Jack had declined an invitation to play on the grounds that he was taking Kate down to the creek to watch the stars. Four pairs of brown eyes looked up at the pale blue sky, and four old women diplomatically refrained from comment.
“Well?”
“Huh?” He raised his head and blinked at her.
“Do I? Taste as salty as the other night?”
“I’m still not sure. Let me—”
She stiff-armed him, and he fell back on the sand. She came up to lean over him. “Because I couldn’t possibly.”
His hands wandered. “Couldn’t possibly what?”
“Um, yes, right there. I couldn’t possibly taste as salty as I did Thursday.”
“You sure talk a lot.”
“But it’s such a good story.”
He sighed heavily. “All right. What? And hurry the hell up, would you?”
Kate let herself lean against him. This was the hardest part, but if she was ever going to talk about it to anyone, it would be to Jack. “That business last summer with Seabolt got to me, Jack. More than I knew. A lot more.”
His arms tightened.
“Christianity—it’s just too start-and-stop for me. Too… I don’t know, too static. I guess. You’re born, you live, you die, you go to heaven or hell.” She paused. “Heaven’s never been that much of a lure.”
There was a smile in his voice. “Or hell that much of a threat?”
She smiled. “I guess not.” She was silent for a moment. “I’ve never felt so helpless as I did last summer. Or so frustrated. Or so bewildered. I’ve never believed, so I didn’t understand. I still don’t.” She took a deep breath. “It’s been a long time since I’ve hated that much, or that strongly.” Her laugh was shaky. “I forgot how much it takes out of you.”
He made a comforting noise.
“The first time we went to talk to her, when Old Sam introduced Anne to me as a minister, I kind of lost it.”
“You tarred Flanagan with Seabolt’s brush, is that it?”
She nodded. “I pretty much ridiculed her every time she opened her mouth.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Old Sam knows her, and likes her. I think he’s even attended one of her services, and you know Old Sam is the biggest unreconstructed heathen around.”
“Except for you.”
“Except for me,” she agreed. “So, afterwards, we got into the skiff to leave, and he told me what he thought of my behavior.” Kate winced. “Of course he was right, so all I could do was tell him to stuff it.”
“What did he do?”
She smiled against his chest, anticipating his reaction. “He took me by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and tossed me over the side.”
Jack pulled away to stare down at her incredulously.
“And then he took off with the skiff, and made me walk the whole five miles from the Flanagans’ site to Mary’s. Soaking wet.”
Jack’s jaw dropped and stayed that way.
“I had to cross the Amartuq on foot, on an incoming tide.” She looked at him out of the corner of one eye.
Jack’s face was turning a slow purple. “Halfway over I tripped on a salmon and fell in and got wet all over again.”
He laughed so hard he slid a foot down the sand. The tears rolled down his cheeks and he wrapped his arms against his belly and rocked back and forth, the laughter booming out of him and echoing across the surface of the water with such force that it startled the eagle into irritated flight, his great wings beating audibly at the air.
“Oh, Lord,” Jack said, gasping for breath. His head fell back against the log. “Oh, Lord.”
She waited patiently.
He sat up finally, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Why did you tell me? Old Sam never would have.”
“He’ll never tell anyone,” Kate agreed. Old Sam wouldn’t, either. If someone ever asked him about it. Old Sam would draw himself up to his inconsiderable height, stare down his beaky nose and invoke the sacred rite of Family Business. Old Sam didn’t hold with no outsiders poking their noses into his goddam business. When Old Sam saw a problem, he took executive action, and that was the end of it.
“Why, then?” Jack persisted.
Kate smiled down at him, a wide, sweet smile that made his heart skip a beat and then start hammering high up in his throat. “You needed a laugh.”
“Why?” he said, although he was pretty sure he knew.
“You’re still mad at yourself that you didn’t make Johnny tell me he saw Dani Meany and Evan McCafferty down by the creek.”
He looked away.
“I like that about you,” she said.
He was amazed. “What, that I’d withhold evidence?”
“That you would put your son first.”
He reached for her but she pulled away and got to her feet. “No way, Morgan. Coitus interruptus once on this beach is about all I can stand.” One eye closed in a bawdy wink and she turned.
He tackled her.
“Hey!”
He was laughing down at her when she wrestled her way around to face him. “What the hell,” he said, grinning. “We haven’t tried the skiff yet.”
He slung her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hoist and dumped her into the skiff. The next thing she knew, they were in midstream and Jack was heaving the ten-pound Danforth over the bow.
“You planned this,” she said incredulously when he began to unfold an air mattress.
He didn’t deny it. “You know what Whitekeys says.”
“What?”
“Spawn, spawn, spawn till you die, baby.” And he tackled her again.
On the bank tour little round brown birds sat side by side, bright eyes observing with interest. Fish camp had a long and honorable history as a site for seduction, as the four of them, had they been of a mind to, could have personally testified.
“Hope they don’t scare fish,” Edna said to Joy in soft Aleut.
“Hope they do,” Vi answered, a frankly salacious glint in her eye.
The four aunties collapsed into muffled giggles.
The couple in midstream didn’t hear them over the rush of water down Amartuq Creek.
And if they did, they didn’t care.
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About Dana Stabenow
DANA STABENOW was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised on a 75-foot salmon fishing boat in the Gulf of Alaska. Her mother was a deckhand and she and Dana spent nearly five years living on board. For the next three decades, Dana refused to eat salmon.
Dana received a BA in Journalism from the University of Alaska, toured the world with a backpack discovering English pubs, German beer and Irish men, before returning to Alaska to work for BP at Prudhoe Bay, inside the Arctic Circle. Knowing that there must be a warmer job out there, she gave it all up to become a writer. In 1991, the first Kate Shugak Mystery, A Cold Day for Murder, won the Edgar Award for the Best Paperback Novel and her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list
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Kate Shugak is a native Aleut with a touch of Russian heritage working as a private investigator in Alaska. She’s 5 foot 1 inch tall, carries a scar that runs from ear to ear across her throat and owns a half-wolf, half-husky named Mutt. Orphaned at eight years old, Kate grew up to be resourceful, strong willed and defiant. She is tougher than your average heroine – and she needs to be to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her.
Kate used to work as an investigator for the Anchorage DA’s office but after her throat was slashed while saving a child, she resigned from
her job, and returned to the log cabin her father built on her tribe’s native lands, deep in Alaska’s largest national park in the shadow of the Quilak Mountains.
For fourteen months Kate remained in the wilderness – her voice cut down to a raspy growl by the jagged scar stretched across her neck. Then, during the worst winter on record, a congressman’s son disappeared... Two weeks later, the DA’s investigator sent to find him was also reported missing. The FBI turned to the one person they knew had the skills to track down the missing men in the depths of an Alaskan winter. This is where you’ll meet Kate in book one, A Cold Day for Murder.
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Liam Campbell Mysteries
Fire and Ice
So Sure of Death
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Better to Rest
Star Svensdotter
Second Star
A Handful of Stars
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First published in the United States in 1998 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
The first digital edition (v1.2) was published in 2011 by Gere Donovan Press.
This eBook edition first published in the UK in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Dana Stabenow, 1998
The moral right of Dana Stabenow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781788549059
Jacket design and illustration by Ghost
Maps by Dr. Cherie Northon, www.mapmakers.com
Author photo: Chris Arend, www.chrisarendphoto.com
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Killing Grounds Page 23
