by Sandra Clark
With an eye to the early start necessary the next day if they were to push on to Taqaq's home ground, they decided to call it a night. Taqaq had offered her the choice of sleeping near the stove—and incidentally near Sanderson, who was still snoring like a hog—or the use of the unheated room with the bunk in it. 'In the days of its original glory this would no doubt have been the master bedroom,' said Belinda wryly. She had taken one look at Sanderson, out like a light, and plumped for the spare room.
Taqaq seemed relieved. 'I have the heater and the musical accompaniment,' he grinned. 'Old Sanderson is not going to believe we sleep like this,' he smiled. 'But that's for Sanderson himself to sort out.'
'Let's hope he's sober enough tomorrow to sort something out,' rejoined Belinda, as Taqaq chivalrously carried her things into the spare room and dropped them down by the bunk.
'Not the Ritz,' he said, showing off his grasp of English.
'Where have you heard that phrase?' she asked curiously.
'Your Englishman, Amaruq,' he said, turning to go. 'He teaches us some English conversational gambits sometimes.'
Belinda smiled at the turn of phrase. It had the ironic ring of something Barron might have said himself. 'Why do you call him Amaruq?' she asked, suddenly conscious of her rapidly beating heart as if the answer could possibly have any significance for her.
Taqaq merely shrugged. 'He's like a wolf, no?' he asked, puzzled.
'How? How do you mean?' breathed Belinda.
'Well, he doesn't stop until he has his prey.' Taqaq again turned to go.
'I don't understand.' Belinda wanted to detain him. 'Wait!' She tried to make her voice sound casual. 'I thought names were pretty important. I mean—naming ceremonies are an important part of life here. They signify something important in a person's life, don't they?'
Taqaq looked down at his feet. 'It's what you call a nickname, isn't it?' He half turned, a suspicion of colour flooding his face. 'There are some things no one should ask,' he said at last. With a small smile he made his way back into the main room.
As Belinda unrolled her sleeping bag, she could hear him moving about, then the glow from the oil lamp was quenched and all fell silent—at least, if the occasional grunt from the still flat-out Sanderson and the racket from the gale blowing outside could be discounted. Belinda curled up inside her sleeping bag. She was puzzled by Taqaq's sudden change when she had asked him about Barron, and she felt rather put out at being ticked off. Almost as if she had been treading dangerous ground in some way. What was so special about Barron that the Eskimos could have this almost reverential attitude to him? Or was it something else? Fear, perhaps?
Belinda didn't expect sleep to come quickly, but it was with a shock that she found herself being jerked abruptly awake. It was still dark, but a light seemed to hover above her head. She heard Taqaq's voice coming urgently out of the darkness.
'Is it time to go already?' she asked drowsily. The light dipped.
'We must make the most of the time,' said Taqaq. 'It's a difficult climb at the other end of the valley. Sanderson is talking, but refuses to say anything about the Nasaq. He knows something, but he's being awkward.'
'Damn that man!' cried Belinda, sitting bolt upright. Taqaq took a step back. 'I'm sorry,' she said shortly. It wasn't Sanderson she meant anyway. The smell of bacon and coffee came through the partially open door. She felt suddenly guilty of leaving everything to Taqaq. 'I'll be with you right away,' she said. The light bobbed again and she saw that he had placed it on the floor beside the bunk and had silently left the room. With only the most cursory toilette, Belinda stumbled out to greet the day.
They had been walking steadily for two hours in the direction of the summer camp of the Nasaq, and in all that time it had only been a faint glimmer of light from the horizon that told them day had come.
Belinda had once or twice caught Taqaq's worried glance as he looked at the sky, but when she questioned him he merely shrugged and said they must press on. Another hour or so passed without incident. Belinda's rucksack was beginning to cut into her shoulders and she longed to stop for a rest. Had Derek realised what he was letting her in for? she wondered idly. She doubted it. His feelings weren't such that they would deliberately set out to finish things between them in so brutal a fashion. He had always been thoughtful and considerate. No doubt he would be appalled when she told him what she had had to go through. She was just wondering if she ought to venture the words 'mug-up' when the first flakes of snow began to drift down.
