Baal

Baal Page 24

FOR HOURS they traveled into harsh winds wailing down from the bitter icecap. They were slowed to a crawl by its force and now Migatuk only cracked his whip over the heads of the struggling dogs to change their course a few degrees. Piled atop the wide iron-runnered Eskimo sledge were enough supplies to maintain them should an ice storm pin them down. There were fresh parkas and kamiks, boots of seal flesh with dog-skin liners, and a tent of sewn polar-bear hides that could be hammered into the ice with small steel pegs. Lashed down as well was the long canvas-covered crate Michael had brought along with him. The three men had strained against its weight as they lifted it onto the sledge; Migatuk had voiced his displeasure at forcing his dogs to haul such an impediment, but Michael remained silent as to its contents. Ahead of them was only blackness as if they were either climbing or falling headlong into a gigantic hole. Even the ice seemed black. Migatuk had warned them to rub their cheeks and the bridge of the nose vigorously if the flesh felt as if it might be deadening. That, he said, was the first sign of frostbite. The small white sores would come later. So after every fierce howl of wind swept past, staggering him, Virga gingerly felt his exposed flesh, fearful of what he might discover.

At Avatik the strong-armed, heavy-bellied Eskimo women had giggled and made snide comments about the men as they were fitted with the kamiks. They were given thermal underwear and heavier trousers, though not nearly so warm as the polar-bear pants worn proudly by the Eskimo men. Then, while they sat with Migatuk and he carefully cleaned his rifle, explaining how the oil and grit would freeze in only a few moments on the ice flats, he told them bluntly what he expected. They would not talk without purpose, they would not stray out from behind the sledge track, and they would under no circumstances go near the dogs. Michael agreed and, after the men and a group of other Eskimos had loaded the sledge, they had slept soundly before the fire in Lahr's hut.

In the morning - and the only way Virga could tell it was morning was because Lahr said it was - the winds had increased, slapping intermittent snow against the windows. After a fortifying cup of tea the two men stepped into the cold and found Migatuk and his son untangling the dogs' traces before hooking them in place on the sledge. Then, with a final wave from Lahr and Migatuk's cry of "Gamma! Gamma!" to his team, they moved away from the settlement until its warm lights were lost across the plain.

The cold was numbing but not as bad as Virga had expected. The subzero winds could not penetrate either his trousers or parka. His feet and hands were warm with the coverings provided by Migatuk; his face was the only flesh exposed to the weather and he felt ice collecting in his eyebrows and in the stubble on his chin.

Michael, walking beside and a pace in front of Virga, seemed oblivious to the cold.

After a while Virga thought that Migatuk had lost the way. Virga himself had no sense of direction here. Everything was bleak and alien; there were no landmarks, not even rocks or abandoned huts, on which to base a path. But occasionally the dogs would yip at the crack of the whip and the sledge, its runners hissing through the packed snow, would slide a fraction to the left or right. And still they climbed, without speaking, into the wind.

Without warning the land erupted from a flat plain to rocks dappled with ice. They seemed to be going down an incline and the dogs slowed to keep their footing on the slope. Great black rocks rose up on all sides. They were shielded from the direct blast of the wind but Virga could hear it whining eerily through cracks and crevices, to explode high over their heads. Migatuk snapped his whip and called to the dogs to give them confidence.

Virga looked into the distance. There seemed to be a glimmering light very far ahead. He could feel his heart racing. Migatuk called to the dogs again and Virga thought, but was not certain, that he heard the man's voice tremble. They continued on, the Eskimo's whip cracking on all sides to keep the dogs on a straight path.

At the base of the incline they were again on a solid sheet of smooth snow and ice, but here the wind was not so fierce. Ahead on the plain, Virga could recognize the squat rectangular shape of a prefab hut. A light shone through a solitary window. Beyond the hut there was nothing but a solid black curtain.

Migatuk called out and the sledge ground to a halt far short of the prefab dwelling. Then there was no sound but the breathing of the dog team and the distant otherworldly whine of wind in the rocks. Migatuk said to the two men, "This is as far as I dare go. Beyond is the hut of the two-headed man."

