Dark Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  "You're happy aren't you? Yes, you are. You had a good run." She ruffled their fur and unhitched them one by one. "I thought maybe you'd mushed your way to Russia, Andre."

  "I would have if I could have." André joined her and together they managed the rigging.

  "I hope you would have at least stopped for a chat on the way," Nell laughed as her work-worn hands buried themselves in one dog's dense coat.

  Andre admired those hands. They were as rough as any man's and aged beyond their years. The fact that Nell wasn't ashamed of them was damn sexy. She didn't notice him looking and soon the team was free, sent off for their food and a well-deserved rest. Andre released the straps on his gear and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Nell put her hands on her hips and gave him the once over.

  "You look like you had a good run yourself, Andre."

  "Can't complain." He swung his pack forward again and dug into the side pocket for her mail. "By Pass Service, ma'am"

  "Thanks."

  Nell took the stack of envelopes, but showed no interest in the mail. She had no family, her friends were in Alaska, and her charters were picked up online or through the state offices. Any news that came by mail could wait. She was more interested in Andre.

  "I think God made Denali just for you, my friend. You look good, but then what else is new?" She chucked him on the shoulder. "Come on in. I'm not sure we'll get you all warmed up, but we'll take the chill off."

  "Do I have time for a cup of coffee?" he asked.

  "A short one. I'm not liking the looks of that sky."

  Andre glanced up. He loved the look of the sky, but said, "You're the boss."

  They walked toward the cabin, their boots sinking in the deep, soft snow. He noted the pile of wood up against the side of the house and was satisfied that Nell was good for the winter. He stomped his boots on the wooden porch before stepping across the threshold of the log house. When he was inside, Andre peeled off his gloves and slid his hat back. His dark hair was cut short but still waved and curled. Nell had more than once told him that any woman would kill to look as good as just one of Andre's parts did. She shut the door, and then swiped at the ice on his beard. Andre unzipped his jacket .

  "Nothing ever changes here, Nell," he said.

  "Everything just gets a older," she answered. "Including yours truly."

  "Not so you'd notice." He gave her one of his mega watt smiles and she gave one right back.

  "You must have brain freeze, buddy," Nell laughed. It was doubtful Andre would notice her blush, but she turned from him anyway. "Glad they sent you. It's been way too long. Hope this isn't a wild goose chase."

  "If you think it's worth checking out then it is," he answered.

  "Help yourself to that coffee while I get my gear. It's fresh." She nodded toward the two-burner stove. "Much as I'd like to chat, I think we better get going soon as."

  Andre dropped his pack and chuckled as she disappeared into the back. He was still laughing when he raised his voice: "I planned a little lay over just for that on the way back."

  "Nice of you, Andre. Real thoughtful." Nell's voice was muffled, and he knew she was rooting around in her closet, so he gave up on trying to converse.

  The front room was neat as a pin. Her desk was up against one wall with the shortwave, satellite phone, and two computers on top, file cabinets underneath and maps on the wall. Her living quarters were a room in the back. To Andre's right was a small kitchen and Nell's pantry that would sometimes have to see her through a long winter without being restocked unless Andre made a trip out. To the right of the front door was Nell's gun rack.

  Sure that he wouldn't be caught, Andre pulled a can of candied nuts she fancied out of his pack and put them into one of the cabinets for her to find. He poured himself a cup of coffee. When she returned, she was decked out in full gear. Andre hadn't bothered to sit down, and she didn't either when she roused the Denali station.

  "I have Trooper Guillard, Denali. I'll check back around fourteen hundred after I drop him."

  The radio was a good one. It didn't crackle or fade in and out, so both of them could clearly hear that it was Cressi on the other end.

  "You get Andre back in one gorgeous piece, Nell. I'm holding you personally responsible," she said knowing full well that Andre was within hearing distance.

  "Shaking in my boots, Cressi. Don't worry. I'll make sure every hair's in place when he gets back. Promise." Nell signed off and said to Andre: "Let's do it."

  Andre took one more gulp, put his cup in the sink, grabbed up his gear again, and followed her out. The gun rack was locked, but her door never was. They walked the hundred feet or so until Nell broke off and did a quick check of the skin of 'the beaver', the workhorse of bush planes that would take Andre where he needed to go. Even in the few minutes they had been inside the house, the sky had grown blacker and the heavy clouds looked as flat and thick as carpeting rolled out wall-to-wall. A wind kicked up, and it was suddenly warmer than it should be.

  Andre raised his face to catch it.

  It felt like summer and fall had joined forces in a last ditch effort to make winter back off. Still, that wasn't what caught his attention. It was something he heard; a sound that signaled something coming their way. Then he laughed a little. He shook his head slightly. There was nothing. It was his imagination working overtime; it was the warm coffee coursing through a still chilled body; it was the time of day that made him uneasy. He looked into the cockpit. Nell was going about her business.

  Still, Andre couldn't shake the feeling that somehow the wilderness had expanded and that the plane was going to be too small to traverse it. He shuddered like the freaked out nine-year-old he had been when he saw that episode of the Twilight Zone where a plane took off from one place at one time and put itself down in the same place but another time altogether. Funny he should think about that; funny he should be getting goose bumps when he thought about that.

