Icy Clutches (8 page)

He put his glass on the table with a thump. “Maybe you're right."

Julie looked at him, head cocked. “But?"

"No ‘buts.’ I've been jumping to conclusions. You're right, that's all."

She was still recovering from this when Tremaine appeared at the table, one hand in his jacket pocket, suave and amiable.

"Dr. Oliver? I hope I'm not intruding?"

"Of course not. This is my wife, Julie."

"Mrs. Oliver, my pleasure."

Gideon gestured at the third chair at the table. “Please."

"No, thank you, I'll just take a minute of your time. I'd like to apologize for not knowing who you were yesterday, Dr. Oliver."

"No reason why you should. I just wanted to tell you how much I admire your work."

"Well, ‘Voyages’ isn't a one-man show, you know.” He smiled with practiced modesty. “I get all the glory, but a great many people are involved behind the scenes, each making his own unique contribution to the whole."

"Ah,” said Gideon. There didn't seem to be any point in explaining that it was not “Voyages” he admired.

Tremaine leaned both hands on the table. “I wonder if I might ask a favor. Do you know why I'm here at Glacier Bay?"

"I understand you're working on a book about the Tirku survey expedition."

"Yes, it's quite close to finished, really, and I'm being assisted by several people who are either members of the original team or relatives of the members who were killed. Well, naturally, today's discovery of those, ah, remains has stimulated a great deal of interest among them. They were wondering if you'd be good enough to spend a little time with us and tell us what you've found."

"I'm afraid there isn't a lot to tell. There's no way I can make a positive—"

"Would tomorrow at ten be convenient? We meet in the upstairs lounge."

"No, tomorrow morning I'm going out to Tirku myself to have a look around."

"I see. What about the afternoon, then? Will you be back by four?"

"Well, I'm not really—"

"Sure you will,” Julie said. “You're getting a lift with my class, aren't you? Bill said he'd have us back by four."

"Splendid,” Tremaine said. “We'll see you at four then, Dr. Oliver. I'll look forward to it.” He inclined his shaggy but well-groomed head at Julie. “Mrs. Oliver."

"Uh, did I do something wrong?” Julie said when he had left. “Do I detect a little reluctance on your part?"

Gideon shrugged. “No, that's okay. I'm not reluctant, exactly. It just makes me uncomfortable. I mean, what am I supposed to do, bring in the bones for a show-and-tell?"

"I've never known you to object to talking about bones before."

"But these are their relatives—brothers, sisters, whatever. That makes it different."

"Yes, I see what you mean. Sorry about that. Are you going to tell them about the fractured mandible?"

"Not a chance. No reason to."

There was a pause. “You're not going to tell Tremaine either, are you?"

"I'm not telling anyone. Just you. Not until I put in some more work."

"Because, you know, I just realized,” Julie said, thoughtfully running her finger around the rim of her empty glass, “if you just happen to be right about how that mandible got broken—"

"Which we've agreed I'm not."

"—and there
was
a murder all those years ago—"

"Which we've agreed there wasn't."

"—then the finger of suspicion would have to point to M. Audley Tremaine himself, wouldn't it, since he was the only one who got out alive?"

"Well, not necessarily, but I admit the thought did cross my mind."

She leaned across the table toward him. “All right now, tell the truth. Do you or don't you think that jaw damage came from the avalanche?"

"I don't know,” Gideon answered honestly. “Intellectually, I think you're right about it. But intuitively I can't help—"

"Oh-oh, intuitively. That's always a bad sign."

He laughed. “Okay, you're right.” He reached up and stretched luxuriously. “I'm letting my imagination get the better of me. Maybe I'm just looking for some way to get him off the airwaves before he fouls up the American mind for good."

"Come on,” Julie said, standing up. “You've been sitting around deducing all day, but I've been working and I need some crab-stuffed halibut."

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Sailing into the upper reaches of Glacier Bay is a spectacular experience for anyone, but for those whose interests turn toward natural history it is matchless, an adventure to be found nowhere else in the world. As the ship moves out of Bartlett Cove and swings northwest past the Beardslees and into the great bay proper, one sails backward in time. With every mile, the land grows newer, more raw, as one closes on the shrinking glacier that carved out the bay in the first place. In three hours one traverses two hundred years of postglacial history.

