Kolymsky Heights

10

The name on his birth certificate was Jean-Baptiste Porteur but from the age of thirteen he had become plain Johnny Porter.

He was a Gitksan Indian, one of the small bands affiliated to the larger tribe of Tsimsheans who inhabited the Skeena river area of British Columbia.

The language of the Gitksans was K’san and only a smattering of it was understood outside the tribe. Few of the tribes were mutually intelligible. But almost as soon as he was talking the young Jean-Baptiste could also talk Nisqa, the language of the Nass Indians. Not long afterwards he had some Tsimshean, too. This was a language so unique that linguists had been unable to relate it to any other on earth. The other tribes found it incomprehensible. By eleven he was fluent in Tsimshean.

It was this ear for language that took him, at thirteen, to the mission school — that and a disagreement with his uncle.

Like all Gitksan males (and males of the affiliated tribes) he had to leave home at puberty and live with an uncle or some other male relative of his mother’s. The society was exogamous — sexual relationships were prohibited between members of a clan. The tabu was incest-based and prevented an individual from sleeping with his mother or his sisters. For the society was also matrilineal: descent came through the mother.

This meant that the children of a marriage became members not of the father’s clan (which necessarily had to be different) but the mother’s. The mother and her children were all members of the same clan. They could marry into other tribes but not into their own clan within the tribes. This was of the first importance and in matters of personal status clan came before tribe.

There were four clans: Eagle, Wolf, Raven and Fireweed. Porter’s mother was Raven, so he was Raven. At thirteen he went to stay with a Raven uncle. The uncle threw him out.

The disagreement arose over the boy’s rebelliousness and his duplicity. (All Ravens are duplicitous. Raven is Trickster. He is very resourceful. He stole the sun and brought light to the world. He does good, but only by accident. He is very cautious. He takes nothing on trust. He is not to be trusted.)

Porter’s uncle didn’t trust him. Apart from not doing what he was told, the boy lied about what he did do.

Because of his facility with languages the uncle took him along whenever he had dealings with the Tsimshean or the Nass. He told him to keep quiet but to let him know privately what they said among themselves. The boy disliked this job and told him so, but was made to do it anyway. After being worsted in several deals the uncle knew that he had been lied to, and he beat the boy. This didn’t make any difference and he went on lying.

The situation was difficult. He could not go on beating the boy, for he was growing too fast. (His father was a Fireweed and Fireweeds grow fast. Fireweeds grow from forest fires; they are phoenix; their ancestress married a Sky Being, and they have a natural inclination towards the sky.) On the other hand he couldn’t keep a defiant boy in his house. Also he couldn’t send him home. And it would dent his authority to ditch him on another relative.

He ditched him on Brother Eustace.

Brother Eustace was at that time the head of a mission school at Prince Rupert. He acquired boys mainly from the major tribes and would not often take a Gitksan. Discipline at the school was strict and the boys were strapped if found speaking a tribal language. The aim was to detach them from tribalism; and it was hoped to achieve it more thoroughly when the school moved that year (for reasons of a financial trust) to Vancouver.

For the uncle the idea of having his nephew as far away as Vancouver was like a light in the darkness. But there were difficulties. Because of the removal no new entries were being accepted to the school. As a Raven he laid his plans with care. He went to see Brother Eustace. He asked him for religious tracts he could give to some weak people he had observed sliding into wickedness.

Brother Eustace was touched by his concern and gave him the tracts. The uncle thanked him, at the same time expressing the thanks of all progressive Indians for the mission’s work in educating their young and removing them from temptation — in particular the removal to Vancouver, and all the extra work it would entail.

Brother Eustace sighed, and said it was a cross that had to be borne.

The uncle sighed too, and he said the hardest job would be to stop the lads talking their native language. They would do it even more, far from home and feeling nervous. And Vancouver would be particularly dangerous.

Why would it be? Brother Eustace asked him. Why would Vancouver be dangerous?

Not Vancouver itself, the uncle said. Vancouver as a large sinful city. And not the language itself, but the foolish myths embodied in the language; which as a matter of fact did not sound foolish in the language. He explained this. He said that in K’san the Bible stories sounded even stranger than tribal stories. It was only in English and as a committed churchgoer himself that he had been able to distinguish the truth of Bible stories from the foolishness of tribal ones. For instance, in English Jesus sounded wonderful, but in K’san he sounded crazy. The boys had to be discouraged from even thinking in native languages.

Brother Eustace frowned and said the boys already were punished if caught speaking these languages.

And a good thing too, the uncle said. But first you had to catch them. And to know what they were saying — not easy in a Vancouver dormitory. For a Nass would not tell on a Nass, nor a Tsimshean on a Tsimshean, and others could not understand their languages. He knew these devious people, and in dealing with them himself he had lately taken the precaution … In fact it would be a very good idea if — But no. No, it wouldn’t. It would be a bad idea, and too great a sacrifice for him.

Brother Eustace looked at him closely.

What sacrifice? he said.

