A Cold White Fear

The Meg Harris Mysteries

Death's Golden Whisper

Red Ice for a Shroud

The River Runs Orange

Arctic Blue Death

A Green Place for Dying

Silver Totem of Shame

To Jim

I
was sitting in the kitchen, agonizing over my Christmas grocery list, when I heard the noise. It wasn't a knock or even a tap. More like a thud from the front of the house. But since a blizzard had been howling all day, I ignored it. I assumed it was a branch the wind had broken free, given the force with which it was lashing snow against the windows.

With only four more days until the big day, I was planning to drive into Somerset tomorrow to ensure I could get everything Eric wanted for our first family Christmas, like the three dozen fresh oysters he wanted to serve as the starter to the moose stew he was preparing for Christmas Eve. But the way the snow was filling up the driveway, I might have to wait another day before my road would be cleared enough for my aging pickup to crawl through.

Though I was looking forward to seeing my sister Jean and her family, and Eric's daughter Teht'aa, whom we hadn't seen since she'd moved north, I couldn't understand why my husband wanted to share our second Christmas as a married couple with so many people. We could have a perfectly wonderful time with just the two of us. Mind you, given the way he'd slammed the door on me when he left for Regina on Saturday, maybe we wouldn't be celebrating Christmas at all.

The thud sounded again. This time with more force. Since the likelihood of a branch falling on the same place twice was nil, I made my way down the hall to the front door, wondering what kind of an idiot would be out in such terrible weather.

It couldn't be Pierre delivering one of his fabulous farm-fresh turkeys. He wasn't supposed to drop it off until the twenty-third, the day Eric was scheduled to return. Besides, he would take it to the back door.

Nor could it be Jid. Though the boy was outside, he was replenishing the dwindling supply of firewood on the back porch with logs from the wood shed. There was no need for him to wade through deep drifts to the front door.

Through the sheers covering the narrow window next to the door, I could make out a shadow, but not much else. Living in such an isolated location with kilometres of empty forest between my closest neighbour and me, I tended to be wary about opening the door without knowing who it could be, especially when I was alone.

Before Eric and I were married, I'd become used to living by myself in the remote wilderness of Three Deer Point with Sergei, my wimpy standard poodle, as my only company. But he could hardly be called a guard dog, though he did have a ferocious bark on him. Sadly he'd passed on, and now my current guard dog was Shoni, another standard, who at ten weeks old wouldn't scare anyone away.

Since it was a winding kilometre-and-a-half drive up the Three Deer Point road to my rambling Victorian cottage, most people called to ensure someone was home before making the trip. Today, with the amount of snow that had fallen, it would be nearly impossible to get here without getting stuck. Unless this individual had come by snowmobile. But a Ski-Doo wasn't exactly quiet, and I'd heard nothing to suggest one was parked outside my home.

“Who's there?” I called out.

“Open the door,” shouted a male voice, followed by another thump against the heavy oak door.

Forget it. No way was I going to open it with that tone, especially to a voice I didn't recognize.

I backed away, almost tripping over Shoni. Recently separated from her mother, she followed my every step. I lifted her up and gave her a kiss on the top of her soft, furry head by way of an apology. She gave me a big lick on the cheek, along with a nip from her sharp puppy teeth. She hadn't yet sorted out the distinction between licks and nips.

A shudder went through the house as another blast of wind pummelled it.

“Madame, please let us in. We need help.”

That was better. At least he was now being polite.

I decided to get the portable phone from the living room, thinking it would be a good idea to have it handy, just in case. But the minute I reached for the receiver, I was plunged into the semi-twilight of the storm. The hall light had gone out, along with the lights in the living room.

The power was out.

Given the velocity of the wind, I'd been expecting it to happen all day. However, now was not exactly a convenient time. Hoping it was a momentary flicker, I waited for the lights to return. They didn't. It meant the phone also wouldn't work. With no cell coverage in the area, I couldn't use Eric's spare cell either.

“Open up, madame. My friend's badly hurt.” Another round of loud pounding.

I didn't like the feel of this. It made no sense that these men would be at my place in such weather.

Still … perhaps there had been an accident.

I hated to open the door without some form of protection, but Eric's hunting rifles were locked up, and the key was likely on his key chain with him. Besides, I didn't have the foggiest idea on how to use one.

But if someone really was hurt …

I moved the sheers aside and found myself staring into a pair of startling amber eyes framed by a swirl of tattoos, which gyrated up over his forehead and onto his bullet-shaped head.

