Icy Clutches

Chapter 7

For untold eons it had hung there, this huge mass of densely compressed ice nestling in a remote flank of the towering mountain range that would one day be known as the Fairweathers. Even when the Great Warming had set in fifteen thousand years before, it had managed to survive. But the immense ice field of which it had been a part had sagged, cracked, shrunk. Where slow, grinding seas of ice had flowed and carved out deep valleys, rivulets of water now trickled. Land that had lain frozen and barren since the beginning of time emerged at last. The mastodons came-and went-and then the wolves, and badgers, and bears. And still the nameless hanging glacier endured, remote and proud.

The rich, distinctive voice of M. Audley Tremaine resonated, then seemed to float up toward the beams of the rustic A-frame ceiling twenty feet above. In the arched fieldstone fireplace of Glacier Bay Lodge's upstairs lounge a fragrant log fire snicked and crackled, a welcome counterpoint to the gray, raw afternoon visible through the floor-to-ceiling dormer windows. Six armchairs were drawn up to the hearth, their occupants in various postures of repose.

Rather too much in the way of repose, Tremaine thought with mounting annoyance as he turned over the manuscript page. Lunch had been heavy and long-they hadn't finished until two-and the wine had flowed freely. Did these stuffed and slumbrous people have any idea what he was ordinarily paid to read aloud? Did they know how many millions of Americans tuned in every week to hang on every word? Perhaps he should talk to the manager about lightening the midday meal.

Or perhaps he shouldn't. What did it matter if they were drowsy? If Walter was three-quarters asleep? In a way it was very much better. Certainly the afternoon was proceeding a great deal more smoothly than the morning, when he had been interrupted by one silly quibble after another, on everything from the financing of the La Perouse expedition of 1789 (Anna Henckel) to the dubious correctitude of terminal prepositions (the know-it-all Elliott Fisk). Since lunch, however, they had been logy and unresponsive, which was all to the good. These sessions were their opportunity to take issue with his book, and if they passed it up, that was the end of it. They had no recourse to further objection; so it said quite clearly in the agreement each of them had signed with Javelin Press.

Now that he thought about it, maybe he ought to ask the manager about supplying wine with breakfast, too. He sipped from a glass of Perrier and continued.

More time passed. The glacier-scoured furrow at the foot of the mountains was no longer choked with a barren, mile-thick mass of ice. In its place was a tranquil, surpassingly beautiful estuary of blue-green water studded with icebergs that had calved from the ends of the surrounding glacial tongues. Glacier Bay, the Europeans called it. Adventurers came to explore, and geologists to study, and, eventually, tourists to marvel from the decks of steam-powered excursion boats.

And still the hanging glacier clung precipitously to its mountain aerie. Tlingit Ridge, the white man called this peak now. The long, twisting glacial tongues below had names too. Lamplugh, Tirku, Reid. But the hanging glacier itself, one of the last of its kind, isolated and dying, had no name and would never have a name. By the year 1960 of the Christian calendar its hold was finally loosening. Poised precariously over Tirku Glacier, it had shrunk to just four hundred million cubic meters.

Only ninety million tons.

He sat back with a sigh of contentment. “That,” he said, “is the end of chapter two.” And a damned fine ending it was, complete with masterful narrative hook. Not that any of these undiscriminating boobs would know a narrative hook if it bit them on the ear. “lf there are no questions I'll go directly-"

He gritted his teeth at a barbaric yawp of a snore followed by several snuffles, all of this coming from Walter, who wriggled, rumbled, fussed, and then melted deeper into his chair, his head tipping backwards to the accompaniment of other, indescribable noises from his throat. For Walter, even sleep was a form of theater. Like a big dog he woke himself up with a snort, muttered and fussed some more, and settled into silence if not quite wakefulness. Reflections from the flames danced on his nose.

Tremaine glowered briefly at him-at the others, too, for good measure-and read on:

CHAPTER THREE.

July 26, 1960, 12:04 P.M.

