A hundred yards to her front, she saw Deonovich and Sagli speaking together in hushed tones, not once sparing her a look. As her eyes scanned the area, she saw what looked like a small general store, perhaps there to sell bait to the local Indian population. Next to the three-story market, there was a large icehouse and its chilling tower. A small warehouse was at its base and several of the local men were standing on the dock, watching the newcomers as they unloaded. The men were of various ages: some had the long hair of the young native, while other older men wore their hair short. Their skin was copper toned from living and working in the open and, like all fishermen, had the honest look of laborers. She saw an old woman coming from the river carrying two baskets filled with fish—the heavy Indian woman looked her way and then quickly in the direction of the two Russians. It was as if she didn’t even notice all of the equipment being off loaded from the four helicopters.
Good for you, Lynn thought to herself, the less curious these locals are, the more likely they will survive the murderous group that was invading their tranquil home.
“Sikorsky S-76s—four of them—now these are some fishermen that know how to travel.”
Lynn was startled as the voice came from behind her. She turned and saw a young woman, maybe sixteen years old, as she placed a hand on the sleek light blue side of the tail boom of the helicopter she had ridden in. Lynn looked back at Sagli and Deonovich, but they were busy supervising the unloading of their equipment. She turned back to face the pretty girl in the dark green overalls and the black shirt. Lynn could see the twin braids that coursed down her back and she had a face as bright as sunshine, setting off her raven black hair. She was surprised to see a Caucasian girl among so many native Canadians.
“I see you know your aircraft,” Lynn said as she approached the young girl.
“Sure, we see a lot of nice and very expensive things here; you know, rich doctors and such when they hire out for fishing and hunting guides. I also attend college at Washington State, so I do have an idea how the rest of the world lives and plays.” The girl saw the confusion her statement caused the stranger. “I was homeschooled by my grandmother and then I started college early. It wasn’t as tough as people make out.”
Lynn smiled and then looked around her, surprised at the emptiness of the fishing camp.
“I didn’t mean to be condescending, you just didn’t look like a student . . . I mean . . . uh, hell, I don’t know what I mean.”
The girl removed her hand from the aluminum skin of the Sikorsky and looked at Lynn, examining her.
“You don’t look like you’re much of a fisherman or hunter.”
“Touché,” Lynn said with a smile as she saw the girls eyes shift from her to the large group of men placing crates and bags along the shore of the river. When she looked back at Lynn, the girl had a curious look on her face, and then it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“So, do your parents operate this settlement?”
“My parents are dead. I live with my grandmother, and yes, this is all hers, everything from a mile up the mountains to the water that flows in the river—bought and paid for many years ago. My family buys fish from the few groups of Tlingit Indians left in this area. We freeze them and sell them down south in Vancouver and Juneau.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
The girl smiled. “Why would you be sorry? I never knew them, my mother died giving birth to me and my father was killed a few years after that. I’m afraid all I have are pictures.” Her smile broadened. “Would you like to see them?”
Lynn couldn’t resist, she liked the young girl immediately. She knew she could be no more than sixteen years old, but she said she was in college already. That would made her something special in Lynn’s mind. Plus, her smile was infectious.
“Yes I would,” she said quickly. “I would also like to meet the grandmother of a girl smart enough to attend college at such a young age.” Lynn watched for a reaction, as maybe there was some way she could get the message through to these people not to interfere with their new visitors. She didn’t trust the word of Sagli not to hurt and kill to get what it was they came for—or to cover up that fact.
“My name is Marla Petrovich.”
“I’m Lynn. Nice to meet you, Marla.”
As Lynn turned to follow the girl, she could not help but notice the attention Marla paid to the lined-up supplies and equipment. It was if she were examining the reasoning behind some of the more exotic of it. Her eyes lingered the longest on four large tarp-covered pieces. To the girl’s credit, she kept quiet as she bounded past Sagli and Deonovich.
Sagli watched Lynn and the girl for a moment, and then said a last word to Deonovich and then he followed Lynn and the girl as they walked toward the small two-story store, his eyes never leaving the two women.
Sagli’s large partner watched as the three disappeared into the wooden-framed store. At that moment a breeze sprang up and moved the rotors of the four helicopters. Deonovich turned away from the dust that the wind had kicked up, and as he did, he thought he heard the far-off sound of a tree falling. When he looked up after the sudden wind had died down, he stared as far as he could across the river. It seemed as if something had moved there, but the darkness of the woods and the long shadows the giant trees cast made seeing anything impossible. As he turned away, he suddenly knew what the feeling was that he had when looking across the fast-moving river—he felt he was being watched.
As Lynn went through the old door, she was amazed to see that the store was far more modern than she ever would have suspected from the old wooden structure from the outside. There were new advertisements for Coors, Molson, Moosehead, and Budweiser brands of beers. There were up-to-date displays of all brands of fishing equipment and even had a rental counter for those items. The floor was not made out of wood, but was a bright and shiny linoleum that was beige in color. The shelves were clean and dusted and full of canned goods, and even had a quaint sign hanging from the ceiling that said AIR TIGHTS. The store even had a dairy department that carried fresh milk and eggs.
