Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Dana Stabenow

  She stood where she was, fingertips making circles in the water. On the opposite side of the pond, a lone brant honked at them and then was silent. “I don’t know. He’s my husband.”

  “He shouldn’t hurt you,” he said, and he was filled with a sudden and welcome anger. “Nobody should hurt anybody.”

  She looked at him then. “Somebody hurt you, too.”

  “My mother.” He swallowed, and said as much as he could. “My uncles.”

  She nodded, understanding without words.

  “Nobody should hurt anybody,” he repeated, and he turned and dived, as if the water could wash away all the bad memories.

  They paddled around the pool, quietly at first, until he accidentally splashed her and, after a moment’s surprise, she retaliated. The battle was on, and before it was over a good third of the pool had wound up on the bank. It was an hour before they came out, giggling and shoving like a couple of kids.

  With her wet hair sleeked back from her face and her skin flushed and damp, she looked like she was barely old enough for the sixth grade. He finished dressing first and tapped her on the shoulder. “Tag, you’re it!”

  “No fair!” she yelled, and charged after him.

  They chased each other down the path, laughing, startling ducks out of the brush at the side of the river and an otter family into the water. She tagged him and surged ahead, and he pounded after her, skidding around a corner and running into her full tilt where she’d stopped abruptly at the end of the path. They both crashed to the ground at the edge of the trees.

  “Shh,” she said, putting her hand over his mouth when he would have yelled.

  He looked up and saw.

  Bill and Moses. On the porch. Without any clothes on. Bill was on top, her hair a silver curtain around Moses’ face. His hands were on her hips, muscles flexing in his arms as they moved together. They were so caught up in each other they didn’t hear anything else.

  Tim’s jaw dropped and he turned to Amelia. Whatever he had been about to say was halted by the look on her face.

  She held one finger to her lips and crept backward, one noiseless movement at a time. Tim followed. She halted in a clearing, out of earshot of the cabin.

  He stood still, hands dangling, awed, confused, aroused.

  “Is that how it’s supposed to be?” she said, her face bright with wonder.

  He told the truth. “I don’t know.” Liam had come into his mother’s life only five months before. He’d caught them a few times in an embrace that was more than a kiss, but nothing like this.

  “She was really liking it.” Her voice rose to a squeak. “She was ontop.”

  “Yeah,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t get the picture out of his mind, the man and the woman doing the nasty, only it hadn’t looked nasty, or sounded nasty. It had looked-well, he didn’t know how it had looked. All he knew was that it was nothing like what he had grown up hearing from the other side of the curtain. His body stirred. “Yeah,” he said again, his voice husky.

  She looked at him, suddenly aware.

  They reached for each other at the same time. He was almost as tall as she was, and glad for it. She smelled good. She felt good. She tasted better than good, although their teeth kept bumping. He was afraid of hurting her, and she was afraid of being hurt. She looked a little like Christine, which helped him, and he was younger and smaller than she was, which helped her.

  In the end, she stared up at him in amazement. “It doesn’t have to hurt,” she said.

  He shifted on his elbows, careful not to let his whole weight lie on her, mindful of her bruises. “I guess not.”

  She moved experimentally. “There’s something else, though.”

  “Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes and adjusting his body to match with hers.

  “Tim?”

  He opened his eyes. “What?”

  “Did you-?”

  “Yeah,” he said, reddening.

  “Was it-did it feel good?”

  He tucked his hot face into the curve between her shoulder and her neck. “Yes. I think so. I don’t know.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Tim?”

  “What?”

  “Could we do it again?”

  FIFTEEN

  Sunshine Valley, September 4

  He rose with the sun and built up the fire in the stove. There was a pump handle on the edge of the sink. He saw her looking down from the loft as he filled the kettle. “The well’s right under the house,” he said. “Long as we’ve got a fire in the stove, the pipes won’t freeze in winter. Fresh water all year round, and you don’t have to go down to the creek to get it.”

  She murmured something, something humble, acquiescent, admiring. It seemed to be enough; he nodded, satisfied, and put the kettle on the stove. He smiled up at her. “Elaine the fair,” he said softly.

  She had already learned to be afraid of that tone of his voice, and her body went very still beneath the covers.

  “You’ll make us some breakfast, won’t you, Elaine? You’re such a good cook, I can hardly wait to taste those pancakes of yours again.” He went to the door. “I’ll be back shortly,” he said, and went out the door, closing it behind him.

  She rose, scrambling into her clothes, buttoning her shirt up to the last button beneath her chin, cinching her belt in to the last possible notch. She could barely stand to look at the bed they had shared, but she knew enough to make it.

  She climbed down the ladder and went to the little kitchen, all hardwood cabinets and counter, the same wood from which the furniture and the cabin itself was made. There was a Coleman stove on the counter, very similar to the one she had cooked on for Mark, and the sight of it should have moved her to tears.

  The door, the only door into the cabin, a meticulously finished slab of wood allowed to retain its natural color, remained shut and mute.

  She located the ingredients and the frying pan, and mixed pancake dough. There was no syrup, but there was brown sugar and maple flavoring and water, so she made some. She found a cone filter and a carafe and filters and coffee. All she had to do was wait for the kettle to boil.

