Broken Angels

by Неизвестный

  They didn’t see her, sitting on an upside-down plane in the middle of the river. She knew the drivers were each huddled in their little worlds, deafened by engine noise, light-blinded by the headlamp, trying to ignore the icy wind, and longing for the end of the trail. They sped past, their red taillights winking between the widely-spaced trees until, finally, they disappeared.

  Kris stepped carefully off the wing tip, feeling the snowshoe settle solidly into the snow, and cut across the river toward the trail. The bank was too steep for her to struggle up; the big snowshoes slid backwards unable to grip the snow. Farther downriver, she found some willows she could pull on to hoist herself up the bank. The snow in the trees was deep and dry and the big shoes sank into it, snagging the underbrush. When she found the snowmobile trail, she was warm and sweaty again.

  The trail was hard packed and the snowshoes were pointless. Kris lashed them to the pack. The last dim light had drained from the sky and nothing penetrated the clouds. The snow, so bright under the stars, was barely visible and, other than trees, which sometimes loomed, darker than the night; in front of her, she could see almost nothing. At times, she’d step off the trail, plunging

  knee-deep in unpacked powder. But as she grew accustomed to it, her feet learned to keep to the trail, and she moved easily through the darkness, her feet crunching on the hard snow.

  This must be the trail that had run Ezekiel out of his cabin. Too many people, too much civilization. But there was a comfort in it for Kris; it meant she was getting somewhere, that she was close to people and less alone. She made good time, maybe twice the speed she could on snowshoes. The soreness of her muscles and the bruise on her ribs where she’d hit the plane’s steering handle numbed into a background ache. And the pack felt lighter, her hips and shoulders broken to it, and her breath came easy when she hiked up the hills.

  Two days running without a cigarette, some kind of record for her.

  The air was warming up, and she walked with the parka open and hood thrown back for several hours, until her hunger grew too painful to ignore. She quickly built a fire and reheated the remaining macaroni and cheese she’d saved from the night before. One dinner left; a Rice-a-Roni. She cleaned her cup, melted snow, and refilled her water bottles before moving on.

  When those two cops were rescued, Barrett would know she was headed to Bettles. Kris guessed they’d be picked up tomorrow; search and rescue would be swarming up the John and Alatna at first light. Which meant that she’d have to be undercover during the day and she’d have to sneak around Bettles and try to make the haul road by night.

  Forty, fifty miles on one Rice-a-Roni and a bag of oatmeal.

  The macaroni and cheese hadn’t filled her and though the air was warming she began to shiver as she tired. She pushed herself for another hour before searching for a tree to dig a hole under and throw her sleeping bag in. She was off the trail, knee deep in snow when she heard the snow machines. Moving fast, she waded back to the trail, the pack hanging loosely from a shoulder. They were coming from upriver; she turned to meet them.

  It took longer than she’d expected for them to appear. When the three machines barreled around the last curve, their lights grew without slowing and for a frightened moment she tensed, ready to leap out of their way. They finally cut their engines so close, she could see isolated hairs on the ruff of the lead man haloed by the lights behind him. The machines slowed, creeping the last few feet toward her, pinioning her in their beams. Dark shapes, silhouetted in the light, rose from seats and approached her.

  They pulled off their goggles or slid them up under their hoods, but left their face masks on. Black and demonic, their machines rumbled like beasts behind them, shafts of brilliant light shot over their shoulders and between their legs. They turned their shadowed, faceless hoods toward her.

  “We’ve been watching your tracks,” one said. Native lilt.

  “Could I get a ride into Bettles?”

  Words spoken between them that Kris didn’t understand and then the same one answered, “We’re not going to Bettles.”

  Which was weird; there was nowhere else to go, unless they went down the Koyukuk to Allakaket.

  “Can you get me down the trail then,” she pushed. “I need to get to Fairbanks.”

  There was quiet hissing as they argued in whispers. They didn’t want anything to do with her. If this were Los Angeles, it’d make sense; people would pass a kid bleeding on the sidewalk without stopping to help. But not in the bush; no one was left on the trail.

  Then Kris realized that they were doing something illegal. They were struggling between not wanting to get caught and their traditions.

  She approached them, pulling back her hood so that she was less impersonal. They fell silent. “Listen,” she said over the noise of the machines. “I’m from Los Angeles. The day I’m back in Fairbanks, I’m on a plane to California. No one will ever know how I got off the John.”

  “What the hell are you doing up here then?” Surprise overcame caution.

  “Best we keep our stories to ourselves,” Kris said.

  There was a silence, which tensed as it stretched.

  Finally. “We can take you to the haul road.” The voice wasn’t welcoming.

  “Thanks. I won’t see a thing.”

  Thursday, November 26

  A pickup with a cap over the bed was waiting for them when they reached the road. Except for a few times when they’d stopped to take a leak, they’d driven straight through. The trails were good and they’d howled through the night faster than Johnny had. Kris never saw Bettles, but she’d seen lights reflecting off the clouds when they’d crossed up river of it.

