Skeletons (47 page)

I picked up a rifle.

A shot rang out over our heads. We moved toward the front of the ship.

"That sub holds two, if I remember right," Bertie said.

An armed skeleton appeared amidships, moving from one crate to the next. Bertie aimed and quickly fired. The skeleton shouted, threw its hands up, and burst to dust.

"That's one."

A voice called out, "Claire? Colonel
Coine
?" It paused and then said, "Remember me? Your executioner?"

It was the voice of the man named Earl, who had helped my father and me escape Margaret Gray.

"Of course you remember me," Earl went on. "You just killed the navy-sub pilot. He was a good . . . man." Earl laughed. "You were right, by the way, Colonel, about that battle. But everything turned out for the best. It's amazing how differently things look after you've been turned. I felt terrible over what I did, letting you go like that."

Bertie whispered, "Keep him talking. I'll get around behind him."

She moved off.

Earl said, "Why don't you just come with me, Claire? There are an awful lot of people interested in you. You're some kind of celebrity, believe me."

At the spot where the navy pilot had been I saw a skeletal shape step out, jerk quickly back.

"Are you the only ones they sent out?" my father said.

"Colonel
Coine
! So good to hear you! To answer your question, yes, we're the only ones. It was hell convincing them to let us look. It seems President Lincoln believes it was a waste of time trying to find Claire this way." His voice was reasonable, calm. "If you come out, I promise you you'll meet Lincoln—wouldn't that be a thrill?"

"Yes, it would," my father said.

"If only—“

A shot sounded. I saw in the space between the two crates the skeletal form fall as it vanished to dust.

"It's all right!" Bertie called out. "It's over!"

We joined her, and watched her kick at the pile of dust that had been Earl.

"Poor Sully," she said. She took my father by the arm. I propose we drink the last of the cold
Carta
Blancas
down in my stateroom, to Sully's health. He was a damned good fella. I also think we have a little celebrating to do, since it seems, in our case at least, that dreams don't come true."

"I want you in here every night until we get to Little Diomede Island," Bertie said, standing at the doorway to the secret closet in Chub's stateroom while I arranged the blankets on the bed. "That fellow Earl may have been lying when he said the Crab was the only ship they sent out after us. At the very least the Crab may have radioed back our position. There might be others out after us."

I climbed into bed. Beyond Bertie's form I saw Chub in his chair, his happy face shadowed bluely in the glare of the television. The theme from Star Wars was playing.

"
G'night
, gal," Bertie said.

I reached up and kissed her on the cheek.

Bertie trundled back into Chub's stateroom. As she closed the closet door on me I heard her say, "C'mon, Chub, up on deck. You can watch
more've
that junk later. Got to tend to a couple of them critters. Tomorrow we sail through the Straits!"

The door closed.

I slept.

Then awoke.

I had the definite feeling that I had only slept a few moments. Yet the air felt different. Everything felt different.

I rose from my bed and opened the door. Chub's stateroom was empty, the Star Wars tape still running. I climbed the steps to the deck.

All was quiet. The stars were out above, and a faint flowing mist had settled on the surface of the sea, making it dreamlike.

I decided I was foolish. I turned to climb back down into the stateroom.

"It ain't so bad, Claire."

I turned to see Bertie in skeletal form. Her bones showed cut marks across her neck. Beside her stood a skeletal Margaret Gray, her bones faintly glowing green in the darkness.

"Yes, me," Margaret Gray said. She held her hands, one of them bearing a long knife, to the sky. 'The Lord will deliver met And lo, I will rise again to heaven!"

"That submarine had three passengers," Bertie explained. "But like I said, Claire, it ain't so
ba
—"

"You'll like this even better," Margaret Gray said savagely, sweeping her knife down across Bertie's neck.

"Oh—" Bertie said, her hands rising to her throat as she turned to powder.

"Your father is the same," Margaret said. She threw back her head and howled. "Vengeance is mine!” She advanced on me.

I scampered down the walkway to the stateroom below. I ran to the secret closet,
acitvated
the door, entered, locked the door and crouched in the darkness.

The door to the room opened, and Margaret Gray was there, her bones pulsing a sickly lime color.

"Don't you think your fat friend Bertie told me about your hiding spot, child?" she said.

Her hand tightened around the knife handle, and she stepped into the secret room.

"Don't let my glowing bones bother you. Standing five thousand feet from a nuclear explosion will do that to you. Now we will see who the chosen one is," Margaret hissed.

Behind her the volume on the television was drowned by an angry, booming animal shriek.

Margaret whirled to see Chub standing massive and angry behind her.

"Abomination!"

She swung the knife down, but the ape clutched her arm and squeezed.

Margaret shouted and dropped the knife.

They moved out into Chub's stateroom. Margaret pulled away from Chub, dived for the knife. Grunting with anger, the ape moved after her. He caught her as she reached futilely for the weapon. The ape lifted her body over his head.

Margaret was turned toward the opposite wall and looked straight at Chub's huge poster of
Daith
Vader's head as Chub heaved her at it.

“
Noooooo
!” Margaret shrieked, holding her hands out, trying to twist in midair.

She hit the poster screaming, her neck bent at an odd angle, burst to dust, and was gone.

Chub came to me, looked at me with his sad, knowing eyes. Tentatively, he held a hand out, grunted softly. On the television Princes Leia had appeared again. I cried, and let Chub hold me.

