by Henry, Sue
“Yes, thanks, Ben, and you guessed right about the brandy. You, too, Alex.”
He tipped his laced coffee mug at her in response and nodded.
Clutching the mug, she warmed her hands as she sipped again and sighed with appreciation, clearly glad to have reached their current destination. “I’m pooped.”
“Hungry, too, I bet. We’ll eat in a couple of minutes.”
There was enough to satisfy them all, and after the trials of the day, freeze-dried or not, it tasted like a banquet.
“So, who’d you contact on the radio?” Jensen questioned, firing up his pipe to go with another cup of coffee.
“A high-flying friendly Piper. Woman doc, who got through to Kenai Flight Service Station for me, and offered medical assistance.”
“And now we haven’t any way to contact anyone else.”
“Right. But, at least, we know someone will show up around noon tomorrow. What are we going to do meanwhile?” Caswell had begun to collect the odds and ends of trash from the meal and hauled a large plastic bag from Jensen’s pack to put it in. Remembering, he retrieved the evidence bag full of litter he had collected that afternoon on the hill and threw it in with the rest.
“Where’d you get all that stuff?” Alex asked, always observant, and aware of Caswell’s penchant for picking up what others left behind, a habit he cultivated in himself as well.
Cas told them, pulling it back out to exhibit, as he continued, “I think some people leave it on purpose. The arrogance is astonishing.” As he turned it over, the ace of spades, face flat against the plastic, was momentarily visible in the light from the fire.
Rochelle jerked upright, pointing. “Wait. Stop. What was that?”
He twisted it back into view. “Just a lost playing card that someone dropped with the beer cans.”
“Let me see it. Give it to me. Please.” The strain in her voice caught the attention of all three of the others.
“What is it?” Alex asked, but she didn’t answer, intently focused on Ben as he opened the bag, felt for the card, and placed it in her impatient, grasping hands.
Carefully, with shaking fingers, she turned it over, examining both front and back. When she raised her eyes to look across the fire at Cas, tears were streaming down her cheeks, which were white with shock. “He was here,” she stated tensely, through stiff lips. “This was Norm’s. Where did you find it again? Wherever it was, he was there. See?”
“What do you mean, Chelle? How do you know?”
Her intensity was matched by the infinite stillness with which Jensen asked and then waited for her explanation.
“It was his symbol…like a motto…kind of a trademark. You know? He carried one all the time, had one on the instrument panel in his plane. It was sort of for luck, but it meant him, too. Other people, pilots, called him Ace half the time—gave him things with the ace of spades on them. I think his friend Bunker started it a long time ago. He bought these kind of cards and saved the ace of spades, threw the rest away. Only this kind.” She turned it over so they could see the red and white back with its complex, common pattern. “No one else would carry around just this ace. Don’t you see? Just Norm. He was alive. Where is he?”
Months of fear and not knowing filled her last question with shrillness and anguish. The rush of words stopped suddenly and there was stillness as they all sat looking at her, startled into silence. It was too big a coincidence not to be true, but could it be? And what exactly did it mean that Lewis had parted with his trademark ace?
20
EXCEPT FOR NORMAL NIGHT SOUNDS—THE SUBDUED hoot of an owl, something small in the bushes near the cabin—the makeshift camp was quiet, fire burned down to a few smoldering coals. Alex sat outside the remains of the old cabin in the dark between two trees, bundled in practically all the extra clothing they had, hands in his pockets, his jacket collar turned up around his ears, and an old fishing hat—rescued from the bottom of his pack—pulled down on his head, keeping watch. He was all but invisible in the dark.
With only three sleeping bags, and just in case their acquaintances of the afternoon decided to make an uninvited visit, the men had agreed that trading off as lookouts would be prudent. Jensen had volunteered for first shift, wanting to think more than he desired sleep, though it had been a long day for him, as well as for everyone else.
