“All right,” he said finally. “But for this I’ll need Ghost.”
A pause.
“Whatever you want,” Maddox said, nervousness entering his voice at the mere mention of the wolf.
“And I won’t submit to military command or authority.” Hunter turned back with the words. “If I lead the track, then I’m the one that leads. Nobody countermands my decisions or my methods. This is gonna be hard enough as it is. I don’t want someone who doesn’t understand what I do trying to give me orders.”
“Of course not. I will ensure your authority in certain areas. This ...this support team will be present only for the confrontation.”
Hunter turned away again, staring into a slowly gathering dark. He could tell from the air that a cold front was coming, rain not far behind. But there was something else, something that continued to hover over him—a premonition.
He felt it, but couldn’t identify it. Yet he had made his decision, realizing that, if innocent lives were truly compromised by a creature as obviously powerful as this, there was really no choice.
“Set it up,” he said, low. “Let me know.”
Maddox swayed. “Good. Just be aware this is going to happen soon. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.”
“That’s fine,” Hunter said, glancing at Dixon one last time.
Utterly concealed, Dixon’s eyes were reflectionless pools of black, revealing nothing. And Hunter sensed rather than read the faintest apparition of a smile on the haggard face. And he knew that whatever disturbed him was hidden in that darkness.
Chapter 3
It’s where the map ends; an unforgiving, heavily forested frontier of permafrost, tundra, glacier and air that froze skin at the touch. Hunter had been here once before, and knew it was an easy place to die.
Countless hikers, adventurers, and even native Alaskans had lost their lives in the merciless terrain of the Brooks Range. And Hunter didn’t underestimate its brutality. He knew that it was through respect and caution that a man stayed alive in these mountains. And a lack of either would have only one outcome; the land was littered with legends of those who failed to heed advice and went unprepared into the high country, never to be seen again.
Hunter knew what equipment was essential for the average trapper or camper: a large-caliber scoped rifle, a shotgun, plenty of ammunition for both, an oversupply of preserved food, an ax, hatchet, sheath knife and a smaller folding blade for skinning, a tent, topographical map of the areas with federal emergency stations marked, a compass, rope, rain slick, matches and flint for making fires, a ball of leather twine, emergency medical equipment, grain for two pack mules and a horse, and a radio.
But Hunter traveled light, trusting his life to his skills. He never challenged the forces of nature, he respected them. But he knew he could effortlessly live off the land for weeks at a time and could improvise shelter in even the most hostile weather. So he carried all he needed in a compact belt rig that rested at the small of his back. He also had a pouch on a leather strap that went over a shoulder in the style of ancient Apaches. Inside it he carried air-dried beef jerky, herbal pastes for either cooking or wounds, a compass and map, and lesser-known tricks of the trade for tracking—chalk, a marking stick, pebbles.
He had a single canteen on his right side, though he rarely used it because he would drink at almost every stream, knowing dehydration was a lightning-fast killer this high. A large, finely-honed Bowie knife and hatchet were on his belt and he carried extra cartridges on the strap of the un-scoped Marlin 45.70 lever-action rifle that he carried over his shoulder.
He wore wool pants, a leather shirt and jacket, and knee-high moccasins lined with goose down, and carried no other clothes. The extra insulation in the moccasins would protect his feet against the cold, dry quickly, and allow him to move soundlessly. And he always wore leather while tracking because, unlike polyester or cotton, it made almost no sound when it scraped branches or leaves.
Long ago, inspired by an idea he’d obtained from studying ancient Aztec priests, he had sewn a double hood for the shoulders of his jacket. The lower layer protected his shoulders from rain. The upper layer, descending over his broad shoulders like a short cape, could be drawn up in a hood to prevent excessive heat loss from his head, which accounted for sixty percent of heat loss in the open air. It was a unique and functional design, and Hunter had learned from experience that a hood was indispensable in frigid temperatures.
Traveling so light, he resembled an early American frontier scout—an appearance made all the more apparent when contrasted to the high-tech profile and weaponry of the Special Response Squads he often worked beside.
