Project Hannibal

by Kathryn Hoff

  “Sera!” Estelle called again. Why would she have gone that way? There was nothing in that direction . . . except the plane.

  Estelle helped Annie get seated again, propped up against a suitcase.

  “Go after her,” Annie urged.

  Estelle hesitated. No wolves were howling at the moment—did that mean they were someplace else? Or were they creeping closer, hidden in the grass? “We should stay together. The wolves might be around.”

  “Oh, fiddlesticks.” Annie’s eyes were bright. “They won’t bother with a tough old bird like me. Go after that girl and make sure she’s all right.”

  Estelle started up the hill, following the slight trail through the grass. Tiny squeaks and scritches at her feet told of little creatures scurrying in panic out of her path. At every step, disturbed insects flew out of the way. Note to self: check for ticks. The place was probably alive with them, just waiting for a warm-blooded mammal to come barging through.

  I’m a city girl. Forests and fields are not the place for me.

  The gray clouds seemed a little brighter to the west. It was afternoon, then. Surely it wasn’t still Friday? It must be Saturday by now, two days since the plane went down.

  “Sera!” Where was the blessed girl? With the food gone, they should be conserving energy. Hadn’t Estelle set a rule about Sera letting her know where she was going? I ought to pack her right back to New Orleans as soon as we’re rescued.

  Right. As soon as we’re rescued.

  Estelle’s anger turned to regret. Sera trusted me. She came to me for refuge, and what have I done? Brought her to die on a cold mountainside far from home. Had the wolves come upon her too quickly for her to cry out? Had she called for help with the last of her strength while Estelle slept? Were those dreams of the Chicago emergency room, running from one crisis to another, triggered by Sera’s cries of terror?

  “Sera!” Estelle shouted. “Where are you?”

  No response.

  From this angle, the Cessna looked pathetic. Tilted askew, left wing dug into the ice, propeller hopelessly bent. Anyone coming upon the wreck would approach with trepidation, fearing to see their rotted corpses still strapped into the seats.

  Maybe they still were. The old tales of spirits and haunts lingered in Estelle’s memory, sending a chill up her spine. Maybe we all died in the crash. Maybe we’re really nothing but ghosts, doomed to wander this hillside forever in eternal cloud-covered dusk, no sunrise or sunset and no way to count the days because for us, time stands still.

  Through eyes blurred with tears, Estelle could almost see the bodies still in the cockpit.

  Then one of them moved.

  Estelle froze, heart in her throat.

  A high voice fluted, “Aunt Estelle? Up here!” A slender hand reached out the cockpit window.

  Estelle muttered, “I’m going to murder that girl.”

  Now that Estelle was closer, she could see a rope that stretched from a boulder toward the plane. Clever girl. She’d had the sense to give herself a safety rope so she wouldn’t slide down the glacier again. It didn’t reach all the way to the plane, but she’d obviously made it over the last few yards to the plane somehow.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Estelle called.

  “Charging the phone.”

  Damn fool girl. What was the dire need to recharge the satphone? Estelle would have told her not to risk it. Alaska Eagle Med already had their GPS location, no need to keep calling them. “Serafina Marie Dupris, you come back right this minute!”

  The passenger door opened, and Sera’s face peered out. “It’s all right. Just a little more and the phone will be charged enough.”

  “Sera, please. I don’t want to leave Annie alone so long.”

  “Ten minutes. Just give me ten more minutes.”

  Estelle sat on the ground, undecided whether Sera should be sternly lectured for going off without telling anyone or congratulated for her initiative. Being Sera’s substitute mother was going to turn Estelle’s hair gray—if they both lived that long.

  “Sera?”

  “Hold on to your hair. It’s only been five minutes.”

  The five minutes seemed to last an hour. Finally, Sera stepped down out of the plane. Clinging from handhold to handhold, she worked her way to the plane’s tail.

  Her clothes were odd: socks for gloves and a sweater tied around each knee. The reason became clear when, as she reached the tail rudder, she dropped to hands and knees.

  Sera crawled slowly over the ice. Each time she crept forward, she paused to brush gravel out of her path, but still the jagged ice must have been murder on palms and kneecaps.

