by Henry, Sue
“Charlie,” he yelled, yanking his feet from the window and struggling to sit up. “Charlie, wake up. It’s a helicopter.”
The kid woke with a start and groggily shook his head. Hampton slid into him in his scramble to turn around toward the upside driver’s door.
“A helicopter. They’re looking for us.” Levering himself up on the wheel, he reached for the door handle.
“Hold it.”
Set to push open the door, he paused to glance back, only to find that the kid once again had the .44 leveled at him. Damn. He should have lifted the thing from his coat pocket while he slept and pitched it into a snowbank.
“Don’t touch that damn door,” Charlie told him.
“But they might not see us. The truck is almost buried.”
“I know. Sit still and we might get lucky. They may go away.”
“Charlie. Do you want to sit out here and freeze…or starve?” Clinging to the wheel, Hampton pulled his body to a sitting position behind it.
“It’s daytime now. We can go on when they leave.”
“You’re nuts, kid. We’re down to a whisper of gas in the tank. We have nothing to eat. You’ve probably got pneumonia. We aren’t going anywhere without help.”
“You say!” This comment came explosively through a bout of coughing.
Hampton had finally had it. His anger came, as usual, like lightning out of nowhere, in a flash of adrenaline and heat. While Charlie was distracted by his coughing fit, in a quick, desperate motion he grabbed the gun barrel and shoved it aside toward the floor of the cab. At the same time he let go of the wheel, allowing himself to slide toward the kid. With the gun barrel pointed at the floorboard, he punched him in the face as hard as he could from a sitting position. Without intention, but not caring, he connected solidly with Charlie’s already bruised nose and felt something give under his gloved fist.
The resulting howl of pain filled the cab as Charlie let go of the gun and brought both hands up to cradle his face, from which fresh blood poured over mouth, chin, and jacket front. The .44 dropped to the floor under his feet.
“Oo-ooh. By doze. Broke by damn doze.”
Concentrating on the helicopter, Hampton did not take time to try to find the gun. Lunging, he opened the driver’s door of the cab and tumbled out into the snow beside it. The door slammed itself behind him, shutting off Charlie’s muffled and anguished cries. The drift he had fallen into was a full three feet deep. Untangling himself, he stood up, wiped the snow from his face, and looked up.
They had not missed the truck, buried or not. The helicopter was there, moving north in an arc to come back over. It had stopped snowing. The sky was only lightly overcast, displaying a thin patch or two of blue. Most of the wind had died, but it was still blowing close to the ground, making it almost impossible to see. Fine crystals of snow flew like a fog, obscuring drifts and low spots alike.
As the helicopter came close and reduced speed to attempt to hover overhead, Hampton identified Jensen beside the pilot, Delafosse in a rear seat. The wind was still strong enough to keep the pilot busy fighting against it to hold the craft in place and it swung like a pendulum with the gusts that shoved it around the sky. The two officers opened a door on the sheltered side and leaned out to look down. Hampton waved both arms over his head and grinned. The roar of the rotors was too loud to hear voices, but he could easily read Jensen’s first question, “You okay?”
He nodded vigorously, then hugged himself and jogged in place—cold—rubbed his stomach—hungry.
“Where’s Charlie?”
He thumbed at the truck.
Jensen nodded and Delafosse signaled “wait” with one hand, reached back into the helicopter with the other and pulled forward a large duffel bag, which he proceeded to drop out the door. It fell perhaps twenty feet away and disappeared into a drift. He pantomimed eating and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders, then wrote in the air as if he had a pen and gestured at the bag.
Hampton understood. They had put a message in the bag with the supplies. But their next signals were disappointing. They couldn’t land in the helicopter because of the wind and snow conditions. They would be back, but on the road. Jensen made the sign of a snowplow with the tips of his fingers together to form a V pushing forward.
“How long?” Hampton asked, pointing toward his watch arm.
Delafosse frowned and shrugged—he didn’t know exactly. He held up two, then three, then four fingers—two to four hours—maybe.
With one gloved hand, Hampton patted the gas cap on the truck and gestured pouring something into it. Gas. He needed gas for the truck.
Jensen nodded and gestured a thumbs-up. They both waved and the pilot let the helicopter slide away with the wind, circling back toward Dawson.
Feeling abandoned, Hampton stood by the door to the truck, watching it go and wondering how difficult a time they would have getting a plow up the road and how long it would actually take them. At least he and Charlie would have food and whatever was in the bag to keep them warm. He hoped they had thought to put in some of the hot coffee he had been dreaming about earlier.
As he turned his head to look toward the spot where the bag had disappeared into the snow, the truck door flew open and Charlie lunged out with an arm raised. Before Hampton could begin to move, the kid hit him hard in the head with the butt of the gun he had recovered from the cab floor. Coming from above, the blow was forceful enough to drop Hampton into the snow like a sack full of old clothes. Should…have…got the gun. As his awareness faded, he remembered the contemptuous sneer he had seen on Charlie’s face during the attack on the river…then it was gone.
The kid stepped down from the truck and stood looking at him with hardly any expression at all, then shoved the gun into his jacket pocket, swiped gently at his injured nose, and, without a second look, wallowed off through the deep drifts toward the place where the bag had fallen.
