Part 19 (2/2)

He had a lovestruck twin on either knee. Kate was relieved to see that the little monsters had some human instincts.

The trooper said to Auntie Joy, ”Why didn't you just tell me that you'd taken Meany back to his boat, Joyce?”

Auntie Joy got up and left the deck. A moment later they heard the creak of the outhouse door.

”Because she's stubborn,” Kate said, stacking plates in a cupboard. ”Because it's an insult that you asked her to account for her time, like some village kid answerable to his parents for checking the fish wheel or the smokehouse fire. She's an elder. She's not answerable to you.”

”Because I'm a trooper?”

Kate shook her head. ”No. Or it's not first on the list.”

”What is?”

Kate smiled. ”You're thirty years younger than she is.”

Mutt jumped up and barked once. A shout made everyone look from her to the beach. Auntie Balasha was at the edge of the outgoing tide in the fish camp dory and she was waving her hand urgently enough to s.h.i.+p water over the dory's sides. ”Where's Joy? She must come! The fish hawk is back with his paper!”

”Son of a b.i.t.c.h,” Kate said, and dropped the towel to head for the door.

When they got to the fish tamp they found Auntie Balasha and Auntie Edna sitting on their stumps around the campfire, faces set in unrevealing lines. Auntie Vi and Auntie Joy went to sit next to them without a word.

Also next to the fire were Bill Nickle, who had seated himself, and Lamar Rousch, who had not, by which Kate deduced that neither had been invited to. ”I don't have much choice in this, Kate,” Lamar said the moment he saw her. ”The governor ordered me out here this time.”

Bill Nickle looked smugger than ever. ”What's he here for?” Kate said, nodding at him.

Lamar was unhappy and he didn't care who knew it. ”He's got a seat on the board of Fish and Game. He's a gubernatorial appointee. The boss said to let him come if he wanted.”

”And I wanted,” Bill Nickle said. ”Give it to her.” Mutely, Lamar held out a doc.u.ment, folded in thirds. Kate took it and ripped it in half and handed the pieces back.

There was a murmur from the four old women. Auntie Vi permitted a wintry smile to cross her face. ”The case is still in federal court, Lamar,” Kate said. ”The state can put their cease-and-desist orders where the sun don't s.h.i.+ne.”

Bill Nickle erupted to his feet. ”Now wait just a G.o.ddam minute!”

”Watch your G.o.ddam language in front of my aunties,” Kate snapped.

”Oh, why don't you just f.u.c.k off, Shugak! This is none of your G.o.ddam business, anyway!”

Jack, standing at the rear of the group, stepped back out of range and sent up a prayer of thanks that there hadn't been room in the skiff for Chopper Jim. In the telling, felony a.s.sault could always be reduced to a misdemeanor.

Kate moved forward swiftly, and Nickle raised himself hurriedly to his feet. He was eight inches taller than she was, but Kate didn't seem to find it a disadvantage. ”It is my business, Bill. These are my aunties, and this is our family's fish camp. We come here every summer”

”Yeah, right, where were you for thirty years, when the rest of us were working at building up a state!” It was nothing but empty bl.u.s.ter and they knew it, and after the words were out, so did he.

”and we fish to eat,” Kate continued without missing a beat. ”We don't fish so we can stuff the skin and give it gla.s.s eyeb.a.l.l.s and hang it on a wall somewhere and brag about the big one that got away. We take the fish and we dry it and we can it and we kipper it and we smoke it and we fill our pantries with it and then we by G.o.d eat it, and no one, especially not some jacked-up old fart from Anchorage that some other jacked-up old fart from Juneau misnamed to a state commission is going to tell us different.” She stepped back. ”Now get out. And don't come back.”

She didn't add a warning to the last command. She didn't have to.

Nickle appealed to the fish hawk. ”You have to stop them. The judge says so. The governor says so.”

”The governor in on this little deal you and Meany cooked up?” Kate said.

”What deal?” Lamar said.

Nickle paled. ”What deal? I don't know what you're talking about.”

”What deal,” Kate mimicked him. ”Why, the big fly-in fis.h.i.+ng and hunting lodge you and Meany had planned for Amartuq. What did Neil Meany say you called it? A single-destination resort?” As she spoke, she remembered the scene at Mudhole Smith International Airport, all the sport fishermen with their fly-fis.h.i.+ng gear taking off for fis.h.i.+ng holes unknown. There was one h.e.l.l of a market there, even she could see that. How much more of a temptation would it have been to Meany, clearly a man with an eagle eye on the main chance? And then there was a perfectly serviceable airstrip less than a mile from fish camp. He would have thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

it's also the only one suitable for the people who actually live here to have a fish camp.”

Her lip twisted. ”And what the h.e.l.l, with virtually no overhead after the initial investment because you good-old-boy guides don't have to pay a lick in taxes, and since there's an old guide network in state government that goes back to territorial days, you figured you had it made. You almost did.”

She laughed. ”You know, you're nothing but a carpetbagger, Nickle. You don't give a d.a.m.n about the land or the people, you just want to make a buck however you can.” She looked around at the aunties, four round brown faces lined with patience and stoicism and a fort.i.tude that had endured and survived a three-hundred-year threat of racial and cultural extinction.

That fort.i.tude was not going to be put to the test today. Kate looked back at Bill Nickle. ”Take your fis.h.i.+ng flies and your bamboo pole and your two-pound test and get lost.”

Faint but persevering, Nickle appealed once more to Lamar Rousch. ”They can't do this. We've got the law on our side. We've got a G.o.ddam judge on our side!”

They stood there, at an impa.s.se, the rus.h.i.+ng sound of the creek loud in their ears. At last Lamar Rousch sighed and shoved his hat to the back of his head. ”You know what, Bill? I'm just not ready to start World War Three, right here, right now. Okay?”

”No, it's not G.o.ddam okay! They're not supposed to be fis.h.i.+ng here, you've got the papers, serve them!”

Lamar, well aware that he was putting his entire professional future on the line, smiled and said cheerfully, ”No.”

20.

The aunties did not cheer as the two men disappeared into the gra.s.s, which was probably a good thing. At this point, they had Lamar on their side. Kate waited for the sound of the Zodiac's motor, and then waited longer until it had faded from earshot. When it had, she said, ”Jack?”

”What?”

”Could you and Johnny take a walk, please? Like up the trail to the airstrip and back?”

He looked from her to the four aunties, perched in their solemn row, and said, ”Want us to take our time?”

She smiled at him. ”No. Normal speed is fine.”

”Sure.” He fetched his rifle from the cabin. ”Johnny?”

”Daa-aad.”

”Come on.”

Johnny tugged off his Mariners cap with the Ken Griffey Jr. signature on it, beat it a couple of times against his leg, resettled it just so on his head, heaved a martyred sigh and followed his father into the brush.

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