Shaman Pass (9 page)

“Old? Why?”

“I don’t know. Somethin’ about how he carried himself, I guess.”

“So you went on into the camp as this old guy drove off on his snowmachine?”

“Uh-huh. Victor was lying down there in his sheefish hole to where you couldn’t hardly see him. Just that harpoon shaft sticking out above the ice and his feet up on the edge of the hole, that was about all you could see till you got right up on him.”

Hughes looked disgusted. “Did you try to help him or did you just get right to work looting his camp?”

Bass looked offended. “’Course I tried to help him. I went down in the hole there, felt of his neck for a pulse, put my ear up to his nose see if he was breathing, but there was nothing. He was dead.”

“It’s hard to be sure sometimes,” Active said.

Bass shook his head. “I’ve seen lots of dead things, and Victor Solomon was one of ’em.”

“So you decided to rob his camp?”

“Well, I knew old Victor fairly good and he didn’t have no family around to speak of. I didn’t think he’d mind me using his stuff long as he didn’t need it no more. So I took a couple things. I figured you cops would think whoever killed him took ’em.”

“What things?” Hughes asked.

“Lessee. A jerry jug of snowmachine gas. His camp stove. And there was a can of Red Man on his cot there in the tent, so I took that. Matter of fact, this is it right here.” He patted the round lump in his overall pocket.

Hughes exhaled noisily and shook his head. “Let’s have it.”

Bass looked at Boxrud, who nodded. “They want to check it for fingerprints.”

Bass handed over the chewing tobacco, and Active put it in a baggie.

“What else?”

“Lessee, I think I took three of his sheefish, maybe four.”

“But you left a bunch behind,” Active said. “Nine, I think it was.”

Bass nodded. “Well, I already had some I caught myself. Four was all I needed.”

Active shook his head. “What else?”

Bass pondered, then spat again. Active noticed that he was able to do it without opening his jaws because of the gap in his teeth.

“I reckon that was it,” Bass said. “Camp stove, Red Man, sheefish, uh-huh. That was it.”

Now it was Boxrud who looked disgusted. “Johnny, the amulet.”

Bass bared brown teeth in a grin. “Oh, yeah, the amulet. Shit.”

“The amulet,” Active said with a nod.

“Well, as I was rounding up his stuff, I kind of started to feel bad about old Victor lying out there by his sheefish hole. He seemed like a dead thing, but what if he wasn’t? Like you said, Trooper Active, it’s hard to be sure sometimes. So I went on out there to check him again, just in case. I felt of his pulse and there still wasn’t any, I listened for his breathing and there wasn’t any, then I kind of slapped him upside the head, like you would if somebody was asleep or maybe a little groggy. That’s when it fell out.”

“Fell out?”

“Yeah, that’s when the amulet fell out of his mouth.”

“It fell out of his mouth?” Active asked. He felt stupid, echoing Johnny Bass, but he couldn’t help himself.

“CHRIST, WHAT a nut roll,” Hughes said when they were alone again in his office. “What do you make of that business with the amulet?”

“In Victor’s mouth, you mean? It’s weird. Like some kind of ritual or something. What the hell is this about?”

Hughes nodded. “Yeah. And what about the old guy Johnny claims he saw leaving Victor’s camp? Who could that be?”

Active ticked the known candidates off on his fingers. “Calvin Maiyumerak was supposedly with Queenie Buckland that night, and he’s not old.”

“And Sivula?”

“He’s old but he wouldn’t have any reason to be heading up the Katonak that I know of. Supposedly he’s out in whaling camp, which is up the coast, not up the Katonak. And, if he did it, why would he go ask Calvin Maiyumerak about it?” Active paused and sighed. “Guess I’ll be paying Whyborn Sivula a visit tomorrow.”

Hughes nodded.

CHAPTER TEN

SILVER DROPPED HIS PARKA on a chair and walked to the map on his office wall. “It’s too damn early to be up on a Sunday so listen close,” he said. “I don’t want to do this twice.”

