16. Running The Ridge #2
“And that’s what you were following when they took you?”
Honor nods. “I went looking for the western route. I never reached whatever was at the end of it.”
North Star wasn’t only erased. Lockhart kept using it.
Honor shifts beside Jan and looks through the windshield toward Kai and the sled farther along the road.
“Would you mind if I rode with Kai for a while?”
Kai hears her through the comms and turns on the runners. Even from here, I see his eyebrows go up.
Yeah, mate. Heard that too. I look at Honor in the rearview mirror.
She’s been imprisoned for thirteen days, beaten, shot her way out of North Star and spent last night helping lead Lockhart’s men away from seven other women.
If she wants fresh air and a Métis musher, I’m not going to argue.
“As long as you stay in our line of sight.”
“I can manage that.”
“Thought you might.”
I pull over long enough for her to climb out and head toward the sled.
Jan watches her go, then looks at me. “You enjoyed that.”
“Maybe a little.”
Honor climbs aboard behind Kai and we start moving again.
A few kilometers later, Maskwa pulls sharply toward a narrow spur almost buried beneath fresh snow. Kai slows the team.
“Hold up.”
I brake and the vehicles behind us stop.
“What’ve you got?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Kai steps off the runners. Honor follows before anyone can tell her otherwise. Naturally.
Angus and Jax get out behind us, weapons ready.
“You two stay with the vehicles. Jan stays with the women.”
I join Kai and Honor. Maskwa strains toward the trees, nose working hard.
Kai unclips him from the gangline, attaches a lead and tells the other dogs to stay.
Maskwa takes us into the trees.
Twenty meters in, an old track appears beneath the snow. It ends at a low rise where rotting timbers frame the partially collapsed mouth of a mine adit.
Honor stops.
“This isn’t on the current Lockhart maps.”
Maskwa ignores the adit and works the ground beside it.
Back and forth. Searching.
Beneath the latest snowfall, I can make out depressions where vehicles have traveled through here. The ground near the trees is uneven over an area too broad to look natural.
Kai photographs the site and records the coordinates.
Maskwa moves farther along the rise, stops and starts digging.
Snow flies between his legs until he reaches frozen earth. He noses at something, carefully picks it up and trots back to Kai.
Kai holds out his gloved hand.
Maskwa drops it into his palm.
A small bone.
“Jan,” I call through the comms. “Need you here.”
She joins us minutes later, leaving Angus and Jax with the women.
Kai holds out his palm. Jan’s expression changes immediately.
“Middle phalanx. Human. Most likely from a middle finger.”
Honor goes still beside me.
“Oh Jesus.”
Kai photographs the bone from several angles, then carefully replaces it exactly where Maskwa found it and covers the disturbed ground.
Nobody needs to speculate anymore.
There are human remains beneath this ground.
Every instinct tells me to start digging.
Every bit of common sense says eight women are waiting in vehicles while Perry and Lockhart security are somewhere north looking for them.
We finish this rescue first.
“We mark it and move. Nobody touches anything else.”
Honor looks at me. “And then?”
“We come back.”
Kai’s gaze stays on the disturbed snow.
“Yeah. We come back.”
Whatever Lockhart buried here has waited a long time.
A few more hours won’t change the truth.
Nora Beardy’s House, First Nations Community, Northern Manitoba. 1030 hours.
Nora Beardy’s house has never looked so bloody beautiful.
I pull into the drive first, the two community vehicles behind me while Kai brings the sled around the side of the property. Rose waits near the back door with three people I recognize from our earlier meetings, all trusted and warned to keep this quiet.
Jan’s out before I kill the engine.
“Bring them straight inside. Slowly. Nobody rushes.”
Seven women begin climbing out.
Some manage alone. Others need help. Ivy is shaking despite the heat blasting through the vehicle, and another woman can barely put weight on one foot.
Honor climbs down from the sled. Rose sees her.
Everything stops for them.
“N?hkom,” Honor says.
Rose crosses the distance and wraps Honor in her arms. Honor holds on just as fiercely.
I look away and give them what privacy I can in a driveway full of people.
“Inside,” Jan says gently to the others. “We’ve got somewhere warm for you.”
The house absorbs them.
Jan takes the women one at a time into the medical bay while Rose and the others bring hot drinks and food without crowding anyone.
Angus and Jax secure the property while I check the road. We changed routes twice after the creek and haven’t seen another vehicle, but Perry knows we’re in this community and Lockhart knows eight women escaped.
I turn to the community drivers.
“Thanks, fellas. You got us exactly where we needed to be.”
One nods toward the house. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Get your vehicles away from here. Go home, carry on like today never happened and don’t come back unless Rose contacts you.”
They understand immediately. Within minutes, they’re gone.
Kai comes through the back door after settling the dogs out of sight.
“How are they?”
“Jan’s checking everyone.”
His eyes search the house.
I grin. “Honor’s with Rose.”
He gives me a look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah right.”
I leave him to it.
By midday, Jan has assessed all eight women.
Cold injuries. Bruising. Dehydration. Old and new wounds. Suspected malnutrition. Nothing she believes requires immediate hospital treatment, which is a bloody miracle considering where they’ve come from.
Honor stays close to the others, helping when they ask and backing away when they don’t.
Safe. For now.
I stand at the kitchen table with Angus, Jax and Kai while Jan finally accepts a mug of coffee from Rose.
Kai puts his phone between us.
The first photograph shows snow, trees and the collapsed adit.
The next shows the uneven ground beside it.
Then the bone in Kai’s gloved palm.
Jan comes to stand beside me.
“Middle phalanx,” she says quietly. “Human.”
Nobody speaks for a few seconds.
Maskwa didn’t just find an abandoned mine.
He found human remains.
“We need to go back,” Jan says.
“Yeah.”
“Today?”
I look toward the hallway.
Eight women are behind those doors because we chose getting them home over stopping to investigate.
Living before dead. That was the right call. Still is.
I study the coordinates on Kai’s phone.
“We talk to Victor first. Then we work out how we go back without Perry or Lockhart knowing what we found.”
Kai looks at the photograph.
His expression tells me where his thoughts have gone.
élodie.
We brought eight women home today.
Now we need to find out how many never made it out.