Killer

“No,” said Job. “Three days if the weather holds, and if the killers stay away.”

“Will they?”

“Who knows? Perhaps Jeremiah has the ear of Aipalookvik after all.”

Ross gave a half smile. “No. He’ll wait to settle his own debts later. If this is anyone’s work, it’s Hers.” He gestured south over half the world.

“Perhaps.” It was Job’s turn to smile.

It may be that they were both a little mad, talking of dead men and continents as though they had power and could order events. But neither thought himself or the other even slightly insane.

“Come and get it, Job,” yelled Kate.

When Job was finished he wandered off alone again. The rest of them cleared away, washed up and went to bed. By the time Job came back over the restless ice and climbed quietly into the tent, they were all sound asleep. For a while he lay in his sleeping bag, cramped uneasily between Ross and Simon, his eyes still full of the dead grey of sky and sea, the livid blue of the floes; his mind restless with the problems his talk with Kate had thrown up. How much did he owe to the memory of a dead brother, how much to a religion he only half believed? He was still wondering when he too fell asleep.

They all slept peacefully for nearly six hours. Job tossed and turned a little at first, and Kate moaned when she lay on her back; but Simon and Colin slept like the dead, undisturbed by memories or dreams. Far above them the clouds began to thin out, and the day, tending towards evening, silently brightened. The sea remained quiet, disturbed only slightly by a gentle breeze freshening from the east. The floes stirred restlessly, brightening with the sky, champing quietly one against the other. A flock of birds flew high swift towards Alaska, disturbing the air with only one or two cries and a distant humming of wings, and the ocean answered with its own quiet songs – the cries of three hunting whales.

Job never knew precisely why he woke then, but suddenly he found himself sitting up straight, tense with some unremembered fear. He looked around the tent. The rest were quietly asleep. He lay down again, but he could not get his eyes to close. In any case he needed to go to the toilet. He rose silently, went to the tent-flap and let himself out. There was a wind. The sky looked quite promising. He stretched until his bones cracked, and then went over the gently shifting net towards the latrine-tent.

Simon woke as Job left the tent. He rolled over, and without thinking he too stretched. His right elbow dug into Colin’s ribs and his feet thumped squarely into Kate’s stomach.

“Oops. Sorry. Forgot we were so crowded.”

Silence. After a while Simon too got up and crawled out. Kate turned over and gasped as her raw back bore her weight. Colin sat up, moving his shoulders stiffly. She watched him through half-closed eyes. He straightened up very gingerly indeed, opened his shirt, glanced suspiciously at her apparently sleeping face, and pulled up his undershirt. His flesh was deeply bruised.

“Oh Colin!” She sat up, quite vexed with his childishness. “You need some ointment on those, and bandages.”

“I thought you were asleep!” He sounded almost sulky.

“Well I’m not! Let me have a look at you.” She rolled out of her sleeping bag and crawled across the tent towards him. He remained as he was, watching her as she moved. “Come on,” she snapped, at her most businesslike, “let’s have it off.”

His eyes opened wide. “I hope the others can’t hear . . .”

“You know very well what I mean!” She felt herself blushing, and covered her confusion by rummaging in one corner for the first aid box, and extracting from it a tin of ointment and bandages.

“You’ll have to help,” he said.

His vest had become entangled with his left arm. Briskly she undid the straps on his chest and removed both.

“There. Now, let’s have a look at you.” There were welts up his back from the rope, and she dabbed them liberally with the purple ointment. His ribs and chest were another matter, however. On his right side, running from under his arm down to the arch of his solar plexus was a great crusted bruise.

“That’s nasty,” she said, reaching for the iodine, keeping her voice very practical indeed because of the tightness in her chest. “This might sting a little,” she said.

It burned like a hot poker and he winced. Above it, from collar-bone to nipple was another wound, equally bad. She poured iodine over that too, swabbing carefully, acutely aware of how the silky fur on his chest rubbed against her fingers, her palms, the sides and backs of her hands.

She glanced up, and his deep green eyes were searching her face. She suddenly thought of the first time she had seen those eyes. How cold they had seemed to be then. How warm they seemed now.

“I’d better bandage you,” she said. He nodded. She got the roll of white material out and held one end high on his chest. His hand came up to hold it for her, and covered her hand for a moment.

“Thank you,” she said stupidly.

“That’s OK.”