Active nodded. “I’m sorry but—”

Silver sighed wearily. “Yeah, I know, cases don’t wait.”

He turned to the map. “Anyway, here we are.” He put a finger on the spot marking the village of Chukchi, then swept it over Chukchi Bay, an expanse of pale blue opening west into the Chukchi Sea.

“You just follow the snowgo trail—it’s marked with spruce saplings—across the bay to this little spit of land here they call Tatuliq. It’s only three miles.” He tapped a tiny appendage dangling from the north shore of the bay. “People go there to hunt beluga and you’ll see a lot of camps—tents, cabins, even a couple of sod huts from the early days. Stay on the beach and go past the camps. The trail’s actually up on an old beach ridge a few yards back from the ocean. Up there, it’s marked with permanent tripods made out of spruce poles—not the saplings they use out on the ice.”

Silver ran his finger up the shoreline north of Tatuliq and looked at Active, eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

Active nodded. He had flown up the coast a few times on cases, but had never paid much attention to the geography. Now he would have to travel it by snowmachine if he wanted to talk to Whyborn Sivula.

“About seven or eight miles past Tatuliq, the shoreline starts to swing west, out to sea, but the main trail goes straight on across the base of the cape—here—and continues north on up the coast. Don’t follow it. You swing west with the coastline and keep that Ladies’ Model of yours pointed right out toward Cape Goodwin.”

Active grinned dourly, but nodded again as Silver touched the triangular peninsula representing the cape.

“After that, you’ll have to wing it,” Silver said. “The whaling camps are somewhere out here”—he gestured vaguely at the sea off the cape—“along the edge of the shorefast ice.”

“Somewhere on the ice? That’s it?”

Silver nodded. “There’ll be a trail but it won’t be marked. Look for a place where a bunch of snowgo tracks veer away from the beach out onto the ice and that should be it.” The police chief grinned. “You’ll know for sure when you hit the pressure ridges.”

Active grimaced. He had seen pressure ridges from two thousand feet up. They looked like frozen surf. A jumble of blue-white slabs, like knife blades on edge, where storms and currents piled the pack ice onto the shoals off Cape Goodwin. What would the ridges be like up close? “You mean they go through that stuff with their whaling gear?”

Silver nodded again. “You want to catch a bowhead, you gotta get out where there’s open leads. And that means getting past the shorefast ice to the edge of the lead. You’ll see places where they’ve hacked through the ridges with axes and chainsaws.”

“I guess there’s no other way.”

“Tough people,” Silver said. “Anyway, once you get into the pressure ridges, there won’t be much doubt about the trail. Generally speaking, at any given spot, there’s only one way to go. Sometimes not even that.” He grinned. “Sure your Ladies’ Model is up to this,
naluaqmiiyaaq
? I could send one of my guys along as a guide.”

Active shook his head and showed no flicker of response at being needled again about the purple Yamaha. “I’ll be fine.”

“Ah-hah.” Silver paused, as if expecting more from Active. Finally he shook his head. “At least if we have to launch a Search and Rescue on you, the Ladies’ Model will be easy to spot.”

“So what happens when I get out to the ice edge?”

Silver shrugged. “Good question. When you get close, various trails will start to veer off to the different camps. Just pick one, and when you get to the camp, ask them how to find Whyborn Sivula’s camp.”

“Jesus,” Active said. “There must be a better way.”

Silver shrugged again. “Sure. Charter a helicopter, come booming into camp, scare off the whales, blow the tents around, piss everybody off. Yeah, that’ll work. Cheap, too.”

Active lifted his eyebrows in assent. “You know Whyborn much?”

“A little,” Silver said. “Why?”

“I was thinking I might take the harpoon shaft and the amulet along, see how he reacts.”

Silver’s eyes opened wide. “Take your evidence out on the ice? You kidding?”

Active shrugged. “I’m going to send them to the state lab in Anchorage, but Carnaby already went over them for fingerprints and found nada, and I’ve got a ton of pictures.”

