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Walker paddled over a dark sea. He had chosen to take Cormorant Channel towards Malcolm Island before turning southwest. It was a longer route, but it would take him over Haddington Reef, out of the path of any marine traffic. It meant he would not arrive at the marina in Port McNeill until the early hours of the morning, but that didn’t bother him. He was used to paddling long hours, and he was used to paddling at night with only the stars and the movement of the water to guide him. It was the time he liked best.
Above him the moon cut a thin silver scimitar into the night sky and as often happened when he was out on an empty ocean, the rhythmic motion of his paddle took him to a different place, one where the worries of everyday life and the work required in order to maintain his existence faded along with the light of day.
The motion of the water and the patterns of moonlight tracing the waves soothed him, lulled him, linked him to the worlds of the sea and the sky. He became Salmon, sliding effortlessly through his domain, his body sleek and strong, and he could taste the ocean, feel it slide along his skin. He became Raven, wings outstretched, riding on unseen currents of air, and he could smell the night, feel it lift the tips of his feathers. Yet he was also Man, descendant of a thousand ancestors since the time of transformation, inheritor of his clan’s stories and dances, and he could hear his own heart beating, feel the blood coursing through his veins.
It was at times like this that he felt most at ease with his life and all it encompassed and he let his mind roam free, drifting out over the years and the places and the people who had played a part in his journey. He could remember his boyhood in the village, with the innocent laughter and games of friends. He could remember the long nights of the potlatch where the families all gathered and the smell of wood smoke drifted through the longhouse to mingle with the scent of salmon and bannock. He could remember the pounding of the drums calling him into the dances, and the shadows that played across the masks as the dancers moved around the floor, their capes lifting and swirling as they performed the dances passed down from generation to generation, reenacting the stories that defined his culture. They were the stories of creation and the transformation of the animal spirits into human form and they had taught him his relationship to the world.
It had been a time of happiness that had turned to a restless discontent as he approached adulthood. That discontent had led him down to the city, to the dismal basements and dank alleyways where so many others from so many other villages all congregated as they struggled to survive.
He had lost his way there, and like so many of those others he had grasped at alcohol and drugs in order to escape the fear and the memory of what he had given up. They hadn’t worked, but instead had led him deeper into the underbelly of the city, into a world where he could almost convince himself that the houses he broke into belonged to an enemy that neither deserved nor needed what he stole.
He remembered the blanket of despair that drove him to riskier and riskier burglaries, and the feeling of vindication, of elation, when he realized that he had succeeded. When he was asked to help rob a bank the invitation came as an acknowledgement of his ability, of his prowess. That was something he hadn’t known he needed, but he reveled in it. And then it had all come crashing down when the police arrived.
He knew there were many of his people who expected him to be bitter, who thought he should hate the white man’s police for what they had done when they chased him down, but he didn’t. He knew he had caused it all himself. Even when he was lying in his hospital bed, recovering from yet another surgery on his damaged hips and legs, he had known he had only himself to blame. In the long years afterwards, as he sat in the dreary common room of the jail, he promised himself that once he got out he would build a new life. Bitterness and regret would have no part of it.
He had succeeded. The life he had built might seem hard to some, but it was his and he was happy with it. Out on the water he felt like a whole man, content in both body and spirit, and he held no grudges.
He smiled as he thought about it. The man he was going to see had been one of the police officers who had arrived at the bank all those years ago. It had been Dan Connor who chased Walker out onto the roof, it had been Dan Connor who called an ambulance to collect him when he fell, and now it was Dan Connor who had become a friend. Perhaps his only friend, and someone he knew he could count on for help.
***
EVEN THOUGH IT WAS July and the days were both long and warm, the high peaks of the Coast Mountains were still covered with snow, and in the soft twilight that lingered between dusk and dawn they seemed to float above the world, anchored to the sky rather than the earth.
Dan had intended to get an early night, call Mike before breakfast and then let the events of a new day occupy him while his subconscious dealt with whatever answer his question received, but it hadn’t worked. He’d tossed and turned for a couple of hours, his mind filled with jumbled images of Susan, the dark-haired man on the yacht, Jimmy Fulton, and the red-haired woman with the dog, until finally he had given up any attempt at sleep. He got up, found a Stan Getz CD, took a beer out of the fridge and padded barefoot out onto the aft deck to let the night and the music quiet his brain. He was still there at two-thirty in the morning, the CD and the beer long finished, as he watched Walker’s tiny vessel glide up to the swim grid.
“I see you’re still keeping the same weird hours,” Dan said as he walked over to the stern rail to watch Walker tie up his canoe and pull himself up onto the grid. Dan didn’t offer any assistance. He’d learned several years ago that any such an offer would be unwelcome.
“Looks like you’re keeping the same ones,” Walker replied a few minutes later as he lowered himself onto one of the bench seats and leaned back against the rail. “That’s too bad. I was kind of looking forward to waking you up.”
Dan smiled. “Good to see you too Walker. Is this a social visit or is there something you need help with?”
Walker didn’t answer right away. He turned his head and looked out over the breakwater towards the dark waters of Broughton Strait and the darker mass of Malcolm Island beyond, his eyes lifting to follow the jagged peaks of the mountains over on the mainland. It was several minutes later when he looked back at Dan.
“I guess it’s kind of both. The old man sent me here, but it’s good to see you too.”
It was Dan’s turn to pause. Walker had always been reclusive, and while they had become more and more comfortable with each other in the brief times they had spent in each other’s company over the past few years, Walker had never acknowledged any kind of friendship between them. To hear him do so now sparked an unexpected surge of warmth.
“Thanks,” Dan mumbled, not quite sure how to respond to the gift Walker had offered, but pleased it had been given. Speaking quickly in order to hide his discomfort, he returned to safer ground. “What old man are you talking about?”
Walker smiled. “Never met him before,” he answered. “Took him a long time to find me. He had to travel a long way. Went to Yalis—that’s Alert Bay to you—and searched out my family. Finally got my cousin to come out and get me.”
“And?” Dan asked patiently. “What did he want?”
“Wanted me to come and ask you to help.”
Dan stared at him. Walker was usually both laconic and direct. This unwillingness to get to the point was something new.
“Get me to help with what?”
Walker straightened up and leaned forward, his voice hardening as his eyes focused intently on Dan’s face. “He wants you to find out what happened to the two Banks Inlet men who have gone missing.”