THE ROCK OF RAGES

By Ian Semple

The efforts of a northern Canada indigenous tribe to mitigate its dependence on government handouts through the development of a natural resources project under modern, stringent standards, are vehemently opposed by rabid activists and a corrupt government. Violence, subterfuge, and deaths ensue, but cold case murders get solved by Sherlockian logic while other lives are saved through the application, by a brilliant eccentric, of creative ingenuity and……………………….mystery!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781458304353

Book preview

Chapter 1

It undoubtedly was the neatly cut hole in the frosted glass pane of the entrance door to the office that caught his attention and told him a story he didn’t want to know. The hole wasn’t there to ventilate the interior. He replaced the key he would no longer need in his pocket and stopped to listen for a moment. Confirming the deathly silence that only a deserted office building in its after-hours can have, he gingerly tested the handle of the door. Unsurprisingly, it turned freely in his hand, and pushing gently he let the door swing open on silent hinges. Still listening for sounds but hearing none, he silently stepped into the anteroom, hung a right turn through the main office and quickly flicked on the light switch at the entrance to his own smaller quarters.

Perhaps every man should undergo a compulsory, if only inanimate, violation in his life so that he can even begin to understand what the act of rape must represent to a woman. If a violation of property can leave a man trembling with a sense of overpowering outrage, helplessness, fear, and incapacity; if it can produce a blinding, irrational urge for revenge and retribution against the perpetrator; if it can even momentarily obliterate the basic sense of order, reason and respect that supposedly helps distinguish us from the completely immoral, and that provides the rationalization for the definition of civilization and civilized society, then why in the hell can’t society and law, or better said the male empowerment of those institutions, begin to understand what rape is to a woman; that personal violation that has nothing to do with sex but everything to do with violence and hatred that abuses the body but also ravishes the psyche?

Like an out-of-body experience lacking personal rationale, these thoughts flashed in fleeting images of smouldering esoterica across Richard Raven’s mind as, shaking with such shock and anger, he stared at the wreckage of what had been his office. It was only a cubbyhole but it now looked like a scene from some movie that might have been called ‘Teenage Bedroom.’ The drawers of his desk hung open drunkenly at their extremes, their contents scattered about on the floor. Similarly, his files had been yanked from their cabinets and tossed onto the carpet where they lay strewn in jumbled disarray. Books were stripped from shelves, pictures ripped from their moorings on the walls, maps pulled from the vertical map rack, and rock samples dumped on the floor. Even the cushions on his two chairs had been slashed, their stuffing removed and flung in clumps across the room.

Ensconced in an old but solid building in the heart of the business district in Vancouver, British Columbia, Raven’s borrowed office was the smaller of two adjoining offices having a common entrance. The larger of the two offices acted as the headquarters of a small mining exploration company. From the smaller office, Raven’s friend Scott McCrae conducted periodic consulting work related to mineral exploration, while allowing Raven to also use the premises for the latter’s own pursuits. 

This day, it had been toward midnight when, being in the mood as well as under the pressure to move ahead with his work, Raven had come down to the office to pursue such.

Shrugging the laptop case off his shoulder, Raven dropped that and his briefcase by the door and stepped gingerly into the office, picking his way through the debris on the floor, and over to the tattered remnants of a chair. As he slumped onto the torn upholstery of the chair, now hard and lumpy when devoid of its stuffing, he was suddenly very tired, as though the initial surge of outrage had sapped all of his remaining energy. Given that absolutely nothing of consequence related to Raven’s work was ever left in this office, the rationality of the break-in eluded him, especially since the other office appeared to have been untouched. Perhaps there was no rationale to grasp, although his instincts told him that was not the case. He was in no mood to ruminate, however. He decided that reporting the break-in and cleaning up the mess would have to wait until tomorrow.

With some masking tape and lack of forethought, Raven sealed the hole that had been cut in the entrance door glass, as though somehow that was to restore the office’s belated security. After again peeking into the adjoining office and its seemingly untouched contents, Raven gathered his laptop, briefcase, and a map tube, and lamely locked the door behind him. He did not much look forward to the long hike to where his truck was parked.

