Way of the Wolf (13 page)

‘Don’t shout,’ Beck said automatically. ‘This is prime avalanche territory.’ Though right then he wouldn’t have minded if the mountain had dumped a thousand tonnes of snow right on top of them. He added: ‘Sorry, mate. We just have to keep going.’

‘And I’m hungry,’ Tikaani muttered as they turned back. It had been a long time since they had eaten. Beck thought back and realized it had been well before they reached the glacier. They’d had enough on their minds since then to keep their thoughts off hunger. But now . . .

All their gathered food was gone. Beck had been counting on getting through the pass and finding more food on the other side before hunger set in.

They could be in for a hungry night.

Tikaani paused and fingered the rock face. ‘How about this?’ he asked. Grey-green lichen sprouted out of the cracks in the rock. Tikaani pressed one of the spongy clusters with his finger. It shrank under the pressure, then sprang back again like rubber. ‘I mean,’ he added, ‘you eat most stuff.’

‘No good,’ Beck told him with a shake of his head. ‘It’s too acidic for humans. If you wanted to eat it, you’d have to process it somehow to neutralize the acid.’

Tikaani pulled a face. ‘And those rocks are starting to look mighty tasty too . . . So where did the wolf go?’

‘Maybe he just dropped dead of hunger,’ Beck muttered.

‘Uh-oh . . .’ Tikaani had found the paw prints again and was following them with his eyes. He crouched down. Then he crouched down a little further, his face almost pressed against the ground. ‘Uh, Beck . . .’

Beck was by his side in a moment and they saw what had happened. There was another crack in the rock face here. Rather, there had been, once. There wasn’t now because at some time – maybe a thousand years ago, maybe yesterday – a boulder had fallen down and blocked it off. The only way through was under the boulder – through that tiny, snow-clogged space that Tikaani had just discovered.

Or, he thought, you could go over the top.

‘Wait here,’ Beck said. He pulled off his snowshoes and scrambled up the side of the rock. It was steep and he had to be careful, always making sure he had three secure anchors – feet or hands – before moving the fourth. But it wasn’t that high, and in just a few moments he was standing on top of the boulder, gazing west. Then he called down to Tikaani.

‘Come on up and admire the view!’

Tikaani joined him a minute later and they gazed out onto the pass.

Beck’s guess had been right. The narrow cleft opened out into a wider path and, beyond that, a whole valley that continued up into the mountains.

‘
Woo-hoo!
’ Tikaani hooted with joy, and immediately bit his lip. ‘Sorry,’ he added, more quietly, crestfallen. ‘I know, avalanches. But, woo-hoo, anyway.’

‘Woo-hoo,’ Beck agreed, grinning broadly. ‘Get your snowshoes and let’s go.’

‘We Anak aren’t known for our mountaineering skills,’ Tikaani mused as they walked. ‘I’m starting to see why . . .’

Beyond the narrow gully, the pass was wide. There was no sign of the wolf marks. Beck reckoned the wolf had passed this way a long time ago – long enough for snow to have buried the signs of its passing. The pawprints had survived on the other side of the boulder because it was sheltered there. Here the valley floor was thickly coated with snow, just like the mountainside behind them. It curved very smoothly in a deep U-bend from one side to the other; at the edges it turned sharply towards the sky, shedding the snow and revealing the sharp black rock beneath. Beck reckoned it would be easy to negotiate; it shouldn’t present any major obstacles. On the other hand:

‘That’s why we rarely climb. There’s absolutely nothing to eat.’ Tikaani had put his finger on the problem. ‘And so we stay down on the plains or by the sea.’

The valley was scoured by freezing, dry winds. Tikaani was right – there was little chance of finding anything to eat here.

‘It makes sense,’ Beck pointed out. ‘You have to stay alive.’

‘I know.’ Tikaani sighed. ‘I know. If you’re going to live on the Arctic Circle, then survival comes first. You don’t have time for luxuries like exploring or having fun. But you know’ – he raised an eyebrow at Beck – ‘nowadays, no one
makes
you live on the Arctic Circle.’

The pass still headed upwards. They hadn’t quite reached the top yet, as Beck had pointed out earlier, but the ascent was much gentler than it had been before. Soon they were much higher than the cleft in the rock that had brought them here. Looking back, all they could see was sky, framed on either side by the valley walls. There may have been a bit of horizon in the very far distance. It was impossible to tell as it merged with the clouds gathering there.

The clouds . . . They were thick and swollen. Beck frowned. ‘We need to press on,’ he said. ‘We really need to. We’ve lost a lot of time, and I don’t want to be around when that lot gets here.’

Tikaani was looking ahead. ‘That doesn’t look like a rock . . .’

Something lay half buried in the snow. Rocks poking through were a common sight, but the lines of this were smoother and rounder. When they reached it, Beck was delighted to see what it was.

‘It’s a reindeer,’ he said. He knelt down beside it and brushed the snow off the dead animal’s abdomen with quick, rapid movements.

‘Retirement was unkind to Rudolph,’ said Tikaani.

The animal was the size of a small cow, covered in stubbly brown hair. Its eyes were clouded and blank. One of its antlers was broken and its neck was twisted round at an unnatural angle. Beck peered up the side of the valley to the rock ledges high above. The deer must have fallen from one of them, and rolled down the side of the valley when it hit the ground.

Beck unsheathed the Bowie knife and Tikaani’s eyes went wide.

‘You’re kidding! We’re going to eat this?’

‘What, a nice venison roast?’ Beck laughed. ‘I wish. But there’s no chance of a fire and cooking up here. No, we’re not going to eat
this
. . . Not exactly . . .’

He sent up a quick prayer of thanks for the time he had spent with the Sami tribe. The most unappetizing thing they had taught him could be about to save their lives.

