Winter Study

Damn.

There was always a catch.

Jonah excused himself to check on the weather. Adam and Robin left shortly thereafter. Bob went out to bring firewood and stack it near the door. Finally there was room to move. A

“Can I do anything to help?” Katherine asked.

A

Katherine laughed and shook her head. “Surely there’s something I can do.”

“There’s not room to do it,” A

She’d said it to make Katherine feel better, but it might be true. She might not be able to take that kind of weight again for a while. The previous season, when she’d been on a twenty-one-day fire assignment in the mountains east of Boise, Idaho, she’d noticed that the difference between the old firefighters and the young ones wasn’t in strength or endurance. It was in recovery time. The old guys, the firefighters over forty, were as strong as the kids. She and the others could lift and run and dig with the best of them. But they wore down. The kids were stronger after three weeks of hard physical labor. The grown-ups were just bone tired.

With much stomping, Jonah opened the door and leaned in. “Seen Adam?” he asked. “Weather’s souring. We’ve got to roll.”

“I thought he was with you,” A

“He’s with Robin,” Jonah replied, sounding vaguely ominous. A

Six bodies crammed in the tiny cabin overnight.

“I’ll help you look,” she said, grabbed up her parka and shoved her feet in her boots. She didn’t bother with balaclava and mittens. She had no intention of being out that long.

The light had dimmed from its paltry glory. A tidal wave of gray was rolling toward shore from the northwest. Above it was the clear silver-blue sky, but that was going to change. Wind was driving the clouds; they would have snow.

“Adam!” Jonah yelled.

A

“He’s old enough to be her father,” he said.

A

Before he could answer, the two missing persons emerged from behind the cabin. They had the excited air of lovers, sharing secret trysts. Or, more apt, a ragman and tinker, luring the lovely farm girl to sin and degradation. Adam’s affectation of a parka and ski pants worn and stained and patched with duct tape in half a dozen places leant his otherwise-honest-looking self a disreputable air.

“God dammit, Adam,” Jonah groused. “I’m taking off as soon as I get her fired up. Either you’re buckled in or you’re staying here.” The pilot strode off toward the lake and his lady. Adam started after him.

“Your pack,” A

“Give that to me,” he demanded harshly.

Wordlessly, A

“Books,” he said and smiled sheepishly. “We’ll make another run with goodies if we can,” he said. “Hang in there.”

With those reassuring words, he started down the slight grade. The supercub’s engine purred to life, and he broke into a run, his long legs eating up the distance. Feeling abandoned in an arctic wilderness, A

Adam was up to something. Maybe that something was a twenty-four-year-old biotech. Whatever it was, it bore watching.

10

Despite the tight quarters and the snapping and snarling of animals and humans over the past twenty-four hours, once Adam and Jonah were gone A

Adding to the general sense of well-being was what A

Bob cooked. The big bearish man put on an apron left by a summer seasonal with a taste for frills and bows. Ruffled pinafore straps over his thick shoulders, he began cutting the onions Jonah had brought. His size dwarfed the two-burner stove, his hands made the knife look like a toy and the sash of the apron barely reached around him, but he looked more at ease than A

As he changed, Katherine changed. She let down her guard. If Bob’s armor was arrogance, Katherine’s was meekness. Without it hiding her like a translucent burka, she shined. Not a lot, not a shooting star, but she exhibited a sense of humor with a black streak A

By the time they turned out the hurricane lantern to sleep – A

Maintained by coffee and a breakfast that didn’t ice up on the spoon, the camaraderie survived the morning.

Carrying four traps – forty pounds – A

The storm Jonah and the supercub fled the previous afternoon squatted on Malone Bay, settling slate-colored skirts in the hollows and down the hillsides. Three inches of snow had fallen during the night, and more whirled on a scouring wind that erased the track of the cub’s skis across the harbor ice and the footprints of the Winter Study team. In the isolated places of the world, nature still retained the power to erase human lives as easily as she did the prints of their shoes. The feeling gave A