Whisper to the Blood (36 page)

Kate was instantly on her feet. She grabbed both his hands and slipped a
plastic tie over his wrists with the end already thoughtfully threaded through
the clasp. She yanked on the free end and it tightened up instantly and very
nicely indeed.

It was great when a plan worked out.

Dead stared at his bound hands in stupefaction. "What the fuck?"

The door to the cabin crashed open. Kate looked at Mutt and signaled.
"Go."

Mutt went around one side of the cabin and Kate went around the other, just
in time to see Gus and Icarus Johansen emerge, jostling each other in the
doorway to be first to their brother's aid. Both were holding rifles. Ick was
facing Kate, Gus behind him, and behind Gus Mutt let loose with another
chilling howl. "Ou-ou-ouooooooooo!"

"Fuck!" Ick said, or maybe he screamed. "Shoot it, Gus, shoot
it!"

And then he saw Kate. After one incredulous second, his shoulders slumped.
"Oh, fuck me," he said.

Mutt jumped Gus and his rifle went flying. Gus fell backward on Ick, who
stumbled and fell to one knee. Kate took one step forward, got a toe beneath
the stock of his rifle, kicked it out of his hands and into the air, and caught
it neatly before it hit the ground. She raised it smoothly to her shoulder,
looking down the sights at Ick's face, lit reasonably well from the sullen glow
of the fire streaming out the open door of the cabin. Some part of her noticed
that Ick had a shiner to rival Matt Grosdidier's, two of them, in fact.
"Kate?" Ick said. "Kate Shugak?"

"Ou-ou-ouOOOOOOOOO!" Mutt said, standing with her paws on Gus's
shoulders and sharp, gleaming teeth right down in Gus's face. Gus seemed
incapable of either speech or movement. A moment later the acrid smell of urine
filled the air.

"And that'd be Mutt," Ick said.

Dead came shuffling around the corner of the cabin, wrists still bound in
front of him, pants down around his ankles, weenie wagging in the wind and
accompanied by a strong smell of excrement. "Ick? Gus? Are you okay? What
the hell's going on?"

From behind the cabin came a long, descendiary groan, followed by an even
louder, splintering crash.

Ick Johansen started to laugh.

Kate raised her right foot. "Do you like your teeth where they are,
Ick?"

Ick stopped laughing and started to whine. "Ah, c'mon, Kate. It's
funny."

"You know what isn't funny?" Kate said. "Your dad, starving
to death in his own cabin because his asshole brats can't be bothered to feed
him." She could feel her hands tightening on the stock of the rifle, and
the smile faded from Ick's face.

Mutt's head raised from Gus's throat, ears pricking. From the next mountain
over came the lonesome, faraway cry of a wolf. There was another, and then
another, until the pack was in full chorus. It also sounded like it was coming
in their direction.

Kate looked back down at Ick, and even in the faint light cast through the
cabin door she could see him start to sweat. Like all Park rats, he'd heard the
story about Kate Shugak and the bootlegger. "Jesus, Kate, you wouldn't.
C'mon."

She had zip-strips for Ick and Gus, too, and she used them. She picked up
Gus's rifle and tossed it into the nearest pool, where it made a muted splash.
Ick's rifle followed. "Mutt," she said. "Guard."

Mutt returned her attention to Gus and snapped agreement, canines gleaming.
Gus whimpered.

Kate turned and headed down the little canyon.

Ick's voice followed her out of the clearing. "Kate? C'mon, Kate! Come
back here! Jesus, you can't leave us like this, Kate! At least leave us a
rifle!
Kate!
KATE!"

TWENTY-THREE

J
im was standing in the doorway of the
trooper post when she drove up at noon the next day with the Johansen brothers
in tow. Literally in tow, as she had packed the three of them into their
sleeping bags and tied them into their individual snow machine sleds and
hitched the sleds on behind her own in a train. The combined weight was a
strain on the engine of her machine, which had not been built to pull that many
pounds at once. Although the slow uphill slogs were more than made up for in
the exhilarating downhill runs, when she had to go as fast as possible so the
sleds didn't overtake her and the whole shebang didn't jackknife and kill them
all.

