* * *
Linder crawled back through the opening from the exploratory shaft into the main mine and filled the gap at the ceiling with loose rock before settling down to wait for someone to rescue him. He turned off his headlamp to conserve the battery and drifted off to sleep. He had no idea how long he had slept when the sounds of a front-end loader clearing away the rocky debris jarred him awake. Yost was the first man to crawl through the hole to meet him. He nearly bowled Linder over with his bear hug.
“You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch, Linder,” Yost greeted him. “Nobody thought you had a ghost of a chance in there. I had to threaten the supervisor with a pickaxe before he’d let us back in to search for you. He was going to wait till the engineers came back to work on Monday.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Linder answered. “I figured you’d be back soon enough. Can’t let a little cave-in get in the way of hitting the quota, eh?”
“Screw the quota,” Yost replied. “Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”
“No, I’ll be okay. I wouldn’t turn down a physical and a night in the infirmary, mind you, but I doubt they’ll give me more than that. Tell me, though, when do you suppose they’ll send us back in to clean up this mess?”
Yost shook his head and looked puzzled.
“Now, why would any man in his right mind ask a question like that after nearly being buried alive?”
“I’ll tell you later, Charlie,” Linder answered, looking around to make sure no one could overhear. “But if that storm is still headed our way tomorrow night, we might want to be down here when it hits.”
* * *
Linder accepted the shift supervisor’s offer of a night in the infirmary to recover from his close call in the mineshaft and made a show of coughing up plenty of gray dust. But the next morning he rose early and, after a hearty breakfast of flapjacks, scrapple, and high-octane coffee, dishes available only in the infirmary and the officers’ mess, he returned to the sleeping hut in the dark and roused Browning and Burt from sleep.
“It’s on,” he whispered to Burt as he sat beside him on his bunk in the overheated room. In a few minutes the lights would come on and the morning alarm chime would sound, but for the moment the only noise was of Burt’s heavy breathing and a prodigious snorer two bunks away.
Burt opened his eyes into an instant state of alertness but could not grasp at first what Linder was telling him.
“What the devil are you talking about?” he asked in a low voice. “What’s on?”
“I’ve found a way out of the mine. But we have to move fast or we’ll miss our chance,” Linder answered. “A snowstorm will roll in during the night to cover our tracks. It’s now or never, amigo.”
“Have you talked to the others?”
“I’ll talk to Browning in a minute,” Linder replied. “Yost will come on later. Do you think you can get a message to Scotty somehow before our shift starts at three?”
“I’ll do my best. What do I tell him?”
“He said once that he might be able to steal a truck. If he can, tell him to meet us on the access road headed outbound just east of the ford beyond the runoff pond,” Linder said. “A pickup with a snowplow in front would be best, if there’s a choice. But above all, he’s got to get there without being noticed. We’ll need all the head start we can get.”
“That’s a mighty tall order,” Burt answered doubtfully. “Scotty’s just a prisoner. He doesn’t exactly have carte blanche to come and go from the motor pool whenever he feels like it.”
“Okay, so it won’t be easy,” Linder agreed. “He only has to do it once. Tell him to find a way. Or he can meet us at the access road on foot.”
And without waiting for a response, Linder moved across the room to wake Browning.
* * *
By the time their shift started at 3:00 P.M., Linder, Burt, Browning, and Yost had divided up their cached supplies and secreted as much as they could conceal under their baggy jumpsuits. They milled around the mine’s entrance with the rest of the men on their shift and waited under dim fluorescent lights amid swirls of powdery snow until the elevator doors rolled open.
Since it was a Saturday, the mine was operating at reduced output, with most supervisory and technical staff off duty. Though a normal guard complement covered the facility’s perimeter and key access points to the mine and the mill, prisoners laboring underground were supervised only by their foremen and a shift boss stationed aboveground at the entrance to the main shaft.
As Linder had predicted, their work orders for the three-to-eleven shift centered on clearing the obstructed shaft from the cave-in that had occurred the night before so the engineers could recertify it for operation on Monday morning. This was not luck, but the foreseeable result of a relentless demand to maximize output. Accordingly, it was not difficult for Yost to arrange for his team to tackle the cleanup.
At the start of the shift, Linder and Yost retreated to a corner of the spacious freight elevator and spoke into each other’s ears over the whirring of the electric hoist and the clanging of the metal cage.
“What if Scotty doesn’t show up with a truck?” Yost asked as soon as the contraption made its initial downward lurch.
“We walk,” Linder replied. “But our chances of getting away clean depend on how far we travel before they discover we’re missing. First, they’ll search along the perimeter fence. Next, they’ll sweep the roads, all of which lead south or east except one. But if we head north to the Canol Road and make it through the MacMillan Pass before they know we’re missing, the snow will cover our tracks and most everyone will assume we’ve bolted for the coast. In that case, it could be days before they look for us across the Mackenzie Range.”
“Because nobody could be so stupid as to go there,” Yost ventured. “Except maybe a native...”
“Assuming ours shows up,” Linder added uneasily.
