"You're just saying that 'cause—"

"I'm just saying that 'cause I know the guy, plus I know that he knows where you're coming from with all this stuff. OK? Hey, he kept Emma's nephew out of jail, right? He's a stand-up guy. You know that."

There was a pause, filled with the restive muttering of the crowd. I could sense heightening tension, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Constable Elston, on the ground, adjusting the aim of his rifle, squinting through the sights. I could hear Cameron muttering to Gammell, "Sir, I really don't think this is the right way to go about this," and Gammell's voice, aimed at me. "Fraser, hold your ground. We're not taking action at this point." I disregarded all of it; my attention was wholly focused on Ray. Though I felt some fear for him, facing down an armed and unpredictable drunk, it was eclipsed by my pride, the joy I felt seeing him in his element, and feeling once again the humming connection of trust between us. We were partners still; I would await his signal.

When Johnny spoke again, he sounded edgy, near panic. "This has gotta end, Ray."

"You're right, Johnny, you're totally right about that, and that's my point exactly. We're all on the same page here. Let's get Fraser up here, chew it over, get it squared away. Deal?"

Another pause—and finally Johnny nodded. Ray didn't say anything, just looked around at me, jerked his head.

Ignoring Gammell's "Damn it, Constable!", I walked slowly forward across the empty field, feeling eyes on me, and stepped up onto the platform, being careful to keep my hands well away from my body.

"Hey, Fraser." Ray nodded to me, easily. "So, you're up on this Whatsis Lake situation Johnny's talking about, huh?"

"Yes." I looked at the young man, smelling the whiff of alcohol rising from him, noting the sweat sheening his face, the tremor in the hand holding the gun, the way his finger was tightening and loosening on the trigger. I gave Ray a brief glance—we need to act soon—and he nodded. "I've studied both the eyewitness accounts and the documentary footage of the Gustafsen Lake incident, as well as the case files, and I believe that the RCMP's tactics there were intemperate, excessive, and out of keeping with our mission." I heard a loud cough somewhere behind me—the sergeant, I assumed—but I ignored it, and went on. "However, Mr. Innukpuk, I also believe that your actions here will only serve as a detriment to the cause of securing impartial review of the case, and in a larger sense will further polarize all parties and impede our progress toward a culturally sensitive system of jurisprudence, respectful of the spiritual as well as legal rights of aboriginal people."

Johnny was staring at me, glassily; then he turned to Ray. "Thought you said he was going to help us figure this out."

"Yeah, that's his way of helping. All he means is, thumbs up on where you're headed, thumbs down on how you're heading there." I listened, but I was more attentive to Ray's body language, watching as he subtly altered his stance, settling his weight, flexing his knees slightly. "He's got a weird way of getting his point across sometimes—" Ray lifted a hand to scratch his jaw. "—but, y'know, I can always translate for you—" and then he flicked his thumb across the tip of his nose, and simultanously we leapt into action, Ray grabbing Johnny's gun arm and pulling it up, toppling them both to the ground, while I seized Lynette, pushing her flat, trying to cushion her fall.

I could hear screams from the crowd, Gammell shouting "Hold your fire!", a percussive wham as Ray slammed Johnny's gun hand into the decking, and the sound of the gun skittering away. Lynette was clutching at me, sobbing, and I was momentarily unable to detach her so I could go help Ray subdue Johnny, who was struggling, face-down on the platform with Ray's knee in his back, shouting "Son of a bitch! You son of a bitch!"

Then there was a rush, a thudding of boots, a sea of red at the edge of the platform and a tumult of hands and arms. Constable Elston pulled Ray to one side, while Cameron and Grant seized Johnny, hauling him to his feet and handcuffing him. I handed Lynette off to Sergeant Gammell, and she clung to him as he issued orders. "Grant, check him for weapons. Elston, keep these people back, would you? Mr. Kowalski, stand down, please."

Johnny, struggling against his restraints, jerked around to face Ray. "Cocksucker. You fucking cocksucker. I should've known better than to trust someone like—"

Grant shook him hard, and the boy seemed suddenly to collapse, head hanging. Then he looked back up at Ray. "You lied to me. You said you weren't a cop. You fucking lied to me, man."

Ray looked back at him, shoulders hunched. "Yeah. Guess I did."

"What's more to the point, Mr. Kowalski, is that you hijacked this entire operation." It was Cameron talking, to my surprise; he was pink with exertion and, I realized, with anger. I hadn't seen him angry before. "You had no authorization to do what you did. And although you may have chosen to give up your own career in the police, that gives you no right to imperil Constable Fraser's career, by leading him to disobey—"

"Cammy? Stuff it." Ray spat on the platform, wiped his mouth. "Go on back to the office, kid. You'll never make a cop."

He jumped down from the platform and stalked off, the crowd parting for him as he went. Gammell shouted after him, "Mr. Kowalski, stay here, please, we'll need a statement from you, and then I have a few words for you regarding—"

He stopped, whirled. "Yeah? Well, you know something, fuck that, because I don't work for you, and furthermore I'm not one of you Canadians, so I don't owe you a fucking thing, and even if I did, I figure I just paid up in full." He grabbed up his sweater from the ground, and strode off, the crowd murmuring and staring after him.

When I got home that night, the stereo was blasting out loud angry music, and Ray was in the kitchen, chopping onions with a fast thwack-thwack of the knife. I hung up my jacket and turned down the music. Ray jerked a nod toward me in greeting. "Dinner in twenty," he said, and kneed away Dief, who was sniffing at a packet of ground meat on the counter.

"Thank you, Ray." I got myself some milk from the refrigerator. "And—thank you for your help today."

"Yeah." He scraped the onions from the chopping board into a hot skillet, and began digging through the drawer for a spatula. I could barely hear him over the clatter. "It ... uh ... it felt good, y'know?"

"It did indeed." I leaned against the wall, watching as he grabbed the packet of meat, ripped off the packaging, tossed it in the skillet and began chopping it up with the spatula.

"That partner of yours." He shook his head. "What a piece of work he is."

"Well, Ray ..." I paused, forced to admit to myself that Cameron had, not to put too fine a point on it, spent the afternoon sulking, and had signed himself out early. But it wouldn't help things to share that with Ray. "He's young," I finally said. "And a scrupulous attention to procedure is not a bad thing in a young officer. He wants to better himself."

"Yeah, good luck with that." He set the spatula down with a thunk, and turned to face me straight on. "So. How much trouble you in?"

I considered that. "Perhaps a bit more than you were, after your unauthorized incursion into Mr. Farah's poker game."

"Yeah. Damn it." His face tightened, and he turned back to his task. "I wish to hell you could have Welsh here."

"Sergeant Gammell's a good officer, Ray." He was pushing the meat around with such speed and vigor that it scarcely had a chance to brown. "He did ask me to convey to you his appreciation for your help this afternoon."

"He did, huh?" Ray sounded bitter. "I bet you're leaving out the part where he said, 'And tell him if he ever pulls another stunt like that I'm going to send him back to Chicago in a box.'"

"Well—those weren't his exact words."

"Uh huh." Ray jerked open the refrigerator, pulled out a jar, contemplated it a moment, then dumped its contents into the pan. "I guess he's got nothing to worry about on that score, 'cause what're the odds anything like that'll happen again?" He began stirring again, but more slowly, thoughtfully. "I guess—come to think of it, that was probably our last case, right?"

I hadn't wanted to say it, think about it, and even after hearing Ray's words I shied away from it. "It's hard to say what the future holds, Ray."

"Nah, in this case it's pretty simple. Tomorrow you get up and go back to work, tomorrow I get up and go back to the two-by-fours. And in the meantime we eat some dinner." He pulled the lid off the pot of rice and gave it a stir. "Go set the table, this stuff'll be ready in a minute."

One mid-July morning Cameron and I were sent to bring in a man who'd robbed the bakery and then stolen a boat, attempting to flee upriver—a harebrained action, but then the fellow was drunk, according to witnesses. He had a bit of a head start, so I sent Cameron down the Dempster in a car, to intercept him if need be at the Tsiigehtchic ferry crossing, and I took a speedboat in pursuit, leaving Dief back at the detachment, at his request (he seemed to have developed a wholly unjustified mistrust of my competence on the water).

I was grateful for the solo pursuit; I'd been aching for time outside, away from the town, in this glorious midsummer weather, knowing as I did that the days were already beginning to shorten fractionally, though the endless sunlight gave the illusion of life out of time, in suspension.

I came across the robber about 30 kilometers from Tsiigehtchic, out of fuel and frantically trying to restart the engine. I apprehended him without undue incident, once I'd fished him out of the river (he was a laughably slow swimmer), handcuffed him, then made his boat fast to mine, and proceeded to meet up with Cameron at the crossing.

"Take him in, Cadet, and I'll bring the boats back down the river."

He looked a little dubious. "Are you sure, sir? We could all take the car, and send Swillins back with a trailer for the boats."

"An unnecessary use of manpower and fuel," I said decisively, though if I were to be honest with myself the prospect of a quiet afternoon on the Mackenzie was more to the forefront of my mind than prudence and economy. "Oh, and when you get back, would you kindly phone my home number and leave a message that I'll be back late?"

He made a note of it, and they departed, jouncing along down the gravel road, while I manouevered my ungainly flotilla back into the main channel and headed north.

After a half-hour or so of dutiful motoring, when I was well out of sight of the village and the highway, in a wilderness of marsh and fen, I saw a ridge of higher ground fingering out into the water. I angled over to it, tied up to a little clump of dwarf willow, and cut the engine. The sudden silence was bliss, like cool water on a burn, and after a moment my ears had recovered enough that I could hear the small sounds—water moving gently against the boat, a distant flock of ducks making little squawking sounds, and the faint unending whisper of wind across open country.

I got out and walked a ways to a small rise of land, and sat, folding my legs. I was alone. Entirely alone and solitary, in this huge emptiness. No voices, no people, no sound but birds and water and wind. A sky as vast as the entire world, land that stretched on forever, and I in the middle of it, alone. I tried to arch my neck back, take it all in, but my collar bit into my neck, so I unfastened it, then took off my jacket entirely, and let the wind blow over me, clean and cold. I could feel it all the way through me, chilling and cleansing me, sweeping away all the stale clutter of office and procedure and household, like dead leaves off a tree, and I the bare wind-scoured trunk left standing, roots sunk deep in native earth.

Home. I was home. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in ... No, I thought. Home is the place where you don't even know how desperately you've missed it, until you return. Scrambled syntax, but I let it be, and breathed in and out, letting the wind blow through me. I was empty, hollow and free, filled only with the song the wind made blowing through my bones, a song of joy. Home, I was home. Where I belonged. Never to leave again. There were tears on my cheeks, and I couldn't pretend they were just from the chill of the wind.

I sat for a long time, watching the motion of birds against the sky—geese and terns, flapping clusters of ducks, and far above, the solitary raptors, eagles and hawks. They soared, glided, wheeled, and though my body sat on the chilly ground, my spirit soared with them, filled with joy—joy, whose flight is like that of a bird, held aloft only by air.

But even the highest fliers are creatures of this earth, and must sometime descend; and although I felt I could sit there all day, as time passed and the sun moved across the sky, I could feel the weight of responsibility slowly creeping back into me, the inexorable gravitational tug of connection to duty and schedules and expectations.

I got to my feet, finally, and climbed back into the boat and set off downstream once again. I could tell even without consulting my watch that I was going to be very late indeed getting back, and from there my mind leapt ahead to anticipate the paperwork that awaited me, the sergeant's likely annoyance at my absence, and beyond that, Ray's almost certain irritation. I thought about getting home, the familiar solace of dinner and sofa and bed; but these images were oddly comfortless, oppressive. Setting them aside, I found my mind turning instead to memories from my father's journal—one of the last entries before my mother's death, a passage I could recall puzzling over for the first time in a diner in Chicago:

When we got to Fort Reliance, I found a letter waiting for me from Caroline, and enclosing a note from Ben. His penmanship is getting better, but could still use a good deal of improvement, of course. Though he seems to be well enough, most of the note consisted of him asking when I'm going to get back home. Reading that knocked a big hole in the good spirits I'd felt hauling McLaren that last hundred kilometers in through the blizzard. Strange, this pain that I feel at such a simple and natural question from my own son. At times like this, I wish he were older, so that I could explain to him—well, why I must do things as I do them, why I'm so seldom at the cabin. But then, when he's older, perhaps he'll figure it out on his own.

The boat putted along, I watched the marshes slide past, feeling the heaviness in my belly deepen with every kilometer I passed, and I thought about my father. It struck me that there were things I understood about him now, at last, that I'd never known while he was alive, nor even during his visitations to me after death—things that I'd have never been able to comprehend while I was alone and unattached. For a moment I wished, urgently, that he could reappear for just one moment, so I could tell him that I knew, that I finally understood.

By the time I got back to Inuvik, the sun was low in the sky, resting on the horizon before it resumed its climb. I took my time over the details of securing the boats, and when I was done I stood staring out over the river for some while, my back to the town, watching the water glow in the low-angled light. At this time of night the river was deserted, and I had it to myself for just a little longer, a final interlude of peace that I let soak into my soul. Finally I turned and walked up the street, back into town, on legs that felt heavy.

The house was dark, and I was greeted by Dief with many guttural complaints about having been left behind. I reminded him in a whisper that he'd made his own choices in the matter, and after taking off my boots I padded to the bedroom and peered in.

The bed was empty, the covers undisturbed. I was already out of sorts with myself for the time I'd taken mentally composing rationalizations for my lateness that I knew to be specious; but not having Ray here to deliver them to was irrationally annoying. I flicked on the light and sat on the side of the bed for a moment, tempted to just turn in and let him make his way home whenever the spirit moved him. I wasn't at all sleepy, though, and while I wasn't worried about Ray, it left me oddly unsettled to not have him where I expected him to be. Finally I got up, changed into jeans and a sweater, and went back out.

Ray wasn't at Sally's, though I was briefly waylaid there by an elderly man who wanted me to talk to his neighbors about the junked cars in their yard. He wasn't at the Midnight Sun, and by then I was starting to wonder a little. Then I stepped into the Silver Dollar, and for a moment was overwhelmed—the air was thick with the haze of cigarette smoke, and the noise level was deafening. I stood inside the door, trying to sort out the sounds that were assailing me—raucous music pounding in the background, a woman's shriek of laughter, a television over the bar tuned to some programme featuring gunplay and explosions.

But the loudest and most jarring noise was coming from a pinball machine in the corner, and as I got my eyes adjusted to the dim haze I realized that it was Ray who was crouched over the machine, at the epicenter of that chaos.

I had watched Ray play pool in the past, and I'd always savored the smooth elegance, the sang-froid he brought to that pastime. This was entirely different.

This was electric. The machine was alive, exploding with noise and light, flash and clamor, and it was as if Ray were plugged into it, electricity blazing through him in wild anarchic jolts. He was slamming the buttons with the flat of his hands, pounding out an arrhythmic cacophony, and the machine shrieked and flashed in response.

"He's pretty good." It was Mott, the bartender, leaning across the scarred mahogany toward me. "Got a feel for it, y'know?"

"Indeed." It was hard to keep my voice casual, given how loudly I had to pitch it to be heard. "Has he been here long?"

"Couple hours. He comes here pretty often." Mott stared impassively at me. He was familiar to me, from many nights of negotiation about the management of unruly drunks and bar brawls, but in the discolored glare from the television his face looked even odder than usual—pitted with acne scars, one eye milky and half-closed, jagged seam of an old knife wound on his cheek. "Never makes any trouble. But he sure likes the pinball. What can I get you, Constable?"

"Er—a glass of tomato juice, please."

He moved away down the bar, and I returned to watching Ray, locked in his battle with the machine, moving against it like a boxer, like a lover, slamming it with his hands and his hips. After a moment I became aware that I was not the only one watching him; nearby was a table at which two young women were seated. One of them I recognized—Sheila Maxwell, a town girl—but the other was unfamiliar to me, and something about her attire suggested to me that she was a visitor from a larger city. She was staring at Ray with avidity, leaning toward him, and as I watched she fluffed her hair, said something to her companion, and half-rose from her chair. Sheila grabbed her arm and pushed her back into her seat, giggling, and leaned across the table to shout something into her ear, glancing briefly in my direction. Sheila's friend was less discreet—as she listened, she turned her whole head to stare at me, her mouth open in shock; then she jerked her head back around to stare again at Ray, and then back at me. Then she shook her head, picked up her drink, and took a deep swallow, while Sheila giggled and giggled. And all the while Ray played on, oblivious to them and to me alike, a fierce and angry angel, spiky hair haloed by smoke and the harsh glare of the pinball lights.

