Frozen Stiff Read online

  I’m not a threat, she willed to the animal across the water.

  If it made a move at her, she would turn sideways. Raise her arms. Make herself look taller. Bigger. Meaner.

  All these thoughts rushed through her head in seconds. And then: If it doesn’t act aggressive, I’ll stand still until it leaves.

  Neither one of them moved.

  Even from across the water she could smell its foul breath. It smelled as if it had recently eaten something dead. Its fur was a matted mess—nothing like a bear in a zoo. This bear was wild in a way she couldn’t describe.

  Then another sound of rustling in the trees, even louder than before. The noise was behind the bear and farther upstream. Maybe the bear had a mate. Or worse, maybe it had cubs. Mother bears were known to rip people apart if they thought their cubs were threatened.

  Suddenly the bear dropped to all fours and left the clearing as quickly as it had appeared. Only when the sounds of trampled branches faded far into the forest did Cody let out her breath, a sigh of relief that was almost a sob. Then she started back down the trail. Her steps were painfully slow because she was walking backward. She didn’t want the bear to think she was running away. She felt as if its eyes were burning holes in her T-shirt.

  Back in camp, Derek had unwrapped the food for dinner and spread it out on a tarp. All he needed was a sign saying BEAR OPEN HOUSE, Cody thought. The bear horn was twenty yards away on a rock. Cody didn’t have the energy for a lecture. Instead she made a silent vow to stick together until they returned to Yakutat. She never should have left him alone in camp in the first place.

  “Since we’re going back a day early, can we eat tomorrow night’s dinner too?” A pot of water was boiling on the single burner. Derek ripped the package of macaroni with his teeth. “It’ll make the kayaks lighter.”

  She nodded. “Sure,” she said, not really listening.

  Cody clipped the bear horn on. There was no reason to tell him she had seen a bear at the waterfall. Then neither of them would get any sleep. Maybe she would tell him tomorrow on their way back to the lodge. He would be relieved they were heading back a day early.

  Cody loaded the rest of the food bags into her kayak and tucked her life vest tightly over them while Derek worked on dinner. She checked the bow rope to make sure it was secured to the tree stump, then sprayed a ring of Lysol around the kayak—a trick the outfitters used to mask the smell of food. She sprayed a thick ring around the tent too, just to be safe.

  After dinner Cody washed the cooking utensils, using sand to scrape off bits of food and grease and put them in her kayak. She added more wood to the fire and scooted closer to the flames. But no matter how close she sat, she couldn’t warm up.

  Why had the bear turned and split like that? She thought about the other noise she’d heard. Whatever it was, it probably had saved her life.

  After half an hour she couldn’t see more than fifteen or twenty feet beyond the fire. And past the circle of light the blackness was complete. Derek poked at the coals with a twig, and sparks danced in the air. Ash floated on the chilling breeze.

  Cold and tired, Cody left the dwindling fire and crawled into the tent. She stuck the bear horn in one boot, her flashlight in the other. Both boots were pressed up against her side so that she could find them in the dark. Then she wormed into her bag, shivering as her feet slid over the cool nylon.

  Derek crawled into the tent behind her and arranged his boots for a pillow. “This is so cool.”

  Cody wished she’d thought of using her life vest for a pillow. But it was in the kayak and she didn’t have the energy to get it.

  “Too bad I can’t spend every summer in Alaska,” Derek said from inside his sleeping bag. “But my mom would never let me.”

  “She might if my mom talked to her.”

  There was a long silence between them. Cody figured Derek had gone to sleep. She listened to the wind rustle the leaves and worried that the bear might smell the macaroni and cheese.

  Bears were amazing sniffers. The news was full of reports of grizzlies ripping into vans and cars. They could smell a stick of gum in a closed car trunk.

  “Cody?”

  Cody nearly jumped out of her sleeping bag. “Geez, Derek. You scared me to death. I thought you were asleep.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  She caught her breath. “Sure.”

  “What happened with your mom and dad? The divorce and stuff?”

