Forty Days Without Shadow: An Arctic Thriller

by Olivier Truc

  “Get on with it,” he said. “We’re breaking camp. Moving on to the next valley. The kid’s waiting for us there. We’re almost done. Then you can get off back home to your wife. And you’ll get your dogs.”

  He moved forward again, held out his SPP2. “Here, put this in its case.” He placed the device on the small folding table.

  The Sami was forced to turn slightly to reach for the SPP2. For a quarter of a second, Racagnal would be out of his field of vision. The guide straightened up and reached out carefully, feeling for the device but keeping his eyes on the Frenchman.

  He was barely three feet away now. Racagnal acted with brutal force. The Swedish hammer swung through the air and hit home hard with a hideous cracking sound. But that Sami bastard had anticipated his move. Racagnal had caught him on the shoulder, probably shattered his clavicle. Surprised to have missed the Sami’s skull, he was caught off guard for two or three seconds. That was enough. The Sami pulled a large dagger out of his boot, its handle oiled and gleaming. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion after that. Despite his wrecked shoulder, the man flung himself at Racagnal, who, too close to lift the hammer for a second strike, tried to push the Sami away with his free hand.

  The Frenchman could hardly comprehend what happened next. The guide opened his huge jaw wide and bit Racagnal’s hand. Racagnal roared, but the man’s teeth clenched tighter than a trap. In the next instant, with no time for anything but the cold inrush of fear, he saw the Sami slice at his wrist with a powerful swipe of the dagger. Racagnal released the hammer and clutched the source of the spurting blood. Yelling with pain, he saw the snow turn red. The Sami was threatening him with the knife now, but didn’t seem ready to kill him. Aslak crouched down, keeping his eyes fixed on his opponent, who was dancing now in agony. The guide reached for Racagnal’s severed hand, lying in the snow. No, not the hand, but the silver wrist-chain and tag, that had slipped free. The Sami rose to his full height.

  “Mino Solo,” he said. “Mino Solo.”

  * * *

  When the officers called back to the station to report the discovery of Aila’s body, the Sheriff dispatched a team straightaway. The judge had made a detailed search of Olsen’s place, including opening the old man’s safe, in which they had found papers linking Olsen to the French geologist, a draft employment contract for Brattsen as head of security at a mine somewhere in the region, and a statement by Ulrika, a fifteen-year-old girl from Kautokeino, detailing how she had been raped. By Racagnal.

  The four officers set off again. The sky was increasingly overcast. Visibility was still good, but the weather would turn bad very soon. Nina was worried. How would they find the exact spot in a snowstorm? Despite the cloud cover, it was turning much colder, fast. They should have turned back, continued the chase later.

  Klemet reassured her. He knew these mountains. He felt more at home here now than ever before. He had committed everything to memory—the details of the drum, the joïk, the maps. They drove on, Klemet in the lead, keeping up a steady pace. Nina was right, they had very little time. Only the most experienced rider could find a way across the tundra in weather like this. The wind was blowing the first flakes of snow almost horizontally now. Nina’s helmet covered her head completely, but she felt thin fingers of cold stealing over her left temple. Like someone working the point of a knife into her skin. She wanted to cover the chink in her helmet with her glove, to stop the pain, just for a minute, but she dared not let go of the handlebar, dreading she might lose control of her heavy machine. Worse conditions lay ahead, she could see that. The sun was still above the horizon, but hidden now behind thick bars of black cloud.

  Klemet made the going even tougher by choosing a shortcut though a steep valley. Most of the breeders avoided going that way. Klemet rode into it without a second thought, aware that he was saving precious time. The others followed bravely. At last, he emerged at the far end, riding down a gentle slope to a small, winding river. Rounding a bend, Klemet almost collided with a man on his knees in the middle of the frozen surface. The man stared in horror at the snowmobile pulling up sharply just a couple yards away. His face was gashed and bleeding. Olsen.

