Better to rest by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online Page B

of it collapsing beneath his weight as he went.
    “Be careful! she said as a big chunk fell with a loud
thunk!
Liam disappeared and for a moment she thought he had fallen through. His voice came to her a moment later. “Here it is, Wy. Walk around, though; dont climb overthe ice is rotten right through.
    “Imagine my surprise. She walked around the slab, a scramble of smallish boulders in her way, and found him standing between the slab of ice he had negotiated and the face of the glacier itself, a wall of prismed white with shadowed blue highlights creating narrow, unexpected windows into an inconsistent past. Another dark cave yawned at its base, curving high and large behind the ice. The ground here was a gray mixture of sand and gravel, more textbook moraine. Water was trickling down somewhere, but not much and not in a hurry about it. Winter was coming on fast.
    “Kinda spooky. Liams voice echoed hollowly back at him from the cave.
    “Kinda, Wy said, her voice short.
    Liam looked at her. “Whats wrong?
    “I dont like being this close to the face of a glacier. Glaciers calve. Where do you think that slab you just hauled your butt over came from?
    He squinted up at the face. “Think one might fall on us? he said, sounding interested.
    Her shadow lengthened on the ice in front of her, and the sun, well up over the horizon by now, felt warm on her back. “Thats what glaciers do. Wheres that quartz? She followed his pointing finger. “I dont see Oh.
    He followed her, watched as she extricated a piece of plastic from the sandy gravel. “Whats that?
    She turned it between her hands. “Transparent, convex. Part of a window, probably, or the windshield.
    He repressed a shudder, his all-too-active imagination actively pursuing a picture of what the last few moments in the air had been like. Had they known they were going in, those unknown men in the cockpit of this unknown aircraft? He hoped not. He hoped it with fervor.
    Two hours later, their total was three shards of metal that had been twisted like corkscrewsproving to Liam once again just how insubstantial were the craft to which he trusted himself in the airand Wys piece of plastic. Other, more macabre findings included the cuff of a dark blue shirtsleeve, and a tattered dark blue sock containing what appeared to be some small bones held together by what appeared to be sinewy cartilage.
    Liam bagged and tagged everything they found.
    “Nothing with numbers on it, though, Wy said with a sigh.
    “Is there enough here to tell you what kind of a plane it was?
    Wy shrugged. “Military, for sure, with that paint job.
    “When?
    “Not lately. She stared up at the face of the glacier.
    “What?
    “Its just... you dont expect to see a glacier giving up an airplane when it calves. A T. Rex, yeah, but a plane? Glaciers have been around a lot longer than planes. Takes a long time, centuries, millennia for a glacier to give up a secret. The face of a glacier, man, its thousands of years old. Its She cocked her head. The prickle at the back of her neck was back.
    “What? he said.
    “Shhh. She held up a hand. “I thought I heard
    There was a distant, cracking sound, and the next thing Liam knew Wy had him in a low tackle that rolled the both of them over the blueberry bushes and beneath the high-standing lip of the chunk of ice he had climbed over. There was a
BOOM!
that caused chunks of ice to fall from the roof of their shelter, one of which hit Wys head and another of which struck Liam smack in the left eye. “Ouch! What the
    There was an extended rending sound, deafening in decibel level, so that he couldnt hear himself speak, let alone talk. The ground shook beneath them. Earthquake? Wy buried her face in his shoulder and he held on. There was a split second of pure, clear silence. The light outside their shelter altered, shifted somehow, and then there was a
CRASH!
as something immense fell heavily to the ground, and a lingering series of cracks and thumps and