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Featherstone and his men trudged toward the
snow-covered shore. Melissa was
forced to go with them, but they made little attempt to watch
her. After all, where could she
go? She was hundreds of miles
from anything resembling civilization.
Attempting to escape would be tantamount to committing
suicide. But that was exactly
what she intended to do.
Featherstone had made his intentions toward her abundantly clear and she
was damned if she was going to endure another rape at his
hands. She would take her chances
with the frozen wasteland. Freezing
to death was preferable to enduring another round of sexual
humiliation.
She did not have to wait long for an
opportunity. Featherstone led
his expedition toward the shore and then up an incline toward the only high
ground within miles. He was so
intent on reaching this objective that he paid no attention at all to her,
and neither did any of his men.
Pretending to be a weak woman, Melissa stumbled and slowed her pace as she
followed Featherstone up the hill.
Slowly she fell behind until eventually she was the last person in
the procession. She let the column
get a little bit farther ahead of her and then simply turned and walked in
the opposite direction.
She did not head back to the aircraft, although there were some useful items
in them that she would have liked to
have. The pilots had remained
behind, and going that direction would be like marching back into
captivity. Instead, she headed
directly out into the wilderness.
It was already getting dark even though it was only early
afternoon. Within a minute she
was far enough away that the marching column of men had disappeared into
the gloom.
Fortunately, the snow was not deep and she was able to make good
progress. But after about fifteen
minutes, Melissa realized that she did not have the faintest idea what direction
she was heading. Not only was
it getting quite dark, but the landscape was almost
featureless. There were no landmarks
of any sort to help her find her way.
Finally she stopped, guessing that if she started walking in circles
she would soon be heading back toward the very men she was trying to
escape.
At least she was warmly dressed.
Although it was very cold, she would not freeze to death
immediately. She had made sure
that she had put on every garment available to her, and had even managed
to sneak a few extras. She knew
however, that her clothes alone would not keep her from freezing in the extreme
environment of the far north. She
would need some sort of shelter to survive the
night. To that end, she began
to look for a convenient snowdrift.
Larra had described the snow shelter that Lemaire had constructed for
her. She reasoned that if it
worked for Larra it would work for her.
She found what she was looking for in a small fold of
ground. Here the wind had heaped
the light snow cover into heavier drifts.
Using her gloved hands, she scooped out a small cavity and climbed
into it. She made the entrance
as small as possible and then scrunched down to wait for
morning.
It was not the most comfortable resting place that she had ever had, but
after what she had been through in the last 24 hours she desperately needed
the rest. Within minutes her
eyes closed and she slept.
She awoke very hungry and quite thirsty.
Now she was faced with the next problem of
survival. All she had was a few
cookies and crackers she had managed to sneak into her pockets while Featherstone
and his men were not watching. As
far as water, she had nothing. She
could of course, eat snow, but that would prove
fatal. It required body heat
to melt snow and the more she ate, the more of her body energy would be used
up. Eventually, she would simply
freeze to death.
What she needed was a supply of firewood, and some sort of container to melt
the snow. She looked about her
in the early morning light.
Everything was covered by a thin layer of
snow. If there was anything that
would burn it was well hidden. This
was getting serious. Surely there
must be some sort of fuel available.
In desperation, she began to shuffle her feet as she walked, hoping
to kick up a convenient piece of
firewood. All she found were
a few tussocks of snow-covered grass.
If she could gather enough of it, she might be able to get a fire
going, but it would certainly not last very
long. And so she kept of
walking.
She tried to walk away from the lake.
The last thing she wanted to do was blunder into Featherstone’s
hands again. He would be far
from pleased, and she could well guess how he would punish
her. The sun was not much help,
but she guessed that this far north, that it would rise in the south, and
so she headed away from it.
She had no idea how far she walked that
day. She ate the cookies and
crackers she had hoarded. And
finally, in desperation, picked up several handfuls of snow and ate
them. She knew the danger, but
she was severely dehydrated. She
was faced with the prospect of either dying of thirst, or freezing to
death. Since the former seemed
more immediate, she ate the snow.
