Part 8 (1/2)
She looked behind him at the curtain and raised her voice one more time. ”That, or he left because he knows there's nothing to hold him here.” She looked back at the North Com operator and said with another smile, ”Or he was removed because he was in the way.”
She closed the door behind her and heard the operator say plaintively through the thin door, ”And what the h.e.l.l is that when it's at home?”
She heard Xenia mumble a reply, and moved out to the porch.
Pulling the door to behind her, she stood on the doorstep for a long time, breathing the cold air deep into her chest. She was ashamed of herself, using that boy as a target to get to Xenia. They were just a couple of kids doing what came naturally on cold winter nights in Niniltna. The kid had showed some backbone, too, and Kate liked that.
Still. Every instinct she possessed told her that Xenia knew something she wasn't telling her cousin. She wondered how long it would take to get it out of her. She never doubted for a moment that she would, but in spite of her fierce rejection of family responsibility, her protective instincts where the younger members of her family were involved ran strong and deep. They would not permit her the luxury of an all-out frontal a.s.sault.
But a little gentle prodding and Xenia would remember all the times good old cousin Kate had kept Tiny Mike the school bully from beating up on her. Eventually she would decide that Kate was after all a fit person to confide in. She made plans to return to her grandmother's house early the next morning.
The light from the uncurtained window in the shack's door streamed out into the arctic night, clearly outlining her figure on the top step.
She heard a snap like ice cracking on a frozen lake, a whine like a supercharged hornet past her cheek and a splat as the bullet carved a furrow into the door and lodged in the jamb.
Mutt barked once, a sharp, warning sound. Kate took a giant leap and hurled herself down the short, steep flight of stairs and behind the berm of snow that lined the path to the shack. Her shoulder hit first and she rolled into a crouch, her heart pounding so loudly that for a few moments she could hear nothing else. Her body felt instantaneously cold all over, right down into each individual digit. She felt as if she had X-ray eyes, that she could hear and decipher with bare ear the signals coming in via the satellite dish behind her, that she was able to smell the decay of summer gra.s.s buried deep beneath hard-packed snow. Every one of her senses was receiving such an overload of information that she was too busy collating it all to be scared. She had never felt more alive in her life.
”What the h.e.l.l was that?” she heard the North Com operator yell. She heard the smack of bare feet as Xenia hit the floor, and knew her cousin would be fleeing in a panic out the door in moments.
”Stay where you are!” she yelled, or tried to. Her maimed throat made it difficult. She eeled herself backward, beneath the steps, and spoke as loudly as she could through the floor. Mutt, clearly puzzled, slunk along beside her, her ears up in inquiry, whining a little. ”Stay where you are,” she repeated. ”It's some nut with a gun up at the school. Get down behind the counter and stay there.”
She kicked the floor for emphasis. ”Stay!” she told Mutt, and slid back over the hard-packed snow. She risked a look up over the berm.
Nothing. She stretched out flat and slithered on her belly down the icy path to where the walkway met Niniltna's main street. A quick peek from behind the snow piled at the side of the street revealed no stir of movement. She got up on all fours and picked her way over dog t.u.r.ds and Snickers wrappers and empty plastic Windsor Canadian whiskey bottles, carefully keeping her head below the level of the snow berm.
When the berm ended in the school's parking lot she paused, stiffened her spine and risked another look up over it.
There was a second crack and a splatter of snow over her face. At the same time a heavy weight hit her in the small of the back, laying her out flat on her stomach. Mutt growled out a bark and she heard a scrabble of padded feet.
The breath had been knocked out of her, and all she could do for the next few moments was lie there trying to get it back. She waited for Mutt to tear the head off of whoever was on top of her.
The dog skidded to a halt less than three feet away; Kate could see her clearly from where her cheek was pressed against the cold snow. Mutt growled once, barked once and then flattened her ears and wagged her tail.
”You all right, girl?” a voice rasped in her ear.
Kate got her breath back with a rush. ”Abel?”
”Who else?”
”Get off me, you old fart!”
Abel slid to the snow next to her and jacked a round into the bolt-action Winchester Model 54 that was almost as old as he was and that he always carried with him just in case he met up with a bull moose in rut or a Fish and Game agent, whichever came first. He pulled his legs up under him, popped up behind the berm and let off a round in the general direction of the school. ”Just to let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d know we got teeth, too,” he said rea.s.suringly as he flopped back down next to her. ”Who's shooting at you?”
