The bunkhouse heater appeared to have given up the small ghost of warmth it had previously offered, but once she doffed her parka and slid into the giant sleeping bag, her warmth instantly returned. She pulled off her outer layer of thermal underwear, rolled it up for a pillow, put her head on it, and then rolled over so that the part of the sleeping bag that had been designed to lie underneath her head would instead lie atop it like a hood, covering her face. She did not wish to talk with anyone who came into the bunkhouse that night.
What seemed like hours later, she still lay awake as, one at a time, the others came in, each taking pains to be quiet except Willy, who, as he climbed into the bunk above her, put one huge stockinged foot up against her neck and rocked the bunk bed like he was trying to wrestle it to the ground. Fleetingly she wondered if the bed would take his weight. At length, the muffled sounds of sleep filled the room, and someone began to snore. Valena lay awake on into the night, wondering what, if anything, she could do to help Emmett Vanderzee—or, for that matter, herself.
27
DAVE LAY IN HIS SLEEPING BAG LISTENING TO THE SOFT sounds of breathing coming from the bunks all around him, trying to decide which inhalations and exhalations might be Valena’s. The knowledge that she lay somewhere quite near him worked on him like an electric current, burning him wide awake.
He had drunk more than made good sense, trying to douse that fire, but instead, it had loosened his inhibitions and addled his thoughts. He had tried being the last one to walk out to the bunkhouse, letting the wind whip at his open jacket, hoping thereby to dispel what he was feeling, but the experience had only excited him further. The wild brilliance of the Antarctic midnight had glistened off the distant mountains, and he had lifted his eyes to see if he could catch a glimpse of the moon. He missed this nearest celestial body while on the ice; somehow, he could never spot it, and by this late into the Antarctic spring, the position of the sun began to lose meaning also. All spring it spiraled upward into the sky, and, making its zenith by late December, it then began its lazy descent back toward the horizon. He was sure that, no matter how many seasons he returned to the ice, he would never get used to this strange fact of the interaction of sun, earth, and latitude.
You’re an incurable romantic, he told himself. Then, a darker voice within spoke: you come all the way down here and it doesn’t change a thing. You’re in paradise and you’ll screw it up. And she won’t want you with your past. Give up.
Now, lying in the darkness, he took these thoughts and pressed them like a nail through his consciousness, trying to keep his mind and heart from wandering, but thoughts of her uncertain smile filled his imagination. He listened, imagining that he could hear her breath flowing in and out of her strong, curvaceous body.
Was she dreaming? What dreams did she dream, lying so close to him? Or was she awake, listening to him breathing, too? Did she feel one tenth the attraction he felt for her? Or did she avoid him because she found him unacceptable, uneducated, rough? He liked to think it was because she was shy, or perhaps distracted with the problems his roommate Matt had told him about. Imagine, coming all the way down here only to find that ol’ Emmett had been jailed.
During the long day driving the snow machines and Challenger along the trail from Mac Town to Black Island, he had caught glimpses of her. How fine and competent she had looked driving that Delta! And when she’d climbed onto that snow machine, she’d taken to it like a rodeo queen. She had a natural grace. He liked her determination, her will, her desire to learn.
But she was not from his place in life. She had a degree from a university and was working to get another. She would come to know a man who worked beside her in some laboratory and smile at him someday, and that would be that.
But it was more than that. Coming to Antarctica with Emmett meant that she had found that one break in a million that would put her on top, and she would know prestige. He had walked across the university campus near his hometown, watching from afar as regally dressed people strolled into gala celebrations overflowing with class and confidence. With his thick workman’s hands and sun-leathered skin, he could never walk that walk, and though he counted himself as reasonably intelligent and read as much and as often as he could, he could never talk that talk. With her grace and intellect, she would climb that ladder with ease.
Or perhaps she had been born to it, and driving the Delta was the exception to the rule. He imagined that her exotic looks spoke of the union of two professors at some foreign institute and a patrician upbringing.
The truth was that he knew almost nothing about her. Matt had had little to report from his evening with her at the Tractor Club, except that she had once driven an antique tractor on her grandfather’s farm. She had probably said little else. It seemed her style.
Willy began to snore. Dave let out a breath, wondering why the man had ever been hired, much less hired back for a second season. Where had he learned such ham-fisted handling of equipment? The army? Another place that Dave had never been. His had been the lot to leave school early. He’d picked up his GED a few years later. It hadn’t been hard to do. Getting along in the world after his drunken father had thrown him out at sixteen had been a whole lot harder.
He’d done well, considering, he knew that, but still, the limitations of his rough beginning had narrowed his options to just about exactly what he was doing. No matter. He loved Antarctica, and that would have to do.
He closed his eyes and turned onto his side, letting his arm curl up around his opposite shoulder, and waited until the comfort of tired muscles drew him into sleep.
