The Untamed: A short story of summary justice in the Arctic (Greenland Crime Stories Book 26) by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press for Arctic Noir, Action Thrillers and Greenland Crime
Published: 2024-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

8

The wave’s energy only reached so far and Maratse worked through the dark winter night and long into the dark winter morning. He stopped for coffee and biscuits, a smoke, one crisp capelin – caught and dried by Anton Eliassen. Maratse could just imagine a large, smooth rock sticking out of the sea just off the shore of Saattut. It would be far enough to deter sledge dogs and foxes from swimming out to feast, and with such huge numbers of fish in the steams of capelin swimming through the fjord, the fish taken by gulls and ravens would be considered collateral damage. But a canny hunter and fisherman, like Anton, would keep a close eye on the drying rock, and put up devices to deter the birds from pinching more than they could carry off in a single swoop for fear of getting caught on the rock and falling prey to something bigger than themselves.

The fjord was bigger than Maratse.

Sitting on a floe, drinking coffee, surrounded by ice cracking, calving, and crashing into more ice below it, punching through thinner floes into the black sea beneath, Maratse was reminded of just how small he was, how one misstep could be the difference between a long life and a very sudden death. The ice and the power within it, grounded Maratse, giving him a humbling sense of perspective, identifying his place in the world, the role he might play, and how grateful he should be for every minute he spent on its tumultuous and inherently temporary surface.

The ice was melting.

Everyone talked about it, how the ice was less than a metre thick today, sometimes little more than a centimetre or two. They might still land small planes on the sea ice further to the north, but the ice around Uummannaq, if it came at all, was not nearly as it thick as it used to be when the older hunters were but children, keen to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and uncles, unaware – perhaps blissfully so – that such a way of life was under threat, and would soon end.

Maratse understood this. He did not doubt it.

But in that moment, finishing his second coffee and his second smoke, standing on a small floe as he scouted for a free lane through the ice to Illorsuit, Maratse was at peace. Never mind that Petra had upped the ante with her call about the American – Rädler – and the warrant for his arrest that the police in California would appreciate some assistance with. Maratse’s focus had yet to waver. He would arrest Rädler, if the opportunity presented itself, but bringing Anton home was his first priority. That, and setting the bear free, if as Pilunnguaq had suggested, Anton had successfully caught one in a net.

Thinking of the practicalities of luring a polar bear into a trap kept Maratse’s mind occupied, in between adjusting course, stepping in and out of the dinghy, tethering the bow to one lump of ice, while he worked at moving another.

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