Buried Alive! (4 page)

N
icky took a careful step down and gently guided Ashley toward the ground. Her skin was tinged the same color as the clouds that were beginning to collect at the edge of the sky, and her mouth was clamped in a firm line. When she caught sight of Jack, she gave a feeble “Hey, Bro” followed by “I don't feel so good.” Her hand hovered around her mouth as she gingerly stepped down from the stool onto the airstrip.

“Why didn't Dad stay with you?” Jack demanded.

“Because she told him she'd be fine,” Nicky answered. Then, to Ashley, he murmured, “Come on, you just need some air. Breathe deep. Yeah, that's the way. You're gonna keep it all down. The secret is in the way you breathe.”

Jack stared at them. He hadn't zipped up his coat, and the cold bit into him with icy stabs. It felt good. Bitter air to kill the heat rising inside him. Nicky must have noticed the expression on Jack's face because his arm suddenly dropped to his side. “Hey, what's the matter with you?” he asked. “You look like you wanna hit somebody.”

“Nothing's the matter with me,” Jack snapped. “Ashley, come over here. I want to talk to you. Alone!” he added when Nicky began walking with her.

“Whoa, man, whatever you say.” Nicky took a step back and held up his hands, palms forward.

With more force than he meant, Jack grabbed Ashley's elbow and steered her to the other side of the plane where they could have some privacy. As they passed the plane's tail, he smelled the faint, acrid odor of fuel. They circled to the other side, around a grimy brown rim of snow darkened by a mixture of spruce needles and dirt. Once hidden behind the plane, Jack whirled around to ask, “What was that?”

Ashley stared at him, wide-eyed. “What was what?”

“That…thing…with Nicky.” He punched the air with his finger. “Back there. He had his arm around you.”

“So?” A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I was sick.”

“That's not what it looked like to me!”

“I almost puked, OK? Nicky was helping.”

“Yeah, helping himself.”

In an instant laughter exploded from his sister, a giant guffaw. “Are you kidding? I mean, you're not serious! You don't think—Jack, he was just being nice!”

“You're only 11,” Jack sputtered, embarrassed because his sister wasn't taking him more seriously. He could feel the heat rise in his cheeks, could feel that he was coloring up. For some reason, that made him all the madder. “I don't like him. I don't trust him. And now you're—he's—”

Straightening, Ashley said, “I'm 11 and a half.”

Jack snorted. He pulled his jacket tight around his chest. He didn't know what he'd expected to have happen because he hadn't thought it through that far. But one thing was for sure: He hadn't bargained on the look of merriment in his sister's eyes.

Ashley's dark hair hung down her back. She pulled it into a rope, then deftly twisted it into a coil and tucked it at the base of her neck. Pulling up her hood, she said, “You know what? You're being stupid.” She jerked the strings together and tied them tightly underneath her chin. “And you want to know what else? You're wrong.

I like Nicky. He's really, really nice, and he's smart, and he knows an awful lot about all the CIA stuff.”

“He's been telling you that garbage again?”

“It's not garbage. It's real. You know what I noticed on the plane? Nicky sat right next to the window, and when the light hit it, his hair almost glowed.”

Jack's mind flashed on Nicky's copper-colored hair, meticulously combed back from his face. “So? What about it?”

“It's dyed. He could tell I was looking, so he whispered that he had to change his appearance so that the spies wouldn't recognize him. His real hair is black. I could see just the tiniest beginnings of roots right along his part, so I know he's telling the truth. Can you believe he has to hide like that? I mean, wow.” Her mouth made the shape of an O.

“Ashley, lots of kids dye their hair. A lot of them dye it green with blue dots. It doesn't prove anything.”

“It does to me.”

The indignation inside Jack suddenly spread to Ashley. He was about to tell her what he thought about Nicky and his bizarre story and the fact that she was taken in by it when he heard their father calling from the knot of rangers. Jack looked toward the direction of Steven's voice. He could see movement beyond the plane, just the feet of the rangers and his parents and Nicky, walking off in pairs or singly. From where he stood, the body of the plane blocked their torsos, creating a strange effect. It seemed as if he were watching the legs of a gigantic centipede.