And in the next second Virga's eardrums reverberated with a crack! that made the dogs howl in fear. Migatuk spun around. Just ahead of the sledge a spiral of snow kicked up, ice chips spraying back into the men's faces. The sound of the shot stretched out loud and hollow across the plain, rolling on to the frozen sea.

Migatuk shouted, "Maiksuk!" and lashed his whip full into the side of the lead dog, at the same time wrenching bodily on the sledge to spin it around in the direction from which they had come. Virga, thrown backward and off the sledge, saw Michael also knocked to the ground by the sudden momentum of the dogs. Migatuk cracked his whip; the sledge shuddered fiercely, gathering speed. As the sledge reached the incline and started up Virga saw a knife in the Eskimo's hand, glittering in the light from the hut window. He was cutting their supplies loose to gain more speed. The equipment and the heavy canvas-covered thing were thrown off; they slid down to the base of the incline. Freed of the weight, the sledge took wings. Snow was thrown up by the churning legs of the dogs; in another moment the sledge disappeared among the rocks in Migatuk's headlong journey back to the safety of Avatik.

Michael rolled over on his stomach, his eyes narrowed, his senses combing the darkness. The sound of the shot had not yet died away; the men could still hear it moving like a thunderclap in the far distance. Over by the prefab hut there came a tremendous barking and baying of dogs.

Virga was lost. He stood looking around helplessly, knowing he made a perfect target but unable, somehow, to recall what it was he should do.

"Stay where you are," said a man's harsh voice. The sound reached them as a command but it had been spoken softly, almost casually.

Virga looked toward the source of the voice, off to his right. From the corner of his eye he saw a movement. Someone rose up from a prone position on the ice. Virga thought at first his legs were chopped off at the knee but then he realized the man had been crouched behind a small white screen. The man walked away from the camouflage and stood with a rifle aimed at a spot somewhere between Virga and Michael. He said something in Danish and waited. Then he said in English, "You! Down on the ice with the other one. Both of you spread your arms and legs and don't move. Good, you speak the language. That's right, very easy."

The man slowly moved toward them. Virga saw his boots, battered sealskin with a fringe of yellowed polar-bear fur. The man methodically slapped their waists and underarms in a search for weapons. Then, satisfied, he stepped back a few paces and said quietly, "Turn over very slowly. I'll kill you if I don't like the way you breathe."

They did as he said. In his furs and polar-bear pants the man was a shapeless, faceless bulk that towered over them. He was silent, examining their faces in the darkness. "You're neither Eskimo nor Danish. Who are you?"

"We've come from Avatik to find you," Michael said, and in his voice there was a strange soothing quality. "We mean you no harm. We only wish to talk with you."

The rifle barrel dipped down an inch or so. "Some men came to talk with me once," he said. "They wanted my haul of bearskins. Before they were through talking I'd killed them. What are you after?"

Michael said calmly, "Your help."

The man was quiet.

"Can we stand up?" Michael asked.

The rifle barrel swung up again and he stepped back. "Stand up, then," he told them. "But remember that I can see in the dark."

They got to their feet and brushed away the snow. Michael said, "We can talk more comfortably out of the cold."

"It doesn't bother me."

"It bothers me," Michael said.

The man grunted and motioned with his rifle. "Walk ahead. But don't even think of trying to trick me. Don't even think it."

Near the prefab hut there were dogs staked out on chain leaders. They were large beautiful animals with eyes like burning coals; they rose up, rumbling a welcome, as the men approached. An Eskimo-style sledge stood on one side of the hut and around it were empty tin cans and garbage, similar to the debris Virga had noted in Avatik. The man said, "Stop," and with his rifle still aimed in their direction, he walked around in front of them and pushed open the door. He stepped back to watch them carefully as they entered.

Inside, a portable stove hissed, flooding the hut with warmth. Two kerosene lamps emitted a dim yellow glow. A sleeping rack, covered with polar-bear skins, stood in one corner. The floor of the single-room dwelling was dirty and stained with blood. Across the bearskin-lined walls were strung pinup-girl posters. They lay in nude abandon on beds, on sofas, and on sun-warmed beaches.

"Ha!" the man barked abruptly. "You like my little companions, huh?"

Virga turned to face him.

