9

It was fully dark before Jessie allowed R. E. and Kalluk to leave their sleeping bags and the tent to sit at the fire with the others. The night was bitingly cold, with stars that were handfuls of precisely faceted diamonds flung on indigo velvet. There was no wind. The hiss and the crackle of the campfire seemed to be the only sound—at least until there was a sharp crack from the distant woods.

Tessa looked over that way, into the darkness. “What was that?”

“Branch cracking off a tree,” Jessie answered. “I haven’t seen it this cold in a long time. Some of the branches out there aren’t thick enough to protect the sap. The sap freezes, expands, and the wood fractures.” She gazed into the fire. “We’re going to be hearing a lot more of that unless it warms up a little.”

Kalluk and R. E. had filled their coffee cups and settled on the log with Jessie and Tessa. The brothers, on the far side of the fire, sat silently.

“What’d we lose, Kalluk?” Jessie asked, her voice neutral and studiously non-accusatory. In spite of that, Kalluk’s response was a bit defensive.

“I should have seen it, but I didn’t. The weak spot must have been right above the spring feed. That water was moving fast—that’s why it didn’t freeze like the rest of it. I don’t think anyone could have seen it.”

Neither Tessa nor Jessie mentioned that Jessie had seen the fault and had tried to warn Kalluk away from it.

“Yeah. Maybe so,” Jessie said. “What’d we lose?”

Kalluk shook his head. “Lots of stuff. The GPS. Clothes. My grill. A bunch of MREs. Our salt. A block of waterproof matches. Fishing line and hooks. Extra gloves, boots, a thermal blanket, chocolate—things like that.”

“Nothing we can’t live without,” Jessie said. “We’ll triangulate with our compasses, make a map, show landmarks. We’ll find the sleds. I don’t see that the MREs are a huge loss. Albin and Randall can keep us supplied with small game.” She sighed. “I’ll sure miss that chocolate, though.”

“Like you said,” R. E. said. “Nothing we can’t live without, right? Anyway, I needed a bath.”

Kalluk grinned sheepishly, looking for humor in a situation in which there was very little—or none. “It was kind of refreshing,” he said. “Gets the ol’ heart pumping.”

“Next time we can have a little picnic before we go swimming,” Jessie said.

“Ain’t going to be a next time,” Kalluk said, his voice now grim.

“You got that right, son,” Jessie agreed. She stood. “Might as well get some sleep. We can stash the sleds tomorrow and start hoofin’ it. You boys are lucky, R. E.—we brought sleeping bags for the brothers, and they won’t use them. We’ll—”

Tessa spoke before she could control her thought. “You mean we’re going on? After this?”

The group was dead silent except for what might have been a chuckle from Randall or Albin on the other side of the fire.

Jessie stared at her. “ ’Course we’re going on, Tess. Things happen out here. This wasn’t more than a minor setback. Every trip has one. We just got ours outta the way earlier than most.”

Fuzz settled himself on the other side of the tent fabric, his shoulder creating a small oblong indentation at Tessa’s eye level. She braved a hand and arm outside her sleeping bag and scratched at the lump. Fuzz grunted in pleasure.

What a day! I thought those guys were lost for good. When Kalluk’s head appeared—and then R. E.’s and Fuzz’s—it was the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Thank you, God! Tessa pulled the sleeping bag flap more closely against the side of her head, as if she could shut out a thought. Her blunder of a comment about turning back nagged at her like a toothache. The looks on their faces—and one of the brothers laughed at how silly what I said was—and those two never laugh. She remembered one of Jessie’s early comments long before the trip was under way. “This won’t be a Girl Scout campout, Tess. It gets tough out there.”

Yeah. It sure does. I saw some of that today. And what about Kalluk and his trick in the tent? What was that all about? He’s the last person on earth I’d expect to pull something like that. Tessa squirmed in her sleeping bag and inadvertently nudged Fuzz through the fabric. He grunted in protest.

Come on, she told herself. Get over it. You’re acting crazy. Kalluk was probably half in shock and didn’t know what he was doing.

Another disquieting thought intruded. Or did he know exactly what he was doing?

Jessie and Kalluk placed the three snowmobiles next to a prominent boulder and used their compasses to triangulate the position of the machines and the rock, using a small rise and a stand of trees as reference points. Each of them drew a sketch of the location and tucked the drawing away in an innermost pocket. “We’ll find ’em on the way back,” Jessie assured the group. “No doubt about it. Come on, let’s saddle up. We’re burnin’ time.”

The first full day of walking wasn’t quite as difficult as Tessa had thought it would be. Albin and Randall hauled the two trailers. The boxes on runners slid almost effortlessly over the snow, providing very little drag, and pulling them along seemed to be no problem except on downgrades, where the front of the trailer tended to bang into the puller’s heels. The brothers quickly solved that problem; they let the trailers lead and followed behind them, keeping them on the correct course with the pull ropes.

The brothers established and maintained a pace that was too fast and too tiring for all-day travel. Jessie, after shouting at Albin and Randall to slow it down a half dozen times, decided to let them go on ahead, but got their word they’d keep the others in sight. That worked out just fine. Even Kalluk seemed more comfortable at the slower walk. “Like Jessie said,” he told them, “you people can’t be sucking down air this cold.”

“And you can?” Jessie grumped. Kalluk pretended not to hear her.

Tessa and R. E. exchanged a rapid glance. Both had noticed that there was a bit of conflict between Jessie and Kalluk as to who was in charge of the expedition and who was giving the orders. “Too many generals and not enough privates,” R. E. said quietly.

