MacGyver rolled to one side, knee-walking off his awkward position on top of the Mountie. He held his cuffed hands out in front of him, making an effort to look reasonably harmless.
"I hope I won't need a lawyer. I think we have a case of mistaken identity. Can we talk about this?"
The Mountie pushed himself to a crouch and leaned over toward the pool of water the plane was partially submerged in, reaching out to splash the water into his eyes to clean out the irritating powder MacGyver had thrown at him.
"Don't do that!" MacGyver said, throwing himself forward to push the Mountie back off balance with the weight of his torso. "Wait!"
"That doesn't seem like talking, and I'd like to rinse my eyes." The Mountie said in a clipped tone of voice.
"Use my canteen." MacGyver gestured with his cuffed hands. "The water's clean."
The Mountie squinted, looking skeptical. "Whereas the water in this pond-"
"May be loaded with PCBs. That's why I'm here."
"Polychlorinated biphenyl? Why do you think that?" The Mountie asked, reaching for MacGyver's water canteen. He opened it and sniffed suspiciously.
"I'll drink from it first if you want." MacGyver volunteered.
"That won't be necessary." The Mountie poured some of the water into his hand and rinsed his eyes, blinking the water away. His eyes still looked sore, red and irritated, and Mac felt a qualm of conscience.
"Sorry about that." he said. "I saw you had a gun."
"Yes, well. What makes you think that there are PCBs in the local water?"
MacGyver shuffled into a comfortable sitting position and extended his cuffed hands.
"Name's MacGyver. I'm up here to collect water samples for testing by an independent environmental group. If you look in my pack, there's a route map and sample containers."
The Mountie took the proffered hand and shook it awkwardly. "Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP. If you don't mind, I would rather confirm your story."
"No problem." MacGyver sat back, projecting a calm confidence. Constable Fraser didn't seem impetuous, but they hadn't started off on the best foot. The young officer was being admirably cautious, and that force of determination was still written plainly on his face.
Without taking his eyes off MacGyver, Constable Fraser pulled MacGyver's pack closer. The route map for Mac's trek was in an outside pocket. Fraser looked it over, his eyes continuously shifting back up from the map to MacGyver.
Mac's expression remained open and neutral. Saying "Trust me." would be counter-productive. Besides, it'd be hypocritical. He was still more than aware that he only had Fraser's word that he was who he said he was. If he didn't trust the purported Mountie, he could hardly ask for the same trust to be extended to him. They were both in the same boat.
Fraser folded the map back up with a deft gesture and stuck it back in the pocket, then searched through the pack, pulling out hard plastic sample vials, ID labels and seals for the vials, and from an interior pocket that was supposed to be hidden, MacGyver's passport and DXS identification.
Fraser held the passport up to the light and examined it closely. MacGyver watched minute emotions chase across his face. In under thirty seconds, he looked smooth-faced and impassive once again, but Mac hadn't missed some powerful anger.
"Well, everything seems to be in order." Fraser said. He took out the key to the handcuffs and reached over and uncuffed MacGyver.
"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. However, it isn't particularly safe to be traveling alone out here, especially this early in the season."
MacGyver rubbed his wrists, more out of habit than discomfort. The cuffs hadn't been punitively tight.
"You got proof you're RCMP?" he said.
"Oh, I apologize." Fraser reached slowly under his jacket, lifting the edge of the garment to make it obvious he wasn't going for his gun. He passed over his RCMP badge. MacGyver took his time looking it over.
"Well, it looks like we're both who we said we were." he said. "But if it's not safe for me to be out here alone, it's not that safe for you either."
"Mmm." Constable Fraser said noncommittally. "And normally I would offer to render any assistance that I could in your worthy environmental endeavor, but I'm afraid I have to be on my way."
He stood and looked into the distance as if the horizon had answers for him. The anger flashed on his face, and pain, and it was obvious to MacGyver that it was all directed internally. Interesting.
"Hold on now." MacGyver levered himself up off the ground, stiff from the little tussle and feeling much older than the green kid who'd managed to get the drop on him.
"What's your hurry? You've been tracking me a while, and I know you didn't stop for lunch. You gotta eat some time, and sleep. Why don't we get comfortable for the night. I'll fill you in on the whole deal with the water testing, and we'll see if there was something I could help you with."
Oh, yeah. Those words had come out of his mouth. His mouth was going to get him into trouble some day. Well, no. It already had on more than one occasion.
Fraser stood with his hands on his hips, silent, watching the sky. The sun wouldn't set yet, not for a long while, the lazy late dusk would keep them company, and he could move on, could keep tracking if he wanted to push himself. But the man he'd been mistakenly following was not wrong. He hadn't rested or eaten all day, and now he was going to have to backtrack and start over. It was foolhardy to keep going.
