Winter Study (30 page)

“See
where the bark is shredded on the downed trunk? She must have tried to
crawl beneath it, and the wolves tore at it till they got her out. The
marks are too big for anything else.”

“They don’t do this,” Ridley said but he sounded more confused than convinced. “They just don’t.”

Anna
didn’t argue with him. She knew the wolf statistics. Western parks
debated them endlessly as the subject of reintroducing wolves heated up.

“It’ll
be dark before we get back,” Ridley said and stood. “Bob! Make yourself
useful.” To Anna he said: “We’ll package the remains for transport. You
and Robin look around a little more. We’ve got ten minutes, then we’ve
got to move.”

A
foot of new snow could hide a lot of sins. There was no point in
searching any areas that hadn’t been disturbed by scavengers. The
clearing where the body was found was not so much a clearing as a flat
space where the trees had opted not to fall for one reason or another.
It was scarcely six feet on a side. Beyond that, they were again in the
giant’s game of pick-up-sticks.

Anna
followed Katherine’s back trail. Five or six yards into the tangle of
trees, she found a place where the snow had been dug down almost to
bare earth. Shreds of fabric were scattered around the dig.

“Robin,”
Anna called. “Bring your light.” Robin came lightly, gracefully,
annoying Anna with her ease of movement in this hostile environment.
“What do you think?” Anna asked, pointing out the fabric.

“Backpack? She must have gone back to the bunkhouse before she ran off. That changes things. To what, I haven’t a clue.”

The
pack, what was left of it, was of dark blue canvas, a relic from before
high tech went into the backcountry. The anachronism was jarring.
Katherine was a state-of-the-art woman. The wolves had attacked the
pack with a fury that struck Anna as almost personal, the way a
deranged person will defile an object belonging to someone they hate.

Radios
came to life; Adam calling from the base radio in the bunkhouse. “My
batteries went dead,” came through a storm of static. “Where is
everybody?”

Ridley
was the one who answered. He told him briefly of the body. “You may as
well stay where you are,” he said. “There’s not much you can do now.”
Ridley’s tone made it clear that there had been a good deal he could
have done earlier if he hadn’t been AWOL.

“Ten-four,” Adam said. The Park Service had gone to plain speech years before, but people clung to the codes.

Handing
Robin her flashlight, Anna carefully widened the dig. Shards of black
plastic were embedded in the snow. “Film canister?” Anna wondered aloud
as she collected them into a baggie and handed it to the biotech. She
swept the snow clear of a broken glass vial, the snow around it dark
with blood.

“Jonah
said Katherine pocketed vials of wolf blood before she left the
carpenter’s shop,” Anna mused. “Maybe that was a factor in the attack.”
Shading her eyes from the flashlight, she looked up at Robin.

The
biotech’s face was puckering the way a small child’s will as it readies
for tears. Her eyes had dilated more than the coming dusk could account
for.

“Get
me something to bag this in,” Anna said to distract her from whatever
thoughts were breaking her down. Robin did as she was told, but she
didn’t speak, and her movements lost their fluidity. Twice she stumbled
over downed trees. The second time, she fell. When she regained her
feet, she stood where she was as if she’d lost her way.

Delayed
shock at the grisly scene and hypothermia would both account for the
behavior. Maybe winter had finally turned on Robin. Anna left the hole
she was excavating. There was no need to go on collecting “evidence.”
The wolves would never get their day in court. Anna’d been doing it out
of habit. She left the scraps and buckles and took Robin’s arm.

“Come
on,” she said quietly. “Help me get the Sked ready.” Holding on to
Robin, Anna clambered through the obstacle course of the swamp to the
sled Ridley had towed from Windigo. Robin’s knees buckled and she went
down on all fours, head drooping, hair painting the snow.

“What happened?” Anna asked as she pulled her to her feet.

Robin didn’t answer and Anna didn’t push it. Opening wounds was best done in a controlled environment.

“Did you find a cell phone?” Bob called. “They belong to the university and I’ll have to pay for it.”

That’s
what he’d been doing, digging here and there. He was looking to save
himself a few bucks. The callousness struck Anna like a snowball
hitting ice. Too tired to bother turning her head in his direction, “No
phone,” she said.

By
the time they got Katherine’s remains stowed in garbage bags–if the
park had a body bag, Ridley didn’t know where it was — and strapped
into the rescue Sked, it was full dark. Wind from the northeast,
bringing the promised front, had picked up and the temperature was
falling.

Anna
had to help Robin on with her skis. In the morning, the woman had worn
them as if they were an extension of her body. Now she fumbled with the
locks, unsure of how they worked.

