White Heat by Melanie Mcgrath

Not
wanting to give him an excuse to stay, she turned off the DVD.
        He
said: 'Hey, Edie,' and noting the debris on her plate, 'any left?'
        'You're
out of luck.' She motioned him to the seat on the other side of the TV, but he
sat down beside her anyway. 'TV packed in?'
        'Ah,
nope, not exactly.'
        He
hovered. 'A beer'd be good.' Then, adopting a cheery tone, 'Hey, did you see
the job Joe did on his snowbie? Looks like new. Phwooee. Must have cost
something. Where'd the boy get the money?'
        Edie shot
him a look. Her ex knew well enough where Joe had got the money. She had given
Joe an advance on what she'd been owed for the Wagner trip. After Wagner died,
the wife had refused to pay up, and she hadn't felt like asking Joe for the
money back. Sammy wanted her to know that he was aware she was broke, which
could only mean one thing: he had some kind of money-making proposition up his
sleeve.
        About
that beer?'
        'Sammy
Inukpuk, whatever you got to say, say it sober.'
        He
put on a hangdog look.
        'Aw,
Edie, it's been a hard day.' He had a way of making her feel bad and it played
on her that he knew it.
        She
went into the kitchen and set the kettle on. While it heated up, she fetched
the key to the cupboard where she kept her booze. Getting the key was a
palaver. She intended it to be that way Whenever people asked, which they
rarely did, she told them that she kept the booze for visitors and guests. In
fact its perpetual presence was a test she'd set herself. She knew she wasn't
yet strong enough to keep the cupboard unlocked but that was her goal. Only
then, when there was booze around that no longer tempted her, would she know
she was truly free of it. She plucked out a can of Bud, locked the cupboard
back up and made herself a mug of sugary tea. Sammy popped the can and took a
long slug.
        'I
got you a guiding job.'
        This
was good news, and unexpected. Sammy's propositions weren't usually so
substantial. Edie felt a twinge of guilt at harbouring ungenerous thoughts
towards her ex. Somehow when the two of them were together it always resulted
in her feeling bad.
        'Fellow
called Bill Fairfax, descendant of that old-time qalunaat explorer,
what's his name?'
        'Sir
James Fairfax? Is this the fella who was up here before?'
        Someone
purporting to be Sir James's descendant had been up on Ellesmere several years
back with a film crew, making a documentary following the explorer's
penultimate voyage. She couldn't remember much about it. Happened during her
lost years.
        'Yeah,
that one. He wants to locate his ancestor's body. Reckons it could be on Craig.
Bringing an assistant, just the two of them. Think they might be able to get
some TV company interested.'
        On
the surface, this sounded like the perfect gig. Small party, presumably with
some knowledge of local conditions, no hunting involved and she knew Craig
Island as well as anyone. It seemed unlikely they'd find Sir James Fairfax's
body, she thought, but you could never tell. Under all that snow and ice, the
tundra was one great open-air charnel house: bones, antlers, skeletons
scattered all over. Nothing ever rotted or even stayed buried long. There was
no deep archaeology, no layering of history here.
        Southerners
often marvelled at the way the recent and ancient past were equally present, as
though there had only ever been one yesterday and everything in the past had
happened on that single day. Only a couple of years ago a group of
anthropologists from the University of Alberta had located the first mate from
some old-time expedition. His comrades had buried him under rocks but decades
of wind and weather had moved the body out from under them and he was found
lying out on the ice, in more or less pristine condition.
        All
the same, it was kind of a weird time to look for a man, the ice and snow not
yet melted off, and Edie said