She and Taqaq exchanged brief glances. His expression was difficult to read and Belinda was so surprised by the sight of the drifts of white that she said nothing at first. Perhaps it was just a preliminary fall, a sort of prelude to the big freeze due in a couple of weeks. A seed of anxiety began to grow in her. Surely the weather station hadn't been wrong in its prediction? No, they used the latest satellite communications nowadays and in this part of the world where an inaccurate forecast could mean the difference between life and death, mistakes would surely be a rare event.
Still, after an hour the snow showed no signs of stopping and was coming down in steady and ever-thickening drifts. It wasn't long before the ground was covered by a thick crust of hardening white and the deerskin parkas of the two figures were soon indistinguishable. It was becoming increasingly difficult to walk too, as the drifting snow was being blown by a freshening wind straight off the ground into their faces. Taqaq moved on a few paces ahead so that Belinda could follow him and get some protection from the hard granules that were beginning to bite into their faces like flying bullets. They proceeded in this way for a few more hundred yards when suddenly Taqaq stopped, and half blinded by the snow as she was, Belinda cannoned into him. He half pushed her down, forcing her pack off her shoulders and dropping it down next to his own to form a shield against the drifts. She crouched down beside him and stared about with large frightened eyes. Surprisingly he gave her a white-toothed grin and settling back comfortably with his back against their kit, took out the bits and pieces with which to roll himself a cigarette. She watched in mystification as he started to fill the paper with tobacco.
'What are we going to do?' she cried distractedly. 'We'll freeze to death if we stay here.'
Taqaq grinned again. Already the blizzard had obliterated any slight landmarks on the route and visibility was down to a couple of yards. Belinda stood up in a panic and tried to urge Taqaq to do likewise. She was suddenly helpless and very frightened, with no guide as to which direction they should be going. Taqaq dragged her back into the shelter of the rucksacks. 'That's the white man's way, to keep on walking, to tire yourself out. That way you get lost and freeze to death.'
Belinda gaped at him in dismay. 'But what else can we do?' Her voice became shrill. 'We can't stay here!' All she could hear was the moaning of the wind and the rattle of the snow bullets on the frozen leather of her hood.
Taqaq took a deep pull on his cigarette and surveyed her calmly. 'The Eskimo way is to burrow into a drift and let the snow protect him from the cold.'
Belinda looked sceptical, but she was too frightened by the suddenness of the change to argue. With the snow becoming deeper every minute, she crouched down in the lee of the baggage as Taqaq had told her. 'You are like most white people,' he said. 'You have no patience. Let the snow itself do the job for you. We can sit this storm out. No trouble, no rush.' He grinned again, quite unperturbed by the turn in the weather. 'It's lucky for us old Sanderson was filled to the eyebrows with whisky. It means we are not lacking either.' He produced the bottle Mac had given for Belinda to barter with and unscrewed the lid. Sitting in a snowstorm a hundred miles out in the tundra, with a smiling and unflappable Eskimo and a bottle of whisky, wasn't exactly her idea of fun, nor, come to that, of serious academic research. She groaned inwardly. This was all due to that man and his interference in her plans. She was sure now that he had had some hand in Sanderson's reticence about telling them what he knew. She began to wish fervently t
hat she had a seat in a noisy little aircraft piloted by a pilot with rusty-coloured hair and was heading due south.
The same thought recurred many times in the next twenty-four hours. In that time the blizzard showed no sign of letting up. When it gradually became obvious that they were in for a long wait Taqaq got put the storm tent and fixed it up. Thanks to his know-how they were relatively warm at first in their makeshift shelter and Belinda dozed fitfully, warmed by the whisky and the snug waterproofing of the deerskins. She thanked her lucky stars time and time again that she had discarded the pink quilted number and had not been too vain to forget fashion for a while and dress native-style. In between sleeping and waking Taqaq told her that a storm could last for three or four days in these parts, but when her eyes rounded in horror, he told her not to worry, at this time of year it was highly unlikely that it would go on much longer. She tried to sleep properly, but all her dreams involved a tall, cruel man who was barring her way with a sardonic smile playing around his lips. Whenever she tried to get past him he snarled and revealed large claws that scratched her neck and drew blood. She cried out and came to with a start.
