Frozen Stiff: Chapters 4–7

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.

Cody unzipped the tent flap and crawled partway into the vestibule.

They dragged the tent up the sandy slope to the thick underbrush encroaching on the beach.

She was transfixed by the early-morning light as it turned the nylon dome into a bright orange ball.

The stove and fuel had probably sunk as soon as the kayak capsized.

A strained silence hung between them like an invisible hull over their drowning camp.

There it was—in all its varnished glory—clamped safely inside.

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.

Both stood in ranges thick with impenetrable forests of western hemlock and Sitka spruce.

The Tide: that was how Cody thought about it—with a capital letter. It should be receding.

Ebb and flow and gravitational pull. She’d studied it in science class. The moon and sun controlled the surface level of oceans, bays, gulfs, inlets, and fjords.

“What do you mean Hubbard surged?” Cody thought of another word for surge. “It advanced.”

The kayak lurched forward in awkward spurts, lifting and falling as it slapped wildly at the uneven swells.

A woeful moan grew into a deafening roar, like the dull static of white noise.

Seagulls appeared from nowhere, swooping down to feed on the brine shrimp brought up by the turbulence.

The first wave hit them sideways, spraying salt and buckets of water. The kayak dropped into a deep trough, tipped unsteadily, and nearly capsized.

The second wave struck harder than the first, lifting the kayak and letting it coast on the crest.

Even now the noise wouldn’t let up—the relentless gusts, the scream of seagulls, the slapping of paddles—all loud enough to wake the dead.

With a death grip she paddled hard on the right to turn the kayak before the next set of waves hit. Being slammed head-on was better than taking a lateral strike.

The face of the glacier, where the ice had broken off, wore a new expression now, an ice sculpture of hundred-foot-high spires and turrets.

The face of the glacier, where the ice had broken off, wore a new expression now, an ice sculpture of hundred-foot-high spires and turrets.

Catching her breath, she thought about how much of the earth was covered with ice—one-tenth, she’d learned from the outfitters. An entire ocean was covered with it, like a white layer of congealed fat on a pot of cold turkey soup.

Soon the kayak skimmed water that spread across the fjord like soluble paints on paper, bleeding colors too mixed up to have their own names.

He lowered his paddle and pointed across the water at the distant forest, thick in some places, sparse in others.

She followed his gaze beyond a silty stream; the sound of water played everywhere.

The intense burning in her feet had lessened to a dull ache. The water that had seeped into her boots earlier had now mixed with body heat and created a layer of insulation.

They left the narrow passage with its steep-sided walls and entered a broad stretch with enticing slopes.

Derek stripped to paisley surfer shorts, and Cody laughed at how silly he looked, here in the Alaska wilderness in surfer jams.

Stuck. High on a rocky bluff without food or shelter, and in the face of an oncoming storm.

A poacher after illegal bearskins or otter hides?