Stone Cross (Arliss Cutter #2) - Marc Cameron Page 0,102

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It made no logical sense, but the traditional tattoo on Birdie Pingayak’s chin made Cutter feel like he was in more capable hands, as if she were an incarnation of one of her ancient Yup’ik forebearers who knew the old ways that would keep them alive—someone who whispered to sled dogs. The here and now made that notion more of a reality, considering Cutter’s view. Three feet in front of him on the sled runners was a Native woman clad in a traditional fur parka and caribou skin mukluks, rifle slung crosswise over her back.

Birdie half turned, pressing the fur hood aside to give Cutter a quick glance. She checked that he was where she’d told him to be, then pulled the metal claw anchor from the snow. Lifting her foot off the brake, she smooched at the dogs, raising her voice above the moaning wind.

“Let’s go, Smudge. Hike! Hike!”

The dogs leapt against their harnesses, breaking the runners loose from the snow. Her left foot on a runner, Birdie kicked with her right, like skating. Cutter followed suit, helping the dogs as the sled began to pick up speed. The team gave a few last yelps and squeals, then increased their pace, settling into a quiet rhythm before they’d reached the spot where Donna Taylor’s tracks cut into the willows. Birdie and Cutter stood with both feet on the runners, knees slightly bent, kicking for balance now and then and when the dogs needed an extra boost up an incline or through a drift. The only sounds were the hiss of runners over frozen ground, and the whistle of wind through the willow scrub. Birdie and the dogs were in their natural element. Considering the other dangers ahead of them, so was Cutter.

He chuckled, despite the situation. They didn’t talk about this in the academy.

Using sled dogs for important missions wasn’t exactly unheard of in Alaska. Rangers in Denali National Park still relied on teams of Alaska huskies to work the backcountry where motorized vehicles were restricted. Every year, dozens of mushers raced in shorter races like the Kuskokwim 300 in Bethel, as well as grueling races like the thousand-mile Yukon Quest between Whitehorse and Fairbanks. The world-famous Iditarod is 1,049 miles, inspired by the Nome serum run in 1925.

Growing up in sunny Florida, where your jacket got traded in for an honest to goodness coat if the thermometer got anywhere close to sixty degrees, the fifty-below temperatures of the serum run had been unfathomable to Arliss when he was a boy. He’d devoured any book or magazine article about adventure, hot or cold. The Nome serum run was his perfect story. Heroic and difficult.

In 1925, Nome was hit with a deadly outbreak of diphtheria during one of the worst blizzards in history, with temperatures dropping below minus fifty and windchill a mind-numbing eighty below zero. Airplanes were relatively new in 1925, and in Alaska, only used in the summer months. Flying the flu serum to Nome in that weather was deemed too risky for the finite supply of serum. The idea that men and dogs would brave frostbite and death to relay vital serum through six hundred miles of remote wilderness in blizzard conditions seemed to nine-year-old Arliss Cutter like the purest form of adventure.

And now, he was here, standing on the runners of a dogsled, hunting for a killer, or, more likely, killers. It wasn’t a serum run, but it was an adventure, and despite the grisly circumstances, Cutter was enjoying himself. He might have even smiled had his face not been so cold.

CHAPTER 36

“She should be here by now,” the dark one called Rick said, staring into the stove with his only eye. “What do you think is keeping her?”

The horrific winds outside felt as if they were about to blow away the log walls. Sarah sat on her rude bed and wished they would go ahead and do it. She would have preferred the bitter cold to a warm cabin with the man with one wild eye.

They’d left her hands untied the last time they’d taken her outside to pee. She was almost as tall as the one with the red ponytail—she’d heard Rick call him Morgan—but she certainly didn’t look like much of a threat. Her badly swollen jaw and shattered teeth made it impossible to close her mouth all the way. This left her with a constant line of drool that she had to dab away every few seconds with the sleeve of her