Frozen Stiff (12 page)

Moving down the trail, she concentrated on the sky, which would soon be filled with planes and helicopters.
Soon, Derek
. She no longer dreamed of a hot bubble bath or brushing her teeth. None of that mattered now.

For the first time since she’d left camp the day before, she started making plans. The bear horn. It could be used as a diversion, drawing Wildmen away from Derek. First she’d have to figure out how to set it off without touching it. If only she had some fishing line; she could tie it around the trigger, string the line over the ground.

Cody noticed her steps slowing; she was relying heavily on the walking sticks. Sometimes she’d catch a whiff of her own breath. It was just as disgusting as she’d always imagined a bear’s breath would be.
Bears
. She fingered the horn. She wondered why they weren’t bothering her.

Lost in thought, she hardly noticed the miles falling behind her. She searched the sky for rescuers. Maybe she hadn’t really seen a helicopter the day before. People stumbling around in the desert saw all kinds of things that weren’t real. Maybe that happened to people in the wilderness.

There had been signs of life on the trail earlier. But she couldn’t tell how long ago the prints had been made. Some of them were filled with heavy dew; others were little more than muddy smears.

Were Derek and Wildmen still ahead of her? Or had they circled back?

The answer seemed as clear as dew dripping off leaves.
Steal the tent and kayak. Destroy all signs of life. Make it harder on the rescuers
. She leaned against a tree, resting a minute.
But if Wildmen wanted to get rid of our gear, they could have done it before now
.

Suddenly her questions and answers seemed as muddied as a muskeg bog. She wasn’t sure of anything.

Back on the trail, a thinning stand of trees in the distance was being invaded by ground fog. Her heart sank. Fog could halt rescue efforts.
Please don’t roll in. Not now
.

As she moved down the trail, closing in on the white mist, she realized it wasn’t fog at all.
Smoke—
from a campfire! It rose from the ground, twisting and licking the air above the trees. Wildmen.

More alert than she had been in days, she sloughed off her pack and shoved it under a tree.
Derek?
The smoke wasn’t more than two hundred yards away. Still, she wasn’t about to rush into Wildmen’s camp. She had to move up on them slowly, quietly.

Like a predator stalking its prey, she crept through the trees toward the fire.

Cody picked her way over the soggy ground toward the smoke. She kept herself small, aiming from tree to tree. The cold had a sharper bite this morning. Summer was finally waving the flag, surrendering to autumn.

Then voices hit her. They absorbed her, played against her skin. She held her breath.

Voices
. Low and dull. She couldn’t understand the words. She strained to hear Derek.

Closer, I’ve got to get closer
.

She let herself breathe slowly through her mouth and inched her way through ferns and rusty manzanita.

The talking stopped abruptly.

Cody stood still.

She listened.

A glacial wind whipped around the trees. The cold sapped her strength. The body used a ton of energy to keep warm, burned a ton of fat to make heat. She hadn’t had much fat to begin with. Suddenly she understood why people in subzero climates ate whole cubes of butter.

Fire and smoke
.

She crept closer
.

Everything was suspended, as if the earth had stopped spinning.

Then she saw it, about seventy-five feet away. An opening in the trees much like the clearing that had held their tent so many miles back.

Derek was settled on a boulder near the fire pit, holding a stick over the blaze.
Breakfast
. The idea was slow to sink in. It seemed so ordinary.
He’s cooking breakfast!

Just seeing him, knowing he was okay, gave her more strength than any amount of food, sleep, or warmth. She let out her breath, unsure what to do next.

No one else was in the clearing; at least she couldn’t see anyone. She wanted to shout, but she didn’t dare. Not yet. She had to watch for a while. Watch
them
. Where were Wildmen?

Derek was wearing a crude animal-skin poncho. His hands weren’t tied, but she couldn’t see his ankles. The fire pit blocked her view. She wondered who had been talking. Where were they now?

She studied the shack on the far side of the clearing. Four sides with a wooden roof. A door of stripped limbs tied with rawhide. The shack had a few scraps from the old cabin. She recognized the same rotten, worm-eaten wood.

It looks like it’s been here for years
, she thought.

The smell of meat reached out to her. Fat dripped in the fire, spitting and sizzling. The void in her stomach begged for something fresh to eat. Derek pulled a
piece of charred fat off the meat—chewed bite after bite, licked grease off his fingers, wiped grease off his chin.

Cody swallowed hard.

She heard the door creak before it opened. Derek turned his head toward the person backing out of the hut. One of the Wildmen. She touched the bear horn, an automatic reflex. If nothing else she could throw it at him.

Wildman turned, set a pot on the fire.

Where was the fur mask? The gloves? The wild mangy hair? This guy was dressed in the same skin pants and homemade boots. But no, it wasn’t possible.

Cody closed her eyes, not believing the picture:
Her
hair was gathered in a neat braid.

It didn’t make any sense. It made perfect sense.

The second pair of prints, like Wildman’s only smaller—a woman’s boots. The woman was short but sturdy looking, her face smooth and round. Seashells were stitched in double rows along a wool poncho where the dark blue came together with the red material. Larger shells and bones dangled like bells from the top of her mukluks. Sealskin, it looked like.

Cody recognized her as Tlingit, a member of the largest native population in Southeast Alaska. Half of Yakutat had Tlingit ancestry.

Derek didn’t seem bothered by her presence.
Maybe it’s some kind of act. He’s just playing it cool until he can get away
.

The woman’s mukluks rattled when she walked
back to the shack. Cody leaned closer, trying to see inside when the door opened. But it was too dark.

Derek!
She willed him to look at her.
Derek!

He poked his stick through another slab of raw meat without even a glance in her direction.

Cody decided to sneak back to her pack, settle in, and wait. Maybe there was a little jerky left. She’d just started to turn when the chilling wind on the back of her neck turned hot and sticky.

She knew without turning that Wildman stood behind her.

Grabbed from behind. It happened so fast that she didn’t have time to react. She kicked wildly and fought with what little strength she had left. But she couldn’t nail her target.

“Get away from me!”

Another noise, the sound of footsteps crushing brush. “Cody, stop! Don’t fight him!”

“Derek!” Cody’s fists lashed out aimlessly as Wildman’s arms tightened around her. “Derek!” she cried over her shoulder. “Help me!”

She could smell Wildman. Actually smell the dirty stink of his unbathed body. It made her want to puke.

“Let go!” she screamed again.

“Don’t fight him, Cody!” Derek sounded as desperate as she felt. “You’re making it worse!”

Wildman pinned her arms to her side. She struggled as sweat dripped in her eyes, stinging as before. She couldn’t wipe them. Her shouts died to whimpers.
Save your breath
. Her kicks fell to pathetic shuffles.
Save your energy
. Her whole body went limp.

“It’s okay,” Derek said. “You can let her go.”

It sounded as if Derek was telling Wildman what to do. Wildman’s reply was a grunt, followed by
mumblings from the Tlingit woman, who must have been nearby.

“Cody?” Derek said again. “We’ll let you go if you promise not to run away.”

We?

“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.”