The Sentinel (11 page)

“Father,” Willem says, his single word statement communicating something close to
Knock it off
.

But the old man’s voice can’t be stifled. “Odin’s ravens welcomed the dead into Valhalla. Some even called him Hrafnaguð, the ‘raven god.’ So, you see, the birds represent great power, but their presence usually follows death.”

At first I think he’s talking doom and gloom about us, like we’re all about to die—which might be true—but then I remember that there are thirty something fresh corpses floating around in the Arctic Ocean, and I wonder if that’s what they found.
Is it a corpse washed up on the beach? No
, I think,
we’re too far from the water…

And Jakob looks far too amused to have just seen a fresh corpse…unless maybe it’s McAfee’s.

“What he’s not telling you,” Willem says, “is that the Raven is our family’s crest. For our family, the raven was a harbinger of death, but not
our
deaths.”

“For our enemies,” Jakob says. “Our ancestors flew the raven banners before entering battle. They were buried with the warriors. They hung in our halls. And on the
Bliksem
’s bridge.” The man’s energy fades.

Willem puts a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Show her what you found.”

Jakob’s brief levity is gone, but he turns around and motions to the roundish object lying on the ground. “It’s here.”

The others gather round again as I see the object for the first time. From where I’m standing, it looks like a stone. Granted, the color is all wrong. It’s not dark gray like the other rocks. And it’s very round. Most of the stones here are flat. Before I can ask, Willem picks it up in his gloved hands and turns it over.

It’s a skull.

The lower jaw is missing. As are many of its teeth.

“Alas, poor Yorick,” I say. “I knew him, Horatio.”

Willem laughs. Everyone else looks at me like I’m possessed. I look at Peach and Jenny. “Really? Hamlet? Shakespeare? Nothing?”

“Was it a movie?” Jenny asks. She sounds serious, but I can see a glimmer of humor in her face.

I roll my eyes and look at Jakob. “Who is he?”

The old captain somehow manages to shrug using only his eyebrows.

“The rest of him is under there,” Jenny says, pointing to a pile of stones. “The skull fell out when Alvin moved one of the rocks. Scared the shit out of us.”

Alvin mutters something, and though I can’t understand him, I think he’s calling them pansies or something because he chuckles at himself, and Jakob grumbles at him.

“He’s been here a long time,” Willem says. “Skull structure doesn’t look Inuit, either, so he’s probably a Norseman.” He looks at the burial mound. “This is an amazing find.”

“They settled this far north?” I ask. It doesn’t seem possible.

“Hunting expeditions, maybe. Whalers—”

Peach gets in a, “Some things never change,” but everyone ignores her.

“But settlements? No. Nothing remotely close to this. Nothing we know of, anyway. It’s possible there were a lot of colonies on the western coast that we just haven’t found yet. Vesterbygden is the northernmost settlement we know about, a hamlet in the west, along the Davis Straight. It’s possible this man traveled with the Inuit. They traveled this far north. But he’s been buried like a Norseman, so he wasn’t here alone.”

It’s all very interesting, but I can’t help wondering, “How do you know so much about them?” Before Willem can answer, I figure it out. “History teacher?”

He nods.

“No wonder you defaulted on your school loans.”

He smiles at his misfortune and turns his head to the sky. The clouds are closer. Darker. He turns to his father. “Can you move?”

“Move where?” Jakob asks. “This is a barren landscape. I’d rather face my death like a man. Here with our ancestor.”

I look at the burial mound and as thoughts of Vikings and settlements flash through my mind. “You’re wrong,” I say.

Willem looks at me. “I don’t think so. We need to find cover.”

“Not about that,” I say. “About the Vikings not settling here.” I can tell he’s about to shush me, so I speak fast. “When I was scouting the area earlier I saw a structure at the center of the island.”

This perks up Jakob’s attention. “A structure?”

“Probably just ruins now, but it’s something. And the mountains will shield us from the worst of the wind.”

“Umm,” Jenny says. “Don’t we want to go south? Not inland, over these big effing hills?”

Fearing Willem will reveal we won’t be going south any time soon, I quickly say, “We can’t head south if we’re frozen solid.”

