Melt (10 page)

Chapter Nine

Still not believing her luck, Kelly scrambled down to shore, then hurried toward the yellow house while the dogs barked frantically to warn the homeowner of the intruder.

Before she reached the house, the door opened and a squat old woman stepped out. She waited, her arms slack at her sides, her graying hair pulled tightly back behind her head. As Kelly neared, she recognized the woman as Nivi, their boat passenger from that morning. Startled, she observed the house more closely. All of the houses in Greenland looked alike to her, but it must be the same house.

She came to a stop, out of breath. “Nivi!” she blurted, as if they were old friends. “It’s you! Nivi!”

The woman pointed to herself and smiled, deeply creasing her face. “Nivi.” She nodded good-humoredly and seemed perfectly at ease, as if it was customary for people to drop by for a visit.

“I’m Kelly. Do you remember me? From the tour boat? You remember Pippa, don’t you? Pippa?” The woman showed no comprehension. “Pipaluk? My friend Pipaluk?”

“Pipaluk?” Nivi said, pointing to her own sable eyes.

“Right! Pipaluk, the one with the blue eyes.”

Nivi shook her head. She pointed at Kelly and said something that Kelly interpreted as, “You’re not Pipaluk.”

“No, no. I’m not Pipaluk. I’m Kelly.” She pointed to herself again as she said her name. “Pipaluk is in trouble. I have to call for help. Look, it doesn’t matter. Do you have a phone? A radio? A computer? Any way to get a message to somebody?”

Nivi answered in Greenlandic. Exasperated, Kelly took her phone out of her jacket pocket and held it up, noting it still had no signal. With this visual aid and hand gestures, she hoped she communicated her message when she said, “Telephone? Computer?” She made typing gestures with both hands to simulate keyboarding.

Nivi shook her head. Kelly wasn’t certain she was being understood, so she pointed past Nivi into the interior of the house and said, “Can I look around?”

Seeming to understand, Nivi stood aside and allowed Kelly into the house. It was musty, dim and cramped inside. Old furniture filled up the room and there was no sign of anything modern. No electronics, no television. After a few minutes, Kelly realized there wasn’t even electricity. A couple of oil lamps provided light. There was a wood-burning stove in the kitchen and no running water. What had she expected from a family living above the Arctic Circle miles from anyone else? She realized it had been stupid to think there was a computer here. It was possible, of course, to have a satellite connection, but if that was something of value to Nivi’s family, they wouldn’t be living like this in the first place.

She gazed into Nivi’s calm brown eyes and sighed. Why did they live like this? she wondered. A few miles north was Rodebay with electricity, a Laundromat, people to talk to. A few miles south was the modern city of Ilulissat.

Then she remembered why she was here and felt herself succumb to despair. As tears fell on her cheeks, Nivi clucked at her and looked concerned.

“I wish you could understand me,” she said. “But even if you could, what can you do with no way to call for help?”

Nivi looked solemnly at Kelly as if she were trying to read her mind, then she disappeared into another room. While she was gone, the small head of a child peered out from the doorframe, his eyes fixed on Kelly with curiosity. He must be Nivi’s grandson, Kelly assumed. She waved a greeting at him and he pulled back and disappeared from view.

When Nivi returned, she wore an overcoat and carried a rifle. Alarmed, Kelly stepped backward, wondering if she should run for her life.

Nivi spoke to her rapidly and motioned toward the door. Kelly passed through it into the daylight beyond. The old woman followed and gestured as she walked toward shore. Kelly hesitated, so Nivi gestured even more emphatically.

“What?” Kelly cried. “I don’t know what you’re saying. I have to get to Ilulissat.”

She turned and started walking away, deciding she had no other option than to continue with her original plan. Nivi caught up with her and grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her back. Kelly resisted, shaking her off, despite the rifle. She was determined not to be intimidated. She had been through hell already today and was in no mood to be messed with.

“Pipaluk!” Nivi growled, frowning intensely.

Kelly pointed north. “Pipaluk.” Then she pointed south. “I’m going that way.” She pointed at herself.

Nivi nodded as if she understood, but Kelly was sure she didn’t. Then she took hold of Kelly’s arm again and led her down to the shore. Kelly decided to let herself be manipulated until she at least knew what Nivi had in mind.

