“Sorry,” I say. “We’ll do better next time.”
We aren’t what she wants, though. Not what she needs.
I think of the woman in the clearing, the woman under the snow.
“We should get her back to Rockton,” I say. “Can you do that by yourself?”
“What?”
“Her mother. I have to…” I look at the baby. “I need to get what I can from the scene.”
“Scene?” He adjusts his position, making the baby comfortable in the crook of his arm. “You think she was murdered.”
“Possibly. I know that isn’t my crime to solve, but this baby didn’t come from nowhere. She has family. She needs to go back to them.”
I know that, better than anyone, because of the man sitting beside me. The Daltons found a boy in the forest, and they ignored the fact that he was well fed and properly clothed and healthy. Ignored the fact that he already knew how to read and write. They decided he was a savage in need of rescue. There is no gentle way to put it. They stole Dalton from his parents, from his brother, from the forest.
“She needs to get back to them,” I repeat, and Dalton’s hand finds mine, his fingers squeezing as he says, “She does.”
“So to do that—” I begin.
“We have to check out the body.”
“I have to check it. You need to take her.”
He passes me the baby and starts rolling the sleeping blankets.
“I’m not leaving you out here alone,” he says, and before I can protest, he continues. “Yes, you can find the way back. Yes, you have a gun. Yes, I could leave you with both dogs. But an hour or two will make no difference if she’s wrapped well. She survived for longer under the snow.”
“Yes but—”
“Maybe I should stay and check the body,” he says, tying the blankets under his backpack. “I know what to look for, and I’m better than you at tracking, especially with the snowfall. I might also be able to tell if she’s from a settlement or she’s a lone settler or even where she comes from.” He settles onto his haunches. “Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll check the body. You take the baby.”
I only glower at him. He grins, leans forward, and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “Yep, I’m not sure which is the scarier prospect. We’ll both go check the scene first. Wrap her up properly, and I’ll break camp.”
FOUR
We’re heading back to the clearing. Dalton has the baby snuggled under his parka, left undone just enough to be sure she’s breathing. I’m in the lead, the dogs trotting along beside me, confused but calm, sensing we have this under control.
When we reach the deeper snow, it’s slow going with the heavy pack on my back. It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. On a trip into Whitehorse, I made an amazing discovery: backpacks are not unisex.
I had always worn a regular backpack, and if someone had offered me a “girl” one, I’d have been offended and amused, like when I saw an ad for a women’s pen. Except, as I discovered, a women’s backpack is a perfectly logical invention. The normal ones distribute the load across the shoulders, but women carry weight better at their hips. My new backpack utilized that, and I no longer felt like the ninety-pound weakling struggling to carry a backpack half the size of Dalton’s.
We follow my boot prints into the clearing. A woman died here, and we need to disturb the scene as little as possible. At the clearing edge, I tie Raoul to a tree and command Storm to stay with him.
I return to the spot where I unwrapped the baby, and I set my backpack in the depression I’d already created. Then I unzip Dalton’s jacket and carefully remove the baby. She fusses at being pulled away from her warm cocoon. I check her, and then put her back with Dalton, and she promptly quiets.
“The body’s over here,” I say.
Dalton follows, staying in my footsteps. The woman lies where I left her, untouched, which is a relief. I’d realized too late that I should have re-covered her with snow to stifle the smell from scavengers. But I suppose being frozen muffled her scent well enough.
I was so panicked earlier that I hadn’t taken more than a cursory glance at the woman. Now I hunker onto my haunches for a closer examination. She’s older than I thought, my initial observation tainted by the expectation that this would be a young mother.
I might be wrong on the age, too. This is a hard life for those who’ve chosen it. Still, the woman’s hair is liberally streaked with gray, and I can’t imagine she’s younger than mid-thirties. Still young enough to have a child, of course.
She’s a settler, not a hostile. In my experience so far, it’s been easy to tell the difference. A settler looks like someone who stepped from a magazine article on the Klondike Gold Rush. Sometimes it’s the classic version, circa 1898, complete with shabby clothing and beards to their belly buttons. Other times, they resemble modern miners, people who choose to spend part of their year here because there is indeed gold in these hills and streams.
Hostiles look as if they stepped from an entirely different magazine article, one about a newly discovered tribe. At least, that’s the first impression. On closer inspection, it’s more like they’ve compiled the most cringeworthy and stereotypical “savage” cosplay outfit imaginable. Filed teeth. Primitive tattoos. Ritual scarring. Painted faces. Tattered clothing. Zero sanitation.