Bad Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  “Potlatch?” Kate said. “Why Potlatch?”

  “He’s sort of a relative,” Ryan said. “I’ve stayed with him a couple of times before. I heard Bobby talking about him on Park Air, how Scott was dragging up, and I figured he’d be busy enough that he wouldn’t be too worried about us. There would be a lot of coming and going to look at what he had for sale, and maybe we could bum a ride with somebody who couldn’t care less about Kushtaka or Kuskulana.” He looked down at the dark head on his shoulder. “When we got there, Jennifer saw that he had an airstrip, and got the idea to call Reverend Flanagan on Scott’s shortwave.”

  “I flew up from Cordova and picked them up,” Anne said. “They couldn’t think of what to do next, so I suggested we talk to you. And here we are.”

  “If it was an accident, why didn’t you stay and explain?” Kate said. Although she was depressingly aware she already knew the answer.

  Ryan met her eyes straight on. There was nothing shifty about this young man. “It was an accident.”

  “So you said.”

  “We didn’t stay, because there would have been no explaining,” Jennifer said, looking up. “After Rick—after he—we were so scared, we just piled into the skiff and headed downriver as fast as we could go.” She looked back at Kate. “If we’d gone to them, if we’d tried to explain, they wouldn’t have listened. They would have torn Ryan to pieces on the spot.”

  “And they would have hurt Jennifer, too,” Ryan said, his eyes bright. “Maybe not as bad as me, but…”

  Kate looked at Anne, whose shoulders raised in a slight shrug. “I asked the same question. They gave the same answer. I don’t have as much time served in the Park as you do, but from what I’ve seen so far, my guess is that Ryan now has the half-life of a gastrotrich if he’s not out of the Park as in yesterday.”

  Kate got up and walked to the window. The view was a parking lot with a row of recycling Dumpsters. Behind them rose the cell phone tower, bristling with antennas and satellite dishes. Behind the tower the Quilaks rose from rolling green foothills to buttes with flattops leveled by glaciers to an impenetrable wall of jagged, blue white peaks.

  Although not quite impenetrable, she thought.

  If Kate turned Jennifer and Ryan over to Jim, Rick Estes’s death would be squared away and off the books. She was certain that Jim wouldn’t even file charges, but if he had to and it got as far as trial, she knew to a moral certainty that Judge Bobbie Singh at the district court in Ahtna would never allow either one of these children to see the inside of a prison.

  Jennifer and Ryan—and Anne—were right. Every extra moment they remained in the Park was hazardous to Ryan’s health, and very probably to Jennifer’s as well. It would, she realized with a sinking feeling, be even more hazardous to the health of the Park.

  The advantages of being a Park rat were many. You knew your neighbor and your neighbor knew you. In the worst winter, there was help there for you when you needed it.

  The disadvantages of being a Park rat were also many.

  You knew your neighbor.

  Your neighbor knew you.

  The Suulutaq Mine was divisive enough, pitting parent against child, brother against sister, community against community. If the tensions between Kushtaka and Kuskulana were allowed to exacerbate an already incendiary situation, there was no telling where it would stop. Kushtakans and Kuskulaners were so far off the grid, they were used to doing and making for themselves. The law was at minimum half an hour away by plane, and if the weather socked in, it could be days before there was any kind of incident response.

  The Kushtakers would not rest until Rick Estes was avenged. If they exacted that vengeance on the person of Ryan Christianson, the Kuskulanans would retaliate. Kate had a very real nightmare vision of landing in Kuskulana to find dead bodies littering the streets. This thing had already precipitated two murders and an involuntary manslaughter. Kate could not allow it to escalate to include collateral damage.

  Okay, turning them over to Jim was out. However angry it made him, and she was sure he was going to be very pissed off.

  But there was no possible way to guarantee either Ryan or even Jennifer’s safety if they remained in the Park. Going home was not an option for either of them.

