The Gripping Hand (7 page)

"Ah."

"There's something in the Hand. The Mormons know about it and Boynton doesn't. For that matter, it might
be
opal meerschaum. Under the glacier. You wait till the glacier moves; that's why the market's so sporadic."

"Given the geology I would not be surprised, but what is that to you?"

Renner spread his hands. "One hand, it's cold and miserable. Other hand, the source of opal meerschaum is a big secret, and we're looking for secrets. Gripping hand—" Bury suppressed a shudder. "Gripping hand,
they're
interested. What is Horace Bury after? Opal meerschaum? Something else?"

"And you trust your companions, whom you met in a bar—"

"I had Ruth Cohen check on them. Boynton and the Scott brothers are well known, no trouble with the police except that Boynton gets drunk when he has a good hunt. The Maguey Worm is one of half a dozen places where ghost hunters hang out looking for a stake."

"Still—?"

"You have a better lead?"

"I have leads. And a different manner of searching." Bury gestured to indicate his travel chair. "Certainly you are better suited to follow this than I am. Kevin, communications will not be reliable in that area. The crew on
Sinbad
can attempt to keep track of you, but it is not likely they will succeed."

"No guts, no glory." Renner grinned. "Besides, I'll have Boynton and the Scott brothers looking out for me. They each get an extra five thousand if I get back alive. Ten each if I have a snow ghost. What can go wrong?"

The glacier ended in sharp edges bordered in bare rocky ground. The bare spots ranged from a few meters to several kilometers before vanishing into the snow. They flew past a cluster of buildings nestled against the glacier edge. Two buildings stood out, one wide and low, the other taller and more massive. Mist and steam rose from all the clear-ground areas to the thick cloud cover above them, so that it was hard to see the town.

"Zion," Ajax Boynton said.

"Looks interesting," Renner said. Maybe four thousand population, maybe less.

"For us," Darwin Scott said. "That's one of the True Temples. But there won't be any ghosts near there. No opal meerschaum, either."

"Not there," Boynton agreed. "But that stuff's got to be near here somewhere."

"Why?"

"We know the jade comes from here."

"We know people say so," James Scott said. "But I never met anyone who'd found any."

"You have, too," Ajax Boynton said. "Ralph. Ralph . . . hell, I forget. Came to the Maguey and bought for the house."

"Yeah, and the next day bought a ticket for Tabletop," James Scott said. "I'd forgotten him. Okay, so you can get lucky."

"Never did understand that," Boynton said. "Ralph—Plemmons, that was his name. I didn't know him all that well, but I sure never figured him to leave the Purchase." He looked down at the map display on the flier's navigation screen. "Fifteen more klicks south, then twenty east. I know a good place."

Renner studied the rugged ground below. It rolled with hills, mostly covered with thin forest. Those bumbershoot trees needed a lot of room. The area near the glacier was obscured with mist, but away from it the air was clearer. Brush and treetops thrust up through the snow in the clearings. "Just where do you land?" he asked.

"You land on a lake," Darwin Scott said. He touched the light pen to the area Boynton had indicated. The bush plane banked slightly and changed course. "A
shallow
lake."

"Why shallow?" Renner asked.

"Snow ghosts aren't the only things that eat people," James Scott said. "Boynton here lost a partner to a freshwater cecil. You sure this isn't the same lake?"

"Hell, no. I told Brad that lake was too deep," Boynton said.

Fifteen minutes later James Scott took manual control of the plane. He brought it in low and circled a patch that was clear of trees.

All three hunters used binoculars to study the lake. The snow cover was undisturbed. "No blow holes," Boynton said. "Looks okay."

Scott brought the plane in low and let it settle onto the frozen lake. He circled the perimeter several times before he taxied out to the lake's center. "You want to flatten the snow," he said. "All around your camp. Pack it tight."

"Whose partner got eaten in his sack?" Renner asked.

They just looked at him. "Nobody's
that
stupid," Boynton said.

The Scott brothers unfolded the tent and inflated it. It was larger than the flier. Darwin Scott said, "Ajax, are you trying to break the man?"

"Actually, I bought it," Renner said. "It looked comfortable."

Darwin Scott looked at the tent and laughed. His breath made a thick plume in the cold air. "Comfortable. Renner, you're not supposed to be comfortable when you hunt snow ghosts."

Renner's pocket calculator beeped softly to indicate that
Sinbad
would be overhead. He held the calculator to his ear, but there was only static. Renner shrugged and spoke into it. "I don't expect anyone to hear me. Nothing to report. We're on snow buggies about thirty klicks from camp, and we haven't seen a thing. There are a lot of caves under the glacier edge. Too many. It would take a year to explore them.

"Nobody cares if we go toward Zion, except Boynton gets disgusted at how candy ass I am wanting to go to a town instead of hunting a ghost. I told him if there was an opal meerschaum source, there had to be people nearby. So I'm looking for a town bigger than it should be.

"But when we start to go much more than forty kilometers south of Zion, the Scott brothers start to twitch. That's where we found that interesting fissure in the Hand Glacier. Could be just my imagination, of course."

Renner put the computer back in the pocket of his parka and gunned the snow buggy to catch up closer to Darwin Scott. The wind was cold on his face. He pulled the parka up tighter around his nose, adjusted the goggles, and wondered if he'd ever be warm again despite the electric heaters in his boots and gloves.

