A/N: I'm really not too sure about this chapter. But it is done, so I'm posting it, because until I do I won't be able to work properly on the next one. Thanks for the reviews, guys! Keep 'em coming:)
Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce's characters are hers; if you recognize somebody from a Tortall book, s/he isn't my invention. Bits of plot are also TP's, randomly reinserted where I felt like it.
Chapter 7: Mosquito Creek, Back Country, 20–24 July
Daine crouched in the ditch on the west side of the Icefields Parkway, staring across the road. The great shambling bear had reared up on his hindquarters, presumably to look more imposing—an effort which, it must be said, was hugely successful. He must, she thought, awed and more than a little intimidated, be well over two metres tall, and in his prime had probably weighed close to seven hundred kilos.
He was in his prime no longer. He roared and raged as one angry and in pain; he snapped his huge jaws at something Daine could not see; he slavered and stared and pawed at his muzzle. This bear was clearly very ill indeed. Rabies, she thought, or distemper … do grizzly bears get distemper?
And then, as the bear lunged threateningly in their direction, Of all the times not to have a tranquilliser gun. She had never needed such a thing before, certainly, but, had one been offered her on this occasion, she would have accepted it with alacrity.
As her mind raced, her hands were scrabbling in the pockets of her rucksack for her mobile, into which she had programmed Sandy's number, and Jim's, and the land-line number to reach the Park Wardens.
"I think it's making up its mind to cross the road." Numair's voice, from somewhere above her head, was determinedly calm, but where his arm rested along her shoulders she could feel his pulse racing.
"He," she said, her eyes on the bear.
"Daine—"
"Yes, I know. Not much to the purpose. Have you got your mobile?"
"I have. Assuming it works from here."
Daine had been trying not to think about that. "You ring Sandy," she said firmly, "and I'll ring the Park Warden number." Even as she dialled the number and held the instrument to her ear, she was concentrating on the bear: trying, despite the distance between them, both to calm and reassure him and to warn him away from their side of the road.
Numair's call was answered first, and she heard him speaking to Sandy in brief, terse phrases. Cars and trucks and even a camper-van sped by, and she was half relieved, half annoyed, that not one of them stopped. When at last an unknown man's voice said, into her other ear, "Park Warden's station, how may I assist you?" she almost shouted with relief.
It took some time to explain the situation; Daine did not sound terrified enough, she supposed, to be a tourist confronted by a rabid grizzly, and the person on the other end of the phone had no way to evaluate the accuracy of her diagnosis or, indeed, to verify that she was qualified to make one. He seemed dangerously disposed to repeat Sandy's lecture on bear safety rather than do anything useful. Daine was clarifying for the third time her estimate of the distance that separated them from the bear, and beginning to lose patience, when the beast let out his most thunderous roar yet.
For a long moment there was silence down the phone. Then, "I'm dispatching people from the nearest stations, ma'am. They'll be there as soon as they can. Now, if the bear approaches you …"
Faster than Daine would have thought possible, Parks Canada trucks arrived from the north, then from the south, and disgorged a total of three men and two women equipped with satellite phones and – she shuddered, though she had known it would be like this – firearms.
The road had been clear in both directions for some time; presumably their phone calls had triggered not only this armed response but also roadblocks at either end of this section of highway. Watching government employees shoot a rabid grizzly bear was not, Daine told herself rather bitterly, the sort of wildlife encounter most Park visitors probably wanted to have.
The nearest warden caught Daine's eye and motioned at her to stay put. Daine nodded, seeing, out of the corner of her eye, Numair doing the same.
The bear had not, despite the removal of the only possible obstacle, crossed the road; why it had not, and why instead it had stayed so long in a spot not particularly attractive in terms of water, food, or shade, were questions canvassed anxiously, in low voices, by the Parks staff. Daine and Numair exchanged looks: Ought I to tell them something? and No, better not.
"You're right, it is Old Brutus," someone said; "I'll be damned. Nobody's sighted him since last spring when his transmitter went dead." And Daine, squinting across the gap, realized that the oddly ruffled fur around the bear's neck, which had puzzled her, was caused by the fact that he was wearing a radio collar.
"Remember that encounter report, oh, about two weeks back?" said another of the newcomers. "Bear versus dogs, owner wasn't sure the dogs were up to date on their rabies shots?"
"Well, now we know," said a third, bitterly. "Bloody tourists."
Then he seemed to remember that there were tourists within earshot, and all five of them turned to look at Numair and Daine. "I'm a vet," Daine told them. "My husband's a wildlife biologist. You needn't bother reassuring us, or apologizing, or – or – or whatever. Just let's get on with it. He's suffered enough."
