In the Barren Ground Page 7

  “There are nine dead wolves,” she said. “Five were shot by myself and Van Bleek around 11:40 p.m., Sunday, November fourth. According to Van Bleek, four were killed by himself and WestMin employee Teevak Kino earlier on Sunday afternoon. Kino was not present at the WestMin camp when I arrived on Sunday night. Boreal Air pilot Heather MacAllistair witnessed four wolves feeding on the victims when she attempted to pick them up on Sunday before 1:00 pm. She believed the wolves could have been the same four that the team saw moving north along the lake shore when she’d flown her clients in on Friday morning.”

  Tana paused, then added for her own reference. “MacAllistair also apparently saw a red AeroStar helicopter on the other side of the cliff around lunchtime on Friday, before the storm and fog moved in. She believed it belonged to pilot Cameron ‘Crash’ O’Halloran.” She made a mental note to follow up.

  Tana studied the scene, trying to develop a mental picture of what had happened.

  She imagined the biologists being dropped off not far north of this point. She pictured them working their way to this valley, then the fog and snow moving in. She noted there was no sign from up here that a tent had been erected.

  Tana activated her mic again. “There is no immediate evidence that the victims had set up camp for the night. This could mean the attack occurred some time before nightfall on Friday, November second. The animal predation is extensive, and would appear to support that timeline.”

  She clicked one more photo, then made her way slowly down the ridge.

  She stopped at a trail of grizzly bear prints still evident under a fine layer of newer snow that dusted them. Massive bear. Claws as long as her middle finger. The prints led right into the kill area. Some of the grizz prints were atop wolf prints. Others had been covered by canine prints. She was unable to tell which animals had come first, especially given the very fine layer of snow that dusted the trace. She laid a small forensics ruler in the snow beside the tracks, and photographed them. She also documented the various boot prints.

  Working in a concentric circle, meticulously recording and photographing as she went, she gradually made her way inward toward ground zero—the bodies. Something made her look up, a sense of being watched—with intent. By the eyes of something hungry. Her gaze went to the cliff, to Van Bleek.

  He was regarding her. Still as a stone statue. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

  The man unsettled her on some very primitive level. Even so, she was grateful for his help. Without him, she would not have gotten in here. There’d have been nothing left of these kids at all.

  Tana moved in closer to the bodies, and came to where she’d thrown up. Shame washed through her. She’d fucked up again, gotten her DNA all over the scene. She swallowed her distaste and photographed what she’d done, the words of her old instructor going through her mind—take pictures of everything, and I mean everything, no matter your thoughts. Something seemingly irrelevant could become important after the fact. In court. Lawyers will pick you apart …

  A raven cawed. Tana glanced up. A giant gleaming black bird had perched itself on the outstretched arm of the inukshuk, something long dangling from its beak. She took her field binoculars from her belt, zeroed in on the bird. A ribbon of pale meat flapped from the bird’s beak. As she watched, a gunshot cracked the air in the valley. Shock rippled through her body. The feathers exploded from the bird, and it tumbled down dead to the ground.

  She lowered her binoculars, heart thumping. Van Bleek stood under the cliff, gun still raised.

  “What in the hell did you do that for?” she yelled.

  Slowly, he brought his rifle to waist level, and reseated himself on his rock. He glared at her.

  Sweat prickled over her body. She glanced at her watch, willing the sound of a chopper to appear in the distance.

  Focus. He’s not going to shoot a cop … you’re just getting twitchy …

  Tana re-centered on her task. She snapped photos of the shredded blue woolen hat with the ripped-out eyeball congealing to the fabric, and then she crouched down to get a better look. Clumps of scalp and long strawberry blonde hair also stuck to the wool. Selena Apodaca’s eye, hair. Tana’s gaze followed drag marks, prints, what looked like arterial spurt, toward the hump under the blue tarp. Near the hump lay a shotgun in red snow amongst bits of backpacks, a bloodied boot, shredded clothing, plastic, a can of bear spray. And two ripped jerry cans with black stuff on them. The black contents also stained snow around the cans.