  Cody wished she had a pillow to punch. She’d asked herself that question a thousand times. “It was Dad’s fault,” she said, surprised she’d blurted it out like that. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You’re not mad, are you?”

  Yeah, she was mad. But not at him. “No, I’m not mad. Go to sleep.”

  Soon the silence grew into a sound of its own—a dull throbbing in her ears—until the rumble of Derek’s snoring took over.

  Cody was totally exhausted but her mind wouldn’t shut down. The whole family was probably still talking about the divorce. Dad and the other woman, who was only twenty-five. Now they all lived together: her father, her brother, and Tonya, the stepmother. One big happy family. It was enough to make you puke.

  Back then, her mother had stared at the TV—the one-eyed monster, she called it—in a kind of shock. Her mind, her heart, everything had refused to accept what was happening. The waiting—the papers demanding signatures, more papers—the uncertainties about their future.

  Cody had missed several days of school, and when she had gone back, she hadn’t been able to concentrate. She’d sit for hours staring at her open notebook—the words blurred and meaningless, replaying the day her father told her, “I’m so sorry, Cody. Your mother and I tried to work it out.” Then the piercing words “I’m leaving.”

  The following weeks stretched into months, empty days piling up like old newspapers. No movies with her friends, no hanging out at the mall, no sleepovers. Later the focus shifted to staying busy by cleaning. She’d used every attachment on the vacuum cleaner, sucking dust off baseboards, window frames, even upholstered chairs. Mostly it was just a lot of noise; it didn’t even begin to fill the void left by Dad and Patterson.

  Cody hated her father for what he had done. She’d never forgive him.

  At first Cody didn’t think she’d been asleep. But she awakened startled and realized she’d been having one of her nightmares about the divorce. Her parents’ voices had been calm and low. Maybe that was what was so scary. Neat and clean, like folding laundry. Orderly piles stacked and ready to be put away. Patterson in the Dad dresser. Cody in the Mom drawer.

  Girlfriend. The word fit Tonya. At least the girl part. One of her dad’s students at the university. Stepmother. Cody secretly called her step-monster. A small wedding only a month after the divorce. “To satisfy the court.” Dad had said it like an apology. “Because Patterson is going to live with us.”

  Even now Cody could hear her mother’s sobs, could see the strained question on her lips. “I don’t understand,” she’d kept repeating, not fully aware of what was happening. Cody hadn’t been able to stand the hurt in her mother’s voice.

  Cody shivered, realizing that the foot of her sleeping bag was wet. Water had even soaked that end of the foam pad underneath. “Darn,” she scolded herself, grabbing her flashlight. “Wake up.” She poked Derek. “We have to move the tent.”

  “Huh?”

  “Where’s your flashlight?” she said, slipping into her cold boots. “Put on your boots.”

  It was dangerous to be wet, especially if a chill set in. Body temperature would drop as blood abandoned fingers and toes to warm the vital organs. That was how frostbite started, with the destruction of skin and underlying tissue. She didn’t want to think about what happened next.

  Cody unzipped the tent flap and crawled partway into the vestibule. The beam of her flashlight shone on the water there. Cautiously she touched the water. It was colder than she’d expected:
a dull, bitter cold.

  The water was slowly seeping higher. So slowly that she could barely see it move. “I messed up with the tide,” she said. “We have to pull the stakes and move the tent.”

  “With everything in it?” Derek asked from inside.

  “We can drag it to higher ground.”

  Her toes felt like shriveled-up prunes inside her boots. She didn’t have dry socks. Derek didn’t have any socks. The sun wouldn’t be up for several more hours and might not even break through the clouds when it did rise.

  Cody pulled up the stakes on one side of the tent. Derek uprooted those on the other side. They dragged the tent up the sandy slope to the thick underbrush encroaching on the beach. “The tent should have been up here against the bushes in the first place,” she said, straining to catch her breath. “I can’t believe it. I must have looked at the wrong date in the tide book. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “I still don’t get it,” Derek said. “How did the water come into the tent?”

