Breakup. Part 15

she told Mandy once the couple was inside.

"Known what?"

"That your parents would be all right."

Mandy Hushed a painful red right up to the roots of her hair. "Up yours."

"Bite me," Kate replied amiably, turning.

Mandy put a hand on her arm. "Listen, Kate? Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"For what?"

"I'm not sure. All I know is, Mother and Dad have really relaxed. This morning they were talking to Chick like he's a human 146 being instead of something out of an old Western movie." She paused, and added, unable to conceal her surprise, "They've even been talking to me like I'm a grown-up instead of a ten-year-old. I don't know what you did-"

"I didn't do anything," Kate said honestly. "I didn't, Mandy." She added, "Unless you count nearly getting them eaten by a bear, almost getting them in a plane wreck and-" Almost too late she remembered Mandy didn't know about the firefight and swallowed the rest of her sentence.

"Well. They won't go home complaining of an uneventful visit."

Mandy grinned. "Maybe that's what did it."

"Whatever. Anyway, if I helped, I'm glad. They're good people."

Mandy smiled, the slight smile she'd had as she watched her father go to work on Kevin Bickford. "He's something, my old man."

"Your old lady's not half bad herself."

"No," Mandy admitted. "She's not."

"And together they make one h.e.l.l of a team."

"Yes," Mandy said slowly, and smiled. "They do."

The lines of Mandy's face had relaxed, and the anxious look in her eyes was gone. She looked ten years younger. Kate said, "Mandy, were you afraid they'd talk you into going home with them?"

The other woman, hands in her pockets, studied the ground and thought about it for a moment. "I guess I was," she said slowly. "I guess I actually was." She looked up at Kate and laughed. "What an idiot.

Thanks, Kate."

"We do family therapy." Kate had held out her hand, palm up. "That'll be five cents."

Mandy made a production of digging a nickel out of her pocket, and then demanded a receipt for tax purposes.

Balance restored, they went inside, and were just sitting down to tuna fish sandwiches (with mayonnaise, diced white onions and 147 sweet pickles on white bread, Kate's specialty) when from the clearing Mutt gave a sharp, warning bark.

Kate's newfound sense of harmony with the universe shattered. "Oh Christ, and what fresh h.e.l.l is this?"

"And she reads Dorothy Parker," Mandy told her parents smugly.

Margery sniffed. "A vulgar woman."

Richard grinned. "You only say that because she insulted you at tea that day in New York."

"She insulted everyone, from what I hear," Mandy said, biting into her sandwich.

"You knew her?" Kate said, gaping. "You knew Dorothy Parker?" Mutt barked again. "Dammit," she said impatiently and crossed the room to wrench open the door. "Oh s.h.i.+t."

It was Billy Mike, coming down the trail as if the hounds of h.e.l.l were at his heels, his round face flushed, his barrel-shaped chest heaving, his usually neatly combed hair standing up in tufts all over his head.

In a low voice Kate said a very bad word.

Her tribal chairman slid to a halt in front of her door. "What?" she snapped. Her tone of voice was inappropriate for speaking to an elder.

She knew it and didn't care.

He knew it and took no notice. "It's Cindy and Ben Bingley."

Kate stiffened. "What about them?"

He gulped for air. "She's got him held hostage at their house."

"Their house? Their house in Niniltna?"

He nodded, panting.

Kate stared at him. "You drove twenty-five miles during breakup to tell me that? What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do about it? Chopper Jim's up to the mine, checking out that bear attack. Call him in."

He shook his head violently. "She says she'll only talk to you. She's got a rifle, Kate. Billy's hunting rifle."

Kate thought of the scene at the airstrip the previous afternoon. "So what's the big deal? Maybe she'll shoot him, maybe she 148 won't. And if she does shoot him, maybe she'll miss. She did yesterday. Either way, it's no big loss." She turned to go back inside.

"You want some coffee and sandwiches?"

