Part 2 (2/2)
”No.”
”Why me?” Kate said.
”If not you, who?” Stewman said brightly. ”If not now, when?” She raised her head to look at him. Just look. He sobered. ”Sorry.”
”Where?” she said, mostly just to be saying something. Ex-DA's investigator on automatic.
Stewman pulled off his cap again and smoothed back his s.h.a.ggy mane of hair, a nervous habit. ”About three miles that way.” He pointed roughly southwest, away from the Yukon Territory and toward Valdez.
The Earlybird man said apprehensively, ”How did he die? Did you see any parts off the engine nearby?”
Stewman raised an eyebrow and said sardonically, ”Don't worry, Bickford, this guy's been there longer than last night.”
29 Brandon shuddered his agreement. Selina made a stifled sound and clapped her hand over her mouth. She staggered off a few steps and lost her lunch on the ground right next to the snow machine.
”Did you send for the trooper?” Kate said.
Stewman held up a two-way radio. ”We called it in on Channel 9. Talked to somebody in Niniltna, a ham operator-”
”Bobby Clark.”
He nodded. ”That's the guy. He said he'd call the trooper in Tok.”
”Good,” Kate said without enthusiasm. Just what she needed, on today of all days, a smarta.s.s trooper with the mating instincts of a tomcat and the come-on repertoire of Casanova. A thought occurred. ”You said three miles? That way?” She pointed.
”More or less. Selina and Brandon said it was pretty rough going. My guess is it's closer rather than farther away.”
What with one thing and another, it had been a very long twenty-four hours, even for breakup. Not one but two close encounters of the ursine kind, a jet engine falling out of the sky to smash flat her primary means of summer transportation, a hole in the roof and, oh yes, let us not forget, income tax.
And now, on top of everything else, a body. ”You know what?” Kate said brightly. ”If you found the body three miles that way, it isn't on my homestead, so it's not my problem.” She got to her feet and dusted her hands. ”It's not my problem,” she repeated firmly, willing herself to believe it. ”You can leave, and you can take your pieces of engine and your bodies and your go team with you.” She looked at Bickford. ”Now.”
Stewman had the audacity to laugh out loud. ”Is this what they call the b.u.m's rush?”
”Off,” she said to Bickford, pointing in the general direction of Seattle.
Bickford had donned a too-big gimme cap whose brim came down to the end of his nose. It had a patch with a red-and-white jet on a robin's egg blue background and a border reading ”Around 30 the Clock, Around the World.” The name Earlybird Air Freight was inscribed on the bill. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the cap off to wring it between his hands. ”I'm sorry, Ms. Shungnak,” he said, searching desperately for understanding, forgiveness and even a trace of fellow feeling in Kate's stony expression, ”but I'm afraid it'll be a while before we get the equipment in here to do that.” He nodded at Kate's squashed truck and the engine on top of it. ”Sucker weighs more than four tons.”
Four tons? Eight thousand pounds? A s.h.i.+ver ran down Kate's spine as she realized again just how close the world had come to losing her. For some reason it made her even angrier and she rallied, her chin coming up and taking aim. ”I don't give a s.h.i.+t about any problems you might have, Bickford. You're in the air freight business. Find a Here or a helicopter and fly it out, or mush it out on a dogsled, or haul it out on a horse-drawn cart.” Her voice rose. ”I don't give a good G.o.ddam how you do it. I want you people off my land. You got that?” She rose to her feet. ”You're trespa.s.sing. I want you off my land.” She fumbled behind her for the door handle.
”Ms. Shungnak, please, be reasonable. We can't-”
”Git!” she said. ”Don't even fly over here anymore!” As she turned to go back inside the cabin, Mutt spoiled her grand exit with an anxious whine. ”What!” Kate said furiously. ”What now!”
Mutt had her ears c.o.c.ked, and she was looking east. At least this time it couldn't be a jet engine falling off; jet engines didn't fall horizontally. It was something, though, because, now that Kate had stopped yelling they could all hear an approaching sound like a herd of elephants cras.h.i.+ng through the underbrush. A sec- I and later and the herd of elephants smashed through into the I clearing and resolved itself into a bull moose, young, his antlers mere beginning spikes.
This barely had time to register, as he was moving like he was up against Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby, a flat-out, no-holds barred, down-the-straightaway gallop. He pounded through the clearing and people leapt out of the way and into trees, with the!
31 sole exception of the Earlybird man, who appeared to possess no self-protective instincts whatsoever. The moose ran right over the top of him and charged out the other side of the clearing, cras.h.i.+ng through the underbrush with a fine disregard for the scenery.
