LITMIR.BIZ

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heard the crunch of footsteps and turned to see Eric climbing up to join me. Neither of us said a word. Eric leaned into the wind, with his open lumberman’s jacket flapping wildly, while I yanked my jacket’s zipper up until it touched my chin and pulled my hat firmly over my ears.

      Figuring I might as well make the opening gambit, I said, “Trying to get pneumonia?”

      Eric grinned. “Nothing like a good dose of winter to make a man feel alive.” And he removed his cast-off Mountie fur hat to let his grey-streaked mane fly, as if he were daring the spirits to make him cold.

      “Okay, I get the point, macho man,” I said. Placing his hat back on his head, he said in a more serious tone, “Lucky you found those kids yesterday. Hate to think what would’ve happened if you hadn’t.”

      “You and me both,” I replied. “What’s John-Joe’s excuse for leaving them?”

      “Haven’t talked to him yet.”

      “Do you think he could be the instigator? At twenty-six, he must be at least eight years older than the oldest teen in that group.”

      “I’ve been having trouble accepting his involvement since you first told me. Four years ago, John-Joe almost died because of a drug overdose. As far as I know, he’s been clean since.”

      “Maybe not. Something’s sure influencing him these days. He’s not the same responsible young man he was a few months ago.”

      “Yeah, I’ve noticed the change too,” Eric said. “In fact, the reason I haven’t talked to him yet is because he hasn’t been at work for the last five days. Haven’t been able to get hold of him at home either.”

      “He’s probably with Chantal, then.”

      Eric’s brow creased with annoyance. “The dumb jerk. He’s obsessed with the girl. I told him she wasn’t for him.”

      “What did you tell Yves this morning when he called?”

      “Yves who?”

      “Gagnon. Yvette’s brother. He said he was going to call.”

      “Nope. Hasn’t yet. What’s he got to do with Chantal?”

      “Her father, a business associate of Yves, called him to find out if she was still in the area.” I answered, while thinking the only reason Eric hadn’t received Yves’s call was because he wasn’t home. And I didn’t need to be a detective to guess what or, more correctly, who was keeping him away.

      “You saying she didn’t go home after the last day of trail clearing?” Eric asked.

      “Yup. Five days ago. Which curiously happens to be the same length of time as John-Joe’s been gone.”

      “That bastard. I’ll set the hounds on him,” Eric said with such force that I wondered if a degree of jealousy wasn’t behind his anger. He sure was having fun with the young ladies these days, wasn’t he? Served him right if Chantal had rejected him for someone more her age.

      Flakes started flying around us. Eric buttoned up his jacket and flipped up the collar, then mumbled, “Even macho man gets cold sometimes. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

      And he started down the slippery granite incline, back to the trail.

      “Something you should know, Meg,” Eric said, as we approached the others huddled around their skidoos.

      I froze and waited for the fateful words. Instead, Eric said, “Police found more marijuana last night at a party of older kids.”

      I slowly let out my breath. “Hope it wasn’t laced like the stuff found at my shack.”

      “We won’t know until the results of the analysis on both samples come in. Needless to say this has me very worried. I thought we’d cleaned up our drug problem. Haven’t seen any on the reserve in over a year. And now suddenly, twice in one day. Obviously a dealer has moved in. We’ve got to get this guy before it gets out of hand.”

      “Maybe you should put John-Joe at the top of your suspect list. Might explain why he was with those kids yesterday.”

      Eric’s lips firmed in anger as he straddled his snowmobile. I jumped on behind.

      By the time we’d passed beyond the shelter of Kamikaze Pass, the snow squall was venting its full fury. I glanced over the edge of the trail to where Yvette had fallen onto the bare rocks and saw only cushioning white. Too bad the accident had happened when it did. A few days later, and she would’ve fallen into this soft powder and incurred bruises, not broken bones. But then again, she shouldn’t have been on this trail in the first place.

      We continued churning along my section of the marathon course and, much to my surprise, didn’t find as many obstacles as we’d encountered on Gerry’s. And the few stumps and logs we did uncover were easily removed. My crew hadn’t done such a bad job after all.

      We reached the gnarled maple where Yvette’s father had stopped us from continuing to clear the trail on his land. I looked around, half-expecting to see the old man glowering at us with his shotgun cocked, but the only thing moving was the snow swirling around the silent, massive hardwood.

      In front of us fluttered the red tape used by the designer to mark the marathon course. Eric set the skidoo’s trip odometer to measure the distance while I pencilled the start point on the map. Following the line of red tape, we wove in and out of the crowded trees. Thankfully most were young trees, so we’d be able to remove them without incurring more of Papa Gagnon’s dreadful temper. Occasionally, the skidoo would grind up and over some buried deadfall. At one point we hit too large an obstacle and had to back up and go around.

      The terrain was relatively flat, resulting in a reasonably straight trail that would require minimal effort to complete. The map indicated we were running parallel to the Gagnon farm buildings, a good kilometre or so away. We crossed a couple of existing trails, no doubt logging roads, a conclusion further substantiated by the sight of a number of mature trees marked with bright orange dabs of paint, a marker generally used by foresters to identify trees intended for harvesting. This must be the area where Papa Gagnon planned to log.

      To avoid a deep ravine, the new trail veered sharply left in the direction of the farm. A hundred metres later I noticed a clearing with a grove of birch at one end, beyond which I spied the white expanse of a roof. It probably belonged to an old timber shack, no doubt abandoned like the ones on my property when the reason for its existence had disappeared. Most of these simple structures had been built to support fur trapping or sugar bush operations, but sometimes they were the homesteads of the original settlers and had been left to rot, either because the family had died out or later generations had moved to a more accessible location.

      We crossed a narrow wooden bridge spanning the ravine and headed back towards Migiskan land. Another half kilometre and we were over the boundary and linked up to the next cleared section of the marathon trail.

      In total, the unfinished section amounted to a little less than four kilometres, which wasn’t as bad as we’d thought. Despite the deep snow, a professional work crew with the right equipment could have it cleared within a couple of days. Eric relaxed, and so did I. The future of the Migiskan Ski Marathon had taken an upswing. And even if our relationship was about to disintegrate, my twenty-thousand-dollar investment would still be safe.

      We set out along this back section of the cross-country skiing course, which traversed the dense, scrubby middle part of the reserve’s nine thousand hectares. The spindly newness of this second growth forest of softwoods suggested that clear-cut logging of the mature hardwoods had occurred within the last couple of decades.

      We slipped through a whiteout, along the side of a partially frozen beaver swamp and headed up a steep hill thick with balsam and poplar. At the top, Eric stopped at the intersection of what looked to be a narrow path leading north, off to the left.

      “Guys, you go on ahead,” he said to the others. “Meg and I’ll catch up when we’re

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