Free Coppermine by Keith Ross Leckie Page A

began kicking in the direction of the island. Not that the direction was clear—they were down in the water and could not see over the waves. The centre of the storm had passed them by, but once in a while a crack of lightning would offer more illumination and Creed would push himself up on the gunnels to gain height. The second time he saw them, much closer now, the tips of a few pine trees.
    “There it is! To the left. Come on! Kick, damn it!”
    They finally touched sandy bottom in a sheltered cove of a peninsula, a rocky oasis jutting well out into the lake. They dragged the Peterborough, heavy with water and supplies, half out of the water. They cut the lashings of the keel boards to release them and dragged the vessel higher to safety. They crawled up on the sand beach on their hands and knees in the lee of the wind, both gasping, shivering uncontrollably. The moon came out then, bright enough to cast clear shadows. When Creed’s breath returned, he laughed and said out loud what he had said at several other moments in his life.
    “Still here.”
    The boy looked at him as if he were crazy, but when Creed’s honest laughter continued, the boy understood. He studied Creed again with amusement and then, as if bestowing a special prize, his teeth bright white in the moonlight, Angituk smiled.
    “There you go,” Creed told him triumphantly.
    THEY SET UP THE TENT first to dry. There was lots of brushwood, and though it was wet, with patience Creed soon had a roaring fire on the beach. The sleeping bags and clothing had been in dry sacks that the water had not penetrated. They quickly changed out of their wet clothes, a distance apart in the darkness, their backs to each other as always, and soon they were before the fire eating hot pork and beans out of tins and staring into the flames, their exhaustion now beginning to take over.
    “Our isuma is good, Corporal.”
    “What is isuma?”
    Angituk considered his answer for a moment. “It is something everyone has, some much more than others. It is a mixture of wisdom and luck.”
    “It was mostly luck today. I’m sorry, I should have listened. Your bear was right about the storm.”
    “Yes, but they’re not perfect.”
    Creed looked at him and laughed again. The weather bear is not perfect. Angituk smiled once more and Creed admired his flawless white teeth. Twice in one day, Creed mused. They stared at the fire in exhausted silence, their eyelids and the empty tins in their hands heavy and their bellies full.
    “Angituk, I … You saved my life out there.”
    The boy nodded slightly.
    “Guess we should call it a night.”
    They lay in the tent back to back in their dry sleeping bags, Angituk on the edge of sleep, Creed writing in his journal a report on the events of the day, by the light of the small lantern. He finished his very short and objective description of the capsize and it struck him again what he owed the boy.
    “Angituk? You awake?”
    He heard a breath drawn and a mumble. “Hmmmmm?”
    “Thank you again for today, Angituk. You’re a good man.”
    Angituk answered in his sleepy, adolescent whisper, an inscrutable smile on his lips. “You’re a good man too, Corporal.”
    A moment later, steady, shallow breathing filled the space between them.
    Creed withdrew the crucifix from his jacket pocket and held it up to the soft light of the lantern. The mother-of-pearl inlay sparkled in his hand. A sudden pessimism came over him. Could the priests still be alive in this dangerous land? He tucked the crucifix away. Just before sleep claimed him, he remembered a section in a book by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo, published four years before, about the Eskimo belief that the world as we experience it is really a dream and dreams are the actual reality. He had sometimes had that feeling in Belgium. He must ask the boy about that belief.
    Later that night he swam in the black sea with priests dressed in their full vestments. Le Roux chided