  She lifted her pack and snowshoes out of the sled and stood in the darkness watching the figures pull boxes out of the back of the pickup. Occasionally they clinked and Kris knew they were running liquor into a dry village. The boxes were stacked and then lashed in each of the sleds. Someone went around and filled the snow machines with gas and the empty gas jugs they’d been carrying were exchanged for full ones the driver pulled out of the truck. Accounts were settled in front of the truck’s headlights, and then the machines were mounted, each man resting a knee on the seat, and skimmed along the road until they picked up the trail and dropped off the high shoulder into the trees.

  The driver of the pickup walked over to her.

  “Like a ride into town?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Kris said, relieved it’d been so easy. He lifted her pack and snowshoes with a grunt and heaved them into the back, closing the gate and door of the cap afterwards. When Kris hoisted herself into the cab, the warm air almost overwhelmed her. She shed her parka and mittens and opened the zipper on the snowmobile suit.

  The driver did a U-turn and quickly worked the transmission up through the gears until they were speeding over the graveled road. It was wide and well plowed. He glanced over at her. “No names, right?” Kris nodded. He laughed. “They take themselves so seriously. Hoods in the woods.” He laughed again, then said, “Six hours to town if we don’t blow a tire.”

  Kris couldn’t fight the warmth any longer; she slumped against the door and fell asleep.

  The truck clattered violently and Kris felt the rear wheels lose traction and fishtail. Her eyes flew open and she sat up. They were speeding through the night. Big chunks of gravel in the road, almost small rocks, cast long shadows, which shrank rapidly as the truck approached and its headlights raced over them. Static-ridden music ebbed and flowed from the radio as they sped up and down hills, and a blue wraith of tobacco smoke drifted across the cab.

  “Sorry,” he said, noticing that she was awake. “Got going too fast back there.”

  “It’s a long drive,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He pointed at a pack of Camels on the dash. “Help yourself.”

  Kris sucked hard and felt the smoke jet into her lungs. “How much farther?”

  “Couple more hours. We’ll be on pavement soon. Livengood’s just ahead
.”

  They continued on in silence for a while; the berms of snow, piled along the side of the road by the plows, raced out of the night and vanished behind them. A semi snorted past, not lowering his hi-beams and kicking up stones that ricocheted off the windshield.

  “Couple of troopers had their plane stolen from them yesterday,” the driver said.

  Kris felt a spike of fear. “Yeah?” She took another drag.

  “Seems like they were running down some girl up on the Sixtymile. She got around them and ran off with their plane. Flipped it when she hit an overflow on the John.”

  Kris stared woodenly out the window, feeling the world closing in around her. She couldn’t run fast enough. The reflected glow of the driver’s cigarette brightened in the windshield. He held the smoke for a second and then spewed it out in rapid mucus-laden hacks. He choked, struggling for fresh air and coughed again. This time the coughs were mixed with a bark of laughter. When he got control of himself, he squashed his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and said matter-of-factly, “That’s very funny.”

  He glanced over at her, his eyes alive in the dash lights. “Not often we Indians get to dick the cavalry anymore.”

  After a while, Kris asked, “How do you know this?”

  He uncurled a finger from the wheel and pointed at the radio. “It’s been on a couple of times already.”

  “If it happened yesterday,” Kris said carefully, “how’d they find the cops so fast?”

  “Beacons. The girl left them the plane’s survival gear and there was a radio beacon in it. And the beacon in the plane was triggered when it flipped. AST scrambled a plane out of Fairbanks and the troopers were home in time for dinner.”

  Kris finished her cigarette and stubbed it out in the tray. Home in time for dinner. They were overwhelming; she didn’t have a chance.

  The truck hit the pavement and the hum of the tires on the road put her back to sleep.

  She was shaken awake.

  “We’re here,” he said. “Where do you want to be left off?”

  The truck was pulled off on the side of the road opposite a mall; its lights lit up the predawn gray and cars raced by with the thoughtless determination of ants. It was snowing. She didn’t feel the relief she thought she would feel to be back in a city where hunger and death by exposure weren’t much of a concern.

  “Airport, I guess,” she said, sitting up.

  “OK.” He drove down through the center of town instead of taking the new road that cut across the city’s northern edge. This was the part of Fairbanks that looked the most familiar to her. What was left of home. The truck sped down Barnette with the rush of other cars, each trailing almost normal clouds of exhaust. She saw the bank thermometer before they turned onto Airport Way. Five above zero, practically summer.

  When she saw the sign for Cowles Street she changed her mind.

  “Could you drop me off at the library?”

  “You’re joking,” he said.

  “It’s on Cowles.” She pointed through the windshield. He turned right and then right again into the library’s parking lot.

  “Funny place to head after getting off the trail,” he said, teasing her while he pulled her pack out of the truck. “I always go straight for a beer.” He set the snowshoes on top of the pack.

  “Good luck.” He stuck out his hand and Kris, mittenless, shook it. She shouldered her pack, watching the truck drive away, and then hiked up the walk to the library door and pushed into it. It rattled against its lock. Kris backed up and looked inside. No lights were on. Then she saw the printed sign taped to the door. “The Library will be closed for Thanksgiving.”

