to the Snowflakes’ spot on the lake and load up their fish. Etua brings his stick, but he doesn’t have much work since most of the Snowflakes’ fish are already dead.
My elbow rubs against Geraldine’s as I reach down for another armful of fish. She is humming a tune I don’t recognize. She could move away, but she doesn’t. I figure it’s a sign that maybe she likes me. At least I hope it is.
“Hey, Noah,” Lenny calls from out on the ice. It’s hard to know how far away he is exactly because of the way the snow is blowing. “Come give me a hand, will ya?” Maybe because it’s the first time he’s called me Noah, I stop what I’m doing and head over. Geraldine is still humming.
I see Lenny’s dark eyes shining even through all the snow. It looks as if he is only about twenty feet away from me now. When I come closer, I can hear him chuckle. “Hey, Noah, have a look over here.” He is pointing at something on the ice. His lip is swollen from where I punched him.
The fact that he uses my name twice in a row should tell me Lenny is up to something. But I don’t figure that out at first.
I move toward him, but a fresh gust of wind blows in and for a few seconds all I see is snow. I can still hear Lenny chuckling, but the sound seems to be getting more distant. The snow is swirling all over. I put my arms out in front of me. I don’t want to bump into Lenny.
When the wind dies down, and I get to where Lenny was, he isn’t there. What’s going on?
“Lenny!” I shout.
At first, he doesn’t answer, but then I hear him. Only now his voice seems to be coming from a different direction altogether. “Over here, Noah,” I hear him call out. “Hurry, will ya?”
I must have lost my sense of direction in that last whiteout. “I’m coming,” I call as I turn around.
Again, I follow Lenny’s voice, but when I get there, he is gone.
“Come on, Lenny!” This must be his idea of a joke.
Though I can’t see him, it’s as if I can feel his presence.
I turn to see whether he could be behind me. What if he jumps me? Worse still, what if he wants to beat the crap out of me? He must want to get back at me for punching him.
“Noah?” This time, Lenny’s voice sounds really close. Is he going to disappear again?
Then, just like that, before I know what is happening, Lenny is beside me, pinning my arms behind my back. It’s like he appeared out of nowhere. My heart is racing. With all the snow, the others won’t know what he’s about to do to me.
I’m so afraid I nearly lose my breath. I gulp for air and try kicking him in the leg, but my boots are too big and Lenny sidesteps away just in time. He’s laughing, but I still don’t trust him.
I feel the heat from Lenny’s lips near my right ear. He won’t let go of my elbows. The weird thing is, he’s not hurting me.
Lenny leans in even closer. I still want to break away from him, but it’s like I don’t have any strength. Even if he isn’t hurting me, I’m afraid he might.
I think of my dream about Roland Ipkins. Now Lenny spins me around so we’re facing each other. I don’t want to look into his eyes, but I’ve got no choice.
Lenny has that smirk on his face, but his eyes don’t look angry. Is this another one of his tricks?
“You afraid of me?” he asks.
There doesn’t seem to be any point in lying. “Uh… yeah,” I tell him.
Lenny loosens his grip on my elbows. “Guess you forgot what my great-uncle Charlie Etok said about fear the other night: it tires you out worse than anything else.”
I shake my elbows loose. “Guess I did.”
“There’s one more thing I want to know. How come you wear such a silly hat anyway?”
“It’s a ski tu—” But before I’m done my sentence, Lenny whips the ski tuque off my head. It flutters in the wind like a flag.
“Give it back!” I cry out.
Lenny just laughs and tosses my tuque into the air. I guess I should be happy he isn’t beating me to a pulp. Still, my ears are burning from the cold. I cover my ears with my hands. “C’mon, Lenny!”
“Would the two of you quit fooling around and get back to work?” It’s Matthew. He’s got my tuque in his hands. He throws it over to me.
Geraldine is coming this way too. Her mouth is open, and at first I think it’s because she’s singing. Then I realize she isn’t singing; she’s shouting. At first, I can’t make out what she’s saying because of the wind. But I can see her lips moving. And then, when she gets a little closer, I hear the words too. They are so high-pitched, you’d think they could travel all the way back to George River.
“Where’s Etua?” she yells.
That’s when the dogs start barking too.
I look over to where Etua was inspecting the fish, checking whether they were really dead. There’s no sign of him.