Down River (12 page)

“Mitch!” was all she could manage when they finally came up for air.

She needed him, but not this life he had chosen. She trusted him to help her through this, and yet he’d deserted and hurt her before.

To her utter dismay, he set her back at arm’s length, still holding on to her upper arms as if to prop them both up.

“I’ll have to plead,” he said, breathing raggedly with a determined expression hardening his rugged features, “temporary insanity. We can’t—this isn’t going to help. I want more, and there’s not going to be more.”

She stared dazedly at him.

“I’ve got to be sure you’re safe and we discover who might want to harm you. You trust me to help, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I’ll commit professional suicide with the Bonners by accusing Jonas or Vanessa.” Her voice was still shaky and breathy—not her own. The old, ambitious lawyer Lisa talking.

“I want to hear you say you don’t think
I
was the one who tried to harm you.”

Hair prickled on the back of her neck and a shiver snaked down her spine again. “And then risk your life to save me? No. I’m so sorry we didn’t—it didn’t work out for us, but I do trust you in this. Mitch, I brought the bracelet you bought for me—a pre-engagement gift, you said, the seagulls flying. I know it was expensive, and I want to give it back, a pledge that I do trust you—forgive you.”

“I’m glad for that, but you keep the bracelet. I gave it to you in happy times. You gave me the ring back, so that’s enough. Wear it if you want—if you trust me still.”

He loosed his grip on her upper arms and nervously wiped his palms together, a move so uncharacteristic of him, since he always seemed to be in control. He looked as shaken as she felt. And he wanted her to keep the bracelet he’d bought her when they first knew they were in love; it was such a pretty piece, two seagulls with wings outspread, flying high together. Now he wanted her trust more than kisses.

She took a small step away, back into the center of the cellar. “About Graham,” she said, trying to get back on track so she didn’t throw herself at him again. Her voice was shaky. “When you mentioned you
were afraid someone had gotten to him on the casino case, he looked like he was going to explode until you added that you thought someone might be threatening him. So that means it upset him that you thought someone could be bribing him—his fault. But when you explained that someone might be threatening him—their fault—he calmed down.”

“And right after that, he took offense when I said we needed to trace someone up the trail of suspicion. He quickly insisted it was some lowlife who must have been behind it. So what if he wasn’t trying to protect us but himself or some of his wealthy, powerful cronies from something he didn’t want us to know in that case?”

“The Bonners and their crowd are definitely on the high end of the social and political feeding chain in the sunny south. But I still think our number-one candidates are Vanessa or Jonas. I’m going into Bear Bones with Vanessa before dinner so I’ll see if I can rattle her cage a little more.”

“I’ll drive the two of you in. Maybe we can work on her together, and I don’t want you alone with her.”

“Mitch, whoever shoved me in the river was sneaky, when she’s more blatant. I can handle Vanessa face-to-face.”

“I’m still going along. I have a few errands to do while the others have their downtime.”

“Vanessa’s across the lake visiting Ginger Jackson right now, then Ellie’s going over. I’m going over tomorrow. We didn’t want to inundate Ginger with chattering, gushing females asking for recipes and
gawking at her. If she’s anything like Christine, she’s very humble about her accomplishments.”

“Glad to hear you say something good about Christine,” he said as he followed her to the steps. Without his even discussing it, she knew they needed to go upstairs one at a time.

“You called her
Cu’paq,
” she said as she started up.

“You pronounce it better than I do. Duck Lake is really Lake
Dukoe,
you know, and it doesn’t mean duck. That’s just another distortion by the whites who came in and renamed everything, including turning
Denali,
‘The Great One,’ into Mount McKinley.”

Lisa turned back on the third step, putting her hand on the sharply slanted tree trunk above her. “So what does
Dukoe
mean then?”

“Christine said the lake was named for its shape. A
dukoe
is a large war club made from the leg of a moose.”

She shuddered. Again, that moose rose up before her from the depths of the lake after she imagined her mother’s face there. Again, she recalled running to Mitch’s arms, just as she had today—but should never do again.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that a
dukoe
was a war club. Someone was at war here—against her.

“S
o,” Vanessa said to Lisa and Mitch as he drove them into Bear Bones in his black four-wheel-drive SUV, “did the early settlers or whoever named this place realize they were making a pun? Talk about a town being pared down to the bare bones—it’s really tiny.”

