by Ele Fountain
She passes me another slice. ‘This is what’s left from last autumn’s hunt,’ talking to me as if Yutu is no longer here.
‘I like the idea of living from the land.’
‘It’s not an idea,’ Miki says. ‘It’s the way we live.’
I feel my cheeks flush.
As we finish the last few chunks of bread, I become aware of a low whining sound.
I look over at Yutu. ‘What’s that?’
The noise gets louder and deeper.
Yutu jumps to his feet. ‘Stay here,’ he says. He pulls on his boots and heads out of the door.
I rush to the small window and peer through the thick glass. I can’t see anything, but the sound is unmistakable now. An aeroplane.
Fear
The door creaks open. Yutu hurries in, pink-cheeked.
‘I made it round the hill in time. I saw the plane coming into land.’
‘What did it look like?’ I ask quietly.
‘Silver, with a red mark down the side.’
The same as Dad’s plane. The same as the plane at the airport. I feel my heart thump in my chest.
‘It’s them.’
‘How do you know?’ Yutu asks.
‘Silver and red. It has to be them.’
‘It looked like a four-seater,’ says Yutu. ‘Too small to be a delivery.’
My thoughts spin. ‘How long will it take them to get to the village?’
‘The landing strip is about five hundred metres to the south, so about fifteen minutes to the edge of town. Grandma’s house is a bit further. Another five or ten minutes.’
‘You have to leave. Now.’
Yutu and I both turn to look at Miki. She is still kneeling on the floor. Her expression is calm, her chin slightly raised, her lips unsmiling. She is serious.
I remember what Miki said yesterday. It would be a dangerous journey. There would be no one to help if we had a problem.
‘But we haven’t got anything ready,’ I say. ‘We haven’t prepared.’
‘There is no time,’ says Miki. ‘News travels fast in our village. It won’t take long to find out where you’re hiding, Bea.’
I think about the man knocking on Miki’s door last night.
‘We don’t need much,’ says Yutu. ‘Warm clothes, stove, emergency kit. The things we had with us before.’
I head to the bedroom and throw everything in my bag. I’m already wearing most of my clothes.
We start piling things on the floor by the chairs. Most of it is still packed from when we arrived last night. Yutu appears with some extra trousers and jumpers. Miki adds some packages and a round tin filled with bannock bread. She disappears to her bedroom for a minute. When she returns, she is holding a small sealskin wallet.
‘Money,’ she says, passing it to Yutu. He tries to give it back. ‘Take it. You’ll need something when you get there.’
I sense the seconds ticking by. There is no window at the back of the house. No escape route if someone knocks on the door.
Miki takes Yutu’s hand, straight-backed and composed, yet her head barely reaches his shoulder.
‘You know where to join the way south, but the path isn’t always clear. When you are close to the big river, you will see two peaks. Pass them, and the town is only an hour away.’
Yutu nods. ‘I remember. What about Sami?’ he says.
Miki looks at him blankly.
‘We’re using his snowmobile.’
She makes a soft sighing sound. ‘He lent you that snowmobile when he should have gone with you, instead. I will speak to his father. They have a snowmobile each in that family. They can spare one.’
Yutu leans his head to one side, like he’s never considered this.
I look anxiously towards the door. Twenty minutes must have passed since the plane landed.
‘If someone comes looking, I will tell them that you went back to the cabin,’ Miki says.
‘Why would I go back to the cabin?’
‘Perhaps to look for the girl?’ Grandma shrugs. ‘I have to tell them something. The cabin is in the opposite direction to the way you are going. It doesn’t matter if they believe me. It’s better than telling them where you’ve really gone.’
Yutu bends down, and Miki presses her nose to his cheek, like she’s breathing him in.
We scoop up the bags and packages from the floor.
‘Wait,’ says Miki. She goes over to the wooden chest. ‘If you borrow someone’s cabin, then it’s right to leave a gift.’ She passes Yutu a pair of mittens. ‘Something easy to carry.’ She holds out a second pair. ‘Bea, these are for you,’ she says.
