Frozen Stiff

by Sherry Shahan

“Cody. Are you listening?”

  Maybe Derek had been brainwashed. She’d heard about kidnappers brainwashing their victims.

  “He’s going to let you go, okay?”

  Giving in was her only chance to get away. “Okay.”

  When Wildman released her she whirled around. Wildman sank back, his dark eyes disappearing in the shadows. Cody stepped back just as quickly, letting the damp air wash over her—all the while glancing from Derek to Wildman and back to Derek.

  Neither Cody nor Derek said anything for what seemed like an eternity. Then she drew him into a hug. “You okay?” she asked.

  Derek hugged her back; she felt his nod against her cheek.

  She turned toward Wildman, who had moved to the clearing by the fire. The woman was looking away and watching them at the same time.

  “What happened to your leg?” Derek asked, studying Cody again.

  “Who cares about my leg?” She wanted to shake Derek out of whatever hold these people had on him. “Let’s get out of here!” she mouthed, then grabbed his hand and tried to pull him. But he pulled back.

  “It isn’t what you think,” he said.

  It’s okay, she wanted to say. You can tell me about it later. When we’re back on the water, safely on our way.

  “I had to go with them. It was the only way, and I knew you wouldn’t come with me, with him. You were convinced he was a poacher. And we needed help, Cody. We couldn’t do it by ourselves. One kayak. No food. The rising water. Everything.”

  Derek talked in half thoughts, making no sense at all. But he looked okay. Thinner, but not in a bad way. Just all tucked up like an athlete. His peeling skin had tanned over. And he was clean—that alone was a miracle. Even his hair had a scrubbed luster.

  If someone saw the two of them standing in the trees under a sky of buttermilk clouds, he’d think Cody was the one who needed help. Her body was emaciated. No doubt her eyes had that hollow sunken look and were probably rimmed with dark circles. Her clothes were torn and matted with mud and blood.

  “I had to do something,” he was saying. “Since I tore up the note.”

  Cody stiffened when Wildman moved; he slipped inside the shack and closed the door. (He must have circled behind her earlier, when she’d first spotted the smoke.) His smell lingered in the trees.

  Then she realized with revulsion that the stink had been hers all along.

  Derek stared at her. “Cody?”

  The icy breeze slapped through her tattered clothes. She took a step back, then another. Then she turned and took off running. Cody cut one way, slipped, caught herself before going all the way down, and kept moving.

  Suddenly she had understood what he was telling her. Derek had gone with them willingly.

  “Wait up!” Derek called after her.

  She could feel him catching up to her. “You weren’t kidnapped?” she cried over her shoulder.

  Without warning he tackled her and she went down, wincing as pain shot through her leg. She scrambled to crawl away, but he was so much stronger. Rested and fueled.

  He flipped her over as he used to when they had wrestled. “I knew you’d follow us. We waited and watched for you on the trail. Mary Jane slept near you last night to make sure you were safe. She waited until you got up this morning so we knew you were on the right trail.”

  Cody tried to kick free but it was impossible. “How could you trust poachers?”

  “It isn’t like that—” Derek began.

  She cut him off. “He cut my kayak loose. Now he has both of us here. No kayak, no food. I’ll bet the other kayak is long gone. And he knows it’s impossible for us to hike back to Yakutat.”

  Derek’s expression changed, softening. “You’re wrong. He didn’t cut the kayak. He found it. That’s how he knew someone needed help.”

  Finally Derek rolled off her and stood up.

  Cody scrambled to her feet. “We don’t need his help.” She was close to crying now, hating herself for it. “Didn’t you hear the chopper? The rescue party knows we’re here. They spotted our camp. They’ll be coming back.”

  Derek shook his head slowly. “The chopper wasn’t looking for us.”

  Cody searched his face for answers. “What are you talking about?”

  She stood her ground while he spun out another story, this time explaining away the helicopter. Hubbard Glacier. There were all kinds of media there: TV news crews, newspaper reporters, environmentalists and geologists, all camped on the banks across from the massive plug of ice that had closed off the mouth of the fjord. A few small planes had actually landed on the outwash plains bordering the glacier; helicopters had lowered photographers onto the frozen river.

