Whisper to the Blood (13 page)

She took all the honors, and Jim followed in her triumphant wake to a booth
in the corner as a muted buzz of conversation rose behind them. "Nicely
done," he said as they seated themselves.

She gave a slight shrug, looking over the rudimentary menu with a meditative
frown. "Mr. Devlin is unhappy at the price Global Harvest paid for his
mine holdings, especially after we announced our find. He is determined to make
a nuisance of himself until we buy him off."

"And will you?"

"The longer we ignore him, the lower his price will go." She put
down her menu and smiled at Laurel Meganack, a very pretty thirty-something who
arrived pen and pad in hand to take their order.

"Whose call is that?" Jim said.

She turned the smile on him, but this time he could see just how sharp all
those beautiful teeth were, and he wasn't surprised at her answer.
"Mine."

EIGHT

NOVEMBER

S
now had came late to the Park that
year, but winter had come early, three weeks of consistent below-zero
temperatures in early October. The Kanuyaq froze solid practically overnight,
and when it snowed twenty inches in twelve hours the first week of November the
river promptly took up its winter role of Park Route 1, carrying dog teams,
snowmobiles, and pickup trucks between Ahtna and the villages downriver, also
known as the 'Burbs. The ice got a little mushy nearer the river's mouth on the
Gulf of Alaska
, but farther north and
certainly as far as Niniltna it made for a fine highway, better, many said,
than the actual road into the Park. It was certainly wider, with room for many
more vehicles, as well as the occasional race, and its reach was much farther.

Early on the morning after Thanksgiving Johnny hitched the sled to his snow
machine and packed it with tent, sleeping bag, two different sets of five
layers of clothes, and everything on Bingley Mercantile's shelves with a high
percentage of fat content, including two large jars of Skippy peanut butter and
two more of strawberry jam.

"If you get in trouble and can't build a fire," Kate said,
"you can always use a spoon. Do you have your GPS?"

"For the third time, yes," Johnny said.

Kate tucked in some more fire starters and a second large box of waterproof
matches. "Have you got your PLB?"

"For the fifth time, yes," Johnny said.

"You checked the batteries?"

"And I have spares," Johnny said.

"You've got them in an inside pocket."

"Where they'll stay toasty warm and ready to use if I need them."

"Rifle?"

"Gleaned and loaded and strapped to the snow machine."

His patience was monumental and meant to be noticed, but she couldn't help
herself. "Extra shells?"

"Two boxes, Kate."

"Good." She prowled around the snow machine. "Have you got
that tool kit I put together?"

"In the sled."

"Extra gas?"

"In the sled."

"And Van's riding with you?"

"Yes, Kate."

"And Ruthe's got her own machine."

"Yes, Kate."

"Maybe I'll just ride to Ruthe's with you."

"Maybe you won't," Johnny said. "Maybe I've been driving the snow
machine back and forth to Ruthe's cabin for going on three winters now. Maybe I
know the way."

He was right. Still, Kate fretted. "You're not going to deviate from
your route, are you?"

"No, Kate. We'll be following the Kanuyaq a lot of the way. It's kind
of hard to miss." Sheesh. By contrast, Jim this morning had tossed him a
casual wave and said only, "Have fun, kid. Yell for help if you need
it," before clattering down the steps and heading off to work.

"You can take Mutt," Kate said.

"I really can't," Johnny said. "Van's riding with me. I'd
have to unload the sled to make room for Mutt. Then we'd have Mutt and nothing
to eat. Oh, wait, we could eat Mutt."

"Very funny. Ruthe could take her."

"Then Ruthe'd have to unload her own sled. We'll be fine, Kate."

"I know you will be," Kate said, not believing a word of it.
"Just, you know, just be careful, okay?"

"I always am."

"Ruthe's no spring chicken. Look out for her."

It was Johnny's considered opinion that Ruthe Bauman could outthink,
outshoot, and outsurvive better than any other sentient being in the Park, with
the possible exception of the woman standing in front of him, but he wasn't
suicidal enough to say so. "I will," he said instead, and climbed on
the snow machine.

