In the Barren Ground (38 page)

CHAPTER 45

Damien and his guys located the edges of the blue tarp and pulled it backward toward their snowmobiles. Freshly fallen snow and cut branches avalanched into the exposed trap in a soft explosion of white powder.

“Fuck,” Damien said, as they all stared down into the pit. Birch poles had been honed to sharp points and porcupined up from the bottom of the pit. They gleamed like bone in their headlamps. Whoever might have fallen into the trap would have been pierced by those deadly spikes.

“If someone climbs up there,” Preston said, peering up into the tree, “and cuts that rope holding Crash, he’s going to come right down onto those spikes. A single guy won’t be able to hold the weight, and that branch is not going to support more than one guy.”

“You got to set up another rope first,” Wayne said. “From that branch in that other tree there, closer to us. Someone down here at the edge of the pit holds one end of the new rope. We get up there, loop it around that branch, then feed it up to the tree in which he’s tied now. Then we secure his sack to the new rope. When you cut the old one, the body sack will swing this way, lower, and the person holding the end of the rope down here can belay him down to the ground.”

They got to work. Len and Damien climbed into the trees with ropes. But as Jankoski positioned himself at the edge of the pit so he could be ready to halt the swing of Crash’s bag should it come in low, a shot cracked the air. Everyone froze.

Jankoski made a small noise.

Tana spun to face him.

His eyes were wide, his gloved hand pressing against his neck. Blood oozed out between his fingers. He toppled, and before Tana could grab him, he tumbled down into the pit. He made a sickening grunt as stakes pierced through his jacket into his body. For a nanosecond they stood in shock, staring at Jankoski in the pit, his eyes wide, blood beginning to ooze black from his mouth, two spikes sticking up through his chest.

Tana dropped her gloves and lay flat on her stomach. “Hold my legs, somebody.”

Len straddled her ankles as she reached down into the pit, struggling to feel Jankoski’s neck for a pulse, knowing just by looking at his unseeing eyes and the way he’d been impaled that she was not likely to find one.

And there was none. She edged a little further forward, straining for a better feel, just to be certain, but another shot slammed a bullet into the snow near Tana’s hip. She gasped and wiggled backward. Another bullet slammed into a tree trunk and bark shrapnel whizzed through the air.

“Lights out!” she yelled. They were sitting ducks—target practice with their headlamps in the dark forest. They put out all lights, and lay silent. Wayne and Damien were still up in the trees. Urgency nipped at Tana. They needed to get Crash down while he was still alive. She leopard-crawled toward Caleb, who was lying flat in the snow at the side of the trail.

“It sounds like the shots are coming from somewhere up there, to the east,” she said, pointing. “High up. Must be a ridge up there. I think we’re in a kind of gully, and she probably lured us in here for that reason. Can you and Preston try to find a way up to that ridge and get behind her while we work in the dark here? Use the whistles to give the all clear, or if you need help.”

Caleb was silent a moment.

“You okay, Caleb? Can you do this?” Guilt bore down heavy on Tana. She’d done this. She’d put these guys in danger, and now they had no choice but to fight their way out or they’d all die.

“Fuck, yeah. I’m going to fucking kill that bitch.”

“Easy, Caleb. Stay smart, okay? Stay focused. We’re going to need you to replace your dad as chief one day. You got that? We’ve all got to get home alive.”

“Jankoski’s not alive.”

A wave of nausea, remorse, slammed through Tana. So powerful she had to close her eyes for a second.

There’s no time to look backward, Tana. Keep focused or you’re going to get more people hurt . . .

“We got this, Constable,” Caleb said. “We’re going to get her.” He took his weapon and slipped into shadows with Preston.

Another shot
thwocked
into a nearby tree as they worked carefully in the darkness to finish rigging the ropes to Crash’s sack, the whiteness of snow providing limited visibility.

As Damien got Crash’s sack secured with the new rope, they heard gunfire cracking back and forth along the ridge. Tana prayed her guys would be okay.

“You ready?” Damien called from the branch above Crash.

“Ready,” Wayne responded from his tree.

“Ready down here,” Len said, holding the rope.

As Damien cut through the old line holding Crash, another shot rang out on the ridge, and they heard the roar and whine of a snowmobile fading into the distance. One sharp bird whistle came from high on the ridge. Relief burned into Tana’s eyes. It sounded like Damien and Preston were okay, but that MacAllistair had fled.

The sack dropped like a boulder, and swung toward them as the weight was caught by the backup branch. “Go for it, Len,” Wayne yelled.

Len braced, getting down to his haunches as he took the weight, and he quickly belayed the sack down to where Tana caught it in her arms. Shaking, she eased Crash onto the ground, and clicked her headlamp back on. Shock pounded through her. His face looked like it had been clawed by a grizz—great big, gaping wounds that were now bloodless. The bottom of the sack was soaked with blood where his legs were.

“Crash?” she whispered, touching the cold skin of his face. “Crash?”

His eyes fluttered open. Her heart crunched. Oh, God. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve got a paramedic. Here he is now.” Preston emerged from the woods with Caleb.

“She got away,” Caleb said. “She’s heading east. Oh . . . Jesus,” he said, catching sight of Crash’s face.

“Tana—is that you?” Crash whispered.

“I got you,” she said, her voice choking, her eyes blurring with emotion. “You’re going to be fine.” And the bastard even managed to smile, just for a second, before pain twisted his face. He tried to speak again.

“She . . . Heather . . . took Mindy into . . . bad . . . lands.” His voice came out in a dry croak. His lips were cracked. “I came . . . around . . . as she . . . she was leaving Mindy in . . . boulder . . . garden . . . dangerous . . .”

“Is she alive—is Mindy alive?”

