by Fire
There was a perfunctory knock on the door. It opened, and Wy stuck her head in. "It's six o'clock; come on, we've got to get in the air."
"Who's that?" Barton demanded.
"My pilot," Liam said. "Didn't I mention, John? I'm going herring spotting today."
He got to his feet, clad only in boxer shorts, and saw Wy's expression. He grinned at her. She reddened. "I'll wait for you outside," she said, and closed the door a little harder than necessary to make the latch catch.
Barton was sputtering into his ear. "Herring spotting? Are you out of your goddamn mind? You've got work to do--you don't have any goddamn time to go gallivanting off on some goddamn herring spotting excursion! Besides, you're liable to get yourself goddamn killed! Crazy goddamn bastard!"
Patiently, Liam waited for Barton to run out of steam, at least momentarily. "John, I don't have a clue as to what DeCreft was doing immediately prior to his death. I don't know anything about the herring fishing business or what spotting is like, except for what I read in the papers. If there were another trooper here, more knowledgeable about the lifestyle, I'd--why isn't there another trooper here?" he said in sudden realization. "In a town this size, there ought to be at least one other trooper, and a sergeant as well. What's going on? Why am I here all by myself?" Silence on the other end of the line. "John?"
Barton sighed. "Okay, look, I'll tell you, but this is strictly confidential. Did you ever stop to wonder why Corcoran would want to transfer out of a Bush post that pays seven steps above basic and into an urban post that pays only basic?"
"I haven't had time to wonder about anything except where I'm going to sleep from night to night," Liam said slowly. "Why?"
"Like I said, this is strictly on the QT. I wouldn't be telling you but for the fact that you might run into some of the fallout. He really fucked up an investigation down there. There was a local pharmacist who was trading drugs for sexual favors from teenage boys. Corcoran busted the guy, forgot to Mirandize him, and then roughed him up in sight of the perp's family and friends."
Liam remembered Darrell, and his fear of getting in the trooper's vehicle. Corcoran seemed to have made a habit of beating on the local populace. He grimaced inwardly. The job was hard enough without having to reinstill the trust in your office that your predecessor had so comprehensively abused. "How rough?"
"The guy wound up in the hospital." He paused. "And when he could, he walked."
"Jesus."
"Yeah. The community was not happy with Corcoran, or with us for posting him there. Corcoran pulled some other stunts, too, but that was the last one. That's why he's gone and you're there."
"Why am I here alone?" Liam thought about the size of the judicial district he would be responsible for, the villages scattered from Newenham to Newhalen, from Togiak to Ualik, from Kilbuck to Kaskank, and recoiled at the thought of how many hours in the air he'd be logging to do his job. "Why was Corcoran?"
There was another pause, followed by another sigh. "Corcoran got the last trooper assigned to his command pregnant. She resigned. We haven't been able to fill her place yet--no one wanted to work with Corcoran, seven-step-increase notwithstanding. It'll be different now."
"Yeah, I'll bet they'll just be lining up around the block to come work with me," Liam said, "the guy who was relieved of command and busted down for falling asleep on the job while a Native family of five froze to death in Denali Park. Did you ever think of that, John?"
"Ah, quit your bitching, you're employed, aren't you?"
Liam swore beneath his breath. "Look, John, I've got to go."
"Herring spotting?"
"Yep," Liam said, repressing a shudder.
There was a brief pause. "But you're afraid of flying!" Barton said at last, as close to pleading as John Dillinger Barton ever got.
"Don't remind me. And quit your own bitching--you're the one who posted me here." He hung up. Not many people had hung up on John Barton and lived to tell the tale. Liam hoped he would be in the minority of survivors.
He reached for his pants. He'd taken a spit bath the night before in the post's one bathroom, so he didn't actively smell, and at least he had clean clothes, although he would run out of them soon if he didn't find him a place to stay with a washer and dryer in it.
He paused, considering. He could ask Wy to wash his clothes for him.
Of course, he could just cut his own throat and be done with it that much quicker, too.
