The Sting of the Bee

by K E Lanning

  Hank sat across from John. “I hope you folks didn’t run into an odd fellow on your trip—he had kind of a mean look. I don’t know if he came with the Land Rush, or what, but he appeared to be running from something.”

  John thought of the skeleton on the trail and the red cap. “He didn’t happen to have a red cap sporting a black-bear logo?”

  Hank’s mouth dropped open. “Yeah, I remember that cap. And the jerk stole some clothes and a Remington rifle, but that Remington was a piece of garbage, so good riddance—used to jam from time to time.”

  With a lopsided grin, John said, “The Remington seems to have jammed for the last time. We found a skeleton near the trail and his red cap stuck in the grass nearby.” John pulled it out of his knapsack, holding it up for them to see. “That guy and his son broke into Lowry’s house several months back.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Hank’s mouth dropped open, and he looked at Les. “I told you that guy was no good.” Turning back to John, he asked, “What happened to the son?”

  John grimaced. “He tried to shoot me when I got to Lowry’s house, so I’m afraid I had to shoot him.” He shrugged. “Neither father nor son pose a threat to the population of Antarctica.”

  “This calls for a drink!” Hank chuckled. With a scrape of his chair, he jumped up and went to a cabinet. He grabbed a bottle of Scotch and glasses. Hank poured out doses of whiskey for the adults with a side of water. Les poured a glass of sweet tea for Ginnie.

  Lowry lifted her glass. “To Karma—what goes around comes around.”

  “To Karma!” They clinked glasses.

  The warmth from the alcohol spread down John’s shoulders. Les returned to the stove, filled the bowls with chili, and placed them around the table. Everyone grabbed spoons and for several minutes the only sounds were clanging metal against ceramic and the crumbling of crackers.

  Lowry chewed, closing her eyes for a moment. “Mmm—this is wonderful.” With a nod, she grinned at the two miners. “We really appreciate your hospitality.”

  “You’re always welcome here, Lowry.” Hank lifted up his glass and made another toast, “To Nick Walker—may he be the next President!” He waved John and Lowry to follow suit. “Drink up!” He threw back the Scotch and fixed another.

  Lowry pushed her empty bowl toward the center of the table. Les started to refill it, but she waved her hand. “Thanks, Les, but I’m stuffed.”

  John sat back in his chair, his belly filled beyond capacity, and said with a sigh, “Thanks so much, that’s some of the best chili I’ve ever had.”

  Hank got up to clear the table and put the dishes in the sink. Lowry rose to offer help, but he waved her to stay seated. “I’m just putting them in the sink. You’re done in, Lowry.”

  Les poured another round of drinks. Hank brought a lantern and set it in the middle of the table. Hank sat and grabbed his drink. He lifted his glass for a final toast. “To Antarctica!”

  “Hear, hear!” They all cheered.

  Lowry sipped her whiskey. She leaned forward with worry on her face. “What do you two think of Durant?”

  Hank slammed his whiskey glass onto the table. “I hate that asshole.”

  Les nodded. “He’s a crooked bastard. If he can’t buy you off, he tries to intimidate you into voting for him.”

  Hank rapped his knuckles on the table. “Durant staged a fake fight at one of his own rallies—a band of ‘miners’ showed up and started a brawl, acting as if they supported Nick. They weren’t miners; I’d never seen any of them.”

  John drummed his fingers on the table. “Let’s face it, Nick is inexperienced. Durant’s team has the selling of a candidate like a ‘box of soap flakes’ down to a T. Nick’s campaigning against a prepackaged image of a confident, youthful Durant, with an onslaught of slick ads and social-media propaganda.”

  Lowry sighed. “Social media is filled with stories implying that Nick is a dimwitted dupe of the mining company, accusing Nick and the managers of sticking their fingers into the political pie of Antarctica.”

  Hank shouted, “That’s crazy! Nick fought against the mining company!”

