Project Hannibal

by Kathryn Hoff

  Kanut emerged from the tent, eyes darting about. “Looks like hell out here.” He nodded to Luis’s tablet. “You got anything on that?”

  “Take a look—the ash has spread for miles.”

  The trooper’s face dropped as he looked at the eruption’s damage. “Damn. I better call headquarters.”

  Luis called after him, “If you really want to do the people of Alaska a favor, you’ll forget you ever saw the mammoths—or me. I’m sure the cops will have better things to do than chase me.”

  Kanut grunted. “Like I said, that’s above my pay grade.” He walked a few steps away, dialing his satphone. “This is Wildlife Trooper Robbie Kanut . . . Yes, I’m all right. Up Dirty Dog River, about five miles from Cody. I took shelter with a hiker . . . What is it that blew? Never heard of it.”

  Disgusted, Luis considered bashing the trooper over the head to make his escape with the mammoths.

  But maybe drastic action wouldn’t be necessary—Kanut had left his rifle inside the tent.

  While Kanut was occupied with his call, Luis ducked into the tent and quickly emptied the Browning’s magazine. At the first opportunity, he’d dump the cartridges into a handy river. Kanut didn’t seem like a bad man, just a dutiful one. But if he thought his duty meant slaughtering Luis’s mammoths, Luis wasn’t going to make it easy.

  Luis tossed Kanut’s pack and blanket out of the tent and began untying the guylines.

  “My helicopter’s in Cody,” Kanut told the phone. “Hell no. Not till the sky’s clear and a mechanic’s cleaned out the engine. I’ll have to hole up here until . . . Yeah? . . . How far? . . . Well, I’ll ask around and let you know.”

  Luis felt a moment of relief—Kanut hadn’t said anything about the mammoths. Saved by a volcano—for the time being.

  Kanut ended his call and turned to Luis, face grim. “It was some little volcano called Mount Taktuq, only ten miles south of here. There was no warning—no one even knew it was primed to blow. They said it’s still erupting. They’ve evacuated Coldfoot and shut down the Dalton Highway as a precaution. With ash in the air, all flights are grounded everywhere north of Fort Yukon.”

  He eyed Luis rolling up the rainfly, and his mouth hardened, perhaps at the recollection that they weren’t camping together by choice. But he said nothing, just stepped a few paces away to make a call to his wife.

  By the time Kanut came tromping back, Luis had finished stowing the tent and repacked his backpack.

  “Your family all right?” Luis asked. Not that he cared, but it seemed polite to ask.

  “The family’s fine, just scared to death. Karen’s mother’s with them, too nervous to stay by herself. Jesus, I don’t know when I’m gonna get home. I guess I’m stuck in Cody until I get cleared to fly.”

  “You better get on your way,” Luis said. “People in Cody might need help.”

  He laid out the harnesses, wishing Kanut would leave already. The mammoths were just out of sight, reluctant to approach with the stranger standing there. And without Brandon’s help, it would take longer to harness and load them.

  Kanut seemed in no hurry. He just stood, stroking the light stubble on his chin. “You gonna ride that elephant all the way to wherever it is you’re going?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  Kanut nodded at the sacks of supplies. “You seem pretty well provisioned. Got first aid supplies and all in there?”

  “Why? You worried about me?” Luis tapped his foot in impatience. “Don’t be. Brandon and I packed everything we’d need, including medical supplies, for a month in the bush.” It might be forever if this lazy flatfoot didn’t get out of his way.

  Kanut stroked his chin as if urging his sparse whiskers to grow. “You heading southeast?”

  “No.” Luis had no intention of telling Kanut where the herd was headed.

  The trooper nodded slowly. “It’s just that, you see, there’s a woman, one of those flying doctors. She was transporting a patient from an Athabaskan village, and her plane went down about forty miles southeast of here. She and her passengers are okay, but it’s three women all alone in the wildlife refuge, and no aircraft able to fly them out. Since I’m the closest trooper, they want me to find some way to get to them.” He picked up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Good luck with that.” Luis wanted to give the foot-dragging moron a boot in the behind to get him on his way to Cody. Preferably before he realized that Luis had emptied his rifle.

