Across a Thousand Miles

by Nadia Nichols

  “Fred Turner. He’s staying at my place till I get back.”

  “Fred Turner?” Rebecca glared at Mac. “Fred Turner’s about as dependable as one might expect an alcoholic amnesiac to be. If you left any liquor in your cabin, he’s drunk it all by now. Lord only knows what shape your dogs’ll be in when you get back.”

  “I can fix that U-joint in jig time. All I need is the right part. I noticed you had an old, broken-down Ford parked behind the dog yard…”

  “That old, broken-down Ford is my snowplow, mister, and you aren’t laying a hand on it! Sam Dodge has some junkers over at his place. He may have the part you need. Like I said, you can use my phone to call him, though you won’t be able to do much in the pitch-dark.”

  “I have a headlamp in my truck,” Mac said. “Hell, I could work blind if I had to. I’m a fair enough mechanic. How far away do these folks live?”

  “Sam and Ellin? Not far. Five miles down the trail, east of here.”

  “Which trail?”

  “That one.” Rebecca raised her free hand and pointed. “If you hurry you could get there and back in my four-wheeler before the snow gets too deep, but we’d better call ahead first.”

  “I appreciate this,” Mac said, following her into the warmth of the cabin. He stopped inside the door and looked around while she hooked the radio phone to the twelve-volt battery. She noticed him staring at Bruce’s clothing on the wall pegs near the door and the pair of man-size Bunny boots behind the wood cookstove. “You have a real nice place here,” he offered. She said nothing, dialing Sam and Ellin’s number by heart and hoping that they had their phone turned on.

  They did. Ellin answered on the second ring. Her voice was always warm and welcome to Rebecca’s ears. “’Becca! Sweetheart, how are you? I hope you’re all ready for winter, my dear, because its here!”

  Rebecca quickly filled Ellin in, and within moments Sam was speaking directly to Mac about parts and pieces and tools and time. Finally, Mac handed her the phone and grinned. “All set!” he said. “They have the part I need. All I have to do is pull it, bring it back here, and fix my truck. Callie should be all right in the meantime.”

  “I could drive you over,” she offered, albeit grudgingly. She had chores to finish, a column to write and a deadline to meet.

  “No need, if I can borrow your four-wheeler.”

  Relieved, she led him back out into the brumal blast, zipping her parka against the cold. It was rapidly growing dark. The four-wheeler was parked inside the barn, and she swung the door wide and held it open against the force of the wind while he started up the vehicle and drove it out. Once again she pointed at the mouth of the trail that led directly from her yard into the thick spruce forest. “Just follow that trail. You can’t possibly get lost. It takes you right into Sam and Ellin’s yard. Don’t worry about Callie. I’ll bring her into the cabin and keep an eye on her.”

  “Thanks,” he said, visibly relieved. He shifted into first gear, and was swallowed up instantly by the darkness and the storm.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE WIND MADE a noise in the eaves that sounded like a dying man’s moan, and Rebecca fed more sticks into the stove to thwart the deepening cold that worked its way through tiny cracks between the cabin logs and radiated up from the floorboards. It was nearing midnight, and still no sign of Bill MacKenzie. The storm had intensified, and more than eighteen inches already covered the frozen ground in some areas. Rebecca poured herself another cup of tea, her fifth of the night. Maybe it was time to get out of the dog-food business. The markup was so small, just fifty cents a bag. For the privilege of selling Bill MacKenzie forty bags, she had earned the tidy sum of twenty dollars, not even enough for one bag of food for her own huskies. And that was assuming he ever paid her.

  It simply wasn’t worth the aggravation.

  And where was he, anyway? He had her four-wheeler, a Honda that Bruce had spent a small fortune on four years ago. If he hurt that machine… “Okay,” she said to Tuffy. “He left here around four o’clock. It’s five miles to Sam and Ellin’s. He has to go out back and remove the parts he needs from the junkers Sam collects and that’s going to take some time. One, two, three hours? Even if Ellin feeds him—and she surely will— he should have been back at least three hours ago. The snow is too deep now for the four-wheeler, which means he’s stuck out there somewhere and freezing to death.”

