CHAPTER 5: WHITE-OUT ON THE TRAIL.
Shortly after this conversation, Tarleton had no time to think further about their strange discoveries. Even going downhill, the blizzard caught them well before they reached the glacier that had forced them inland. A wall of white swept over them. Tarleton had heard of the dreaded white-outs but this was the first he'd experienced. It would be useless as well as irresponsibly dangerous to carry on and Chugach, after speaking with his brother, suggested they stop and wait it out. Accordingly, the team drew the sleds together and the men hunkered down in their lea whilst the huskies curled up with their noses covered by their tails.
The weather on Baffin Island was always unpredictable and at the start of the short summer there was always a chance of a return to winter weather but this snowfall was the worst the two Inuit had ever seen. Quickly the dogs were hummocks underneath the snow and the men were sunk in misery. The temperature dropped still further until their beards and eyebrows were frosted. Even through their scarves it was painful to draw breath.
Yet it was the wind that was the worst. The howling, roaring, shrieking wind that sounded like the call of the banshee. The wind that clutched and clawed and chilled to the bone. The wind dropping the temperature to far below freezing, the wind that would eventually kill unless it eased soon.
The temperature dropped still more and the snowstorm intensified. The two Inuits put their heads together. They said this was the worst storm of the worst winter – far worse than any legend from their grandfather's grandfather time. Yet this was no winter storm. This was far worse. Supernatural. Otherworldly.
For hours the team crouched behind the minimal shelter of their sleds. Yet it was the snow itself that saved them from the heat-sapping wind. Gradually it formed an insulating blanket around the men as they huddled together, saving their lives. They cleared snow away from their faces and sat, lost in their own thoughts until the gale finally blew itself out.
The wind slowed, the shrieks and screams of its banshee wails subsided to a low moan and the snow eased until only the final few flurries fell. With difficulty, their joints numbed by the strength-sapping cold, every muscle seemingly locked in place the men slowly stood, knocking inches of snow from their bodies. They looked about in amazement. Where there had once been a rocky trail leading from the plain, there was now just an expanse of whiteness. Looking up, even the flanking mountains were covered in white snow.
The only good thing was that the sky was a cloudless blue. That cold pure blue only to be found in the high latitudes.
"Blown itself out," said Dr. Welham looking up into the expanse. The men grinned with relief at their survival. Now the snow-storm had ended the air temperature started creeping upwards again. Dr. Welham suggested they brew up and eat. Get some much needed warmth into their bodies. Chugach approached and said that it would be best not to stay here too long. Pointing up at the snow clad slopes, he said there was a danger of avalanches once the Arctic sun warmed up the snow. Respecting the guide's experience, the men hurried their meal and then rousted out the huskies from their hollows.
Now the snow was deep and drifts crossed the track. All the men took turns breaking the trail for the dog-sleds to follow, a slow, back-breaking task, especially when wearing snow-shoes. It was a hard slog, exhausting and at times the drifts over-topped the men. Taking his turn, Tarleton wondered how long this snow-field would go on for. It was much harder work than helping push the sleds up hill on the outward journey.
Crashing through a six foot drift, trampling down the loose packed snow, Tarleton rounded a rocky outcrop. He stopped, amazed, and stood, panting with exertion, staring at the vista before him. The thick, fresh snow stopped abruptly. Where he stood was deep snow and then, only a few yards ahead, it was the rocky, wind-swept trail they had come up on the outward journey. Tarleton pushed onwards and a moment later was shaking snow from his clothes onto the rocks.
Shortly after, Chugach broke through the last drift, followed by the first dog team. The Inuit looked around him, equally as astounded as Tarleton had been. The man knelt, crossed himself and said a prayer in his own language.
Dr. Welham was the next through the gap. Like the others, he was stunned by the sudden end of the snow-field. "We must have been right on the edge of the blizzard," he said. Tarleton nodded. It made sense but he'd never seen anything like it before in the harsh New England winters of home.
As soon as Iluliaq came through, Chugach conferred with his brother in their own language before speaking with Dr. Welham. They both looked nervous,
"We should hurry. That one bad storm. Maybe other storms come," Chugach said, backed up by Iluliaq's nods.
It was easier now with just a thin, hard-packed layer of snow gliding beneath the runners, especially as they were mostly going downhill. Tarleton smiled. After that terrible snowstorm, this was the Arctic at its best. The sun shone out of a clear blue sky onto snow-fields of pristine purity. Their breath formed plumes into the crisp but not sub-zero air. Dr. Welham reminded the men to wear their goggles to stop snow blindness.
Behind them, there was a rumble, deep and menacing. A wall of snow slid like a slab down the mountain, crashing onto the trail in a small avalanche. Powdered snow was flung up into the air. If that avalanche had smashed into the expedition as they passed, they would have been killed.
Chugach and Iluliaq swung back to the rear. The two men looked at the piled up snow blocking the trail back to the plateau and conferred together in low tones. Chugach and Iluliaq stared at the mountains dominating the trail and shook their heads. Chugach finally spoke to Dr. Welham. "This is a bad place." He pointed up at the high peaks. "Too much chance of more. We need to hurry."