  “God knows, cronyism is alive and well on Antarctica, but not from Nick.” With a tilt of her head, Lowry said, “I’ve tried to talk to Nick’s campaign manager, but they want to let ‘Walker be Walker.’ Those who don’t know Nick might buy Durant’s spin and fall directly into his trap.”

  Les nodded. “And it’s working. Yesterday a new poll came out. Nick and Durant are neck and neck.”

  Lowry brushed her hand across her lips. “God help us.”

  John glanced at Lowry’s pensive and exhausted face. “We’d better get some sleep for the journey tomorrow. Don’t you agree, Lowry?” John got up, and staggered, knocking over his chair.

  Hank laughed. “Scotch a bit strong, aye?”

  John grinned back at him. “Perhaps—with a chaser of fatigue.” He picked up his knapsack from the floor and draped it over his shoulder.

  Lowry stood and also swayed, steadying herself with the table.

  Hank guffawed. “Ginnie, you may have to help the folks to bed!” He handed Ginnie a lantern. Ginnie led the way toward the door of the cabin, while John steered Lowry with his hands on her shoulders. As he stepped through the door, he banged his head on the door frame, prompting a new round of laughter.

  They stumbled to the smaller stone cabin. John hung the light on a hook, while they laid out their sleeping bags. Ginnie pulled her sleeping bag over to the other side of the heater. “Good night all.” She waved.

  “How is your head?” John asked.

  “Much better.” She crawled into the sleeping bag and looked at them with a tired smile. “I’ll never forget how you and Lowry saved my life today.”

  “We love you, Ginnie.” John said softly.

  Ginnie turned toward the wall, shifted in the bag for a moment, then fell asleep.

  John and Lowry arranged their bags near the warm stove. He brushed against Lowry’s hand. He drew in a breath, and stood motionless, staring at her in the candlelight.

  He reached out and caressed her cheek. “I believe Ginnie has given her approval of our relationship,” he whispered.

  Lowry smiled. He pulled her to him and tenderly kissed her eyebrows. He moved down her cheek and she tilted her head back, parting her lips. He dived into the invitation with a kiss. Then he gripped her shoulders and pressed his mouth hard against hers.

  They drew apart and he brushed her hair back, whispering in her ear, “Lowry, I love you.” He clutched her hand, then turned it over and kissed her palm. John gazed at her. “Let’s get married.”

  Lowry dropped her eyes. A look of anguish crossed her face. Then with a faint smile, she met his eyes. “I love you, too, John.” With a shake of her head, she whispered, “But I can’t think of marriage right now—I’m too nervous about the campaign.” She touched his arm. “Let’s talk after the elections.”

  Lowry would be on the road with Nick for the next several weeks.

  John narrowed his eyes, and stroked the tip of her nose, trying to not show his hurt feelings.

  His jaw set, John turned away from Lowry. Silently, she slipped into her sleeping bag. He knelt by the heater and shoved more chips into the little stove. The flames leapt up with new life. He slid into his sleeping bag, feeling her eyes on him.

  The room became quiet. The caribou chips slumped in the heater with a soft crush.

  He faced away from Lowry and clenched his fist against the searing pain in his heart. She hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic. Had Ginnie been right? After all, he didn’t really know Lowry. He heaved a sigh. Perhaps the time wasn’t right for marriage—but when was there ever a “good” time to smash two headstrong personalities together?

  John stared at the rock wall of the cabin. The flickering light from the stove danced on the chiseled faces of the cold stone, alive with sardonic grins and winking eyes.

  But what if . . . she didn’t truly love him?
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  Part III

  The self-inflicted thrust of the blade is the greatest betrayal.

  CHAPTER 28

  Lowry awoke to the blare of the alarm. “Shut up!” she yelled, and the alarm quieted. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Her eyelids drifted close. The snooze jangled, louder. “Okay!” She threw the covers back and pushed herself into a sitting position on the side of the bed. With deep breaths, she tried to crank up her adrenaline. It had been a long three weeks of campaigning with Nick—she was exhausted.

