Absolutely no one seems to have been worried about me after that last chapter. I'm hurt. Sigh. Oh well... it's been a week, so I'll update it anyway.

Chapter Forty-six: Promises

I don't know about you, but when I fall, a lot of little un-worded thoughts go through my mind. If I put them into words, they would go something like this: I'm falling. Stop myself. Can't stop. Catch myself. Still falling. Regroup. Catch myself a different way. Still falling. Regroup. Catch myself a different way. Still falling?! Oh, sh*t...

That's kind of how it went this time. I fell a long, long way. I bumped and scraped on the way down. I didn't know when (or if) I'd ever hit the bottom, so I wasn't ready when I did. I tried to absorb the shock in my legs, but had limited success. I heard something tear and felt the wind go out of me with a hollow "Uh!" when my back hit a solid wall behind me. Then I kind of crumpled the rest of the way and I was sitting in a mess of snow and dirt and broken snowshoes.

"Ray?"

I grimaced in pain and tilted my head back. I could hardly believe it when I saw how far above me Fraser was. We'd been on what seemed like fairly flat ground, and here I was looking up at him like Daniel in the lion's den. Like Jack at the bottom of the beanstalk. Like the prince under Rapunzel's window.

"Are you all right?"

I shifted around and tried to get up. "I think I twisted an ankle," I called. It was pretty dark down there, and my eyes were adjusting slowly. "Something tore my coat... but it didn't go all the way through," I reported. "I bumped my sore shoulder... god, that hurts. And, uh... ski mask saved my glasses. One lens cracked. Still usable."

"Any broken bones?"

"Don't think so... somehow."

"That's good." He looked around. "I know I owe you an apology, but it's going to have to wait."

It was about then that I realized he'd let go of me on purpose. "What, for dropping me?" I'd told him before to warn me when he was going to drop me, but I guessed he hadn't had time.

"No. For trusting Tulugaak."

"So, you're ready to admit he wants us dead?"

"Very much so. He didn't want us to bring the dogs because they might sense the danger, and even if they didn't, they would likely be the first to fall in, or if not, they might go to bring help back to us."

"Yeah, that all makes sense, but how are we going to get me out of here?"

He looked around again. "Even if I had something long enough to lower down to you, I have nothing with which to anchor myself." He got out the canteen. "Look out, I'm going to drop this."

I held out my hands and managed to catch the canteen. "Thanks, what do I do with this?"

"Make it last until I get back."

I panicked. "No... no, Fraser, you can't leave me out here!"

"I've little choice, Ray. We're not equipped to spend the night out here, and it will take that long for Corporal Martin to realize we're missing. We could die of hypothermia. With no way to signal for help..."

"My phone! I have my phone..."

"Why did you bring your phone? Do you really expect to get reception?"

"Well, not from down here," I admitted, getting the phone out. "It's just one of those things you never leave home without... Here, catch." I tried to throw it overhand, but it hit the side of the pit and fell back into my hands.

"Is it damaged?"

I looked it over. "Don't think so. Lemme try again."

"Try a mortar shot," he suggested. "Both hands, like a trampoline."

I cupped the phone in both hands, weighed it up and down for a second and then flung it straight up as hard as I could. Fraser didn't manage to catch it, but he knocked it to the side so it landed up there in the snow instead of falling down again. He went out of my sight for a few seconds and then came back.

"No reception up here either, I'm afraid. Perhaps I'll be able to get a signal on my way back."

"But it took two hours to get up here..."

"I'll make better time on my own, and better still when I have the dogs."

"Fraser..." I knew he was talking sense. There was nothing we could do. He had to go back. And I was going to be stuck in a hole with my panic and my insecurity and my neediness and no one to tell me it would be OK. "I..." I'm scared.

"Do you have your watch?"

"Yeah." I checked it. "Looks like it's still working."

"Good. If I'm not back in a couple of hours... start singing."

"So you can find me?"

