Grant threw a punch at him, which Charlene stepped in to block, and for a few halcyon moments Teddy and John basked in the delightful prospect of pressing charges for assault. “Don’t push your luck, boys,” Charlene said dryly, so they loaded John’s pickup with meat and headed into town to distribute their haul, to the loud hosannas of both families. Times were tough in Newenham, the salmon catch down and down again for two years running. For some families, if they didn’t get their moose they didn’t eat meat that winter.
It was serious business, providing meat for their families, and John and Teddy took it seriously. Mostly. Which meant that sometimes they took beer, and sometimes they didn’t.
This time they had.
That morning they had dropped a bull that would provide them with six hundred pounds of meat, dressed, something to celebrate, John said, and Teddy agreed. They’d already got their caribou, hanging in quarters now from trees around camp. There were four dozen ptarmigan in canvas bags, and another dozen geese, gutted but not plucked.
“We deserve a beer,” John said, standing and stretching. The moose was gutted and skinned and hanging next to the caribou. The heart, tongue and liver were set to one side and steamed gently in the crisp fall air. Liver and onions tonight, he thought, smacking his lips, and pictured his mother’s face when he came in the door. “You’re a good boy, John,” she always said, whether he brought home the meat or not. This fall, he felt he’d earned it.
“Hell,” Teddy said, “we deserve six,” and opened the case of Miller Genuine Draft with bloodstained hands.
Newenham, September 1
Liam did what he had to do without compunction, without reconsideration, without, in fact, any thought of his sworn oath to uphold the law and Constitution and parental rights. He ordered his usual fatburger and fries at Bill’s and ate them to the accompaniment of Bill’s countdown of Things to Be Done While I’m Gone. The recipient of all this good advice, Dottie Takak, took it as she took most things in life, stolidly, silently, without question or expression on her wide brown face. She’d been cooking for Bill for nine years, she’d subbed for Bill when Bill went on Costco runs to Anchorage, when Bill and Moses took time out for trysts during walrus hunts or purse seining or New Year’s jaunts to the Kenai Princess Lodge, where once Bill claimed she had actually talked Moses onto cross-country skis. Dottie listened stoically as Bill told her not to forget to restock the beer, wash the glasses, sweep the floor, unplug the jukebox (currently floating Ivan Neville’s “Why Can’t I Fall in Love” out over the room, definitely not one of Liam’s many problems, so he tuned it out), scrub the grill, take out the trash and lock the doors, the front and the safe’s. Count the till each night, keep each day’s take in a separate envelope, messages should be entered in the Daily Diary for Bill to peruse when she chose to return. As far as magistrating went, she’d keep a schedule at ten a.m. every morning on the shortwave at the fish camp; tell the hyperventilating to call her there. If there was a murder, she might come back. Otherwise, they could wait.
Finally Bill ran down. Dottie, still silent, took the list and vanished into the kitchen. Bill looked at Liam. “You weren’t gone long.” She found a saltshaker and passed it over the counter.
He anointed his fries. Could never have too much salt on potatoes and popcorn. He could feel Bill’s eyes on his face as he continued to eat.
“What happened?” she said.
He rubbed a fry in the pile of salt on his plate. “Case I’ve got.”
“You weren’t gone long enough to acquire a new case,” she said. “Must be one of the old ones.”
He ate the fry.
“What, I’m supposed to guess?”
“No,” he said, swallowing. He put half his burger down, his appetite gone. “Just this woman, beat up on her son, she came back into town carrying a court order says she can visit him. It’s limited, supervised, but…”
“What pea-brain judge signed that order?”
“Legere.”
Bill’s snort said that she shared Liam’s opinion of the jurist in question.
“The kid’s terrified of her, doesn’t want to have anything to do with her, and he’s just starting to settle in where he’s at now. This is really going to shake him up.”
“Who’s got him?”
Liam raised his eyes. “Wy.”
There was a long silence. Liam watched Bill’s face as realization dawned. “Natalie Gosuk’s the one with the court order?”
He nodded. “She’s sober, too, who knows how long. But she’s got the order, she knows what it means and she’s going to use it. I think she’ll run off with him first chance she gets.”
Bill’s eyes narrowed.
“Sooner or later, she’ll start drinking again, like she always does. But for the moment, she’s here, and she’ll be knocking on Wy’s door, wanting to see Tim.” He looked down at his plate. “Too bad Moses brought him in from fish camp. School doesn’t start until Monday, and Natalie never lasts longer in town than three or four days.”
She spoke carefully and deliberately. “You miserable, manipulative, Machiavellian son of a bitch.”
He nodded with no particular pleasure.
She tossed the bar rag and turned to go. Over her shoulder she said, “You want to be a social worker, you better lose the trooper uniform.”
Nenevok Creek, September 1
Rebecca Hanover was a reluctant gold miner.
“I like to knit,” she had told her friend Nina in Anchorage in April. “I like to bead and quilt and cross-stitch.”
“You can do all those things at the mine.”
“Yes, but I like to do all those things in front of a roaring fire in a stone fireplace with an episode ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer on the television. I like getting up during the commercials and going to a bathroom that has a flush toilet.”
“Ah. Then it isn’t beading you like, it’s indoor plumbing.”
Rebecca refused to be diverted. “I like meeting you for coffee and canella at City Market on Saturday mornings.” She raised her cup and gestured at the large room full of loud cheerful voices and the mingled aromas of Kaladi Brothers coffee, Italian sausage sandwiches and spicy sesame chicken. In the parking lot cars were idling, waiting for an empty space. “I like people. I like eavesdropping on their conversations. Like that guy?” She pointed with her chin. “He’s a superior court judge, and that isn’t his wife. Before you got here they were planning a weekend in Seattle, until he remembered that was the weekend of his anniversary. She hasn’t spoken to him since.”
Nina shifted in her chair and managed a covert, over-the-shoulder look. “Isn’t that Shelby Arvidson, the anchor on Channel 6?”
“Yes, it is, and you’ll notice, she’s still here.”
“Your point being?”
“The weekend may still be on, anniversary or no. And you see the couple in the corner? The dark woman in the red T-shirt with the tall blond guy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s Lois Barcott.”
“The defense lawyer?”
“Yeah. And that’s Harry Arner, the district attorney. I bet they’re cutting a deal on the Baldridge case.”
“I love having a friend who’s a legal secretary,” Nina said. “Who’s Baldridge?”
“Used to be a banker, accused of embezzlement and fraud. He made nine million dollars in unsecured loans to people who turned out to be close personal friends of his.”
Nina did her best to look shocked. “Goodness me.”
“The bank went under. The trouble is the state has a lousy case, no witnesses and a lot of boring paperwork. I bet Arner holds out for dismissal of all charges. But, like I was saying.”
“Rebecca. I thought you told me Mark was really excited about this placer mine you’d bought.”