Stone Cross

by Marc Cameron

  Cutter almost cried as the warmth from the flames began to seep into his clothing. He was still wet and cold and uncomfortable, but he was alive—and on his way to getting warm if not dry.

  Soon, Cutter and Birdie had stripped down to their underwear and were both squatting out of the wind facing the fire, with their wet coats and pants hanging over the trailer behind them. Cutter had found a box of granola bars in the trailer. They were each already on their second. Birdie had hacked out a length of backstrap from the caribou and it was now sizzling on a length of willow next to the fire. Steam rose from their wet woolies. Orange firelight flickered off their faces and hands. The dogs had wolfed down the half frozen offal from the caribou gut pile and were now all gathered round, lying on their bellies in the snow, noses toward the warmth.

  “He must have been planning to head back tonight,” Birdie said, throwing a granola bar wrapper into the flames. Smudge lifted his head at the movement, hoping for a scrap of food, and then relaxed when he didn’t get one, nestling in beside a very tired but now-dry Smoke. “Probably caught this bull and decided to quarter it and bring it right home, otherwise he’d have set up a better camp.” She shook her head. “This wood’s not gonna last us long. There’s a sleeping bag in the trailer and another tarp. We can make a burrito if we have to, maybe coax the dogs to stay next to us for warmth.”

  “We could,” Cutter said. “How far is the cabin?”

  “Maybe a mile,” Birdie said, nodding in thought. “It would be warmer in there than a sleeping bag burrito in the snow.”

  “No doubt,” Cutter said. “But Donna mentioned there was someone else with her husband. They’re not likely to move out without a fight. If we’d met them half an hour ago, I’m not sure I would have been capable of holding a gun, much less pulling the trigger.”

  Birdie used her knife to cut off a piece of very rare but hot caribou loin from the willow skewer. She ate a bite and offered the rest to Cutter. His eyes fluttered involuntarily as he chewed the savory meat. She gave him an approving nod.

  “Good, huh?”

  “I think caribou cooked over two-by-four lumber scraps might be my new favorite food,” Cutter said.

  “It is good,” Birdie said, gingerly cutting off a steaming chunk and tossing it to Smudge. She cut another and handed it to Cutter. “But what we need is fat to keep us warm.” Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled. “Wait here,” she said. She took her knife and the headlamp to crouch over the caribou’s head. Smudge followed her. She was less than six feet from where Cutter waited so he could see perfectly when she used her knife to pry out one of the caribou’s eyes, and then, using the blade of her knife as a spoon, dug around in the socket, coming up with a dollop of white flesh almost as large as a golf ball. A further search got her almost as much again in smaller portions from the same side. This she set on a clean spot of snow while she repeated the process with the other socket. A few moments later, she returned with two handfuls of gleaming white fat from behind the caribou’s eyeballs.

  Realizing he wasn’t getting any of this prize, the husky resumed his place by the fire, snarling to move one of the other dogs so he was closest to Birdie.

  She held one hand toward Cutter while she began to nibble at the contents of the other.

  “Eat this,” she said. “It’ll warm you up as good as the fire.”

  “And I thought the agutaq was unique,” Cutter said, turning up his nose. “I’m gonna be just fine with the backstrap.”

  “No,” Birdie said. “You’re not. Your body needs fat out here in the cold. A lot of fat. Especially after what we just went through—and what we are about to. If we had time I could crack the leg bones and we could dig the marrow out with a stick. It’s good stuff on pilot bread.” She took another bite of the eye fat. “I used to beg for this part when I was a kid. Jolene loves it. Try it. Tastes like—”

  “Chicken?” Cutter joked, holding the greasy blob up to his nose. Surprisingly, it had no odor.

  “No,” Birdie scoffed. “I was going to say bread dough.”

  Intrigued at that, Cutter took a small bite. She was right. The damned stuff did taste like bread dough. It had the same texture too. Cutter swallowed it all like medicine, feeling warmth radiate through his body as the rich fat hit his belly.

  Birdie threw the last four pieces of lumber on the fire. Hands and legs open to the flames again, arms resting on her knees, she looked over at him and smiled. Her chin tattoo shimmered in the firelight with a coating of fresh grease.

