by Fire
The memory, flashing in from nowhere, halted him in his tracks. He came back to himself and, flushing slightly, looked around for Teddy, whose ass he was there to save.
It wasn't only that there was no television and that the jukebox wasn't playing--the bar was quiet. Too quiet, especially for a bar in the Bush at the beginning of the fishing season. The booths and tables were full, the bar was lined with patrons, and there should have been talk, laughter, more than a few feminine shrieks of delight or dismay, and at the very least two men arguing blearily over who corked who during last summer's salmon season.
But it was quiet instead, with a quality of silence Liam might have expected to find at a drumhead court-martial. There were maybe thirty people present, most of them standing in a semicircle a respectful distance from the action without being so foolish as to put themselves out of range of hearing every word. Liam cast a quick eye over the group. It was a varied bunch, about two-thirds male, white, Native, mixed race, and what appeared to be a couple of heavy equipment salesmen from South Korea who looked delighted with fortune's putting an event in their path that had previously only been granted them via John Wayne movies. There was an ethereal young blonde with a bar towel wrapped around her waist, one hand on her hip, who was tapping an impatient foot as if to indicate she was ready to get back to generating tips now, thanks. Their shoulders stooped and hands crabbed from a lifetime of picking fish, three or four old fishermen in white canvas caps worn a dull gray watched everything out of bright, avid eyes. In a back booth one man had his head pillowed in his arms and was sleeping through it all. A barfly with glassy eyes and a lot of miles on her hung affectionately on the arm of the man Liam recognized from the altercation outside, a stocky young man with a merry grin that displayed irresistible twin dimples. "Come on, Mac honey," the barfly said in a slurred voice. "Les go back to my place, hmm?"
Mac honey was sober enough to catch the barfly's hand as it slid to his crotch, and to get while the getting was still good. "Sorry, Marcie," he said, draining his beer and setting the empty bottle on the bar. "I've got a party to go to, and a girlfriend to keep happy."
He threaded his way through the throng, nodding politely as he passed in front of Liam, and the sound of the door closing behind him was magnified by the hush surrounding the main event. The only noise came from a man Liam recognized as the Old Fart from the plane that afternoon. He was standing in front of the jukebox, whose clear plastic lid was marred with a neat round hole surrounded by a starburst array of cracks. The lid was back, and the Old Fart was tinkering with the insides. He looked around once when Liam came in, said "Huh!" in a loud voice, and selected a larger screwdriver before returning to his work.
Liam looked further for the source of quiet. It wasn't hard to find. It hadn't taken them long, once they got him inside; the man who had been separated from the rifle was seated in a chair and immobilized with enough bright yellow polypropylene line to restrain King Kong. He was maybe thirty years old, five-eight, thickset, with matted brown hair and terrified brown eyes that stared at Liam over the bar rag that had been used to gag him.
Teddy Engebretsen might be drunk, but he wasn't so drunk he didn't know his life was in grave danger.
Standing opposite him was a woman, a woman who towered over Teddy in presence if not in height. The same woman who had rolled over the top of Liam outside, she was about five feet two inches tall and plump as a pigeon, her body a cascading series of rich curves; cheek, chin, breast, belly, hip, thigh, calf, a model for Rubens clad in clean, faded jeans and a gray T-shirt cinched in with a wide leather belt. Zaftig, they called it, Liam remembered from somewhere, as in making a man's palms itch.
All attention in the room was focused on these two. No one seemed to be moving; no one, with the exception of the Alaskan Old Fart, seemed to be breathing. Liam, mindful of his training, gave his gun belt an authoritative hitch and said in his calmest, deepest voice, "What seems to be the trouble here?"
The woman turned to look at him, and Liam registered three things immediately. Her eyes were the blue of glacier ice and thickly lashed, her well-filled T-shirt had a picture of a beribboned mask with the words "New Orleans Jazz Fest" written beneath it, and she had one of the firmest jaws he'd ever seen. She spoke, moved, and acted with a vigor that belied the lines on her face and the color of her hair, a thick silver swath combed straight back from her face that fell to a neatly trimmed line just above her shoulders.
