The Fjord of Evil Winds by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press for Arctic Noir, Action Thrillers and Greenland Crime
Published: 2020-04-22T22:00:00+00:00

Part 4

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A skilled qajaq paddler might pick his way along the shore, ducking low in the teeth of the wind, holding the paddle just above the rim of the cockpit, keeping the blades parallel, lifting the opposite end no more than two fists high to dip the blade into the water. Efficient paddling allows for long hours in the qajaq but fighting an evil wind tires the man much like a harpoon tethered to an inflated sealskin tires a whale when hunting. Taatsiaq could feel fire in the muscles of his arms, in his shoulders, in his neck, at the base, locked in such a position that he had to look up to see ahead. The wind threw waves across the skin deck. It slapped gauntlets of cold sea water into his face. More than once, Taatsiaq emptied his lungs with a cough, saltwater streaming over his lips, before he could fill them with air. All the while the manuscript burned in his mind, he imagined the heat of it, if he were to place his naked palm on the leather coverings.

“It is important,” Rasmussen, the half-Greenlander had said. “It must reach the ship.”

“Aap.”

“You do understand?”

Taatsiaq remembered glancing at the Dane – Erichsen was his name – standing beside Rasmussen, before he raised his eyebrows, yes. He understood. The package was important, perhaps the most important thing Taatsiaq had ever carried in his qajaq. The look on the Dane’s face confirmed it.

But now, Taatsiaq was in trouble. He had left too late. He had left too soon. He should have stayed on land. He should never have put his qajaq into the sea.

It is important.

The man’s words, and his friend’s face – they formed in the mist and spray whipped up by the wind on the waves ahead of him.

When the dagger bow of the qajaq lifted on a wave and the wind caught it, Taatsiaq slipped the paddle through his hands, gripped one blade in two wet hands, and pulled a wide stroke through the water, pushing the bow into the wind once more. He did it again, and twice more until he could shift his grip, hold the paddle evenly between his hands, and fight his course along the shore to the point of the island before the next crossing to the mainland.

Taatsiaq stared through the brine dripping from his forehead, stinging his eyes. He knew a crossing in this wind would be the end of him and the end of the Danish man’s parcel. He timed the waves, measured the sets, untied the skirt around the cockpit in the trough of one wave and slid out of the qajaq in the next. The water was cold enough to make him gasp, if he had thought to do so, but Taatsiaq was more concerned with the next wave, as he pressed his feet onto the seabed, and scurried onto the beach, lifting his qajaq just before the sea caught the stern and flipped it out of his hands.

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