Copyright @Amazon Crossing
Chapter 1
It caught his eye at once. Just off the Ice Road.
A tiny point at first. He drove several feet closer. Dark blue. Couldn’t mistake it in this white wilderness. He certainly wouldn’t. His eyes picked up anything unusual here.
He was constantly on the ice in winter. Day after day. Him and his truck. A powerful machine that could lug sixty tons. Today he was pulling a trailer with housing for the new foreign workers. Those guys from the south get on Skype to their families back home and say they’re drilling for gas in the Arctic Ocean. Not that people three thousand miles away have the slightest idea what that means.
Must be a blue pickup. Probably did a pirouette on the ice. Sure didn’t mean to, unless the driver was just playing around on the ice. He already knew what to expect. The hood plowed into a snowdrift. Wheels pulled away like dislocated shoulders. Seen that all too often.
The usual yahoos, for sure. Goddamn amateurs. City types with giant egos inflated like a frog’s throat and with an even bigger lack of experience. Highway cowboys out of Calgary. Or Vancouver.
Maybe an engineer from ORS Gas & Oil. Or some jerk of a globetrotter from Italy. Even worse, an American from Texas. Last year it was Brits wanting to film muskox. Not here, on Banks Island. Of course they just had to race down the Ice Road. Instead of muskox they got themselves a broken axle.
Those idiots haven’t the foggiest idea how to drive a vehicle on glass fifteen feet thick. They’d laugh him out of court if he told them, “That glass is alive. It’s called ice.”
He knows where those big-city babies get their crazy ideas from. TV, of course. Ice Road Truckers, a reality show. He’d never have watched anything like that himself. But his wife Judy talked him into it. “Just so’s you see how they do it,” she’d said.
His eyes almost popped out of this head. Those TV people really lay it on thick. “Polar Sea Adventure! Only for the boldest and most daring drivers. They risk their lives on the winter road over the frozen delta of the mighty Mackenzie River. They drive to beat hell, and with a sixty-ton load. They could fall through the ice at any moment.”
His pal Poppy Dixon had dropped in with a case of beer, and they’d howled with laughter. Poppy pounded him on the back so hard that he almost fell off the sofa.
“Wow! We’re fuckin’ big heroes, eh, Todd? And we didn’t even know it!”
Adventure? Bullshit! Last year Poppy’s truck had gone through the ice. Eighty tons went down. Rebar for a gas company out there somewhere. A couple of Helvin West’s men hoisted him out with a crane. Poppy hadn’t laughed at the time. His face was white as snow.
Now he could clearly make out the blue pickup. Nose first, deep in the wall of snow bordering the road. What a mess. And what was that in the snow? A reddish brown shape. A dead moose. Or what was left of it: the head. The long tongue hanging out of its mouth. Red streaks all over the place. Red as Judy’s nail polish.
His foot tapped on the gas pedal. He couldn’t risk going more than thirty with that heavy load. End of March and sun already, sun, sun, sun. Nothing but sun for four days. Four damn days in a row. The ice was still holding. But who knows for how long? Only Clem Hardeven, the ice master. If he said the ice road was closing, then it would be closed. Even Helvin West listened to Clem. And Helvin was Clem’s boss.
He geared down. Slow, slow, slow. Todd, my friend, enjoy the spectacle of this idiot who dug his own grave in the snow. The blockhead braked too hard on the ice when he saw the moose’s head, I’ll bet.
You gotta learn how to brake on the ice. A rookie, was all he could say, a beginner. Maybe the guy had had a few beers too many in the Crazy Hunter. Big mistake. You don’t play with fire on the ice.
Suddenly, even before he’d stopped, a light bulb went on in his head. Blue! The pickup was a shiny dark blue! With white lettering. He didn’t even have to read it. Holy shit!
He put on his gloves and fur hat and zipped up his down jacket. He climbed down from his truck and waddled over the sparkling ice like a curler. It was easier for him to drive than walk. The Ice Road was slippery as wet glass.
Axle wasn’t broken. He could see that right away. He adjusted his sunglasses. Too much sun and too much white around for his liking. Nothing moved inside the car. He tried to open the door. Couldn’t. He tried the other side. He pulled and twisted until the door popped open, and he almost fell over. He peeked inside. Nothing. Not a soul. The bird had flown the coop.
What to do? Best hightail it to Inuvik. Wasn’t far. The cops would certainly know what’s up. He’d lost enough time as it was.
As he drove on, the pickup gradually disappeared in the rearview mirror. Too bad the wreck didn’t vanish into thin air. He didn’t want anything to do with it.
One more long curve, and he could almost smell Inuvik.
But there was something else. A dark heap beside the road. What the fuck! He knew it wasn’t a moose. His truck skidded to a halt. Out into the cold again.
It took some effort to work his way over. A woman. Lying right on the ice. Curled up like an embryo. Not moving. Her head lying on one arm, eyes closed. Her cap still on her dark hair. Her hood flipped back. Like she was asleep. He bent down and shook her. Shouted, “Hello, hello!” But he already knew. So stiff and ice cold. She was young. And she was dead.
He didn’t know the woman. Just the pickup. And he couldn’t make any connection.
Penguin-like, he waddled over the ice back to his truck and reached for the satellite phone.
Copyright @Amazon Crossing