  Cody reminded him yet again that the fjord was filled from the ocean. “I misread the tide table,” she repeated dully. “Pretty soon the water will go back out, moving to low tide.”

  “Right,” he mumbled.

  With the tent restaked they crawled back inside, pushing into their sleeping bags. Cody kept to the head end of hers, which was still dry. “We’ll rebuild the fire in the morning,” she said, rubbing her shriveled toes. With a bit of maneuvering she could pull the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her cold feet. “Have a hot breakfast and thaw out.”

  Cody knew Derek had nodded off because his dull snores cut through the air. Her cousin could sleep anywhere, just like Patterson. She curled into a warm ball and pictured a campfire on the beach—red hot and crackling with driftwood. Her hands were wrapped around a mug of steamy cocoa topped with marshmallows. A skillet of bacon was sizzling next to a griddle full of salmonberry hotcakes.

  She was warmer now, dreaming of a cloudless sky. No drizzle or mist, just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. Then a tidal wave crashed on the campfire. Everything was drenched. Hotcakes and bacon. Even her mug of cocoa.

  Cody woke up, startled.

  She grabbed her flashlight. Water was still seeping into the tent. Something was wrong. Really wrong. She would wake Derek, but then what? This couldn’t be the tide; it had to be something else. She tried to think of a logical explanation, a reason why the water was still rising.

  What? Nothing came to her.

  “Derek?” She tried to hide the urgency in her voice. “Wake up.”

  “Now what?”

  Fortunately the daypacks were at the high end of the tent and still dry. “Something’s wrong.” She peeled the wet sweatshirt from her feet. Her toes had turned from prunes to Popsicles. She rubbed them briskly. “The water is still rising.”

  Derek scooted back, focusing his beam of light on the foot of the tent. “The tide?”

  She shook her head. “The tide doesn’t come up this high.”

  “Never?” he asked.

  “Never.”

  The dial on her watch showed it was 3:00 A.M. It would start getting light in another hour. There was nothing she could do in the dark. “We have to stay awake till morning.”

  Derek snatched the last of his dry clothes from his pack. “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “No,” she lied.

  Cody checked the water level every ten minutes for the next hour. She marked the water’s progress with an extra tent stake. They squatted in their boots, inching backward as the water seeped higher. Soon they were shoved against the back of the tent.

  “What happened to low tide?” Derek asked, shivering.

  Cody didn’t answer. She was transfixed by the early-morning light as it turned the nylon dome into a bright orange ball. “At least the sun’s out.”

  Derek followed Cody out of the tent into six inches of water. She stopped, staring at the strange surroundings. The water in the fjord had turned a weird color. Not the usual salty blue-green but almost clear, as if it was covered with a layer of fresh water.

  In some places the water had begun invading the forest. The roots of trees and vines normally far above the high-tide line were now drowning. The eeriest thing of all was the quiet.

  Cody quickly yanked the tent stakes from the waterlogged ground. They piled what they had in the tent in a soggy heap; then Cody went to get her kayak.

  “We’ll be safe on the water,” she said, wading in the direction of her kayak. “If we paddle fast enough we’ll be on the beach we launched from before it’s time for lunch. How’re the blisters on your hands?”

  Cody didn’t listen for his answer. She was too busy worrying about what the beach they had taken off from would look like when they got back. Would there be any beach left? Or would it be flooded? And if so, how would they unload? Unloading the kayaks in water would be hard enough; wading through water while loaded down with gear would be impossible.

  Cody stopped in her watery tracks. Her kayak had been tied to a stump on the beach twenty feet above the high-tide line. “I don’t believe it.” She heard the panic in her voice.

  The stump was completely covered by clear icy water. Her kayak was drifting in the middle of the fjord, overturned. The stove and fuel had probably sunk as soon as the kayak capsized. Food bags and other supplies floated in the water near the bow.

  A breeze whipped off the ice, cutting through Cody’s clothes. She stood shaking as her life vest bobbed a final farewell, a bright orange SOS on the rising tide. Within seconds the kayak and vest disappeared around the bend on their way toward Hubbard Glacier.

