Whispers of Winter

by Tracie Peterson

  Leah tried hard not to get discouraged, but it hurt to be without the people she loved most in all of the world. Jacob had been her mainstay through the years—especially when Jayce had refused her love long ago. But now that she and Jayce were married, Leah had quickly turned her focus on her husband. Jayce was the love of her life—her hope for the future—her heart’s desire. If she lost him now, Leah wasn’t sure what she’d do. If she lost them both … well … she couldn’t even let her mind consider such a possibility.

  Helaina had been an amazing tower of strength throughout the winter. When despair threatened and discouragement whispered in Leah’s ear, it was Helaina and her faith in God that strengthened them both. Helaina hadn’t always cared about what God wanted. After years of doing things on her own—relying on self-knowledge and preservation to see things through—Helaina had come to experience the same emptiness as others without God. Leah had known that the answer to her misery would be Jesus, but Leah also knew that until Helaina found such a thing for herself, it would do no good to force the issue.

  So that was why it was a special joy to reflect on Helaina’s love and consistent reading of the Bible. Many had been the night that Helaina had read from the Scriptures while winds raged outside and the twins howled inside. Leah and Helaina had discussed passages at length, sometimes even taking notes in order to ask Bjorn Kjellmann on a later date. He had laughed the first time they’d come to him with a list of questions, but after laboring over that same list and searching to give answers, Bjorn stopped laughing. He now said they were the iron sharpening iron—the students who caused the teacher to search deeper.

  But Leah knew that book learning and heart understanding were two different things. She tried not to worry about the situation anymore than she needed to, but at times like this, she felt rather hopeless.

  Her dear friend and mentor had gone home to be with the Lord.

  Her brother was lost somewhere in the frozen Arctic.

  And her husband might very well never return home.

  Chapter Two

  Jacob Barringer looked out across the frozen waters of the Arctic. There was no real sign that spring breakup was upon them, but in his heart he felt certain it was coming. He could almost feel it in his bones. The winter was over—at least technically speaking.

  He thought about all they’d gone through. He and the rest of the crew of the Regina had been fortunate to find the missing ammunition for the 30–30, as well as another rifle and pistol. A supply of medicines meant for the Canadian scientists they’d taken north had been located, and Dr. Ripley had been delighted. It had given them all hope for survival. Now that the winter was over, the men were anxious to get home. Tempers were flaring, and Jacob was worried about how they would endure much longer.

  “What do you see?” Jayce Kincaid asked as he joined his brother-in-law.

  “Nothing that wasn’t there yesterday,” Jacob admitted. “I know the thaw is coming, though. By my calculations it’s got to be near the end of May. It won’t take long for the ice to break free once things start warming up. I’ve seen mornings back home where we woke up with the ice and by evening it was gone. Once the ice is gone, the searchers will come.”

  “At least the ice had made the seal hunting easier.”

  “True. We’ve eaten pretty well thanks to that.”

  Jayce shook his head. “We’ve eaten well because you’ve taught us how to survive up here. Most of these men had no idea how to live in this cold, much less thrive. And with no help or encouragement from Captain Latimore … well, let’s just say the responsibility has fallen hard on your shoulders.”

  “Yours too. The men look to you just as readily as they look to me. Once we landed on this island, you were the one who taught them how to build those snow-block houses.”

  “Only because I learned it from you,” Jayce said with a laugh. He gazed out to the ocean and sobered. “I know they’re out there, rescuers … Leah.” He sighed heavily. “I know they are, but what I can’t figure is if they know we’re here.”

  Jacob nodded. “I’m hoping they’ll remember the Karluk and figure the current might have taken us in the same direction. We’ll be all right if they consider that. At least they’ll close in on us.”

  “I pray you’re right.”