  “I’ve known you for what, eighteen hours now?”

  Cutter nodded sleepily. “Has it only been that long?”

  “You got to Stone Cross yesterday at the middle of fifth period,” she said. “Lots of stuff happened in that short time. I’m sorry I never told you about Daisy when you first got here.”

  “Forget about that,” Cutter said, meaning it. Aguthluk’s threatening letter seemed trivial compared to everything else that had happened. “You saw things through your lens, I saw them through mine.”

  “So neither of us were wrong?”

  “I guess not.” Cutter winked. “But I was a little bit more right.” Birdie duck-walked sideways like a baseball catcher adjusting her position. She sidled up close until she was shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip with Cutter and then, out of nowhere, she leaned in so her nose and lips pressed against his cheek. Surprised, he didn’t move away, even when she lingered there for a few seconds before sitting back up.

  “Kunik,” she said.

  “Kunik,” Cutter repeated, having no idea what he was saying. The cold had made him loopy, and for all he knew he’d just accepted a marriage proposal.

  “People think that an Eskimo kiss is only rubbing noses,” she said. “But it’s more than that. It is a way to greet our family and loved ones when our noses and cheeks are often the only thing exposed during the winter.”

  “I like it,” Cutter said, nodding slowly at the fire. He didn’t address the fact that she’d just lumped him in with her loved ones. They were both running on fumes. People sometimes got too honest when they were exhausted. Cutter decided to change the subject. “You know what we need besides fat?”

  Birdie turned to look at him. Smudge raised his head again as if he wanted to know too.

  “We need a plan,” he said. “I think I might have one if you trust me.”

  “Remember when I said the meanest survive the longest out here?” Birdie began to draw in the muddy snow with her willow twig.

  “I do,” Cutter said. Her doodling in the dirt put him in the mood to whittle, but there was no time. The fire was getting smaller by the minute. There was no question that they’d had to stop. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if they froze to death, but he was already feeling the urgency of getting back on the trail.

  “Years ago,” Birdie said, “some sociologists did a study at some villages up north of here. Their evidence was anecdotal, ’cause it’d be hard to quantify meanness, but these guys theorized that the ones who got in the most fights, got in trouble with the law the most, they were most likely to survive extreme hardships like weather. A couple years ago, I had a couple of elementary school students get caught in a blizzard when they were out lookin’ for their grandfather. That little brother and sister survived three nights in subzero temperatures beside their overturned snow machine, living on nothing but some jelly beans and a Hershey bar—and I gotta tell you, those two kids were in my office all the time. They had to be the two worst-behaved students in the school—always in fights, always breaking the rules . . .”

  “Fight on,” Cutter said.

  “What?”

  “Something my grandfather used to say.”

  Birdie pointed at him with her drawing stick, punctuating each word. “Nine and eleven,” she said. “That’s how old they were. Three nights . . .” Birdie pushed off her knees with both hands to stand. “I’m gonna have to get mean to put on that wet parka.” She hefted the still sodden fur and groaned
in disgust. “You said you had a plan as long as I trusted you.”

  “Do you?” Cutter asked.

  She shrugged on the coat and picked up her rifle.

  “I trust you to be mean,” she said. “You seem pretty good at that.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Lola Teariki nearly jumped out of her skin when Jolene’s cell phone rang. Jolene leaned over a library table, resting her head on her hands. She sat up on the second ring and gave a long, feline yawn. If the noise startled her, she didn’t act like it.

  They were still in the library with Markham and the lawyers, waiting on pins and needles for Cutter to check in on the satellite phone. Lola had already fielded two calls from the chief. Jill Phillips was good about giving the fugitive task force a wide latitude when they were working, but she was quick to put on her mother-hen hat when things got sticky. Chasing killers in forty-knot winds and twenty-below temperatures certainly qualified. There was a hell of a lot of stuff that could kill you out here—even if you were Arliss Cutter. This storm could rage for days—stranding them here with no backup and leaving Cutter . . . Well, there was no way to know what Cutter was doing right now. For all she knew, he was sitting by a warm fire, carving some piece of wood while he told Birdie Pingayak about his grandpa’s rules for good behavior.