As I watched, his last ball apparently dropped; he slammed his hand on the glass, yelled "Shit!", and then picked up his beer and upended it, draining it, while he dug in his pocket for change. The waitress appeared at his side with a fresh bottle, and took a bill from the pile on the table next to him; he nodded, without taking his eyes off the machine, flung a few coins into the slot, and the hellish din, which had blessedly subsided for a moment, roared back to life, and Ray with it, as though the jolt of power surged straight into his nerves.

It was an erotic sight, and a disturbing one. I knew what it was like to be the focus of Ray's energy, Ray's passion, to have that body slamming against me, those fast nervous hands working me so skillfully, making the lights flash and explode, the bells and sirens go off. And yet, despite the memory of such intimacies, and the arousal they brought, I had never felt more remote from him than at that moment. His face, I could see even at this distance, held the same avid intensity that it did when he bent over me. But the passionate coupling he was locked in with the machine had nothing to do with me, and I suddenly found myself wondering what sex, the sex between us, really meant to him, if it was really anything more than this—drop the quarters in, hit the levers, get that raw neural jolt, and then walk away. My body craved him with a primitive urgency, all the fiercer for seeing the women's eyes on him; but my mind took in the noise and the flash, the squalid bar and the boozy clamor, the crowd and the smoke and the reek of alcohol, and Ray in the center of it all—and it turned and took a cool step away, back to the empty land and the clean sky and the solitary bliss that had so recently filled me.

I set my juice back on the counter, unfinished, and stood and walked out, into the blessed fresh air and quiet. I told myself it would be foolish to let this bother me. If there were parts of Ray's life that were alien to me, that were none of my business, well—they were none of my business, then, and certainly I wasn't in any position to cast stones. If this bar gave him something I couldn't, something he needed, then I granted it to him freehold. It had been a mistake to come here sniffing after him, and was one I wouldn't make again.

A few weeks later, I came home after a vexing afternoon of paperwork to find the house empty; the stereo was turned on, but nothing was playing. Dief ran through the living room to the back door and pawed at it, whining; I opened it and found Ray sitting on the back step, with a half-empty bottle of beer in his hand.

He nodded when I sat down beside him but didn't look at me, staring off at some remote point on the horizon. It was twilight, the sky an arching glory of purple and orange and pink. I wanted to simply enjoy it, the deep quiet and the fresh grass-scented air and the feel of the season starting its turn toward autumn. But Ray's silence, the tight set of his shoulders, the way he wasn't looking at me—he felt like trouble, looked like it, a little hunched-over ball of trouble next to me, and I sighed inwardly, the beauty of the evening tainted. I wanted to feel at home with him, to just speak what was on my mind—isn't it a beautiful evening, Ray? or Look at the geese, up there, to share with him the simple pleasure of it all.

Instead, I finally said, "How are you, Ray?" Inviting trouble in, no doubt, but there was no help for it; he was my trouble, my business.

He twitched, hunching his shoulder a little further away from me, deeper into his jacket, and for a minute I thought he wasn't going to reply. What he finally said was, "They're having a heat wave, back home. I heard it on the news. Up around a hundred, old people croaking in their apartments, whole nine yards."

"Well, that's most unfortunate. It certainly seems a shame that the civic apparatus of Chicago isn't better organized to help its citizenry deal with weather phenomena that are, after all, eminently predictable." That got no response, and I went on, "Though it may be selfish, we can certainly be grateful not to be suffering through it." Belatedly, a thought struck me. "I'm sure your parents are all right, Ray, they have air conditioning, do they not? Of course, if you'd like to phone and check on them—"

"No—no, Fraser." He laughed once, a little humorless bark of laughter, and held out a hand against me. "Not a problem. They're fine." He took a swallow of his beer and lapsed into silence again.

I waited a while, and was about to try something cheerful and inane about dinner, when he spoke again, softly. "Summer nights ... you remember?" It wasn't really a question, and I held my peace. "Get home late ... always running late, 'cause everyone goes wacko when it's hot. Nice little housewives pick up the carving knife and think about sticking it in the old man's back. So you're beat, you get home, get a shower, grab a beer. Put some music on ... Sam Cooke, maybe. Marvin Gaye. And then go sit on the fire escape, and just ... listen."

I listened. The distant honking of the geese faded away, and then it was silent again.

"Nights like that, you can hear everything, everyone's out on the street, everyone's got their windows open. You can hear the people downstairs yelling at each other about something, next building over's got salsa music, guy in the street drives by with the rap going so loud the car's shaking, across the street they're having a party ... sirens, you always hear a lot of sirens, nights like that, but that's OK, 'cause that's some other poor bastard's problem, not yours. You can just sit there in the window and watch it all go by."

Dief yawned, and stretched out at our feet, settling his muzzle on his paws. Ray absently dug his fingers into the fur behind Dief's neck, but he seemed far distant still.

"Everybody's out on the street, just hanging out ... people walking the dog, guys showing off their wheels, girls ... ohh, man, Latino chicks, in those tight little dresses, with their hair up, and the high heels ..."

I said rather sharply, "I do indeed remember Chicago summers, Ray. In particular, I recall with some vividness the July heat wave of 1995, in which, as you may be aware, seven hundred and thirty-nine people perished."

He sat up straight, glared at me. "Well, no shit, Fraser, I remember that one too, I was there, hauling stiffs out of apartments, which sucked, but I'm not talking about that, I'm just talking about—summer, you know? Just normal summer, and then you gotta go for the bleak."

He snapped his head away from me again, and I sighed. "I'm sorry."

"It's not like people don't die just as dead from the cold too, OK?"

"Absolutely," I said, in a conciliatory tone. But in fact, I thought, tilting my head back to look at the pale moon, in fact there was no memory of my own occasions of near-hypothermia that terrified me nearly as much as my recollections of that hellish summer week, when I was new to the city. The panicky sense of suffocation, with no escape from the choking heat, and then the dawning hideous realization that people—the elderly, the helpless—were actually dying, all around me, that there was no organization in place to save them. I'd seen to the well-being of everyone in my apartment building, and then had marshalled a group of the young and healthy to systematically check all the buildings on the block, bringing water, conveying people to air conditioning. And yet some had died, before we could get to them; were found, bloated and discolored, in their beds ...

A cool breeze had sprung up, and I breathed it in gratefully, shaking off the memories. Ray pulled up the hood of his jacket, shrouding his face from my view. "Are you cold?" I asked him.

"Of course I'm cold, I been cold ever since I got here, being as how it never gets anything but cold in this town. I mean—jeez, here it is, end of July, it's summer, and I'm sitting out here in a coat, freezing my ass off. Give it another two weeks and it'll probably be snowing. What the hell kind of place is this, Fraser?

It's home, I thought. But all I said, after a moment, was "Perhaps we should go indoors. You'd be warmer there."

"I don't want to go indoors, I got all winter to be indoors, all I want is—" He shoved his hands into his sleeves. "Just one, lousy, regular summer night. I just want a little side trip into normal, you know? Like—a time-out, or something."

I knew better than to think I had anything helpful to say; my own conceptions of normality had never fit any of his criteria. Instead, I patted his shoulder, and then rose and went in to forage some dinner for myself, leaving him to his thoughts.

June 12, 1962: A man would like to think that his home could be a refuge of peace and quiet, but the minute I stepped through the door on Tuesday, home at last, Benton took one look at me and began squalling his head off. Caroline tried to tell me some farrago about how nine-month-old babies go through a stage of being shy of strangers, but I certainly don't believe I went through any such stage myself, and in any event I'm the boy's father, for god's sake. He finally settled down after dinner, but later in the night he woke again, and Caroline kept getting up to feed and fuss over him, even though I told her that if she'd just let him be, he'd learn in time to control himself.

Finally I took a bedroll and went out to the kennel to try to get some sleep. That didn't sit well with Caroline, of course, though I'm glad to say that we squared things up before I left this morning. I'm sure she's doing the best she can, and I can't blame her for being on edge. Lord, a baby's crying sounds worse than a bobcat in heat.

I suppose that if I'm to be honest, I must say that the noise wasn't the only thing that drove me outdoors. After two months on the trail, I find I'm more accustomed to the open sky, and the tang of fresh air, than I am to a stuffy cabin and the feel of someone alongside me. As slender a woman as Caroline is, I'd forgotten how much room she takes up in a bed. At least when the dogs crowd me I can push them aside.

Before I left, Benton seemed to get over his foolishness, and when I took his hand he grabbed hold of my finger. The boy's got a good strong grip. I can only hope that Caroline doesn't spoil him; I don't believe he's half as needy as she seems to think.

Of all the things that were strange to me in my life with Ray, I sometimes believe that sharing a bed with him, hour after hour, through night after night, was the strangest. It had been somehow different on the trail, when he and I together had been the one point of warmth in the vast icy land. But in town ... I found myself recalling how, at Depot, at the consulate, my narrow bed had been my retreat from the endless crowding and buffeting of others; how I'd learned to lie on my back, and picture an invisible wall of solitude, rising around me on all sides like glass, like ice, through the ceiling and up to the sky, shielding me. Only once that barricade was clear in my mind could I relax and fall asleep.

I would often wake, in our bed together, to find Ray curled up against me, an arm flung across my chest, his breath hot on my shoulder. All of him was hot, in sleep, throwing off warmth as he threw off energy during the day, and he would clutch at me, press against me, as though in sleep his body gave silent voice to some hunger I seldom saw at other times. When I tried to edge away from him, he would shift and writhe closer and coil himself ever more tightly around me, murmuring irritably in his sleep. And so I would lie there, sweating, trying not to feel as if I were at the mercy of a particularly large and insistent python. I'd remind myself of how dearly I'd longed for just such closeness, through my long years of solitude; and then I'd reflect on how confounding it can be to have one's wishes granted.

In August, there came a week when the weather turned unusually warm. Anything approaching heat, in Inuvik, seemed to increase the already high incidence of public drunkenness and disorderly behavior, and so my days were long and full; but Emma's crew was working still longer hours, racing against the turning of the season. So I was surprised one evening, during that week, when Ray arrived home just minutes after I.

"Finished up the Smithson remodeling ahead of schedule," he said, by way of explanation. There was a loose-jointed quality in his movements that I knew by now meant he had a few drinks on board. "She gave us each a twenty-buck bonus and let us off early. Nice lady, you know that?"

"Yes, I know," I said, but he wasn't listening, he'd gone over to the stereo and was flipping through CDs with a fast click-click-click.

"So me and the guys went down to Sally's and had a few." He selected a disk, squatted down in front of the console while he inserted it and punched buttons, then sprung to his feet as the house abruptly filled with the most extraordinarily bouncy music. He stood for a moment, pulsing, letting the music take over his body, and then he pivoted and danced his way into the kitchen, punching the air, head back, yelling "Summertime, Fraser! We got summertime! I hereby proclaim this to be officially summer!" He stripped off his sweat-darkened t-shirt as he went, peeling it free with a wiggle, throwing it aside, throwing me a grin as he passed. I could see the clean lines of muscle that had hardened in his arms and shoulders, over the past months of physical labor, and the deep bronze of his skin from hours spent in the sun.

I took off my own jacket (it was really far too warm in the house for it), watching him as he yanked a bowl of potato salad from the refrigerator, listening to him sing off-key with the ridiculous lyrics—"I got me a car, as big as a whale, and we're headin' down to the looove shack—" He pulled a fork from the drawer and began eating straight out of the bowl, still shimmying in time with the music.

In this mood he was irresistible, and I suspected he didn't want me to resist. I came up behind him, letting my hands slide around his bare chest, kissing the back of his neck. "Mmm. Nice," he murmured. I took the bowl and fork from his hands, set them on the counter, and spun him around, grabbing his arms and kissing him fiercely. He laughed into my mouth, taking a grip on my hips and grinding up against me. "Not nice, that's good too," he muttered, and then bit down on the side of my neck.

He smelled deeply, richly, of sweat and sawdust and fresh air, and I wanted to kneel down and have him right there in the kitchen, but all the curtains were wide open, so instead we fumbled and staggered our way into the bedroom, kicking the door shut against the music. Once I got the rest of his clothes off I went after him with my mouth, tasting him until I was glutted, making him wait, forcing him to a slower pace than he thought he could stand, and it was one of the occasions when I managed to do everything right, in pleasuring him.

I rose, afterward, to get a glass of water, and coming back with it I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of him, lying sprawled on his back on top of the blankets, loose-jointed, looking wanton and debauched, with the red marks on his chest and thighs where I'd used my teeth on him. I felt foolish, standing there with my ridiculous still-unrelieved erection poking out in front of me, but there was no derision in the heavy-lidded gaze he turned on me. I shivered all over, hard, with the force of the desire I felt for him, and finally I made myself move, stumbling over to the bed, setting the water glass down so hard it slopped over, almost falling in my haste to be close to him. I pulled him up against me, shameless in my need, muttering "Your mouth, Ray—god, please—"

He kissed me, and then pulled away, and whispered, "I was thinking—maybe, try something out—something else—" And he twisted beside me, beneath me, sweaty and sinuous, until he was on his stomach and I on top of him. He shifted his legs, and suddenly my erection was in the hot cleft between his thighs, right up against his buttocks.

Before I could stop myself, I thrust once, hard, into that space, and I saw all the muscles of his back tighten up. I forced myself to stop, pull back away from him a little. "This isn't what you want. Is it?"

He has his head turned to one side, eyes clenched shut, and he didn't say anything, just gave a little shrug.

"Ray?"

"Give it a shot," he muttered, without opening his eyes.

"Ray." It took great effort to keep my voice calm. "Are you certain about this?"

"For the love of christ, Fraser," and then he was twisting his neck to look at me, eyes a blaze of reckless nerve almost concealing the fear. "Just pick up the ball and run with it, would you?"

My conscious mind was still reeling, but my instincts knew how to respond to his fear—I knelt up and began stroking his back, long gentling strokes down the bands of tense muscle. I meant, I only meant, to be soothing him, giving reassurance that he was safe and that I wouldn't let either one of us hurt him. But my hands had a mind of their own, and despite my better intentions I couldn't stop them from straying lower, to the hard flat curve of his buttocks. He shuddered at the touch and then stilled, took a deep breath and let it out, and then shifted, resolutely moving his legs farther apart, lifting his hips a little.

I thought I had been aroused before, but the sight of that, the feel of the solid muscle flexing under my hands, the memories of times I'd grabbed him, right there, to pull him deeper into me, and the thought of what he'd just offered me—it blinded me, literally, my eyes went dim with the surge of thick dumb lust. To take him, to simply open him up and drive into him, inside him, to possess him...

I didn't think I could take my hands away from him long enough to find the lubricant, but I managed, lurching and panting like an animal. Kneeling between his thighs again, touching him again, looking at him spread out before me, mine to have—I was briefly dizzy, and had to lower my head, resting it on the small of his back, kissing him there. An act of worship. I could hear him muttering profanely—"C'mon, fuck it, c'mon c'mon"—and then a gasp, as I slid my mouth lower, grabbing at him with my teeth. I wanted to devour him, as I myself was being devoured, from the inside. And then, as I raised myself, fumbling with the cap to the tube, I could hear him again, muttering into the crook of his elbow, barely audible—"C'mon, what the fuck, how bad can it be?"—and I knew his "c'mon"s were for himself, not for me.

I knew, even then I knew, through the haze of rut in my brain, that I should stop, but I was beyond restraint, it was all I could do to try to slow down, go gently and with care, as I squeezed out some lubricant, smeared it around on one finger, and then slid that finger inside of him; as slowly as I could, but without stopping, because I couldn't stop. He jerked, and made a little grunting sound, and clenched hard around me, and I stroked him with my free hand, over and over, murmuring, until he eased a little and I could move my finger out, and then in again. I did that as long as I could bear, and then I squeezed more gel onto my erection, spread it around awkwardly, left-handed, and then slid my finger all the way out and bumped myself up against his buttocks, slippery and clumsy and thickwitted with lust.