‘Naormeek,’ I say. She puts out her arms and I hug her. When I move away, her eyes are sparkling.
‘Tavauvuteet,’ says Yutu. ‘Goodbye.’
I wonder if what we’re about to do counts as courage or recklessness.
Brave
Yutu speeds past mounds of dark rock blown clean by the wind. We’re going faster than yesterday. He steers between the collage of hillocks and drifts, miraculously finding a way. We lean into a corner without slowing down. I grip his waist, making sure my body doesn’t unbalance the machine and tip us over. Snow flicks up on either side. The roar of the engine seems outrageously loud after the peace of Miki’s house. It feels like the whole village must know exactly where we are, but we’re hidden from view behind a low, wide hill that sweeps around the bay in a horseshoe.
Wind pushes against my nose and cheeks. It sneaks beneath the fur on my hood. My face is cold, but it doesn’t chill my whole body in the way it did yesterday. I have slept and eaten. My hands are warm inside the sealskin gloves which Miki gave me.
I try to picture her now, sitting calmly in her chair, waiting. A flicker of fear spreads through my chest when I imagine those men stepping inside her home. Asking Miki if she knows anything which might help them. She will give nothing away. But she is doing this for me, also a stranger. When I needed help, she shared her house and made me feel like family.
Then I think about the man who visited Mum. Who was it? Surely the men who attacked Dad couldn’t fly there and back in time. Does that mean there are others involved? I wish I could have spoken to her properly. I wonder what they’ve told her. Whether she knows about me flying the plane. Whether they told her the same things they told the mayor in Yutu’s village. Anger flares inside me again when I think about them describing Dad stealing secrets from work. Taking important information so that he can sell it. As quickly as it arrived, my anger fades, replaced with something else. Something I try to push away. Ignore. Because I know what it is, and it’s too awful to face. The thing is a flicker of doubt. A flicker of doubt about whether Dad was hiding something. I squeeze my arms more tightly around Yutu.
‘Are you OK?’ he shouts.
‘Yes,’ I shout back. ‘All OK.’
I try to focus on the pale blue sky, the sun sparkling on the snow. As we pass the lower slopes of the horseshoe hill, a new vista unfolds. A rolling ocean of small peaks, grey shadows highlighting the white tips. Yesterday it would have seemed desolate and empty. Today it feels peaceful. Safe. It’s also beautiful.
Just as my arms feel too weak to cling on, Yutu steers towards a rocky outcrop. We slow to a stop in the shadow cast beneath, and I realize it offers a natural shelter from the wind. Yutu climbs slowly off and stamps his feet.
‘Time for a break,’ he says. We must have been driving for a couple of hours. ‘I need to check the route.’
I climb off and try to stamp my feet too, but my legs feel so stiff I have to stand still for a few minutes first.
‘Do you need to check the compass?’ I ask.
Yutu smiles and slowly shakes his head. He looks around at the snow by his feet. I wonder if he’s dropped something when he says, ‘Look,’ pointing to a lump of ice.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘The ice tells me which way to go.’
I push my hood back a little to look at him properly.
‘Have you been driving for too long without a break?’
He smiles again. ‘If the wind blows from the west, it makes these peaks in the ice. So they always point east.’
‘But doesn’t the wind change direction all the time?’
‘No. It normally blows from the east or the west. When it blows from the east the snow makes a different shape.’
I shake my head. ‘I know about using the sun and the stars to navigate. I had no idea you could use snow and wind. My dad would love this,’ I say, feeling a twist inside as I wonder when I will speak to him again. As I wonder where he is.
Then I remember the note.
I pull off my mitten.
Yutu watches anxiously.
Cold bites at my fingers as I feel in my pocket for the scrap of paper.
‘Is that the piece of paper I found?’ he asks.
I nod and pass it to him.
‘Tell Bea—Hester.’ He looks up, his dark brown eyes searching my face for an answer.
‘It’s my dad’s handwriting.’
‘But isn’t Hester your cat?’