Billy's voice was panicked. "Kate! She said she wanted to talk to you!

n.o.body else, only you! You've got to do something, you have to!"

Kate's outward indifference fooled no one, least of all herself. Her eyes closed and for a moment, for just one precious moment, she pretended she wasn't Ekaterina Moonin Shugak's granddaughter and anointed heir. The same vacuum that had yawned at her feet at the previous year's Alaska Federation of Natives convention yawned again, an ever-deepening chasm of obligation and responsibility that threatened to suck her in and rob her of her autonomy, her privacy, her solitude, her independence, everything that was important to her.

More important than family? Emaa's voice said in her head. More important than your tribe? For shame, Katya. For shame.

d.a.m.n you, old woman, she thought furiously, stay out of my head.

She opened her eyes and found the elder Bakers regarding her with curiosity, and Mandy with more than a little sympathy. Kate was going into town, and they both knew it.

She swore once beneath her breath. "All right, Billy," she said shortly.

"I'll follow you in."

"Good," Billy said, although he didn't look convinced. He pointed over his shoulder in the vague direction of the road. "I'll just- I'll get my car."

"Fine."

Mandy smothered a smile.

"Right," Billy said. He backed up a few steps. Kate did not follow him.

He paused to point over his other shoulder. "My car. I'll wait for you.

I'll just- I'll follow you in."

"You do that," Kate said evenly.

149.

The Bingleys lived five miles outside Niniltna, in a subdivision of a dozen houses whose construction had been subsidized by a low- interest loan program offered by the Niniltna Native a.s.sociation in conjunction with the FHA. It was a pity the loan didn't extend to road maintenance, because there was a pothole the size of a lunar crater at the turnoff.

There was no going around it, and Kate, calling curses down on Billy Mike's head, set her teeth and geared down. Mutt braced her front paws on the dash and dug in her claws. They climbed the opposite side of the pothole to emerge b.u.mper to b.u.mper with Billy's Honda Civic Wagovan.

Billy's wasn't the only vehicle present, and all of the front-row seats had long since been filled. Dandy Mike was there with Karen Kompkoff, his GMC long-bed Turbo Diesel V8 backed around so they could snuggle together in a sleeping bag in the bed and not 150 miss any of the show. Auntie Vi, never one to miss an opportunity to make a buck, was selling Velveeta-topped pizza for a dollar a slice out of her second car, a brand-new Ford Aerostar, evidently too new to rent out to the NTSB. Old Sam Dementieff had Cab Calloway turned up to 9 on his tape player and both windows on his Dodge pickup wide open so no one would miss the beneficial effects of "Minnie the Moocher." Sergei Moonin moved from group to group, freely taking bets on whether Ben Bingley would survive the day.

Kate expected to see the Pace Arrow from Pennsylvania roll up at any moment. Too bad Mandy had talked her parents into spending what was left of the day at the lodge.

The sun, low in the southwest, cast a benevolent glow over the scene, which lacked only steel drums for a calypso carnival. Jimmy Buffett would have felt right at home. "I hate breakup," Kate muttered, but by then she had said it so many times it sounded too cliched to be true.

Billy Mike came puffing up and yanked open Kate's door. Since she'd been in the process of opening it herself, he yanked her halfway out of the truck and she barely managed to catch herself before sprawling face forward into the mud. As it was, she went to her hands and knees with a solid splat.

Mutt peered at her over the side of the seat.

"Jesus, Kate," Billy said, staring down at her with a horrified expression. "I'm sorry. Let me help you up."

"No." Kate held up one filthy hand to ward him off. She sounded amazingly calm. "Mandy usually keeps a roll of paper towels behind the driver's seat. Will you check for me?"

Billy, terrified by her apparent tranquillity, scrambled around and found the towels and a plastic container of Wet Ones. Kate cleaned herself off, with Billy bleating distressed little apologies every few seconds.