I let the curtain fall back into place.

He knocked on the window. “Please, madame, my friend might die.”

No way I was going to let this guy in. “I can't help you. There's a health centre on the reserve. Go there.”

“We can't go anywhere in this shit. Our car's stuck. You have to let us in. It's damn cold out here.”

“Miss Aggie, that you?” came another, much weaker voice. “It's Willie's boy.”

Miss Aggie. Did he mean my great-aunt Agatha?

I inched the curtain aside just a crack. The tattooed man had moved away, giving me a clear view of another man, half-standing, half-leaning against the porch railing. Snow swirled around him, momentarily hiding his face. When it cleared, his face was equally unfamiliar, though it bore the familiar bronze tinge of my husband's skin and many of my friends, but in his case it bore the unhealthy yellowish pallor of more time spent indoors than outside. His duffle coat was crusted with snow, as was the tuque pulled down over his forehead and ears. His eyes were closed as if in sleep, until they winced in pain. Then I noticed the snow turning red where his hand pressed against his side.

“How do you know my great-aunt?”

“My dad used to do odd jobs for her.”

“But she's been dead almost fifteen years.”

“Yeah, well, my dad died about that long ago.”

“You from the rez?” The Migiskan Anishinabeg Reserve bordered my land.

“Yeah.”

“I don't think I've seen you around.”

“Yeah, well … I haven't lived there in a while.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Ah … Larry. Look I'm not feeling so hot. Can you let us in?”

I hated to turn away someone from the community where many of my friends lived, particularly someone who was in trouble. I knew Eric wouldn't want me to either.

“What's your last name?”

“Whiteduck.”

“Are you related to Tommy?”

“You talkin' about Marie's kid? Him and me were in the same class at school.”

He did look to be about the same age as Tommy, in his early thirties. And he did know that Tommy was Marie's son.

I felt a pang at the thought of Marie. She'd been a valued friend when I first moved into Three Deer Point and was having difficulties adjusting to the disparities in my life. Even though it was many years since her tragic death, I still missed her.

Wanting to believe him, I opened the door.

I
scooped the puppy up into my arms to keep her from getting in the way. By now my poor departed Sergei would've been in full barking frenzy, but Shoni was too young for the guard dog instinct to kick in, so I would have to rely on my own. It was on high alert.

The force of the wind slammed the front door against the wall and brought with it a cloud of snow, which was beginning to melt on Aunt Aggie's treasured hardwood flooring. Though the light maple was no longer as highly polished or as unscathed as it was when I inherited Three Deer Point from her, I didn't want puddles of melt water ruining it further. I was about to ask the two men to go around to the back door when I noticed what a struggle it was for Larry just to walk over the threshold.

“There's a sofa in the den where you can lie down.”

The tattooed man surprised me. He kicked off his wet shoes with a muttered “Sorry, madame,” while struggling to keep his injured friend from falling. He didn't, however, attempt to remove Larry's shoes. I found it curious that both men were wearing low-rise running shoes, which looked to be soaked, instead of sturdy winter boots. On the other hand, men weren't necessarily known for their practicality.

I tried to ignore the snow dripping from their clothing and the odd drop of blood following their path down the hall to the den. But I managed to cover the leather sofa with the worn wool blanket kept for cold winter mornings before Larry dropped onto its cushions with a groan.

“What happened?” I asked.

I thought I could make out a rip in the coat where he was pressing his hand. The blood that had seeped into the heavy wool fabric looked to be more dry than wet. I hoped it meant that the bleeding was stopping.

“It was a car accident. We drove into a tree,” the other man answered while keeping his eyes fixed on his injured friend.

“Easy enough to do in a whiteout. It must've happened close by.”

Shoni, tired of being held, began to squirm. I struggled to keep her from falling.

“It occurred on the main road near the start of your road.”

“That's a difficult walk in deep snow, especially with an injured man.”

“It was rather a challenge, but we persevered, didn't we, little buddy?” He gave his friend a gentle pat. “Larry believed your place closer than it turned out to be.”

Given his less than savoury appearance, his educated English surprised me. His use of the French “madame” suggested that he also spoke Canada's other official language, or else he was putting on airs.

“Are you hurt too?”

“No,” he replied a little too abruptly, and then, as if having second thought, continued. “I might have a few bruises, but nothing more. It's rather dark in here. Can't you turn on some lights, or are you being eco-friendly?”