  Thanksgiving? It was their busiest day at the shop. Trucks going everywhere trying to get last minute inventory to shops before Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. It was a crazy time and they all worked; none of the Mexicans had any interest in the American holiday and it meant nothing to her. In Fairbanks, when she was a kid, Thanksgiving had meant dinner at the shelter or the Salvation Army. It had meant sitting next to her mother, hating the charity, pretending she wasn’t interested in the turkey and jellied cranberries while watching other kids play between the rows of packed tables.

  She rattled the door again, frustrated. Then she decided to blow-off Annie; she’d give her a call and say good-bye over the phone and get out of town. Kris began pulling stuff out of the pack in front of the library doors, separating her clothes into one pile and Ringer’s gear into another. Flattened at the bottom of the pack was her duffle and under it was Barrett’s gun. She felt its weight in her hand, thinking what a fool she’d been to carry it over the pass.

  She stripped off Johnny’s suit and tucked his mask in a pocket. The suit had been used hard; there were rips in it that she didn’t remember being there when he’d given it to her. She hoped he hadn’t gone back up to the cabin for her; everyone in the village must have known that the cops were after her, but he might have gone up anyway to check for her. She stuffed five twenties in the suit’s inner pocket, rolled it up, and stuck it on top of Ringer’s gear in the pack. Then she carried the pack behind the evergreen shrubs alongside the building and pushed it into the snow. The snowshoes were leaning on their tails against the library doors; she debated taking them down to Ben. Then decided they’d just be in her way. She walked back and tucked them beside the pack; maybe Ringer could use a pair.

  The library’s dumpsters were around the back of the building. She lifted the top and pulled out a black plastic garbage bag heavy with trash. After wiping the pistol with a T-shirt, she stuffed it into the bag and heaved it back in. Maybe she should’ve taken the slug out of the chamber, but she didn’t want to go digging for it and so she lifted her duffle and headed back towards Airport Way.

  At the corner of Cowles she stuck out a mittened thumb. There was no shoulder, no good place for a car to turn off, but a clunker stopped almost immediately, square in the right-hand lane, backing up traffic behind it. The blocked cars began honking and Kris hopped in, dragging the door shut after her, the duffle on her lap.

  “Let ‘em honk,” the driver said and flipped the bird in his rearview mirror. With slow deliberation he put the car in gear and drove off. “You wouldn’t know it was turkey day except for the ads,” he said, looking at her and shifting into another gear. As the car accelerated, Kris felt cold air blowing up her legs. She kicked some folded newspapers that were on the floor to the side and saw, beneath them, the asphalt skimming by under her feet.

  “It’s important to have good air circulation,” he said laconically. Kris recovered the hole with the papers and clamped her foot on them.

  “Robin,” he said and reached a hand across to Kris.

  “Kris.” They shook mittens.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Airport.”

  “That’s not too far out of my way; I can take you down there.”

  “Thanks.” Kris considered him out of the corner of her eye. Fortyish, he had long hair, half in a ponytail, the other half floating around his head, and a shaggy beard. Wrinkles and lines broke up his face, no ring on his finger, clothes were old, mostly woolens and not fancy synthetics. His feet were in floppy leather boots. Not even insulated. Counter-culture type. She was going to need him.

  “I’ve a friend who says you can’t hitchhike in Fairbanks anymore,” she said, being friendly.

  “Not since the pipeline, at least,” he said. “Money changes things. Now this place is just like America.” He swept his arm through the air, taking in the shopping malls and fast food places lining the street. “Used to be Alaska here.”

  “You sound like him, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Ringer.” Kris couldn’t remember Ringer’s last name.

  “Ringer, Annie, and their muppets? Yeah, same species. Good folk, though Annie’s a little heavy. Can’t be stoned around her without feeling like you’re breaking her heart.”

  “They were good to me,” Kris sai
d.

  “I don’t know why people want to make Alaska just like the place they left,” he said. “It’s like going to Japan and eating at McDonalds. If you don’t like what they’ve got, stay home.” He sounded resigned, as if he’d already given up this fight.

  “Yeah,” Kris said, wanting to keep him happy. “Ringer bitched about a BMW that passed him on his way to work and he came unglued when he saw a woman in heels tip-toeing through the snow at the airport.” As she finished, something broke loose inside her head and rattled out of sight into the crevices of her mind.

  “…years in Alaska and have never been out to any of the villages,” Robin was saying while leaning into the long turn that brought them up to the entrance of the terminal. He stopped in front of the doors. “Here we be,” he said.

  Kris took a breath. “I need a favor,” she said.

  “Shoot.”

  “I need someone to buy a ticket to Juneau for me in their name.”

  The old hippie regarded her silently. Through his skimpy beard, she could see his Adam’s apple bob. “What’s going down?” he asked, unenthusiastically.

  “I don’t want anybody to know that I’m going to Juneau.”

  “The cops, you mean.”

  Kris stayed silent.

  “Are you carrying?”

  “No.” She pushed her duffle toward him.

  He unzipped it and stirred through her clothes.

  “Oatmeal?” he asked, lifting out the Ziploc.

  “Yeah. Tell Ringer next time you see him.”

  He stuffed it back in the duffle and zipped it closed. “I can’t ask why?”