“Anything looks tiny compared to Fort Lauderdale,” Lisa said, feeling a strange urge to defend this town she’d never seen. But everything about Vanessa made her want to argue with her lately. Should she pay attention to her woman’s intuition that Vanessa was the one she should suspect of much worse than big-city snobbery?

Granted, Bear Bones wasn’t much to look at. About one block long, facing both sides of a narrow two-lane road, it didn’t even have a streetlight or stop-light. There was a gas station with a big sign that read Bulk Fuel and Propane. The Wolfin’ Café seemed to hold center stage. A sawmill, the “Homesteaders Cemetery,” a Methodist chapel, and a couple of
houses straggled beyond the cluster of commercial establishments. The American flag and Alaska state flag flew from more poles than there were stores.

Lisa saw one sign that read Lucy’s Deli/Pizza. So did the Duck Lake Lodge denizens ever go out or send out for pizza? There was the Kleen-It Laundromat, the Gold Rush Saloon with swinging doors painted on its real wooden doors, and a place called Trader Dan’s with a weather-beaten sign that advertised Groceries And Drugs For Sale. Not a pharmacy, not a drugstore, just drugs. South Floridians would get a laugh out of that—and it looked as if Vanessa was.

“It’s not as bare-bones as it looks,” Mitch told them. “The post office and lending library are in the back of the Community Hall, down there, the same place they have poker and bingo nights. Bear Bones serves its purpose and has a definite charm,” he added as he pulled up in front of Gus Majors’ store, where the large sign read:

WHATEVER: HUNTING SUPPLIES, TAXIDERMY, CHAINSAW REPAIR, ECT.

“I guess that last part is supposed to be ETC.,” Vanessa said. “Actually, the town reminds me of a set from one of those old Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns.”

“I’m impressed at the breadth of your knowledge and honored you’re comparing Bear Bones to Italy,” Mitch countered.

Lisa could tell that Vanessa’s attitude was getting to him.

“Eastwood was big with someone I dated briefly,” Vanessa said as they got out. “A cardiac surgeon who tried to operate on my heart, if you know what I mean. So—those little gift shops you mentioned are in the fronts of houses down that way? I hope they have postcards, because I know a lot of people who knew
the
Mitchell Braxton who won’t believe this is your closest town.”

“Talkeetna, where we’re heading this weekend, is ‘the big city,’ so save your real shopping and comments for that,” Mitch said. “Besides, can you get out of your car in Lauderdale or Miami and leave it unlocked like this? Lisa, what do you think?”

“I think it’s the most real place I’ve been in a long time. No pretense, no false fronts, no hype—unlike a lot of places and people I know from what we like to call civilization.”

Her eyes met Mitch’s and held. He nodded. Vanessa gave a little snort. “Meaning something deep and dark, like a slap at me?” she challenged.

“Of course not,” Lisa told her. “Why are you so thin-skinned lately when—”

Lisa’s urge to tell Vanessa off was waylaid by Gus Majors barreling out the front door of his shop, shouting, “Glad to see you two river rats!”

He slapped Mitch’s shoulder and give Lisa a quick, one-armed hug. Vanessa looked as if the largest animal in the zoo had just gotten loose from its cage.

“Gus,” Mitch said, “how’s this evening for dinner at the lodge? About six-thirty? Christine’s getting all the fixings together for aurora borealis ice cream for dessert.”

“On one condition—same one I mentioned before. If Ginger’s there, I’ll take a rain check, ’cause after seeing you two yesterday, I got to thinkin’ about that showdown her and I had at the Wolfin’ Café. So just a while ago I drove way round the lake to make it up to her. Then we got ourselves into another fuss, and I said the hell with her. You sure she won’t be there?”

“She drops her bakery goods off late afternoon—like right about now,” Mitch said, frowning at his watch, “but doesn’t stay for dinner when we have guests. And I’d like you to meet one of them. Vanessa Guerena, this is Gus Majors, jack-of-all-trades, master of only one—big talk.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Gus said as Vanessa nodded but didn’t extend her hand. “Well, I’m working on a moose head, so got to get back to it, but I’ll be there tonight. Thanks for the invite!” he said over his big shoulder as he went back inside.