  ————

  The next morning around five, Jacob awoke to storm clouds gathering on the horizon. The men went about camp, tying down the things they’d managed to secure from the Regina. Jacob had helped direct the evacuation of the ship when the ice broke her apart. For weeks they had lived with nothing but several feet of ice between them and the Arctic waters. They were definitely blessed to have found land—even if it was desolate.

  “Looks like a snow coming in,” Jacob told one of the men. He pointed to a stack of cut driftwood. “Better get some of that inside. No telling how bad or how long this one’s going to last.”

  “Latimore’s missing,” Jayce said as he came up behind Jacob.

  “Missing?”

  “No one’s seen him since last night. When Bristol woke up this morning, he realized Latimore hadn’t called him for his watch.”

  Jacob considered the situation for a moment. “Bristol was scheduled to take the four-o’clock watch, correct?”

  Jayce nodded. “I looked around and found tracks that headed off toward the west along the beach. I’m thinking Latimore might have gone off that direction. Maybe he heard or saw something that caught his attention.”

  With continual daylight upon them, Jacob knew it should be easy enough to find the man if they spread out and searched. “We should be able to locate him if we split up. Gather the men, and we’ll do what we can. He may have become confused or snow-blind.”

  Jayce quickly retrieved the men. They had long ago turned to Jacob as their leader, especially given Latimore’s despondency toward life and his crew. “Look, it seems the captain disappeared last night. We don’t know if he saw something that took him from his post or if he simply wandered away.” Jacob didn’t want to further demean the man, so he quickly continued. “There have been many bear tracks as you well know, so it wouldn’t be wise to just assume Latimore is unharmed. Go in pairs, and take one of the firearms. If you haven’t found anything in an hour,” he said, gazing to the southwest, “return to camp. The skies are looking mean, and we’d best be settled back here before it hits.”

  “All it ever does up here is snow and be cold,” nineteen-year-old Bristol grumbled. “I never knew you could have temperatures as cold as this place.”

  “Oh, stop complaining,” Elmer Warrick, former first mate, commanded. “We haven’t got time to list all of our problems.”

  Originally there had been fourteen men who’d abandoned the Regina when she sank. They’d lost four in accidents—accidents that had awakened the rest of the team to just how serious their station had become. Now with Latimore gone, that left nine men. They were a good bunch, as far as Jacob was concerned, but they were starting to get sick and irritable. It would only be a matter of time before they started feeling the desperation of their situation. Especially if help didn’t come soon.

  As the men paired up in teams, Jacob considered the lay of the land and each man’s ability. Some were growing weak from the lack of a good diet, and Jacob didn’t want to further risk anyone’s life by making their trek too arduous. The snow was difficult to navigate at times, and unfortunately, many of these men were from southern states that saw very little cold or ice.

  “Travis, you and Keith go north. Dr. Ripley and Elmer go west and follow the tracks Jayce found. Jayce, you and Bristol head east and Ben and Matt go northeast.” Since they stood on the southern shore of the island and were able to see for some miles to the south, no one felt the need to head in that direction. Besides, the ice was far too unstable.

  As the men gathered some supplies and split up, Jacob decided to head northwest, away from the shoreline. There was no telling if the tracks Jayce had found belonged t
o Latimore or to one of the other men. The captain could have gone any direction, for any reason. Jacob sighed. Latimore hadn’t been much use to them since getting stuck in the floes, but he couldn’t be forsaken—no matter the risk to the rest of them.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a few good dogs,” Jacob muttered.

  The landscape of their island offered some diversion. There were hills and cliffs where nesting birds had provided good meals for the team, but dangerous crevices and ice heaves were plentiful and difficult to navigate, and snow depths were often deceptive due to the drifts. It was truly an inhospitable wasteland. God forgive the leader of the Karluk expedition for calling it “the friendly Arctic.” Vilhjalmur Stefansson was well known for declaring that the Arctic was merely misunderstood and that with proper training anyone could live quite easily in the frozen north. But Jacob knew better. Life up here was a matter of God’s grace and common sense. Lose either one and you were doomed.