"Billy."

"Yes, Kate."

151 "Enough." She looked at him; she even smiled. There was absolutely nothing in her expression to make him take a step back, yet take a step back he did. She stuffed the dirty towels into the plastic sack hanging from the ashtray k.n.o.b and shut the door of the truck. "All right. Tell me what you know."

"Deidre-their oldest-came running over to my house with the other two kids in tow," Billy said rapidly. "They told my wife that Cindy had Ben at gunpoint and was threatening to shoot him if he didn't fork over the rest of the dividend money."

"I thought he blew it all in Ahtna."

"I think he did, and I think Cindy knows he did, but you know, Kate, I don't think Cindy cares." Billy's face worked. "The wife called me up to the office, so I came down here and tried to talk to Cindy. She ran me off with that .30-30 of his."

"Is it loaded?"

"I didn't ask her," Billy said indignantly, "and I sure as h.e.l.l didn't wait around long enough for her to show me!"

"When'd she ask for me?"

Billy's eyes slid to one side.

Kate sighed. "You are a sc.u.m-sucking, brown-nosing, bottom- feeding, lily-livered son of a b.i.t.c.h," she observed, without heat. Even less of a tone to take when speaking to a tribal elder, but n.o.body heard except Billy, and he wasn't taking offense. She was pretty sure he wasn't even listening.

"Whatever," he said, patting the air. "You're the closest thing we've got to a cop, Kate. You used to be one, for crissake. Just see if you can talk her out."

"Whar part of the house are they in?"

"They were in the living room when I saw them," Billy said. "You familiar with the house?" Kate shook her head. "It's one of the prefabs the a.s.sociation underwrote, so it's just like mine, living room and kitchen in front, bedrooms in back."

"Living room on the left or on the right?"

"Left."

152 "Can you see the front door from the living room?"

"Yes."

Kate sighed again. "Okay."

She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to retreat inside herself.

Billy watched, half apprehensive, half curious. When her eyes opened again, her chin came down so that she looked out from beneath suddenly heavier straight black brows, her shoulders squared, her hands flexed.

Everything about her radiated the message, Mess with me, motherf.u.c.ker, and I will rip you three new bodily orifices before breakfast. She was five feet tall and weighed 120 pounds, but the acc.u.mulation of power was obvious and intimidating, and ignored only at peril of, at best, one's dignity, and at worst, one's life.

Billy took another involuntary step backward.

"Keep everyone else out of the house," Kate said.

Unoffended, Billy nodded. What made him such a good tribal leader was his ability to pick the right person for the right job, and the self-control to stand back out of the way and let them do it. Besides, he'd already looked down the muzzle of Cindy's .30-30 once that day, and he wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

Kate walked through the crowd to the house, a buzz of speculation rising behind her. Sergei's odds shortened. Her muddy jeans clung clammily to her legs, an untimely reminder of the broken was.h.i.+ng machine in her garage. And Cindy thought she had things bad. By the time Kate got to the front door she was mad all over again, and she thumped on it with a vicious fist. "Cindy? It's Kate Shugak. I'm coming in."

There was a pause, and then the sound of a distant voice. Kate couldn't make out the words. "Cindy," she said, raising her voice, "I can't hear you, I'm going to open the front door."

She opened the door and stuck her head in. "My head's in the door, Cindy. It's Kate Shugak. I'm alone, and I don't have a gun. I want to talk, so don't shoot, okay?"

n.o.body did, so she chanced sticking a foot inside, followed by the rest of her body when no shots went off.

153 The hallway consisted of an anteroom between front door, kitchen and living room. All three were empty. Kate listened and heard nothing.

"Cindy?" She took a step forward. "Cindy, where are you?"

Cindy wasn't in either of the bedrooms in back of the kitchen, she wasn't in the bathroom at the end of the hall. The door to the bedroom on the left was almost shut. Kate put her hand on it and pushed slowly.