28
VALENA AWOKE EARLY IN THE DARKNESS OF THE BUNKhouse, uncertain of the time. For a while she lay wrapped in the suddenly cloying warmth of her sleeping bag, trying to regain the escape that night should bring, but the grip of whatever had awakened her only increased. Had she been dreaming? She could not recall, but she felt a gnawing at her gut just like too many times in childhood when she’d awake in the night in a room with all the cousins. She told herself that wasn’t it. Had the heat finally come on in the desperate old heater in the corner of the room? No, it was the wind. It had stopped, lessening the advective draw on the heater’s capacities.
At length the sure knowledge that she would not get back to sleep descended upon her and she looked at her watch. It was 5:36 a.m., far too late to dig into her tiny toilet kit in search of the over-the-counter sleep aid she should have taken the evening before. She wasn’t a chronic insomniac, but she had to admit that over the past year or so—since when? since starting graduate school?—she had risen early and nervous with increasing frequency.
The only thing for it was to get up and start her day. But her day was under the control of others—their schedule, and that of the weather. These thoughts added to her anxieties.
She decided to head over to the station house. There would be water for tea there, or coffee. She wiggled out of her bag so as not to make a noise letting down the zipper, dressed quickly, and headed out the door and across the yard.
Outside, the world was bright and rugged and still. The cold air wakened her further. She could see a hundred miles or more in all directions. To the south and west, the Transantarctic Mountains danced in glistening splendor, and to the north, across the stretch of sea ice, lay Ross Island, on which McMurdo languished. The island was a meringue of ice sliding in its infinitely slow pace downhill toward the sea. Beyond McMurdo Station, Mount Erebus raised its angry fist in constant eruption, marked this morning by a trail of vapor that slid away to the west. She had not previously seen it completely naked, devoid of its customary veils of clouds, and it was the first time in her life she had seen an actual volcanic eruption. She stared at it, for a moment not breathing, then turned slowly on one heel and absorbed her surroundings in one long panorama. In answer, the scene wrapped its majesty about her heart and kept it for its own.
She was still high from this experience ten minutes later as she slipped quietly into t
he kitchen in search of a way to warm herself. She found tea, cups, and a container of honey laid out right next to a self-heating teapot. As she plugged in the pot, she heard someone moving beyond the heavy drapes that separated the room from the sleeping quarters beyond.
The station manager emerged, shuffling slowly in a pair of fuzzy slippers with leopard spots, his eyes swollen from sleep. “Howja sleep?” His voice rasped with early morning and too much drink the evening before.
“Okay.”
“Yer lying.”
“Yeah.”
“Sucks.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Find whatcha need?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He arched his well-padded body into a stretch, moaning. “Sheila said to tell you there’s an e-mail message for ya. She printed it out.” He pointed with his elbow toward the computer stand.
Valena grabbed the page and sat down on the couch.
Sheila had folded it three times, stapled it as many times across the middle, and written VALENA on it. Quickly, she picked out the staples, unfolded it, and read it. It was from Cal Hart.
You’re looking to talk to everyone who was at Emmett’s camp last season. I join you in wanting to know the truth. I can’t tell you how shocked I am that Emmett was not here on my arrival. Please e-mail back saying when you’ll be in from BI and I’ll meet you at Crary. Cal
Well, check that one off the list of suspects, thought Valena, and then, an instant later, But maybe this is a con, a try at misdirection! She turned toward the station manager, who was now scratching at his armpits and belly. “Can I use this computer to send an e-mail?” she asked.
He swept one arm in a small but regal bow to indicate that it was hers for the asking. “But you won’t get through, at least not right away.”
“Why not?”
“Some asshole’s switched the dish off.”
“Someone turned off the dish?”
“Yeah. You know, back in the wiring room, where they’ve got that little laptop that controls our universe. Someone’s decided it’s funny to go in there and play God over all of McMurdo. Punched the two keys. We’re incommunicado with the outside world until our techs wake up.”
“Has it been off all night?”
“I suppose so. I found it the last thing, as I was making my rounds before I went to bed.”
“But who would want to do that?”
“Well, I sure didn’t do it, and Sheila wouldn’t, so it was probably one of you idiots, and as you can see, I’m not yet dressed to greet the world, so unless you’d like to sashay over to the bunkhouse and shake sleeping bags until you find the right guy, then we’ll just have to wait. Meanwhile, you can send your messages, but they just won’t reach their targets until we get the system back up.”
Valena sat down in the task chair in front of the computer desk and turned on the machine. It was old and booted slowly. While she waited, she looked again at Cal’s note, and then more closely at the paper on which it had been printed. Some of the holes through which the staples had been punched had been punched twice, slightly widening the holes.
Somebody had read her message and had tried to reclose it without being caught.
Sheila emerged from her room, scowling like she had a headache as she approached the task of making breakfast, but as Valena opened her mouth to speak to her, one of the men who was working with the satellite dish came in from the bunkhouse and spoke first, wishing Sheila a good morning.
“Screw you and the horse you rode in on,” Sheila snarled in return. “All your fault with that cheap New Zealand pinot.”
The man laughed. “No one told you to mix it with whiskey.”
“And now ye’re my father. Ye want breakfast, or are ye thinking maybe ye’d rather a day without food?”
“Eggs over easy,” he said.