She growls, but relents. “I’ll get the raft.”

Willem puts his hand out to Jakob. “Father?”

Jakob looks at Willem, and then at me. “There is really a structure? I don’t like to be lied to, Raven.”

That he trusts me at all is something of a mystery to me. He knows we’re from the
Sentinel
crew, but I haven’t sensed any hostility from him yet, and Willem hasn’t explained the situation to him. So why the kindness? “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Peach huffs and starts picking up her bags. She hasn’t said much and wears a permanent scowl. I’d like to explain to her that lying to people who are dangerous is not the same as lying to people who are innocent, but she’d probably just tell me that whales are innocent, so I decide to stow that delightful conversation away for another day.

Jakob takes Willem’s hand and winces as he stands.

“Where are your supplies?” I ask Willem. “I can carry them while you help your father.”

Willem frowns. “We’re wearing all the supplies we have.”

I take a protein bar from my pack, split it into three pieces and give one to Alvin, one to Willem and one to Jakob. They quickly devour the quasi-chocolate flavored food.

“There’s more,” I say, “but we need to ration it.”

Jakob gives a nod and motions me forward. The group is ready to go and it seems I’m taking the lead again.

As I step forward, Jakob says to Willem, “You see? The raven leads our family once again. There is still hope.”

The cold breeze penetrating the back of my cloak disagrees with him.

16

I can’t tell if the weather is rooting for us or messing with us. We make it over the hills, struggling every step of the way, but as soon as we reach the island’s core, the clouds drop trou and shit an endless stream of white.

I lead the group in a single file line, heading for the center of the open area where I saw—where I hope I saw—some kind of shelter. If it wasn’t, I’m not only going to look like a total dufus, but we’ll probably die. The wind, even buffered by the tall stone hills, is brutal enough, but the storm will likely drop the temperature, too.

At first there was a good amount of complaining, mostly from Jenny, but Peach made no effort to hide her discontent, sighing loudly whenever she had to exert herself. Jakob made a noble effort to hide his discomfort, but some of the journey took them over rugged terrain and he’d let out a grunt when Willem stumbled and Jakob suddenly had to support his full weight. But when the snow began and the wind dropped the temperature, no one made a sound. The suddenness of the shift in mood reminded me of how prey animals, once caught, lie back quietly, resigned to their fate. Is that what I’m seeing? Are we resigned to a frigid death?

Fuck that
, I think. If the Colonel made it to the pearly gates and found out I died sitting on my ass, he’d block my entrance and kick me into the fiery pit himself. As nice as a fiery pit sounds right now, I’m not about to disappoint my father, at least not any more than I have already.

So I push through the storm. It’s possible we’ve already passed the structure. Visibility is maybe ten feet, when I’m not looking down. The rocky valley floor is covered in boulders and loose sheets of shale. When I can no longer see the ground, I turn my eyes up and see nothing but white.

We’re lost. Out in the open. I’ve killed us.

Hoping Willem will have an idea, I stop and wait for him to catch up with Jakob. Father and son look miserable, but when they see me standing still and meet my eyes, their determination is intense. Jakob stares in my eyes, reading the defeat there, but then cranes his head to the side and looks past me.

“What distresses you, Raven?” he asks, and before I can explain, he adds, “You have provided shelter as promised.”

What
? Do people see mirages in snow? I’ve never heard of such a thing, but he could be suffering from hypothermia.
Maybe he’s hallucinating
?

Willem and Jakob take a few steps beyond me and stop. Jakob reaches out a hand and wipes it back and forth. It’s like he’s some kind of magician because a trail of dark gray follows his hand. Then I can see it, stretching out fifteen feet in either direction. A five foot tall wall covered in snow. I wouldn’t have known it was there until I face-planted against it.

Gripped by relief, I turn around to the others and shout, “We made it! It’s here!” I run around the perimeter and find the entrance on the other side. The floor is even and free of snow near the back wall. I huddle up in the corner and the wind disappears. The relief is instant. This might just work.

