Northern Lights

just let go and sink into the dark.
    "Chief Burke?"
    Nate stared down at the coffee in his hand. Black coffee. He didn't want it. Couldn't quite remember how it had gotten there. He was too tired for coffee. Too tired to get up and throw it away.
    "Chief Burke?"
    He glanced up, focused on a face. Female, mid-fifties, brown eyes behind small, black-framed glasses. He couldn't quite remember who she was.
    "Yeah, sorry."
    "Steven would like to see you. He's awake and lucid."
    It swam back slowly, like thoughts oozing through mud. The three boys, the mountain. "How's he doing?"
    "He's young and healthy. He was dehydrated, and he may lose a couple toes, but he may keep them all. So, he's lucky. The other two are on their way in. I'm hoping the same goes."
    "They got them. Off the mountain."
    "That's what I'm told. You can have a few minutes with Steven."
    "Thanks."
    As he followed her, the sounds and smells of the ER penetrated. The voices, the pings, the fretful crying of an infant.
    He moved into an exam room and saw the boy on a bed. He had some color under the patches on his cheeks. His hair was matted and blond, his eyes clouded with worry.
    "You got me off."
    "Nate Burke. New chief of police in Lunacy." Since Steven held out a hand, Nate took it, careful to avoid pressing on the IV needle. "Your friends are on their way in."
    "I heard. But nobody'll tell me how they are."
    "We'll find out when they get here. They wouldn't be on their way if
    you hadn't given us the location, Steven. Nearly makes up for being stupid enough to go up there in the first place."
    "Seemed like a good idea at the time." He tried a wan smile. "Everything went wrong. And I think something happened to Hartborne. We only gave him half the money, just to be sure he'd come back."
    "We're checking into it. Why don't you give me his full name, any other information on him."
    "Well, Brad knew him. Actually, Brad knew a guy who knew him."
    "Okay. We'll talk to Brad."
    "My parents are going to kill me."
    Oh, to be twenty, Nate thought, and be as concerned with parental wrath as with a near-death experience. "Count on it. Tell me about the dead man in the cave, Steven."
    "I didn't make it up."
    "Not saying you did."
    "We all saw him. We couldn't leave the cave, not with Brad's leg. We decided I'd go back down, meet Hartborne, get help. They had to stay in there with him. With The Ice Man. He was just sitting there, staring. The ax in his chest. I took pictures."
    His eyes widened as he struggled to sit up straighter. "I took pictures," he repeated. "The camera. It—I think it's in the pocket of my insulated vest. I think it's still there. You can see."
    "Hold on a minute." Nate moved over to the pile of clothes, pawed through and came up with the vest. And in the inside zippered pocket was one of those small digital cameras, hardly bigger than a credit card.
    "I don't know how to work this."
    "I can show you. You have to turn it on, and then—see—the viewer here? You can call up pictures from the memory. The last ones I took were of the dead guy. I took like three, 'cause I wanted— there!"
    Nate studied the facial close-up in the little viewer. The hair might've been black or brown, but it was covered with frost and ice that silvered it. Longish, nearly shoulder-length hair, with a dark watch cap pulled low over it. The face was narrow, white, slashed by ice-crusted brows. He'd seen death often enough to recognize it in the eyes. Wide and blue.
    He recalled the previous picture.
    There was the body of a man, age between—at his rough guess— twenty and forty. He sat with his back to the ice wall, legs splayed out. He wore a black and yellow parka and snow pants, climbing boots, heavy gloves.
    What appeared to be a small ax was buried in his chest.
    "Did you touch the body?"
    "No. Well, I kinda poked at him—it. Frozen solid."
    "Okay, Steven, I'm going to need to take your camera. I'll get it back to you."
    "Sure. No problem. He could've been up there for years, you know? Decades or something. It creeped us out, let me tell you, but it sort of took our minds out of the shit we were in. Do you think they know anything about Brad and Scott?"
    "I'll find out. I'll go get the doctor. I'm going to need to talk to you again."
    "Anytime, man. Seriously, thanks for saving my life."
    "Take better care of it."
    He headed out, slipping the camera into his pocket. He'd have to contact the State Police, he thought. Homicide in the mountains was out of his