For shelter and food he would simply live off nature. He would forage as he went, kill quickly and efficiently when necessary, but always moving. At night he would take fifteen minutes to rig a simple but effective fish trap in a stream which would capture a half dozen mountain trout for breakfast before morning. The fish that he didn’t immediately eat he would eat as hunger came on him through the day. From years of practice he had discovered that it was a simple, effective means of traveling quickly across cold, high country.
He assumed that this mysterious military team would bear the standard forty pounds of survival gear necessary for Arctic survival. In general, that included a load-bearing vest, or LBV, probably armored with Kevlar. Then they would have a small backpack that held individual water purifiers, cold-weather tents, Arctic sleeping bags, extra clothes and socks, de-hydrated food, propane ovens, field radios and microphones, night-vision equipment, teargas, and flares, as well as bionic listening devices—either those worn as earphones or the laser-guided sort for pinpointing distant disturbance.
In addition to that, they would be heavily armed with a variety of weapons from M-16’s to Benelli shotguns and MH-40 cylindrical grenade launchers. And, doubtless, they would rely upon the Magellan Global Positioning System for orientation—a fist-sized device that triangulated off satellites to provide exact location, accurate to within six feet. It was standard equipment for maneuvers.
Hunter was familiar with the technology and had used it himself. But it was still a machine, and machines could break down in primitive conditions. So he preferred to rely upon a map and compass and had cultivated his skills at dead reckoning so that he could accurately navigate using only the sun and stars, or nothing at all.
But Hunter knew that the most essential ingredient for survival in this land wasn’t something so simple as equipment: it was mindset. For it was all too easy to panic when disaster struck and there was no one to rely upon for assistance.
He had learned long ago, mostly by necessity, to be supremely self-reliant under any circumstance. And up here there would be no substitute for a lack of strength or willpower.
He remembered a conversation he had with a grizzled old trapper during his first trip to Alaska. As he was preparing to venture into the mountains, he asked the old man if it was possible to survive a winter in the mountains with only a knife and rifle. Experienced with the lethal brutality of the wilderness, the trapper had taken a surprisingly long time to reply.
“Well,” he said finally, turning a weathered face, “I reckon it could be done.” His tone indicated that he had no intention of trying. “But you’d have to have Injun in you. You’d have to be an animal. ‘Cause there ain’t no God nor mercy up there, boy. Damn sure ain’t.” He paused. “When I go up high, I got my horse and two pack mules, ‘cause a mule is worth any three horses in them woods. I break camp late and set up early, and I don’t break at all if it looks like a hard cold might be settin in.” He chewed a toothpick. “You ain’t planning to try nuthin’ like that, are ya?”
“No,” Hunter assured him. “Just asking.”
The old man nodded slowly and pointed toward the mountains. “The big ol’ Out There ain’t no place for a human bein’, son. I seen some go in and winter it out, and them t
hat made it home ... well, they wudn’t the same. It changes a man, more ways ‘an one.”
Hunter knew the words were true.
There were few areas in the world as brutal with rain and cold, and as unforgiving of fools. He knew that if he was injured and forced to survive in those mountains for months, sheer determination would be his greatest ally. Pain could be ignored but any wound must be very carefully tended. Just as food would have to be attentively protected and harbored; it would be endless work to stay alive.
Patience and discipline would be vital, as would whatever tenuous grip he managed to maintain on his sanity. Although under the current conditions of this trip there would be little chance of a disaster, he had learned to always be prepared: conditions, no matter how certain they seem, could change completely and without warning.
As Hunter surfaced from his thoughts he was suddenly aware of the dull thundering engines of the military C-141, its four huge jet engines roaring outside the fuselage.
He smiled at the sudden awareness, for absolute concentration to the point of ignoring everything else was a faculty he had unconsciously perfected. And it was a vital skill when he was tracking.
Amazingly, although Hunter could effortlessly ignore a loud conversation directly behind him, he could simultaneously pick up the whispered clicks of a woodlark a quarter mile away. To the uninitiated, the sound would mean nothing, but it could tell Hunter what the bird was experiencing, what it was looking at, whether it was searching for its mate or just frightened, and of what.