Falteringly, the uncle explained. He happened to have a nephew who understood both Tsimshean and Nisqa as easily as K’san. The boy was naturally gifted in that way, and a wonderful help to him. He accurately reported what these tricky people said among themselves, and had saved him much time and money. Just at that moment it had struck him that the clever boy would be as great a boon to the mission as to himself. But no. He couldn’t give him up. All the same … He didn’t want to stand between the mission and such a useful aid. Or between the boy and a proper education. But still –

But still, Brother Eustace said, he would see this boy.

A week later Jean-Baptiste Porteur joined the mission school (and lost his fancy name for the no-nonsense Johnny Porter) and ten weeks afterwards accompanied it to Vancouver. Six months later, despite high promise as a pupil, he left, by way of a window, sick of being strapped for not telling on his schoolmates.

He found himself in a quandary. He couldn’t go back to his uncle, and he couldn’t go home. He went to the harbour and hung about there, washing up in diners and bars, before coming to the conclusion that the only thing for him was to get on a ship. Shortly afterwards, he found one that would take him and signed on. For the following three years, he sailed the world. There was regular traffic between Vancouver and Yokohama, and between Yokohama and everywhere else, so that for lengthy periods he did not see Vancouver again. But he was back in the port and walking in the street one day when a hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to find Brother Eustace.

‘Porter? It is Porter — surely!’

The last time he had seen the hand, a strap had been in it. Now it was being held out to him to shake.

‘Hi, Brother,’ he said, and shook it. He now towered over Brother Eustace.

‘I am delighted to see you, Porter! I can’t tell you how delighted I am! Whatever happened to you, my boy?’

Soon afterwards, over a meal, he was telling Brother Eustace what had happened to him. And Brother Eustace in turn was telling him the reason for his special delight. It was providential, he said. It was an act of God. Porter had been the most promising boy in the school, and here, today this very morning, he had been asked by the government to forward the names of promising Indian boys for special treatment, for an assured life of leadership and prominence, for higher education. He had been racking his brains, and here — Porter!

School, Porter thought, no.

I can’t go back to school, he told Brother Eustace.

My dear boy, it isn’t school! Not school! his old teacher said excitedly. You will need preparation, surely. Which I will be more than happy to undertake. The exam isn’t the normal one but an assessment of intelligence, ability. You’ll sail through it.

Well, Porter thought, he had sailed enough sea. He was now sick of the sea. Maybe this was worth a turn.

But he gave no answer then.

First he made a trip back to the Skeena river, which he had not seen for three years. The first thing he did there was to find his uncle and beat him up. He beat him thoroughly and methodically, without rancour — as any Raven would, simply repaying old injuries.

Then he visited his parents and told them his intentions, at which his mother, a well-known seer, went at once into a trance, exclaiming, ‘O Raven, Raven! You bring light to the world but will die in the dark. It will end in tears.’

‘Okay,’ Porter said.

He had often heard his mother pronouncing in this way, and common sense told him that people mainly did die in the dark and all things ended in tears.

Just two months later, on a date that happened to coincide with his seventeenth birthday, he enrolled in the University of Victoria.

At Victoria the preferred course for the new intake of Indians was forestry studies. Forestry was a major industry of British Columbia, and one well suited to future native management. At the muscle end of the business, large numbers of Indians were engaged in it already.

Porter became engaged in it. The first required subject was botany, which he liked well enough. But after a few weeks he discovered biology, and decided to specialise in it. Switching studies so early was discouraged, but care was being taken not to disaffect the Indian students and his application was reluctantly approved. This was when his career took off. He learned with exceptional rapidity. He learned in all directions.

It took him no time to find out that although the meeting with Brother Eustace might have been an act of God, the reason for the delight was probably an Act of the US government.

The US government, in a settlement of claims with the Indians of Alaska, was planning a cash payment of half a billion dollars, plus a further half billion in royalties, plus 15 per cent of the territory of Alaska. This bounty was to be administered through Indian corporations.

The Canadian government, with similar problems ahead, was thinking on different lines. Rather than separate the Indians, and pay them, it was better to integrate them. Full partnership in the common weal was surely of higher value than dollars, or royalties, or title deeds to portions of Canada. To do the job successfully it was necessary to select the brainiest and immerse them in the value.

Porter appreciated the value, and knew why he was getting it, but for the time being he kept his head down in biology. Before he was twenty he took a first-class degree in it, and as the outstanding student of his year was urged to go at once for his doctorate.

Instead he dropped the subject and immediately began studying another, 2000 miles away, at McGill.

Although he was wayward, this was not a wayward action. There were good reasons for his choice. McGill was in Quebec, at the other side of the continent, but it had old connections with Victoria, which had indeed started life as a far-western affiliate of the older university.

But the main reason was Quebec itself, and Montreal. Ethnic issues were high on the agenda there — French separatism the principal one but with Indian questions also to the fore. These were the questions he planned to study.

In his last year at Victoria he had started numbering Canadian−Indian claims against the government. There were 550 of them, few properly documented, all poorly prepared. In the absence of a written language, oral traditions had to be relied on, and the Department of Indian Affairs did not rely on them.