Beck pulled off his gloves and felt for the breastbone between the reindeer’s front legs. Then he worked the knife’s sharp point through the reindeer’s skin and cut down towards its rear. Because the reindeer was frozen, cutting was hard work, but gradually the skin parted and the animal’s abdomen opened up to the world. Now that the animal was dead, heart no longer pumping, there was little blood. Beck pulled back the layers of fat and tissue. The reindeer’s guts were like rubbery, bloated balloons packed expertly together. It couldn’t have been dead for too long, Beck figured, because here, deep inside the animal, the innards weren’t quite frozen and the smell of blood was sharp and metallic. It was both sweet and sour, rancid and pleasant. It wasn’t designed to be let out into the air. It was supposed to be contained by the animal’s body.

Tikaani watched with horrified fascination. ‘OK. We’re going to eat . . . what. Kidneys? Heart? I mean . . .’ He started to gabble, maybe to hide his absorbed revulsion. ‘OK, it’s not exactly how you’d buy meat in the shops, but hey, I’m sure there’re no germs up here and it probably doesn’t matter that you didn’t wash your hands first . . . ’

‘You’re getting closer.’

‘Oh God. Am I?’

Beck had reached the stomach. It was streaked with grey and green and splotches of dark red. Beneath his fingers it writhed and bulged like a balloon full of lumpy water. Beck probed it gently, then nodded, satisfied at what he had felt. He slipped his fingers into the cavity on either side and tugged. The stomach slithered out onto the ground like an alien slug that had been gestating in the corpse.

Beck stabbed it with the knife and a gurgling, semi-liquid mass poured out onto the snow. It smelled strongly of sick and Tikaani’s face screwed up in disgust. Beck poked about in the mass with his fingers, then grinned and held up a couple of handfuls of stinking, sludgy lumps.

‘This is what we’re eating,’ he announced.

‘
You – are – kidding!
’

By way of answer, Beck popped one of them into his mouth. ‘Mm-mm! Reindeer moss.’

‘Moss grows in reindeer?’ Very reluctantly, Tikaani picked one of the lumps out of Beck’s hand and held it up to study.

‘No, that’s just what it’s called,’ Beck said around his mouthful. He swallowed. ‘It’s really lichen. Remember I said the lichen on the rocks had to be processed? This is how it happens. Inside deer. They half digest it and then we can eat the rest.’

Tikaani still just looked at the lump in his hand. He prodded it with a finger. It squished and liquid oozed out when he squeezed it.

‘Hey,’ Beck said, more seriously. ‘We really need to do this. We don’t know when we’re going to be eating again and I really doubt we’ll get out of this pass before sunset. This kind of thing kept your ancestors alive more times than you’ll ever know.’

‘
They
didn’t have cheeseburgers,’ Tikaani said darkly.

‘Neither do we, right now.’

‘Right now . . . no,’ Tikaani agreed. He held up the lump of moss. ‘Oh God. I’m about to put it in my mouth. I am about to put a bit of reindeer poop in my mouth. I’m—’

‘It won’t have turned to poop yet. That happens further on.’

‘Gee, thanks, that makes it so much better.’ Tikaani closed his eyes and clamped his hand over his mouth so that the moss had to go in. Very slowly he started to chew, eyes still tight shut.

‘Mrph,’ he mumbled indistinctly. ‘’Kay. Tastes like . . .’ He gulped a bit down. ‘Y’know . . . I’m trying so hard
not
to think what it tastes like.’

‘Like fresh green salad,’ Beck suggested.

Tikaani’s eyes opened, surprised and thoughtful. ‘Well . . . yeah.’ He swallowed again. ‘Could do with some mayo but . . . yeah. Salad. Got any more?’

Beck smiled and passed him another piece.

They finished off the reindeer moss and washed it down with the last of their water. Then Beck showed Tikaani how to scoop fresh, powdered snow into their empty bottles.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘tuck the bottle inside your clothes – though not right next to your skin – and your body heat warms it up. Give it half an hour and you’ve got a fresh supply of nice clean water again.’

‘Can’t we just eat the snow?’ Tikaani asked as they heaved their rucksacks back on and set off once along the pass again.

Beck shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. Snow isn’t just frozen, it’s way below freezing. It’s like giving yourself frostbite in the mouth. Do it too much and you get sores, ulcers . . . so you don’t do it. Besides, snow in your stomach will reduce your body temperature, and
that
means your body has to waste energy trying to warm itself up again.
Not
what we’re trying to achieve.’

‘Hmm . . .’ Tikaani said thoughtfully; after that he was unusually quiet. Beck quite enjoyed walking silently. There were sharp, soaring peaks on either side. Ancient rock, millions of years old. A pure, unblemished snowfield. Crisp, fresh air unbreathed by any other set of lungs. All that the crowded, technological twenty-first century had to show for itself was two boys, dwarfed by the wilderness around them. The grandeur of nature was all the conversation Beck needed.

‘I don’t know much, do I?’ Tikaani said suddenly.

Beck looked at him, surprised. ‘Hey, you know enough!’

‘Well, yeah, I know enough to cross the road, if I remember to press the “walk” button. I don’t know enough to look after myself out here.
I’d
have eaten snow, except that I wouldn’t – I’d have starved to death ages ago ’cos I wouldn’t know which berries to eat. And eating stuff out of a reindeer’s stomach? No way! But . . . I’m Anak. We knew all this once. It was second nature. But no one ever taught me . . .’

He fell silent again but Beck sensed he hadn’t finished. A moment later, he added: ‘Or maybe they tried and I just wasn’t listening.’

Beck shrugged. ‘You were listening. You knew about bears and snowshoes and frostbite and . . . you know. You just need practice.’