I don't know what set him off—the feel of that, or my clumsiness, or the realization of what was about to happen ... all I know is that one moment he was lying on his belly in front of me, and the next moment he'd leapt up, with a violent flurry of arms and legs, and stood, halfway across the room, panting, staring at me. He'd knocked me over, and I lay on my side, staring back at him, stupidly.

"Fraser." He was shaking his head, over and over. "Ah, shit, Fraser, I—I just—" Suddenly he bent, grabbing his pants off the floor, and began putting them on fast. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Fraser, I just can't, fuck, I'm sorry, I'm such a fuckup—" Pants on, he grabbed a t-shirt, socks, shoes, pulling them on, never ceasing the soft babble of apology and obscenity. "What in the hell was I thinking about, shit, I am so totally fucked in the head, fucking moron, sorry, sorry—" Dressed, hair askew, he turned and started to the door, stumbling over his untied shoelaces. In the doorway he stopped, turned, looked back at me where I lay naked on the tumbled sheets. He pulled in breath, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then just shook his head one last time, hard, and fled. I could hear the door slam behind him. I lay there for a long time without moving, until it got chilly. Then I got up and washed myself, and got back into bed. It was only nine p.m., and still broad daylight, but I couldn't think of anything to do besides wait for Ray to return.

He came home shortly before five a.m.. It was getting light out again, though there'd been a short interlude of darkness somewhere in the interim.

I heard the door open, after a considerable period of scratching and rattling, as though managing the keys was a challenge for him. I heard it slam shut rather louder than was advisable at that time of night, and then unsteady footsteps, and a few soft slurry words apparently directed to Dief. An interval of silence, and then he coughed, and I could hear him moving across the living room, into the hallway, to the bedroom door, where the footsteps stopped again.

After a minute I turned my head and looked over. He was standing in the doorway, arms braced against the frame. His head was tipped forward, as if very heavy, and he was shaking it slowly from side to side. The high of the evening's drinking had receded, apparently, but not far enough to return him to sobriety.

He saw me watching him, and that was apparently enough to launch him into movement again. He walked carefully over to the bed and sat on the edge with a little whoof, and looked down at me. I could smell the reek of cigarette smoke and alcohol, and below that—I took another sniff—the unmistakable smell of a woman. Sweet and pungent, tuberose perfume overlain with the briny tang of a woman's sex.

"Hey. Fraser."

I closed my eyes, wishing that I could believe that things were now officially as bad as they could get and we could just stop here, with no worse territory to forge into. But hearing his voice, slurred and thick, forced me to acknowledge that since he was here and I was here and we were both awake and apparently conversation of some kind was inevitable, things could in fact deteriorate further.

"Yes?"

"What's that about?" I could feel his fingers flick against an epaulet. It probably did look odd, me lying in full uniform on top of the made bed. "You—ready to get to work, huh? You were gonna go out and hunt me down?" Another touch, fleeting. "You worried about me?"

I looked up at him. He was trying to make it a taunt, a parody of tenderness, but in his voice and face there was such an undercurrent of longing . . . Frightening. I hitched myself further over on the bed, away from him. "Not at all, Ray, I assumed you were fine. This not being winter, I was fairly certain you could take care of yourself."

A silence, and then, "Not bad, Fraser, not bad at all. Three-point shot for the team in red."

He tried to stand up, but apparently the effort was too much for him, and instead he slowly toppled backwards, twisting as he fell, until he lay on his back beside me. He folded his arms over his face against the daylight that already streamed into the room.

"This has got to be the worst place in the world to have a hangover," he said.

"Well, I imagine Chicago would be worse, given the ambient noise factor. And you can't have a hangover already. You're still drunk."

He shot me a baleful look from under an elbow. "You wanna try my head on for a few minutes and then tell me that?" Then he let his head roll back, whispering "Shit."

After a pause, he said, "So. You're going in early, huh. I can—gimme a sec, I'll go crash on the couch or something, get out of your way."

"No, don't trouble yourself." I cleared my throat. "We—Cameron and I, that is—were called in to assist with a raid near Lac de Gras. I got a call after you left. He'll be by shortly to pick me up. We'll likely be gone several days."

"Uh huh." His voice was without expression. "Well, that's cool, Fraser. You and Cammy-baby have a grand old time. Maybe you can show him how to wrestle bears or something, you get the chance."

I took a breath in through my mouth, trying not to smell the scents rising off him, knowing they would only fuel my anger. "It will give you an opportunity, if you desire, to spend more time with your friend."

"Friend. What the hell are you talking about."

"The person who—" I stopped. "The woman you were with this evening."

He seemed to pull into himself, wrapping his arms more tightly around his face. I could hear a muffled "Ahh, fuck." I waited to see if he'd have anything to add to that, and finally, he moved his arm away from his mouth and said, "I got no friends here, Fraser."

I bit down hard on my anger, my temptation to snap back That's a load of self-pitying rubbish. Instead I said, "Really? I would have thought that at least some degree of friendship would be involved in—in..."

He gave me a moment, less out of courtesy, I think, than a bitter curiosity as to how I would finish that sentence, but eventually he said, "You know, just cause someone lets you fuck her, doesn't mean she's a friend, okay?"

"And vice versa, I'd imagine." The words were out before I could stop them.

He blew out a sharp little breath and sat up suddenly, grabbing his head. "And the mountie takes the round." He put his hands over his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees. "I ... uh ... shit. I don't have to tell you what a world-class piece-of-shit major-league fuck-up I am, do I?"

"I don't think that's necessary, no." I stared at the ceiling. Looking at him was too painful.

A brief interlude of silence ensued, the seconds dragging by. I wanted to be gone, away from this bed and this conversation, away from Ray, but flight seemed futile. Though I had no idea how to manage it, we had to see this through, somehow, or we'd be finished.

Ray coughed, shifting on the bed and crossing his legs "So. The Boy Wonder picking you up? That what you said?"

I nodded. "He'll be by shortly. I had thought it would be prudent to attempt to get some rest before we leave."

He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing. "Shit, Fraser, I'm sorry, I just—I'll get out of here and let you get some more sleep."

"Please don't trouble yourself. I haven't been sleeping." He sat a moment longer with his hands pressed against his eyes, and then staggered to his feet, mumbling "Sorry, sorry, sorry," and lurched toward the door.

I didn't want to follow after him—I told myself not to—but I found myself pushing up off the bed, getting to my feet, and by the time I reached the living room he was trying to get to the front door, weaving and making furious ineffectual lunges for the doorknob, his path blocked by Dief, who was gazing up at him and making unhappy sounds in his throat.

I came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. He spun away, out of my grip, in a blur of vehement motion, lost his balance, fell heavily against the wall, and he rested there for a moment, all that kinetic frenzy briefly stilled.

Just stillness, for a moment, and then he raised his head, and let it fall back against the wall with a loud thump. And then another, harder, and I could hear a faint slurred mumble. "....sorry, Fraser, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" Another slam, skull against sheetrock, almost hard enough to dent it.

I took him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the wall, onto his feet, steadying him. I held his shoulders, listened to his harsh breathing, smelled alcohol and sex and the shame rising off him. Dief made a little murmuring sound and settled down against the door, watching us warily.

"Ray."

He shook his head once, hard, and then abruptly stopped, raising a hand to his forehead. "Ow," he said, in a small voice.

"Please don't punish yourself."

"'Cause you'll do it for me?" He tried to laugh.

I wanted to shake him, but I kept my hands still, my voice calm. There was at least some satisfaction to be had in my sense of my own self-control. "Ray, listen to me. I'll admit that the past eight hours have not been particularly pleasant. But that's not important. What's—"

"Don't you try to lie to me, Fraser, the hell that's not important. I fucked up, I fucked us up, I fucked you over, and—"

"What's important is that you understand—you don't have to do anything to be here with me. Not anything that you don't want to do." He actually snorted at that, and against my will I felt my fingers tightening on his shoulders. "Most particularly if the endeavor drives you to attempt to reassert your sense of manhood via compensatory acts of meaningless drunken sex with a stranger—" I stopped, feeling my voice getting away from me, and Ray jerked out of my grip.

"Do not. Do not analyze me, Fraser. You can hit me if you want." He took a step back, angling his chin up at me. "Go ahead. Take your best shot, you got a right to that. But just do not—fucking analyze me."

"What the hell else am I supposed to do?" I was close to shouting, and took a deep breath. "You know perfectly well I'm not going to hit you, that wouldn't help the situation one iota."

He turned away from me, in a quick angry movement, and my arms actually went out to grab him and spin him back around to face me, before I caught myself, pulled my hands back. I took a deep breath, and tried to go on more calmly.

"Believe me, Ray, I most seriously wish that you would not force yourself to attempt things you don't feel able to carry through on."

"What else have I done since I got—ah, forget it." He put a hand to his forehead, rubbing. "Forget I said that."

I plowed ahead, doggedly. "I don't want you to do—anything that you don't want to do."

"You wanted it." Long fingers, rubbing his forehead, over and over. He'd have a bruise there tomorrow, I thought. "You wanted it big time. Can't tell me that's not true."

"What I want is beside the point, Ray. Of course I don't get everything I want in life. Nobody does, and I'm very accustomed to coping with that reality."

"So—what, you're trying to tell me it's no big deal? I set you up and jerk you around like that and you're just gonna cope with it?" He turned and walked over to the kitchen table, leaning against it, facing away from me.

I walked after him. "Well, I don't see what my alternatives are. I certainly am not going to pitch a tantrum about it. I can cope with a great many things, but what I have a hard time accepting is your apparent belief that you have to force yourself to do things repugnant and alien to you, simply because you think I need them to be happy." I moved to face him, trying to get him to look at me. "I don't need that, to be happy with you."

He hooked a chair with one foot, pulled it over, and lowered himself into it, a bit unsteadily. "Look. Fraser. I'm a guy, you're a guy. You can stand there and say that it's no big deal, but ..." He glanced up at me, looked away again. "Fucking—it's what guys do, or what guys want to do. We fuck. It's in the guy constitution, we fuck anything that has a hole, right?" He crossed his arms on the table, looking down at them, and made a painful little noise that might have been a laugh. "I mean, shit, look at me. "

"I'm not like that." I tried to keep my voice calm, to rein in the anger and hurt.

That stung him. "Oh yeah, cause you're so much better than me, sorry, I forgot."

I went on, stiffly, hating the entire conversation, hating myself, at the moment hating even him. "It's not that I wouldn't take great joy in—being able to make love to you that way, but believe me, Ray, I have no desire to do anything that would be painful for you—"

"Painful?" He jerked his head up, staring at me with what seemed honest amazement. "You think that that's what this is about? That I can't handle a little pain?" Now he seemed as angry, as hurt, as I felt. "Like that's what this is about? You throw me out of an airplane, you drag me over a mountain, you—" He was waving his arms. "I go through fucking windows for you, and now you think I can't handle a little pain? Fuck that."

"Well, I'd assumed that—"

"Clueless, you are truly clueless, you know?"

"Perhaps if you'd give me a clue, once in a great while, I'd—"

"I shouldn't have to tell you what it's—there are some things a guy should just get, OK?

"Well, I'm not sure I do get it, Ray. I'm striving to make sense of your behavior, but it's a bit much to expect telepathy of me at this juncture." I was trying to keep my voice under control. "Is this perhaps one of those issues of being a normal man that I'm unaware of?"

"Ah, fuck it, Fraser—"

'No, please explain it. If you can. I want to understand."

He nodded, slowly, and after a moment he stood and walked over to the counter, leaning against it, head hanging down. "Shit," he said tiredly. "It's not—I know what it looks like, but it's not—it's not about getting fucked in the ass, it's not about being a fag, and it sure the hell isn't about pain, because—y'know, Fraser, if you wanted, if you really needed to, you could just pick up that knife over there and blam, right in the guts—" He gestured, expressively, miming a fierce stab to his abdomen and then hunching over with a little oof! "Just dig right in, take whatever, you want my spleen, you got it, it's yours."

"Ray, I don't see what—"

"But there's got to be—there's got to be something you don't get to have, something that's—that's just me. Just mine." He glanced over, straightening up. "You get that?"

"In all honesty, Ray, I'm not sure I do, given that you have many idiosyncratic interests and pastimes that I don't share at all, as well as—"

"No, Fraser, that is not what I'm talking about, and I'm not talking about sex here either, it's just—look, sometimes you gotta draw a line. Y'know, it's like—I'm here, and you're there, and there's these places where we're together and then there's—there's places where we're not." His hands were slicing air, in a kinetic geometry, mapping out the boundaries and borders of him, of me, of us. "We can go just so far down this road together, and then ... and then, Benton-buddy—" And he chopped downward with both forearms, hands like blades, a movement so violent that he had to lurch forward with one foot to keep from toppling over. "Then ... the road ends." The barricade that he'd carved in the air loomed, almost palpable. He stared at it.

After a moment he shook his head, and let his hands drop. "Anyway." He pushed away from the counter and walked toward the front door. I was afraid he was going to leave again, but instead he crouched down next to Dief and plunged his fingers into the thick fur behind his ears, rubbing.

"You know something ... she wasn't anyone I would've even looked at normally." He was staring down at Dief, as he spoke. "I mean, it's not like I was interested in her or anything."

He meant it reassuringly, I knew, but it only made things worse. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, "Who is she?" A question both rude and unhelpful, and I quickly corrected myself. "I'm sorry, Ray, of course you don't have to answer that question, certainly I have no business asking you to betray someone else's privacy, or—"

"Nah, it's OK, I know, you don't want to go around town looking at everything female, and wondering. I get that." He stood, wobbly, still not looking at me, brushing loose fur off his hands. "Tourist. Hubby'd gone off on a hunting trip for the weekend, left her here, she was pissed at him. Shitfaced. Lookin' for a good time." He gazed down at his hands. "Not that it was any good."

"Ray—"

"So. Anyway." He turned to face me at last. "Finito. And—I'm sorry." He stared at me until I had no choice but to look back, to see the pain and the guilt, to take in everything he was trying to convey with his eyes. "I know I been saying that, but I mean it. Never been more sorry. And it won't happen again."

I stared at him without responding, still too angry for honest forgiveness, and furious with myself for that incapacity.

"Fraser?"

I knew what he was asking, what he couldn't bring himself to ask aloud—are we good? Are we still partners? Is this going to be OK? But I didn't know how to truthfully answer any of that yet, I needed more time to sort myself out, and so I moved to the kitchen and picked up the container of potato salad, which had never gotten put back in the refrigerator. It had likely gone bad, I thought, and I upended it into the trash.

"OK." His voice, behind me, sounded raspy. "OK, then. You want me to have my stuff packed up by the time you get back?"

That jerked me upright. I turned, trying to keep myself very calm. "Are you going somewhere?"

"I can't picture you wanting me to stick around. After—" He waved his hand around, aimlessly.

"Do you want to leave?"

"Don't you want me to? Look, just say the words, just kick me out, if that's where we're at."

"That's not where I'm ... at, Ray. I want you to choose what's best for you, but believe me, I very much hope that you choose to stay." He stood there, staring down at the ground, hands fisted up at his sides, and seeing his pain grounded me in some sort of reality, gave me the strength to say what I truly felt. "There is nothing you could do that would lead me to turn you out."

His head jerked up, and he stared at me with actual terror. "You—oh Christ, Fraser, that is so—that's fucking chickenshit of you, you know that?"

I took a step back. "Actually, I thought it was a fairly courageous stance, given what—"

"Stella, at least she had the balls to kick me out. You—I pull this kind of twisted shit on you, and you'd just—you sit there and—oh fuck it."

"I don't see how—"

"Just cut me loose, Fraser." He looked exhausted, his hands hanging limp now.

"I won't do that, Ray."

He shook once, all over, hard. "Just ... fucking ... cut me loose."

"No." It hurt to see his pain, and part of me was tempted to simply go over to him, embrace him, reconnect us in the simplest and most direct way. But it would have been dishonest. "What we have between us, fundamentally, is good, and I'm not giving up on it. And Ray—you're a good man. I'm not giving up on you."

He grimaced, staring down at the floor. "You into pain? Should've figured that one out earlier."

"Ray." I took a step toward him. "I know you weren't intending to hurt me."

"You know that, huh." He was almost snarling. "Pretty sure about that?"