Ick, Dead, and Gus, funnily enough, didn't appreciate the need for speed,
instead having somehow gained the impression that she was hoping to kill the
three of them before they could be put safely under arrest. They screamed a lot
at first, and when that didn't do any good they closed their eyes and waited
for death.

A fifth sled hitched last carried evidence, items of interest found in the
hot springs cabin that Kate felt might be identified by the Rileys and the
Kaltaks and the Jeffersons and Gene Daly as having been stolen from them during
the attacks. Since several boxes, now mostly empty, had been clearly marked in
black Sharpie RILEY
-
RED RUN and KEN KALTAK
-
DOUBLE
EAGLE
-
WAIT FOR PICKUP
,
she felt fairly
confident they would be.

They acquired something of a parade as they came through Niniltna, and Ick
didn't think anything was funny anymore. He was swearing a blue streak by the
time Jim got him out of his sled, although that turned out partly to be because
he'd had to pee for the last twenty miles and bouncing up and down on the sled
over bumps and berms was not kind to the kidneys. Gus and Ick, of course, were
already past praying for in that direction, and Jim recoiled when he unpeeled
them from their sleeping bags. "Jesus, Kate," he said.

"I know," she said, "sorry, Jim."

She didn't sound very sorry. She didn't look it, either. He finished
extricating the Johansens and at arm's length marched them one at a time
through a cheering crowd of Park rats. They had all heard the story of the attacks
on the river and had correctly deduced the reason for this morning's perp walk.

"I could cuss you out myself," Jim said to Kate inside.
"They're going to smell up my post something fierce."

Kate, feeling much calmer now that she'd taken some direct action against
somebody deserving, yawned widely, jaw cracking, and said with a lazy stretch,
"Quit whining. I got your guys for you."

"Holy shit," Howie Katelnikof said, wide-eyed as Jim hustled the
boys into the facing cell. "It's a three-Johansen salute." When he
got a better look at them his eyes went even wider. "Jesus. What'd they do
to piss you off, Kate?"

Kate didn't deign to answer. Howie got a whiff of the brothers then and took
a step backward, nose wrinkling. "Jeeeeeesuz, I can feel my lungs melting
down. Come on, Jim, you can't lock me up with that smell."

In fairness, Kate couldn't blame him. Weeks spent holing up at the hot
springs without soap or running water had left the Johansen brothers smelling
pretty ripe before Kate got there, and from what she'd seen in Tikani, she had
some question as to their fidelity to personal hygiene anyway. Their subsequent
reaction to apprehension hadn't helped.

"Where'd you find them?" Jim said, closing the door to his office.

"The hot springs."

"Really. Heard about them. Never been there. Kinda thought they were a
myth."

"No," Kate said, pulling first one arm past the opposite shoulder,
and then the other. Her joints popped in protest. "They're real all
right." She jumped up to grab the trim over the office door, and hung
there, letting her spine unkink, while she counted to thirty. "Hard to
find, is all, and you can pretty much only get there in winter, unless you want
to spend a month bushwhacking through the undergrowth with a machete. I'll take
you up there sometime if you want to see it."

"Sure." He sat down. "They confess?"

She relaxed into the chair opposite him. "To what?"

"To anything," he said dryly. "They look pretty beat up,
Kate."

"I know," Kate said. "I didn't do that."

"What did you do?"

She told him. When he stopped laughing he said, "Okay. You didn't whale
on them. Who did?"

She gave him a look.

"Yeah," he said, "we don't have to talk about that right now.
Or maybe ever. So did they confess to anything?"

She shook her head. "Ick shut up Gus and Dead. You should probably
separate them."

"I've only got two cells."

"Not my problem," she said. "My work here is done."

"Need a statement." He opened a document on his computer and gave
her an expectant look. She sighed and started talking. Half an hour and some
questions later he printed it out and she signed it. By way of payback she made
him type up an invoice from Kate Shugak to the Department of Public Safety for
services rendered and made him sign it in front of her. "Okay," she
said, rising to her feet, "absent any further objection, I'm headed for
the barn and a hot shower and a hot meal, and then I'm going to bed."

"Kate."

She turned, hand on the doorknob. "What?"