In the United States Geological Survey Monitoring Station near Palmer, the needle of the seismograph stopped its gentle bobbing, hesitated, and then jerked sharply, scratching a series of spiky black lines onto the paper-covered drum.

Ranger Parnell Morgan watched the needle intently, but soon relaxed. As things went in this part of the world it wasn't much of a tremor; 4.1 on the Richter scale. Not the big one they'd been worrying about, just another little jiggle in a part of the world that averaged four a day. There would be no frantic telephone calls on this one, no buckled roadways or twisted bridges, no collapsed buildings or broken water mains.

The epicenter seemed to be somewhere in the Fair-weathers, in the uninhabited area north of Glacier Bay. A good place for it, he thought, and went back to the half-eaten tuna-fish sandwich on his desk.

Tremaine looked up, distracted by an impatiently jiggling foot. “Is something wrong, Dr. Fisk?"

Fisk stared back at him. “I was wondering,” he said, “just how necessary it is for us to sit through this nonessential material. Couldn't we-"

"I would hardly call it nonessential, Doctor,” Tremaine said tightly.

"What would you call it, essential? I mean, tuna-fish sandwiches, for God's sake. Tell us, was there mayonnaise on them? I can't stand the suspense."

"Your point?” Tremaine said.

Fisk gnashed his teeth, Or something very close to it. “My point is that we're here to supply personal perspectives, aren't we? Well, for God's sake, why can't we simply skip over the background information and get on with the story of the expedition?"

Gerald Pratt took the pipe from his mouth and uttered his first words of the day. “Hear, hear,” he said pleasantly enough.

"No,” Anna said firmly. “I wish to hear everything.” She turned her head stiffly to fix Tremaine with a meaningful glare.

"Oh, me too,” Shirley said with that crooked, taunting smile. “I wouldn't want to miss a single, teeny word."

"The question is moot,” Tremaine said grumpily. He hadn't liked that look of Anna's. “My understanding with Javelin requires that nothing be omitted…other than those events of which I and I alone have knowledge, of course."

"Such as?” Anna said promptly.

Tremaine ignored her. “Now, if I may continue? Thank you. What you've heard up to now has been essentially a setting of the stage, a preface. At this point the book shifts to a first-person narrative-my own voice, naturally-and the tragic personal story of the expedition per se begins.” He smiled thinly. “I trust Dr. Fisk will be pleased."

He waited, but Fisk chose not to respond, staring mumpishly into the fire instead.

Tremaine began to read again.

Had I any inkling of the trouble to come, I would have chosen very differently from among my graduate students for the crew. But who could tell then that Jocelyn Yount's limpid blue eyes were windows to a wanton and amoral personality that would eventually create so much animosity and bitterness among us? The first sign "Whoa,” Shirley said. “What was that again? About my sister's personality?"

Tremaine paused briefly before answering. Here, of course, was where things would begin to get difficult. Once again he wondered uneasily just how good an idea this “co-opting process” was. There was a great deal to be said against it, in his view; not least that it had been thought up by a lawyer.

"Miz Yount,” he said soothingly, understandingly, “I'm extremely sorry if this causes you distress, but surely you realize that I must be honest in my opinions, my perceptions.” He could, he reasoned, delete the “wanton” without any great loss, if necessary. He had been a little doubtful about it in the first place, truth to tell. But on the “amoral” he would stand firm. Literary integrity demanded it.

"Well, yeah, sure,” Shirley said. “Nobody's saying you shouldn't be honest, but that just isn't true, what you said. My sister was something else; she was an angel on earth, a-"

Anna barked a single note of laughter. “Some angel."

Ah, good. He had Anna on his side on this one. As expected. His master plan for the week depended on playing them off against each other in different combinations.

Shirley stared at Anna, angry and off balance. “What are you talking about? You're crazy!” She turned back to Tremaine. “Hey, what's going on here? What are you trying to do?"