Porter addressed himself to this. He broke the problem into two. In the first part he aimed to demonstrate the reliability of tribal records, and in the second to get the ones relating to claims admitted as evidence.

He began reading anthropology. He not only read it but famously added to it. (His Amended Syllabary of Tsimshean, unique as an undergraduate publication, won him a gold medal.)

‘Syllabaries’, in the absence of any developed writing among the Indians, had been recorded for several of the languages. These sound-dusters had been taken down by anthropologists, none of them Indian. Porter was the first Indian at the work, and he soon found that many of his predecessors had had a tin ear. The languages were exceedingly complex, and a misheard click or vowel frequently altered, or even reversed, the meaning of whole passages.

He followed up with other publications, and learned more languages — all for his main work: a comparative study of tribal legends, designed to show their line-by-line similarities. For as it happened there were many similarities.

As a child it had not struck him as strange that the stories of the Gitksan, the Nass and the Tsimshean should be so similar. They were grown-up stories that everyone knew; why shouldn’t they be similar? But now it seemed strange. These tribes were almost unintelligible to each other. Yet their stories, which took hours or even days to recite, were identical almost to the smallest detail. Without writing, by word of mouth, they had been faultlessly transmitted from generation to generation over vast periods of time.

All this was useful evidence for the first part of his task, and he published it to acclaim. And before he was twenty-three had taken a First in anthropology also.

His energy at the time was prodigious, and his waywardness a byword. His supervisors found him impossible to control. In this period he became strongly politicised, and he also contracted a marriage — a sadly unfortunate one. And his movements were erratic. Before publication of his Comparisons he suddenly took off to Russia for seven months — this the result of a letter from an institute there commending his earlier work and enclosing syllabaries of some native Siberian languages. The translations struck him as unreliable and he set out to learn the languages himself.

He returned to take his First, however, and, as not only a prize student but now Canada’s prize Indian, was offered a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. He accepted at once, again for reasons of his own. (His young wife was now, tragically, dead, and he was on his own again.) More than ever he was immersed in his work — and a difficulty had surfaced in it.

Proving that tribal story-tellers had good memories was not enough. What they remembered were stories. In official eyes the ‘claims’ were also stories. The repetition of them, in however much detail, did not make them true. What was needed was other evidence, written evidence. A single piece of it that could match, detail for detail, the oral version of the Indians would not only authenticate that version but help to validate all the others he had researched. At the least, it could take matters out of the Department of Indian Affairs and into the courtroom.

The evidence he particularly wanted related to treaties made between the Indians and the British in the years 1876, 1877 and 1889. In the pow-wows preceding them, various agreements had been arrived at.

‘These agreements’, as a framed inscription in his room reminded him, ‘remain in the memories of our people, but the government is wilfully ignorant of them.’ The inscription was a copy of a mournful resolution by a convention of chiefs. ‘Yet the obligations were historic and legal ones: solemn agreements. Indian lands were exchanged for the promises of the commissioners representing Queen Victoria.’

Unfortunately the commissioners’ promises did not appear in the published treaties although the details relating to land had been quite exact. When the British later gave up direct rule in Canada no promises turned up in the papers left behind. But they would be in some papers, Porter reasoned. Even to experienced colonial negotiators the circumstances of a powwow were exotic enough to merit record — in notes, reminiscences, letters perhaps, which could still be mouldering away somewhere in England. The question was, where? Oxford was a likely place to start finding out.

He had been in the town three months when the letter arrived from Canada. His old professor of biology there wrote to say that he was coming to Oxford for a conference on 29 June, and looked forward to seeing Porter. Which on 30 June he did.

The event was a reception for the visiting scientists, and his professor had taken him along as a guest. ‘After all,’ as he told him, ‘you were one of us yourself, before you fell into error.’ And he had introduced him to other biologists.

Porter, at the time, was an aloof disdainful figure of twenty-three. His head seemed over-large, and his hair over-long. He wore it cut in a fringe over his eyes with the rest hanging straight and black like a helmet all around. At any gathering he would have been distinctive, and even at this international one he stood out. Yet it was not one of the welcoming hosts but one of the receptive guests who identified him first.

‘A Canadian Indian?’ said the twinkling Russian.

‘Right.’

‘And from the north-west, I think. The Nass river?’

‘Skeena river.’

‘Ah. Tsimshean.’

‘Gitksan.’

‘Gitksan — I don’t know of. But all you north-westerners were late arrivals in that continent. You still look like our Siberians. You know of them, perhaps?’

Unsmiling, Porter replied with a burst of Evenk, at which, the Russian held up his hands. ‘Bravo! But it’s the people I know, my friend, not the language. You are ahead of me.’

Porter was ahead of him in English, too. Although the Russian’s vocabulary was good, he was once or twice at a loss for a word; and Porter supplied the word. He could even supply it in Russian, and this was the language they were speaking — his professor having left them to get on with it — when a third man, an Englishman, was hauled in to join them.

