Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

“I don’t know,” Gabriel replied.

“I sure hope it’s not contagious,” Millie said.

The old woman looked up at them, then set down her mush and picked up her sickly patient like he was made of feathers. She carried him into an area in the back, behind a woven partition, and then proceeded to do the same, one by one, with each of her other apathetic charges until Gabriel and Millie were alone by the fire.

The old woman departed without a word, leaving Millie and Gabriel to contemplate their situation.

Gabriel twisted his bound wrists, but found to his dismay that the slightest movement caused the rough bark rope to cinch tighter. It might be possible, though extremely difficult, for them to run with their hands tied and their ankles bound together—but how could they make it past the armed guards? And what about Rue and Velda?

“So,” Millie said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t,” Gabriel replied. “Not yet. I was prepared to find all sorts of things up here—but not this.”

“Well, while you’re re-preparing,” Millie said, “maybe we can find something sharp to use on these ropes. Maybe in that basket over there…?”

“Worth a try,” Gabriel said. “Ready?”

“Right,” Millie said.

Together they moved across the room, taking only the tiny steps allowed by the rope that bound their ankles. They staggered together and apart, struggling to synch their steps so as to put the least amount of tension on the rope between them. It took them the better part of five minutes to make it to the lidded oval basket on the far side of the room.

“On three,” Gabriel said. “One, two…”

They dropped to their knees in unison. Gabriel leaned in and used an elbow to knock the lid off the basket.

Inside, there was a strange assortment of items. A pocket-sized Russian/English dictionary. A rusted compass. A tiny, battered doll with matted hair. A silver pocket watch with Hebrew letters engraved on the case.

“If we needed any more proof that we’re not the first outsiders to stumble across this place,” Gabriel said, “I think we just found it.”

“Well, then, how come word’s never gotten out?” Millie asked.

The two of them looked down at the heap of trinkets and neither spoke. They both knew the answer to Mil-lie’s question; it was obvious. Clearly the people who’d found this place before them hadn’t made it out alive. Gabriel thought of the human skulls decorating the doorway to the building at the center of the village and felt a shudder course through him. He had to get the team out of this situation, and soon.

Millie rotated so he was facing away from the basket and bent backward, allowing his bound hands to reach the pile of objects. Gabriel watched as he dug through it. “Couldn’t one of them have been carrying a Swiss Army Knife? A nail file, at least?”

“Nothing?” Gabriel said.

Millie came back upright, an object clutched in his hands—the pocket watch. Gabriel saw that the letters engraved on the case were a chai , the Hebrew word for life.

“This one’s metal, at least. Maybe with the edge…”

Millie pressed the catch on the side with one thumbnail while Gabriel strained to bring his arms into reach. But Gabriel stopped straining when the cover of the watch swung open and he saw the black-and-white photograph on the inside. It showed a bearded man embracing a little girl with wild hair and a big smile. Gabriel knew that smile.

“It’s Velda,” Gabriel said. “This must have been her father’s.”

Gabriel bent as close as possible to read the faded handwriting at the bottom of the photo.

Happy 65 th(the age when other fathers retire…) Love, Velda

Gabriel told Millie what it said.

“Think he might still be alive?” Millie asked.

“If he were,” Gabriel said, “I think he’d be in here with us.”

Gabriel reached out to take the watch from Millie. Velda needed to see this—it might be as close as they’d get to fulfilling the purpose of their mission. Before he was able to slip it into one of the pouch like pockets of his thermal briefs, though, the hide over the hut’s entrance rose noisily and two young women appeared. He palmed the watch shut and closed his fist around it.

Chapter 17

The women who entered the hut carried bowls of hot water and armfuls of fragrant flowers and leaves whose strong aroma cut through the stench of sickness in the room, making it almost bearable.

They set the bowls down on either side of the fire, then pulled stone knives from crude sheaths at their hips. One approached Gabriel, the other Millie. The first said something—something Gabriel couldn’t understand, of course, but he recognized the tone of warning in her voice. She raised the blade, brought it close to his chest. Out of a corner of his eye he saw the other woman doing the same to Millie.

“Count of three, boss?” Millie said under his breath.

“No,” Gabriel said. “They wouldn’t bring us here just to kill us.”

The woman before him grabbed a fistful of his sleeveless shirt in her other hand.

“You sure?” Millie said.

“You remember what I told Velda about being sure?”

“You say lots of things, man. Hey—!” This as the woman in front of Millie grabbed a handful of his shirt as well, and no small amount of chest hair with it.

The woman brought her knife down in a swift stroke. The taut fabric beneath her hand sliced open.

With a similar stroke, the woman in front of Gabriel cut through his shirt as well.

They went around to the other side of the two men and Gabriel felt the torn fabric of his shirt being pulled back, away from his skin. The sound of two more slashes came—and it wasn’t a shirt anymore, just strips of cloth that fell away to either side, leaving him still bound at the wrists but naked from the waist up.

The women came around again.

One of them spoke and gestured for them to stand.

“Now, look, sister, enough’s enough,” Millie said, but he stood as the sharp stone point came up under his chin, pricking not at all gently into his skin. Gabriel stood with him.

The stone knives made short work of the knee-length thermal underwear that was all they had left on other than their boots.

Without speaking another word, one of the women collected the other’s knife and went to hand them off to someone on the other side of the tiger skin, while the other woman bent and came up with a double handful of the strong-smelling leaves that had been soaking in the steaming water. She began scrubbing them roughly up and down along Millie’s torso, a look of intense application on her face.

The other woman returned, took a similar pile of leaves out of her bowl and slapped them wetly against Gabriel’s chest. This close, the smell was overwhelming. But the herb-laden concoction was effective—Gabriel felt layers of caked-on sweat and grime coming off him as she washed.

He heard a swift intake of breath from Millie. “Lady, you want to be gentle down there,” he muttered. “Ah, hell, what am I talking for? She can’t understand me.”

Gabriel stifled an exclamation himself as the woman washing him reached the same delicate spot on his body. But she left it undamaged and moved on to his thighs and knees and shins.

“I don’t know whether I’m being perfumed or prepared for a cooker,” Millie said. The woman working on him had switched from water to a thick, scented oil, which she was spreading along his muscular arms with the side of a long feather.

Once they’d both been oiled from neck to knees, the women brought out a thick crimson paste and used it to daub spirals on their faces and chests.

Gabriel kept his fist closed tightly around the pocket watch and scanned the dark interior of the hut, inch by inch, looking for any weapon, any way to cut the ropes, any hope of escape. He found nothing.