  She listened quietly, keeping an eye on the trees lining the clearing, in case Wildman decided to come back. “How do you know all this?”

  “Eric canoed that part of the fjord earlier in the week,” he said. “He hiked up on a ridge and watched them all afternoon.”

  “Eric?” She figured he meant Wildman. “If he really wanted to help, he would’ve told someone about us.”

  Derek turned and started back to the clearing. “They’re helping us by giving us food and gear. And Eric rescued your kayak. Now we have two.”

  Cody found herself trailing Derek slowly through the trees, toward the clearing. The woman was at the fire cutting a fleshy root into the steaming pot. It looked like skunk cabbage. A hunk of meat was added next, some kind of bloodred animal with a thick layer of fat.

  Cody hated herself, but the meat was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

  Sun filtered though the trees, bathing the wet ground with a glowing red aura. The red glow made the landscape look as if the world were on fire. Or maybe it was coming to an end.

  Cody sank to an old log, exhausted. She needed time to think about everything Derek had just told her.

  The trees were a steep canyon showing only a sliver of hard blue sky. In seconds the sliver turned from blue to white, changing with the whim of the wind and clouds. Old-man’s beard hung from the highest limbs. The gray moss was as deadly as a parasite, though it didn’t steal nutrients from its victims; it simply smothered them. Back in California it killed hordes of oak trees.

  The wind blew harder still.

  Drops began to fall. They splatted No Fear. No matter. It could use a good washing. So could she.

  The woman joined Wildman, slipping inside the hut.

  Moments before, Derek had retreated to the fire. He’d left her, saying “They’re okay, Cody. I wouldn’t lie. They aren’t poachers. Those skins we saw in the cabin were beaver, hunted legally over a whole season. You can go back to our camp if you want, but I’m not going with you. I’m going all the way to Hubbard.”

  Cody hadn’t asked Derek about the Tlingit woman. Cody hadn’t asked a lot of things. There was too much to absorb. If Wildman wasn’t a threat, then why the mask?

  Part of Derek’s story made sense. Newscasters and geologists would have flocked to Hubbard Glacier to check out such a monumental event. The day before she had even wondered where the save-the-whale activists were.

  Now she knew they were at Hubbard. Flying in from Yakutat on the ocean side. Except for the lone helicopter that had flown down the fjord, for some unknown reason. She still believed that if Wildman wanted to help them he could have told the people at Hubbard where they were.

  Derek sat alone by the fire, his shoulders sagging.

  She couldn’t believe she and Derek were on opposite sides of the fence, each trying to convince the other to make the long climb over.

  A raindrop hit her face, then two. Not a single sizzle in the fire; the sky was spitting at her alone. Part of her wanted to believe everything Derek had said. But another voice kept saying, Be careful. Something isn’t right here. Not talking to outsiders. The mask. It gave her the creeps. She knew what the outfitters said about people who lived in the woods. “They’re usually hiding from something.”

  The dark-haired woman
backed slowly out of the hut; Wildman remained inside. A thick necklace of shells adorned the woman’s chest, the same type of shells that decorated her poncho and mukluks. She moved to the fire and whispered something to Derek.

  Derek nodded, then made his way to the trees where he’d left Cody. “Eric knows you’re afraid of him,” he said. “He promises to stay in the shelter so that you can warm up by the fire.” Derek’s eyes begged her to follow him to the clearing. “We can paddle to Hubbard anytime, Cody. We’re not prisoners. But first you have to eat something and rest.”

  From behind his back Derek held up a hunk of meat. Meat! Dripping with greasy fat, attached to a bundle of ribs. Spareribs! Of venison, probably. She hesitated; then something took over and she grabbed the bundle of bones and dropped to a mossy boulder, hard and cold. She gnawed on the meat like an animal. Fat saturated her hands, dripped off her chin. Nothing had ever tasted so good.

  “Not so fast,” he said. “You’ll get sick.”

