Read Online Coppermine by Keith Ross Leckie - Free Book Online Page B

What did the bear say? He paused, and reformed the question in his mind.
    “What did you say to the bear?”
    “I told him who we are and where we’re going. I should have explained—he is my tornrack. My spirit guide. In the North he is the white bear. Down here he is brown.”
    “What is a spirit guide?”
    “When we are young, we look for a spirit helper in dreams. In my dreams it was always the bear. He helps me. He told us all is well, except a storm is coming tomorrow.”
    “That right?”
    “That’s what he said.”
    Skeptically, Creed looked at the scarlet horizon, which promised a fair day tomorrow. Not even a suggestion of cloud. He smiled at the thought of the bear predicting weather.
    “I don’t think so. Look at that sky.”
    The boy shrugged and began to paddle hard. Following his lead, Creed put his back into the paddling, powering over the breakers until they were fifty yards out from shore. They would head east up the south coast for an hour, give a little distance to the bruin and make camp on the beach. They’d need a good rest tonight, for tomorrow they would rig a small sail and set out, not knowing when they might touch land again.

Three
    They headed out that morning on the vast, calm lake with a small canvas sail pushed by the gentle southeast wind Creed had predicted.
    “You see? What do bears know?” he told the boy, who merely shrugged again.
    Their destination was Dease Bay, directly northeast, on the far side of the lake. He was tempted to head straight across on this calm freshwater ocean, but the course would have taken them very far from land, almost out of sight. So he set a course to the east toward a large peninsula, keeping the shoreline well in view. They sailed with naive ease on the gentle swells all morning.
    When the storm did hit a few hours later, it howled them along all afternoon, the contrary wind continuing its rotation clockwise from south, behind them, to southwest and finally west, off their port beam. With each shift Creed adjusted the sail to accommodate for the wind change. He had lashed keel boards that knifed down on either side, sixteen inches deeper than the keel, to guide a steady course, and he hiked out, leaning over the westward gunnels, showing the boy how to do it to keep the boat upright and the sail filled. They moved along quite nicely in the storm, with no advantage to be gained by paddling. The bow lifted or cut through the waves, and even the odd breaker so far offered little challenge to the sturdy craft. Now, with the wind from the west, Creed had to lean out over the gunnels more as a counterweight to the sail and the boy did the same. The rain came and went. They put on oilskin jackets. Mid-afternoon, the boy handed Creed fried char and biscuits and cold tea. Apprehensive at first, as the day wore on, the boy relaxed and his enjoyment grew steadily.
    Through the day, Creed navigated by his compass. But now night was falling quickly. They could see only distant land off to their right. They had no choice but to sail on. Creed stared at the horizon backlit by the setting sun, the afterglow soon extinguished by the storm clouds looming ahead. The darkness swallowed them; the compass was useless without either a star to take a bearing from or light to read the instrument by. And with no horizon to orient themselves by, it was like sailing into a coal mine. The wind was back at her tricks. It came around again, finally northwest and freezing, building the oncoming waves to drive the little canoe too far east.
    As they sailed blind, the northwest waves were the last natural guide to the northerly course they steered, but they had grown. The crashing roar of rogue waves broke in the darkness around them. For all her graceful lines, the Peterborough was a river craft with a low freeboard, and they were in the middle of an ocean. As they rode up each wave, Creed turned into it, praying it wouldn’t break over the gunnels until they crested, then