Blood and Ice

by Robert Masello

“What do you mean, you don't know?” she said. “You think Betty and Tina took ‘em back?”

  “I don't know,” Darryl repeated.

  The shock in his voice was apparent to her, too. She glanced over Darryl's head at Michael.

  “Well, it's not like they got up and went anywhere on their own,” she said.

  But the silence hung heavy. Michael went around to the other side of the tank and turned off the PVC valves. He saw a stool, set up in front of one of the space heaters, and another one close to the door. Why, he wondered, would Darryl have moved the lab stools like that?

  “I know you like your privacy, but has anyone else been working with you in here?” he asked.

  “No,” Darryl replied in a low voice, as if still unable to process the disaster. He hadn't moved from the lip of the tank.

  “Murphy will know what's up,” Charlotte said, in an upbeat tone. “He must have had the bodies transferred.” She went to the intracamp phone mounted by the door, and even she looked puzzled for a second by the stool that stood in her way.

  Michael, his thoughts reeling, used a mop to push some of the water toward the floor drains while Darryl looked into the tank as if staring long enough could make the bodies reappear. Charlotte talked on the phone, and Michael didn't have to pick up more than a few of her actual words-”not here,” “are you sure?” “of course we did”-to know that Murphy O'Connor was as baffled by what he was hearing as anyone.

  Darryl, his brow furrowed in thought, retreated to the lab counter, where he plopped down in front of the microscope. Michael used the mop to move the stool away from the heater and noticed that although the tank overflow hadn't really come up that far, there was a round puddle underneath where the stool had been. Almost as if something had been drying and dripping onto the floor there. He glanced over at the other misplaced stool, the one by the door, then leaned the mop up against the wall and walked over toward it.

  Charlotte had just hung up the phone and announced that Murphy had no clue about what was going on. “He's contacting Lawson and Franklin. Maybe they'll know what's up.”

  Michael looked under the stool by the door, and although there wasn't any water there, he suddenly felt a cold sliver of air descending on his shoulders, and glanced up. A narrow, rectangular window, more of a vent really, ran along the roofline, and when he climbed up onto the stool, he found that the window had been cranked open. Flakes of snow and ice had already begun to congeal on the inside rim, and through it, he could see straight across the concourse and into the bright glare of the kennel and sled shed, where everything appeared quiet and undisturbed.

  “Darryl,” he asked, “did you ever crank this vent open?”

  “What?” Darryl looked up at him, as he balanced precariously on the stool. “No. I doubt I could even reach it.”

  Michael cranked the window closed again, and got down. Somebody, he thought, had cranked it open-and recently-and they'd done it to get a glimpse of the outside.

  “Want to hear something else?” Darryl said, resignedly.

  “Is it good or bad?” Charlotte said.

  “The wine bottle's gone.”

  “Was it on the lab counter?” Michael said, and Darryl nodded.

  “It was right here,” he said, “next to the microscope.” He picked up a slide. “I've still got proof-this-that the damn thing existed. But no bottle, and no bodies, anymore.”

  But to Michael, it made perfect sense; whoever had come to make off with the bodies-but why, and what for? — had grabbed the wine bottle, too. The slide must have been overlooked. Was someone really going to try to destroy all the evidence and make it seem that the whole discovery had never happened? What would be the point of that? Or was it-and this made even less sense to him-somebody's idea of a moneymaking scheme? It was way too knuckleheaded for any of the beakers to try, but had a couple of the grunts found out what was going on and decided that they could spirit the frozen corpses back to civilization and make a fortune exhibiting them?

  Or was it all just part of an immense, and not very funny, practical joke? If that's what it turned out to be, Michael knew that Murphy would have the heads of the perpetrators.

  Michael realized that he was clutching at straws, that these ideas were crazy. He told himself to calm down. It had to be something simpler. Betty and Tina had probably reclaimed the ice block for further work, or something like that. And the mystery would be solved before they all went to bed.

  “Weren't there some other bottles, in that chest that was brought up?” Charlotte said, and Darryl's eyes brightened.