Ten minutes later, we’re all piled inside the life raft, positioned in the structure’s corner. It’s cramped, and a little ripe, but with six people inside, it’s damn near warm.
We’re going to make it
, I think. A
nd then we’re going to slowly starve,
says the little red devil on my shoulder.
Maybe we’ll go cannibal like that rugby team that crashed in the Andes, and then the last survivor will starve alone, or be eaten by the bear. Or maybe the bear will just tear through the tent tonight and eat us. Or—

A staccato sound rips through the tent, sending a panicked pain through my body. I sit up and look for some sign of the bear outside the tent. I’ve got the gun in my hand, ready to fire. Just when I notice no one else has reacted to the noise, it repeats. I jump again, but this time I’m able to identify its source. Jenny is sleeping. And snoring. Peach is sleeping, too, as are Alvin and Jakob. Willem, on the other hand, is leaning on his elbow and looking at me—with my gun at the ready—with a smirk.

He doesn’t have to say anything. I can almost hear the string of one-liners he’s got on the tip of his tongue. “Shut-up,” I say.

Most people would still take a jab or two, but he just says, “Thanks.”

“I’ve only prolonged the inevitable.”

“It’s a start,” he says.

I don’t want to think about our situation, and I don’t want to be thanked, so I say, “So Professor, what is this place?”

“It’s Viking,” he says. “The construction is similar to ruins found in the southern settlements, but the reason for it being here is a mystery.” He shrugs. “I have no idea.”

I sigh. “Good to know history is as interesting as I remember it from school.”

He grins. “You just didn’t have the right teacher.” He’s suddenly got that look in his eyes. You know the look—one part overconfidence, one part lost in the imaginary act of screwing. It’s the same look every guy gets when it occurs to them that you’re their type. It’s not a universally unwanted look unless it comes from someone like Chase, who was giving me a similar stare just the other night. And if the circumstances were different, Willem’s attention would be welcome. But out here, surrounded by death and cold and four sleeping, stinky companions? Hell no. I’m not some Viking wench you can seduce with a bed of hay and tankard of ale. Well, okay, that might actually work. But not now.

I’m so lost in my revolt that I don’t notice him lie back and close his eyes. How long did I look at him with one Spock-like eyebrow raised? Did I offend him? Do I care?

I force these obnoxious thoughts out of my mind, lie down and put my mind somewhere else. The problem is, I end up somewhere else I don’t want to be.

My father’s shouting like a drill-sergeant. It doesn’t faze me. It’s really just a slight reaction for him. The neighbors can’t hear him, yet. He hasn’t threatened to get a gun. He hasn’t punched anything. But he’s pissed. Like I knew he would be. Making my father angry has become something of an art form over the years. After years of pushing me to be something resembling the son he never had, I’ve learned to push back. And today, I pushed hard. I’m moving out, heading for Washington D.C. and joining Greenpeace.

His reaction is predictable. He rants about earthy-crunchy pansies, flower wearing hippies and tree hugging homos. A veritable conveyor belt of foul-mouthed stereotypes, that man.

I fire back, thinking my spunk and passion will impress him. It has worked in the past. Hearing a bit of himself in me always seems to make him proud, even if we’re arguing about school, or boys or pot. He likes that I stand up for myself, and I think many of our arguments are his way of training me for life challenges.

But this time, he wilts. He sits on the old plaid ottoman and leans his forehead down on his hands. I see his bald head turning red. I brace myself for the verbal assault. But it never comes. “Go,” he says, nearly a whisper.

The whisper catches me off guard. I thought I had him cornered and out of ammunition and he’s somehow pulled a knife and stabbed it into my chest. Just by whispering! My reaction to his whisper makes me angry and I shout, “Fine!” before storming out of the house with my few possessions.

I don’t see my father for a year, and then only for holidays after that. He’s always distant, not quite the man who raised me. The last time I saw him was in the hospital…

Sleep spares me from the memory, but my dreams are horrible images and screaming.

I wake with a start, reaching for my gun. Willem is awake, too, and this time he shares my concern.

I assess the situation.

The tent no longer shakes. The storm subsided overnight.

The yellow fabric glows with light. The sun blazes over the hills. While the sun never sets, it does change positions in the sky, sometimes dipping and creating long shadows, but it always comes back up. Not that I’m complaining. Perpetual daylight is far better than the opposite.