The Haunted Igloo Read online

  The zing of the whip brought Tork to his feet with a joyful yelp. He threw back his great black head and howled, then turned to look at Cordell and Jean-Paul with what appeared to be a nice, wide smile on his muzzle. Dozing one moment, he was now wide awake. The whip meant work, and work was what Tork knew best. Siko and Lishta also sprang to their feet to dance around in the snow. They, too, raised their voices to the wind, impatient to be off. Cordell snapped the whip again. “Hah! Hah! Go, you huskies!”

  The powerful dogs leaped out ahead of their harnesses, straining against their breast bands. The sled began moving, slowly at first, then faster and faster on the slick runners that Cordell had iced earlier that morning.

  After the first hard jolt, which nearly threw him off the sled, Jean-Paul leaned back to enjoy the ride. As Cordell pushed off, the sled gave way to a speeding ride over slippery, well-worn trails that wound through the main street of Aklavik, past the hospital, the trading post, the boarding house. Soon, it headed into open country, away from the tree line and the three large branches of the Mackenzie River. Traveling westward, the sound of runners slishing over snow was the only sound heard in the vast, frozen quiet. Once in a while, Cordell whistled or yelled at the team. Sometimes he ran beside the sled. Other times he rode on the back so he could operate the hand brake.

  Those were sounds Jean-Paul loved to hear. One day, unless his lameness prevented it, he, too, would be captain of his own team and run behind a sled.

  Now, the pup tried to free herself, twisting her pointed ears sideways like small radio antennae, to listen. She whined.

  “You’d like to run with them!” Jean-Paul laughed. “It’s in your blood to run!” He rubbed a silky ear as he spoke. The pup looked into his face, her pale blue eyes alert and intelligent. Jean-Paul hugged her closely as darkness fell.

  Strange dark shapes of snow banks and drifts slid past on each side. Ahead lay endless miles of untamed land, broken only by occasional sledge tracks. Stretching as far as the eye could see, toward Yukon Territory, were mounds of crusty snow that reminded Jean-Paul of frosted peaks on a birthday cake.

  Night brought a loneliness that only those living near the top of the world can know. The snow had stopped falling. The air was crisp and clear. There was a closed-in feeling beneath a black dome of sky, as though someone had turned a bowl of stars upside down.

  Up ahead lay an enormous igloo that had suddenly appeared one day. Jean-Paul didn’t know who had built it.

  “It’s haunted by an old man and six wolves,” Chinook had said one day in school. “He builds it every year, but no one has ever seen him.”

  “Then how do you know he’s there,” Jean-Paul had asked Chinook, “if no one has ever seen him?”

  “We just do,” Chinook replied. “It’s something you have to believe—if you want to keep your head.” He zipped a finger across his throat like a knife. “They say the wolves are two-hundred pounds each, with bloody fangs six inches long.”

  “You’re just trying to scare me!” Jean-Paul had said. As far as he knew, there were no wolves that big.

  And Nanuk had said, “Sometimes you can hear those ghost wolves howling! Owoooo-o-o-o! But you’re too scared to go in there, Jean-Paul Okalerk!”

  Well, that part was true. But Jean-Paul had answered, “I’m no more scared than you guys are!”

  Sometimes, while passing the igloo on a bitterly cold and windy night with his father, Jean-Paul thought he really could hear those wolves howling. If only he were as brave as the other boys!

  Now, as Cordell’s team raced by the haunted igloo, a wolf howl filled the night air. Owoo-o-o-o. On a clear night above the Arctic Circle, sound travels for many miles. Tork, Siko, and Lishta took up the cry till they were well past the haunted igloo. But this night Jean-Paul did not feel lonely or afraid. His father was in command, and he was too happy to worry. He snuggled inside the warm polar bear robe and whispered to the pup.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let them take you when spring comes. By that time you’ll be pulling in harness as well as your mother.”

  Jean-Paul yawned and glanced up at the sky just in time to see the silvery trail of a star disappear over the horizon. Last night he had seen the dancing green phantoms of the Northern Lights, flashing and shifting mysteriously in the night sky. The two coming one after the other could be a good sign.