  The old man flung his arms wide and pointed to a crashed scooter on the nearby bank, half-buried in powdery snow. He hadn’t seen a rock, concealed beneath the drift. A body lay stretched out a little further away. Motionless.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here,” declared Olsen, his face a picture of relief, then wincing suddenly at the sharp pain from his neck. “The lad’s worse than useless. A hopeless rider. I was guiding him on the trail of a dangerous villain. He—”

  His confident tone faltered as Klemet shoved him aside and turned Brattsen over. He was unconscious but otherwise unhurt. Klemet left the two reinforcements to take statements and deal with the pair, then rode on, followed by Nina, racing ahead into the storm.

  * * *

  Racagnal shook his head, in pain and incomprehension. He was trembling all over. But the other man seemed in no hurry to kill him. He felt a glimmer of hope when the Sami untied his lasso and bound him tight. Very tight. But now he was pulling him; pulling him and forcing Racagnal to walk, following his scooter tracks in the snow.

  They walked for what seemed like an eternity. Racagnal stumbled, sinking deep into the snow, howling with pain at every fall. The cold bit at the stump of his wrist. The pain was unbearable. The Frenchman sweated as the cold closed in around them. The storm had risen now, making earth and sky almost indistinguishable. The wind blew hard, sweeping everything in its path. They walked on through snowflakes swirling in all directions. Racagnal hollered and yelled, cursing the Sami guide. But the man jerked him forward, pulling him on, impervious to the storm and his own steadily increasing pain.

  Before long, the wind seemed to die down. Racagnal recognized the steep slope leading down to the mine. The Sami had followed their tracks this far. The guide tugged at the rope again, with brutal force. Racagnal fell forward, roaring and cursing.

  Then they were at the mine entrance. Aslak tugged again, forcing Racagnal to crouch down. The Sami pitched him forward into the middle of the chamber, in almost total darkness, then dragged him almost to his feet under the low ceiling. He could feel the man doing something, but he had no idea what. Then he realized, too late. Another rope was bound tight around his shoulders, pinning his arms closer to his sides and binding his legs. He fell, unable to move. He could no longer clutch his wrist, to try to staunch the bleeding. He shrieked liked a madman, in rage, pain, and terror. He was going to die here. Then he felt the Sami stuffing something into his mouth. He struggled, but he was powerless to resist. The rock choked his voice. Pitchblende. His mouth was filled the filthy stuff. The Sami untied Racagnal’s scarf from around his neck and knotted it tightly over his mouth. By the faint light from the tunnel entrance Racagnal watched, exhausted, defeated, as the man’s silhouette loomed over him, then moved away.

  “Mino Solo. For Aila.”

  * * *

  Klemet recognized the valley immediately, though he had never been there before. He and Nina found the abandoned bivouac. The snowmobile. The blood-soaked hammer. The storm had scattered objects and papers all around. A folding table had blown away. The wind was sweeping everything in its path.

  Klemet and Nina didn’t speak. The sky was almost dark now, though it was barely 2 p.m. Nina pointed to faint traces on the ground, leading into the storm. They could see no more than ten yards or so. The horizon was a blank. They climbed back aboard their scooters and followed the tracks, neither too slowly, to avoid sinking into the snow, nor too fast, so as not to hit any unseen obstacles.

  Klemet was afraid now. He would never admit it, but he was afraid. All his life, he had struggled with his fear of the terrifying storms that battered the tundra. He thought he had conquered it by sheer force of will, stepping out alone from the Reindeer Police huts into the freezing dark. But the fear returned when Aslak was around, he knew that. And Aslak had done a ter
rible thing. He would have to pay. Klemet would have to arrest him, if he was still alive.

  Slowly, they moved forward. The tracks increased, and they were difficult to follow. The snow swirled angrily, closing in on them. Twice, Klemet had spotted traces of red in the beams of his headlights.