"Who in the hell are you?" she demanded. "Give me that."
She made as if to snatch the rifle from him. He moved it away and she said irritably, "Oh, don't bother, you damn fool, I'm the magistrate for this district."
He looked at her for a long moment, and then sought out Jim Earl's face in the crowd. Jim Earl gave a confirming nod.
"Uh-huh," Liam said, but he kept hold of the rifle. "State Trooper Liam Campbell, ma'am."
"And don't call me ma'am," she snapped. "Makes me feel like I'm a hundred years old."
"Close enough!" the man at the jukebox said without turning around.
"Oh shut up, you old fart," the woman said. Again she reached for the rifle, and this time Liam let her take it. "The name's Billington, Linda Billington. You can call me Bill; everybody does." She shifted the rifle to extend a hand. Her grip was dry and firm--one pump, up and down, and withdrawn. She looked him over critically. "Liam Campbell, is it? We heard you were coming. They get that mess cleaned up at Denali?"
Liam thought "mess" was an inadequate way of referring to the screwup that had cost five lives and his job. "Yes," he said briefly.
Bright eyes examined him shrewdly. "Buck stopped on your desk, I hear."
"Yes. Look, what--"
"Didn't help they were a family of Natives, and you and the other two troopers involved were as white as you can get without bleach."
"No." He could feel the eyes of many trained upon him. This was even worse than he had expected. "What seems to--"
"You'll have a lot to prove here, Liam," she said. "But it's a good town. Pretty fairminded bunch of people. They'll judge you, all right, but they'll judge you on what you do here, not what you did before you came here."
"Yes, ma'am," Liam said woodenly.
"Bill, dammit. I don't want to be called ma'am until I'm at least a hundred."
"Won't be long now!" the Old Fart bellowed.
"Oh shut up," Bill said without heat. "In the meantime, Liam, this here is Teddy Engebretsen, who's got nothing better to do on a fine spring day such as this than to come in and shoot up my bar with my own rifle." She glared at the miscreant, who whimpered behind his bar rag gag. "And then when we think he's all calmed down, he has the gall to go for it a second time!" Teddy whimpered again. "I'm just figuring on what to do with him."
"Uh-huh," Liam said, because for the life of him he couldn't think what else to say. He shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. He was, after all, the first officer on the scene. It was up to him to establish his sense of authority. He buried his resentment at the woman's blabbering of his private affairs--as private as they get when they've been on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News for a week straight--to most of the population of Newenham. "Well, Ms. Billington--"
"Who's that?" she demanded. "I told you to call me Bill. That's my name. Liam," she added pointedly.
So much for establishing his sense of authority. "Okay, Bill," he said, trying an ingratiating smile. She didn't visibly soften, but then the smile hadn't been all that sincere, and he persevered, ever mindful of the clock ticking in the background on the crime scene--if it was one--at the airport, and even more conscious of the burning if irrational need to get back to Wy before she vanished on him again. "What exactly happened here?"
"Teddy shot up the place," she replied promptly. "He come in here all liquored up, then got more so--my fault for not cutting him off sooner. He takes exception to what's on the jukebox, which isn't any of his goddamn business and he can go down to the Seaside and listen to pu
nk rock music and like it from now on." She glared again at the miscreant, who seemed to shrink inside his clothes.
"And?" Liam prompted.
Her face darkened. "I got to him before he got more than one off, but that one hit my jukebox. Right in the middle of "Margaritaville."" She looked back at Liam. "Nobody does that to Jimmy Buffett. Not in my bar. Nobody."
"Uh-huh," Liam said. Bill's priorities seemed a little skewed to him, given the number of people in the room who could have been shot instead, herself included. "And we are doing--what, now?"
"I was deciding on that when the cavalry barreled in the door," she said with a sardonic look. "By the way, where is your uniform, trooper?"
Bill was an officer of the court, and as such his coconspirator in upholding the letter as well as the spirit of the law in this section of the Alaskan Bush. Liam reminded himself of this, and took care to keep his tone civil. "In my luggage. I just got off the plane," he added, sounding to his own ears a little aggrieved.