  Lola hadn’t been able to tell the chief much of anything, which sucked because Jill Phillips was the kind of person you wanted to please. She was hoping this call was from Jolene’s mom, telling them all was good.

  It wasn’t.

  Jolene spoke to the caller in Yup’ik for a moment, then whispered, “It’s Daisy,” before passing the phone to Lola.

  Lola’s heart sank. “Is Ned all right?”

  “He’s good,” Aguthluk said. “Good as can be expected anyways. Melvin Red Fox had to go to the airport to see about helping with the Troopers plane. We could use another set of hands over here.”

  “Of course,” Lola said, relieved to have something to do. “We’ll be right—”

  Aguthluk ended the call, apparently not one to chat after her message was delivered.

  “Looks like we’re going to lend a hand at the cabin,” Lola said. She looked at Markham, hoping she wouldn’t have to remind him that the two of them were all but joined at the hip.

  He raised his coffee mug as if to toast. “Lead on, Deputy.”

  Ewing and Markham’s law clerk stayed at the school, agreeing to pull the next shift watching over Ned Jasper at the cabin if the troopers couldn’t land like they hoped.

  “You think Donna Taylor is going to come back?” Jolene asked as they walked down the hall.

  “Not likely,” Lola said. “She probably believes she killed Ned Jasper. We’ll be careful though.”

  The scream of the blizzard hit Lola full in the face the moment she pushed open the front door, careful to keep a tight grip so it wasn’t ripped out of her hands. The wind burned her face, feeling like it might flay skin if given too much of an opportunity. She adjusted her rifle on the single-point sling so the weapon was parked comfortably behind her sidearm, over her right kidney with the barrel pointed down. She could access it quickly, but it remained out of the way for the multitude of other tasks she might need to accomplish that didn’t call for a long gun.

  It was almost eight in the morning, but it wouldn’t be light for at least another two hours. Most of the houses were dark, and the raging storm only added to the inky shadows. Their route to the cabin took them past teacher housing, a dark set of small duplexes set in a square with a center courtyard. Every teacher had been up all night, either helping Birdie, helping watch after Ned Jasper, or standing by with their ATVs and snow machines to light the runway for the troopers’ aircraft if it was ever able to catch a break in the weather. The snow-covered roads and walkways around the housing area were dark and sinister, reminding Lola of the low-income projects where she’d worked a fugitive roundup in Baltimore her second year in the Marshals Service. She chuckled to herself that these bush teachers had their own “hood.” There were no Crips or Bloods out here, no MS-13, but she was glad to have her rifle nonetheless.

  Markham and Jolene walked a few feet in front, heads bowed into the squalling wind and snow. Lola felt better if she could keep them both in sight, especially in this mess. She turned around to check her back-trail, and nearly ran into Markham, who’d stopped directly in front of her.

  “Scram!” the judge said, bringing a derisive laugh from Sascha Green.

  “Scram?” Green sneered. “Is that the way they talk in the big village?”

  To her credit, Jolene stepped back. Lola used her left hand to position the girl beside her, but far enough away that there was plenty of space to move.

  “Get out of here, then,” Markham said, using the disdainful judge’s voice he often used from the bench. “You understand that?”

  Sascha’s right hand was behind his back, out of view, prompting Lola to raise her rifle and aim it at his forehead. “Just because you’re a judge,” Sascha said, “don’t give you the right to tell me where to be.”

  “Sascha, do not move!” Lola barked. “Judge, get down!” She had a clear shot, but didn’t want to shoot over Markham’s shoulder if she didn’t have to.

  Instead of dropping, Markham took a step forward, flicking his hand at Green as if shooing away an insect.

  Sascha saw his opening and rushed in, putting the judge in between himself and the long gun. Lola cursed, stepping sideways, unable to see Sascha’s hands or get a clear shot in the melee.

  Sascha ran straight into the judge, no doubt intent on running him down and using him as a human shield to get to Lola. At fifty-seven, Markham surprised her with his agility. He sprang to the side, catching a grazing elbow to the jaw that sent him to his knees, but not before giving the younger man a brutal openhanded slap to the right ear.

