Breakup. Part 2

"One day, maybe two."

"How long before I'm reimbursed?"

"You'll have to take that up with the Earlybird representative."

"Which one is he?"

He pointed at a skinny man with a thin, harried face standing on the other side of the wreckage. "The name's Kevin Bickford. He's Earlybird's director of operations for the state."

"Thanks," Kate said, and walked around the wreckage to tap Bickford on the shoulder. He turned and stared at her uncomprehendingly.

"Kate Shugak, Mr. Bickford." He looked blank, and she added pointedly, "This is my homestead your jet engine just trashed."

He cringed inside his oversize parka, reminding her of nothing so much as a parky squirrel diving down the nearest hole. He even looked a little like a parky squirrel, with small, bright eyes set close on either side of an insignificant little nose that didn't look as if it could suck in enough oxygen to keep a gnat alive. His teeth, bared in a failed attempt at an ingratiating smile, were little and white, with the exception of the front two, which were big and buck. "Mr. Bickford, as far as I'm concerned, this could not have happened at 25 a worse time. I need my truck. When will I be reimbursed for the damage done by your engine?"

He couldn't hide his look of surprise, and Kate wondered sourly if he thought broken gutturals would have been more appropriate to her brown skin, black braids and Bush lifestyle.

Bickford cleared his throat nervously. Kate raised her brows and waited.

His gaze fell on the scar at her throat and widened.

"Holy-"

"About rest.i.tution, Mr. Bickford," Kate said.

He flushed and his eyes slid past her guiltily. "Well, Ms. s.h.a.geluk-"

"Shugak," she said, patiently for her. "SHOOgack."

"Of course." His smile was weak. It matched his chin. "Well, Ms.

Shungnak." Close, but no cigar. Kate left it for another day. "I don't rightly know when you can expect rest.i.tution. We have to a.s.sess the damage first, of course. Get an estimate on the replacement value of your truck, that sort of thing."

"Including delivery here," she said.

"Of course, of course," he said hurriedly.

"And not forgetting the collateral damage done to the tools in the garage."

"No," he said obediently.

"Or the interior of my cabin, and the contents therein, not to mention the roof."

"Certainly not."

What the h.e.l.l. "And the meat cache."

He took it without a blink. "Of course."

"Fine," she said. "I'll start a list. One more thing."

Relieved that it was only one more thing, he said almost eagerly, "Yes?"

"I don't want a check."

He blinked. "No check?"

"No. Cash. Nothing bigger than a hundred, please. Fifties if you can manage it." Cash because the nearest bank was Ahtna, 26 and fifties because it was next to impossible to get change for a hundred in the Bush during breakup anywhere except maybe the Roadhouse.

Everybody was broke, even Bernie, who let customers drink on tab until they made their first set of the year.

She saw no need to explain herself to Bickford, who looked a little dazed by the request, but such was the force of her personality that he found himself mumbling agreement.

The go team went about its business, locating, identifying and cataloging the various pieces off the engine around the clearing and marking their location on a map they had drawn of the site five minutes after they had arrived. Other than requesting, very politely, that she touch nothing, they hadn't bothered Kate much. Except for the photographer, whose flash had to be about ready to wear out. Kate would be seeing spots for the rest of the week.

She left Mutt to supervise the debris collection process from a post next to the woodpile and went back to her cabin. The interior looked as if the second chinook of the year had pa.s.sed directly through it, books and canned goods and ca.s.sette tapes alternating with gla.s.s shards and wood splinters all over the floor. She couldn't even put on any music to drown out the sounds of the people outside because one of the turbine blades had skewered the ca.s.sette deck, an electronic s.h.i.+sh kebab. Not that there was anything to play after the piece off the engine squashed most of her tapes.

A can of stewed tomatoes looked like breakfast, and she dumped it into a bowl and ate to the accompaniment of a low hum of conversation and an occasional clang of metal from the yard. She did her best to ignore both, but as she was sc.r.a.ping the bottom of the bowl, rain began to patter on the roof, and through the hole onto the couch and the box of crushed tapes beneath it. She heaved a sigh, went out to the garage, located the ladder among the wreckage and set it up against the eaves of the cabin.

The hole was about a foot and a half in diameter. The good news was that it appeared to have missed all the rafters. Kate went 27 back to the garage, started the generator, plugged in the power saw, mercifully intact, and cut a piece of plywood to fit the outside and a piece of Sheetrock to fit the inside and scrounged up enough pink insulation to stuff in between. Caulking, tar paper and s.h.i.+ngles followed. A quant.i.ty of s.p.a.ckle later and the job was done, except for painting. Kate had a dreary suspicion that she'd have to paint the entire inside of the roof to make it match, but that was for tomorrow, when the s.p.a.ckle had dried.

O joy, Of rapture, it was time for lunch. A can of retried beans heated up and seasoned with garlic powder and oregano was better than cold stewed tomatoes. She cleaned up the kitchen, tossing the ventilated canned goods and restoring the rest to the shelves above and below the counter, adding as she did so to the grocery list, which was beginning to resemble the provisional logistics for D-Day.

After that it was time to start a list of everything Earlybird was going to replace whether they wanted to or not. She started with the tape deck and Ae box of tapes beneath the couch. The list was over fifty t.i.tles before she was done.

She moved on to the books, where the news was even worse. The copy of The Wind in the Willows with the wonderful Michael Hague ill.u.s.trations had been pierced through the center, stabbed to the heart, a fatal wound. Next to it, Louise Erdrich's Tracks had the cover peeled back like an onion. "G.o.ddammit," she said, and started another list.

Halfway down it came the sound of raised voices from the yard. They got louder. She marched over to the door and yanked it open, ready to kick a.s.s.

The go team were cl.u.s.tered in a group in the center of the clearing, around two of their own, a man and a woman. Stewman, his back to the cabin, heard the door open and turned.

She glared at him. "What's with all the noise?"

He glanced back at the group. "We've, ah, we've run into a little, uh, well, I guess you could call it a snag." He tried to smile but it didn't take.

28 The woman, a slender redhead with freckles, looked as if she was going to throw up. The man next to her, the albino blond, looked terrified. Kate took a step forward. "What's going on?"

Stewman glanced back around the circle, and back at Kate. "We, uh, well, we found a body."

Kate stared at him. "I beg your pardon?'

He shoved back his cap to scratch his head, and resettled it firmly.

"There's usually a pattern to the way debris scatters in an incident like this one. I sent Selina and Brandon"- he indicated the terrified man and the nauseous woman -"out to canva.s.s." He paused. "They found a body instead."

"They found a what?"

"A dead body," John Stewman said for the third time. He had regained his composure and he was patient and apologetic but firm. "The body of a dead man." He glanced back at Selina and Brandon. "I gather it's not in the best of shape."

Kate stared at him. He wasn't joking. She sat down heavily upon the doorstep. Mutt, concerned, deserted her post near the woodpile and trotted forward to nose at her cheek. Kate put an arm around her neck and rested her forehead against the thick gray fur. "You're not kidding, are you," she said into Mutt's ruff.

"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.