“Carnaby struck out?”

Active nodded.

“Not surprising, I guess,” Silver said. “Your guy probably would have been wearing gloves the whole time. From the cold, even if he wasn’t thinking about fingerprints.”

Active nodded again.

Silver looked at the map again. “One more thing you ought to know before you go, there’s certain protocols on the ice.”

“Protocols?”

“For one thing, don’t take your snowmachine into camp. Too noisy, might scare the whales. You see a bunch of snowmachines parked back behind a pressure ridge, that’s where you leave yours.”

Active nodded.

“For another thing, if you got a red parka, don’t wear it. A whale sees it, he’ll think it’s the blood of one of his own and bolt for Siberia.”

“That it?”

“Well, yeah, except for the polar bears,” Silver said. “They like to come in and hang around the whaling camps, see what they can scavenge. But just stay away from them and they won’t bother you, usually. They’re kind of an off-white yellowish color, so they’re pretty hard to see against the snow and ice, but normally their eyes and nose show up pretty good if they get close. Two little black dots over a bigger one, you can’t miss it.”

Active nodded again, not sure if he was being ribbed. “Anything else? Do I need a visa to get out there?”

Silver smiled. “I know, I know. But, fact is, it’s just not safe out there on the ice. Get a little too much wind from the west, or maybe a kink in the current, and the next thing you know the lead’s closing and the pack’s moving in and your camp’s about to become a pressure ridge. Or you get a wind from the northeast, and all of a sudden the shorefast ice isn’t fast anymore. Your whaling camp is on a floe headed for Siberia and liable to break up any minute.”

He stopped and scratched his scalp. “My wife’s father and kid brother got caught like that a few years ago. The kid, he got wet when the ice broke up under their camp during the night. You know how parents are. The old man took off his parka and put it over the boy. By the time it got light enough the next morning to come after them in the
umiaq
, he was already dead of hypothermia.”

“The kid survived?”

“Barely,” Silver said. “Anyway, watch yourself out there and don’t be a smart-ass. It’s serious business.”

Active nodded and pulled his parka off Silver’s office sofa, where he’d dropped it when they came in.

“Sure you don’t want somebody along?”

Active shook his head. “No, really. I’ll be careful. I’m looking forward to it.”

Silver stared at him for a moment. “Look, take my dogsled. I’ll throw in a tent, a sleeping bag, a stove, some other odds and ends. That way, if you get off the trail or maybe the weather comes up, you can hunker down behind a pressure ridge in some semblance of comfort till things straighten out. You got a rifle?”

“I can get a trooper rifle.”

“Well, take it,” Silver said.

Active nodded.

TWO HOURS and ten minutes later, he found the spot Silver had told him about, where the main trail left the shoreline, crossed the base of Cape Goodwin, and continued north. He could see maybe ten or twelve of the spruce tripods marking the main route. Past that, they were lost in the snow haze stirred up by the frigid west wind that had kicked in again overnight.

Active stopped the Yamaha, flipped up his goggles, and flexed his throttle thumb as he looked back at Silver’s hickory dogsled. It was towing fine, all the bungee cords still in place, the blue tarp caked with snow thrown back by the snow-machine’s drive track, but still covering the gear the police chief had lent him.

Active turned and studied the route ahead as the wind stiffened his face and brought tears to his eyes. The whalers’ trail was a gray thread in the snow that ran west along the edge of a tall, crumbling bluff until it vanished in the haze. The beach beneath was a jumble of ice slabs driven onshore by the winter storms and now painted with snow by the wind. The result was a fantastic field of blue-and-white sculpture, with occasional patches of black where the ice had scraped up beach gravel as it hit the shore. Snow streamed off the crests like glowing smoke in the slanting light of the low Arctic sun.

He wondered for a moment how he would get down to the ice once he reached the cape, then decided not to worry about it. The whalers would know, and their trail led along the bluff.