"I know you're really not that kind of person. I know you, Ray, I know who and what you are, and—"

And that seemed to drive him over the brink; he grabbed a glass off the table, spun, and threw it against the wall, shattering it. "Yeah? You think so?" He stared at me, almost panting. "I don't even know that. Me. I got no clue." His eyes were huge, full of rage, bewilderment, fear. "So you think you know who I am? That means you're either stupid, which you're not, or a fuckin' liar, which you're not, or, or you're trying to be nice to me. And do not be fucking nice to me, Fraser. You can give me what I got coming, you can kick my ass from here to Chicago, that's no more'n I deserve, but not even I, shitheel that I am, not even I deserve the nice treatment."

He grabbed another glass, sent it spinning across the room to smash against the wall, and while the crash was still reverberating, like an echo the front door banged open, and Cameron stood in the opening. He took a quick step into the room. "Sir, are you all—" Then, taking in the tableau, he faltered, halted, and froze, putting his hands behind his back, staring at a spot on the floor between us. "I'm very sorry, sir, I should have waited in the car—I heard, ah—noise, and—and I thought perhaps you were—that there was danger of some sort, and ..." His face was almost as red as his jacket.

"Thank you, Cameron, but perhaps you should step—"

It was too late, Ray was already moving toward him, eerily calm all of a sudden, nodding at him with apparent sympathy. "Domestics, they're a bitch, huh? But the thing you gotta learn, Cammy, maybe they didn't teach you this at the Depot, maybe they had to use the time for lanyard-tying class or something, but you gotta learn, and I'm giving you this lesson for free, so pay attention—" He'd been gliding closer and closer to Cameron, and abruptly he poked him in the chest with a forefinger, hard. "Never walk in on a domestic without your weapon ready. Quickest way to get your head blown off." He glanced down at Cameron's revolver, buckled in its holster, and then looked more closely. "Hey, what the hell is this?" In one deft movement, he had the gun unholstered and in his hand. He took a long step back, gave it a quick toss and grab to get the proper grip.

"Sir—"

"Whoa, haven't seen one of these in a while. I gotta tell you, Cammy, there's thirteen-year-old gang girls in Chicago that'd be embarrassed to be seen with a piece of shit like this. Not to mention dead." He spun the barrels. "Go into Cabrini waving this around, you wouldn't make it as far as the stairwell."

Cameron shot me a bewildered glance of appeal. I said, "Ray," warningly, but he ignored me, as I knew he would, prowling in a circle around Cameron, playing with the gun, shaking out the bullets and reloading them, checking the safety, testing the balance, talking the whole time, his words like quick jabs. "Money that tight up here? Somebody in the RCMP hate you, Cammy? Somebody got it in for you? Cause I tell you, sending a guy out with a piece like this, that's a hostile act where I come from."

Cameron was clearly trying to pull himself together and speak authoritatively. "Well, sir—detective—we're not in Chicago, you know."

Ray grinned, an unpleasant grin. "Oh yeah. Trust me, kid, I got that one figured out. That is one fact that hasn't escaped my notice. Chicago this is not."

He suddenly spun and raised the gun, sighting along the muzzle, aiming it rather too close to Cameron's head.

"Ray. Kindly return Constable Sinclair's weapon to him immed—" but he went on, completely ignoring me, talking over my words, though at least he lowered the gun.

"Of course, this piece of shit's got antique value. Hell, this is the kind of thing they used back in the days of Mad Sam DeStefano. You ever heard of him?" He didn't even pause for a response. "Course not. Now there was one crazy fucker." He laughed a little under his breath. "He was the guy took out Joey the Spoon. Picked him up one night, took him to a warehouse, hung him up on a meat hook. Went at him first with a baseball bat, just to kind of loosen him up, y'know? Then he got out the icepicks."

He was still circling, still pacing. Cameron stood rigid, mesmerized, following Ray only with his eyes. I knew I should intervene, but I was almost afraid to say anything. It wasn't apparent in any unsteadiness of voice or movement, but I knew how drunk he still was. "And this, this piece of shit, it would've suited Mad Sam just fine back then, but this is 1998, kid." He halted, finally, right in front of Cameron, very much inside his personal space. When Cameron made as if to reach for the revolver Ray smacked his hand away, leaned in still closer, and shoved it in the holster himself, and then, stepping back, gave him a little slap on the hip.

I had thought Cameron could hardly get any tenser, but he did. From somewhere, though, he summoned up the defiance to say, "It suits me just fine, sir. I can take care of myself with it."

Ray gave him a large and malevolent grin, baring his teeth. "Right, Cammy, but, see, that's not the point, is it? Cause you know, I really don't give shit if you get capped. That's not something that tips the bubble one way or the other. The point is—you gotta take care of him." His voice was suddenly so intense he was almost hissing. He grabbed Cameron by the elbow, jerked him around to face me. "You see him? That's your partner. Right? You've got his back. Right?" Cameron was trying ineffectually to pull his arm free. "You need to make sure you got that covered. You need to make sure you don't fuck that up in any detail whatsoever. Cause Cammy—if anything happens to him, you can count on one thing like the rock of Gibralter, you let anything happen to him and I'll find you. And when I do, you're gonna think Joey the Spoon got off easy." His voice was very serious now, soft, almost hypnotic in its intensity. "You watch out for him. Cause the guy can take care of himself, but he can't watch his own back, and anyway that's something you shouldn't need to be told if you've worked with him more than five minutes, but you don't strike me as a quick learner, Cammy."

Cameron didn't say a thing, just stared at Ray for a moment longer, then gave me a stiff nod and turned and walked out the door to the car. I knew I had to follow him, and as wrong at it was to leave things in this state, I was somewhat relieved at the prospect; at least I could count on Cameron not to launch any emotional scenes. I picked up my bag, then paused, feeling the need for some sort of leave-taking, but what I found myself saying was, "Ray—that was ... that was entirely and completely—"

"That's the kind of good guy I am, Fraser. You said it. You know it." He was almost swaying where he stood, exhaustion catching up with him at last. "Gonna catch some z's." He started to turn, as if to go toward the bedroom, but it was as if his body was working against itself—even as his legs went one way, his body turned back, and, stumbling, he surged over to me, against me, grabbing me in an embrace so hard it hurt, giving me a fast desperate kiss that landed in front of my ear. Then just as abruptly he pushed away again and headed for the hall.

"Ray." He stopped, swayed, catching himself with a hand on the wall. "Will you be here when I get back?"

He kicked one foot hard against the baseboard, leaving a black scuff. "Where the fuck else would I be?" Then he pushed off the wall and headed into the bedroom.

Three days later, I was on a flight back to Inuvik. The plane was small, and rather ineptly piloted; the weather was rough; several of my colleagues were looking a bit green. I myself was trying to read over a copy of the reprimand that Sergeant Gammell intended to place in my file, regarding my actions in the course of the raid.

("Damn it, Benton," he'd shouted at me, "it may seem harsh, but it's for your own good! I understand that you were successful in apprehending the man, but your orders were to hold your position and await direction, not to extemperaneously appropriate a piece of earth-moving equipment!" He'd lowered his voice then to a more conciliatory tone. "You have to get it through your head, son—you'll never rise to the position your abilities merit until you're willing to get a grip on the concept of teamwork." And I'd said nothing in reply, though I'd longed to tell him just how well I understood what true teamwork could be.)

The sergeant's handwriting bounced in time with the shuddering of the plane, sharpening my headache, and finally I gave up the effort. Now that our job was done, and there was nothing left to do but go home, I could no longer keep my thoughts from what might await me there.

I'd phoned before our departure, to let Ray know I'd be back that evening, and had been shamefully relieved to get the answering machine. But it had left me worried about whether—setting aside the issue of what frame of mind he'd be in, truculent or guilty or reckless—whether he'd even be there when I got back, whether he wanted to continue this relationship at all, and how we would mend this breach. Finally I told myself that fretting was wholly unproductive and that in any event there was nothing I could do about any of this at the moment, at least not from an altitude of 6000 meters.

It was near dark when I finally saw the lights of town glittering in the dimness, and felt the plane banking downward. Once I collected my hat and bag and got myself off the plane, I paused to exchange a few words with Gammell, and then looked around to find that Cameron had already driven off. I wanted to think that in his fatigue he'd probably just forgotten me, but had to admit to myself that he'd been taking pains to avoid me during the entire trip. In any event, I told myself, a 10 kilometer walk on a fresh evening would be restorative.

The solitude and peace were indeed pleasant, but about halfway to town my own fatigue caught up with me; I'd had little sleep the past few nights, had had no appetite for breakfast that morning, and by the time I got to town I was starting to sag. It was unfortunate, I reflected, that the most difficult part of my day was likely still ahead of me.

When I reached the house, lights were aglow behind the curtains, warm and welcoming, but I had no idea what might await me within. I wondered if Ray were there, if he would bombard me with anger, with remorse, with ... well, I didn't know with what, I had no experience with conversations of the sort I feared. I stood in front of the door for a moment, drawing in breath, straightening my spine; and then I turned the knob and went in.

It was warm inside; it was quiet; it smelled wonderfully of good food; and Ray was sitting crosslegged on the sofa, a magazine in his lap. He looked up as I came in, and when I met his eye he nodded and said, "Hey," in a soft voice. Just then Dief came barrelling up, full of reproachful comments, and when I straightened from greeting him and reminding him I'd been ordered to leave him behind, I saw Ray walking toward me, face neutral. He said nothing; when I shed my jacket, he took it from me and hung it up, wordlessly. Then he turned back to face me and we stood for a long moment, just looking at one another, silence deepening between us.

Abruptly, he broke it. "You look like hell."

I nodded. "The last few days have been rather tiring."

He went over to the table, pulled out a chair. "C'mon. Sit. I got some of that, uh, casserole thing you like."

As Ray dished up a plateful of food and poured a glass of milk, I sank into the chair. I hadn't realized until that moment just how exhausted I actually was. I wasn't certain if I could relax yet,though, or if I should stay braced for some sort of emotional sucker-punch. But Ray set the plate and glass before me without comment, and then leaned back against the counter, apparently willing to let me eat in peace.

The food was heavy and satisfying, a kind of stroganoff richly laced with paprika, and I wolfed it down. Once the edge was off my hunger, I leaned back with a sigh.

"So. How'd it go?" Ray moved around to take a chair facing me.

"The—?"

"The bust, whatever." He rested his hand on the table; his fingers danced a complex nervous pattern, but he was keeping the rest of himself unusually still.

I took a sip of milk. "It went well, I believe."

"Organized crime." His voice was soft. "That's what Darlene said, big-time mob guys. Bad shit at the diamond mines."

I was startled. "Darlene talked with you about the case?"

"Brought her some danish, she sang like a canary. I think I'm getting to her." He lifted one shoulder slightly.

"It was essentially a CID and Federal Services operation," I said. "We were just there to provide back-up."

One corner of his mouth twisted. "Sit still, shut up, follow orders. That kind of stuff?"

I nodded, and he nodded back; I wondered if he was recalling, as I was, the times we'd both been chafed by that yoke, side by side. It eased me enough that I added, "Though I must admit I fell short of entire compliance with that programme."

He stared at me, and then the bitter twist of his lips smoothed out into a near-smile. "You went off on your own hook." He waited for my nod before going on. "You did something screwy, you annoyed the feds, you pissed off the sergeant, except you also caught the bad guys in a, in a fishing net or disarmed a bomb or something like that, so he can't really be pissed at you and that makes him even more pissed. That it?"

"Essentially, though neither bombs nor fishing nets were involved." I yawned. "Sergeant Gammell is not entirely pleased with me, I'll confess."

He leaned forward. "Screw him. You got the bad guys, you didn't get hurt, you came back. That's what matters."

It certainly wasn't a point I was inclined to dispute; I was, in fact, entirely too exhausted for any further conversation. I pushed my chair back and stretched my legs, wincing a little as my boots rubbed against blisters, then bent with a sigh to start unlacing them.

"Here. Let me get that."

Before I could protest, Ray slid to the floor, kneeling in front of me, undoing the laces with a scowl of concentration. There was nothing subservient in his manner; I felt like a warrior home from the field, being tended by a comrade, one who understood the nature of battle fatigue, who could tender the rough kindnesses that made the combat bearable. I simply watched him, in a haze of weariness, occasionally forking up another bite of food.

When he finished pulling off my boots, he set them side by side, then sat back on his heels and looked at me. "You done?" I nodded, letting the fork fall back onto the plate. "OK. Get some sleep." He stood, took my hand, pulled me to my feet, and steered me to the bedroom, with a hand on my shoulder.

"I should probably shower—"

"Tomorrow. You're beat."

He helped me undress in silence, taking each garment from me as I fumbled it off. I crawled under the covers like a bear into its den, and I think I was asleep before he slid in beside me.

In the depths of the night, the depths of sleep, I became groggily aware of something pressing me down, something clutching—hands gripping me, a weight on my chest. I struggled, briefly, until I woke enough to realize it was Ray, holding me, his mouth moving urgently over my chest.

"Ray," I croaked. I felt drugged with exhaustion, pole-axed, and there was a frightening hunger in his caresses, with which I felt utterly unable to cope. "Ray. Ray, please hold on a moment—"

But he refused to listen to me, moving lower, to my belly, until finally I put the heel of my hand against his forehead, pushed his head back, forcing his gaze to me, and spoke to him as distinctly as I would to Dief. "Ray. You don't have to do this."

He pulled away from my hand, pushed it aside. "Yeah I do. I have to do this. Just—be OK with me. OK?"

I tried again. "You need sleep, Ray. I need sl—"

"I need to do this, please just lemme do this. Please." And without waiting for an answer, he bent again, taking me in his mouth.

I had seldom felt less aroused in my life—certainly sex was the last thing I needed at that point—and I wasn't at all sure that Ray's need was for this act, this connection, or whether it was to prove something, to me or to himself or to both of us, and I was far too tired to try to resolve it with words. Instead I lay back, let him do what he would, and tried to summon up some response to his endeavors. That response was lacking, however, until after a while, aware of his growing frustration, I reached in desperation for a memory I'd carried around with me for a long time, an image that had heated my lonely Chicago nights ... Ray, in his sojourn at the Consulate after Volpe's death, asleep on a sofa, barefooted, unshaven and tousled, in one of my flannel shirts, with his bare chest showing through the unbuttoned gap, legs sprawled wide and a hand tucked in the waistband of his jeans ...

It did the trick; but a minute later, as he crawled back up and flopped alongside me, throwing an arm across my chest and wiping his face on my shoulder, I had the strangest sense that I'd betrayed him, cheated on him; that just like him, in the face of a need I couldn't encompass, I'd fled, finding gratification in some phantasm.

Sleep pulled me back down swiftly, but before I went under, I could hear him, murmuring into my neck: I love you. I love you so much. God, I love you. His words flowed over and around and past me, as I dropped off into darkness.

We never talked about any of it again, did we, Ray? I had to be at work early the next morning, you were working overtime that night, days passed, new matters came up to distract us, and after a while I had no idea of how to re-open the topic, even if I'd wanted. So I never had a chance to tell you that, truly, I wasn't angered by the infidelity. It would have been silly to let it trouble me; you'd broken no promise, we'd never made those kinds of vows to each other, and I wasn't self-deluded enough to think that loving me meant you'd cease feeling drawn to women.

No, it was that—well, I never wanted you to feel you had to be someone else to be with me. I loved you as you were, rash, impulsive, passionate, and honest about it all; I simply wanted you to go on being who you were, with me, even when "being who you were" meant doing things that were bewildering to me. That you were just as bewildered as I, just as thoroughly in the dark, was a salient fact that escaped my notice. I was signally blind to how alien and demanding a role you were occupying, one that you had to improvise as you went along. Being Ray Vecchio was nothing in comparison to it.

I stood in the hallway outside the interview room, and took a moment to review the file once again. This wasn't my case, strictly speaking—Evans had made the arrest, but he had been scheduled to attend a Safer Communities Initiative meeting that evening, and had asked if I could take a statement from the prisoner.

The youth in question, Jason Handy, wasn't known to me, but that was likely because he had only recently returned from a stint at a juvenile offender work camp out near Lupin. He had, by age 16, accumulated a depressingly lengthy record of offenses—theft, vandalism, assault, and general hooliganism. His mother, on the other hand, was known to me—a chronic inebriate whom I'd several times had to collect from one bar or another. There was no father's name listed.

I closed up the folder, with a sigh, and opened the door. The boy was alone, sitting slumped at the table, his face buried in his folded arms. He didn't look up when I sat down opposite him.

"Jason. Where is your—"

He looked up at the sound of my voice, squinting. "Hey. It's the fag mountie. They send the fag mountie in to talk to me, huh?"