  When she was close enough to grasp the end of the rope—the tie-downs they’d used to string together Annie’s “sled”—Sera carefully rose to her feet. With a shuffling gait, she half walked, half skated across the slick blue ice under the meltwater brook.

  Estelle held her breath—and her end of the rope. Oh, Sera. She’d “secured” the end of the rope by catching it under a boulder—but if Sera had fallen, it would never have held her weight.

  When Sera reached the rocky moraine, Estelle pulled her up the bank and grabbed her, hugging her tight. “That was a brave, brave, stupid thing to do. If you had asked me . . .”

  “You would have told me not to,” Sera finished, handing Estelle the satphone. “I know. But this was something I had to do, for me.”

  She turned and, using her cellphone, snapped a photo of the broken Cessna.

  Estelle’s jaw dropped. “Pictures? You risked your life so you could take selfies?” Taking a risk to charge the satphone was one thing—the satphone was their only line of communication to civilization. But Sera’s sparkly purple cellphone? Without a cell tower, it was utterly useless—except for indulging the narcissistic teen obsession with chronicling every event in pictures.

  Sera crossed her arms, lip pouted out. “Will you listen?”

  “You are the most . . .” Pigheaded? Ungrateful? Stupid? Words Estelle had heard from her parents all through her adolescence. Words that had hurt and done nothing to make her into the passive, obedient child her parents seemed to want her to be.

  Estelle took a breath and began again. “I was terrified. I didn’t know where you were and I was afraid . . . afraid I’d lost you, too.” Her eyes teared up. “I can’t. I can’t lose you, too.”

  This time it was Sera who enveloped Estelle in an embrace as the sobs Estelle couldn’t stop came tumbling out.

  “It’s all right,” Sera said. “You won’t lose me. Not yet, anyway.”

  Estelle held off demanding an explanation until she and Sera had rejoined Annie.

  According to the newly revived satphone, it was four o’clock Saturday afternoon, two days after they’d left Rainbow. The satphone’s small amount of power—Sera had apparently charged the purple cellphone first—was enough for Estelle to call Central and demand to know when help was coming.

  “Soon,” she told Annie and Sera, deeply unsatisfied. “That’s all they could tell me. Some state trooper is on his way and should be here within a day.”

  “What kind of a rescue is that?” Sera asked. “It’s been two days. Is he coming by rowboat or something?”

  Estelle shook her head. “And now, young lady, please explain why you thought it was so vital to charge your cellphone when there’s no cell tower within a hundred miles of here.”

  Sera caught her lower lip under her teeth. “I’m sorry I worried you. I didn’t think I’d be gone so long, but it took longer than I thought it would to cross the ice.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of Mom.” Sera turned away for a moment, blinking. “You saw the note she left. ‘Sorry.’ No explanation, nothing to help me understand. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Maybe we’re all going to die out here. But if we do, I want to leave behind something meaningful. So as long as I can, I’m going to take pictures and tell our story. That way, even if the worst happens, there will
be something left. And you’re both part of the story, so you should tell your part, too. I don’t know how long the charge will last on my phone, so think about what you want to say, and when you’re ready, I’ll record you.”

  What could she say to that? Estelle had no words, only emotion. Awe that this barely grown girl should have such maturity. Shame that Estelle had thought her shallow enough to take risks for a trivial pleasure. Grief that Marie would never know what a wonderful young woman her daughter had become. Fear that the world would lose Sera to this wilderness and know her only by the last recordings on her sparkly purple cellphone.

  “Thank you, dear,” Annie said. “I’d like to do that.” She nudged Estelle.

  “Yes,” Estelle managed. “I’d like that, too.” She squeezed Sera’s hand. “I’m so proud of you.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Taking the plunge

  Breakneck speed. Kanut seemed to be living a definition of the term as his mammoth charged up the steep hillside.

  He leaned low over the beast’s shoulders, clinging to its long fur, feet tucked under the harness in a desperate bid to hang on.

  Then they reached the top of the ridge and plunged down, sliding and lunging between spruce trees. Kanut shut his eyes to protect them from twigs whipping past.

