Blood and Ice

by Robert Masello

  A recovery that Michael had understood, from the doctors, to be impossible.

  Lord knows he had tried to believe in it. For the whole of that long, cold night in the Cascades, and for much of the next day, he had forced himself to think only optimistically; he had willed himself to believe that she would wake up and come around again, just as soon as he got her back down the mountain. At daybreak, he'd crawled out of the sleeping bag he'd shared with her all night and rubbed as much feeling back into his own limbs as he could. He had a big purple bruise on his thigh, where he'd been lying on a carabiner, and his left shoulder still ached. He unwrapped another PowerBar and wolfed it down. As he looked up at the dawn sky, he could see a private plane buzzing by overhead. For the hell of it, he waved his arms, shouted, and even blew his whistle, but the plane didn't bank its wings to signal that they'd seen him, much less return for another look. It disappeared to the west, and the only sounds remaining were the cries of birds and the rustling of the wind.

  Kristin had not reacted in any way to the whistle or the shouts. He bent low over her, felt for her pulse and checked her breathing. It was low, but steady. He had two alternatives-he could wait where he was and hope that some other climbers would come by- or he could try to move her down the mountain on his own. He glanced again at the horizon. There were clouds coming in, and if they brought rain or fog, then nobody else would be climbing that day. No, he would just have to do it himself, with an elaborate system of ropes and jerry-rigged pulleys. He could lower Kristin maybe ten or fifteen yards at a time, then climb down, redo all the ropes, and try it again. If he could just make it down far enough, he might bump into some casual hikers, or even get close enough to Big Lake that the sounds of his emergency whistle would carry to some boater-provided, of course, that the wind was right.

  He gathered up all the gear that hadn't fallen off the cliff, or spilled out of the backpack, and started making his plan. There was another ledge, no bigger than an ironing board, about twenty-five or thirty feet below, and he thought he could maneuver Kristin down onto it. He knew he had to be careful with her head and neck, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out a way to stabilize them; he had nothing firm to use. He would have to take his chances.

  It took the better part of an hour to rig up a system and tie Kristin's limp body into it-and another hour just to get the two of them down onto the ledge. By then, Michael was soaked in sweat and covered with a thousand cuts and scratches. He sat on the ledge, one hand on Kristin's leg-if only she would show some sign of consciousness, if only she could talk to him for even a few seconds-while the other held his canteen. He drained the last few drops. A few pieces of rock, disturbed by their recent descent, crumbled down onto their precarious aerie.

  The dark clouds were coming closer.

  He looked down, at the tops of the pine trees and the waters of Big Lake, and he knew that this system would not work. It was taking too long, and he did not dare keep her out on the mountain for another night. He decided to go for broke. Shedding every ounce of unnecessary equipment, and stripping down to his climbing shorts and T-shirt, he strapped her to his back, with her arms dangling down at her sides, her crushed yellow helmet resting on his own shoulder, and started climbing down. Either he would make it to the bottom and carry her out of the forest below, or they would die together, falling out of the sky.

  All the way down, he whispered to her. “Now, hang on,” he'd say. “I've just got to find a toehold.” Or “Don't let this worry you, but I think my shoulder is starting to separate again.” Or “What would you say to a nice big steak at the Ponderosa? You're buying.” Her head would loll around his shoulder, and sometimes he could feel her warm breath on his neck, but that was enough-he knew that she was with him, that she was alive, that he would get them out somehow. By late afternoon, the storm clouds had completely filled the sky, but they hadn't burst. There was only a faint mist in the air-its coolness actually felt good-and an occasional drop or two of rain. “Please, God, do me one favor-hold the rain till I get off this damn mountain.”

  And God had kept his part of the bargain. Michael had made it across the slope at the foot of Mount Washington and into the shelter of the pine forest before all hell broke loose. Thunder clapped and sheets of rain poured out of the sky. Briefly, he knelt on the wet earth, breathing in the rich scent of the pine needles, letting the rain wash over him. He had used it to wash the grime off Kristin's face, and wet her lips with it. Her eyelids quivered when the droplets fell on them. But otherwise, there was no sign of life.