Kate put one foot out to see if Bickford was all right-she didn't want him damaged before she had the cash in hand-and in the next instant drew it back smartly. The race was not limited to a single contestant. No indeed, hard on the heels of the bull moose was a grizzly bear, the same cache-robbing youngster Kate had run off the day before. She opened her mouth to shout a warning but there was no need, g-men diving for cover for the second time in as many minutes. She reached for the rifle over the door, but there was no need for that, either, as she had just enough time to see the harried expression on his face before the bear ran straight across the clearing and on through the brush, taking the trail the moose had broken for him.
Three bear encounters in two days was almost enemy action, and Kate was inclined to be indignant. So was Mutt, who took off in pursuit, barking excitedly.
”Mutt!” Kate yelled.
Mutt skidded to a halt, and was giving Kate a reproachful look as the bear's backside disappeared, when the sound of gas engines going flat out approached, again from the east.
”What the f.u.c.k's going on?” somebody yelled.
”Dive, dive!” somebody else yelled, and they did, everyone who had just picked themselves out of the mud and the slush dove for cover yet again, with the exception, of course, of the Earlybird man, who gazed about him with a bewildered air. The stranger in a strange land.
Two four-wheelers, driven by two big men in black-and-red- checked mackinaws and deerstalker caps, burst into the clearing. Mutt, balked from bear chasing, took off after the four-wheelers instead, barking with enthusiasm and adding to the general uproar.
One of the four-wheeler drivers had a rifle in his right hand 32 with the sling wrapped around his forearm and a bottle in his left.
”Whoopee!” he shouted.
”Powder River, let 'her buck!” yelled his friend.
They roared in a circle around the Earlybird man, frozen in the center of the clearing, only to finish up, after Whoopee clipped a section of the jet engine and swerved, with a grand front-end finale, hard enough to catapult both drivers from their seats. They met head to head with a Crack! that could be heard all across the clearing. One of the four-wheelers managed to climb over its sister s.h.i.+p, turn hard right rudder and run straight into Kate's garage, impacting, in order, Kate's old-fas.h.i.+oned but until then still-working wringer was.h.i.+ng machine, the trickle charger and the far wall with enough force to send all the remaining tools on the wall cras.h.i.+ng to the floor. The washer, dancing frantically around on one caster, lost the battle for balance to gravity and tipped over, landing on its barrel side. For not having achieved thirty-two feet per second per second, it made a splendid crash.
Kevin Bickford stood where he was, white face streaked with mud and oversize parka stained with slush, looking as if he couldn't believe he was still alive and in one piece. Kate didn't blame him, but she had other things on her mind, like murder.
She started forward and a third four-wheeler leapt out of the brush, this one driven by Dan O'Brian. Skidding to a stop in the center of the clearing, he killed the engine and was one step ahead of Kate to the four-wheeler drivers, who were sitting up and beginning to take hilarious notice of their surroundings. Whoopee had lost his bottle, so Powder River hoisted himself up and fished a silver flask from a hip pocket. Whoopee greeted this with a loud cheer and a wet, noisy kiss on Powder River's cheek.
They had just enough time for a gulp apiece before Dan fastened a hand in each collar and jerked them to their feet, causing them to spray whiskey all over the Earlybird man, for whom Kate, against her will, was beginning to feel a little sorry.
”GOTCHA,” Dan roared, ”you drunk-driving, wildlife-poaching, great-white-hunter-wannabe sonsab.i.t.c.hES!”
33 He slung Whoopee down ungently at the base of a tree and fastened his wrists together with a plastic restraint. Powder River received the same treatment. They recovered enough to protest.
”SHADDUP!” Dan roared again.
They shaddup.
Dan, quivering with outrage, smoothed a trembling hand over the red hair standing straight up all over his head and turned a wrathful gaze on Kate to say one infuriated word.
”Breakup.”
34.
At that moment the sound of another engine was heard, and with a single bound Mutt gained the center of the clearing, where she stood barking up at the sky, tail wagging furiously. Kate didn't look. She, too, knew the sound of that engine.
Sure enough, over the tops of the trees came a Bell Jet Ranger, a small helicopter with the insignia of the Alaska Department of Public Safety emblazoned on the doors. It set down a little to one side of the center of the clearing, rotors only just missing the top of the wrecked engine and the eaves of Kate's garage, cabin, greenhouse and outhouse. It would have taken a chunk out of the cache's roof had the cache still been standing, but it wasn't, and if Kate had been in a fair mood, she would have admired the artistry of the landing.
She wasn't. She didn't.
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