by Breakup(lit)
been the day before. Driving Bobby's Chevy required relearning all the
hand controls he'd had installed. Kate had them more or less mastered by
the time she reached her own turnout, pausing just long enough to check
on the cabin and fetch Mutt. The jet engine was still in the yard,
unchaperoned; the go team was sleeping in this morning. This lack of
attention didn't augur well for a quick reimbursement of funds, and Kate
continued her journey in a gloomy frame of mind. Mutt, annoyed at having
been left to her own devices the night before, rode shotgun in
unforgiving silence. They were home by one o'clock in the afternoon with
a truck
134 full of groceries and a receipt bearing testimony to Kate's good
credit with the Alaska Commercial Company, only to find the NTSB once
more in possession of the clearing. Or so she assumed when she had to
park fifty feet up the road because her turnout was full of vehicles.
She recognized most of them, from which she deduced the population of
Niniltna was exercising their right to a free market by renting their
personal vehicles out to the go team at undoubtedly exorbitant hourly
rates. Auntie Vi's Toyota Land Cruiser was first in line, which only
confirmed her hypothesis.
Nor was the NTSB crew destined to be her last visitors of the day,
more's the pity. She was lifting the first box of groceries out of the
back of the pickup when the sound of an approaching engine filled her
with foreboding. She raised her head to see her worst fears fulfilled:
Mandy behind the wheel of her brand-new, newly battered Ford, its
cockeyed front bumper making it look slightly tipsy. Mr. and Mrs. Baker
were sitting next to her, erect and composed and looking as if they had
suffered no ill effects from the previous day's strenuous activities.
Mandy didn't look happy. Kate had to resist the temptation to cross
herself and she wasn't even Catholic. At least Chick wasn't along to
titter in the background.
Mandy got out. The driver's side. She must have fixed the door. From the
looks of it, probably with a crowbar. Whatever worked.
"Hi," Kate said warily, holding the box of groceries like a shield. It
covered most of her major organs.
"Kate," Mandy said, voice curt. Great, she'd probably heard about the
shoot-out at the Roadhouse.
"Ms. Shugak," Mr. Baker said, handing his wife out. "How nice to see you
again."
"Indeed," Mrs. Baker added, unusually warm for her.
"Kate-" Mandy said.
"Mandy," Kate said, beating her to it, "I'm sorry about your truck but
it wasn't my fault. That bear charged us, there wasn't a thing I could
do about it. George ground-looped 50 Papa practically right on top of
us, and there was no chance to get out of the
135 way. And as for the bullet holes-you know what Cindy Bingley's like
when she goes after Ben. There was nothing I could do, and nobody got
hurt, not even Ben. At least the last I saw he was okay. And as for the
Jeppsens and the Kreugers, hell, there's no way I could have-"
Without doing anything so vulgar as making a face, Mr. Baker wore an
expression that nevertheless conveyed a distinct message.
"-no way I could have foreseen that, uh, Cheryl and Kay were going to
have such a nasty argument," Kate finished weakly. So Mandy hadn't heard
about the shoot-out. Yet. Kate thrust away the thought of what she might
say when she did.
"Truck?" Mandy said, fastening on the one word in the flood that meant
something to her. "Oh. Kate, don't worry about the truck. Besides, I
told you. She's yours."
Kate blinked at her. "What?"
"You know." Mandy gave her head a tiny jerk in the direction of her
parents, and winked reassuringly. "For what you did."
"Mandy-"
"That's why I'm here, actually," Mandy said, holding out the keys. "I
already signed over the registration. It's in the glove compartment. And
Mother and Dad wanted to say thanks for the tour." A faint grin crossed
her face. "They enjoyed it, even if it did take them till this morning
to dry out. Internally as well as externally."
She stood there holding the keys out, and was evidently prepared to
stand there holding them out until Doomsday, so Kate awkwardly shifted
the box in her arms and took them. "Well," she said. "Thanks." The one
word didn't seem like enough somehow, and she added, "Come on down. I'll
make you some coffee. Now that I have some."
Mandy looked at the boxes stacked in the back of the truck.
"Grocery run to Ahtna," Kate said.
"And you had to borrow Bobby's truck?"
"Well." Kate tried not to squirm.
Mandy looked at her, one eyebrow ever so slightly raised, and
136 for just a moment the resemblance to her father was very pronounced.
