setting, she saw clearly in the camera screen that it was a wolf, its deep gray coat silhouetted against the whiteness of the glacial surface. It was pacing uneasily. Majestic. Gorgeous. She filmed it despite knowing that the creature was too far away to obtain a really good photo. Was it looking at the boat? Her?
What an odd impression!
Maybe she would see the wolf again, closer, when she took her dogsled ride onto the glaciers with Patrick Worley.
Patrick. His face suddenly filled her mind, as if he were somewhere around here.
She almost laughed out loud at the ridiculous turns her imagination had taken.
“Getting what you need?” Nathan Kugan’s voice startled her.
The captain had come from the bridge of his boat to join her on deck. Half a foot taller than her five-two, he was a local, of Aleutian descent, and the crispness of the fall air whipping across the deck apparently didn’t bother him. He wore only a light sweater over his jeans and boots.
“I think so,” Mariah said, glad for the interruption to her absurd thoughts. She lowered her camera at his approach. “I’m recording what’s happening, at least. Now I need to look more into what’s causing it.”
“Did you get the whales?”
She frowned. “I haven’t seen any whales. The only living sea animals I glimpsed were those otters.” She pointed.
His turn to frown, deepening the creases in his weathered face. Mariah had guessed him to be mid-fifties, but he looked ageless and could have been a lot older. “I had my acoustical equipment turned on—sonar, and the microphones I use to listen for fish. Before the noise from the glacier calving, I heard what sounded like orca calls. You didn’t see any?”
Odd term, calving. She knew it, of course, since she had lived in Alaska for three years now, but she would have to explain it in her article for nonlocal readers. It described the tearing away of huge chunks of ice from the edges of glaciers nearest the water. As if the ice fields were happily producing bouncing, enormous babies which, if large enough, were icebergs.
“No. I wish I had.” She took her camera and panned the bay, still using her telephoto setting in case something appeared in the distance. The sun had slid beneath the horizon, and the remaining light of day was following in its wake. Even in the growing darkness, the black-and-white irregular stripes found on killer whales would still be visible, giving away their location.
But she saw no orcas anywhere. Nathan squinted and looked at the darkening water. “Strange. They sounded close. Should be surfacing by now to breathe.”
“Maybe they were heading out the mouth of the bay,” Mariah suggested.
“Could be. They’re smart animals. They might have sensed the calving would occur and warned one another to leave.”
Mariah knew enough about orcas, members of the dolphin family, to accept their intelligence. What Nathan suggested was within the realm of possibility.
“You saw the glacier calving, didn’t you?” she asked. The water was settling down, and Mariah let go of the ship’s rail, though she still leaned against it for balance.
“Yes. It’s maybe the eighth major calving I’ve seen in Tagoga Bay this week. Too many.”
“I’m surprised none of the scientists visiting the town are here now.”
Government, university and even private studies were being conducted in this area, in an attempt to determine the cause of the growing destruction of these glaciers. Was global warming acting this fast in Alaska?
That wasn’t Mariah’s focus, of course. The area’s nature, including its wildlife, was what she would write about. Like the sluggish otters. And that solitary wolf, obviously upset by the glacier’s tearing. But if she learned something else of interest, she would include it, too.
She thought again, incongruously, of Patrick Worley. What might he have thought about this particular glacier’s calving? And why had she gotten that absurd sense of his presence?
“Thing is,” Nathan said, staring off toward the glacier field, “there’s always calving. Small pieces, sometimes larger ones, every day. Cruise ships even entertain their passengers on occasion by blowing their whistles and getting ice to break off. But I’ve never seen anything on this scale before.”
“Any idea why?” Mariah asked.
He shook his head. “Nope. It’s sad, though. You ready to go back to town?”
“Yes, thanks.” She had plans for the evening. She’d scheduled an interview that night with some of the visiting scientists conducting research.
Time to focus even more on her article. And get good-looking dogsled mushers out of her mind until it was time for her ride.
Chapter 2
Fiske’s Hangout was an amazing place. Mariah had thought so when she had first come in here the previous afternoon. This evening, it still made one heck of an impression. It also had a convenience store and post office attached—truly an all-purpose place to serve this small town.
She stood in the crowded bar/restaurant doorway now, hearing the roar of voices, looking for people she recognized—like anyone she had seen at the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch.
Finding no one she had met there, she felt a small pang of disappointment, which was ludicrous. Her sled dog ride would take place tomorrow. She could get her fix of seeing Patrick Worley then.
She nearly laughed at herself—especially after that silly notion of his presence somewhere nearby while she was on the boat, watching the glacier, the otters and the wolf.
She stepped farther in. It was time for her meeting with Dr. Emil Charteris, a noted glaciologist who had studied the melting of the ice in Antarctica and Greenland, and who now had a federal grant to study the glacial changes here. With him was his research team: his son-in-law, Jeremy Thaxton, a zoologist, and his daughter, Carrie Thaxton, a computer expert. Mariah was curious to hear Dr. Charteris’s ideas of why the glaciers in this area were falling apart so quickly, but she particularly wanted to focus on Jeremy Thaxton’s perspective of the possible climate change’s effect on local wildlife.
Fiske’s Hangout was the best location to meet anyone in this town. Mariah especially liked the charming wooden bar in its middle—a tall, hand-carved box, with winged maidens resembling figureheads at its corners. Gargoyles and pixies peered from center shelves holding bottles and glasses. Supposedly, the bar’s first owner got bored during his first dark, cold Alaskan winter and spent otherwise idle hours carving this masterpiece. True or not, the place was incredible.
As she continued scanning the crowd, she recognized the people she sought from their online photos. Unlike most Hangout patrons, Dr. Charteris and his family members did not mill around the bar. Instead, they sat at one of the white spruce tables scattered haphazardly along the rest of the wood floor that was all but obscured by peanut shells. Mariah crunched her way toward them.
“Hello, Dr. Charteris.” She extended her hand. “I’m Mariah Garver.”
“Ah, yes. The nature writer.” His rising apparently signaled his