  "Andre! Come on, buddy. We gotta skedaddle."

  Nell raised her voice just as she threw the switch and started the engine.

  "Yep. I'm ready," Andre muttered.

  He tossed in his gear. She put on her headphones and flipped a few more switches. He grasped the side of the plane to hoist himself into the cockpit. Pausing, still fighting the feeling of being out of place and time, Andre Guillard hesitated. He didn't want to strap himself in a seat. He didn't want the door to close. He turned his noble head and raised his handsome face when he heard the howling of his dogs over the churning of the engine. The wind ran across the land and the snow became a billowing haze that obscured the horizon.

  For the first time since Andre Guillard had come to Alaska, he didn't want to go further into the wilderness, he wanted to stay with Nell and have that chat.

  CHAPTER 8

  Andre watched until the little plane was a pinhole of silver against the clouds. When he was sure that Nell was well on her way, he hiked until night was only an hour ahead of him and set up camp: a one man tent, a fire, a quick meal and clear water from the river that was about a half mile to the east. He washed, rolled out his bag and went to sleep more easily than if he had a real roof or bed. His work would take about a day and a half. If worse came to worse and Nell had to wait out the weather, he had provisions for three days. In his daydreams, Andre could imagine living off the land forever, alone, and at one with Alaska. Luckily, he was also extremely self-aware. He had run across a couple of those old recluses and there was a fine line between a man at one with nature and a man who was certifiable. Andre knew he was definitely not the latter.

  The next morning he woke to a dishwater-dawn and lazy snow, made his coffee and sat in the great forest with nothing on his mind other than wondering how strange it was that the word content was so similar to contempt. The next thought he had was to wonder why the first even entered his mind.

  Andre finished his coffee, cleaned his camp, slung his pack and headed toward his destination which was not so much a place as
a point on a compass, a cross-hair of longitude and latitude deep in grand, unmapped rough country.

  Along the way, he kept his eyes open for evidence that someone was killing Muskox and leaving the meat to rot on the carcass in favor of the trophy boss and horns. He looked for deer antlers discarded at a kill site. As expected, he found nothing. It would be pure happenstance should he stumble across poachers this far out. Of course, this far out no one considered a clean kill poaching. They considered it a necessity.

  At the foot of the mountains, he climbed easily across stones and rocks, as sure footed as the Big Horn sheep. He paused atop a boulder to check his compass and, an hour later, found what he was looking for: the 'thing' Nell had spotted on a fly over four days earlier. The 'thing' was a truck – or it had been a truck.

  Andre went for it, glancing at the road cut into the mountain above him as he did so. God only knew who had carved it or why. From his vantage point, it seemed barely wide enough for a car which meant that the trucker had to be hauling something he shouldn't be and didn't want to chance a border, checkpoint, or traffic stop. Alaska folk weren't afraid of much, but that road should have been on the driver's short list.

  Andre put his foot in the crotch of an outcropping of stone, balanced briefly and then launched himself. He landed solidly, the snow puffed up prettily, and he dropped his pack as he called:

  "Andre Guillard, Alaska State Trooper. Hello!"

  Not even an echo came back at him. Andre dug out the tools of his trade and went about his business. He checked out the boxes, noting that at least a few had been cleared out manually. He swept the snow from the top one, opened his knife, and cut through the tape. Andre ripped it open and pulled out the packing material. He used two fingers to extract one of the small bottles. The fine print was nearly impossible to read, but read it he did. Pure, liquid Nicotine. Do not ingest. Do not allow contact with skin. Contact poison control if any of the following symptoms occur: nausea, coma, seizure. Can cause death. Dilute before using.

  Charming.

  A load of poison was being transported to who knew where by who knew who, and now it was lying at the bottom of a cliff in the middle of nowhere. It was going to be a bitch to get this stuff and the truck out of here.

  Andre put a couple of bottles in his pack, took out a marking pen, wrote the date and time and the word DANGER! on the box. Finally, he put his name and claimed it for the Alaskan authorities. He took pictures. He took more pictures of the back of the truck before checking out the container itself.

  "Jesus," he muttered.

  There was enough of the stuff to kill everyone in the state. He noted the key in the lock of the chain. Someone had been walking around long enough to use that key.

  Andre moved on to the downward slope and photographed the truck from that angle. He pointed the camera at the trees then moved uphill taking picture after picture. All of these would be filed and that file would be shared with insurance company wonks, forest department personnel, transportation department folk, the HazMat specialists, and commerce bureaucrats.

  He focused on the cab from the outside then climbed up to get a good look at the mess of beer cans, chip bags, and cigarette butts inside. Andre tried the passenger door. Opening it was a no-go so he reached through the open window and collected everything in the glove box: a hauling permit, a class three license with a picture of a man that looked more like a mug shot than an I.D., a couple of maps that hadn't been used in a good long time, and three condoms in the same condition. Considering the picture on the I.D. it did not surprise Andre that the driver hadn't seen much action with the ladies.

