The Darkness Inside Her  

 

 "Victoria's Secret" enjoys the distinction of generating more discussion
on the Due South List than any other episode. (We have all analyzed it so
much that one Dueser suggested that a degree course be offered in it.) We
know only what we see in this mesmerizing, award-winning drama, which had
its roots in an incident that transpired 10 years earlier in the Yukon.
But what really happened at Fortitude Pass? What caused the softer
emotions of Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, to become as thoroughly iced
over as the body of the unfortunate Ice Man who lay down to sleep one
night in the Tyrolean Alps and was found 5,000 years later, when a glacier
shifted on a spring day? What was it about Victoria that possessed Ben
like an enchantment? Could it have been, perhaps... 

 The Darkness Inside Her 

  by Diana Read  

 "You know, there was a woman once, Ray. We were, uh...I don't know what
we were. In the end I tracked her up above the 62nd parallel into a place
called Fortitude Pass. A storm had been blowing for days; the whole world
was white. By the time I found her I had lost everything--my packs, my
supplies, everything. She was huddled in the lee side of a mountain crag.
She was almost frozen, very near death. So I staked a lean-to and draped
my coat across it, drew her inside, and I covered her body with mine and I
just held her...while the storm closed around us like a blanket, until all
I could hear was the sound of her heartbeat, weakening. I forced her to
speak to me...just talk to me...say anything to keep the cold from taking
her. 

 And it snowed for a day...and a night...and a day. I was delirious; I
almost gave up. The only thing I had to hold onto was the sound of her
voice, which never wavered. She recited a poem. I must have heard that
poem a thousand times that night; I never heard the words. It
ended...badly. She had a...she had a darkness inside her...and the most
beautiful voice. The most beautiful voice you've ever heard." 

 

 Myself, talking to Ray (who was asleep in a chair anyway) during a
stakeout  

  A day after the storm finally broke, as we struggled down the mountain
on the course I'd set with my compass, we found my packs and supplies. The
blizzard had torn them from my back the day I discovered Victoria, just as
it had torn my EPIRB--Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon--from the
front pocket of my windcheater. That was the worst luck: with the EPIRB
emitting its electronic signal, RCMP Headquarters would have known our
position and sent a helicopter to pick us up as soon as the wind dropped.
As it was, we would have to rely on my compass and my survival skills to
make our way to the nearest outpost. 

 The snowmobile was, of course, useless: the engine had seized up during
the blizzard. I had to leave the snowmobile anyway, to climb the mountain
to where Victoria lay, and a slow, tedious climb it was, even with
snowshoes. The plane that had carried Victoria and the pilot across the
border from Alaska to the Yukon lay buried under snowdrifts, but even if
we had taken the time to look for it, flying it would have been out of the
question in the absence of a runway. 

 We never found the pilot's body, either. It may have come to light during
the spring thaw...whatever might have been left of it. 

 I used my compass to set our downward climb the same way I had come three
days earlier. My eyesight was (as it is still) excellent, so I was the
first to spot the packs where they lay. They made unusual shapes beneath
the crystalline snow that the Inuit called pukak. 

 "Victoria!" I turned to look at her, reclining in the primitive travois I
was pulling behind me. I was the only one who had snowshoes, of course, so
I wove a sled out of branches, using my scarf and belt tied together to
pull her. She couldn't walk through the snow in the shoes she had been
wearing when the plane landed. "Victoria, look! Food!" 

 She sat up, shielding her eyes against the glare of the whiteness
surrounding us. "Let's have it now, Ben! I can't wait, I'm so starved!" 

 I was so relieved I couldn't help laughing as I unpacked. Yes, it was all
there, even the collapsible camp stove with methyl alcohol for heating the
food and melting snow so we could drink. She had wanted to eat snow the
day before, when the blizzard ended, but I wouldn't let her. 

 "That's certain death, Victoria. If you ate snow, you'd use up too much
of your body heat to melt it. You'd die of exposure, essentially." 

 "I know. I grew up in Alaska. All right, we'll do this your way, but I'm
so thirsty...!" 