An orange tandem kayak lay on the gravel beach. Orange Blob! Kelly realized. Nivi placed her rifle in it and pushed it into the water. Then she pointed to it, urging Kelly to get in. There was no doubt about what she wanted, but there were too many ways this wasn’t a good move. Did she think the two of them should return to rescue Pippa? Was she planning on paddling all the way to Ilulissat? Not a terrible idea, Kelly realized, though Nivi was an old woman and may not have the strength for it. Maybe between them they could manage. It would be quicker and easier than walking, that was certain. Or was she just taking Kelly out on a fishing trip? In view of the rifle, Kelly reconsidered that last thought. More likely a seal hunting trip.

Hoping to persuade the kayak toward Ilulissat, Kelly tucked her backpack into the bow and got in, taking the forward seat. Nivi got in behind her and they pushed off. Nivi offered no resistance as Kelly turned the craft south. Feeling chilled, she zipped her jacket up to her neck and cinched her hood tight around her head.

They paddled smoothly over the glassy water and Kelly began to relax. This would work. In no time they would be there and a rescue team could be sent out.

But they had only been on the water ten minutes when Nivi pointed inland, into a deep, sheer-cliffed fjord and attempted to turn the kayak toward it. Kelly resisted, paddling the other way and saying, “Ilulissat!”

“No, no!” Nivi argued, shaking her head. The rest of her argument was in Greenlandic.

“What the hell!” Kelly said to herself. Then she faced Nivi and said, “Pipaluk!” She drew her index finger across her throat and made what she figured was a universal sound for a last gasp.

Nivi nodded as if she understood perfectly, then pointed into the fjord again.

They fought each other until the kayak turned uselessly in a circle and Kelly felt her arms losing strength. She stopped trying to overpower Nivi, as they were clearly going nowhere. Defeated, she sat with her paddle resting across the boat.

Nivi seemed to take that as agreement and turned them into the mouth of the fjord. It curved up ahead, so Kelly couldn’t see how far back it went. Apparently they were on a seal hunt after all. She decided she would have to get out and start walking again as soon as she could get off the water. Nivi obviously had no idea what she was trying to do and she didn’t know how to make her understand.

As they traveled deeper into the fjord, the walls on either side grew higher and closed them into a narrow and dramatic channel. The water had changed color. It was now murky, a milky greenish gray. Kelly knew what that meant. This was meltwater from a glacier. At the head of this fjord, she assumed, an arm of the inland ice flowed into the bay. The cliffs on either side of them were sheer and vertical. There was no way to walk out of here. Kelly hoped there would be a way as they got further along. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to get back on track until she could persuade Nivi to turn around and leave the fjord.

This is a nightmare, Kelly thought in exasperation. This entire day is a total nightmare.

She took up her paddle and joined Nivi in pushing the kayak deeper into the fjord. The sooner we get in here and do whatever she wants to do, she decided, the sooner we can get back out. Nivi paddled steadily, humming quietly and contentedly behind her. Her song was rhythmic and surprisingly restful.

They followed a wide curve to the left and suddenly the glacier was visible up ahead. The ice filled a high canyon and flowed down the side of a mountain to the fjord where it formed a calving front about sixty feet tall. The ice river above was striped gray, brown and white, the stripes following the contours of the canyon and revealing the flow pattern in an otherwise solid and motionless looking surface. The front of the glacier was white and cerulean blue, the pure interior that was exposed when the ice broke off. In front of the glacial tongue were several floating icebergs. This glacier wasn’t a large one. The little bergs moving through this fjord might not even make it intact to the bay. They were rapidly melting under the summer sun. As they passed close, Kelly could see rivulets of water running off them.

If she had been less anxious and preoccupied, she would have been happy to be here. She would have taken photos of this spectacular scenery. As it was, the only good news she could find in this situation was that they would soon reach the end of the waterway and would have to stop.

A dull echo from their paddles resounded off the cliff walls on either side as they glided easily on the calm surface. Nivi steered them expertly around the icebergs, still humming her melody.

It was the clang of metal that first alerted Kelly to human activity at the edge of the fjord. The sound drew her attention to a smooth, sloping moraine on the north bank. As they came around a subtle curve and the entire face of the glacier came into view, the moraine also became visible in its entirety.

Kelly’s mouth fell open as she saw a campsite with several tents erected, tables set up, people milling around and a moored motorboat at the edge of the water. She practically tipped the kayak in her excitement. She spun around to look at Nivi, who nodded up and down, grinning.