He grabbed for the baseball cap with the AST patch on it that along with his weapon were still the only two outward indications of his profession--the hot water faucet in the sink in the bathroom hadn't generated enough steam to smooth the wrinkles out of his uniform--and opened the door.
And came face-to-face with Moses Alakuyak. He and Wy were standing post next to each other. "Oh shit," Liam said, but he said it to himself.
"Get your butt down here, boy," Moses barked.
A harsh croak seconded the command, and Liam looked up to see the big raven regarding him mockingly from what seemed to be his personal branch. He was so big the branch of the spruce tree curved downward at a severe angle-possibly even an acute angle, Liam thought, remembering Tim from the night before--and the big black bird bobbed up and down like a puppet on a string, if a puppet could ever look that completely self-willed.
"Look, Moses, I--"
Moses' voice was like the crack of a whip. "Get your butt down here."
Liam looked at Wy, who rolled her eyes but didn't move out of her modified horse stance. He bowed to the inevitable, and went to take his place on Moses' other side.
They worked together for twenty minutes, standing post, working on the previous day's two movements, commencement and ward off left and adding a third, right push upward. It was hard work, and Liam kissed last night's spit bath good-bye. At least he was going to be cooped up in the same small space with a woman who was working as hard as he was. With luck, they'd cancel each other out.
At the end of the exercise Moses signified grudging approval, although he did say, cocking a knowing eye at each of them, "You didn't practice last night, either of you."
They both looked undeniably guilty. He shook a finger at them. "Practice! Practice, practice, practice!" He made a fist of his right hand, enclosed it in his left palm, and bowed once. Liam awkwardly, Wy with grace and assurance, followed suit. "I'm outta here," Moses decided, and walked to his truck. He paused, one hand on the cab, one on the door, one foot on the step, and yelled, "Keep the goddamn beach on your left, Chouinard! You got that?"
"I got it, Moses," she said.
"And you, trooper, you stay awake!" He slid into the truck, slammed the door, started the engine, ground the gears into first, and jerked off down the road.
"Let's go," Wy said.
They strapped into the borrowed blue and white Cub, Wy up front on the stick, Liam seated directly behind her in the plane's only other seat, his knees bumping against the back of her seat and his shoulders nearly brushing both sides of the interior. There was glass from his seat forward on both sides, meeting at the windshield, and a glass skylight overhead. Liam didn't like the skylight; it was cut into the roof where he felt there ought to have been a ridgepole connecting the wings, a ridgepole of tempered steel or maybe titanium. Something stronger than glass, anyway.
"Okay," Wy said, twisting her neck to look at him, "you understand what your job is?"
Liam could feel the panic rising up from his belly, and beat it back with grim determination. "Yes."
She wriggled the stick between her knees, and the stick between Liam's knees waggled in response. "Keep your hands off this."
"Not a problem," Liam said fervently. "I'm not touching nothing nohow never."
"Good." There was no amusement in her voice. Wy was all business this morning. "All right, put on your muffs."
Liam reached for the green headphones hooked over a piece of bare airframe and put them on. "The mike is voice-activated," she said, her words reaching hi
m clearly. Her braid hung over the back of her seat, and he resisted the urge to give it a tug. "Purse your lips, adjust the mike so it just touches them, and give me a test count."
"One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one," he said obediently.
"Push the mike a little closer and repeat," she said. He did so. "Good," she said. "When you want my attention, what do you do?"
He poked her shoulder. "Good, or slap my head, or kick the seat, or whatever you need to do. When you need me to look at something immediately, what do you do?"
He pointed, his arm extended over her seat and shoulder so that she could see his hand and pointing finger. "Good. Okay, you'll be able to talk to me, and I'll be able to talk to you over the mike. You'll be able to listen to me talking to the boats, but you won't be able to talk to them yourself. Understand?"
"Got it."
"Okay then, let's get this puppy in the air."