Later that night we gathered Bertie's remains, and my father's, and stood at the rail at the stern of the ship, looking at the wisps of fog playing over the liquid waves. First Chub scattered Bertie's dust, and then I let my father's go. We watched them drift, scatter, and disappear. The ship moved on, leaving the ashes behind.

Chub went up front to the wheelhouse. I stayed behind, and watched the waves and the drifting fog. Sometime during the night Chub sailed us through the Aleutian Islands, and I watched their dim, distant coasts slip by.

All the next day Chub stayed in the wheelhouse and sailed the ship.

At the eastern horizon the vague coast of Alaska slipped massively past.

That night, as a beautiful sunset fell, and as every animal on board began to chatter and screech with excitement, the wooded mound of Little Diomede Island came into view and grew before us.

And I wept, because something in the open seed of my flowering heart told me I was home.

Cold.

I could not remember a time when I had not been cold. It seemed natural now: one's hands were always cold, one's fingers always moved like creaking icicles, one's feet had never felt any other way but leaden and dead. Numbness was natural. Deep within me, there might have been a place that harbored warmth, but I could not be convinced. If I had been told that I had been turned to ice and snow, the way a petrified tree is turned to stone, I would have believed it. I could not believe there was running blood in me any longer.

If it hadn't been for the wolf I named Jack, I would have died the first day out. He not only provided a measure of protection from the cold at night, he was also smart, and led me to the natural formations in the white, snowy world that provided the most protection from the killing wind and drifting snow. He was my guide and teacher. When I began to set up our tent at the end of the first day, he sat on his haunches and watched critically. When I was finished, he calmly rose, trotted to one corner, and leaned on the staked rope with his body. The stake immediately popped out of the ground.

I stood huffing breath, frustrated. And then I laughed. "Well, how do I do it?"

Jack sat down and regarded me calmly, his tongue lolling out.

I tried it again. Once more Jack knocked the stake from the ground easily.

"Come on, Jack, show me how!"

The wolf merely sat regarding me.

I put the stake back into the ground, as deep and fast as I could. This time when Jack moved to knock it out, I stopped him and said, "No!"

He looked at me, then turned and walked away.

I nodded, finishing the job, and stored all our gear inside, laying blankets for a floor.

After some trouble with the heater I finally was able to get it started. It formed a tiny circle of warmth within the tent.

Proud of myself, I began to peel off my outer layers of clothes, letting the warmth make me sweat.

Jack came to the flap of the tent, looked at me critically.

"Well, come on in!" I said.

He refused to enter.

"You don't like the heater, either? Don't you want to be warm?"

The wolf regarded me blankly.

The gusting wind rattled the tent, but it held firm. "Ha! The hell with you, then," I said, turning my back on him.

I ate a meal of hot beans, turned the heater to its lowest setting, then wrapped myself inside one of the sleeping bags and went to sleep.

I awoke, with Jack nudging me.

I blinked snowflakes from my lids.

I sat up, half-frozen, hugging myself. My sleeping bag was covered with snow that had been melted by the heater, then refrozen into ice.

"Christ!"

There were stars overhead. A quarter moon lit the world silver white. The tent was gone, ripped from the ground by the cold wind. Everything surrounding me was covered with a glaze of ice topped by a dusting of snow.

I found my outer garments. I shook the snow from them and climbed into them. They were cold inside. I pulled the zippers up.

The wolf turned, trotted away from me.

"Dammit! Now what!"

Shivering, I rose and followed.

The tent was a half mile away, snugged and twisted into a crevice that had stopped its slide over the ice. It was frozen in place. I had to tug it out and then slide it back as if it were a sheet of twisted metal.

The stakes were nowhere to be found.

"No big loss, eh, Jack?" I said.

It was impossible to re-erect the tent that night. Jack trotted around our creviced wall, lay down in a spot where the wind didn't reach, and went to sleep.

I brought my sleeping bag, lay down beside him. Silently, the wolf edged his body closer to mine, half covering me.

In a little while I was warm, and asleep.

The next day we made almost a hundred miles. The clouds lifted a little, and with them the wind. Flurries danced, whirled like dervishes.

We passed no towns. The world was an endless sheet of white. Jack sometimes rode in the snowmobile with me; at other times he would suddenly leap out to dash over the snow ahead. Sometimes on these jaunts he would be lost to view in the misty swirls of cloud. But always he would let me catch back up.

"Scouting, eh?"

Tongue lolling, he would jump back into the snowmobile as I slowed down for him, then curl up in the back.

At the end of the day I once more attempted to erect the tent. During our ride, I had let it hang out the back of the snowmobile. The sun and wind had acted to soften it to the point where I could fold and store it. When I was ready to use it again, it was manageable.

Again Jack watched me critically. He had stopped us near another rock outcropping. I managed to pry a couple of large stones free and sought to weigh down the corners of the tent with them. When Jack moved to one corner that I had staked in this way, I stopped him and yelled, "All right, I get the point!" I put my hands on my hips. "What should I do?"

The wolf went to the snowmobile, edged his nose into the back.

I lifted the equipment back there, rummaged around. There was nothing useful I could see.

The tip of something long was poking out. Jack pawed at it.

I pushed the wolf back, uncovered a clutch of long stakes. "So this is it, eh?"

The wolf turned, trotted back to the tent. Laughing, I followed with the stakes.

I began to pound one into a corner, straight down. Once again Jack stopped me. He nudged at the stake, pawed at it, trying to pull it back.