Having observed the one obvious item now seen to be missing from each office, whether that was where contemplation was to take place was yet to be determined.

Chapter 2

Forty is a dangerous age for a man when measured against his past. It’s not that he is too old to fight, too feeble to fornicate, and too wasted to carouse. It’s that he’s too old to carry them off like he used to, but he’s still too young to realize it, or if he does, to accept it. Fortunately, Richard Raven had already stumbled through that threshold of life; the age thing that is. Notwithstanding that, however, was that Raven, better known as Rick, was also known as ‘Ravin Dick’ to his very small circle of friends, for his too frequent behavioural outbursts. It was therefore with just a predictable twitch, just a tad, just a tiny teaspoon if you will, of the wisdom of a forty-one-year-old, that the anger that rose like bile in his throat was tempered by a twinge of self-doubt, by just a tiny tickle of uncertainty, by just a miserly modicum of misgiving, that perhaps he might not be able to extricate himself from the predicament that presently confronted him; at least not in the manner that he might have reverted to in what he fondly if increasingly and vaguely remembered as his youth; misspent as it was. It was very simple; the predicament thing that is.

At a time when he should have been in bed with at least a book if not a warm body, the former of increasing frequency at the expense of the latter, Raven, while being a reasonably upstanding, if at times unstable citizen, and for which his Indigenous ethnicity further exacerbated that slight, was currently engaged in what loosely might be termed as a form of demand debate. It was well after midnight in a parking lot in the seedy part of town, where if your car survived theft, break-ins, tire slashings, key scratching, antenna decapitations, or fender bending by coked-up assholes after parking attendants had long since departed the night, you knew the parking rates at least didn’t leave you insolvent. What they did leave you with however was a two-mile hike back to the business district. For all the rent money they took off you for office tower space downtown, you would think that office space might come with a reasonable, if not free parking stub.

So here was Raven, downstream as it were from his trashed office and standing near his pickup truck in an open parking lot in the dead of night in the midst of a heavy rainstorm that was endeavouring to dampen the rampant heat and humidity of a sweltering summer. The torrent had plastered his hair, Nero-like to his head, seeped into his shoes, ruined an already scruffy suit, soaked a threadbare shirt, and was causing colours on his allegedly hand-painted tie to run wild. He didn’t mind the last. Maybe the rain would improve the design. Over his shoulder was slung his laptop computer in its case. In his right hand was his briefcase while the other hand grasped a cardboard map tube that was slowly warping like palsied spaghetti in the deluge. What was it going to be? Home or a bar?

Suddenly appearing in front of Raven, not six feet distant, stood a diminutive, leather-jacketed youth of less than twenty years old. His demeanour and appearance were that which Mr. Dickens might have observed as belonging to the ‘lower classes’. Long, greasy hair lay matted on a narrow skull. A pallid, pinched face, angry with acne, was pierced by small, squinting bloodshot eyes and a thin slash of a mouth that failed to hide yellow, rotting teeth. His breath wafted rank with booze and decay. As Dog Breath shuffled, nervous and shaking from one foot to the other with what looked like a hammer in one hand, all the signs were there.

About the same distance from Raven’s rear was another man, unseen but noticeable from the excessively discourteous manner in which he addressed Raven behind the latter’s back. From his intonation and manner of speech, Raven took him to be a gentleman of Caribbean extraction. The conversation and debate they were having went something like this.

Jamaica Farewell: Make a move or a sound you fuckin’ honkey an’ I give you de knife right up de ass. You got ‘dat mon?

Fearless Forty-one: I got you. Just take it easy with the knife, OK?

Jamaica Farewell: Shut up yo mout’ mon. You don’t be telling me what to do.

Dogbreath: Fro Chrissakes Church, stick him an’ roll him an’ let’s get outta here.

Jamaica Farewell: Shut up mon! You…….honkey. Turn ‘round very slow.