  A chill wind blew. The sky darkened and the day shortened. He went back to his pack and put the things he found in a larger plastic bag, logged them and then walked around the length of the truck again. Just as he was wondering where the driver had gotten himself off to, the question was answered. He had gotten himself off to either heaven or hell, both of which Andre fervently believed in.

  Andre got on his stomach, rested his chin on a rock as cold and smooth as marble, pointed his camera at the mutilated corpse – barely recognizable now that so much of him had been eaten away – and took five pictures. Just as he got up Andre's attention was caught by a glove sticking out of the snow. Worn but still serviceable, he assumed it belonged to the dead man. Since at least one of the poor cuss' arm was probably in the belly of some animal by now there was no way to match it to its mate until his other arm was dug out.

  It didn't bother Andre that nature had taken its course, what distressed him was that this man died for nothing. If you're going to take risks, if you're going to give your life, then do it for something worthwhile. He got up and took a small tarp from his pack and put it over the remains. Someone would be back to get him. With no more to discover, Andre Guillard now attended to the niggle wobbling around in the back of his brain. He did a half turn.

  There were the boxes.

  Another quarter turn.

  There was the cab.

  He stared at the ground.

  There was a man's body.

  That man was pinned and his lower extremities crushed, so it was highly unlikely that he got up after the accident, opened the back of the truck, and squished himself under the cab again to die. That meant someone else had been along for the ride. That meant they had survived. But why open the back? Why take only a few boxes out of the truck? And where in the heck were they now?

  Andre walked to the back of the truck again, stopping only long enough to grab a plastic bag from his pack, drop the glove inside and note the time and date. This was the scene of an accident, and there was no evidence of foul play. These were regulated goods, and if they were in the back of this truck, then they sure as heck weren't being regulated by any system Andre knew about. He would be curious to find out where the vials had come from, where they were headed, and who hired the driver, but it was the lock and key that truly intrigued the trooper.

  Andre unhooked the flashlight from his belt and hoisted himself into the container. A wide wedge of the interior shimmered under the broad beam. He poked through the boxes. None of them were open. He was about to wrap it up when a canvas bag caught his eye. He moved a few boxes to get at it, hunkered down, and shined his light inside.

  Women's clothes. A man's shirt. Socks.

  He swung the light across the dark dried stains on the floor, rested on one knee, and inspected it more closely. It looked like blood, but he couldn't say for sure. He got up, took a picture of the dark patch, zipped the duffle, and that was that.

  When he reached the door, Andre tossed the bag to the ground and got down after it. He stashed the flashlight and secured the duffle to the top of his own pack. If anyone had been in the back of that thing, it sure hadn't been a comfortable ride. And if the lock had been secured, there was no way out without help. It was a mystery and one that wouldn't be solved now.

  Adjusting the harness on his huge pack, he secured the hip belt and gave the truck one last look. The person who unlocked that truck was long gone, and the fresh snow covered any tracks they might have left. He could wonder all he wanted, but odds were he'd never know what really happened up here. Still, it wasn't a wasted trip. A crew would be sent back to confiscate this stuff. It was off whatever market it was headed to. Andre took out his satellite phone and raised Nell.

  "I'm done. Heading back. Yeah, kind of interesting." He told her what he'd found and then listened as she ran through the weather and let him know that Boris was off his food.

  "He misses me," Andre laughed. Before he signed off he had one more thing: "Nell, do a fly over about five miles northeast and then come back and get me. Keep your eyes open."

  "What am I looking for?" she asked.

  "A passenger from this wreck. Might be a woman. She'd be on foot."

  "Injured?" Nell came back.

  "Not even sure if she exists, but a look-see won't hurt. Watch for any encampments," he said.

  "Got it. See you
in the a.m. my friend."

  Andre Guillard Rogered that and started his hike back to the place where Nell would pick him up. This time instead of looking for signs of poachers, Andre kept his eyes open for any indication that someone had walked away from that crash. All he saw was snow and trees and a moose the size of a mini-van. Soon Andre Guillard was thinking what a lucky man he was that life in this part of the world was pretty darn simple.

  When you were dead you were dead, and when you were alive it was glorious.

  ***

  Mama Cecilia wore the moccasins her son had given her on her birthday. The moccasins were a little too big and were made to look like they were caribou but they were not. They were plastic. Cheap beads of yellow and pink were stitched onto the top of them in a flower pattern. The leaves of the flower were iridescent green. Mama Cecilia had never seen that color on a leaf in all of the years that she had walked on the earth. Her son had given these moccasins to her, remembering her birthday the year he was sober, and buying them with money he had taken from her wallet. As with all of life, Mama Cecilia knew there were happy things and unhappy ones. She was happy he remembered her birthday and unhappy that he had stolen from her to buy a gift.

  But what could she expect from a drunkard except big sadness and small happinesses?

  Her son did not hunt, he did not fish, and he did not have a job. He had a woman once, not his wife. Together they had a daughter, but even the daughter was not enough to make him want to live in the world. In the end, Mama Cecilia had to believe what Oki, the shaman, told her: her son's spirits were bad spirits. She did not, however, have to accept what he told her.