  Chapter 2

  “What did you expect?” Lise asked Cordell. Jean-Paul’s mother hugged him. From the corner of her eye she watched the pup investigate a bag of supplies Cordell had placed near the door. “Jean-Paul hasn’t much company,” she said softly. “Can one small puppy hurt?”

  Jean-Paul had inherited his size from his mother, for she was no more than five feet tall. A small-boned woman with soft golden hair and large gray eyes, Lise had the trusting look of a child. But this tiny woman was not as fragile as she appeared. In fact, just last spring, she had waded into icy water along with her husband to rescue their dog team and sled when it broke through the ice. She had worked round the clock trying to save a female husky. But the animal had died, and Lise had wept. Jean-Paul knew his mother was a blend of soft and tough.

  Cordell’s dark eyes moved toward Lise’s long wool skirt. But he saw no difference yet—the child within her body had not been growing long.

  “The pup will take food meant for you and the little one.” He placed a box on the table and opened the cover. “Here, see if I missed anything.”

  “The pup won’t eat much.” Lise peered into the box. “Good, you remembered the salt ... coffee…”

  “Kapik,” said Cordell.

  Lise looked up. “What?”

  “Kapik. Coffee, in Inuktitut.”

  “So? Kapik.” Lise shrugged and went back to the box, laying items out on the table as she came to them. “Raisins, rice, beans . . .” She glanced up with a frown. “Sick, sick, sick of beans!” She continued placing food staples in a neat row. “What I wouldn’t give for a nice crisp head of lettuce!” Then, with a yelp of joy she removed a small package and held it up. “Ah! Chocolate! My one and only weakness!”

  “Besides me,” said Cordell with a big grin. “I’m your first weakness, eh?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and watched as she searched the box again.

  “Conceited!” She turned the empty box upside down. “No magazines?”

  Cordell shook his head. “Oh, I guess I forgot to ask. Jean-Paul was gone, and I must have been thinking of him.” He glanced around at Jean-Paul, then back to Lise. “I’m sorry.”

  Then his face brightened and he went outside. In a few minutes he was back with another parcel.

  “I almost forgot. This is especially for you. Your handmade Eskimo boots brought many compliments, with orders for more next year. This is what they bought today.”

  Lise cleared a spot for her package at one end of the table. She sat down to untie the twine as Jean-Paul came over to watch. She smiled at him, her fingers trembling as she worked with a stubborn knot.

  “It feels like Christmas!” she said with a wink, opening the package at last. “Oh Cordell! Oh, how beautiful!” She gently fingered a length of light blue tweed. “This will make a lovely skirt ... and muslin for shirts and ... and batiste for chemises and baby dresses ... threads and needles and buttons.” She looked at Cordell, who stood watching with a wide grin on his handsome face. “Oh, Cordell, you thought of everything!”

  Cordell tapped his forehead. “Sure! Whenever you mentioned wanting something, I made a mental note.”

  Lise laughed and winked at Jean-Paul again. “Well, now we know what’s wrong with your father’s head. It’s nothing but a big notebook.”

  “Full of empty pages!” Jean-Paul giggled.

  Cordell playfully swatted Jean-Paul on the rear and laughed heartily. “Everyone knows my son takes after his father, eh?” To Lise he said, “There’s something you haven’t found yet.”

  Lise placed items to one side as she searched further. Then finally sh
e exclaimed, “Yarn! How did you manage to find this? There wasn’t any last time.” She hugged the soft, yellow yarn to her cheek.

  “Old Troika was at the trading post, and when I mentioned our new baby coming, she hobbled back to the boarding house and returned with the yarn. Said she’s had it for a long time, and since her fingers are too stiff to knit anymore, she was giving it to you anyway.”

  “How thoughtful of her!” said Lise.

  Jean-Paul touched the yarn and said, “You can make a sweater for our baby, Ma. I hope it likes yellow.”

  Lise’s eyes became misty. “A tiny yellow sweater, yes, if I can remember where I put my knitting needles.” She shivered suddenly and pulled her shawl closer to her throat. “This old cabin’s so cold and drafty. I can’t picture caring for an infant here…”

  Jean-Paul looked to see if his father had noticed Lise’s sudden depression. From the look on Cordell’s face, he certainly had. He wore a slight frown, his lips pursed tightly.