A thin trickle of blood ran through the unconscious man’s hair to drip into the snow, staining it a red that held its crimson color as it quickly froze.
Chapter Twenty
CLAIR MCSPADDEN LOOKED UP FROM HER desk in anxious question as Jensen and Delafosse tromped into the office after their flight. Delafosse nodded and her expression turned immediately to a smile. “You found them.”
“Yes,” Delafosse told her, stopping at the desk as Alex disappeared toward the back, “and they’re stuck all right. We couldn’t land. It’s blowing like a son…sucker up there. We did get the survival gear dropped, though. They’ll be okay now until we can get to them, even if they’ve run out of gas for the truck. You could camp out in that survival gear for three or four days at fifty below and Hampton’s an outdoors man, he’ll know how to use it. We’ll have some time to plow them out and bring Hampton’s truck down without worrying about somebody freezing to death.”
“But you’re not going to take your time?”
“No. We’ll go right away, as soon as we can arrange for the plow truck. Can’t take a grader; there’s not room for us all.”
“I already got in touch with Willard Ely. He’s coming in to meet you in an hour.”
“Good. We’ll pick up something to eat and get a couple of snow machines gassed up. Have we got any cans around to carry gas for the pickup?”
“If not, Howard will have some at the station. I’ll call him and get the food. What do you want?”
“Something we can eat in the truck…sandwiches, coffee…whatever. Get enough for Willard too. Thanks, Clair. You’re really…” He paused, looking at her.
She looked back for a long minute, then smiled and blushed bright pink.
“Listen,” he said. “When this is over…m-maybe you’d like…ah…maybe…?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Yes?”
She nodded happily, and he started to say something else, but the sound of Jensen coming back stopped him.
Alex walked into the room, immediately aware, from the way they wer
e smiling at each other, that his friend had finally found his nerve, with a positive result.
“Well,” he said, almost sorry to interrupt. “You get a plowman?”
Clair turned toward the phone, but swung back holding a slip of paper toward Jensen. “A friend of yours called from Alaska. Jessie Arnold? Is she the Iditarod musher?”
Alex nodded.
“Wow. She asked if you would call her back when you got in.”
A look of concern followed Alex’s quick glance at the note, which held only Jessie’s name and number.
“No message? Did she say if anything’s wrong?”
“Nope. She sounded cheerful, not like an emergency. Just asked for you to call her when you had a minute.”
“How’s Cherlyn doing this morning?” he asked when he had dialed and was waiting for the phone to ring in Knik.
“She was still asleep when I left. Whatever the doctor gave her really wiped her out and she slept all night. I left the pain pills and a note to tell her where to find the makings for an ice pack and breakfast. She’ll call when she gets up. Not home?” she asked, at the sight of his frowning response to the phone.
“Not answering at least. May be out in the dog lot. I’ll try again before we leave.”
“What’s going on with Duck Wilson?” Delafosse asked, with a glance at the closed door to the holding cells.
“Nothing…now. He wouldn’t stop yelling obscenities, so I shut the door and left him to his echoes.”
The two husky constables had picked up Wilson before daylight and, after a wrestling match in which all three suffered bruises and abrasions, physical and vocal, had brought him, under restraint, to Dawson in the jet boat. Formally arrested for assault, and held on suspicion of felony theft and murder, he now prowled the cell, reminding Delafosse of a caged bear as he shuffled back and forth, howling in indignation and demanding his rights.
“Ignore him. His wife must be relieved with the golden silence at home. He’ll have legal advice soon. Let him yell at his…mouthpiece.”
Clair laughed. “I intend to do just that. What a piece of work.” She made a face. “I never saw clothes any filthier, let alone him. Somebody should turn on a hose. How often does he take a bath? Once a year, whether he needs it or not? I’m not going in there with his lunch, by the way.”
“That’s okay. Tell Mel to do it when he gets back from having that loose tooth checked. Duck whacked him pretty good this morning.” He turned to Jensen with a chuckle. “We’re about to see the attorney you said was missing from that bit of doggerel, Alex. Now we’ve got them all.”
On the Top of the World Highway, Hampton slowly regained consciousness to find himself facedown in the snow beside the truck. Once again his head hurt so much it made him nauseated to raise it. But what concerned him most was that he was terribly cold, his hands and feet so numb he couldn’t feel them. The cheek that had been in direct contact with the snow was also numb. Just how long had he been out? he wondered, struggling to his feet and leaning against the back of the truck.
He vaguely remembered Charlie behind him just after watching the helicopter carry Delafosse and Jensen out of sight toward Dawson, and knew the kid had hit him, but he was now nowhere to be seen. Carefully, quietly, he limped forward until he could peer in the driver’s window. The cab was empty. No Charlie. Where the hell was he? Well, it wasn’t the most important thing now.
Fumbling with the door handle, he finally got his wooden fingers to work well enough to open it and crawled into the cab. Starting the engine was another challenge of determination over ability. The key was still in the ignition, which he had been afraid to consider closely. If Charlie had intended to kill him, it would have been easy to toss it out into the snow, losing it effectively until spring, if then. But if Charlie had wanted him dead, it would also have been simple to shoot him where he lay senseless.