His suspicions were starting to feel silly, and he didn't know why.
Attitude problem. So what if it's a blind alley? Keep smiling, pretend you're having fun. Get yourself a fur. Impress Commander Cohen.

They drove south for another fifteen minutes, then Scott slowed to a stop. When Renner pulled alongside, Scott took out snowshoes.

"We take it slow from here. And no talking." Scott pointed to the forest edge a kilometer away. "Maybe in there. Good ghost country."

"Wouldn't they hear us coming?"

"They heard," Scott said. "They'll be watching. Most will run away from two guys with rifles. They'd all run from four."

"They can tell we're armed?"

Scott shrugged. "Some say so. I believe it."

"You said most will run."

"A hungry one might not. Now, no talking. They don't like talk. Don't know why."

It took Renner a few minutes to get the hang of snowshoes. These were shorter and wider than skis. Renner learned to walk with a shuffle, using the poles to help push along. James Scott tried to help him, but he couldn't suppress the grin. The weight of the heavy rifle slung on Renner's back was some comfort when they went past a bloody patch of snow strewn with bones. Big bones, larger than a cow's. Or a man's.

Renner thought enviously of Ajax Boynton back in the tent with tea and brandy. Boynton hadn't believed there were any ghosts in this area.

They reached the edge of the woods and Scott gestured Renner off to his left, briskly.

They'd been making good time. That was his problem: James and Darwin weren't holding back anymore. Maybe his impression had been wrong. Maybe they'd simply decided to indulge the greenhorn. Maybe they weren't hiding anything at all.

They moved farther into the woods. It was a strange place, dotted with bare-limbed maples from Earth, and bumbershoots, and a tall whippy thing with fuzzy bark that grew twenty meters above the snow, then drooped again, some drooping so far that their tops were beneath the snow. As they moved farther in, the trees were spaced closer, some only three meters apart. Whatever underbrush there might be was buried under snow.

His snowshoes kept trying to plunge through. It would be easy to break a leg.

Darwin Scott stopped at intervals to thrust a long pole into the snow. The top of the pole had meters and a jack for earphones. Darwin listened, then waved them onward.

Snow mounded on underbrush could be snow mounded on a ghost, Renner thought. He'd seen a holoflick of a ghost in action; he knew its shape. But he kept seeing shapes that might be ghosts . . . and he'd point, and James would shake his head and grin.

Four two-chamber hearts the beast had. The explosive bullets were pointed, to do less damage to the fur. A bullet in the torso might kill. One in the head would kill, but would damage the trophy, and the head was harder to hit.

James stopped. Pointed. Darwin nodded vigorously.

The mound was quite shallow. Kevin Renner stared (his gun not raised, not yet), but the shape wouldn't . . . yeah, you could find symmetry there, and if the ground dipped beneath the beast and its legs were folded along the torso . . . then . . . James and Darwin were both aiming at the mound, but they waited. Which end was which? Kevin swung his rifle forward and fired twice into the center of the mound.

The head came up, three feet off the ground on a thick neck. It wobbled, turned to look at him. Kevin's peripheral vision caught both Scott brothers running full out, while Kevin backed away, ready for the charge. Darwin shouted, "Run!"

The beast reared to its feet. Lumbered toward him. Faster than it looked, and Renner turned to run, but the beast's foreleg collapsed and it skidded through the snow. It tried to rise again, and Renner had a clear shot past its shoulder into the torso. He fired again.

The snow ghost stayed down. Its head was up, weaving. Trying to focus its eyes. Then the head dropped into the snow.

They built a frame to hang the beast. James and Darwin skinned it, carefully, while Renner followed his footprints back to the snowmobile. He got back dead tired. The brothers had the beast open and were cleaning out the abdominal cavity. He'd have been interested in the makeup of the alien beast, but the brothers' knives had chewed its innards into unrecognizability.

He rested while the Scotts relayed back for the other vehicles.

It was the last rest he got that day. He helped roll up the fur, bloody side out, and roll plastic around it. They cleaned the carcass and dressed the meat and packed it into two snowmobiles. The roll of fur rode prominently on top of Renner's buggy.

Darwin clapped Renner on the back. "Now we can go back. Good shot, man. Looks like you blew one of the hearts and the hydraulic shock took out the rest."

"I want a long rest in a spa." Renner felt wiped out.

Darwin looked concerned. "Can you drive? We can leave one buggy and come back for it."

"No, I'm all right." There wasn't enough room left in either snow buggy for two people and the remains of the bear. Renner felt pride washing back his fatigue. They hadn't planned on this big a kill!

"You'll get your spa in Zion," Darwin said. "Tomorrow."

"Hey, why so soon? We could take another ghost tomorrow. And I'm still wondering where the opal meerschaum—"

"Mr. Renner, that rug should be treated before it starts to rot. The meat should be sold before it rots. You don't hang snow ghost meat, or any other red meat animal native to the Purchase. Has to be eaten fresh."

"Oh."

They covered five or six miles before the snowmobile came back for them. Renner wondered why they hadn't simply camped . . . and didn't ask. Walking was something he did to let his mind get organized; and he'd had a number of interesting thoughts.

Boynton swore at the size of the carcass. "I still don't believe it. This place was hunted five years ago. How would it have time to grow so big?"