  Their home was an old prospector’s cabin. And, like most buildings in the Arctic, the building leaned to one side a little. This was caused by shifting permafrost and alternate freezing and thawing. There were tiny holes between some of the logs, and cold air seeped in no matter what repairs Cordell made. On one wall hung a heavy blanket to cover some of the larger cracks.

  Of the three rooms, two were small bedrooms. The main room was bigger than both bedrooms combined, and was both kitchen and living area. The cabin was crowded, for the Ardoins had brought many personal belongings from their home in Quebec.

  Lise had brought her rocking chair, and Cordell, of course, his typewriter, which sat on a plank desk at one end of the cabin. A small bookcase contained reference books, some novels, and a volume of poetry by Robert Service. (Jean-Paul’s favorite poem was “The Spell of the Yukon.”) There were also children’s storybooks, mostly fairy tales. Jean-Paul insisted he had no use for these anymore. But he sometimes read them when there was nothing else. There was a large family Bible and a hand-tinted photograph of Cordell, Lise, and Jean-Paul, taken when Jean-Paul was six-months-old.

  The wall next to the outside door was cluttered with parkas hanging on wooden pegs, dog harnesses, hunting supplies, and other odds and ends. That area looked more like the inside of a barn than a house, for it was a catchall for nearly everything one might need to make life livable in the grim polar climate.

  The kitchen was cluttered as well, with open shelves containing dry food supplies and an assortment of dishes. On the walls hung kettles and other utensils. Meat, fish, and other perishables were stored outside in a rock-covered cache, the rocks to keep out wild animals. A large oil-burning stove both cooked the food and heated the cabin.

  Lise had searched her ragbag for scraps to make a braided rug. She had also made curtains for the front windows. But Cordell’s favorite was a cross-stitched sampler that read: There’s no place like home, even if it is cold!

  Behind the cabin was a small shed with a smokehouse attached. And Cordell had built a lean-to at the south end of the cabin to shelter the dogs. But the thick-furred huskies preferred sleeping beneath snowdrifts. Lishta had used the shelter only when she had her puppies.

  Lise complained about their temporary home and was cold most of the time. But Jean-Paul found the cabin warm and friendly. There was nearly always the smell of something good cooking on the stove or in the oven. Right now, it smelled of cinnamon and apples, a pie, probably, made from dried apples they had brought with them the year before.

  Now, Cordell watched his wife for a moment as she absently caressed the skein of yarn. Finally, he spoke. “I bought oil for the stove. I’ll bring some in.”

  Jean-Paul watched his father leave. He sat at the table and pulled off his boots. The pup came over and sniffed his feet, then tried to take a bite of his toes. He laughed and pushed her away.

  “Have you thought of a name for her?” his mother asked, looking at the pup.

  “I like the name Sasha,” Jean-Paul said. “It’s Greek. I found it in Father Cortier’s old book of names.”

  “Sasha. Why, yes, that’s lovely.”

  “It means ‘helper of man.’ That’s what sled dogs are.”

  The pup barked at Jean-Paul’s boot. She pounced on it and sank her sharp baby teeth into the leather.

  “No, Sasha!” Jean-Paul scolded, using her name for the first time. He took the boot away from her. “If you’re going to be a helper, you can’t chew up my boots.”

  He put the boot with its mate, which was already forming itself to the shape of his lame foot.

  Lise smiled. “Looks as though you’ve got enough to keep you busy for the next few months.” She became thoughtful. Then she said, “Maybe I need more to keep me busy. I really should visit Troika, and thank her for the yarn. And there are always Eskimo women going to the trading post. I should get to know them, since you go to school with their children.”

  “I’ve seen some of them at school talking with the teacher.”

  “Well, of course, I don’t speak their language,” said Lise, watching Sasha tug on Jean-Paul’s boot in spite of the scolding.

  “Pa says you make good kapik. That’s Eskimo for coffee. And you know that nakomik means ‘thank you.’”

  Lise smiled. “So, how could I speak with the Eskimo women? Like this? Kapik kapik kapik. Nakomik kapik nakomik. I would sound like a woodpecker!”

