couldn’t easily turn to ask Patrick questions, but they’d also discussed her expectations on the ride here. When they spotted a bald eagle circling the first glacier on their expedition, he signaled to the dogs to slow down by calling “Whoa” and pulling back on the tug line attached to the gang line hooked to each dog’s harness. She grabbed her camera from the bag slung over her shoulder, hoping to shoot the photos she wanted without freezing her hands, since she had to remove her thick gloves.
She wished she had come here before the changes to the glaciers, to be able to compare then and now herself. That would make her article more intriguing than simply focusing on the animals she saw on this trip. She hoped to at least get insight, from Jeremy Thaxton or other biologists studying the area, on the kinds and numbers of creatures who’d previously been plentiful here, and whether the numbers seemed to have changed.
And how many wolves there were.
The glacier’s surface was irregular—eroded, abounding with ice mounds and cracks. Eventually, near the far edge of the ice that created a cliff overlooking the bay, they stopped. Patrick helped Mariah off the sled and directed the dogs to lie down on the snowy crust.
“Won’t they freeze there?” Mariah asked, concerned about the work animals.
“They’re used to it. And they’ll huddle together if it becomes too difficult.”
“Like a nine-dog day,” Mariah quipped. She knew that the old vocal group Three Dog Night had taken its name from the way people who spent a lot of time in climates like this described the degree of a night’s coldness by the number of dogs they needed to snuggle with to stay warm.
“Exactly.” His look at her seemed—well, not just kind, but almost amused. Caring. Where did that come from?
It warmed her from the inside. And made her wonder whether one of those kisses from last night might make her even warmer way out here.
They were soon off again. In the distance, on an ice-covered mountainside, Mariah made out a pair of Dall sheep. She shot a lot of photos, though the majestic animals were too far away to see well.
At one point, a small flock of black-legged kittiwakes flew by. The gull-like birds cried out shrilly as they passed. Again, Mariah took pictures. They also saw cormorants, but no puffins, although Mariah would have loved to have viewed some.
Maybe she would come back here on her own someday. She loved cross-country skiing and had become even better at it since moving to Alaska. The glaciers would make a wonderful landscape for skiing.
Patrick and she spent nearly three hours visiting quite a few glaciers in Great Glaciers National Park. They ran into no one on the ice, not even any of the scientists researching what was happening here. They also observed no calving that day, a good thing for their safety but not necessarily good for the research Mariah hoped to accomplish.
Among the glaciers they visited was Kaley Glacier, the one Mariah had observed calving yesterday. When they stopped near its edge, she got out and looked in all directions, including the surface of the ice—hoping to see paw prints. But there were none.
“See any signs of a wolf around here?” she asked Patrick.
“No,” he responded curtly, staring into the distance as if he was looking for … what? The wolf? Somehow, Mariah didn’t think so.
“I saw one up here,” she insisted. “There was probably a lot of wind last night, and maybe some snow fell, so I’m not surprised I didn’t see any tracks, but I’d really love to find a sign, anything I can photograph, to use in my article.”
“I don’t see anything,” he insisted. Mariah wondered at his adamant tone, as if he wanted to deny everything she said.
“But I—”
“Look. There are some sea otters, down in the water.” He pointed to a spot in the bay way below them. The creatures were tiny, but Mariah’s camera had an excellent telephoto lens, and she got some good photos of them reclining on their backs in the water eating whatever seafood they had caught. They seemed more energetic than the ones she had seen yesterday.
But despite Patrick’s obvious attempt to help her garner wildlife photos, she wondered about his earlier attitude about the wolf she’d seen.
Eventually, they returned to the van. Patrick unlocked it and let Mariah into the cab, while he unhitched the dogs and ordered them inside. Soon, the sled had also been loaded.
“That was fantastic!” Mariah exclaimed as Patrick joined her in the truck. “I loved it.”
“I’m glad.” He actually sounded as if he meant it. “It was a good day for an outing like this—no precipitation.”
“I hope it’s just as good next time.” She watched for his reaction. His relaxed features hardened but he said nothing. “I’d love to go again in a few days. I only scratched the surface of investigating local wildlife and any effect by the changing glaciers. I want to do some additional research online, talk to the scientists around here some more, then go out on the ice again.”
“Fine.” His tone suggested it was anything but. He looked from left to right out the windshield, then turned onto the main road. “I’ll let Toby know you’re interested in another expedition and have him line up someone to take you.”
Mariah felt incongruously hurt that he didn’t offer to take her himself. “Thanks.” She remained silent for most of the ride back to the ranch, except to call to the dogs and thank them, too. And to insist that Patrick stop when she spotted a moose in the woods beside the road that she wanted to photograph.
They soon arrived at their starting point. Wes Dawes was outside with some other dogs, his sledding that day apparently over. Mariah popped out of the van as soon as it stopped, though Patrick came toward her side to help her out.
“Thank you,” she said again, looking into those hot light brown eyes with their unfathomable expression. “See you around.”
Did a hint of sorrow at her brush-off momentarily cross his face? No, she was just projecting. She turned, arranged her tote bag on her shoulder, and crunched her way over the driveway to say hi to Wes.
That evening, Patrick invited Wes and Shaun to join him in town for a drink. Toby, too. He had already returned from his meeting in Nome. He had flown there and back in a small, private plane—a major way of getting around in Alaska, where towns were spaced so far apart.
They drove in separate vehicles. Shaun had told Patrick that his online research on backgrounds of glaciers, and investigations of them by some scientists who had previously visited Tagoga or who were now in town, seemed to be yielding interesting results. Very interesting, in fact, but he refused to elaborate until he had followed some threads to their ends. He wanted to return to his research as soon as possible, since he would have little time with it the next day, when he was scheduled to take some tourists on a sled.
Plus, they had already decided that Patrick would spend the next evening on the glaciers in wolf form. His daytime visits as a musher hadn’t yielded much information so far. Shaun would need to be there as his backup.
They wound up at Fiske’s Hangout, supposedly the best place in town for a drink and dinner despite the existence of similar nearby bars.
But Patrick wasn’t
