White Heat by Melanie Mcgrath

game.'
        'Maybe,'
Edie said. 'I don't care what your motivation is, but you behave with Joe out
on the land the way you behaved with me a few weeks back, and you can be sure
your career, or whatever it is you're doing here, is over.'
        'Three
days,' he said, 'then I'm out of your hair.'
        She
got to her feet and went to the door.
        'See
you in the morning.'
        He
took the hint, smiled as he passed her and went into the porch to put on his
snow boots.
        When
he'd gone, she picked up the can of Budweiser and shook it. The base of the can
felt heavy and its contents swooshed softly, a sweet, hoppy swoosh. She went to
the kitchen and poured the remains down the sink. At that moment she heard the
door swing open and Joe came in. She hastily threw the empty can in the trash
and covered it over before he could see it.
        'Been
with your father?'
        Joe came
through to the kitchen and opened the fridge. 'Uh huh. We checked over the
snowbies, sorted the equipment out. I lent Andy one of my leisters so he can
get some proper ice fishing in.'
        For
the first time since the Felix Wagner affair, he seemed relaxed and happy. He
didn't ask about the boot tracks leading up to the door and she didn't tell
him. He needs this, she thought, a good, simple trip, no one dying on his
watch.
        'Eat
already?'
        'I
guess,' he said. It was what he always said when he'd filled up on junk food at
his father's house.
        'Listen,'
she said. 'That skinny qalunaat ? Be careful with him. He's slippery.'
        'Kigga,'
he said, touching her nose with his finger. 'I'm all grown up now.'
        
        
        The
next day the party left early and took the snowmobiles across the shore-fast
ice ridge and the rim of ice heaves to the flat expanse of the year ice. By
mid-morning the few thin ladders of low cloud had burned off, leaving the air
clear and dry, perfect travelling weather.
        By mid-morning
the travellers had split into two parties, Joe leading the way towards the west
coast of Craig and
        Edie
following the well-worn hunting paths across the ice dunes towards Fritjof in
the east. Twice they stopped briefly to eat and drink hot tea, before setting
out once more across the ice desert. Visibility remained superb throughout the
afternoon and into the evening, illuminating the long, craggy outline of
Taluritut, which southerners called Devon Island, to the south. As they
travelled, Edie could hear Fairfax behind her, whooping like a child.
        In
the sparkling light of the late High Arctic spring evening, they set up camp on
the shore-fast ice, feasting on duck stew and oatcakes. For a while they
watched the sun circling the horizon, exhausted.
        'Tell
me something, Edie,' Fairfax began.
        'About
what?'
        'Oh,
I don't know, something about the Arctic.'
        Edie
thought for a moment: how to begin? She flipped through her mental file of
Arctic facts. 'Arctic rainbows are circles.'
        'That
so?' Fairfax laughed, a great, relaxed, wide laugh, a different man from the
one she met at the airstrip yesterday. 'I guess there's no pot of gold at the
end, then.'
        'I
guess not.'
        A
pair of eiders flew by, lost maybe or just very early. All the migratory birds
were coming in earlier now. Edie followed them with her eye until they
disappeared in the faint gloaming that served both for twilight and dawn at
this time of year.
        'Before
I came up here the first time, I never understood why in God's name my
great-great-grandfather kept returning to the north; the frostbite,
snowblindness, living on frozen whale blood and ship's biscuit.'
        Edie
half-listened to the white man, but her thoughts were with Joe. He and Taylor would
have set camp on Craig by now. She imagined Joe fixing the white man's supper.
        Perhaps
she'd overstated her case a little to Taylor last night, but that's how she was
when it