'Bad dreams?' asked Taqaq. 'You must see the shaman.'
Belinda, still half asleep, murmured something about the blizzard going away. Sure enough the wind eventually began to drop, and before long Taqaq suggested that they make their way outside. Snow had built up solidly around them so that they had to crawl on hands and knees through the gap Taqaq had painstakingly kept free through the long hours of their imprisonment.
Outside it was a world transformed. Before the change, nightfall had been of the blackest, but now with the ground covered over in a luminous white mantle the reflected light gave off a radiance that made the dark light. Belinda gazed about with astonished delight. She forgot for a moment the fact that they were miles from the nearest help. Only a distant howling, which faded almost as soon as her hearing picked it out, brought home to her the isolation of their position. She was amazed at first how little affected by the ordeal she was, and felt that it was the new beauty of the magically transformed landscape that was having the most profound effect upon her senses. She turned to Taqaq with a face itself transformed from one creased with anxiety to one of an almost ethereal beauty. He was stopped for a moment by the change. He could not fathom her desire to meet the Nasaq. He thought them a cold and puritanical group of people, unwilling to adapt to change, jealous of their status on the periphery of the Eskimo Nation, but if this girl wanted to meet them, he would move heaven and earth to allow her to do so. He hadn't admitted that he was puzzled too by Sanderson's reluctance to talk about them, but when Belinda made as if to start the long trek back to Sanderson's place he put out a hand to stop her. 'We've come so far,' he told her simply, 'don't give up now. We can make it to the old summer camp of the Nasaq. It's not too far now. We have the choice. Do you feel fit enough to go on?'
'As long as we meet our deadline with Chuck,' she replied.
Taqaq shrugged and glanced briefly at the snow which covered them round in all directions. 'Progress will be slow now,' he told her.
'He stressed how important it was that we should be at our rendezvous on time.'
Taqaq gave a reassuring shake of the head. 'No need to worry. We'll borrow a sled and get back to Sanderson's place in plenty of time. The only difficulty is in getting out to the camp.'
'But can we be sure anyone will be there now?' asked Belinda. She looked doubtful until he reassured her again.
'It's O.K. It's twice as quick to travel by sled. Very speedy. No problem.'
Belinda was more than half convinced. She felt she had to be after coming all this way. Anything must be quicker than travelling over this pathless waste on foot. 'I'm game to go on,' she said with a spark of determination.
'Come on,' urged Taqaq, shouldering his pack. He set off before she could protest, and she was forced to follow at a run until she caught up. She had a feeling of light-headedness now, and put it down to the whisky and the fitful night's sleep in the cramped little tent, but there was no time to muse on her physical state. They walked at a brisk pace and Belinda found she needed to put all her attention into keeping her balance. It wasn't easy walking over the hard-packed ice. The snow had frozen to a shell with soft loose snow in a thin covering on top.
For an hour or more nothing could be heard but the squeak of their boots and their own laboured breathing.
Belinda knew Taqaq was driving her hard, and the thought gave her a feeling of unease. His words had sounded confident and he had shown no expression of disquiet, yet whenever she had tried to slow down he had urged her forward mercilessly. Eventually she was forced to ask him what was so urgent. 'It's already night,' she said, looking at the moon scudding icily between thick banks of cloud, 'why can't we take our time? Why can't we stop to have something to eat? Can't we even have a mug-up? I'm starving! I could eat a bear!'
Taqaq looked at her strangely. 'Nanuq?' His face was impassive.
'Look here,' cried Belinda, 'don't just walk on. Answer me.'
Taqaq stopped just where he was. 'It is best to put our best foot forward,' he said in precise English. 'Are you tired?'
