After about an hour of travel, cramped in the sled’s belly, knees bent, facing Gunther, Jaz’s toes began to tingle with pins and needles. Wiggling them only made it worse. At least the wind had settled, except for the occasional gust. She imagined that behind the sled they were leaving a clear trail in the moonlight. Unfortunately, because of the earlier flurries, it might take some time for searchers to find it.
Except for once or twice when his head nodded briefly toward his chest, Gunther hadn’t looked away from her. He held on to his gun as if his hands were frozen in place. His face looked gaunt in the shadows against the night-glow of snow. He didn’t look like Gunther at all.
And he wasn’t. Not the Gunther she knew.
They passed some of the infamous Canol Trail “junk.” An old yellow truck from the 1940s sat half-buried in snow, long since stripped of anything of value, its windows broken. Its hood had partly caved into the space where an engine should be.
“Gunther, please tell us where we’re going,” she pleaded. “What’s after Blue Mountain?”
“Russia,” he answered.
She wasn’t sure she’d heard right; Colly said nothing. Actually, except for calling cues to the dogs, Colly had said nothing since they’d begun this insane trek. That worried her. Colly quiet might mean Colly planning. She hoped he wasn’t planning anything stupid.
“You didn’t need to do this, Gunther. We would have helped you.”
He shook his head. “You are a good person, Jaz, and I am sure your friend is too.”
“Colly,” Jaz said. “My friend’s name is Colly. You’re a good person too, Gunther. Why are you kidnapping us?”
Gunther made a sound like choking. “I am sorry, Jaz, but sometimes things happen that we never expect. Bad things.”
She heard sniffling and stared hard, trying to see Gunther’s face. “Gunther…are you okay?”
He snorted, took one hand off his gun and wiped his face.
“Whoa,” Colly called, and the dog team slowed to a stop. Beside the trail were what looked like two old train cabooses stuck in the snow, with a smashed-in trailer just behind. More Canol junk.
“I did not tell you to stop,” Gunther said.
“I don’t know where we’re going,” Colly said. “You said Russia. We can’t get to Russia from here. That doesn’t make sense.”
Jaz looked over her shoulder. Colly was standing up straight and stiff on the sled, as if he had a board up the inside of his parka. He looked cold and angry.
“We will be met,” Gunther said.
“Where?” Colly snapped. It sounded as if there was more he wanted to say but was holding himself back. Barely.
“Take it easy, Colly,” Jaz said. She looked back and forth between Gunther and Colly, her stomach tightening.
Despite the bite of cold and fear, this didn’t feel real. What had happened to the nice man who smiled and gave her strudel? If she could only get him to talk, maybe they could find a way out of this. Maybe whatever had happened could be fixed. She had to give it a shot.
“Gunther, you said that sometimes bad things happen. Did something bad happen to you? Are you running away?”
Gunther rubbed his forehead. Somewhere in the distance, Jaz heard a wolf howl, and then another. She shivered, and not because of the cold.
“No, Jaz. Nothing happened to me. It is something far worse.”
“What?”
“You do not need to know. You need only to listen and do what I tell you to do.”
“Most people say I’m not very good at listening or doing as I’m told.”
Was that a smile? Hard to tell in the dark.
“Look, we’re in the middle of the mountains, and it’s not like we’re going anywhere else. Please, Gunther…I’m scared. If you tell me what happened, maybe at least I can understand why we are here.”
He didn’t move for a long while, and Jaz wondered if he’d even heard her.
“Okay, but not here,” he said finally. “I will tell you as we travel.”
If Colly was satisfied with Gunther’s answer, he didn’t say, but he did start up the team again. “Hike!”
Despite his promise, Gunther didn’t say anything. He seemed preoccupied and leaned from one side of the sled to the other, his head nodding and jerking up again, like a weight on a fishing line. She would just have to get him started.
“You said something very bad happened, but that it didn’t happen to you. What was it, Gunther?”
His shoulders slumped. “My family,” he said, his voice catching. “They should never have left Germany.”
Jaz frowned. She knew Gunther had grown up in Germany, but she didn’t know anything about his family. He’d never spoken of them when she popped by the café, and they had never come to visit. Not that she knew of, anyway. She waited for him to continue.
“A long time ago, I had a friend. We grew up together. He was a good boy—I was a good boy—but sometimes we got into a bit of trouble.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “He got into more trouble, and after a while I did not see him anymore.”
He paused. For a long time he didn’t speak.
“Then what happened?” Jaz asked, hoping he was still awake.
Gunther cleared his throat and coughed. “When I wanted to come to Canada, I had some trouble because of some of the things I did when I was young. Then I ran into my old friend, and he said he could help.”
“Did he help?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his voice bitter. “He made things right with my application. He said he had friends. When I asked how I could thank him, he told me not to worry about it. He said maybe someday he would need a favor.”
“Haw,” Colly called, not too loudly, as if not wanting to interrupt. “Haw!”
Vaguely, Jaz was aware of the team turning.
“After my mother died, my sister and her boy, my little nephew Luka, wanted to leave Germany to be closer to me. He helped with that too.”
“They came to Yellowknife?”
“No, not Yellowknife. There was a good job for my sister in Vancouver, so that is where they moved.”
“Haw,” Colly called.
“Where are you going?” Gunther asked. He didn’t sound alarmed. Mostly he sounded tired.
“Just following the trail,” Colly said. “It’s tricky here. Haw!”
Colly was up to something, she was sure of it. She’d studied the maps just as much as Colly had, and she knew there were no bends like this. They were turning around!
“What was the favor, Gunther?” Jaz asked in a rush. Maybe she could distract him. “What did your friend want?”
“Haw!” Colly called again.
“What are you doing?” Gunther shouted. “You stop—now!”
“Whoa!” Colly cried. He sounded frightened.
“I know what you are doing. Get us back on track, NOW!”
Dumb-noodle! she shouted in her head. Fear landed in a lump in her belly, making her want to throw up, but she wasn’t sure if it was because Colly had been caught or because he’d tried in the first place.
“Gee!” Colly called to the dogs, his voice tight. “Gee! Gee!”
“Wait a minute,” Gunther said after they had returned to the trail. As the team slowed to a stop, he pulled their red emergency supply bag onto his knees and opened it.
“It is obvious that I cannot trust you.” He rummaged through the pack, found their emergency flares and tossed them into the brush.
Jaz bit her lip. Whatever ground she had gained by getting Gunther to open up was lost, thanks to Colly. Didn’t he notice that Gunther was softening? Why couldn’t he just trust her to handle it? Because he was a control freak, that was why!
They carried on in the dark, not speaking. Only the wind and the sound of the sled swooshing over fresh snow broke the silence.
“Whoa!” Colly called.
Jaz could hear open water.
That wasn’t all she heard.
Woooooo!
Wolves. And they were close!