The wardens gave them a lift to the Mosquito Creek trailhead, their next destination, and helped them collect their Wilderness Pass and their allotment of plastic bags for packing out waste and garbage from the back country.
When they had gone, Daine wept for some time over the fate of Old Brutus, and Numair held her tight and whispered soothingly into her hair, exactly as he had on the night, some eleven years earlier, that she and Onua had lost a horse under their care to a traffic accident.
When she was calmer, he lent her his handkerchief and offered what consolation he could. "There was no choice, really," he reminded her. "You can't treat rabies. He was too far gone—there was nothing else anyone could have done. If some other tripper had run against him before you did, there might have been more than one death." He knew better, of course, than to suggest to her (especially now) that a human death would have been worse than the bear's.
"I know all that," she said, sniffing a little. "Only none of it makes much difference just now."
"I know." Numair hesitated, searching for the right approach. "Dear heart, if you want to turn back …"
She might have berated him then, or stared as though he had lost his wits; instead she gave him a small, sad smile and said, "It's sweet of you to offer, but of course not."
"I know. But I had to ask."
"What would we do—sit about in an over-priced hotel room and fret about not having our laptops? Go round the shops and buy over-priced tourist rubbish?" He acknowledged the truth of this with a rueful smile. "Besides which," Daine went on, beginning to sound more like herself, "you know I always feel worse about things when I suspect I'm being mollycoddled."
This also was perfectly true.
"I'd like to know what happened to that cougar," she said after a moment. "We didn't thank her properly for warning us. It's a bad habit, you know."
They pitched their camp in silence. When they had finished, Daine made bannock while Numair fetched water, boiled it, and made soup and tea. After their rather morose supper, Daine stood up and began gathering dishes and cooking utensils to take to the pump for washing up.
"Let me," Numair said. "Stay here and rest—you look all in."
"But it's my turn! And you fetched the water, and did most of the cooking—"
"Vetkin," he said, laughing, "the sun will rise tomorrow morning even if I cook and wash up on the same evening. Besides, if we're to set off as planned—"
"We are," Daine said firmly.
"Then the equipment check needs doing. If the idea of resting for half an hour is so dreadfully unappealing, you might begin on that, and I'll be back to help when I've done the washing up."
She put out her tongue at his retreating back, thinking simultaneously that he was the most exasperating person she had ever known and how utterly miserable she would have been without him.
"Long underwear?"
"Here's yours, and …" a brief rummage. "Yes, here's mine. Check."
"Wool jumpers?"
"Check."
"Anoraks?"
"Check."
"Woolly hats? Gloves?"
"Check and check. No—hang on—those are socks. There they are. Check again."
"Shorts? … I'm wearing mine. Though that doesn't seem as good an idea as it did this morning." Daine slapped at a mosquito on her calf. "This place is certainly aptly named." She ticked off shorts on her list and moved on: "Trousers? Shirts?"
"Yes, here we are—trousers, large; trousers, diminutive; two shirts for me, two for you; knickers, yours, one, two, three—"
"Yes, yes, all right. Sandals?"
On they went, through extra socks, boots, tent and fly, sleeping-bags, ground sheet, tarp, ropes, campstove and fuel, cooking utensils, water filter, Wilderness Pass, compass, waterproof matches, first-aid kit, sunscreen, signalling mirror, sunglasses, trail guide, pocket knife, water bottles, toilet paper, candles, notebooks and pencils, camera, toothbrushes and toothpaste, torch …
"Field guide?"
Numair extracted a small, dog-eared book from his shirt pocket and two larger ones from a pocket on the side of his rucksack and held them up.
"Yes, of course I meant field guides, plural." Daine rolled her eyes, but she was chuckling. "Maps? Oh—I've got those, actually." She rummaged in one pocket, then another, and eventually produced the cardboard cylinder that contained their 1:50,000-scale topographic maps of Banff National Park and the parks that bordered it. "That's everything, then, I think. D'you know …" she paused reflectively.
"Penny for them, love?" Numair asked after a moment.
"Next summer, I'm going to take all my holidays so we can go out in the field again. Just us, the way we used to. Somewhere wild—the Orkneys, or …"
He smiled, understanding. "If you still feel the same in ten days' time, we'll 'clap hands and a bargain,'" he promised.
Daine woke just after sunrise when what turned out to be a family of marmots began chasing one another noisily around the outside of the tent (which Numair had zipped shut the previous evening to keep out the mosquitoes). She put her head out of the tent to scold them, then, when they had gone, put on her sandals and emerged into the grey dawn, yawning and stretching. Last chance of a flush toilet for the next ten days, she reminded herself, and set off.