Kelly felt tears of relief come to her eyes. She paddled rapidly toward shore where two people and one tail-wagging husky came to greet them. The dog kept close to a stocky, dark-featured young man, a Greenlander, Kelly guessed. But the young woman, the blonde, was somebody Kelly already knew. It was flirty Sonja Holm from the morning tour. What a wonderful stroke of luck. Not only had Nivi taken her to people who could get help, but at least one of them was an American, so there would be no more trouble with language.

“Sonja!” Kelly called, waving frantically. “Sonja!”

Sonja waved back and stepped down to the water’s edge to pull the kayak onto shore. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” she remarked, looking perplexed. Then looking more closely, she said, “You’re a mess!”

Chapter Ten

Why don’t I think to ask these things ahead of time?
Jordan wondered, looking up into the greasy guts of the yellow all-terrain vehicle her students had nicknamed Curly after one of The Three Stooges because it could take a lot of abuse. Right now, she wished Curly would live up to his name a little more literally so she could just give him a whack now and then to keep him in line. As part of the recruitment process for this summer gig, she should add some questions to the application about essential skills.
Can you cook? Do you have any mechanical ability? Do you know how to play Canasta?
In some ways, science could be said to be secondary to these other talents when a group of people was stuck on a glacier together for eight weeks.

She lay on her back on a piece of cardboard, tightening the last two bolts that would secure the new belt in place. Of her four students, not one of them had the mechanical ability to change a spark plug, let alone replace a broken belt. You’d think it would have been a safe bet in a group with one guy who loved backpacking and everything outdoors, one athletic lesbian, a female pilot and a native Greenlander that one of them would know how to work on engines. “I can fly a plane,” Julie had elaborated. “But I don’t work on them.” As for Malik, he was the brooding intellectual type. Not a wilderness man like his Inuit ancestors. He had never even driven a car. There wasn’t much use for cars in Greenland.

So the job was left to Jordan. She didn’t really mind. She enjoyed getting into the muck. It was satisfying to occasionally work with one’s hands instead of one’s brain.

She snapped the belt to check its tension. Satisfied, she slid out from under the vehicle. Brian took the socket wrench from her and helped her up.

“Is it fixed?” he asked, his asymmetrical face even more than usually askew with concern.

“Yep.”

He handed her a rag and she wiped her hands on it, standing back to admire Curly in all his utilitarian glory. Brian loomed over her at six-three, tall and lanky, wearing a knit cap over the careless hair that rarely saw a comb. A heavy brown beard obscured the better part of his face. Earlier in the year, in class, he had been clean-shaven and Jordan preferred him that way. He was shaggy and slapdash enough as it was. But he had decided that a remote Greenland science outpost deserved no less than completely unrestrained hair growth. She couldn’t criticize him for that. She herself hadn’t shaved underarms or legs for the three weeks she’d been here. With the inadequate military-style shower, about all they could do was keep from being offensive. Malik somehow managed to keep himself groomed to perfection, however, and was always clean-shaven. But Julie, like Brian, had gone primal. Not too often you saw a straight American woman with hairy armpits.

They were a good group, for the most part. All smart and serious about the work. They didn’t love each other, but they worked well together. That was actually better than some of the more friendly alternatives, she mused, recalling groups from the past.

It was hard to tell ahead of time how a group like this would function under these conditions, especially with the added element of the unknown member, Malik. He had joined them after they arrived. None of them had known him previously, but he was working out well and Jordan was happy to have a Greenlander on the team. It seemed right. He was responsible for the name Camp Tootega. Before any camp construction began, Jordan always had her team choose a name. This time, Sonja had insisted that it invoke some sort of female spirit because their leader was a woman and she wanted to emphasize female power. Brian had rolled his eyes at that, leaning toward something more natural, like the name of a bird or fish. Of course, he didn’t know any Greenlandic names, and a couple that Malik provided were utterly unpronounceable to the Americans. But then Malik had granted Sonja’s wish with Tootega, the name of a wise old goddess of Inuit mythology who could walk on water. “Perfect!” she had declared, holding a hand out to present Jordan, as if she were the earthly incarnation of the deity herself. Jordan had burst out laughing. But it wasn’t a bad name and they had voted to go with it. So this summer, it was Camp Tootega. From that moment on, Sonja and Malik had been friends. Jordan was glad of that because Malik had not gotten on well with Brian or Julie. But so far, thank Goddess Tootega, no fights.