Winter Study Read online

  Little guys, foxes and ravens and rodents, had feasted. But the little guys had not torn a full-sized woman to pieces.

  “Anna!”

  She twitched so hard it hurt her neck. Being startled pissed her off and being pissed off was a lot better than being tired and scared.

  “It’s about damn time you got here,” she hollered. “Where the hell have you been? What in God’s name could have held you up on this godforsaken island?”

  Ridley, following her blasphemies, came through the tangle of downed trees with more grace than she had managed. Behind him was Robin and, beside her, Bob. That was what had held them up. Anna realized she was about to get out of line and scaled back her anger.

  She thought to warn them, to say: “It’s bad” or “Pretty grim scene” or “Take the women and kids back to the house,” but instead she just waited till Robin and Ridley noticed the digging, the arm. Then, like a tour guide from hell, she pointed out the various pieces.

  Bob waded in and started brushing snow away from the arm. “Leave it,” Anna snapped. “I don’t want the scene compromised.”

  “Wolves killed her,” Bob said. He started in with the brushing again, and it bothered her that he was uncovering the arm.

  The arm, for chrissake. It was cut off. It was hamburger. Anybody who wasn’t Bob would have brushed the snow from Katherine’s face.

  “Wolves may have torn her apart,” Anna said in a tone she considered reasonable. “We don’t know what killed her. I need you to stop that.”

  He looked up at her desperate or dangerous or scared. Anna didn’t think it was grief.

  He was digging up her arm. Her fucking arm. Anna was having trouble getting past that.

  “Another front is coming in,” Ridley said. “We’re going to lose the light in an hour or so.”

  Another dark and stormy night. Anna was getting that clock-striking-midnight-as-the-power-goes-out feeling again. “Whatever we miss won’t be here tomorrow,” she said. “It’ll be somebody’s dinner.”

  Robin took up photographic duties. The constant flash became a freakish punctuation to the finds, the pieces of what had once been a young woman.

  A young woman murdered by her first love, the wolf; when the snow was swept from the body, it became clear she had been killed by a wolf or wolves. Her throat was torn out, her head connected to her body only by her spine. The damage was fierce but incomplete. The body had not been eviscerated, the face was intact, the coat, though badly torn, was not stripped from the meat.

  “Odd,” Anna said, and: “Wolf.”

  “Wog,” Ridley said.

  “It was a pack of wolves,” Bob said, his voice as plummy and certain as if he were reporting the six o’clock news.

  “If it was wolves – natural wolves, pure wolves – it’s the first time in recorded history it’s happened in America,” Ridley said. “What’s your take on this, Menechinn? If it was wolves, do you get to open the island year-round so Homeland Security can arm all the parkies and, between creel checks and wake-in-no-wake-zone citations, Ranger Rick can save us from the Canadians?”

  Ridley asked as if it were a real question, as if he cared about Bob’s answer.

  “Homeland Security can shut down your little pissant operation anytime,” Bob replied with the same big tucked-in smile he bestowed on everything, and Anna wondered if he liked making Ridley miserable or was simply incapable of empathy.

  “Not if this is a wolf kill,” she said. “Led by a wog or not, every wildlife biologist in the world will be lobbying to keep the study going. Scientists can’t stand an anomaly.”

  “Doggone it, where is Adam?” Ridley demanded. Apropos of nothing that Anna could follow, he transferred his anger from Menechinn to Adam Johansen. “Radio him again,” he ordered Robin and, turning his back on Anna and Bob, took the camera from the biotech and began photographing the scene.

  Bit by bit, as it was recorded by the camera, they brought together what was left of Katherine Huff.

  As they had at the necropsy, they worked as a team. This time Robin and Anna handled the corpse, carefully brushing away the snow, and Ridley photographed it in situ. Anna didn’t know what Bob Menechinn was doing other than wandering around, staring at the ground, digging here and there.

  “Wolves don’t do this,” Ridley said when the body parts were uncovered and accounted for. “They just don’t. We were talking about this the other day. There’s upward of two thousand wolves in Minnesota. They eat moose and deer and sheep, when they can get them. They don’t hunt down and kill humans.”

  Anna was studying the scene in an attempt to reconstruct the incident. “Look.” She took one of the flashlights Ridley brought. The sun must have been close to setting. The light was fading and sky, air and earth were a uniform gray. Holding the flashlight at ground level, she sent the beam across the surface of the snow. Ridley squatted on his heels and followed the line with his eyes.

  “You can see where she crawled, trying to get away.” Anna played the beam across a faint but discernible trough that had been cut through old snow, then filled with new. “And there she tried to pull herself up on a tree; tried to save herself. Then she goes down again there.”

  “Wolves don’t behave this way,” Ridley said doggedly.

  “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 wit
h 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.

  “What’s with Ridley and Adam?” Anna asked.

  “Who knows,” Robin replied. Her voice was hollow, as if part of her said the expected words while another, greater part of her was someplace else. Someplace where nightmare was the special of the day.

  “How are you doing?” Anna asked. “My strength of ten men is down to about eight-point-five,” she admitted. “Are you okay?”

  “Bob took my light.”

  The biotech was crying. Anna couldn’t see it but tears were breaking in her words.r />
  “Let me pull the Sked for a while,” Anna said, wondering if she could make good on the offer.

  “No.”

  Maybe it would be good for Robin to keep working, keep moving, so Anna didn’t argue with her. She didn’t get up either. In a moment she would, she promised herself.

  The wind stopped, the trees ceased their muttering and silence as cold and deep as an ice cave poured down. Into that silence came the sound Anna had heard before, stealthy movement in the trees to their left. Robin heard it too. In the glow of the flashlight, Anna saw her head jerk as if on a string; she uttered a strangled cry and began to swing the light in erratic arcs across the landscape. Suddenly illuminated, and as suddenly vanishing back into the dark, trunks and white and rocks flashed by, and for a second Anna felt as if she were falling.

  Whether a curious moose, a band of squirrels or a slavering wog was with them, they couldn’t stay where they were. Ridley and Bob were already out of sight. Without light, Ridley couldn’t come back to help them; all he could do was follow Bob’s flashlight the way a lost ship follows the flashing of a buoy. Shaking her head to clear it, Anna blinked a few times. “We better get going.”

  Without a word, Robin put her weight behind the harness and pulled. From her kneeling position, Anna pushed on the back of the Sked, breaking it free of where it had frozen to the snow while they’d stopped. A crack, a lurch, and it was moving. A crack, a lurch, and Anna was on her feet moving as well. Robin covered more ground than Ridley had, either not so considerate of Anna slogging behind or more anxious to get back to the main trail and then the bunkhouse.

  Anna lifted one foot, then the other, and stayed upright, but the Sked drew away little by little. When the body, the biotech and the light source were several yards ahead, and traveling ever faster, Anna swallowed her pride and called out.