"You're back Sunday evening before eight, or I call out the National
Guard!" she said, raising her voice to be heard over the engine.

"You got it!" He put the machine in gear and slid smoothly out of
the clearing, keeping the speed down to just short of flight. He received a
Mutt escort for a quarter of a mile, all the way to where the track to the
homestead met the road to Niniltna.

"See you in a couple a days, girl!" he yelled, and opened up the
throttle.

She barked until he was out of sight, and then trotted back down the trail
to find Kate shivering in the clearing. She butted Kate's thigh with her head,
more purposeful than affectionate, and with the full force of a hundred and
forty pounds of half wolf, half husky behind it it did not fail of effect. Kate
stumbled in the direction of the house, Mutt shepherding her with repeated
bumps and nudges and the occasional nip at the hem of her jeans, all the way up
the deck and inside.

"I hate being a mom," Kate told her.

Mutt went to curl up on her quilt in front of the fireplace. Kate went to
the kitchen to clean up after yesterday's turkey dinner. After that, she made
bread, measuring out flour and yeast and salt and water with a ferocious
attention to detail. Yesterday she'd made rolls, but there had to be bread for
turkey sandwiches.

Bobby, Dinah, Katya, Ethan Int-Hout (Margaret had walked out on him, again),
Dan O'Brien, and Ruthe had all been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at Kate's
house. Ethan had pled a prior invitation to Christie Calhoun's, whose spouse
had just walked out on her, and who was home alone with three daughters who
would do as well as any to stand in for Ethan's own. Jim, who didn't like Ethan
living even as close as the next homestead over, heaved a private sigh of
relief. Kate didn't notice, or pretended she didn't.

Ruthe had also declined, on the excuse of having to get ready for the
expedition. Johnny was carrying a tinfoil package of turkey and dressing with
him to Ruthe's.

Jim had been called out to a domestic disturbance, endemic over the holidays
and in the Park frequently fatal if some calming, uniformed presence was not
applied. This had turned out to make for a more enjoyable dinner, because Dan
had been wound up tighter than a bedspring when he walked in. The moment Jim
walked out the door he relaxed, leaning back suddenly against his chair as if
the wires holding him up had been cut.

Later, after everyone had gone and Jim had returned, Kate said, "What's
with you and Dan?"

Something stirred at the back of his eyes, but he said, "What do you
mean?"

She shook her head and got up from the couch. "Don't tell me if you
can't or if you just don't want to, but don't tell me nothing's going on."
She went upstairs, brushed her teeth, stripped, and got into bed.

He followed, climbing in next to her without speaking. They went to sleep on
their sides facing away from each other, but she woke up in the middle of the
night to find him parting her legs with his knee and sliding inside her in one
bold stroke. Something got off the chain then, and she rolled, forcing him to his
back. She nipped at his ear, his belly, the sensitive curve of his thigh, and
when she rose again he was red-faced and straining, his body one long pleading
arch. She mounted him this time, pinning his hands to the mattress, and rode
him furiously to an explosive culmination that left them both sweat-soaked and
gasping for breath.

There was more rutting than making love about it but it made for a solid and
dreamless sleep, and she woke the next morning if not with a song in her heart
then at least with a sense of well-being and renewal, which had lasted until
Johnny began packing to leave on his camping trip.

"If you find out that the herd has decreased," Kate had asked
Ruthe when informed of the trip, "and if you find out that wolf predation
is the cause, you're going to tell Dan about it, right?"

Ruthe didn't answer, but then Kate hadn't expected her to. Ruthe was
perfectly capable of effecting some predator control all by herself, thank you.
With twenty-ten vision and an upper body strength honed by decades of backwoods
life, she was one of the best shots in the Park. Certainly she was better than
Kate.

Kate kneaded the dough until it was smooth and elastic, covered the bowl
with Saran Wrap, and set it to one side to rise. She washed her hands and got
out her USGS map of the Park. Three of the four corners were missing and it was
coming apart at every crease. She really must order a new one.