He knew her hands were moving on the controls but he couldn't see what she was doing, and was glad of it. The prop turned over, once, twice, three times, and caught, turning into a blur through the forward window, pulling the Cub's nose down. All Cubs were taildraggers, which only meant that the third gear was attached to the rear of the fuselage so that on the ground the little plane sat back on her tail, and not so coincidentally was why neither Wy nor Liam could see over the control panel. This necessitated a crossing back and forth of the taxiway, kind of like a sailboat tacks back and forth across the wind, so that Wy could watch where they were going out of the side windows. Liam didn't like that, either.
Over the headphones he heard Wy talking to traffic control, seeking permission for taxi and takeoff. It was granted, and the Cub snaked out onto the taxiway between a DC-3 freighter headed for Togiak and a Fish and Game Cessna 206 with a long-distance tank fixed to its belly that gave it a distinctly fecund appearance.
They trundled down to the end of the runway, waited for an Alaska Airlines 737 to land, and followed the DC-3 into the air. As always, Liam clutched when he felt the reluctant earth let go of their wheels. The good news was that, once in the air, the tail came up and he could see over Wy's head out the windshield. He rummaged around for his water bottle, drank deeply, and didn't feel much better, the water sloshing around in his stomach like a sea working up to a storm. There was an airsickness bag in the pocket of Wy's seat back. He devoutly hoped he would not have to make use of it.
The Cub's engine was loud and rattled the fillings in his teeth. The seat cushion was thin and the aluminum frame beneath hard on back and behind. At least Liam, sweating with a steady frisson of fear, had the comfort of knowing that the slow-flying Piper Super Cub was the quintessential Bush plane, and that if they did run into trouble Wy had a good chance of putting them down safely almost anywhere.
He wouldn't have gotten in the plane at all if Wy hadn't been on the stick. She was a natural pilot: good, steady hands, an encyclopedic knowledge of the limits of her aircraft, twenty-ten vision, and an uncanny instinct for weather. He remembered one day she was supposed to fly him out to Nizina. When she met him at the airstrip she had a frown on her face. She pointed into the southwest. He'd looked, and hadn't seen anything but a light haze lying low on the horizon. He'd told her so, and she'd shook her head. "I don't like the look of it," she had told him. They hadn't flown that day, and that night a storm blew into the interior from the Gulf of Alaska that toppled trees and blew off roofs --and wrecked planes--from Cape Yakataga to Copper Center.
He comforted himself that he was in the best possible plane in the best possible hands and nerved himself to look around.
He hated to admit it, but the view was superb. There are few places to look at more beautiful than the coast of Alaska, and few places better to look at it from than the window of a small plane. To the south, Bristol Bay rolled out like a plush green carpet, sunlight caught like gold dust in the nap. To the north was the immense body of the mainland, what the Aleuts used to call alyeska, or greatland, to distinguish it from the Aleutian Islands. Coastal lowlands rose slowly into mountain ranges, the ranges marching irregularly up the interior like soldiers shouldering angular blue-white packs. One range ran into another with barely a river or a lake or a valley between, the Wood River Mountains, the Ahklun Mountains, the Eek Mountains, the Kilbuck and Taylor and Kuskokwim Mountains. Soldiers wasn't a bad simile, he thought. The mountains were the last line of defense against the encroachment of settlement. They would be a harsh trial, as well, sorting out in swift order the quick and the dead.
Below them the Nushagak Peninsula curved southeast, and to the west he could glimpse the enormity of the Bering Sea beyond. It was a breathtaking sight, and he could tell Wy knew it by the smile in her voice. "Enough mountains for you, Liam?"
For one halcyon moment he forgot that his ass was hanging out a thousand feet up in the air and laughed for the sheer joy of it. "I guess so, after all," he admitted.
A few minutes later she spoke again. "Okay, we're here."
He tore his eyes from the distant mountains and looked down, catching his breath sharply when she put the Cub into a shallow descent, banking right in a wide, gentle circle.
"They call it Riggins Bay," Wy said. "I heard after the surveyor that worked this coast. You know, this coast wasn't charted even in the Coastal Pilot, not in any well-defined way, until the late seventies."
"And they fished it anyway?"
"They fished it anyway. They've been fishing it since before the turn of the century. For a long time they fished it in sailboats."
"Sailboats? You mean like with no engines?"