 Quickly, I made a little hollow in the snow for us to sit in, and we
began on the food in my packs while we waited for the can of snow to melt
on the camp stove. We ate everything: the beef jerky, so salty that I
wished we'd saved it to eat last, the fruit leather, the soup, even the
pemmican. We finished by drinking the water, passing it back and forth
between us, until finally our hunger and thirst were assuaged and we could
afford to think about something other than our stomachs. 

 "How long do you think it'll take us to reach the nearest outpost?" 

 I squinted up at the sky, now a bright hard blue. "If it doesn't snow
again--if it stays clear like this--we can reach Selkirk in three or four
days. The place where I found you is called Fortitude Pass, just above the
sixty-second parallel. Your plane went down in the Dawson Range." 

 Victoria looked away. I wondered if she were thinking about the pilot who
had left her to die at Fortitude Pass. I had certainly thought about it in
the last few days: what kind of creature could he have been, to abandon
her like that? My heart had contracted with pity when I found her, so near
death, looking so small, like a snowbird; and even as I tamped my rifle
down into the snow, covered it with my coat, and piled up snow around it
to make a crude shelter for us, I could feel warm tears trickling from my
eyes and mixing with the cold sting of wind-driven snow against my face.
And then I had crawled inside the shelter, to lie on top of her to warm
her, and we stayed like that until the storm broke two days later. 

 Now, I poured the remaining water into a drinking bottle and began to
repack the gear into my bags. "Do you feel like pushing on while we still
have daylight or do you want to rest some more?" 

 "No, for God's sake, let's get a move on. Ben...we just ate all the food,
didn't we?" 

 I looked straight into her eyes and let myself smile, to reassure her.
"Don't worry. I've got my rifle, and now that we have my packs, we also
have an ice axe and a fishing line. We can shoot small game or catch fish.
We'll make it, Victoria." 

 She smiled, then, and I suddenly became aware of something I hadn't
noticed before, preoccupied as I had been with the necessity of leaving
the Pass and finding the survival supplies. I saw that the curly tendrils
of hair escaping from her cap were as soft and dark as woodsmoke. I saw
that her eyes were a deep sparkling brown, the color of freshly milled
cider. And I saw, that weak and pale as she was--like a ghost, almost--she
was beautiful. 

 I couldn't afford to spend any more time looking at her, although I would
have liked to, so I hoisted the packs on to my back, slung my rifle across
my shoulder, and helped her back into the sled. Then we resumed our course
toward Selkirk. 

 Despite the deep snowdrifts, we made pretty good time that day. I wanted
to stop before it was completely dark, in the hope of catching or shooting
something for us to eat. Luck was with us, again; in the place on the
mountainside where we decided to camp for the night, I drove my ice axe
through a pool of ice, lowered a line, and caught a fish. I removed the
hook and line from the fish, laid them aside; then, holding the fish in my
hands I stood up, turned away, and bowed my head. I recited an Inuit
prayer of thanksgiving under my breath. 

 Victoria looked at me quizzically when I turned back. I took my knife out
of my pocket and was reaching for the fish to start cleaning it, when she
stopped me. 

 "Let me do that. You can start the camp stove." 

 "Fine," I said. "I'll have this thing going in no time." 

 She set about the task of cleaning the fish very efficiently: clearly,
this was not new to her. After a few minutes, she glanced at me. "What
were you doing with the fish, when you turned away just now?" 

 Embarrassed, I mumbled a reply. "I was giving thanks to the Great Mother,
for letting us have this fish so we can eat and survive. And then I
thanked the spirit of the fish, for letting us have its body." 

 "Huh! You don't really believe that stuff, do you? It's kill or be killed
in this world, eat or be eaten. Do it to them before they do it to you, in
other words." 

 I regarded her for a minute. "Is that the 'stuff' you believe? 

 "Yeah. That's reality." 

 "You know...I'd rather believe my stuff than your stuff," I said, in as
light a tone as I could manage. 

 There was something about her remark, and the business-like way she dealt
with the fish, that chilled me. I don't know quite what I expected her to
do and say: I knew little about her beyond the fact that she was a
fugitive, intelligent, and unused to manual labor. I could tell that by
looking at her hands. Still, for a woman who looked well-cared-for, if
thin and bedraggled at the moment, she displayed remarkably little
sentimentality. 