The name of the Englishman was Lazenby and the most prominent thing about him was his own extraordinary head. The vast and gleaming cranium, knobbly and extending in various directions, was devoid of a single hair. It contrasted weirdly with Porter’s own powerful array and was the reason the ebullient Russian had called Lazenby over. But they were soon discussing a variety of topics — the Russian’s animation very infectious. Asiatic migrations, pigmentation, natural defects, blindness … In some way they were on to Siberia, and discussing it in a mixture of English and Russian by the time that Rogachev (Porter had at last got the Russian’s name) had located the whisky. Food had been amply available on the buffet tables but not much to drink. And Rogachev had found the drink.

This was one of the things that Porter remembered next day: that the Russian had found the drink, and could hold it. While the Englishman, reluctantly matching them glass for glass, could not; he was unsteady on his feet when they left, Rogachev jovially proposing that they stagger home together.

In fact the Russian was being accommodated in college and Porter’s own college was in another direction. All the same they had walked Lazenby home, and on the way Rogachev had arranged another meeting with the young Indian; whom by then he was calling Raven, having learned his clan and deciding the name was apter for him. In the same spirit he had allotted other names to himself and to Lazenby. But it was Lazenby who had suddenly discovered an urgent need to urinate. And Rogachev who had discovered the wall. And there the three of them had stood, companionably watering it, one set of chances having brought them there and another set, later on, to recall the scene.

11

Lazenby flew to Canada on a Tuesday, but it was not a Tuesday in April but in July; and not to Montreal but to Vancouver, several numbing hours farther. And so many changes of plan had occurred in between that he was half out of his mind before he started.

The fellow Raven seemed to be wholly out of his mind.

He had university jobs two thousand miles apart. He seemed to attend to them when he felt like it. He cut lectures, left classes, disappeared into woods. Lazenby would have kicked him out years ago; except Raven (Dr Porter, as they were calling him now) did not seem to be a person you kicked out so easily.

At Vancouver Lazenby was met by Hendricks, and a young colleague called Walters who had been making arrangements for him. These Lazenby heard about over dinner at the hotel.

Porter, it seemed, was at a place called Kispiox. It was up north, near Prince Rupert on the Skeena river. This was his home ground — Tsimshean Indian country — and he was in the forest there. His movements were not known from day to day but he was calling in regularly at the Kispiox post office.

‘He’s doing that twice a week, sir,’ Walters said. He was an abnormally clean young man with blue eyes and a blond moustache. ‘And he’s very prompt. He picks up his mail bang on mid-day, and answers it there, too. They all call him Johnny, he’s a favourite son. I was up there yesterday, and I phoned through this afternoon. He hasn’t been in this week but tomorrow’s Wednesday and that’s one of his days. So I’ve fixed this, if you agree.’

He had fixed a small jet to fly them to a place called Hazelton, not far from Kispiox, which would enable them to get there before noon. In case Porter did not look in tomorrow, he had also checked out hotel rooms where they could wait for him the following day.

Every bone in his body aching, Lazenby considered these arrangements somewhat sourly.

‘What time would that mean getting up?’ he said.

‘Not too early.’ Walters smiled. ‘It’s only about five hundred miles, so if we’re in the air by ten we’ll make it. I have transport laid on at Hazelton. From the airport there it’s just a drive through the woods to Kispiox.’

‘You’re coming, of course,’ Lazenby said to Hendricks.

‘No, George, I’m not.’ The relationship had flourished a little between them. ‘The fewer people the better. I only came to introduce this young fellow, your escorting officer. He’s done all the work anyway. He’s been around Porter for weeks.’

‘Have you spoken to him?’ Lazenby asked the young man.

‘No, sir, I haven’t. My orders were to make no contact.’

‘You make the contact, George,’ Hendricks told him. ‘He’s a very suspicious man, with a big phobia about us — probably warranted. This ethnic thing of his is quite wide-ranging, and we’ve been observing him a long time. He’s stirred up a lot of minority-group activity — in the States, too. But he’s on vacation now, and relaxed. The best thing is just to come on him and talk straight. Tell him what you know, and hope he’ll listen.’

Lazenby closed his eyes.

The idea of ‘making a contact’ with a very suspicious Indian 500 miles into the Canadian wilderness was not more surreal than the other things that had happened to him today. But he didn’t yet feel he had touched earth. A part of him seemed still to be floating between the Atlantic and the Rockies.

‘Yes. Yes, very well,’ he said.

So next day, the air again, in a small jet, buzzing north.

Mountains, lakes, forests drifted mistily below, veiled in rain. It was still raining at Hazelton, a dismal small airport with not much activity going on in it. The transport was waiting, however, a Toyota pickup, and they hurried into it.

They drove for some time on a hardtop road and then were off it and bumping and lurching along an old lumber track. Dense stands of spruce and hemlock dripped on all sides, and square stacks of trimmed logs, soaking gloomily in the dim light.