  Yawning, she scratching her head. She stood and looked into the mirror above the chest of drawers. You look like hammered shit. She dragged on her robe and slipped into her house shoes, then stumbled into the kitchen. She zapped some coffee and noticed a message from John. With a smile, she touched his face on the phone, and his image popped into 3D.

  John waved. “Lowry, I’m glad you’re back. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m helping at the polling station for the few primitive souls, like me, who don’t vote online.” He gestured thumbs up. “Best of luck to Nick tomorrow.” A sideways smile came onto his face. “I’ve missed you. Let’s plan a date after the campaign circus leaves town.”

  She caressed the image of his face and crossed her fingers, muttering, “We’ll need the luck.”

  As a part of his effort to barnstorm Antarctica, Nick had attempted to get a plane to visit Sheik Sahail’s community, but conveniently, any vehicle which could access the Dry Valleys either by air or land was in “maintenance repairs,” or “under contract” to a private company.

  Despite Durant’s onslaught of dirty tricks and negative ads, the final polls had edged into their favor. Durant had the money to run a world-class campaign, but Nick appeared to have the broader base with the mining population and those perceptive homesteaders who felt Durant’s hands up their proverbial skirts.

  Lowry set her cup next to the phone and sighed, gazing at the image of John’s face on the screen, frozen in place with his sarcastic, lopsided smile. Beneath the smile, John’s pensive face revealed the tension of unresolved issues between them.

  She tapped the edge of her cup and stared out of the window. When they had returned to the homesteads, she went into a full-court press on Nick’s campaign. She and John had seen each other only one day in Amundsen. They had bumped into each other, and she had suggested lunch, but all through the meal, he had been aloof, perhaps hurt that she didn’t jump on his marriage proposal.

  Lowry swept her hand through her hair. Faced with the crunch of Nick’s impending campaign, her mind was too tangled to focus on marriage and the impact on Ginnie. She had to concentrate all of her energy on electing Nick. She finished her coffee and swiped John’s image away with a caress of her finger. Repairs to the relationship are in order after the campaign.

  With a sigh, she wandered to the sink and put the cup in the dishwasher. She grabbed a bagel, dropped it into the toaster oven, and pulled the cream cheese from the fridge. She turned to the monitor and said, “Local news.” The weather report aired while she poured a glass of orange juice.

  An EXCLUSIVE banner pulsed across the bottom of the screen, with a reporter standing in front of the Nick Walker campaign headquarters. Lowry snapped her head around at the sight of a crowd gathered in front of the building.

  The camera panned to a newswoman, shouting over the noise of the crowd, “The big story of the day is the scandal exposed this morning: Nick Walker had an illicit affair, thirty-five years ago with the wife of his brother, Duff Walker, our appointed governor of Antarctica. We’ve been told that Lowry Walker is really Nick’s illegitimate daughter.”

  The newswoman’s eyes glistened as she told the story of Nick’s betrayal of his brother. Lowry’s mind went blank as the devastating words spilled over her. Vacantly, she grabbed the hot bagel, burned her fingers, and threw it across the room.

  The broadcast continued, but the blood rushing to Lowry’s head blocked out the words and she saw only the newswoman’s lips moving. Maybe I’m dreaming. She flipped to another channel and, again, the devastating report was aired.

  She inhaled deeply and her brain began to function again. So this was what Durant had in his back pocket. But how the hell did he dig up the story? Durant had timed the exposure perfectly to throw a bomb into the campaign, hoping Nick couldn’t recover in time. What a catastrophe!

  Lowry blinked as she stared at the screen. She froze and her mouth fell open. She knew who told Durant the story—Duff. As sad as it was, there was no one else who could have or would have. The sickness never ended with him. It just boiled, then erupted like Old Faithful. You could always count on it.

  She jerked when the phone rang. A deadness sank into her as she stumbled over to answer it.