  He tried to pick her up again, but all his limbs were quivering with exhaustion and he could barely move. He didn't care. He pulled Kristin up into his arms and leaned back against the trunk of a tree, his face lifted toward the branches above, and lay there, for how long he never knew. When he stirred again, soaking wet and shivering, it was dark. The rain had stopped, and a full moon was out. He draped Kristin across his back once again, and staggered in the moonlight back toward the Big Lake parking lot, where he'd left his Jeep. When he broke out of the trees-filthy, wet, and bleeding, with an unconscious girl on his back-he saw two young guys in U. of Washington sweatshirts, unloading a pickup truck. They watched him coming toward them as if he was a Sasquatch. “Help,” he mumbled. “We need help.”

  And then, according to the two frat brothers, he had passed out cold.

  The moment Darryl had seen the two figures in the ice, he knew it was time for him to step in. Enough of the ice had been cut away- or melted away by Michael's lights-that he could actually see, when he crouched in front of the block, the pommel of a sword at the man's side. Its gold tassel was frozen in an upside-down position.

  “You've done great work,” he said again to Betty and Tina, “but let's get this inside my lab now and finish the job.”

  Michael had gone for the phone, but Betty and Tina acted as if they wanted to wait for his verdict. “Michael will be back in a few minutes. Let's talk about it then.”

  But Darryl was no fool, and he knew what was afoot. Give scientists-even glaciologists, why should they be any different? — a taste of something really extraordinary, and they'll never let go. So much of science was routine lab work, endless experiments, blind tests, statistical breakdowns, that when they found something groundbreaking, something that had come out of nowhere-and that, in addition, had the potential to make some headlines in the outside world-there was a natural reluctance to let go.

  He had to work fast, and decisively. He scurried back toward the equipment sheds, where the snowmobiles and Sprytes and augers were kept, and rounded up Franklin and Lawson, who were already privy to the find. He brought them back with an industrial dolly, the ones they normally used to transport drums of diesel fuel, and while Betty complained that Darryl was moving too fast, and Tina fretted about the scientific integrity of the specimens, Darryl had his two recruits throw the tarp back over the substantially diminished ice block, then tip it back onto the dolly. Carting it around the corner, they pushed it up the ramp that led into the safe harbor of the marine biology lab.

  “Now what?” Franklin said, looking around at the cluttered space, packed with hissing oxygen tubes, clattering instruments, and tanks filled with alien creatures bathed in lavender light.

  “I want it in there,” Darryl said, stepping to the large aquarium tank. Earlier, he had removed the subdividers, emptied out the old water, scrubbed the tank from top to bottom, and refilled it with fresh seawater. It was now one large tub. He'd taken the resident cod out to a hole in the ice and slipped them through. If they were still part of someone else's experiment, then they should have been so labeled. Through the ice cover, he could dimly make them out as they slithered away-along with a darker form, swiftly approaching. No doubt a leopard seal who had suddenly spotted his lunch buffet. Life in the Antarctic was a precarious business.

  Franklin moved the dolly to the lip of the tank, and Lawson stepped into the water; wearing his trademark kerchief on his head, he
looked a bit like a buccaneer about to wade out to his prize.

  “You know the water displacement's gonna wet your floor, right?” Franklin said, and Darryl replied, “That's why we've got the floor drains. Go ahead.”

  With Lawson bracing it from inside the pool, and Darryl helping Franklin to tilt it forward gently, the ice block slowly made its way over the rim of the pool, then, as Lawson jumped back, it completed its descent, splashing into the water and sending, as Franklin had predicted, a wave of temperate salt water sloshing onto the floor and over the tops of their boots. As the tarp drifted free, the ice seemed to float and settle for a few minutes, with the two figures lying back to back, before the ripples in the tank subsided and the block became still.

  His prize, at last.

  Franklin took a long look at it, then said, “I wouldn't want to work in here alone with that.”

  Lawson, stepping out of the tank drenched, looked like he felt the same way.

