Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 02 - A Fatal Thaw

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by A Fatal Thaw(lit)


  "Okay. See you tomorrow noon at the latest?"

  He drew himself up, affronted. "You hitting the Park Service up for a

  totally unauthorized ride in a department vehicle?"

  He grinned. "You got it. See you then. You

  he yelled at Mutt.

  Mutt looked longingly at the helicopter, pleadingly up

  at Kate, and barked a resigned negative. Dan shrugged.

  "You're both nuts. See you later."

  She labored up the slope, panting in the oxygen-thin air. She climbed

  ten steps in the powdery, shifting snow, rested ten, climbed ten, rested

  ten. Mutt walked when she did, stopped when she did. It was the first

  time Kate

  had ever seen Mutt look even remotely tired.

  Every thousand feet or so she forced food and water

  down both of them, marveling all the while at their luck. Angqaq Peak

  was not a technically difficult climb, so long as you stuck to the route

  up Nicolo Glacier, between Carlson Icefall and the East Buttress. But it

  was high and the air was thin and the weather was usually for shit, with

  winds that had broken a 110-mph anemometer just a month before, and

  temperatures that combined with those winds to result in chill factors

  routinely registering at minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit and lower.

  But not that night. That night was a night out of a fairy tale. A full

  moon had risen two hours after sundown, and moonlight reflected off the

  snow and ice, lighting the landscape so that it was almost impossible

  for the two climbers to stumble or lose their way. There wasn't a hint

  of wind, and where the light of the moon did not obliterate them, stars

  shone like holes burnt into the fabric of the night. It was cold, clear

  and absolutely still, and the journey up was turning into more of a hike

  than a climb.

  A continuous ripple of rock, rifts of ice and high folds of drifted snow

  had hidden the summit from them almost all the way up, which was why

  when they attained it Kate had almost started down the other side before

  she realized it. She halted, breathing hard, one mittened hand on Mutt's

  head.

  They stood together at the top of the world. Mikiluni Peak on their

  right, Mount Kanuyaq on their left, the Child at their feet, the rest of

  the jagged summits gathered at a respectful distance before Angqaq's

  proud and disdainful zenith. Challenging from below, from above the

  mountains seemed almost deferential. Kate looked from them to the moon

  and the stars hanging far above, and for the first time, she understood

  the true allure of mountain climbing.

  There was elation, there was triumph, there was pride in achieving the

  summit, yes, but most of all there was a shift in perspective. From

  below, the view was of the

  mountains and the heavens, equally unattainable. From

  here, it was the mountains below and the heavens above

  and herself in between, herself, an insignificant, puny

  little mortal between immortals. A glint caught the

  of her eye, and she turned her head quickly, to catch the

  last glimpse of a meteor streaking across the sky in

  thin smear of astral dust. The heavens were alive, too, as alive as the

  earth below. So frost was right after all,

  she thought. The best thing we're put here for's to see.

  Another part of her protested, Is that all? Not to do?

  Only to see?

  "It's enough," she said out loud. "More than enough.

  If your eyes are open it's a full-time job.

  Slender tendrils of feathered aurora felt their way down from the north,

  shedding their cold glow over

  the broken arctic landscape, ephemeral ribbons of confectioner's sugar

  spun into pastel strands of pale green and red and blue and white.

  Closer they crept, and closer, until they were directly overhead and

  Kate could hear them talking among themselves, a muted, electric hum

  of gossipy comment over the broken scene below.

  Instinctively, Kate fumbled beneath her parka and

  around her waist. The old Eskimos thought that the Northern Lights

  reached down and snatched people away, but that you could protect

  yourself against them with your knife. It was one of Ekaterina's

  favorite stories, and she had told it over and over and over again to

  the small

  granddaughter perched on her knee. It was only a story; still, the hilt

  of the knife felt solid and comforting in

  Kate's hand. She looked up again, marveling in the light and color, at

  the sound. After a while those sounds began to work together, to take on

  a rhythm, and without conscious thought Kate began to move with them.

  She half crouched over legs bent at the knees and her feet stamped

  lightly against the hard-packed snow, in time with the aurora.

  red band arced down and she lunged forward to meet

  it, daring it to snatch her up. A tendril of green shifted and swirled

  above her, and she flung up a hand and sketched her homage against it.

  One white finger tickled the surface of the snow at her feet, and she

  danced with it, step for step. Agudar, master spirit, keeper of the

  game, loomed white and round far above and shed a steady glow over them

  all, and in the light of that steady glow the spirits of the dead

  gathered round to bear witness, but Lottie was not among them.

  Lighthearted, joyous, Kate matched steps with a band of red that swirled

  and wrapped back upon itself above her head.

  The light increased in the east, and the aurora slipped away in search

  of other dancing partners. Kate's feet slowed, and stopped, her breath

  coming hard in the thin air. Mutt came to stand next to her, and

  together they faced into the rising sun, watching as the pale gold of

  morning slipped over the knife-edged peaks, spilled into the valleys,

  sparked against the distant blue of Prince William Sound. The sky

  bleached from dark to light, and the first seeking rays of sunlight felt

  their way over the horizon to crown the new day with cold fire.

  And the sun rose full up into the sky, and the night fled into the west

  and all magic with it, and Kate was abandoned at the top of a white

  world stripped clean and polished by the clear, honest, merciless light

  of morning. She felt stripped and polished herself, refined down to her

  essential elements. It was as if she had been roused from a long sleep

  filled with dreams to satiate desires both subtle and gross, only to be

  greeted by a new world with more promise than any dream. Or perhaps it

  was only that she looked at it through new eyes.

  She smiled at this unaccustomed flight of fancy. "I do believe romance

  is getting the better of me this morning," she told Mutt. "Sorry about

  that."

  Mutt's expression indicated that, romance not with standing, they had

  pressed their luck far enough and it was more than time to get the hell

  off Big Bump and back to where a reasonable person, four-footed or otherwise, might

  expect to find food and shelter when a storm blew up unexpectedly, as

  storms were prone to do, and especially here.

  Mutt was right. Kate took a last, pensive look down the eastern sweep of

  the Quilaks, appreciating as never before
how vast was the interior of

  the North American continent, and how high nineteen thousand feet was. A

  thought occurred that made her groan beneath her breath. "You know what

  this means, don't you?" she told Mutt.

  Mutt looked puzzled, and Kate said sadly, "God help us, it looks like

  Middle Finger for two, babe."

  She shrugged into her pack and, Mutt at her side, began the long trek down.

 

 

 


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