In the Barren Ground

by Loreth Anne White

  “Jankoski’s not alive.”

  A wave of nausea, remorse, slammed through Tana. So powerful she had to close her eyes for a second.

  There’s no time to look backward, Tana. Keep focused or you’re going to get more people hurt …

  “We got this, Constable,” Caleb said. “We’re going to get her.” He took his weapon and slipped into shadows with Preston.

  Another shot thwocked into a nearby tree as they worked carefully in the darkness to finish rigging the ropes to Crash’s sack, the whiteness of snow providing limited visibility.

  As Damien got Crash’s sack secured with the new rope, they heard gunfire cracking back and forth along the ridge. Tana prayed her guys would be okay.

  “You ready?” Damien called from the branch above Crash.

  “Ready,” Wayne responded from his tree.

  “Ready down here,” Len said, holding the rope.

  As Damien cut through the old line holding Crash, another shot rang out on the ridge, and they heard the roar and whine of a snowmobile fading into the distance. One sharp bird whistle came from high on the ridge. Relief burned into Tana’s eyes. It sounded like Damien and Preston were okay, but that MacAllistair had fled.

  The sack dropped like a boulder, and swung toward them as the weight was caught by the backup branch. “Go for it, Len,” Wayne yelled.

  Len braced, getting down to his haunches as he took the weight, and he quickly belayed the sack down to where Tana caught it in her arms. Shaking, she eased Crash onto the ground, and clicked her headlamp back on. Shock pounded through her. His face looked like it had been clawed by a grizz—great big, gaping wounds that were now bloodless. The bottom of the sack was soaked with blood where his legs were.

  “Crash?” she whispered, touching the cold skin of his face. “Crash?”

  His eyes fluttered open. Her heart crunched. Oh, God. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve got a paramedic. Here he is now.” Preston emerged from the woods with Caleb.

  “She got away,” Caleb said. “She’s heading east. Oh … Jesus,” he said, catching sight of Crash’s face.

  “Tana—is that you?” Crash whispered.

  “I got you,” she said, her voice choking, her eyes blurring with emotion. “You’re going to be fine.” And the bastard even managed to smile, just for a second, before pain twisted his face. He tried to speak again.

  “She … Heather … took Mindy into … bad … lands.” His voice came out in a dry croak. His lips were cracked. “I came … around … as she … she was leaving Mindy in … boulder … garden … dangerous …”

  “Is she alive—is Mindy alive?”

  He shook his head slightly and her heart plummeted. “Don’t know … she might … not be … careful, Tana … be care …” He moaned in pain and passed out again.

  They got to work fast, cutting him free from the ropes and canvas. Tana caught her breath when she saw his leg.

  “Looks like the work of a bear trap,” Wayne said. And Tana’s mind shot to what she’d been told about Heather’s father, being killed by wolves while stuck in a bear trap.

  Preston cut open Crash’s pants and sock and removed the boot. He sprayed antiseptic and antibacterial medication into Crash’s wounds, and bound them tightly. They wrapped him in a survival blanket, and then in a sleeping bag into which they’d inserted emergency chemical warmers. While Preston and Tana worked on Crash, Caleb used Tana’s camera to photograph the trap, the spikes, and Jankoski’s body impaled upon them. Len, Wayne, Jamie, and Damien then struggled to free Jankoski’s body and roll it in the tarp they’d cut off Crash. They secured his body alongside Crash to the sled trailer. They worked fast and quietly, conscious of the fact MacAllistair was making headway, and that Mindy was still out there, dead or alive, possibly left in some “boulder garden” in the badlands, if they were to make any sense of Crash’s words.

  Preston mounted his sled, and fired the engine.

  “Len,” Tana said. “I need you to go back with them. Travel in twos—it’s survival one-oh-one, especially in this weather. Help Preston with Crash. Get him …” Her voice caught. “Get him to Addy. Then you go make sure Chief knows what’s happening, and that he keeps trying to get an emergency sat signal out. We need a medevac stat.”

  As Len climbed onto the back of the snowmobile behind Preston, Tana bent down, touched her hand to Crash’s face. “You better stick around, you hear? I … I still need a pilot.”

  Sunday, November 11. Day length: 7:15:00 hours.

