Siberius (19 page)

“We did that for sound proofing,” Talia said. “Protection was an afterthought. Until a few nights ago, we were never in any danger. Not from them.”

Nick shifted on the log; his ass was falling asleep. “You think they heard me snoring? Through walls that thick?”

“Their hearing is extraordinary, true, but they must have already been in the area,” she said. “Within three or four miles.”

Nick couldn’t believe it. They heard him snoring
from three or four miles away?

Talia continued with her story. “The next two years were both difficult and wondrous. The cabin was warm and safe, and we built a network of tree hides along the southern edge of the animal’s territory to observe them without endangering ourselves.” She paused for a long uncomfortable minute, then turned to Nick. She was grinning, but there was still pain in her eyes. “Can you imagine making the greatest discovery in a century and not being able to tell anyone?”

“Why couldn’t you tell anyone?”

“
We were in hiding.”

             
“Oh, right,” Nick said. He exhaled into his hands. “I guess it’d stink then.”

             
“Leonid was a man of science. He was competitive and proud and wanted to present the Smilodon
siberius
to the world.”

             
Nick cocked his head and said, “Excuse me, the
what
?”

             
“That’s what we named them,” said Talia. “Smilodon’s the
genus
. The species is
siberius.
A previously unknown animal, and as far as we know, native to this region alone. In any case, Leonid made plans for us to escape to America by way of China, who I guess was fighting the Japanese by then. He thought that with the American scientific community on his side, we’d be able to capture a Smilodon and transport it to a zoo in the U.S. for study. He went to Mirnyy in the summer of ‘41, to contact a colleague in Novosibirsk. I stayed behind, trapped game, and built tree hides.You’re always preparing for winter out here. Then, sometime in August, some Chukchi friends brought me a crate with books and some supplies. Inside was a note from Leonid.” She paused as she relived the moment. “It said he was being detained by army police and might not be home for a while.” She hesitated before saying “I never saw him again.” She sniffled, then let tears run down her face before wiping them away.

             
Nick tried to think of something to say. Of course, there wasn’t anything
to
say, not something that would comfort her, at least. “What happened?” he managed in the most caring voice he could muster. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

             
“I never found out. I couldn’t make the trip to Mirnyy in the winter, so I had to wait until the following summer. Once I was there, I saw a lot of men, even boys, rounded up and drafted on the spot. They were hauled away in trucks and I later heard from a shopkeeper that that kind of thing had been happening a lot. Men were shipped off to fight Hitler with no training and no weapons. That’s what happened to Leonid, I’m sure.” She paused, swallowed away her pain. She looked at Nick. “Can we walk? I’m getting cold.” He nodded, they hopped off the log and strolled toward the clearing ahead. “The rest, well, I guess you can imagine. I decided to return to the cabin and continue studying the Smilodons, hoping that Leonid might surprise me one day and return to the cabin. For the first two years after his disappearance, I imagined him knocking on the cabin door with a handful of spring flowers. The fantasy of a foolish girl.”

             
“There’s always hope,” Nick said.

             
“The war has been over for three years. He would have returned if he were alive.”

             
In the time it took to tell her story, Nick’s opinion of her had changed. Her vulnerability was sensual, and he couldn’t help but be attracted by it. “Talia,” he began, and then she lost her footing. He caught her before she fell, holding her in his arms.

             
“It’s very slippery,” she said. The brief shared moment ended as she pulled away. Nick watched her as she walked on ahead. He shook his head and tried to rid himself of the thoughts he was now having, then jogged to catch up to her.

             
At least now he knew the full story.

              “You said your husband studied people,” he said a few minutes later.

             
“He was an anthropologist.”

“
Yeah, one of them. So why was he so interested in these, uh-” Already, he’d forgotten what she had called them. He struggled to remember their scientific name, but gave up. “These saber-tooth tigers.”

             
“They’re not tigers,” said Talia. “A distant relative, perhaps, but not even the same sub-family.”

             
“Okay, saber-toothed cats. They
are
cats, right?”             

             
“They’re cats.”

             
“Why would a guy who studies people be interested in them?” Nick was asking questions that ordinarily wouldn’t interest him. But Talia’s voice was comforting, and as long as she spoke, their situation didn’t feel so dire.

             
“My husband was first and foremost a scientist,” she said. “True, his principal interest was
homo sapiens
. Specifically, our history. Our
ancient
history.”

             
“Uh-huh,” Nick said. “What does our ancient history have to do with long-tooth back there?”

             
“Possibly nothing,” said Talia. “But probably everything.”

             
Emerging from the forest, they stopped and surveyed the panorama before them. The ground descended into a steep snow-covered hill that was so long, they couldn’t tell where it ended.

“
A toboggan would be nice,” Nick said. To the left, the hill curved away and became rocky. To the right, it was an even steeper drop-off. “Left? Right? Or down?”

The roar from behind startled them with its bone-vibrating volume. They spun around and gasped, for perched atop a fallen tree was the great cat from the lake. It eyed them while shaking the blood stained paw it had finally ripped away from the lake ice trap. Steam passed its curled muzzle as the saber-tooth crouched to a pouncing position.

Nick grabbed Talia’s hand. “C’mon!” he yelled, then ran down the hill. The cat leaped after them, crashing onto the snow they had occupied a millisecond before.

