The Flagline

The thermometer nailed to the porch post of the Mess read forty below in black paint that had flaked at the edges. Inspector Vael Reed counted the nailheads while he waited for somebody to answer. Six along the top, five down the side. The cold was a small dry mouth against his face, taking the heat off his skin and replacing it with nothing.

He knocked again. The sound went out across the clearing and did not come back.

The Mess was the only building at Kendel Station that could be called a building. The rest were functional objects — fuel drums, a generator shed, three Quonset halves welded together into a single shelter for the survey crews, an equipment bay with a door too heavy for one man. The Mess stood at the head of the gravel track that passed for a road, two stories of stained timber with a stovepipe angled like a finger pointing into the flat white sky. It had been built in the seventies, Reed guessed, when somebody still believed that men would stay long enough to want a second floor.

"How many people here," he said.

"Right now. Six. Was seven."

He set the case on the table and did not open it. "Tell me."

She poured coffee from the kettle into an enamel mug and set it in front of him. "Drink that first. You look like something my husband used to drag out of a creek."

He drank. The coffee was thick and burnt and very hot and it was the best thing he had tasted in a week.

"My name is Nora Hessen," she said, sitting across from him with her own hands around her own mug, though she did not drink. "I run the kitchen and the books and, when I have to, the radio. The man you came for is named Edvar Lund. He was the senior surveyor. He went out on the seventh, alone, with the dogs, to re-flag a line. He did not come back. We found him on the eleventh."

"How."

"Piotr Lychev took the second team out. They found him two miles north of the flagline, in a drift, half-covered. He had been dead at least a day. The dogs were standing over him. They had not moved. Piotr said they would not move until he cut the traces."

Reed set the mug down. "Cause."

She looked at him a long time. "That's why you're here."

He nodded.

"He had a knife in his hand. His hand was cut. There was a cut on his arm that was older, two days maybe. The dogs were not hurt. There was no one else out there, Inspector. There is no one out there for a hundred miles in any direction but us."

Reed said, "Show me where he was."

"You'll want to go today."

"Yes."

She nodded once, stood, and went to the door. "I'll get Piotr. He knows the line."

"You're the man," he said.

"I'm the man."

"Good. I want to go back to work."

Reed took this in. "Did you like him."

"I respected him. He was senior. He knew the line. When he spoke about the work, I listened."

"When he spoke about other things."

Piotr looked at the stove. "He did not speak about other things."

"Did you know his hand was cut before he went out."

He crouched. The snow here was not deep. He brushed with a glove and found the crust underneath, and under the crust a layer of older snow, and under that nothing. He brushed more carefully and found what he was looking for. A small dark shape, frozen into the crust. He picked it up in his glove and held it up to the pale light.

It was a button. Brass. With an insignia on it he did not recognize. A bird, maybe, with a crown above it, and a band of letters too small to read in this light. He put it in his pocket.

"What is it," Piotr said, from behind him.

"A button."

"From what."

"I don't know yet."

He stood and looked out across the plain. From here he could see no flags. He could see nothing moving. There was no smoke. There was only the white and the low sun and the long blue shadow of himself and Piotr stretched out across the snow.

"I want to see his quarters," he said.

They went back. Reed sat in the sled and watched the station grow. As they came in he counted what he could see. Two figures at the fuel drums. One at the equipment bay. The smoke from the Mess. A shape at the window of the second floor, there and gone. He watched the window for the rest of the approach and the shape did not come back.

Piotr took the team to the dog line and Reed went into the Mess. Nora Hessen was at the stove.

"His room," he said.

"Upstairs. Second on the left."

He climbed. The stairs were narrow and steep and the wood gave under him. The second floor was a hallway with four doors and a window at the end. The window looked out over the plain. He understood now why the second story had been built. From up here you could see a man coming for a whole day before he arrived.

Second on the left. He opened it.

The room was small. A cot made up tight. A trunk at the foot. A shelf with three books and a tin of tobacco and a photograph in a wooden frame, face down. A pair of boots by the wall. A jacket on a hook. A small table with a basin and a lantern and a razor.

He did not touch anything. He stood in the door and looked.

He went in. He lifted the photograph and turned it over. A woman and a girl, standing in front of a low stone building with a tree behind them. The woman was laughing. The girl was not.

He set it back. He opened the trunk. Shirts folded, two pairs of trousers, a wool sweater with a patch on one elbow, a box of cartridges, a ledger. He lifted the ledger out and sat on the cot and opened it on his knee.