MacGyver schooled himself to patience. It was really none of his business if the Mountie wanted to head off rashly into the twilight. It wasn't his fault that the man was discreetly beating himself up over tracking the wrong target. Still, he was curious as to how that had happened, and of all the company that could have found him out here and broken in on his happy solitude, Constable Fraser was certainly an interesting puzzle.
With the slightest of sighs, Fraser turned back toward MacGyver.
"Thank you. I would be happy to share a camp with you. I will be moving first thing in the morning."
The two men moved to drier ground. MacGyver set up the lightweight but sturdy tent that he was traveling with. Balancing bulk, weight, and comfort was tricky, but choosing and packing the right gear was one of MacGyver's secret pleasures of camping. He was fit enough that he didn't have to be totally picky about carrying a pound of extra weight here or there.
Fraser unrolled a bedroll, the only concession to the chilly weather a modern winter-rated sleeping bag.
"MRE?" MacGyver offered. He didn't have water to spare to heat up a dehydrated meal on the tiny Coleman camp stove in his pack. The next cache of water and food dropped for him to pick up during his hike toward the border was a half day away, and he'd spared some to wash Fraser's eyes.
"Military rations?" Fraser said. "Thank you, but I have pemmican."
"Probably tastier." MacGyver allowed. The bagged rations were not the height of the culinary arts. Pete had hooked Mac up with a supply, because taste aside, they were damn handy to fall back on in extreme conditions. He sat on his rolled up sleeping mat just outside the door to his tent and opened his alleged chicken dinner. Vegetarian would have been nicer than the mystery meat contents, but tofu was asking a bit much of the US military industrial complex.
The men ate in relatively comfortable silence. MacGyver was prepared to share more information with Fraser about his job, but not without some disclosures from Fraser first. And Fraser still seemed to be pre-occupied with the mammoth task of kicking his own butt. After MacGyver was done eating, he decided to press a couple of buttons and see what happened.
"So if you weren't looking for me, who are you looking for?" he asked.
Fraser's gaze flew up from his meager plate of pemmican. His eyes were an almost colourless grey in the dimming light and although he only met MacGyver's eyes for a few seconds, it was the penetrating stare of a man who was too old for the years he'd lived. Apparently resigned to trusting MacGyver, Fraser spoke.
"A man was beaten and robbed three days ago in his dwelling in a hamlet south of Old Crow. There was a suspect whose description matched yours." His voice lacked emotion, as if he were giving a report to a superior. "The suspect had stolen a snowmobile from the only other resident of the hamlet, who was also the only witness. He had a lead of several hours on me. I was able to follow him easily until his snowmobile ran out of fuel. He was on foot and I had reserve fuel, so I made up some time on him."
MacGyver nodded and made an encouraging sound, not wanting to break the stream of narrative.
"Unfortunately, the suspect apparently reached Old Crow and chartered a plane there. I was able to ascertain that he had been flown out to one of the campsites to the south of us in the park. I hitched a ride to follow him, but from there, I-"
Fraser's head hung down and his voice dropped slightly.
"I asked around and one of the local hunters told me he'd seen someone matching the description out here. I tracked you. When I should have been tracking someone else."
There was so much devastation even in the totally impassive tone of that sentence. Fraser was obviously used to concealing a lot from the world, but he wasn't practiced enough to get by Mac's intuition. Besides, the self-reproach which spoke so much of the arrogance of youth, unable to forgive himself a mistake, was all sorts of painfully familiar to MacGyver.
"You're sure now that I'm not the suspect." MacGyver said, neutrally, disarming the explosive silence.
"You crossed the border from Blaine, Washington, to Douglas, BC. Assuming you flew into Yellowknife from Vancouver and then chartered out from there, your passport is stamped too recently for you to have been where the crime was committed."
"Fair enough." MacGyver was impressed by Constable Fraser's eye for detail. He might look young but he was sharp.
"So you tracked this guy by plane, doesn't that put you just a mite out of your jurisdiction?" he asked, pressing for more information.
"Ah."
Even in the watery light, the delicate blush was visible. Fraser's hand came up, fidgeting at his brow.
"Well, yes. I took some leave. Technically, I will have a lot of paperwork when I bring the suspect in."
"So why'd you come all this way out?"
"There wasn't anyone else. If you'll excuse me, it's time for me to turn in."
MacGyver cleaned up the packaging from the MRE and retreated into his tent. The air was turning chilly, and he wanted to pull out his heavy duty flashlight to look over his map and think. Obviously there was a lot more driving the young constable than he'd shared. Mac's sense of justice was itching. If he could get Fraser to open up just a bit more in the morning, perhaps they could figure out together the most likely course the fugitive had taken.
Of course, that meant waking up before the Mountie made it out of camp in the morning. Mac had an inkling that wouldn't be easy. Which meant an early night - sleeping as comfortably as he could with only his intuition to assure him that it was safe to drop his guard with a stranger with a gun sleeping outside his tent.