Finally, tired, exhausted, and suffering severely from a lack of water and
food, she stopped. The sun was
disappearing. It had only been
up a few hours, but she could not go on and wandering about in the dark was
simply too dangerous. Only two
things had worked in her favour.
She had not been recaptured.
From that she guessed that Featherstone could not find her, or perhaps
was not even looking for her. And,
the weather had remained calm.
Although it was very cold, she could handle it as long as the wind
remained absent. But she knew
that she was running out of time.
If she did not find a source of food and water soon, her life in the
barrens would be very short.
She looked about for another suitable spot to spend the
night. This time she experienced
more difficulty in constructing her
shelter. Somehow she seemed much
more tired and it took a good deal longer than on the previous
day. Exhausted, she crawled into
the snow hut.
She did not sleep well, despite her
fatigue. She was tormented by
hunger pangs and her body cried out for
water. Before first light, she
stirred and crept back out on the
barrens. The day was much like
the last, only this time she lacked the energy to make any
progress.
She tried to keep heading north, but now a stiff breeze sprang
up. It blew right in her
face. She tried walking backward
but kept on tripping and falling down.
Heading into the wind was no
better. The bitter cold froze
her face. Even her heavy clothing
could not provide adequate protection.
After awhile, she could no longer feel her fingers and
toes. Now every little hill seemed
like a mountain. It took all
of her strength just to keep placing one foot in front of the
other. And all the while, she
was desperate for food and water, especially the
latter. On occasion she did what
she had done the previous day and scooped a handful of snow into her
mouth. It provided little
relief. Even a large handful
was only sufficient to wet her mouth.
She now fell with almost every step.
Dully, Melissa realized that she was
dying. Even if she stopped walking,
she did not have the strength to build another
shelter. And so she struggled
on. It was now dark again, and
the even more brutal temperatures of night were setting in. Only her strength
of will kept her moving, but soon even that was not
enough. With a moan, she fell
to her knees. And then she saw
it. At first she thought it was
her imagination, but the longer she concentrated on it the more certain she
became. It was a
light. A faint glow in the middle
of hundreds of miles of wilderness.
Hardly daring to hope, Melissa struggled to her feet and headed
determinedly toward it.
Larra had no trouble following
Featherstone. He had, of course
headed straight for the landmark she had
described. And there were his
aircraft, parked neatly on the snow-covered
lake. Larra flew directly over
them, but could discern no sign of life.
The aircraft had probably been there for at least two
days. If Featherstone had gone
after the objective Larra had told him about it was most likely that the
planes were deserted.
“Now for the tricky part,” she
thought. “I’ve got
to land this thing.” As
she had told Sawatis and Lemaire, she was not a trained
pilot.
Katie, had shown her how to fly and she had
taken over the controls on occasion when Katie had been there to
supervise. But she had never
landed an aircraft before.
“Well, here goes. There
always has to be a first time.”
After all, she had gotten the plane airborne by
herself, surely she could bring it
down.
She brought the plane into the wind.
It was blowing directly from the north, so she was able to point the
nose of the craft toward the planes that were already on the
ice. She ran the procedures for
landing through her mind. At
the last moment she cut all power and pulled up on the
stick. The plane
bounced. Once,
twice. For a second, Larra thought
the plane was going to become airborne
again. Then it settled down on
the ice and slid to a halt a few hundred feet from the other
aircraft.
Larra breathed a great sigh of relief.
Then scrambling from the controls, she moved back into the after part
of the aircraft and began to sort out her
gear. Her pack was already prepared
and ready to go. She slung it
on her back, picked up her rifle and jumped out of the
plane. He quarry had a two-day
head start on her. She needed
to move as quickly as possible to catch
him. “Poor Melissa,”
she thought. There was no telling
what Featherstone was doing to her.
First, however, there was something she must
do. Now that she had caught up
to Featherstone’s planes, she had the fuel she needed to fly back to
She headed directly toward the shore, which meant, that she was heading directly
toward the other two parked aircraft.
