KS00 - Nooses Give (2 page)

The next morning she fired up the Polaris and followed Bernie’s tracks up the trail to the road that connected Niniltna with Ahtna and the Richardson Highway. The Polaris was old and slow, and the twenty-five miles between her homestead and the village took the better part of an hour, including the ten-minute break to investigate the tracks she spotted four miles outside the village. A pack of five wolves, healthy, hungry, and hunting. The 30.06 was always with her and there was always a round in the chamber, but she stopped and checked anyway. One wolf was an appetite with attitude. Five of them looked like patrons of a diner, with her as the blue-plate special.

The tracks were crusted hard, a day old at least. Mutt’s sniff was interested but unalarmed, and Kate replaced the rifle and continued up the road. It wasn’t a road, really; it was the remains of the gravel roadbed of the Kanuyaq and Northwestern Railroad, built in 1910 to carry copper from the mine outside Niniltna to freighters docked in Cordova. In 1936 the copper played out, the railroad shut down, and locals began ripping up rails to get to the ties. It was an easy load of firewood, a lot easier than logging out the same load by hand.

The rails and ties were all gone now, although in summertime you could still pick up the odd spike in your truck tires. Twice a year, once after breakup, again just before the termination dust started creeping down the mountains, the state ran a grader over the rough surface to smooth over the potholes and the washouts. For the rest of the time they left itself to itself, and to the hundreds of Park rats who used it as a secondary means of transportation and commerce.

In the Alaskan bush, the primary means was ever and always air, and it was to the village airstrip Kate went first, a 4,800-foot stretch of hard-packed snow, much better maintained than the road. A dozen planes were tied down next to a hangar. Across the strip was a large log cabin with the U.S. flag flying outside, which backed up the wind sock at the end of the runway. Both hung limp this morning, and smoke rose straight up into the Arctic air from a cluster of rooftops glimpsed over the tops of the trees.

Kate stopped the snow machine next to the hangar, killed the engine, and stripped off her fur gauntlets. The round white thermometer fixed to the wall read twelve below. Colder than yesterday. She worked her fingers. It felt like it. Mutt jumped down and went trotting inside. A moment later there was a yell. “Goddamn!” Kate followed the sound.

A tall man in a gray coverall leaned up against the side of a Cessna 206 that looked as if it had enough hours on the Hobbs to put it into lunar orbit. The cowling was peeled back from the engine, and there were parts laid out on a canvas tarp. Both man and parts were covered with black grease. He scowled at her. “The next time that goddamn dog sticks her nose in my crotch from behind, I’m going to pinch her head off!”

“Hi, George.”

Mutt nudged his hand with her head. He muttered something, pulled a rag out of a hip pocket, wiped his hands, and crouched down to give her ears a thorough scratching. She stood stock-still with an expression of bliss on her face, her plume of a tail waving gently. She’d been in love with George Perry since she was a puppy, and George had flown Milk-Bones into the setnet site Kate fished during her summer vacations. Kate had been in love with George since he’d flown Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Morsels into that same site.

The bush pilot gave Mutt a last affectionate cuff and stood to look at Kate. “I heard you were back.”

She nodded in answer to his question, without offering an explanation. He didn’t ask for one. “Coffee?”

She nodded again, and he led the way into his office, a small rectangular corner walled off from the rest of the building, furnished with a desk, a chair, and a Naugahyde couch heavily patched with black electrician’s tape. The walls were covered with yellowing, tattered maps mended with Scotch tape. George went into a tiny bathroom and came out with a coffeepot held together with three-inch duct tape. He started the coffee and sat down at the desk. “So—how the hell are you, Shugak? Long time no see.” His eyes dropped briefly to the open collar of her shirt. “Long time. You okay?” She nodded. “Good. Glad you’re back anyway. Missed you.”

“Me too.”

“And the monster.” He rummaged through a drawer for Oreo cookies and tossed one to Mutt. The coffeemaker sucked up the last of the water, and he poured out. Handing her a mug, he said, “What brings you into town?”

She nodded at the wall. “Wanted to take a look at your maps.”

His eyebrows rose. “Be my guest.” Mug in hand, she rose to her feet and began examining the maps beneath his speculative gaze, until she found the right one. Pete Liverakos’s homestead was on Beaver Creek, about a mile downstream from the village. She traced a forefinger down the Kanuyaq River until she found it. The map indicated the homestead had its own airstrip, but then what self-respecting Alaskan homestead didn’t?