"I'm not trying to do anything, Miz Yount-"

"Will you call me Shirley, for Christ's sake?” Her increase in self-assertion over the last several days had not made her personality any the more attractive.

"-Shirley, except to tell the story as I saw it unfold. Sometimes, I'm afraid, it's necessary to put aside our personal feelings in the interest-"

"My sister was not amoral, Jack! My s-"

"The hell she wasn't!"

This ringing corroboration came, amazingly, from Elliott Fisk-Elliott, who had been eleven in 1960.

Shirley rounded on him, her face reddening. “What the hell do you know about it, you little turd?"

"I know what I know,” Fisk said mysteriously, uncowed by Shirley's toothy hostility. “I know she was ruining my uncle's life."

"She was ruining Steve's life? Ha-HAH! Really! Jesus!"

"Oh, yes?” Fisk's thin voice rose spitefully. “Oh, yes? Well, I hate to tell you this- Miz Yount-but it's all in his diary. All the one-night stands she had with anybody who-"

"What are you talking about? What are you talking about?” Shirley tore her big glasses off and jabbed them at Fisk. “You listen to me, you slimy, sick-minded…slimy…"

"That's enough now,” Tremaine said, employing a trick he had of relaxing his vocal cords so that his voice seemed to swell. His voice of authority. “Organlike,” Television Radio Age had once called it. “I fully understand,” he said, tempering command with compassion. “In a difficult situation like this our emotions sometimes-"

He stopped with Fisk's words still echoing in his mind. He looked directly at the dentist.

"Ah, diary?"

"Well, journal."

"Journal? Steven kept a journal?” Why had Tremaine not known of this?

"To the last morning of his life,” Fisk said, with every appearance of satisfaction. “They found it in his room back in Gustavus. It went to my father with the rest of his things.” He paused to study Tremaine's face and smiled meanly. “I didn't think you knew about it. Oh, it's just filled with information. On all sorts of things."

Tremaine shifted his feet. Just what was being driven at here? He didn't care for this journal business at all. Or the tone of Fisk's voice. Or that smirk.

"And you've seen this journal?” he asked.

Fisk wordlessly held up a flat blue-bound notebook.

"I think we better get a few things straight here.” This from Shirley, who had gotten her second wind. “First, I'm not going to sit still while my sister gets bad-mouthed by anybody.” She glowered at Tremaine, at Fisk, at Anna. “Second,” and here the baleful gaze returned to impale Fisk again, “Jocelyn didn't ruin Steve's life; it was the other way around. From the day she was stupid enough to fall in love with that pretentious, self-righteous creep-"

"Oh, now, just a-just a minute.” Fisk, blinking rapidly, pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose. “I won't have this. When your sister met Steve she was just a lousy waitress, and you know it. Had she even finished college? Was she headed anywhere? It was Steve who-"

"Now, now,” began Tremaine, organlike. “I believe we're getting off the sub-"

"Ha-HAH!” It was not a sound that even Tremaine could talk through.

"It was Steve who what?” Shirley cried. “Who told her that the great Steven Fisk couldn't waste his time on a lousy waitress? Who made her finish up her stupid degree and then go to graduate school on top of it? So she was killing herself taking classes full time and still working in a goddamn Chinese restaurant, humping dishes every night to support herself, while he sat around on his ass, on a scholarship? Tell me, did he ever try to help her out-"

"This is ridiculous!” Fisk burst out, his arms spread. By now they were making their cases to the rest of the group, as if pleading before a jury. “Somebody tell me, is there supposed to be something wrong with motivating a person to go back to school? I mean, here's somebody who was a waitress since she was fifteen, right? No motivation, no drive. She drops out of college after three years and goes back to being a waitress. What kind of life was she headed for? But then she meets Steve-"

"Just what the hell is wrong with being a waitress?” Shirley interrupted, her coarse cheeks pink. “I want to know. She was happy, she didn't want to be a scientist-a botanist, for Christ's sake-"

At a movement near the top of the stairs to the right of the fireplace, Tremaine turned his head. “Ah, Dr. Oliver,” he said hurriedly. “Thank you for coming."