  Putting them on a plane to Anchorage and getting them out of the state. Could that be done before the Kushtaka and Kuskulana jihadists found them? Like every other village, Kushtaka and Kuskulana had as many relatives living in town as they did at home, more probably.

  Driving them out. There was one road out of the Park, and one road at Ahtna going one of two directions, south to Anchorage or north to Tok.

  Again, Anchorage was not an option. She turned her head to look at the young couple. “What kind of identification are you carrying?”

  They both had driver’s licenses. No passports. Which meant, with the new 9/11-inspired border controls, they couldn’t get through the Beaver Creek border crossing. So trying to get them out through Tok wasn’t an option, either.

  “Would our marriage certificate work?” Ryan said.

  “It’s in my daypack,” Jennifer said, and reached for something that wasn’t there. “Oh,” she said, looking sick.

  “What?” Ryan said.

  “I forgot it.” She looked at Ryan. “On the beach. After…” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding like a frightened child ten years her junior.

  “It’s all right,” Ryan said, trying to gather her close again. “It’s all right, Jennifer.”

  “No,” she said, pushing herself upright. “You don’t understand. They’ll have found the daypack. They’ll have looked inside.”

  Ryan’s eyes widened with dismay, and then he rallied. “We were going to write to them anyway. They had to know sometime.”

  Jennifer looked at Kate. “You have to help us,” she said, her voice maturing from one sentence to the next. “We have to get out of the Park, and we have to get out now.”

  What was the best possible outcome here? Kate thought, looking at the young couple, well aware their recent actions might be the spark that sent their villages up in flames, but in spite of their mutual terror, both of them determined to face whatever came together. What was best for them? What action would be most effective in averting all-out war between the two villages? What could she do to maintain the fragile peace of the Park?

  Kate turned to look at Anne. “Get in your plane and go back to Cordova.”

  Anne looked at Ryan and Jennifer. “What about them?”

  “If anybody asks, you can tell them the truth up to this point. After that, you don’t know. Best all around.”

  Anne understood. She got to her feet and dusted her hands, unconscious of the irony. “Okay.”

  “Although if nobody asks, don’t volunteer.”

  Anne’s smile was strained. “Not a problem,” she said.

  Jennifer hugged her hard. “Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled in Anne’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Ryan hugged her, too. “We’ll never forget what we owe you, Reverend Flanagan. Thank you.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Kate said. “You guys wait here.”

  On the other side of the door, she said, “One more thing you have to do, Anne.”

  * * *

  Kate kept her speed at a slow and sedate forty miles per hour, mindful of all posted signs, giving dutiful waves to everyone she passed, including even Iris Meganack, who was weeding strawberries in her garden and who wouldn’t have pissed on Kate if she were on fire. Mutt sat up next to her, the tips of her ears brushing the ceiling whenever Kate wasn’t quick enough to avoid a pothole. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to suspect that she was smuggling two fugitives out to her homestead beneath the blue tarp in the back of her pickup.

  Ninety minutes later she parked outside the garage and twitched back the tarp. “Hop out. Jennifer, pull both four-wheelers out of the garage. Ryan, there’s a fuel tank around the back of the s
hop. Top off both of the four-wheelers and fill up a couple of jerry cans. There’s a trailer. Hook it up.”

  She didn’t wait to see if they obeyed her, taking the steps to the house two at a time. On the back deck, there was a small, weatherproof shed where she kept her gear. She pulled out her backpack, Johnny’s backpack, and an old army pack of her father’s, one of the few things to survive the cabin fire. She took all three into the kitchen and filled them with packaged and canned goods, dried fruit and nuts and granola bars.

  Jennifer came in. “Done. Where are we going?”

  “There’s a twenty-four-pack of bottled water on the back deck,” Kate said. “Put it in the trailer.”

  Admirably, Jennifer didn’t hesitate.

  Kate went to the hall closet and started rooting through it.

  Jennifer returned. “Done. What next?”

  Kate tossed her a pair of XtraTufs. “Try these on.”

