The Darkening Archipelago Read online

  Back at her desk she found the number for the High River Tribune. She picked up the phone.

  “Casey Brown,” a man answered on the first ring.

  “Hi, it’s Nancy Webber calling from the Edmonton Journal. How are things down south today?”

  “Good, thanks. Actually a really nice day. Pretty clear. Supposed to get some rain or wet snow tonight. What can I do for you, Ms. Webber?”

  “It’s Nancy, thanks. Well, I’m just curious about a story in the Tribune from a few years back. It’s about the suicide of a man named Henry Blackwater. Do you remember that story?”

  “I know it happened, but I wasn’t reporting here then. I was still in college.”

  “Well, I found a few stories about it in your online archives, but I wonder if there is more to the story than what was online?” “Could be. The paper hasn’t put everything online. Just some features.”

  “So there might be more?”

  “Sure, I guess. I mean, if there was an update on the story, like a sidebar or something, it might not make it online.”

  “Can I find out?”

  “Can’t see why not. But that would be a job for Betty Oberg. She’s our receptionist. She does all the research and library requests. She’ll be in on Tuesday.”

  “You can’t have a look?”

  “I’d love to, Nancy, but I’m here alone today, and I’ve got four stories to write for our Monday paper. I’m really jammed.”

  Nancy tapped the rim of her mug. “What if I came down? Could I look myself?”

  “Can’t see why not. We have all the past editions on microfiche. You could have a look.”

  “Are you there tomorrow?”

  “Boy, you’re really interested in something, aren’t you? Care to share?”

  “It’s more a personal interest than professional. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be in around nine. Then I’ve got an auction to cover at noon, but I should be back around two pm.”

  “Great. If this clear weather holds I can be down there by two.”

  She hung up. Something ate at her. The key to understanding Cole Blackwater might be understanding Henry Blackwater. A good place to start might be the man’s death.

  4

  “You’re through, Archie. Politically speaking, you’re done.” Greg White Eagle was a broad man, his grey hair pulled back and tied neatly in a ponytail, his eyes hidden by aviator sunglasses.

  It would be eight months before Archie would make his fateful voyage into the storm. He sat on the deck of the Inlet Dancer sorting and repairing fishing gear, a steaming cup of coffee at his elbow on the large fish box that dominated the force of the boat. “Your grace in victory is a great comfort to me, Greg.”

  Greg White Eagle stood on the dock next to the Inlet Dancer’s slip. His hands were in his pockets. “I’m not without compassion, Archie. I’m a reasonable man. The chief says he wants you to stay on as the band’s representative on the aquaculture committee, at least for the time being. I think the continuity would be a good thing for the band. But you’ve got to understand something: you’re not a councillor anymore. You’ll be reporting to me. And to the chief.”

  Archie Ravenwing focused on his tackle.

  “Look, I know you feel hard done by, losing your seat on the band council after all these years. But you have to see that the people just wanted some change. They wanted someone new. With new ideas. New ways of doing things. And your outspoken opposition to salmon farming simply doesn’t resonate anymore.”

  “I don’t feel hard done by at all, Councillor. You can have the seat. I was getting tired of the trips to Alert Bay anyway. But don’t try and tell me that the people of Lostcoast elected you because I’m opposed to salmon farming.” Archie smiled broadly at White Eagle.

  “Well, you’re against it, I’m for it. I won the election fair and square, Archie. Folks will be turning to me for leadership now.”

  “You really think that folks around here understand the longterm consequences of salmon farming?”

  “You think your people are fools, Archie? That what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not saying that, Councillor. What I am saying is that you and your pals at Stoboltz Aquaculture have pulled the wool over people’s eyes. You’ve sold them a bill of goods. Told them that fish farming is the only way they can make money, maybe buy a new boat. Don’t think I didn’t hear what you were telling people during the election.”

  Greg White Eagle looked at the sea beyond the small port. Without looking at Ravenwing he said, “The chief said he still wants you on the aquaculture committee. I would think that would give you some comfort that we’re not changing direction.”