Kispiox itself, when they splashed into it, was not much cheerier. It lay in a large clearing, an Indian village with totem poles and frame houses and a white-painted frame church. Full washing lines were strung everywhere, clothes hanging like distress signals in the steady downpour. Apart from a few battered pickups there were no other signs of life.

The post office seemed to be a general store. It was empty apart from an old man smoking his pipe in a rocking chair.

‘Hi,’ he said, peering. ‘You the guy was over from Rupert — Mr Jackson, ain’t it?’

‘Right,’ Walters said amiably. ‘How you doing? I called up yesterday afternoon. You said Johnny would be in today.’

‘Oh well, shit!’ the old man said. He took his pipe out. ‘I clean forgot that. I should have told him you was in. I wrote down a note about it. Went right out of my head!’

‘He’s been in?’ Walters said.

‘Telephoned. About couple hours ago. He’s over at the Takla. Been there a few days, apparently. Hell, I’m sorry about that. Had him right there on the phone,’ the old man said. ‘You come over from Rupert special, then?’

‘Hazelton. Did he say how long he’d be at the Takla?’

‘Well, he wants his mail sent over. That takes two days. Has to go to Takla Landing, see.’

‘Where is Takla Landing?’ Lazenby asked.

Walters was worrying his small moustache. ‘About fifty miles,’ he said. ‘Maybe sixty.’

‘Seventy more like,’ the old man said. He was looking at Lazenby. ‘You English, mister?’

‘Yes,’ Lazenby said.

‘Thought that. Glad to know you.’ He was extending a hand and Lazenby shook it, observing for the first time that the man was an Indian. The big-boned face had quite a merry look, merrier than the recalled sombreness of Porter’s. He suddenly realised he remembered Porter’s face quite well. ‘It’s a shame you come special,’ the old Indian said. ‘Still, if you’re only over at Hazelton … Maybe I can call him for you, leave a message? Since I forgot it before.’

‘No, don’t worry about it,’ Walters told him. ‘He’s staying at Takla Landing, is he?’

‘No, he ain’t staying there. The mail goes there. Then by floatplane over to Bear. That’s where he is. Least, he said to readdress everything to Noreen’s.’

‘What’s Noreen’s?’

‘North end of Bear. That’s Brown Bear — the lake. Floatplane is the only way in. It ain’t no trouble for me to call there. Only government money,’ the old man said merrily.

‘Is it a logging camp?’ Walters asked, puzzled.

‘No, Noreen’s ain’t a camp,’ the Indian said, amused. ‘She has that lodge down by the lake. Puts up a beer, chow, a few bunks — it’s like for guys come up fishing. It wouldn’t be no trouble at all,’ he told Lazenby, ‘for me to call and say you looked in. Mister what was it?’

‘This is Mr Brown,’ Walters said, ‘and it isn’t even worth mentioning. He wanted a look at Kispiox anyway.’

‘Nothing to look at, all this rain. Been raining for days,’ the Indian said. ‘It ain’t raining at Bear. Johnny found that out. Think he’s doing a bit of hunting, fishing there. Anything else I can do for you, then?’

‘Sure, I’ll take that note you wrote — could mix you up.’ Walters said.

The Indian found the note, behind the till, and they went back out in the rain, to the Takla.

The Takla was a chain of connected lakes and rivers stretching for 150 miles, and the Landing was somewhere over halfway up it. They left the pilot to wait with the jet there, and hired a floatplane.

Bear Lake was another half hour.

It was still not two o’clock when they touched down on it, the water very sombre. On all sides the trees stood like a wall around the lake. They taxied up an inlet to the jetty, and when the engine stopped the silence was massive. It was very grey and still here but, as the old Indian had said, not raining.

‘When you want picked up?’ the pilot asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Walters said. He mused. ‘You busy this time of year?’

‘Well, fish are rising. Char and Dolly Varden, big ones, all the way up. People are coming in. I could wait a while for you if you want, see if Noreen can take you. That smoke stack is hers, through the trees. But there’s other places.’

‘Okay, thanks. I’ll leave the bags,’ Walters said, and helped Lazenby out.

The air was very heavy as they tramped through the trees, and there were swarms of midges about. But they did not have to tramp far. Noreen’s was a rambling wooden structure with a broad porch and mosquito frames over the doors and windows. The hall inside was dark and empty, and Walters rang the bell on the desk.

Noreen came rubbing her hair with a towel, a round comfortable figure in dungarees, and she said she could take them, ‘long as you boys don’t mind bunking up together’.

Walters went out for the luggage while Lazenby, with some misgiving, was led to the room he was to bunk up in. He saw with relief that the bunks were at least on opposite sides of the room, which was spacious and cedar-clad. ‘Plenty of cupboards,’ Noreen said. ‘This one here is for tackle, but no smelly stuff. That goes in the fish room. You over from England, then?’

Lazenby said he was and asked if a Dr Porter was staying there.

‘Johnny Porter?’ Noreen said. She looked at him curiously. ‘No, he doesn’t stay here. You looking for him?’