George’s voice sounded over her shoulder. “What are you looking for?”

She dropped her hand. “Just wanted to check something, and my maps are all about fifty years out of date.”

“So are mine.” He paused. “Dan O’Brien’s bunch just did a new survey of the Kanuyaq. Source to delta, Copper Glacier to Kolinhenik Bar. They did the whole thing this summer. I thought those fucking—excuse me, Mutt—those frigging choppers never would leave.”

“Have they got the new maps yet?” Though her voice was still harsh and broken, and according to the doctors always would be, the more she talked, the less it hurt. The realization brought her no joy.

He shook his head. “They’re printing ‘em this winter. They’ll be selling ‘em in the spring.” He paused. “Dan’s probably got the originals at Park Headquarters.”

She drained her mug and set it on the desk. “Can I bum a ride up to the Step?”

He set his mug next to hers. “Sure. The Cub’s prepped and ready to fly.”

· · ·

George took off hot, as straight up as he could with only 150 horsepower under the hood. The sky was clear and the air was still and it was CAVU all the way from the Quilak Mountains to the Gulf of Alaska. He climbed to 2,000 feet and stayed there, the throttle all the way out, a typical taxi driver whose sole interest was in there and back again. All rubbernecking did was burn gas. Twenty minutes later they landed on a small plateau in almost the exact geographical center of the Park. The north end of the airstrip began at the base of a Quilak mountain; the south end fell off the tip of a Teglliq foothill into the long river valley below. The airstrip on the Step was approximately 3,800 feet shorter than the one in Niniltna, and George cut the throttle the instant the Super Cub touched down. They roared to a halt ten feet from the front door of the largest building in the group of prefabricated buildings huddled together at the side of the runway. They climbed out, and Mutt vanished into the trees. “I won’t be long,” Kate said.

George nodded. “I’ll go down to the mess hall and scare up a free meal.”

Dan O’Brien had dodged alligators in the Everglades and a‘a in Kilauea with enough success to be transferred to the Park on December 3, 1980, the day after Jimmy Carter signed the d-2 lands bill, which added over a hundred million acres to already existing park lands in Alaska. Dan was fiercely protective of the region under his jurisdiction, and at the same time respectful of the rights of the people around whose homesteads and fish camps and mines and villages the Park had been created, which was why he was the only national park ranger in the history of the state never to get shot at, at least not while on duty. Ranger by day, he was a notorious rounder by night. He’d known Kate since she was in college, and he’d been trying to lay her for at least that long.

The news of her return hadn’t reached the Step, and he started around the desk with a big grin and open arms, only to skid to a halt as she unzipped her parka and he saw the scar. “Jesus Christ, Shugak,” he said in a shaken voice, “what the hell did you do to your neck?”

She shrugged open the parka but kept it on. “George Perry tells me your boys have been making some new maps of the Kanuyaq.”

Her harsh voice grated on his ears. He remembered the guitar, and thought of all the long winter evenings spent singing sea chanteys, and he turned his back on the subject and walked away. It might be the only thing he could do for an old friend, but he would by God do it and do it right. He did ask one question. “Mutt okay?”

“She’s fine. She’s chasing lunch down outside. About those maps.”

“Maps?” he said brightly. “You bet we got maps. We got a map that shows every hump and bump from Eagle to Anchorage. We got a census map that shows the location of every moose bull, cow, and calf from here to the Kanuyaq River delta. We got maps that show where every miner with a pickax sunk a hole more than a foot deep anywhere within two hundred miles. We got maps that show the spread of spruce beetles north of Ikaluq. We got—”

“I need a map that shows me any airstrips there might be around Beaver Creek.”

“Pete Liverakos’ place? Sure, he’s got a strip. About twelve hundred feet, I think. Plenty long enough for his Cessna, but he lands her at Niniltna.” His brow puckered. “Been curious about that myself. Why walk a mile downriver in winter when you can land on your own front doorstep?”

She nodded, although she wasn’t curious. She knew why. “Is there another airstrip further up the creek, say halfway between his homestead and Ahtna?”

