Breakup (15 page)

"It used to. It weighs about ten pounds now. Per piece."

A chuckle. "So Chicken Little was right. Mutt okay? The homestead?"

In Niniltna, Kate, well aware of listening ears tuned in from Chickaloon to Chistochina, replied, "Mutt's fine, the homestead's fine and other than being sick of hearing about Chicken Little, I am too."

"I'd like to see that for myself."

"Strap on the Cessna and come ahead on up."

"Soon's I get the chance, I'll take you up on that invitation."

The sooner the better, they both thought.

"So," Kate said lamely. "What have you been up to lately?"

"Oh, we got us a doozy this morning. Drunk stabs a buddy to death and he feel so bad about it he tries to hang himself from the Captain Cook statue at Resurrection Park, but the knot comes undone. He falls down the hill through a bunch of devil's club and winds up in the mudflats."

A slow smile spread across Kate's face. "I like it so far."

"It gets better. He decides since he can't hang himself he might as well go to work-he's a burger flipper at some fast-food restaurant-so he climbs up the bank and walks down the middle of Fourth Avenue, covered with mud and devil's club stickers and the dead man's blood and, get this, with the noose still hanging around his neck." Jack paused expectantly.

Kate was willing to play straight man. "And?"

"And nobody notices."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Seven city blocks, and nobody notices, not even a tourist. Not until he gets to the restaurant. They noticed him then, all right."

"I'll just bet they did," Kate said. Behind her Bobby and Dinah were laughing, too.

"Yeah, well, my life as we know it. Look, we're taking up airtime here. Just wanted to know you were okay."

Bobby said, "She's fine. There's a woman up here who ain't, though."

"I thought that engine falling didn't hurt anybody," Jack said, surprised.

With relish, Bobby said, "This one was taken out by a grizzly bear."

Jack was unimpressed. "Must be breakup."

Bobby scowled. Kate knew a warm feeling around her heart. "Gotta go, Jack. You interrupted Bobby exchanging pleasantries with King Hussein. Be talking to you soon."

"Be seeing you soon," he said, with feeling.

She avoided Bobby's eye. "Say to Johnny for me."

In Anchorage, Jack hung up the phone, a thoughtful crease in his brow. Kate had sounded distant, more distant than the two hundred miles between them would account for. It was probably his imagination. He shrugged it off, or tried to, and returned to the case file that had brought him into the office on a weeknight, a painstaking reconstruction of a ten-year-old rape-homicide in Wasilla that the Alaska state supreme court had kicked back on appeal. Because he knew how to concentrate, his unease over Kate faded into the background, to be brought back center stage in the wee small hours of the morning, the time when all one's chickens, Little and otherwise, come home to roost.

In Niniltna, Bobby exchanged cordial insults with KL7CC and signed off. A ham standing by in Tonsina couldn't resist keying his mike and making kissy-face noises into it. Kate Shugak's Long-distance relationship with Jack Morgan was a byword in the Bush.

Bobby looked over Kate's shoulder. "Dinah! I told you to get off your feet!" He gave Kate a nudge. "Go do the dishes for her."

"I am perfectly capable of clearing the table and washing the dishes," Dinah said as Kate approached.

"I can see that," Kate said. "How have you been feeling?"

"I am feeling just fine," the blonde replied, raising her voice, "but if I have to answer that question one more time I won't be. You'd think this was the first baby to be born in the Park in this century."

Kate was pretty sure these bitter remarks had not been addressed to her, and when Bobby called from the radio console, "Have you got your feet up?" she was sure of it.

"Ignore him," she told Dinah.

"Easy for you to say, you don't live with him," Dinah muttered. She carried a load of dishes to the sink and ran water.

Kate found a dish towel threaded through the handle of the refrigerator door and started drying. "Need a ride somewhere?"

Dinah's hands paused in the dishwater. A smile appeared on her face. "Not on your life."

"Didn't think so."

They cleaned the kitchen while Bobby pirated a little radio wave, playing anything recorded on vinyl before Creedence Clearwater Revival brokeup, interspersed with ads for a bake sale at the high school, a job offer for a gear mender paying minimum wage, sale items including a used freezer, a boom box and a 1964 Ford Falcon, and notice of the upcoming Niniltna Native Association shareholders' meeting.

When Bobby talked to people face-to-face, his voice was usually at its highest decibel level and the words tumbled out in a torrent; when he talked over the air, it melted into the mike like maple syrup. He sang the last lyric along with the Temptations. "Sorry about that," he said, as the last note faded away, "but cut me some slack, people, I'm soon to be married and raise a family, oh yeah, myself. Let's listen to what Bonnie Raitt has to say about motherhood." The beginning bass notes of "Baby Mine" reverberated up through the soles of their stocking feet. Kate was pretty sure that cut postdated CCR by about twenty years, but she wasn't fool enough to say so. Recently cuts from Mary Chapin Carpenter, Billy Joel and the Indigo Girls had also made it onto Bobby's playlist. The man really was mellowing out.