Gideon hesitated. “Uh, if this isn't a good time…"

"No, no, come in. We were just waiting for you. There's a chair over there for you.” He smiled. “Try not to trip over Dr. Judd's legs."

Gideon came in reluctantly, feeling like an intruder. He'd inadvertently overheard the argument and had been in the act of trying to back inconspicuously down the stairs when Tremaine had spotted him.

He was welcomed by the botanist with smooth assurance and introduced all around. Chairs scraped on the wooden floor as the six people rearranged themselves to fit him into the semicircle in front of the hearth. The movement seemed to clear the air. Eyes shifted to the large paper bag he'd brought with him and placed on one of the low, round side tables.

"I'm afraid I don't have very much to tell you,” he said. Briefly he went over as much as he and Owen had agreed they should know.

"The bones you found yesterday are almost certainly from the 1960 survey party. What we have are the near-complete skeleton of a right foot, a segment of a jawbone, and part of a right femur-a thigh bone."

"We know what ‘femur’ means,” Elliott Fisk grumbled.

"They belong to one or more males in their mid-twenties,” Gideon went on. “That's about all I can tell right now."

"And did you find any more today?” Tremaine asked.

"Yes,” Gideon said offhandedly. “Part of a cranium."

He watched Tremaine, who brushed impassively at a bit of lint on his crisply pressed trousers.

"Males?” Shirley asked. “Then there aren't any…any remains of my sister?"

He shook his head. “I'm sorry, no. Everything so far seems to be male. The rangers will be doing some more searching near Tirku in the next few days; they might turn up some more.” They would be doing it by themselves. His only pair of heavy shoes would take a week to dry.

He waited for more questions. They watched him noncommittally. Where was the “burning interest” Tremaine had talked about? Or was it Tremaine himself who was so eager to know exactly what he'd found out? He glanced at him again, but Tremaine merely returned the look with a faint, meaningless smile.

Gideon fidgeted in his chair. He was uncomfortable with the residue of tension still in the atmosphere, uncomfortable with the macabre situation he found himself in-talking so matter-of-factly to next of kin about their relatives’ mandibles and crania. And uncomfortable with his role in things so far. He had, in effect, practically accused Tremaine of murder, but Tremaine knew nothing about it. A secret accusation. Gideon was anxious for things to be out on the table. Tomorrow, he hoped; maybe even this evening. But that would be up to Owen.

It was Gerald Pratt who broke the silence. He pointed with the stem of his pipe at the paper bag Gideon had brought. “What's in the sack?"

"These are some items of clothing and equipment we found today. The chief park ranger asked me to show them to you to see if you could identify them."

Pratt put the pipe back in his mouth, leaned back, and crossed one skinny, sharp-shinned leg over the other, “Well, let ‘er rip."

"By all means,” said Tremaine. Was it Gideon's imagination, or did he suddenly look shifty?

The bag rustled noisily while Gideon got it open, and now for the first time they all showed what seemed to be genuine curiosity, if not quite “burning” interest. The ragged strip of plaid cloth was not recognized by anyone, although Walter Judd thought that Jocelyn Yount might have had such a shirt. But neither Anna nor Tremaine was willing to confirm this, and after a minute Judd began doubting it too, finally talking himself out of the notion. Gideon put the material back in the sack.

"Shouldn't that be kept in a plastic bag?” Fisk asked disapprovingly.

"Not while it's wet. Putting it in a plastic bag is the last thing you'd want to do."

Fisk's lips compressed. He wasn't so sure about that.

Gideon took the eyeglass frames from the sack and laid them on the table where they could be seen. They were from an inexpensive pair of sunglasses, in the wraparound style that had been popular in the sixties, and had now been twisted back into an approximation of their original shape. “Ban-Sun” was stamped on the inside of one of the aluminum temple pieces.