  Rebecca paced the small confines of the kitchen with mug of tea in hand. Tuffy raised her head and watched intently. “I can’t call Ellin,” Rebecca told the dog. “I thought he’d be back by nine so I didn’t phone before and now it’s too late, Sam goes to bed early and if I bother them now…” She took a sip of tea. “I have to! If he’s lost out there we’ll have to find him. It’s ten degrees standing temperature, but way below zero with the wind chill.”

  She set her mug down with a thump on the kitchen table and plugged the radio phone into the battery. “Ellin? Ellin, it’s Rebecca! Where on earth is Bill MacKenzie!”

  Ellin’s voice was drowsy with sleep. “Why, he’s right here! He’s spending the night. It was late and the weather was far too nasty for him to head back after he and Sam had gotten the parts, so we made him bed down in the boys’ bedroom.” Ellin’s voice lowered to a naughty whisper. “My dear girl, wherever did you find him! He’s a treasure!”

  “Ellin, for your information I did not find him! He bought a load of dog food from me, and his truck just happened to break down on my road! Do you mean to say that all this time he’s been sleeping?”

  “Like a baby. We tried to call, but as usual your phone was unplugged. Don’t be mad, my dear. I must tell you that we’ve enjoyed his company immensely. He even helped Sam fix that old Bombardier of ours, he’s that good a mechanic! I must say, you’ve got yourself quite a man there, Rebecca.”

  “Ellin, he’s not my man! I’m sorry to have woken you but I thought… I just didn’t know…” She glanced at Callie, who was curled on a blanket behind the stove, sound asleep. “I mean, it’s a bad storm and he—”

  “You were worried. I understand completely.” Ellin’s grandmotherly voice soothed and reassured. “But worry no more, my dear. We’re taking good care of him and we’ll get him back to you safely first thing in the morning. Now go to bed and get some sleep.”

  Rebecca couldn’t be angry with Ellin, and as she climbed the steep stairs to the cabin’s sleeping loft, she surprised herself by laughing for the second time that day.

  BY MORNING the storm had blown itself out, and at 8 a.m. Sam and Ellin arrived, riding double on the wide-track Bombardier snowmobile and towing a sled. Bill MacKenzie was driving Rebecca’s Honda behind them. Rebecca had finished watering and feeding the dogs, and she invited the elderly couple into the cabin for a cup of coffee. Mac came inside briefly to check on Callie and then went out to rummage in the sled behind the Bombardier. She could see several mysterious tools protruding from the canvas wrappings he pulled out.

  “Mac’s a darn good mechanic,” Sam said, as he settled himself into a chair at the kitchen table. Sam was in his seventies, lean and trim and bursting with the health and vitality of a man who had lived most of his life in the outdoors. Ellin’s hair was as white as her husband’s, and she was also in shape. They had lived in the Yukon all of their lives, had raised four boys in their cabin, home-schooling them with such success that all four had gone on to successful careers.

  “He’s Brian’s older brother, and I remember Brian telling us he was in the military. I don’t recall which branch,” Rebecca said, pouring the coffee. “He’s taking care of Brian’s team for the winter.”

  “Well, he certainly knows his stuff. He knows airplanes, too,” Sam said. “You should’ve seen his eyes light up when he saw my old Stearman! Said he’d help me get her back in the air this spring if I wanted. I guess I wouldn’t mind having some help.”

  “I’ve never known you to refuse help,” Ellin said to her husband. “Now,” she turned to Rebecca. “Let
me give you a bit of advice—”

  “Ellin, before you start, let me just say this,” Rebecca interrupted firmly. “I’m not the least bit interested in Bill MacKenzie. I hardly know him.”

  Ellin sat up straighter. “It’s been a long time since—”

  “I wouldn’t go there if I were you, Ellin,” Sam advised his wife. “Rebecca knows her own mind.”

  “Thank you, Sam,” Rebecca said.

  “She can’t spend the rest of her life grieving.”

  “When it’s time to move on, she’ll know it,” Sam replied.

  “I doubt it. Rebecca’s one of the stubbornnest people I know,” Ellin said.

  “Now, just a minute!” Rebecca nudged the sugar bowl in Sam’s direction. “I wouldn’t call myself—”

  “Well, you are, my dear, and you might as well admit it. Trying to make a go of it alone here, running Bruce’s business—”

  “My business now, Ellin, and I’m doing just fine with it. Better than Bruce did, if the truth be known.”