With a sinking feeling Lazenby realised that Porter didn’t seem to stay anywhere. The elusive shadow was always somewhere else. He felt exhaustion sweeping over him again. Already today he had taken off and landed three times, and plenty of afternoon still remained to pursue the phantom elsewhere about the lake. Except that, as a roar outside announced, the plane had just taken off.

He was explaining the matter of the mail when Walters returned with the luggage, and Noreen’s face had cleared.

‘Well, if he arranged that,’ she said, ‘I guess he’ll be in. He does that — has mail sent on here. I don’t mind. He’s okay, Johnny. When you know him. You know him well, Mr —’

‘Lazenby,’ Lazenby said firmly. ‘Professor Lazenby.’ He had seen Walters’s mouth open, and had not come to terms with Mr Brown.

‘Nice to have you with us,’ Noreen said. But her eyes were on the luggage. ‘You boys not planning on any fishing, this trip?’

‘Not this one,’ Walters said. ‘The professor here just wants to see Johnny — college business.’

‘Well, he won’t be in till dark, if it’s just for mail. And not till tomorrow, any case. Don’t come till then. Can I fix you boys something to eat?’

They had a moody lunch, and after it Lazenby took a nap; and woke up rather more cheerful. Noreen had indicated that if he was a fishing man he could take a rod and a boat tomorrow. This seemed such a reasonable way of filling in the time until Porter showed up that he took himself briskly off to inspect the lake.

A few boats were coming in before dark, and he was encouraged still further by the splendid specimens they brought with them. Enormous great things; species of trout; presumably the char and Dolly Varden. And rainbows, glorious jobs, he’d never seen such a size. No salmon of course in this landlocked water, but things were definitely looking up.

And looking up to such an extent that as he sat with a sherry in a nook off the bar — Walters having discreetly taken himself off to play pool — he saw that the remarkable locality did indeed have salmon. Strange salmon, kokanee, lake-dwellers. A type of sockeye, no doubt. Yes, so they were: sockeye. His eyes fairly goggled through the fishing magazines. Rainbows over ten pounds. Char to thirty. God alone knew what the kokanee went to. Spin, troll or fly … The flies also of great interest. Variations of patterns he had used himself to good effect on the Spey. But also others that might get an even bigger effect. He mused over Mickey Finn, and the Goofus Bug — ‘good floater, deadly on fast water’. The Spey was the fastest water. He took note of the supplier of Goofus and was screwing up his eyes over the illustration when a voice spoke in his ear.

‘You were asking for me?’

He spilt his sherry.

A face like one of those on the totem poles was staring into his.

The cheekbones were high and flat, the eyes unsmiling. The long figure was bent over him, a pair of hunting boots on one end and drawn-back glossy hair on the other. The large face had a moustache on it now.

‘Raven?’ Lazenby said faintly.

‘Hi, Goldilocks,’ Raven said, answering another old question.

12

He was taller than Lazenby remembered, and quieter than he remembered. He was very quiet indeed: a grave, composed figure, exceedingly reserved. They had dinner together, and Lazenby took stock of him across the table.

The staring young bull of the seventies had gone. His fringe had gone and the heavy helmet of hair. It was drawn sleekly back now, lengthening the face and chastening it; an austere pigtail hung down the back. Only the moustache seemed to add a normalising touch.

Lazenby set the ball rolling by asking if he had met Rogachev again, and he said he had. He had met him again and talked with him again, two nights running — had talked both nights away, all on that same visit, those years ago; but afterwards had had no contact with him. Yet he showed no surprise at Lazenby’s story, and made no comment when it was over.

Lazenby chewed at his own meal for some moments.

‘Anything you’d like to ask me?’ he said.

The Indian consulted a neat forkful of food.

‘Well, he said I looked like his Siberians. I guess that’s why he wants me, is it?’

‘That and your other qualifications. But that, yes. I should think certainly.’

‘How does he suppose I could get there?’

‘This man Walters knows about that. That’s Walters of the CIA.’

‘Uhuh. These — messages. You have them with you?’

‘No. I don’t. This man Walters has copies of them, I believe. Will you meet him?’

The Indian examined his forkful again, and ate it.

‘Yes. I’ll meet him,’ he said.

They found Walters having his dinner on a tray in the bedroom. He scrambled to his feet to be introduced; and he said he was honoured to be introduced.

The Indian merely shook his hand, and said nothing.

‘Well now,’ Walters said, as they were seated, ‘I guess we know why we are here. How do we feel about it?’

The Indian produced a small tobacco sack and rolled himself a cigarette.

‘Are you the one in charge of the arrangements?’ he asked politely.

‘No, sir, I am not. I am here as an escorting officer, and I would continue in that role for you. But I can answer any general questions you have.’

Porter lit the cigarette.

‘You have some messages for me,’ he said.

Walters reached in a breast pocket and produced an envelope. There was a wax seal on it. The Indian didn’t bother with the seal. He inserted a thumbnail under the flap and tore the top off. Two sheets marked A and B were inside. He read one and then the other, and smoke began slowly to issue from his mouth. Then he read them again, and carefully pocketed the sheets. His face had shown no change.

