In more profitable days, before the recession bit into the county’s budget, the Sue’s Bridge County community built the cycle track, causing vehement applause from the active youth of the community and drawing bitter objections from the affluent older parts as an opulent waste of money. Today, the meandering path extended to over ten kilometres, some parts wandering into unkempt, thickly vegetated groves, completely obscuring runners and cyclists from outside view. The area around the mill was particularly densely overgrown and as the county had little funds to waste on maintaining the cycleway, it soon dissipated into a minefield of ankle-breaking potholes and unsightly disrepair.
As the recession bit harder and the fortunes of the Sue’s Bridge County began to slide even further, the municipality started to resemble that of a shanty town, causing the vast community of the comfortably retired to seek refuge in a district where the economic scenery agreed with their pocket book status and the exodus began in earnest, crippling Sue’s Bridge. With real estate prices plummeting and services abandoned, the young of the county faced a bleak future. Those who could, left for the cities, but those who couldn’t, drifted into a cloud of drug induced stupor and petty crime to support their habits. Law enforcement was the only lucrative activity and every citizen was a suspect, usually with good reason. Even in such a desperate situation, some of the opulent elderly remained and they were treated like royalty by the leaders of the community, valuing their taxes to keep the community afloat.
Deputy Amanda Bayer stood stooped over the sheriff’s desk with two large male deputies on either side of her, listening to the sheriff’s monotone. It appeared there had been a botched attack on a female runner near the old abandoned mill early last night. She had escaped her attacker when a passerby came to her rescue, causing the assailant to flee into the thick vegetation surrounding the mill. The description was vague: male; big arms; jacket with the sleeves removed and wielding a knife.
Bayer was a determined deputy, fearless in upholding her duty and even more fearless in promoting the rights of women at every turn. Although she was small in stature, she had the audacity of a pit bull terrier and according to her counterparts, the brains to match. Her equipment belt contained a well used taser, pepper spray, and a loaded Glock 17; next to that an extendable baton and a set of handcuffs. Being so small, she used her baton indiscriminately and if that didn’t get the respect she wanted from offenders, the pepper spray usually did. If that failed, the taser was next and if that didn’t do the job, a loaded chamber from the Glock 17 was the clincher.
The bigger male deputies often had to dig her out of an escalating situation using diplomacy on persons of interest, rather than Bayer’s usual methods akin to an aggravated Chihuahua nipping painfully at P.O.I.’s heels. Deputy Bayer became well known among the community as Bang Bang Bayer, using the protection of her position to shoot first and ask questions later.
Amanda Bayer was all too familiar with the cycle track and particularly, the overgrown mill grove. She ran past it on her nightly ritual, the ten kilometre course which started at one end of town, wound through the nearby hills, followed the brook and finished at the other. As she listened to the description given by the sheriff, a chilling feeling ran up and down her spine and then it was quickly replaced by a potent fist-clenching annoyance. She became incensed that a male offender would dare attempt something so cowardly and despicable on a sister runner, using fear to spoil the only enjoyment this little out-of-the-way community had to offer. The intense feelings began to well up inside her while the powerful disdain she felt painted a disturbed picture across her face.
She wasn’t going to let any dirtbag male offender scare her off the most enjoyable part of her day, running the mill cycle track at dusk.
“Are you listening to me, Bayer, or are you daydreaming?!” the sheriff’s impatient voice shocked her out of her wanderings and he could see her raw emotions pulling a gun on an unknown offender.
“Yeah, boss, right with you,” she blushed, realising she had been caught out. “Is there any description of the offender?”
“No, Bayer! Isn’t that what I just said?! I don’t want any heroics on this case. We work as a team. Am I clear on that, Deputy Bayer?!” The sheriff was well acquainted with Bang Bang’s love of offenders, especially male offenders.
Bayer straightened against the sheriff’s desk, stared him in the eye and fumed. She was just biding her time until she could get her coveted promotion and kick the sheriff out of office. She managed to control her contempt and pulled her stretched emotions back into professional mode.