  The forest grew sparse and soon there were no trees at all, just driving wind, and blinding snow. The five trackers that remained had been following MacAllistair’s snowmobile tracks from the ridge for over an hour, heading slowly, steadily toward the badlands.

  If Crash had been talking sense, MacAllistair had gone ahead and left Mindy in some boulder garden—which, to Tana’s understanding, was a swath of giant, round boulders, the size of washing machines and televisions, rubbed smooth and gathered into a mass by the push of ancient glacier movement. It provided challenging—sometimes impossible—terrain to navigate in both summer and winter.

  After leaving Mindy in the boulder garden, MacAllistair would have had to backtrack in order to string Crash up and use him as bait. Which meant she had a plan—if Tana had survived the pit trap, MacAllistair wanted her to come out here in search of Mindy. She was luring Tana into the badlands, and into the boulder garden. The woman wasn’t fleeing at all—rather playing some kind of cat and mouse game.

  The snowmobile in front of Tana stopped. So did the one behind. It was just after midnight.

  “What is it?” Tana called out over the rumbling engines and wind.

  Jamie, who was seated behind her, leaned forward and said over her shoulder, “Badlands.”

  Tana cursed inwardly. This had to have been part of MacAllistair’s plan, to strip Tana of support, or backup. And Tana had pushed these civilians far enough. As desperate as she was to apprehend MacAllistair and save Mindy, her conscience would not allow her to force her teammates into territory that was taboo. Anything they did had to be of their own volition.

  She wiped snow off her numb face. The decision loomed stark in front of her—go into the badlands after MacAllistair on her own, risking her life, and the life of her child. Or turn back, leaving Mindy to die—if she wasn’t dead already.

  A sense of defeat and fatigue suddenly swamped her.

  “What will happen if she gets away?” Jamie said over her shoulder.

  “If she survives out there, and escapes, she will hurt more people. Killers like Heather, they don’t just stop. They can’t. It’s an addiction and it gets worse and worse. She’s devolved. She’s a loose cannon now.”

  Jamie sat silent. They all did, exhaust fumes and engines chugging into the cold and whirling flakes.

  “Fuck,” Jamie said suddenly. He stood up, straddling the machine behind Tana. “I’m going,” he yelled over the engines, as if to bolster himself. “I’m going to help Constable Larsson nail this killer! She murdered my father. She murdered my girlfriend. And I dare any one of you to show some balls and come with us.”

  “Hey, man, that’s badshit land. Taboo—” Caleb started saying.

  “You,” Jamie pointed at Caleb, “and me—we broke taboo already. We robbed the graves of forefathers.”

  “For a good cause, man. That ice road—”

  “Is what? More important than this? Mindy could be alive. That woman is evil. You want to let evil hide in the badlands? Then there will always be evil in the badlands.” Jamie plunked his butt back on the seat and said, “Go, Constable. Go get her.”

  Damien revved his engine, and pushed suddenly forward ahead of Tana’s machine, taking the lead into the badlands with Wayne tucked in behind him. Emotion walloped through Tana. These guys, these townsfolk, they were her team, her tribe. In spite of their differences, they were one. United in this goal.

  “Whoa!” she screamed out after Damien, then hit
her sirens and lights so he’d hear, see, stop. And he did, bringing his machine around to face hers.

  “Listen,” she called out over the wind. “I can’t ask you guys to do this. You’ve seen what Heather is capable of. It’s dangerous.”

  “Then we do it without you, Constable,” Damien yelled over the roar of his machine. “Caleb? You with us?”

  Caleb hesitated. He rode a machine solo.

  “You want to turn back, you go. Jamie, me, Wayne, we’re going in with or without Constable Larsson here. Me? I’m doing it for Crash. And Mindy. For Crow, and Selena, and Regan and Dakota.”

  “Fine. Fine, okay. I’ll go. I’m not the fuck staying here by myself.” Caleb revved his own sled and pushed ahead of them all into the badlands, sticking on MacAllistair’s trail.

  About an hour into the badlands, the going got steeper and navigating the sleds over uneven terrain grew increasingly challenging. Damien came to another sudden halt, and once more his hand shot high into the air. Tana tensed as she came up behind him.