After Mitch went off to do his errands, Vanessa turned to Lisa. “So, before the moose-head man came out and was invited to dinner at the lodge, were you going to get into a fuss with me—to say the hell with me, to use your friend’s patois?”

Lisa turned to face her on the sidewalk. “My grandmother used to quote the Bible a lot, and I can remember her saying, ‘I have learned in whatever
state I am to be content.’ You should work on that, Vanessa. Just appreciate being someplace different while you’re here—see the good side of th—”

“‘In whatever state’? Well I don’t like the state of Alaska I’m in, and—Mitch Braxton or not—I’m shocked you do, especially after you could have drowned and frozen solid in that river! The senior partnership is worth a lot, but this place is not only laughable,” she said, flinging her arm at the town, “but deadly. You could have been killed in that river, probably more than once.”

They glared at each other before Vanessa stalked away toward a house that had a swinging sign that said Alaska Gifts. The last few words of Vanessa’s tirade still hung between them as if it echoed off the sign, the buildings and mountains. She hadn’t said that Lisa could have died in the river, but could have been
killed.
Lisa realized Vanessa had said nothing to really implicate herself, yet it seemed she had made not only a subtle confession, but a possible threat.

“I hope Gus leaves right after the dessert,” Christine whispered to Mitch as she stood back to watch Gus cranking the homemade ice-cream maker on the dining room table. After taking brief stints turning the dasher, their guests had relocated to two facing leather couches and a couple of chairs in front of the low-burning fire.

She kept her voice low. “Ginger sent a note back
to me with Vanessa after her visit. She wrote she’s been so busy with her guests today—Mrs. Bonner, Gus and Vanessa—that she’s bringing the breakfast goodies here later. She didn’t get them all done. And she’s been baking and stockpiling things to sell at her booth at the Mountain Mother Festival this weekend. I’m not to tell Spike, but she wants to pay him for all the wood he cuts for her stoves.”

“I’ll try to keep an eye out and ear cocked for Ginger’s boat, then give Gus a heads-up if it comes to that. We do not need an episode of that soap opera of yours played out here—what’s it called?”

“One Life to Live.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got enough of a soap opera going on here right now. You all set to back me up on these aurora borealis stories for everyone?”

Although Christine never liked to be center stage, each time Mitch had a group here, they served this vanilla ice cream with blueberries and cranberries swirled through it and gave a brief talk about the aurora borealis.

“Sure,” she said. “You start while I stir in the fruit and dish it up, and I’ll chime in later.”

“While you’re all enjoying the aurora borealis ice cream Christine is dishing up,” Mitch said, raising his voice so everyone could hear and walking over to sit in a chair facing the hearth, “we’d like to tell you some things about our famed northern lights. Needless to say, as attractive as the ice cream is, the swirl of colors in it doesn’t do the real thing justice. You’re
here about the time we might begin to glimpse them, and it’s nice to see them in the milder temps of autumn, because it’s down-to-the-bone cold when they are usually seen dancing across the sky. Viewing is best between midnight and three a.m. and can go until late March. Since I used to visit my uncle here during my summer vacations, I was totally blown away the first time I saw them in the cold—just this past winter.”

“I’ve seen pictures of them, even moving ones,” Mrs. Bonner said, “but I’m sure those don’t do them justice either.”

“Nothing but the naked eye does,” Mitch said. “Even though the lights are associated with Alaska, they are a northern hemisphere phenomenon. The Scandanavians used to associate the light with the Valkyries riding down to do battle from the skies. Some biblical scholars think the heavenly wheel Ezekial saw in the Old Testament was the northern lights, which do dip down to the south once in a rare while. The name aurora borealis comes from two Latin words. Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn and Borealis was the god of the north wind.”

“That’s some Latin I never learned in law school,” Jonas said as Christine stirred the fruit into the ice cream and Gus joined the group, standing behind Jonas’s chair.

Christine had noticed Jonas was walking with a slight limp since his sledding accident, but only sometimes. Spike was still worried Jonas might sue,
and she knew how that fear felt. Clay’s father had not only banished her from the Kagak family, but had threatened to bring a civil suit against her since she’d escaped punishment for the criminal charge. But that had just been talk. He didn’t want the names Kagak or Yup’ik “shamed in the papers” anymore, as he put it. She should assure Spike that it would come to nothing. Maybe she’d even open up to him about her own situation some.