  “The thing is, it’s rough going between here and there, and a river or two to ford. Even if I strong-armed somebody into lending me an ATV, an ATV couldn’t make it.”

  Luis turned to the stack of supplies. “I’m sure you’ll find a way, Officer.”

  “You could do it,” Kanut said. “I’ll bet you and your elephant could cover forty miles in a day.”

  Luis was startled into laughter. “You think I should launch a rescue by mammoth? Ridiculous.”

  Kanut studied his feet a moment before looking up. “Let me put it another way. I haven’t told anybody yet about your mammoths. You get me to this doctor and I’ll forget all about you and your little pets. Otherwise, I’ll get on the horn to Major Butterick and tell him exactly where to find you. I’ll bet the army won’t let a little ash stop them from tracking you down and slaughtering every one of those dangerous animals.”

  CHAPTER 25

  No handlebars

  The fury in Cortez’s eyes made Kanut take a step back. He hoped he hadn’t underestimated the man’s capacity for violence.

  “You wouldn’t,” Cortez said, fists clenched. “If you tell the army, you’ll be responsible for the extinction of the species.”

  Kanut suppressed a smile. He’d sized the mammoth-rider up right: a talker, not a fighter.

  “Mammoths have been extinct for thousands of years. I’d just be keeping the status quo. But in truth, I wouldn’t mind letting them go. All I want is to get help to some brave citizens. We’re talking about a doctor, one who goes the extra mile—hundreds of miles!—to provide health services to people who otherwise wouldn’t have any. My kind of people. With aircraft grounded and all the rough terrain in the way, there’s just no one else who can get to them anytime soon.”

  “It’s ludicrous,” Cortez said. “What possible use could you be if I got you there? Do you think the mammoths are a taxi service?”

  “You’ve got medical supplies and extra food. Once you get me to their location, you and your overgrown musk oxen can go on your way. I’ll look after the survivors until a plane or helicopter can pick them up. All I’m asking for is a lift, and you’ve got the only ride available.”

  “What kind of rescue is that? It’s absurd.” But Cortez’s eyes had gone wary: he was thinking it over.

  So much for the stick. Now he needs a carrot. “Don’t you want to help out?” Kanut waved a hand at the trees enclosing the campsite. “Or are you the kind of environmentalist who cares more about saving the Earth than saving the people who live on it?”

  Cortez sneered. “Could you blame me? People have abused the Earth for thousands of years. Done untold damage, driven animals to extinction. Look at all those jackasses coming up here to homestead. Instead of trying to improve the places they come from, they show up here and trash what little wilderness we have left. In their selfish desire to have a little piece of forest all to themselves, they’re ruining the very place they claim to love—cutting down trees, building fires that add to the carbon in the air. Then, after one nasty winter, they abandon it all, leaving all their rusty tools and tires and plastic crap and garbage behind to pollute the place.”

  “Fair enough. But this woman’s not like that. She’s only out there in the wilderness because she cares enough about Alaska Natives to get them the medical care they need.”

  Cortez’s gaze darted to the brush around them, as if looking for someone to come to his assistance. With a start, Kanut wondered if he was. That mammoth that had wakened them was out of si
ght, but God only knew if it was lurking behind the next bush.

  Whatever Cortez was looking for, he seemed to come to a decision. His mouth tightened, like he was swallowing something bitter.

  “Forty miles,” he said. “Over mountains, with rivers to cross. We couldn’t do it in a day—the mammoths will need to rest and eat. It would take at least two days, maybe more. You know how to ride a horse?”

  “Yeah.” Well, Kanut had ridden one once, at the state fair—and he’d nearly fallen off.

  “This will be harder. It’ll be long days with little comfort, and once we start, there’s no turning back.”

  Kanut gritted his teeth. Did this arrogant incomer think Inupiat were soft? “I’ll manage. And I’ll help, any way I can.”

  Cortez snarled, “You want to help? Then stay out of the way. Hey-up!”

  The aspens rattled almost at Kanut’s elbow, and mammoths appeared as if a magician had waved his wand. Not just one, but four, plus a little one—“little” meaning as big as an ox—tagging at his mama’s heels.

