by Karen Harper
As they reached the cabin, she saw snow hovered under its broad eaves. Icicles like crystal daggers hung from the roof. At least the drifts were taller against the back of the cabin, not the front that had the single door. Peeking out above the snow was the top of a single small window—maybe they could get in that way. Someone had carried a pane of glass clear up here, then covered it with a crisscross of wire to keep bears from breaking in—or humans.
Bryce shrugged off his heavy pack and, using the snow shovel she’d carried, dug down to the latch on the door, then dug the entire door out. She helped by shoving the pile of snow he made away with her feet. He tried to lift the latch, but it was locked, frozen or both. He reached for the thin ice pick tied to his backpack.
“Okay.” His voice came muffled with a big puff of his breath in the cold air. “One way or the other, we have to get in. Stand back so I can use this pick to loosen or break the lock.”
He pried with it, then scraped with it, then hit with it. He pressed his shoulder against the door, then banged and shoved.
With a screech of its hinges and a little avalanche of snow from the roof, the heavy wooden door creaked and swung slowly open before them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Bryce shuffled into the dim cabin and Meg followed, looking around, wide-eyed. Several boards stood on end leaning against the lone window, so the only light was the open door behind them. It threw their muted shadows across the floor. The only furnishings were a tiny table, a single chair and a low built-in bunk bed across the back wall. Several dusty cans of beans sat on shelves in a crude open cupboard on the right side wall.
“Damn,” Bryce muttered as he reached back to bring her in. “A dirt floor. If anything is buried under there, the ground should be frozen solid.”
“Look how thick the walls are to keep it warm in here and make the building sturdy in the winds. Shall we close the door for warmth or keep it open for the light?”
“I’ll close it in a minute.”
He lifted the boards away from the window, dragged his backpack in, then closed the door and dug out a big flashlight. After helping her take off her backpack, he played the beam under the wooden bunk bed, in the corners, even under the eaves.
“Nothing visible,” he said, “but you’re right about the walls.” He moved around the twelve-foot-square cabin, knocking his gloved fist on the walls, then tore off his glove and did it again bare-knuckled, midway up, then high and low. He lay on his stomach and reached under the bed to knock against that wall.
“Mice,” he muttered as she heard something skitter away. “I think this wall under here does sound different—not as hollow.”
A strange knocking sound echoed on the door. She startled, and he jerked and hit his head on the bunk. He whispered, “No one could be out there this fast.”
Meg looked out the wired window. “The caribou are still here, maybe eating bark again. It must have been one of their antlers. I guess since we’re inside they think it’s all theirs again.”
“Get that pick I opened the door with and hand it to me. I’ve got to knock a hole in this side of the wall. It may be nothing, but unless there’s a false roof above or something buried under this frozen ground, this may be all we have.”
“Unless there could be something in those caverns,” she said as she grabbed the pick and got on her knees, then her stomach to scoot it under the built-in bunk to him.
“If we have time, we’ll glance inside them,” he said, grunting now as he reached out with the pick. “This whole thing is a long shot, but that’s better than nothing. The Big Man’s going to recall me soon, at least send me to the unit in Anchorage, I can tell.”
“Now you tell me! But I knew you couldn’t stay at the lodge forever. Hopefully, for Christmas.”
“You got me, babe. And I’m hoping we can visit my family over the holidays or get them to the lodge. But to serious business right now, my dear greatest distraction. Hold this flashlight for me so I can see what I’m doing.”
He had trouble, she could tell, from not having space to swing the pick at the wall under the bunk, but he did get through. A grinding crunch, then another followed.
“Here, I’m shoving some wood pieces back to you,” he muttered and pounded again. She took what he pushed at her back from their tight space.
She crawled closer under the bed, out of breath, still holding the flashlight for him. Wood groaned and splintered.
“You know,” he grunted out, “there’s nothing here at floor level, but down farther I’m digging into a space hollowed out below the permafrost in a pocket of wood. Yes, something’s down here!”
She twisted around next to him and aimed the flashlight, but he took it from her and shot it down into the hole.
“Things wrapped in plastic,” he said, sounding completely breathless. “Papers. And something bright!”
She heard rustling. He scooted even closer to the wall so he could reach below ground level.
“Jewelry,” he shouted. “And gold!”
He hauled out three—no, four—thick plastic sacks and thrust them back toward her. She saw a golden gleam too and gasped as she dragged the dirty sacks out into the room. A gold bar, then two of them, heavy, gleamed in the beam of light he now shot at them. Did that mean, in this dark, tight, cold place, a victory?
“A good hiding place,” Bryce said, breathless. “Even if this cabin got knocked over or burned to the ground, these would be safe.”
Once they had scooted backwards from under the bunk, like prospectors who had found the mother lode, they shouted for joy.
“I’ll bet that got the herd away!” he crowed as they hugged each other hard. “Let’s divide it for our packs, then get out of here.”
She was so excited that, like a little kid, she clapped her hands. “Lloyd probably liked to think he was sleeping on top of it to guard it. The day he crashed, maybe his cargo was en route to this cabin. So he was headed for Caribou Lake, but he had a problem and tried to land on Falls Lake.”
