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.