'No, just hungry and thirsty,' replied Belinda a trifle weepily. 'You seem to be able to go for ages without food, Taqaq. How on earth do you do it?'
Taqaq came back to where she was standing. He could see every detail of her lovely face in the moonlight as if it had been as light as day. He could understand the young pilot's possessiveness. Chuck had made no bones about what he would do if anything happened to Belinda. Now, because of the vulnerability her face expressed, he knew there were things he could not tell her. Distantly the blood-freezing sound of a wolf broke the stillness. 'Keep on the move,' he urged, wondering if she recognised the sound. 'Another hour, not much more.'
Belinda heaved a tired sigh. The cold seemed to eat into her very bones. She eased her shoulders beneath the straps and, following Taqaq's lead, once again began to stumble after him. At least they were still on the trail, she thought, at least there was still a sporting chance of success. If things worked out, she would eventually get her way. She would make contact with Barron's friends. She would show him she couldn't be beaten.
They walked a long way, it seemed to her, though their progress was difficult. After a time she simply gave herself up to the rhythm of their footsteps. There was no point trying to think where they were going. She had become unaware of the cold which earlier had kept her teeth chattering and had begun to crack her lips. Now it was simply a question of trudging on over the flat white plain.
She came to with a jolt. The first thing she noticed was the silence now that their footsteps were stopped. It was as if she had been walking in her sleep. Taqaq was standing a couple of paces in front of her. He was quite motionless. He looked like a figure carved in snow with his head on one side, listening for something in the still night air. The moon had gone behind some cloud now and the sky was quite overcast. But the lightness of the snow gave a kind of half light and anything on its surface stood out in stark relief. Belinda allowed her eyes to follow the direction of Taqaq's gaze where his eyes raked the distant plain. Suddenly she stiffened. Far away across the snow there was the unmistakable sign of something moving towards them. Even as she watched, she could see that it was slowly getting closer. Taqaq was motionless as if turned to ice. Belinda strained her ears. Very faintly, with a sort of blood-chilling distance to it, came the thin yapping of several dogs. She watched cautiously, scarcely daring to breathe, the sound still so faint in its rise and fall that it was easy to feel mistaken. But the shape came closer so that Belinda gradually began to be able to make out that it was not One but several shapes, in fact it was a whole pack of dogs running rapidly and closely together over the snows towards them. The blood froze in her veins as she heard the eerie howl of the lead dog rise up above the broken yelps of the rest of the pack. Icy fingers played up and down her spine. For a moment she dared not speak
. When the words finally came, it was simply to breathe Taqaq's name. She moved up alongside him, her breath shallow with fear. Convulsively her fingers gripped his arm. 'What is it, Taqaq?' she whispered, half dead with fright.
He turned to her, his face impassive, eyes, as ever, calm and dark and giving nothing away. He said one word: 'Amaruq.'
Belinda's heart missed a beat. Her blood froze. 'Wolves?' The pack were leaping and barking, by now no more than five hundred yards away and getting closer every second. A little cry forced itself from between her parted lips, then she felt herself falling, falling into the cold blackness of oblivion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When she came to the first thing she noticed was a sort of bumping, swaying motion. For a moment she lay back with her eyes closed. She imagined she must be back home somewhere, or on a train, or a plane, perhaps, but there was no roar of the engine, no sound at all, except a rushing whoosh, like skis over snow. In her fuddled state she fancied she must be skiing, but no, that was nonsense. She was lying down, and lying down on something distinctly furry. She forced her eyes open. Overhead were tiny pinpricks of a thousand stars. There was nothing to show that she was moving along except for the bumping and jolting that rocked her from side to side. Distantly she was able to make out the sound of dogs, and with a sudden rush of memory the picture came flooding back. Panic-stricken, she tried to sit up, but a lurch in the conveyance threw her sideways and for a moment she lay where she had been thrown. After a moment's rest she made one more try and managed to struggle up on to one elbow. No wonder she was warm! A huge bearskin covered her, wrapping her limbs tightly and making it difficult to move.