He thought. “Yeah, I think there’s an old mine up there somewheres. Let’s take a look.” He led the way into a map room, a place of large tables and cabinets with long, wide, shallow drawers. He consulted a key, went to a drawer and produced a map three feet square, laying it out on a table with a double-jointed lamp bolted to the side. He switched on the light, and they leaned over the map. A stubby forefinger found Niniltna and traced the river from the village to Beaver Creek, and from there up the creek to the homestead. He tapped once. “Here’s Pete’s place. A twelve-hundred-foot strip just sitting there going to waste. And Ahtna’s up this way, to the northwest, about a hundred miles from Niniltna,” adding apologetically, “The scale’s too large to show it on this map.” He marked the spot with an eraser and produced a yardstick, laying it on the map, one end pointing at Beaver Creek, the other at the eraser. With his hand he traced the length of the yardstick. “And presto chango, there it is. Like I thought, it’s an airstrip next to a gold mine. Two thousand footer. Probably needed the extra to land heavy equipment. Abandoned in… oh, hell, ‘long about ‘78? Probably about the time Carter declared most of the state an antiquity.” He patted her on the ass and leered when her head snapped up. “Just think what you’d be missing if he hadn’t.”

“Just think,” she agreed, moving the target out of range. “Is the strip maintained?”

He made a face. “I doubt it. Never was much gold there to begin with, and too fine to get out in commercial quantities anyway. Myself, I think the mine was just an excuse to come in and poach moose.”

Her finger came back down the yardstick. “Beaver Creek runs right up to it.”

“Uh-huh.” He produced another map, with a flourish worthy of Mandrake the Magician. “This shows the estimated animal population in the same area.” They studied it. “Neat, huh? A couple moose moved in five years ago, been real good about dropping a calf or two every spring. There’s half a dozen pairs of eagles. Beaver, mostly, on the creek.” He snapped his fingers. “Sure. I remember one time I was at the Roadhouse and Pete brought in a beaver hide. Said he was running a trapline up the creek.” His lip lifted in a sneer. “Said he’d cured it himself. Shape it was in, nobody doubted it for a minute.”

He looked up from the map. The hazel eyes had an edge sharp enough to cut. He remembered a time when those eyes could laugh. “Hell of a trapper and hunter,” he said, “that Pete. That is, if you don’t count him joining in that wolf hunt the state had last year.” He grinned. “Nobody else does.”

“Why not?”

“He shot three inches off the prop of his plane, leaning out to draw a bead on a running female.”

“He wreck the plane?” Dan shook his head. “Too bad. Okay, Dan. Thanks.”

He followed her out of the room. “‘Okay’? ‘Thanks’? Is that it? Is that all I get? Of all the ungrateful—”

The front door shut on the rest of it.

George flew back to Niniltna by way of a stop at Ahtna to pick up the mail, fresh off the daily MarkAir flight from Anchorage. Kate waited by the Cub, watching cargo unload from the 737. Ahtna, at the junction of the Park road with the Richardson Highway, was a wet town, with a population of a thousand, and three flourishing bars. An entire pallet of Olympia beer was marked for the Polar Bar, a case of Jose Cuervo Gold and another of assorted liqueurs for the Midnight Sun Lounge. The 737 took off, and a Northern Air Cargo DC-6 landed in its place, off loading an igloo of building supplies from Spenard Lumber and a pallet of Rainier beer, this one marked for the Riverside Inn.

No Windsor Canadian in either cargo, but then she didn’t see Pete or his 50 Papa around anywhere, either. Once a week, Bernie had said. This wasn’t the day.

Ahtna, like Niniltna, was on the Kanuyaq. Downriver was Niniltna. Farther downriver was Prince William Sound. Upriver was a state highway maintenance camp. Last year during a spring storm a corner of the yard had crumbled into the river, taking a barrel of methanol with it. The barrel had floated downriver, to wash ashore outside Ahtna. Four high school kids, two sixteen, one fifteen, one fourteen, already drunk, had literally stumbled across it and instead of falling in the river and drowning tapped the barrel and died of poisoning.

George returned with the bag as the pallet of Rainier was loaded onto the back of a flatbed. He read her silence correctly and said, “They’re a common carrier, Kate, just like me. We fly anything, anywhere, anytime, for cash money. That’s how we make a living.”

“You don’t fly booze.”

He shrugged. “Not up to me. The town voted to go dry.”

“And if it hadn’t?”

He shrugged again. A half hour later they were back in Niniltna.