  “It’s too much! You need help. Especially with the dogs and the tour business. What if you were out on a training run with a team of dogs and something went wrong? What if you never made it back home? Who would know you were missing? Who would know to come looking for you?” Ellin leaned over the table, her blue eyes earnest. “My dear girl, the lowest possible denominator in this part of the world is two. You simply can’t go it alone!”

  Rebecca sighed and lifted her coffee cup. “Ellin, just what are you getting at? You want me to marry this man? This stranger?”

  “He’s not a stranger. He’s Brian’s brother!”

  “This conversation is getting a little too weird for me,” Sam said, pushing out of his chair. “I think I’ll go see if I can give Mac a hand.”

  “Yes, you do that,” Ellin said, waving him away as if he were an annoying fly and turning her attention to Rebecca. “Not marriage, my dear. At least, not until you know each other a little better.”

  “Thank you for that much, at least,” Rebecca said.

  “I think you should hire him.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. He owes you money. He told us the story about the dog food and also that he couldn’t pay Sam for the truck parts. So to work off the parts, he’s going to help Sam with some odd jobs. Maybe he could work off what he owes you for the dog food. You need a man’s help around here. He could get in your firewood, help with the tours, pick up the food in Whitehorse, help take care of the dogs—”

  “No!” Rebecca said.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Where will he live? He can’t stay in your guest cabin because most of the time it’ll be occupied with paying clients. Well, don’t you worry, I’ve thought it all out. He can stay with us. We have that log cabin the boys built. It needs some fixing here and there, but he’s perfectly capable of making it livable, and it has a good roof. He can move the junk that’s stored there into the hangar, and in his spare time he can help Sam with mechanical things, like keeping the snow machines up and running, and working on that old wreck of an airplane.” Ellin sat back in her chair with a self-satisfied smile. “Don’t you see how perfectly that would work out for all of us?”

  “No!” Rebecca repeated. “No, I don’t. If you want to hire him, Ellin, you go right ahead. Be my guest!” She nodded to give her words emphasis. “But I want no part of it.”

  SAM FOUND Bill MacKenzie wedged beneath the rear axle of his old truck, his booted feet sticking out into the snow. “Well,” Sam said, hunkering down on his heels and peering beneath the truck’s frame. “How does she look?”

  “She looks like a broken U-joint to me,” came the muffled reply. “As a matter of fact, she looks just as broke today as she looked yesterday.”

  “You’ll need to jack her up,” Sam suggested mildly.

  “Damn straight, and if I had a jack I would, but this old truck of Brian’s doesn’t seem to be blessed with one, and to tell you the truth, I think I’d rather be horse-whipped than ask Rebecca Reed if I could borrow hers.”

  “Well, now, son, I don’t see why that should bother you. Rebecca’s a good woman.”

  There was a thump, a grunt of pain, and then, with much wriggling, Mac squeezed out from beneath the truck and sat up. A thin trickle of blood ran from a gouge over his left eyebrow. “I’m sure she is,” he said, rubbing the wound and smearing it with grease. “But that woman dislikes me and I don’t blame her. We’ve hardly known each other two days and already I owe her a lot of money. I’ve never owed anybody anything in my entire life. It’s no wonder she thinks poorly of me.”

  “Oh, now, she don’t think bad of you.”

  Mac laughed. “Well, if she doesn’t, she sure puts on a good show.” He climbed to his feet and brushed the snow off his pants. “I can’t do anything without getting the hind end of this truck off the ground. I better just bite the bullet and go ask if I can borrow her jack. She probably has three or four of ’em, all heavy-duty monsters capable of lifting a Mack truck.

  “She has at least two that I know of,” Sam agreed. “I’ll ask her, if you want.”

  Mac shook his head. “Thanks. I’ll do it. Her opinion of me can’t get much lower.”

  They both heard the approaching truck at the same time, and moments later Rebecca’s old red Ford lumbered into view, plowing up a wave of snow before it. She cut the engine as she drove around Mac’s truck, opened the cab door and dropped to the ground. “Gosh! I thought for sure you’d have it all fixed by now,” she said.