For instance, the woodlark, more than any bird, hated water snakes like cottonmouths. So when a viper was moving in the water the woodlark would virtually set the forest on fire with that distinctive, hysterical high-pitched cry—a sound far different from its other songs and calls.
And, just as Hunter could identify the call to know that a snake was moving close, he knew that particular snakes would not be moving at all during certain times of the day unless something was forcing them. So, in a thousand ways similar to this, the forest could tell you about hidden movement and unseen activity. One had only to know the language of the forest, the native calls of the wild.
Ghost, sleeping soundly, lay beside him on a tarp and Hunter reached out to caress the wolf’s thick mane.
Military officials had refused to allow Ghost among the other passengers, fearing the massive wolf’s potential for violence if, for some reason, he decided to demonstrate his prowess. And, rather than engage them in a doomed debate, Hunter elected to travel in the cargo hold with what he knew was his closest and most loyal friend.
He remembered when he had found Ghost. The wolf was only three weeks old, and his sire, an enormous gray wolf, had been killed by poachers, along with the mother and siblings.
Though wounded by a bullet graze, Ghost had survived by hiding beneath a deadfall, buried deep beneath tons of logs. Starving, sick and wounded, the cub would have died within days but Hunter coaxed him out with a piece of raw meat and carried him back to the cabin.
It was a month before the malnourished cub could clamber around the three-room structure, but after that he grew rapidly, eventually surpassing the strength and size of his gigantic father. Yet it was his spirit that caught Hunter’s early attention and made him laugh; something he rarely did.
Hunter had never attempted to train him, but the wolf’s keen intelligence was evident from the first moments. Without being taught, Ghost knew where to find food, how to communicate his needs, when he wanted to go outside. And his curiosity was endless, as was his unconcealed joy every time Hunter returned from a trip.
When he was six months old Hunter let him sleep on the porch, sheltered by a fairly luxurious doghouse that Hunter built from spare lumber. Hunter filled the bottom with a thick layer of straw and an old blanket and installed a heat lamp for cold nights, but he never leashed the wolf. If Ghost wished to leave, he was free to go.
For endless nights Hunter went to bed knowing Ghost was staring and listening to the calls of the wild, summoned by the wolf packs that surrounded the cabin. And then when Ghost was two years old, near full size, he began disappearing for days at a time, often returning with bloody wounds—slash marks of other wolves.
http://wbp.bz/huntera
Other WildBlue Press Books By James Byron Huggins
The Reckoning: Separated from the secret world he once dominated, he chose a life of exile, pursuing a lonely peace, a solitary faith. Only the murder of his mentor and the mysterious theft of an ancient manuscript can compel him to emerge from solitude. Now his greatest battle begins. Bound by a promise to a dying friend, he wages war once more in the dark world he left behind. wbp.bz/reckoninga
Hunter: In yet another experiment to extend human life, scientists accidentally unleash a force that might well be a terrible curse. Now an infected creature is loose in the Alaskan wilderness, and the America military is forced to ask the world’s greatest tracker, Nathaniel Hunter, to locate the beast and destroy it before it reaches a populated area. wbp.bz/huntera
Cain: Grotesquely transformed, Cain has become the ultimate predator: A killing machine with the soul of a devil. And the only force that can stop him is a trio of flawed people: a soldier who lost his family and his soul to a terrorist’s bullets, a priest who has lost his faith, and the scientist who created Cain and then lost control of him. wbp.bz/caina
Dark Visions: Joe Mac was a legendary homicide detective until his vision was lost in the line of duty and he was forced into retirement. But when Joe Mac’s grandson is murdered by an unknown killer, Joe emerges from his self-imposed solitude to resurrect the skills of the detective he once was. wbp.bz/darkvisionsa
Leviathan: On an Icelandic Island, an illegal experiment intended to create the perfect biological weapon has transformed a once-innocent creature into the biblical Leviathan that once terrorized the world. Able to shatter steel and granite as easily as it can melt the strongest containment shields, Leviathan escapes from its pen and is loose in a vast underground chamber harboring soldiers and scientists.wbp.bz/leviathana
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