The women spoke in low voices, so as not to have their conversation broadcast all over the Park, the Sound and, depending on the skip that night, across the border into the next country. "I've never seen Mandy look so frazzled," Dinah said. "What's the matter? Mom and Dad giving her fits?" She looked over her shoulder toward the living room. Mr. and Mrs. Baker snored on, oblivious.

Kate smiled. "They aren't so bad, once you get to know them." Dinah looked at her. "Well, okay, at first you could tell they were thinking they were going up the river with Axel Heyst."

"The benefit of a liberal education," Dinah agreed, the beneficiary of one herself.

After Bonnie came the Beatles with "Baby, It's You."

Dinah washed a plate and handed it to Kate. "Jack sounded like he might be missing you. When's the last time you saw him?"

Kate thought. "New Year's."

"Yikes," Dinah said mildly.

"Yeah," Kate said, with feeling.

The moon was coming up over the Quilaks, large and nearly full. No ring, which meant the weather was going to stay the same for a while. There was a sudden movement in the bushes at the bottom of the yard but it was too dark to see what it was. Gee, maybe a bear.

Dinah said, "The two of you only see each other half a dozen times a year."

Kate came back into her body with a start. "Huh? Who?"

"You and Jack," Dinah said. "You don't get together that often."

Kate smiled. "Some men are like that."

"Like how?"

"Catch and release."

Dinah refused to laugh. "What keeps it going?"

On the air, the Fab Four were succeeded by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Teach your children well. Kate hoped the kid didn't turn out to be a heavy-metal fan. Kiss didn't get a lot of

123 airplay on the Bobby Clark Show. "What keeps you and Bobby going?"

"We live together," Dinah said, perhaps more bluntly than she meant to.

"What is this," Kate said, amused, "matchmaking? And you not even an old married woman yet." Dinah's blush revealed all, and she relented. "I like my privacy, Dinah. I like making my own decisions without compromise. I like coming and going as I please. There's no way I'm moving back to Anchorage, and I can just see Jack giving up his job and moving out to the Bush. Not to mention which, his son might have something to say about that."

"You did."

"Did what?"

"Gave up your job and moved out to the Bush."

"That was different," Kate said curtly.

Dinah's eyes dropped to the scar on Kate's throat. "True." She washed a plate, rinsed it and handed it to Kate. "You don't need him the way I need Bobby. The way Bobby needs me." Thoughtfully she added, "That probably comes from being orphaned so young. You had to become self-sufficient a lot earlier than the rest of us. Got you out of the habit of needing people." She dropped a handful of silverware into the rinse water. "Got you out of the habit of letting people need you, too."

Kate thought of Auntie Vi's request that she sound out Harvey Meganack on the health clinic, and of her reluctance to do so, overcome only by an elder's authority. An authority, she admitted to herself in the privacy of her own thoughts, that she avoided by living as close to the edge of that authority as she could get and still be in the Park. It wasn't the first time that Dinah, eleven years her junior, white and a cheechako to boot, had come uncomfortably close to plucking out the heart of Kate's mystery. "Thank you, Dr. Freud," she said. "Any other observations you'd care to make while you've got my id pinned to the drainboard?"

Dinah refused to be insulted. "I think you do love him, though."

"Him? Who him? Oh. Jack." She shrugged and stacked plates in the cupboard. "I like him, I respect and admire the job he does, he makes me laugh, he's great in the sack. And I do love the sound of his voice," she added, dwelling on the last morning that voice had woken her up. She closed the cupboard and cleared her throat. "What else is there?"

Dinah, looking ever so slightly crushed, said unwisely, "Sounds kind of cold-blooded to me."

"Cold-blooded?" Kate was surprised and maybe even a little hurt. "I love men," she said. "I love the shape of their bodies. I love the sound of their voices. I love it that they have to shave, and I love how their skin feels when they don't. I love it that they will not, on pain of death, ask for directions. I love it that they can make lifelong friends with another guy over a brand of beer or a game of basketball or the make of a pistol and never need to know another single thing about that person except that he drinks Full Sail Golden Ale or shoots a thirty-two percent average from the floor or owns a Colt Peacemaker. They're another race entirely and I find the study of them fascinating." She paused, and added, "I just don't expect a lot of them."

"Except for Jack," Dinah said, still bent on romance.

"Especially Jack. His hormones kick into overdrive whenever he's within ten feet of me. His forehead lowers, his jaw starts to hang, a club sprouts from one fist." Kate remembered her reaction to the NTSB man, to Mark Stewart, to Dan O'Brian for crissake. "Dinah, have you ever been physically attracted to a total stranger?"