  It was Nick. Taut lines creased his pale face and his green eyes stared at her, protruding like a man being strangled. He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice hoarse with emotion, “I have never lied to you, Lowry, and I never will. Your mother and I had . . .” He fumbled for the right word. “. . . Uh, an encounter, before I shipped out to Antarctica.” His face wilted with the confession. “Your mother shone like a firefly with her beauty and wit, and in my loneliness, I was drawn to her light.” He looked away. “In a terrible betrayal of my brother, I fell in love with her.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes and his head snapped up. “I only meant to comfort her after a fight with Duff, but when I touched her, something lit between us.” With a shake of his head, he blinked the tears back. “But it was my fault, I took advantage of her raw emotions and need for love.”

  Lowry stared into his eyes. “Nick, are you my father?”

  Nick raked his hair away from his face, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Lowry. I just don’t know. I’m sorry.” With clenched hands, he wiped the tears from his face. He heaved a sigh and collapsed back into the chair, drained of emotion.

  Lowry fell back into the chair. She had known there was something of a triangle between Duff, Nick, and her mother, but it was a bombshell to her that she might be Nick’s daughter—and illegitimate to boot. God knows that was the least of her problems, but how to process this shift between fathers was beyond her mental capabilities at the moment.

  Dazed, she stared out the window. Nick had been more of a father to her than Duff had ever been. Even with the political nightmare that Nick’s betrayal might be, her heart lifted with the thought that the poisonous Duff wasn’t her father after all. Every family had secrets, but not every family uses those secrets for personal gain. And in Duff’s case, selling those secrets to the highest bidder.

  “Lowry, are you okay?” Nick’s worried face gazed at her.

  Lowry smiled sadly. No matter how the family crashed and burned with this revelation, they had to hope that the public didn’t turn from Nick and vote for Durant.

  With a sigh, she said, “The problem now is how to defuse this. We’ll have to have a press conference as soon as we can. You must tell them exactly what you told me. The truth is the only way out. And hope to God nobody cares who did who, thirty-some-odd years ago.”

  She paused and asked in a tired voice, “Nick, do you think it was Duff who leaked the story to Durant?”

  “I don’t know, Lowry. But Durant is the type of person to dig through years of garbage, sniff up old ashes, and make fire with it.”

  “I’ll be by your side at the press conference.”

  “Thanks, Lowry.”

  She hung up the phone and wilted in the chair, her stomach twisted in nausea. The phone rang again and John’s face appeared on the screen. She closed her eyes and opened them again. News travels fast. She swallowed hard and pushed the “I’ll call you back” button. Lowry staggered up and walked to her bedroom to get ready to face the lions.

  Durant had found the key to the closet with the rattling skeleton.

  CHAPTER 29

  Lowry waited in the dark. Like when she was a child, she had slipped sil
ently through the back door into Duff’s office. She wasn’t even sure why she had come. The lights were dim, but she made out his form, sitting slumped over his desk. She didn’t tell him she was there. A childish fear stopped her from approaching him.

  She blinked at the clinking sound of glass as Duff filled the tumbler with booze. His head popped back and he downed the whiskey, then with a clunk he dropped the glass onto the desk. Exhaling, his head sagged into his hands.

  Lowry shivered, recalling his frightening stories of cowering in the shadows as a child, hiding from his own father, who prowled for someone to torment as he stumbled through the house after a night of drinking. A little boy, helpless to fight the man who should have loved him.

  She started at the sound of the front door opening, but couldn’t see who entered—she didn’t dare move or she might be discovered. Duff raised his head from his hands and straightened in the chair. He looked toward the door as if waiting for the curtain to go up on the final act of the farce. In profile, she saw the sick smile on Duff’s face. He recognized the intruder. With a clip, clip, clip the footsteps came closer. Out of the shadows, a person stepped into the spotlight. Her heart beat a staccato. It was Nick.

  Nick squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The revolving hologram of the Earth cast gyrating shadows on his withered face. With a smirk, Duff stood, and stepped to the front of the desk. Then he leaned back on it and faced Nick. She bit her lip at the chill of Duff’s voice.

  “I knew you’d come.”

  Nick’s nose wrinkled as he leaned away from the smell of booze.