Icy Clutches

you order?'

'Broiled halibut.'

'Doc?'

'Same.'

John growled something. “Julian?'

Minor replaced his glasses, adjusting the wire earpieces one at a time over his ears. “Penne pasta with cauliflower and broccoli in sesame-seed sauce,” he said.

John stared at him with something like awe. “Jesus Christ.” He heaved a sigh of capitulation and handed the menu to Cheri. “Okay, okay, hold the gravy on the fries.'

'You got it. Back in a sec with the salads.'

She stooped at the folding table behind Gideon to shoulder the heaped tray of dirty dishes and silverware just cleared from the rangers’ table. The tray looked as if it weighed as much as she did. Instinctively Gideon reached out to help her steady it, but she laughed him off.

'Never mind, honey, I'm used to it. I only look skinny. I got muscles on my muscles.'

A lift, a momentary hitch like a weight lifter performing a clean-and-jerk, and up it went with a clank of settling dishes to rest firmly on the flat of her hand and her shoulder. She grinned at them, adjusted the load with a hunch of her shoulder, and scudded off.

'John,” Minor said in his precise way, “when I asked if you were sure it was wise, I wasn't referring to the press conference in general; I was referring to the idea of allowing Tibbett to lead it'—he lowered his already quiet voice—'considering what we learned today.'

'Yeah, I think it's okay, Julian.” John scowled. “Hey, do they give you bread with dinner, or do you have to —'

'What did you learn today?” Gideon asked. “What's wrong with Tibbett running the press conference?'

Minor looked warily at John, who nodded. “He's on our side, Julian,” John said. “So's she.'

From a thin briefcase on his lap Minor extracted a few sheets of paper. He was as decorous and fastidious as Gideon remembered him: dark-blue banker's suit, meticulously knotted tie decorated with tiny fleurs-de-lis, blinding white shirt with mother-of-pearl cuff links. He passed the sheets to Gideon and Julie.

They glanced at a densely typed two-page memorandum done on a National Park Service form, its print faded to a barely legible gray from being photocopied so many times.

'Go ahead and read it,” John said, and turned to call over his shoulder: “Hey, Cheri, does bread come with this?'

The first line of the memo was the date: September 24, 1960. Two months after the Tirku expedition. Their eyes were drawn to the lower part of the page, where several paragraphs had been heavily circled with a red felt- tip marker.

Although appellant admits that he “lost his temper” twice in dealings with Professor Tremaine, and that such behavior is inexcusable, he feels that it was the understandable result of Professor Tremaine's “abusive, belligerent, and unreasonable manner,” and his refusal to heed safety advice of the most basic kind, e.g.:

(a) Professor Tremaine's refusal to postpone or cancel his group's final day of activities in the vicinity of Tirku Glacier despite the increasing frequency of earth tremors in the region;

(b) His insistence on taking a route directly across the northern tongue of Tirku, although it was in the path of a large, unstable hanging glacier. (Professor Tremaine's justification for this was that the half-mile walk over the ice would save his party an arduous three-mile trek around the tongue, through an area choked with postglacial vegetation.);

(c) His “contemptuous disregard” of suggestions to carry ropes and/or other safety equipment, despite summer conditions that had left an extremely treacherous film of snow obscuring many crevasses.

Gideon looked up. “You guys have been busy. This is the report Anna Henckel was showing to Pratt and Judd, isn't it?'

John nodded. “Right. Henckel didn't have it, Pratt didn't have it, so I figured the place to look was where she was showing it to him: the bar.'

Minor politely demurred. “I do believe that was my suggestion, John.'

'Julian, you gotta learn to be less territorial. Anyway, there it was, in one of the stacks of magazines.'

'But what does it have to do with Tibbett?” Gideon asked.

'Finish reading it, Doc.” He broke a roll from the basket the waitress had brought, buttered it, and leaned back, chewing reflectively.

Gideon and Julie continued with the memo.

Appellant stated that he believes his warnings to Professor Tremaine were borne out in the disastrous results of the Tirku expedition, an opinion in which this investigator concurs.

However, while it is true that appellant's advice to Professor Tremaine was sound and would, if followed, have resulted in the saving of three lives, it is also true that Park Service personnel must use tact in dealing with members of the public. It is the view of this investigator that the complaint filed by Professor Tremaine