  This storm. It was the same. Exactly the same. He shut out the image, but it forced its way back. His childhood self, seven years old. On a window ledge at the boarding school in Kautokeino. Clutching a small bag of provisions collected carefully over several days. Provisions for two people. Enough to get back to his farm. To run away from school, where he and his friend had been beaten for speaking Sami. He had stood on the window ledge in the freezing night, preparing to travel eighteen miles in the pitch-dark, at minus 22°F. At seven years of age. And this was the very same storm, he knew that now, its breath blasting his ears. He forced himself to go on.

  The wind made light of his snowsuit, insinuating itself through the slightest chink, into the furthest corners of his memory. The same storm, the same dread. He came to a place on the mountain where the tracks headed in two directions. To the left, they led down a steep slope, a kind of narrow ramp. But he could see nothing beyond that. Klemet turned his snowmobile in the other direction, up toward the summit. The tracks were fainter than ever now, of a man alone. Klemet looked up ahead, his face creased with tension. He followed the beams of the headlights, searching the snow, blown horizontally by the screaming wind. Higher up, almost obliterated by the gusts of flakes, he saw the silhouette of a man, one shoulder drooping forward, wearing a four-pointed hat. Aslak was waiting for him.

  Klemet took a deep breath. He turned to Nina. Through the tumult, he glimpsed his colleague’s exhausted, heart-stopping expression.

  “Wait for me here,” he yelled, hoarse with the effort.

  Klemet rode forward. He knew the confrontation was inevitable. Even Nina had understood that. He stopped in front of Aslak. The herder’s features were hollow with exhaustion. His reindeer-skin cloak was soaked with blood at the shoulder. He was suffering, but gave no sign of it. His hands were empty, his fists clenched. Klemet breathed deeply. He would have to speak first.

  “Why, Aslak? Why Mattis?” he shouted over the storm.

  Aslak’s face had lost its hard, inscrutable expression. Pain and exhaustion were written there now. His eyelids drooped. He shook his head, holding back a shudder of pain. The wind and snow whipped at his face. His eyelashes and beard were white with frost.

  “Mattis was dead when I arrived,” he shouted back. “I wept for him, Klemet. I cried tears for the first time in my life.”

  Klemet could see Aslak was sincere. Saw, too, that the admission cost him nothing.

  “When I was a child, I never cried. For Aila, with the baby, I never cried. Mattis was a victim of men. And rules. The Reindeer Administration. And business. Mino Solo was the worst. You know that. All guilty. The council. The people handing out licenses. They knew about Aila. They did nothing for her. That was why I cut and marked the ears. That was why I left them in the town. So that people would know.”

  “Why didn’t you come and see me?” Klemet shouted, narrowing his eyes against the ice crystals stinging his face.

  “I don’t believe in your justice, Klemet.”

  “The blood? Around Mattis’s eyes?”

  “For our elders. On the first day of the return of the sun after the long night, a wooden ring would be dipped in blood. They looked through it to watch the sun rise, to give courage to those who had lost heart.”

  Aslak fell silent, his eyes half closed. It seemed to Klemet that he saw a spark of humanity in them, for the first time in his life.

  “Mattis had lost heart.” Aslak spoke loud and clear over the storm. “I helped him to see through the ring of blood. He died the day the sun was reborn. But he will find new courage in the afterlife. He is at peace.”

  Aslak held out his fist and opened his hand. He was holding Racagnal’s bloodstained bracelet.

  “Aslak…”

  Klemet shook his head. Tears mingled with the snow in his eyes. He could no longer feel the wind whipping him. He shouted over the gale.

  “Aslak—Aila is dead. We found her just now.”

  Klemet saw Aslak close his eyes for a moment. His fists, tightly balled until now, were unclenched. As if he had taken a decision and felt calmer as a result.

  His silhouette was barely visible through the veil of snow. The sky was as black as night. Aslak moved forward into the beam of the headlights, close enough to reach out and touch Klemet. His voice was barely raised.

  “Klemet, make sure my herd does not suffer.”

  The two men looked at one another. Klemet struggled to fight down his terror of the darkness closing in all around. There was something he had to say, but he felt paralyzed. Aslak began to turn away.

