Julius turns his gaze on her, his face still thunderous. Then Ariel’s head comes up from what has seemed to be an earnest contemplation of his meal. He stares at Kirsten in the silence, then begins to laugh, a chuckle that begins somewhere around the middle of his chest and gathers force as it rises, shaking his shoulders. “Dr. Annie Rivers,” he says between spasms, “you’re okay.”
The tension in the room snaps, and Julius carefully sets down his Burgundy. The two children return to their suppers with only perfunctory mayhem, overseen by Smith. Julius rises to offer after-dinner brandy to the adults, pouring Courvoisier into the bottoms of ample snifters. He hands Koda hers with a smile, half rueful. “Sorry about the fireworks. It’s been stressful since the uprising, especially for a city girl like Dio who’s used to all the luxuries. She’ll be fine in the morning.”
And we’ll be gone in the morning. Long gone. By ourselves. But she accepts her drink and the elder Kriegesmann’s oblique apology with a smile of thanks. The gathering breaks up into knots after that, the three men and Harriet huddling around the fireplace, Julius and Ariel gnawing the ends of expensive cigars. The Smith children—putatively Smith, at any rate, escape to play in the larger space of the lobby, where thumps and thuds attest to their energy. Tanya and Elaine seem to distance themselves from the rest, holding hands as their voices become quieter and more intimate. Letting her own hand linger on Kirsten’s arm, Dakota says, “You about ready to turn in? Tomorrow’s gonna be a long one.”
Tanya looks up from her conversation with Elaine. “I’ll show you to a cabin. Unless you’d rather stay here, in the main lodge?”
“Thanks, we’ll take the cabin,” Kirsten answers almost before the other woman finishes her question, and Tanya grins in silent agreement.
“It’s not always this bad,” she says. “But it’ll be quieter up the road.” To Elaine, she adds, “I’ll be up in a bit.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Elaine gives her a sultry look over the rim of her glass, all fire and smoke.
As they gather their things, Asi darts to the door ahead of them, whining. Ariel yells “Sleep tight!” to the accompaniment of quieter good nights. In the lobby, now well lit, the furniture shoved together in an improvised jungle gym, Tanya glances at her watch and announces, “Fifteen minutes, kids. Time to hit the books.”
“Awwwww, Aunt Tanya, that’s mean!”
“Pleeezzzeee, just half an hour?”
“Fifteen and not a second more. Suck it up, guys!” She lets Dakota and Kirsten out the main door onto the deck, and Asi shoots away, racing full out up the drive, turning and cannoning back at speed, only to hurtle off into the woods that line the road, barking furiously. Tanya laughs. “He’s off on one of the rabbit trails. I don’t blame him; it got pretty thick in there, didn’t it?”
The conflict on Kirsten’s face is almost comical. If she agrees, she insults the Kreigesmann family; if she does not, she contradicts the most normal one of the lot. Dakota rescues her. “People get on each other’s nerves when they get too close. Your mom and dad seem to have a pretty firm handle on it, though.”
“They’re used to managing hostile takeovers. Even our family’s a breeze after that.”
They set off down the path, the shadows thickening about them. The wind moves through the tops of the tall trees, sighing among the pine needles. Out here, free of the power struggles and tensions of the Kriegesmann brood, Koda’s own stress begins to fade. She feels as though she has been walking in boots half a size too small ever since they came upon Ariel and has only now been able to pull them off. Relief courses through her body, and, oddly, a sense of kinship with the woman beside them. There is strength in her, and though Koda suspects the presence of a wide ruthless streak, a kind of honesty she can respect. She says, “Your mother was with the bank, too?”
Tanya glances up at her, her face shadowed. “Oh, Harriet’s not my mother. Ari’s hers, and Humph from her first marriage. Dio’s the oldest, though she doesn’t want to be reminded of that. Then me, with Wife #2. Ari’s the baby.”
“And he doesn’t like to be reminded of that?” Koda finishes the thought for her.
“Or of the fact that he never made senior VP. A doorstop with a title, that’s our Ari. His talents—well, the one good thing about this situation is that he can be more useful here than he ever was at the office.” A wry smile twists her mouth. “Not that that outweighs the negatives for the rest of us.”
“Dio certainly doesn’t seem to think so.”
“She’s a born mall bunny. Julius got down in the muddy end of the gene pool with that one.”
Cabins line the main road once they pass the lodge’s turnout and parking area. Warm light spills from their windows, and the smell of woodsmoke rises from their chimneys. Though summer solstice is only a few days away, chill descends on the mountain with the dark. Here and there, women gather children into what seem to be family homes; elsewhere, two men, or three, sit late on the front decks, smoking and talking. Koda can feel their eyes on them as they pass.
Tanya follows her gaze to the men, then back. She says, “We had quite a few hunters here when the rebellion started. Some tried to get back to their families; others stayed to help defend Elk Mountain.”
“You’ve fought them?” Kirsten asks. Her voice is dry, her skepticism barely concealed.
“We caught a half dozen scouts, a couple of them human. Otherwise they either don’t know we’re here, or they haven’t bothered with us. There are relatively few women here. Maybe we’re just not worth it to them.”
“You know what they’re after, then.”
“We know they’ve been breeding the women they capture.” Tanya’s eyes narrow, her mouth tightening in a look of pure hatred. “We heard about it from the refugees who’ve settled with us. One woman escaped from a jail in Laramie, then damned near died when she took tickweed to induce an abortion.
“As to what they’re really after—hell, no, I don’t know. I don’t think anybody does. Otherwise we could stop them, or at least have an idea how.”
About a quarter mile from the main lodge, she leads them onto a side path. In a small clearing at is end stands one of the A-frame cabins, its weathered boards and cedar shakes blending almost imperceptibly into the woods around it. Tanya opens the door for them, switching on the light as she does so. Someone has clearly prepared the place for visitors; the woodbox by the kiva-style fireplace is full of split logs, while a basket on the counter that divides the living area from the kitchen holds dishes, a small jar of coffee, a box of cereal, sugar and canned fruit. “Breakfast is at seven in the dining room, if you want to join us. Otherwise—” She gestures toward the provisions. “Bath’s on the other side of the kitchen; bedroom’s up in the loft. See you in the morning.”
An hour later, Koda slips into bed beside Kirsten, her whole body feeling polished from the blast of the water jets in the shower. Her hair, still damp despite a session with the dryer, lies heavily across her bare shoulders. The small soapstone stove fills the space under the peaked rafters with drowsy warmth. Kirsten, the quilt pulled up around her ears, lies on her side, breathing softly and regularly, already asleep. Her pale hair spread across the pillow catches the glow from the lamp, a spill of sunlight in the surrounding dark. Wishing she were not blind-tired from the day’s trek and the bizarre familial wrangling of the evening, Dakota checks the revolver on the nightstand and settles beside her lover, drawing her against her own body, back to front, fitting together as if made for each other. Love you, babe. Love to love you, but I don’t want to wake you, and I’m just tired, so tired. . .. She never finishes the thought. Sleep claims her between one breath and the next, and she slips away into the dark.