"You didn't believe me about the truck, did you?"
"Well," Kate said again, shifting from foot to foot. "I guess I just
didn't know how right Fitzgerald was."
"How so?"
"The rich really are different."
Mandy's mouth turned up at the corners. "Yeah, and you know what
Hemingway said in reply?"
"What?"
" 'Yes, they have more money than you and me.' "
"Glad to hear it," Kate said, regaining some of her composure. "If
that's all the difference there is, you can help me hump these boxes
down to the cabin."
They loaded up, even Mrs. Baker, and Mutt led her train of native
bearers single file down the trail with her tail cocked at a lordly
angle. "What's with all the traffic?" Mandy said behind her.
"I just got here, I'm guessing the go team is back."
At that moment a Sikorsky helicopter with a sling attached have into
view over the trees. "Great," Kate said, hastening her pace. "Now maybe
they'll get that hunk of junk out of my front yard."
It was unfortunate that just before reaching the clearing Mandy tripped
over a tree root and into a clump of alders, dumping her box of canned
goods and making enough noise for three bears, two moose and a hoary
marmot. Her subsequent crash and burn was loud enough to be heard even
over the Sikorsky's engine, because it became immediately obvious that
the Park Uninvitational Four- Footed Grand Prix across the homestead the
previous morning had had a strong and lasting effect.
A shot rang out and a bullet thudded into a tree trunk a foot above
Kate's head.
Mutt let loose with a ferocious bark.
Kate yelled, "Stay!" In a move that seemed almost routine by now, she
dropped her groceries and dove for the ground, grabbing for Mr. and Mrs.
Baker's ankles along the way, and none too soon,
137 because in the next moment there was a Whoosh! and a cloud of spray
hit the bushes directly in front of them.
Kate's eyes began to water and she pulled the neck of her T-shirt up
over her face. Mutt whined and dropped flat, rubbing her face in her
paws. Mandy sneezed violently. The whites of her parents' eyes turned a
bright red and their noses began to run. Mrs. Baker began to cough.
Another bullet thunked into the tree trunk.
>
The pilot of the Sikorsky must have thought he was back in Da Nang and
raised ship high and fast.
138
The noise of the engine faded.
Kate pushed herself up to her knees and yelled, "Hey! Whoever's in the
clearing! Cease fire, dammit!" punctuating her appeal with a tremendous
sneeze.
"I hate breakup," Mandy said, choking and coughing.
"Amanda dear, don't you think we should-"
There was another shot and another spray and, incensed, Kate yelled
again, "Cut it out, you guys! It's Kate Shugak, and you sonsabitches had
better either shoot me on sight or have an awful goddam good excuse for
shooting and spraying at me before!"
The shots and spray ceased. "Kate?" A voice she recognized as John
Stewman's spoke hesitantly. "Kate, is that you?"
Kate's reply was almost muffled by another tremendous sneeze. "No,
asshole, it's the tooth fairy!"
139 She saw Mrs. Baker reach as if to rub her eyes and snatched at her
hand. "No, don't rub it, that'll only make it worse." She stood, wet and
muddy and furious. "Stewman, you disarm those people of yours or my dog
and I will disarm them for you! And we won't care how gentle we do it,
either!"
There was a brief pause, a rustle of movement. "All right, Kate. You can
come out now."
They staggered down the path into the clearing to come face to face with
Selina and Bickford, white-faced and trembling. Bickford was holding a
rifle. Selina had acquired a bright orange can of bear repellent, still
held at the ready. The rest of the team were clustered protectively
together behind them. Kate couldn't imagine why, if the idiots had
thought they were about to be charged by a bear, they hadn't at least
run for the cabin.
A stray wisp of the pepper spray caught at her throat. "Put that down,"
she said, coughing. Neither Bickford nor Selina moved. Kate stepped
forward and reached for the rifle. Bickford seemed disinclined to give
it to her.
Kate looked at him and said very carefully, "Give me that rifle before I
take it away from you and shoot you with it."
Bickford was not the stuff of which heroes were made. He surrendered.
She cleared the chamber and clicked on the safety. It was the .30-06
from the gun rack over her door. Now, that would have been downright
embarrassing, getting shot on her own doorstep with her own gun. Another
time Kate might have found the prospect mildly amusing, but considering
the accumulation of events during the past two days, too many of which
had offered bodily harm to her person, she was fresh out of a sense of
humor.