The evidence is there even for the untrained eye. At Bartlett Cove itself the ice has been gone for two centuries. The roots of mature Sitka spruce and western hemlock have taken firm hold under the mossy forest duff, and the green, soft, richly wooded land amenably shelters the lodge and the Park Service complex. But sixty-five miles away, where the present upper end of the bay terminates at the foot of the Grand Pacific Glacier, there are no plants at all—only bare rocks and gravel, still wet from the ice that had covered them for millennia. Sailing between the two points mimics the glacier's withdrawal; every mile covered is three years of glacial retreat. In less than half an hour the stately hemlock along the shores begin to disappear, and then the spruce give way grudgingly to tangled stands of alder and cottonwood, which in turn make way for willow, ryegrass, fireweed, and dryas, and finally for the coarse, primitive black crust of algae that marks the first scrabbling hold of the plant kingdom on newly exposed rock.

For over an hour Julie and Gideon had sat relaxed in airplane-style seats in the boat, mostly hand in hand, watching the scenes slip by. The living attractions of Glacier Bay had made their appearance as if programmed. They had seen a trio of humpback whales lolling in the water; black bears swinging lustily along the shore; mountain goats on the high rocks; nesting kites and puffins tucked in stony crevices among the Marble Islands; seals and sea lions and bald eagles; clownish, red-beaked oyster catchers awkwardly stalking mussels.

They had watched the blue water gradually turn milky green from the infusion of “glacial flour,” the powdery silt from glacially pulverized rock. The first icebergs—eroded, small, bizarrely shaped—appeared near Rendu Inlet at about the time they were breakfasting on minced ham and scrambled eggs from the ship's galley. And by the time they'd finished their second cups of coffee, they had caught up with the glacial flows themselves. At Lamplugh Glacier the boat slowed and stopped. With everyone else they went upstairs to stand on the top deck and gawk at the two-hundred-foot-high face of brilliant white, shot through with cracks of glowing turquoise blue. And to listen.

Unlike mountain glaciers, tidewater glaciers are never quiet. The grinding noises are predictable enough, but the other sounds from the straining ice come as a surprise to those who haven't heard them before. Sharp
cr-a-aks
indistinguishable from echoing rifle shots. Long, slow
boooommms
like cannon fire in mountain passes. Gurgles, clicks, rattles, even wheezes and moans. Gideon and Julie stood for half an hour, hunched against a dry, scraping wind. With the others they murmured with pleasure when huge chunks of ice came away and slid ponderously into the water, making great splashes that left the icebergs rolling about in their wake.

When the captain started the ship up again they went downstairs, poured cups of hot chocolate to warm themselves, and found their seats.

"Julie,” Gideon said, balancing his cup as he slid in beside her, “there are some things I don't understand about glaciers."

"Like what?"

"Like how they work."

"How they work?” Although she had seen her first tidewater glaciers here in Glacier Bay only the day before, she knew plenty about the glaciers in general. Olympic National Park, where she worked, had a dozen of them, and she herself had given lectures on glacial ecology. “Well, they start when snow accumulates faster than it melts over the years, and the old snow underneath is compressed by new snow, so that ice crystals—"

"No, I understand how they form. I don't understand how they work, how they move."

She twisted to face him more fully.
"You
don't understand how glaciers move? The world's leading authority on Ice Age man?"

"Just because I know something about human evolution in the Pleistocene doesn't mean I'm particularly well acquainted with glaciers. The Ice Age has been over for some time, you know.” He gulped from the steaming cardboard cup. Beyond the window was what looked like an Ice Age very much in progress. “Anyway, I'm not the world's leading authority on Ice Age man."

"One
of the world's leading authorities, then."

"That's different,” he said gravely.

"Either way, I still can't believe that you don't understand—"

"I understand the theories of Ice Age progression. I understand the theories of glacial advancement and withdrawal on a global level. I'm fine with the theories. Sometimes I just have a little trouble with mechanics, that's all."

She batted her eyes, or came as close to it as Julie ever did. “Do tell."

"Hey, is that a crack about the cabinet I tried to put up in the den? Because if it is, there's no way that can be considered my fault. In theory those toggle bolts should have...” He grinned at her. “Okay, I see what you mean. I admit it: Operational details aren't my strong point."