 Finding my packs had put new heart into us. We were almost cheerful as we
unpacked the geodesic dome tent in my pack and put it up. Before we
hoisted the tent, I first hollowed out a place for it in the soft, deep
snow called mauja, as the sled dogs did in the days of dog teams. That
done, I set about cooking the fish and melting some snow so we could
drink. We talked while we waited for our meal to cook. 

 There were many things I wanted to ask her about, but some of them would
have to wait. There was one question I felt that I could ask now.
"Victoria...that first night when you talked all night long, to keep me
from slipping away...what was the name of the poem that you were
reciting?" 

 We were sitting at the opening of the tent, the cooker between us. She
looked across at me and smiled. "The name of it is 'The Windhover.' Do you
know Gerard Manley Hopkins?" 

 "I've heard of him. One of the nineteenth-century Catholic poets, along
with Francis Thompson, Coventry Patmore, Alice Meynell..." 

 She inclined her head in mock reverence. "That's right. I see you know
your English literature." 

 I set down my mug and stretched. "Well, my grandparents were librarians.
They had a lot of out-of-date books and time hung heavy on one's hands in
Yathkyet Flats, where I grew up. There wasn't much to do in the long
winter nights, except read." 

 "Tell me about it." She laughed softly. "I grew up outside of Fairbanks.
My father was a trapper. We actually used oil lamps in the winter! For a
long time, a book of poetry that my mother picked up at a church sale was
the only book I had to read. We were so poor...God, you can't imagine. I
was eighteen before I ever tasted beef. That was when I went to the city
to live. Before that, all I knew was the game my old man caught...elk,
caribou, ptarmigan..." 

 "So. You're used to the cold, to cleaning fish, hunting." 

 "Oh, yes." 

 There were many more things I wanted to ask her: what was her family
like? Why had she gone to the city? What did she do for a living? I could
see that she was about my age. Her speech was that of an educated person,
and her voice...I thought of her voice as having mystic powers, since the
sound of it had anchored me to this life when I had been very near
crossing over to the next. Her voice was as beautiful as she was. 

 We ate the fish as best we could, with the utensils from my mess kit, and
then used some of the hot water to rinse out the dishes. I used a little
of the remaining hot water to make us each a mug of coffee--there were
still a few precious spoonfuls of instant coffee left, tucked away in a
waterproof container in one of my packs. 

 It was January, then, so the northern night fell early and lasted long;
we were comfortable inside the tent, but not yet ready for sleep. 

 "Victoria, did you see that?" I pointed toward the entrance. 

 "That glow over the horizon? Is it the Aurora?" 

 "Yes. Want to watch it?" 

 "Why not? There's nothing else to do." 

 We put on the layers of clothing we had taken off when we came inside the
tent for supper. Then we crawled outside, stood up, and almost sank to our
knees again, awestruck by the power of the forces that lit up the sky. 

 Even though I knew the explanation for the cause of the phenomenon--the
particle physics, the quantum leaps in atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen--the sight never failed to leave me feeling awed. The Northern
Lights danced across the night sky like Salome trailing her veils--veils
of white, green, and red that flickered, flared, and faded. So powerful
were the waving curtains of light that we could see the snow-covered
landscape around us as if it were bright moonlight. 

 "Ben...it's almost scary." 

 "Don't be frightened. Did you know the Inuit think you can attract the
aurora if you whistle to it? And that if you clap your hands it'll go
away." 

 I clapped my hands, but the aurora continued to writhe and curl and fold
in on itself, like a red serpent coiling and uncoiling. 

 Victoria reached for my mittened hand and took it in her own. I let it
stay there, pleased by the contact with her; then, feeling that the
extraordinary event we were watching suspended ordinary rules of behavior,
I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her, so that she leaned back
against me, using my shoulder as a headrest while we continued to gaze
skyward. 

 It was as if the Great Spirit had put on this show especially for our
benefit. I felt as if my whole life had been nothing but a dress rehearsal
leading up to this moment, in this place, with this beautiful woman in the
Arctic night. Was it at that moment in our snow-driven odyssey that my
pity for this lost snowbird turned to love? The two of us were miles from
the nearest human habitation. We might have been alone in the world, so
far away were we from everyone and everything. The night was so quiet that
I could hear the faint crackle and hiss of the lights as they danced. 

