by Stan Jones
He dug into the survival kit again and came up with a Ziploc bag of Butterfingers. Active peeled his open and reflected that there probably were, in fact, worse places on earth to be than huddled around a campfire in the fog on a slough somewhere along the Isignaq River with a bowlful of caribou stew in his stomach and that first salty, chocolaty, sugary bite of Butterfinger sliding down his throat.
Pudu scooped the stewpot full of snow and fired up the stove again to melt water for what little dish washing would be done, then hiked off into the willows to answer the call of nature.
“We probably should think about sleeping arrangements,” Mercer said. “How big’s your tent, Cowboy?”
“Actually, we can all sleep in the plane, if you don’t mind sitting up.”
“I do,” Mercer said. “So, the tent?”
“It’ll take two easy, three maybe. Four could be a problem. But you and Pudu can have the Arctic Oven and we boys can sleep in Two-Five-Sierra, right, Nathan? I’ll hafta run the engine now and again to keep her alive, which will warm up the interior, plus my sleeping bags are pretty good.”
Active nodded.
“I don’t know,” Mercer said. “I think Pudu—”
Just then the boy crunched back up from his trip to the woods.
“They want you to sleep in the tent, Pudu,” she said. “Don’t you need to back up your memory cards and charge your batteries?”
“Oh, yeah,” Pudu said. “Every night, all right. I gotta be in the plane.”
Mercer raised her eyebrows. “Looks like it’s the Arctic Oven for you and me, Nathan.”
“Us? In the tent? All night? Won’t Tundrabunny and the bloggers…you know?”
“Let’em. They’re gonna sexualize everything I do, anyway. Better they say I spent a night in a tent with a cop than my own son.” She brightened. “I know—I’ll bring in Cowboy’s rifle and put it between us!”
Active could think of nothing to say, so he said, “Cowboy’s rifle.”
“Posilutely,” Mercer said.
“My rifle,” Cowboy said.
Mercer nodded. “That way, if Nathan tries anything in the Arctic Oven, I’m all set.” She flashed them the campaign grin. “And if the bloggers try to make something out of it, well, by golly, I’ll show ‘em my rifle and you can show’em your great big Glock. Right, Nathan?”
“Right, Suka.” Active hoped he sounded less doomed than he felt as he pictured himself explaining this to Grace. “I’ll get the tent.”
Active set up the Arctic Oven over a mat of spruce boughs as snow sifted down, and the murk deepened. Mercer waited by the fire and Cowboy and Pudu pulled the seats out of the 207 and set up their own beds on the cabin floor.
“Been kind of a taxing day,” Active said when the tent was ready. “I guess I should unroll the sleeping bags. You got a light, Cowboy?”
The pilot handed over an LED flashlight, then rummaged in the back of the plane and came up with two sleeping pads and a puffy, down-filled sleeping bag.
“Just one?” Active muttered. “I’m not sharing a bag with that wo—” he glanced at Pudu and Mercer, who might or might not be within earshot “—with the governor.”
“It’s a Woods double-single,” Cowboy muttered back. “It’s all in how you zip it. Strictly your choice, Nathan.” He looked at Mercer, eyes aglow in the firelight. “Or hers.”
Active headed back to the tent. As he passed the fire, Mercer spotted the Woods.
“Just one?” she asked. “That’ll be cozy.”
“Don’t worry, Suka. It zips apart into two singles.”
“Oh, the double will be fine,” she said as he pushed into the Arctic Oven.
Active pulled his head out of the tent. “Seriously? The double?”
“Of course. After all, I’ve got Cowboy’s trusty .308.” She patted the rifle propped on the log beside her.
Active stooped into the Arctic Oven, tucked the flashlight under his chin, laid out the pads, and unfurled the bag in the center of the floor so they could get in and out without crawling over each other. He shucked off his parka and rolled it up for a pillow, kicked off his Sorels, then slid into the bag in his RefrigiWear and stocking feet. “All set in here,” he called out.
Mercer came into the tent on all fours, then turned and closed the flaps in the beam of his flashlight.
He debated turning off the light so she could undress if she wanted to. Then he decided he didn’t want her to, and left it on. He watched in unease as she studied the layout, taking in the parka rolled up under his head and the straps of the snowgo suit looped over his shoulders.