"Nice job." He smiled.

She smiled back, smug. "I know."

Outside, enough of the crowd remained to offer up another round of applause,
approving comments, and pats on the back. Mutt stalked next to her, tongue
lolling out in a canine grin, receiving her share of adulation with less than
appropriate humility. George Perry was there, laughing out loud, Demetri
Totemoff with one of his rare smiles creasing his dark face, Laurel Meganack
and her father, who looked less than thrilled, Old Sam, Keith Gette, and Oscar
Jimenez. Kate realized that they must have hit town the same time as the mail
plane. At the edge of the crowd she saw the four aunties, huddled together,
chirping away at each other in whispers. Auntie Joy saw her looking at them and
the usual radiant smile faltered at Kate's expression. She said something and
the other three aunties turned to look at Kate.

She returned their gaze for a long moment, her eyes traveling from one face
to another. Auntie Edna, the bully, strong, unyielding, always right, always
willing to say so, always with that anger simmering away beneath the surface.
Auntie Balasha, the sentimentalist, soft, tender, a heart made for
unconditional love. Auntie Joy, the idealist, who saw good in everything,
impervious to evil.

And Auntie Vi, the independent businesswoman, the entrepreneur, the
capitalist, the hard-eyed realist who knew stability, accountability, and
transparency were essential to increase business to, from, and within the Park
and who knew they would come only with a steady hand on the Park's tiller, and
so much the better if it was the hand of her choice.

All four pairs of eyes bored into her back as she mounted her snow machine,
called to Mutt, and left.

She didn't go as advertised, though, instead cutting through the village and
following the track about a quarter of a mile downriver. She pulled up in front
of a two-story house with blue vinyl siding, black shingles, and a deck the
width of the house that faced the river. Safely above its frozen surface, a
handsome drift netter called the
Audra Sue
sat in dry dock.

There were four snow machines in the shed at the side of the house, along
with some other interesting items. Kate climbed the stairs to the deck and
banged on the door. She had to repeat the action a second and a third time
before Matt Grosdidier, his shiner somewhat less spectacular now, poked his
head outside. "Kate?" he said, sounding dazed. "What the hell
time is it?"

"Late enough to come calling," she said, shouldering her way
inside. "Get your brothers up." He stared at her, his hair flattened
on one side and a pillow crease on his cheek. "Go on," she said,
"go get them. This won't take long."

She gave him a hard look that propelled him upstairs, and a moment later she
heard him thumping doors and calling his brothers' names. In the meantime, she
looked around her at the chaos that was the Grosdidier en famille. Their front
room looked like a larger version of Johnny's room. She shuddered.

In short order they were assembled before her, wary at this home invasion
and assuming an early morning grouchiness to cover it up.

Without preamble she said, "Whose idea was it to go after the
Johansens?"

Luke, Peter, and Mark looked at Matt, who grinned. "Don't know what
you're talking about, Kate."

"I'm not looking to jam you up here," she said. "I'm just
looking to fit in another piece of the puzzle. You four are looking like ten
rounds with Muhammad Ali. The Johansens are looking like fifteen with Mike
Tyson. Seems reasonable to suppose the two groups might have encountered each
other recently."

Luke, Peter, and Mark looked at Matt again. It wasn't that they couldn't all
speak, it was just that Matt was oldest. It was habit, mostly. He'd been the
only one of legal age when their father's boat had gone down off Gore Point
with their mother on board, and he'd raised the other three, seeing them safely
through puberty and high school, working as a deckhand until he'd saved enough
money to buy a boat so he could work his father's drift permit with his
brothers as deckhands.

She looked them over dispassionately. They were an attractive bunch, medium
height inherited from their French father, black hair inherited from their
Aleut mom, ruddy outdoor skin and dark, merry eyes. They were loud and
boisterous and good-humored, and they fought each other with enthusiasm, until
one was attacked by some clueless other, and then the four of them united to
annihilate him with even more enthusiasm. They were fair about it, they
cheerfully patched up whoever they beat the snot out of, but Jim Chopin had
been known to observe that these occasional contretemps appeared to be more a
matter of drumming up EMT business than of wreaking vengeance.