"Uh-huh," she mimicked him, and smiled suddenly. He stared, dazzled. It was like the sun coming out on a bare and wintry day. Her face was strong of brow, nose, and jaw and her skin was lined at the corners of eyes and mouth, but there was no mistaking the warm humor, the manifest charm, and the undeniable sex appeal.
"Watch it, boy," someone growled, and Liam turned to see the Old Fart glaring at him. "She's taken." He pointed with the screwdriver. "And so are you."
Liam blinked. A ripple of laughter went around the room, defusing some of the tension. He shook himself. The Old Fart must have picked up on Wy at the airport. It seemed unlikely, given that the Old Fart must have adjourned to Bill's early on, but then if any part of what Liam had been feeling had showed on his face, he had probably been lit up like one of the neon signs on the wall behind him. It was an uncomfortable thought for a deeply private man, and he turned back to Bill. "What were you intending to do with Mr. Engebretsen, Bill?"
They both regarded the bound man for a moment. The bar watched and waited in silence. "Well," Bill said finally, "I was thinking about supergluing his shooting hand to one cheek of his ass and his other hand around a beer bottle."
Liam stared. She appeared to be absolutely serious. He opened his mouth, and she said, "He drinks too much, does Teddy. I'm not totally unfeeling--the bottle of beer will be a full one, but after it's gone, that's it."
"I like it," the Old Fart said, and grinned evilly when Teddy's eyes bulged over the edge of the gag.
"Or we could just shoot him," she said, and raised the .30-06 to work the action. She gave a satisfied nod. "Plenty of ammunition. 'Course at this distance I really only need one."
The crowd, as a unit, took one step back.
Not just a court-martial, Liam thought, but an execution as well. He admired Bill's efficiency. He started to say something soothing, only to be beaten to it by Jim Earl. "Now, Bill--"
"Put a lid on it, Jim Earl," Bill said. "You been letting this boy run wild since he starting courting your daughter in high school." She bent a severe look upon the mayor. "Why you let him court her is something we won't get into right now." The mayor's face went red, and he began to splutter. Ignoring him, Bill continued, "Fact is, somebody's got to shake some sense into Teddy, and it looks like I've been elected. Besides," she added inexorably, in what was becoming a litany, "he came into my saloon, and he shot up my jukebox, and he shot it up when Jimmy was singing, and he shot it up when Jimmy was singing "Margaritaville." Nobody does that in my bar. And nobody ever, ever does that to Jimmy."
"Uh," Liam said.
"Yes, Liam?" Bill said, looking at him with a bland smile.
Liam made what felt even to himself like a feeble attempt to gain control of the situation. "Surely there has to be a local ordinance against the shooting of a firearm within the city limits."
Bill raised her brows. "I'm sure there must be. And your point is?"
"Well, I--" Liam was beginning to sweat, although not as freely as Teddy Engebretsen. It didn't help that the rest of the people in the bar were fully alive to his dilemma and thoroughly enjoying it. Liam felt like the star attraction in a three-ring circus. He looked back at Bill, and for the first time noticed the twinkle lurking at the back of her eyes. He stared at her, and the twinkle grew.
"There, that oughta do it." The lid on the jukebox came down with a solid thud and the Old Fart dropped a quarter into the machine and punched in a selection. Nothing happened. The twinkle in Bill's eyes vanished, and Teddy looked even more terrified, if that was possible. "Come on, you son of a bitch," the Old Fart said, and squared off to give the jukebox a quick kick in the side. The machine hiccuped once and came alive with the sound of steel drums and a harmonica collaborating on a Caribbean rhythm that inspired one couple into an impromptu jitterbug. Jimmy was back.
Tension visibly eased. The Old Fart packed up the toolbox and lugged it to the bar, where he let it drop with a resounding crash. He looked impatiently around for Bill. "Well, come on, woman, don't just stand there, get me a beer!"
Bill grumbled but did as she was told, absentmindedly handing off the rifle to Liam as she passed. The Old Fart looked at him. "Get your butt up here, too, boy--I'll buy you a drink. Bill, pour him some o' that Glenmorangie--you know, that stuff bottled by the only ten honest men on the Isle of Skye, or some such."