That was obvious so Dr. Welham cancelled the lunch break and the party hurried on. It was as if the huskies sensed danger as the dog teams leaped ahead, glad to get away from this mountainous place. They strained at the traces and the sleds flew along.
By the time they stopped for the evening, the weather still held good and the expedition camped at one edge of a flat dale far enough away from any risk of avalanches. Whilst Chugach and Iluliaq tended to the dog teams, Tarleton and Hatley cooked dinner.
A shadow fell over Tarleton. Looking up, he saw a strange Inuit standing by the camp fire. The man held an obsidian edged macuahuitl and his fur robes were different from Chugach and Iluliaq's. Although Tarleton was no expert on Inuit culture and design, these robes struck him as being old fashioned. Jet beads adorned them in strange geometrical designs. The wind caught the robes, shifting them. The angles on those patterns seemed wrong, strange, unlike anything he'd ever seen before.
"You have something that does not belong to you," the man said. His English was good but with an unplaceable accent. Not native Inuit, not French-Canadian and definitely not American.
This Inuit was gaunt and hollow eyed. No, Tarleton thought, the man looked starved as if the hunting had been bad this season. His dark eyes glared at Tarleton, glittering like the black volcanic obsidian flakes edging his weapon. The hand clutching the macuahuitl was no more than a claw. The tendons and sinews stood out over his bony talons. For a moment, Tarleton thought the newcomer would fall on him and devour him. He shook off that image.
Tarleton stood. "I don't think so. No," he said automatically. He knew that burial sites were sacred places to the native tribes but those three bodies from earlier didn't belong to any known Inuit tribe. They had to have been there for thousands of years. Also, it was a scientific discovery of global importance. Bronze Age Europeans reaching the Arctic? That would turn the scientific world on its head. That was far more important than bowing to native superstition.
The Inuit-type hefted his macuahuitl. Tarleton thought the native would attack and his hand reached for the cook's knife. Instead, the man looked at him with a greedy, hungry look.
"I shall come back," the man who looked like an Inuit said. The man stared at him, his eyes feasting on Tarleton's image before he turned awa
y and then walked back across the ice without once looking back. Tarleton watched him go before turning back to tend the camp fire.
Hatley grinned. "Man must have smelled our cooking. We should have offered him some, he was so thin."
Tarleton nodded. Now that possible danger had gone, he relaxed. "Yes, probably just scrounging for something. I'm surprised he didn't try and swipe something on the way out." But that didn't sound right to him. The native hadn't even looked around the camp. He'd just stood by the fire for a while before leaving. It was disquieting and Tarleton felt uneasy by the incident.
Shortly after, the rest of the expedition gathered around. Over dinner, Hatley mentioned the visit. Chugach and Iluliaq looked upset, especially when Tarleton described the old-fashioned robes.
"I wonder how he knew?" Dr. Welham mused. "He must have watched us from up in the mountains."
Shaking off his feelings of unease, Tarleton listened as the men's conversation eventually turned to other matters than the mysterious stranger.
The rest of the journey back to base camp went without incident. Hatley pointed out a huge polar bear that appeared to be following the team, maybe hoping to scavenge food, and as the sleds ran freely over the packed ice the men turned their heads to watch the magnificent creature in its natural habitat.
Above it all, the sun shone from a flawless blue sky; swinging in its arc throughout and dipping below the horizon for only a couple of hours. Caught by the wind, snow made spumes of spindrift off the mountain peaks, spraying it out across the sky. It was a beautiful sight, yet one that was cold and remote and hostile to mankind.
As usual, Chugach and Iluliaq remarked that these conditions were too good to last and they should hurry if they wanted to reach base camp before another extreme blizzard blew in from the north. The guides were correct. On the last day out, the sky clouded over again, thick dark cumulonimbus formed and joined together to blanket the sky. The summits were swallowed up by the low clouds. The wind got up and snow whipped across the trail and blew into their faces.
Chugach cracked the whip and the lead team surged forwards, the huskies as eager as the men to reach the safety of the camp. Caught in the excitement, the following teams raced after the lead. Even so, they made the camp only just in time. The first flakes were tumbling down from the leaden sky now coming quicker and heavier.
Chugach looked up. "This gonna be heavy," he said to Dr. Welham. "I think this last for days."
After seeing to the dogs, the men pounded extra pegs securing their tents into the ground. Tarleton and Hatley had the job of checking the tarpaulins covering the stores. One corner was flapping in the wind, the oil-cloth snapping like a gunshot as the wind caught it. The temperature was also dropping rapidly and the huskies were already taking shelter in the lea of the rocks and tents.
The difference between the wilderness outside and the mess tent was incredible. Heat blasted out from a pot-belly stove, making Tarleton and Hatley remove their thick fur coats at once. Despite the protective walls of ice blocks which had been built, the tent's sides billowed with the gusts making the inside seem more snug and inviting.