She took off her own parka, wadded it up, and dropped it at the head of her side of the bag. She hesitated, tapping her lips with a forefinger.
He waited, then caved. “Would you like the light off?”
“No, this’ll be fine.” She kicked off her own Sorels and slid into the bag in her snowgo suit. “Good night, Nathan. And thanks for everything.”
“My pleasure.” He switched off the flashlight and tucked it into a pocket of his RefrigiWear to keep the batteries warm.
An alarm bell went off in his head. He pulled out the flashlight and switched it on again. “Did you forget the rifle?”
Mercer raised her head and peered around the tent. “Did I? Gosh, I guess so.” She gazed at him. “But surely I’m safe with a sworn officer of the law.” She rolled away and pulled the bag over her head.
“You should leave a breathing hole,” Active said after another debate with himself. “Otherwise the bag will ice up.”
“I’m from around here. Remember?”
“Of course, sorry.” He switched off the light, rolled away from Mercer, covered his own head, and made his own breathing hole.
“It’s OK, Nathan. I’m not a complete twit, no matter what they say in the lamestream media.”
Boots crunched up to the tent in the dark. “Hey, guys, don’t panic, but I’m gonna warm up Two-Five-Sierra before Pudu and I bed down,” Cowboy said.
“No problem, Cowboy,” Mercer said.
“You two sleep tight in there,” Cowboy said.
“You mind your own business. Nathan and I will be just fine.” There was a hint of feline rumble in her voice. “Won’t we, Nathan?”
“Just fine.”
A few seconds later, the Cessna coughed to life. The engine was still turning over when Active drifted off to sleep, as far as he could get from Helen Mercer without unzipping his side of the bag and curling up on the floor in the cold.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sunday, April 13
THREE TIMES IN the night, the Cessna rumbled Active awake for a few seconds. Then his brain identified the sound and he drifted off again.
The next time Cowboy started the plane, twilight suffused the tent. Active realized this must be what passed for dawn in the foggy bottomlands of the Isignaq. He pulled on his Sorels and parka while Mercer slept.
He crawled out to find Pudu at work over Cowboy’s camp stove as Two-Five-Sierra idled nearby, fanning snow across the slough behind it. Steam wafted up from a coffee pot, smelling as only coffee could on a cold morning. A saucepan simmered on the burner next to it.
Active poured himself a cup of coffee the color of crude oil and pointed at the saucepan. “Is that oatmeal?”
“Arii, that Cowboy, no Eskimo food in his plane,” Pudu said with a dour look. “This kinda weather, you need quaq and seal oil, but I put in some of that caribou.”
“That sounds good.”
“Build a fire in your belly, all right.”
Active headed into the brush for a few minutes. He returned as Mercer crawled out of the Arctic Oven. She yawned, stretched, and peered about, parka still open over the black snowgo suit.
“What’s that, Mom?” Pudu pointed at Mercer’s throat. Then Active saw them, too, a pair of angry red welts down the side of her neck. One showed a few beads of blood.
“What?” Mercer touched the place. “Ouch! How did that happ
en?”
Pudu drew the parka aside and studied the welts. “I dunno, look like maybe on the zipper of your sleeping bag when you’re getting out?”
“I am such a klutz!” Mercer inspected the damage in her selfie camera. “But as long as they’re there, let’s get some video for Facebook and YouTube—further proof you never know what’ll happen in the Alaskan Bush!”
Pudu went to the plane for his video camera. Active passed Mercer his handkerchief. She started to dab at the scratches, then seemed to think better of it.
Active gave up the attempt to figure her out, scooped caribou oatmeal into a bowl and spooned it down. Caribou did punch up a clump of amorphous gray mush. He had to admit that.
As Pudu shoot footage of the scratches on the First Neck, it occurred to Active that Mercer might well have scratched herself on purpose, just to get the video. What would Tundrabunny make of it when it hit the Internet?
Cowboy shut down the plane, covered the engine, crunched over to the stove, and filled a bowl with the caribou oatmeal. “The Air Guard’s got a C-130 overhead,” he said in a tone of wonder. “All the way from Anchorage. I was just on the radio with ’em. Apparently they’ve been up there a couple hours now waiting for us to get up and turn on the radio.”