  His mammoth stopped, so suddenly that Kanut had to grab fur to keep from falling off.

  The mammoths were milling around on the bank of a rock-filled river.

  “You’re not planning to cross here, are you?” Kanut called.

  Cortez was on the ground beside the cargo mammoth, digging something out of the sacks of supplies. “Not sure there’s anywhere better.” He nodded right. “Upstream, it just gets steeper. Downstream, another stream joins. At least it looks shallow enough here that the mammoths can walk instead of swim.”

  “Can they? Swim, I mean?”

  “Sure.” Cortez pulled out a bundle of rope. “I’m just worried about Jet—we may have to help him over the deep spots, or he’ll get swept away. Better put on your rain jacket, we might get wet.”

  Jet seemed to be the littlest mammoth, if you could call something the size of a musk ox “little.” Cortez clipped a harness over him, then tied a length of rope from the little guy’s harness to the harness of his own mount, Ruby.

  “Try to stay on the downstream side of Jet,” Cortez said. “That way Emerald can steady him if he gets spooked or loses his footing.”

  “Like I know how to steer?”

  Cortez gave an exasperated sigh, like everyone should know how to drive a mammoth. “Press forward behind the ears to go forward, push right foot forward to turn her head left, left foot forward to turn right. Rub your heels down her sides to tell her to stop.”

  The bastard. “You couldn’t have told me this yesterday?”

  “Keep an eye on Jet’s trunk—he can breathe through it like a snorkel as long as it’s above water.”

  Cortez mounted his mammoth and yelled tcha over the roar of the rapids. The lead mammoth surged forward, picking her way down the bank to the rushing river.

  Little Jet hung back until his twenty-foot tether to Ruby began to pull him forward. And, like any self-respecting creature, Jet dug his feet in, bleating like a goat, resisting being pulled down a slope he wasn’t ready for.

  Time for a little incentive. Kanut slipped off his rain jacket and snapped it like a whip at Jet’s backside.

  With a startled cry, Jet scrambled down the bank.

  Kanut’s mount, Emerald, uttered a low growl.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said. “It was just a swat on the fanny.” Then he pitched forward and grabbed fur as Emerald descended the bank.

  Water lapped at the lead mammoth’s belly, soaking her fur. Trunk held high, she didn’t look back.

  The other mammoths milled after her, some slowly easing their way into the water, some plodding doggedly straight in.

  Little Jet put a foot into the water, then backed up comically. Kanut couldn’t hear him crying over the rushing river but saw his mouth opening.

  Ruby paused at hearing Jet’s call but waded in two more steps, the rope tugging on Jet’s harness.

  As more of the mammoths entered the river, Emerald took a step into the water, but Kanut scraped his heels back to keep her with the little guy.

  Kanut was about ready to give Jet another swat when the little mammoth got brave enough to jump into the water and scramble toward his mama.

  So far, so good. Both feet forward, then steer left to stay downstream from the little mammoth. The icy water splashed over boulders, soaking Kanut’s boot.

  Emerald paused in midstream, dipping her trunk in the water.

  “Oh, no. Please don’t.” Kanut rushed to throw his rain jacket over his shoulders just as Emerald’s trunk came up and sprayed freezing water all over her back—and Kanut.

  “Think that’s funny, don’t you?” he sputtered.

  Emerald trumpeted. Probably gloating. Kanut kicked forward. “Stop playing and keep up.”

  One of the mammoths had pulled ahead of Ruby and was already clambering up the far bank. It was steep—the mammoth slipped twice before reaching higher ground.

  A harrowing scream came from behind as the huge, long-tusked male threw himself into the river. Diamond barreled ahead with maximum noise—trumpeting, splashing, and swinging his trunk, jostling the others like a teenaged boy showing off.

  The other adult elephants in the water surged ahead, trying to get out of Diamond’s way.

  Diamond plunged forward. As he passed between Ruby and Jet, his tree-trunk legs snagged Jet’s tether.

  Little Jet stumbled. His squeal rose above the river’s clamor as he fell on his side.

  Kanut’s shout was lost in the river’s roar. As Diamond splashed and thrashed at the tangling rope, Jet’s head sank under water.