 At last the show was over; we opened the tent flap, crawled inside,
removed our clothes and footgear. Although the inside of the tent was of
course warmer than the air outside, it was still cold enough that we had
to hold onto each other to conserve body heat. I had explained to Victoria
a couple of days ago that in the absence of anything to make a fire with,
we would have to sleep skin to skin, inside the one sleeping bag I had in
my pack, if we wanted to stay alive. She hadn't seem outraged, simply
nodded her understanding. That relieved me considerably: it would have
made matters much worse if she had uttered maidenly protests of outrage.
In our situation, whether we lived or died would depend on how well we
accepted reality. There would be time enough to worry about the niceties
of convention when we were back in society again..if we did make it back. 

 Now she snuggled up to me quite naturally, and as I held her in my arms
while her eyes closed and she drifted off, I realized that I liked the way
we had to sleep, curled up against each other. Despite the all-too-real
dangers facing us before we reached civilization again, I was oddly happy.
Somehow it was as if we belonged together, Victoria and I. 

 Our days began to settle into a pattern. In the mornings, after
breakfast, we each took turns in the latrine I constructed every night
from a snowbank. Then we would break down the tent, pack it away, and
continue our slog through the snow. During the day we passed the water
bottle back and forth from time to time, ignoring any hunger pangs until
couple of hours after sunset. Then we'd put up the tent, sit down inside
it, and talk while we waited for our food to cook. 

 The day after we watched the Northern Lights, I saw the distinctive
tracks of a snowshoe rabbit heading away from us. I tracked it to a
snowcave and again prayed for its spirit while I shot it. Victoria tied
the carcass to the sled with the string I had used to link my mittens, and
we kept on, cheered for the rest of our day's journey by the thought of
the hot meat we would have that night. 

 That evening, after we made camp, I picked up the rabbit carcass and
glanced at Victoria, who stood with arms akimbo, watching me with a slight
smile. "One more duty to perform before we skin this and cut it up," I
said. 

 Turning away, I closed my eyes and thanked the Great Mother for our
dinner. Then I turned back and handed her the rabbit. "Do you want to do
the honors?" 

 "No problem." 

 Once again, she wielded the knife with skill. She was as matter-of-fact
about cutting up the rabbit as an Inuit woman would have been. Having
little experience with women of my own kind, I didn't know whether or not
this was normal behavior: somehow I'd imagined that a woman from the city
would have been sentimental about the rabbit, perhaps might even have
burst into tears because we'd had to kill it to ensure our own survival.
Victoria took it all in stride, wiping the blood off her hands with snow
as unconcernedly as if she'd been washing out a tablecloth. 

 "Tell me," I said that evening, after we had finished eating and were
waiting for the snow to melt on the stove for our drinking water. "Tell me
how you came to be in this situation." 

 "What do you want to know?" 

 "Well, for a start...how did you come to be involved in robbing a bank?" 

 "Stupidity, mostly. I left home when I was eighteen and went to the big
city--Fairbanks." She uttered a short, cynical laugh. "I had a scholarship
to the community college there but after a while I lost interest in going
to the classes. They didn't seem to be getting me anywhere. So I decided
to get a job." 

 I listened, delighting in the velvety sound of her voice, wishing that it
were not so dark inside the tent so I could see her. 

 "I went to work in a jewelry store. I liked it at first; I thought maybe
I could get somewhere if I was smart and worked hard. During the day I
worked in the store from ten to six, and on Saturday nights I went out to
take part in what little night life Fairbanks has to offer." 

 "Did you make friends, Victoria? Did you live by yourself or with
roommates?" 

 "At first I shared a place with some girls from the community college,
but after I met Ed, I moved in with him." 

 "Ed--the one who died?" 

 "Yes." She paused; I wondered if she was grieving for her dead friend, or
whatever he had been to her...what seemed nowadays to be called a
"significant other." Or had he been her fiance? 

 "How did you meet Ed?" 

 "In a bar one night. We danced, we talked, we drank--a lot. He was funny,
and smart, and ambitious. I started seeing him regularly, and then I moved
in with him." Victoria shifted restlessly. I held my breath, hoping she
wouldn't stop telling me her story. 

