In the Barren Ground

by Loreth Anne White

  “Go ahead,” she called. “I’ll just be a moment.”

  It was their unspoken signal for a bathroom break. Raj hesitated, then moved forward, cloud swallowing him almost instantly.

  Selena set down her gear. Hurriedly, she fumbled to open her pack. She removed the bag inside, emptied the contents into the snow. She then took a second bag from her pack, and did the same a little closer to the cliff face, allowing parts of the contents to fall between big rocks. Her mouth was dry. Her hands trembled.

  A trickle of stones down the cliff face suddenly made her freeze.

  She looked up, listened.

  Just wind. Making a soft susurration in the rock formations. It sounded like words … Sssin … ssssave you … sssssave Selenaaa … Snow whirled in a sudden gust around her. Wet flakes touched her face. Her heart boomed against her rib cage.

  Marcie Della’s words slithered through her brain …

  They are shape-shifters, part wind, part wolf, part man … merciless with hearts of ice. They come on the breath of winter … fly at you like a sudden, screeching storm …

  She shook herself. Marcie’s stories were getting to her.

  The wind whispered again … ssssave you, Ssseleeena … and with the sound came a strange smell. So subtle she could barely detect it. She snapped around to face it, search for it, drawing air deeper into her nasal passages with sharp sniffs. She caught it again. Sweet. Yet putrid.

  Then she heard it. Another clatter of rocks.

  Sweat prickled her skin.

  Something was definitely up there. Very slowly, her eyes fixed on the spot where she’d heard the rocks, Selena reached for the gun on her back. She clicked off the safety.

  She aimed blindly at the spot. Fog thickened. Snowflakes grew fatter. Fear, raw, rose up her throat. She waited for the warning huff of a grizz, the swipe of a clawed paw against earth.

  But nothing moved.

  Even the air seemed to grow more still.

  Yet she could feel it—a crawling damp, a presence.

  “Raj!” she yelled. Then, “Go away, bear!” She rose to her feet. Make yourself look big. “I’m not fucking going to be eaten by you, you hear me, bear! Raj!! Where in the hell are you!?” Her voice cracked as something sounded behind her. She spun around, muzzle leading. “Where the fuck are you, you damn animal?”

  She opened her mouth to scream for Raj again, but before she could utter a sound, it hit her like the blow of a baseball bat to the base of her head. Her skull cracked and her body whipped forward. She tasted coppery blood leaking from her nasal passages. She seemed to hang for a moment in air as time stretched, then she crumpled to the snow like a puppet with snipped strings. Her face smashed into the ground. The impact sparked her vision with pinpricks of light and blackness. The shotgun slipped from her limp hand. Her brain told her to grab it back, roll over, curl into a ball, protect her soft organs, but her body was disconnected from her mind. Another blow thumped down on her back. Air exploded from her compressed lungs. She felt the sharpness of claws raking open her jacket, tearing her flesh off in ribbons. She felt the wetness of her own blood. But no pain. With every ounce of her will she tried to move. But she was paralyzed. Neck broken. Her body was pulled backward, her face being dragged through snow and dirt. Her mouth filled with dirt, blood. Her teeth scraped against rocks.

  Then she was being rolled over like a limp doll. Her head flopped back. Her eyes faced the sky.

  Confusion screamed through her brain as she saw what had attacked her. And as she registered it, she knew. She knew with every remaining fiber of her being. That Evil was real. And it could come at you in ways you could never imagine. The next blow crushed down, tearing open her throat. Blood and froth bubbled out of the hole as she fought to breathe, but couldn’t. With her eyes she beseeched for mercy, but knew none would be forthcoming. Another clawed swipe shattered her cheekbone, ripping open her cheek and nose, gouging out her eye.

  It was 3:48 p.m.

  Nearly ten minutes away from pickup time. Only five more days before she was due back at school. With her friends. Her mom. But as Selena slid into oblivion, she realized she would not make her twenty-second birthday. Perhaps, she thought in an absurd final moment of consciousness, this basin in which she lay beneath the cliff face was one of those “dreaming places” where she should never have stopped to rest, or to empty what she had from those bags …

  CHAPTER 2

  Sunday, November 4. Twin Rivers. Day length: 7:54:59 hours.