  With an angry trumpet, the big bull cleared the rope and clambered to the opposite bank, but Jet had rolled, snarling himself tighter in the rope. The little mammoth’s legs kicked wildly, but he couldn’t seem to find his way upright.

  “Right, forward, stop!” Kanut kicked confused instructions, but his mammoth seemed to know where to go—she pivoted in midstream and stepped to the struggling youngster’s side.

  But that was it. She flopped her trunk a bit but seemed helpless to figure out how to pull Jet upright.

  The rope tightened as Cortez urged Ruby forward, perhaps thinking that the little mammoth only needed encouragement.

  “No!” Kanut waved his arms and shouted. “He’s tangled! Tangled!” How long could a mammoth stay under water?

  Cortez looked back, puzzled.

  To hell with this. Kanut slid off Emerald into the hip-deep river. Water soaked his crotch and flooded into his boots. Damn, it’s cold. “Stay here, sweetheart,” he begged.

  Two steps brought him to where the little mammoth lay on his side. Kanut fished around under water with both hands until he found Jet’s trunk. Grabbing it was like trying to catch an anaconda with hands stiff with cold while the river tried its best to push him downstream.

  The trunk weighed more than he expected, more like a firehose than a garden hose. He pulled it above the water. Breathe, baby, breathe. Water dribbled out the end.

  Part of Kanut’s brain asked what he was doing. The army wanted all these animals dead. Why not let nature take its course?

  Because drowning while tangled in a rope isn’t nature. If the mammoth was brought down by a wolf, well, that’s nature’s way of feeding carnivores. But a pointless death brought about by human carelessness? That was different.

  Or maybe he was getting to like the smelly creatures.

  With a mighty sneeze, the little mammoth—his head still under water—blew his trunk clear and started to suck and blow.

  Cortez finally splashed up. He clasped Jet’s trunk in both hands and shouted over the roar of the river, “Do you have a knife?”

  As if Kanut would ever be unprepared. He fished his
buck knife from its pocket on his tactical vest and began sawing away at the rope.

  The rope parted. The wet lump of mammoth wriggled and struggled. At last, Jet’s head poked above the water. His eyes rolled wildly, but Ruby was right there to lay a reassuring trunk on his head.

  Kanut snapped the knife shut and slipped it back into his pocket. Damn it, I’m not losing that, too.

  Cortez grinned and used a boulder to boost himself onto his mount’s shoulder.

  Kanut turned to remount Emerald—but she was gone, climbing the opposite bank with the rest of the herd.

  “Climb on Jet!” Cortez shouted.

  Ridiculous. Kanut clambered onto the mammoth he just saved from drowning, using Jet’s wet, hairy back as a stepstone. A foot into the mesh of Ruby’s harness and Cortez grabbed his arm, pulling Kanut up behind him.

  Then they were off, riding double across the river: thoroughly wet, freezing cold, and completely exhausted.

  CHAPTER 33

  Last words

  Estelle wondered if Sera realized the challenge she’d given them, to come up with a last message to the world. For the first time, Estelle understood something of the verbal paralysis that her sister Marie must have experienced facing a blank piece of paper on her last day. Whatever was in her heart and mind, anything she chose to write would never have been enough. Perhaps a simple apology was the best she could manage.

  Sera, on the other hand, seemed to have a lot to say. She whispered into the phone her anger that her mother had chosen to die, and her forgiveness. Her admiration for the people she’d met in Rainbow, scraping life out of a harsh natural world, supporting themselves and one another with generosity and without envy of the world beyond the village. Her sorrow that Rufus, a man she’d never met, had crossed her path only in death. Her wonder at watching the drama and joy of a birth. Most of all, her fierce determination to survive the aftermath of the plane crash, and her hope that if she didn’t, her final message would bring comfort to her grandparents and friends.

  Annie seemed to have shrunk from the day she’d left Rainbow, hunched over and trying to stifle the growls of her empty stomach. Still, she asked Estelle to prop her up for her message to posterity. Looking remarkably unruffled, she expressed hope that she would see her son, her husband, and all her loved ones again, if not in this life, then in the next.