He shook his head slightly and her heart plummeted. “Don’t know . . . she might . . . not be . . . careful, Tana . . . be care . . .” He moaned in pain and passed out again.

They got to work fast, cutting him free from the ropes and canvas. Tana caught her breath when she saw his leg.

“Looks like the work of a bear trap,” Wayne said. And Tana’s mind shot to what she’d been told about Heather’s father, being killed by wolves while stuck in a bear trap.

Preston cut open Crash’s pants and sock and removed the boot. He sprayed antiseptic and antibacterial medication into Crash’s wounds, and bound them tightly. They wrapped him in a survival blanket, and then in a sleeping bag into which they’d inserted emergency chemical warmers. While Preston and Tana worked on Crash, Caleb used Tana’s camera to photograph the trap, the spikes, and Jankoski’s body impaled upon them. Len, Wayne, Jamie, and Damien then struggled to free Jankoski’s body and roll it in the tarp they’d cut off Crash. They secured his body alongside Crash to the sled trailer. They worked fast and quietly, conscious of the fact MacAllistair was making headway, and that Mindy was still out there, dead or alive, possibly left in some “boulder garden” in the badlands, if they were to make any sense of Crash’s words.

Preston mounted his sled, and fired the engine.

“Len,” Tana said. “I need you to go back with them. Travel in twos—it’s survival one-oh-one, especially in this weather. Help Preston with Crash. Get him . . .” Her voice caught. “Get him to Addy. Then you go make sure Chief knows what’s happening, and that he keeps trying to get an emergency sat signal out. We need a medevac stat.”

As Len climbed onto the back of the snowmobile behind Preston, Tana bent down, touched her hand to Crash’s face. “You better stick around, you hear? I . . . I still need a pilot.”

Sunday, November 11. Day length: 7:15:00 hours.

The forest grew sparse and soon there were no trees at all, just driving wind, and blinding snow. The five trackers that remained had been following MacAllistair’s snowmobile tracks from the ridge for over an hour, heading slowly, steadily toward the badlands.

If Crash had been talking sense, MacAllistair had gone ahead and left Mindy in some boulder garden—which, to Tana’s understanding, was a swath of giant, round boulders, the size of washing machines and televisions, rubbed smooth and gathered into a mass by the push of ancient glacier movement. It provided challenging—sometimes impossible—terrain to navigate in both summer and winter.

After leaving Mindy in the boulder garden, MacAllistair would have had to backtrack in order to string Crash up and use him as bait. Which meant she had a plan—
if
Tana had survived the pit trap, MacAllistair
wanted
her to come out here in search of Mindy. She was luring Tana into the badlands, and into the boulder garden. The woman wasn’t fleeing at all—rather playing some kind of cat and mouse game.

The snowmobile in front of Tana stopped. So did the one behind. It was just after midnight.

“What is it?” Tana called out over the rumbling engines and wind.

Jamie, who was seated behind her, leaned forward and said over her shoulder, “Badlands.”

Tana cursed inwardly. This had to have been part of MacAllistair’s plan, to strip Tana of support, or backup. And Tana had pushed these civilians far enough. As desperate as she was to apprehend MacAllistair and save Mindy, her conscience would not allow her to force her teammates into territory that was taboo. Anything they did had to be of their own volition.

She wiped snow off her numb face. The decision loomed stark in front of her—go into the badlands after MacAllistair on her own, risking her life, and the life of her child. Or turn back, leaving Mindy to die—if she wasn’t dead already.

A sense of defeat and fatigue suddenly swamped her.

“What will happen if she gets away?” Jamie said over her shoulder.

“If she survives out there, and escapes, she will hurt more people. Killers like Heather, they don’t just stop. They can’t. It’s an addiction and it gets worse and worse. She’s devolved. She’s a loose cannon now.”

Jamie sat silent. They all did, exhaust fumes and engines chugging into the cold and whirling flakes.

“Fuck,” Jamie said suddenly. He stood up, straddling the machine behind Tana. “I’m going,” he yelled over the engines, as if to bolster himself. “I’m going to help Constable Larsson nail this killer! She murdered my father. She murdered my girlfriend. And I dare any one of you to show some balls and come with us.”

“Hey, man, that’s badshit land. Taboo—” Caleb started saying.

“You,” Jamie pointed at Caleb, “and me—we broke taboo already. We robbed the graves of forefathers.”

“For a good cause, man. That ice road—”

“Is what? More important than
this
? Mindy could be alive. That woman is evil. You want to let evil hide in the badlands? Then there will always be evil in the badlands.” Jamie plunked his butt back on the seat and said, “Go, Constable. Go get her.”

Damien revved his engine, and pushed suddenly forward ahead of Tana’s machine, taking the lead into the badlands with Wayne tucked in behind him. Emotion walloped through Tana. These guys, these townsfolk, they were her team, her tribe. In spite of their differences, they were one. United in this goal.

“Whoa!” she screamed out after Damien, then hit her sirens and lights so he’d hear, see, stop. And he did, bringing his machine around to face hers.

“Listen,” she called out over the wind. “I can’t ask you guys to do this. You’ve seen what Heather is capable of. It’s dangerous.”

“Then we do it without you, Constable,” Damien yelled over the roar of his machine. “Caleb? You with us?”

Caleb hesitated. He rode a machine solo.

“You want to turn back, you go. Jamie, me, Wayne, we’re going in with or without Constable Larsson here. Me? I’m doing it for Crash. And Mindy. For Crow, and Selena, and Regan and Dakota.”

“Fine. Fine, okay. I’ll go. I’m not the fuck staying here by myself.” Caleb revved his own sled and pushed ahead of them all into the badlands, sticking on MacAllistair’s trail.