“She never wanted me, Kate,” he said, his voice low. “She never cared. If she did, she’d have listened when I told her I didn’t want to go Outside. I could have stood it in Anchorage, so long as I got to visit you once in a while.” He paused. “Well, I think I could have. But she wouldn’t listen, she just put me on a plane.” He looked at her. “She doesn’t want me, and she doesn’t know me or what I want. I don’t owe her anything.”
Kate, who knew a lot more about the wrath Jane had visited upon Jack’s head than she was letting on, didn’t have an answer for him that wouldn’t make him feel worse. Whatever indifference he showed to the world, Jane was his mother. Kate’s mother had died when Kate was very young and Kate’s grandmother had been the dominant female figure in her life. Even now, two years after Emaa’s death, Kate still wondered if her grandmother had loved her for herself or because her grandmother saw her as someone with enough strength and ability to follow Emaa into the leadership of their tribe.
She said, “Johnny, I don’t want you to stay up here.”
He bristled. “Why not? I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. I said I didn’t want you to. I want you to come on back down to the cabin. Tomorrow we’ll lay out the foundation of yours.”
“Ifs better if I stay here. That way if she comes-”
“If she comes, we’ll deal with it. I don’t want you up here alone. I’d worry about you.”
“I’ve got your rifle.”
“You won’t when I leave.”
“I can shoot! Dad taught me!”
“I know, but I haven’t checked you out on this particular rifle myself yet. Not to mention which…” Kate took a deep breath. “Johnny, you don’t ever take someone’s rifle away in the Bush without permission.” She held up a hand and he checked himself, his face red and scowling. “Johnny, there’s another reason, and it’s more important than any of the rest, and it’s this. I don’t want you to learn how to run away.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t want you to learn that running away is an acceptable response to trouble.” She looked at his mutinous expression and laughed a little. “Johnny, you haven’t seen trouble like it’s going to come at you in your life. Everyone runs into trouble sooner or later, if they’re breathing, if they’re conscious, if they’re in the world. How you handle it, when it comes, is what makes you.”
The silence hung heavy over the campfire. Kate let it. At last Johnny stirred and said in a painful rasp, “You think I ran away from Dad dying?”
His words struck at her like a sledgehammer. “I don’t think you ran away from your Dad’s death,” she said when she got her breath back. “I did. I ran away, as far away as I could get, to a place where hardly anybody knew me, and I hid out. All the while pretending I was fine, just fine, when I wasn’t. I could have stayed there the rest of my life, keeping my head down, drifting through life.”
“What happened?”
What the hell had happened? She still wasn’t sure. “Someone who knew me saw me. And there was a… thing. A case. I helped solve it. Sort of. Anyway, it reminded me.” She shrugged. “It’s what I do. Find things out.”
“Catch bad guys,” Johnny said.
“Yeah.”
“Like Dad.”
“Yeah. A lot of people aren’t lucky enough to find that one thing they’re good at. But if you do, I think you should do it. Practice it. Make a living at it if you can. Make a difference, if you can.”
“I don’t have a thing.”
“You will,” she said. “Don’t let it be running away.”
Mutt had been resting her head on her paws, bright eyes traveling back and forth between her two humans. One of her ears twitched toward home. She raised her head and looked in that direction, both ears testing the air like elongated insect antennae.
“What is it, girl?” Kate said, and then she heard it, too, and got to her feet.
It was another four-wheeler. Vanessa Cox was driving it.
A smile spread across Johnny’s face.
Vanessa killed the engine and dismounted.
Johnny got to his feet. “Hey, Van.”
“Hey, Johnny. Hello, Kate.”
“Hi,” Kate said.
“Want some coffee?” Johnny said.
“Cocoa,” Vanessa said, and unstrapped a sleeping bag and a pack from the back of the four-wheeler.
Our girl Friday has arrived, Kate thought. “You bunking out here, too?” she said.
“Uh-huh.” Vanessa unrolled the bag, folded it in thirds, and sat down on it cross-legged. She pulled her pack into her lap and produced a Ziploc bag full of peanut butter cookies. “Have one?” she said to Kate. Her gaze was wide and clear and without a trace of embarrassment.
“Thanks,” Kate said, “I had one earlier.” She finished her coffee, mostly to give herself time to think. “Virgil and Telma know where you are?” she said finally.
“They’re not worried about me,” Vanessa said.
The light from the fire flickered over her face. She looked and sounded tranquil, so much so that Kate decided not to point out that Vanessa hadn’t answered her question.
So Johnny had told someone where he would be. That was good. That someone was a child. That was bad. But now Kate knew where they both were. That was good.
Chances were Vanessa had snuck out of her house without permission. That was bad. They were obviously close friends. That was good. Just how friendly were they?
That could be seriously bad. They had school tomorrow. Ah-hah. “You’ve got school tomorrow,” she said.
“We’ll go from here,” Johnny said.
Vanessa nodded. “I brought my books with me.”
Kate wondered what would happen if she ordered them to strike camp and follow her back to the homestead.
There was an old attorney proverb, something about never asking a witness a question to which you didn’t already know the answer.
She tested the air, trying to estimate the sexual tension between the two. She didn’t sense any, but that didn’t mean diddly. Adolescents were past masters at hiding things from adults, it came with the job description. She’d had the Talk with Johnny the previous winter, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know where babies came from.
She remembered something she’d heard Emaa tell the mother of a teenaged boy who was worrying over sending him to college Outside. “You bring them up good, you teach them all the right things, and you let them go. Nothing else to be done.”
It all came down to trust. She got to her feet and dusted off her jeans. “Thanks for the coffee,” she said to Johnny. “And the consultation.” She was rewarded by a look of surprise on Johnny’s face, and had to suppress a smile. What did he think she would do, yell and carry on? Tackle him and carry him home over her shoulder? Aside from the fact that she wasn’t sure she could, it would cause permanent damage to everyone’s dignity, and Kate didn’t think such an extreme sacrifice was, as yet, called for.
If and when she did, she’d come back with a rope.
She handed him the mug. “Will you think about what I said?”
“I am thinking about it.”
“Where’s the rifle?”
He looked as if he might protest, and then gave in and fetched it from where it was leaning inside the entrance to the mine. It was loaded. The safety was on.
“I told you,” he said, watching her. “Dad taught me.”
“I know he did,” Kate said, shouldering the rifle. “Mutt. Stay.”
Mutt ducked her head and sneezed.
“Oh no, Kate.” For the first time, Johnny showed dismay. “You don’t have to leave Mutt here.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Mutt gave a soft whine when she saw Kate climb on the four-wheeler. “Stay,” Kate repeated. To Johnny she said, “You can send her home in the morning when you leave for school.”