She was almost upon them when suddenly the cabin door of one of the
planes opened and two men jumped to the
ground. To her chagrin, Larra
saw that they were both carrying rifles and they were pointed directly at
her.
“Damn,” she thought, “caught
again!”
It appeared that Featherstone had left the pilots of the two planes
behind. She should have anticipated
that, but in her rush to be after Melissa’s abductors she walked right
into a trap.
Slumping her shoulders, she unslung her rifle
and dropped it into the snow.
One of the men nodded. “Smart
move, bitch. I’d hated to
have put a bullet through you.”
“Damned right,” chimed in the other
pilot. “Especially when
there are so many other things we can do with you that are more
fun.”
“You want fun?” asked Larra.
“Alright. I’ll
give you some fun.” Without
waiting for a reply, she began to unbutton her
parka.
The two men exchanged glances. The
one who had spoken first licked his lips.
Larra soon had her coat open.
Underneath she was still wearing several
layers. “Patience boys,”
she said, “I’ll soon have everything
off.”
She reached inside her jacket and at the same time threw herself sideways
onto the lake surface. As she
hit the ice, her hand came out and the Browning .45 she had strapped under
her coat roared.
The bullet took the first man in the middle of his
chest. With a look of surprise,
his legs buckled and he dropped to the
ice. Larra kept
rolling. The second man, tried
to bring his rifle to bear, but Larra’s pistol thundered a second
time. The bullet entered through
the man’s mouth and blew off the back of his
head.
Rising to her feet, Larra looked at the bloody corpses of the two men she
had just killed. She
sighed. “Shouldn’t
have tried to stop me,” she muttered.
She disabled Featherstone’s planes in the same way she had her
own. Proceeding to the shore
of the lake, she found a distinctive rock and placed the three rotors beside
it. Scooping snow over them she
then continued on her way.
It was not hard to pick up Featherstone’s
trail. The boots of ten men were
pretty hard to disguise. As she
had surmised, Featherstone was heading to the top of the
landmark. She was about halfway
up when she noticed something odd.
One set of footprints diverged from all the
others. Larra studied them
carefully. The prints headed
straight north. Someone had left
the procession. She dropped to
one knee and nodded. “Good
girl, Melissa. The bootprints
were quite distinctive. They
were identical to those Larra had been wearing before all of her gear was
burned.
Quite obviously no one had watched the girl too closely and she had taken
advantage of the opportunity. Now
Larra just had to find her before the arctic climate killed
her.
Larra moved quickly.
Melissa’s trail was easy to
follow. It went straight north
for about two hours. Then it
began to turn to the right. Larra
realized that the girl had begun to walk in a
circle. A sure sign that she
had lost her way. About half
and hour later, she found Melissa’s first snow
shelter.
After that the tracks went north again.
This time Larra noticed that Melissa’s footsteps were closer
together. It was obvious that
the girl had been tired, or perhaps short of food and
water. Larra stepped up her
pace. About two hours later,
she found the second shelter.
“Two days walking and she only made about ten miles,” thought
Larra. The girl had clearly been
in trouble. Continuing her own
brisk pace, Larra took up the trail
again. This time Melissa’s
trail was very erratic. The girl
had rarely walked in a straight line, and had even moved in a complete circle
and crossed her own tracks.
Impressions in the snow showed that she had fallen several
times.
“God,” I hope I’m not too late,” Larra
thought. She was getting tired
now. Although the barren terrain
was not particularly rugged, it was snow covered and Larra had been pushing
hard in an effort to catch up with the girl before the extreme environment
of the arctic claimed her. Larra
guessed that Melissa had probably not had much opportunity to take much in
the way of food and water with her when she had escaped, and knew that it
was important she catch up with her as quickly as
possible.
She must be close now. The
depressions in the snow showed that Melissa had been near the end of her
strength. Larra guessed that
she would catch up with the girl in the next few
minutes.. Redoubling her efforts she pushed
on. And then she saw a faint
light.
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