  “Holy mother of God.” Kanut meant it as a prayer. He must have flown right over them yesterday, looking for an illegal pot farm, and never seen a thing.

  They were hideous: towering over him, heads like boulders, and those damn trunks curling like pythons. Their fur was as shaggy as a musk ox’s pelt but matted with clots of gray ash. They looked like zombies freshly risen from an elephants’ graveyard.

  They surrounded Cortez like he was an old friend, huffing and snorting and making deep groaning noises like the gates of hell creaking open. And they stank worse than a wet dog—a wet dog that had eaten beans for supper and then rolled in rotting cabbage.

  The biggest one screeched and came to stand right in front of Kanut, one big eye turned to him and the business end of those gracefully curved tusks pointed in his direction. The trunk rose like a cobra, the two nostrils looking straight at him.

  “Easy, Ruby.” Cortez made throaty growls and patted the mammoth’s trunk. “You’ll have to hide the rifle. Take it out of sight and wrap it in your blanket or something.”

  Kanut used his satphone for another quick call to headquarters. “I found some transport. Er, a civilian with access to topo maps and all-terrain vehicles is going to come with me.” That would be true if you considered a mammoth a vehicle. “Tell the doctor I’m on my way, but it’ll take some time.” The dispatcher answered with relief—all units from Anchorage to Fairbanks were tied up with search-and-rescue and evacuations, and the eruption was continuing.

  By the time Kanut got back with his filled backpack and gift-wrapped firearm, Cortez had harnessed some of the mammoths.

  “Come here,” he said. “This is Topaz. She’ll be your mount today. Stand still and let her smell you.”

  Kanut stiffened as trunks sniffed and poked at him, not just his mount but the other mammoths as well. Nosy old things, he thought. In all meanings of the word.

  Cortez busied himself with the loading: tightening harnesses and strapping saddlebags into place, all the while talking and making noises to the animals. He tied the rifle bundle and Kanut’s backpack to Topaz’s harness, right behind a pad with dangling stirrups.

  There seemed to be even more elephants—mammoths—than before, but with all the shifting and moving, it was hard to keep count. Three had harnesses: two with the flimsy saddles and one loaded with the baggage. At least one other adult and the little one flitted about. “How many mammoths you got in all?” he asked.

  “There’s a couple more,” Cortez said. “All right, we’re ready to mount. If you need a piss, do it now. Once we get going, we’re not stopping for a while.”

  Kanut eyed the stirrups on his mammoth—they sat at the height of Kanut’s chin. “How am I supposed to climb up there? You got a stepladder somewhere?”

  “Topaz, kneel.”

  The beast lowered itself onto back knees, then went chest down so its front legs were bent.

  Cortez slapped the animal’s knee. “Foot here. Now up and swing over.” He grabbed Kanut’s belt and threw him onto the animal’s shoulders.

  As soon as Kanut’s foot left the ground, the mammoth rose. He felt like he was on the tilt-a-whirl.

  “Feet in stirrups!” Cortez shouted.

  While Kanut fumbled with fitting his feet into place, Cortez mounted his own mammoth, much quicker and more gracefully than Kanut had managed. Immediately, Cortez’s mammoth began a quick walk through the brush, rumbling ominously, directly toward the stream.

  Kanut grabbed the only thing available—hair. Long, coarse ash-clogged strands covering a soft fuzz of undercoat. “Where are the reins?” he shouted.

  “No handlebars,” Cortez called over his shoulder. “And no reins. Just sit relaxed. Topaz will follow Ruby.”

  Relax? How? It was like trying to straddle the hood of a car, except the animal’s backbone was inconveniently placed for a man’s anatomy. The saddle’s thin padding did little to cushion Kanut’s backside. The swaying made him queasy as the big animal’s strides carried him at a jogger’s pace.

  They plunged down into the stream. The water ran gray, too heavy with ash to see the bottom.

  Apparently, the mammoths didn’t find it tempting to drink. They waded straight to the other side and up the bank. With barely a pause, they powered through the saplings and bushes, oblivious to the twigs and branches scratching their—and Kanut’s—sides.

  He’s doing it deliberately, Kanut thought. Taking us through the undergrowth to see if I’ll squawk. Well, he underestimates my determination to get to those women.