“A C-130?” Active said. A C-130 was a giant four-engine transport plane about as capable of landing on the Isignaq as a space shuttle. Active craned his neck and squinted up at the fog. Maybe he heard engines in the sky, maybe not. “I thought you said it would be snowgos from Walker or Isignaq.”
Cowboy mumbled something that never made it past the oatmeal in his mouth, then swallowed. “Apparently there’s a TV crew on board.”
“Ah,” Active said.
“That’s my Air Guard.” Mercer grinned as she dabbed the welts with Active’s handkerchief. “Always got my back.”
Then Active remembered that Mercer had appointed her sister’s husband commander of the Alaska Air Guard.
Cowboy, his mouth now clear of oatmeal, reminded them that, as of yesterday’s landing, he had expected to be able to fly out this morning. “But now I’m guessing we could have another twenty-four hours of this stuff.” He jerked a thumb at the Cessna that popped and rang as it cooled down behind him. “Looks like Two-Five-Sierra ain’t goin’ nowhere today.”
“Arigaa!” Pudu said. “Maybe I’ll catch some caribou, all right.”
“What!” Mercer said. “I’m not staying here another day. Cowboy, you do something!”
“It’s already being done, ma’am. A bunch of guys on snowgos left Isignaq a couple hours ago. They should be here any time now.”
“They can find us in this stuff?” Mercer waved a hand at the fog around them. “Really?”
“Of course,” Cowboy said. “They know this slough. They know everything in this country.”
“Of course,yeah.” From Mercer’s expression, Active sensed Cowboy might pay a price for suggesting she had lost touch with how things worked in the Bush.
Active picked up the faint whine of snowgo engines through the fog. He, Mercer, and Pudu turned as one to look down the slough.
“Is that them?” Mercer asked.
“Is that who?” Cowboy cocked his head, then turned to look as even his damaged ears caught the sound. “Yeah, must be. We probably oughta get you packed up.”
“But wait,” Mercer said. “Snowgos? All the way back to Chukchi? I mean, nothing’s flying, right? I don’t want to ride a snowgo all that way.”
“No problem, Governor. Roland Sweetsir’s with ’em. He’ll wait out on the main river while the snowgos get you off of this slough, then he’ll drive you back to Chukchi.”
Mercer beamed. “Homin’ home to home in Chukchi with Isignaq Ready-Ride! What could be more perfect?” Then she paused in thought. “Will the TV people be there when we arrive? Is Alaska Airlines getting into Chukchi in this stuff? Or the Air Guard?”
“Not even the Air Guard, ma’am. Chukchi’s still flat on its back. They’ve got the same fog as us, plus a hellacious crosswind.”
“No matter,” Mercer said. “Pudu can always get some tape of it. Right, Pudu?”
Pudu raised his eyebrows, yes.
The snowgos buzzed closer as Mercer, Active, and Pudu packed up for the trip to Chukchi. Cowboy struck the Arctic Oven, stuffed it into its bag, and threw it into the back of the Cessna as two snowgos swam out of the fog, dogsleds behind, and pulled up at the plane.
“You better get your stuff into one of the sleds,” Active told Cowboy as Mercer walked over to where drivers stretched and stamped to un-kink muscles and warm up.
“Nah, I’m gonna wait it out here.” He pointed at a half-dozen red jerry jugs on one of the sleds. “See that avgas? Our agent in Isignaq sent it up. Somebody’s gotta keep Two-Five-Sierra warm or it’ll take most of a day to get her thawed out and started by the time this stuff does move out and I can get back up here from Chukchi to take her back. So I might as well stay.”
Cowboy moved the jerry jugs to the bank of the slough while the other three loaded their duffle and the governor’s caribou kill into the sleds. Active and Pudu each took a seat in the basket of a sled, where the riders from Isignaq had stashed the customary caribou hides and sleeping bags for cross-country travel by snowgo. Mercer hopped on the seat behind the best-dressed of the drivers and insisted Pudu get out and unpack his camera once more to get video as she started down the slough.
As Active bounced along in the dogsled behind the snowgo carrying Mercer, he looked back. Cowboy sat on one of Two-Five-Sierra’s wheels, a Marlboro at his lips, and watched them go.
