Icebound

River rapids, run with the shark hunters off Bimini, climbed mountains in Washington State. And as long as he had a warm igloo or a heated room at Edgeway Station to which he could return after a long day of exposure to the debilitating cold, he could hold up pretty well. But this was different. The igloos might no longer exist, and eve if they did exist, there might not be sufficient fuel in the snowmobile tanks or life in the batteries to keep them warm for longer than another day. Survival, in this case, demanded a special strength and stamina that came only with experience. He was all but certain that he did not have the fortitude to pull through.

What he would most regret about dying was his mother's grief. She was the best of the Doughertys, above the muck of politics, and she had experienced too much grief already. God knew, Brian had caused her more than a little of it with his…

A flashlight beam found him in the darkness.

“Are you ready to go?” Roger Breskin shouted.

“Whenever you are.”

Roger returned to the snowmobile.

No sooner had Brian braced himself than the rope was drawn up, putting a new and more terrible strain on his aching shoulders. Bettered by the wind, half dazed by pain, unable to stop thinking about the immense watery grave that lapped far below him, he slid along the face of the cliff as smoothly as George Lin had done five minutes ago. When he came to the brink, he was able to push and kick over the top without Roger's help.

He got up and took a few uncertain steps toward the snowmobile's headlamps. His ankles and thighs were sore, but the pain would diminish with exercise. He had come through virtually unscathed. “Incredible,” he said. He began to untie the knots that held the harness together. “Incredible.”

“What are you talking about?” Roger asked as he joined him.

“Didn't expect to make it.”

“You didn't trust me?”

“It wasn't that. I thought the rope would snap or the cliff crack apart or something.”

“You're going to die eventually,” Roger said, his deep voice almost theatrical in its effect. “But this wasn't your place. It wasn't the right time.”

Brian was as amazed to hear Roger Breskin waxing philosophical as he had been to learn that the man knew fear.

“If you're not hurt, we'd better get moving.”

Working his throbbing shoulders, Brian said, “What now?”

Roger wiped his goggles. “Put the second snowmobile right side up and see if it still works.”

“And then?”

“Find the temporary camp. Join up with the others.”

“What if the camp isn't on this iceberg with us?”

Roger didn't hear the question. He had already turned away and started toward the toppled snowmobile.

* * *

The cabin of the remaining snowmobile would seat only two men; therefore, Harry elected to ride behind the open cargo trailer. Claude was willing to surrender his place, and Pete Johnson insisted on giving up his seat behind the handlebars, as though riding in the trailer were desirable, when in fact the exposure might prove deadly. Harry cut them short and pulled rank in order to obtain the worst of all positions for himself.

The trailer contained the eighteen-inch-square hot plate and the steel barrel in which they'd melted snow to obtain water to fill the blasting holes. They tipped the barrel off the trailer and rolled it out of their way; the wind caught it and swept it off into the night, and in seconds the hollow clatter of its bounding progress faded into the cacophonous symphony of the storm. The hot plate was small, and because it might come in handy later, Claude found a place for it inside the cabin.

Three or four inches of snow had accumulated in the trailer bed, drifting against the two-foot-high walls. Harry brushed it out with his hands.

The wind gusted behind them, wailing like Apaches in a Western movie, rushed under the trailer and made it bounce lightly up and down on the ice.

“I still think you should drive,” Pete argued when the gale subsided slightly.

Harry was nearly finished cleaning the snow out of the trailer. “I drove my own buggy straight into an ice chasm — and you'd trust me with yours?”

Pete shook his head. “Man, do you know what's wrong with you?”

“I'm cold and scared.”

“Not that.”

“Well, I have neglected clipping my toenails for weeks. But I don't see how you could know.”

“I mean what's wrong inside your head.”

“This isn't an ideal time for psychoanalysis, Pete. Jeez, you Californians are obsessed with therapy.” Harry brushed the last of the snow out of the trailer. “I suppose you think I want to sleep with my mother—”

“Harry—”

“—or murder my father.”

“Harry—”

“Well, if that's what you think, then I don't see how we can just go on being friends.”

“You've got a hero complex,” Pete said.

“For insisting I ride in the trailer?”

“Yeah. We should draw straws.”

“This isn't a democracy.”

“It's only fair.”

“Let me get this straight — you're demanding to ride in the back of the bus?”

Pete shook his head, tried to look serious, but couldn't repress his smile. “Honky fool.”

“And proud of it.”

Harry turned his back squarely to the wind and pulled on the drawstring at his chin, loosening his hood. He reached inside the neck of his coat and got hold of the thick woolen snow mask that had been folded against his throat. He tugged it over his mouth and nose; now not even a fraction of his face was exposed. What the mask did not cover, the hood and the goggles concealed. He drew the hood tight once more and knotted the drawstring. Through the mask, he said, “Pete, you're too damned big to ride in the cargo trailer.”

“You're not exactly a dwarf yourself.”

“But I'm small enough to curl up on my side and get down out of the worst of the wind. You'd have to sit up. It's the only way you'd fit. And sitting up, you'd freeze to death.”

“Okay, okay. You're determined to play hero. Just remember — no medals are given at the end of this campaign.”

“Who needs medals?” Harry climbed into the cargo trailer and sat in the middle. “I'm after sainthood.”

Johnson leaned toward him. “You think you can get into heaven with a wife who knows more dirty jokes than all the men in the Edgeway group combined?”

“Isn't it obvious, Pete?”

“What?”

“God has a sense of humor.”

Pete scanned the storm-whipped icecap and said, “Yeah. A real dark sense of humor.” He returned to the cabin door, glanced back, and with considerable affection again said, “Honky fool.” Then he got behind the handlebars and closed the door.

Harry took a last look at that portion of the icefield revealed by the backwash of the snowmobile's headlamps. He did not often think in metaphors, but something about the top-of-the-world gloom, some quality of the landscape, required metaphors. Perhaps the nearly incomprehensible hostility of the cruel land could only be properly grasped in metaphorical terms that made it less alien, less frightening. The icefield was a crouching dragon of monstrous dimensions. The smooth, deep darkness was the dragon's gaping mouth. The awful wind was its scream of rage. And the snow, whistling by so thickly now that he had trouble seeing even twenty feet, was the beast's spittle or perhaps foam dripping from its jaws. If it chose to do so, it could gobble them up and leave no