He shook his head. "I'm confident that even if a strong wind should come up and erase our tracks, Diefenbaker would be able to find you."

Start singing, because I'll be facing death. Again. Alone, this time. "Fraser..." I don't want to die alone. "You make sure you come back."

"Of course, I will. I have to tell you why I believe in ghosts."

I laughed. "That's rich... considering I'll probably be one by the time you get back."

"Ray, you're not going to die."

"You keep saying that..."

"Have I ever been wrong about it?"

"Well, no..."

"Then you should trust me."

"I do. I really do. But when you're a couple miles away, it's gonna get harder."

He crouched at the edge of the pit. "In one of his journals, my father defined a friend as someone who never stops until he finds you and brings you home. We're friends, aren't we?"

Duh. Yes, Captain Obvious. "Yeah," I said, hating how much I sounded like a little kid admitting that I had checked under the bed and found no monsters so far.

"I won't stop until I find you and bring you home."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

I wondered if this would be the time I'd been waiting for—the time when Fraser made a promise too big, one he couldn't keep in spite of all his good intentions. I just had to hope it wasn't and try to trust him. "Okay."

He took his coat off.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't intend to stop moving, so I should stay warm enough. You're going to need that more than I will. And incidentally..."

I almost laughed out loud. Here we were in almost as tight a spot as we'd ever been in, and he still had to flex his formal vocabulary muscles.

"You do have your boot gun, don't you?"

That brought me up short in the act of pulling his coat around my shoulders. I looked up at him in surprise, seeing a knowing look on his face. "How long have you known?"

"I suspected it when you first said you wanted to check a bag rather than just carry one. I didn't know for sure until just now."

"You didn't check?"

"I thought deniability would stand me in good stead."

I shook my head. "You think I'll need it?"

"You can hardly have deniability when it's in your possession."

"The gun, Fraser. You think I'll need it?"

"I hope not. But I feel better knowing you have it."

"Think people in town would hear it if you fired it out here?"

He took a moment to observe his surroundings. "The breeze isn't in our favor," he said. "And the fresh snow would dampen the sound. I'd say it's unlikely. Even if someone heard, they might assume it was a hunter."

"Maybe you should take it anyway... in case Tulugaak sends someone after the survivor."

"I'll be all right. No one can sneak up on me on this terrain."

But anyone could sneak up on me. I won't know they're coming until they're literally right on top of me.

He cleared his throat. "Of course, you realize that once I get you out of there, I'll have to arrest you."

This time I did laugh. "You get me out of here, you can do whatever the hell you want, Dudley Do-Right."

"I'll hold you to that. Now, the sooner I start, the better. I'll see you soon."

"You'd better." I watched him disappear from view. I could hear his footsteps for a little while. Then nothing.

I kept checking my watch at first, but quickly decided that was a good way to go insane. I tried singing the Northwest Passage song, but couldn't remember much more than the chorus, so I gave that up. It wasn't the same without Fraser, anyway.

It was freaking cold in that hole. King William Island isn't exactly a beach resort in the first place, but twenty or so feet under the surface...

I squinted at the walls of the pit. All that dirt and rock and then snow up above. I realized there was no way in hell that Tulugaak, even with a team of people, could have dug that pit in a couple of days. This wasn't a simple job for a snow shovel. This probably took pickaxes and stuff. The ground is tougher when it's frozen—that's why crypts exist. If the ground's too hard, you stick the body in the crypt until spring thaw. Had this hole been here a whole year? Since the ground was a little warmer last summer?

That put a literal hole in my premeditated murder theory. Maybe this pit was actually part of a real wolf trap. Maybe the wolf was supposed to fall to its death instead of licking its way there. Or maybe the Inuit would drive caribou over the spot until one fell in. It seemed like a good strategy. So, why didn't anyone mention it in the village? It seemed like another good tourist attraction: Join a real Eskimo caribou hunt! See the Eskimo people herding reindeer into a death trap!