 "As time went on, Ed started getting more and more dissatisfied with
life. He was tired of being a mechanic. He wanted a lot of money, but he
didn't know how to go about getting it." 

 Victoria laughed, and the sound made me wince. "You remember that old
saw, If you keep talking about the impossible, it soon becomes quite
possible?' Well, that's basically the way it happened. It started as a
joke. We were sitting around one night, drinking a lot and getting silly,
and Ed said, I guess the only way to get a lot of money is to rob a bank!'
I said, Oh, yeah, right, and which one would you rob?' Well, it sort of
grew from there. 

 Over the next few weeks, every time we started drinking, we kept talking
about it, adding details as we went along. Then one day...it wasn't a joke
any more." 

 Victoria reached for my hand in her own. I squeezed it to let her know I
understood, and she went on. 

 "Ed came home one night and brought Jolly, a colleague of his at the
garage, along. Jolly had done a few little heists on the side already and
knew about fences and things like that. He told us a lot. From then on, it
was serious. Every night Jolly and Ed would sit down and go over and over
their plan, perfecting it. I knew Jolly was a mean customer, I could see
it in his eyes. They told me I was to drive the getaway car. Really, Ben,
what could I do?" 

 Victoria now had tears in her voice. I pulled her into my arms--she
didn't object--and wiped the tears off her cheeks with the tip of my
thumb. "You were caught up in something you didn't understand," I said.
"You're not a criminal by nature." 

 "No, I'm not," she agreed, resting her head against my chest. "I wanted
to run away, but I had no money, nowhere to turn. I didn't want to go
home, back to that horrible cabin at the edge of the forest, where my
family were still living fifty years behind the times. I had to pretend to
go along with Ed's plan, to be safe. Otherwise, I know Jolly would have
killed me." 

 She shivered violently, so I hugged her, to let her know that she was
safe now. 

 "He would have killed me, and made it look like an accident. I was so
afraid of that man! I still am. And he got away, you know. They shot
Ed...but Jolly got away." 

 "They'll find him, don't you worry," I said. "They'll find him and put
him behind bars." 

 She stiffened in my arms. "Ben...are you going to put me behind bars
too?" 

 I heaved a sigh. "Victoria...the law is the law and you broke it. You
just asked me, What could I do?' Now I have to ask you the same question:
Victoria, what else can I do?" 

 * * * * * * * * 

 On the seventh day after I found Victoria, we reached the outskirts of
Selkirk. 

 The long Arctic night had already set in by the time we caught sight of
the faint glow of the lights of the town and saw the church steeple, lit
up like a beacon in the darkness. We were both tired and hungry. Just
another hour, and we could make it in to town and enjoy the benefits of
civilization: warm rooms, plenty of food, hot showers, clean clothes,
comfortable beds. But we would not enjoy those benefits together, I well
knew. 

 I stopped in my tracks, turning to look at her, huddled behind me on the
travois. 

 "Victoria, what do you want to do? Push ahead or stop here for the night?
It would take us about an hour to get there at this rate." 

 "Let's stop here, Ben. We have enough food for supper, right?" 

 "Yes, such as it is." I had brought down a bird yesterday, and we could
make soup from the leftover stewed meat. "All right, if you like, we'll
camp here." 

 We followed our usual routine of setting up camp and talking as we waited
for our supper to heat. Only, tonight we spoke of inconsequential things:
my heart was heavy as I thought of what the morning would bring. In the
morning we would have to separate, she to be swallowed up in the machinery
of the law, I to go back to my RCMP post. The Arctic night in January is
20 hours long: I wished it were never-ending, so that morning would never
come. 

 Because I knew, as inescapably as I knew I was a man, a Mountie, and a
child of the Great Mother, that I loved the snowbird I had saved from the
storm. The old rule--those whom we benefit, we love--had held true. I
loved Victoria. We had saved each other from death, so I owed her as much
as she owed me. But did she love me as I loved her? 

 In the darkness of our tent I couldn't read her face. I could only tell
what she was thinking by the sound of her voice, the most beautiful I had
ever heard, the voice I would hear in my dreams forever after. But her
voice was trailing off into sighs: I guessed that she was thinking of the
morning too. 