“Loud and clear, Sheriff!” her top lip curled in an automatic act of defiance to his leadership.
As if the deputies could read her mind, they both knew about her not so secret desires to become sheriff and smirked at each other. It would be a sad day for law enforcement if Bayer ever got into the sheriff’s shoes but knowing the wisdom of today’s bureaucrats, it was almost a certainty.
*~*~*~*
At the end of her shift, Amanda Bayer slipped her sizable equipment belt from her small hips and faced her locker. She quickly dressed into civvies and then ran her hand over her Glock 17 police-issue handgun holstered in the equipment belt. Although a deputy never left the station without their weapons while on duty, it was forbidden for a deputy to carry any police-issue weapons while off duty. She picked up her equipment belt and aimed it towards her open locker. Halfway to its intended destination, she changed her mind, causing the belt to swing against the locker’s tin walls and clang loudly in the quiet. She checked around the locker rows to see if any other female deputies were in the locker room. Confident she was alone, she removed the Glock from her equipment belt, checked the clip for ammunition and slipped the small, powerful handgun into the elastic of her trousers then pulled her shirt over it and made her way out of the station.
The sun’s routine descent into evening was still an hour away as Amanda Bayer locked the front door to her modest rental. The late afternoon had a distinct chill, but the black tracksuit pulled tight around her figure, sealing out the cold. Her running shoes were comfortable; the thick cushions in the soles absorbed the shock of the pounding of her feet on the running surface, allowing her to complete the ten kilometres in just over two hours. By the time she’d re-enter the small community near the completion of the track, it would be completely dark and she would have to rely on the distant street lights to guide her back into town.
The fenced opening at the beginning of the cycle track loomed in front of her. She lifted one leg and stretched her body against a wooden bench, bending and twisting to loosen unprepared muscles for the gruelling run ahead of her, and then repeated the process for the other. She peered up the track, patted the handgun tucked into the elastic of her tracksuit and began her journey.
The track was quiet and the sound of Bayer’s feet pounding the pavement filled her ears. Soon her thoughts were drifting to her ambitions as sheriff and her job as a cop that occupied so much of her life and challenged every known part of her decency. Even though it was a cool evening, her tracksuit shirt was stained by a tell tale patch of sweat from the brisk pace she had set.
The approaching mill grove shook her from her thoughts. She was halfway through her run and the twilight shadows covered the path in a sinister, threatening pose, a thousand figures ready to pounce on her. The grove began to close in overhead and the darkness intensified while the tortured groans of the waterwheel echoed into the growing darkness, making Bayer feel extremely jumpy.
In the distance, a dark shape stood across her path and blocked her escape. She wasn’t sure whether the shape was a threat or just another shadow thrown up by the thick darkness. She slowed her pace and then stopped running, gasping for breath, never taking her eyes off the shadow blocking her path.
“Come on, Bayer, get a grip,” she castigated herself, reaching for the gun and calling out in an unsteady voice. “Who’s there...?!”
She pulled in a de
sperate breath as the shadow moved and the figure closed in towards her. In a moment of decision, she emptied the clip at the moving outline and listened, her anxious breaths short and silent.
From out of nowhere, searing pain ripped through her back and the night spun in an uncontrolled spiral, culminating in complete darkness as consciousness cowardly deserted her body to fend for itself.
*~*~*~*
Cutter jolted awake and sat bolt upright from the nightmare, gasping for breath while beads of sweat stung his eyes and trickled down his back. He peered around the darkened room, trying to reorient himself on familiar surroundings. The ugly dream had been so real. He flicked on the small lamp and squinted in the sudden brightness but the hollow, troubled feeling wouldn’t leave him.
He dropped to his knees by his bed and began to pray, as images of prison and long forgotten faces flooded his mind and he wondered whether this was a warning from the Holy Spirit, but his trusted guide was ominously silent. As he tried to push the images from his mind, a knot tightened in his stomach while an ominous chill played with his back and he shuddered.
