Cliff Ryder - The Ties That Bind

Jason got to his feet and closed the space between them. Behind him, he could hear the sound of Tina's ATV returning. She must have realized that he hadn't followed or had been watching and figured out that the situation was under control.

"Who are you?" Jason barked at the man. "And why'd you try to shoot us?"

The man stepped closer. "No one you know," he said. His hand was a blur as he reached for the handgun behind his back. Jason didn't even blink, but dropped two rounds into the man's chest, killing him instantly. He fell over backward, his scream of pain cut short as the last of the air left his lungs.

"Stupid fool," Jason said to himself. He looked down at the wounded man on the ground and assessed his condition. He'd lost too much blood and was already fading into unconsciousness. They were too far from anywhere to save him. "Sorry," he said, "but this is the best I can do for you." He shot him once in the head, ending the man's misery.

Behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to see Tina staring at him, her eyes wide with outrage. "You…you just shot those men in cold blood!"

"What?" Jason asked, even as he loaded a fresh clip. "I did not!"

"You did! I saw you. The one man surrendered and the other was wounded and you just…you just killed them like it was nothing."

Shaking his head, Jason moved to gather up their weapons. He tossed them in a pile between the three bodies. "The man who surrendered was going for a gun behind his back," he explained. "Roll him over and take a look if you don't believe me. As for the man on the ground…he was going to die, Tina. A slow and painful death. I killed him because we're too far away from anywhere to do anything for him."

"Right," she said, her voice rising an octave. "So now you're a doctor, too?" She stumped over to the second man and rolled him over, then gasped. The gun he'd been going for was on the ground beneath him. Then she turned to look at the last man he'd killed. The pool of blood that had spread from beneath his back was testament to how badly he'd been wounded.

Tina turned back to Jason and nodded. "All right," she said, angry. "Fine, you were telling the truth. But where did you learn to fight like that? You killed three armed men and never even broke a sweat."

"I grew up in a rough neighborhood," Jason joked, then he turned serious when he saw that she wouldn't accept a flip answer. "I've been in a lot of tight scrapes over the years — the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia to name a few. You either learn how to fight in places like that or you die. I learned how to shoot pretty well."

Looking over the bodies once more, she shook her head. "That's the understatement of the year, if I've ever heard one. Now what do we do?"

"Check them out. Look the place over, then move on with our journey," he said.

"We're not going to take them back?"

"To Nome?" he asked. "Why would we? We can let the local authorities know what's happened when we reach a village. Someone must have a phone somewhere."

She laughed. "No, there aren't too many phones out here, but the village we're going to stay in has shortwave radio."

"That should work," he said. "In the meantime, let's see if we can figure out why these guys came out shooting. Even if they were poachers, it doesn't make a lot of sense to attack us the way they did." He turned to move toward the buildings and she followed along behind.

"I have a guess," she said, her voice hesitant. "They were probably smugglers."

"Drugs?" he asked.

"Guns," she replied. "They move them from here and down into Canada, where someone else sells them cheap into the United States. I read an article about it in the paper."

"People are running guns in Alaska?" he asked, surprised. "Seems like a hard way to go about it. There are easier ways to get things into the U.S. than trekking across the Alaskan tundra."

"Maybe," she said, "but think of it this way. Out here, what are the chances of running into anyone, let alone law enforcement? Out here, we're mostly on our own. And there's a whole lot of big empty between here, Canada and the U.S."

"True enough," he said.

They stopped in front of a dilapidated hut. The boot tracks on the ground were fresh and he followed them inside. Sure enough, there were several large crates. He opened the top one to find it filled to the brim with Russian AN-94 assault rifles and clips. They were brand-new.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Why were those guys shooting at me with hunting rifles when they had these?"

Tina's voice was equally quiet. "I don't know, but I've heard rumors that people who cross the smugglers are usually found during the spring thaw. Maybe they didn't have ammunition?"

Jason quickly opened the other crates. He found more rifles and clips, along with one set of the older-style LAW rockets used by the U.S. military forces until the late eighties or so. But no ammunition. "You're right," he said. "No ammo. Just the weapons and the rockets. I suppose I should be glad they weren't able to use one of these on me."

"Yes," she said, "you should. Can we go now? I want to get out of here in case someone comes looking for them. This could be where they were dropping them."

He looked around the ancient building once more, then shook his head. "It's an inconvenient spot for a drop point, but you're right. We need to keep moving. How far is the coast from here?"

"Not far," she said. "Maybe three or four miles."

"Okay," he said. "Go get one of the ATVs and I'll get to work."

"Work?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"

"Trust me," he said, turning away to begin resealing the crates.

She sighed and stomped out of the room. Not long after, he heard the sound of her pulling up on one of the machines. The engine cut out and he called to her, "Come in and lend me a hand."

Tina came back into the building. "Now what?"

"Now we load the crates onto the trailers and haul this stuff to the coast."

"Are you crazy?" she half yelled. "You're going to steal from the smugglers?"

"No," he said, "I'm going to return their merchandise. The rifles are Russian. The rocket launchers are probably black market, sold out of Vietnam or somewhere else in Southeast Asia. It's only fair that I put them back into the sea, where they can make their way home."

"Let's just go," she said. "Let the authorities deal with it."

"Help me or not," he said, his voice turning cold. "If this is a drop point, then these weapons will eventually wind up in the United States and that puts a lot of people at risk. I won't allow that to happen."

For a long moment, it looked as if she was going to argue, ask questions or put up a fight, but then she sighed and kept whatever was on her mind to herself. Jason suspected he'd be hearing more about it later.

Without another word, she moved to the end of one of the crates and together, they quickly loaded the trailer. Once all the crates had been loaded, he checked the other buildings to make sure there wasn't anything else left behind.

"All right," he said. "Now, I want you to drive that machine down to the coast and wait for me there. Just give me a bearing. I'm going to make sure our dead friends here aren't left out for scavengers."

She shuddered dramatically. "I'd rather not know. Just head due east for two miles, then bear north. You'll find the coast without a problem. I'll look for you."

"Good enough," he said. "Now get going. We don't have much light left and I want to find shelter before dark."

She nodded once, then left. Jason got to work, dragging the bodies into the abandoned Inuit building and covering them as best he could. The door was long since gone, but with the cold and their winter gear, they might not give off a scent that would attract predators — at least for a little while. Once he was done with that, he returned to his own ATV and headed for the coast.