CHAPTER 25
No handlebars
The fury in Cortez’s eyes made Kanut take a step back. He hoped he hadn’t underestimated the man’s capacity for violence.
“You wouldn’t,” Cortez said, fists clenched. “If you tell the army, you’ll be responsible for the extinction of the species.”
Kanut suppressed a smile. He’d sized the mammoth-rider up right: a talker, not a fighter.
“Mammoths have been extinct for thousands of years. I’d just be keeping the status quo. But in truth, I wouldn’t mind letting them go. All I want is to get help to some brave citizens. We’re talking about a doctor, one who goes the extra mile—hundreds of miles!—to provide health services to people who otherwise wouldn’t have any. My kind of people. With aircraft grounded and all the rough terrain in the way, there’s just no one else who can get to them anytime soon.”
“It’s ludicrous,” Cortez said. “What possible use could you be if I got you there? Do you think the mammoths are a taxi service?”
“You’ve got medical supplies and extra food. Once you get me to their location, you and your overgrown musk oxen can go on your way. I’ll look after the survivors until a plane or helicopter can pick them up. All I’m asking for is a lift, and you’ve got the only ride available.”
“What kind of rescue is that? It’s absurd.” But Cortez’s eyes had gone wary: he was thinking it over.
So much for the stick. Now he needs a carrot. “Don’t you want to help out?” Kanut waved a hand at the trees enclosing the campsite. “Or are you the kind of environmentalist who cares more about saving the Earth than saving the people who live on it?”
Cortez sneered. “Could you blame me? People have abused the Earth for thousands of years. Done untold damage, driven animals to extinction. Look at all those jackasses coming up here to homestead. Instead of trying to improve the places they come from, they show up here and trash what little wilderness we have left. In their selfish desire to have a little piece of forest all to themselves, they’re ruining the very place they claim to love—cutting down trees, building fires that add to the carbon in the air. Then, after one nasty winter, they abandon it all, leaving all their rusty tools and tires and plastic crap and garbage behind to pollute the place.”
“Fair enough. But this woman’s not like that. She’s only out there in the wilderness because she cares enough about Alaska Natives to get them the medical care they need.”
Cortez’s gaze darted to the brush around them, as if looking for someone to come to his assistance. With a start, Kanut wondered if he was. That mammoth that had wakened them was out of sight, but God only knew if it was lurking behind the next bush.
Whatever Cortez was looking for, he seemed to come to a decision. His mouth tightened, like he was swallowing something bitter.
“Forty miles,” he said. “Over mountains, with rivers to cross. We couldn’t do it in a day—the mammoths will need to rest and eat. It would take at least two days, maybe more. You know how to ride a horse?”
“Yeah.” Well, Kanut had ridden one once, at the state fair—and he’d nearly fallen off.
“This will be harder. It’ll be long days with little comfort, and once we start, there’s no turning back.”
Kanut gritted his teeth. Did this arrogant incomer think Inupiat were soft? “I’ll manage. And I’ll help, any way I can.”
Cortez snarled, “You want to help? Then stay out of the way. Hey-up!”
The aspens rattled almost at Kanut’s elbow, and mammoths appeared as if a magician had waved his wand. Not just one, but four, plus a little one—“little” meaning as big as an ox—tagging at his mama’s heels.
“Holy mother of God.” Kanut meant it as a prayer. He must have flown right over them yesterday, looking for an illegal pot farm, and never seen a thing.
They were hideous: towering over him, heads like boulders, and those damn trunks curling like pythons. Their fur was as shaggy as a musk ox’s pelt but matted with clots of gray ash. They looked like zombies freshly risen from an elephants’ graveyard.
They surrounded Cortez like he was an old friend, huffing and snorting and making deep groaning noises like the gates of hell creaking open. And they stank worse than a wet dog—a wet dog that had eaten beans for supper and then rolled in rotting cabbage.
The biggest one screeched and came to stand right in front of Kanut, one big eye turned to him and the business end of those gracefully curved tusks pointed in his direction. The trunk rose like a cobra, the two nostrils looking straight at him.
“Easy, Ruby.” Cortez made throaty growls and patted the mammoth’s trunk. “You’ll have to hide the rifle. Take it out of sight and wrap it in your blanket or something.”
Kanut used his satphone for another quick call to headquarters. “I found some transport. Er, a civilian with access to topo maps and all-terrain vehicles is going to come with me.” That would be true if you considered a mammoth a vehicle. “Tell the doctor I’m on my way, but it’ll take some time.” The dispatcher answered with relief—all units from Anchorage to Fairbanks were tied up with search-and-rescue and evacuations, and the eruption was continuing.
By the time Kanut got back with his filled backpack and