Shortly after Caswell had given Chelle the ace, she had grown silent, her thoughts turning inward. In a little while she had yawned and, suggesting sleep, had headed for a nearby stream with a towel and toothbrush. Alex had soon followed, not comfortable with letting her go alone, given the possibility of unpleasant company. He didn’t think anyone would come looking in the dark, but told himself it was better to be overly cautious than regretful.
An almost full moon had risen and shed a pale but definite light. His eyes quickly adjusted, so it wasn’t hard to walk, most obstacles clearly visible.
He met her coming back and stopped to ask a couple of questions.
“You’re sure about that card, Chelle?”
She looked up at him, her pale, oval-shaped face distinct in the moonlight, and nodded.
“Yes, Alex, I am. It’s Norm’s. Has to be.”
They were both silent for a minute, then Alex cleared his throat and gave her a long, level look, filled with sympathy and a hint of suspicion.
“You think he’s alive, don’t you?” he said gently. “Why?”
She said nothing at first, didn’t make a sound, just stared at him with wide eyes that slowly filled with tears again. Turning her face to look toward the dark within a stand of spruce to her left, she swallowed hard, clenched her teeth, and took a deep breath.
“I think he might be,” she replied carefully. “But, if he is, where is he?”
“You really don’t know?”
Her attention jerked back to Jensen with a gasp.
He watched her reaction closely, hoping to discover the truth about what she knew and didn’t know. She watched him watching her.
“You think I’m part of some conspiracy, Alex? What? What am I supposed to know?”
“I have no idea, Chelle. But I do feel there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Resentment showed plainly on her face, and anger, while she thought before she spoke.
“I do not know where Norm is. But if he’s dead, where’s his body? And why did he leave?”
“What makes you think he’s not dead?”
She frowned and broke eye contact, staring unseeing over his left shoulder, concentrating on her own thoughts. Uncertain.
“Just tell me, Chelle. Whatever you think you know, tell me. Maybe we can put this thing together, if you do.”
She sighed and suddenly gave in.
“Okay. There are a couple of things. Number one. If Norm was injured too badly in the crash to get his survival stuff out of the plane, how could he hike out? Why haven’t we found his body? He must be somewhere close. But your people looked and didn’t find it, right? And I didn’t find any trace between here and Lower Beluga Lake, did you?”
“No, but there’s a lot of space out there. In this wilderness he could be ten feet away from where we looked and we’d never find him. It’s too big.”
He shook his head.
“Number two.” She hesitated and glanced up apologetically. “I should have told you this before. He left a lot of money with Jeff, for me. I don’t know why. Just told him to give me the envelope if he was sure Norm wasn’t coming back for it. Those were his words…if he wasn’t coming back for it. Not if he was dead, but ‘…if he wasn’t coming back.’”
Alex thought about that for a minute.
“Anything else?”
“No. Well—yes, sort of. Small stuff. I have a funny feeling that he’s been around. I smelled his pipe tobacco once when I got home and opened the front door. The milk was in the wrong place in the refrigerator. Somebody else may have been in my plane. Nothing, really. Just odd things like that. Like he
was trying to tell me…” She stopped speaking and whirled around, turning her back to Jensen, but not before he had heard the sob and seen her face crumple.
Her unexpected reaction startled him into silence, but he reached out and swung her back around by the shoulders to face him. She refused to look at him, staring blankly into the trees again—then she wrenched herself out of his hands and stumbled away into the dark.
As quickly as he could move, he followed and caught up where she had stopped to lean against a tree, struggling with great, shuddering sobs.
“Chelle?” He laid a hand on her arm and she immediately turned into his arms, clinging like a child, burying her face in his shoulder.
All he could do was let her cry, get some of the pain out, knowing from personal experience that if Norm Lewis was dead, this was not only an ending, but also a beginning of something she would never completely forget or get over, and only come to accept slowly, a piece at a time, as she was ready. If he was alive—had chosen to leave her and go somewhere else, whatever the reason—she would have another kind of guilty agony to come to terms with, one that she would identify with personal failure, rightful or not.
