Project Hannibal by Kathryn Hoff (books suggested by elon musk .txt) 📕

was Kanut’s turn to smirk at his discomfort. Cortez let her pet his mount for a minute before handing her a couple of saddlebags to move to the campsite.

“What do you need most urgently?” Kanut finished.

Dr. Dupris rubbed her neck.

“Most urgently? I need to get Annie warmer. Hot food. Um . . . I don’t suppose you have any coffee?”

Before long, Kanut and Cortez had the tent raised and the old lady was propped against a camp stool, snug in Cortez’s sleeping bag. Kanut heated water to prepare some food for the ladies while Cortez set up the generator to recharge their devices. Kanut had enough juice in his satphone to let the doctor call her base—cautioning her not to mention the mammoths.

“It’s part of a secret government project,” he explained. “Nobody’s supposed to know about them.”

“Kind of hard to keep those a secret,” she’d replied, but she managed to reassure her colleagues without mentioning exactly how the trooper had reached her location.

His call to headquarters was less satisfactory. The sergeant—still under the impression that Kanut had traveled by ATV—said the area was still a no-fly zone.

“Listen, Sarge, one of the civilians is an Athabaskan elder who needs heart surgery. Now I’m here, with food and a tent, but what she needs is a hospital.”

“No can do, not yet anyway. We’ll see she’s first on the list—but it won’t be today and maybe not tomorrow.”

Kanut ended the call feeling desperate. Get to the crash victims had been his goal, but he’d expected to get to them sooner and that he would just be providing first aid until a quick pickup. But the situation was both better and worse than he feared: better because all three women were still alive, worse because he had no idea how long he’d have to keep them that way.

He walked over to where Cortez was fussing with the water jugs, filtering out a supply from the glacier’s meltwater. The guy might be arrogant but he was good at organizing.

Cortez looked up. “Is the cavalry on its way? I want to get the herd out of the area before anyone else shows up.”

“Not yet. The volcano’s still active. Look, Cortez—I know you want to get going, but it’s likely to be at least another day or two before a helicopter can get here, and it could be longer. The ash isn’t falling so much anymore, but the cloud isn’t dissipating. There’s no telling when air traffic will resume.”

Cortez stood, arms crossed. “I’ve done my job. Brought you to your lost lambs. You said I’d be free to go.”

“I know what I said, but look at them.” He glanced toward the tent where the teen, the doctor, and the old lady were chowing down on the first hot food they’d had in days. “Those are three women, three human beings in trouble. You can’t just leave them. They need food and shelter. They need our help—your help.”

“You already gave them my tent, my food, even my goddamn sleeping bag. What else do you want?”

Kanut took a breath. “Everything. Everything you’ve got. Food, medical supplies, generator, tarps. They’ll need all of it if they have to wait more than another day for rescue.”

Cortez’s face flushed. “And what about me? Am I supposed to starve?”

“That’s up to you. You can leave if you want—but the supplies stay here. Or you can stay here with us and share until help arrives. Take your pick.”

“Or I can load the mammoths back up and take it all. How do you propose to stop me?”

Kanut shook his head. “I can’t. But I don’t think you’re so hard-hearted as to leave these women with nothing. Why, that Annie, she’s old enough to be your mother. You’d never leave your mother in such a situation, would you?”

Cortez snarled, “You don’t know my mother.”

For a moment they glared, face to face.

Doc Dupris called, “Trooper Kanut? Is everything all right?”

Kanut smiled and waved. “Fine, Doc.” To Cortez, in low tones, he said, “Send your pets off into the woods and stay with us. As far as headquarters knows, you’re a good Samaritan who brought me here on an ATV we left on the other side of the river. Nobody will check. The ladies will keep quiet about the mammoths. You may not like it, but you belong with us, with your own kind.”

“Forget it,” Cortez snarled. “As soon as the herd’s rested a few hours, I’m taking the mammoths north.”

“And the women?”

“You can have the tent, the sleeping bag, and most of the food. The generator stays with me. I need to keep the tablet charged so I can keep track of the mammoths.”

Kanut shook his head sadly. “You’re one for the books, you know? You’d rather take a chance on dying alone in the wilderness with your mammoths than stay with people and share.”

Cortez sneered. “My mammoths never lied to me.”

CHAPTER 35

Choices

The lying bastard. Luis should have known better than to trust a cop, even a low-level wildlife trooper. He should have let Ruby run the trooper down the moment he popped up, waving a rifle. Commandeering Luis’s mammoths. Taking—stealing—his supplies.

Would he rather face the wilderness with the mammoths than stay with people like that? Hell, yes.

What a disaster. Luis had planned to take the mammoths to grid HB27, deep into the wilderness, hidden and quiet. He would have let them go and called the bush pilot to fly him out with no one the wiser. Now the herd had spent days running around far off his chosen course. They’d been seen by way too many people, and now more people were on the way.

Luis repacked his backpack and supply sacks, separating out the portion he could afford to leave behind.

He