The man was shedding his great bloodstained coat. He was bearlike himself, huge and wide. Almost as tall as Michael, his head was within a foot of the ceiling. He had long unkempt black hair and a black beard that turned the color of frost around his mouth. His eyes, cobalt-blue, glittered in a face ravaged by the elements. Lines traced his forehead and gathered around his eyes. Virga saw small, pitted scars that he thought were the remnants of frostbite sores that the man might have cut away himself. His eyes were narrowed slightly from years of squinting into the sun as it glanced dazzlingly off blue-green ice. There was a trace of Eskimo blood in the high cheekbones and tawny color of the skin, but he was certainly a mixture of other races as well. It occurred to Virga that he spoke with a slight Russian accent, though his English seemed tinged with other, less identifiable, accents.

Michael said, "We were expecting someone with two heads."

The man nodded slightly. He put his rifle down in the corner but his cautious, intelligent eyes never left them. He eased down into a battered chair and threw his feet up onto the lip of the stove. "The Eskimo have their own way of saying things," the man said. "You've found me now. Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Michael; this is Dr. James Virga. And yours?"

"I'm asking the questions. What're you doing up here?"

"I've already answered. We were told about you in Avatik and we sought you out."

"And almost caught a slug in the bargain," the man said. "You should be careful you don't catch one yet."

"You saw us on the incline?" Michael asked.

"Saw you, hell," the man said. He leaned forward slightly and stared up at the other. "I smelled you."

Michael grunted and looked around at the walls.

"My name is Ryan Zark," the man said after a silent moment spent appraising the two strangers. "You men are not ice travelers; you have no business here. Why do you search for me?"

Michael drew up another chair and sat warming himself before the stove. He said, "We have information that helicopters flew over this area some days ago. We want to know where they landed."

Zark's eyes narrowed fractionally. He said in a cautious voice, "They were seen by a group of hunters from a settlement further north. The birds veered off to the east. Why?"

"We want to know where they landed," Michael repeated in a flat, even voice, swinging his gaze from the stove into the eyes of the other man.

Zark held it for a few seconds, then grunted and leaned back. He reached in his parka and brought out a pipe that seemed to be a hollowed-out bone. In another moment he had filled it with a black, oily-looking tobacco, and blue smoke was curling from his mouth and nostrils. "I don't know where they landed. I don't want to know where they landed. It's not my business."

"We understood," Michael said, "that you were a man of wisdom, a shaman."

"Shaman? Shit. I'm a good hunter and sometimes I tell the Eskimo where to look for the seal and bear. I hear the wind sing and I see the clouds that mean a storm on the ice. I know the land and I know men and most of all I know myself. But I am not a shaman." He sucked vigorously at the pipe, looking from Michael to Virga and back again. "Did you know that there are some Eskimos who follow me because they say that where I walk is a path of good fortune? They say I never have to find the bear; the bear will find me. If that were true I'd march down to Copenhagen and take them all with me. Shaman; I haven't heard that word for a long while."

"If you know yourself you have more power than most men possess," Michael said.

"Maybe. When I first came to this land, many years ago, I almost starved. The Eskimo saved me; they fed me and taught me how to feed myself. So sometimes when I go out for bear or seal I tell the Eskimo hunters where I believe they're going to be found. I always repay my debts."

"Do you keep in contact with the rest of the world here? Do you know what's going on below?"

"The rest of the world? Ha! There is no other world but this."

Michael said, "A man has arrived here with those helicopters. That man has grave power, he has power to do what he wants with whomever he wants. That is the man we must find, and we must find him quickly."

Zark had been smoking his pipe and listening. "Why should I care? I can't help you."

"But you can. You know the land. You've said so yourself. Dr. Virga and I need someone to take us into the Northeast."

"What? Are you crazy? I'm not in the business of tourist guides. To make a journey with men who have no knowledge of this country would be suicide. Is this what you sought me for?"

"Yes," Michael said.

"Then go back to Avatik. Go back to wherever you came from. I don't travel across the ice on the errands of fools."

"I'll pay you."

"I've said no."

Michael glanced over at Virga and then back into the eyes of Zark. "We have no way of getting back."

"That coward," Zark said. "One bullet and he runs like an old woman. I should have shot him in the ass. All right, then. I'll take you in the morning to Sagitak; the Eskimos there will see that you return safely to Avatik. But you'll pay me for my time and trouble."