“This loot may not be all of it—of course, we know there was at least a second load on that plane—but I bet it’s all that Lloyd hid here. I’ll call Rafe to expect us earlier than we thought and visit those caves another time. We’ve done it, and now to trace who Lloyd was working for, finally get the Feds involved. We’ve done it!”
* * *
They left their tools behind to lighten their packs so they could carry out the extra weight. Bryce took both gold bars because he didn’t want Meg to have to lug more than the papers and half the jewelry. He was flying high, didn’t even need his plane to get back to civilization, he kidded himself.
“With this haul, we could open our own jewelry store and put Melissa out of business,” he teased.
“She may be out of business anyway, if she’s at all mixed up in this scheme. I’m betting on Todd and Rina, but maybe also the mayor or Melissa—who knows? They’ll all be grilled now.”
“I’m so happy I could kiss the first caribou I see, but I’m saving all that for you. I didn’t look to see if they’re still out there,” he added, bending to snap on her snowshoes and then his.
She leaned carefully toward the window since her loaded pack made her top-heavy. “Yes, they’re still out there but they look skittish, shifting around funny. Be quiet a sec. Do you hear something—like a distant whine?”
He froze, tilting his head. “Yeah, a plane, I bet, hopefully just passing over. No, it doesn’t quite sound like a plane. Stay put and let me look.”
In his snowshoes, he clomped over to the door, cracked it, then opened it farther and leaned out. The whine—a double whine—seemed to be louder, closer. Outside the herd quit eating and looked around.
And then he saw it—them. “Meg, two snowmobiles in the distance, to the south. One person on each. We can’t be caught here. Let’s go.”
“We can’t outrun snowmobiles! We can’t even outrun these caribou, which look like they’re going to take off.”
“That’s it. We only have to make it to the caverns. If we get near the cliff face, can you find an entry—even one? We’ll never make it back to the plane in time, and could get trapped here.”
“The herd!” she said. “Let’s try to go with it at least for a ways. We can keep low, make a break for the cliff that way. Yes, I can find the caverns if they’re not snowed in.”
He closed the door behind them but they had no time to cover up what they’d done inside. He actually hoped the two people on the snowmobiles were heading for the cabin and that would stall their looking for them. Dread and anger nearly swamped him. He had the strangest feeling the two coming closer over the snow field were the ones who had hurt him and his men. And now, he’d been stupid enough to risk Meg’s life, however defiant she’d been about coming along.
“Keep low and hope the caribou ignore us!” he said. “If it’s too much, I’ll carry your pack too.”
“I’m all right,” she insisted, and he loved her all the more. They headed for the lake via the cliff that had claimed her husband’s life. Hunched, moving with the shifting herd as camouflage and cover, he could only hope the two men fast approaching were not hitmen adept with guns, bombs and maybe fire too.
* * *
Meg was instantly out of breath, but adrenaline kicked in. If only she could move faster than these snowshoes let her. If only the herd weren’t moving at a pace that would soon expose them. Could she really locate those caverns? She dared not lift her head to try to spot them from here.
The caribou, though merely trotting, passed them by, heading for the lake. At least they had covered her and Bryce’s mad dash for a ways and they were near shelter. As the animals moved away, she noted the huge curve and shape of their antlers ending in what looked like hands raised in the air as if in surprise or surrender.
Again, the solid weight and mass of the cliff face that had killed Ryan loomed over them, now friend instead of foe if they could just reach it in time.
Once they were completely exposed, Bryce looked back. “They stopped at the cabin,” he yelled, panting hard. “Got to make it to shelter. Too far to the lake, and they’ll see our tracks, caribou trail or not.”
“The cave I remember was to the left of here,” she told him. “It was one that went back in and curved, then came out another entrance.” Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear herself, and the frigid air stung clear down into her lungs. “Hang left!” she shouted, and her voice came back as an echo. “The entry’s not too far.”
She prayed it would not be snow-filled or iced in. Thank heavens, she saw it, or thought she did. Yes. Yes!
“There!” she cried, pointing despite how her arms ached and the weight of the pack cut into her shoulders. “I think I see the dark entry, under that hanging shelf of ice and snow.”
They hurried to it. Yes, a cave entry, hopefully the one she recalled. It was partly blocked by boulders, definitely under an overhang with a half curtain of ice and snow that could crash down. But when she’d left the little memorial lantern inside, she and Carter had walked deeper in and had come out another way—if this was that cavern.
They both looked back. The snowmobiles were already roaring their way.
“Was going to call Rafe for help—his gun,” he gasped. “But no way I’ll get him on the two-way inside the cave. Still, let’s go in. Got to hide this stuff and you, then dig my rifle out—I might have to make a stand.”
* * *
They dropped their backpacks, and Meg helped Bryce untie his rifle. While he kept watch, hidden near the cave entrance, she dragged the packs back in a ways and shoved them behind a pile of loose stones. The wind whipping into the cave whined and then seemed to scream—or was that her own fears?