When the elevator reached their level, the men split up into work teams and headed off to their respective tunnels and chambers to start work. Yost, Linder, Burt, and Browning formed one team, with Yost operating the front-end loader, Browning operating the shuttle car, and Linder and Burt shoveling out the corners and edges. By the late-afternoon break, they had cleared nearly a third of the rubble but had not yet reached the spot where Linder had found an opening to the hidden exploratory shaft.
During the break, Yost reported to the shift supervisor that they were making good progress and would soon begin checking the tunnel walls beyond the cave-in for signs of structural weakness. As a safety measure, he posted his team’s tunnel as off-limits to unauthorized personnel. When Yost returned, the other team members withdrew the shuttle car and loader to a safe distance from the cave-in and deposited their tools by the car as if stopping for an early dinner break. With Yost acting as lookout, Linder enlisted Burt’s and Browning’s help in clearing away enough broken rock to reopen the gap between the mine’s ceiling and the pile of fallen rock that led to the hidden exploratory shaft. Moments later, Yost followed them through to the other side and they refilled the gap in a way that would not be easily detectable from the other side.
The passage through the newly discovered tunnel was as straight and narrow as Linder remembered it, a few inches below head height and sloping gradually upward. As before, the air was clear and grew fresher the further they moved from the cave-in. After a dozen meters, the passage opened into a high chamber and all four headlamp beams converged on the iron grate above their heads. Linder switched off his headlamp and led the way up, pushing the grate aside and emerging into the snow-filled cleft.
Tiny snowflakes whirled in an eddy around Linder and fell so thickly that he could see no further than the edge of the mine’s frozen runoff pond. But that was enough for him to take his bearings and plot a course toward the spot where the mine’s access road intersected a dry creek bed. One by one, the other men followed him through the grate and into the rocky cleft.
“We’re beyond the perimeter f
ence now,” Linder began. “When your eyes adjust, look out at two o’clock until you spot the edge of the runoff pond. We’re going to head single file toward the pond’s western shore until we’re within a hundred meters of the access road, then we’ll hike due west along the straightaway. If Scotty’s there with a truck, we’ll ride. If he isn’t, we’ll keep skirting the access road till we hit the Canol Road and then follow the river north through the Macmillan Pass.”
“How much time do you expect we’ll have before they come after us?” Browning asked.
“That depends on the shift boss,” Yost replied. “If he’s the coward I think he is, he’ll shit his pants when he finds out we’re missing and won’t be able to think straight. To delay having to report a possible escape, he’ll order a top-to-bottom search of the mine in the hope that we’ll turn up before the shift ends at 2300. That buys us a good five hours.”
“Then what?” Burt pressed.
“Since it’s late on a Saturday night,” Yost continued, “you can bet the off-duty guards will be too drunk to respond on time to the alarm. Even if we’re on foot, I’d say we’d have a decent shot at making it through the pass before they come after us.”
The men slogged ahead through knee-deep snow, in single file, with Linder in the lead to clear a track. The wind blasted across the slope and set about filling each footprint with snow as soon as it was made. From time to time, the men could see the road through a gap in the trees, but no headlights broke through the darkness. When they reached the first switchback in the access road, Linder led them stumbling and sliding down a steep slope to the straightaway where Scotty had been instructed to wait for them. But no truck awaited and no tracks could be seen.
Linder waved the men forward to descend to the next straightaway, bypassing another switchback. “I’ll wait here for Scotty,” he shouted to Yost over the howling wind. “If he doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes, I’ll catch up with you.”
Browning took the lead now and plunged feet-first down the next slope. Linder watched them disappear among the slender, snow-laden larches.
Five minutes passed, then ten, but as Linder turned to follow the others, he noticed a dim glow coming up the access road from the highway rather than down from the mine’s motor pool. Could it be Scotty? he thought. If he stepped out into the roadway and let himself be seen, the act could either save or doom the entire team, depending on who was driving the truck. If this were Scotty, arriving from the wrong direction, the truck could buy them several days head start. If it were anyone else, their position would be betrayed and capture would be swift. His decision would commit the entire team. Did he dare take the chance?
Linder stepped into the middle of the road. He could hear the muffled jangle of tire chains and the metronomic sweep of the windshield wipers as the vehicle braked to a stop. It was a one-ton pickup truck with a six-passenger crew cab, dual rear tires and a snowplow mounted in front. He approached the half-fogged driver’s window for the moment of truth. The window rolled down. The impassive face in the window was one he had never expected to see again: it was Mark Rhee.
“Hop in, dude,” Rhee ordered with the same sphinxlike expression he had shown on the road from Ross River. In the next moment, Scotty’s grinning face peered out from behind Rhee’s.
“Where are other men?” Scotty asked, though not with alarm.
“You must have passed them,” Linder replied. “They probably took you for the enemy and hunkered down. Come on, let’s turn around. I’ll climb into the cargo bed and wave so they’ll know it’s us. When I bang on the cab’s roof, slow down till they come out.”
“You’ll freeze back there, dude,” Rhee broke in with unexpected solicitude. “Ride up front with us. You can spot them okay from here.”
But there was something about Rhee’s offer that did not ring true, coming from someone who had hated him so. Though Linder could not put his finger on it, he decided to ride in the cargo bay until the others were on board, rather than in the heated cab with Rhee.