Bill snapped her fingers and pointed at the Old Fart. "That was why you made me buy this stuff."
The Old Fart shrugged. "What can I say? I'm good."
Liam found himself standing at the bar. If he'd had time to think about it he might have wondered how he got there, especially with what was waiting for him at the airport, but for the moment he didn't seem to have much choice in the matter. It all seemed somewhat dreamlike, anyway--the body at the airport, the reappearance of Wy in his life when he had thought her lost to him forever, a practicing vigilante who moonlighted as the local magistrate, and now, a soon-to-be-drunken jukebox repairman. He was wrong--this wasn't a three-ring circus, it was an alternate plane of existence.
The Old Fart was a foot shorter than the trooper, which he rectified by hoisting himself up on a stool. He turned to Liam and stuck out a hand. "Moses Alakuyak, shaman."
His beer and Liam's single malt arrived. Moses held out his bottle of beer and Liam clinked his glass against it. "To women," Moses said. "Not all of them leave, you know."
"I beg your pardon?" Liam said.
Moses drained his bottle in one long, continuous swallow. "Barkeep! Do it again! Not that it matters," he said, turning back to Liam. "Pretty soon there'll be nothing left of this goddamn planet but a garbage dump and a grave."
Ten years of practicing law enforcement with the Alaska State Troopers was an excellent way to hone one's survival skills. Liam murmured something that could have been agreement, and sipped cautiously at his glass, but it was the real thing all right: Glenmorangie single malt scotch. He swirled the liquid around in his glass and inhaled with reverence.
"People think survival of the fittest is all right for animals but not for people," Moses explained expansively. "We're not culling the human herd the way we oughta. We're saving the weakest: the ones with AIDS, the folks in Africa who can't figure out how to feed themselves, them Serbs who can't stop shooting at their neighbors. We're gonna rescue 'em all, and wipe out the human race doing it." The old man snorted, a comprehensive sound issuing forth from his snubbed nose. "By God," he said, voice rising, "we're living in the best of times right now, because it sure as hell ain't gonna get any better."
The scotch slid down Liam's throat like melted butter. He set the glass down. "Thanks for the drink, Moses," he said, and paused. "Wait a minute. How did you know I drink single malt scotch?"
"I know a lot of things about you," Moses said, knocking back his second beer and waving for a third. Bill brought it, and set it down gently in front of him. There was none of the condemnation in her expression Liam had seen there for Teddy Engebretsen. Of course, Moses had fixed the jukeb
ox and returned Jimmy Buffett to his natural setting, a bar, so Bill was no doubt inclined to look kindly upon him.
Bill stretched out a hand and cupped Moses' cheek. "Going to be one of those nights, huh?" she said in the softest tone Liam had yet to hear her use.
"Don't worry about it," Moses said gruffly, but he didn't turn away when she leaned over the bar and kissed him. It wasn't the kiss of a friend, either; it went on for a while, and Moses hooked a hand around the back of Bill's head and cooperated with enthusiasm, to the vocal approval of the bar's other customers.
Bill pulled back and gave Moses a sweet smile. "Later, lover."
He caught at her hand before she could move down the bar, and kissed it. "Later."
There was a wealth of promise in both word and kiss. Liam was trying to read the fine print of the labels on the line of bottles on the opposite wall when Moses dug an elbow into his side. "Okay to look now, trooper." The Old Fart grinned up at him, and now that he was looking for it, Liam could see the Alakuyak in him, in the barely perceptible slant of his eyes, the high, flat cheekbones, the snubbed nose. Come to think of it, his height should have been a dead giveaway--most Yupik men ranged between four-eight and five-five. But his skin was olive, not golden, his hair a grizzled brown, not the sleek black cap found in the villages, and his eyes were a startling gray, a gray so light they had almost no color at all. They were looking at Liam now, clear, cool, assessing, and Liam could not shake the uncomfortable feeling that they could see right through him.
Moses didn't help when he said, "Yeah, I know a lot of things, about everything, but right now I want to know why you're keeping a girt as fine as Wyanet Chouinard waiting on you."
