Season of Death (21 page)

R
AY DRANK IN
the brisk night air, glad to be out of the noisy tent, away from the aroma of steamed chicken, away from the stale artificial warmth created by the convergence of two dozen sweaty bodies in a confined space, most of all, relieved to be away from Dr. Flirtatious. The site lights had been extinguished and the darkness was somehow comforting. A half-moon had just risen and was feinting in and out of a swirling mist, highlighting the tree line and bathing the craggy peaks that ran along the horizon in a ghostly gray cast.

Pressing the Indiglo button on his Timex, Ray noted that salvation was less than seventeen hours away. In approximately sixteen and a half hours, they would be climbing aboard a floatplane in Kanayut. A relatively short time later, they would be disembarking in Barrow. Ray could hardly wait. He was ready to leave the Range, to get back home, to see Margaret, to put this remarkably ill-fated misadventure behind him. Next time, if there was a next time, Mr. Expert Guide would have to find some other sucker to accompany him on his “dry rehearsal.”

Stumbling along the row of tents, he located his own by following what sounded like a pair of dueling hand saws: two lumberjacks slicing through a mighty redwood. After zipping the door open, he got tangled in the insect netting, tripped on the elevated nylon stoop, and literally fell inside. Neither Billy Bob nor Lewis missed a beat.

Ray slipped off his boots and climbed into the down bag without disrobing. His muscles ached, his joints were throbbing, and his stomach seemed to be objecting to the casserole. But fatigue overruled all of this. The canvas cot felt heavenly, as soft and soothing as a Sealy Posturepedic. He decided that he could have been exposed to the elements, with mosquitoes draining his lifeblood, and still manage to sleep for ten hours.

A half hour later, he changed his mind. The cot was not quite as comfortable as it had initially seemed. And inexplicably, he was awake. Alertly awake. Unable to relax, much less doze off. His body was painfully tired, yet his mind was in overdrive. The day had been stressful. And his subconscious seemed unwilling to release its grip on the events: news that the stork was inbound, nearly drowning, being forced to smoke a joint, getting shot at by a hophead lunatic, being propositioned by an archaeologist who looked like a model … Oh, and finding a head in a glacial stream. That was the pièce de résistance.

Turning over, he buried his face in the mummy bag and tried to sort through the overwhelming montage. The baby … That was something to be happy about. He managed to distract himself for another quarter hour contemplating possible names.

Repositioning himself on the sagging cot, he wondered about the effect a baby would have on his relationship with Margaret. Not just how they would weather the late-night crying or the endless stream of dirty diapers, but how they would keep the flame of love alive in the company of a little one.

He glanced at his watch again and sighed. How was it possible to be totally exhausted and yet not fall asleep? This was getting irritating.

Sitting up, he tried to remember where he had put the Tony Hillerman novel. Had it been in his pack, which was now resting on the bottom of Shainin Lake? Or had he given it to Billy Bob? He rose and rummaged through the side pockets of the cowboy’s pack, feeling for a book in the darkness. Giving up, he was retrieving a penlight from his parka with the idea of rifling Lewis’s pack for reading material, when he found a small rectangle: the Bible. It wasn’t Hillerman, but at this point, entertainment wasn’t the goal. Sleep was. And from what little he knew of the “good book,” it was just the thing. Extremely boring.

Returning to his cot, he opened it randomly and began reading. Minutes later, hardly able to keep his eyes open, he snapped the book shut and flipped off the penlight. Lying on his back, he relaxed his limbs and breathed deeply: in, out, in … Whew! Something in the tent was rank. It smelled. No, it
stank
to high heaven. Maybe it was Lewis.

Ray tried to ignore it. He closed his eyes again and … No. Whatever it was needed to be tossed out. Either that or the tent vacated. He sat up and sniffed. Standing, he stepped over to Lewis. Nope. He turned and sniffed at Billy Bob. Nothing. He sampled the air around the backpacks. Bingo! Lewis’s was fine. It smelled of mildewing cotton, but nothing else. Billy Bob’s … Ray inhaled, then coughed.

He was bending to open the pack and determine the source of the stench when he remembered: Fred! The head was still in there, wrapped in nothing more than a sweatshirt. Unzipping the main pocket, he covered his mouth with a hand. The odor was extreme. Fred was obviously going bad: what little flesh the skull retained was beginning to rot. Ray gagged at the image this brought to mind and zipped the pocket shut.

He hurried through the tent door in search of a container and fresh, unpolluted air. It was sprinkling outside and though the droplets were icy cold, they felt refreshing.

Half of the tents were dark, the occupants either asleep or still over in the cafeteria finishing up their notes and research. Ray guessed that the former was more probable. Though it was early, these folks seemed to put in a tough day’s work: stooping, kneeling and otherwise hunching down to pluck history from the dirt. It had to be punishing on their bodies. And he assumed that they rose quite early, to make use of all available light. Especially since this was the twilight of their digging season. The peaks bordering the canyon were already getting termination dust. Another couple of weeks and the lowlands would see their first snowfall. A week or two later, winter would move in abruptly.

The wind whipped rain at Ray’s bare arms eliciting a wave of goose bumps and he decided that the night was no longer refreshing. Neither was it boreal, brumal, or any number of other romantic adjectives. It was merely cold. Penetratingly cold.

He started for the mess tent, hugging himself to keep from shivering. The cook probably had a Tupperware bowl big enough for Fred. Either that or a roll of cellophane. Better yet baggies. Zip-loc bags! Ray remembered seeing several boxes of them in the crate next to the water barrels. He changed direction and headed for where he thought the fifty-five-gallon drums were. Looking away from the tents, toward the darkened site, he was able to make them out at the edge of his vision.