  What happened here, girl? You were attacked by what? Bear? Or circled by wolves coming in closer for nips as you tried to fight them back? You were still alive—your heart still pumping when your blood spurted like that. Did the animals drag you down, tear at you from all directions as they fought for your flesh while you were still clinging to life?

  Tana photographed the weapon, then examined it. Twelve gauge, Mossberg 500A. One round in the chamber, two in the mag. No sign the gun had been fired. She thought of herself last night, those orange eyes staring at her through the fog. Judging by the height of the eyes from the ground and the distance between them, she was pretty sure it had been a big bear. And if it had charged from that distance, she would probably be dead, but she would have fired as it came at her. So what happened here? Something took the biologists by surprise? If the unarmed victim had been attacked first, the other could have fired. Into the air, at least. Perhaps the biologist carrying the weapon was attacked first. Perhaps they’d frozen in fear.

  Tana turned in a slow circle, a dark feeling leaking into her. Everywhere wolf tracks crisscrossed big-ass brown bear prints through blood. And then there were the human tracks. She’d need to take a record of Van Bleek’s and Kino’s boot treads for her report. And her own. And Apodaca’s and Sanjit’s.

  She moved to the decapitated head. Closing her eyes for a second to force her mind into gear, she then photographed it, before getting down to examine it more closely. Tana adjusted her crouching position slightly to ease the irritating pinch of her bulletproof vest under her jacket.

  Reengaging her mic, she cleared her throat and said, “The head has been chewed, and ripped off the female victim’s body. It’s lying about three meters out from the torso. Face down. The tissue at the neck is ragged. It looks as though part of the spinal column is crushed.” She cleared her throat again. “The back of the head has been partially scalped, and there is a significant concave depression at the base of the skull. The long hair is matted with blood and clumped with what appears to be viscera. The color of the hair is strawberry blonde, very curly.” With a gloved hand, Tana turned the head over, and reeled back.

  Her breathing turned rapid. “Down the side of the face are four deep symmetric gouges, or rips. Like a claw mark. The right cheek is … has … been eaten, and the right cheekbone is crushed. The …” She paused, wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve. The teeth grimaced at her like those of a skeleton with no soft tissue to make it seem human. “The right brow bone has been crushed inward. Both eyes are missing.”

  Just bloody, dark sockets.

  Tana stared at the head, once Selena, now grinning sightlessly up at the pearlescent sky. It was unnerving. We were biologically programmed to respond to the emotions in the face of another person, she thought. A smile could be contagious. Grief in the features of another was the same—we could physically feel it. Watching someone cry could make us cry, too. Without the soft tissues of the lips, the expression of the eyes, the essence of what had once made Selena Apodaca human was gone. Tana’s thoughts turned to the victim’s parents. Family. Friends. Her jaw tightened. She looked away for a moment and sucked in a deep breath of air, thankful for the frigid wind. It helped her breathe without taking in the smell of meat.

  Once she’d gathered herself, Tana made her way over to the live electric fence around Raj Sanjit’s body. After taking photos of the snow-covered tarp, she disconnected the batteries and climbed over the wire. Tana drew back the tarp, and shock whip
ped through her.

  THE HUNGER

  For, in the Barrens of the soul,

  monsters take toll …

  With bloodstained fingers the Reader caresses, oh so gently, the printed words of the poem at the beginning of The Hunger. It is night. Candles flicker on either side of the new jar where a fresh eye swims in red liquid. It was such a pretty eye when alive. Sort of mossy green.

  A fire burns fierce in the kiln-like stove. The room is a cavern, a dark sweat lodge. Hot.

  The Reader sits naked.

  The Reader is sated.

  For in the Reader’s belly is roast heart.

  A treat.