As long as there was hope—any hope at all—she had been able to psychologically crouch behind it, huddle down protectively and shut out other possible outcomes, or look at them obliquely. Now she was close to being forced to face a much harder reality, one that could not be pretended or wished away, that must be looked at directly…and alone.
Sadly, there was absolutely nothing he, or anyone, could do or say to her that would truly make a difference in what she was feeling, or how she would cope with it. So he simply stood and held her, murmuring meaningless sounds of security and understanding against her hair, wondering why life seemed to be so hard for certain people.
After a long time, as her sobs gradually grew less intense and finally stopped, he slowly became aware of the living warmth of the woman he was holding. Arms around his waist inside his jacket, face against his now damp shirt, her utter stillness told him she had also realized that—to his confusion and embarrassment—his response had become unmistakably more than emotional.
He also knew that, though the timing and circumstances were inappropriate and awkward, he was not completely surprised at his body’s betrayal, that he had been aware of Chelle Lewis as a woman for some time, and had refused to acknowledge that awareness. How much of the equation was empathy, he had no idea. What did surprise him, when he attempted to step away from her and try to apologize somehow, was that she refused to let him. By merely clasping her hands behind his back, she held him against her and prevented their separation.
“Chelle…ah…no,” he stammered. “I’m sorry…didn’t mean…”
She lifted her face, details of her expression hidden in deep shadows, with the moon behind her, letting him sputter into silence as she waited. Then, raising herself on her toes, she kissed him full, if briefly, on the lips. “Thank you, Alex,” she breathed in his ear, let her arms fall to her sides, and stepped away from the embrace. Then, with a hint of resignation and bitterness, “Life just won’t quit, will it? It’s all right. Don’t worry. Thanks for reminding me.”
She dug a couple of tissues from a pocket, blew her nose, dried her face, and that was the end of it.
As they walked back to join Cas and Tobias, Alex wondered if Jessie would understand what had just happened…if he told her. He wasn’t sure he did, but thought that he didn’t have to and could live with the small amount of uneasy guilt he had brought on himself. He was ridiculously glad it had happened in the dark and would require no explanation.
But, reaching the shelter of the ruined cabin, he suddenly realized that, with the abrupt change of mental and emotional direction, he had not satisfied himself that he knew all of what Chelle was keeping to herself. In uneasy confusion he wondered if she were smarter than he had given her credit for. Not for the first time, a thread of suspicion floated through his mind. Was it possible that she was not just keeping something to herself, that Rochelle Lewis was somehow calculatedly involved in her husband’s disappearance? Had he just been very skillfully manipulated into abandoning a line of inquiry she would rather not pursue?
By one o’clock, Alex had still not come to a conclusion about Rochelle. He had quietly made a new pot of coffee and reviewed everything he had discovered or knew about the case in light of the recent events. He was ready to talk it over with Ben Caswell, when the pilot woke and came to take his turn as watchdog.
Cas, however, had something else on his mind. Filling a cup from the half-empty pot still warm on the remains of the fire, he came, yawning, to where Alex huddled, sat down on a rock, and leaned his .30-06 against one of the trees.
“You get everything straight with Chelle?” he asked casually.
“Mostly, I guess. Who knows?”
“Sure you’re not a bit less than professional in that direction?”
“How do you mean?” Alex asked a little too quickly.
“Don’t get defensive on me now,” Cas warned. “This is your friend here. I know you pretty well, remember? I just feel like I have to say it seems there’s more to your concern for her than usual. You two were gone for quite a while there, and you came back looking slightly scrambled and red around the ears. Thought I might mention it, that’s all. I like Jessie a lot.”
He took a sip of coffee and ignored Alex’s scowl to glance at the two figures still quiet in their bags near the dying fire.
“Look…” Alex started. “You’re wrong. Besides, it’s none of your…”
“I know that. Probably none of yours either. Chelle’s pretty fragile these days.”