‘You know where I am supposed to go?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir, I do.’

‘And how I get there?’

‘Yes, sir. I know that too.’

‘Tell me,’ Porter said.

Walters looked at Lazenby. ‘I don’t know if you are authorised to hear this, sir,’ he said.

‘Not at all. I am sure not,’ Lazenby said hurriedly, and rapidly left them; and in the room behind him Porter smoked as the plan was laid out for him.

When it was over he carried on smoking.

‘Is there anything more I can tell you, sir?’ Walters asked presently.

‘I didn’t hear how I was to be dropped there,’ Porter said.

‘That part isn’t fixed yet.’

‘Or how I get back.’

‘That isn’t fixed, either. Obviously it won’t be the way you go in. But a number of options will be arranged for you, and you would have back-up.’

‘What back-up?’

‘Operatives on the ground. You don’t need to worry about that. I stay with you through training, and anything that isn’t clear, I get it clear. That’s right up to when you go.’

Porter stubbed his cigarette out.

‘This job I’m supposed to be expert at out there,’ he said. ‘You know I’ve never done it before.’

‘Yes sir, I know that. At camp you’ll be doing it in your sleep.’

‘I would need to know the area. If nobody has been there, how do I get to know it?’

‘All I can say is that if you don’t, you won’t go. That applies to any stage of this operation. If you don’t feel you can do it, you cut out — right up to the drop-off. Because at that point you’ll be on your own.’

‘What about that back-up?’

‘Just then there isn’t any … but I can assure you there’s no way you’ll go in unless you’ll feel one hundred per cent at home in the place.’

‘With my own apartment.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I just turn the key and walk in?’

‘That’s what you do.’

‘In this sealed area where nobody’s been?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What do the neighbours say?’

‘You’ll learn about the neighbours. We’re working on it.’

Porter thought about this.

‘What information is there on the place?’

‘It’s being collected. Is there something special you’d want to know?’

‘Sure, the slang, the dialect. What they talk about there. Knowing the languages isn’t everything.’

‘Okay.’ Walters produced a small book and made a note. ‘I’ll try and get you it,’ he said.

‘From this sealed area you can get it?’

‘I’ll try.’

Porter took out his tobacco sack again.

‘Who are the operatives on the ground?’ he said.

Walters smiled. ‘Even if I knew that, sir,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t tell you. You know what you have to know. That protects the operation, and it also protects you.’

Porter slowly rolled a cigarette.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe that without me you have any operation.’

‘Yes, sir, that’s right.’

Porter lit the cigarette. ‘Why the end of August?’ he said.

‘That’s the date for getting you in position on time. The schedule is very exact. After that there’s no point in getting you out there at all.’

‘Why do you want to get me out there?’

Walters smiled again. ‘I don’t know the object of this mission, sir. I was not authorised to see the papers you have. I do know we’re the only ones that can get you there. But my orders are not to press you in any way. If you want to go, you go. But if so, I’ve got to know fast. Could you be available right away?’

‘No. I’ve got to run down to Prince George,’ Porter said. ‘I’ll be there until — maybe ten days from now.’

‘That’s too long,’ Walters said.

‘That’s too bad.’

‘Can’t you drop it? We really don’t have that margin.’

‘I can’t drop it … Maybe I could cut it a little.’ The Indian thought a while. ‘This stuff you’re going to get me — when would you have it?’

‘In a few days, perhaps. Where are you staying there?’

‘The general post office,’ Porter said.

Walters made no comment on this but merely noted it in his book. ‘Well, do I tell them to start?’ he said.

The Indian paused.

‘I’ll see this stuff first,’ he said. ‘Tell me again — it’s guaranteed I can pull out any time?’

‘That’s guaranteed.’

‘With no arm-twisting, no funny stories planted about me in funny places?’

Walters put his book away. ‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘I know you have problems over contacts with us. It’s certainly not in our interest to reveal them.’

‘Not at this time,’ Porter said.

‘Not any time. We have other critical relationships. It would be counter-productive even to try.’

‘So long as we both know that.’

‘I think we do. Well, thanks for this meeting, anyway. We got over that one,’ Walters said smiling.

‘Sure,’ Porter said, and for the first time smiled back.

‘Well, now,’ Lazenby said. ‘What do you think?’

They had the room to themselves, and the Indian was carefully rolling himself another cigarette.

‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m being fixed.’

‘Fixed? In what way fixed?’

‘I don’t know the way, just the smell.’ He neatly licked the cigarette. ‘I expect you know I’m a big pain in the ass out here. This government we have, they’d like me far away and in deep shit. But could they set up something like this, with their brains and resources? I doubt it. The CIA, now — that’s a different story. So what is with them, I wonder?’

‘Well, I don’t think,’ Lazenby said, ‘that there is anything with them. I gave you a very fair summary, I believe, of events as I saw them for myself.’