"You know, that looks familiar,” Judd said, tapping his lower lip with a finger.

"Everything looks familiar to you,” Anna said. “Maybe you should go back to sleep."

Judd chuckled as happily as if she'd complimented him. “No, now wait, just wait a minute.” He appealed to Tremaine. “Don't you remember one of those boys wearing a pair like that? I think it was James Pratt. I'm almost sure it was. Or was it Steve?"

Tremaine frowned. “I do remember something…"

"Were they-” Gerald Pratt's voice caught in his throat. He swallowed. “With orange lenses?” he asked Judd. “Jimmy always said to wear orange sunglasses. Said they filtered the ultraviolet rays or something."

"You know, I think that's right,” Judd said slowly.

Tremaine snapped his fingers. “By God, you are right. I remember now. Wraparound orange sunglasses; ugly things.” He looked at Gideon. “You think these might be James's?"

Gideon didn't answer. With his tongue between his teeth, he was busy probing with a ballpoint pen at the collapsed browpiece of the glasses, a thin, straight band of metal folded into a U-shaped trough and then crimped to hold the missing plastic lens. After a few seconds he managed to get the point between the crimped edges and push out onto his palm the tiny, shiny particle that had caught his eye. He looked at it briefly, then turned his hand over so that it dropped onto the white Formica surface of the little table in front of him. A scrap of broken plastic no bigger than a fingernail paring. Gleaming. Transparent.

Tangerine-colored.

A murmur went around the group, a soft “ah” of appreciation.

"Those Jimmy's then?” Pratt asked huskily. He had gotten out of his chair to come tentatively closer.

"It looks as if they are,” Gideon said gently. He held the frames out to him on the palm of his hand.

Pratt pulled momentarily back as if they might sting him, then came forward again, taking them gingerly from Gideon, turning them over, staring at them, trying to find God knows what. The muscles in his throat worked.

"Just turned twenty-five,” he said thickly. “My baby brother, you know."

Abruptly he thrust the frames back at Gideon. With his other hand he stuck his pipe into his mouth and took two quick, furious puffs, blowing out rather than sucking in. Glowing sparks of tobacco popped from the metal bowl.

"Would I get to keep ‘em?” he asked. “After you people've finished with ‘em?"

"I think so,” Gideon said. Empathy had made his own throat tight. “I can't see why not."

"Good, then.” He wiped the back of his hand across his nose, shrugged, and went back to his chair, chewing on the pipe. The shoulders of his bright blue coveralls hunched slackly away from his body as he sat down, as if he had shrunk inside them.

"Well, then,” Gideon said into the awkward silence, “one more thing."

As soon as he took the broken ice ax from the sack, Anna spoke out sharply.

"It's one of ours. An Alpiner."

Judd nodded gravely. “Right you are. I remember."

"Were they all exactly the same?” Gideon asked. “Is there any way to distinguish one from another?"

"After thirty years,” Tremaine snapped, “you expect us to remember who wrapped red tape around the handle and who used yellow? Not that there's any tape left on this one. Really, is there some purpose to this?"

"I'm just trying to come up with anything that might be useful in identifying the remains. If we knew for sure whose ice ax that was, it could help."

"Well, it seems as if you'll have to figure it out on your own,” Tremaine said impatiently. He closed the loose-leaf binder in front of him, tucked it under his arm, and stood up with the brittle agility of a man who worked hard at aging gracefully. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Oliver. And now, if there's nothing else, the fire is dead, the Icebreaker Lounge is open for business, and I, for one, am in dire need of the comfort of a Rob Roy.” With a nod he was gone, his rich voice seeming to hang in the air behind him.

Tremaine's voice was all his own. Like the larger-than-life stars of Hollywood's golden era-Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne-he had created a way of speaking that was to be found in no one else on the planet. Lush but nasal, British but American, elegant but intimate.

About what you'd expect, was Gideon's grumpy and uncharitable thought, if you crossed John Gielgud with W. C. Fields.