She was tempted to see if this area led to the other cave entrance she remembered, but it was so dark back here she could hardly see and the flashlight was packed. She wished they had time to explore their options.
Walking back up behind him and peering out over his shoulder, she asked, “Do you think those men—if they are men, can’t tell from here—knew the treasure was in the cabin and came to stop us or retrieve it? Or could we have been followed by someone watching your plane? You know, maybe in another plane they landed somewhere nearby. Maybe Lloyd or someone had two snowmobiles stashed somewhere near here. What if they’re the same men who’ve been after you—or who invaded the lodge?”
“Stay back, Meg. I may have to use this rifle and I don’t want you in the cross fire.”
But she didn’t budge at first, peering around him as the two men—they walked like men—killed the motors, got off their machines and came closer. They were looking up. For sure, they had seen where they had gone.
“Bryce, listen to me. The way they walk, the swagger, their body builds. I swear it’s the men who broke into the lodge.”
“But who hired them? Get back in, I said,” he repeated and pushed her away without looking at her. “Meg, whatever happens, I love you and always will. Go!”
That terrified her. The fight went out of her. Her legs started to shake and her teeth to chatter. They were near the place where Ryan had died. His crumpled, crashed plane had fallen right outside. His body...
She realized then that the lantern she had left to symbolize his life snuffed out was gone. Probably some hiker had taken it, thinking it was a historic relic or just plain needing it. But she liked to think it had gone with Ryan’s spirit. Maybe that was the closure she needed. That and knowing she now had someone else she refused to lose in Bryce.
She went back as he had said and, praying silently, kneeled by their backpacks. Then she recalled that she’d been told Ryan’s plane crashing into the cliff had brought down several shelves of rock. If only there was some way to do that again, right on top of those men. That might block her and Bryce in, but there was that other way out—assuming it still existed.
“Bryce,” she called quietly to him, “remember I said there used to be another way out of here? You could go around, hold the gun on them from behind.”
“And leave you in here? I heard you about another exit, and I hope you’re right because I have another idea to stop them. That entrance to this cavern is not under the Alaskan ice for nothing. Get way back, I said. Meg, for once just do it!”
As the two men who had stepped to the front of the cave took shelter behind boulders, no doubt in case they’d meet gunfire, to her horror Bryce walked, hands up, his rifle in one hand, angling the muzzle toward the ceiling above the entrance.
“All right,” Bryce called out, his voice echoing. “You’ve got us trapped.”
“Drop that gun and hand the goods over—with the girl!” one man ordered.
Then to her amazement, Bryce fell to his back on the cave floor as he fired his rifle bang, bang, bang upward at the entrance ceiling. Or had he been shot? Though she was behind a boulder, she flattened out too when the men tried to return fire. But with a crash and roar, the world caved in.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
It took Meg a moment to realize the ceiling had not caved in, that Bryce had not been shot. He was pulling her to her feet as the rumbling stopped, the thin overhang of jagged ice that had previously sheltered the opening to the cave now settled in a massive pile, nearly blocking the mouth of the cave.
* * *
It had also done as Bryce had intended—burying the men.
A crooked smile of daylight poured in above where the now taller mouth of the cave had not quite filled up. But it would take them a while to scale it without gear or dig a path out below, all the time worried they might set off another avalanche of snow and ice.
“Sweetheart, hope you’re right about another way out of here, or we’ll have Rafe going crazy,” he said, still out of breath
. “I hated to do that because I don’t want those two bastards dead so they can’t answer questions. I’ve got to try to dig them out. Let’s get my walkie-talkie, and we’ll use the flashlight to hopefully find your other entrance. We’ll try to save and tie up those guys, then call Rafe. We’ll have to lug our backpacks with us, and the snowshoes in case they didn’t leave the keys in their snowmobiles.”
“How did you know you could block them, bury them?”
“Not my first time trapped under the ice. I knew if I shot on an angle, I could bring down just the outer overhang of ice, making a clean break. I had to time it just right, but the broken ice did exactly what I expected it to do. Now we just need to make sure we find that other exit.”
Their flashlight had been knocked around and its beam was sporadic now, like her strength, she thought. Lugging their packs again, they set a good pace around the curve of the cave.
After they fumbled and stumbled around a big turn, a pinpoint of wan light loomed ahead. Bryce fell down once on uneven stone ground, but his heavy pack padded his fall. Their fading flashlight finally went out.
“Take my hand!” he said. “We’ll slow down now that we see the light.”
Both were sweating, panting. She wanted to rip off her knitted face mask, but she kept it on.
They stopped just inside this entry to the twin cave mouths, and Bryce looked around outside, then came back to her. “I don’t see them anywhere—they must be under the ice and snow pile. I’m going to dig for them. We need them alive.”
He took off his pack, then dug and clawed like a madman at the rubble of ice and snow. Meg helped too, lifting chunks of ice away, kicking snow aside. No rocks as far as she could see—Bryce really had known what he was doing—but good old Alaskan ice had done them in, buried them the way they had tried to do to Bryce and his men.