“Jack, you've got to give Nicky a chance,” Ashley stated. “Please? The thing is, I don't want to fight with you. I want to have fun on the dogsled trip, and it won't be fun if you're all mad. OK?”

Jack's eyes swung back to his sister. The color had returned to her skin, especially at the tip of her nose. He heard their names called out again, this time by their mother, and he realized there was nothing more to say because there was no time to say it. “I'm not mad,” he stated flatly. “I'm…angry.”

“Like there's a difference? So get over it.” She gave Jack one of her sudden smiles, threading her arm through his. They began to walk toward the others.

As she pulled him along, she told him what the ranger had shared on the plane, that the part they sat in on the dogsled was called a basket and that they would be able to see Denali from Wonder Lake and did he know that the name Denali was Athapascan and it meant the “high one?” As they tramped through the snow, Jack tried to make his face unreadable. Ashley could think what she liked, he argued inside his head. Nicky was lying. He could feel it. He was as sure of it as he was of the cold seeping in through his open coat.

The entire group was waiting for them at the northwest end of the airstrip, chatting beneath a small lean-to shelter made of some kind of rough-hewn fir. Steven waved Ashley toward him.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Better.”

“Good. Everyone, you've already met Nicky. This is our daughter, Ashley, and our son, Jack.”

“Hi, guys!” a specialist named Audrey Magoun said. Audrey shook Jack's hand, and even through his gloves he could feel her strong grip. “Your friend Nicky here's already been telling us he's not used to such frigid temperatures, especially in April. But that's Denali for you.”

“Where I come from it's starting to be spring. So what would you say the temperature is out here, anyway?” Nicky asked, clapping his gloves together with a sound like percussion. “Minus one thousand?”

“Nah, we're in a heat wave,” Blake Van Horn exclaimed. “The last couple of days registered a comfy 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, this morning was still a bit nippy at zero.”

“Zero?” Nicky's eyes crinkled. “Explain to me again why we're freezing to death in the middle of nowhere for a flipping weasel.”

“Wolverine,” Ashley corrected.

“Actually, Nicky's right. The wolverine is a weasel of sorts—it belongs to the weasel family, Mustelidae,” Olivia told them.

Nicky's face lit up. “See, Ashley? I've done my homework. I even read a book.”

“First one?” Jack asked under his breath, but no one seemed to hear.

Holding his hand a yardstick's distance apart, Nicky went on, “The book said that even though those wolverines are only this long—three feet—they're so fierce they can jump on a caribou's back and ride it to death. Man, wolverines are tough.”

“No, no, no,” Audrey protested. “That's pure myth. It's exactly those kinds of stories that have caused the wolverine harm.”

“But I read it—”

“I realize that, but some of the older books are just plain wrong.”

They were off into a discussion of the impact of myths on the wolverine. Jack shoved his hands into his parka and stared at the frozen ground, not willing to join in since they all seemed to be talking to Nicky. It was only a few more minutes before he heard a sound, faint and soft, like distant rain. When he looked down the glossy trail, he saw a team of dogs running toward them, their feet churning up the snow in small bites. Thank goodness Chaz had arrived.

Twelve of the most beautiful animals Jack had ever seen glided up to the lean-to. There were two lead dogs, one with a black and tan muzzle and eyes so bright they looked to Jack like blue marbles. The other had a cream face and golden eyes. Behind the leads, attached to a long harness, were ten more dogs buddied up in rows of two, all with tails curling over their backs in furry question marks. The man standing behind the sled was smaller than Jack had expected, with a pointy, mouse-like face and a thin frame.

“Whoa,” he said, hopping off the runners and tipping the sled over on its side. Throwing down what looked like a half of a stirrup with metal teeth, the man stepped on the metal and ground it into the snow, as a kind of brake. Once the dogs had come to a stop they began to bark and leap against the harnesses, in a cacophony of whines and yips. Then the man extended his hand to Steven.

“Hi, I'm Chaz Green,” he said loudly. “I'm with the Wolverine Rescue Program. And you are Steve…”

“Steven Landon. I believe you spoke with my wife, Olivia.”