The soapy dishwater stilled long enough for Dinah to give Kate an assessing look. "Just how long ago was it that Jack dragged you off to his cave?"

Their eyes met, and at the same time they said, "Too long." It made them laugh, and they finished the dishes with only an occasional admonitory roar from the DJ.

Jack Morgan would have slept better that night if he'd been listening to their conversation. He wasn't. He didn't.

Kate was awakened by the sound of an approaching helicopter. "No," she said, and pulled the sleeping bag over her head. After the alarums and excursions of the previous twenty-four hours she had slept long and hard, and she was in no mood for a one-on-one with Chopper Jim.

But the sound of the helicopter's engine got louder, and she heard the others stirring, Mr. and Mrs. Baker on the couch, Chick and Mandy in sleeping bags in front of the fireplace (the only warm spot on the floor, which Mandy had pointedly preempted the night before), and Bobby and Dinah in the monster bed in the back of the room. There were groans, moans and a whimper or two. Kate added a few choice words and unzipped the sleeping bag to wiggle into her jeans, feeling each and every one of her thirty- four years. The bandage over her temple had rubbed off durin g the night but the wound had crusted over and was barely sore to the touch.

Some stretches and toe touches limbered her up enough to let her move over to the front door and open it, just in time to see the all-too-familiar Bell Jet Ranger settle into the clearing, looming against the clear dawn like a gigantic black tarantula. She would have greeted the tarantula with more enthusiasm.

Jim Chopin climbed out, resplendent in blue and gold even at cockcrow. He was followed by a second man. It was with something of a shock that she recognized Mark Stewart.

"Good morning!" Jim said, all bright and shiny with good cheer.

"I don't want to know why you're here," Kate said. "I just want to know why you're here at the crack of dawn."

"Why, Kate," he said, hurt, "as a gentleman, it's my duty to return your calls."

"As a gentleman it's your duty to let me sleep in."

The grin, as wide and predatory as a shark's, should have been licensed to kill. "I'll mark that down that for future reference."

Kate refused to be lured. "How did you know I was here?"

The grin widened. "Heard you on the radio last night."

"Oh." She had said nothing over the air to embarrass herself, and therefore she refused to be embarrassed.

He gestured. "You remember Mark Stewart?"

"Under the circumstances, it would be difficult to forget," Kate said. "How are you, Mr. Stewart?"

"Fine."

The widower's expression was bland, his voice flat, uninflected. His grip was warm and tactile. Kate looked up to find him watching her, his face still, his dark gaze vibrant and compelling. She felt the hair on the backs of her arms stand up, and very carefully pulled her hand free.

Jim said amiably, "Mr. Stewart has agreed to accompany me up to the mine and walk me through yesterday's unfortunate incident, so that I can complete my report."

It was an odd enough request, thankfully, to free her fro m Stewart's mesmerizing gaze. She looked at Jim and thought, What are you up to now, you sneaky bastard? "Why didn't you just go straight up there then?"

Amiability turned to amusement. "And hello to you, too, Jim," he said. "Beautiful morning, isn't it? Like a cup of coffee?"

Behind her there were noises, and with ill grace she held open the door. "You might as well come in, now that you've gotten us all out of bed."

"Who's all?" Jim followed her inside, Mark Stewart one step behind. A yawning Dinah was measuring scoops into the coffeemaker. "Morning, Jim."

"Morning, Dinah." The trooper doffed his hat, and raised an eyebrow as he took in the crowd. "What's this? A sleepover and I wasn't invited?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Baker, this is Sergeant Jim Chopin, of the Alaska State Troopers. Mandy's parents," she told Jim. "And Mr. and Mrs. Baker, you met Mr. Stewart yesterday."

Mr. and Mrs. Baker blinked up from the couch. Probably they had been expecting the maid with coffee, croissants and the Boston Globe. Mandy and Chick were rolling up their sleeping bags. Bobby was glowering at Jim from the kitchen table, but whatever pithy comment he had been about to make was forestalled by the sound of an approaching four-wheeler with the throttle all the way open.

"Jesus Christ," Kate said beneath her breath. Grand Central Station had followed her to Bobby's. She yanked open the door, this time to see Dan O'Brian roar up. He must have flown into Niniltna even before Jim was in the air to get to Bobby's this early.

"Hey, K!ate!" he said, bounding up the steps. A morning person, obviously. So was Kate, but then usually she'd had more sleep.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Why are you so sure I'm looking for you?" he said indignantly, and added, at the same time she did, "Heard you on the radio last night." He caught sight of Mark Stewart and his chin dropped. "Mr. Stewart?"

"Ranger O'Brian." Stewart's expression didn't change, but Kate received the distinct impression that he did not welcome Dan's appearance on the scene. For reasons she shied away from examining, she didn't want to be able to read Stewart that well, and deliberately stood where he would be out of her line of vision.

