LITMIR.BIZ

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Hélène was telling her story, her grip had relaxed on the gun barrel. Now it pointed at the floor, not at me. Behind me, I could hear Sergei’s quiet whimpers at the door. I decided I’d try for the door. As Hélène continued her story, I shuffled backwards.

      “But I had to shut Louis up too. I caught him next morning unloadin’ firewood. It was perfect, eh? I shot him and dumped the wood on top of him, then I went back to the island and put the gun with Marie. I figured the way I hid the bodies, no one’d find them for weeks. By then Charlie and I are far away.”

      I caught the faint crackle of a police radio and glanced quickly at Charlie and Hélène to see if either had heard. But they were too intent on the story, the one telling, the other listening. I continued moving slowly backwards to the door.

      “Even had the police runnin’ off to Louis’s camp with that dumb note, didn’t I? Sure had you fooled, eh? But the best was making you all think Marie killed Louis and then herself.” She finished with a low throaty cackle.

      “This eagle feather, Hélène, the one you gave me when I lost mine. It was Marie’s, wasn’t it?” Charlie whispered, waking from his trance-like state.

      Chanting softly to himself, Charlie carefully detached the long black and white feather from his braid and gently laid it on the table beside him. Turning a stark stare back to Hélène he said, “We have angered the spirits. We must answer to kije manido.”

      “Jeez, Charlie, ain’t you ever gonna quit believin’ that guff.” She spat the burning cigarette from her mouth and stomped on it.

      “Hélène, why? Marie was like a sister. How could you kill her?” He looked at her imploringly, as if trying to fathom her betrayal.

      “For the money, ya stupid bastard. That’s all it ever was, the money. That’s the only reason I put up with your snivellin’ ways,” she sneered as she aimed her rifle.

      “How dare you, you bitch!” screamed Charlie as he lunged towards her, knocking her to the ground. Kicking and screeching, she struggled to raise the gun. A glint of metal as his fist jabbed her chest. With the other hand, he grabbed her rifle.

      Suddenly, a violent roar shook the building along with a blinding flash as the bullet smashed through the lamp. Flaming oil flew in every direction, coating the floor in a blaze of fire. Within seconds, the ancient shack was an inferno.

      The way out was still clear, but where Charlie and Hélène lay, it was a wall of flames. I saw two pairs of feet and pulled the pair with the boots, not the running shoes with the elongated “y” on the sole. While the fire crackled around me, I strained and pulled and dragged the heavy body out the door, where I left it on the ground and ran back to get the other one.

      The roof beams had ignited. Terrified they would cave in, I grabbed the feet with the running shoes and pulled. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, which was the last thing I remembered before finding myself stretched out on the ground with Sergei’s rough tongue licking my face.

      “Stupid dog,” I said and gave him a big grateful hug.

      All that remained of Aunt Aggie’s sugar shack was a bonfire of blazing timber and red hot metal sizzling in the rain. Soon it would be nothing but a smouldering heap of shattered hopes and dreams gone wrong. A stench of smoke, mixed with an odour I didn’t want to identify, hung in the air.

      Gareth was standing over me, with his arms crossed. “Good, you’re alive.”

      “How’d I get here?”

      “I pulled you out. Couldn’t let you fry, could I?” he said with a wry smile.

      My head hurt. I reached up and felt singed hair. “I suppose I should say thank you.”

      He shrugged.

      I looked over to where I’d dragged the body. Charlie was painfully raising himself to his feet. His face was streaked in soot, one cheek blistered, his braids gone. But apart from a few burnt patches on his heavy outdoor clothing, the rest of his body was spared.

      He stood up, wavered a bit, then turning towards the smoking ruins, his face twisted in anguish, gasped, “She didn’t feel the fire. She was already dead. I killed her with my knife. I have answered to kije manido.”

      Eric suddenly appeared from the direction of my cottage. “Meg, you’re okay!” he cried, running towards me. Behind him were Decontie and his men.

      On a branch high above my head, a black shape slowly unfurled his wings, lifted into the air and disappeared with two mighty sweeps of his wings. His role was over. Marie’s messenger had delivered his message.

      FORTY-SIX

      The tragedy of Whispers Island didn’t end with the explosion. Four days later, I discovered Aunt Aggie had one last secret.

      It had been a strange day, starting with a heavy morning snowfall that was still falling as dusk darkened into night. It was as if kije manido wanted to erase the crimes of this terrible autumn with the innocence of winter’s first snow.

      I sat on the sofa in the orange warmth of a simmering fire with Sergei curled at my side. Although heavy-hearted, I felt strangely at peace. The uncertainty was finally over.

      I found it difficult to believe that only three weeks ago, Marie and I had been laughing in the sun of that fateful Indian Summer day, the day the CanacGold planes had swooped into our northern paradise and triggered the fight over gold. Now Marie was dead, my life set on a different course, and the lives of those lured by its promise of wealth changed forever. Even Whispers Island hadn’t come through unscathed. The gap in its profile would be a warning to us all not to violate its sacred shores.

      Charlie was in the hospital. He had suffered third degree burns to his hands and face and would require skin grafts. But he wasn’t going to jail. It was evident Charlie had nothing to do with the murders of Marie or Louis or the shooting of Tommy. As for his killing of Hélène, it was deemed self-defense.

      Although he had broken into my place, shot at me, and was responsible for the tree almost killing me on Whispers Island, I decided not to press charges. He told me he’d accidentally dislodged the tree when he leaned over the cliff to check out my actions on Marie’s beach, and the gun shots were fired only as a warning for me to return his money. At no time did he intend to harm me.

      Charlie’s only real crime was greed and falling in love with Hélène. For his love of Hélène, he was punished. His wife of twenty years left him, taking their three children back to her own reserve, five hundred miles away.

      As for his greed, the money he had earned from CanacGold was smouldering ash. And, more importantly, he’d lost his standing as tribal chief and elder within the band. While the Band Council allowed him to remain on the reserve, he was to undergo a sentencing circle to determine what his punishment should be and to begin the healing process, which, according to Eric, had already begun. Upset over Hélène’s role in the killings, Charlie had accepted his responsibility for the deaths, no matter how unwittingly.

      As for Hélène, she was dead. No greater punishment could be served on her for the killing of Marie and Louis.

      And the gold mining saga was definitely dead. Whispers Island now belonged to Tommy. Well, not quite, but it soon would be in his possession.

      At a meeting with William Watson’s lawyer, Wilson McLeod, I received a cheque for the remainder of the money that Aunt Aggie had put in his firm’s trust in 1925 to handle the taxes for Whispers Island. It was the year I now knew to be the actual date of the death of her husband, Baron von Wichtenstein, alias William Watson, alias Two Face Sky. The lawyer also passed me an envelope she’d left with his firm in 1935.

      One document was the transfer of ownership of Whispers Island from crown assets to Mr. William Watson. The second, a request form with “Approved” stamped in red for a name to be changed from Johann von Wichtenstein to William J. Watson. And the final document was the deed to the property.

      At

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