Prairie Fire (26 page)

It took Courtney, Aarons, and Nick's engineers almost an hour to work out a way to release the emergency brake so that the train could go forward again. There was no train that could come and meet us, due to the existing schedule, and an airlift was too dangerous unless it was a true emergency. By the time we limped into Kamloops, hours behind schedule, we were hungry and tired. I don't think Porter stopped swearing the entire time. The engine driver did not come back to check on us. I don't really blame him.

We switched trains in Kamloops and headed north towards Quesnel and Prince George. Though we were in the mountains, we saw no more dragons, and by the time we turned west to Port Edward and the Pacific coast we had almost managed to relax again. Well, that or we were so bored that even cribbage couldn't keep us from falling asleep in our seats.

“Did you ever make any headway with Amery?” I asked Owen, once the shine of crib had worn off.

“No,” he told me. “I mean, I assume it has something to do with Porter. She's a bit more by-the-book than he is.”

“Lottie is more by-the-book than Porter is,” I pointed out.

Owen laughed. “Kaori seems to like her,” he concluded, as though that was good enough for him.

“Kaori likes everyone,” I pointed out. “Or at least she's too polite to complain. She's the most professional person I've ever met.”

“Did you know that some of her ancestors are actual gods in Japan?” Owen asked. “I mean, I'm not sure exactly how it works because Emily is usually the one who does the research, but it kind of puts Aunt Lottie's commercial endorsements into perspective, eh?”

I hadn't known that, actually. It's not the sort of thing Kaori ever would have said to me herself, and I wondered how Owen had learned it. The selfish part of me, the part that told stories people wanted to hear instead of the truth, rather liked the idea that a girl with divine ancestry had chosen to shave her head like mine, to show her support for Owen. Kaori explained it to me later, about how ancestor worship worked and how she happened to be from a very large family, but that certainly didn't lessen the story.

The train lurched and began to slow normally. I noticed that we all looked out the window anyway, but there was nothing but clouds between us and the sun.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” said Peter, who had joined us for most of this leg of the trip and sat beside Laura. “We mostly get grey skies here in the winter.”

The town—or village, really—of Port Edward sprawled along the coast. White clapboard houses stood on stilts to keep them above the tide, while the houses further inland looked more like the sort I was used to. The air was clear: The cannery was long gone, and the forestry all took place inland, near Prince George. It was a bit of a commute for those who lived here, but it was better than having dragons on their heads all the time, so I supposed it was an even trade.

There was quite a crowd of people waiting for us at the platform.

“Are they all related to you?” I asked Peter, who was glued to the window with a beaming smile on his face.

“More or less,” he admitted. “Sometimes it's very distant, though, or just through marriage.”

“Trondheim is a lot like that,” I said. “Or, at least it was. People are starting to move away more than they used to.”

“Well, I did go to work in Alberta,” Peter said. “But it's different in BC. There's isn't as much ‘away' to move to, and it's nice to come home.”

I couldn't argue. I hadn't been homesick, not really, since leaving, but every now and then I felt a twinge. Seeing Peter light up, seeing all those people come to meet him, reminded me what I was missing. This wasn't even my home, and I was looking forward to spending time here. We only had one night before we had to head back to Fort Calgary, but it was a night in a real bed, one that didn't sway back and forth, and I was looking forward to it.

Peter was engulfed in hugs as soon as he stepped onto the platform, and it was a while before the mob cleared enough for us to unload the train. We'd brought supplies, contributed by the Oil Watch, to help the village sustain the extra workers through the rest of the winter, and then the workers themselves had brought a lot of their belongings. I waited until the last moment. It took me long enough to carry my gear that I didn't want to get in anyone's way. Finally, there was space for me to move, and I flipped my kit onto my back. I made it about three steps before Peter's arm came around my shoulder, and he pulled me off-course.

“And this is Siobhan McQuaid,” he said, presenting me with a flourish and a bow to a silver-haired woman. “Siobhan, this is my mom.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, extending my hand. Peter's mother shook it firmly and didn't even blink when she realized how damaged my fingers were.

“Peter's mentioned you a few times,” she said, and I knew that it had been a lot more than a few. “I like the music you've been working on.”

“It doesn't sound quite as good when it's just me,” I told her. “Peter's been very helpful.”

“I'm sorry you can't stay as long as you originally planned,” she said. “You had trouble in the mountains, I hear?”

“Just after we were through them, thankfully,” I told her. “And the dragon wasn't as much trouble as the train.”

“McQuaid!” shouted Porter from up ahead, cutting off any further explanation. I excused myself to go and see what he wanted.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Dinner is in an hour,” he said. “Full dress uniform is required.”

“Yes, sir,” I said again. “Anything else?”

“Tell Owen to pay special attention to the dancing,” Porter said. I hadn't the foggiest idea what he was talking about. “He might learn something.”

I nodded, mostly because the idea of saying “yes, sir” out loud again felt ridiculous. General Speed would have objected, but Porter just smiled sarcastically and waved me on. I passed Porter's instructions along to the rest of the squad, and by the time we reached our billets, I realized that Porter had just used me for my actual job, which was kind of nice.

Except for Porter, who got a separate billet on account of being the ranking officer, we were all staying in what I would, for lack of a better term, call longhouses. As usual the women all ended up together: the four of us in Owen's squad, those from Nick's, and eight farmers who had decided to become foresters until the reconstruction was completed. Meanwhile, the men were separated based on whether or not they were in the Oil Watch.

