LITMIR.BIZ

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Suddenly he raised them and chopped the air with a vicious downward motion that made me leap back, my heart convulsing.

      “I don’t give a good goddamn about any dead body. You damn screaming greenies can look after your own dead bodies, and if the guy’s already dead, it’s no emergency, is it?”

      I must admit he had a point. He made a sudden move toward me and then froze as he fixed his gaze on something behind me, the expression on his face darkening another dozen shades. I slowly turned my head and saw Ryan running down the road, flanked on either side by a man and a woman. I was so relieved to see him that when he came up and took me by the arm to see if I was okay I nearly slid to the ground, my wobbly knees suddenly proving how much I needed them to hold me up. We stood together and watched as the man who had been with Ryan squared off with my behemoth, although I was interested to see that he took great care not to get within swinging distance of those huge arms.

      “Cameron, what the hell are you doing here?” asked the man in a thin, wheezy voice. He was a slight, balding guy who was wearing a shirt several sizes too big for him. Despite the bravado in his words he did not move any closer to the guy. Cameron’s eyes narrowed to slits and his fists clenched, but he said nothing.

      “This isn’t part of your leasing area, it belongs to the university, and we don’t take kindly to you trespassing here,” said the man.

      “You! You have the fucking nerve to accuse me of trespassing.” Cameron lunged at the man, who anticipated Cameron’s reaction and deftly ducked out of the way.

      “You stinking son of a cowardly bitch,” said Cameron. “Why don’t you put your fist where your mouth is?” He lunged again, but the woman, who, though taller than me, barely reached Cameron’s chest, stepped between them as if they were two toddlers.

      “Cameron, I think it best that you clear out.” Her voice was clipped: not rude, just emotionless. Her clear blue eyes were unblinking as they stood looking at each other. I thought some signal passed between them, but the moment was so fleeting that I couldn’t be sure.

      “It’s not a good idea to come around here,” she said.

      “Is that a threat, Miz Mitchell?” said Cameron with a heavy emphasis on the “Ms.”

      “No, just a friendly piece of advice.”

      He snorted, and then a slow smile spread across his face like lava across a valley, vindictive and delighted at some thought in his head. He turned to me.

      “The only person I know that camps up there is that bastard who started all this. Must be his goddamned body. Serve him bloody well right, the nosey parker, trying to tell us what to do. As if he knows piss-all about forestry. Well, to hell with him and with all of you. I hope you fry in hell and I’ll supply the devil with the fuel you lot are trying to martyr.”

      He spat the words out like a bad taste he was happy to get rid of. He turned and got in his truck, slammed the door with exaggerated force, and floored it, sending gravel spraying out at us as he roared away.

      “What the hell was that all about?” I asked, hoping that words might make my knees behave. I looked at the man, whose face had gone several shades paler.

      He pinned me with his eyes, wild and sweaty, stumbled around his words, got his tongue in the right spot, and whispered, “What body?”

      Ryan, who hadn’t heard the question, turned to me and said, “I only just bumped into these two down by the biology station when I heard you yelp. Leslie Mitchell and Don Allenby, Cordi O’Callaghan.”

      The woman inclined her head, but the man didn’t seem to notice the introductions at all.

      “Who was that guy?” asked Ryan, jerking his head in the direction of the departing truck.

      Don’s voice came again, louder, verging on hysteria.

      “What body?” He was nervously wringing his hands and the sweat glistened on his forehead.

      “His name is Cameron,” said Leslie, who glanced worriedly at Don before repeating his question. “What body?”

      “A couple of hours ago we found a body up river at the beginning of the portage around the falls. I was about to tell you when we heard my sister yelp. We need to contact the police,” said Ryan.

      “Oh, Jesus.” Don shook his head from side to side with a half moan.

      “For god’s sake, Don, get a hold of yourself,” snapped Leslie. She turned and looked at me. “Where?”

      “We found it near the water about a hundred yards from a campsite of some sort.”

      Don groaned and whimpered. “Oh, God. It’s Jake.

      It’s gotta be Diamond. Oh, Jesus.”

      “For Pete’s sake, pull yourself together,” said Leslie, looking curiously at Don.

      “That’s his campsite up there. He’s the only one who stays up there,” moaned Don. “He was due back tomorrow. It’s not my fault. If he hadn’t returned I was to give out the call. We all do that for each other. We go into the bush so often to do our fieldwork. It’s mostly crown land. All our study sites are up this way, we’re all biologists of some description or other. I work with small mammals: rabbits and things like that. Jake works with large mammals: Canada lynx, sometimes bobcat. Leslie here’s a moose woman. And we do a lot of fieldwork. Our base station is the building around the corner, down the road. We use it as a jumping off spot for say a week, a month in the field at a time. Leslie and I …”

      After this long speech he wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “But Jake knew the bush, unbelievable he was. Not a better man than Jake in the bush. How could this happen to him? How could it be Jake? What the hell happened?”

      Leslie stopped the flow of words with a chop of her hand.

      “For Christ’s sake, Don, pipe down. It may not be Jake. It’s probably some poor sucker who got lost and panicked. Jake’s too much of a bushman to get into trouble, and he’s as healthy as an ox. He’ll be along to tell us all about it. Besides, whoever it is, there’s nothing we can do right now but get through to the police and report it.”

      She looked at me and Ryan. “There’s a CB radio in my car down the road. We can use that. Cell phones don’t work up here — too remote.”

      We walked in silence. Jake Diamond. The name rang some distant bell in my mind. I did of course know of him as a mammalogist, but it was for something else that this little bell tolled.

      “It’s Jake. I know it is. It’s Jake,” wailed Don with such sudden conviction it made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but think that this trembling basket case knew something the rest of us didn’t.

       chapter five

      “What’s this I hear about you finding a dead body? In pieces, no less. I’m gone three short weeks and you get yourself into trouble.”

      I was standing at my office window looking down at the pavement five flights below, feeling like a washed-out watercolour, bits of me fading into the early morning air, thoughts running into each other, creating mud. The early morning sun glinted off the sidewalk below, and the students rushed to make their 9:00 a.m. classes. At the sound of Martha’s deep guttural purr I turned in relief. Martha Bathgate literally filled the doorway of my puny office.

      “Really, Martha. Who told you he was in pieces?” Martha had a habit of being able to take my mind off myself and aim it at something productive. She was sometimes even able to dispel my sad moods before they spiralled down into darkness. If only I could figure out how she did it, I might be able to prevent depression from ever getting hold of me again. Unlikely, though; I’d fought it all my life.

      Martha winked knowingly at me. “I never reveal my sources, you know that. It simply wouldn’t do.”

      I shared Martha with two other

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