Jensen hesitated, thinking. Then tried to honestly explain his feelings to the friend that he knew cared enough to risk his anger.
“Okay. Here it is. I hurt for her—know what it’s like. I’ve been there—in the pain and anger because you hurt and the one you’ve lost is responsible for it—in the guilt because of your anger, because you know it wasn’t their fault…or, maybe this time it was. I know how she feels—crazy. You don’t know what to do—or what you will do next. I wish I could help. That’s all.”
“Yeah,” Cas agreed. “I think that’s true—except for the last part. I see how you look at her every so often. How your voice changes when you speak to her. Different from the way you usually deal with people in her kind of situation. Come on, Alex. We can talk about it. You think she doesn’t know it? Sure she does. It’s instinctive. But what does it do to your other feeling that she may be involved in this? If she is, your interest may be useful to her.”
Alex, angry and embarrassed, also had to nod and give in.
“Damn, you’re good at getting to the point, aren’t you? You just take it all in, like a sponge, and knock it around till it makes sense.”
“Well?”
“Well…yes. You’re right. I think she may have done that tonight. But I also think she needs support.”
“Oh, I agree with that. I think she’s attracted by your attention and sympathy. The problem is that it’s all mixed. The way we guys deal with almost any kind of emotion involving a woman seems somehow to usually include sex. That’s not bad. People alone and in trouble tend to reach for security and healing support. Touching another warm human’s part of that. You know how people fall into bed with each other when their lives are threatened? Like in a war? I think she’s compensating for Norm with you. But I doubt she’d put it like that.”
“It’s more than that,” Jensen said, slowly. “I think she may be using the way I respond to her to keep me away from whatever she doesn’t want to talk about—whatever she’s not telling.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve got far enough to figure that out. Don’t make mistakes with that urge to take care of a female in distress. Big, brave trooper saves poor, helpless…”
Before he could finish, Alex had to laugh. It fit, at least part of it fit. “She’s not the most helpless of people, is she?�
��
“Nope. Neither is Jessie, if I dare mention her.”
“Also true.”
“Good. Enough said.”
Silent for a minute, Cas then changed the subject completely.
“That guy Tobias shot that you left in the tree. Who was he anyway?”
“Nothing on the body to say. Wish Ernie hadn’t shot him dead, before I had a chance to ask him a few questions. He was evidently in the Brooks Range camp, but we still don’t know for sure exactly who’s involved in all this—except Ed, if he is—or if they’re the same people who shot Karen Randolph, though I’d be amazed if they weren’t. Right?”
There was no answer from Caswell for a minute, as he turned it over in his head. When he spoke, it was in a tone so low it was almost a whisper. “What do you make of Tobias?”
Instantly alerted, Alex lowered his own voice accordingly.
“Hadn’t thought too much about him. Why?”
“You think he’s on the level?”
“You think he’s not?”
“Well, maybe. Maybe I’m just jumpy. But there’s something about him that keeps me all the time aware that he’s watching everything that goes on and picking up a lot of information.”
Alex paused thoughtfully.
“Tobias was pretty quick on the trigger this afternoon. But he obviously knows all about that sting and who was in on it.”
“Does he? From which side—stingees, or stingers? We only have his word that he spoke to Ivan, or that he’s who he says he is, for that matter. Did you get a good look at his ID?”
“Just a glance, upside down. Damn, Cas. You suppose he shot that guy so I couldn’t talk to him?”
“What I think is that we better watch him close and take turns staying awake tonight. There’s nothing we can prove—not a good idea to start something now—he’s got a gun over there—but I’m not inclined to trust anything at this point. Are you?”
“Nope.”
So they kept watch, or meant to. But the day had taken its toll on Alex. When Cas woke him again for his next two-hour shift, he was so groggy he walked around for the first fifteen minutes, afraid to sit down for fear of going right back to sleep. Quietly, he checked that Tobias was snoring and Chelle was also asleep in her bag. When he finally went to his post by the trees, he was unintentionally snoozing within half an hour.