  “It’s really only a matter of time, Greg.”

  “Matter of time before what?”

  “Before you weasel your way onto that committee, too. Another month, maybe two, and you’ll have the band council convinced that letting more fish farms into the Broughton is the way to lift our people up out of poverty.”

  “It is! It is a way to lift us out of poverty. Look around you, Archie. Not everybody can afford to live in a fancy house up on the hill like you do. Look around you!” Greg White Eagle pointed at the cluster of shacks that lined the shore of the harbour.

  “Oh, it will lift a few folks out of poverty. People like you working really close-like with the company will do well. If you know what I mean. But the rest of ’em, well, they’ll have seasonal work just like always, and we’ll be left with nothing. No wild salmon —”

  “I’m not sure I like your tone, Archie.”

  Archie shrugged. “I don’t really give a damn, Councillor.” He stood up, arching his back and stretching his arms over his head.

  Greg White Eagle turned and looked down at him. “You know what your problem is, Archie?”

  “I got lots of problems, Greg. Which one are you referring to?” He laughed.

  White Eagle didn’t share the humour. “Your problem is that you think you’re better than everyone else. That somehow everybody’s got to live up to the standard that Archie Ravenwing sets for them. Well that boat has sailed. The people of Lostcoast have said they’ve had enough, and frankly, I’ve had enough. Enough of your holy-roller, better-than-thou attitude.” He looked down at the man, hands on his hips.

  Archie Ravenwing looked up at him, grinning. “That’s a good speech. Good speech. You practising for band council meetings there, Greg? Or for the newspapers? How long ’til you run for chief? Then what, the Assembly of First Nations?”

  Greg made a dismissive gesture.

  Archie stowed the tackle in a metal chest on the bow of the Inlet Dancer. He wiped his hands together after he finished. “How deep does Stoboltz have its hooks into you, Greg?”

  “Bah, there you go again, Archie.”

  “No, really, how deep?”

  The big man on the dock turned his back and began to walk away, then stopped. “Don’t tell me you’re clean as a whistle, Ravenwing. We both know you’re not. And don’t forget who’s in the band office now. That’s my people who are there now. My people doing the numbers. My people who can look back over the past decade and see where the money’s gone. You better hope there’s no skeletons in your closet.”

  “We all got skeletons, Greg. It’s just that yours are paying your freight. How long ’til you try and convince the council that more salmon farming is inevitable, and we might as well get on the gravy train? Isn’t that what Stoboltz paid for your election for?”

  “Watch yourself, Archie,” said Greg White Eagle, his hands clenched at his sides. “Watch yourself.”

  A ring-billed gull watching the confrontation from a lamp standard screamed and took flight, joining others over the open water. The sky was clear and the sun beat down on the two men. It was unseasonably warm for May, and Archie was in shirtsleeves as he worked on the deck of his Radon fishing boat. This weather is a gift, Archie Ravenwing thought, tidying the deck of the Inlet Dancer, ignoring
Greg White Eagle’s threats. He looked up in time to see his daughter Grace walk down the dock, her long, purposeful stride reminding him of his wife, dead eleven years now.

  “Hi, Greg,” she said, her voice high and sweet.

  “Hey, Grace.”

  “Congratulations on the election. Now I get to see my old man a little more.” She smiled and held out her hand.

  “Thanks,” he said, uncurling his fist and shaking her small, strong hand. “I had better be getting on.”

  “See you around, Councillor,” said Archie, waving as Greg White Eagle made his way up the dock to the parking lot. “Come by for a chat anytime.”

  “What was that all about?” Grace asked, stepping onto the bow of the Inlet Dancer. She carried a small plastic ice box.

  “Oh, you know, just Greg being a sore winner.”

  “You’re not being a sore loser, are you, Dad?”

  “Who, me?” Archie made a generous gesture, opening his arms. “I’m a team player. Greg tells me the chief has asked me to stay in the Aquaculture Advisory Task Force on behalf of the band. Why would I be sore?”