“Well, this is it, the last stop of humanity before reaching the wilds of the Stikine,” Marla said as she gestured for Lynn to follow her around the large counter situated at the right of the aisles.
Lynn felt Sagli step into the store and eye his surroundings with suspicion. He allowed himself to relax when he saw there were no apparent customers inside the large store. Lynn could see that he adjusted something under his open coat, obviously warning her that he was armed.
“I have most of my pictures upstairs, but there are a few which Grandmother keeps here. We call it our ghost wall.” Marla smiled as she pointed at an old black-and-white picture of two people. One was a large blond man and the other was a smallish woman who had obvious Indian blood in her, and was beautiful. The large man, at least six foot four or five, had his arm around the small woman who was a good foot and a half shorter than the man. “These are my parents; Grandmother says that my mom was actually pregnant with me when this was taken.”
“Your mother was a beautiful woman,” Lynn said turning and smiling at the obviously proud girl.
“What did your father do for a living—run this store?” Sagli asked as he stepped up to the counter and removed his pair of work gloves.
“Her father was a guide. No man in the world knew this area better than my Eric; he was raised along the Stikine and never left her waters.”
Lynn and Sagli both turned to see an old woman come out of a back room wiping her hands on a dish towel. She eyed the strangers with an arched brow. She was dressed in a large pair of denim pants and wore a bright red-and-black wool shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a bun and she looked spry for a woman in her early eighties.
“Oh, hello,” Lynn said as she stepped out from behind the counter.
“You folks lookin’ for a guide? We usually get advance notice of fishermen headin’ our way by the Mounties down at Jackson’s Bluff.”
“We flew in from Juneau,” Sagli said, eyeing the old woman.
“From Alaska, but you are Russian, right?” the heavyset woman said as she gained the counter, and stepped behind it, looking at her granddaughter.
“Grandmother, this is Lynn. Lynn, this is my grandmother Helena, and—I don’t know your name,” she said turning to Sagli.
The Russian didn’t say anything, he looked at Lynn and then put his gloves back on.
“So, I take it you are traveling up the Stikine?” the grandmother asked.
Lynn was about to answer when Sagli slapped one glove against the other. “We will be doing some exploring and sightseeing.”
“Sightseeing? Along the Stikine?” the woman said with a smile and a raised brow.
“You’ll have to excuse Grandmother, she gets in these moods,” Marla said as she came from around the counter. “But she’s only concerned; the Stikine can be a very dangerous place if you don’t know what you’re doing or exactly where you are going. The river can be calm one minute, and with just a small thunderstorm up north, can become a raging torrent the next.”
“We are well equipped for any contingency, young woman,” Sagli announced.
“Many a fool has gone into the forest, the mountains, and the Stikine Valley well equipped, and we would find some of that fine equipment floating back down a week or two later,” the grandmother said as she unlocked the cash register. “Now, is there anything we can help you with before you go?”
Sagli eyed both the young girl and the old woman, then he took Lynn by the arm and pulled her toward the door. Lynn tried to look back, but the Russian kept a steady pressure on her by squeezing her arm so that she knew there would be no more conversation exchanged.
After the two left the store, Marla turned to her grandmother, who was watching the activity outside with interest.
“You don’t like that man, do you?” she asked.
Without turning to face the girl, the old woman said, “Russian.”
“Grandmother, we do have Russian in our blood. You said it yourself: There are so many Russians in this area of Canada, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one.”
The old woman just looked at her granddaughter and then smiled. “Come now, help me with the baking. You need to earn your keep before you go back to school.”
The girl shook her head and then headed for the back, but the old woman stayed and watched as the newcomers inflated giant Zodiac rubber boats, eight of them in all. Then she watched as the helicopters lifted off and then disappeared over the giant trees. All the while, the Russian who had been in the store watched her through the window.
“Goddamn Russians,” was all she said.
Before she turned away, she noticed the face of the smallish woman looking at her. There was something in her stance from that distance that told her that there was trouble. Then the old woman’s eyes went to the men loading the supplies onto the boat and she couldn’t help but notice the plastic-wrapped items being stored at the bottom of each boat. She knew what they were loading, and they weren’t your standard hunting rifles—they were automatic weapons.
She eased herself away from the window and went into a back room just outside of the kitchen. There was an ancient rolltop desk with all the stores financials laid out on its top, and above that on the desk’s upper most reaches, was a large radio. She picked up the old-fashioned microphone and then hit the transmit button.
“Charlie, do you have your ears on down there?” she said into the mike and then waited.
“RCMP, Jackson’s Bluff,” came the answer through the wall-mounted speaker.
“Charlie Kemp, is that you?”
“Helena, how’s things up to the camp, eh?”
“Charlie, I think we may need a few of your Mounties up this way. We have visitors, and I don’t think they’re here for the fishing.”