It was at that moment, as he performed this corner-of-the-eye trick, that he tripped on one of the grid markers, caught his other foot on the line strung along the boundary of the excavation area, and executed a picture-perfect faceplant into a pit. Thankfully, the pit was merely a broad step a few inches deep. Still, he managed to scuff his palms and scrape a knee. Though he couldn’t tell, he thought the knee was bleeding. Great.

When he finally reached the barrels, he blindly felt around in the crate. There were several long, thin boxes, probably various sizes of baggies. He wished that he had brought along his penlight. Extracting a Zip-loc from each box, he examined them with his fingers, guessing at the sizes. Fred would require something big: an industrial two-gallon freezer bag. He continued fumbling through the supply, strewing extra Zip-Iocs about the crate. Several slipped to the ground, where they were snatched up by the swirling breeze. Ray swore softly. Two minutes later, he found what he assumed was the largest available bag. After removing a pair, he carefully retraced his steps back across the site.

He was in view of his own tent when something caught his eye: light, movement … Looking was a natural reaction. Gawking was not. A shadow was dancing against the nylon of a tent near the cafeteria. The ballet was radical at first, the designs random. Then it slowed, the image taking shape: long, slender limbs and seductive hips loosing themselves of all clothing. The elongated figure wriggled gracefully out of a pair of shorts. Next, the shirt flew skyward, revealing …

Ray blinked, forced himself to turn away from the exhibition, and took a shaky step in retreat before finding the same grid marker and the same boundary line. This time he fell backward, landing with a loud thud that drove the air from his lungs.

He sat up, assessed the damage, pebbles embedded in his palms, a sore seat, and was struggling to breathe when a light emerged from the tent that had drawn his attention and bounced toward him.

“Are you okay?” The voice was Farrell’s.

Squinting up at her, he nodded, still unable to speak.

“Are you sure?” The light drooped, leaving his face in favor of the ground. This draped the two of them in a pool of gold.

Ray gazed up at Farrell. She wasn’t wearing any shorts. Just a T-shirt that barely covered her upper thighs. To his dismay, he realized the jog bra was gone. Dr. Farrell was without support, the light rain quickly robbing the T-shirt of its functional use.

“I’m fine,” he managed, averting his gaze. Aside from being embarrassed, he was ashamed of acting like a Peeping Tom.

She helped him up and used the battery-powered lantern to examine his knee. A trickle of blood was snaking its way toward his ankle. She redirected the beam at the Zip-Iocs clutched in his hand. “Quite a sacrifice … for a baggy.”

“We need them for …” he started, but couldn’t think of a way to complete the explanation. For a head? To keep it from stinking up the place? To keep the local bears from showing up to chew on it? He glanced at Farrell and became tongue-tied, unable to avoid staring at her chest. It was like a magnet, drawing his eyes and effectively disabling his brain. “Uh … for … um … eh … We just … need them. I can pay you back.”

“What did you have in mind?” She grinned wickedly. “Why don’t you come over to my tent? I’ll clean up that gash for you.”

Ray tried to swallow but couldn’t. “Thanks but … uh … We’ve got … the um …” He pointed helplessly at his tent. “The first-aid kit … and … uh …”

She was watching him, eyes sparkling, obviously enjoying the discomfort she was causing.

“Is it just me,” Ray sighed, “or is it hot out here?” Despite the rain, he was sweating freely.

“I’m cold. Maybe you could warm me up,” Farrell suggested with a wink.

“See you in the morning,” he told the ground. Before she could respond, he scurried away like a frightened rodent.

He heard her chuckling behind him as he reached the tent. “Sleep tight,” she called playfully. “If your tent gets too crowded … You know where I am.”

Fighting his way through the insect netting, he zipped the door shut as if it offered some special security, turning the tent into a place of refuge. After shoving Fred unceremoniously into a baggy and fastening the Zip-loc top, he stuffed the bag back into Billy Bob’s pack. The pack should have been hung in a tree away from the tents in the event that it did draw bears. But at the moment, Ray had no intention of leaving the safety of his companions. Snuggling into the down bag he decided that they would get an early start in the morning. Very early.

He silently apologized to Margaret for “looking,” reaffirmed his commitment to her, mentally recalled his marriage vows. He harshly reprimanded himself for letting Farrell’s shameless flirting get to him … Yet the wet-T-shirt vision haunted him.

Sleep overtook him as he wondered, again and again, why anyone with such perfect breasts would so much as give him the time of day.

TWENTY-TWO

T
HE NOISE WOKE
him: a deep, throaty grunt.

Ray opened his eyes. It was dawn, a faint light making the nylon walls and roof visible. He heard the sound again: a primitive baritone snort.

Sitting up, he flinched as a shadow fell across the tent door. Someone or
something
was outside. Ray listened, his mind struggling to classify the noise: sniffing, smacking, thumping … It was definitely nonhuman.

There was a groan, followed by a half growl. A bear? A wolverine? Had Fred, the fragrant Head, drawn the attention of the region’s wildlife?

Ray reached for Lewis’s pack. He would get the rifle and investigate. Except the rifle wasn’t there. He looked under Lewis’s cot, behind Billy Bob’s. Where was it?

He was about to wake Lewis when the thing smacked its lips and began chewing. Something scraped the ground. The shadow wavered against the tent like a discontented apparition. Crouching at the door, Ray reached to unzip the flap. The creature shuffled awkwardly to the right, its ungainly, monstrous shape projected onto the tent by the sun’s first tentative rays.