She unfolded it on the dining table and located Niniltna and the approximate
location of Ruthe's cabin, about halfway between Niniltna and the Roadhouse.
Ruthe had told her that they were planning on following the Kanuyaq for ten or
twelve miles and then cutting overland on a heading east-southeast.

After some searching, Kate found the Gruening River, its source in the
Quilaks south of the Big Bump, running by tortuous twists and turns south by
southwest to drain into the Kanuyaq River just above the delta where the
Kanuyaq itself drained into Prince William Sound. She traced an imaginary line
from Ruthe's cabin to the
Gruening
River basin
, and sat back
with an air of having all her worst suspicions confirmed.

What no one had said but what was perfectly obvious to anyone with even
rudimentary map reading skills was that Ruthe's suggested route was going to
take them right over Global Harvest's Suulutaq Mine leases.

Jim had to fly to Cordova that morning to put Margaret Kvasnikof and
Hallelujah Smith on a plane to
Anchorage
.
They would be taking up residency in the Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility,
there to begin serving a four-year sentence for defrauding the Alaska Permanent
Fund of almost a quarter of a million dollars, by way of false dividend
applications in the names of forty-three imaginary children over a period of
five years. It was the biggest single PFD bust in state history and Kate's
biggest paying case to date, and every Alaskan loved to hate people who ripped
off the PFD. There had been significant airtime devoted to the conviction,
which hadn't done Kate's business any harm.

He handed the two felons over to their escort at
Mudhole
Smith
Airport
and waited till the Alaska Airlines 737 was wheels up before hitching a ride
into town with a local fisherman just back from a visit to the dentist in
Anchorage
. He could drive
his truck but he couldn't talk, so it was a quiet ride, which suited Jim. He
had a lot on his mind.

He knew why he'd been pissy lately. He was keeping secrets from Kate. Only
one secret, actually, but it was a whopper. He couldn't prove it in court, and
Willard didn't even remember it, but Jim was certain that Louis Deem had loaded
Willard like a gun and shot him off in the direction of the Koslowskis' house
that night with the intention of burgling the gold in the display case in the
living room.

He knew that the longer he went without telling Kate, the worse it would be
when he did tell her. Worse still would be if she found out on her own, but
since he was equally certain that he was the only one who knew, he wasn't
afraid of that. Much.

The thing was, she'd been a little pissy lately, too. No reason had surfaced
as to why. He wondered if he'd even have noticed it if they hadn't been all but
living together. He still rented his room at Auntie Vi's, but it was more an
overnight flop for when he had to work late than separate living quarters, and
the step increase he got for working in the Bush more than covered the expense.

No, he thought grimly, he was living with Kate, all right. All he kept at
Auntie Vi's was a change of clothes and a spare toothbrush.

It didn't frighten him as much as it once had. There was still passion, and
laughter, a shared sense of the ridiculous. They had a lot in common in work
and in play. He was a trooper, she was a PI. They both read recreationally,
anything and everything, and that was a bond right there. Kate, he knew,
thought better of people who read. He sometimes thought it was what had pushed
her over the top as far as he was concerned. Okay by him. They both liked to
talk about any and every topic under the sun, nothing sacred, everything fair
game from abortion to gay marriage to states' rights to
Alaska
seceding from the union and forming its own country with Siberia and the
western provinces of
Canada
.

They both loathed recreational exercise. Jim had been a little surprised by
that. Kate would think nothing of strapping on crosscountry skis to go over to
Mandy's if the snow machine wouldn't start, but ask her to go skiing just for
the fun of it and she'd look at you like you'd grown a second head. He supposed
it was natural for someone born to a Bush lifestyle, though. Anyone who could
fix a hole in a roof that had been punctured by parts falling off a Boeing 747
was bound to be in good enough shape for anything else that came along.

She was beautiful. Or maybe not beautiful, exactly. He didn't know anymore.
He knew he liked looking at her, waking, sleeping, laughing, loving, happy,
even pissed off, even if it was at him. He liked watching her work, that innate
curiosity that demanded satisfaction, that would brook no distraction until all
the questions had been answered.