  All around Kanut, the other animals milled, often close enough to rub flanks or touch his mammoth—or him—with their trunks. Deep sounds seem to come more from their bellies than their throats—he could feel the vibrations even through the saddle.

  I’m in the middle of a herd, he realized. Any attempt to dismount and he’d risk being trampled—or left behind.

  Ahead of him, Cortez half turned. “You still there, Officer?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Kanut answered with more bravado than he felt.

  “I’m going to head them uphill, away from the river, before turning southeast—less chance of meeting anybody. Hang on.”

  Cortez must have had some way to steer, because his beast swerved left to climb a steep rise. The rest followed, their long legs picking their way easily upward between rocks and trees. As the way became steeper, Kanut had to lean forward and grasp the long dirty hair on his animal’s neck.

  At the crest of the ridge, the herd turned right, following the ridgeline, more or less in single file. Kanut was getting more comfortable with balancing on the mammoth’s back, letting his pelvis shift with the animal’s sway. This isn’t so bad, he thought. But he wondered what his back would feel like in the morning.

  Then they plunged downhill—he was practically standing on the stirrups, leaning backward to try to stay on board.

  Don’t fall off. Don’t fall off.

  When they came to more level ground, they turned southeast. The terrain in this part of the woods was still gray with ash, but maybe not quite as heavy a coating as where they’d camped.

  He hoped they’d take a break soon, maybe have some lunch.

  He glanced at his watch and his heart sank. It was only seven in the morning.

  CHAPTER 26

  Slipping away

  Sera jumped right into the plan to make a sled. She used the tie-down ropes woven through the suitcase handles to string the suitcases together. Estelle roped the emergency supplies box on to the end like a tail.

  With Estelle’s help, Annie lay on her stomach on the improvised sled like a six-year-old on a toboggan. Estelle zipped the precious satphone into her jacket pocket. Taking the ends of the ropes, Estelle and Sera began to pull.

  Sled dogs loved that sort of thing. Estelle didn’t.

  The glacier was a river of ice, but in most ways not like a river at all. Rivers moved, changing all the time, rising
in wet times, shrinking in dry spells, undercutting banks here, depositing mud there. Glaciers did all that too, but on a time scale almost incomprehensible to humans. Most of all, the surface of a river was level: the glacier was a frozen avalanche, sloping down the mountainside on its slow way to the ocean.

  “This isn’t exactly like ice skating,” Sera puffed. Jagged spines, gullies, and ice boulders made the hike as challenging as a mountain trail.

  Estelle aimed to take the shortest line to dry land, but the glacier’s slope kept pulling the “sled” downhill, so that for every two steps toward the grassy meadow, they were dragged a half step south.

  Estelle eyed the forbidding jumble of ice sloping away to her left. Going with the flow would not be a good idea.

  Thirty steps, forty. The two human sled dogs were gasping for breath.

  “Stop!” Estelle eyed a slick patch of blue ice. Four yards wide, the ice had an inch of water flowing over it down a gentle slope.

  “A creek on a glacier?” Sera asked.

  “Good drinking water,” Annie said from her suitcase-toboggan.

  Estelle had doubts about the water’s purity—ancient caribou had probably peed on that glacier—but at least they wouldn’t die of thirst.

  The running water’s shiny surface looked as slick as a mirror. It would take a dozen careful, mincing steps to cross it. A set of crampons would be real helpful, right about now.

  “I’ll go first,” Estelle said. “Once I get across the slippery bit, Sera can use the rope to steady herself as she crosses. Then we’ll both pull Annie over.”

  Cautiously, Estelle stepped into the stream, Sera feeding the rope out as she crossed the blue ice. One step, then another.

  Her left foot slipped, just an inch. Estelle wobbled, trying to keep her balance. There! Yes, steady—but her feet slipped out from under her.

  Bang! Estelle’s hip slammed down and she was sliding down the icy slope.

  “Ah!” The rope wrapped around Estelle’s wrist jerked taut, halting her slide but nearly pulling her arm out of its socket. Flat on the ice, freezing water ran down her sleeve, drenching her in moments. She craned to look back. “Sera!”