‘You didn’t see any events yourself.’ Porter lit the cigarette. ‘You saw what they showed you. All this rigmarole with satellites, lead pencils, ballpoints. You analysed any of it personally?’

‘Obviously I didn’t.’

‘That’s right. They did. Don’t trust the bastards — governments, government agencies. They rig things, they fake things.’

‘You’re not suggesting somebody faked all this?’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t receive these bizarre papers from Rogachev?’

‘You received bizarre papers from somebody.’

‘Then if not Rogachev that somebody was certainly a most gifted clairvoyant. There were things there that couldn’t possibly have been known — things I barely remembered myself.’

‘Pissing up against the wall?’

‘That, yes. Who else could have known it?’

‘My room mate at Oxford? The guy I told next morning — the Yankee Rhodes scholar who went into their State Department. He couldn’t have remembered the crazy story and passed it on to the Department of Spooks?’

Lazenby stared at him.

‘You told somebody about it next morning?’

The Indian blew out smoke and shook his head. ‘No. There was no Yank. I merely illustrate a point, Goldilocks. Take nothing on trust. Many tricky dicks walk the trail. You want a drink?’ He had taken a half-pint flask from his jeans jacket.

Lazenby gazed at this most cautiously.

‘A very small one, perhaps. What is it?’

‘Rye.’ He poured for them both into tooth mugs. ‘This is a weird plan they make for me, Goldilocks,’ he said.

‘Don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know.’

‘Okay.’ He took a long drink. Then he took the two papers from his pocket. ‘This the stuff they showed you?’

Lazenby examined the sheets. ‘Yes. The same.’

‘What do they think it means?’

‘Well — what it says. That he obviously believes he has something important and thinks you can get to him.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Do you think otherwise?’

The Indian poured himself another glass.

‘Maybe. These are tricky tricky dicks,’ he said.

Lazenby watched him drink the whisky.

‘Tell me,’ he said mildly, ‘why you suppose anyone should go to such great labours to insert you into trouble in a distant place?’

‘Scenarios?’ Porter nodded. ‘Sure. Maybe they want somebody in that place. But nobody can get to the place. So they look in the computer, and bingo, I can get to it. I’m just the girl. I have the looks, I have the patter. For what? God knows for what. To take something, bring something? You’d never know even while you were doing it.’

Lazenby gazed at the Indian. The sudden loquacity, after his reserve at dinner, did not disguise an essential stillness about the man. There was an austere, watchful quality about him.

‘Well,’ he said, terminating the discussion, ‘I’ve told you what I came to tell you. All I can add is that at one time I also didn’t think much of it. But not any more.’

‘You think a lot now, eh?’

‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’

‘Would you go yourself?’

‘I?’ Lazenby stared at him. ‘I wouldn’t. Good God, no!’

The Indian didn’t say any more. He didn’t even look at him. He just sat and smoked his cigarette. He did this until it was finished and then pocketed the bottle, and nodded, and went.

13

And two days later, job completed, Lazenby himself went — home. He watched most contentedly as portions of British Columbia receded at 600 miles an hour.

What the Indian had decided to do he had no idea. A very complicated fellow, tricky. Suspected everybody of tricks. Up to plenty himself, of course. He’d decide nothing in a hurry.

In Prince George it was raining and the girl came in drenched, with a dripping umbrella and a bag of groceries.

‘Oh God, are you still watching that?’ she said.

Porter’s eyes hadn’t left the screen.

‘Quiet. The man is making a joke.’

‘He was making the joke when I left.’

‘That was another joke.’

‘Who is that little bastard? Why are you watching him?’

‘He’s a jolly little bastard. I like him.’

The little man on the screen was very jolly. He wore high reindeer boots and was smacking them as he laughed. His male companions were also smacking theirs. The women’s boots couldn’t be seen, but they were all elaborately dressed and just as jolly, dark eyes sparkling under their centre partings. They were taking part in a talk show.

‘Is that Eskimo they’re talking or what?’ the girl said.

‘Eskimo is Inuit. The people are also called Inuit. This isn’t Inuit,’ he said. The leggy blonde was an ex-student of his and should have known better. At the present time she should have known much better for she was editing a book, his last, which was about the Inuit. ‘Go and take that bath,’ he said.

‘You said you were going to take it with me.’

‘All right.’ Porter reluctantly switched the tape off. There were about twenty snippets on it, bits of newscasts, talks, chat shows. Snatched by satellite evidently. No information had come with the tape. Just the tape. He’d watched it a few times and would watch it some more.

He reached for his wallet and took out the much-folded messages again, comparing them side by side.

What the hell! Had they really not seen it, the geniuses of the CIA? Or had they manufactured the thing themselves? He still couldn’t tell. There were phrases here meant only for him, to be understood solely by him. Could they possibly have known what had been discussed?

He wasn’t clear what to do. Drop the whole thing and go back to Montreal, east? Or find out more at the training camp the young spook had mentioned, south?

He followed the girl into the bathroom, brooding. Sleep on it, and then decide.

East, south, where?