“Hang on,” Anna said and patted her leg awkwardly. “We’ll be home in no time. Don’t think too much.” Robin said nothing.

Anna
held the light for the others as they strapped on their skis, then
helped Ridley into the harness attached to the Sked. The only one
without skis, she would follow behind to free it if it got hung up on
anything.

Now
that the distraction of the corpse and its attendant parts was over,
Anna was feeling every mile and minute of the day as well as the day
before’s fight to get clear of the ice of Intermediate. Fatigue pressed
on her till it was all she could do to keep her head up.

Robin
went first, carrying one of the flashlights. Anna didn’t like her
leading, but she didn’t want her bringing up the rear either. At least
in front, if she went down, they’d see her.

Bob
followed in Robin’s tracks. Anna was surprised how good he was on skis
till she remembered he’d been born and raised in Canada. Ridley was
third, carrying the other light and pulling the body. Anna fell into
place at the tail of the train.

They’d
not been on the move for fifteen minutes when the Sked tipped between
two stones at the base of the outcropping with the stone nose. Anna was
grateful. She was at the end of her strength and needed the short rest.
“Hold up,” Ridley called to the others, then stood silently in his
traces like an old horse. None of them spoke. Anything that came to
mind to say was too grim to share.

The
narrow metal sled had ridden up on the right side over a rock beneath
the snow until it was close to tipping over. Anna caught up the few
yards she’d fallen behind and knelt to right it. Both knees cracked as
she went down and she wondered if she’d have to push on the ground like
an old woman to get up again. Bracing herself, she lifted and pulled on
the left edge of the aluminum sled, sliding it back onto level ground.

“You’re good to go,” she said.

“Go, Robin,” Ridley called.

Anna
stayed where she was, the energy to rise eluding her for a moment.
She’d heard about people wanting to lie down and sleep in the snow but
had never understood the allure of it till now. She was gathering her
strength to rise when she heard something in the trees to the left of
the trail. Intermixed with the sighing of the wind was the sound of
stealthy movement, whispering over the snow purposeful and stealthy,
keeping pace with Ridley and the others.

They were being stalked.

17

The
flicker and cut of the flashlights were ahead of her. But for these
theatrical sharps of light, snipping images from perfect dark, Anna
could see nothing. Three feet from where she knelt, the hounds of hell
could be waiting, tails wagging in anticipation, and she’d not see
them. She closed her eyes to shut out distraction and felt her universe
extend on a plane of sound waves. Wind sighed, gentled from its earlier
shrieks. Branches of trees discussed the small doings of the creatures
beneath in whispers of snow falling from overburdened limbs and the
snicker of bark on bark.

Nothing
else. The stealthy slip and pad of predators had stopped. Or was never
there. Ears swaddled in fleece, brain in fatigue, eyes in darkness:
imagining sneaking noises was not beyond the realm of possibility.

With
a grunt that she was glad none of the young and agile heard, Anna
pushed to her feet and trudged on. Ridley had reached the top of the
small knoll. He wasn’t a whole lot bigger than Anna, not more than
five-foot-eight or so, and slight of frame. He had skied twenty miles
before he was called to the body recovery, yet his movements remained
fluid. Anna envied him for a few steps, then let it go. She hadn’t the
strength to waste on nonessentials.

“SWITCH OUT!” Ridley hollered.

Anna
woke with a start. She was on her feet, she was in position behind the
Sked where she was supposed to be, but she’d been walking in a trance.
Thirty minutes had elapsed. Ridley and Robin were switching out. Robin
would pull the Sked for half an hour, then switch with Bob, so no one
got overtired.

As
Robin made her way to the rear of the line, Anna knelt in the snow,
glad the darkness was there to cover what might have looked more like a
collapse than a controlled descent. Light smashed into her face and she
threw up an arm to protect herself.

“Sorry,” Ridley said. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” Anna said. “I’m doing good.”

“Eat something,” he said.

“Good
idea.” That got the flashlight and his attention off of her and she
slumped back into her clothes. She didn’t have anything to eat and, for
the first time in what seemed like forever, she wasn’t hungry. Or, if
she was, she was too tired to chew and swallow.

Ridley
escaped the harness and buckled Robin into it. Robin had never towed a
Sked before, but she’d skied a thousand miles with a pack and a rifle
on her back so Ridley didn’t bother with much in the way of instruction.

When
they’d done, he shined his light over the harness and the Sked,
checking that the lines were still secure. “Where’s your light?” he
demanded suddenly.

“Bob took it. He wanted to go first.”

“Bob
took it,” Ridley said. “God damn him. Here, take mine. God damn him.
God damn Adam,” he said and pushed into the darkness toward the
wavering speck of light that was the purloined flashlight.