Raven did not relish turning his back on Dog Breath who he suspected was similarly armed with some sort of weapon, and who was becoming increasingly restless from what Raven presumed to be the dire need for a fix. But Raven did as he was instructed. While he was not short, being a touch under six feet, when Raven turned around he was forced to look up at one very big, very tall, very fierce-looking, cold-eyed black man. From the green and yellow woollen watch cap that topped his Rastafarian locks and a wild, unkempt beard, right down to his Michael Jordon high tops, this was one very large, very mean dude.

If Raven had not found himself in his current situation, and bone-tired to boot, being called a honkey might have bemused him no end, given his Indigenous heritage. Reality forced him to concentrate on the moment, however.

Dog Breath: Come on Church, hurry up and let’s get outta here. I’m drowning my ass off.

Jamaica Farewell: You just need a hit you junkie asshole!

The gaze at Raven by the man called Church never wavered, nor did the wicked looking six-inch knife that he held in his right hand. Handle down, palm up, blade up and flat, thumb on top. A pro.

What you got in da case mon?

It’s just a computer replied Raven.

I know dat mon. Don’ trifle with me. What you got in da briefcase?

Just papers. There’s nothing of value there replied Raven.

Give me your wallet mon. But be very, very slow.

Carefully, Raven slid his hand inside his jacket pocket and extracted his now sodden billfold. Just as carefully, he extended it toward the black man.

Taking it, the man flipped open the wallet with one hand and quickly leafed through it. His brows rose in surprise, and then furrowed in anger.

You being funny mon? Where da money and da cards? Quick, I don’t got all da night.

I didn’t make it to the bank today, Raven said, and I don’t carry any credit cards. ‘Anymore, that is’ he might have added.

The bastard’s lyin’ Church, said Dogbreath. Put him away and let’s get outta here. We can fence da computer.

Jamaica Farewell ignored his companion. Give me da briefcase mon.

Look, there’s nothing of value in the briefcase except some papers. Take the computer if you want, but what the hell do you want with the briefcase?

As the black man scowled in anger, Raven realized he was not only being stupid but even worse, becoming stubborn. Raven could also feel Dog Breath’s growing agitation at his back. But there was a good part of his current work, hell his only contract work inside that briefcase, and he was damned if he was giving it to these assholes, especially since the contents were not yet on his home computer. Raven had a lot at stake with this assignment contract. With his wallet as empty as it was every day, he had everything at stake.

Raven sensed rather than felt Dog Breath reaching for him from behind, and it was at that moment when he forgot the adage about being foolish at forty. As Raven made as if to extend the briefcase towards the giant’s outstretched left hand, he suddenly swung it upwards in an arcing motion with all the force and speed he could muster. With more luck than skill, the wood-framed edge of the briefcase caught the black man flush on the mastoid bone just behind his left ear. It must have hurt like hell, even for a big man. As Jamaica Farewell staggered back, if only slightly, Raven lashed out wildly with a kick that caught the man’s groin, blew out his wind, and buckled him over in pain.

It was then that Raven felt something pluck at his right side and a sticky warmth spread inside his shirt. He wheeled around and saw Dog Breath with a blood-stained knife in his hand and a mean look in his eyes. Fighting off the searing pain in his side, Raven slipped the computer case from his shoulder. Grasping the strap he whirled it about him like an Argentinian bolo. As a weapon, it was dubious and it damn near tore Raven’s shoulder apart; but again he was lucky. Stuffed with an eight pound machine, the case caught Dog Breath squarely on the bridge of the nose. Blood gushed forth and a howl of pain ensued, as he fell backward onto the ground, his knife skittering away under a car.

Fear suddenly gripped Raven as he turned to face Jamaica Farewell once again. Raven was not out of the woods by a long shot. Stark hatred wreathed the black man’s face and his teeth bared in something between a murderous snarl and a smile of anticipation. He came at Raven, still not straightened from the groin kick, but with arms outstretched, the knife held low and gleaming in the rain. Raven looked down at his last weapon, the wilting, wet noodle remnants of his map tube, which for some strange possessive reason he still clutched in his left hand. It was apparently going to be his epitaph; limp Dick.

As he stood there transfixed, the base of Raven’s skull collided with something hard and heavy, and all the lights went out. As the famous author Joseph Conrad might have put it, Raven hurtled into the heart of darkness.

