Fire and ice (22 page)

"Booze is the worm in the Bush apple," she repeated.

"Including Ualik," he said, nudging her back to the subject.

"Including Ualik," she agreed. "So I went back to the plane to repack it and wait for Jeff. You know how airstrips are practically the main streets of a lot of the older villages?" He nodded. "It's like that in Ualik, a lot of houses lined up along one side of the strip, and the town kind of meanders down to the Ualik River from there. I was walking down the strip past one of the houses. I heard this kind of whimper. I thought it was an animal. It wasn't. It was Tim."

Her face flushed with remembered fury. "He was curled up in a ball underneath the porch of his mother's house. Both of his forearms were fractured, both eyes were swollen shut, one of his front teeth was dangling by a piece of flesh, his nose had been broken, there were patches of hair missing from his scalp." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I got him out from under the porch and strapped him into the plane, and I went looking for Jeff. Jeff told me not to get involved, that it was a village matter, and took me to find the vipso."

A VPSO was a village police and safety officer, a local citizen trained by the state troopers to deal with minor infractions and call in the troopers when necessary. It was a great idea, especially given the fierce independence of most village councils, but often did not work out so well in practice. "You find him?" Liam said.

"Oh yeah, we found him," Wy said wearily. "He was home, mending nets. Give him credit --he came and looked at the boy and agreed we should fly him into the hospital here. Then we all trooped over to the house where I found the boy. He lived with his mother, and a guy she called his uncle, although later the vipso said he was no such thing." She shuddered. "The place was a pigsty, Liam. I mean it even smelled bad--kind of sour, like someone had barfed in every room and no one had ever bothered to clean it up. They were both drunk. The "uncle" still had blood on his knuckles. The vipso wouldn't arrest him."

"Probably his brother, or his brother-inlaw."

"Probably. All I knew at the time was that the mom came roaring out of the house and down to the plane and tried to jerk the boy out of it. He was all but unconscious by then, but he woke up all right when she started yanking on one of his broken arms. He started screaming, and then his grandmother showed up."

"His mom's mom?"

She nodded. "She's great; her name is Sarah. She's this little old lady who weighs in at about eighty pounds, all of it tiger. She grabbed Tim's mom by the hair and hauled her down the strip while we loaded him back into the plane and took off."

"I'm guessing that'd be Mrs. Kapotak," Liam said.

Surprised, she said, "Why, yes, how did you--oh."

"I was listening from the living room," he admitted without shame. She might as well know from the get-go that he refused to be kept out of anything.

"I see." She was silent for a moment. "Well, we brought him back here. He was in the hospital for three weeks. Turned out he had a lot of old scars, and DFYS got involved, and when it came time for him to come out of the hospital they looked around for somewhere for him to stay." She shrugged. "I'd flown him out, I'd been visiting him. I felt, I don't know, responsible for him in a way. And Sarah, she visited when she could coerce Bob into flying her over. We got to know each other, and she suggested I keep him. She said she would have taken him, but she'd already tried that once. Lasted a week before her daughter missed her punching bag and came looking for him."

"I would have thought she'd want him in a Native home."

She looked at him. "I'm a quarter Yupik, Liam."

He looked at her, noticing again the high, flat cheekbones, the slight golden cast to her skin, the almost imperceptible tilt to her eyes. As with Moses, if you didn't look for it you'd never see it. He shook his head. "I keep forgetting. Of course you are."

"Tim's half," she said. "His father was some pilot that blew through Ualik twelve years ago." She looked at him squarely. "It can be tough, very tough to be a mixed-blood in the villages. The elders, a lot of them are okay with it, but the next generation is all for tribal rights and sovereignty and purity of the species, or whatever they call it. They can make it very, very hard on someone who's part white."

There was a ring of certainty in her voice that Liam hadn't heard before. "I know you were adopted from one of the villages, Wy," he said. "Where were you adopted from?"