  “Her sled! Over there!” he yelled. “She’s abandoned it. Taken off on snowshoes up that incline. See?” He panned his handheld hunting spotlight up a steep ridge ahead of them. The imprints of large snowshoes were clearly visible, tracking at a diagonal across the slope and up toward a ridge.

  Tana stared at the tracks. Why had MacAllistair done this? She wanted them up there on foot for some reason?

  “Boulder garden,” Wayne said, panning his own light across the ridge. “I reckon it’s up top of that ridge.”

  “What do you want to do?” Damien said.

  Tana considered options, and none of them felt good. “If Crash was right, Mindy is up there, and she’s the bait. I think Heather will be waiting.”

  “Maybe we best split up,” Wayne said. “The garden can’t be too wide, and if she’s waiting, my guess is she’s on the opposite side.”

  “So how come she can make it across a boulder garden without her legs slipping between the rocks and breaking?” Tana said.

  “Look at the size of her snowshoe prints,” Wayne said. “They’re those massive old gut shoes that she’s using. Like boats on the feet. There’s enough snow now, and if she knows a generally safe route across the boulders, those shoes are going to stop her going into cracks if she makes a small mistake. The snowshoes we brought are way smaller—technical things. Nothing like the good old traditional shit.”

  “Okay,” Tana said. “But if we can see her tracks, we can also see where the safe route across the boulder garden lies.”

  “But she’ll be at the end of her tracks. Waiting.”

  “I think Wayne is right,” Damien said, still studying the slope with his spotlight. “I think Wayne should go up the slope on the far right. And I’ll go along the bottom of the incline to the left, then up. We both come up at the far ends, and try to circle around behind her, take her by surprise. Wait for our all-clear whistle before coming up and following her tracks into the garden, because once you guys are out in the open, you’ll be sitting ducks.”

  It was a gamble, but the best they had. They all strapped on snowshoes, and readied weapons and lengths of rope for self-rescue in case anyone fell deep between giant, slick boulders. Tana, Caleb, and Jamie watched as Wayne and Damien moved like shadows across the base of the incline in opposite directions, and then disappeared into snow and darkness.

  Almost an hour passed, and the cold settled deep into Tana’s bones. Worry knifed in with it—something had gone wrong. They were taking far too long. Mindy wasn’t going to survive this. Suddenly a crack split the air.

  They all jumped. Another. Then another. Gun battle.

  They began to start frantically up the ridge, sliding at least a foot backward in soft powdery drifts for every few feet they climbed forward. They neared the crest and crouched, waiting.

  All had fallen silent.

  They waited some more.

  Nothing. No whistle.

  Then suddenly it came. A long, shrill blast.

  “Go!” she said. And they clambered over the top. Breathing hard, Tana surveyed the scene. The boulder garden was a sea of smooth mounds of snow. She could see MacAllistair’s trail across it almost instantly. Panning her spotlight along the trail, she hit on a shape lying in the middle of the expanse.

  “Mindy,” she said, peering through the driving flakes. “Trussed up in canvas like Crash was.” She turned to Caleb and Jamie. “You guys wait here. I’ll go slowly across, and test the route. If it’s a trick, then only one of us breaks a leg. If I give the all-clear whistle, you come. If I go down between the rocks, you play it safe and see if you can throw me a rope from a secure position.”

  “Got it,” said Caleb.

  Tana started into the boulder terrain, tentatively testing each step with her snowshoes before transferring weight. Each time she felt a slip, she’d reposition her snowshoe and test again. It took several painstaking minutes to reach the canvas bag lying in the snow, and when she did, she wondered where Damien and Wayne were, why there’d been no sign of them by now. Nerves jangled.

  She crouched down beside the bag. “Mindy?” Tana rolled the bag over, and Mindy’s exposed head flopped back. Quickly, Tana removed her glove and placed her fingers against Mindy’s neck. Her skin was ice cold. Tana could feel no pulse. A wave of emotion slammed through her. “Mindy, please, please.” She moved her fingers to a different position, just to be certain she wasn’t missing a faint pump of blood under skin, and that’s when she saw the shadow. Coming fast. The fog and falling flakes created a curtain so dense that the shape was already almost upon her.

  Tana panned her spotlight fast around to face it. MacAllistair.