  “Yes, there were. Michael, where'd they put the chest?”

  “Last I saw it, Danzig had unloaded it from the sled. It was in the back of the kennel.”

  “Then at least we might still have those!” he said.

  “Why don't you and Charlotte look around the lab here-make sure nothing else is missing-and I'll go over to the kennel.” Ever since he'd looked out of the vent, he'd wanted to check out everything across the way.

  He zipped up his coat again, and as he descended the ramp, he looked carefully for any signs of a dolly's wheels, but the only markings were from bootheels. How the hell did whoever it was get the damn thing out? He marched across the snow to the kennel and found the chest at least right where Danzig had unloaded it. But despite the fact that a few odds and ends were still inside-a silver cup engraved with the initials SAC, a white cummerbund, yellow with age-the bottles were all gone.

  “Hey, what the hell's going on?”

  Michael turned around to see Danzig himself standing with his arms out in wonderment.

  “I guess you just heard from Murphy.”

  “Heard what from Murphy?”

  “Oh, about the missing bodies, from the ice block.”

  “The dogs, for Christ's sake-I'm talking about the dogs! There's one hell of a storm coming, and I came to make sure they were settled in for the night.” He looked all around, like somehow he might have simply missed them. “Where the hell are they?”

  Michael had been so set on retrieving the bottles that it hadn't occurred to him that something even more surprising was gone. But now he saw the dogs’ stakes, still in the ground, and their empty food bowls, lying upturned on the straw.

  “The sled's missing, too,” Danzig said. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Michael couldn't believe that anyone would dare to mess with the dogs, much less without Danzig's express permission-which would almost certainly not be granted.

  “I was just checking to see if the chest had been looted,” Michael said, feeling the need to explain his own presence. “It has been.”

  “I don't give a shit about that, or that pair of human popsicles. Where are my dogs?” Danzig boomed as he stomped around the kennel, his eyes fixed on the floor. “How long have you been here?”

  “I got here just before you did.”

  “Goddammit!” He kicked one of the bowls clear across the kennel, then he stopped at the foot of the stairs, yanked off one of his gloves, and touched something on the steps. As Michael looked on, he raised it to his face, smelled it.

  “It's blood,” he said, lifting his eyes toward the loft. And then he was racing up the stairs as fast as his heavy boots and gear would let him.

  Michael heard him cry, “Jesus, no!” and by the time Michael got up there, Danzig was down on the floor, cradling the bloody carcass of Kodiak in his burly arms.

  “Who did this?” Danzig was muttering. “Who would do this?”

  For Michael, too, it seemed unthinkable.

  “I will kill the son of a bitch,” Danzig said, and Michael believed him. “I will kill the son of a bitch who did this!”

  Michael put a hand on Danzig's shoulder, not knowing what to say, when he saw the dog's eyes flicker, then open. “Wait, look…” he started to say, when the husky suddenly let out a low, angry growl. And before Danzig could even react, the dog had lunged up at his face. Danzig toppled backwards, and the dog wa
s on him, snarling and tearing at his clothes and skin. His legs kicked out wildly, he was trying to stand, but the dog was too powerful and too insane with rage. Michael saw the short chain, with its stake still attached, dangling from its collar, and grabbed for it. It flew out of his hands, but he grabbed again, and finally got hold of it. He pulled back on it with all his might, and the dog's jaws, dripping with blood and foam, came away from Danzig's throat. It was still snapping, still trying to bite its master, when Michael yanked it away toward the stairs. Kodiak's paws scrabbled at the wooden floor, but only then did it turn its attention to Michael, whipping around, its cold blue eyes burning with fire, and leapt up. Like a matador, Michael stepped neatly to one side and the dog went flying down the open stairs; Michael heard a thump, a splintering sound, and a loud snap… and then silence.

