20

Dalziel took offinto a clear sky, heading due west, the Flat to his right and the Caribou to his left, both disappearing behind him. In a few minutes he passed between the round, mile-wide lake that Bill Clark had graciously named after another of his pilot backers, Stan McMillan, and a smaller lake, the source of McLeod Creek. He spotted a column of smoke to his left, near the top of the creek. Gus and Bill were busy mucking out one of their holes.

He’d met them there a couple of years ago, and they were still looking for the lost McLeod Mine. Somewhere along that creek, it was supposed to be. Or on Borden or Bennett creeks a bit farther west. Or maybe, if you listened to Faille, not there at all but on the South Nahanni, above the falls. The legend of the lost mine had inspired numerous minor rushes on McLeod, Bennett and Borden creeks, the last one, only two winters back, involving about 40 trappers. Someone had come into Whittington’s bar with a story clipped from the Edmonton Journal.

And what a story it was! A map, penned by Willie McLeod himself and left with a priest at Fort Liard, had come into the hands of Wop May, the war ace who’d helped bring down the Red Baron and tracked Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper, by air. May was a good guy, and it was he who’d convinced Dalziel that he should get a plane and told him how to go about it, but May was also a grade-A bullshitter who wanted more than anything else to be a fixture on the front page. The story then went on to say that May had flown in, located some old sluices, axes, shovels and whatnot, half buried under the first snowfall of the season, and staked the area. After 30 years, the spot had finally been located. But who would stake the actual motherlode?

Over the hills they went by dog team, pots rattling, parkas flying in the breeze: Eppler, Faille, Turner, Lindberg and their neighbours from up and down the Liard and the Mackenzie. A wonder no one had died. Others flew in—MAS made a small fortune over two weeks. Some hired Indian guides. Diamond’C was there. Chief Charlie. Luckily for some, May and Clark had left Kraus in there to work their claims. Kraus, a most—some might say overly—generous man, was cleaned out of groceries. Most of the trappers had underestimated the country between Fort Simpson and the creeks. A lot of dogs got eaten.

Dalziel remembered it well. He’d been passing through, trapping marten in choice places and moving on, when they’d all turned up. He’d had to lift his traps and leave; there wasn’t a moose or caribou anywhere to feed his pack dogs. Kraus and Clark, and Harry Vandaele and Milt Campbell, were the last ones left.

Dalziel’s way now was directly up the Flat River to its source farther north, a string of lakes just east of the Yukon Divide. He was there in slightly less than an hour. Then a sharp right to the northeast at the end of a big lake, pinched in the middle, that Nazar thought of as two lakes and had called the Flat Lakes, though he later determined that they weren’t the source of the river. Dalziel kept urging the Robin up, following a creek that he’d named after Nazar, a creek that flowed into the bottom end of the Flat Lakes. They had been together when they found the route up this creek and over into the Rabbitkettle River, four years ago, before Dalziel had even thought about flying. They were opening up good marten country and having a bit of fun besides. In the years since they’d teamed up and left Dease Lake and Telegraph Creek, this was the farthest north they’d been, and the best trapping country they’d ever seen.

And there was no sign of anyone, not a single, crazy prospector. Not even Faille, so far as Dalziel knew, had come as far as the headwaters of the Flat River, though, judging by the signs and stories, he was getting closer every year. No one ever knew where Faille would turn up.

Zenchuk Creek came down a valley with round hills to the south and serrated ridges to the north. It featured a precipitous two-step waterfall and, just to the east of the fall, a hospitable spot where they’d shot a moose and built a cache. At the top of the pass there was a small lake, with an island on the north shore. The lake fed into the Rabbitkettle River, which flowed straight east for 60 miles or so, past the lake where Bill and Joe were trapping and into the South Nahanni.

But Dalziel stayed high above that small lake, swinging north over a jagged ridge. Then he dropped over an icefield. Glowing in the light of a half moon, the icefield, with its 11 arms of ice flowing out between cracks in the surrounding ridges, looked like a fat white spider. He followed it down to its main drainage, a creek that shot out from beneath a rugged ladder of blue ice, tumbled through a long granite canyon to some gravel flats and flowed into Glacier Lake.

This was the biggest lake he’d ever found in this country, a good four miles long at least. The north side of the lake was gently sloped and heavily wooded with large spruce, the ideal environment for marten, none better. The south side was steep, with three prominent deltas, but even there the trapping was good. At the outflow of the lake was Wade’s cabin, which must have been built by the Indians, maybe a decade ago, unless Faille had come this far up the South Nahanni and into the lake.

Dalziel came down on the snow-covered ice and immediately circled and slid back to the head of the lake, turning right into a small bay on the north shore. This was where he and Zenchuk had stayed when they first laid the trapline around the lake. He was completely hidden there from any point on the rest of the lake.

When he stepped out of the plane, he was relieved to feel a slight breeze blowing up the lake. The dogs jumped out after him, circling and watching him intently. They would earn their keep. Wherever Wade was, they would find him.

He tied on snowshoes, strapped on his pistol in its shoulder harness, hoisted his rifle and led the dogs the short distance across the ice to the shore and into the tall timber. Here the trapline trail began. He started at a half run, along the north shore. The trail had not been used. He stopped near a large tree to check a trap, which was easy to do. Marten were attracted to bright colours, so each spot was marked by a picture of a red tomato, the label off a Royal City brand, tacked to the tree directly behind the trap. June collected the labels for him, steaming them off the tins, getting tins from neighbour ladies, then drying the labels and placing them neatly in a box.

He always thought of her when he saw them.

No trap.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “The bastard isn’t even working.”

If Wade was coming to see what was happening, he’d come up the easier ground on this side of the lake. If he was on the other side, just being tricky, or working that part of the line, if he was working at all, it could be harder to find him. Assuming he had seen the plane, was still around, was alive.

Just what I need right now, Dalziel thought, resuming his steady run down the lake. Another corpse for Truesdell.