Snowblind (8 page)

It was pitch dark inside.

"Hello?" she called. "Anybody home?"

She walked to the corner and lifted the kerosene lamp off its iron nail hook. She carried it back to the door and stepped cautiously into the dark.

The room was warm. The door creaked, softly swinging closed behind her. She held out the lamp.

The eyes of a giant grizzly glared up from the floor. She sucked in her breath — then saw the broad spread of fur laid out flat behind it. A pair of white birch snowshoes leaned against the wall, and a pair of mukluks, and a pair of large boots. On the wall was a rack with several long pairs of skis. Moose and caribou hides hung from nails hammered into the unpeeled logs, and the long soft pelt of a timber wolf lay draped over a large wooden chair.

Andrea raised her lamp and moved toward a tall oval heat stove in the center of the room. A thin outline of amber light glowed around its iron door, and a box with a spray of long stick matches stood beside it. Nearby was a bench and a table, and to the side a bed made of rough planks, covered with the hide of a moose.

She moved toward the other side of the room, where her light revealed a fresh snowshoe hare hanging from a wire on the wall, an iron-clawed trap glimmering beside it. On a bookshelf several moldy leather-bound books gathered dust, along with a collection of small Inuit carvings of walrus tusk and whalebone. Above the shelf was something that seemed strangely out of place in the central mountains of Alaska: a rack of whale harpoons carved with Inuit hieroglyphs. One of the harpoons appeared to be missing.

Andrea came upon a large square hole cut neatly into the floor. The trap door had been thrown open, and the wooden stairs, receding into the darkness, seemed to beckon to her.

"Is anyone there?" she called. A strong, putrid, animal odor emanated from the opening.

She started to close the door, then hesitated. She felt a presence, as if someone were there, or had just been there. The coals burning in the stove. The lantern outside. Why had this door been left open? Perhaps whoever lived here had had an accident. They might be lying down there right now, unconscious and hurt.

She thought of the girls waiting in the car. She couldn't bring them in without checking out the place. And that meant all of it.

Andrea stepped onto the stairs and descended into the dark. As she passed beneath the floor, the coldness of the cellar air seemed to crawl up her limbs, as if she were wading into a black pool of icy water. The stairs creaked noisily, the pungent odor increasing with every step. She reached the damp stone floor and raised her lantern.

Before her stood a workbench covered with carpenter's tools and tanning implements. Fur hides lay piled across it, along with various glass jars, bottles and coffee cans, a whipsaw, a set of steal shears, and several gallon cans of tanning chemicals.

Andrea moved through the room, past a shovel, a rake, a pickaxe, a steel drum full of water. The musky, foul odor seemed to be getting stronger. In the corner, beside a tall pile of hides and several shelves of canned goods, she saw a huge wicker basket. She grimaced as she approached it, the smell growing nearly intolerable.

She felt something move across her foot! She screamed, turned abruptly, and banged the steel drum with the kerosene lamp, sending the lamp crashing to the floor.

The flame went out.

Andrea was immersed in complete blackness. She held still a moment, trying to get a grip on the sudden panic overcoming her. Her pulse pounded, her lungs filled with the putrid air. She heard the tiny patter of the rat as it crept along the wall. She swallowed hard. Then, trembling, she slowly bent her knees, lowered herself to the ground. She reached out slowly with both hands, feeling for the lamp. She moved out carefully from the wall, her fingers exploring the damp floor around her. She felt a block of wood, and the wet edge of a fur hide. She felt something metal — a tin can. She felt the bottom of the wicker basket. Then she felt something soft and fleshy. A piece of hide, she decided.

She moved farther down the wall — and at last her hands fell upon the lamp. It lay at the base of the beam of timber that held the stairwell. Miraculously, the glass of the lamp was unbroken. Andrea held it tightly in her arm. With her free hand, she felt her way to the base of the stairs.

She crawled carefully up the stairs through the inky darkness.

This, she thought, is what it's like to be blind.

Reaching the top of the stairs, she felt her way out of the cold air onto the warm floor of the cabin.

She felt a human leg — screamed!

"Mrs. Parks — it's me, Kris!"

"Oh, my God..."

"You were taking so long, I got worried."

"Where's Erin?"

"She went back to the car. She said it was too dark in here. What is this hole?"

"It goes to the cellar."

"What's that
smell
?"

"I don't know, Kris. Hides, I think. Listen, the owner's not here, but... Why don't you go back out to the Jeep and get Erin. Bring in our stuff while I try to get this lamp lit again."

"Okay," said Kris. She started toward the door.

