East of Desolation

Any minute now he was going to tell me just how noble death was and I cut in on him quickly and patted the Winchester.

‘Well this is my way – the Joe Martin way. Any bear who comes within a hundred yards of me gets the whole magazine. I’m allergic to the smell of their fur.’

He roared with laughter and slapped me on the back. ‘Joe, baby, you’re the greatest thing since air-conditioning. Come and have a drink.’

‘Not for me, thanks,’ I said.

He had a head start anyway, that much was obvious, but I followed him to the fire and squatted beside him as he uncorked a nearly empty bottle and poured a generous measure into a tin cup. The hunters from Narquassit watched us impassively, a scattering of dogs crouched at their feet. Desforge shook his head in disgust.

‘Look at them – what a bloody crew. I had to bribe them to get them this far.’ He swallowed some of his whisky. ‘But what can you expect? Look at their clothes – all store bought. Not a pair of sealskin pants among them.’

He emptied the dregs of the bottle into his cup and I said, ‘I’ve brought a visitor to see you – a girl called Eytan.’

He turned sharply, bewilderment on his face. ‘Ilana – here? You’re kidding.’

I shook my head. ‘She flew into Søndre from Copenhagen last night.’

‘Did she say what she wanted?’

I shook my head. ‘Maybe she’s come to take you home.’

‘Not a chance.’ He laughed shortly. ‘I owe too many people too damned much on the outside. Greenland suits me just fine for the time being.’ He leaned across, full of drunken gravity. ‘I’ll tell you something in confidence – confidence, mind you? There’s a lulu coming up that’ll put me right back there on top of the heap and take care of my old age. Milt Gold of Horizon should be in touch with me any day now.’

‘Maybe this Eytan girl has a message for you,’ I suggested.

His face brightened. ‘Heh, you could have a point there.’

There was a faint cry from along the beach and we turned to see an Eskimo trotting towards us waving excitedly. Everything else was forgotten as Desforge got to his feet and picked up a harpoon.

‘This is it,’ he said. ‘Let’s get moving.’

He didn’t even look to see if he was being followed and I shouldered the Winchester and went after him, the hunters from Narquassit following. You can tell when an Eskimo is happy because sometimes he’ll actually smile, but more often than not it’s impossible to know how he’s feeling at any given moment. Allowing for that I still got a definite impression that the men from Narquassit were something less than enthusiastic about the whole thing and I didn’t blame them one little bit.

We reached the end of a long strip of shingle beach and started across a much rougher section that was a jumble of great boulders and broken ice when one of the hunters cried out sharply. They all came to a halt and there was a sudden frenzied outburst of voices as everyone seemed to start talking at once.

And then I saw it – a great shaggy mountain of dirty yellow fur ambling along the shoreline and as the first dog gave tongue, he paused and looked over his shoulder in a sort of amiable curiosity.

You don’t need to be a great white hunter to shoot a polar bear. One thousand pounds of bone and muscle makes quite a target and it takes a lot to goad it into action, but when he moves, it’s at anything up to twenty-five miles an hour and a sidelong swipe from one of those great paws is guaranteed to remove a man’s face.

Desforge saw only the quarry he’d been seeking for so long and he gave a howl of triumph and started to run, harpoon at the trail, showing quite a turn of speed considering his age.

The dogs were well out in front, but the Eskimo hunters from Narquassit looked considerably more reluctant and I knew why. In their mythology and folklore the polar bear holds roughly the same position as does the wolf for the North American Indian, a creature of mystery and magic with apparently all the cunning of Man: on the other hand, they weren’t keen on losing their dogs and went after them fast and I brought up the rear.

The bear loped across the strand and skidded on to the pack ice, making for the nearest water, a dark hole that was perhaps ten or twelve feet in diameter. He plunged in and disappeared from view as the dogs went after him closely followed by Desforge, the hunters some little way behind.