  The glare from the constant sunlight was blinding. Jacob could only pray that the men were practicing wisdom and using their sun goggles. Jacob had shown each of them how to make the wooden glasses by carving tiny slits out of driftwood masks. They were crude but efficient, and the man who forgot to wear them quickly learned not to do it again. Several of the men had become snow-blind and suffered brutally; the pain caused by the condition was intense and would last for hours, even days. Now that their normal treatment of zinc sulphate solutions was nearly exhausted, the men were becoming far more cautious. No one wanted to endure such a fate.

  Besides the lack of scenery, the monotony of their routine had nearly driven them all mad at one time or another. Bristol had a deck of cards that the men shared, but Dr. Ripley would have nothing to do with it, swearing they were the devil’s tool of destruction. Dr. Ripley would therefore bury his face in one of three medical books he’d managed to keep with him after leaving the ship.

  Travis, Ben, and Keith were quite good at singing and often entertained the group with their renditions of old folk songs and hymns. Travis, a meteorologist, kept records of their conditions, and Keith planned to keep similar botany records once the ground thawed.

  Jacob often read from the Bible, sharing stories that the men knew from their childhood days in church. Besides botany, Keith was well versed in church history and the Bible, and Jacob had enjoyed dialoguing with the man from time to time. Ben and Matt also enjoyed such conversations, as did Travis. The others, however, avoided religious discussions.

  Generally speaking, the men were a good lot. Jacob had feared there might be troublemakers in their group—men who would steal or kill in order to survive. He was glad to say that hadn’t been the case so far.

  Yet despite the men’s good natures, Jayce was Jacob’s mainstay. Together the two talked of home and of Leah. They remembered times spent in Ketchikan and of Karen’s cooking and Adrik’s stories. Their conversations sustained Jacob’s hope of seeing home again.

  He also often thought of Helaina Beecham. He wondered where she was and how she was doing. Had she gone back to work for her brother? A dangerous job such as bounty hunting should never have been allowed for women. Still, the world was changing.

  Jacob thought of the war going on in Europe. He could only wonder if the war had extended to include America by now. So many people seemed to think it would happen that way. Still, it was possible the European countries had worked out their differences and had ended the war. That would be the best they could hope for, but somehow Jacob doubted it had happened. There had seemed no end in sight the summer before.

  He trudged through the ice to crest one of the bigger hills and scanned the landscape in all directions. Using his binoculars, he spotted a great herd of seals on the ice. They were sunning themselves at the edge of a break—open water clearly available to them should a bear or man make an unwanted appearance. The water was a good sign. Perhaps the breakup would come sooner than Jacob anticipated.

  There was no sign of Latimore, but the storm clouds were thickening and moving toward the island at an alarming rate. Jacob could feel that the temperatures had dropped significantly as the wind picked up and blew in the storm. He hurriedly scanned the rest of the land. There was nothing to suggest that a man had passed this way recently.

  Making his way down the opposite side, Jacob tried to calculate the distance he and the men might cover in an hour. To press for more time would surely risk being out in the storm. He wondered if he’d be forced to leave Latimore to the elements rather than endanger the lives of everyone else.

  The men, however, wouldn’t consider this the loss of a leader. That had happened back in January when Latimore had sunk into a deep depression, isolating himself from most everyone. Jacob had taken it upon himself to hide the firearms from the captain for fear he might take his own life. With each small decision, the men began to think more and more of Jacob as their leader. Even the captain’s first mate, Elmer Warrick, yielded all authority to Jacob. It wasn’t exactly a responsibility Jacob had wanted, but having it thrust upon him out of necessity, he hadn’t turned them away.

  It had been clear that he and Jayce would be the only hope these men had. Most knew nothing about living in the Arctic; they had no training in hunting, neither were they very knowledgeable about survival off the ship. When fresh water ran desperately low, it was Jacob who taught them that good water could be had from the oldest parts of the ice floes, where ice could be chipped out and melted for a decent cup of water. With the fear of thirst defeated, the men then began to listen to Jacob in earnest for ways to survive the cold.