"Wait," said Andrea. Kris stopped. "Maybe... maybe you could give me your hand. I think I saw some matches at the stove but... I can't see."

"It's over here," said Kris, taking her hand. She led her slowly, flawlessly through the blackness of the room. Andrea soon made out the thin line of light around the door of the stove. The stove had cooled noticeably. "Here's the matches," said Kris, bringing Andrea's hand to the box.

Andrea lifted out a long match, and then she put on her glove and opened the door to the stove. She lit the end of the match on the glowing embers, then put it to the lamp.

The wick took to flame, and the lamp shone with light. Andrea could see again.

"Thank you," she said to Kris. "I'll be all right now."

The wolves moved like shadows through the heavily falling snow. Jake crawled a few more yards, dragging his worthless foot behind him. The towel was unraveling; it was soaked in blood. A crimson trail marked his path. He'd made three trips back into the cargo hold, pulling out whatever he could find to use for fuel. The little bit of cordwood had gone in the first hour, the crates and boxes had gone in the next. Now, like some wretched Santa Claus, he towed a bulging garbage bag full of Christmas presents behind him.

Weak from the loss of blood, shaking with the bitter cold, he wondered if he had the strength to make it back to the fire. The wolves sensed his dissipation. They smelled carrion in the air.

Jake paused again and counted the circling predators. "Seven," he said aloud. "Seven goddamn motherfuckers."

The largest wolf crept toward him out of the dark, growling, head low. Jake shined his flashlight on it. It was a giant Gray, silver fur ringed with black, teeth bared, blue eyes glaring.

"Stay back, you piece of shit!" he shouted. "Back!"

Shouts had kept the wolves at bay, but now this one held its course.

"Fuck you!" shouted Jake, flinging snow. The Gray growled, curling back its snout, teeth flaring. It moved closer.

Jake reached frantically into the garbage bag, pulled out a gift box wrapped in apple-red paper with a white satin bow. He ripped it open.

A pair of fur-lined leather moccasins fell out into the snow. Jake sat up painfully on his knees and threw them hard at the wolf, one after another, shouting "Fuck you, fuck you!"

The wolf easily dodged the shoes, and bounded away into the dark.

"What's a matter, mutt — wrong size?"

Jake passed out, collapsing into the snow.

He awoke — he wasn't sure how much later — to a peculiar sense of heat in his ankle. The heat quickly turned to searing pain. Jake grabbed his flashlight and aimed it down his leg. The big gray wolf was tearing at his numb, bloody foot.

"Fuck!" he hollered, whacking the beast with the light, "fuck fuck fuck!" He landed a solid crack to its skull. The wolf yelped and bolted off.

Jake turned and screamed out at the predators surrounding him, a long, wild, throat-rattling cry.

The wolves ran off. A deadly silence hung over the lake. Then, at the far edge of the darkness, the glinting eyes reappeared.

Jake picked the flashlight up out of the snow. The bulb had gone out. He banged the lens against his palm. The light flickered and died. The filament had broken.

He was in the dark now. Panting with fear, he grabbed the garbage bag and continued his crawl toward the dwindling fire.

What he needed was the gun. He'd not been able to find it in the debris of the hold. It had fallen out during the crash, or somehow gotten tossed out with everything else Donny had jettisoned.

He shouted again at the approaching wolves, nearly fainting with the effort. He paused for a breath before crawling on, finally arriving at the fire.

The flames were dead, only burning embers remained. If they went out, he would quickly die of the cold. He sat up against the wall of the fuselage and pulled presents out of the bag. He tore off the wrapping paper, feeding it to the embers. The colored paper and shiny ribbons burned copper and blue in the growing flames. He tore open the cardboard boxes, and fed them piece by piece into the fire. He unfolded Christmas cards and fed them into the blaze. Most of the package contents were plastic: toy trucks, Barbie dolls, a giant squirt gun, CD's, DVD’s, a beach ball, a boombox — he set them in a pile. When a wolf ventured close, he'd scream and throw something. Anything flammable he would toss into the fire.

He opened a package containing a bottle of Russian vodka and a box of Honduran cigars. God's gift to a dying man. He promptly unscrewed the cap of the vodka bottle and gulped down a few swigs. The bottle would make a nice weapon. He kept it at his side. Then he lit a cigar in the flames, sucking the warm smoke deep into his lungs. He threw the remaining cigars into the fire. They burned slowly, sending thick scented smoke into the blowing wind. He tossed the cedar box in after them.

In an hour the fire had nearly burned itself out.