I shouted a warning, but Desforge took no notice and started across the ice to where the dogs ringed the hole howling furiously. A moment later it happened – one of the oldest tricks in the book. The bear sounded, striking out furiously with both paws, erupting from the water and falling across the thin ice with his whole weight. A spider’s web of cracks appeared that widened into deep channels as he struck again.

The hunters had paused on the shore, calling to the dogs to come back. Most of them managed it safely, yelping like puppies, tails between their legs, but three or four tumbled into the water to be smashed into bloody pulp within seconds as the bear surged forward again.

Desforge was no more than ten or twelve feet away and he hurled the harpoon, losing his balance at the same moment and slipping to one knee. It caught the bear high up in the right side and he gave a roar like distant thunder and reared up out of the broken ice, smashing the haft of the harpoon with a single blow.

Desforge turned and started back, but he was too late. Already a dark line was widening between him and the shore and a moment later he was waist-deep and floundering desperately in the soft slush. The bear went after him like an express train.

Desforge was no more than four or five yards away from the shore as I burst through the line of hunters and raised the Winchester. There was time for just one shot and as the bear reared up above him I squeezed the trigger and the heavy bullet blew off the top of its head. It went down like a tower falling, blood and brains scattering across the ice and Desforge fell on to his hands and knees on the shore.

He lay there for a moment as the hunters rushed forward to catch the carcase before it went under the ice. When I dropped to one knee beside him he grinned up at me, the teeth very white in the iron-grey beard as he wiped blood from his forehead with the back of one hand.

‘I always did like to do my own stuntwork.’

‘A great script,’ I said. ‘What are you going to call the film – Spawn of the North?’

‘We could have got some good footage there,’ he said seriously as I pulled him to his feet.

They hauled the bear on to the shore and the headman pulled out the broken shaft of Desforge’s harpoon and came towards us. He spoke to me quickly in Eskimo and I translated for Desforge.

‘He says that by rights the bear is yours.’

‘And how in the hell does he make that out?’

‘The harpoon pierced a lung. He’d have died for sure.’

‘Well that’s certainly good news. Presumably we’d have gone to the great hereafter together.’

‘They want to know if you’d like the skin.’

‘What would be the point? Some careless bastard seems to have ruined the head. Tell them they can have it.’

I nodded to the headman who smiled with all the delight of a child and called to his friends. They formed a circle and shuffled round, arms linked, wailing in chorus.

‘Now what?’ Desforge demanded.

‘They’re apologising to the bear for having killed him.’

His head went back and he laughed heartily, the sound of it echoing flatly across the water. ‘If that don’t beat all. Come on, let’s get out of here before I go nuts or freeze to death or something,’ and he turned and led the way back along the shore.

When we reached the whaleboat he got in and rummaged for a blanket in the stern locker while I pushed off. By the time I’d clambered in after him and got the engine started, he had the blanket round his shoulders and was extracting the cork from a half-bottle of whisky with his teeth.

‘Looks as if they carry this with the iron rations,’ he said and held it out. ‘What about you?’

I shook my head. ‘We’ve been through all this before, Jack. I never use the stuff, remember?’

I had no way of knowing exactly how much whisky he had put away by then, but it was obvious that he was fast reaching a state where he would have difficulty in remembering where he was and why, never mind make any kind of sense out of past events. I knew the feeling well. There had been a time when I spent too many mornings in a grey fog wondering where I was – who I was. At that point it’s a long fast drop down unless you have enough sense to turn before it’s too late and take that first fumbling step in the other direction.

‘Sorry, I was forgetting,’ he said. ‘Now me – I’m lucky. I’ve always been able to take it or leave it.’ He grinned his teeth chattering slightly. ‘Mostly take it, mind you – one of life’s great pleasures, like a good woman.’

Just what was his definition of good was anybody’s guess. He swallowed deeply, made a face and examined the label on the bottle. ‘Glen Fergus malt whisky. Never heard of it and I’m the original expert.’

‘Our finest local brew.’