  The minutes ticked by, one by one, and still he hadn’t come back. She looked at the door, looked away.

  She found stoneware plates in a pretty Delft pattern and set the table. There was a full set of stainless steel flatware in a drawer, pristine and polished. She used paper towels for napkins, folded into perfect little triangles.

  Something tapped at the window, and she looked up to see a spruce bough scrape at the glass. It was a tiny window, with four panes, barely big enough for a dog to climb through. Bears, she thought numbly.

  The shadow of the bough shifted on the glass and she saw a faint smear of something. She found a bottle of Windex and washed it off. She washed the other window in the opposite wall, too.

  The door had no window.

  She swept the floor, depositing the dirt carefully in the plastic trash can. She dusted the shelf. It held three books, a collection of Shakespeare, the Bible, andIdylls of the King.

  A small wooden box stood next to the Tennyson, a light layer of dust covering its hand-carved lid. She was clumsy and knocked the box to the floor, scattering its contents. A shaft of pure terror speared through her. She waited for the footsteps to sound. For the door to push open.

  After a moment the racing of her heart slowed and she managed to kneel down and collect the items and put them back in the box. A cheap Claddagh ring, a wide silver bracelet that looked Southwestern, a plain gold wedding band. Five pairs of earrings. Two crosses on chains, one gold, one silver. A choker of crystals strung between tiny silver spacers.

  Carefully she put them back into the box. Her hands were trembling. It took her three tries to get the lid back on, and she nearly dropped the box again when she tried to put it back on the shelf.

  The shelf stood against the wall next to the door.

  Taking up Windex and cloth again,
she dusted the door handle, a handle shaped like a vine with leaves, with a latch beneath. She pressed down on it a little too hard. There was a click. The door opened.

  A light breeze fanned her face. Sunlight dappled the floor. A bird called. Leaves rustled.

  She reached out a hand, touched the door. Like everything else in the cabin, it was very well crafted. It swung silently outward.

  She took a step forward, another, and the next thing she knew she was outside. No one shouted at her. No one grabbed her. No one hit her. No one forced her down, tore at her jeans, spread her legs and pushed painfully inside her. No one smiled his crazy smile at her afterward, patted her cheek in a travesty of affection and concern and said, “There, there. You’ll learn. It’ll take time, but you’ll learn. You’ve been gone so long, I understand, it’s like a new place to you. You used to love it. You’ll love it again.”

  Her heart beat rapidly high up in her throat. She took another step forward, another and then another.

  A branch caught her cheek, the sore spot high up where he’d hit her the night before when she’d tried to pull away from him, and only then did she realize how quickly she was moving, walking, shifting into a kind of stumbling run. She had no idea where she was going, which direction was best, the trees and the cliffs behind them were so close, so overwhelming. There might be bears, but she kept going.

  She stumbled out into a tiny, circular clearing. Late flowers were blooming, fireweed, wild roses, even a few poppies, orange and red and yellow. They grew up around the stumps of trees cut off at knee level.

  Except they weren’t trees, or stumps. She took a step closer to the nearest one. One side had been planed smooth for an inscription.

  “Elaine,” she read. “Elaine the Fair, Elaine the Lovable, Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.” The letters were carved into the wood with the same care and craftsmanship demonstrated in the construction of the cabin and all its contents.

  She didn’t want to, she didn’t think she could force herself to move, but her feet stepped forward on their own. The next stump was also planed smooth, also carved, also read “Elaine the Fair, Elaine the Lovable, Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.”

  One stump after another, all planed, all carved. “Elaine the Fair.” “Elaine the Lovable.” “Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.” “Elaine.”

  Elaine. Elaine. Elaine.

  You’ll make us some breakfast, won’t you, Elaine?

  But her name wasn’t Elaine.

  She counted slowly, lips forming soundless numbers. One, two, three. Four. Five, six, seven, eight.

  You’re such a good cook, I can hardly wait to taste those pancakes of yours again.

  But she’d never cooked for him before.

  There, at the edge of the clearing, so faded it was almost invisible, nine. Ten, eleven.

  Twelve. A gleaming new piece of wood with the dirt tamped around it still fresh and free from moss and lichen.

  “Elaine.”

  I’ll be back shortly.

  She spun around.

  He stood at the opposite edge of the clearing, fifty feet away.

  He shook his head sorrowfully. “I told you not to go outside. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “I told you you could do anything you wanted, anything at all, so long as you kept on the inside of the door.”

  Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth.

  He sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

  He sounded for all the world like an overindulgent parent faced with the dilemma of a spoiled child.

  “Come here,” he said.

  He had almost reached her when she realized she was still holding the bottle of Windex. She raised it and squirted him in the face. He yelled and clawed at his eyes.

  She turned and ran.

  Nenevok Creek, September 4

  The Cessna touched down smoothly, jolting only a very little on the gravel surface of the airstrip, and rolled to a halt just short of the Cub parked at the end. Liam was standing to one side. Prince cut the engine and opened the door. “Good to see you’re all right.”

  “Good to be all right.”

  “What happened?” This as Wy came down the path.