I disregarded that. "Constable Evans told me that Legal Aid was contacted on your behalf, and sent over an—"

"I told her to fuck off. I don't want a fucking lawyer." His voice was flat and slurred.

"Jason, you have the right to talk to a legal representative both before and while making any statement, and it's a right of which you should avail yourself. You should also understand that, as I assume Constable Evans informed you, you are under no obligation to make a statement, and that if you do, any such statement may be used as evidence against you." He gave no sign of paying attention. "Now, if you would prefer, you're eligible for services from the Native Courtworker Program, and I could—"

"Fuck that too." He pushed his greasy hair back. "I'm going to jail, right? Let's just do it."

"You should at least have your mother here, or some other adult family member, to safeguard your interests."

"That bitch? Why the hell would I want her here?" He stared at me, sneering, and as I studied his face, noting some anomalous features—the epicanthal folds, the short upturned nose, low-set ears, flat philtrum, undersized skull—I suddenly felt sick with disgust, though not at him. Fetal alcohol syndrome, almost certainly. I folded my hands tightly on the file, feeling my jaw clench with anger. He'd never had a chance. Doomed before his birth, damaged in his very making.

"So, you going to ask me some questions or what, fag?" The taunting, thick voice was hard to listen to, but I composed myself and leaned forward.

"Jason, listen carefully to what I'm telling you. You need to see a lawyer. Also, I'm going to request that you be evaluated by a doctor before you appear in Youth Court—"

"Awww, fuck that!" He jumped up, shoving his chair back and toppling it to the floor. "I'm not talking to any doctor!"

I pushed ahead. "Because if you don't—pay attention now, Jason, if you don't, it's likely, given your record, that you won't be remanded to open custody or given treatment, but will instead be sent to the Young Offenders Centre in Yellowknife. To prison, that is."

"Yellowknife?" He smacked a hand against the wall, but he seemed bizarrely gleeful. "Alllll right!"

I shook my head. "No, you don't understand, I said that you'll be going to jail, and—"

"In Yellowknife, right?" He nodded with vigor. "See, you don't get it, fag, I always wanted to go to Yellowknife. I got some buddies down there."

I took a grip on myself. "But, Jason," I said as calmly as I could, "you'll be imprisoned. You won't be seeing your—"

"And you know something else?" He was pacing back and forth, hitching absentmindedly at his pants; they were ridiculously baggy, in a style reminiscent of that I'd seen on youth gang members in Chicago. "You know what's the best part?" He stopped, facing me. "I'll be getting the hell out of this fucking town! Man, I hate it here! This has got to be the stupidest most boring fucking place in the world!"

"You don't understand—" I began, helplessly, but he cut me off.

"Aren't you supposed to be asking me questions? What happened was, that guy came out of the bar, he was drunk, I beat him up, he had five hundred dollars on him, I took it." He gestured at the table. "Now you write something down and I sign it, right? That's how it works, I done this before."

"Jason. I care about your well-being, and I'm trying to act with your best interests in mind. Now, you should not be making a statement until—"

"Let's just get this shit over with, huh?" Then he leered at me. "Unless you got something else in mind here. You like me, huh?" And to my shock, he made an obscene thrusting movement with his hips. "You want a piece of this, fag? You want to try this on for size?"

I stood, grabbed the file, strode to the door and threw it open. Standing in the doorway, I turned and addressed him. "I will type up your statement and have an officer bring it in for your signature. Please resume your seat."

I shut the door, hurried down the hall to my desk, and rolled a piece of paper into the typewriter, hands shaking with anger. By the time I had typed up a verbatim transcript of the interview and a waiver of right to representation, and had filled out the necessary paperwork for his transfer to Youth Court and for medical and psychiatric evaluation, my mood had settled somewhat, into a bleak and pervasive disgust. It was late, and my colleagues were bringing the night's usual assortment of belligerent drunks. There would be more of them the next night, and the next, and the night after that, endlessly. I kept thinking about the lives damaged, truncated, wasted; I thought about Jason's family, what I knew of them, a pitiful and fractured assortment of alcoholics and petty criminals, people whose noble culture and heritage were lost to them. I thought about what likely awaited Jason in jail, the pointless destruction of his young life, and about the havoc he no doubt would bring to other lives, before he died. And there was little, really, that I could do about any of it, except hew to my duty, protect those whom I could, save those who could still be saved.

I fnished my paperwork at last, and was preparing, with relief, to leave the building, when I noticed a folder in my inbox, with a note clipped to it in Sergeant Gammell's handwriting: I believe this workshop would be an excellent opportunity for your professional development, and will authorize funds for the fee and for your airfare to Edmonton. Please hold these dates on your calendar, and I'll arrange for someone to cover for you.

I opened the folder, and found a training brochure from the Canadian Police Association: "Into the 21st Century: Managerial Skills for Tomorrow's Law Enforcement Leaders." I scanned, with a sinking heart, the list of seminar topics: Elements of Successful Personnel Management; Employee Issues for Institutional Supervisors; Fiscal Management; Applying Challenge to Organizational Achievement; Mastering Change in a Transforming World; Practical Time Management; Unleashing Human Potential for Supervisors—the Covey Method.

My head was aching like an iron band was tightened around it, and I felt an overwhelming impulse to simply flee. But first I took a piece of paper from my notepad, and after a moment's thought, wrote Sir: I very much appreciate the consideration, and it's most kind of you. But I would be quite uneasy at leaving my duties during this busy time, and I also think that Constable Elston would be a better candidate for this opportunity, as he seems to have a great interest in administrative matters. I would be more than happy to put in additional hours to allow him to take advantage of this prospect. Again, I thank you for thinking of me.

I clipped the note to the folder, thrust it into the sergeant's mailbox, and fled. I walked for a long time, in the darkness, until the town was far behind me; and a part of me wished to simply keep walking, on into the wilderness, until even the faint glow of town lights disappeared behind me. But finally I slowed, and halted. The night wrapped around me as I stood, and the fresh crisp air eased away the last of my headache. I knew that I needed to turn back, that I was behaving like a self-indulgent idiot, acting as if I could walk away from my responsibilities. But still I stood for a long time, savoring the silence and the dark, before I began trudging back toward the town.

May 12, 1992

When I checked in at headquarters this morning, the Superintendant began haranguing me again about accepting a transfer to Kitchener. Trying to tell me I'm too old to be out in the field, that I should take it easier. I told him that when the day comes that I can't do my work the way I was meant to, he can just take me out and shoot me. For god's sake, what would I do behind a desk all day? Write my memoirs? He had no answer to that, and tomorrow I'll be off to look into that smuggling operation near Winisk.

There was a letter waiting for me from Benton. He's apparently asked for a transfer away from Moose Jaw, and will be returning to Fort Good Hope. That's a mercy; I don't know what in god's name he thought he was doing down there in the first place. The boy takes after me, in every way that matters, though of course he's got a lot left to learn. I can only hope he won't make all of my mistakes, in doing so.

One September evening, I came home to find Ray sitting on the floor, with his back propped against the sofa and his legs stretched out, staring at the blank and silent television. He had a bottle of vodka at his side, about an inch down from full, and a shot glass resting on his thigh. Dief nosed him in greeting, and he pushed Dief's muzzle away, without speaking.

I hung up my coat, walked over, and squatted down in front of him. "Ray. Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Fine." The reply seemed automatic, and I stayed where I was, watching him. After a minute, he turned and focused on me, blinking. "Sorry. Just a little ..." The glass began sliding; he caught it, picked up the bottle, paused for a moment, and then, to my relief, leaned over to set them both on the coffee table. He almost lost his balance, and I reached out to steady him, and then once he resettled I left my hand on his shoulder. He made an irritable shrugging motion. "I'm fine."

"Actually, I rather doubt that, Ray. You don't seem—"

"I got pink-slipped, is all."

I frowned. "Pink-slipped?"

"Laid off. Adios, it's been fun, have a nice day." He rested his hands on his legs, staring down at them. "Emma's cutting back the crew. Makes sense, building season's winding down. Said to call her in May, if she has an opening she'll put me back on."

"I'm very sorry, Ray." My head dropped, though not as far as my spirits did. I had been cherishing the hope that perhaps she would keep him on over the winter.

"Yeah. Me too." Ray pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "I mean, I get it. I got no beef coming. Last in, first out, that's the way it goes. And some of those guys, they got families to support. I get that." He rested his chin on his knees. "I just ..." It was barely above a mumble. "I dunno what I'm going to do now."

He sounded forlorn, behind the hedgehog-like defensiveness of his posture, and I didn't have much of an idea about how to console him, other than by trying to direct his mind toward positive action. I stood, feeling unaccustomed stiffness in my knees. "Well, it is a shame, but after all, misfortune can often present fresh opportunities, for a man of resource and self-reliance, and I'm certain that diligent inquiry will turn up—"

With a vehement flail of arms and legs, Ray leapt to his feet; he grabbed the bottle and glass, poured and threw down a drink, and slammed them both back on the table. Wiping his mouth, he turned back to me. "Two things, Fraser. One, I do not want to hear about how all a guy really needs is a knife and some whale blubber and he should be fine. And second, you and me both know that the only reason Emma gave me that job in the first place is that she was being nice to you."

"Did I mention whale blubber? No, I don't believe I did, and in any event, she would not have kept you on if you weren't—"

"She would not have given me the time of freakin' day to begin with if it wasn't that she owed you one. It had zippo to do with me."

"Be that as it may, the fact remains that she kept you on, because—"

"—because she didn't have any options, she needed another warm body who'd at least show up sober most of the time." He pushed his hands over his face. "If she'd found another Inuit guy she thought could do the job, you better believe I'd've been out on my ass in a heartbeat."

Though I suspected he was correct, still I opened my mouth to dispute the point, but he held out a palm to me and went on.

"And I'm not blaming her, I get that, people want to hang with people they fit with, that's—sociological, or whatever. It just—it means I got a problem, 'cause I don't really fit in here. With anyone."

I took a step toward him. "I would question that, Ray. You certainly seemed to form a fine rapport with your fellow crew members, once they got to know you. You just have to give it time."

"Rapport?" He threw out his hands. "They put up with me, yeah, 'cause guess what, they didn't have a choice! But do you think they ever for one minute let me forget what a freak I am?" He was pacing now, punching out the words with his voice and his hands. "Weird-talking, American, queer, freak." Abruptly, he spun, pointing at me. "You know just how much of a fun time that is. I'm as big a freak here as you were back in Chicago."

It halted me, for a moment; the truth in his words stung. I half-opened my mouth to argue back, to say But that was different. Then I stopped again, realizing that the difference in question was that—well, simply, that I knew what had sustained me in Chicago, what had made the exile tolerable, was not the friendship of Ray Vecchio and Ray Kowalski, as valuable as those had been; rather, it had been my work, the one essential ground of my existence, the thing that would never leave me, that I could never lose.

"But you, at least you had something to do down there. And after a long hard day of catching bad guys and being a freak, you could head on back to the Consulate and watch curling with Turnbull and be all, Hey, we're in Canada, really!" He stopped pacing, and gave me a narrow-eyed stare. "Me, I got nothing here."

"For heaven's sake, Ray—" Then I stopped, hearing my father's voice, saying briskly, sardonically, There's no point in arguing with a man when he's in the right. I shut my ears to it. It was too unsettling to think that Ray might, in fact, be right. There was a difficulty here, to be sure, but it had to be amenable to solution, and my task was to find that solution, and convey it to him, in some fashion that he could accept.

"Be that as it may," I tried again, "as regards the more immediate issue of your finding alternate employment, we clearly need to take a more comprehensive and well-planned approach, which of course would involve regularising your residence status, perhaps some re-training, and—"

I stopped; he wasn't listening to me, he was at the desk, yanking open a drawer, pulling out a file hidden beneath a stack of papers. Striding back, he slapped the file down on the coffee table, flipped it open, and spread out the contents with one sweep of his hand. I recognized them immediately from my own anxious and furtive sessions on the computer—a printout of the General Occupations List from Immigrant Services, and the self-assessment worksheet for applicants. The worksheet was somewhat rumpled, and had a coffee stain on one edge; it was ornamented with doodles, including a fairly vivid sketch of a grinning skull being stabbed in the eyesocket with a dagger.

And it had numbers filled in the blanks, some in pen, crossed out and rewritten, some in pencil, showing signs of erasure and revision. At the bottom was the total, "50"—accurately summed, I noted—and next to it, in Ray's handwriting, the words "No FUCKING way," underscored with a heavy slash.

"Maybe you think I haven't been thinking about this, Fraser. But I ain't stupid." Ray was staring down at the papers. "OK. That's the best I could figure if I went for car mechanic, which is kind of hinky to begin with 'cause I've never done that for a real job. And it still leaves me ten points short from minimum for them to even take a look at me."

It was essentially the conclusion I'd reached, uneasily, in my own research, and I chastisted myself for the cowardice that had kept me from sharing it with Ray earlier, for having left him to thrash through this alone. "Well, that's why I was bringing up the concept of re-training. If we were to take a look at alternate occupations—" I reached for the list of jobs, but Ray grabbed it away from me.

"Already done that, Fraser, and I can tell you what they're looking for. Look at the high scores there. Audiologist, which I don't even know what that is—computer programmer—industrial engineer—occupational therapist—" He was scanning through the list, scowling at it, and then threw it back down. "I look like any of those to you?"

I picked up the sheets and glanced over them, putting mental tickmarks against a few entries—airplane mechanic, cook, heavy-equipment mechanic. "Well, there are certainly other feasible alternatives, ones which would require less in the way of education and credentialling." I looked up at him. "Of course, it would improve your score if you were to learn French."

"I do not want to learn French! How stupid is that, anyway? You see anyone speaking French around here? Does this make any sense to you, that I have to learn French so I can get to be an audiologist while freezing my ass off in the Arctic? And what the hell is that, anyway?"

It took me a moment to parse his question. "An audiologist diagnoses and treats hearing disorders, and for heaven's sake, forget about that, Ray, and let's set the language issue aside for the moment as well." He had walked restlessly over to the bookshelves and was sorting through his CDs, as though handling them calmed him in some way. "The point is—well, there are a number of directions you could go. Just as an example, Aurora College offers a diploma in aviation. You could train to become a pilot, which offers—" I consulted the list. "Fifteen EFT points."

"Y'know something, I thought about that one." Ray pulled out a disc, examined it a moment, put it back again. "Looked up the program. But what they want, Fraser, they want people who either they've lived up here a long time, or they're—what's that word, Aborigines?"

"Aboriginal," I said.

"What's with that, anyway?" He turned, squinting at me. "That doesn't seem real polite to me. I tell you, if I went up to someone in Chicago and called 'em an Aboriginal, they'd sock me in the jaw."

"It's a non-pejorative term which merely means 'of or relating to indigenous people,' and is widely accepted by all groups of—"

"What is this, the Fraser Encyclopedia Hour? Forget it. Look, this list—" He walked back over and stabbed one finger, hard, against the printout. "I can tell you one thing, 'cop' isn't in here anywhere, not even in some weird Canadian-talk." His face was hard. "And that's what I am. I'm a cop."

I could hear the stony finality in his voice, and knew that a frontal assault on it would be pointless. But I could not let it sink me, sink us; instead, I essayed a flanking manouvre. "It's a career that you've pursued with great distinction, Ray. But it isn't all of what you are. The skills that you developed in that career could be successfully transferred elsewhere."

"Fraser, you're not listening real good here. I told you. I'm a cop. That's what I am, that's what I know how to be." His voice got tighter. "Shit, you were the one that taught me that!"

No point arguing with a man when he's in the right; and yet I couldn't accept that, could not let it be right, because the only direction it led was down a road we could no longer walk together. And the fear that came with that thought led me to speak too fast, too carelessly. "I understand that it was your career, Ray, but you can't let yourself be defined by your career."

His eyes flew open, and after a moment his mouth curled upward in a rather savage grin. "Oh, now this, this coming from you of all people, this is—talk about freakin' hilarious. Can we get the cameras on this? Hey, Dief—" Without looking away, he gestured to Diefenbaker. "Can I get a witness, buddy?"

I could feel a red flush creeping up my neck, and without thinking I snapped back, "Perhaps I do identify rather closely with my work, but that's—" Then I caught myself, and the glint in Ray's eyes sharpened.