He dropped his goggles back into place, flexed his thumb again, squeezed the throttle, and started along the trail. It wasn’t marked by tripods or saplings, like the main trail. Nor was it as broad and deep as the heavily used winter thoroughfare that ran up and down the coast. But it was easy enough to follow across the treeless tundra, even when it veered away from the bluff to avoid the mouth of a gulch or find its way around a high spot.

Finally the trail came to a gulch and didn’t veer. Instead it plunged through a fringe of snow-covered scrub willows to the bottom of the ravine and followed it to the beach. The trail threaded its way through the wrecked ice on the beach, then headed straight out into the rubble of the shorefast ice.

Active steered the Yamaha along the trail as it snaked through a natural notch between two slabs in the first pressure ridge, then across a pan of comparatively flat ice with a puddle of yellow-gray slush in the low spot, then toward a slot hacked in the next pressure ridge. The sled banged and fish-tailed behind him as he went up the slope and over the crest, then bucked and tried to overrun him on the downslope.

A mile farther on he crested a pressure ridge to find the downslope was a near-vertical cliff. He squeezed the brake lever as the Yamaha plunged down the incline, trying to keep the machine straight as the sled pushed at him from behind. The Yamaha jackknifed anyway and was sliding sideways when he leapt off. He landed on his left shoulder in an effort to protect the trooper Winchester slung across his back.

The Yamaha rolled, but the sled stayed upright. He heard a snap as the hitch parted. The Yamaha bounced into the air, hit the ice, and rolled again. The sled scooted down the incline on its own before pinning itself on a jagged chunk of ice at the bottom.

The Yamaha landed on its back at the bottom of the slope, engine screaming, drive tread flailing, the throttle handlebar buried in the snow. Active ran over and dug down into the snow and hit the kill switch. The Yamaha coughed to a stop.

He grabbed a ski with both hands and heaved, then yelped as the banged-up left shoulder objected. He tried again, letting the right shoulder do most of the work, and finally got the machine upright.

The windscreen was broken almost in half, the top piece flopping back over the handlebars, attached only by a couple of inches of Plexiglas at the right edge. He swore and tore it off and flung it into the snow.

He forced himself to calm down and look the machine over. Nothing broken but the windscreen and the hitch, as far as he could see. Maybe the right handlebar was bent a little, but probably not enough to hurt.

He pulled the rifle sling over his head and inspected the .270. No snow in the muzzle, the scope covers still held in place by their rubber bands. He slung it over his back again, registering another protest from his left shoulder.

Shaking his head, he trudged over to the sled. The load was still bungeed into place under its tarp. But one of the hickory slats at the front of the sled was splintered on the pinnacle of ice that had stopped it. He grabbed the sled and heaved it off the pinnacle.

Then he inspected the damaged slat. It was a goner, and Silver would be pissed, but it looked to Active like the sled would still carry its load. Probably the troopers would pay to fix the slat. He hoped.

The problem was how to make the hitchless Yamaha pull the sled. The tongue was a triangle of steel piping, about four feet from apex to base. The base was bolted onto the stanchions at the front of the sled.

At the apex, the tongue hitched to the Yamaha by a bolt through a hinged metal tab. The tab had sheared off the Yamaha and was still shackled to the tongue.

He pulled the sled over to the Yamaha with his right arm and ran through a mental list of the gear he had loaded back in Chukchi, some of it his, some borrowed from Silver. Camp stove, tent, gas, food box, sleeping bag, a thermos of tea, the harpoon handle that Vera Jackson had pulled from Victor Solomon’s chest, now wrapped in two trash bags for its ride to Cape Goodwin. But no rope or wire on the list anywhere. He unbungeed the load, pulled back the blue tarp and checked, and was disappointed to find his memory was perfect.

True, Silver’s tent probably included a few little ties and cords, but Active wasn’t about to cut up the tent after breaking the man’s dogsled. The kind of ties that came with a tent probably wouldn’t be strong enough to pull a loaded sled through the pressure ridges anyway.