She smiled. "Not from Ualik, Liam. But close enough in spirit as to make no never mind." She sighed. "Well, anyway, the long and short of it is, I brought Tim home with me." She waved a hand at the house. "I have the room--it came with the business. I have the stability DFYS wants in foster parents." She smiled. "And I like him, and for some mysterious reason, when he's not playing the role of Teenagerus horribilus he will admit I'm fairly tolerable my own self." She met Liam's eyes. "And after you, after us, I was lonely, and I was drifting, and I needed a reason to get up in the morning."

"And Tim was it," Liam said.

"And Tim is it," she said firmly. "Understand one thing, Liam. Tim is with me for good. He is my son now. I've started adoption proceedings."

If she'd expected him to run screaming into the night, Liam thought, she'd picked the wrong guy. "Okay," he said equably. "If he's yours, he's mine, too."

"Liam," she said warningly.

"What?"

She took a deep breath. "Look, I admit, the attraction is still there. But you are still married to Jenny. I'm sorry, God I'm sorry, for her, and for you, but you can't divorce her, you simply can't." She straightened in her chair. "I'm actually glad that you've raised this--this situation, so we can talk it through. I'm adopting a child, Liam. The authorities are going to look very carefully at my private life. So far in Newenham, and for all they know for my whole life, I am squeaky clean."

So long as they didn't talk to John Barton. Liam smiled at her. "There hasn't been anyone since me, has there?"

"Liam!" she said, exasperated. "That's not the point, and you know it."

Their conversation was interrupted by the phone. "Don't answer it," Liam said, but Wy fairly snatched up the receiver. "What? No lie? Great! Okay, will do."

She hung up the phone and stepped around the counter to where a marine radio sat. She switched it on and turned to Channel 15. A voice came on, a male voice, dry, academic, reading from something. "I repeat, this is the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announcing a possible herring opener in the Newenham district for both seine and drift net at noon tomorrow, May fifth. Tune in to this channel tomorrow at ten a.m. for confirmation. Over and out."

Wy looked up, eyes bright. "Yes!"

"I thought you just had a herring opener," Liam said.

"We didn't make the quota," she said, grinning. "Fish and Game's giving us another shot at it." And then her smile faded. "Oh. That's right. I don't know if I'm fired or not. I haven't talked to Cecil yet."

As if on cue, the phone rang. Wy lifted the receiver. "Yes? Oh, hello, Cecil. Yes, I heard it. Yes, of course. Well, there is the 180--no, sure, I can get hold of another Cub, not a problem."

Oh really, Liam thought.

"Yes, of course I can find another spotter." She climbed up on a stool and swung one leg over the other, wiggling her foot. "I am still waiting on last period's check, Cecil. Yeah, I know it's only been a couple of days, and I know it won't be much, but I flew for you, I earned it, and I want it now. Um-hmmm. Sure. Fine. Okay, I'll be in the air at six. Right after I pick up the check at the cannery office. You can leave it there in an envelope for me, okay?" Wolfe's growl was audible even to Liam, and a satisfied smile spread across Wy's face. "You going out tonight? Okay, drop the gas at the usual spot on the beach, one up, two down, gas pump on the upright barrel. Okay? Okay." She hung up, jumped down from her stool, and pumped her hand once. Her face was exultant. "Yes!"

"What other Cub?" Liam said.

"What? Oh. There's an Anchorage dentist who parks his Cub next to mine. I keep an eye on it for him, service it when he calls to let me know he's coming down to hunt caribou or whatever."

"Does he know you're taking it up to spot herring?"

"Shit!" she said, elation fading from her face. "Where the hell am I going to find me a spotter between now and tomorrow morning?"

"Wy," Liam said carefully, "you once told me that herring spotting was the surest way to get yourself killed short of jumping off a cliff."

She shrugged this off, tapping one fingernail against the counter, eyes narrowed on some distant object.

"Wy, they had a herring opener in Prince William Sound two weeks ago," Liam said, voice rising. "One plane ran into another's float. He crashed, and it totaled the plane and killed him and his spotter."

"Uh-huh," Wy said.

"Wy," Liam said, rising to his feet and giving her the benefit of full volume, "last summer a couple of spotters had a midair in Kachemak Bay! What makes you think it won't happen to you?"