  Cody and Derek exchanged frightened glances. A strained silence hung between them like an invisible hull over their drowning camp.

  Cody stood ankle deep in the clear water, wobbling slightly as shock waves hit her. Kayak lost. No food. No life vest. Derek opened his mouth and gasped in the icy air. He didn’t say anything either. Their lack of words was a hundred times more deafening than if they’d screamed.

  The bright sun burned through a flawless blue sky. It was actually hot, which was unusual in Southeast Alaska. The water had become like a magnifying glass, sending prisms bouncing across the fjord. Each beam was blinding in its brilliance. Blinding and burning.

  Cody squinted. No sunglasses. No sunscreen. She couldn’t believe she’d left her shades behind.

  Derek asked the obvious question: “Shouldn’t we go after it?”

  Cody stood still, torn by the desire to rescue her kayak and the knowledge that she couldn’t swim after it. There was no chance to run it down in Derek’s kayak. Without the weight of people and gear, it was moving much too swiftly. She simply stood on the rock with water lapping her boots, gazing in the direction where her kayak had disappeared.

  “We’d never catch it,” she said.

  Cody raked her fingers through her hair, snagging a broken nail in her tangled curls. She slipped on No Fear and adjusted the brim to shade her eyes. “Where’s the extra paddle?”

  “I think it’s in my kayak.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  With only one paddle it would be nearly impossible to maneuver two people through the water. She held her breath and mentally crossed her fingers, then looked inside Derek’s kayak. There it was—in all its varnished glory—clamped safely inside.

  It’s more than just a paddle, she thought as she touched the smooth wood. With two paddles we can make it. We have to.

  Derek pulled the bag of trail mix from inside his shirt. “I’m starving.”

  She stared at him. “Was that in the tent?”

  Derek nodded. “Midnight snack.”

  Cody couldn’t decide if she should hug him or slug him. All the food, even the nonfood smelly stuff like toothpaste and sunscreen, had been stowed in her kayak.

  Derek had watched her circle the kayak spraying Lysol. He
’d even asked her about it. No food within fifty feet of our tent, she’d told him, bears are amazing sniffers.

  The irony of it made her laugh so hard that tears filled her eyes. She quickly wiped them away, not wanting to add another drop to the already soggy surroundings.

  Then she swore—not at Derek, but at the situation—using the one word she never said aloud. She felt a lot better.

  “Let’s hurry up and get loaded,” she said. “You carry the rest of the stuff down here and I’ll pack it up.”

  Cody straddled the bow and made a mental inventory of the remaining gear: one kayak, two paddles, one tent (wet), one life vest, two sleeping bags (wet), two flashlights, two water bottles (one empty, one half full), one cooking pot, one bear horn, matches inside a plastic bag, and clothes.

  Just as quickly she counted what they’d lost: one kayak, one paddle, one life vest, stove and fuel, the other cooking pot, water purifier, extra batteries, plus the smelly stuff like sunscreen, insect repellent, first-aid ointment, and Lysol. All the food, except a small bag of trail mix.

  Cody tossed the tent sack in front, climbed in, and shoved it forward with her feet. Personal gear came next. The wet sleeping bags were draped over the two seats. They’d dry in no time in this heat. She wondered what had happened to all the mosquitoes and seagulls.

  She finished packing while concentrating on the gurgling noise coming from the trees along the shore. The carbon dioxide-breathing plants were suffocating in the rising water. Who would have thought that trees would cry out when they were drowning?

  Cody pushed a sweaty strand of hair under No Fear and looked at Derek. He was building two piles of trail mix on a rock, counting out equal numbers of almonds and raisins and dried peas.

  “We’re not shipwrecked, you know, and we won’t be on this beach forever.” Cody tossed him the lone life vest. “You wear it.”

  “Why me?”

  “I’m the captain and what I say goes.”

  Derek sighed long and loud. He knew better than to argue with her. He’d never win anyway. He just grabbed a paddle and took his place in back. He knew without being told that his captain-cousin would demand the front seat.