  When he looked down, he could see that the stake had wedged itself between two of the open steps, and the dog was now swinging by its broken neck from the short chain. The stairs creaked with the strain, and Danzig, clutching his throat on the floor, whispered “help” in a weak, burbling voice. The blood was pouring out between his fingers, and Michael ripped his own scarf off, wrapped it tightly around Danzig's neck, and said, “I'll be right back with Dr. Barnes.” As he shot down the stairs, in shock, Kodiak's body swayed back and forth beside him, blood dripping from a puncture wound in its chest-how had that happened? — and matting the straw below.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  December 13, 8 p.m.

  Sinclair guided the sled on a wide circle around the rear of the camp so as to avoid being seen, then across the snow and ice with the sea on one side and the distant mountain range on the other. Eleanor was battened down inside it, well protected by the voluminous coat they had stolen from the shed.

  The dogs were running smoothly and seemed to know precisely where they were going. Sinclair had no idea where that was, but he was prepared to deal with any eventuality. At some point, he even detected tracks in the snow, and the dogs, he noted, were following them. He stood on the runners, gripping the reins, and though the air was frigid and the sun afforded no warmth at all, he held his face up and reveled in the cold wind scouring his skin and filling his lungs like a bellows. To feel! To move! To be alive again! No matter what happened next, he welcomed it, as nothing could prove more unendurable than his imprisonment in the ice. The red coat, with the white crosses on it, flapped around his legs. The gold braid on his uniform gleamed dully in the wintry air, but his blood felt hot in his veins and even the hair on his head seemed to tingle.

  There were cries overhead, the restive cawing of a flock of birds- brown and black and gray-and though he might have hoped to see the snowy white bosom of an albatross silently keeping him company, he did not. These were scavenger birds-he could tell from their dirty color and their grating cry-and they followed the sled dogs in hopes of nothing more than a meal. He had seen such birds before, wheeling in circles in the hot blue sky of the Crimea. They'd come, Sergeant Hatch had told him, from as far away as Africa, drawn by the carrion feast that the British army had laid before them.

  “Some of them,” Hatch added, “are no doubt here for me.”

  For days, Sinclair had watched as the sergeant's skin went from a weather-beaten tan to a jaundiced yellow; even his eyes had a sickly tinge, and there were times he shook so violently in his saddle that Sinclair had taken the precaution of tying a rope from the man's shoulders to his pommel. “It's the malaria,” Hatch had said, through chattering teeth. “It will pass.”

  The blades of the sled suddenly rose up on a hidden elevation, then dipped down again, as gracefully as a ballerina. Sinclair had never seen, or imagined, a contraption quite like it; for that matter, he could not even determine what exactly it was made of. The carriage, where Eleanor lay, was as slick and hard as steel, but lighter, much lighter, judging from the speed with which the dogs were able to drag it.

  The birds kept pace overhead, skittering and darting across the sky. By comparison, the vultures in the Crimea had been more complacent, soaring in great lazy circles, and even occasionally roosting in the tops of the desiccated trees as the columns marched by. With their wings folded about their smudged brown bodies, and their beady black eyes, they watched and waited for the next soldier, mad from the heat, dying of thirst, to stumble out of formation and crumple in a heap by the wayside. Their wait was never long. Sinclair, plodding along on an emaciated Ajax, could only look on as the infantrymen first dropped their hats, then their coats, then their muskets and ammunition, as they struggled to keep up. The ones who had contracted cholera could be seen writhing in the dirt, clutching their stomachs, begging for water, begging for morphine, and sometimes simply begging for a bullet to end their agony. As soon as their suffering stopped, and they at last lay still, the vultures would flap their foul wings and plop onto the ground beside them. After a tentative peck or two, simply to make sure of things, the birds would set to with their hooked beaks and claws.

  Once, unable to restrain himself, Sinclair had taken a shot at one-blowing it to pieces in a burst of bloody feathers-but Sergeant Hatch had immediately cantered up, listing in his own saddle, and warned him against doing that again.

  “It's a waste of ammunition, and might even alert the enemy to our movements.”

  Sinclair had laughed. How could the enemy not be aware of their movements? There were sixty thousand men on the march, raising a cloud of dust into the sky, and ever since disembarking, they had been crawling slowly across the vast plains and the thorn and bramble-covered thickets of the Crimea. They had met the enemy at the banks of the River Alma, and the infantry had gallantly scaled mountains in the face of withering fire from the Russian batteries, capturing redoubts and sending the defenders fleeing.