The first pages were work. Lines and flags and distances. Names he did not know. A shorthand he did not read. Then, near the middle of the book, a different kind of entry. A list, in the same hand, of dates and figures. He read down the page.

January 3. 12.4. 11.

January 9. 12.4. 12.

January 14. 12.4. 13.

He turned the page. The same. Dates going back to November. The first figure never changing. The second figure climbing by one each time.

He closed the book. He set it on the cot. He sat for a while and listened to the building. Somewhere below, a door opened and shut. The stove ticked. The wind found a seam in the wall and made a low note that did not change.

He went down.

"The bottle," he said to Nora Hessen.

She did not move. "What bottle."

"The one he kept in his room."

"There is no bottle in his room."

"There is no bottle in his room because it is not in his room. Where is it."

She looked at the stove. She did not answer.

"Ma'am."

"In the equipment bay. Behind the spare drums. He asked me not to say."

"Why."

"He said it was for his daughter. For when she came. He said he was saving it. He said a man in a place like this had to have something to save."

"How much was in it."

"When he went out it was half full."

"It isn't now."

"No."

"How much is in it now."

"A glass."

He stood. "Who knew."

"Everyone, Inspector. There are no secrets here. There is only the time between one person knowing and the next."

He went back out. The light had not changed. He crossed to the equipment bay and opened the door and went in. The smell of oil and cold metal. Drums along the wall, the spare set behind them. The bottle where she had said, a clear glass bottle with a label he could not read in the dim. A glass beside it, empty.

He stood looking at it. He did not touch it.

He went out and crossed to the Quonset. Three men were inside, working on a piece of equipment he did not recognize. They looked up when he came in and then went back to their work. He watched them for a while. They were careful and quick and they did not speak to each other. He left.

He went to the dog line. Piotr was there, hosing down a paw with warm water from a kettle.

"The thermos," Reed said.

"What."

"The thermos of soup. The one he was supposed to bring back. Where is it."

Piotr did not look up. "I don't know."

"It would be in the sled."

"It was not in the sled when I found him."

"It would be on his person, or in the sled."

"There was nothing on his person. There was nothing in the sled."

"There would be."

"There was not."

Reed stood. He watched the dogs. The pale dogs lay in their snow and breathed out and the breath went up and was gone.

"Where is the sled."

"In the bay."

"Show me."

They went. The bay was a long shed, half buried in drift, with a door that took both of them to move. Inside, three sleds in a row, the runners crusted with old snow. Piotr pointed to the second one. "That one."

Reed walked around it. He crouched and looked at the bottom. He looked at the inside. He stood and looked at the handlebar. He reached under the handlebar and ran his glove along the underside. He felt the shape. He pulled.

A small leather pouch, stitched to the underside of the bar with wire. He opened it. Inside, a folded paper, a tin cup, and a brass object he did not recognize at first. Then he did.

The shape went back from the glass.

He went inside and sat at the table and did not speak. Nora brought him coffee he did not drink. The light through the window went from white to grey to a pale color he did not have a name for. Somewhere outside, the dogs began to howl and then stopped.

He waited.

At four, the door opened and a man came in. He was older than the rest, thinner, with a white moustache and a careful way of moving, as if the air were made of glass. He took off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door and came to the table and sat across from Reed.

"You're the inspector," he said.

"Yes."

"My name is Halden Voss. I am the engineer. I run the radio and the generator and, when I have to, the books Nora will not."

"You were not here when I arrived."

"I was at the antenna. It is two miles east. The wind takes it down and I put it back up. It is the work of my life and I have come to hate it."

Reed studied him. "Did you know him."

"Yes."

"Did you like him."

"Yes."

"Did he have enemies."

"No."

"Did he have a secret."

Halden Voss looked at him for a long time. Then he looked at the stove. Then he said, "Inspector, we all have secrets here. The secret is the same. We stay."

"Tell me about the flagline."

"It is a survey line. It runs north-south. It is marked with flags at quarter-mile intervals. In winter, the flags drift under. We go out and re-flag. It is what we do. It is what he did."

"How many flags between here and the north end."

"Sixty-three."

"Who counts them."

"I do."

"And if one is missing."

"I write it down."

"Show me."

They went up to the radio room, a small cluttered space on the second floor at the end of the hall. Halden produced a ledger from a shelf and opened it on the table and turned the pages. Reed watched his hand. It was steady.

"Here," Halden said. "January seventh. He went out alone. He took flags thirty-one through thirty-six. He was to re-flag thirty-one and thirty-two and check the rest."