“We have no fresh eggs and ye know it. Ye’ll have mummified bacon and waffles like the rest of us mortals.”
The station manager wandered back into the room and addressed the tech. “Oh, so you decided to get up, did you? Well, some bozo turned your system off during the night. Would you mind turning it back on? The lady here is trying to e-mail her pen pals, and I’m sure that little research station down there on Ross Island would like to get back in touch with the real world, too.”
The tech was busy sucking up coffee. He stared at the manager over the mug. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m Mary Poppins. And Sheila, you’ve got to quit showing people how to switch the damned thing off. It was only a matter of time before someone decided to muck with it.”
The tech wandered back toward the wiring room, grumbling.
Valena watched the station manager’s progress toward the coffeepot, hoping that he would leave the room for a while. She wanted desperately to speak to Sheila again, to ask her when she had left the note and who might possibly have opened it. To ask a thousand questions. But she needed privacy, too and that was a scarce quantity here in Antarctica.
She turned and looked at the cook, who was now opening a rasher of precooked bacon that she had left thawing on the kitchen counter the evening before. Feeling Valena’s eyes on her, she looked up. She was not smiling. She lifted a long, sharp knife, the type used to chop large amounts of vegetables, and brought it down with authority.
Valena returned her gaze to the computer, which was finally ready. Hoping that no one would look over her shoulder at what was on the screen, she opened her e-mail to write to Cal but found other messages waiting for her that interested her much more. The first was from Em Hansen:
Valena, I thought I told you to quit. Oh well, if you insist on being as stupid as I am, here’s my next best recommendation: stick with evidence that only you can understand, and gather it in a way that looks like you’re only doing the job you were actually sent there to do. You have your undergraduate degree in geology, right? Well, think Sherlock Holmes. Was there any dirt in the dead man’s shoes? Where did it come from? Where else did he get to? But watch your back. It’s so easy to get all het up with crime being wrong that one forgets that, while the tragedy has already occurred, it’s a gift that can keep on giving. Stay safe (hah), Em
Valena tucked that bit of wisdom into her brain and opened the next message. It was from James Skehan, dated Wednesday evening:
Valena
Thought you might like an update regarding Emmett. He has been formally charged with murdering Sweeny which we both know is a crock. I need to talk with you as soon as you get back here Thursday. I’m going to check out a beeper, so call me on it the moment you get in. I’ll leave the number on your desk in Crary. Meanwhile, watch your back and don’t ask questions while on the trail. You are traveling with two possible suspects.
Jim
Valena closed this message immediately. She sat back and tried to think. Should she reply? In her haze of fatigue, she could not sort out what to think about any of the messages or what to write in a return. As she sat still, listening to her heartbeat pounding in her ears, all possibilities jammed on one logistical particular: she did not know when she would be arriving back in McMurdo. She was not in charge of that schedule. No one is in charge of anything in Antarctica. The continent itself is in charge!
“How’d you sleep?” Edith asked as she sat down at the table. She looked fresh as the proverbial daisy.
Valena squeezed her eyes shut. “Fine.”
“Nothing like a day of good physical work to tucker you out.”
“Right.”
“Go get your gear together out of the bunkhouse and then come and have breakfast. We’ll be loading up the empties to take back to Mac Town and be getting on the road ASAP. There’s another storm coming, and I want to be in Gallagher’s with a pool cue in my hands when it hits.”
“Check.” Valena logged off the computer and headed for the bunkhouse. Outside, she could see what Edith was talking about. The southern horizon was studded with clouds, and the wind was again rising.
The other two satellite technicians strode toward her across the yard from the bunkhouse, heads lowered against the blow. She hurried past them to the bunkhouse and pushed open the door, nearly colliding with Wee Willy, who was on his way out, duffel over his shoulder and fake-fur hand warmer dangling in front of the expansive front of his Carhartts. For the briefest of moments, he made eye contact with her. “Thanks again for picking this up,” he said, patting the wad of fuzz.
Valena blinked in surprise. His eyes and voice had been filled with surprise, confusion, shy affection, and… she struggled to evaluate the last ingredient… longing.
Inside the bunkhouse, Hilario and Dave were just stuffing the last bits of personal gear into their duffels. “Hola, chica!” said Hilario. “Ready for another day of stoop labor?”
“Uh, sure.”
“See you at breakfast, then. Last one gets no bacon.” He brushed by her and left the building.
Suddenly she was alone with Dave. He looked up at her, smiling a sleepy good-morning smile. The low light in the room made his features softer, more intimate, and the fact that he was rolling up a sleeping bag with his large, thick-fingered hands added an entirely tactile aspect to their meeting.
She moved to her bunk and began doing the same. Turned her back to him. Pushed the silky fabric of the sleeping bag into the big duffel in which it had come.
Dave spoke. “Edith says you’d like to learn to drive the Challenger.”
“Um, well… yes.”
“Then it’s a date.”
For the space of several heartbeats, the only sounds in the room were the slithering of fabric being shoved into duffels and zippers being zipped. She heard his footsteps as he crossed the floor. The door opened, flooding the room with light.
In Cold Pursuit vw-1 Page 24