Numair was still asleep when she returned to their campsite, and, deciding to leave him be for the moment, she went about the usual morning chores: retrieving the food bags from the bear-proof locker, starting the campstove, fetching water to boil for tea and porridge. When the pot was on the stove, she sat atop the picnic table with her arms round her knees, staring up at the rugged cliffs to the southeast. A little wilder than the Outer Hebrides, after all.
By eight o'clock, when Numair at last made his appearance, Daine had packed up nearly everything apart from the tent and his bedroll. He looked rather mutinous at having missed the morning tea; she let him mutter about it for a moment or two before handing him the thermos flask, still nearly full.
"You do know how to make a man happy, vetkin," he said, pouring tea.
"Really." Daine raised a sceptical eyebrow. "That's all it takes, is it – morning tea? I'll have to remember that. And don't think I'm going to strike the tent for you, either."
"I should never presume so far, dear lady." Numair tried out an elaborate bow, which made Daine giggle. "Your humble servant will of course take charge of the tent and its accoutrements. As soon," he added, dropping the deferential tone, "as I've drunk my tea."
The weather, mild when they set out each morning, grew punishingly hot by noon.
The first leg of their route followed Mosquito Creek toward the Fish Lakes, and the insect life was as vigorous as ever. "Ye gods, what was that?" Numair exclaimed, squatting down to peer at the creature which had just taken a visible bite out of his arm. He had whacked it with one of Daine's sandals, knocking it to the ground, but it was still buzzing angrily.
Daine crouched down to look. "Horsefly," she said. "They have those tough jaws to bite through horses' hide – and deer and cattle and so on. Next time I'd advise getting it before it gets you." She trod on the offender until it stopped moving. "Now," she went on, "let's get on. At least then we'll be a moving target."
They pitched camp on Saturday evening at the Fish Lakes site, and on Sunday morning their trail continued east for a few kilometres before striking north along the Pipestone River toward the Clearwater Pass. Monday morning saw them passing the Devon Lakes to the south, with the bulk of Clearwater Mountain on their left. They met very few other walkers and, after the first two days, none at all.
The going was often difficult; the trail was broken by what the trail guide cheerfully described as "scrambles," for which Daine more than once complained that they ought to have brought climbing gear. The air was thin up here, and she found herself setting the pace slower and slower. More and more, too, traitorous thoughts of packing it in floated to the front of her mind; but each time the next scramble, the next turning in the trail, laid before them some new and stupefyingly beautiful vista, and breathless awe made her forget how bone-weary she was.
By the time they made camp on Monday evening, however, she strongly suspected – though she refused to admit it to Numair – that she had got in over her head.
"Daine," he said gently, catching her as she passed him with an armful of ropes and tarp. "Sweetheart, are you all right?"
"Yes!" Daine replied, too sharply; then, thinking better of it, "I'm fine, 'Mair. Why d'you ask?"
"You seem …" He hesitated, not quite meeting her eyes. "Tired. Worn out. I suspect the altitude doesn't agree with you, and … I wonder whether it's wise to keep on. This is meant to be a holiday, after all, not some sort of endurance test."
She glared up at him. "Haven't I told you not to mollycoddle me?" she demanded. "If I want to turn back, I'll say so. Until then, I'll thank you to leave me be."
Turning on her heel, she stomped off to put up the cooking shelter, already regretting having lost her temper and wondering what was the matter with her that she was behaving like a stubborn, idiotic teenager. We ought to turn back, and we both know it.
Supper was an uncomfortable meal, eaten mostly in silence under a suddenly overcast sky. Numair having cooked, Daine refused any assistance with the washing up, though the stringent minimum-impact camping guidelines in force in this area of the park – in particular, the requirement to strain out all food particles from wash water – made this a difficult task for only two hands. As soon as she had finished, she crawled into the tent, pulled off her boots, and, sprawled across both bedrolls, fell asleep almost instantly.
She slept fitfully, and her dreams were fragmentary and unpleasant, leaving her with a nagging feeling that, somewhere, something was wrong and that, somehow, she had to put it right. It was exasperating to have no idea what any of it meant.
When she woke – firmly zipped into her own sleeping-bag, but nevertheless feeling chilled to the bone – it was dawn, but the quality of the light, the taste and feel of the air, were not those she had become used to over the past week. She glanced at Numair (or, rather, at the part of him she could see: a shock of dark hair protruding from the top of his sleeping-bag), feeling both indignant and remorseful, and did her bestnot to wake himas she crept to the front of the tent and unzipped the flap.
At once she saw what was wrong with the light, what had changed the taste of the air: while they slept, the previous evening's innocent-looking clouds had unburdened themselves of some six inches of heavy, wet snow.
A/N: I realized while writing chapter 8 that I had got the dates wrong on this chapter -- it ends Tuesday morning, not Monday night. Nothing else has been changed.