"What about thirty-three."

"He did not get to thirty-three."

"Why."

"Because he died."

Reed turned the page. "What was here before he went out."

"The previous count. December thirty-first. I went out myself. Thirty-one was there. Thirty-two was there. Thirty-three was down."

"What did you do."

"I wrote it down. I sent word to the south. The word came back that it could wait until spring."

"And he went out to wait until spring."

"No. He went out to re-flag thirty-one and thirty-two and to look at thirty-three. He said he had a feeling about thirty-three."

Reed looked at him. "What kind of feeling."

"The kind a man gets when he has been out too long. He said he had dreamed about it."

Reed closed the ledger. He stood at the window and looked out. The plain was a flat white plate. There was no horizon he could trust. He could see a long way and what he saw was nothing.

"Thank you," he said.

He went back down. He sat at the table in the Mess. The room was empty now. The stove had gone down and the cold was creeping back. He took the brass button out of his pocket and set it on the table and looked at it. The bird. The crown. The letters. He turned it over. On the back, scratched into the brass, two letters. E.L.

He put it back in his pocket.

He went out and crossed to the Quonset. The men were gone. The equipment stood where they had left it. He stood in the door and breathed. His breath came out and hung in front of him, white, complete, a shape like a small animal, and then it was gone.

He crossed to the dog line. The dogs were quiet. He stood over the pale dogs and looked down at them. One of them lifted its head and looked at him. The eyes were pale and did not blink. He crouched and held out his hand. The dog sniffed it and then turned away.

He stood and looked out across the plain. He could see, very far to the north, a single dark mark on the snow. He watched it. It did not move.

He went in and climbed the stairs. He stopped at the second door on the left and listened. There was nothing to hear. He went past it and went to the end of the hall and looked out the window. The mark was still there. He watched it for a long time. Then he went downstairs.

"Nora," he said.

She was at the stove. She did not turn.

"The map," he said. "The one he kept under the bar of the sled. Where did he get it."

She turned. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"He kept a map under the bar of his sled. It had a circle on it in red ink, four miles north of the station. Where did he get it."

"I don't know."

"Did he draw it."

"I don't know."

"Did he show it to anyone."

"No."

"Did he speak about it."

"No."

"Did anyone see him draw it."

"No."

He waited.

She waited.

"Who else knows this station as well as he does," Reed said.

"No one."

"Who has been here longest."

"He has. Halden. Me. The rest came and went."

"Halden was here when he arrived."

"Yes."

"You were here."

"Yes."

"Piotr."

"Two years after."

"The others."

"A year. Less."

"Who came in the fall."

"Piotr. A man named Gress. A man named Ald."

"Where are they now."

"Gress is in the Quonset. Ald is at the antenna."

Reed went to the door and looked out. The light was going. The mark on the plain was still there. He looked at it until his eyes watered and the cold had turned the water to something sharp on his cheeks.

He went in.

"Ma'am," he said. "I am going to tell you what I think. Then I want you to tell me where I am wrong."

She did not move.

"He went out on the seventh to re-flag the line. He went alone. He had a cut on his hand that was not from a can. He had a map under the bar of his sled that he did not show to anyone. He had a compass that had been hidden for a long time. He had a button on him that was not his, with his initials scratched on the back. He had been out too long and he had begun to see things in the snow."

She looked at him.

"He went north of the line. He found something. The circle on the map was where he had found it before. He had been there before. He had been going there for some time. The figures in his ledger were a count. The first figure never changed. The second figure climbed by one. He was counting days, and he was counting something else."

She did not speak.

"He died out there. The official finding will be exposure. A man alone, a bad cut, a storm that came up. The dogs stood over him because that is what dogs do. Nobody will be blamed. There will be a notation in the file and the file will be sent south and the file will be put in a drawer."

"Inspector."

"The button was not his. The compass was not his. The map was not his. They were somebody else's. He had them because he took them from a place where they had been left, or from a man who no longer needed them."

He waited.

"There was a man out here before him. There was a man who had been here long enough to scratch his initials into a button and lose a compass in the snow and draw a map to a place he had found. That man is gone. Edvar Lund found the place. He went back. He went back again. He went back on the seventh. He did not come back."

She sat down.

"Who was he," Reed said.

She did not answer.

He stood. "I am going out to the mark on the plain. I will be back by dark or I will not be back at all. If I am not back by dark, you will send Piotr out in the morning with a team and you will tell him to bring me in. You will not tell him anything else. You will not go with him. You will not go yourself. Do you understand."

