Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

she said: ‘ Ikuliaq! ’ Stay calm!
    One of the men must have had an accident. It wasn’t uncommon. In the twelve years she’d been guiding southern hunters, Edie had seen more of those than there are char in a spawn pond: puffed up egos, in the Arctic for the first time, laden down with self-importance and high-tech kit, thinking it was going to be just like the duck shoot in Iowa they went on last Thanksgiving or the New Year’s deer cull in Wyoming. Then they got out on the sea ice and things didn’t seem quite so easy. If the bears didn’t spook them, then the blistering cold, the scouring winds, the ferocious sun and the roar of the ice pack usually did the job. They’d stave off their fear with casual bravado and booze and that was when the accidents happened.
    She set the snowbie going and made her way around the iceberg and through a ridge of tuniq , slabby pressure ice. The wind was up now and blowing ice crystals into the skin around her eyes. When she pulled on her snow goggles, the crystals migrated to the sensitive skin around her mouth. So long as no one had been seriously wounded, she told herself, they could all just sit out the storm and wait for help to arrive once the weather had calmed. She’d put up a snowhouse to keep them cosy and she had a first-aid kit and enough knowledge to be able to use it.
    Her thoughts turned, briefly, to what the elders would make of what was happening. All but Sammy didn’t much approve of a woman guiding men. They were always looking for an excuse to unseat her. So far, they hadn’t been able to come up with one. They knew that she was the best damned guide in the High Arctic. She’d never yet lost a client.
    The snowbie bumped over an area of candle ice and brought her to her senses. Like Grandfather Eliah used to say: speculation is a white disease. But then, she was half-white herself, so maybe she couldn’t help it. In any case, it wouldn’t do now. The key to getting everyone out of the situation, whatever the situation turned out to be, was to focus on the present. The High Arctic only ever made room for now.
    On the other side of the pressure ridge, a human shape emerged from the gloom, the skinny guy, Wagner’s assistant. Edie struggled momentarily to recall his name. In her mind he’d become Stan Laurel, without the charm. Andy, that was it, Andy Taylor. He was waving frantically. As she approached the gravel beach, he ran back to where the body of his boss lay splayed on his back. Edie brought the snowbie to a halt on the ice foot and made her way across the snow-covered shale. Taylor was gesticulating, trying to get her to speed up, the asshole. She carried on at the same pace. Running equalled sweating equalled hypothermia.
    Closing in, she could see things were more serious than she’d allowed herself to imagine and suddenly she understood something of Taylor’s panic. The injured man was not moving. A large pool of blood had gathered under his right arm, melting the surrounding snow, freezing into a purplish sorbet. A tiny skein of steam rose from the spot.
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜I was over the other side,’ Taylor muttered. ‘I heard the sound, I ran.’ He pointed to some tracks, rapidly being erased by the wind. ‘Look, look, see, see?’
    Think, woman . Despite the company – or maybe precisely because of the company – she felt resolutely alone. The first thing to do was to call and speak to Robert Patma or Joe on the sat phone. Darling Joe, who had been volunteering in Patma’s clinic for a year now and seemed to have accumulated almost as much expertise as the nurse himself. She glanced over at the injured man. No, on second thoughts, the very first thing would be to stop the bleeding.
    She went back to the snowbie, took out the first aid kit, and bustled back up the beach towards the wounded man. Taylor was on his knees beside Felix Wagner