  Constable Tana Larsson ate her supper in front of the television—leftover moose stew with baby carrots warmed in the microwave. The meat had been a thank-you gift from Charlie Nakehk’o for saving his grandson’s life. The day after her arrival almost a month ago, Tana had been learning her way around this isolated, fly-in community when she’d found nine-year-old Timmy Nakehk’o passed out drunk and hypothermic in the rocky shallows of the Wolverine. A local teen had been bootlegging to minors, among others. She’d arrested and charged him, which had made her an enemy of the town’s youth right out of the gate, so she was relieved to have at least scored some brownie points with Timmy’s grandfather.

  Charlie Nakehk’o was a Twin Rivers elder—a spiritual leader with a brown face like a shriveled apple doll. He wore his lank, gray hair in two long braids, each secured with a leather thong. And yeah, he went the whole hog and even tucked a kestrel feather into the end of each braid. A renowned trapper and hunter, Charlie was well respected in this community, and he held sway with the chief and local band council who governed Twin Rivers much in the way an elected mayor and town councilors would. He also contracted as a hunting guide for the swank Tchliko Lodge downriver. Tana figured she’d be in moose meat for months—she still had a freezer full of the stuff. At least her dogs would be happy.

  They lay asleep at her feet, one an irascible old Karelian bear dog named Toyon, the other, Maximus, a giant of a malamute-wolf hybrid she’d rescued from a trapper she and her old partner had found dead while on a call north of Yellowknife.

  Outside the night was black as pitch, but at least the snow had stopped. It lay about an inch deep on the ground and was developing a fine crust of ice. By solstice next month they’d be lucky to get over four hours of daylight total, depending on cloud cover. She was good with that. She wanted the peace of the dark, the remoteness of the far north. She’d fucked up her life, needed to work some things out, and Twin Rivers had seemed a good place to start fresh. She wasn’t so sure now.

  This place seemed to possess a sentience, a maleficence, that was conspiring against her efforts to belong. Perhaps it sensed the badness, the shame, in her, and she had yet to prove her worth before she could be redeemed for the big-ass mistakes that had driven her north into the Barrens, to the very edge of civilization.

  For starters, this police detachment to which she’d been posted was supposed to be staffed by two full-time Mounties, plus a civilian clerk, but Tana had suddenly been left the lone cop out here. Two nights ago her station commander, Corporal Hank Skerritt, had been medevaced to Yellowknife after shooting off his foot with a 12-gauge pump action. By the time she’d gotten the call and managed to reach Skerritt on the other side of the river, he’d lost a lot of blood. Even so, he’d been manic—ranting gibberish, eyes feverish. She’d had to physically subdue and restrain him before she could call for assistance.

  And until the Royal Canadian Mounted Police brass in Yellowknife sent a replacement for Skerritt, that left Tana alone with Rosalie Nitah—the civilian dispatcher—to police a population of three hundred and twenty in a jurisdiction that covered 17,500 square miles. Most of that population lived in the town of Twin Rivers, and a few in Wolverine Falls, a settlement a little farther upriver. But to access the rest of the area, there was only one mode of transport—air—until snow and ice made parts accessible via snowmobile.

  Rosalie had told Tana that Corporal Skerritt—unbeknownst to HQ in Yellowknife—had been going quietly and progressively crazy sin
ce last winter. It was the near twenty-four-seven darkness and cold that did it, said Rosalie. Followed by the incessant sunlight of summer combined with blackfly swarms that had made him insomniac and driven him totally over the top.

  And then there was the larger-than-life lore that dogged the station commander from three years back—Sergeant Elliot Novak. “He’s still out there, in the woods,” Rosalie had said. “He’s gone bush. It’s the white-man cops,” she’d said. “This place messes with their white-man heads.”

  Tana, however, might stand half a chance, according to Rosalie, given that Tana had only “half a white-man head,” her Scandinavian prospector father’s half. Her mother had been Dogrib, a people of the Dene First Nations from the shores of Great Slave Lake. And because of it, Tana spoke North Slavey, which is probably why she’d been given this accursed outpost even though she was pretty much still a rookie. That, and no one else seemed to want it.