CHAPTER NINE
Sunday, April 13
TWO MILES DOWN the slough, the snowgos pulled up at Roland Sweetsir’s rusty yellow Suburban, a plume of steam rising from the tailpipe to dissipate in the fog. The rig had “Isignaq Ready-Ride” painted in big red letters on the doors, and “Rut-Rider” in little black ones on the front fenders.
Roland himself was a 50-something Inupiaq with silver hair, a black Native Pride ball cap, and—even on this cold day—a windbreaker.
“Roland,” Active said as they exchanged a single-pump handshake. “Been a while.”
Roland raised his eyebrows. “Ever since that bootlegging case, ah?”
Active nodded back. “And you know the governor, I understand?”
Roland and Mercer bobbed heads in unison. “Roland took my basketball team back to Chukchi once when the weather went down. Remember that, Roland?”
“Ah-hah,” Roland said. “Safe and sound.” He swept an arm downriver toward the village named for the Isignaq. “It ain’t a nice road, but it’s an ice road! It’s gone when it’s hot, but it’s here when it’s not!”
Active and Mercer chuckled at Roland’s ancient joke. Even Pudu, who had brought out his camera without a prod from his mother, grinned a little, sucked into the driver’s whirlwind of affability.
“All right,” Roland said. “Everybody ready for a little rut-ride?”
He swung open the Suburban’s cargo doors and they threw their duffle into the back, then climbed in. As in Two-Five Sierra, Pudu took the front passenger seat so he could get video of the governor on her ride down the Isignaq. She took the left seat in back and Active the right.
Active shrugged off his parka in the heat of the interior and started to toss it on the duffle in the rear. Then he realized what their road was made of, and what was under it, and rolled the parka into a ball and set it on his lap. If they went through, maybe it would keep him afloat long enough to matter. After a little more thought, he loosened the laces of his Sorels so they’d be easy to kick off.
Soon they were rocking along at sixty in the fog. Occasionally, the line of trail markers made of spruce saplings bent around a patch of slush or new ice that meant the Isignaq was frozen almost to the bottom and that the water, in its relentless fashion, had found its way out along the edges and spread over the top of safe, solid ice. The problem was, sometimes what looked li
ke overflow was instead a hole in that ice, with the cold, hungry, green-black Isignaq waiting below to swallow up a snowgo or a Suburban. Active remembered two Trooper searches, both futile, for travelers who had gone through the ice on the Isignaq, though he had never heard of one that involved Isignaq Ready-Ride.
Roland passed around a thermos of coffee and tuned in Kay-Chuck just in time for Gospel Hour. After “I Saw the Light” and “I’ll Fly Away,” they listened to a news report about Alaska’s governor being forced down in the wilderness with only her son, a Bush pilot, and a Bush cop for company.
“But the Alaska Air Guard reports the party is safe,” Roger Kennelly said. “The Isignaq village rescue team left just before dawn this morning to pick the party up from Shelukshuk Canyon. They’ll be riding back to Chukchi with Isignaq Ready-Ride so, with any luck, the governor should make it here for the musher’s banquet tomorrow night and personally present the trophy to the first-place finisher. Speaking of which, the report from Isignaq village is, Bunky Ivanoff was out first, with Brad Mercer hot on his heels. So perhaps the governor will be presenting that trophy to her very own husband!”
The travelers erupted in cheers and Gospel Hour resumed with “Prettiest Flowers” as rendered by a couple of devout Inupiat sisters named Suelene and Rae-Anne Williams.
“Maybe Dad’s gonna pull it out, ah, Mom?” Pudu said.
“That would be super,” Mercer said.
After that, no one said anything, and the Williams sisters filled the Ready-Ride, their strong, plaintive voices a perfect match for the yearning tone of the lyrics. The Williamses were famous around Chukchi for accompanying themselves on the accordion, which was Active’s favorite thing about “Prettiest Flowers.” That, and the third verse with its reference to “eternal morning in the sky, where we will never say goodbye.”
He leaned his head on the backrest and closed his eyes for a nap in the warm cocoon of the Suburban and was pondering the eternal question of whether he and Grace would ever get their eternal morning when Pudu shouted from the front seat. “Arii, Roland, you’re gonna hit it.”