Strange Things Done Read Online Free PDF Page B

a conspiracy of ravens, their shrieks echoing across the landscape. “Okay, boys. Let’s get her in.” Cariboo looked grim.
    Silence fell over the crowd as the body was painstakingly rolled over by two officers in hip waders. Then, people began to whisper. Despite the swollen face, gashes, and bruises, Jo recognized the woman instantly. The crowd murmured, and someone whispered the name “Marlo.” The battered head flopped back as the body was lifted, obscuring the face once again. Water drained out of the red jacket, quilted with pockets like a flotation device.
    Jo raised the camera to get a shot for the Daily , but when she looked through the lens at the broken figure and saw the blue marks at the throat, her mind focused elsewhere. She saw the face of another woman with long, chestnut hair, as her photograph had appeared in the Vancouver Sun . Smiling and unknowable. Jo had never seen the woman alive, she had only seen the smoking wreckage of her car after police had asked Jo not to print a particular story. Hands shaking, she lowered the camera.

3
    The morning that a body was found in the Yukon River, the town was alive with the business of preparing for winter. The sound of hammers reverberated through the crisp air as windows were boarded up. “Closed for Season” signs were posted along Front, Dawson’s main street. The hotels remained open, with admittedly few occupants, but many of the shops and restaurants shut. Jo was disappointed to find that Wild & Woolly, “Purveyors of Fine Winter Clothing,” had already closed. A particularly cosy-looking pair of fur-lined North Face boots taunted her through the window, while the reflection of a departing tour bus passed behind her. The reverse rush:the rush to escape.Dawson’s population dropped from 60,000 in the summer to just over 1,000 by freeze-up. Jo resisted to the urge to call out after the bus to stop it. Instead, she trudged toward the fire station.
    The locals who were leaving waved goodbye to their neighbours from cars and RVs piled high with luggage, en route to warmer climates like Mexico or even Seattle. They called out email addresses and honked their horns as they left, all smiles. The backside of their vehicles disappeared into the distance, along with bumper stickers that read, “Live long and prospect.” Those who were staying leaned grimly into the wind, whispering to one another about the girl in the river.
    In front of the station, a town crier wore a ruffled shirt, scarlet coat, and a tri-cornered hat with feather plumage. He was a tall man, but the greying beard and hunch in his shoulders spoke of surrender to some nebulous, greater force. He rang a gold bell as he called out in a dismal tone, “Hear ye, hear ye: meeting at city hall at eleven-thirty.” As Jo drew closer, he put away the bell and held out his hat, reciting,
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
When I cremated Sam McGee.
    At first, Jo thought that the crier must have mistaken her for a last, fleeing tourist. Perhaps the man thought that hers would be the last coin to grace his hat until spring. Jo knew the poem, but wasn’t fond of the fiery images that it brought to mind. She dropped a loonie into his hat just the same. The man mumbled a few words of appreciation. Then, as she began to walk away, he called out after her, “Heard you’re dating Byrnie.”
    He knew exactly who she was.
    Jo’s shoulders tensed. Some sensible part of Jo’s brain told her to shut up and keep walking, but instead she turned and said, “And I heard that Robert Service was particularly fond of sheep, so it must be true.” She shrugged. “Probably why he had to leave Scotland for Canada.”
    The man’s mouth made a circular shape as the hand