As Linder had hoped, midway along the next straightaway, Browning, Yost, and Burt emerged tentatively from behind the trees in response to his waving and approached the truck with joy written on their faces. Linder shared their delight and helped them one by one into the warm cab with Scotty and Rhee, but remained in the back as a lookout.
Within moments, his euphoria turned to dread as he fell backward from the truck’s acceleration and felt his foot sink through the snow into something hard and unforgiving that lay along the wall of the cargo bay. Intuitively, he sensed what it had to be and reached down with both hands in the darkness to confirm it. He had stumbled onto a corpse dressed in the coveralls of the kind worn by civilian drivers and mechanics.
Of course, Linder thought. So that’s why Rhee wanted me up front with him.
Linder banged on the cab again with his fist but the truck did not slow down. Not until they had traveled another two or three kilometers did the truck slow to a halt where the road passed through a glade of trees and was partially concealed from view. Linder leapt down from the truck and tugged at the handle of the driver’s locked door. After a few seconds, the window rolled down half way.
“Come out here, all of you,” he barked at the lowered window. “We’ve got a problem.”
Linder opened the tailgate and dragged the body into clear view without saying another word. A few minutes later, he and Browning finished searching the dead man’s body and confirmed by the identification card in his wallet that he had been a civilian contract driver. Linder pointed at the corpse.
“Who killed him?” he demanded, looking straight at Rhee.
“I did,” Rhee answered at once. “There was no other way if we wanted the truck.”
“I don’t have time to argue the point, Mark,” Linder snapped. “But tell me this. How soon do you think anyone will notice him missing?”
“The same time they miss me and Scotty and the truck. We were due to report back to the mine before the night shift,” Rhee answered coolly.
“Then nothing’s changed,” Browning commented with obvious relief.
“Maybe the time line hasn’t changed, but when you kill someone, something always changes,” Yost replied. “We just don’t know what it is yet.”
“Scotty,” Linder addressed the native. “Did you have a hand in this?”
The diminutive Kaska stared back at Linder with sad eyes. “It is done,” he said without answering the question. “Egg hatch later. Now we move on.”
Linder and Yost exchanged glances and Yost spoke next.
“Okay, let’s get going,” he declared to the group. “We’ll sort this out later. Rhee, I want you to get in the back with Browning and the corpse. I’ll be driving the rest of the way.”
After having taken a lead role in the escape from its inception, Linder felt relief that Yost had stepped in to defuse the tension between him and Rhee. As their foreman in the logging unit and later at MacTung, Yost possessed a natural authority that was invaluable in times of stress.
The truck made good progress on the newly plowed access road, taking just over an hour to cover the remaining thirty kilometers to the Canol Road. But the next twenty kilometers to the Macmillan Pass were slow going, having been cleared of snow only infrequently since the stuff had begun to accumulate in October. Many stretches required repeated backing and charging to clear a passage. Now, the wind, with growing force, seemed to fill in the path behind them almost as soon as they broke through. At last, a few kilometers north of the Macmillan Pass, the road veered to the lee of a glade of birches that served as a natural snow fence and was covered to a depth greater than the truck could possibly clear. Yost brought the pickup to a stop short of the waist-high snowdrifts and stepped out of the cab. The others followed suit and joined him beside the road.
“About a quarter-mile back I saw a ravine where we can ditch the truck and the corpse without them being spotted from the road,” he addressed the men. “With
any luck, they won’t be found till next summer, which means our pursuers won’t know where we stopped riding and began walking. So they won’t know where to pick up our scent.”
“Before you ditch the truck,” Browning responded, let’s search it for anything we can use. It’s got to have an emergency kit and a tool box. We should probably take the dead man’s boots and clothing for spares, too. Burt, I’d like you and Linder to strip the body. Rhee, search the cargo bed and make a pile over here of anything useful. Charlie and I will search the cab. Scotty, why don’t you sort through the pile and tell us what you think we should bring along?”
Thoroughly drilled at working as a team, each man fell to his task, and within a few minutes, the pile of scavenged goods began to grow.
“Yee-hah! We’ve hit gold!” Browning cried out moments later. “Lookee here, gents!”
And without further comment he tossed a zippered duffel onto the road. Burt reached in and pulled out a pair of aluminum-framed snowshoes for all to see.
“How many pairs?” Linder asked.
“Four. I guess we’ll have to rotate.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Yost answered, accustomed as team leader to dispensing both good things and bad among his men. “Leave two pairs in the rear for Rhee and me. The two of us will double back to ditch the truck and catch up with you as soon as we can. When you have the gear sorted and divvied up, find a spot among those rocks to wait until we get back.
“Okay, then, let’s step to it.” As before when Yost stepped in, Linder felt a release of tension that made him realize how little he enjoyed the burdens of leadership. If Yost was willing to take the lead, he was more than willing to let him have it. Merely keeping up, Linder expected, would be challenge enough for him.
A sullen Rhee climbed into the passenger seat next to Yost and the truck made a ragged three-point turn before heading back to the west. When the vehicle’s taillights were out of sight from where it had dropped the men off, Linder took Scotty aside.
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