Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle. Lou Allin
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people, more trash, more problems. In the summer, of course, it might bring canoe trade, but that’s our vacation time. And then there’s the pictographs.” She pointed to some black and white photographs on the wall which outlined vaguely human shapes, stars, circles and crosses on a rock face. “Ben took me up there canoeing on our honeymoon. Better than Niagara Falls. Those red ochre images have been on that old Champlain canoe route since God knows when but won’t last long now, people get to rubbing at them. Jim tell you about that rally at the university?”
“Sounds like a good idea for us cottagers to go, too. It’s rush hour every Saturday night the Beaverdam is open. The noise never stops,” said Belle as she and Ed dug into the spaghetti. Alphabet letters dotted the tangy sauce, but it tasted sublime. And the dessert surpassed all promises, thick swirls of cream over tart apples.
As they paid the token five dollars each, Belle asked after Ben. Meg opened the door and peered out, shielding her eyes from the reflected sun off the snow. “Here comes Pop. Took the sled over to the ridge to pick up some down-and-dead.” In certain wilderness areas, the Ministry issued permits to harvest fallen trees and widow-makers.
“So where have you been? First time all year,” Ben said, hitting the kill switch on the small sled designed for light bush work. He picked up an axe and lifted a five-gallon gas can over his shoulder. “Loading up on Mom’s special, I’ll bet.” A lean sixty, his face tanned and creased from outdoor work at the small lodge on weekends, Ben had retired early from Falconbridge, Inco’s little brother, a mining corporation. He passed a few minutes with Belle and Ed complaining about the weather.
“Don’t go yet,” Meg called as she ran up bearing a small jar wrapped in a calico cloth. “Wild gooseberry jam. Jim picked me a bounty last summer, and I forgot to give you one at Thanksgiving.” Belle thanked her and wedged the jar firmly into the carrier.
“I could have stood a nap after that meal,” Ed said.
“No wonder Hélène calls you an old bear.”
The slap of -10° C revitalized them as they topped up the machines from a carrier jug. Ed and Belle had marked a trail north through a ridge system, down through Laura Lake and back to Wapiti. After a half hour, they stopped at an unusual pine loop. “Might make a good picture,” she said. Then they noticed a track snaking into the bush. Not many drivers left the main routes, and with good reason. Without a snowshoe path, machines had rough going breaking trail, especially on fresh, heavy snow. Travelling unbroken lakes was even riskier, since a layer of melt often lurked under the pristine snow blanket. Yet it looked sooooo good, so tempting, that a rider just had to make a track across, put his mark on the landscape, cut the birthday cake. A machine could, however, be trapped in this treacherous slush until a freeze allowed its owner to round up burly friends to chop it out of the ice. Rescue by helicopter was an expensive proposition. “Looks firm enough. Trapper’s cabin? Good fishing hole?” Ed wondered as he backed up, then revved his engine like a young kid. “Might lead somewhere interesting. Want to have a go?”
“Why not? It’s only two o’clock,” Belle said. “At the first sign of a problem we’ll stop. Neither of us has the muscles to budge these machines if they bog down.”
“Speak for yourself, little lady,” Ed snorted, though he rubbed his hip thoughtfully. Already a few yards past the cut, Belle began the laborious process of turning the Bravo, first shifting the skis by tugging on the metal loops, then lifting the heavier rear of the sled. “I’ll have reverse next time even if I have to mortgage the dog. No more bullwork for me,” she said, wincing at an ominous twinge in her back.
Following the path was a jerky trip, with Belle’s skis slipping in and out of wider ruts, drifted over in places. Shimmying and sliding, they followed a roller coaster trail through heavy spruce, the laden boughs dropping snow down their necks as they passed. One sharp turn cut around a massive glacial outcropping of rock twenty feet high, shrouded in snow. Finally they spotted the frozen lake, ringed with dark firs, cloudless cerulean blue above, the picture of serenity . . . except for a ragged, refrozen hole with a hand beckoning, pointing at that same blue sky.
THREE
Someone’s gone down!” Belle cried, braking at the shoreline. A round pool of new ice, a lake within a lake, had formed in the older snow cover. A sled had travelled perhaps forty feet before breaking through and left only the pale blue hand locked into the new surface.
“Looks like he never even swam for it. Jesus, poor bastard,” Ed said, testing the edge with his boots and shielding his eyes against the glare. “See anything?”
“A flash of red just below. That fresh ice is a couple of inches thick already, but I’m not walking out on it. Too deep to spot anything else. We’ll have to go back for help. The police will bring a diver. And they’ll need an axe.”
They drove back quickly, pushing into the lodge as a surprised family of four lowered forks from their spaghetti. Belle called toward the kitchen. “There’s someone broken through about a half hour north.” She chose not to mention the hand.
“I’d better get Ben ready,” said Meg, a small line worrying her forehead as she gave a huge iron pot a stir. “You don’t think . . .” she murmured as she rushed out in search of her husband, leaving her coat hanging on the rack.
Since the area was well outside the city’s jurisdiction, Belle used the radio-phone to call the Ontario Provincial Police, then stood by helplessly while Ben packed his gear and rounded up some sleds, speaking softly to his wife as he gave her a hug. “I know what’s on your mind, and you can stop it right now.”
“But where is he? He’s always back way early for Sunday dinner. And the storm’s long over. Been clear since morning.”
“It’s the boozers and daredevils have the accidents. Jim knows how to handle himself in the bush. Maybe he had some problems with his research, Meg. Or worked extra hard for those exams,” Ben said as he lifted the cover from his largest machine, packed the rescue gear and, with an efficiency born of second nature, attached a fibreglass cargo toboggan.
Belle rubbed at her numb ears in the rising wind. “The O.P.P. said to wait until they arrived with the air ambulance. The plan is to leave the helicopter here where there’s plenty of space. That swamp lake is too dense with bush. I told them that we hadn’t touched anything at the site, not that there was anything to see.” Only one thing, she thought with a shudder.
While they warmed up on coffee, the drone of the rotors filled the still air; sound from above travelled far in winter with the dampening effect of the snow and the bare trees. A short man, whose confident bearing added a mental foot, climbed down and walked over, two constables on his heels. “I’m Al Morantz. I understand that a body was found. What can you tell me about the site?”
Belle made the introductions. “Ed and I found the lake following a trail not too far from here. Probably doesn’t even have a name, a little swamp like that. Track goes to the edge, and the rest is a refrozen hole.”
Morantz looked around. “We’re short on personnel, or I would have had our machines meet us here. I understand from what you said on the phone, Miss Palmer, that we can use the lodge’s.”
“Thought of that,” Ben said and gave the officers two sets of keys as he pointed toward the shed. One of them retrieved his diving gear from the helicopter.
Meg appeared in a patched-up snowmobile suit, carrying a thermos of coffee. “No arguments, Pop. I’m going with you.”
A barely perceptible frown from Belle with her lips framing a “no” got through to Ben. “Don’t think you should, Ma. You might be in these folks’ way.”
Arms folded, Meg got onto the two-up seat in stubborn silence, while Al and his men started the lodge’s other machines. Driving in cortège, unsmiling and heedless of the packs of laughing drivers on the trail, they reached the lake and cut their motors. Before anyone had time to react, Meg ran to the shore, her agonized voice breaking the sudden stillness. “My God. Oh, my God in heaven. That hand.”