Matt sensed now would be a good time to make a hasty retreat. “Heel, Bane,” he whispered. The dog’s nose was in the air, sniffing at the lure. Matt reached down and grabbed the chewed end of the lead. “Don’t even think about it.”
He backed over the ridge and down the far side, leaving the bears to their prize. He kept walking backward, one eye on the trail behind him, one eye on the ridge above, just in case mama decided to follow. But the bears stayed put, and after a quarter mile, Matt turned and hiked the two miles back to camp.
Camp had been set by a wide stream, still iced over in patches as full spring was late to come. But there were signs of the warmer weather to follow in the blooming wildflowers all around: blue Jacob’s ladder, yellow fireweed, bloodred wild roses, and purple violets. Even the frozen stream, framed in willows and lined by alders, was edged in blooming water hemlock.
It was one of Matt’s favorite times of the year, when the Gates of the Arctic National Park climbed out of winter’s hibernation, but too early for the tourists and rafters to begin their annual pilgrimage here. Not that there were that many folks even then within the confines of the eight million acres, a reserve the size of Vermont and Connecticut combined. Over the entire year, fewer than three thousand visitors braved the rugged park.
But for the moment, Matt had the region all to himself.
At the camp, the usual cacophony of yips and barks greeted his safe return. His roan mare—half Arabian, half quarter horse—nickered at him, tossing her nose and stamping a single hoof in clear feminine irritation. Bane trotted ahead and bumped and nosed his own mates in canine camaraderie. Matt loosed the three other dogs—Gregor, Simon, and Butthead—from their tethers. They ran in circles, sniffing, lifting legs, tongues lolling, the usual mischief of the canine species.
Bane simply returned to his side, sitting, eyeing the younger dogs. His coat was almost solid black, with just a hint of a silver undercoat and a white blaze under his chin.
Matt frowned at the pack leader, ready to scold, but he shook his head instead. What was the damn use? Bane was the lead of his sled team, quick to respond to commands and agile of limb, but the mutt always had a stubborn will of his own.
“You know that cost us an entire bottle of lure,” Matt griped. “Carol is going to drain our blood to make the next one.” Carol Jeffries was the head researcher running the DNA bear program out of Bettles. She would have his hide for losing the jelly jar. With just one bottle left, he could bait only half the sampling traps. He would have to return early, setting her research behind by a full month. He could imagine her ire. Sighing, he wondered if it wouldn’t have been better simply to wrestle the four-hundred-pound grizzly.
He patted Bane’s side and ruffled the dog’s thick mane, earning a thump of a tail. “Let’s see about getting dinner.” If the day was wasted, he might as well have a hot meal tonight as consolation. Though it was early, the sky was beginning to cloud up, and this far north, the Arctic sun would soon set. They might even get a bit of rain or snow before nightfall.
So if he wanted a fire tonight, he’d best get to work now.
He shrugged out of his coat, an old Army parka, patched at the elbows, its green color worn to a dull gray with a soft alpaca liner buttoned inside. Dressed in a thick wool shirt and heavy trousers, he was warm enough, especially after the long hike and the earlier adrenaline surge. He crossed to the river with a bucket and cracked ice from the stream edge. Though it would be easier simply to scoop water from the stream itself, the ice was distinctly purer. Since he was going to make a fire, it would melt quickly enough anyway.
With practiced ease, he set about the usual routine of preparing his camp, glad to have the woods to himself. He whistled under his breath as he gathered dry wood. Then, after a moment, a strange silence settled around him. It took him half a breath to realize it. The dogs had gone quiet. Even the twittering of golden plovers from the willows had ceased. His own lonely whistle cut out.
Then he heard it, too.
The rumble of an airplane.
It was a soft sound until the single-engine Cessna crossed the ridgeline and swooped over the valley. Matt strained up. Even before he saw the plane, he knew something was wrong. The sound of the engine was not a continual whine, but an asthmatic sputter.
The plane tilted on one wing, then the other. Its height bobbled, engine coughing. Matt could imagine the pilot struggling to look for a place to land. It was outfitted with floats, as were most bush pilot planes. It only needed a river wide enough upon which to set down. But Matt knew none would be found up here. The tiny stream beside his camp would eventually drain into the wider Alatna River that ran through the center of the park, but that was a good hundred miles away.
He watched the Cessna scribe a drunken path over the valley. Then with a grind of the engine, it climbed enough to limp over the next ridgeline. Matt winced as he watched. He would’ve sworn the floats brushed the top of a spruce tree. Then the plane was gone.
Matt continued to stare, ears straining to listen for the fate of the plane. It was not long in coming. Like the sound of distant thunder, a splintering crash echoed from the neighboring valley.
“Goddamn it,” he mumbled under his breath.
He watched the skyline, and after a long moment, he saw the telltale streak of oily smoke snake into the dirty-white sky.
“And I thought I had a bad day.” He turned to his camp. “Saddle up, boys. Dinner will to have to wait.”
He grabbed up his Army jacket and crossed to his mare, shaking his head. In any other place in the world, this might be a rare event, but up here in Alaska, the bush pilot myth was alive and well. There was a certain macho bravado in seeing how far one could push oneself or one’s aircraft, leading to unnecessary chances. Over the course of a year, two hundred small planes crashed into the Alaskan wilderness. Salvage operators hired to recover the planes were backlogged for almost a full year. And it was a growth industry. Every year, more planes fell. “Who needs to dig for gold,” a salvage operator once told him, “when money falls out of the damn sky?”
Matt saddled his mare. Planes were one thing, people were another. If there were any survivors, the sooner they were rescued, the better their chances. Alaska was not kind to the weak or injured. Matt had been reminded of this fact all too well himself today when he went eyeball to eyeball with a four-hundred-pound grizzly. It was an eat-or-be-eaten world out here.
He secured his tack with a final tug and tossed on his saddlebag with the first-aid kit. He didn’t bother with his one handheld radio. He had traveled beyond range three days ago.