She caught herself on the worktable and once again made some space between them, careful to keep moving, bobbing and swaying, her hands held up to shield her head. Protect the computer, she heard her teacher say. Don’t let them hit you in the head. She circled him, analyzing his attack. He was a brawler, and she guessed he’d had no formal training, probably just had fights in bars. A bent nose testified to at least one fight that hadn’t gone too well for him over the years.
He grabbed a crowbar off one of the worktables and came at her, swinging it down hard. She dove to the side and the crowbar crashed down on the opposite table. Tools and objects rattled there and he brought the weapon down again, narrowly missing her. The metal bar smashed the objects on the table. She saw with dismay that he’d struck the phone. Plastic and circuitry went flying, and despair gripped Alex at the sight of her lifeline destroyed.
When he charged her again, she deftly moved to the side, once more using his momentum against him. Grabbing his arm as he passed by her, she directed him straight toward the other workbench, where he cracked his head on the corner of the table. Dazed, he staggered and turned to face her. She kicked the crowbar from his grip and used the advantage of his being stupefied to come in with a straight blast, a furious rain of blows to his chest. He grunted and she moved in, headbutting him under the chin and then sticking her thumbs into his eye sockets. He cried out as she took him down to the ground, then twisted him around in a chokehold, squeezing his throat in the crook of her arm until he passed out.
She leaned back, gasping for air, sweat beading on her back. She certainly wasn’t cold anymore. Not knowing how long he was going to be out, she had to act fast. She grabbed his arms and dragged him into the cage room. Pulling him into one of the empty cells, she let him slump to the floor. On his belt hung a small Maglite. She grabbed it, then went through his pockets, finding a folding knife, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a ring of keys, and his wallet. She took his ID out of it. He wasn’t local, but was from Boise, Idaho. She remembered him commenting that he’d been up here a week, and the man on the radio commenting that “they” were going to be there tomorrow.
Who were they?
She looked around her. More animals? Hunters to kill the animals? She imagined an operation like this was a complex one. They’d have to have deep pockets and myriad connections to smuggle animals like these and keep it all quiet. It made her sick.
She pocketed his ID, then yanked off his parka and put it on. At least she’d be warm now. She swung the cage door shut and it locked automatically. Then she returned to the phone.
It was bad, lying in pieces, wires severed, soldered points broken. It was destroyed beyond repair.
Twenty-Four
Immediately she began a search for another phone. She rummaged through drawers and shelves but came up empty. Then she expanded her search to the other three buildings on the property. As she went outside, she looked at the utility lines coming in. With a sinking heart, she saw that only the cage building had a phone line. The rest were power lines. But maybe she could find a radio or a satellite phone. Cliff’s keys let her into the other structures. The house was more like a small lodge with stylish mountain decor. It sported a huge stone fireplace and private rooms, each with its own bathroom. A game room with a billiard table hosted shelves of board games and books. She wondered if this was where “they” would be staying.
But there were no radios or sat phones.
At the next building, she struggled in the dark to find the right key, fumbling with the flashlight. At last she found it. As she entered, a strange mix of decay, sawdust, and chemicals met her nostrils. She shined the light around, the breath seizing in her throat.
All around her, exotic animal skins had been stretched on racks to dry. She recognized a cheetah skin and the hide from a grizzly, probably the one she’d found in the freezer. Several worktables were strewn with tools of the taxidermy trade: jawsets, glass eyes, containers of pickling agents. A roll of pH paper leaned against one wall. A mounted saiga antelope’s head looked almost finished. A dama gazelle head was in the process of being hung on a wooden plaque. Her stomach lurched as she saw a completed full elephant that took up the back section of the building. It had been posed in a charging stance.
She searched drawers for a sat phone or radio. Nothing. She left, feeling dizzy, the scent of chemicals and the sight of so many endangered animals making her head spin. She hurried out of the building, gorge rising in her throat.
The last structure on the property was a maintenance shed. She explored it, finding only shelves full of gasoline and a portable generator.
She returned to the building with the cages. Not sure how long she had before the men on the quads returned, she tested the cage doors, finding them all locked. She tried all of Cliff’s keys, but none of them worked. She turned on the garden hose and put water in each of the animals’ bowls. They all immediately drank, and she topped off the bowls when they finished. She looked angrily at Cliff in his cage, still knocked out, and wanted to leave him there to starve or go thirsty like they were doing to these animals. She had to get help. Figure out a way to free them.
Finding an old plastic soda bottle, she rinsed it out and filled it with water, drinking gratefully. After downing two full bottles, she refilled it and placed it in her jacket pocket.
Then she pictured the layout of the land around her. The nearest possible communication was the Snowline lodge, but she couldn’t risk going there, not with the chance of a sniper. And now she had not only herself to think of, but all these animals, whose fates now rested in her hands. The next-closest communication possibility was the radio at the gondola restaurant. She’d have to climb in the dark. At least she had the flashlight now, though she’d have to be careful to conserve the batteries in the cold, and not reveal her location with the beam.
