Free In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White Page A

Sturmann-Taylor’s inner circle. But he could taste it now—he was getting close.
    And if he was right, the ultimate prize would be the raw blood stones heading for laundering at WestMin when the mine opened.

CHAPTER 8
    Tana checked her voice recorder and pinned the mic to her collar. It was easier to speak her observations out loud than to try writing them down with frozen fingers. She’d transcribe it all later. It was just after 8:15 a.m. and the sun was struggling like a pale lemon trapped behind glass to rise off the horizon. It wouldn’t get far. Its arc would only get shallower and shallower until it barely peeped over at all in late December.
    A cold wind pushed through the valley, the sound crisp and sibilant on ice crystals that had grown on snow during the night. The breeze had cleared the skies and she’d managed to transmit a satellite call. She’d been told the coroner’s ETA was a few hours out. Her goal was now to document the scene while she waited.
    She’d left Van Bleek at the cliff and climbed the opposite esker ridge. From up here she surveyed the scene below with a bird’s eye. In the stark light of dawn, the carnage was surreal.
    On the cliff ridge opposite her, above Van Bleek, stood an inukshuk. These stone figures were common throughout the tundra. One arm of the inuk was usually created longer than the other, and it would point travelers in the direction they should go, either to find water, or a mountain pass, that kind of thing. Nothing weird there. She took a photo anyway, in an attempt to capture the whole scene. She snapped a couple of the cliff, then of the slaughter below. Wolves lay in a sea of churned-up red and pink snow that was littered with bits of meat, viscera, clothing. Apodaca’s head.
    Apodaca’s and Sanjit’s bodies were lumps under tarps inside the electric fences. She captured it all, checked her watch, activated her mic. She stated time and weather conditions, and that she was present at the scene with Markus Van Bleek. In bullet point fashion she detailed how they’d arrived, how they’d killed the wolves, and what measures she’d taken to protect the scene.
    “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