When she had settled, I pointed to myself and said, “Val.” Then I pointed at her with a questioning look.
She narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
“Val,” I said, somewhat more forcefully, then gestured at her again.
She screwed up her face into a look of distrust, backing away from my pointing finger. Wiped her eyes and nose on the sweater and glowered at me.
I reached out my hand, gingerly touched one of the reindeer on her sweater. In English, I said, “Reindeer.”
She repeated the word in her lilting cadence. “Rane-dar?”
I broke into a sweat, thrilling at the sound of English from her mouth. “Yes, reindeer.”
She shook her head. Stuck her finger square in the reindeer’s face. “Kannisiak.”
I did my best to repeat the word.
She actually rolled her eyes. Tenting the sweater away from her body, she stabbed her finger at each reindeer in turn. “Kannisiak.”
She seemed to silently count the rest, before announcing, “Venseeth kannisiak.”
Caribou. Eight caribou.
Of course that was why she loved that sweater.
I laughed and had to stop myself from hugging her. My whole body seemed to melt with relief. Eight numbers and a noun in just one session! What had I been so worried about? I sat back, grinning goofily at her. At that pace, I’d have the basics of her language mapped out in a week.
seven
Eyes obscured by mirrored glacier glasses, Wyatt shifted the snowcat into neutral. We faced a final white wall: the tongue of the glacier that split the mountain range.
“Have to say,” he said, chewing a thick wad of spearmint gum, the cloying smell filling the small space, “I’m still not clear on how this little trek is going to help you with the girl.”
Not waiting for an answer, he shifted gears, the engine screaming until the metal teeth of the tracks nipped into sheer blue ice and propelled us up and over the bank. Before us: a mile-long descent onto a vast ice field; beyond it, black mountains jutted up against the horizon like cresting waves frozen in place.
“I need to see where she came from,” I managed to say, though I doubt he heard me over the motor. Though cotton-headed from my drugs, anxiety had taken root; I fumbled for my sunglasses with fat-fingered gloves, trying to recall my shrink’s advice. Take in a little at a time. Look just below the horizon, or focus in one direction, or on one object at a time. But it was like staring into a fire and trying to look at just one flame. I tried fixating on the control panel, my lap, my boots, then—daringly—a narrow hallway of tumbled ice that led down to the ice lake. But a panorama aches to be seen, so now and then I would let myself look, take in the Enormity, willing myself not to throw up in the cat.
“You okay?” Wyatt asked.
“Yeah. Doing good.”
He downshifted and we rolled forward, snow and ice crunching beneath us.
“I appreciate you taking me out here,” I added, squeezing Andy’s lead heart, hot in the palm of my right glove.
“Anytime.”
We crawled across the ice for several minutes of awkward silence until he turned to me with a blazing smile, white teeth flashing in his leathery face. “So, Val, how are you with secrets?”
“Are you asking if I’m trustworthy?”
“I’m asking if you can keep a secret.” We banked down onto the windswept lake. It felt like we were flying.
“Depends on the secret.”
“Wow.” He grinned. “Complicated lady.”
Was he flirting?
“Why don’t you just try me?”
Was I?
“Here’s the deal,” he said over the roar of the motor. “You could learn a lot of important information out here, with that girl. Sensitive stuff. And whatever you learn, you need to share with me and only me. You and I, well, we’ll work out later how we’ll deal with whatever we find out.” He cut the motor, and we slid to a stop on the frozen expanse. In the lull that followed, he flipped up his glasses and turned to look at me, full on. Acne scars, squinting eyes, a raptor-ish focus. It felt intimate and aggressive in the tight space. A steady wind scoured snow pellets off the lake and gunned them at the windshield, rocking the snowcat. I wondered how quickly I would freeze to death if he left me out here. Hours? Minutes? He stuffed another dusty strip of spearmint gum in his mouth, big jaw working. “So, we’re partners, understand?”
“Of course. Sure.” My voice a touch too high.
He sighed and turned back to the ice, mountains and sky doubling in the glasses that rested on his forehead. Perhaps feigning a stretch to get closer, or perhaps he genuinely needed to move in the cramped space, he eased his arm around the back of my seat—never touching me—the fingers of his Polartec glove inches from my shoulder. I half closed my eyes and took in a narrow band of silver-blue lake.