"We seek a man named Baal," Michael said after another moment. "It is vital that we find him. We will not return. We will go on from Sagitak into the Northeast."

"Not with me. Maybe you can pay one of the Eskimos up there to go on with you. Give them a couple of bottles of good whiskey and they'll do anything. Did you bring any with you?"

"No."

"Well then," said Zark, shrugging, "you're in a shit of a shape."

His eyes glittering, Michael opened his mouth to say something, but then he thought better of it and sat relaxed in the chair. He said, "You won't help us?"

"I won't help you. I've got my own self to take care of. Look. That route you just came over from Avatik is a trade route; an old woman with one bad leg could get over it. But you get up higher than this, on rocks and pressure ridges and ice chunks as big as goddamned battleships, and then, my friend, you need good eyes and good lungs and you'd sure better have some ice experience under your belt."

He stopped speaking abruptly and seemed to listen to the silence in the room. In a few seconds more the dog team staked outside began barking. Zark picked up his rifle. He whispered, "We have a visitor."

As Zark stood peering out the window, Virga could see nothing but total blackness. Then Zark stepped toward the hut door and opened it to admit a rotund but hawk-eyed Eskimo man with a scar across the bridge of his nose. The man shook snow from his furs and looked cautiously over at Michael and Virga. The Eskimo seemed to ask a question in his native language and Zark motioned to the two men and nodded his head. Then the Eskimo spoke again, fixing his eyes on the floor at Zark's feet and rounding his shoulders to appear humble, though he was obviously older than Zark. When he had finished his plaintive-sounding recitation he continued staring fixedly at the floor.

Zark turned to look at the two men. Then he nodded and said something to the Eskimo. The other man grasped Zark's hand and then went back out into the night.

Virga said, "What was all that about?"

"The man," Zark told him, "is a hunter from an eastern settlement. His new bride wishes a child; he has sadly and regretfully lost the fire. So he's brought her here for me."

"What?"

"Hell, I've probably got kids all up and down the Arctic Circle. I don't know; they seem to think it's some sort of honor if I can give their wives a child. The women aren't so bad. All that fat makes them like big soft pillows."

"The man feels you have the qualities of a shaman," Michael said. "Since he feels disgraced at being unable to father a child he hopes a son with the qualities of a shaman will bring honor back to his name."

"I guess that's it," Zark said. "Anyway, I don't mind. Well now, what's this? A young one."

The Eskimo had brought his woman in from the sledge outside. He took off her fur-lined parka and put his hand beneath her chin to indicate her beauty. She was very young, probably only just out of her teens, yet her face showed the hardships she had already endured. She stood like the man had, staring directly at the floor, not daring to meet Zark's intense gaze. Virga supposed she was very beautiful indeed by Eskimo standards; her full lips were trembling though her round dark eyes seemed to reflect a remarkable inner calm. The girl's lustrous black hair, freed of the parka's confining hood, hung loose and full about her shoulders.

As the Eskimo spoke, Zark examined the girl's face. Zark nodded and the man beamed with happiness. The Eskimo touched her cheek gently, with scarred brown fingers, and spoke to her. Then he nuzzled her as if sniffing at her flesh. When he turned to leave she clung to his arm, but he spoke sharply to her and she let go her grasp. The Eskimo went through the doorway and in another moment the men heard his shouts as he urged his dog team up the incline.

The young girl stood trembling in the center of the hut, her eyes downcast. Zark walked around her and said to the men, "A fine-looking woman. Very fine. Good strong arms and thighs. Look at those muscles right here. You see? She hasn't yet got a lot of fat on her."

Virga's face was reddening. He said, "Are we going to watch this?"

Zark's surprised eyes left the girl's firm buttocks and looked up at him. He said, "What else? You going to freeze your asses outside? Hell, I don't care. You can close your eyes if you like. You can have a go at her if you like. Do you want to?" He swung his gaze around to Michael.

"No," Michael said, "thank you."

The man shrugged. "Suit yourself." He walked around and said something in a quiet voice to the girl. She didn't reply. He put his hand under her chin and raised her head but she still kept her eyes on the floor. Slowly and softly, Zark nuzzled her as the other man had, sniffing gently at her nose and across her cheeks and eyes. Finally, reassured by his caress, she raised her eyes to meet his and Zark smiled.