She returned to the room with all the hanging gear and nabbed a hat, gloves, and a waterproof jacket and pants to go over her clothes and stolen parka.
She was just going through the shelves in a utility closet, stuffing her pockets with extra batteries, when she heard the quads roaring in the distance, getting closer. The men were coming back.
Twenty-Five
Alex stole out of the back of the building before the quads came into view. Moving quickly to the safety of the trees, she didn’t stop, wanting to make as much distance as possible. The quads’ motors cut out and she heard Tony shout, “Cliff!” She glanced back to see Gary getting off his quad, rubbing his hands together to warm them.
“Cliff, where the hell are you?” Tony shouted again.
As soon as they found Cliff locked up in the cage, they’d probably set off again, knowing she was nearby. She had to gain more distance and fast.
The snow was really falling now, and she was grateful for the waterproof jacket and pants. The Snowline Restaurant radio room would mean a steep climb, but moving over a couple of ridges meant she could reach the old path of the gondola, keeping to the edge of the trees, out of sight.
Behind her, she heard shouting, but couldn’t make it out. Tony was probably cursing after finding Cliff.
Steadily she climbed upward through a stretch of trees, careful to step over fallen logs and avoid rocks. She didn’t dare turn on her flashlight, not knowing if other gunmen were nearby. Now that the ground was covered with a dusting of snow, it was easier to see obstacles. But it also meant that her tracks were visible. She hoped that the snow would start falling faster, masking her movements.
She had to move more slowly now than before, her boots sliding in spots in the snow. She wondered how much was due to fall. If it got really deep, she’d be slowed to an agonizing pace. But for now, at least, it wasn’t too bad.
She thought of the climb ahead, if there would be anyone waiting for her up there. Hopefully they’d think she would head to the main road for help, that she’d move closer to civilization instead of away from it. And they didn’t know she’d overheard that someone w
as waiting for her at the Snowline. They might still think she would head that way after striking out at the compound.
Ahead of her lay a break in the trees, a meadow with several snow-covered boulders. She was just about to skirt around it when one of the boulders moved. She froze.
The boulder shifted and then stood up on four legs, swinging a head in her direction. A long white snout with a black nose sniffed the air. She was upwind of it. Alex blinked in disbelief.
It was a polar bear.
It came toward her, following her scent. She started to back away slowly, just a step at a time, but it was determined to check her out and reached her quickly. Their eyes met. Running would be a stupid idea; she knew that. But she didn’t sense any aggression from it, more that it was curious.
A wave of exhilaration swept through her. She wasn’t afraid. If she’d encountered this bear before going to the compound, she would have been completely thrown. But now a likely scenario formed in her mind. The men released these animals to hunt them. The men who were coming the next day were going to hunt this bear, maybe others. So they’d released it ahead of time to make the hunt more challenging. Or maybe a couple of them had gotten out by accident. The gorilla had been loose for some time; maybe the polar bear had, too. They could even have escaped during the same mishap.
The bear continued to sniff the air, then turned and walked away. She watched it lumber across the clearing and disappear into the forest beyond.
Steeling herself, she continued to climb upward, her mind turning over what she’d seen. So these men probably collected animals from a variety of sources—smuggled from the wild, kidnapped, as in the case of the gorilla, some maybe even bought from circuses, like the elephant. Then they brought them out here and invited men to hunt them, giving them an opportunity to hunt a lion or rhino without paying for an expensive ticket to another continent. Anger rose within her. She wondered if the organizers released animals arbitrarily and hunters signed on if they wanted to kill a cheetah or panda, or if the hunters could choose which animals they wanted to kill, like selecting an item off a menu. Her face grew hot as she climbed. She would get out of this situation and nail these fuckers.
She continued to move through the forest as the snow started to fall harder. Looking behind her, she hoped that her earlier tracks were getting covered.
Then she heard the distant humming of a quad. She pinpointed its position, and panic rose inside her when she realized it was heading in her direction. Her tracks would give her away. She glanced around, trying to think of a solution. She couldn’t hide in a tree, because her tracks would lead straight up to it. She needed a place where a quad couldn’t go. Glancing to the north, she saw a boulder field at the edge of the trees. Jogging that way, she stepped over fallen branches and skirted bushes until she reached it.
The boulders were huge, remnants of an ancient rockslide. She had to enter and then make some distance before the quad reached her location.
She moved quickly into the boulder field, but the wet, snow-covered rocks were incredibly slippery, and more than once she fell and had to steady herself on the cold stones. Some of the spaces between the rocks looked deep and dark. She moved carefully, testing each boulder before she put her full weight on it. The last thing she needed was to have a rock tip, sliding her into one of those holes and breaking her leg.
The terrain swept gently upward and she climbed across the cold stones, sliding on her butt across the bigger boulders. The quad was much closer now, and glancing back that way, she saw its headlights slashing through the trees. He was definitely following her tracks. The slope got steeper and she moved faster through the rocks, cutting sideways across them. At the opposite edge of the slide, the forest took over again. If she continued to follow the boulder field up to its source, it would angle her away from the Snowline Restaurant and the radio. But her detour through the rocks meant that the man on the quad would have to skirt the boulder field to find out where she’d entered the forest again, and he might not even think she did.