  Cody didn’t care. She couldn’t stop herself. Her stomach demanded every greasy, stringy tendon. With eyes closed, she swallowed half-chewed chunks and gagged. Chewing seemed such a waste of time. She didn’t even feel bad about eating a deer. It wasn’t like swallowing the gull’s unborn chicks.

  “How far is it to Hubbard?” she asked, teeth working on the bones, stripping them stark white in places, bloodred in others.

  Derek glanced at the shelter before he answered. “About six hours by kayak.”

  The glance meant Wildman says it’s that far.

  Six hours! It couldn’t be more than ten in the morning, eleven at the latest. Paddling together, the two of them could make it in one day. Today. She was sure of it. Her mother would be out of her mind with worry by now.

  Cody wiped her mouth on her sleeve, adding grease to the rest of the mess. Six hours, she thought. How many days had they paddled down the fjord? Two. Plus the day hiking yesterday. So three days traveling. Five altogether but some of that was at the second camp when her eyes had been sunburned. “No way. We can’t be that close.”

  Derek took the cleaned bones and tossed them into the woods. “The trail cut off a bunch of twisting and turning in the fjord,” he said.

  Cody eyed the hut. “Then why does he have to go with us?”

  “I already told you he doesn’t.”

  She hadn’t remembered that.

  “You know we couldn’t have made it, Cody,” he said.

  Her stomach grumbled and rolled over as if it wasn’t sure what to do with so much meat and grease. Being so full surprised it; she hadn’t thought she’d ever be full again. Cleaning off the last bone, she stuck it in her hip pocket. She wasn’t sure why, but it was a good fit.

  She still couldn’t get used to seeing Derek in the animal skin poncho. “Why does he wear that mask? And what are they doing out here?”

  Derek’s face clouded over. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Then you know.”

  He nodded.

  The wind picked up, making sounds like tribal chanting in the forest. Another gust carried high-pitched singing. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Too many hours had passed since she’d been dry and warm.

  “Mary Jane, his wife, shell tell you.”

  “Why can’t you tell me?”

  “It isn’t my story to tell. But she’ll tell you—she told me.”

  Derek looked down at the wet leaves on his boots. She’d never seen him act like this before. He glanced at the fire and said, “Come over to the fire and dry out, and let Mary Jane look at your leg.”

  Cody knew she had to dry off and rest. Just a thirty-minute nap and she’d be good for another hundred miles. But nobody was going to touch her leg, she told Derek. And she wasn’t going near Wildman.

  Her pack held a T-shirt and shorts. Not much else. But she couldn’t take off her tights since they were stuck to her scab. She’d change right where she was under the shelter of the trees. “Can I use your sleeping bag? Mine is wet.”

  Derek headed back to the clearing and gathered up his sleeping bag, a thick fur blanket, and a pot of cooled water. She couldn’t believe how well he fit into this scene.

  I won’t go to sleep, just close my eyes for a while, she thought after she’d taken off her boots, changed her clothes and slipped into the dry, warm bag. The fur blanket turned out to be a good ground cover, keeping the dampness from filtering up.

  Derek had brought over a wool poncho too, similar to the woman’s but without shells. Cody let the poncho stay where it was: hanging on a broken limb.

  I’m only going to close my eyes for a few minutes, she told herself.

  Soon she dozed, then slept hard.

  Hours later she bolted up with a start when something told her she wasn’t merely dreaming about a nonhuman creature. There was one next to her in the dark. She didn’t know where she was, didn’t know what was happening. She did know it was blackout dark and a huge shape of something hulky was nearby.

  Cody ripped her way out of the bag, suddenly remembering that she was in the Alaskan wilderness. Wildman. She thrashed through the underbrush but didn’t get far, stubbing her toe on something blunt. She cried out in pain and, in the glint of a waning moon, saw the Tlingit woman rise off the boulder and move toward her.

  The woman stopped in the moonlight filtering through a break in the trees. Except for the wavering glow from the fire, everything else sank back in the dark shadows.

  “What do you want?” Cody whispered, wondering if Wildman had kept his word and stayed in the shelter. Then she smelled that stench and realized she hadn’t even cleaned up before crawling into the sleeping bag.