  “Listen to me, Anthony!” Lola was yelling now, rifle still up with one hand, the other waving the judge back and keeping track of Jolene. She used Markham’s given name, hoping the breach in decorum would piss him off enough to pay attention. “Get your ass behind me!” Without waiting for the judge to comply, she zeroed in on Green again. “Sascha, you are under arrest. I said do not move!”

  She could see both his hands now—empty. Shooting him became a little more problematic, though she still feared for the judge’s safety. She changed her tack, keeping her voice loud, but pointed and sure, anything but shrill.

  “Sascha, I want you to listen to me. Very slowly raise your hands.”

  He sneered, flipping her off. “It’s just you and the old man. You’re not going to arrest me. I just want to talk to my daughter.”

  “Hands,” Lola said. “Slowly.”

  “Not happening, bitch,” Green snapped. “I’m not lettin’ some gash arrest me . . .”

  Cheek welded to her rifle and still aimed in, Lola’s eyes flicked momentarily to the judge. Having him here as a witness might be a good thing . . . or not. She grimaced. “Honestly, Sascha, part of me is glad you feel that way. It’s good Jolene gets to see how you talk to women.”

  “Hey, hey.” Sascha raised both hands, not in surrender, but to get Jolene’s attention. “I only called her that because she’s a cop, sweetheart. She’s trying to keep us apart.”

  “Yeah,” Lola said. “I’m sure Jolene’s getting that loud and clear. You’d be a real gentleman if I wasn’t a cop. You know what I think? I think it embarrasses the hell out of you that Birdie nearly killed you that day. I mean, you were a grown man and she was what, just fifteen—the same age as Jolene. You could barely live with that. You had to listen to female corrections officers, and now a female deputy marshal is about to throw your ass back in jail.”

  A low growl, like a wolf caught in a trap, grew from Sascha Green’s chest. He snarled, charging blindly, straight for Lola.

  There are exceptions, but most law enforcement officers don’t want to risk a full-blown brawl. There are too many variables—wild elbows an
d knees that come out of nowhere from people who could not usually fight their way out of a wet paper bag. The popularity of mixed martial arts had everyone and their brother thinking they could go three rounds in the octagon. The truth was, in a venue where there were no rules, even the winner—the one who came out alive—could get maimed in a hurry. A blown knee could mean the end of a career. A misplaced foot might cause an unplanned meeting between face and concrete. Dojos and octagons were exciting, but by law, they had not seen many realistic fights since the days of the samurai.

  Lola Teariki was one of those exceptions. She’d grown up with three brothers. She was tuakana, the eldest, but her brothers were big boys who’d turned into big Maori men. She’d taught them all to wrestle, and as they got older, refused to let them ignore her during their impromptu battles in the backyard. All of them, including Lola, were taller than their Japanese mother. And they all relished a good scrap, fed off it, really. Oddly, the Marshals Service didn’t require a psychological exam, and Lola often found herself wondering how she would have answered questions about fighting if she’d ever bothered to apply anywhere else. The bad guys weren’t civilized. It didn’t seem like too big of a stretch to think sometimes you might need a shark to catch a shark. The truth was, if there was violence, she didn’t want to miss it.

  She did not, however, draw out a fight unnecessarily.

  Sascha Green was taller than her, probably a little stronger too. She had no doubt that he would kill her if she gave him the opportunity.

  Lola swept her rifle back on the sling the moment Green ducked his head to rush her, parking the gun over her kidney again. She grabbed the expandable baton from her belt and flicked it open with a snap of her wrist, extending the rigid metal sections to a full twenty-one inches.

  She stepped to her left at the last second, moving off the line of attack like a bullfighter. Green rushed past, exposing his calf and getting a snap from Lola’s steel baton. She let the blow die there a split second for maximum effect, then hammered him again before he could recover, following up to his forearm when he turned. Dropping his right arm at the blow, he came around with a wicked left that glanced off the point of her shoulder and crashed into the side of her neck, making her bite her tongue. Green was blind with rage and pain, making the strike a Hail Mary, thrown wildly at the wind, but it connected and proved devastating.