  “Throttle cable broke on approach.”

  “Jesus,” Prince said. “That’s a new one on me.”

  “Me, too.”

  Trooper poise was quickly replaced by pilot curiosity. “What’d you do?”

  “Pulled the carb heat, trimmed the nose. Cut the engine on final.”

  “A deadstick landing.”

  “Yeah.” Wy said it laconically, like she did deadstick landings every day and twice on Sundays.

  “Impressive,” Prince said, trying not to sound grudging. Nothing that exciting had ever happened to her in the air. “So, you spent the night up at the cabin.”

  Something fizzled in the air between Liam and Wy, some emotion to which Prince was not privy. It seemed there had been trouble in paradise the night before. It wasn’t anything she was going to get into if she could help it. “I can take you both out in the Cessna.”

  “I’ll stay with my plane,” Wy said.

  “Like hell,” Liam said.

  “You can’t,” Prince said.

  “Why not?” Wy said to Prince.

  “You’ve got a problem back in Newenham.”

  “What?”

  “You know that boy you adopted?”

  Wy’s eyes widened and she came the rest of the way down the path in four quick strides. “Is Tim all right? Has something happened to him?”

  “Far as I know he’s fine. His mother isn’t.”

  Wy’s lips tightened. “I’m his mother.”

  “His birth mother, then,” Prince said. “She’s got a court order allowing her to see him. Limited, supervised visitation. She can’t be alone with him, but she can see him.” She looked at Liam. He met her eyes without expression. She looked back at Wy. “For the moment, the boy is out of town. Up at a fish camp on the Nushagak, I hear tell from the friends you’ve got staying at your house.”

  Wy nodded. “Yes,” she said through suddenly stiff lips.

  Prince looked at Liam. “You find anything more out here?”

  Liam shook his head. “I don’t know.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag.

  Prince took it and held it up to the light. It held half a dozen round green beads. “So?”

  “They’re jade, I think,” he said.

  “So?” she repeated.

  “So a bunch of jade was stolen from the post office on Kagati Lake. A clock, animal carvings, bookends.”

  “A necklace?”

  “They didn’t say, and I didn’t know enough to ask.”

  Prince thought it over. “There were a bunch of beads inside the cabin, weren’t there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And some stuff, some bracelets, barrettes, like that, made out of beads.”

  “Yes.”

  “So this could have been part of Rebecca Hanover’s supply.”

  “Could have been.”

  “Something to tell you, too,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The Crime Lab called. The splatter pattern on Kvichak’s Winchester matches the splatter pattern on Mark Hanover’s chest.”

  She handed back the plastic bag, and he pocketed it. “That’s that, then.”

  “Looks like.”

  “No shell casings, though, no other real physical evidence.”

  “No. No sign of the wife?”

  “No.” He sighed. “We followed everything that even remotely resembles a trail for at least a mile this time. We yelled every hour for her all night. No answer. Nothing.”

  “Did you look for a grave?”

  Wy looked at Liam, away.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We looked for a grave.”

  Prince thought. “How about the creek?”

  He pulled his cap from his head and whacked it
against his leg. “I followed it downstream as far as I could. It’s too low this time of year for anything the size of a body to float down it.”

  “Pretty big lake it ends in.”

  “Yeah. We should do a flyover on the way back, just in case SAR missed her.”

  “Always supposing she’s a floater. She could have got wedged in a downed tree, something like that.”

  “Yeah.” He put his cap back on. “We’re going to need confessions if we want to clear this case.”

  “Yes. And we’d better get a move on if we want to get back to Newenham today. Storm coming in. Big low moving up out of the Bering. The Weather Service has small-craft advisories out. They’re talking an early freeze, maybe even snow.”

  Liam looked at the sky. The morning had started out sunny, but a bank of clouds, thick and low, was creeping up on the sun. There was a bite in the stiff little breeze whipping across the airstrip, too. Still, “Snow before Labor Day?”

  She shrugged. “Hey. It’s Alaska. Worse, it’s Bristol Bay.”

  Wy nosed the Cub into the prevailing wind and tied it down against her return with a new throttle cable. The Cessna was in the air ten minutes later, and Prince got on the radio to let the world know that Liam and Wy were found and well. Neither of the rescuees looked especially happy about it, but their friends took up the slack. “So, home again, home again, jiggety-jig,” she said, hanging up the mike.

  “Just step on it,” Liam said. From the backseat Wy said nothing.

  “Stepping on it,” Prince said, and did.

  Newenham, September 4

  Jim, who like most ham operators knew somebody everywhere he went, had rustled up a truck, a Chevy Scottsdale, brown and tan but mostly rust, with brand-new outside rearview mirrors and tires, and a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish glued to the tailgate.

  Jo pointed at the decal. “Do you suppose the Christians know that that decal only shows Darwin in action? Bigger fish eats littler fish?”

  “I don’t think Christians waste much time thinking,” Jim said, climbing in behind the wheel.

  “I beg to differ,” Bridget said tartly. “We Christians are thinking all the time. Mostly we’re thinking sad thoughts about our non-Christian brothers and sisters who are going straight to hell when they die.”