  “Couldn’t jack her up,” he said. “Couldn’t find the jack…”

  “Ah,” she said, nodding calmly. “Well, I’ve got one. A good heavy-duty one.” She turned and walked back to the truck and Mac watched her, admiring the way she moved, her self-possessed grace, wishing more than anything in the world that he could do just one thing right in this woman’s presence. He saw her struggling with the heavy jack and moved to help her.

  “This is great!” he said as he took it from her hands. “This’ll do the job. Thanks.”

  “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  “Bumped my head.” He turned back toward his truck. In a matter of minutes the vehicle was jacked up enough for him to crawl beneath it with his tools and spare parts spread on an old blanket beside him.

  “How about a light?” Sam said.

  “Oh, he doesn’t need one,” Rebecca said. “He told me he could work blindfolded, he’s that good.”

  “Well, there’s a headlamp on the front seat,” Mac said. “if you wouldn’t mind passing it to me.”

  He heard her footsteps march up to the driver’s side. She wrenched open the door. Long pause. “I don’t see any lamp.”

  “Look under the stuff on the passenger’s side,” Mac called out, picturing the horror in her beautiful eyes as she beheld the heaps of trash in the cab of his brother’s truck. “It’s buried in there somewhere.”

  She climbed into the cab, and as she did so, the truck began to move.

  “Hey!” Mac shouted. Seconds later the vehicle shifted just enough for the jack to kick out from beneath the bumper. The back of the truck banged down hard, making him cry out as the air was driven from his lungs. He tried to move but couldn’t. The undercarriage of the truck pressed against him as one of the tires slid more deeply into a rut.

  “Mac? Mac! Are you okay?” he heard her ask as her feet hit the ground.

  “I’m fine,” he managed. “But…I’m kind of…pinned… under here…”

  “Help me, Sam!” Rebecca sounded scared. “We’ve got to get this thing back up! Chock the front wheels again, front and back! Hurry!” Mac heard the frenzy of coordinated movements as they got the jack under the rear bumper and worked the long handle. The rear of the truck rose slowly, and he felt the pressure against his chest ease, though breathing was still difficult. “I think that’s enough!” Rebecca said. “Mac? Can you move at all?”

  “Yeah,” he said, the word more gaspe
d than spoken. “I’m fine. I just got wedged in a little too tightly.” He slowly inched his way out and just as slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked at her…and felt as if he were gazing into the face of a beautiful angel that was drifting slowly away from him and into a gathering darkness.

  “Mac?” Rebecca said, and then caught him as he slumped forward into her arms.

  “WELL, BILL MACKENZIE, I think you’ll live,” Sadie Hedda said, corralling medical paraphernalia into her bag. “You’ll be a little sore, but that’s to be expected after being squashed by a truck. You’re young and strong and in very good shape. Your blood pressure is stable, and I don’t think there’s any internal bleeding. Like I said, you have at least six cracked ribs and some pretty impressive bruising, so you’ll be laid up for a while, and we’ll have to keep the ribs taped. But I don’t see any long-term complications unless you do something foolish, like puncture a lung.” Sadie shrugged into her parka and tucked her flaming mane of shoulder-length hair beneath a thick fleece hat. Her broad freckled face broke into a smile, and she reached to give Rebecca’s arm a squeeze, walking with her to the door. She lowered her voice to a barely audible murmur. “Jeez, Becky, you landed yourself a live one here! He’s one handsome son of a gun!”

  “He’s not mine,” Rebecca said stonily. “How long does he have to stay in bed?”

  “If I were you,” Hedda advised, “I’d keep him there as long as possible.”

  “Sadie! I’m serious. My first clients of the season are coming to stay in this cabin very soon, and I need to do a lot of work on it before they arrive. I can’t have it tied up as a hospital! Shouldn’t we transport him into Dawson?”

  “He’d be better off not moving. He’ll need a week of bed rest, followed by another three weeks of recuperation.”

  Rebecca stared over Sadie’s shoulder at the man who lay on the lower bunk on the cabin wall opposite the woodstove. He apparently felt her gaze and turned his head to meet her eyes. In the soft glow of lamplight his eyes were unreadable. She felt a twinge of guilt, but after all, she had a business to run.