She blinked at him, drawn out of her absorption by his vehemence. When she spoke, her voice was low, reasonable, and utterly infuriating. "Liam, I own a flying business. People pay me to fly. I fly passengers, I fly freight, I fly supplies into hunting and fishing lodges and mining camps. I fly archaeologists out to old burial grounds and villagers out to fish camps and federal marine biologists out to count walrus. I even fly state troopers out to crime scenes," she added pointedly. "And when somebody like Cecil Wolfe, who has been high boat on the Bay for the last four years, when Cecil Wolfe calls and offers me a fifteen percent share-fifteen percent of three boats, Liam--then I fly for him." She stared at him challengingly, hands on her hips.

"Jesus, Wy, I'll loan you the money. I've got over a year's worth of back pay in the bank; you can have it, every dime."

"Who said I needed money?" she demanded hotly, and flung up a hand before he could answer. "Oh that's right, I forgot you eavesdropped your way into that little tidbit of information. Look, Liam, I'm spotting herring for Cecil Wolfe because he needs a spotter and that is part of what I do for a living. Is that clear?"

"Very clear," Liam said.

"Fine," she said. "Now where the hell am I going to find me a spotter?"

"Beats the hell out of me," Liam said, hoping she wouldn't find one in time.

"I'll go up with you, Wy."

Both adults turned to see Tim standing in the doorway. An empty Coke can dangled from one hand.

"Like hell you will," Liam said before he thought.

Wy glared at Liam. "Back off, this is my business." She turned to Tim. "Like hell you will."

"Why not?" Tim said. "I've been herring fishing before, on one of my uncle's boats. I haven't seen herring from the air, but I've spotted them balling up from the crow's nest. I know what to look for."

"Wy," Liam said. "You can't."

"Why can't she?" Tim said. "She needs a spotter. I've spotted before. What, you gonna spot for her instead?"

Liam stared into the boy's defiant, challenging eyes. "Yes," he heard himself say. "Yes, I am."

TEN

The ring of the phone woke him the next morning. He groaned and rolled out of the sleeping bag Wy had lent him and onto the cold, hard, not entirely clean office floor. The phone rang again, insistent. He reached up with one hand and fumbled around until he found the receiver. "Hello?" Shivering, he slid back inside the plaid lining and tried to generate a little body heat. "Oh. Hello, John."

"There's no easy way to put this, Liam," John said, wasting no time on politesse. "Wy needs money, and she needs it bad. She's running a tab with everyone--Chevron, NC, she took out a second mortgage on her business, which payments have been late a time or two. No wonder she decided to spot herring."

Liam was wide awake now. He said, "Did you find out why?"

"She's up to her ears in a court case, has been for a year. She's trying to adopt a kid. Did you know that?"

"I've met him."

"Jesus, Liam, did you know the kid's mother accused Wy of kidnapping?"

Liam sat up, sleeping bag falling away. "No, I didn't know that."

"She filed a complaint about nine months ago."

"What?" Liam tried to sort this out. "Only nine months ago? I don't get it. Wy's had him for two years."

With awful irony, Barton said, "Apparently it took that long for Mom to notice the kid was gone."

"Shit," Liam muttered.

"My sentiments exactly."

Liam ran rough hands through his hair. "How did you get all this stuff so quick? I figured it'd take you a couple of days at least. At least until Monday, when the state courts opened back up for business anyway."

"Deb--you remember Deb, my very own personal ferret--she called in a favor at TRW. Right away she picked up on all the checks Wy was writing to an attorney. She went over to the courthouse yesterday afternoon with a buddy of hers, who just happens to be one of the clerks of the court, and they dug up the case. The tapes had just been transcribed, and I spent last night reading them." John snorted. "Hamilton-Theodore Hamilton, you remember him, he presided over the Murdy murder trial-anyway, Hamilton seemed to actually have a clue, that day anyway, so he didn't give the kid back. But the bleeding heart bastard gave the mom a chance to dry out and straighten up her act." Barton snorted contemptuously. "So now Wy is suing for the severance of parental rights and full custody. It's costing her. It's costing her a bundle. And she's not doing real well at keeping up."