  Jean-Paul giggled, his dark eyes flashing. “Well, Sasha and I will keep you company while you make yellow sweaters and tiny boots for my new brother or sister. And strong kapik for Pa.”

  Jean-Paul stood and removed his plaid lumberman’s shirt and mackinaw pants, until he stood in his outdoor flannel underwear. “I can tell you another word. Okalerk.”

  “What does okalerk mean?”

  “It means Arctic hare. That’s what the boys at school call me.”

  Lise raised her brows. “Oh? You never told me that.”

  “It’s because I walk like a rabbit.”

  Lise’s mouth fell open. “You do not! Oh, Jean-Paul, you don’t walk like a rabbit! Oh, dear!”

  Jean-Paul grinned shyly. “Well, I limp.”

  His mother’s voice was gentle as she replied, “Yes, it’s true that you limp, Jean-Paul darling. But you do not hop like a rabbit.” Then she added with a twinkle in her soft gray eyes, “Why didn’t you wiggle your ears and nose at them?” She wiggled her nose like a rabbit.

  Jean-Paul got a sudden case of the giggles. It was just like her to try to cheer him by making a joke. He laughed himself to tears, and when he stopped he said, “I hope our baby has good feet.”

  Lise ruffled Jean-Paul’s curly hair. “The baby’s feet will be fine.” She sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to dress my infant in caribou skins. I was thinking more of soft fox fur. Go out and trap me an Arctic fox, you scamp!”

  Jean-Paul was happy to see the smile on his mother’s face.

  “Pa won’t let me use the traps,” he said seriously. “But I’d sure like to.”

  “Your father’s right,” Lise said. “They’re too heavy and dangerous for you. In a few years you’ll be big enough to trap by yourself.”

  ____________

  The next evening, after supper, Cordell sat down at his desk. He uncovered his old, stiff-keyed typewriter and slipped a sheet of paper beneath the platen. He sat back and stared at it. He rubbed his whiskery chin, thinking. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. He mumbled under his breath, thinking and thinking and thinking. He groaned, then let out a long sigh. Cordell did everything except write.

  Lise dried her hands and hung the towel on a hook over the sink—a single cracked and stained sink with a pail below the drain to catch the water. There was no plumbing at all in the cabin. Even their drinking water was melted ice and snow.

  She stepped outside and got the skinned rabbit Cordell had put there earlier: tomorrow’s supper. Inside again, she began cutting the shiny, pinkish-gray meat, putting pieces into an old iron
pot filled with salted water. The rabbit was almost frozen, and Lise stopped often to warm her cold hands. As she worked, she glanced across the room at Cordell.

  “Writer’s block?” She wrenched a hind leg from the carcass and dropped it into the pot.

  “It’s coming together wrong,” said Cordell, leaning back in the chair. The old wooden chair creaked and groaned. “The outline doesn’t fit anymore. My characters are writing their own book!” He pushed his huge fingers through his thick dark hair, as if by doing so the words would tumble out of his head onto the paper. His curls sprang loose and returned to their original position over his forehead. “It seems I have two choices. I can make a new outline, or throw this story out and start another. There are thousands of stories inside my head hammering to get out. Except for this one.”

  Lise chuckled. “Sounds as though you’d better let the characters do the work.” She laughed again, and dropped another chunk of meat into the pot.

  “Humph!” said Cordell with a scowl. “You think they’d be better writers than Cordell Ardoin?”

  He did not think it funny that he couldn’t make the words come.

  Lise finished cutting the rabbit. Then she added a spoonful of sugar and another cup each of flour and water to the sourdough starter in the crock on the counter. She stirred it well and covered it with cheesecloth. Tomorrow the cabin would smell of freshly baked bread.

  Suddenly Lise felt out of sorts as she finished her work and sat down in the rocker. She took up her sewing. Holding the needle up to the yellow lamplight, she stabbed at the eye until the thread slipped through. She licked her fingers and twirled a knot in the end of the thread, preparing to hem squares of soft material from an old bed sheet for diapers. The thought of washing diapers by hand was depressing. Melting tub after tub of snow for water. Well, at least there was plenty of that. Angrily, she stuck the needle into the material and promptly pricked her finger.