Gloria Skurzynski - Mysteries in Our National Parks - Buried Alive - A Mystery in Denali National Park

A MYSTERY IN DENALI NATIONAL PARK

From Lanie to my husband, Ron,

who has given me the adventure of a lifetime.

ISBN: 978-1-4263-0975-5

Text copyright © 2003

Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson

Cover illustration copyright © 2008 Jeffrey Mangiat

All rights reserved.

Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents is prohibited without written permission from the National Geographic Society, 1145 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

Map by Carl Mehler, Director of Maps

Map research and production by Matt Chwastyk, Joseph F. Ochlak, and Martin S. Walz

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or events other than descriptions of natural phenomena is purely coincidental.

Version: 2017-07-07

The authors are grateful to so many people at Denali National Park who helped in the creation of this book: Joe Van Horn, Wilderness Coordinator; Diane Brown, Communication Center Manager; Stacey Chadwick, Staff Assistant to Superintendent; Theresa Philbrick, Staff Assistant to Interpretation; Martha Tomeo, Education Specialist; Clare Curtis, Supervisory Park Ranger; Annalie Wright, Park Ranger Protection; Stan Steck, Park Pilot; Doug Stockdale, Public Information Officer; Tom Habecker, Park Ranger; Pat Owen, Wildlife Biologist; Amanda Austin, Biological Science Technician; Chelsie Venechuk, Cultural Resource Technician; Carmen Adamyk, Kennels Assistant; Karen Fortier, Kennels Manager; Paul Anderson, Superintendent; Diane Chung, Deputy Superintendent. A very special thanks to Beth Van Couwenberghe for her generosity in hosting us at McKinley Village Lodge.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

“I already told you, I’ll take care of it!” the man barked. He took a final drag from his cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray so hard the tip splayed like a firecracker. “It’s bad when the mark is a kid. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s business, but I’m telling you, this is it, just one more time. You’re costing me, man. I had my own game going, and now I’ll have to end it. After this job, I’m through—you got that? Through. Do your own dirty work.”

Slamming the phone into its cradle, he stared out the window at the setting sun. It was low in the west, and it edged the clouds with a ring of brilliant gold. So they’d found him. He’d come all the way to Alaska to get away from his old life, but the hooks ran deep. Even in the vast wilderness, he couldn’t disappear, not from them. Well, after this job, he’d take his money and leave. This time he’d go to Mexico. There was a chance he could really vanish in Mexico.

The man walked to a drawer and opened it. Carefully, he pulled out a nickel-plated revolver and rubbed it on his sleeve until the light played along the barrel like a liquid bead. Then he jammed it into his belt and shrugged on his jacket. They’d told him this would be it. They said they’d never call him again. So what if it was a kid? He had a job to do.

Just one more time.

The lights of the aurora borealis flashed across the Alaskan sky in sheets of color: bright, dancing curtains of pale green and crimson that took Jack’s breath away. Every few seconds the aurora shimmered with new brilliance, its hues shifting from incandescent greens to soft pinks to blues to luminous white, as though a giant kaleidoscope had been set among the stars. He stood in awe in Denali’s frigid stillness. There was no way he could capture this with his simple camera, no way to reduce this magic onto photo paper. It was as if he were watching the heavens being painted by the hand of God.

“Awhooo!” Thirteen-year-old Nicky Milano, the Landons’ newest temporary foster child, threw back his head and howled at the northern lights. His breath made a steady stream of frost as he danced backward on his left leg, his right boot pumping the air furiously when he hopped along the pristine snow. “I’m seeing it, I’m feeling it, I’m loving it, I’m digging it,” he cried while somehow managing to shift his backside beneath his parka. “Oh yeah. Yip, yip, yip, awhoooo!”

Ashley, Jack’s 11-year-old sister, doubled over with laughter, but Jack could only shake his head in disbelief. His parents stood less than 20 feet away, too engrossed in setting up a photograph to do more than give Nicky a quick nod. Steven Landon struggled with a tripod, while Olivia held her husband’s expensive wide-angle camera close to her chest, careful not to drop it in the snow.

“Awhooo.”

“Nicky, what the heck are you doing, anyway?” Jack demanded.

“Howling!” Nicky cried. He stopped dancing and turned to Jack, cinching his hood tight. With the hood pulled almost to the bridge of his nose and his stiff parka collar zipped up so far it skimmed the bottom of his ears, Nicky’s face had been reduced to the size of a fist. Jack could no longer see Nicky’s slicked-back copper hair and the real diamond stud that pierced his right ear, but he could still hear his wise-guy accent. Nicky sounded as though he should be prowling the streets of New York instead of the wilds of Denali National Park in Alaska.

“I heard that true Alaskans bay like wolves when they see the northern lights,” Nicky explained. “I’m trying to be—you know—authentic. Yo, Ashley, why don’t you give it a try?”

Ashley threw back her head and let loose a thin, high-pitched yowl. The jingle bells on her hat rang merrily as she tipped her head farther back, wailing at the flashing night sky. Jack had to laugh. She sounded more like a coyote.

“Do it, Jack,” Ashley begged.

Shaking his head again, Jack said, “No thanks. You guys are completely crazy.”

“Yeah?” Nicky clapped his gloved hands together to warm them. They made cracking sounds that echoed across the tundra like gunshots. “You think so?” When he smiled, his teeth flashed white in the half light. “You’re right, Jack, I am crazy. And what’s scary is, you don’t know how crazy I can be. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

What did that mean, Jack wondered. Problem was, he’d probably never find out, because secrets swirled around Nicky Milano. And no one, not his mother or his father or Nicky himself, was talking.

The strangeness had begun three days ago in the Landon kitchen. Jack had just finished pouring a bowl of Cheerios and Ashley had taken a huge bite of an apple-cinnamon bagel when his parents slipped into the two remaining kitchen chairs, coffee cups in hand. Sunlight caught the blond stubble sprinkled across his father’s chin like grains of sand. Watching him, Jack fingered the pale hairs that had sprouted beneath his own chin, but his were soft, thread-like. Still, those hairs might just grow into something. A goatee, maybe. He took a spoonful of cereal and waited for one of his parents to speak. He could tell they had something to say.

“Kids, we need to talk. There’s a new foster child we’ve decided to accept,” his father began. “His name is Nicky Milano, and he’ll be going with us on our trip to Denali.” Steven held up his hand to silence Jack’s instant stream of objections. “I know it’s last minute, but this is a very special case. Ms. Lopez asked us to take him as a favor, and we can’t turn her down.”