  “Aslak!” Klemet shouted out again. “Where is the Frenchman? Aslak, I have to arrest you!”

  Aslak turned and looked back. “I shall accept the justice of the mountains.” His voice rang out.

  Then he came closer to Klemet, speaking quietly again. “Are you afraid?” And for the first time, his face looked wonderfully kind.

  Klemet said nothing, overcome with emotion.

  “You are wrong to feel afraid,” said Aslak gently.

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking!” Klemet burst out.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “What do you know?” Klemet was yelling now, tears stinging his eyes. “We were seven years old. Dear God, Aslak! Seven years old!”

  “But we were supposed to go together, Klemet. It was our pact.”

  Klemet could hold back no longer. He slumped forward over the bars of his scooter, crying in the dark like the child he no longer was.

  Nina watched helplessly from below. She saw Aslak turn and walk away, saw her colleague’s shoulders shaking. But she made no move.

  When Klemet raised his head, Aslak had disappeared into the Arctic night.

  About the Author

  Olivier Truc is a French journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker living in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is a correspondent for the French newspapers Le Monde and Le Point. His most recent documentary (The Reindeer Police, 2008) portrays a group of Norwegian policemen who belong to a special unit tasked with preventing conflicts connected to reindeer herding in the Sapmi region of Norway. Forty Days Without Shadow is his debut novel. First published in France under the title Le dernier Lapon, it went on to win fifteen awards, including the prestigious Prix Mystère de la Critique and the Prix des Lecteurs Quai du Polar.

  Author’s Note

  When I arrived in Sweden in 1994, I knew absolutely nothing about life in Scandinavia, nothing about the culture or the history. I was there because I had met a Swedish woman, and she was the only thing that interested me! But, as a journalist, I quickly realized that my ignorance was an advantage, because I had no preconceived ideas whatsoever. Absolutely everything was new to me, and I absorbed it all like a sponge, discovering all the wonderful aspects of Scandinavian culture.

  Not long after my arrival in Sweden, one of the first elections was held for the Sametinget, the Sami parliament of Sweden. A voting office was installed at the Stockholm city hall for the Sami who lived there.

  I was curious about it, so I went to interview the voters. I met a young Sami student who told me that she was voting for a certain party because of their stance on land rights for the ancestral Sami territory. She came from a family of reindeer herders who used the land as pasture, but they were struggling against a mining company that wanted to prospect there. She invited me to visit her family in Sápmi so that I could see it all for myself. This was my first contact with the Sami.

  It was at this time that I discovered a darker side of Nordic society, one in which certain injustices had continued for decades, thanks to an implicit racism and imperialist attitude—something that one could scarcely imagine surviving in thi
s forward-thinking country. This new awareness influenced my understanding of the Sami from that moment on. I’ve never viewed them as an exotic folk culture, the way they’re often depicted in magazines, but rather as a people at war, equipped with insufficient weapons, and battling for their very existence against a more powerful foe. And in the light of their struggle for survival, it’s exasperating for them when they’re represented merely as the token indigenous people, wearing brightly colored costumes, tending to Santa’s reindeer. Now that I had a deeper insight into their plight, I wanted to share it with the world—although I hadn’t yet figured out the best way to do that.

  Several years later, I learned for the first time about the “reindeer police,” a special unit in northern Norway tasked with settling conflicts that arise from reindeer herding. I realized that, by following these special police units, I could show the way of life in Sápmi from a unique, accessible perspective. I wrote several articles about the reindeer police for Libération, and later produced a television documentary about them. For two months, I followed these police officers on their patrols, on snowmobiles during the snowy winter, spring, and autumn weeks, learning everything I could about their lives and their work with the reindeer herders. At the same time, I was doing intensive research into the culture of this region of the remote north, writing articles about different aspects of the community and the economy there. I listened to stories that I never would have heard in Stockholm or Oslo, stories that showed me an entirely different side of Scandinavia.

  And, finally, after all the people I had met, and all the stories I had seen and heard, I was left with no choice but to write it all down.