  Jennifer did. “Little loose.”

  “You would have Princess Ariel feet.” Kate went upstairs and brought back two pair of heavy wool socks. “Try them on with these, one pair at a time, and then start trying on jackets from the closet.” She grabbed Jim’s boots and took them out on the deck. “Ryan! Catch.” She dropped them into his hands. “Try them on.”

  He did so. “Little loose,” he said.

  Kate went back upstairs and returned with two pairs of Jim’s wool socks.

  She went back inside and found Jennifer zipping up Johnny’s venerable Filson jacket. “It’s the only one that fits,” she said.

  “It would be,” Kate said. Maybe Johnny wouldn’t miss it. Ha.

  Spare T-shirts and socks. A first-aid pack, contents checked. Deet, 50 percent, a bottle in each pack. Sunscreen, 50 SPF. Kate bought both in bulk at Costco once a year. Toilet paper in ziplock bags, one roll per pack. More ziplock bags, freezer strength, gallon- and quart-sized. A ball of string, a coil of rope, bandannas, ball caps.

  Each pack already had bear bells fastened to the outside. Kate could find only one whistle and stuck it in her own pocket.

  She took down the .30-06, her father’s and one of the other things to survive the cabin fire, and the relatively new double-barreled, pump-action 12 gauge from the rack over the door. She raided the closet again for ammunition. Jennifer had already started ferrying the packs outside, and Ryan appeared at the door. Kate pointed at the closet. “Find a jacket that fits.”

  She found her compass, took it over to the tattered map of the Park tacked to one wall, and lined up a route. She wasn’t sure how far the compass on her phone would take her before they ran out of service area. She found a smaller-scale, plastic-coated map to carry with them.

  “This okay?”

  She looked up and saw Ryan zipped into Jim’s Eddie Bauer down jacket, no less venerable—or favorite—an item than Johnny’s Filson. It was a little big on him, but he wouldn’t have fit into anything of Johnny’s or Kate’s. “Fine.”

  She stood there, thinking. What had she forgotten? Something.

  Matches. Fire starters. If she had had time, she would have smacked herself in the forehead. She found both and a couple of Bic lighters and leaped down the steps into the yard to distribute them among the packs.

  “Everybody have a knife?” They nodded. “Show me.” They did without protest. They were both Swiss Army knives, Ryan’s the big one with all the tools. “Good.”

  Heading into the Bush in a hurry resulted mainly in injury and death. She felt at her belt for the sheath of her Buck knife. Whetstone. There was one in her pack; she had checked. Water filter. Again, in her pack.

  She looked out the window and saw that the sun had sunk low into the sky. They wouldn’t be able to go far this evening without stopping, but the upside was at this time of year they wouldn’t have to wait long before it got light enough to see their way again.

  She closed all the kitchen cupboard doors and the closet door and the door of the house. She went down the steps at a more decorous pace this time, and halted in front of the young couple. “I have something to say, and I need both of you to listen to me very carefully as I say it.”

  They moved instinctively to stand closer together, and looked at Kate with sober faces.

  “It’s not too late to change your minds,” she said. “From what I saw and from what you told me, I don’t think anyone is going to jail over Rick Estes’s death.”

  She saw a flash of sorrow cross Jennifer’s face, and regret on both their faces. “Right now, this minute, we can put all this stuff away, drive back into town, and go to the trooper post and surrender to Sergeant Chopin. He’s not there right now, but he’ll be back tonight or tomorrow morning. He’s a smart guy and a reasonable man. I can’t speak for him, but as long as you’re telling me the truth—”

  “We are,” Ryan said, as if he were taking a vow.

  “We are,” Jennifer said at the same time, and with a little more attitude.

  “—then at best you’ll be charged with leaving the scene, at worst involuntary manslaughter. You’re first offenders, I doubt very much there will be any jail time. Probation, probably some community service.”

  “But we’ll have to stay in the Park,” Jennifer said.