"That wasn't too bad," said Hatley as they entered the big mess tent. A man called Cooke, who because of his name had been appointed cook, was stirring a pot of stew on the stove and its savoury aromas filled the tent. It was just as well that Cooke could take a joke and as he enjoyed his job he wore a chef's white toque hat.
All the rest of the scientists were gathered around the trestle table upon which Dr. Welham was showing off the weapons and bones they had recovered from the cave. They were carefully scrutinised and wild theories were passed around the table. The bronze sword and helmet were the subject of much fascination with Hatley insisting that this backed up claims that the long-lost land of Lomar was no mere fable but had been situated around here.
As proof, he pointed to the eroded writing along the blade even though Dr. Welham insisted that they did resemble the earliest known Minoan scripts. That made Dr. Welham incline to the view that maybe proto-Minoans had reached the Arctic at some unknown date rather than there having been a lost land of Lomar.
However, all the men gasped with shock and disgust when he unwrapped the jade statue. Although recognisably humanoid, its starved appearance shocked and horrified the men. Its workmanship gave off an aura of incredible age, as if it was aeons old when the earth itself was young. It seemed, though nobody could explain how, that it was far older than the weapons and bones it lay among.
After feeding the huskies, Chugach pushed his way through the tent flap. He watched the jade statue as it passed from hand to hand. With a gesture learned from his boyhood in the Catholic missions on Labrador, he crossed himself. Couldn't these educated yet foolish white men see how evil that idol was? Why had they brought that, that thing from the bottom of Hell's deepest abyss to their camp?
Chugach swore and pushed his way between Hatley and Greavey who were speculating on the possibility of Minoan trading galleys leaving the Pillars of Hercules guarding the mouth of the Mediterranean. "Perhaps they re-provisioned at the Canaries or Azores?" Greavey was saying whilst Hatley was instead wondering whether survivors from Lomar might have been the ancestors of the proto-Minoans.
"Get rid of it," Chugach said, his voice deep and filled with terror. The scientists all gazed at their guide. "Take it back. You should never have brought it here."
Dr. Welham confronted Chugach. He saw the sheer terror in the man's eyes so he told Cooke to fetch brandy and then offered the glass himself to Chugach. The guide drank it in one. Without being asked, Cooke poured out another.
"Why, what's the matter, Chugach?" Dr. Welham said, soothingly.
"You should not touched it. Some things are not meant to be, how you say, disturbed," Chugach said. His accent had got thicker, emphasising the man's distress.
"Nonsense, man. It's just an old statue; maybe very old. Either way, it is a major scientific discovery. Young Tarleton here thinks the jade may have come from what's now Burma or Siam. Can you imagine the significance of that?" Dr. Welham played what he thought was his trump card. "Once the war has ended, then over the next few years all the major universities of the world will be sending expeditions here. That'll mean more work for you guides. More money..."
Chugach shook his head. "No. No. Will be no more expeditions. Please, Dr. Welham take it back."
Dr. Welham looked closely into Chugach's dark eyes. "No, I'm sorry, I can't do that even if I wanted." A sudden gust of wind buffeted the tent's side making the canvas boom like distant thunder.
Turning to Greavey and another man, Dr. Welham ordered them outside to double-check that the tent was secure. Securing hoods and pulling on mittens, the two left the safety of the tent.
"What do you know about this statue, Chugach? Any legends amongst your people?" Dr. Welham asked. He laid his hand on Chugach's sleeve. The Inuit shook it off.
"Nothing," Chugach replied; but he looked away as he spoke.
"No. You know more than you're saying. Out with it," Dr. Welham insisted.
"This is B’gnu-Thun – the evil Soul-Chilling Ice-God," Chugach replied.
Tarleton shivered. That was the name Hatley had used. Of course, Hatley had picked up the name from Inuit lore, but from the Inuit's lips, the name chilled him to the bone.
The men sent out to check the camp soon came back. "It's blowing a blizzard out there. A total white-out, just like the other day." Turning to Chugach, Greavey said, "weird weather you have up here. One minute it's summer, the next winter."
Chugach shook his head, breaking away from Dr. Welham's gaze. "This is not natural. You should not have took that idol. We should take it back."
Iluliaq spoke to his brother. "It may already be too late," Chugach said sadly. Without saying another word, the two guides pulled on their thick coats and left. The scientist thought their guides had left to check on the huskies. Instead, the two brothers stole some supplies, launched their kayak into the
blizzard and then paddled out into the fjord and headed south.
After examining the evil-looking statue, none of the scientists were sorry when Dr. Welham wrapped it up and placed it in a trunk. After dinner, the men wrote up their notebooks or sat about playing cards, chess or just chatting.
Outside the wind howled like a fury, buffeting the tent. Chill fingers of air penetrated every chink in the canvas. From time to time, black smoke billowed back from the stove, making the men cough and choke. At last, the finishing hands of cards were played, conversation stilled and the men unrolled sleeping bags and turned in. More than one found the noise of the snowstorm outside to be comforting.
The Horror From The Blizzard Page 9