All Selina's attention was occupied in trying to clip the can of bear
repellent to her belt. Her hands were shaking so badly she wasn't having
much success, and irritated as always at a simple job poorly done, Kate
slung her rifle, snatched the can, yanked Selina's waistband away from
her waist until she could see all the way
140 down to her boots and jammed the clip over the belt. The elastic of
the waistband snapped back and the can smacked into her belly. The other
woman gave an inarticulate protest.
"Shut up," Kate said.
Selina shut up.
"The only reason you're still living," Kate told her, "is because you
didn't score any direct hits." It wasn't easy to glare with watery eyes,
but Kate managed it. "Now just what the hell is going on here?"
There was some shuffling of feet, a few inaudible mumbles and a great
deal of staring up at the sky or down at the ground or off into space.
After a moment John Stewman stepped manfully forward. "Well, Kate, some
of us got a little nervous after the bear incident yesterday. And then
we heard about what happened to that woman up to the mine-"
"That was thirty miles from here," Kate said. Nobody looked convinced.
She shook her head and swore tiredly. "I didn't used to feel this old,"
she said, mostly to herself. To Bickford she said pointedly, "I assume
that sky crane was to get that hunk of junk out of here once and for all?"
He nodded mutely.
"Good. Call it back. The sooner I see your backsides heading up that
trail, the safer I'm going to feel. Mutt!"
There was a rustle at the opposite end of the clearing, and Kate looked
around to find an extremely wary Mutt, yellow eyes turned an original
shade of magenta, standing at the edge of the clearing in what could
only be described as a tentative manner. Generally instinct and training
compelled her to protect, but after the last two days Kate didn't know
that she blamed Mutt if her first reflex was to run as far from the
homestead as she could get. "It's okay, girl, it's safe to come out now."
Mutt wasn't entirely convinced, but she did come out of the bushes.
Mandy, who had borne the brunt of the pepper spray, she gave a wide
berth. "Thanks a lot," Mandy told her, and gave a
141 convulsive sneeze, which was the signal for first her mother and
then her father to follow suit.
"Come on," Kate said, and led the way into the cabin, where she pumped
up a bucket of water into which Mandy immediately immersed her entire
head, and emerged snorting and trumpeting like an elephant down at the
local mud hole. Kate pumped up another bucket of water and Mandy's
parents made do with a more refined rinse. Kate simply stood at the
sink, head beneath the spout, and pumped. She wrung out her hair and
groped for a towel. Head wrapped in a turban, she blinked at the room.
Mandy had replaced the rifle in its rack over the door. The rest of the
cabin looked much as she had left it. Lucky for the NTSB.
Mr. Baker had dried off and gone back outside, and through the kitchen
window Kate could see him standing next to Kevin Bickford, who had his
Earlybird cap pulled low over eyes that were darting nervously back and
forth. The Sikorsky was back, and they were watching the sling being
maneuvered around the engine. Kate just hoped the corpse didn't
disintegrate when they tried to lift it into the air.
Mrs. Baker was standing next to the couch, staring down at the hole in
it. Evidently she'd missed it the previous morning. She looked up to see
Kate watching her, decided it would be a breach of good manners to ask
and moved to the other leg of the couch to sit down, a little heavily,
as if all this might have been just a little too much, finally.
"Goodness," she said at last. "Amanda dear, you never told us how
exciting life is in Alaska."
"It isn't always like this, Mother," Mandy said, but her voice was weak,
and Mrs. Baker looked about as convinced as Mutt had when Kate called
her into the clearing.
Mandy combed fingers through her damp hair. "We'd better get the rest of
those supplies down the trail before it gets dark."
It took the four of them three trips, by which time the jet engine was
gone. Stewman and the rest of the team remained behind for an hour or
so, locating, photographing, cataloging and bagging
142 any scrap of metal they had missed in the previous search that Kate
could no
t immediately identify or claim, all under Mutt's bleak and
intimidating eye. Kate gave her a piece of beef jerky in reward, and
something about the sight of those large, sharp teeth ripping into the
strip of meat made the investigators work faster.
The pickup looked even more flattened without the engine than it had
with it. Kate resolutely turned her back on the mortal remains. Mr.