What could this possibly mean?
*~*~*~*
Chapter 27
Bjarni began to wonder whether the woman had changed her mind, confiding in him. The obvious procrastination seemed to be her way of looking for an escape route. He was all too aware that her desperate flight into the depths of the tundra wilderness while risking her life in a frantic bid to evade... something, was her business alone. In the long moments of silence, she seemed to be arguing with herself and was finding it difficult to locate safety, to untangle a tirade of senseless thoughts. Bjarni knew all too well the struggle. He had made the very same decision nearly sixty years ago and he too, found it difficult to explain the bizarre happenings that had forced him to flee into a life of desperate solitude. He waited, the uncomfortable silence seeming to stretch forever while he contemplated whether he should just put an end to her distress.
Finally, a nervous voice stuttered and broke the tension, her gaze fixed on the floor. “M..my name is Anunya.”
At the sound of the woman’s strained voice, the big Siberian sat up and faced her as she spoke then nuzzled her hands with his warm muzzle, giving her the confidence to continue. A smile teased her lips at the actions of her trusted companion and she played with his soft ears. Akiak remained at Bjarni’s feet, stretched out with her head resting on her front paws, watching the interlude between the two with big, darting eyes.
“I know you think I am foolish for acting like a fugitive, trying to lose myself in the vastness of the wilderness, especially being so unprepared. You are right, Bjarni. I have never handled a gun before and know very little about survival in the tundra, but my reasons for being here are a matter of life and death–my life or death–and disappearing is the only certainty I have that I will not be sent back.”
Bjarni shifted uneasily in the old rocker. So far she hadn’t told him anything he had not already guessed, but her terminology–sent back–raised some questions. He decided to let her continue at her own pace and not interrupt.
Anunya sighed and then shuddered, placing her hand against the makeshift bandage covering the wound on her face. “The gouge marks on my face are a reminder of my escape from the hands of cruel people and a desperate situation.”
Anunya lifted her head towards the old man and she swallowed hard, displaying the depth of vulnerability, her face a mass of tension and trails of tears betraying the fear behind her speech.
Bjarni’s heart was touched by the struggling young woman and he whispered across the room, “It’s okay, Anunya; no one is going to harm you here.”
Just as if Shtiya had understood Bjarni’s words, he nuzzled her hands again, giving her permission to tell their story. Feeling a developing sense of trust and Shtiya’s encouragement, Anunya relaxed a little more, making it easier to find the confidence to continue. She drew a deep breath and then exhaled, staring at the floor again.
“My mother was pregnant with me when she was kidnapped from our home, somewhere in the wilds of Liverpool Land. I am told, my father was a hunter and he was out hunting when our captors swooped in and took my mother from their home. We, like most Inuit, were semi-nomadic and we lived an isolated life. So by the time he came home, she was long gone. My mother was sure he wouldn’t give up looking for us and that her disappearance would have devastated him. Mum never gave up hope and after I was born, she assured me that my dad would be looking for us and one day he would find us and release us from our captors.”
It was only now that Bjarni began to see behind the protective walls Anunya had built around herself. He had heard about the raiders that were scouting across the wilderness and taking women and children from their isolated homes and selling them as slaves. He remained silent, assuming Anunya’s story had to visit some desperate and disturbing places yet.
Anunya concentrated on a spot on the floor again and then continued, “We were taken to Denmark and sold as slaves to a wealthy business owner and made to live in cages. We worked seven days a week in some terrible circumstances and fed once a day, sleeping on hay in freezing conditions during winter. Summer wasn’t much better. I was born in my mother’s cage and taken from her soon after she gave birth to me. We weren’t supposed to see each other but somehow, Mum found a way around the guards and she kept a close eye on me. We met when it was safe. As I grew, my job was to take care of the dogs while they were being trained for the Iditarod, an Alaskan competitive sled race. The dogs were treated well and often their circumstances were far better than ours.”