"Yes."

"Do you want to tell me."

"No."

He nodded. He went to the door and put on his coat and his gloves and his hood. He took the case from the table. He went out.

The cold took him. It was a different cold now, the cold of the late afternoon, with the sun gone low and the sky turning the color of a bruise. He crossed to the equipment bay and got the third sled and harnessed two of the pale dogs to it. They were willing. They rose and shook and stood.

He stood on the runners and said, "North."

The dogs went.

The plain went out under him. The sled hissed. The wind came up off the ice to his left and found the seam in his hood and went in and lay against his neck like a blade. He did not adjust it. He watched the mark grow.

It was a flag. A single flag, planted in the snow, the cloth black with age, the pole leaning a little to the west. He came up to it and stopped the team and stepped off.

The flag was at the edge of a depression in the snow, a long shallow bowl, four feet across, drifted over but not filled. He crouched and brushed. The brushing took a long time. The snow was soft and his hands were cold and his fingers did not want to obey him.

He found the first one at a foot down. A bone. A finger, he thought, though he could not be sure. He brushed more carefully. He found another. He found a button, brass, with the same insignia. He found a piece of cloth, dark, rotted, frozen stiff. He found a small leather pouch, the leather gone to a hard black, the wire that had held it still bright.

He stood.

He looked out across the plain. The light was going fast now. The sky was a low purple at the rim. He could see the station as a black mark with no smoke, and beyond it nothing, and to the east a single light that was the antenna lamp.

He crouched again. He worked with his hands until they would not work. He found what he had come for. He did not pick it up. He looked at it for a long time. Then he stood and wrapped his hands in his sleeves and breathed in and the cold went down into him and he did not shiver.

The dogs were tired. The sled moved slower. The light went. The cold came up from the ground now and joined the cold that was coming down. He could see his breath in front of him, white, complete, and then gone, white, complete, and then gone.

The station came up out of the dark. There was a light in the Mess window. He came in and tied the dogs and went in and stamped the snow from his boots and did not take off his coat.

Nora was at the table. Halden was beside her. They did not speak.

Reed sat.

"He was there," he said. "In the depression. Under the flag. I did not bring him back. He has been there a long time."

They did not speak.

"Edvar Lund found him. He found the compass and the button and the map. He went back. He went back again. He went back on the seventh and he did not come back."

He took the brass button out of his pocket and set it on the table.

"The insignia is not ours. The button is old. The leather pouch was stitched under the bar of a sled that had been there longer than Edvar's. The compass had been hidden for years. The man had been out here alone, for a long time, and he had died, and he had been covered, and the dogs had not found him, or the dogs had found him and the man had sent them away."

He waited.

"You knew."

Nora did not speak.

"You knew he was out there. You knew Edvar knew. You knew he had been going back. You knew the thermos of soup was a story you told yourselves so that Piotr would go out on the eleventh and not on the eighth. You knew that the file would say exposure and the drawer would hold it and no one in the south would ever come looking for a man who had no name they could pronounce."

He looked at Halden.

"You knew. You counted the flags. You knew that thirty-three had been down for years. You wrote it down. You sent word south. The word came back that it could wait."

He looked at the button.

"I will put him in the file as Edvar Lund. I will put the cause as exposure. I will put the location as the flagline. I will send the file south. The file will be put in a drawer."

He put the button back in his pocket.

"The man under the flag will have to wait."

He stood. He took his case and went to the stairs. At the foot of the stairs he stopped.

"He had a daughter," he said. "Edvar. The photograph was face down. He kept it that way. He did not want her to see him. He did not want her to see what he had become. He went out on the seventh because he could not stay in the room with the photograph any longer and he could not put it in a box and he could not send it south. He went out because the line was the only thing that was clean."

He went up. The stairs groaned. The door at the end of the hall let in a bar of cold. He stood at the window. The plain was dark. The antenna lamp was a small orange point. There was no other light.

He did not sleep. He sat on the cot in the room that had been Edvar's and listened to the building settle and listened to the wind and listened to the dogs and did not sleep. Toward morning, the cold came into the room and lay on the floor like a second rug and did not move.

At first light he went down. The Mess was empty. Nora was at the stove. She poured coffee and set it in front of him.

"The dogs need to go out," she said.

"I know."

"You will take them."

"I will take them."

She sat across from him. "Inspector."

"Yes."

"The drawer."

"Yes."

He said, "North."

The dogs went.

The cold took him and held him and did not let him go.