His pegs for fingers were almost useless, but by bracing one hand with the other he finally turned the key and got the engine started. With it running, he sat sideways in the tilted seat, shook his hands and stomped his feet against the passenger door, waiting while the heater warmed up enough to blow something besides cold air. Head throbbing, still feeling sick, he pulled off his gloves with his teeth, managed to partially unzip his jacket and tuck his hands into the warmth of his armpits.
By the time he could feel the temperature rising in the cab, he had some sensation in his fingers. Turning, he took his hands from inside his coat, held them out, but not directly in front of the heater, and let the warm air play over them. Bending forward made his head swim, but it couldn’t be helped. In a few minutes, he almost wished his hands numb again, for the pain of their thawing was intense enough that he couldn’t hold still but sat shaking them and whining through his nose. Gritting his teeth, he ignored as much of the hurt as possible, curling and uncurling the fingers to get the blood circulating. It was an agony and his thoughts of Charlie were all dark ones.
Soon his feet began to let him know they were still alive, with the same shooting pains. Pawing at the laces, he managed to undo them and push off his hiking boots. Holding his feet in the warm air and wiggling his toes, he endured ten minutes of sweating, while he alternated whines of pain with a truly creative assortment of swearing at Charlie the kid. The short time it took to warm his extremities told him he had probably not suffered any serious frostbite. Gradually warming his hands in water might have been easier to take, but stressful as it was, the process did work. It was not good, he knew, to warm frostbite up in direct dry heat, but he had little choice for he couldn’t leave the truck running too long. He was also tempted to rub his hands and feet, but remembered reading somewhere that this was damaging to tissue already traumatized.
Examining his fingers and toes carefully, Hampton had found that, aside from a small patch or two of the dreaded white of frostbite, they seemed okay. The side of one pinkie finger showed a pale spot, as did two toes on his left foot. Any longer outside the truck, without heat, and he would have been in real trouble.
Cursing Charlie made him wonder where the kid was. His next thought was for the supplies dropped earlier from the helicopter. Though his feet had swollen some, he forced them back into the boots, after warming the insides, and replaced his gloves on fingers that were also slightly fat. They could get worse, he knew, and must not be allowed to be so cold again, if at all possible. If there was anything outside that would keep him warm and feed him, he must get it now.
Leaving the engine running, he opened the door and climbed out as quickly as possible to conserve heat. Just before he slid down from the driver’s door, which was tilted higher than the rest, he noticed a track in the snow that led away from the truck. It went west, toward the border and Alaska, many miles away. Charlie had taken off, as he had threatened when the helicopter arrived.
With little optimism, Hampton saw that the snow had been torn up between the truck and where the duffel bag had landed. Charlie again. When he reached the spot, his anger took a decidedly different turn. If the kid had been within reach, he knew he would have made an effort to break something besides his nose. He was too furious to swear, too coldly outraged to say or do anything. He felt his face grow hot and his whole body stiffened in anger till he was almost hyperventilating.
Charlie had evidently sorted through the bag, throwing out or dropping the few items he didn’t want to carry. He had clearly taken everything he thought he might even be able to use, leaving Hampton with almost nothing at all.
One wool blanket lay where it had been tossed and was now blown full of snow. A pair of wool socks and a down vest lay beside it, also snow covered. That was all, except for two plastic liter bottles of water, half frozen into slush. Nothing else remained—not a scrap of food, not any of the other survival gear Hampton knew would have been dropped. There had to have been insulated clothing and sleeping bags, probably two sets. He knew there had been food, and hot coffee or soup in unbreakable thermoses made sense. The thoug
ht of food made his stomach turn over in something besides nausea. A first-aid kit would have been included. He could have used some aspirin, the way his head felt. Whatever there might have been was history now. He didn’t even try to imagine what else the bag had contained.
He just stood, staring at the items in the snow, until he gained control over the hot lump of rage in his chest and slowly began to think rationally again. Then, without a word, or an uncontrolled action, he picked up the blanket and shook it hard to get most of the snow out of it, took the socks, vest, and water bottles, and returned to the truck. Once there, he tossed in all but the blanket and took out the jack handle from behind the seat.
Thinking of Charlie, he held the blanket in one hand and used the jack handle to beat it with the other. By the time he finished, most of the snow had fallen away, leaving the blanket pretty much freeze-dried. He didn’t know if it would be dry enough when it warmed up inside the cab, but he had little choice in the matter. At least it was wool, which wouldn’t turn soggy on him and was of some warmth even when it was damp. Either he used it or froze—and might anyway. There wasn’t enough gas left in the tank to keep the heater going, even sporadically, until the officers arrived with the plow. Of that he was sure.
The other thing he was sure of was that Charlie would not get away with this. Somehow he would find that kid. Twice he had come close to dying at the hands of that particular piece of garbage. Once had been too many. Twice was intolerable. Yes, he would definitely see Charlie again. And since it was unlikely the kid would ever make the border, and the law would probably go after him when they came, Charlie would see him sooner than he expected.