A Blizzard of Polar Bears, page 18
She knelt beside Casey, worried the poacher might have another rifle somewhere. He would be back.
Hurrying to where she left the pack, she scanned for the poacher. Nothing but snow and fog met her eyes, so she slung on the pack and returned at a low run to Casey. Gently shaking him, she hoped he would wake. But he didn’t stir. Ripping off her glove, she reached a hand down to his cold, blue mouth, but if a warm breath met her hand, she couldn’t feel it in the gale. She bit her lip, pulling on her glove again.
Grabbing him under the arms, she dragged him away from the set gun, pulling him up behind an ice mound.
With that little bit of cover, she pressed her face against his lips, and this time she did feel a small breath. She felt his carotid and to her relief found a pulse, but it was weak and barely discernible. He was obviously freezing, hypothermic. She had to get him to warmth and fast.
She gripped him under the arms again and started dragging him away. The snow fell harder, and though it made the going tougher, she was grateful for the cover it gave them, and it began to bury the new drag marks.
She lugged him until her shoulders and back screamed in protest, and then she hauled him farther. Her boots slid on the ice and she headed for an area with a complicated jumble of ice formations. Her hands and arms now feeling numb, she pulled him into the maze of ice, twisting and turning through narrow corridors and up and over small rises.
At last she felt they were far enough away, and the tall ice formations offered some degree of shelter from the wind. She quickly pitched the tent, threw in the sleeping bag and pad. She managed to stuff Casey inside the tent, part pushing, part pulling. She peeled off his wet jacket, then his wet fleece, sweater, and polypropylene shirt. The freezing wind had left them stiff and hard to maneuver. Undressing an unconscious person was more difficult than she imagined, and her back was throbbing from the effort of dragging him and trying to lift him up to get his frozen shirt off. She yanked off his boots and wet socks, then pulled off his pants. With it this cold, it was going to take a long time for his clothes to dry. If they ever even unfroze.
Kneeling down next to him, she managed to roll him into the sleeping bag. Then she zipped him up. She stripped out of her own clothes. Shared body heat was the only way he was going to survive out here.
She crawled into the bag next to him and pulled her parka over them. The icy feel of his skin against hers robbed the breath from her chest. She wrapped her arms around him, draped her legs on his, and vigorously rubbed his arms and chest and legs.
At first it only seemed that the freezing cold of his body was spreading into hers instead of her heat warming him. But then he started to feel warmer. His skin wasn’t quite as cold to the touch. He stirred slightly, murmuring.
Outside the wind pushed against the tent material, bowing the tent poles above them. She hoped they wouldn’t snap.
She pressed against Casey, making a silent wish to the universe that he would make it through this. Her heart hammered as she imagined that even now the poacher was out there, trying to track them through the storm to finish the job.
She kept her hands moving over his arms, back, and legs until her limbs were so tired they felt like rubber.
Casey murmured but wasn’t making any sense. “I can’t have the pecans. Not with that many equations.”
As the sun began to set, darkness crept into the tent. In the lingering light of the gloaming, Casey finally opened his eyes.
“Alex?” he asked groggily.
“I’m here.”
“What happened? I remember falling in. Then . . . I don’t remember getting here.”
“The poacher’s still out there. Do you know where your shotgun went?”
“I had it on me when I went in.”
Then he drifted off. His breathing was even, and Alex hoped he’d just passed out from exhaustion and wasn’t slipping back into unconsciousness. She herself was so tired she fought to keep her eyes open. Part of her brain told her they should stay awake, but it grew harder and harder to resist dropping off.
Alex awoke with a start. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep. Beside her, Casey breathed slowly and evenly, his body finally warm. She wasn’t sure what had woken her, but an almost preternatural sensation was prickling at the back of her neck. She listened, hearing the wind buffet the sides of the tent. And something else. A faint crunching sound between the gusts. Someone was walking around on the snow out there. She stared at the walls of the tent, waiting for a flash of light, but saw none. A full moon gave a diffused light, though heavy cloud cover, she guessed, prevented it from being too bright.
Snow had covered the tent, and with it nestled in a jumble of jagged ice, she knew it wouldn’t be easy to spot in the darkness. But she didn’t know if it was a polar bear out there or the poacher. She slid out of the sleeping bag. Casey stirred but didn’t wake. Quietly she slipped her clothes on.
If it was the poacher, they were easy prey just waiting in the tent. Casey was in no condition to run or fight. She felt his clothes. They cracked under a layer of ice. He’d freeze if he had to put them on now.
If it was Old Sam, she had to lead him away.
Slowly she unzipped the tent, moving just a few centimeters at a time to keep as quiet as possible. She stuck her head out. Now she did see a muted, mobile light in the snowstorm. The fog was so dense that it lit up the mist like a glowing cloud.
That settled it. Poacher.
She crept out of the tent, grabbing the poacher’s rifle as she went. It was empty, but he didn’t know they had no additional ammo. Casey had been carrying a shotgun himself, after all, when they’d encountered the poacher. Bluffing might buy her some extra time if she came face-to-face with him.
