Expansive areas of clear ice made riding rougher without snow padding the tracks. Exposure to the direct air and wind chill helped to freeze and thicken the ice. The view below the trail from the saddle was discomforting. Meghan saw a thin coating of sheer ice over the abyssal blackness of the unforgiving channel water below.
Chapter Seven
Darkness happened when the light failed. While the stark brilliance of the snowmobile light illuminated the immediate space before the machine, it looked as though they traveled through an endless black tunnel.
Snowflakes darted away from the headlamp as if ice butterflies scattering. The river had a fresh coating of snow over the ice. Where it thinned, patches of snow went dark, soaking water. It took Lester’s quick jerking of the handlebars to outmaneuver the holes. To her left and right, it was unadulterated blackness, a thick curtain of nothing. It was impossible to see the river edges because Lester chose to ride in the center as much as possible. In a lot of ways, traveling on the river, over the snow was a lot like flying. Meghan had to rely on her pilot to get them to their destination safely. The turbulence came with inconsistencies in the terrain under the sleds.
They stayed in relatively straight formation, wandering moderately as clouds of fresh snow scooped off the track and kicked up behind them. On the river, the snow accumulated, making the way smoother as the snow deepened.
Lester eventually eased up on the throttle. They were two hours distant from Kinguyakkii, and another two to three hours until they reached Noorvik. On the unpredictable river, they wound and snaked around jutting rocks and high berms that occupied the shoreline.
It surprised Meghan when Lester braked as she woke from a mild trance or a fit of micro-sleep. He killed the engine as the others slowed and stopped near him. Lester left on the headlight. He climbed from the saddle.
Barbara switched off the Ski-Doo and quickly removed her helmet. She just as promptly lit a cigarette. Eric parked on the right side of Meghan, as she climbed off the sled, stretched and groaned. She looked at the time on her smartphone, tucked inside the heavy parka. It was a little after eight.
The shoreline was ten feet to her right, on the other side of Eric. She saw layered snow over scrub brush and clumps of frozen mud.
“What’s up?” Eric asked when he lifted the face shield on the helmet.
“There’s someone headed our way. I saw the light flickering maybe a mile ahead along the river.” Lester took off the helmet, put it on the seat. He walked several paces beyond Barbara’s sled and stood on the ice in the dark.
Meghan removed the helmet and felt the cold slap of winter on her cheeks and forehead. She didn’t see the headlight far ahead of them. The distant whine of the approaching snowmobile proved Lester’s announcement.
He stood with his back to them in the dark and urinated on the ice without care or worry of embarrassing Meghan or Barbara. It wasn’t like he brandished a weapon or had any interest in exposing himself. They were adventurers and needed to trust each other.
Meghan thought it was a good idea. Her bladder begged release. She didn’t have the same plumbing as Lester, and no way to write her name in the snow. It was gauche because it was one thing when a man stood facing away from the group. If Meghan did that, she’d have to squat and show the stark white globes of her backside that likely matched the color of the surrounding countryside of white.
In the wild, there was no such thing as humility. Nature happened, and Megan felt a little modesty. She wanted to do her business in private. No one cared if she had to pee. Her life literally depended on the strength of her companions.
She walked around Eric’s machine to find a more secluded spot on shore rather than squat on the ice.
“Don’t go too far,” he warned.
Eric was in his late forties or possibly older. Alaska sometimes toughened people; made them weathered and hardened. It helped conceal ages. It sometimes surprised Meghan when people shared their ages.
Meghan had reservations the first time she met Eric. Her prior experience with part-time coroners made them reprehensible. She once had a case in the FBI investigating a coroner in Liverpool, New York, who used to pose bodies for social media posts. Eric was a consummate professional. His work ethic spread from business owner to part-time coroner without her concern.
He had thick wavy raven hair that his wife kept trimmed and nut-brown eyes. Eric had a strong education in anthropology. He and his wife helped preserve the cultural importance of Alaskan artisans because they accepted anything valuable for trade at Ammattauq Native Trader Store. Unlike the Alaska Merchandise Store that carried general merchandise and groceries, Ammattauq had traditional fair trade of goods, groceries, and needed parts for the indigenous people who still lived a subsistence lifestyle in rural Alaska.
Eric grew up in Alaska, between Juneau and Anchorage. After college, he moved to Kinguyakkii, met his wife, Linda, and they took over the trader store when its original owner passed away. Both Eric and Linda saw the trading post as the last vestiges of traditional Alaska significance in the expanding digital age.
Meghan’s bunny boots crunched along the shoreline, and she found a gentle incline to tread into deeper snow and tall frozen grasses. Her heavy boots stumbled on camouflaged rocks. She caught herself from falling into disguised slabs of earth.
Once she circled the snow-covered lichen and scrub brush, Meghan worked to remove several layers of pants. It took a few minutes while