  Kate nodded. “Be my guess. Judges like to know where you are.”

  “We do that, Ryan’s dead,” Jennifer said flatly.

  Kate looked at Ryan. “Her, too, maybe,” he said.

  A shadow passed over the clearing, and Kate looked up to watch a golden eagle soar overhead, brown feathers gilded to bronze by the sun. “Okay,” she said. “But know this: There’s no coming back. You run, you’re automatically guilty of something. They find you, the law will make sure you pay for making them go to all the trouble of catching you.”

  “We understand,” Jennifer said, and Ryan nodded.

  No, you don’t, Kate thought, and made one more try. “You do this, you’re dead. Do you understand? You’re dead, you’re gone, you’re never coming back. You can’t tell your families where you are. You can’t even let them know you’re safe and well, because there are no secrets in the Park. It will get out, and then someone will come for you. Maybe the law. Worse, maybe not.”

  They stood with their arms around each other, eyes red. With difficulty, Ryan said, “Better to be dead now than dead later.”

  Jennifer looked up at him and nodded, a tear spilling down her cheek.

  Beyond the clearing the golden eagle went into an abrupt dive, disappearing behind the brush, reappearing again almost immediately with an arctic hare in its talons. The hare wriggled at first and then went still.

  “All right,” Kate said slowly, and much against her better judgment. “Let’s go.”

  Act V

  Twenty-one

  FRIDAY, JULY 13, ANCHORAGE

  SATURDAY, JULY 14, THE PARK

  Brillo looked from Jim to the body bag and back at Jim. “You’re killing me here, Chopin.”

  Jim patted the air with one hand. “Just … tell me if you think he was deliberately murdered or if he died of injuries after he got beat up.”

  “So, what, now I’m a medium?”

  “Just do it, okay, Brillo? I’ve got a civil war brewing in the Park.”

  Brillo scowled. “Great, more bodies.” He brightened. “Maybe new kinds of wounds, though.”

  Jim looked at him.

  Brillo heaved a sigh. “Just trying to lighten the load, Chopin.” He unzipped the bag and extracted the body with unexpectedly gentle hands. “Now, sir, what have you to tell me?”

  Kate had closed Rick Estes’s eyes, but he still looked dreadful, bloated and leached of color, except for the bruises.

  “What position was he in when you found him?”

  “On his right side, sort of.”

  Brillo looked up, eyebrow raised.

  Jim hesitated, and then spoke with care, choosing his words. “Water had washed him to the side of the river. He was tangled up in the trees.”

  “Mmm. Wel
l, he died on his back. Lividity shows us that much.”

  “I saw that.”

  “Then what do you need me for?” The question was asked absently and without pugnacity. Brillo explored Estes’s head and body with gentle fingers and a detached scientific curiosity that nevertheless gave the impression that he still knew he was dealing with a man, a human being who had once walked the earth, who had had a life and family and friends. He unbuttoned the shirt, miraculously intact, inspected the chest, and rolled the body up to one side to examine the back. He pressed here and there, to the crackling sound of bones rubbing together and the squishy sound of interior damage done. He opened the mouth and peered in with the aid of a penlight. He inspected the nostrils and the ears and the eyes.

  “Hmm.” Brillo straightened. “Yes. Well.”

  “Well what?”

  “He’d been in a fight, all right.”

  “Thank you for that insightful diagnosis,” Jim said with awful sarcasm. “I’d never have known.”

  “No need to get snippy,” Brillo said. “And the answer is, I don’t know if he was just in a fight or in a fight to the death. If you made me guess—” He looked at Jim over the tops of his black-rimmed glasses.

  “I made you,” Jim said.

  Brillo sighed and stepped back from the table. “Then I’d say he was in a fight, a rib broke and punctured a lung, and he drowned in his own blood.” He held up an admonitory finger. “I won’t know if any of that is true until I open him up.”

  Jim was already pulling on his cap. “Thanks, Brillo. I appreciate it.”