Jake, delirious with pain, his body limp with fatigue and trembling with the cold, swigged the vodka to jolt himself awake. He unwrapped a book,
Scotty Allan, King of the Dog Team Drivers
, and began feeding it, page by page to the insatiable flames. The wolves appeared and disappeared in the darkly falling snow, drifting steadily closer as the fire subsided. Jake shouted, sent them scurrying, but moments later they'd reappear, panting fog, staring at the dying man and his dying fire, their hesitation steadily diminishing.

The big gray wolf, the pack's leader, approached again with a menacing growl. Jake grabbed a DVD and flung it like a Frisbee. The wolf dodged it and waited.

Another wolf, its fur a shimmering silver, emerged out of the falling snow and advanced cautiously toward him. Jake tossed a ceramic coffee mug, bouncing it off the animal's nose. The wolf yelped and ran off.

Two more closed in. Jake grabbed the boombox and readied to heave it at them. Then he suddenly stopped, struck with an idea. He searched in the pile of gifts and pulled out a Christmas music CD. He quickly jammed it into the boombox. He tried the power switch but it was out of batteries. "Shit!"

The wolves were close enough he could hear their breathing. He opened his broken flashlight and emptied the batteries. He inserted them into the boombox and turned the volume to max.

A raucous rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer" blared out into the night. The wolves scattered in fear and confusion. Jake set the boombox on his lap, leaning back against the fuselage as the music peeled off in the wind. He took another swig from the bottle.

The fire was going down. Jake tore off another page of the book, fed it to the flames. The wolves may have retreated, but he knew they'd soon be back.

The VW Bug was buried in snow. Josh swept the windows off, leaving a foot-high cap of snow on the rounded roof. He climbed into the car and started it with a single turn on the ignition. Nothing like an air-cooled engine when it's 15 below.

He pulled out into the street, chains rattling on his tires. Fortunately, the snowplows hadn't stopped working since the snow had begun falling four hours earlier. Josh wondered if plows were keeping the airfield open.

He picked up his cell and hit redial. He had tried Andrea's Summit Mountain number half a dozen times before he'd left, and gotten nothing but busy signals. He hoped it was Erin on the phone with her boyfriend, but he doubted it.

This time he got through. Andrea's husband, Myron Parks, answered the phone. Myron managed a local television station in Fairbanks. He was up at the condo with his nine-year-old son, Troy. He sounded worried.

"She called me sometime before they left, about four. She said they were bringing Kris with them, Linda Carlson's daughter. They should have been here at least two hours ago."

"Have you talked to the Highway Patrol?" Josh asked.

"Them and everybody else. I've been on the phone for an hour. Highway Patrol tells me they've shut down the Dalton Highway, and nearly every road north of the Yukon is unpassable. They can't look for anybody till the roads are cleared."

Josh turned onto University Avenue. The road was empty. "Have you called the police?"

"I've been calling every police station in every town on the map. Nobody's seen them."

"They must've stopped somewhere," said Josh.

"If she stopped, I know she would have called."

There was a pause.

"This has got me really worried, Josh."

"Me, too," said Josh. He stared past the thumping windshield wipers into the snow falling through his headlights.

"I keep thinking of those two women," Myron said, "the ones who were found off the highway last winter. My news crew covered that story. They got stranded fifteen miles out of Cedar Falls, tried walking back to town. There wasn't much left of 'em when they finally found the bodies. Coroner said the wolves got 'em."

Josh swallowed. He remembered the scar on Kris's hand. He knew she was afraid of wolves and dogs. "I... I wouldn't worry about wolves, Mryon. They don't like this weather any more than we do."

"I hope you're right."

"I'm heading to the airport now," Josh told him. "As soon as this storm lightens up, I'll take my Cessna out to look for them. Kris is wearing a special parka. It has a tiny radio transmitter sewn into the hood — it's to help locate a skier if they get lost. The signal has a radius of two or three miles."

"So you think you can track them?"

Josh turned a bend in the road. "Got a pretty good chance—"

An animal suddenly stepped in front of the car. Josh dropped the phone and grabbed the wheel, slamming the brakes. The wolf stared into the headlights a moment, then ran off, but Josh's car continued sliding across the center line, finally plowing into the snow bank on the other side of the road.

It was dark — his headlights were buried in the snow. For several seconds he tried to calm his wildly beating heart. He saw the wolf trot away into the trees.

Josh heard a tiny voice calling from the seat beside him. He picked up the phone.

"Myron — you still there?"

"What happened?"

He started to tell him, then decided against it. "Nothing," he said. "Just hang tight. I'll call you when I find out what's happening at the airport."

Josh hung up the phone and stared off toward the woods. Apparently some wolves didn’t mind the weather.

He pulled the car back out onto the road.