Ritualized scarring.
“There’s a tattoo, too,” Dalton says.
I see it then, on her upper arm. What seems at first a modern circlet tattoo around her biceps, but on closer inspection is rough and primitive. Another one encircles her other arm.
I remember something and move to the smear of dirt on her chin. Under it, I see three raised, round scars. The dirt seems deliberately smeared on. Not painting herself with it, but covering those scars with the only kind of makeup the wilderness allows.
“A hostile?” I murmur. Then I look at the dirt compared to her tidy clothing and general state of cleanliness. “Former hostile.”
A hostile turned settler. A former hostile with an infant baby. Murdered in the snow. Both of them left to die.
I turn to Dalton. “Should I take her back to Rockton?”
“If it’ll help, sure. I can make a stretcher. Get Storm to pull it.”
“I mean should I. I’d like to. I need to take a closer look, and I need April’s help. But is it right to take her?”
He nods, understanding. “I’d say so. If she has people, they wouldn’t have found her under that snow. Taking her back will help you find the baby’s family. Seems proper to me.”
FIVE
We have the woman on a stretcher, which is really just poles with our sleeping blankets between them. We’ve crafted a makeshift harness for Storm. She’s fine with that. We’ve been training her to pull because, well, it’s the Yukon. That’s what dogs do up here.
Storm finds the pulling easy, the stretcher gliding along the snow. If the dead body bothers her, she’s gotten over it. Or maybe because we’re moving the woman, she feels as if we’re helping her. Our biggest problem is Raoul, who wants to pull … using his teeth. What seems like strong wolf blood in him might also be husky. Plenty of those up here, and they were one breed Rockton had back when they allowed pets. We’ll have to get him in a harness this winter for some early training.
We’re nearing the town when Will Anders comes running, and I tense. Our deputy running to intercept us is never a good sign.
“What’s wrong?” I call.
“You’re back early, that’s what’s wrong. Is everything…?” He spots the stretcher and slows.
Raoul trots along at Anders’s side as our deputy walks over for a closer look. Raoul isn’t the most sociable canine, but he has his favorites, which for him means “people he allows to touch him.” Anders absently pats the young dog as he walks to the stretcher.
“Wounded settler?” he asks. “April’s off today, but I can run and get her to the clinic.”
“This one is beyond my sister’s help,” I say.
“Dead?” There’s a long moment of silence before he says, “Not enough murders for you lately, Case, so you’re bringing home dead bodies?”
“Ha ha.”
Anders bends beside the stopped stretcher. In college, he’d been premed before he decided to serve his country as an army medic. They soon switched him to military police—he has a knack for conflict resolution—but he still has the basic medical training, and his gaze sweeps over the woman, assessing.
“Hostile markings. I’m guessing that’s your interest—a subject to study.” He rises and undoes Storm’s harness, giving her a rub as he sets her free. Then he looks at Dalton. “Making the pup work, boss? Guess you need to hit the gym a little more, huh?”
Anders flexes a biceps … which would be far more impressive if he weren’t wearing a thick parka. Will Anders is a big guy, a couple of inches taller than Dalton and wider, too, the quarterback to Dalton’s running-back build.
Anders is grabbing the harness when the baby fusses under Dalton’s jacket.
“What…?” Anders says, staring at the moving lump under Dalton’s coat. “Please tell me that’s another puppy, because I’m still stinging from being overlooked for that one.” He hooks a gloved thumb at Raoul. “I call dibs.”
“I don’t think you want dibs this time,” I say.
Dalton undoes his jacket just as the baby lets out a wail.
“Holy shit.” Anders turns to me. “Either you guys have seriously graduated from orphaned wolf pups, or you are a master at pregnancy-hiding.”
“She was hers,” I say, motioning at the dead woman. “She’s dehydrated and starving.”
Anders looks at the woman. “Uh, not to question your medical expertise…”
“I mean the baby,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “She needs food and medical attention, so we really need to stop talking and get to town.”
* * *
Dalton conceals the baby again and cuts along the back path to the clinic while I accompany Anders and the dogs into town. When we enter, a few people run over. Then they see the body and relax, as they realize I haven’t brought our sheriff home on a stretcher.
There are plenty of people in Rockton who’ll mutter, after a few beers, about how much better life would be without the hard-ass sheriff breathing down their necks. They’re like teens whining about strict parents, though. They might complain, but they sure as hell don’t want to wake up one day and find Mom and Dad gone. God knows who they’d get in their place.
I field questions, of course. We live in an isolated town of less than two hundred people. Everyone’s eager for news, for any change to routine, especially in the middle of winter. That would explain the holiday decorations, too. This is my second Christmas here, and as I learned from last year, this place goes a little nuts at the holidays, to stave off going a little nuts in general as the days get darker and the temperature plummets.
While Anders pulls the stretcher, we pass residents adding to the decorations. Heaven forbid a single wooden porch should lack evergreen boughs woven through each railing baluster. Or any door should lack an intricately crafted wreath. Or any lintel should lack ivy with bright red cranberries. Every tree has been decorated, and that’s saying something in a town filled with evergreens. That’s still not enough, and people have decorated all the perimeter trees, too. Making holiday ornaments is an all-year craft for some.
I can grumble, but that’s more eye-rolling than actual complaint, and even the eye-rolling covers the fact that I secretly love the way Rockton embraces the holidays. My parents celebrated Christmas—my mother wanted her daughters fully assimilated, and any of her own Chinese or Filipino family traditions were ignored. We were Canadians, and we would act Canadian, which apparently meant “Christian” at the holidays, even if we never attended church of any kind.
Neither of my parents was all that keen on Christmas, though. It seemed like more chore than delight for them. An unwanted distraction from their careers. We did all the basics: set up a tree, put out stockings for Santa, exchanged gifts and then had a holiday meal. But the tree went up Christmas Eve and was taken down Boxing Day. There were no concerts or parties. My parents didn’t have time for that. Well, no, they attended holiday parties—I remember them dressed up, April babysitting me—but only because the social events were necessary evils for career networking.
In Rockton we celebrate all the winter traditions, and that sounds very inclusive of us, but honestly, I think it’s just an excuse for more parties. If that leads to a greater understanding of different traditions and faiths, it’s a bonus. There are no churches in Rockton, but only because we don’t have space for buildings that’ll be used once a week. Services are held at the community center, with the various groups agreeing to a schedule.