  Dropping her spotlight Tana reached for the rifle on her back, but she didn’t have time to put stock to shoulder before the woman was right on her, face ghost white, her mouth open, as she brandished a clawlike tool high in the air. In her other hand was a sharpened birch stake. With a scream she swiped the claw down on Tana.

  CHAPTER 46

  Tana rolled onto her side as MacAllistair’s weapon came down. The tips of the claws tore through the fabric of her snow pants at her hip. Rage, raw survival instinct, exploded through Tana’s body as she tried to scramble backward, but her snowshoes hooked her up, and her arm slipped down a crack between boulders. Her face hit rock as she went down. Pain sparked along her cheekbone. Pulling her arm free, Tana grappled in the snow for her gun. But MacAllistair heaved her tool up into the air, and sliced it down again with another banshee-like scream. Tana rolled again, and the blow struck snow, going through to rock with a clang. Tana’s rifle clattered down between boulders. MacAllistair was caught off balance by the fact her blow had missed its mark, and she stumbled over her giant snowshoes, dropping her wooden stake as she flailed to keep her balance.

  Heart jackhammering, sweat running down her brow, Tana pulled her sidearm from its holster. Lying on her back, she aimed, trying to curl her thickly gloved finger around the trigger, but MacAllistair swung the bear-claw tool across the front of her body, hitting Tana’s Smith & Wesson and sending it flying into snow.

  Your baby, think of your baby … you’re not going to let this woman kill your innocent child …

  Tana writhed toward the fallen birch stake. It was about five feet long. She grasped it and rolled away again as the bear claw was swung at her again. The tips of the claws caught her upper arm, raking through her jacket and flesh.

  She swung the birch stake at MacAllistair’s legs, smashing it across her shins. The blow made MacAllistair stumble backward in her clumsy snowshoes, bringing her to the ground. Tana tried to scuttle backward and get to her feet, but the pointed rear end of her right snowshoe jammed fast between rocks. She was trapped, vulnerable on her back. MacAllistair was back on her feet, stumbling toward her, swinging her claw up like a baseball bat. Tana rammed the flat end of the birch stake against the rock next to her waist. She put her arm around it, clamping the base of the stake tightly agai
nst her body using her elbow. She fisted her hand around the stake pressing her forearm against the length of it. As MacAllistair lunged forward, Tana kicked at MacAllistair’s snowshoes with her free foot. Their snowshoes connected in a clashing tangle, pitching MacAllistair forward over Tana.

  Tana brought the stake into position just as her assailant came down on top of her. The tip plunged deep into the woman’s belly bringing her to a juddering halt. Tana grunted with the impact. For a moment Heather MacAllistair hung there on the end of the stake, her eyes wide, staring into Tana’s. Then blood began to drip from her lips, and the stake cracked, buckling in two with the weight impaled upon it. MacAllistair slumped onto Tana, a dead weight, thumping the air out her lungs.

  For a second Tana couldn’t breathe. Her mind screamed as she tried to absorb what had just happened. She felt the wetness of blood leaking onto her.

  She’d driven a stake into the heart of a monster.

  Struggling to push the weight of the dead body off her, her snowshoe still wedged between rock, Tana reached for the whistle around her neck. It took her a moment to gather enough breath, to stop her hands from shaking enough, to put the whistle between her lips, and issue three loud blasts.

  CHAPTER 47

  The chopper materialized from dense cloud and falling snow, a shimmering silver knight in shining armor. It was a big military beast equipped like an ambulance inside with paramedics on standby as it came in to land on the small Twin Rivers airstrip. A blizzard roared in the downdraft as trees bowed, and pinecones and bits of debris hurtled across the strip.

  Tana stood by the waiting gurneys, shielding her eyes against the maelstrom of debris and wind. She held Crash’s hand. It was warm, and his grip firm. Chief Dupp Peters had managed to get a brief emergency message out in the dark hours of the morning while her hunting party was limping its way back toward town.

  Damien and Wayne had both been hurt in the gun battle with MacAllistair. Wayne was still unconscious, in a coma. Damien had taken a bullet in the shoulder, and he’d broken a femur while tumbling down a sheer ravine at the back end of the boulder garden, losing his whistle on the way down. MacAllistair had found the whistle on Wayne’s unconscious body, and blown it, guessing she was making some kind of a signal.