“So what really makes the northern lights?” Jonas was asking.

“Scientists say it’s like a solar wind, carrying protons and electrons streaming out from the sun—bands of energy,” Mitch explained, gesturing. “The earth’s atmospheric gasses collide with the particles, and they explode and glow in different colors. The northern lights are actually there all the time, but much of the year, the sun blocks them out. As a former lawyer, I first thought of it as someone who is guilty of something—hiding something—who manages to keep his or her true intentions invisible, but they remain, and will eventually be found out.”

Christine looked up from serving their guests as Vanessa and Lisa took dishes of ice cream from her tray. Mitch had never said that before to a group. Gus and Mitch took the last two bowls from the tray. Funny, but almost everyone was frowning and looking intently down at their ice cream, except for Lisa and Mitch, who were staring at everyone. So what
was going on here? She had to ask Mitch.
Iah,
had he meant more by “a soap opera” than she suspected?

On the way back to the kitchen with the empty tray, Christine strode past the bubble window and looked down the length of the lake. No Ginger yet. “Christine,” Mitch said, “can you share some of the local folklore about Alaska’s version of sky lights?”

She walked back toward the group. Lisa made space for her on one sofa by moving closer to Gus, so Christine sat there, smoothing her long denim skirt over her knees. “In the old days,” she began, “people in these parts believed you must respect the spirits of the sky so they wouldn’t be harmful. They believed the lights are departed souls, playing up there, happy people.”

“Kind of like heaven,” Gus put in.

“Right,” she said. “Alaskan native people associate the aurora with death. One belief of the Athabascans—they were the language group my people descended from—was that through the lights in the sky, the spirits of the dead watch over us and send us messages. And that chosen ones could see the faces of the dead through their dreams.”

“See their faces of the dead through dreams?” Lisa asked.

Christine nodded. Lisa looked pale, her hand halfway to her dish, her spoon suspended in midair.

“And one group believes when the aurora borealis falls,” Christine went on, “when it runs too close to man, the human brain goes mad and man is seized by the heart and killed. So, yes, to some the aurora
used to mean happy heaven unless it got too close, then murder to others.”

Christine saw Lisa shudder. She almost put her hand out to the woman’s arm to comfort her. It was silent in the room, but for the ever-present distant rumble of the river. She still didn’t hear the
put-put
of Ginger’s motorboat.

“Well, I wish we could see the lights.” Mrs. Bonner broke the silence. “We’ll just have to come back another time, Graham. It will give me a good excuse to buy a fur-lined parka.”

“It’s something to see, all right,” Gus said.

Christine had learned a lot more about their guests from the way they had treated Gus tonight. The Bonners were kind and courteous, Jonas off base by suggesting to Gus he go online to find a mail-order bride, Vanessa obviously annoyed he was here, but trying not to let the Bonners see that side of her, and Lisa attempting to make him feel at ease.

When Lisa helped collect the dishes and brought them to the table, Christine asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. The ice cream was great and the folklore, too. Why do you keep looking out the window?”

“Since Gus is here, I’m glad Ginger’s late, but it’s not like her.”

“I was going to go see her tomorrow morning. I could take the rowboat and go now. It’s still plenty light. Wish I’d catch a glimpse of the aurora.”

“I’d go with you, but I’ve got to clean up here. See what Mitch says. He won’t let you go alone.”

“I’ll just see if Vanessa will go with me. We have some unfinished conversation, and she knows the way since she was just there. But yes, if Vanessa will go, too, I’ll tell Mitch where we’re going.”

Christine liked Lisa’s attitude. Never let a man really rule the roost, but listen to his advice—if it wasn’t shouted at you in a drunken rage, that is. But she didn’t intend to let her softer feelings for this woman keep her from doing whatever she must to protect Mitch and this haven he had made for her.

“So,” Lisa said to Vanessa as she rowed them across the lake, “wasn’t that interesting about the aurora?” Vanessa had been willing to come with her, once Lisa had promised she’d handle the oars. Mitch thought it was fine since he and Jonas were sitting on the patio and he had binoculars to keep an eye on them clear across the lake. Lisa figured she’d have to ask Ginger a couple of questions if she could get her away from Vanessa for a minute. As they crossed the water, a fitful breeze started up to ruffle the lake.