Later that afternoon, Belle found Freya snoozing on the floor of the computer room. “Too chubby to squeeze into your chair, old girl?” she snorted. “Aren’t we all. ‘Menopause Manor’ my sign out front should read. Except that I didn’t give you a chance to have one. Maybe the vet can make arrangements for me. Let’s do some chores. Get the old blood boiling before the buggies drain it off.”
A week of spectacular Florida weather (23° C!) had melted the snow in all but the deepest woods. Belle had ferried Hannibal and Big Mac in a giant canning pot to their new home at Science North where a two-hundred gallon tank and plenty of admirers awaited them.
Meanwhile, Sudburians were dancing in the streets, or the equivalent, packing up kids and gear for Victoria Day at the cottage. The sodden ground, festooned with smut and dead leaves, looked as exhausted as everyone else. Time to scratch its back with a rake, her least favourite activity. From far above came familiar squawks. Belle shielded her eyes to scan the sky, watching a tiny vee move closer, keeping time with its vocal metronome. The geese were back, maybe fifty birds aiming due north across Wapiti to their breeding grounds on Hudson Bay.
Freya dashed hopefully but without success after a squirrel, which had the gall to dart up a cedar and scold mercilessly. The triangular flower garden, many weeks’ labour in cutting railroad ties with a chain saw and driving in spikes with a fifteen-pound mallet, waited for her approval of a small shoot in the fresh earth. A bleeding heart? She gave it a gentle tweak. Something was alive! The expensive fringy parrot tulip and double daffodil bulbs she had planted in October? Or was this the narcissus? A garden diary might be just the ticket for the amnesia of a seven-month winter. Maybe even a wildflower diary like Jim’s. Tomorrow Belle would take the dog to the swollen stream down the road to see if she could spot a marsh marigold.
Belle relaxed on the deck, trying to remember where she had left her bug dope. She opened the Sudbury Star to check the local news. The fickle gods had approved the damn park after all. It was slated to open next summer, once access roads had been bulldozed and the shelters, washrooms and dumps constructed. Next stop, Disney World North? Was it Victor Hugo who said that not all the armies on earth could stop an idea whose time had come?
Three o’clock. Belle had almost forgotten. She drove to Rainbow Country, greeting the sun-worshippers as she took the stairs two at a time. Someone was missing. Dapper Billy Kidd, a feature sitting in a lawn chair from May to October between his daily walks. “Where’s Mr. Kidd?” she asked Cherie. Her eyes moistening, the nurse pointed at the name board where a black space remained beside room 210. “I guess you hadn’t heard. He fell last week. Broke his hip. At that age, they don’t last long with a serious injury.”
Do all you can do, thought Belle, as she wheeled her father to the van, presenting him with a small Canadian flag like the one she carried. In another year he could reclaim his citizenship. “I have a surprise, Father. Somebody famous is coming through the old burg today, and no, it’s not the Queen.” She parked on a hill overlooking the hastily refurbished arena, trundling the old man out of the car to a vantage spot behind a chain link fence. He crinkled up his face in mild irritation. “Who the hell are you talking about? I have to go to the bathroom!”
“There he is!” she said as a trim figure walked over a decorative drawbridge leading to a commemorative plate glinting in the sun. His retinue mumbled into their radios and surveyed the underbrush for terrorists poking out of the poplars. “The Prime Minister!” Belle announced. And they waved their little flags and cheered. It was a glorious day.
HÉLÈNE’S HERKY JERKY
1. Combine:
2/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons green jalapeno sauce
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
2. Slice 3 lbs. beef (top round) or moose meat into 1/4 inch-thick strips. The thinner, the better. Frozen meat cuts more easily.
3. Marinate meat overnight in fridge.
4. Place drained meat strips on oven rack. For extra heat, sprinkle with one teaspoon of hot red pepper flakes. If you don’t have an auto-clean function, put down plenty of aluminum foil. Cook 6 to 8 hours at 150°F, removing smaller pieces first. They get crisper the longer they bake.
5. Store finished jerky in air-tight plastic bags or similar container.
PROLOGUE
The small room was quiet, a glass prism in the window shooting rainbows onto the simple pine floor. On the wall, a picture of a smiling, round-faced man beamed approval. Below him a cot with a rough grey blanket, a young boy hunched beside it. He was worrying a hole in the arm of his sweater, passing his fingers in and out, unravelling the wool. “Don’t do that,” the voice said, well-modulated, comforting at other times, in other places. “Stand straight. What do I teach you?”
A sniffle, nose swiped with a sleeve. “Never mind. Come closer.” Outside, far away, a bell tolled. “Had we but world enough . . .”
A small sob. Then a shudder, quickly mastered. A straightening of limbs and clothing, and a sigh. Out of a pocket came a flash of silver. “Do you know what this is?”
“A whistle?”
“Clever lad. But a special toy for our new game. When I blow it twice before supper, you are to come here. Immediately.” Steel arrows nailed the boy’s eyes as he backed away. “Do you understand?”
In the palpable silence, the hole grew larger, more ragged, like a scream for help.
ONE
Who cares if they pollinate the blueberries?” Belle Palmer mumbled to herself as she raked at the bloody crusts behind her ears. You could eat only so much pie. Damn blackflies. Would some genius ever invent repellent that wasn’t an oily, sticky solvent for plastic? Cheer up, they’ll be gone in a month, ushering in mosquitos, cluster flies, horse flies, moose flies, deer flies and pernicious no-seeums, which require a tent screen finer than silk. Welcome to Northern Ontario, where bugs are an equal opportunity employer: O positive is as full-bodied as A or B.
Belle usually avoided the woods until the hotter weather switched off the worst biters, but her German shepherd Freya was eager for a trek. The dog brought up the rear, browsing every ten feet for an educated sniff at her p-mail. Was it like reading a book? Tracing Braille? Red squirrels, the stunted northern variety, chittered teasingly from the cedars; foxes had scheduled night manoeuvers, littering the path with grouse feathers; and under the bracken, a rabbit hopped to safety, newly metamorphosed from white to brown in seasonal camouflage. Under the arms of a massive yellow birch, Belle spied a tiny, freeze-dried wintergreen fruit, popped it into her mouth and enjoyed a teaberry gum moment. She realized that she had stopped singing, a strategic mistake in bruin territory, especially when they were foraging frantically for tender grass, grubs, and roots before the berries arrived.
Suddenly her third-class human nose wrinkled. What a stink! Yet not cloyingly sweet like carrion. Rancid, sharp, even burnt. The dog had picked it up and veered off past hills of white trilliums and delicate ferns, leading her deep into the bush to a scene from an absurdist movie. Tied into the brushy alders were a dozen doughnuts—grape jelly, under examination—and stale. A lemon pie, ravaged by joyous ants, rested on top of a table rock. Miss Havisham’s wedding