"Yeah, right, go ahead, say it, that's different, and then I can point out to you that the only thing that's different here is it's you instead of me, and when it's you, it's because you're the super-mountie, and when it's me it's just that I'm a big loser who can't adjust. Right?"

I bowed my head, clearing my throat. "No. Ray, you are most certainly not a loser of any kind. And I apologize if I seemed to belittle the significance of your connection to your work. I meant no disparagement. I merely wished to encourage you to think in a positive way about possible alternatives."

After a moment's silence, he dropped onto the sofa, with a whoosh of cushions, and let his head fall back. "You know what's really hilarious?" He stared at the ceiling, blinking. "You know what's the beauty part here? A couple of years ago, I was ready to walk away from it. Shit, I'd've been right there with you on looking for the alternatives. You know what happened?" He tipped his head to the side, looking at me. "You happened. You're what turned my brain around on that one. Working with you, it was like—OK, yeah, being a cop, now I remember why I wanted to do this!" He let his head roll back, shutting his eyes. "And now—you're the one telling me forget about it."

I sat down beside him, looking at him. The low sun angled through the window, catching the side of his face, highlighting the gold of his stubble, the creases of fatigue in the corners of his eyes, the scar that Kuzma's teeth had left on his ear. "I don't want you to forget about it, Ray, any more than I would ever want to forget what it was like working with you." He didn't look at me, and I leaned forward. "The passion and the courage that you brought to your work in the police force—they're part of you, they make you who you are, and they can find other outlets. That's all I'm trying to say. You need a challenge to match your abilities, and I am committed to working with you to find that."

"Challenge. Yeah." He still hadn't opened his eyes; his voice sounded far away. "Y'know what that reminds me of ... back when I was at college, one of my profs, he had this quote he made us all write an essay about. Something about how a guy's got to, uh, measure his powers or taste the coffee or something."

I bent and began unlacing my boots, searching through my memory. "Would it have been Santayana? 'To be happy, you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.'"

My voice faltered just a little on the last words, and I wished them back unsaid. Ray tipped his head toward me and shot me a slit-eyed glance. "Yeah, that's the one. Should've known you'd know it." He slid down a little further, thunking his feet onto the coffee table. "So I wrote about how the one thing I'd figured out so far was that college wasn't the right, uh, place in the world for me, and next day he grabbed me after class and started in with me about how I needed to let it be a challenge to me, I just had to find a good reason to be there, and I'd do fine."

"Well," I said cautiously, "I can't disagree with his assessment. You're an intelligent man, and certainly could have done well at college, had you chosen to."

He disregarded that. "There were a couple of other guys in the class, buddies of mine, they got so fired up by the whole thing they decided to drop out for a year and go to Alaska and work on a fishing boat."

"Indeed." Finally finished with the laces, I pulled my boots off.

"I was thinking about going with 'em, but my dad had a fit, he wouldn't front me the plane fare, which meant I would've had to sell the car, and then I got accepted into the Academy, and so—" He blew out a dismissive breath, adding as an afterthought, "Plus they lost their shirts anyway, they ended up bartending at some dive in Anchorage to pay for their flight home."

"Quite a youthful adventure," I said, not sure if this was simply Ray's mind ranging off on a side track, or if he was building to a point.

The latter, apparently, because he thumped his palms down on the sofa cushions and pushed himself upright. "Yeah. That's it right there, Fraser. Youthful. Here, look at this." He pushed his hand under my nose, palm down. "See that?"

I had always taken pleasure in looking at Ray's hands—strong, well-made, expressive—but as I gazed at the one in front of me, I could see the toll the last half-year had taken on him. Not just the faint marks of frostbite, but also the damage of his job—scarred cuts, a purpled fingernail. I felt a sudden surge of protective anger. He ought not to be a common laborer, he deserves better work than that. But there was little better that I, or this place, could offer him, and to cover the sense of helplessness that that brought, I said, "Would you like some ointment for that graze, Ray? It looks rather—"

"No, I wouldn't, it's healing up fine, and that's not the point! Look. Look at that." He pointed to some brownish marks on the skin, barely darker than his tan. "See those? You know what those are, Fraser? Age spots, that's what!"

It struck me, in the moment, as a rather ludicrous manifestation of vanity, and I patted his hand and straightened. "Probably just some minor damage due to sun exposure. A high SPF sunscreen would be—"

He leapt up and began pacing again. "Age spots is what they are, I seen 'em before, my dad started getting 'em when he started getting older. Right before the arthritis and the bifocals."

Watching the youthful energy with which he circled the room, it was hard not to dismiss his worries out of hand; and yet I recalled my own apprehensions, during the LaCroix case. "Certainly none of us likes getting older, Ray. But truthfully, you're in the prime of life."

"I don't know about any prime of life, but one thing I do know for damn sure." He stopped, facing me, silhouetted against the window. "I'm not a kid any more. Kids, they can do shit like run off to Alaska and pretend like they're salmon fishing. Kids think they got all the time in the world." I wished I could see his face more clearly, but he was in shadow. "Me—I know better than that."

I sat up straighter. "Well, I'm certainly not proposing that you launch off on some adolescent lark, Ray. No, you're not a youth any longer. Nor am I. The decisions that we make now have weighty consequences. Which is why it's important that we not go rushing around deciding things in the heat of emotion, but take the time to consider and discuss our options."

"Options." He was standing very still, uncharacteristically so. "I'm gonna be forty soon, Fraser. I don't got as many options as I used to."

"You're a man of many abilities, Ray, and—" He silenced me with a quick slice of his hand.

"The abilities I got, nobody up here wants 'em. That job I just lost? A chimp could've done that job. I am almost forty, Fraser. What am I gonna say on my deathbed? I hung a bunch of sheetrock, rah for me?" Again I wished I could see him more clearly; his voice, issuing from the shadows, without the usual vivid byplay of Ray's expressions, sounded impatient but also unusually grave. "I have to do something that means something, Fraser." He brought a hand up to rub his neck. "Maybe I been around you too long, and maybe this sounds stupid, but—I have to do something that—I dunno, makes a difference." He gestured helplessly, seeking words. "You know what I mean?"

I did indeed know very well what he meant; those words went right to the core of my being, and I'd seldom felt prouder of him than in that moment. I thought again, almost with rage, He deserves better than this. "I know, Ray. And I can tell you that your actions have made a great difference in many people's lives." Then I stood and moved closer to him, searching for some further kind of assurance I could offer him, however feeble. "And Ray—your being here makes a difference to me. It matters a great deal in my life."

He turned a little, facing me, and I could see him more clearly. "Well, that's sweet, Fraser." He looked flinty, impassive. "That's nice to hear, and maybe if I was, y'know, Suzie Homemaker, that'd be good enough. But I'm not, and it ain't. Not any more than that'd be good enough for you."

It stung, but with the sting of honesty; it shook me back to hard facts, which, rocky though they might be, were better than the fluff of soft words. "Point taken." I nodded to him, and walked back over to the table. "That's why we need to undertake a systematic review of vocational options, investigate occupational re-training programmes..." I picked up the papers and turned back, studying them. "For the time being we'll get your visitor status extended, and then we'll develop a plan of action that will get you over the 60-point threshhold, so that when you apply for permanent—Ray?"

He had his back turned to me and his headphones jammed onto his head, pushing his hair askew, and was clipping his Walkman onto his belt. I walked over to him and, tucking the papers under my arm, lifted the headphones off his ears. "Are you listening to me?"

"Does it look like I'm listening to you? Gimme those." He snatched them away from me, with a glare, and resettled them on his head.

"Ray," I said loudly, noting that he hadn't yet pressed the Play button, "this isn't helping anything. We really should spend some time looking over—"

"I have looked over that shit, Fraser, I looked over it till my eyeballs rolled up in my head. You want to waste your time on it, be my guest."

"Ray—"

"I'm wallowing, OK? Do I get just one lousy evening to wallow in the privacy of my own home, or do you want me to take my sorry unemployed ass somewhere else and do it? Hah?"

I stood silent, and he grabbed a stack of CDs from the shelf, went to the bedroom, and shut the door behind him.

After a moment, with a sigh, I put the papers back in their folder, and set them on the desk. The house seemed unpleasantly stuffy, and I took my jacket off its hook, gesturing to Dief. Perhaps a good brisk walk would settle me. I'd clearly mistimed my approach to Ray, and once he'd had a chance to recover from the jolt of being laid off, he could return to the whole subject in a better frame of mind. I'd just have to pick my occasion with more tact.

That occasion never seemed to arrive, though, and one day a few weeks later, when I was cleaning house, I emptied a wastebasket and found the print-outs crumpled and jammed in the bottom.

February 12, 1994

I made a side journey this morning, en route to Churchill, and stopped by Caroline's grave. I don't often go there any more, but that doesn't mean I think about her any the less. Grief's a faithful thing; to believe you've lived past it is as foolish as thinking, every spring, that you've outlived winter and that it won't come back again.

For many years after her death I berated myself for not having been able to protect her, for not having been there in time. I'll continue to regret those things for the rest of my days on this earth, of course, but with time I've been able to square up my shoulders and face the fact that I'd a great deal to regret about my behavior long before that. When I'm being honest with myself, I'll admit my deepest grief is that I failed so often to be the husband that she deserved.

And that's a wound that won't heal, because god knows I couldn't have lived my life and done my work other than as I have. What I could have done differently—well, I loved her more than life itself, and she gave me great joy, but had I been a stronger man I wouldn't have married her. As I knelt by her grave and brushed away the snow from her headstone, I knew that that was the most heartless thing I've done.

Autumn is a restless season in the north. In the depth of winter, or at the height of summer, time seems suspended, in the long unbroken stretches of darkness or light—rather like the pause when a clock's pendulum reaches the end of its arc, and seems to hang momentarily, halting time's passage. But just as a pendulum always descends again, speeding up as it swings, so in October the sense of time rushing past is almost palpable. Every day there's roughly eight minutes less light than the day before; every week darkness reclaims almost an hour. The first lasting snow falls; the cold takes hold, and begins inexorably tightening its grip. It evokes a sense of urgency—to lay in provisions, seal windows, repair gear. In the back of one's mind, always, is the awareness of the long stretch of deep cold and true darkness that lie just ahead, getting closer every day, and a driving need to ready oneself for that ordeal, just as a man contemplating death will strive to settle his affairs.

Ray's spirits mirrored the unsettledness of the season, and at times his mood seemed to be darkening in pace with the shortening days. He became shorter-tempered with me, and with the various minor inconveniences brought on by the changing season. One day I was misguided enough to try to reason with him that, after all, he'd been able to cope with brushing snow off his car in Chicago, which earned me a five-minute outburst.

Conversation in general grew more difficult; I kept a mental tally of topics that it seemed wiser not to open with him, which came to include the weather, the change of season, his job prospects, my current cases, the increasing urgency of renewing his visitor status, recreational and educational opportunities offered by the community, the doings of my colleagues at the detachment. We talked, like acquaintances, about politics (of which he knew little) and movies (of which I knew even less). We traded local gossip, like chance seatmates over coffee at the Sunriser. It grew increasingly difficult for me to rein in my annoyance with his apparent unwillingness to take a grip on himself and deal with the circumstances of his life, but I learned the hard way not to give voice to even the most temperate and rational expression of such feelings.

He was away from the house a great deal—mostly hanging out at one bar or another, I suspected, although I knew he'd also picked up a few odd shifts filling in for Elena at the Midnight Sun, when one of her children was sick. When he was home, he spent much of his time sprawled in front of the television, going through one rented movie after another, with a blanket wrapped around himself and Dief curled up at his side. (Dief, in fact, was increasingly choosing to spend his time with Ray rather than me, and was churlishly unresponsive to my inquiries as to his sense of duty and responsibility.)

He would crawl into bed, eventually, clad in a turtleneck, sweatpants, heavy socks, curling in on himself and pulling the comforter over his head; and on those increasingly infrequent occasions when he reached over for me, he was silent and urgent, as if it were too hard for him to take much time for tenderness. Afterwards, he would turn away again, curling up and pushing his back against me, and I would lie flat and look out the window, wishing I were far from the streetlights and yard lights, so that I could see the stars. Sometimes in the night I'd be woken by his shouting and flailing, in the grip of bad dreams, but once awake he wasn't willing to talk with me about them, though he'd let me hold him till he fell back asleep. Once I woke to find him standing at the window, in the dark, staring out at the falling snow, with his shoulders hunched and his arms wrapped around himself.

As the weeks passed, I found myself carrying out familiar rituals of preparation for the coming winter, with an eye to our shared comfort and security—stocking in enough provisions for two, hanging Ray's parka next to my own, carefully arranging the pairs of boots, mittens, skis, snowshoes, scarves, balaclavas, side by side. I pretended to myself that it was just good sense and forehandedness, but I knew that I was making talismans and weaving spells, just as pitifully as any silly girl plaiting her sweetheart's hair with hers into a lover's knot. I don't know which annoyed me more, the pathos of it, or the irrationality. If need and will weren't sufficient to keep us together, sympathetic magic certainly wouldn't carry the day. But I found myself doing it anyway, and checking buttons and zippers for good repair, and sealing cracks in boots. As if the storms approaching us could be kept out by proper gear.

One November day I was attempting to compile my activity reports and feigning attention to Darlene's running commentary on the G Division's latest newsletter. "My lord, Superintendent Shaffer has finally retired, that man must be a hundred years old . . . I cannot believe that Fort Providence is getting another snowmobile when I can't even get a computer that works half the time, but then Corporal Myers always seems to get what he wants, doesn't he . . . Oh, how nice, Constable, you'll want to hear this, Constable Akers and his wife had a baby."

"Excuse me?"

"Martin Akers, the officer you replaced. A little girl, it says. Isn't that lovely."

"I'm sure it is," I said, erasing a mis-entry. "I never met Akers myself, of course."

"I'll have to take up a collection to get them a baby present." She made a note on her memo pad, then read on, and I tried to return to my task. "Oh! Oh oh oh. What a shame."

Striving for civility, I said, "Yes?"

"Don Stansfield, do you know him?"

"I don't believe so, no."

"He's the constable posted up at Holman. Such a nice man, and his wife is a lovely person. He's been having heart trouble, they had to fly him down to Yellowknife for surgery and apparently he's decided to take early retirement and stay there. Well, that's a shame, he loved it up there, though I'm sure it won't break Laura's heart to be back down in the city." She tapped her fingers consideringly on the edges of the page. "I wonder who they'll find who's crazy enough to want to transfer up there now."

"To Holman?" I got up to sharpen my pencil.

"Mm-hmm. Now that place is truly the ends of the earth, I'll tell you." She watched me walk back to my desk, and then gave a tinkling little laugh. "You know what, Constable Fraser, perhaps you ought to look into it. You're the one other person in the RCMP besides Don who might actually like working up there, all by yourself."

Just then her telephone rang, and she set the newsletter aside, launching into a long conversation about the supply requisition. But as much as I tried to refocus my attention on my work, it was as though Darlene, in casually tossing out the idle chaff of her mind, had dropped a seed in my own head, one that took root and spread, creeper-like.

When I finally finished my reports, I went to make some tea. While the water heated, I scanned the bulletin board in the break room—not looking for anything, I told myself, just carrying out my too-often-neglected duty of staying up to date on administrative matters. And there, half-hidden by a flyer about the charitable fund drive, was the official notice: "Position Vacancy, Holman Detachment." Glancing around to make sure I wasn't observed, I took it down, read it over.

Single-member detachment. I had known that, of course, had recalled it as soon as Darlene had mentioned the posting. Candidate must be self-reliant, demonstrate independent decision-making skills and be capable of working without direct supervision . . . very traditional community . . . familiarity with Inuit culture, and knowledge of Inuinaqtun or other Inuit language, are highly desirable . . . extreme climate . . . preference given to applicants with proven experience in Arctic conditions . . .

I held the sheet for some time, staring at it, mind ranging far afield, until the shrieking of the teakettle brought me back to myself. I set the tea to steep, started to tack the announcement back up, then hesitated, and finally walked over to the photocopying machine and made myself a copy. Once I was back at my desk with my tea, I read over the announcement one more time, noting the final line—application deadline November 30—and then, cursing myself for a daydreaming fool, I hid it in my top drawer, under a pile of letterhead, with all the furtiveness of a man concealing a love letter.