“Yes, I'm pleased to meet you,” Olivia exclaimed. “I'm so grateful you offered to take the kids. Necropsies can be pretty rough.”

“What's a necropsy?” Nicky whispered to Ashley.

“An animal autopsy,” she whispered back. “Mom's going to cut open the wolverine bodies to see if she can figure out how they died.” Then, to Chaz, Ashley asked, “Mr. Green, can I pet them? The dogs, I mean?”

Chaz grinned, but it was a tight smile that showed no teeth. “Sure thing, little girl. Call me Chaz. You must be Ashley, right? And that's your brother, Jack? And…who is this fine young man? Are you Nicky?”

They all nodded.

Chaz extended his hand and gave Ashley's a firm shake. “Well, Ashley, you should know that my dogs love to be rubbed behind their ears, so make sure you give them a good scratch. The lead dog with the blue eyes is named Kenai, and the tan one's name is Sasha. While you kids get acquainted with my dogs, I'll give the particulars of the times and such to your folks. After that, I promise we'll be off on the adventure of a lifetime. Deal?”

“Deal!” Ashley answered, giving a little hop.

While Chaz joined the rangers, Nicky, Jack, and Ashley began to circle the sled. Rubbing the bottom of his nose with his index finger, Nicky walked around the basket, peering into its small canvas interior. “There's not much room in that sled thing,” he sniffed. “How are we all gonna fit?”

Jack ignored the question. Instead, he went straight to the lead dogs. Some of the other dogs had dropped to the ground, rolling and grunting and yapping in the snow. The six that remained standing, including the two leads, quivered in anticipation, straining on the gang line. Jack had to agree with what Blake had told him earlier: These dogs were born to run. All they seemed to want to do was to get on the trail once more, as if their energy could barely be contained in their lean bodies. Jack scratched Kenai behind the ears, first with his gloves on and then with a bare hand. His fingers worked their way through the rough coat down to a silky under-layer. Kenai whimpered appreciatively and gave Jack's hand a tiny lick.

“Okay, kids, listen up. Here's the plan,” Chaz announced loudly. “While those scientist types are doing their work, we explorer types are going to head south to Wonder Lake. I expect to be back in four hours.”

“Four hours. I've got 11:46 a.m.,” Steven said. “So we'll meet you right here at approximately 4:00.”

Olivia raised her hand and shadowed her eyes. “Chaz, it looks like there's a storm coming in. Are you sure that's OK?”

“No worries,” Chaz assured Olivia “We're heading down south into open terrain. The storm's to the north.”

“It should be fine,” Blake affirmed. “Everyone will be back before that storm hits. I checked the weather report this morning. We're in the bubble.”

Chaz pointed into his sled. “Right under the cushions in the basket is a whole bunch of survival gear. If anything did happen, we'd be sitting pretty. But I tell you what—if any flakes start to fall, we'll come right back. I won't take any chances.”

Olivia looked to Steven, who gave a quick nod.

Righting his sled, Chaz motioned for Nicky to get into the sled basket and sit closest to him. “Ashley, you take the middle. Jack, you be in front.” When Jack began to protest, Chaz told him he thought it was best for balance to have him in front. “But Ashley won't be able to see around me!” Jack argued. “She should be in front!”

His father shot him a look and said firmly, “Son, Chaz knows what he's doing. Sit where he tells you.”

Jack sighed. How could he explain that he didn't want his sister leaning against Nicky? Lips pursed, he watched as Nicky got in first, then Ashley. Finally Jack wedged himself between his sister's legs. It was cramped inside the basket, but not too bad, except for when Nicky's big boots drilled into his sides.

“Hey, Jack, you've got a perfect view of the wrong end of a dog,” Nicky laughed.

“Reminds me of your face,” Jack replied.

Chaz placed his feet on the runners, releasing the claw brake.

“Wait!” Olivia cried. “Before you go, I have one other question that has puzzled me. I was wondering if you had an opinion on it, Chaz.”

“What's that?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“It's just that a wolverine's range is pretty huge, and they're fierce when it comes to defending their own territory. I just can't understand how two males were found so close together without a mark on either one. You found them about 20 feet apart, right? You didn't move those bodies at all?”