She had to take the chance.
Moving past the last boulder in the rockslide, she took off into the forest. The trees ended abruptly up ahead, and she found herself on the edge of a steep drop-off. Far below her, small trees dotted the snowy landscape, and she could hear the roar of a distant waterfall echoing across a valley below.
She started heading along the ridge, steadily moving toward the gondola track, though she was still quite far from it.
The snow fell even harder now, collecting in her eyelashes. She could hear that the quad had slowed. On the far side of the boulder field, she saw its headlights. It had stopped right where she’d entered the rocks. The lights were blocked out suddenly as someone walked in front of them. The rider was off the quad, searching for where she’d gone. Her delay had worked.
Not daring to stop now, she climbed along the ridge, keeping the steep drop-off several feet away to her left. To her right, a forested section swept down a hill.
The quad roared its engines and started to move again, skirting along the edge of the boulders, just as she thought he’d have to do.
He was heading uphill now, moving along the edge of the rocks, and to her horror, a sudden bright beam pierced the darkness. He had a mobile spotlight. Shining it across the boulder field, he came to a stop. He flashed the beam over the rocks, searching for her.
The quad’s motor idled and she was grateful for the noise, which muffled the sounds of her movement. She could hear the rider now, talking into a radio. Suddenly he switched off the motor. “Okay. I can hear you better now. What are you saying?”
The radio sputtered, the voice breaking up. Alex paused, wanting to hear what they were saying. She hoped illogically that they would call off the search for her. The radio squawked again and she tensed, listening, as he adjusted it. “Okay. Say again,” he spoke into it.
Over the radio, a man’s impatient voice flared up, and she recognized it. It was the same man who’d been on the radio earlier, back at the cages. Tony. “If we don’t find her before she reaches someone, we need to get back to the compound pronto. We’ll have to move the evidence.”
“We don’t have the trucks up here.”
“Then we’ll move the ones we can. The rest we’ll have to destroy.”
“That’s a lot of money you’re talking about.”
“Would you rather go to jail? We can always get more animals.”
“I guess,” the rider said. “But I’m close. I don’t think we need to worry about all that.” He pocketed his radio and started up the quad again. This man wasn’t Gary, nor was he built like Cliff. How many were there?
Picking up her pace, Alex jogged along the ridgeline. Maybe he’d think she was crouched down in some space in the rocks. He crept along in the quad, moving it forward in spurts, flashing the light. He shined the beam upward, and she realized he was following the track of the disturbed snow across the boulder field, tracing it to where she’d returned to the trees. If only more time had elapsed, fresh snow would have covered it. But he’d come upon her trail too soon.
She started to run. The quad’s engine roared up again as he left the edge of the boulders, pushing the quad up to the ridge, heading exactly toward the route she’d taken.
She slid in the snow, moving too quickly, and knew she had to slow down. But slowing down meant him catching up to her. Panic seizing her, she hit a drifted patch of snow and her feet went out from under her. She slid down a few feet, seeing a mound of snow in front of her move suddenly. Two black eyes stared out. It was the polar bear, and she’d almost slid right into it.
Startled, the bear ran a few feet away from her, then stopped to look back. It now stood between her and the path of the steadily approaching quad. She scrambled to her feet, boots sliding in the snow. Keeping her eye on the bear, she edged toward the drop-off, wondering if she could somehow lower herself over it. The man certainly couldn’t follow in the quad. She thought of tracing her track
s backward and going off the side from an earlier point, hoping to fool the man into thinking she’d continued on.
But now the quad was getting too close. She didn’t have time to do that. Soon its lights would hit her. She braced herself for a fight, but knew he probably had a gun. She’d have to be close to him, close enough to disarm him.
The polar bear turned toward the noise of the quad, looking alarmed and agitated by its loud, whining engine. Alex’s eyes fell on the long, smooth shape of a fallen tree limb under the snow. She raced to it and picked it up. It was light enough for her to wield, and long enough that she could maybe strike him from afar.
The quad reached the ridgeline and gunned its motor. It was close now, only twenty feet away. She crouched as the headlights hit her. The polar bear was closer, bathed in the blinding glare. It reared up. She couldn’t see the driver through the dazzling light, only the polar bear silhouetted there, its massive body blocking the view, front paws in the air. The rider saw it and called out, “Shit!”
With a powerful swipe of its left paw, the bear struck.
She heard the engine suddenly cut down to an idle. The headlights tilted crazily, the muscled body of the bear blocking out one of the beams, and then the whole machine went over the edge. A piercing scream rang out, descending in volume as the man plummeted downward. A gun went off. The scream stopped abruptly and she heard the quad crash on rocks far below.
She stood there, branch in hand, her retinas burned from staring into the headlights. The bear slumped back to all fours and stared down, then continued its way along the ridge, moving in the opposite direction.
A Solitude of Wolverines Page 23