That effort at self-deception was, of course, pointless; out of sight was by no means out of mind, and over the next week I found myself more than once sliding the drawer open, fingering the stack of paper, and then catching myself and slamming it shut. I found myself, in idle moments, envisioning a landscape harsher and purer than Inuvik's, and at night my dreams were often of my old life, before I ever went to Chicago, out alone on the trail with only Dief for company.

Finally, in considerable annoyance with myself, I decided that the only cure for my wayward imagination was to apply the corrective of rational investigation. One quiet morning, when there was no one within earshot, I dialed the Human Resources office of G Division, reasoning with myself that the odds were excellent I'd be told that they already had several highly-qualified candidates, or that they would give me some other piece of information that would effectively quash my romantic fantasies.

But instead, the personnel aide who took my call received my hesitant query with apparent delight. "Constable Fraser! What a pleasure to hear from you, and to know that you're interested!"

I scrabbled through my memory for some association with the woman's name. "Er—I'm sorry, have we—?"

"Oh, you wouldn't know me, of course, but years ago my sister-in-law worked for the corporal at Norman Wells, and she used to tell me all about you. Really wonderful stories. You were sort of a hero of mine."

"Indeed," I said, running a finger around the inside of my collar.

"In fact, do you know something, when we got this posting in, I actually thought about you. But I thought you were still down in the States! So you're where now?"

"I'm with the Inuvik Detachment."

"Oh, well, then, that's perfect, isn't it, Holman being a satellite of Inuvik and all. You should be able to make the transition very smoothly."

"Actually," I said with some desperation, "I was merely calling for a little additional information, on the chance that I might know of someone who—that is, I'm sure you already have a well-qualified pool, and—"

"Not a soul." I could hear her across the miles, clicking her tongue with some indignation. "Well, there was that one fellow from Halifax, but I think all he really wanted was to put as much distance between himself and his ex-wife as possible. Not a serious candidate, really."

"Ah. Well, I was really just indulging my curiosity, I shouldn't take any more of your—"

"I tell you what I'll do, Constable Fraser, I'll have Don Stansfield give you a call. Since he knows the posting so well, we've asked him to talk with applicants, just so they know what they're letting themselves in for."

"Really, I don't think it's necessary to trouble him."

"Nonsense! To be honest, I think Don's bored silly with sitting around home convalescing, he'd love a chance to talk about Holman. You'd be doing him a favor."

"Er—"

"I'll just give him a message to ring up the detachment headquarters there, would that be all right? I know he'll be eager to talk with you, he hated to leave Holman and he's been very anxious about getting the right person to replace him, someone who'd really enjoy the place. And I know you'd be perfect." That last was in a tone of such happy confidence that I couldn't find it in me to argue further with her; she rang off, and I spent the rest of the day hanging about the office as much as possible, eyeing the phone with trepidation and jumping every time it trilled. I told myself that I was being ridiculous, that there was certainly no harm in a simple chat with Stansfield, that he would probably be someone whose acquaintance I'd enjoy, that, as Sergeant Gammell once suggested to me, it would be sensible to strengthen my connections with officers in the division headquarters, and that things need go no further than that. My capacity for self-deception is certainly one of the less admirable aspects of my character.

But in any event, there was no call for me that afternoon. The next day was Saturday, and after a morning of chores, I phoned the detachment to make sure I didn't have any messages, and then went off to do grocery shopping, while Ray stayed home to watch a hockey game.

When I got back the house was strangely quiet—the television off, no music playing—and Ray was sitting at the kitchen table. His hands were folded in front of him, and he didn't look up as I came in the door, nor offer to help me carry bags. His moods had been unpredictable of late, and I told myself sternly that I would not try to cajole him out of whatever frame of mind he'd fallen into; instead I set the bags on the table and began unpacking the groceries, while he sat in unwonted stillness.

"I'm afraid the produce selection was fairly dismal, Ray. The carrots weren't bad, and I found some decent cabbage, but—"

"Fraser."

"Yes?" I was pulling out canned goods, stacking them on the shelves.

"You got something to tell me?"

My stomach gave a lurch, but I kept putting the cans in neat rows, telling myself I'd not actually done anything to feel guilt about. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"OK then. All right, you want to play stupid, we can do that. The name Holman ring any bells with you?" Involuntarily, my hand jerked, rattling the cans, and I could see that my reaction had not been lost on Ray. "'Cause here's the deal, I got a phone call, from some mountie named Stansfield, lookin' for you."

"Indeed." I kept stacking cans neatly, striving to maintain composure, though I could feel a red flush creeping up my neck. As shaming as it was to be caught out in a deception, it was nothing compared to the shame of realizing how witless it was to try to deceive both him and me in this way.

"He said he called the detachment, whoever he got told him he could maybe reach you here." Ray's voice was without expression. "I told him you were out, and then he says to me, 'Tell Constable Fraser the posting in Holman is still available, and I'd be glad to talk with him about it.'"

All the cans were shelved; unless I wanted to keep rearranging them indefinitely there was no further excuse for me to keep my face averted, and so I turned back toward him. "Well," I said brightly, "I don't know why he'd call me at home about a work-related matter."

"Work-related. Oh yeah." Ray picked up an onion that had rolled his way, turning it around and around in his hands. "And so I ask myself, being as how even though I'm now an ex-cop I still got a nosy sort of mind, I ask myself, just exactly why is my good friend Constable Benton Fraser so interested in the availability of some posting in someplace called Holman? This interests me enough that I fire up the computer, and I let my fingers do the walking." He banged the onion down with a thud, and strode over to the desk, grabbing a sheet of paper from the printer tray.

I was trapped, stripped of cover, and all I could come up with as diversion was a feeble "Really, Ray, I don't think that you need to concern yourself with—"

"Holman Detachment." Ray was ignoring me, staring at the paper, walking slowly back into the kitchen. "Western edge of Victoria Island. Latitude 70 north, which, I checked the maps, means it's even further fucking north than fucking Tuktuwhoosis. Average winter temperature thirty below zero C-degrees. 430 people, mostly Inuit, very traditional, big on the family values and the musk ox and all that shit. Native arts and crafts, that's the big economic powerhouse up there. Terrain: rocks. Lots of rocks. Maybe some lichens. And ... single member detachment. Just one Mountie, and 430 musk-ox-eating arts-and-crafts Eskimos." He looked up. "Sounds like Fraserville to me."

"Ray—" My voice sounded weak. "I was merely—ah, researching—"

He threw the sheet down and stepped right in front of me, pushing his face in mine. "Fraser. You're thinking about it. Right?" I opened my mouth, and he said "You lie to me about this and I'll fucking put you on the floor."

I spun away. "All right! It was a fantasy, a pipe dream!" Only in that moment was I finally able to admit to myself how dear a dream it was, how much I'd unconsciously been building on it. "Fair enough? Is that what you want to hear?"

I expected an explosion, but when he spoke, after a pause, he sounded more tired than anything else. "Since when does what I want to hear make any difference?"

"For god's sake, Ray, of course it makes a difference!" I turned back, to see him staring at the floor, shaking his head slowly. I tried again, realizing I didn't sound convincing even to myself. "It has always made a difference."

"No." He rested his hands on the table, leaning forward, sagging. "What's always made a difference is that you tell me what I need to hear. Whether I'm gonna like it or not. Like—you remember that time when you told me we might end up dead?"

"Which time?"

It was an honest question, actually, but he scowled at it. "When the stove got wrecked, and I asked you if we were gonna die, and I could tell, I could tell you were about to hand me some line of crap, and—then you didn't. You know how happy that made me? Even though I was in the middle of freezing to death and everything? I mean, shit—" He tightened one hand into a fist, thumped the table with it. "When the hell did it turn into this? Huh? Into you telling me a bunch of bullshit 'cause you think that's what I want to hear?" His eyes, when he looked up at me, were filled with pain. "I mean, just hit me in the face, why don't you?"

"Ray, I never meant—"

He shoved a palm toward me. "This has never—this whole deal—it's never been about what you want, or what I want. It's about what—you and me—what we need. Right?"

I had no answer to that. Ray bent, picking the paper off the floor. "And so I been sitting here thinking, and I'm thinking what you need to do—" He folded it carefully in half, sharpening the crease with his thumbnail. "What apparently you need to do—is to get out of this place. Which, weird though it may seem, also happens to be what I need to do." He looked up at me. "So—you could say we're kind of on the same page here. Right?"

It unnerved me, the wary, tentative note of hope in his voice, made me apprehensive, and I sought to deflect whatever was coming next. "Certainly there are some aspects of my posting here that are less than ideal, but after all, life is filled with imperfections, and though I might at times succumb to fantasies of flight, part of functioning as a rational adult is learning to compromise and cope with those imperfections, which is something I'm eminently capable of doing."

"That's a beautiful sentence, Fraser." He set the folded sheet of paper on the table, tapped it with a finger. "And it's crap. You wouldn't even be talking to somebody about a transfer if you weren't miserable here."

"Ray, that's a wild overstatement."

"This place makes you feel squashed." He made a squeezing motion with his hands. "The boss, the town, whole nine yards. I get that, I know how you feel. And—"

I could almost feel those hands, as if they were squeezing the air out of me. He was too close to the truth. "You seem to be making quite a few assumptions about how I feel," I said curtly.

"Yeah, well maybe all I can do is make assumptions, 'cause you won't tell me this stuff!" He threw out his arms, paced all the way down to the far end of the living room, stood for a second, then turned. "OK, OK, I was never gonna say this, I swore I was not gonna say this. Shit." He walked back, stopping several paces away. "OK. Come back to Chicago with me."

I stared at him. His chin was up, his eyes glinting. It was not a plea, but a challenge, the gauntlet flung down, and it was like—well, it was like the moment in the cabin, all those months before, when he'd leant in and kissed me for the first time. A shock that ripped my world apart, and yet not really a surprise; the eruption of something that had been building for a long time, below my awareness. And, just as then, I knew that this would change us forever, that he'd taken a leap there was no backing out of.

When I didn't answer, he pushed on. "Yeah, and let me do the honors here, this is where you say, 'I can't do that, Ray,' and I say, 'Why the fuck not?', and—and so you tell me, Fraser, why the fuck not?" He was advancing on me, jabbing at me, fingers, eyes, even his hair seemed to be spikily on the attack.

"It's not that simple." I moved around behind the table, knowing it to be a retreat.

"Why not?" He threw his hands out. "Looks like a pretty simple one-two to me. One, I cannot hack it here. I admit it, I give up, uncle. I'm beat. Doneski."

"Ray, it's only been a few months, you haven't really given it—"

"And two," he shouted, overriding me. "Two, you're sick of this place yourself. You're sick of the drunks and the gossip and that asshole Gammell and that apple-polishing little moron of a partner they gave you. You want out."

"That's an exaggeration, Ray."

"And that's bullshit, Fraser." He picked up the folded paper and brandished it at me. "I call bullshit on all that crap about how you can compromise and you can cope. You were willing to go sit on a fucking lichen-covered iceberg with the musk ox, just so you could get away from this place."

"There are other—" Then I stopped, clamping my mouth shut, knowing there was no place to go with that sentence that wouldn't do further damage.

"Right!" Ray nodded hard. "Thank you! I kinda knew already that there had to be some other reasons you were thinking about it, Fraser, but what I need your help with here, I need you to help me figure out—was it just 'cause hanging out with the musk ox sounds like your idea of a great time? Huh? Or was it maybe—" He took a step closer. "Maybe was it because you knew perfectly well that never in a million fucking years would I go live in that place? Is that it?"

"On the contrary, Ray. That is precisely why I would not, in fact, pursue it. It's not a realistic option for us. I comprehend that." Trapped again, outflanked, outmanouvred; he was way ahead of me. My only option was retreat, but I was no longer sure in what direction retreat lay, what ground he and I could occupy together.

"For us. Yeah. Yeah, that's the nut right there, isn't it?" He turned, and walked over to the window, staring out. A light snow was drifting down, out of the hazy sky. "I don't know what you're thinking, Fraser, but let me clue you in on one thing in case you haven't figured it out already, which is, I have got to get out of here." He paused, lifting a finger to doodle random patterns in the condensation on the pane. "You—you got options. You can sit here in Inuvik, by yourself, but hey, you'll have Cammy and Gammell to keep you company, so you oughta be happy. Or you can go up to Holman and hang out by yourself with the Inuit, and maybe you can make a nice sideline income selling rocks to the tourists. Or —" He swiped his palm over the glass, erasing the marks he'd been making. "Or you can come back with me." He turned, then, and looked at me. "Doesn't have to be Chicago. I guess we could go someplace else."

"Had you perhaps gotten as far as identifying some other feasible location?" It was a stalling tactic, since I was fairly certain I knew the limits of Ray's disposition to plan ahead, but the ground felt shaky under my feet, and I needed to carry the battle back to his turf.

"I don't know!" He flung his hands out. "Take a look around, why don't you, it's a big world, there's gotta be some place where you can do your thing and I can do my thing."

"My thing." I took a harder grip on my temper. "What precisely do you conceive my thing to be, Ray? Shuffling papers in an urban bureacracy, perhaps?"

"Cut it out," he snapped. "Catching bad guys, that's your thing. That's my thing, too. Put that big brain of yours on it, Fraser, there's gotta be some way we can—" Again, he gestured eloquently, bringing his hands together, interlacing his fingers; and again, I could feel those hands as if they were squeezing me tight, choking the air out me. I spun away and strode to the far end of the house, to the window that looked out away from the town, and leaned against it, breathing deeply, resting my face on the cold glass. Closing my eyes, I tapped my forehead against the pane, feeling it shiver gently under the impact.

After a minute, I heard Ray come up behind me. "Hey." He was quite close, and despite myself I tensed up all over, shoulders stiffening. "Don't go disappearing on me here, Fraser. We're in this together. Right?"

I lifted my head, opened my eyes. It was starting to get dark out, and though I could still see the trees, the snow, the open land and the horizon, I could also see Ray's face reflected in the glass, a phantasm overlain across the landscape. I let my eyes focus on one and then the other—near, far; inside, outside.

"I don't like this any more than you do, but we gotta get it out and kick it around. Right?" He was striving to be conciliatory. "C'mon, Fraser, work with me here."

With an effort, I half-turned toward him, one hand resting against the window. "Ray. You asked what it was that aroused my interest in the Holman posting. You raised the point, a moment ago, of what precisely my—thing is." I tapped a finger against the glass. "That. That's it."

He gave me a dubious look, and then took a step forward, peering out. "That's—you mean the town?"

I sighed. "No, I don't mean Inuvik."

He shoved his hands in his pockets, pulled his shoulders tight. "There's nothing out there, Fraser."

"You don't underst—"

"I'm telling you there is nothing! Out there!" He took a long step back from me, from the window. "There's nothing but a million miles of snow and cold and maybe some caribou. That is not any kind of a place where a person can live!"

"It's where I'm most alive, Ray." I didn't move, keeping my hand pressed against the glass. "It's what I need to be truly alive."

He looked at me a moment longer; then he turned, and walked back to the light and warmth of the kitchen, and dropped into a chair, legs asprawl. I followed slowly, and sat down opposite him.

Neither of us said anything for a minute, and then he sighed deeply and pushed his hands through his hair. "OK. Um ... Montana, maybe? They got lots of nothing there."

"Frankly, I doubt that the law enforcement system of Montana has any more use for a Canadian mountie than the RCMP does for a Chicago detective."

His mouth tightened. "OK, fine, shoot me down. You got any bright ideas?"

"Well, there are, of course, other detachments in the NWT and theYukon, but I seriously doubt they'd constitute an improvement, from your point of view."

"Yeah." A moment passed, and then he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "I dunno, Fraser. I don't know what else I can say here, except for one thing. I'm outta here, whether it's next week, next month, whatever. I'm gone. That's as far as I can figure things. So—help me out here, huh? Now's the time to make with one of your plans." He moved a hand in an aimless circle on the tabletop, not looking at me, waiting. Trusting in me, trusting I could come up with something that would bring us through this together.

And abruptly I could feel something in me buckle, under the weight of that trust. I had always known, or feared, I would let him down one day; it appeared that day had come. "I don't know what to tell you, Ray. I'm afraid I have no plan."

"Bullshit." He curled his hand up into a fist. "Don't give me that, you always got a plan."

"One can only plan when one has taken into account all variables and imperatives in a situation, and I'm afraid that until today I hadn't—"

"Don't do that." He swept his whole arm across the table. "Look, I told you what I'm thinking, I told you what I need to do, now you do the same for me, OK? Even up? And then we'll figure something out."