 When it was time for us to sleep she came into my arms as always, but
this time she didn't rest her head against my chest and close her eyes.
This time she pulled my face down to hers and kissed me full on the lips,
and I could feel the warm wetness of the tears that trickled down her
cheeks. 

 She did love me, then! Eagerly, I returned her kiss, feeling my heart
beat as frantically as had the wings of the bird in her death throes the
day before, when my rifle shot brought her down. I shuddered in delight as
I felt Victoria's tongue slide into my mouth, and I wrapped my arms around
her: how thin she felt, how fragile and small. When I let my hands slide
down to explore her body, I could feel her ribs. 

 Her skin was warm, as smooth as satin. At first she tasted like tears and
sweat, and then like honey and cream. I forgot everything, time and space,
place and circumstance, everything except the reality that I was holding
the woman I loved in my arms and she was kissing me back, her hands
exploring my body as mine were exploring hers, and that the heat inside us
was building into a blaze that swept through us with the intensity of the
Aurora Borealis exploding in the night sky. 

 She was clearly experienced, I was not: she guided me when I needed it,
until at last we connected and I plunged deeper and deeper into the
darkness inside her, into Victoria's incredibly sweet, secret place, which
held me prisoner for all too brief a time before my inevitable release.
The Northern Lights we had seen a few nights earlier seemed to explode
once more inside my mind, my heart, my blood, waving veils of red and
green through my brain until I could no longer think. In the silence that
followed our last long, shuddering wave of passion, I realized that the
music had stopped...the music of our blended moans of ecstasy. 

 It suddenly occurred to me that Victoria might be uncomfortable, so I
rolled off her, onto my back. I was still too overwhelmed to speak. If I
had thought earlier that evening that I loved her in this lifetime, I knew
now that I had loved her for a thousand lifetimes. It seemed to me that I
had known her always: from the time we had farmed in the hot flat plains
of Sumer, to the time we fled from the wrath of the erupting Vesuvius in
the year 71 A.D., to the time we endured three months of seasickness and
misery as we crossed the Atlantic in creaking wooden ships to find
religious freedom in the New World. After a long time, Victoria raised
herself on one elbow and broke the silence. 

 "Ben...is this the first time you've ever...?" 

 "Yes." 

 "How old are you?" 

 "Twenty-two." 

 "And you've never made love to a woman before?" 

 "I've never been in love before." 

 "You love me?" 

 I shifted my position so I could kiss the top of her head. "I love you,
Victoria. More than I've ever loved anyone in my whole life." 

 She laughed a little. "Thank you. Ben...." she traced the line of my jaw
with her fingers. "If you love me so much, will you do something for me?" 

 "Anything. Anything at all." 

 "Then let me go." 

 This shocked me. Since it was too dark to see, I put my hand on her cheek
so she wouldn't turn away. "I can't do that, Victoria. Anything but that."


 "Why, Ben, why? No one knows you found me, unless Mounties have telepathy
and you've signaled to them already! I could walk away tonight. No one has
to know we've been together all this time." 

 "Victoria, I can't let you go because the simple fact is that you've
broken the law. I found you, and it's now my duty to bring you in." 

 "For God's sake, Ben, don't be so bloody pious! I told you, I got caught
up in something that got out of control. If I could have escaped before it
came to the actual robbery, I would have. But I had nowhere to go." 

 "Victoria, look. Turn yourself in and give the money back. I'm sure the
judge would take into consideration that you have no previous record and
give you a lighter sentence. And then when you get out, I'll be waiting,
and we can be together--" 

 "Oh, don't be so naive! Jolly killed a bank guard in the robbery. They're
not going to overlook that, I guarantee you. And besides, I don't know
where the money is. Ed hid it." 

 Something didn't fit here. "I thought you said Ed died." 

 "He did, but not right away. The bank guard shot Ed, then Jolly shot the
guard and killed him. Ed was badly wounded. I was in the car, waiting. Ed
jumped in with the bag; we looked for Jolly, but he was nowhere to be
seen. I drove Ed home and took care of him as best I could. I took some of
the money and went off to find a plane that could fly us out of town. When
I came back--" 

 Victoria's voice broke. I pulled her into my arms again, patting her on
the shoulder to let her know I understood. 