7
TWENTY-SEVEN MILES NORTH OF WAHACHAPEE
FISHING CAMP
THE STIKINE RIVER
Lynn watched as the first four large Zodiacs pulled onto the rocky shoreline of the river. She had been surprised they had traveled as far as they had after the sun had set as the river was one large twisting and turning roller-coaster ride since they started out from the fishing camp. As the men piled out of the huge rubber craft and their two hundred horse-power Evenrude engines were shut down, Lynn was cognizant of how quiet the woods were around them. The sound of the fast-flowing Stikine helped with masking the sounds of the men unloading equipment, but she could tell that when all was said and done, the wilderness would let you hear for miles around.
As she stood at the rear of the boat, her wrist was grabbed by Dmitri Sagli. He held a Remington .306 hunting rifle with a twelve-power scope in his other hand. His eyes met hers, and then darted away, scanning the area around their landing site.
“I will post no guard on you,” he said, finally turning back to look at her. His eyes turned silver in the light of the rising moon. “This area is inaccessible; escaping would only hurry the process of your demise, so once we have made camp, think about what I have said. You may stand a small chance with us, but against a hungry bear, or a pack of wolves, you’ll will have no chance at all.” He let go of her wrist and then started walking away to the area he had chosen to make camp just inside of the tree line. “We will wait for my partner to join us with the last two boats. We will be here for at least twelve hours; use that time to rest—it will be the last chance you have before we push on to our destination.”
Lynn rubbed her wrist and then looked around. She had not noticed before, but Deonovich and several of his mercenaries were also nowhere to be seen; as a matter of fact, she hadn’t seen him since they left the fishing village.
Lynn stepped free of the Zodiac and started up the shoreline. She looked at the ancient and very foreboding trees that lined the Stikine, and shivered. She had been in wilderness areas before, but she could never remember being in a place where she felt as though she were an entire world away from civilization. As she looked skyward, she swore she could see every star in the universe as they twinkled and winked far above her. It was like looking at an incoming tide of luminescent water as it rushed to shore.
The men were quick and efficient at setting up large five-man tents. As they worked, Lynn could see that they all shouldered automatic rifles and all kept a wary eye on the river. They also watched the very tree line that held their small camp safely hidden. As they set the last of the tent poles and made their ropes tight, Lynn saw several boxes of large caliber ammunition. What were these men preparing for, a Canadian Mountie’s full-scale invasion—or maybe something else?
“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” she said under her breath nervously, trying to take her mind off the pain in her hand.
_______
It was two hours later and Lynn had been supplied with a tin plate with rich beef stew almost overflowing the rim. She had discovered she had been near starvation. She had greedily shoveled the food into her mouth as the Russian mercenaries watched her with large smiles, shaking their heads. After she had eaten, she was shown to a small two-person tent and told that was where she would sleep. Not trusting the men she was currently keeping company with, Lynn silently pulled a small fallen branch into the tent with her. Once inside, she saw that an electric lantern had been placed in with her. She turned it on and saw a brand-new sleeping bag and a large bottle of drinking water, and beside it were three painkillers.
Lynn grimaced as she placed the small tree branch over her knee and tried to break it. The leafy branch was still too green to snap cleanly. She redoubled her effort and was rewarded with a snap. It didn’t break through all the way, but she knew it would work out. She bent and twisted the branch until it broke and then she pulled, slicing the limb into two separate pieces, with one end sharper than the other. She smiled and tossed the blunt end away, keeping the small jabbing spear and poking at the air with it. At least she could poke someone’s eye out
with it if she were attacked in her lonely nylon-built domain.
Now that she was armed, she pulled out of her jacket, it being warm enough outside to make the night at least comfortable. She lay down on the sleeping bag and listened to the little spits of laughter coming from the men outside of her tent as she swallowed the three painkillers. Listening to the men, it was as though these bastards were on a vacation. She shook her head and closed her eyes.
An hour later she awoke to the strangest noise she had ever heard in the field. It seemed as though it came from miles away. As she sat up, she heard men as they unzipped their tents and stepped out, also questioning what it was they were hearing. She didn’t understand the Russian language, but knew that the sound unnerved the men.
Lynn stood and cautiously approached the tent’s flap and slowly slid the zipper down. She saw men standing around one dwindling fire pit. The soft glow showed her that they were, indeed, looking to the north, far past where the Stikine turned at a sharp angle. As she cocked her head to listen, the men were shushed to silence by Sagli as he stepped from his own large well-appointed tent. He was bare-chested but held the .306 at the ready; he went as far as to pull the bolt back and chamber a round.
The noise dwindled, and then picked up in intensity. It sounded like several people slamming large sticks against the trunks of trees. The sound echoed down through the river valley of the Stikine, bringing with it a set of cold chills, the likes of which Lynn had never had before.
As suddenly as the strange banging had started, it stopped, and the dark world around them became silent once more. Lynn saw Sagli lower his weapon and then gesture for the others to get back to sleep or to take up their guard stations once more. Sagli looked up at the giant trees as they swayed in the slight wind that had sprung up. As he turned away after slinging his rifle around his shoulder, he saw Lynn as she looked out of her tent flap. He smiled, with not one inch of it actually reaching anything other than his lips. Did he know something about the strange noise and wasn’t offering an explanation, or was he as taken back as the others had been, herself included?
Primeval: An Event Group Thriller Page 22