  But Darryl wasn't bothered in the slightest. His eyes were riveted on the slab of ice, which now rested, horizontally, in the pool; the seawater rose enough to cover nearly all of it. If his calculations, based on the thickness of the ice and the temperature gradient in the aquarium, were correct-and his calculations generally were- the bodies would float entirely free in just a few days. Cool, but still intact and well composed.

  Once Franklin and Lawson had gone, he closed up shop. There wasn't much he could do in there immediately; the most important thing was to go out and check some of his underwater nets and traps, and see what fresh examples of the antifreeze fish-as the marine biology crowd referred to them-they might yield. You never knew when, or how, the additional specimens might come in handy.

  Before leaving, he turned off the overhead fluorescents, but the lab still glowed in the lights from the tank and the aquarium, radiating a pale purple that pervaded the steel-and-concrete space, and only failed to reach into the farthest and darkest corners. He pulled on his coat and gloves and hat-God, it got to be a nuisance after a while, all this dressing and undressing-and opened the door to a blast of freezing wind. Closing it firmly behind him, he tromped down the icy ramp and off toward the shore.

  Inside the lab, the various denizens of the tanks, ranged all along the walls and shelves, went on about their quiet, confined, and ultimately doomed lives. The sea spiders stood up on their spindly hind legs and used several others to probe the glass. The worms moved through the water, spooling and unspooling like ivory ribbons. The starfish spread themselves flat, suctioning themselves to the walls of their prison. The big-mouthed, nacreous ice fish swam in endless tight circles. The hoses burbled, the space heaters hummed, the wind howled around the outside of the module.

  And the slab of ice in the aquarium slowly, imperceptibly, melted. Little by little, the cool water circulating in the tank eroded the thickness of the ancient ice. Occasionally, there was a crackling sound, as the seawater found a minuscule fissure and rushed to fill it. Tiny, almost invisible striations appeared here and there, like scratches on a mirror. Air bubbles surfaced and popped. The black PVC pipes that brought the freshwater into the tank and removed the same amount of water that had now been cooled by the melting ice kept the temperature at a steady thirty-nine degrees. In a day or two, the ice would become thin enough to see through clearly, thin enough to let in the faint purple glow of the lab… so thin the block might begin to split and crumble.

  And then the ice would have to relinquish, however grudgingly, everything it still held captive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  December 13, 12:10 p.m.

  Riding in a dogsled was actually much more comfortable than Michael would have imagined. The cargo shell of the sled was a hard, molded polymer plastic, much like a kayak, but you rode a few inches above its bottom, cradled in a sort of hammock. Even when the dogs ran over a rough patch in the ice, or hit a bump, you were cushioned by all the cold-weather gear you had on. The snow and ice whizzed past on either side, as Danzig, standing straight on the runners behind Michael's head, shouted encouragement to the dogs-the last dogs, as Michael had learned from Murphy back at the base, in the entire Antarctic.

  “Dogs have been banned,” Murphy'd explained. “They were passing on distemper to the seals. This is the last team still in operation, and the only way we could grandfather them in was by claiming they were part of a long-term study.” He'd rolled his eyes. “You have no idea of the paperwork, but Danzig wouldn't let it go. They're the last dogs at the South Pole, and Danzig's the last of the mushers.”

  Even from his less-than-ideal vantage point, Michael could see how perfectly the pack ran together, pulling at the harness, following Kodiak's lead. He was amazed at the speed and the power they could muster. At times, they just seemed a blur of gray-and-white fur, bobbing and heaving like the painted horses on a carousel, and the sled seemed to soar behind them. Even without Danzig's occasional cry of “Haw!” for left, or “Gee!” for right, the dogs knew exactly where they were going-they were heading for the old Norwegian whaling station, about three miles down the coast; Danzig made this their regular exercise run. He had suggested Michael might want to come along-”while your Sleeping Beauty melts”-to photograph the abandoned outpost. Michael had decided to take him up on the offer. He'd visited the marine biology lab earlier in the day, but there was nothing much new to photograph, and Darryl had assured him it would be another day or two before any big change occurred.