"Yeah, they weren't allowed to fish motorized vessels in Bristol Bay until 1951."
Riggins Bay was one of the many lesser bays that formed the coastline of Bristol Bay, but it was big enough for Liam. It had a curving beach that looked at least twenty miles long to Liam's less than experienced eye, the inner arc of which faced southeast. Each end sported prominent rocky towers and shoals, and the incoming tide was caught in the act of covering up a nice collection of boulders covered in dark green seaweed that waved gently in the ebb and flow of the water.
And the bay was simply boiling with boats. "Jesus, Wy! How many boats are down there?"
He immediately regretted asking, because Wy banked left to get a good look at the armada. "I'd say about two hundred, right around the same amount we had at the last opener. Not everybody who has a permit fishes it, you know."
Liam didn't know, and if he understood her implication, it meant that there could be even more boats out there than there already were, but for the life of him he wouldn't have known where to put them all.
"Some of them are rerigged gillnetters, some of them are purse seiners," she told him.
"Where are ours?"
"I'm looking." They flew around for a few moments, always turning left, Liam noticed. "Look for an orange buoy in the crow's nest."
Liam looked. "They've all got orange buoys in their crow's nests, Wy."
She sighed, heavily enough to be heard over the headphones. "You know, this would be such a great business, if it weren't for the fishermen."
She pulled out of the pattern and proceeded toward the beach. "We were about a hundred miles south of here day before yesterday," she told him over the earphones.
"Why not go back there?"
"Because the herring have moved since then, up the coast. We're following them."
"Why do they move up?"
"They're looking for kelp to spawn on," she said, and nodded out the window at the enormous beds of kelp, one after another, that lined the coast offshore. "The egg sacs adhere to the kelp, and hang on until hatching."
"The roe is what sells the herring, right?"
"Yes."
"Why not just wait for the herring to spawn and harvest the kelp then?"
"Some do. Others go for the fish, by purse seine or gillnet. It's a matter of what the Japanese buyers want more, plain roe or on kelp, and a matter of quotas--each method ha
s a quota in tons. Fish and Game projected this year's biomass at a hundred twenty-five thousand tons, about seven percent below last year's."
Liam knew nothing about herring, but he knew just enough about salmon, Alaska's leading industry before the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, to ask, "How much of that can you catch?"
"All the fleet, all together? Twenty-five thousand."
"Tons?"
"Tons."
Liam did some quick figuring. "Fifty thousand pounds. Doesn't seem like very much."
"I'd agree with you." She tossed him a quick, tight grin over one shoulder. "If we weren't getting fourteen hundred a ton."
"Fourteen hundred?" Liam's voice scaled up in disbelief. "Dollars? Fourteen hundred dollars per ton?" She nodded, and the dark blond braid bobbed with emphasis. "Jesus H. Christ on a crutch," he said, stunned.
"Best price we've ever had," she agreed. "We usually average around a thousand a ton, but I guess the Japanese are hungry for roe this spring."
Liam tried to do some more figuring, but too many zeros kept coming up on the ends of all the numbers. "How much in an average catch?"
"There is no average catch. You get what you can."
"Well, okay, how much do you want to catch?"
"All of it," she replied promptly. He heard a faint chuckle over the muffs. "But I'd settle for, oh, I don't know, two hundred tons." Suddenly wistful, she added, "Two hundred tons would be one hell of a haul."
"Two hundred for one boat?"
"Yes."
Liam blinked. Two hundred tons at $1,400 a ton was $280,000. "And you're spotting for how many boats?"
"Three."
"And you get fifteen percent of each boat's catch?"
"Yup."
Liam's heart sank. Fifteen percent of $280,000 was $42,000.
For that kind of money, Wy could buy herself a dozen kids, and a judge to give them to her.
Especially if she didn't have to share it.
"Uh, Wy?"
"What?"
"How much do I get for riding back here?"
Wy's voice was mocking, reminding him irresistibly of the tone that big bastard of a raven used whenever he was in Liam's vicinity. "Why, Liam, and here I thought you were suffering through this all for love of me. Hold on to your tonsils."