Chapter 3

When Raven came to, everything was moving in circles and he was in the midst of one hell of an electrical storm. Lightning arced and flashed before him while thunder clapped and rolled and banged in numbing resonant discord. As he waited for the storm to subside, he realized that his eyes were still closed and the tempest was raging only inside his head. When gradually the maelstrom did abate, Raven was left with a rhythmic throbbing that pulsed like a hundred whining marine engines in full synchrony inside his skull. As awareness grew, he discovered he was lying face down on cracked and gritty asphalt. Unmoving and still dazed, he listened, eyes shut, to the sounds around him, trying to determine whether his attackers were still present. But there were only the muffled sounds of a sleeping city, the muted noise of a solitary distant car, the hum of a mercury street lamp, and the clicking electrical switches of changing traffic lights at a nearby intersection. There were no human sounds.

Slowly, shaking, Raven struggled to his knees as a wave of nausea overtook him and threatened to return him to the black vortex of insensibility. Although the rain had stopped, he was still soaked through and a vague stickiness in several places told him it wasn’t purely water. Still kneeling, he carefully looked around him. He was still in the parking lot, lying between two cars, where unless their owners came to retrieve them, he wouldn’t be seen. He must have been dragged to the spot because neither car beside him was his. Which reminded Raven. Using a fender for support, he painfully hauled himself to his feet and swaying groggily, looked around in the now bright moonlight. There were still a few vehicles in the lot, and what surprised Raven was that his beaten-up old pickup truck was among them. Somehow, his assailants had either not found his vehicle's keys that he kept in an interior pocket cleverly designed to be inside another pocket of his pants, or they were incapable of driving what was an old manual shift vehicle. What Raven could not see were any signs of his wallet, computer, briefcase or map tube.

Gingerly Raven ran his hands over his body to see what damage had been done. There was blood on the back of his neck at the base of his skull. His shirt was torn and opened to reveal an ugly slash wound across his right rib cage. But the thing that brought the anger back was the stinging warmth he felt that stretched from ear to chin along his right cheek. One of those bastards, probably the jittery junkie, must have cut him there just out of spite. Fortunately, the wound wasn’t deep but Raven winced at the thought of how many stitches it was going to take to close it.

What also now struck Raven, if only as surmisal, was that there must have been a third assailant who was less interested in knifing him than stealing his possessions. By bludgeoning him into unconsciousness, that third man may ironically have saved Raven’s life from the irrational actions of the other two.

Unsteadily, Raven stumbled across the lot to the street and made toward a line of phone booths to call for help. He hadn’t realized there was such a world shortage of telephone handsets, because in each of the three phone booths, loose wiring waved a welcome at him; the handsets snipped and stolen. He guessed vandals don’t call home too often from a phone booth. So much for 911. Twenty minutes later he managed to hail a passing cop car. An hour later, Raven had been medicated, cleaned and stitched at a local hospital, and had rejected advice to stay overnight for observation. Making a statement to the police with a promise to return the next day to scan mug shots, Raven had been transported back to the lot where his truck was parked, by an attractive, sympathetic female cop named Amanda, on whose shoulder he could have quite blissfully fallen asleep.

Chapter 4

Slumped behind the wheel of his truck in the parking lot, Raven pondered what might be his immediate destination, and quickly decided that unlike before his attack, there was now no debate. He needed a drink in the worst way. Every part of him either ached, stung, throbbed or pounded. It was also apparent that he needed someplace safe where he could try and sort out the events of the past few days

His life had disintegrated into nothing more than too many why’s and what’s and wherefores with no answers, not to speak of where-ats, where-froms and whereabouts; as in whereabouts were his computer and briefcase? One ‘where’ Raven didn’t have too much of at the moment though was wherewithal. Thanks, however, to some alleged emergency, non-alcoholic-related cash he kept inside one of his socks, he had enough to give that money a new life category by seeking out a bar he knew of not far away from where he presently was on the east side of the city. Raven had been there a few times off and on over the years but he wasn’t known, and nobody would know to look for him there. It was the sort of place where no one bothered you as long as you kept your head down and your mouth shut. No chit-chat, no have a nice day; just a place to drink and mind your business. Furthermore, it stayed open late into the night, or better said early in the morning. It was typical of many such bars that were located in what could be called a high-low area of town: high crime and violence, low income and living standards; high drug and alcohol abuse, low family formation and achievement levels; high unemployment, low job skills and education; high lifestyle instability, low self-esteem.