Death trap. My feet were starting to go numb with cold. I got them out of what was left of the snowshoes and stomped around for a while. I pulled my arms through the sleeves of Fraser's coat and pulled the hood up over my head. Then I checked my watch. Fraser hadn't even been gone half an hour.

I drank a little water and walked around the tiny space. I guess it was about four feet across at most. Too small to lie down in, but too big to do the escape trick like you see in the movies where the guy puts his feet on one side and his shoulders on the other and walks up the wall. No way. But maybe I could span it with my legs...

I tried bracing a foot on either side and inching my way up, but I couldn't keep enough traction. My twisted ankle could hardly take any weight, there was nothing for my hands to grip, and I thought if I ever made it halfway up, I'd probably lose my balance and end up falling on my head. But my legs were already getting tired just two feet off the bottom. I wasn't used to this kind of workout, and after snowshoeing for miles on low sleep, a twisted ankle just clinched it. I wasn't going anywhere.

I decided to take a rest, huddling against the pit wall. Fraser's coat was long enough that I could sit on the bottom edge of it, which kept my butt from going numb right away. I tried not to think about my regrets... there seemed to be a lot more of them without Fraser there. When you think you're gonna die with your best friend, the list is pretty short. But when you think you're gonna die alone, you can get to feeling pretty sorry for yourself.

And my parents... that about killed me right there. I hadn't been the greatest son in the world. I hadn't been keeping in touch like I should. Now the last thing I'd told my mom was about putting maple syrup in my coffee. I pulled my knees up and rested my head on them. Everything sucked. I found myself saying the Lord's Prayer, which seemed appropriate, thinking about my parents.

They used to make me go to Sunday school, and I'd been to church with the Vecchios. It never did much for me, but It seemed to make my parents happy. Mom loved hearing me recite whatever Bible verse we'd been learning. I thought some of the Bible stories were cool, like David and Goliath.

"...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..." I looked up at the circle of light I could see above me. It would have been cool to see Fraser coming back then, his hat silhouetted against the sky. "...for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." I waited a minute or so, but there was still no sound. It hadn't been long enough yet.

"Listen, I know people make promises when they think they're gonna die, and then they don't keep 'em," I said to whoever cared to listen in, "but... well, Fraser kind of inspires a guy to want to be a man of his word. So, I really mean this. If I get outta here, I'll go to church. I mean, not necessarily regularly. But... at least once. At least. And... I'll try not to swear so much." I bit my lip. That probably wasn't good enough. "See, I think Fraser's the best thing you ever sent my way... assuming that was your doing. I guess if you're real, it had to be. So I guess you had a reason. So... I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume we're not done yet. 'Cause I've been learning a lot from him, but I want to learn more. I want to have the kind of rep that he's got. I want people to know they can trust me. I want women to feel safe with me and men to feel like they should stay in line around me. But I know I've got a long way to go, so... you gotta give me a little more time, okay?"

The only thing that answered me was a little breeze blowing over the pit, showering some powder snow down on me. "Thanks," I muttered, putting my head down again.

I tried to sleep, and I think I did doze off for twenty minutes or so. Then I started singing all the ABBA I could remember. Each song was three minutes or so. Ten songs, half an hour. Not bad. But then I made a mistake.

I had told Fraser about singing ABBA in the face of death, but I hadn't told him the circumstances. Or which song. Or how depressed I'd been at the time.

"I don't wanna talk... about the things we've gone through. Though it's hurting me, now it's history..." This song I knew start to finish. I shouldn't have started singing it. It had become the monster song I wanted to sing to Stella ever since we split. It was the only song I'd found that covered the crazy range of feelings going through me. I almost stopped after the first verse, but I was trying to pass the time, after all.

"I was in your arms, thinking I belonged there. I figured it made sense, building me a fence, building me a home... thinking I'd be strong there. But I was a fool playing by the rules..."