  Strange things, Tana thought as she stared at the reality dating game show on TV, are done in the lands of the midnight sun, by men who moil for gold. Or diamonds …

  The bachelor on the show held a box containing a massive solitaire diamond as he approached the two final, shivering contestants. Onto which finger would he slip that sparkling stone? Both women appeared as though they might faint awaiting his final choice.

  Tana stilled her spoon as the camera panned right in on the diamond. The hard gem winked rainbows. The enduring symbol of love. Her eyes suddenly grew hot as her own little diamond ring that she wore on a chain under her uniform seemed to burn against her skin. Her jaw tightened. It was a farce, that shit, a marketing coup if ever there was one—eternally linking a cold, hard stone to love, and guilting every man into buying his woman one. Why was she even watching this crap? Because it was on TV, that’s why, and there wasn’t a remote to be found in this tiny police building apartment, and she was too exhausted to get up and change the channel manually. Plus … it did have that voyeuristic, salacious thing going on. The voiceover was saying how this solitaire was as “pure as the cold Canadian tundra from whence it was mined.”

  “Now, that right there is another marketing coup,” she said to her dogs.

  Toyon cocked an ear, but Max didn’t bother.

  Diamonds were expensive to mine in the frozen north. The terrain was vast and inaccessible. Labor was expensive. Yet the stones that came out of this tundra had to compete on the same global market as diamonds that were produced far more cheaply in places like Africa, India, Vietnam, or China, so local entrepreneurs had sought ways to add “value” to the Canadian gems. The result was a government mandate that ten percent of all diamonds mined in the Northwest Territories must be cut and polished here, instead of being shipped to India, which processes about eighty percent of the world’s diamonds.

  This had brought jobs and a huge diamond-related industry to Yellowknife, Tana’s hometown on the shores of Great Slave Lake. Somaba’ke—the Money Place—Yellowknife was now called. And today, at the end of the small airport runway in Somaba’ke, sat Diamond Row—a series of low buildings that housed artisans who hunkered at long benches, shaping and polishing the rough stones, putting facets on them that turned them into brilliant, sparkling gems. These folk were employed by jewelers like Tiffany & Co., and they came from around the world, places like Tanzania, Mauritius, Armenia, India. Most became Canadian citizens.

  And onto every gem polished locally, microscopic images such as polar bears and maple leaves were laser-branded, and each of those branded diamonds was then given a serial number, along with a government certificate, stating that it had been mined, cut, and polished in the Canadian north and was thus “conflict free.”

  No blood on these stones for your loved ones.

  No horrific wars financed with that engagement ring on your finger.

  No child labor. And you had a piece of paper to “prove” it.

  Diamonds were also the choice of currency for terrorism and organized crime. Which is why Tana knew about diamonds. When the first big mines started producing in the Territories, a special RCMP division had been set up in Yellowknife to police the international crime it had started attracting.

  Now there was going to be a mine just north of here, at Ice Lake. And come January, for the first time in Twin Rivers’s history, the community would be connected for a short while each year to Yellowknife by an ice road.

  And with the ice road would likely come the associated crime.

  Already, just the appearance of engineers and WestMin geologists had brought trouble and protests to town. A road would have its pros, though. The police station desperately needed supplies, and a new truck. If you wanted a vehicle out here, you had to Hercules it in at huge cost. The town also needed new equipment for the diesel generator plant that kept them powered off-grid.

  But right now, until January, they remained locked in the past. A place where myth and superstition could still crawl out with the winter shadows.

  Telling herself that she needed the nourishment, Tana delivered the last spoonful of stew to her mouth. But as she did, her stomach clenched. Quickly, she set the bowl on the side table and put her head back. She closed her eyes, focused on breathing slowly, on keeping her food down. A heavy blanket of exhaustion swamped over her—the kind of bone-weary, mind-fuzzing fatigue that made you feel as though you were trying to drag your limbs and brain through molasses, unlike anything she was accustomed to. Her dogs had already been fed, thank goodness. One less chore.