I sigh. ‘Yes. What would Dad want to tell me about her? It doesn’t make any sense.’
He reaches over to unzip one of the bags at the back of the snowmobile. He pulls out a chunk of bread then tears it in two and hands a piece to me. ‘Eat this,’ he says. ‘No one ever had a good idea on an empty stomach.’
‘Who said that?’ I ask.
‘Me,’ says Yutu.
As he chews the bread he stares across the tundra towards the horizon.
‘Do you make this bread in a frying pan?’ I ask, remembering Miki cooking some yesterday.
I think Yutu heard me, but he doesn’t turn his head. He’s staring intently, not at the horizon.
‘Keep still,’ he whispers.
An icy chill runs down my spine.
‘Over there, by the patch of rock.’
I follow his eyes, but all I can see is the patch of rock, then I see something move nearby.
‘What is it?’ I whisper.
‘Arctic fox,’ he says.
I lose sight of it, then the fox lifts its head to sniff the air. Its fur is white, and almost impossible to distinguish from the snow.
‘How does it survive here? I mean, what does it eat? Everything’s frozen.’
Yutu looks at me and tilts his head to one side.
‘They adapt,’ he says. ‘It takes time, and then they pass the knowledge on. Arctic foxes teach their cubs how to hunt in the snow, where to sleep. Then the cubs grow up and teach their cubs.’ A moment passes, then he adds, ‘Just like people adapt.’
I think of the soft gloves which Miki gave me, and how much warmer they are than my thermal gloves from the mountaineering shop. How her mother taught her how to sew them, and her mother before.
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Don’t worry,’ says Yutu. ‘People find it hard to understand our way of life sometimes, our traditions. The land shapes us. Not the other way round. The land, the weather, the animals who share it with us. There is a balance.’
I like listening to Yutu. The way he talks is different from the boys at school. He makes me think.
‘We should get moving,’ he says. ‘There is still a long way to go.’
I finish the last piece of bread and wait while Yutu unclips the fuel canister from the back of the snowmobile and carefully fills the tank. He secures the empty can beneath the bags and we climb on.
Yutu revs the engine and we slide into the patchwork of icy hills, stretching as far as the eye can see.
The sunlight becomes watery as grey-blue clouds gather along the horizon. After an hour or so, it’s no more than a yellowish glow. I can’t figure out where the sky ends and the land begins. Yutu slows as we approach a steep hill with patches of rough ice beneath, frozen into peaks a metre high. He climbs off and scrambles a short distance up the hill, looking for a route through. He walks back, shaking his head.
‘We have to find another way.’
I can tell that the sun has begun its descent, and there is no sign of the twin mountains to signal we are close to town.
Yutu turns the snowmobile around in a tight circle, and we head back, following our original tracks.
I think about the kilometres of snow and ice between us and anyone who might help if something happened. There is no roadside pick-up. No mobile signal. We haven’t passed any cabins, either. If we don’t make it as far as the town tonight, then we’ll need somewhere to sleep.
On the back of the snowmobile, my fears seem to grow. They might just swallow me up, like the snowy grey landscape.
I try to think about something else, just as the snowmobile begins to slow. We’ve been retracing our route for about ten minutes. Yutu steers hard to the left and then accelerates to climb a shallow hill which leads to a wide, smooth run of snow. He’s found a new route.
I’m desperate to stop and rest again, but I know we must keep going.
The wide path is lined with patches of smooth dark rock. It slopes downwards and Yutu speeds through, swerving to avoid the frozen drifts. If he oversteers and we hit the rocks then we might break one of the skis or worse still, some bones. I cling tightly to his coat and bury my face in its soft fur.
When I peek round his shoulder again, the wind feels colder after the warmth of his coat. Ahead there is some kind of dip in the path. A wave of panic passes through me. On either side of the dip, three or four people have gathered. My heart begins to thump. I tap Yutu on the shoulder but he doesn’t seem to notice.