  For the Reader’s birthday. The second of November. A time to lure. The cur. When winter does stir … and how perfect that Nature’s Gods shined on the exact same day this cycle around. Usually it would be thereabouts. The closest window to the day the Reader was born, ripped from a mother’s womb, destroying that which had given birth in the process. Death-Life. Hand-in-hand. A yin and yang …

  CHAPTER 9

  Raj Sanjit’s cloudy eyes gazed vacantly up at Tana. His face had also been partially eaten. A section of his arm was gone. Near his thigh lay part of his left hand. His clothes had been shredded away in ribbons and strips, along with skin. One of his boots was off. He’d been disemboweled—the soft and nutritious inner organs likely instinctively eaten by animals first. Tana’s gaze followed the loops of intestine trailing away from his body. In the wilds, she knew, especially in the heat of summer, a predator’s consumption of the bowels and stomach first would naturally slow a kill from spoiling too fast. It was where the bacteria set in first.

  Sanjit had the same symmetrical clawlike gouges down the side of his head, and along his thighs. Tana engaged her mic.

  “The animal predation on the male is extensive,” she said. “And consistent with the possibility the biologists were killed on Friday afternoon.” Whatever had been eating him had been at it for some length of time. She described what she was seeing, and took more photos.

  Then she noticed a black substance on parts of his body.

  Her attention went to the ravaged jerry cans. She picked her way over to them, and gagged, quickly covering her nose and mouth with her arm before she threw up again. The black sludge appeared to be some kind of lure made of rotted fish and whatever else.

  She surveyed the scene again, trying to picture it. The couple had been working with this rotted sludge, likely what they were using to coax grizzlies. It could have attracted a bear, who then stalked them. Or it could have brought in wolves that were habituated to associating humans with a food source.

  The wolves might have become bold … going for the biologists themselves …

  Before heading over to Apodaca’s headless torso, Tana crouched down and went through the remains of the backpacks.

  There was one tent between them, some plastic bags that had been ripped apart for what seemed like nuts and granola. Clothing. Water bottles. A small portable propane burner with a pot. Two mugs. Some ready-to-eat dehydrated camping meals. Notebooks. GPS device, an inReach satellite two-way texting device. Two-way radio. Lip balm with a hint of pink. Tana inhaled, thinking of the young woman who’d brought this vanity with her into the bush. The couple also had with them bear spray and bangers. But none of these defensive tools had been used.

  Near the packs lay coils of fine, barbed wire, baggies of what appeared to be bear hair with GPS locations recorded on them.

  Tana documented it all, then worked her way over to Selena Apodaca’s torso under the tarp.

  The first rays of sun washed over the cliff. They held no warmth, but the presence of sun was more welcome than Tana cared to admit.

  She stepped over the electric fencing, and photographed the tarp in situ. Not covered by the tarp was part of an arm. A silver cuff inlaid with a jade eagle encircled the wrist.

  Tana knew that jewelry. It was the distinctive work of Twin Rivers local Jamie TwoDove. She’d first seen several pieces just like it the day she’d arrived in town, on display under the glass counter at the General Store and Diner. Old Marcie Della had caught her looking, and proudly explained that the jewelry was now being sold in Yellowknife, and in Calgary and Edmonton. American tourists were also buying it in the port city of Vancouver where the big cruise ships left to sail up the inside passage to Alaska.

  After documenting the silver cuff, Tana carefully slid it off the wrist. On the inside, a bloodied inscription read: To Selena, with love, JT.

  JT. That could refer to Jamie TwoDove. She glanced at the tarp. Could he and Selena Apodaca have been romantically involved? Her chest tightened. She’d need to speak to Jamie, break this news before it reached him in other ways.

  Carefully Tana drew back the tarp. Her breath caught and her stomach balled instantly.

  So badly had it been ravaged, Selena Apodaca’s headless body was barely recognizable as human.

  The stomach cavity was completely gutted. Pubic area eaten. Thighs had been ripped and clawed apart. Her ribs had been picked of flesh. There was some lung left.

  But her heart was gone.

  Tana spun around and doubled over as her stomach heaved. Thank God nothing came up—she’d had nothing to eat, barely anything to drink. It heaved again, and sweat broke out over her face. She panted lightly, straining for self-control. She waited for the sound of Van Bleek yelling to ask if she was okay, if only to highlight the fact he could see she was struggling.