She absentmindedly played with Shtiya’s ears, lost in the awful memories. Almost as if she had been prodded, she regained the thread and continued on.
”The Danish bred dogs were generally pure Siberian husky. They were handsome dogs, big and strong, with unmatched intelligence and fetched big prices for the owners, especially if they won the competition pulling a winning sled. I was twelve years old when Shtiya was born and he was assigned to me to care for. If anything happened to endanger the dogs and they lost their vigour or attractiveness to a buyer, the slave assigned would be beaten mercilessly. Shtiya and I bonded almost immediately and he has kept me from going insane.”
A big tear silently plopped from the old man’s eye as he watched the trust and emotion Anunya had developed for the big Siberian. It was no wonder Bjarni had had to win the trust of the big dog before he would let him anywhere near her to tend her wounds and nurse her back to life.
Anunya wiped her face. She had opened the dam wall of her emotions for the first time in her short life to a complete stranger and each word seemed to give release and healing to another festering, emotional wound.
“We endured much at the hands of our captors.” Anunya’s simple statement and faltering speech was followed by a deep, sudden silence while a haunted, faraway look told of atrocities too painful to give breath to.
In a moment of decision, she left that part of her story protected in the silent, shadowy reaches of her memory. Still staring at the floor she continued, “As I turned twenty, I learned that I had been sold to a shaman, some rich weirdo who lived on the outskirts of Qaqortoq at the southern tip of Greenland. I was supposed to become his second wife.”
Anunya’s face contorted in a frown as the implications of her own words began to sink in.
“Mum was ecstatic that I was going back to Greenland, but I didn’t want to leave her to face the horrors alone. The years of captivity hadn’t been kind to her and she was very ill. She hoped that I would be able to find my father and finally bring us the freedom and give back the life we should have had.”
Anunya wiped at her tears again with the back of her hand, trying to force the thoughts of her sick mother’s face from her mind.
“Apparently, the man I was to marry had come to Denmark to pick from the finest of the dogs on sale, as a small sled team for his first wife’s enjoyment. He was shown Shtiya and he
wanted him as soon as he saw him. The man paid top money for him and four other dogs. I didn’t remember seeing the man but supposedly, I was attending Shtiya at that time and he saw us together, so he bought me too, much to his first wife’s disgust.”
For the first time, Anunya glanced across at Bjarni to see how he was reacting to her story. She was met by a compassionate smile and she could see the watery tracks running down his face. A cautious half smile crossed her features. It was evident how the old man had captured Shtiya’s trust and she felt a flicker of hope.
“I was shipped to Qaqortoq, locked inside a soundproofed sea container so that I couldn’t escape or bring the situation to the notice of the authorities. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I was slowly suffocating in the dank, claustrophobic jail.”
Anunya lifted her head again to see how Bjarni was reacting to this last piece of information. It was obvious he was struggling with her commentary and she wondered whether he was starting to disbelieve the impossible story. She decided to get it all out, anyway.
“When I was finally let out of the container, the first wife took an immediate dislike to me. In the few days that I was imprisoned there, it soon became evident that I was to be her slave and she treated me cruelly. It all happened so fast. Shtiya was attached to her sled with the other four dogs and I had to stand on the back to help the dogs push her through the new fallen snow, while she sat under thick furs and gave orders. At one stage, she wanted the team to pull her through a bank of fresh heavy snow on a joyride. I told her it was impossible for the sled and the dogs to make it through the area she wanted us to go, and she started abusing me. Eventually, I relented and followed her orders. The sled overturned on a steep bank and she was thrown out. She was so mad and I tried to help her to get back into the sled but she came after me, hitting me with a whip she had. Shtiya came to my rescue and dragged the woman off me but as he did, her nails gouged down the side of my face, hoping to spoil my looks so her husband wouldn’t take me as a wife.”