Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

“I’m not sure,” Nils said. “My leg—”

“I can do it,” Velda said. “My father took me on tougher climbs than this when I was a kid.”

Gabriel doubted it. Any father who’d take a child on a climb even half this hard would’ve deserved an arrest for endangerment. But Gabriel appreciated the attitude, and he wasn’t about to turn down an offer for help. “All right. The rest of you stay here in the Spryte till we come back with a rescue team. We’ll go as quickly as we can.”

“Don’t go quickly,” Rue said. “Go safely.”

“That, too,” Gabriel said. “But in this weather, slow’s not safe. Not for any of us.”

Nils reached into his jacket and fished out a poker hand of Hershey bars from an inner pocket. “Before you go. Some calories.”

Gabriel grabbed two of the bars, passed one to Velda. They were rock hard.

“Break it into squares,” Nils said, “and hold each square in your mouth until it’s warm enough to chew.”

Gabriel did as Nils suggested, sucking on the chocolate in the icy blue twilight. In the depths of the crevasse, out of the shrieking wind on the surface, they were cocooned in a churchlike silence. It was tempting to stay here, huddled together for warmth. But it wouldn’t take long for the chocolate to run out, and, shortly after that, the warmth.

“Right,” Gabriel said around the last mouthful of chocolate. “Let’s see if we can free up that gear.”

Velda’s pack came free fairly easily from the rear of the Spryte but the remaining three were stuck fast, clenched in the crumpled metal as if between teeth. Millie was able to reach his pack and unzip it a few inches. He emptied it of a few smaller items through the opening, passed them to Gabriel. The other two packs were hopelessly inaccessible.

Gabriel and Velda strapped themselves into climbing harnesses and Gabriel readied a pick in one hand.

Rue, meanwhile, was poking around the ruined dashboard. “I might be able to get the heat up and running in here,” she said. “But I’m afraid that would melt the ice around us and send us who knows how much farther down.”

“Don’t do it unless you absolutely have to,” Gabriel said.

“We’ll be fine,” Nils said. “Just come back swiftly.”

Gabriel pushed himself up, using the back of the driver’s seat for leverage. He was about to stick his head out through the smashed rear window when Velda said, “Wait, what’s that sound?”

The team was silent, listening. Gabriel heard nothing at first and then a low, distant rumble that grew rapidly louder and louder.

“Oh, no,” Nils said.

“What?” Gabriel said.

His voice was a whisper. “Avalanche.”

Chapter 10

Before Gabriel could react, a crushing wave of jagged ice slammed into the Spryte with the impact of a speeding train, wedging the vehicle down deeper into the crevasse and blotting out the pale, distant sun. Several smaller chunks of ice smashed down through the broken window before one too large to fit sealed it up completely.

The rumbling grew fainter and more muffled as more and more ice piled up on top of the Spryte. Eventually it ceased. The Spryte’s battered steel hull groaned and creaked in protest against the added weight.

“Jesus,” Millie said softly.

“All right,” Gabriel said. “Change of plans.” He shone the flashlight down through the front windshield, revealing the outlines of a narrow black chasm below them. “If we can’t go up, we have to go down. We’ll rappel down to the bottom, see if there isn’t a way up and around the piled-up ice.”

“If there is a bottom,” Rue said.

“Spoken like a true optimist,” Millie muttered.

“Tie a rope to the frame of the Spryte,” Nils said. “Those without harnesses can just slide down.”

“Good idea.” Gabriel tossed a length of neon green rope to Velda, who swiftly knotted it to the frame. Gabriel made his way down to the windshield and with one swift kick knocked the glass from its frame. He listened to its fall. One second, two…then the crash as it splintered against the ice. There was a bottom.

Velda came down beside him, aiming the flashlight through the windshield. “Here,” she said, “hold this,” and handed him the light. “I’ll go first.”

Normally, Gabriel might have insisted that he be the first one down, out of some atavistic sense of chivalry or propriety. But he owed it to Rue and Millie to get them down safely—he’d dragged them into this, after all. “Okay,” he said. “Just be careful.”

Velda leaned forward awkwardly from her crouch and planted a kiss on Gabriel’s chin. She found his lips with her second attempt. “I’m always careful.” Then she was gone, making her way down the rope into the blackness.

Half a minute passed in silence. Then they heard Vel-da’s voice. “I’m down!”

“Is it stable?” Gabriel called.

“Yes.” Another long moment of silence. “Can you send down the light?”

Gabriel hauled up the rope, tied it tightly around the shaft of the flashlight, and without turning it off began lowering it. They watched the yellow cone of light reflecting off the ice walls, bright at first and then fainter and fainter as it descended. Eventually the line was fully paid out. “Hang on,” Velda called, “keep it steady…got it.” She was far enough below them that they could only see the faintest glow. Her voice, when it next came, was quieter, as if she’d gone some distance away. “There’s a…a passageway, a narrow one. It looks like it could lead into another crevasse.”

“Any sign of a way back up to the surface?” Gabriel called.

“Not yet.”

“Well, it can’t be any worse than what we’ve got here,” Gabriel said. He gestured toward Nils. “I’ll tie the rope under your arms, lower you down.”

“I can lower myself,” Nils said, climbing awkwardly down onto the driver’s seat.

“All right,” Gabriel said. The tall Swede took hold of the rope and dropped through the windshield, rappelling downward against the ice wall.

“Nils is coming down,” Gabriel called. “Help him off at the bottom.”

Moments later, they heard a cry of pain as Nils touched down. “Got him,” Velda shouted.

“Everything okay?” Gabriel said.

“Just my ankle,” Nils shouted. “It’ll be fine.”

“Not broken?”

“No, just twisted.”

As they spoke, Gabriel hauled the rope back up, tied Velda’s pack to the end, and lowered it. He felt a series of tugs at the bottom as Velda undid the knots, then a lightening as she pulled the pack off. He repeated the maneuver, sending down a bundle of loose gear tied up in Millie’s sleeping bag.

“Here’s the rest,” he shouted.

Again, the wait, then Velda’s voice.

“Got it.”

“Okay, Rue,” Gabriel said. “Your turn.”

Rue looked doubtfully down the rope and back up at Gabriel.

“I’ll hold it steady,” Gabriel said.

“Great.” She took hold of the rope with both gloved hands, but didn’t begin letting herself down.

“Time to go,” Gabriel said.

“I’m going!” she replied indignantly. “What, do you think I’m scared?”

“If you are—” Gabriel began, but before the words were out she was shimmying down the rope into the chasm, the bright red of her parka slowly swallowed up by the blackness.

He held on tightly to the top of the rope, trying to minimize its torsion as she descended. “You doing okay?” he called after a minute of unbroken silence.

“What do you think?” Rue called back. “If I wasn’t, you’d’ve heard me screaming.” A moment later, she called, “I’m down.” Then: “Man! It’s cold as hell down here. When we get out of this, you owe me a trip to a goddamn hot spring, Hunt.”