  “Better safe than sorry,” Darryl had said of the slow process, and Michael agreed.

  But watching ice melt, he'd discovered, was about as interesting as watching grass grow.

  The last time Michael had tried to make this trip to Stromviken, he'd been drowned in a thick fog that made taking photos impossible. Today, in contrast, it was bitterly cold-twenty-five below zero-but clear. And the light-the constant, unyielding light-gave the air a strange, pellucid quality. Things that were far away could look much closer than they were, and up close things could look like they were almost under a magnifying glass. The Antarctic air and light made taking pictures-crisp, clear, and properly exposed pictures-even more of an intellectual challenge than ever.

  Michael's arms were folded over his chest, with his camera nestled under his parka.

  “How do you like it?” Danzig shouted, leaning down toward him, his walrus-tooth necklace brushing the top of Michael's hood.

  “Sure beats the bus!”

  Danzig patted him on the shoulder and leaned back again. He could never show off his dogs enough.

  But it was difficult for Michael to see much, especially straight ahead, so the first intimation he had of the old whaling station was off to his right-the rusting hulk of a Norwegian steamboat, beached on the rocky shoreline. The pier beside it had long since collapsed, crushed by the ebb and flow of the ice. At its bow, pointing inland rather than out to sea, was the harpoon gun-a Norwegian invention-which had once fired a lacerating spear about six feet long, and loaded, in later years, with explosives. The fleeing whale, hit between the shoulder blades if the gunner was good, would dive for cover, only to have the bomb detonate inside it, ripping apart its heart and lungs.

  That was if the creature was lucky. If the gunner was off, or the strike wasn't lethal, the battle could go on for hours, as the whale breached, bleeding and spouting, and more harpoons were launched. A massive winch, pulling on the cables, provided a further drag, and as the animal-first humpbacks, then right whales, and finally, as even those began to disappear, the more difficult to catch rorquals-grew weaker, it was gradually reeled in, like a shark, until it could be gaffed with sharpened hooks and stabbed to death at will.

  This particular whaling station had operated, off and on, since the 1890s, until finally closing down in 1958 and leaving everything, from locomotives to firewood, behind. Supplies that were worth bringing in were too difficult and costly to bother taking out again. Not that the Norwegians even then had entirely given up whaling; like Japan and Iceland, th
ey continued to assert their customary prerogative to hunt whales, and when this was mentioned in passing over dinner one night in the commons, Charlotte had thrown down her fork in disgust and said, “That's it-I'm getting rid of every Norwegian thing I own.” Darryl had asked her what that would entail and on reflection she said, “I guess I'll have to throw out this reindeer sweater.”

  “Don't be too hasty,” Michael said, plucking out the label and laughing. “See? It's made in China.”

  Charlotte had breathed a sigh of relief. “It is awfully warm.”

  As the dogs pulled the sled up a slight, icy rise, Michael got his first crystal-clear look at the camp, which, hard as it was to believe, was even drearier than Point Adelie. From the jetty where the boats pulled in with their catch-sometimes as many as twenty at a time, often pumped up with air to keep the carcasses afloat- wide ramps led to a crazy quilt of half-buried railroad tracks; a locomotive, gone black and red with rust, hauled the dead or dying whales to the flensing pan. That was the broad yard where the whalers took out their sharpened flensing knives and began to slice the blubber and tongues away in great, bloody strips. The tongues especially, huge and ridged with muscles, contained hundreds of gallons of oil.

  It was there, now, that Danzig called out to the dogs, while pulling back on the reins; as he nimbly dismounted from the runners, the sled ground to a halt. The sudden cessation of the whooshing of the blades left what seemed a curious silence, until Michael listened again and heard the polar wind rattling the corrugated steel walls of the storehouses and moaning through the timbers of the wood-and-brick structures that had long preceded the metal ones. He clambered out of his berth in the sled, with Danzig giving him a hand, and stood up on the frozen mud of the yard. On all sides, and up the hill, he was surrounded by ramshackle buildings of obscure purpose, and he thought, not surprisingly, of a ghost town he had once photographed in the Southwest.