You didn’t need a damn Senate sub-committee report to work out those relationships. The scary part was that the highs and lows fed upon each other, multiplying in kind to create higher highs and lower lows. And nothing of the left-wing bullshit of solidarity, political correctness or the social contract would go to solve the vicious dilemma of those correlations. Nor would the rantings of the far-right with their ‘let them eat cake" attitude bring any beneficial change. There are days, maybe most days, thought Raven, when the pendulum seemed to swing from those two extremes without ever going through the middle, where good old common sense resided. But whoever said that governments know anything about common sense? Or cared enough to look for any. ‘Maybe we need more government by the people and less government for the people,’ thought Raven. Whenever the government allegedly wanted to do something for Raven, his first inclinations were to cover his back, empty his pockets and run like hell. Because he could be sure of several things. Whatever the scheme was it was sure to cost a lot of money; too much money. It wouldn’t work, and would entrench government and increase its power, increasingly depriving Raven of his rights and freedoms, his ambitions, initiatives and energy; raping whatever prosperity he might enjoy; all the while increasing his dependency on Big Brother government to manage his life, whether he wanted it that way or not. Doesn’t anybody ever read any history anymore? Even George Orwell would be recoiling in horror in his grave at how swiftly and accurately his predictions had not only been realized but exceeded.

And if Raven didn’t get off his butt very soon, he might be starting to dig his own grave!

Parking his truck opposite the bar, Raven crossed the street to where the building’s dirty brick exterior was punctuated by a paint-peeled entrance door, its brass push plate hued with rainbowed swirls of tarnish. It stood under a faded, sputtering neon sign that announced ‘Morgan’s Sports Bar and ool Emporium.’ Raven suspected the shattered tubing of the missing ‘P’ for ‘Pool’ was the probable victim of a ‘p’ for pissed attack by an errant passing beer bottle. Or maybe it was supposed to be an ‘F’ for the obvious. Beyond the entrance a narrow flight of stairs led down past cigarette ends, discarded hypos and puddles of puke to a large room, split roughly in two by a T-shaped bar.

The place had had a facelift but still looked as rundown as before; much like Raven himself. Nobody from Michelin Restaurant Guide would be passing through though. Cheap, stained veneer panelling framed the plaster walls in pseudo Tudor fashion. Garishly lighted signs, mirrors and clocks peddling the brands of booze on hand littered the walls in an offensive cacophony of mismatched motifs.  Throughout, tables and chairs were scattered in haphazard homage to the profusion of silent, flickering TV sets that hung in brackets from the ceiling at various points of visual vantage. Through an open door to the right of the bar came the clicking sounds of colliding plastic from the pool ‘emporium.’ The sign over the door said ‘Toilet-Pool’ as if publicizing a new version of an old game.

It was Tuesday two AM and the place was nearly empty. At this hour, the all-day, all-night sports channel was striving to produce programs that might be even remotely entertaining. It had failed. Mary-Ann would definitely have been a better choice, even if she was just still sifting sand. As it was, the screens were filled with pale, pubescents pushing plastic, marbled spheres down the only place you find strip wood floors anymore, namely a bowling alley. The soundless emotions from strikes and spares, gutter balls and candle throws, of high fives, low fives and head butts made comic mime seem like serious drama in comparison.

In a corner to the left of the bar stood a tiny stage. Crammed onto it was all the equipment of high technology that can produce big band sounds with nobody there to perform the music. But there were no big band sounds this night. Instead, mushy rhythmics posturing as piano and drums issued from a battered pair of speakers that were suffering a major dose of the buzz. At the front of the stage, perched on a stool of alarming instability was the lounge songstress. In the murky glow of a muted spotlight, she looked fortyish, bleached and bored, but her large, sad wide-set eyes and long, slim-fingered