“Maybe so,” Tessa answered. “But they both know what they’re doing, so it doesn’t make much difference.”

“Yeah,” R. E. said, again quietly. “And no matter what might happen, Albin and Randall would get us out of it.”

It was a Fairbanks tourist-shop postcard sort of day. The color of the sky was a hue Tessa remembered from her days with Crayola crayons—sky blue. It was so deep and so unmarked by cloud cover of any kind that it looked almost artificial, like the overstated blue sky on a travel poster. The sun was bright, cheerful, and reflected glitteringly from the vast expanse of snow, making the group squint even behind their sunglasses. It looked like an August sun—but that’s where the similarity ended. The temperature, according to Jessie and the thermocouple thermometer she carried, varied between minus twenty-five and minus twenty during full daylight. “It’ll drop some at night,” Kalluk observed.

Tessa and R. E. walked side by side, Jessie ahead of them by several feet, and Kalluk in front of her by a few feet. There’d been no real regimentation after the brothers were sent ahead; the walkers settled into their paces without strain. The surface of the snow was powdery, but there was relatively firm underfooting.

“I keep thinking about lunch,” R. E. admitted.

“Me too. You wouldn’t think we’d be so hungry just walking along,” Tessa said. “I’m starved.”

“The temperature’s got a lot to do with it. When it’s this cold, it takes lots of burning calories to maintain body heat.” He grinned. “That’s something I learned about yesterday.”

“You’re pretty perky for a guy who turned into a huge icicle and scared me half to death.”

“To be honest, I hardly remember it. I recall going through the ice, but after that it’s sort of a fog. I know we were in a tent, and I remember Jessie giving me sugar water, but that’s about it until later in the evening. I seem to remember being underwater and how strong the current was and . . . and all that . . . but that’s kind of dreamlike.”

They walked on, boots squeaking on the snow in a monotonous but not unpleasant rhythm. “You were scared for me, huh?” R. E. asked.

“Of course I was. For you and Kalluk and Fuzz. It was a few awful moments until you all popped up.”

“Well, it was one way to get your attention, Tess.” There was a half-joking, half-serious shade to R. E.’s words.

“Come on, you don’t need to crash into freezing water to get my attention.” She smiled at him. They took several more steps before he spoke again.

“How about this: if I sit on the edge of a hole and just dangle my feet in to get your attention, is that OK?”

Tessa laughed, and when she drew in a breath, her throat burned. “That’ll be fine,” she gasped. “Don’t make me laugh anymore. It hurts too much.”

The lunch stop came relatively late. Light was beginning to fade when Kalluk raised his arm to signal a stop. The brothers, now not much larger than dots on the horizon, swung back toward the rest of the group.

“How’d they know we’re stopping?” Tessa asked Jessie.

Jessie shook her head. “Beats me. But I’ll tell you what: those boys don’t miss a thing out here, no matter what it is. Maybe one of them looks back every few steps. Or maybe it’s intuition or something. I’ve seen the same sort of thing in other Inuits.”

Tessa waved at Albin and Randall. When neither returned the wave she felt foolish. “They do things differently than we do, Tess. No wasted motion,” Jessie said. “They weren’t snubbing you,” she added. “Actually, they like you, which is saying a lot for those two.”

The propane stove brought the coffee to a boil and heated MREs two at a time. Fuzz had found his own lunch, Tessa noticed. His muzzle was spattered with blood, and bits of fur adhered to his chest and neck. The stop lasted barely a half hour. As the brothers started out, Kalluk caught them, and the three men spoke for a moment. Then, the brothers went on at their usual unwavering pace and speed.

Kalluk again took the lead. The walking became, as it had earlier, an automatic process, one that involved little strain and no thought. It was a matter of taking a step and then following it with another. Jessie and Kalluk had early on discussed equipping the group with snowshoes and had then decided against it. Almost all of the territory they’d cover was open and windswept, and the base of snow had hardened to a concrete-like surface under a scant few inches of new snow. The towering trees in the wooded areas they encountered acted as umbrellas keeping most of the snow from ever reaching the forest floor.

The abbreviated daylight hours made for a short day of walking. When Kalluk waved to the brothers, R. E. and Tessa sank gratefully to the snow. “For a five-hour day,” R. E. commented, “it sure seemed a lot longer.”

“We covered some ground today, though,” Tessa said. “We’ll get used to the walking. But you’re right—I was ready to pack it in for the day.”

Jessie selected a campsite under a stand of a dozen or so pines, and the group began foraging for firewood. Tessa flinched as a gunshot boomed across the tundra, rudely disturbing the peace. Kalluk grinned. “No MREs tonight,” he said. “We’ll have fresh meat of some kind.”

“One shot?” R. E. asked.

Jessie and Kalluk looked at him as if he’d asked if ice was cold. “Those boys haven’t wasted a bullet since they were in diapers,” Jessie said. “We’ll have meat.”

Jessie was right. Albin and Randall pulled the trailers into camp with one loaded with firewood and the other with a large goose draped over it. Albin took it aside to clean it. Tessa averted her gaze. Plucking the goose would have required more time and a great deal of boiling water, so Albin skinned it instead. Fuzz danced around Albin, waiting for the assorted treats he knew would be coming his way.

The meal was splendid; even Tessa had to agree with that point. She settled into her sleeping bag later, her eyes already too heavy to keep open from the fine meal and the weariness from the day’s walk.

She woke only once during the night, startled awake by the cracking of a tree limb. The familiar lump in the tent’s fabric was at her side.