Their boots sunk with every step as they tried to outrun it. “Nick,” cried Talia. “Nick.”

The Smilodon bounded after them, the deep snow slowing its progress. Nick looked back and was shocked at how close the beast was. He yanked on Talia’s arm, tried to pull her closer. The thought of her dying terrified him.

The slope grew steeper until, with one misstep, they lost their footing. Hitting the snow face first, they tumbled in slow motion, then built speed as the grade grew from steep to treacherous. Their world transformed into a blinding swirl of dizzy white, and they lost sight of the pursuing monster.

Closing the gap, the Smilodon mastered the hill with controlled leaps. But the impact of its weight weakened the snow’s hold on the hillside, and it began to slide away.

Halfway down the hill, the earth bulged, creating a narrow, flat area. Nick and Talia slammed into a deep drift there, stopping them dead. Dizziness overwhelmed them, but they soon heard a low rumble reverberating from somewhere above. Even with their vision hampered by spinning flashes, they saw the cat bounding toward them, jaws agape. But the rumbling superceded their fear of the beast, for behind it and hurling toward them was a 15-foot tall wave of snow and ice.

Nick grabbed Talia’s hand and once again took off down the hill.

The Smilodon shrieked as the avalanche scooped it up, and when Nick looked over his shoulder, he saw the creature vanish in the rolling white cloud. Three seconds later, it engulfed them as well.

The turbulent wave gained speed as the steepness increased. At the bottom of the slope, the terrain curled up again like a ski jump, then ended as a rocky chasm split the earth.

The avalanche hit the curl at full speed and launched tons of snow and ice into the air. Smashing into the opposite cliff wall, it stuck for a moment like a snowball against a brick wall, then fell five hundred feet to the chasm floor.

21

             
Talia opened her eyes, but all she could see was white. She rolled her eyes left.

             
White.

             
She rolled her eyes right.

             
White.

             
When she looked up, she saw the same. When she looked down, she saw her boot a few inches below her chin. She wiggled her toes and realized her foot was still in it.

There was a rush of panic before she took control of herself. Remembering everything the Chukchi taught her about avalanches, she kept her wits about her and went down the list. She had to remain calm, lie still to preserve oxygen and wait for help. She could do two of those.

Waiting for help wasn’t one of them.

             
She flexed her arms and legs and felt no pain. She decided that, although her body was twisted around, she hadn’t broken any bones. Her next step was to eat some snow. That was easy; she opened her mouth and took a bite out of the wall in front of her. With a mouthful of water, she spit it out and it at once trailed into her nostrils.

She was upside down.

              Talia dug with her fingers, loosening the snow around her arms. Within seconds, she had enough play to move her hand up to her face. That was encouraging, for the snow was loose and light, which might indicate she wasn’t burried deep. She hoped that was the case, anyway. Wiggling around some more, she felt very little resistance.

Luck was still with her as she popped her head out of the snow pile and into open air. She climbed out without much difficulty, took a breath, and looked around. Before her was a wall of gray rock. Behind her, the open chasm, hundreds of feet deep. The avalanche had deposited her on a ledge, sparing her from a fatal fall.

“Nick,” she said, peering over the edge. No one could have survived the drop, and even if by some miracle they had, there was no way of climbing out. The walls of the chasm were vertical, with undercuts a master mountaineer couldn’t negotiate. Her shoulders slumped. “Nicholas,” she said, then plopped back onto the snow.

A disembodied growl from somewhere above made Talia look up. From the top of the opposite cliff, the great cat came into view, snarling as it tested the snow all the way to the ledge. Spotting Talia, it roared and paced the cliff for a way to get to her. Talia’s heart raced as she watched it. The chasm was at least 50 feet wide, and the ledge on which she stood was some 30 feet lower than the cat. She was safe, she decided. It was little comfort.

“So, you survived?” she said. The cat stopped cold and stared at her. “How resilient of you.” Its head tilted to the side, tried to figure her out. “Not used to anyone talking to you? I wonder if you got a chance at Nick before he fell?” Talia stood up as emotion welled inside her, then screamed out in all directions: “Nicholas!” Her voice echoed throughout the chasm. “NICHOLAS!”

Above, the Smilodon went into a frenzy. It answered Talia’s cries with roars of its own, then bounded back and forth, frustrated that it couldn’t get to her.

“Nicholas, can you hear me?” she hollered. Talia walked the length of the ledge, all 10 feet of it, while above, the huffing Smilodon kept pace. “Nick, where are you?” The fight ebbed from her voice and as she quieted down, so too did the saber-tooth. Talia sat again, and the great cat mimicked her move. She looked up at the animal. It sat on its haunches and opened its mouth in a gaping yawn. The reflex was instant: Talia yawned, too. She lay back in the snow to rest, but within seconds, her eyes closed and her mind emptied as she drifted into sleep.

When Nick opened his eyes, he found himself straining to see through blackness darker than night. He jammed them shut, then opened them again. It was so dark, he couldn’t even be sure his eyes
were
open.

Blink blink.

Still black.

He sat up and waved his hand before his face, but couldn’t see it. His heart beat faster when he remembered the Smilodon. Where was it? It could be right in front of him, and he’d never know it. He dug into his snow filled coat pockets and felt around.