Doug Allyn: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134, No. 5. Whole No. 819, November 2009

“Man, we’d have to go way north for white ulva—”

“Yeah, up around the southern boundary of the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge, right where Axton’s land begins. White ulva will be running in packs of fifteen to twenty, prowling the small settlements between Buckland and Deering. We’ll have four hours of daylight every day. If we flush them out of the trees onto the tundra, we should be able to get forty, maybe fifty a day. In three days, we can make upwards of sixty grand.”

“If we can last three days. Axton’s got to know you’re out. He’s liable to have an army of range cops looking for you.”

“Sure, looking for me where there’s elk, moose, caribou. Not where there’s white ulva. We can do this, brother.” He fixed his friend in an unblinking stare. “You up for it?”

Tootega thought about it for a long moment, but finally smiled and rotated his left hand over his heart. “Chimo, brother.” Like the word aloha in Hawaii, chimo in Alaska had numerous meanings. In this case, the meaning was clear to Roy Sand.

It meant, Right on!

Five days later, Joe Kell was in a quandary.

Leaning against the front fender of the van, he studied the slate sky. Fresh snow was coming, and coming soon. So far he had driven a hundred and twenty miles along the southern and western boundaries of Ben Axton’s game reserve, without finding a single sign of trespassing. Not a pony track, sled track, footprint, tire track — nothing. And he had seen plenty of game — elk, moose, caribou — leisurely grazing in and out of the tree line next to the tundra. Peaceful, undisturbed game. Game that obviously had not seen or scented humans.

Yet in a cell-phone conversation with Axton, he had been told that Roy Sand was definitely out there somewhere.

“I’ve got an Inuit informant in Kobuk,” Axton declared. “He reported that Sand only stayed three nights there, then plain dropped out of sight, along with an Inuit buck named Tootega. And they had horses and rifles when they left. They’re out there, Kell. Find them, goddammit!”

From one of the haversacks next to the Arctic Cat in the back of the van, Kell took a thermos of coffee and drank a little of it. His back was hurting from all the driving. Doris had once been able to rub away his aches and pains with coconut lotion. But that was a long time ago—

Sighing wearily, he climbed into the van, adjusted his sore back against a pillow he’d taken from one of the motels, and drew the door shut with a slam. The slam drowned out a faint rifle crack that resounded in the thin air far off to the northeast. As Kell started the engine of the van, another shot was also stifled.

Kell drove off without hearing either of them.

Behind him, a series of rifle shots sounded without pause.

Roy Sand and Tootega had built a snow blind out on the white, hard-packed tundra that lay below the ridge line of trees at the northern edge of Ben Axton’s game reserve. From that blind, one of them would shoot the white wolves being driven out of the trees by the other on horseback. Roy was the better shot, Tootega the better horseman and “beater,” as the pack driver was called.

In their first two days out, they took seventy-one pelts. More than two-thirds were male, all between five and six feet in length, weighing more than a hundred pounds. The females were mostly around five feet and fifty pounds. The pups Roy did not shoot; they would return to the woods and be taken in by other packs.

The two men made their camp a thousand yards back in the trees. Tied there was the extra saddle pony and a pack horse. A tree-limb hutch just high enough to sit up in held their sleeping bags, food and water, ammunition, and skinning supplies. A clearing well away from where the horses were tethered was used for skinning. As it became saturated with wolf blood and innards, the stink of it, heavy and sour, was pervasive in the little camp. The two hunters kept mentholated salve in their nostrils around the clock.

The horses, rifles, and other equipment and supplies that they had were begged or borrowed from the Inuits by Tootega, who had promised to put twenty percent of his share from the sale of the pelts into the tribal fund to help the old and needy through the long, dark winter months. The meat from the wolves was not edible because of the carrion they ate, so Roy and Tootega simply piled the skinned carcasses fifty yards behind their camp, where they promptly froze. When the spring thaw came, they would provide a huge feast for the reserve’s other inhabitants.

Now, on their third day out, they had been at it for less than two hours and had already taken thirty-two pelts. Even though it was beginning to snow, they decided on one more shoot, then do the day’s skinning, and head back south the next morning toward Minto, where the skins trader had his warehouse.

So for one last time, Roy Sand assumed a prone position behind the snow blind, ammunition laid out in lines next to him, while Tootega rode his pony into the trees to drive one more pack onto the tundra.

Joe Kell was at the northern boundary of the Axton hunting reserve when he heard the first shot echo in the cold, thin air. He immediately stopped the van and rolled down his window. Almost at once, a second shot sounded, and a third, a fourth...

Quickly, Kell grabbed his binoculars, got out, and surveyed the tundra through twelve-power lenses. He saw nothing, but heard the distant shots continue. Fresh snow was falling now. Kell considered whether the packed, frozen ice of the tundra would support the van. Probably would. But the fresh snow now falling worried him. Wet snow on ice was risky for a heavy vehicle...

Best to use the Cat, he decided. Opening the rear cargo door, he slid the sturdy, lightweight, extruded-plastic snowmobile out and lowered first one end, then the other, to the ground. More rifle cracks resounded in the air. Somebody was sure enough taking game, but he couldn’t tell how far away...

Extra fuel, he thought, and dragged one of the haversacks out, stowing it in the rear seat of the Cat, along with two boxes of cartridges.

“Okay now,” he said aloud to himself, “let’s get this here show on the road.”

Settled in the front seat, his rifle and binoculars beside him, he fired up the Cat, turned it toward the sounds of gunfire, and started across the tundra.

Then a gnawing thought came to his mind again. What would he do when he caught Roy Sand?

The continuing snowfall caused Roy to cut short his final shoot.

On his knees, he had begun collecting his extra ammunition when Tootega rode up at a gallop and reined his pony to an abrupt halt.

“Roy! We’ve got company, man! Snowmobile, coming fast!”

Standing, Roy squinted off across the tundra. Neither of them could see the low-slung snowmobile itself, but the high spray of snow in its wake was clearly visible.

“Got to be the law, right?” Tootega said.

“Yeah, one kind or another. Security guards. Range cops.” He swung up behind Tootega on the pony. “Let’s get back to camp, man!”

Leaving the fresh kill out on the tundra, they rode swiftly back toward the tree line. At their camp, Roy saddled the second mount and tied on their sleeping bags and other gear, while Tootega quickly loaded their skinned, dried, and bundled pelts onto their pack horse. They led the pack horse half a mile into the woods and tethered it in a thicket safe from the snowfall.

“Leave the rifles and ammo too,” Roy said. “We don’t need to be caught with no guns.”

Riding back to the tundra edge, they could now see the snowmobile itself, coming fast a mile or so away.

“We’ll split up here,” Roy said. “You ride east, I’ll ride west. Whoever it is can’t follow both of us. Whichever one of us gets away comes back later for the pelts and takes them to Minto. If it’s me, I’ll get your share of the sale money to your mother. If it’s you, see that my share gets to the Martinson Institute in Anchorage in the name of Danny Sand. Deal?”