The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [96]
“Did you get that? Wait, one more order. Rayna, what do you want?”
She stopped laughing and sat up. Her face got serious. “I can get anything I want?” she asked.
“Anything. Red’s buying.”
“The hell I am!”
“Okay, I’m buying. Order whatever you want, girl.”
“Well, I’d like some ice cream. Chocolate with whipped cream on top. And I never had Japanese food before. What do they call it?”
“Sushi.”
“Yes, sushi. I want to try that.”
“Is that all,” John asked, still holding the phone to his ear. “You want anything else?”
The girl thought long and hard for a moment, turned her face up toward him, and smiled. “Just ice cream,” she said. “Chocolate ice cream.”
HE LOST COUNT of how many days Anna had been sick, how long they had been without power, how many snow machines had raced away from the village, and how many groups he’d seen carrying corpses out to the cemetery at the north end of the village, just past their house. At first there had been a few crude plywood coffins. He suspected those had been hand cut. Then the bodies were wrapped in sheets. And finally, he would watch as just one or two people used all their strength to lug a body, no coffin or sheet, to a snow machine with a sled.
One night, while Anna slept, he walked out to the cemetery to stretch his legs, but also to see what they were doing with the dead. He didn’t want to waste the batteries in his headlamp, so he kept the light off. He could see well enough with the snow reflecting the light coming from a waning half moon.
Each step through the snow zapped his strength. He’d started to ration their canned food. He figured help would be coming soon enough, but he didn’t want to take any chances, and he worried what extent people would go to if they started running out of food and fuel to hunt and fish.
He took several steps backward at the sight of the dead. The rows and rows of bodies stood out against the snow. Behind them the white wooden crosses from the old graves stood leaning like weary soldiers on guard. He didn’t count the corpses. There were too many to count.
In slow, short steps he backed away from the frozen, lifeless faces. Then he turned and sprinted home. He wasn’t close enough to see their expressions, but he knew some of them were his students, and from the size of the smaller corpses, some of Anna’s too. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she joined them.
36
“See you, Red,” Rayna whispered over the rattle of the Tundra’s motor. She held his face with her bare hands and kissed him on the forehead. “Quyana-cakneq.”
Red’s eyes welled as he watched the girl slide her hands into her mittens.
John was glad the girl couldn’t see the tears beginning to stream down the man’s weathered cheeks. He wished he couldn’t, either.
“You travel safe, kiddo. You’ll find gold where you’re going, girl,” he said. “And keep an eye on this goofy guy.”
She laughed. “So funny you are, Red. Piuraa.”
John took off his glove and shook Red’s hand. He gave a firm squeeze and nodded his head. He didn’t need to say any more.
“Got everything?”
“I think so,” John said.
“Well. If you need something else, don’t be afraid to come back and get it.”
John nodded again.
He swung his leg over the machine’s black seat, and the girl crawled on behind him and wrapped her arms around him. “I’ve never been so happy to be on a sno-go,” she yelled to Red.
Red grinned and patted her on the back, and then tapped John’s shoulder. “Go on,” he said, “you don’t have all day. Cut across that way toward the bluffs, then drop down on the river. Watch out for open spots and overflow on the river ice. Good luck, you two.”
John grabbed the rifle leaning against the cowling. He slid the weapon beneath his thighs, crossways, and gave a two-fingered salute. Red winked at him, and John squeezed the throttle and the machine and sled lurched forward.
He aimed the machine northeast, following the edge of town, in the direction Red had pointed out. He travelled at half speed, just fast enough to make them a difficult