If a guy wants to torture himself with self-pity, this is the way to do it. I know it wasn't healthy. It wasn't healthy when I first memorized it, and it definitely didn't help things now. Stella was the last thing I needed to think about, let alone how screwed up things had turned out.

"I don't wanna talk if it makes you feel sad, and I understand you've come to shake my hand. I apologize if it makes you feel bad seeing me so tense, no self-confidence... But you see, the winner takes..." I paused mid-build. I thought I'd heard something.

I held my breath. I heard shuffling. The whisper of runners. The murmur of paws on snow.

He's back! Oh, thank God! I got to my feet and watched anxiously until a bundled-up figure appeared in the circle above me. "About time!" I called. Then I froze. Two more figures joined the first. I couldn't see their faces, but I realized that none of them was Fraser.

"I don't s'pose you wanna help me outta here?" I asked, a sinking feeling telling me that was the last thing they wanted to do.

They looked at each other and talked quietly. I didn't catch any words, but from the heavy concentration of consonants, I knew it was Inuktitut, not English. Then they came a little closer. They were each carrying what looked like a wooden pole. No, not a pole—they were handles.

I knew what they were as soon as I heard the first "shhhook!" Shovels. Then snow was pouring down on me. My promise to swear less went out the window.

"Hey!" I shouted, digging for my gun. "You don't wanna do this! You realize I'm an American cop? If I disappear, they'll hunt you to the ends of the earth!" Who was I kidding—this was the ends of the earth. I wasn't scaring anyone. I managed to tug the gun out of my boot and click the safety off. I aimed for the shovel I could see bobbing at the top of the pit, closing one eye so my cracked lens wouldn't skew my shot. I knew that would mess with my depth perception, and took my time aiming.

I fired. The shovel went flying to the tune of startled voices. Then it got quiet. A little powwow started up. I wished I could remember the few Inuktitut words I'd learned before, but I'd made no effort to remember them over the last few weeks because I hadn't thought I'd be going back to this area.

The snow started coming down again, but I couldn't see the shovels anymore. They were flinging it from further away.

I chambered another round, thinking wildly that there had to be something I could say to them. Then I remembered the wolf god. "A... Ama... Amatut? No. Agamut? No... Amaguq! Amaguq will so not be happy about this," I shouted. "Amaguq will curse you!"

The snow-flinging halted, but only for a moment. Then it resumed with a vengeance.

"Aw, screw it," I muttered. The snow was gathering around my feet. I tried to stomp it down and stand on it, but it was coming too fast for me. I had to hold one hand over my eyes to keep my glasses from getting hit with snow when I took aim again. I emptied my gun. I had no way of knowing if I'd hit anyone. I put the gun in Fraser's coat pocket, since my boots were buried at that point.

Out of ideas and barely keeping my panic down, I resorted to racial slurs as the snow level steadily rose. Yeah, my idea of following Fraser's upstanding example kinda went out the window, too. In my defense, these people were trying to kill me. I figured pissing them off couldn't make matters worse. Maybe one of them would get so mad he'd lose his footing and fall down there with me where I could fight on my own terms. I made up some names for them that really had nothing to do with Inuit at all... I think I called them pug dogs at one point. Pugs have nothing to do with the Arctic Circle... I just don't like them. They're round and their legs are too little for their bodies and they have dark, wrinkled faces. There was some tiny stretch of an association in there somewhere. I don't know. I was desperate. And I figure they didn't understand half of what I was saying, anyway.

The snow was up to my chest, and thrashing around in it didn't help me at all. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be stuck in quicksand. At least I knew there was a bottom to it. But the real problem was the top, which was rising a lot faster now that they'd figured out I was out of bullets.

Don't let me die like this... for my mom if not for me... please.

If you're worrying that I'm writing this from beyond the grave, you can relax. I'm still alive. But I wouldn't mind hearing that you were worried. ;p