LITMIR.BIZ

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discuss with him anything that she didn’t want to.

      Which, she thought, mischievously, could mean a very silent trip.

      The muffin had blueberries in it and was warm enough to melt the butter she had lathered on it. After rinsing her hands at the sink, Kathrin cut some of Pam’s homemade bread, put the slices between two metal racks, and went over to the stove to toast them. ‘Did you sleep well?’ Pam asked.

      ‘Fine,’ Kathrin said warmly, sensing Pam was worried about the next few days. In a clear voice she added, ‘I’ll be leaving again this afternoon. As Jud’s donating money to the station, I’m duty bound to find him a herd of mus-koxen.’

      ‘Charmingly put,’ Jud said from directly behind her. ‘What time?’

      Hoping her start of surprise hadn’t shown, Kathrin turned the rack to cook the other side of the bread. ‘About four,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘It’ll be at least a three-hour hike, maybe more if they’ve moved further up the valley. Pam and I will look after the food.’

      ‘I’ll be ready,’ Jud said.

      There was a note in his voice that sent a shiver down her spine. She had no reason to be afraid, she thought stoutly. Once or twice a day she checked in with Garry on the portable radio; and if Jud’s company became intolerable, she’d simply come back to camp and leave him out there. ‘Wear rubber boots and bring your own tent,’ she said coolly.

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’

      Her cheeks flushed from more than the heat of the stove, Kathrin accepted a heaped plate of bacon, eggs and hashbrowns from Pam and went to sit down beside Calvin, who was regaling anyone who would listen with his latest findings on the role of blue-green algae in the ecology of the Arctic lowlands. Despite his loudly expressed interest in women, Kathrin often suspected Calvin was more interested in the convoluted sex lives of algae than the rather predictable amatory activities of humans. Listening with one ear, she tackled her food with gusto and kept a wary eye on Jud, who was talking to Pam by the stove. Now that she was over the initial shock of seeing Jud again, she was going to manage the next four days just fine, she thought optimistically. She was a grown woman—she could handle a dozen Juds.

      This mood stayed with Kathrin through the day, a very busy day. She washed her clothes and hung them on the line between the storage hut and the kitchen, she brought her notes up to date, and she carefully accumulated everything she would need out on the tundra, knowing from experience that what she forgot she had to do without. By now, she had loading her backpack down to an art. At three forty-five she zipped up the last compartment and hefted the pack to check its weight. Not bad. She’d carried heavier.

      Now to find Jud.

      But first she halted in front of her mirror, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and brushing its shining weight back from her face. Nimbly she started braiding it, having discovered this was the simplest way to look after it when she was camping; and all the while her eyes looked back at her.

      Her features were long-familiar and taken for granted: straight brows, straight nose dusted with freckles, level brown eyes. In repose her face was like a good drawing, the lines strong and sure. However, when lit by emotion it was transformed to a vivid beauty, elusive enough that she tended to discount it.

      She was wearing a turquoise turtleneck under a wool sweater softly patterned in turquoise, mauves and browns, a favourite combination of hers in which she knew she looked well. Her hooded jacket was as dark a brown as her eyes; her corduroy trousers were also dark brown, tucked into high rubber boots. Tiny gold earrings shaped like seagulls twinkled in her lobes.

      After fastening her braid, Kathrin brushed on lip gloss and put it in the pocket of her jacket. I’m delaying the inevitable, she thought. I don’t want to go out there and face Jud.

      Quickly she stooped, lifting her pack on to one of the bunks and then swinging it in place on her back. Binoculars, gloves, notebook, pencil. She was ready.

      She took one last, steadying look around the hut before going outside. Jud was standing in the road waiting for her, his face, tanned, unsmiling, giving nothing away. The sun gleamed in his hair while his eyes were a distillation of all the blue of the sky. With a jolt of surprise Kathrin realised that Pam was right. Jud was a very handsome man.

      She stopped in her tracks. More than handsome. He exuded a highly charged masculine energy of which she was sure he was unaware, coupled with an air of utter self-containment: an intriguing paradox that bore no relation to the Jud she had grown up with. It was as though, she thought slowly, she were suddenly seeing him for the first time.

      He said caustically, ‘It’s too late to change your mind.’

      She tossed her head. ‘I said I’d take you to the muskoxen and I will.’ In a surge of adrenalin she added, ‘I’m the one who jumped the ravine—remember?’ The ravine was on the far boundary of Thorndean, an outcrop of granite where ferns grew lush and green, and water dripped mournfully in the murky shadows among the rocks. It had long been a haunt of the ravens. ‘The summer I was twelve you dared me to jump across it—and I did.’

      ‘I never thought you would.’ A reluctant smile tugged at Jud’s lips. ‘I was crazy to dare you and you were crazy to do it...that was the day I tore my shirt.’

      He had also scraped the skin from his ribs and she had been the one to smooth on antibiotic ointment that she had stolen from her mother’s medicine cabinet; as if it were yesterday she could see his teeth gritted against the pain. She said tersely, ‘Let’s go. I want to find the herd before we stop to eat.’

      ‘Can’t handle the memories, Kit?’ he jeered.

      Exasperated, she said, ‘You have a choice here, Jud—you can stand talking to thin air or you can follow me.’

      Suiting action to word, Kathrin set off past the radio shack for the nearest rock ridge. Soon her boots were crunching among loose stones and shell fragments, and her stride had settled into its natural rhythm; although Jud’s longer stride was right beside her, the tension of his presence lessened as she filled her lungs with the crisp, pure air. This was where she wanted to be. Perhaps it didn’t matter who was with her as long as she could inhabit this immensity of space.

      He said casually, ‘Karl was saying this whole area was under the sea not that long ago.’

      ‘That’s right. The weight of the ice cap pressed the land down. But as the ice melted, the land rose. You can see a whole series of beach ridges ahead of us.’

      ‘So tell me about the blue-green algae of which Calvin is so enamoured.’

      She laughed almost naturally and described their role in the slow evolution of the Arctic soil, finding Jud’s questions intelligent and his own knowledge considerable. They descended the first ridge and skirted a lake. A pair of loons flew overhead. Jud spotted a phalarope, Kathrin a sandpiper; and their boots brushed the tiny Arctic flowers, glossy golden buttercups and purple-striped campion.

      For the next hour they climbed steadily towards the plateau, beyond which lay the valley where the muskoxen roamed. At about six o’clock Kathrin said breathlessly, ‘We should fill our water bottles at this stream. And let’s take a short break.’ Loosening the straps, she lowered her pack to the ground.

      The stream gurgled out of the hillside between rocks carpeted with green and scarlet mosses. Chewing on some trail mix, Jud said reflectively, ‘Colour leaps out at you here, doesn’t it? The flowers and mosses are so vivid, so full of life.’

      She had often noticed the same thing. She said eagerly, ‘I think it’s because at first glance the Arctic offers a kind of sensory deprivation—dun-coloured tundra, grey rocks, and the white of last year’s snow. Even the sky’s pale blue, as though the ice cap has sapped it of all its strength. So the flowers make straight for the heart.’

      ‘You love it here.’

      She nodded. ‘I feel as though I’ve come home...I don’t know why.’

      His

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