  But the cavalry-the 17th Lancers among them-had done nothing. By orders of Lord Raglan, the Commander in Chief, the cavalry was to be “kept in a bandbox”-those very words had circulated through the ranks-guarded and preserved so that they might protect the cannons and perhaps one day, if the army ever arrived there, help in the conquest of the Russian fortress of Sebastopol. For Sinclair, the entire campaign had so far been one long series of humiliations and delays. And at night, when they bivouacked in some mosquito-infested glade, he hardly had to speak to Rutherford or Frenchie; they all knew what the others were thinking, and they were usually too weary to do much more than swallow their rum, choke down their uncooked salt pork, and search desperately for some spring or pond where they could water their horses and fill their canteens.

  In the morning, the men who had fallen sick in the night were loaded onto transport wagons, while the dead were quickly consigned to shallow mass graves. The stench of death traveled with the British army wherever it went, and Sinclair had despaired of ever scrubbing it off of his own skin.

  “Sinclair,” Eleanor said, her head turned toward him now from the sled, “I see something ahead. Do you see it?” She raised an arm and pointed feebly to the northwest.

  He could see it, too, a clutter of black buildings, and a ship-a steamer, from the looks of it-beached on the shoreline. But was this place inhabited? And if so, by whom? Friend or foe?

  He reined in the dogs and approached more slowly. But the closer he got, the more confident he became. There was no smoke from a chimney, no lanternlight shining in a window, no clatter of pots or pans. There was no sign of life whatsoever. The dogs, however, seemed well acquainted with the place and trotted into the labyrinth of frozen alleyways and dark, abandoned buildings with complete aplomb, bringing the sled to a halt in the middle of a wide and utterly desolate yard. The new lead dog-a gray beast with a broad white stripe, like a scarf, around his neck-turned and watched Sinclair for further instructions.

  Sinclair dismounted, and seeing a clawed device between the runners, he stomped on it, hard, and felt its teeth dig into the ice and frozen soil. A bolt of pain shot up his leg, reminding him of the bite he'd received; the dog had torn right through his riding
boot, leaving a flap of blood-tinged leather hanging loose.

  Eleanor stirred in the sled, and said, in a voice as bleak as the surroundings, “Where have we come to?”

  Sinclair looked around, at the warehouses and massive, abandoned machines-in one open shed, he could see huge iron vats, big enough to boil a team of oxen in, and a web of rusted chains and pulleys. There were train tracks, barely visible here and there, crisscrossing the yard, and iron wheelbarrows even more enormous than the ones he had once seen at the coal mines in Newcastle. Everything had been built with a purpose in mind-a plainly utilitarian one-and that purpose had been the making of money. The only way to do that, in a place so remote and forbidding, was by fishing or sealing or whaling. And on a grand scale. A black locomotive engine, covered with ice like a thin glaze of marzipan, sat at the end of a rusted track. There must have been twenty or thirty buildings scattered across the frozen plain, their windows cracked, their doors hanging off the hinges, and rising atop the hill at the rear Sinclair could see a spire, with a toppled cross.

  For a second, it gave him pause… then it kindled a spark of defiance.

  He stomped with his uninjured leg on the brake lever, and after a couple of tries he could feel it release.

  “Onward!” he cried to the dogs, and at first they hesitated, but when he shouted again and shook the reins, they pulled at their harness and moved forward.

  “Where are we going?” Eleanor asked.

  “Up the hill.”

  “Why?” she asked, in an uncertain tone.

  He knew what she was thinking. “Because it's the high ground,” he offered, “and affords the best vantage point.”

  He knew that she suspected another reason.

  The dogs threaded their way past what looked like a deserted blacksmith's shop-there were forges and anvils and lances almost as long as the one he had carried into battle-and a mess hall with long trestle tables, some with frozen candles still sitting on tin dishes. The candles, he thought, he might want to come back for.