Shiver(122)
The camp was made up of three small log cabins making up a half moon. Tern and Nadia entered the first cabin, while the men carried their gear into the remaining cabins. The small space housed two cots each. A shelf, hooks for clothes, an end table between the cots, and a wood stove for heating in winter. The bare necessities. It caused a smile to spread over Tern’s face, while Nadia frowned.
“This is it?” she asked, scanning the small space as though some modern day amenities would suddenly appear.
“Did you expect maid service?”
“Running water would have been nice.”
“There’s a pristine lake out front.” Tern gestured to the view out the door she’d left propped open for air and light. The little cabin only sported a tiny window, which wasn’t able to brighten the dark, rough-honed log interior.
“You’re enjoying, this aren’t you?”
“God, yes.” Tern rolled out her sleeping bag on one of the cots and then laid down on it. “I didn’t realize how badly I needed to get out of town until we got here.” She turned her head to gaze at Nadia, who fought to untie her sleeping bag. “Thanks for talking me into coming.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Nadia mumbled. “We still need to find a bathroom.”
“I’m sure there’s an outhouse in back of the cabins.”
“Eww, seriously?” Her mouth dropped open.
Tern laughed at Nadia’s staggered expression. “Come on, let’s unpack and then get something to eat.” She sat up and opened her backpack. As she pulled out her GPS, clothes, toiletries, extra pair of shoes, and pistol, she began to notice some things missing. And her stuff was always more organized than this. “Nadia, do you have everything you packed?”
“Hmm?” Nadia lifted her head from reading the back of one of the many steamy romance novels she was never without. “What?”
“I’m missing my satellite phone, mammoth bag of M&M’s, moose jerky…it looks like someone rifled through my pack.” Tern frowned.
Nadia dropped the book onto her cot and rummaged through her own backpack. “What the hell? My phone’s gone, too, so are my waterproof matches and the goodies I packed.”
Lucky knocked on the outside of the cabin. “Hey, the old man’s called a meeting.”
A shiver of unease settled into her bones. Tern looked at Nadia, and they silently followed Lucky to where the men were standing around a dug out fire pit with sawed-off logs for seats circling the area.
“Your things have been gone through too?” Tern asked.
“Seems to be the case with all of us,” Gage said, his jaw hard, eyes narrowed. “My satellite phone is gone, along with the food items I brought.”
The same was murmured around the empty fire pit.
“My first aid kit was taken, too, along with the MREs I’d packed,” Robert said.
“Didn’t the invite say food would be provided?” Lucky asked. “Aren’t you guys jumping to conclusions?”
“I think it’s damn right suspicious that all our food and emergency supplies were taken,” Gage fired back.
“Those of you who brought weapons were left with them,” Lucky pointed out.
“I suggest we start a fire,” Mac said, calling a halt to the bickering. “The temperature is going to drop fast, once the sun settles over those peaks. Then we’d better do an inventory of what we’ve been left with. Does anyone have any matches or a lighter?”
“My matches were taken,” Nadia said in a small voice and a few of the men shook their heads.
“I’ve got a lighter.” Robert reached into the front pocket of his jeans. “Gave up the smokes months ago, but can’t seem to give up carrying the lighter.” He looked at Tern as he informed the group of this little personal fact. Another of her complaints about him had been the cigarettes.
Gage broke the uncomfortable silence. “I’ll gather some firewood.” He headed for the trees.
“Good idea,” Mac said. “I suggest we all do the same.”
Tern and Nadia walked down to the lake to gather what they could find along the bank.
They returned with enough dry wood to feed a fire throughout the night. Robert started a nice blaze with the dried spruce moss Gage had brought back with the wood he’d gathered. Soon a pleasant snap and crackle was a comforting song to the breeze tickling the coin leaves of the birch trees.
Tern took a seat, reaching her hands out to the flames. She’d put her jacket back on as the temperature had indeed dropped when the sun, while not setting this close to the Arctic Circle, had dipped just below the high peaks of the mountains surrounding them. The breeze wafting off the glacier to the north plunged the temperature twenty degrees cooler than it had been when they’d arrived. They were in for a cold night.