She zipped the tent and slunk away from it, her boots crunching softly in the snow. Flurries collected on her eyelashes as she crept around a few towers of ice. Above her, the full moon illuminated a completely cloudy sky, but it still lent enough subdued light to the scene that she could see without a flashlight.
She rounded a mound of ice, coming up on the poacher from behind. He was walking in the opposite direction of the tent. Hope sprung up within her. If he kept going that way, maybe he wouldn’t find the tent at all, and she wouldn’t have to draw him away. He continued on, disappearing into the fog, so she moved closer to keep him in sight. He angled around several large pressure ridges, and then veered off in the direction of the tent. He kept going, heading straight for it. Alex held her breath, willing him to turn another way. But he didn’t. He kept going, his light flashing through the fog. In minutes he’d be upon Casey lying prone in the tent.
She brought the rifle stock down hard on a piece of ice. The sound reverberated through the formations but was muffled by the fog. The man didn’t turn. She struck the ice again, and the light swiveled in her direction. She didn’t want to make it too obvious she was purposefully trying to get his attention, so she went silent.
He kept going for a few seconds in her direction, then swung the light back around toward the tent. She didn’t think he’d spotted it yet.
She decided to take a risk and spoke aloud. “We only have a few more miles to walk until it gets light,” she said, pretending she was talking to Casey and unaware of the poacher.
He snapped the light back in her direction and started approaching again.
“We have enough food to last a few more days in case Rescue doesn’t come tomorrow,” she added.
Soon his form became clearer, a white figure in the fog, obscured by the bright spot of his flashlight.
She crept farther away, then took refuge behind a pillar of ice. If she could lure him this way, maybe she could surprise him and hit him with the rifle. There was a lead not too far away, covered with floating ice. In the blackness, she might be able to lure him to it, make him fall through.
Holding the rifle like a club, she pressed her back against the ice as he approached. She could hear the scrape of his boots, then heard his labored breathing in the dark. His flashlight went out. Now he was moving by only the muted glow of the full moon.
Her heart hammered as she gripped the rifle. She forced her breath to slow, her hands to steady. When she heard him crunch just to her left, she sprang out, swinging the rifle as hard as she could. It hit him square in the face and he cried out, staggering backward. Then he brought his rifle to bear.
Alex took off for the open lead.
Twenty-Two
Alex weaved between ridges and formations. A shot went off. She heard it ricochet off ice and kept going. He was following her now, and she continued to run in the opposite direction of the tent, toward the lead. He took another shot, which went wide, and she heard him cursing behind her. Snow drove into her face. Another crack rent the night, and she felt a tearing sensation on her upper thigh. Then it immediately went numb.
She could feel the wet stickiness of blood and willed her legs to keep going. She stared down at her pants, but it was too dark to see how bad it was.
Up ahead, she could see the broken ice of the lead coming up fast. It was the wide section where they’d had to skirt south to find a good place to cross. So much ice floated in it that it was nearly covered with white, certainly hard to make out in the gloom. Alex took a flying leap, clearing open water. She hoped the poacher would try the same and come up short.
She landed with a skid and glanced back. He was huddled over his rifle, the flashlight on again, struggling to reload it in the gale and darkness. He dropped the flashlight. Curse words came to her on the wind. She kept going. He looked up, slammed the bolt closed on the rifle, and continued forward.
Just as she’d hoped, he ran straight for her, his mind focused on her instead of the terrain. At the last minute, he looked down and saw the mostly ice-covered lead and she heard him gasp. He skittered to a halt, falling on his butt on the ice. One of his legs slid into the water.
He cursed, scooting backward. That would slow him down.
Alex stared around, trying to get her bearings. And then she saw it. The ice tower shaped like the back of an orca.
She raced for it, leaping over jagged chunks of ice and weaving between formations. Her thigh screamed in protest. The ice beneath her felt mushy in places, and she tried to skirt around the worst parts. She surprised a bearded seal, who had surfaced in a hole to breathe, and it ducked back down, swimming away.
The orca formation loomed closer. Behind her, she saw the bouncing light of the poacher in the thick fog. He had cut south to find a narrower place to cross the lead.
She reached the formation and fell to her knees, digging furiously in the snow. She got down to a layer of blood and kept going, exposing the narwhal tusk. “I’m sorry,” she breathed as she gripped it tightly.
Then she ran on, making tracks in the snow toward another tower formation. Images of the labyrinth scene in The Shining suddenly flashed in her head. She stopped, then slowly walked in reverse in her own tracks, heading back to the narwhal burial site.
The going was slow and awkward and her heart pounded so painfully in her chest that she felt like it was about to burst.
And then she had made it and pressed her back against the shape of the orca fin, catching her breath, gripping the tusk. Following her tracks, the poacher drew closer. She forced herself to take long, slow, even breaths. In her mind she heard her Jeet Kune Do instructor’s voice. Don’t let your feet turn to cement. Don’t freeze in fear. Keep breathing. She pictured her teacher disarming an opponent. She went over the moves in her mind, fighting off panic.