The dogged hope in his voice left me feeling helpless. "I don't know what I can add to what I've already told you."

"You haven't told me jack shit!" He leapt up from his chair and came toward me, shoulders hunched, crowding me. "Make up your mind, Fraser. You gotta let me know what you want to do here. Figure it out, and cough it up."

I stood and took a step back, away from him. "Don't force me to this choice, Ray. Please."

"What, this is my fault? I'm not forcing you into anything here. This is just—it's where we already are. This is it. You have to choose something." His tone turned hard. "Me, I got no choice. I'm outta here. I'm going home. And—" His voice cracked; abruptly, he went to the cabinet for a glass, filled it with water and drank it down. Only then did he turn back to face me. "And I want you with me. You gotta know that, Fraser." He was gripping the empty glass so hard his knuckles were white. "I can't make you come with me—shit, I know better than to think I can make you to do any-fucking-thing. So ... I'm asking you. Come back with me. Please."

There are, in life, moments of absolute inexorability; the moments of birth and death; the moments you feel a crevasse crumble under your feet, or a bullet enter your body. In such moments, there's no issue of choice, just the knowledge that something is happening that's beyond the power of your will. I opened my mouth, and what came out was "I can't do that." It wasn't even an argument, I knew as soon as I said it, just the simplest and most banal statement of fact. The earth revolves around the sun, the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second. I can't go back with you.

I could see that Ray heard the finality of it, I could see him rock back for just a moment, as if struck; and then he struck back, stabbing at me with a finger. "Fuck you. Fuck you. You son of a bitch." He slammed the glass down onto the counter. "Just like that, huh? Just—it's been swell, you go your way, I'll go mine, and that's that?" He was breathing hard.

"Ray—"

"It's that easy for you? Just hang 'er up and walk away?"

"For god's sake, Ray, do you think this is easy for me? Do you think—" My voice broke, in mid-shout, and as ashamed as I was of losing control, my outburst seemed to deflect his anger. I could see him take a deep breath, calming himself, and then he took a step toward me, reaching out a conciliatory hand.

"So why do you have to make it this hard? Don't be so stubborn, hey?" He touched my arm lightly, pulled back again. "You did it before, living down there. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was OK. You could do it again. Right?"

The gentleness, the reasonableness, were harder to bear than his anger; though I had to steel myself against them, I couldn't brush them aside. "The time I spent in Chicago was indeed an important part of my life, Ray, and I don't regret it. It taught me a great many things—about friendship, about partnership—there were good aspects to it." I paused, and Ray leapt in.

"Right, and we can get that back again. Just—c'mon back with me, we can work something out, talk to Welsh—"

There was a terrible temptation, in that moment, to simply give in, go along, to let myself remember only the good times. But I could not think of Chicago without also remembering the pain—the endless nights of longing for my home, the yearning to plant my feet, not on cement, but on familiar earth, to look up and see, not the murky haze of city lights, but the stars, glittering in the cold sky, the stars that would always tell me where I was, where I belonged.

And to think of Chicago was, inevitably, to remember the last time that someone had said Come away, come with me. I shuddered away from that memory, and looked up to find Ray watching me, head angled.

"Fraser? C'mon, what's going on in there?" He shoved his hands in his pockets. "What do you say? Let's do it, huh?"

Such a weight of nervous hope in his voice, his eyes—and to let that hope live would be the ultimate cruelty. There was no way out of this but to bulldoze straight through it.

"Ray—for all the good aspects of my life in Chicago, the fact remains that not a day went by that I didn't wish myself back here. Not a day passed without a reminder that, however long I stayed there, it would never be my home." I looked down, unable to meet his eyes, to see what my words were doing to him. "Life up here is hard, I'll acknowledge that. And if you choose to leave, it will be harder still. But—it's often hard to do the right thing, Ray. I know that very well. It takes strength to live my life the way I must, the strength that comes from being where I belong, standing on my own ground. I have that now." I took a breath and blew it out, staring down at my fists on the table. "I can't give it up again."

There was silence, and then a thump as he dropped into a chair. When he spoke again, the hope was gone out of his voice; he sounded wretched. "So—what're you saying, Fraser? You saying this is the right thing? To just—just throw away what we've got?"

I could hear the shake in his voice, the need and the grief, and for a moment I ached to give in, to somehow find some way to make it better for him. It was misery to know how much pain he was in, and all of it my fault. But Victoria's ghost was still lurking in my head; I could hear her again, in my mind's ear, as clearly as if I were back in the car with her, that hellish night: I need you. I want you to go away with me.

You know I can't do that, I had told her; and when she answered, her voice in my mind was oddly, terrifyingly, mingled with Ray's: Why not? You don't have much to stick around here for.

But now I did, and I knew what it was.

"I've no desire to throw away what we have together. But—I've made terrible mistakes in the past, Ray, grabbing senselessly for what I thought would make me happy. I can't make such mistakes again." I looked over at him; he was slumped deep in his chair, staring at nothing. "It would end up harming both of us. If I were to go against my better judgment and return to Chicago—well, not only would I end up regretting it for my own sake, but it would be a most grievously unfair thing to do to you. Can you see that?"

He looked up at me, hesitated, and slid, implausibly, even lower in his chair. "Look," he finally said. "Is part of this about—I mean, I know I've been saying all along I'm OK with this, but—"

"This?"

He flicked his hand impatiently between us, that gesture he characteristically used to denote our relationship. "This. Us. Which is something that even though I've been saying I'm OK with it, and acting like I was OK with it, I have also sometimes lately acted like a real jerk to you, and maybe you were thinking I wasn't really. OK with it, I mean. And maybe that's part of what you're thinking here, that I—uh—that I'm not happy with this." He swiped a hand over his face. "And maybe sometimes, total honesty here, maybe sometimes I was kind of weirded out by the whole thing. But—Fraser—" He was intent; I could feel the care with which he was choosing his words. "You have to understand something, I have really, totally, achieved okayness with this. I am on board. You know?" He hesitated just a moment, and then said flatly, "I love you." It was the first time he'd said those words outside of bed. "I love you, and I don't want to fuck this up. OK?"

Having gotten it out, he looked up at me, and I could see in his eyes the intensity of the wish—let this change things, let these be the magic words that make everything right.

"Oh, Ray." My hands shook with the desire to reach across to him, but I held them back; to do so would be an act of unkindness. "That was never the issue. I never truly doubted how you felt toward me. But—sometimes, love isn't the point."

I could see him take that in; as an act of penance, I made myself endure the pain of watching, as hope crumbled within him.

He got up, slowly, moved around the kitchen with no apparent aim, until he stopped at the sink, planting his hands on the rim, leaning over it, shoulders sagging.

"OK, then. Say it." His voice was rough. "Just—suck it up and say it. You don't need me."

If there could only be magic words to make it all right—but there was no right to be made here, in this wreckage, and no magic in any words of mine. All I had left to give that was worthy of him was simple honesty, simple truth. "There are things I need more."

He nodded. I kept watching him, blinking through the blur in my eyes. I had known the pain of failure before, of loss, but never pain quite like this. Get used to it, I told myself. You should feel this for the rest of your life.

For a long minute there was no sound but the clock ticking, and his ragged breathing. Then he pushed himself upright, strode past me without a glance, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the door.

"Ray?" I had to clear my throat. "Where are you—"

The only answer was the slam of the door behind him.

And after that ... well, I had expected further exchanges; remembering his conduct with Stella, even after their divorce was final, I'd braced myself for confrontations, arguments, pleas. But it was as if a door had been slammed, locked, and bolted between us. He slept on the sofa; he got his meals at odd intervals, when I wasn't around. He seemed to take pains to be out in the evenings, and to return only after I was in bed. There were, inevitably, some conversations—hurtful and bitter ones—but he made no attempt to plead with me, to change my mind.

There was the day when I came home to find a message on the answering machine: "Stanley? Honey, I just wanted to say that your dad and I are going to talk to the man at the bank on Monday, we should be able to cash out one of our CDs and send you the money, so you can go ahead and order your ticket, and don't worry about paying us back, sweetie, we're just so glad you're coming home safe. We've missed you so much." There was a day when I came home to find the living room full of boxes, piled full with his compact disks. Then, a few days later, the boxes were gone, along with his stereo equipment, and the shelves stood bare and empty.

As for me—the day after my conversation with Ray, I phoned Stansfield, and then spoke again with the clerk at Human Resources. A week later, I placed the transfer request on Gammell's desk, and waited while he read it through. All he said was, "I'm disappointed in you, Benton," before he initialed it and dropped it in his outbox, dismissing me.

Each day I worked from early morning until well into the night, clearing my cases, organizing and re-organizing my files. I ordered a winter's worth of supplies and provisions to be shipped to Holman. I negated, as tactfully as I could, Darlene's plan for a going-away party.

I had a conversation with Dief, one evening when he'd stayed home rather than going out with Ray. "It's your choice," I said to him, as he stared back at me across the width of the living room floor between us. "I can't promise you anything but a hard life in Holman, and I know that Chicago gave you a taste for the creature comforts." I stopped and took a breath, as he gazed at me steadily. "I know that you and Ray have formed a bond. It's possible—I can't speak to this with any authority, but it's possible his need is greater, at this point. And, as you know perfectly well, I have no claim on you." I swallowed, watching him for some sign. "All I can say is that—I'd be glad of your company, as I always have been. But I leave the choice to you."

A long moment passed, as we watched each other silently. Then he stood, stretching, yawned, as if bored with human histrionics, and walked over and settled at my feet, pushing his muzzle against my leg. I slid off the sofa and sat on the floor beside him, wrapping an arm around him, burrowing my fingers into the warmth of his fur. "Thank you," I whispered, and he grumbled softly back at me.

I pushed on through the days, head down, counting off the hours as they passed. The sun made its final few glimmering appearances on the horizon, and then disappeared into the long darkness. The deep cold arrived, settled in, and as I moved through it on my daily duties, I felt it as a comfort, the numbing pain it brought an antidote for the pain inside me. It felt familiar; it felt like home.

Once, Ray, back in Chicago, a woman sat down across from me in a cafe, apparently seeking conversation and company. She asked me where I was from, and when I told her, she embarked on a rambling exegesis of the compass directions and their spiritual significance. "Every direction has its element, its color, its time of day, its symbols," she said, waving around her clove-scented cigarette. (I'd asked if she'd mind extinguishing it, since we were seated in a nonsmoking section, but she'd simply said, "I know the owner." That seemed beside the point to me, but she'd started talking again, so I let it go.)

"North," she'd told me, "is the most powerful direction. Its element is earth, and it represents the center of the earth. Its color is black. Its time is midnight. Its season is winter. North represents silence, and the power to keep secrets. It represents death, the ending of things, as well as their rebirth. And—" She pointed at me with her cigarette. "North is the home of the great cauldron, where all of us go at death to be melted down, and to be reforged as something new. The place of transformation."

I thanked her, inquired about her own home (it turned out that she was from Waukegan originally) paid my bill, and took my leave. At the time I merely thought she was just a slightly unbalanced young person who'd gotten a muddled version of the Wiccan cosmology in her head. Now—well, I still think she may have had the symbolism confused, but no matter. Now I think that she did know something about the north that I had never clearly understood; that it is the place that will unmake and remake you; that to survive here you must allow it to melt you down and recast you as its creature, its creation.

I have no idea who I might have been had I been born elsewhere. Perhaps I would have been someone with more elasticity, more give in my nature. Or perhaps not; you, born in Chicago, have as much iron in your soul as I. If all the grief of these past months has proven one thing, it is that. Deep inside, you have something harder than iron, something shaped by the steel mills and cement sidewalks, the piece that will not be melted down, that could never be recast by this place, any more than I ever was by yours.

And life continues.

Overhead, the loudspeaker crackles on, pulling me out of my reverie, back to the present. "Canadian North flight 444 from Edmonton is now arriving at gate 3. Those of you waiting to depart on flight 445 back to Edmonton, our apologies for the delay. Just give us a few minutes to get everyone unloaded and clean the cabin, and we'll be ready to board. Again, we thank you for your patience."

All around me is a rustling commotion as people straighten in their seats, gather up belongings. I sit up, look around, and find Ray standing at the window, watching the straggling line of passengers as they disembark and cross the tarmac, their breath rising in small clouds.

He turns, abruptly, to find me watching him, and I expect him to turn away again, but instead he holds my gaze for a moment, then walks slowly over to where I sit, rubbing his face. He no longer looks combative, fierce—only tired, like a man at the end of a long journey, rather than one just setting off.

"So." He drops into a chair opposite me, and leans forward, arms resting on his knees. "This is it, I guess."

I nod, wishing I could find something to say, but there are no words left. We've talked them all out, the last two weeks, in those outbursts of bitterness, anger, regret.

But Ray, as it turns out, has a few words left. "Fraser ... I just wanted to say—while I still had a chance here, I wanted to say thanks."

That startles me so much that my head jerks up. "Thanks? For what?"

"For, uh, helping me figure some stuff out." He's staring down at his hands, twisting them together. "Not that that was what you thought you were doing, I guess, but—and not that I've got it figured out, y'know, but at least now I got a clue about what it is I need to figure out."

He gives me a swift glance, then drops his head again, speaking so softly I can barely hear him over the bustle around us, the greetings and embraces of friends and families reuniting. "I never got it with Stella, 'cause—slow learner, I guess." He lifts a hand and thunks his knuckles against his skull. "But I think I got it straight now—y'know, that I can't put any of this off on anyone else. Not on you, not on her, not on anyone. That just isn't ever gonna work." He scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand, but he doesn't seem in any danger of tears. I suspect he has wept at times, these past weeks—lord knows I have—but he's never let me see it.

In that moment, I feel that I'd give anything to start over, to go back to the very beginning (but where would that be, after all?) and do it all over, differently. But even as I think that, I realize how foolish it is. We are who we are, he and I both. I say slowly, "Perhaps it's I who should be thanking you, Ray. For the same thing."

He looks up at me, tries a smile. "Yeah? You think?" For just a moment, there's a last flicker of that connection between us, that bond that carried us up against death itself and back again together.

Then the loudspeaker hums overhead: "All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're ready to begin boarding flight 445. Please have your boarding pass ready, and we thank you again for your patience."

Ray jumps to his feet, grabs his bag and slings it over a shoulder. "OK. Um. So, this is it, I guess." But instead of moving, he stands awkwardly, looking nervous. Then, shifting his bag, he sticks out his hand toward me. I'm too surprised to react for a moment, and then I reach out, take it in a hard grip, hold it. In that moment, I can't even meet his eyes; instead, I look down at his hand in mine, Ray's hand, which has touched me in places and ways no one else ever has, ever will again. And, as if that contact cracks something in his self-control, he lunges forward, grabbing me, and I wrap my arms around him in an embrace. It was how we'd met; the first moment we'd seen each other, he'd hugged me, two strangers, neither of us really knowing a thing about the other. Now we knew everything we'd ever know, and in that embrace I feel the click of a circle closing.

Then Ray pulls away, turns, joins the line of passengers. In a few minutes, he's out the door, sprinting across the icy runway and up the ramp, not looking back.

I stand and watch as the other passengers board, as the ramp is wheeled away and the door made fast, as the engines roar to life and the plane shudders into motion, rolling slowly down the runway. I stand as erect and unmoving as I'd stood all those hours outside the Consulate, a statue, nothing touching me, and watch, as the plane taxies, turns, gains speed, and parts from the ground. It arcs up into the sky, a swift straight slice of motion through the air, as sure and confident as Ray had always used to be in his movement through life. As he will be again, someday. The plane grows smaller, its running lights fainter, until it vanishes, arrowing toward the sun's dim glow in the south, and the vapor trail it left has dissipated in the frozen air.

By force of habit, I try to sort out what I'm feeling, make sense of what I'm thinking, find some conclusion. But I have no answers, not yet. The only words that come to me aren't mine at all, but my father's, the last thing he said, the last words he gave me, before he too turned and left my life forever: Nothing's permanent, son. Nothing's permanent. Our journey together is over, and yet we have no choice but to keep traveling, each of us on our separate roads.

Finally I turn and make my way out of the noisy terminal, into the darkness and the cold. Somewhere behind me, Ray is flying south, toward the sun; but the glow that guides my own steps is the shimmer of the aurora borealis, and it lights my way as I head north, toward my home.

End