"Really."

"Now wait a minute. The only reason the back door won't hang straight is—I mean, sliding doors are not as simple as you think. How the hell was I supposed to know...What's that look supposed to mean?"

"Gideon, have I told you that I loved you today?"

He shook his head. “Not a word."

"Well, I love you."

They leaned together and kissed gently, barely touching. “I love you too,” he said quietly. Her soft, glossy black hair fell against his cheek. He closed his eyes. What astonishing power she had to move him. He tipped her head toward him. They kissed again.

"Hey, we don’ ‘low none of that stuff ‘roun’ here,” a ranger rumbled from across the aisle. “Eyes front."

They separated, smiling.

"Now,” Julie said, “exactly what do you want to know about glaciers?"

"Basically, I want to know how those bones got where they did. Look, as I understand it, Tremaine and his people were on Tirku Glacier itself, about two miles above the snout, when the avalanche came down on them. Since then, the snout has retreated about half a mile inland. Which means that it's now one and a half miles below where they got hit in 1960."

She sipped from the cup, basking in the steam. “That's the way I understand it too."

"But the avalanche came from Mount Cooper, to the southwest, which means it hit Tirku sideways, so it wouldn't have carried them down the length of the glacier toward the snout."

"True. What's the problem?"

"The problem is, how did those bones wind up at the snout? How did they get carried forward that mile and a half down the glacier? If Tirku had been advancing all this time I could see it, but it's retreating."

She studied him. “You really don't understand how glaciers work, do you?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"That's amazing. How can you be a full professor, a recognized—"

He sighed. “Do you ever hear me going on about minor deficiencies in your education?"

"Are you serious?” She tucked in her chin and frowned, the better to affect a deep, masculine voice. “No need to be ashamed, my dear. You are not dumb; merely ignorant."

"Julie..."

"Okay, okay. Well, what you have to realize is that there's a difference between glacial retreat and advance on the one hand, and glacial flow on the other. Even when a glacier is retreating, the ice is still flowing forward, it's just melting at the snout faster than it's flowing. It's like a...oh, like a big conveyor belt that's working fine but being dragged slowly backwards. Whatever's in the ice keeps moving forward all the same."

"I see."

"Bill!” she called over his shoulder.

Bill Bianco, the course instructor, stopped at their seats. A blond, easygoing thirty-five-year-old who looked twenty, he was a much-published expert on glaciers, particularly on crevasses. ("How did you get to be an expert on crevasses?” Gideon had asked him the evening before. “Fell into enough of ‘em, I guess,” he had replied.)

"Bill,” Julie said, “what's Tirku's rate of flow?"

"Tirku? On the average about a foot a day, maybe a little less."

"Say three hundred feet a year,” Julie said. “In twenty-nine years that'd be, uh, between eight and nine thousand feet.” She smiled at Gideon. “A mile and a half. Voila."

Gideon laughed. “I'm impressed."

The boat slowed again.

Bill looked out the window. “This is your drop-off point,” he said to Gideon. “Tirku Spit. We'll be back for you in about three hours.” He looked at his watch. “At about one. Have fun."

The bottom of the boat grated against rock. An aluminum ladder was hooked on a couple of cleats and lowered over the bow of the
Spirit of Adventure.
Gideon, Chief Park Ranger Owen Parker, and two subordinate rangers clambered down onto a narrow gravel shore and stood back as the digging tools were tossed down to thunk against the pebbles. The boat backed off, gunned its engines, and turned slowly around. There was a glimpsed wave from Julie, and the big, white, three-level catamaran glided northwest toward Tarr Inlet, already looking small and faraway in the immense bay.

Gideon shivered. Tirku Spit was not an amiable place. To their right the flat gray beach stretched around a curve and into Johns Hopkins Inlet. To their left was a long black ridge clotted with a scum of gray-green vegetation. Beyond it, the freezing upper reaches of Lamplugh Glacier could be seen, and then, far off, Mount Crillon and the ice-buried, Fairweathers. Ahead, the lumpy gravel, seamed with crisscrossing, inch-deep rivulets of water, sloped uphill for half a mile to Tirku Glacier, a grimy, humped excrescence oozing from an ice field somewhere beyond Mount Abbe.