  There Jayce had been equally helpful. They worked with the furs they’d managed to collect from their hunts, for prior to leaving the Canadian team at the Queen Elizabeth Islands, the crew had managed to shoot several bears, multiple caribou and seals, and a few fox. The furs came in handy as Jayce helped teach the men how to fashion warmer clothes for themselves. It was imperative they learned to keep their hands and feet warm and dry and their chest well insulated against the icy winds.

  Jacob felt the wind blow hard against him and turned to observe the approaching storm once again. The mass was picking up speed, and the light was diminishing quickly as thick gray clouds descended. He checked his watch. They still had another twenty minutes before they’d agreed to return to camp. Jacob picked up his pace and decided to parallel camp just to the north. It would allow him quicker access to safety and give him the optimum time to search.

  He crossed a frozen stream, hoping that the ice was still solid enough to hold him. Hours in the sun had weakened the foundation, however, and Jacob nearly fell through twice. He noted to go well downstream as he returned home, knowing that there he’d find a narrowing short enough to jump.

  Time passed quickly, and soon the hour was up, but tracks that seemed fresh drew Jacob farther north and away from camp. Certainly they had to belong to the captain. Snow began to fall, and the wind blew hard against his back as Jacob topped another hill and strained against the pelting ice to see. He pulled his snow goggles up just long enough to put the binoculars to his eyes.

  There, against the gray skies and snowy hills, was the unmistakable blue of Latimore’s coat. Jacob called to him, but the man didn’t hear. Hurrying, Jacob stumbled and slid most of the way down the hill. He jumped to his feet, sore but unhurt, and raced across the field to where Latimore seemed to wander in circles.

  “Captain, are you all right?”

  “I was not informed of the situation,” he muttered. His face showed signs of frostbite and his lips were rather blue. “I can’t seem to find the engineer.”

  “Sir, we have to get back to camp. There’s a storm upon us. If we hurry, we might yet get back before the worst of it.”

  “You are not coming to the party, then?”

  Jacob shook his head. Latimore had clearly lost his mind—at least temporarily. Not only that, but his eyes were nearly swollen shut from exposure. Jacob sighed. “Come, sir. The party is this way.” />
  Latimore seemed momentarily appeased, but when Jacob pulled him along at a merciless pace, the man protested. “I cannot force the children to walk this quickly.”

  “The children will manage,” Jacob replied, his gaze ever to the skies. If they kept this pace, they might make it back within half an hour. That would be just enough time, Jacob surmised. He absolutely couldn’t allow the captain to slow for any reason.

  “I haven’t seen Regina. Is she here?”

  The captain’s mention of his wife surprised Jacob. “She’s back at the camp, sir. She’s waiting for you there,” he lied, not knowing how else to ensure Latimore’s cooperation.

  This did the trick. “Then let us make haste. She is not one to be kept tapping her toes. She loves to dance, and the party will do much to raise her spirits.”

  The snow was blinding by the time they reached the camp. Had it not been for Jayce standing in the storm with one of their ship’s lanterns, Jacob might have wandered out to sea. It was a danger he had often warned the men about. In the eternal darkness of Arctic winter, it was impossible to be certain where land began and ended without strict attention to detail. In an Arctic blizzard, it was just as difficult to gain your bearings.

  “ I see you found him,” Jayce called above the winds. He reached out to take hold of Latimore’s arm. “Let’s just take him to our shelter.”

  “Have the others safely returned?” Jacob pushed Latimore while Jayce pulled.

  “They have.”

  They reached the shelter of their makeshift house. The house had been built of pallets and wooden boxes from the ship’s supplies. Around this they’d packed ice and snow, and it served them remarkably well. With the small camp stoves continually heating the shelter, they had survived sixty-below temperatures with only minor discomfort.