12

The Robin cruised at 100 miles per hour, went about 500 miles on its two 25-gallon wing tanks and carried a payload of 450 pounds along with the pilot and a mechanic. Since Dalziel had his mechanic’s as well as his pilot’s licence, he could add another 150 pounds of payload or passengers.

The plane, with all its limitations, was a daily marvel. He especially felt that when he flew great distances, like now, floating across the white expanse of northern Alberta toward Edmonton. He’d had only a year so far to work out its possibilities and already the plane was earning good money. It had paid for itself, in fact, and the trapping was just a beginning. He was getting more and more inquiries from big-game hunters, wealthy southerners wanting trophies.

The biggest problem so far was Truesdell, or what he represented, and the complex and mercurial body of trapping and transport regulations churned out by Ottawa. So far the transport regulations, prohibiting Dalziel from flying passengers along routes flown by commercial airlines, were the main problem. If a trapper or prospector had $50 and wanted to fly from Edmonton to Fort Simpson, Dalziel was not going to turn him down and head out in an empty plane. Might as well get the gas paid for. If anyone asked, the customer was just a friend.

Except that the RCMP had questioned some of those customers, and their answers must have been evasive or contradictory. Dalziel had already collected two warnings. He’d taken them to a lawyer and learned that there was a difference between gathering evidence and getting testimony in court.

“Right now,” the lawyer had said, “they’re just fishing. But they are fishing.”

That had cost $20. But the lawyer was interested in whatever else might come up.

“Most of the time you’ll get them off your back just by making them deal with me.”

“Don’t know if I can afford it.”

“The way you operate, you can’t not afford it.”

He was right. And Dalziel knew he was pushing the limits of the law with the trapping operation too. As a licensed trapper, he could have as many lines and hire as many assistants as he wanted, and the supply of disappointed prospectors and hungry refugees from the prairies was endless. He tried to make sure that they at least knew how to hunt. Before he flew them to his lines, he found out as best he could how much time they’d spent outdoors, in the bush, on their own. If they were inexperienced, he spent a few weeks training them on the line, watching to see if they could manage. But he never asked them about their health. What good did it do? Accidents happened all the time, and not even Nazar had known that his cousin had a bad heart. Probably the cousin didn’t know.

At least he was making some use of the backcountry. The Indians had more or less abandoned it, tribal skirmishes (with rifles adding efficiency) and influenza epidemics having done for most of them, government pogey slowly killing the rest. On his famous walk to Fort Norman he’d stumbled on the remains of some of their camps, between the Nahanni and the Mackenzie, especially on the eastern ridges of the Mackenzie Mountains. Rotting poles under the moss, with rusted pots, tins and traps. They died in these places and were buried in shallow, crudely fenced graves, and those who were left moved on quickly, carrying what they could.

Now most of them stuck to the Liard and the Mackenzie, huddled around white settlements and trading posts.

He was putting men where the Indians used to be. For the first time, traplines were being worked in the country above the falls. What would those men do after Truesdell forced him out? What would Truesdell and the settlers in Simpson do when his plane wasn’t coming and going all the time? What would’ve happened to Mary Littlejohn, for example?

He looked back. She was asleep in a pile of blankets, cushioned by bundles of pelts.

Nazar, in the passenger seat, snored, matching the engine for volume.

Nearing Edmonton, Dalziel faced the choice between South Cooking Lake, where Mackenzie Air Services and Canadian Airways had new offices, or Blatchford Field right near Edmonton. The lake cost nothing, but MAS and CA had decided that Dalziel was undercutting them, and they made trouble if he pulled in too close to them.

Dalziel decided to put down at Blatchford Field. Mary would get straight to the hospital that way, though it would cost $20 of the $60 that Truesdell had made a show of paying him just as they left Simpson. It would cost time, too. There was bound to be an Edmonton Journal reporter lying in ambush, looking for another chapter of the ongoing story. He circled and landed, sliding up through rotting ice and slushy snow to some other private planes about a 15-minute walk from the terminal.

Edmonton was having an early taste of spring. June and the baby would be enjoying it on their daily walks.

It took the guy from the Journal exactly 15 minutes to find them.

“How many pelts this time, Dal? Last time it was $5,000 worth, a record. Are you going to break that?”

Dalziel busied himself attaching the engine bonnet. Nazar turned to the reporter.

“Mercy trip this time, Fred.”

Oh God, Dalziel thought.

“That’s Frank, Nazar. Remember me? Frank Peebles. I wrote that story about Dal that went all the way to the New York Times. It’s been nominated for a prize in the States. Who’s sick?”

“Indian girl. Mary Littlejohn. The medics just picked her up.” Zenchuk pointed. “They’re heading into the terminal with her.”

“Can she talk?”

“Maybe. She was awake when we got here.”

Peebles, running backwards, said, “I’ll go to the hospital with her. Can I see you both later? How about the coffee shop in the terminal in an hour?”

“How about the bar at the Leland?”

The reporter nodded and turned to catch up to Mary and the medics.

“See Dal? It’s easy.”

“Mercy flight? I seem to remember charging Truesdell $60.”

“Peanuts, and anyway Frank wouldn’t use that fact. Not the right angle. And even if he did, he’d bury it. The flying trapper is tough but fair. He has to eat like everyone else. Has a baby boy. Beneath that rough exterior beats a heart of gold.” Zenchuk paused for a moment, thinking, and then continued, “As deeply hidden, but as rich, as the lost McLeod Mine.”

They both laughed.

“You should be charging for that,” Dalziel said.

“I do,” said Zenchuk. “At the bar.”