“I'm afraid the power's just gone out, but I've got plenty of oil lamps and candles. Unfortunately, it also means there is no phone service, so we won't be able to get the paramedics in here to look after your friend.”

At the mention of the power outage, the two men exchanged glances. But instead of looking upset, they appeared to relax. The tattooed man even cracked his thin lips into a sort of a smile.

Shoni continued squirming, so I took her into the kitchen and placed her in her crate. She whimpered but quieted when I bribed her with a dog cookie.

I could hear Adjidamò, or Jid as we friends and family called him, on the back porch stacking the wood. Sometimes I called him Little Squirrel, the English meaning of his Algonquin name, though at twelve years of age he cringed whenever I used the English version. The “little” reminded him too much of his small stature.

He was staying with me for a few days to help with Christmas preparations. This morning we'd tramped out into the woods to chop down this year's “perfect” tree, a spruce just short enough to provide sufficient space under the ceiling for the
de rigeur
flashing plastic Santa that had lorded over my Christmas trees since childhood. At the moment, the tree was dripping the last of its snow onto the pantry floor.

I brushed past its prickly branches and stuck my head out the back door. “Jid, we have company. I would feel better if you stayed out here for the moment, okay?”

There was something about these two men that didn't sit right. Their turning up in a major snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, for nowhere was where I lived, wasn't normal. The only strangers that came to this isolated corner of West Quebec were hunters and fishermen, and this wasn't the time of year for either activity. If things became too tense, I would have Jid leave without their knowing he was here.

“I guess. Who's here?” He raised questioning brown eyes up to mine.

He and I had become good friends after my beloved Sergei saved him from freezing to death. At the time, he had been living with Kòkomis. I learned later that she was actually his great-grandmother, or
ànikekòkomis
, but everyone had called her Kòkomis, meaning simply “grandmother.” When she passed on, I wanted to adopt him. His mother was dead and his father in jail. But an aunt came forward, insisting that he had to stay with his own kind. The rest of the Migiskan Algonquin agreed. So, against his wishes and mine, he went to live with his aunt on the reserve.

We'd remained close. For the past several months he'd been spending more time at my house than at his aunt's. She had two boys of her own, and Jid was often ignored. His aunt had recently taken a job in Ottawa, leaving him alone with her sons, who didn't hesitate to bully their much younger cousin. Though he was adept at deflecting their jibes, he preferred to retreat to where he could be assured of some peace and could play with Shoni. The boy loved dogs. Sergei and he had been the best of buddies. He still mourned the dog's loss as much as Eric and I did.

“A couple of men I've never seen before. There is something about them I don't trust, so I think it best you stay out of sight for the moment.”

“I know how to shoot. Give me one of Eric's rifles, and I can handle them.” He jutted out his jaw with stubborn determination in an attempt to look tough, which was difficult. The impish gleam in his eyes kept sneaking through.

“I know you do, but not this time. I want you to stay in the pantry or on the porch until I let you know everything's okay. But if you hear me yell or something strange happens, leave. Use my snowshoes.”

Though his aunt's house was five to six kilometres by road from my place, it was half the distance through the woods along an old hunting trail Jid frequently hiked.

At my insistence he'd put on his puffy down-filled jacket to get the firewood but hadn't bothered with any other warm clothes. “Put these on.” I passed him his Gore-Tex mitts and his wool hockey toque. “And do up your jacket and tie your boots.”

He smiled sheepishly as he zipped up the jacket.

I'd no sooner closed the door on him than a voice came from out of the darkness. “Were you talking to someone?”

I jumped. The tattooed man was stepping across the kitchen threshold onto the linoleum floor.

“You know how it is when you live alone. You talk to yourself.” The second I said the word “alone,” I realized it was a mistake. “Actually, I don't live alone. My husband will be here shortly. I just like to talk to myself.”

“When do you expect him?”

“In a few hours.” I was hoping this would persuade them to leave.

“He'll need a Hummer with chains if he wants to get through this shit.”

“A snowmobile will do.”

“I'm looking forward to meeting him.”

I wasn't quite sure how to take this. Did it mean they planned to stay longer than a couple of hours?

“Expecting anyone else?”

“It is close to Christmas, and I am expecting deliveries.” Might as well pile on the lies. But why did he care?

He peered down at me from his six-foot height. “Like I said. Not in this shit. I came in to ask if you have any first aid supplies.”