”I don't know.”
”Hmm.” Abel worked the bolt of his rifle and pulled himself upright again.
”Abel, no!”
This time the shooter was waiting. As soon as Abel's torso cleared the berm there was a shot. Abel returned fire and fell back down next to Kate with a thump.
”G.o.ddam you, old man!”
Abel's eyes were screwed shut as he groped around near his right shoulder. One eye opened and surveyed her with disfavor. ”You're beginning to repeat yourself, girl.”
Kate crouched over him and yanked his hand down from his shoulder. With it came a handful of down pulled out of the torn sleeve of his parka, a cloud of tiny feathers which caught in her hair and flew into her eyes and were inhaled up her nose. She sneezed once, violently, and glared at him. There was no wound, no blood. She felt a wave of relief supersede the roil of terror, and glared all the harder. ”And I'll keep repeating myself until you hear me, old man. You keep getting in my way, G.o.ddammit. I won't have it, do you hear?”
His head came up off the snow. ”Yeah.”
”Yeah what?”
”Yeah, I hear that b.u.g.g.e.r who was just shooting at us beating feet outa here.”
Kate became aware of pounding footsteps moving away from the back of the school gym. A swell of pure rage heaved her to her feet in one surging movement. ”Mutt! Fetch!”
Mutt hit the ground running, a gray streak stretched out low, skimming over the snow like a ghost. Even as she vanished around the dark bulk of the gymnasium, they heard a snow machine splutter into life and roar off. Kate cursed and ran after the dog.
The lot was empty of anything but snow and ice and what looked like one of Dandy Mike's half-breed husky-German shepherds who, seeing her, came trotting over to sniff interestedly at her crotch. Mutt, looking for a fight in her frustration at not catching whoever had had the audacity to shoot at her very own private human, growled a loud and toothy warning.
”It's all right, Mutt,” Kate said, beating back her rage and fear. She knew just how Mutt felt. She slapped the other dog's nose away and began a search of the area, doubled over with her nose nearly touching the snow. It was too late; whoever it was had disappeared into the night. And they'd either picked up their sh.e.l.l casings or she couldn't find them in the dark. The old snow, worn down by a healthy and energetic student body, grades one through twelve, was not the best surface on which to find tracks. It was so dry and hard it squeaked underfoot. Kate gave it up in disgust and walked back to the road.
”Guess we scared the b.u.g.g.e.r off,” Abel observed complacently.
Kate shook her head. ”Abel, Abel, Abel,” she said, still shaking her head and trying to keep her knees from doing the same. ”What am I going to do with you? You could have been shot. You could have been killed.”
”Well, I wasn't,” he said testily, ”and it seems to me we should stir around and find out who that b.u.g.g.e.r was instead of standing here freezing to death, moaning over whether or not I should be here!”
”What are you doing here, anyway?” Kate said.
No answer. Abel bent over to retrieve his moose exterminator and occupied himself with removing every speck of snow or ice that might or might not have found its way into the mechanism.
Kate, half-amused, half-exasperated, said, ”You think I can't take care of myself, is that it? You raised me to, Abel.”
”I ain't saying a word.” Abel's jaw set stubbornly. ”All I know is a guy's missing, and the guy that went after him went missing, too, and if it's cold now it'll be twice that when I have to come looking for you when you go missing. You and your G.o.ddam loaded pipe liners Kate's eyes widened. ”Abel, were you at the Roadhouse this evening?” she demanded.
”I ain't saying a word.” He sighted carefully along the barrel of his rifle. ”Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't. Somebody had to put in a call to make sure Chopper Jim was on his way.”
Kate, wanting to order him home, knowing he wouldn't go, praying he wouldn't get in the way, knowing he would, gave it up and resigned herself to a second guard dog. ”Well, all I know is it's a little late now to decide you were a lousy teacher.”
”I ain't saying a word,” he said, shedding a glove to pick at a minute speck of ice on the Winchester's trigger guard.
”Fine,” she said, and stamped back to the North Com shack, where she found the North Com operator and Xenia s.h.i.+vering in the doorway. Xenia jumped the three steps in a single leap and clutched at Kate. ”Did you see who it was, Katya? Did you catch him?”
”No.”
Xenia's grip relaxed and her hands slid down to her sides.