  Grace sat at the table and put the ice box down, flipping it open. “I brought you some lunch. I noticed you left without it this morning.”

  “Hey, that’s great! You like some coffee?”

  “No thanks, I’m not going to stay. I’ve got to run over to the school and finish up a few things.”

  “But it’s Saturday.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got a few things to deal with before Monday morning.”

  “You work too hard,” said Ravenwing, taking a wax paper-wrapped sandwich in his hands and folding back the paper before taking a bite.

  “Look who’s talking.” She watched him eat. He looked toward Knight Inlet. “Are you and Darren heading out again this afternoon?” she asked.

  “If he ever shows up.”

  “He always does.”

  “Yeah, eventually.”

  “You fishing today or snooping?”

  He smiled at her over the sandwich. “A little of both.”

  “How’s it looking out there, Dad?” Her voice was low now, more serious.

  “Not so good, Gracie. Not so good. Our catch is okay, but so many of the pinks are covered in lice.” He chewed his sandwich and looked out at the inlet thoughtfully. “You know, I think Stoboltz and the others are still trying to convince the government and the public that sea lice aren’t dangerous.”

  “Dad, don’t start.”

  “Come on, Gracie, I know you understand this. The lice, they don’t hurt the adults too bad. But it’s the juveniles that are getting hit pretty hard. They can’t survive with the current infestation. And that infestation is a direct result of lice infested Atlantic salmon mixing with the wild West Coast species. There’s no doubt in my mind, or in Cassandra Petrel’s, for that matter, what is going on out there.” He looked east toward the mouth of Knight Inlet. “It just keeps getting worse. I think we could be in for serious trouble.”

  “You looking for trouble again, Arch?” Darren First Moon walked down the dock toward the Inlet Dancer.

  “I don’t need to look for it, Moon, it finds me.” Ravenwing finished his sandwich and balled up the paper, putting it back into the ice box.

  “How you doing, Gracie?” Darren First Moon asked, stepping onto the gunwale of the Radon and down onto its deck.

  “I’m good, Darren. You good?”

  “I was born good,” he said.

  “Well, I’m going to school. Let you guys get out into the inlet.”

  “Okay, sweetheart,” said Archie, kissing his daughter on the forehead.

  “Bye, Darren,” she said, stepping onto the dock.

  “See you, sweetie.”

  Archie shot him a look.

  “Just being friendly-like,” he said, his face reddening.

  “Be friendly with someone else,” said Archie, but he was smiling. “Let’s get ready to hit the water.”

  They prepared the boat quickly, moving around as two men who have worked side by side for many years, each aware of what the other is doing and what his own tasks are.

  “Greg White Eagle was by today,” said Archie as the two men passed one another.

  “What did he have to say?”

  “About what he always says. Absolutely nothing. I can see his mouth moving, but nothing ever comes out. It’s the most amazing thing.”

  “You sore?”

  “Why does everybody think I’m sore?”

  “Well, you lost.”

  “If you ask me, I won.”

  Darren First Moon was a thickly built man, about forty, whose hair was cropped short and covered with a greasy ball cap. He wore an orange float coat on and off the boat, and had crewed with Archie for the last decade, guiding with him for the last half dozen. “I guess if it means spending more time on the water, I’m all for it.”

  “I want to get to the bottom of some things. I’ve got the time to do it now.”

  “Bottom of some things. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No, not good. But we got to get to the bottom of them just the same.”

  “We, eh? Okay, partner, let’s go and make our catch, and then we can get to the bottom of whatever you like.”

  They were about to untie from their mooring when Archie’s cellphone rang. If the wind blew lightly from the west and the tide was high, Port Lostcoast got cell reception. He flipped it open. “This is Archie.”

  “Archie, this is Lance Grey.” The voice crackled.

  Ravenwing straightened up, looking at the sky. “Hi, Lance. Listen, I’m just about to head out into the inlet.”