  She rested her socked feet on the back of Maximus and was slowly sucked down into a deep, drug-like sleep. When her mobile beeped through into her consciousness, she woke in a sweat. The room was cold. The television flickered with some wildlife documentary. Confusion chased through her brain. Her phone beeped again.

  She leaned over, clicked on the lamp. Her phone was on the kitchen counter. Next to her gun belt. Beside the bar stool over which she’d draped her bullet-suppression vest. Apart from her boots, belt, jacket, and vest, she’d been too tired to remove the rest of her uniform. She shoved herself up onto her feet, but before she could take a step toward the kitchen, her stomach heaved. Tana stumbled wildly to the bathroom and hung over the toilet bowl, where she threw up in racking heaves, holding her hair back. Her phone bleated again in the kitchen. She swore. Grabbing a towel, she wiped her mouth and made for the kitchen counter and snatched up her phone. The call had been routed through the emergency dispatch number downstairs, part of an automated phone tree system if someone needed a cop outside regular office hours. Even at full staff complement, Twin Rivers RCMP did not offer twenty-four-hour policing.

  “Constable Larsson,” she said.

  “This … Markus Van … security manager at West … camp.”

  “Can you speak up?” she said loudly. “You’re cutting out.”

  The voice came louder, slower. “Marcus Van Bleek. There’s been a wolf mauling. North end of Ice Lake.” The accent was thick and guttural. Afrikaans. It had become a common sound in Yellowknife ever since De Beers arrived. She’d heard it here in Twin Rivers, too—De Beers prospectors snooping around the WestMin claim and staking out adjacent land, no doubt.

  “One victim?” she said.

  “Two. Biologists. Both dead. Pilot found them, but couldn’t land … thick fog in Headless Man Valley. Bodies … still out there.”

  “And he’s certain there were no survivors?”

  “She. Pilot is a she. And Jesus, not a chance. I went in there myself on ATV with one of our camp guys. Four wolves were scavenging what was left. We shot the wolves dead. But the place … like a slaughterhouse. Bodies eviscerated. Head torn off the female—face half eaten. I reckon the attack happened at least a day ago, if not two. The kids had been forced to overnight because of the fog.”

  Her stomach lurched again. She eyed the bathroom, beads of perspiration pricking on her forehead. “Did you leave anyone out there to guard the bodies, protect them from further predation?”

  �
�All due respect, ma’am, there’s nothing left to protect.”

  Shit.

  There was always something left to protect. Her brain raced. She was going to need a coroner. That would take hours from Yellowknife. Even longer if the fog held up. While she waited she’d have to secure what was left of the remains herself, assess the scene, file her own police report.

  “You got a GPS location for the site?” she said.

  Van Bleek gave the coordinates. Tana managed to reach for a pen and paper and jot the details down without throwing up again.

  “Look,” Van Bleek said, “you might be able to fly into camp tonight. Cloud cover is high, and we can light up the airstrip for you, but no pilot is going to fly you into Headless Man Valley. Fog is socked in there like frozen pea soup.”

  She glanced at the window. Black outside—the kind of complete darkness that could only come in wilderness miles away from any urban lighting. “What about ATV? You said that you got in there on quads?” she said.

  “Ja, we can get you partway in on ATV, but the last couple of miles you’ll need to hike. Too steep, rocky, narrow for wheels. Slick with ice, new snow. I can have some four-wheelers gassed up and ready to go. I’ll guide you in myself. But you better bring backup firepower because that gore is going to bring in more animals. We’ve been having a problem with some of those wolf bastards getting aggressive with guys at our camp.”

  Probably because you’ve been feeding them …

  Tana signed off and dialed Oskar Jankoski, a local pilot under contract to fly for the RCMP.

  No answer.

  She cursed, killed the call. She’d have to go out to his place and find him. There was only one other fixed-wing pilot in town, Cameron “Crash” O’Halloran, a rough, commando-style bush cowboy whom she suspected was behind the booze smuggling and all other manner of minor legal transgressions. Possibly major, too—local rumor had it he’d once killed a man, and that’s why he was hiding up north. He wasn’t even her last resort.