  I must have conked out for hours.

  The woman didn’t answer.

  Something sleek winked at Cody from the ground near her feet. The bear horn must have rolled out of the sleeping bag. That was what she’d stubbed her toe on. Cody was surprised it hadn’t sounded off.

  “What do you want?” she repeated.

  Finally the woman answered. “Are you hungry?”

  Starving was more like it.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Thirsty, then?”

  The woman had a kind voice, soft and warm.

  “No, thank you.”

  “There is nothing to fear. My husband sleeps in our fishing shelter alongside your cousin.”

  Cody couldn’t imagine Wildman and Derek sleeping side by side.

  “Even if he was here beside me you would have nothing to fear. Come, sit by the fire. I have made a poultice for your wound. And there is vegetable stew left from last night’s dinner.”

  Dinner? Judging by the chill seeping through Cody’s bones, it must be two or three A.M. She was hardly aware of the surrounding dampness. The cold was becoming an old friend.

  The woman said, “Come. It’s no good to be so cold and dirty.”

  Her words carried a hint of an accent. Cody realized it was the careful way in which she laid down her words that gave them their rhythm, soft and resonant like a distant bell.

  Cody surprised herself by following the woman to the fire. She knew the door to the fishing shelter could creak open at any moment. Still she stayed by the fire, only a few feet from the shelter and its rawhide-lashed door. If Wildman had wanted to hurt her, he would have done it before now.

  The steam off the hot-water-soaked cloth and the warmth of the fire felt luxurious. She held the cloth to her face until sweat and mud dripped and the cloth cooled. The woman replaced it with a second steaming cloth, then peeled the socks from Cody’s feet and lifted them to a sudsy pot. Cody winced as heat awoke her half-numb toes; then heat finally won out and the pain subsided.

  “It will be ten years this winter since the accident,” the woman said.

  Cody knew she meant Wildman.

  The woman was going to tell his story.

  “An expedition to Mount McKinley. Denali is the Indian name. It is the highest mountain in North America. More than twenty thousand feet.”
>
  Cody nodded.

  “My husband was an experienced high-altitude guide, and he led others over the most treacherous route to the summit of Denali. This route required technical climbing, with ropes and ice axes, and crampons buckled over boots.

  “It takes more than a month to make such a journey, so all food and provisions had to be carried with them, packed on sleds and dragged over the ice like a team of sled dogs instead of men.”

  The woman paused and stared into the fire. The flickering light danced in her eyes, adding to her quiet beauty. Then she continued, “The mountain is an icebound graveyard; the peak itself is a gravestone. Yet many are compelled to try to conquer it, not knowing that the mountain will demand a sacrifice in return.

  “Traveling over ice fields and glaciers, each man was tied to the next in case he plummeted into a crevasse. The sleds were also tied with sturdy climbing rope, linked like deadweights between them. If the line to the sled wasn’t held tight, the sled could fall into a crevasse on top of the man in front of it and crush him.

  “My husband fell through ice no fewer than seven times, but the man behind him always held the sled line tight so that the sled never called him for the sacrifice.”

  Cody listened intently, hardly aware that her feet had been slipped into a pair of fur boots much like those the woman wore. The insides were sheepskin, like her Ugg boots back home. Her tights had been slit with a knife, the wound cleaned and dressed with a fresh bandage.

  “Then the storm came. It was completely dark at ten in the morning. The wind blew sideways at sixty miles per hour, knocking the men off their feet. It was colder than forty degrees below zero for many, many hours. Holding the sled line straight and stiff in the face of such a storm is how my husband lost three fingers on his right hand.”

  Cody shivered, unable to imagine such bitterly cold conditions. Wildman’s gloves were worn to hide missing fingers.

  The woman tucked a blanket around Cody’s shoulders and placed a cup of stew in her hands. Cody smiled a silent thank-you. Then she sipped the hot liquid, swirled it in her mouth, sloshed it over her teeth, and swallowed. The stew warmed her from the inside out.