Annie was just straightening my tie when Peter came to fetch us.

“You all clean up nicely,” he said.

“We'd better,” Courtney said. “Carting these things around is kind of a pain.”

We followed Peter across a paved road to the large building that served as the community centre. They'd put down boards across the hockey ice, and we all sat up in the bleachers, the cold from the cement seeping through our clothes. I sat next to Owen, and Peter sat on my other side.

“In summer, we do this outside,” he said. “We have an amphitheatre that seats more people, but it's a little snow-covered right now, and I know you all just shined your shoes.”

“Thanks,” Owen said dryly. I looked at his feet and saw a tiny scuff mark that he'd missed. He saw what I was looking at and sighed.

“You're still pretty,” I told him, and he laughed.

Peter's mother was sitting on the ice level, along with the other town leaders, but it was an older man who approached the microphone.

“This whole production is mostly for you guys, you know,” Peter whispered to me. His breath was weird against my neck, like a buzz that escaped from the trumpet mouthpiece.

“We appreciate it,” I said back as quietly as I could without breathing on him.

“That's my uncle,” Peter said. “Well, kind of. Anyway, he represents the chief's council on the mainland. Most Haida live on Haida Gwaii, in the bay, but it takes too long to get from the island to the mainland for work every day, so we keep this as an outpost. Or inpost. Whatever.”

“That makes sense,” I replied. I wished he would sit a little farther away, but if he did, it was possible he'd fall off the bleacher.

“Welcome to Port Edward,” said Peter's uncle. “We are happy to welcome friends to our shores.”

“This would be the part where you'd ask permission to get out of your canoe,” Peter said, still too close. “But we're skipping that.”

“We are now a people of trees, but we have not forgotten that we were a people of the sea,” Peter's uncle continued. “Please join us as we honor our ancestors who slayed dragons on the ocean to keep the mainland safe.”

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, and for once Peter didn't offer an explanation. His mother stood and went to one of the large drums near where the blue line would be, if the ice was visible. Three others joined her there. They began to beat the drums, and when I heard this entirely new kind of music, I stopped worrying about how close Peter was sitting.

HAIDA WELCOME

It's difficult to describe, the way a drum sounds when you can't say they sound like your heart. Because these drums didn't. They were irregular and too unlike my heartbeat for me to make the comparison. I couldn't say that they were like someone else's heart either—like when you put your hand on someone's chest or borrow your mother's stethoscope. That's still like you. That's still human.

And these drums were not human. They were a dragon's hearts, both of them beating in that scaly chest, an inhuman tattoo that pushed cold, dark blood around a massive body. I'd touched that sound once, and it was the last thing I'd touched before fire changed my hands. Beside me, Owen tensed, recognizing the sound, the rhythm, for what it was. I could hear Porter's short breath behind me, just barely between the beats, and I wondered if Nick could tell too.

One of Peter's cousins stepped forward, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, but with his hair spiked on his head like a dragon's spines, and a cape that flared out when he pulled on it. He wove back and forth across the stage with heavy, measured steps. I could feel the squad straighten as they realized what they were witnessing. Lights came up on a row of miniature totem poles, each about waist height and intricately carved. These were wooden poles, traditional and fierce looking, each with painted white teeth inside a grinning mouth and an odd crest upon each head.

The drumming changed. Two drummers kept up the irregular beat of the dragon's hearts, but the others began a more measured tempo. I was not surprised at all when more of Peter's cousins appeared, also in regular clothing except for a few stylized pieces of jewelry that indicated they belonged to the Haida nation. They danced in a line, bobbing their heads, and I realized that they were meant to be in a canoe. I remembered what Peter had said, about safe shores, and that the Haida had been known up and down the west coast for their prowess as a sea-going nation.

The lead dancer stood straighter, like she was bracing herself against the bow of the boat, and held up a rope in her hands. At the end, there was a large ring, like an inflexible lasso. The canoe stalked the dragon through the motions of the dance. I realized that there had been a singer performing too, in the Haida language. I hadn't even noticed him, so entranced was I by the drumming. Peter wasn't translating, and I was glad. I liked figuring out music by myself.

Three times the dragon slayer in the bow of the canoe cast the ring towards the dragon, and three times she missed. At last, she made a successful throw, and the dragon began to writhe on the end of the line. Before I could wonder what exactly one did with a dragon on a line like a fish, the dance changed again. The irregular heartbeat of the dragon increased in tempo as the beast struggled and tried to get away. The beats representing the dancers in the boat quickened too but didn't fall out of step. A third rhythm joined in, and the singer's voice changed. It had to be the ocean, I could tell, even though I didn't understand the words. We watched as the dancers in the boat pulled the dragon down, not towards the boat, but towards the water.

The dancer-dragon came to where the totem poles lined the performance area, and lay down across the front of them, defeated at last. The singer finished, and the lights returned to normal as the rest of the dancers broke the formation of the canoe. We all clapped, and not just politely. I know a polite clap when I hear one, having had years of experience playing classical music to people who don't know Bach from Bartok. These were enthusiastic responses.

“Did the dragon drown?” I heard Owen murmur beside me. He said it quietly, but loud enough to be overhead by those around us. Porter laughed.

“No,” Peter said. “The orcas took care of it.”

“The whales?” Owen said.

“They're not called Slayer Whales for nothing,” Peter reminded him. “They didn't get that name just because they nab moose swimming between islands.”