  “This won’t take long, Archie. The minister has received your most recent letter about salmon farms and asked me to call you and assure you he is considering all the options about the future of aquaculture.”

  “That’s what you told me the last time, Lance. That’s why I wrote you another letter. I don’t want him to consider all the options. We need you to fund closed containment pens. These open pens in the Broughton and elsewhere are disease factories and they’re killing the wild salmon. I’m looking for the government to commit funding so that Stoboltz and the others can move their stocks out of the migration routes of juvenile pinks, coho, sockeye, and chum, and onto land, where the fish can’t escape, shit in the ocean, or pass on parasites to what’s left of the wild fish.”

  “Take it easy, Archie. This is just a courtesy call.”

  “Look, Lance, I don’t need a courtesy call. I need action. Why don’t you ask the minister to come and see for himself?”

  “He’s been up recently.”

  “Yeah, to tour Stoboltz farms.”

  “He met with the band council. You were there, as I recall.”

  “He invited us to an hour-long meeting and spent fifty minutes of it talking. He didn’t listen to a word we had to say.”

  “Archie, I’m not getting into this with you right now.”

  “Then when, Lance?”

  “Are you going to be at the next Aquaculture Advisory Task Force meeting?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll see you then.”

  Archie hung up the phone without saying goodbye. “Pecker head,” he said, smiling.

  “Who was that?” asked First Moon, starting the Inlet Dancer’s motors.

  “Lance Grey from the minister’s office.”

  “You were pretty hard on him.”

  “A kid. They hire a kid to do the political dirty work. He can’t be more than twenty-five.”

  “Still, you were pretty rough. Why are you always talking that way to people, Archie?”

  “Come on, Moon, don’t play dumb. Sometimes it’s the only way people will listen.”

  “Oh yeah, how’s that working for you so far?”

  Ravenwing looked straight ahead. Darren piloted the boat from the slip and moved out of the harbour dead slow.

  “I guess the thing is, Archie,” sai
d First Moon, pushing forward on the throttle as they cleared the breakwater of the harbour and entered Knight Inlet’s open water. “You can be an advocate for wild salmon without making everybody you talk to want wring your neck.”

  5

  When the plane banked and circled, starting its precipitous decline into Port Lostcoast, Cole Blackwater’s lunch sluiced in his stomach and threatened 5 to decorate the interior of the tiny fuselage. He gripped the armrest and closed his eyes.

  “Don’t like flying?” the man next to him asked.

  Cole, eyes pressed shut, didn’t say a word, fearing that opening his mouth might provide the opportunity his breakfast was looking for to vacate his stomach. The plane dropped like a stone out of the sky toward the pan-flat ocean at the mouth of the harbour. What had only a moment before looked like a village of sticks and stones took the form of a real community huddled around a small bay, the fingers of the harbour slips pointing at the breakwater. The most recognizable building was the community centre, perched on a small bluff overlooking the bay, its stalwart totem pole visible from high above, adorned with the images of bear, otter, and raven. Around the centre, spread out on ill-defined streets, were small, colourful wooden homes, and near the water stood a row of storefronts and businesses: a grocery and hardware store, a gas station, a restaurant, and a bar called The Strait.

  Cole had flown from Vancouver to Port Hardy the night before and spent the evening in a cheap motel on the waterfront, watching a hockey game in a bar across the road. He drank too much beer and walked the streets of the tiny fishing and lumbering town until after two am, thinking about his friend Archie Ravenwing. Then he finally crashed into his bed, fully dressed, to be awakened a few hours later by Mary Patterson, who called to tell him she’d booked a charter flight to Lostcoast.

  He couldn’t have been happier.

  “The trick with these little planes is to keep your eyes on the horizon. That’s why I always take the window.”

  Cole took a deep breath and looked at the man sitting next to him — a kid, really. He tried to focus on the horizon over the man’s shoulder, but all he could see out the window was water, the harbour, and the tiny settlement as the plane banked again.