 "--the money was gone, and Ed was dying. I packed a few things and got
out of there. Then I went to the airfield." Victoria's voice held a note
of wonderment. "Eight days ago, that's all it was. Eight days ago." 

 We argued for the rest of the night, but try as I might, I could not make
Victoria see that she should turn herself in and help the authorities to
recover the rest of the money. "Even if I knew where Ed hid the money, why
should I tell the police? They'd just help themselves to it. The bank
would never get it back anyway!" 

 "Victoria!" I was shocked. "Of course the police wouldn't help themselves
to the proceeds of an armed robbery. What are you thinking of?" 

 "Life as it really is, that's what," Victoria said. She was sitting up
now, with her arms wrapped around her knees. "Ben, you are so good. How
can anyone be as good as you? You almost seem like you're from another
planet." 

 "Well, I'm not. I'm just a man, a man who loves you." 

 "And I love you." She leaned over to kiss my cheek. "I wonder what you
look like without that beard." 

 I sighed. Morning was all too near: by the time she found out what I
looked like without my beard, it would all be over. I didn't want to think
about it. "Victoria, for the last time--will you turn yourself in or do I
have to arrest you?" 

 "I'm not going to turn myself in. Arrest me if you want to, drag me into
town behind you tomorrow, if it suits you! I don't care what you say, I'm
not going to make it easier for them by turning myself in." 

 I suppose if all this had happened to someone else, I could have found
some kind of humor in the situation: there I was, stark naked in a tent,
in the darkness of a January morning in the Yukon, about to seal the fate
of a woman as unclad as I was. But there was nothing humorous about it to
me. With a heart that was near breaking, I said what I had to say: 

 "In that case, Victoria Metcalf, it is my duty to place you under
arrest." 

 * * * * * * * * 

 It was snowing that March day in Fairbanks, the day of the plea bargain
between the State of Alaska and Victoria Metcalf. 

 I had taken a couple of days' leave to fly to Fairbanks to put in a good
word for her. As I hadn't known her very long, there was a possibility
that the judge would discount my testimony, but I wanted to do what I
could. 

 I was waiting in the courtroom when she came in with her lawyer. Although
she was in custody, for this occasion she had been allowed to dress in
civilian clothes. I caught my breath, she looked so beautiful: with her
smoke-dark hair falling across her shoulders in ringlets, and the enormous
hoop earrings she wore, she looked like a gypsy, mysterious and
enchanting. 

 She caught sight of me and her eyes widened. Then she smiled and passed
her hand over her chin in a sweeping motion. As if she had spoken aloud, I
caught the thought she sent my way: "So that's what you look like without
that beard!" 

 When I was called to the front to speak to the judge, I walked up the
aisle, carrying my hat in my hands. I couldn't resist stealing a glance at
her, sitting to the right of the courtroom with her lawyer. I smiled at
her encouragingly, and she smiled back. I felt my heart lift: surely
everything would be all right. I knew that Victoria had changed her mind
and turned State's evidence. Surely, the combination of her previous clean
record and her testimony against Jolly would convince the judge to give
her a light sentence. For a moment I let my imagination soar as I
contemplated the life we could have together after she had served a two-
or three-year sentence. With good behavior, her term of imprisonment might
be reduced even more. 

 And then I would help her to live the life she was intended to live, with
me. I would sweep away her inner darkness, teach her to trust those she
now held in contempt. We would have a wonderful life together. For her
sake, I would even leave my remote outpost and move to the city. 

 I spoke to the judge for a few minutes, then returned to my seat to wait.
It took an hour for the lawyer to make his presentation, after which the
court recessed for lunch. 

 Afterwards, the judge wasted no time in getting to the point. In view of
the seriousness of the crime, he wanted to make an example of this case.
"Let those who contemplate violating the law in the future, study the
outcome of this case and be warned." He banged his gavel sharply. "I
hereby sentence the defendant, Victoria Metcalf, to a term of ten years
without parole." 

 Ten years! 

 The words seemed to drop like a stone into the room. The buzz of
whispered conversations stilled to no sound at all. I looked at Victoria.
She was as pale as death, as pale as when I'd found her that January day
on the mountainside. 