Then the poacher was almost on her, not slowing down, heading straight ahead. Her fake tracks had worked. Just as he raced past her, she sprang out and, with a powerful sweep of her foot, sent his legs flying out from beneath him. He went down hard on his face. Instantly she leapt on him, kneeling on his back. His rifle was pinned beneath him.
She raised the narwhal tusk above her head and then with all her strength drove it down into his neck. Blood spurted over the ice. He gurgled and she held him down, not letting up until he bled out moments later, his body slumping, lifeless.
She rocked back on her heels, staring down at him. Then she stood up over the body, making sure he was dead. His sightless eyes filmed over. The pulsing flow had stopped, blood congealing in the cold. She felt for a pulse and found none. No breath frosted in the air.
She wiped the narwhal tusk off on his jacket, then walked back to where it had been buried. She laid the tusk down and covered it again with snow.
Back at the body, she rolled him over and took his rifle, then searched through his pockets for extra ammunition. She also took his wallet, reading his ID. He was Sam Holbarth. Fifty-seven years old. The weathering on his face made him look twenty years older. She’d give the wallet to the RCMP when they got back and reported his death.
She went through the rest of his pockets hoping for his sat phone, but came up with only a flashlight, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter with a skull on it. No key for the snowmobile. She wondered where he’d left it, where his boat was anchored. It might not be too far away. Because of the warming climate, there was an unusually large section of open water this year off the coast of Churchill, and she knew they weren’t that far away from the town at this point.
She took the flashlight and lighter and started walking back toward the tent and then stopped. His clothes. They were dry except for the one leg of his pants where he’d slipped into the lead. She returned to the body and stripped him of his jacket, wool sweater, snow pants, and nylon pants beneath. He’d cleaned his shoulder wound and put on a fresh thermal shirt, so she took that as well. Under it all he wore a urine-stained white union suit and he smelled like bacon grease, stale sweat, and cigarettes. She left the union suit on him. No way was she touching that, and no way would Casey want to wear it, anyway. His shoes were way too small to fit Casey, so she left them.
Arms full of his clothes, with the two rifles slung over her shoulder, she started back to the tent. Then suddenly, when she was about halfway there, she started shaking uncontrollably. She wasn’t cold and couldn’t figure out why she was trembling so much. She felt strangely numb, like her mind was stuffed with cotton. Her hands shook as she tried to carry the clothes, and she dropped them. As she bent to pick them up a second time, bile rose up in her throat. She knelt over to vomit, but nothing came up. She couldn’t catch her breath.
She fell, mind catching up. She’d killed a man. It was self-defense, she knew, but she still felt sick. All of the adrenaline flooded out of her body in a matter of seconds. The numb feeling that had allowed her to strip the man of his clothes, to methodically think of taking his wallet and searching his pockets, abandoned her, and she felt an unbearable tightness in her throat. All she wanted to do was get back to the tent and climb in the sleeping bag and squeeze her eyes shut.
She hurried back, dropping the clothes once more, the rifles banging together against her back when she had to stoop to pick up the garments. Her thigh ached where the bullet had grazed it.
She was so distraught that when she entered the maze of ice formations, suddenly nothing looked familiar. Where was the one shaped like the lounging bison? And the one that looked like a man pointing north?
She backtracked, trying to find where she’d come out of the tent, regain her former trail. But the rough ice all looked the same and she couldn’t figure out which direction the tent lay in. Her compass was back in the tent, as was her GPS unit.
A panicked feeling suddenly seized her. She was lost.
Twenty-Three
The clothes began to feel heavier and heavier, and Alex’s arms shook with the effort of carrying them. She knew she had muscle fatigue from dragging Casey so far. She dropped the clothes and forced the panic back down inside her. She wasn’t lost. Couldn’t be. She hadn’t walked far enough to get lost. The tent had to be around here, somewhere close by. She switched on the poacher’s flashlight and shone it around at the towers of ice, searching for any signs of her tracks.
Picking the clothes back up, she wound her way through the strange formations, moving into the heart of the maze. And then she saw some disturbed snow. Her heart picked up. But when she narrowed in on it, she saw that the trail wasn’t hers. It was the poacher’s tread she’d found.
She pictured where she’d been in relation to him and followed his tracks for a while. But then they stopped abruptly and turned around, moving off in a direction that definitely felt wrong.
She left them behind, stopping frequently to shine the flashlight around 360 degrees, hoping to see the tent. The maze of ice, the very thing that had kept the poacher from zeroing in on their location, was now preventing her from finding the tent. Her thigh throbbed with pain.
She forced her mind to still, to concentrate, and pressed on.
At last the beam fell on the snow-covered tent. Alex felt like letting out a whoop of joy. She hurried to it, shaking snow off the tent door before she unzipped it. Casey murmured in his sleep. She laid the poacher’s dry clothes down on her side of the tent.
She took off her coat and snow pants, examining her thigh. As she suspected, the wound was a graze, and it had stopped bleeding. Her skin there was coated with sticky blood. She stuck her hand outside the tent, bringing back some snow, and cleaned off most of the dried blood. She dug the first aid kit out of the backpack and disinfected the wound, then bandaged it.