Jim was finishing up the introductions with a placid air. "And this is Bobby Clark, Mr. Stewart. This is his house."

Bobby shot the trooper a malevolent look. Bobby was not a morning person. Dinah stepped into the apprehensive silence that followed his nongreeting with mugs of coffee all around. Mr. and Mrs. Baker accepted theirs in a manner strongly reminiscent of the Chosen seeing their first water after forty years of staggering around the desert. Mandy looked less ticked off than at lights-out the night before, but not much. Chick was still restraining a belly laugh.

Always at ease, Chopper Jim sat down across from Bobby and added milk and sugar, surveying them all with a glint of amusement in the back of his blue eyes, and something else Kate couldn't quite identify. "Thank you," Stewart said, and smiled at Dinah. Dinah returned the smile with equanimity, a certain curiosity and a purely female appreciation, which changed as Kate watched to a surprised understanding. She turned her head and looked at Kate. Kate nodded. Bobby sat up straight in his chair.

Dan O'Brian virtually snatched his mug from Dinah's outstretched hand and stepped out of range of Mark Stewart's vision. In a series of facial twitches, winks and head jerks reminiscent of an epileptic with Tourette's syndrome he managed to convey that he wanted to speak to Kate privately. Unless they went into the bathroom together, which might occasion some comment, there was only the porch. Resigned, Kate followed him outside, cradling the warmth of her coffee mug in her hands against the chilly dawn. Breakup was not known for its subtropical range of temperatures.

There were no clouds in the sky, revealing the sun as a dull gold disk low on the eastern horizon, outlining the jagged peaks of the Quilaks in the thin light of an Arctic spring morning. There was a steady drip of melting ice from the eaves, and the sound of a winter's worth of snow rushing between the narrow banks of the creek at the edge of the front yard. A mile downstream, the creek would merge with the silted gray expanse of the Kanuyaq, and from there the two would travel together to Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. Before long, the first king salmon would be beating its way upriver. Kate's mouth watered at the thought.

Dan was almost beside himself with impatience. "All right, all right, what?" she said.

He looked over her shoulder at the closed door, decided it didn't provide enough privacy and lowered his voice to a whisper that could probably have been heard on the next homestead. Subtle was not exactly Dan's middle name. "I called Anchorage last night and got a buddy to log on to Motznik for me. You know, the data base that accesses all state records?"

"Yes, Dan, I know what Motznik is."

"Okay, guess what?"

Kate took a deep breath and let it out. All she wanted to do at this point was go home and start reassembling the pieces of her life. There were supplies to be laid in, dip nets to be mended, caches to be repaired, snow-machine tanks to be patched, washing machines to be fixed.

Taxes to be filed.

On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to drink Dinah's excellent coffee, enjoy the glorious dawn and listen to Dan carry on. He could be fun when he took up a cause, and his current mood had all the signs. "I don't know," she said. "What?"

"MarkStewart has had a license for hunting everything on four legs in the state of Alaska for the last twenty years." He paused impressively.

Kate, in the act of swallowing coffee, did not choke in surprise.

That was all right, because Dan had more than enough enthusiasm for the both of them. "He applies for the moose lottery every year, Kate. He's got himself a tag six times and a moose five."

Since he so clearly expected a reaction, Kate said obediently, "So you're saying he is an experienced hunter."

Dan, losing patience, thumped the railing. "That's where I've seen him before, Kate! He was up last fall hunting sheep. He flew in with someone else and they stopped up on the Step for maps. I talked mostly to the pilot, guy name of, hell, what was it, Hooligan or something like that. That's why I couldn't remember Stewart at first, I didn't talk to him."

There was a crunch of twig and Kate looked across Bobby's yard to see a moose cow with a yearling calf browsing contentedly through a stand of diamond willow.

Dan demanded, "Don't you see? When I said I'd seen him before, he said he couldn't remember. He lied."

Kate sighed and turned to look at him. "Dan, it was five minutes six months ago. Maybe he's one of those people who just doesn't remember a face. And what does it matter anyway?"

"What does it matter!" At his shout the low murmur of voices from inside the house stilled momentarily. Dan whispered furiously, "It matters because that whole story about his wife and the bear attack is as phony as a three-dollar bill, and you know it, and it's even phonier if he's an experienced hunter, and you know that, too. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

Her lips compressed. "Et to, Dan?"

Dan, bewildered, said, "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you and every other mother's son in this friggin' Park thinks I'm in charge. In the meantime, I've got half a 747 scattered across my front forty, my cupboards are bare, my truck's been flattened and my dog probably thinks I'm dead. I'm going home." And she still had yet to talk to Harvey Meganack, a chore she was convinced was futile anyway, whatever Auntie Vi thought. "The situation's a little odd, I grant you, but-"