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Yup. At the eastern edge of the Ice Falls. So the Chilkoots had figured out a way to access it without being seen by anyone.
He imagined what would happen if they did manage to blow it up. Blocks of ice would tumble down into the valley. Some of it would melt, surely, and flood through the…his eyes traced the potential routes it could take.
If it took one path, it could flood the town of Firelight Ridge. If it took another, the water would flow more westerly. Either way, the entire area east of the Ice Falls would be cut off. Impassable. The Chilkoots would have their own personal moat and a wall made of ice blocks. The terrain was already almost impossibly forbidding. But now they’d have their own territory. Their own kingdom, and the weapons to defend it. Their prophecy would come true.
No one would be coming at them from behind, over the glacier. There was no road from the east, and only the moose-trail road from the west, the one they’d made themselves, which would be a road to nowhere if the Ice Falls collapsed.
“We’ve been focused on the wrong place,” he said grimly. “Of course you didn’t find anything on their property. That’s why he invited me out there. He was trying to keep my attention there instead of where it should have been.”
“Which is where?”
“There.” He pointed to the spot on the map just east of the Ice Falls, where the moose trail road ended. “And that’s not their property. It’s part of the Wrangells. We don’t need a search warrant or probable cause. That’s where I need to take the helicopter. Before they blow up the damn Ice Falls.”
38
Molly glanced back at Elias to see how he was doing. The dramatic landing must have given him a shot of adrenaline, because he looked more alert, though still not himself. He stared out the window at the wilderness of ice outside the plane.
She turned to Jimmy Marsh. “Now what? You went to a lot of trouble to get Elias back, but now we’re in the middle of nowhere, stranded on a glacier. I hope you have a plan to get us out of here.”
His only answer was to shut down the plane and open the hatch. He jumped out onto the ice and shifted the seat forward to make space for Elias to climb out. “Come on out, Elias.”
“Wait. What about me?” Molly felt silly asking the question, and she didn’t like how it came out—needy and scared.
“Extra baggage.”
He grabbed the cords that Sam used to tie down the plane, and came around to Molly’s side. With a few expert movements, he rigged the door so that it couldn’t open from the inside.
“You’re going to leave me here to freeze?”
“You’ll have some time. Maybe your FBI boyfriend will figure out where you are. Elias.” The last word sounded like a whiplash. Elias started. “Get out of the plane. You aren’t in trouble. We aren’t upset with you. You’re a Chilkoot and you belong back at home with your family. We’d never leave you in the hands of strangers who don’t know you or care about you.”
Molly’s heart twisted. She’d left Elias in the hands of strangers, or at least unwittingly allowed them to take him. Would he hold that against her? Or would he understand that she hadn’t been able to do anything about that?
His sister’s husband had rescued him, not her. Maybe his loyalty would ultimately be to the Chilkoots. He hadn’t known Molly very long at all, and in that time, she’d let him down and left him unprotected. She held her breath, trying to meet Elias’ gaze, to see if she could influence him, remind him of the spray can, silently plead with him not to abandon her here to die.
As if he knew nothing other than how to obey, Elias did as Jimmy Marsh said. As Marsh held the door open for him, he climbed down onto the glacier’s surface. Despair sent ice into the pit of Molly’s stomach.
Maybe that was what a lifetime of being raised by Chilkoots, paired with the regular administration of drugs, did to a young person. He could briefly run away, but he’d always be a Chilkoot.
A smug smile crossed Marsh’s face. “Good boy,” he said, as if Elias was a pet. “Maybe you aren’t as stupid as we thought.”
A quick blur of motion, then an agonizing cry of pain as Marsh stumbled backwards. Elias advanced toward him, brandishing the can of disinfectant, spraying him over and over, in the eyes, in the open mouth, everywhere he could reach. Marsh fell onto his rear on the ice, trying in vain to block the stream of chemicals assaulting his system.
“Elias,” Molly shouted. “Enough. You don’t want to kill him.”
“I’m not stupid!” he choked out. “I’m not stupid.”
“I know you’re not. But we can’t kill people just because they hurt us. Do you understand?”
His hand dropped to his side. Marsh moaned on the ice, writhing back and forth, clutching at his eyes.
Elias kneeled down next to him and wrapped one strong hand around his neck. A moment later Marsh’s moaning stopped and he lay limp on the ice. Elias grabbed his ankles and dragged him toward the plane.
“I didn’t kill him,” he muttered to Molly. “I put him to sleep. I do it to rabbits before I kill them. But I’m not going to kill him.”
Molly nodded, so shaken she could barely speak. Together, they maneuvered Marsh’s unconscious body into the plane, as gently as possible so as not to wake him. Once he was settled in the backseat of the plane, they tucked a space blanket around him, hoping that would be enough to keep him warm and alive until he woke up.
Molly found her bag and dug out her water bottle. “Help me flush out his eyes.”