‘Yutu!’ I shout. He slows down but the hill has given us momentum and we don’t stop until the figures are no more than a hundred metres in front.
‘OK?’ he asks.
I point to the group. Yutu stares ahead but he doesn’t react. I wonder if the endless white has started to play tricks with my eyes. Then I hear a noise from within his hood, some kind of gasp. He turns to me. He doesn’t look shocked. He is laughing, his dark brown eyes twinkling.
‘You would be a good caribou,’ he smiles.
‘What?’ I say.
‘Let’s go and say hello.’
He revs the engine. I tug at his hood but we slide onwards to the figures. When we are about twenty metres away, he stops again.
I blink a few times and then look again. There are no people, just piles of rocks, cleverly shaped to look human.
Yutu turns round. He is smiling. It’s a kind smile. He doesn’t want me to feel stupid, but I do.
‘Hunters make these,’ he says. ‘They build piles of stones near river crossings which the caribou use, so the caribou get spooked and cross further up the river, where it’s narrower, and where the real hunters are waiting.’
I close my eyes. ‘So these are a decoy?’
‘Yes. Animals have routes they prefer, just like humans. Once a hunter learns where the routes are, then they have the advantage.’
‘OK,’ I nod. ‘I would make a good caribou.’
As my fear fades, I realize how cold I am. I rub my hands together.
‘Perhaps we should eat a little now,’ Yutu says. He looks at the sky. ‘We can’t stop for long. There’s about an hour of daylight left. We need to find somewhere to spend the night.’
‘You don’t think we’ll make it all the way today?’
Yutu shakes his head. ‘We’ve had to go slowly.’
It didn’t feel like we were going slowly. But there is still no sign of the two peaks.
I want to ask where we’ll sleep, but I think I know the answer. We have to hope there’s a cabin. We eat quickly, then climb back on. My legs ache, made worse by the chill spreading up from my cold feet.
He twists around. ‘We’re about to cross the river. I need to keep a steady speed as we go over the top. If you hear a noise like gunshot, it’s the ice cracking. Don’t worry. It will hold us.’
Now I do feel worried. I hold on tightly.
Yutu slides down the bank
. I imagine the rumble of caribou hooves as a herd crosses, their bodies jostling together, steaming in the cold air.
We glide across the river and speed up the other side. I feel more awake, but I am still cold. My toes are numb. There is a chill spreading slowly through my body. The clouds are drifting apart to reveal a pinkish sky. A clear sky will mean a colder night. We must find shelter before the temperature begins to plummet.
Freeze
Dusk is falling. The snowy hills have turned dark grey, outlined against a golden horizon. The sky looks strangely warm, but wind is biting through my layers, blowing under my hood. The way ahead is almost impossible to make out. There isn’t enough light to drive quickly. I’m sure we should have stopped by now.
I can no longer tell how cold I feel. I’m not even shivering. I would like somewhere to curl up and sleep. With every bump I feel less and less strength in my arms to hold on. I feel my eyes closing.
When I open them again, there is silence. The snowmobile is still. I feel Yutu move in front of me. Holding me up.
‘Bea,’ he says. ‘Bea, are you OK?’
‘Cold,’ I murmur.
‘Bea, don’t fall asleep.’ I try to open my eyes. Yutu is holding me under my arms. His face is level with mine. ‘Bea, you have to stay awake.’
I know I have to wake up. I know that falling asleep when you’re cold is a bad idea. But the wind is freezing and it’s dark. I would rather close my eyes again and wait until morning. Somewhere in my half-conscious thoughts, I also know that if I fall asleep morning might not come.
‘Bea. Bea!’ Yutu is more insistent. I open my eyes. He is frowning. ‘We need to get you inside.’
He seems to move round behind me. I feel him lifting me, my feet sliding along the ground. I don’t want to move, but I need to help Yutu. We pass through some kind of doorway. On the other side, it’s snowy too. It shouldn’t be snowy inside. I wonder if I’m just confused. My brain too cold to work properly.
Yutu sweeps the snow away from one corner with his foot.