  To his credit he remained silent.

  Taking a slow breath, Tana came erect again. She turned to face the torso. Or what was left of it. Engaging her mic, she described what she was seeing.

  “… Signs of the same symmetrical claw rips on what remains of the body. These marks would appear to indicate a violent bear attack, rather than a bear simply feeding off bodies. It would appear to indicate that the victims fought to their death. It’s possible a bear stalked, surprised, and killed them first, then wolves, lured by the scent of the kill, chased off the bear to feed.” She was stepping over the line of pure documentation into theory, but to hell with it. There’d been no manual for this shit at depot division. She was not a trained detective. She had very little experience. She was basically a first responder, just covering all bases to the best of her ability under the remote and unusual circumstances.

  As in many fatal bear maulings where there were two victims, a bear would commonly attack a first victim, while the second attempted to beat off the animal. The bear then often turned on the second victim, killing him, or her, before returning to the injured first victim.

  It was possible the biologist carrying the gun had been hit first. The second tried to help, but had no gun.

  A noise chopped into her thoughts. It grew louder in the sky. Her pulse jumped. Helicopter. Coroner and body retrieval. Thank heavens. This would become the Office of the Chief Coroner’s case now. These remains would be flown to Edmonton for autopsy. The wolves would be taken to wildlife officials for necropsy. Her eyes burned in relief. Her job here was done.

  As Tana turned to make her way up the ridge to wave in the chopper, something odd caught her eye.

  She bent down.

  A bone. Lying partially under Selena Apodaca’s torso. Completely devoid of flesh. Porous and white, except where it had been stained with blood.

  What the …

  Tana quickly photographed it. Then, with gloved hands she tried to move the torso. More bones lay beneath it. Old bones—very old bones. Nothing to do with this attack.

  The thud of the chopper grew louder.

  Tana recorded her find. The bones looked human to her. Femur, tibia. A piece of pelvis? Shit. Had these two biologists been killed where others had died before?

  The air in the valley started to reverberate with the pulse of approaching rotors, and after being stranded out in the wilderness overnight, in dark and cold, it was the most welcome and human sound in the world.

  Tana left the torso and moved quic
kly to get up the ridge, but she stalled again near the periphery of the slaughter scene. A mottled gray wolf lay dead at her feet. Female. Stomach baggy and teats distended. A mother. Who’d recently given birth. Tana’s gaze was held transfixed. There were little pups out there somewhere, waiting in a den for this mother that she’d killed to come home. Emotion ripped through Tana’s chest. Her jaw tightened as a fierce passion to survive, to do right by her own child, by all that felt wrong here, seared through her.

  Breathing hard, her blood pumping through her veins with an unarticulated anger and drive, she scrambled up the rest of the esker slope, crested the ridge, and shaded her eyes against the low-angled glare of the sun. A red bird, all shimmer and metal and polycarbonate windshield, came in. She could see the pilot in his headgear and mirrored shades, behind the controls. She waved her arm in a slow wide arc, then crouched low, downdraft pummeling her as the pilot brought his craft in. He gently set skids down on the ridge.

  Rotors and engine slowed.

  The door opened, and a woman jumped out onto the sugary crust of snow. She wore a down parka with fur ruff and a coroner’s office logo. Behind her were two guys—body retrieval assistance, Tana guessed.

  “Constable Larsson,” Tana said, coming forward. “Thank you for coming so soon.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It was already dark by the time Tana and Markus Van Bleek returned to the WestMin camp. Beyond exhausted and starving, Tana hauled her gear off the back of the ATV she’d parked outside the WestMin hangar. Harry Blundt came scurrying toward them.

  “How’d it go, how did it go?” Blundt said, taking a bag from her. “You must be hungry. Cook is in the mess—that big yurt over there. Got some stew going. Coffee’s on.”

  “I am famished,” Tana said. “Just don’t tell me it’s moose stew.”

  “It’s moose stew,” he said. “Yes, it is. Of course it is.”

  She laughed in spite of herself, and felt a spurt of affection for this funny little man.