 I felt her eyes on me, and reluctantly, I raised my head to meet her
gaze. 

 I knew what she was thinking. I could see it in her face. We didn't need
to speak. 

 "You lied to me, Fraser," her eyes said. "You said if I cooperated they'd
give me a lighter sentence. You lied." 

 "I didn't know," my eyes told hers. "I've never heard of such severity.
It's true that an innocent man died, but you weren't the one who killed
him. Without parole...no time off for good behavior, even...I didn't
expect this. I didn't, Victoria!" 

 "You could have let me go." 

 "No, I couldn't." 

 "You could have. You didn't." 

 "I'm sorry." 

 "I thought you loved me, Fraser. You betrayed me. Why?" 

 "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was going to turn out like this, I swear I
didn't!" 

 The bailiffs led her away; she didn't look back at me then, but I moved
to the window to watch as she got inside the police car that was to take
her back to jail. Snow was still falling, the light, gentle snow that the
Inuit call qannialaaq. Just before she got into the car, she looked up at
the window as if she knew that I was standing there, watching, and mouthed
one word. 

 Even as far away as I was, even through the tears that scalded my eyes, I
could understand it. 

 "Why?" 

 * * * * * * * * 

 Whitehorse
 The Yukon
 April 1985
 

 I've gone over it again and again in my mind. 

 I've asked myself a million, no, two million times--could I, should I,
have done the unthinkable and let Victoria go? 

 I found her. I saved her life so I could bring her in, and I did bring
her in. She broke the law and the law demanded that she pay her debt to
society. I did my duty: I maintained the right. I did what was moral. 

 But is the moral thing always the right thing? What if I had let her go?
She might have gone straight. I could have helped her...we could have had
a life together. She's the only woman I will ever love. 

 How she must hate me, now. How betrayed she must feel, after I spent all
night trying to convince her that turning State's evidence would get her a
lighter sentence. And now she has to serve ten years. Ten...years. 

 Ten years, without parole. Even if I could write to her, visit her, would
she want me to? All she probably wants is never to hear my name again. 

 Oh, God, should I have done what I did? Should I? But how could I do
otherwise? 

 I slog my way through the days, now, hardly able to concentrate. I don't
think I'll ever again feel anything but this awful pain in the empty shell
that used to be my heart. In my life I've loved two women, my mother and
Victoria, and they were both taken from me. I couldn't do anything about
my mother--I was only six when she died--but Victoria! 

 I went to the library yesterday and borrowed an anthology of
nineteenth-century British poets. I wanted to find "The Windhover," to try
to memorize those incredibly complex rhythms: I caught this morning,
morning's minion/Kingdom of daylight's dauphin... In a way, I owe my life
to that poem--or rather, to the person who recited it to me. 

 But while I was leafing through the book, I came across a sonnet by Alice
Meynell. It captured what I was feeling so perfectly that I felt she had
written it for me: 

 I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
 I shun the thought that lurks in all delight--
 The thought of thee--and in the blue heaven's height,
 And in the sweetest passage of a song... 

 The only way I'm going to be able to get through the rest of my life is
by using my pain as a shield. Forever after, when someone mentions "love,"
I'll think of softly falling snow, and passion, and heartbreak. From now
on I'll do my duty and not allow myself to think of Victoria. In the
daylight world I'll be the perfect Mountie. 

 But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
 When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
 And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
 Must doff my will as raiment laid away-- 

 Yes, at night, in my dreams...I can go wherever I want to, in my dreams.
In that other dimension I cast off my daytime, Perfect Mountie self, and
become the Benton Fraser I was for that wild, enchanted week in the snow. 

 And that's when my soul calls to yours, Victoria, my love. Across the
barriers of time and space, every night... 

  With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
 I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. 

 The End 

  

 Opening quote is from the Due South episode You Must Remember This.
Ending quote is from "Renouncement," by Alice Meynell. Copyright November
1996 by Diana Read on all original story content. Not meant to infringe on
copyrights held by Alliance Communications, or any other copyright holders
for DUE SOUTH. Please do not reproduce for anything other than personal
reading use without written consent of the author. Comments welcome at
scribe@his.com.   

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