Dana Stabenow - A Fine and Bitter Snow

A lone bunny slipper, one of its ears lopsided, was sitting on its side under the woodstove. Kate fished it out and put it on a shelf, unable to stop the tears from welling in her eyes. She conducted a search but couldn’t find the other one. Maybe it was with Dina’s body.

There didn’t seem to be a dish towel to be found, or a towel of any kind, and then she remembered. Ruthe had been hurt, and transported to the hospital. Someone had probably used them for bandages. She climbed the ladder to the loft and discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that the chinook had hit here, as well. The two beds were off their stands, a pillow leaked feathers, and clothes had been emptied from closets and drawers and were strewn all over the floor. The blankets were gone. Ruthe again, she figured. She got the beds back on their stands, the clothes back into place, and as much of the leaky pillow and its errant feathers as possible into another garbage bag.

When Ruthe got better, Kate didn’t want her coming home to a destroyed house. If she didn’t get better… No, she would.

She went to the top of the ladder and turned around, hands on the posts, foot on the first rung, and gave the loft a long look. Pale light leaked in from a skylight in the ceiling.

Why the loft? The two women had been assaulted downstairs. Why beat up on two women and then trash the loft? Seemed like overkill. She winced at the word. Dan had called the perp a “crazy bastard.” That could be all it was. Enough crazy bastards came into the Park and misbehaved that it was usually enough of an explanation, requiring the full-time attention of three troopers and more than a few tribal policemen. Hell, there were enough of the homegrown variety to keep everyone in business, never mind the newbies.

She climbed down the ladder and began to try to make sense of some of the letters and paperwork that she had piled on the coffee table. There were advisory reports on this and that species of wildlife, letters asking for endorsements in political campaigns and for a presence at fundraisers, some from candidates whose names made Kate’s eyebrows go up. There were fat files on various parks and refuges, environmental-impact studies on a couple of construction projects, including a hiking trail someone wanted to run down the side of the Kanuyaq River from Ahtna all the way to Cordova; it would run partway along the existing roadbed into the Park.

She noticed for the first time that Ruthe and Dina had no family photographs, no pictures of mothers, fathers, grandparents, brothers or sisters. She shrugged. Maybe they were both orphans. Still, it seemed odd. Everybody had pictures of people, at least a few. Ruthe and Dina’s albums were of plants, animals, glaciers, avalanches, and mountain-tops, and if there were people in them, they were usually Ruthe or Dina.

Then she found one with both of them and Ekaterina, posing in front of the Kanuyaq Copper Mine, along with a crowd of other people. The beaver-hatted man on Emaa’s right must be Mudhole Smith, the Bush pilot from Cordova. All four aunties were there, three with their husbands, who were still living at the time. Demetri Totemoff and John Letourneau were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, which would put the date back in the days before they’d split their guiding business and gone their separate ways. John was standing next to Dina and laughing down at her. Anastasia was next to Demetri, looking up at him with a soft smile. Demetri’s arm was draped tentatively around her, as if he had yet to be convinced that he had the right. He probably still feared the appearance of Anastasia’s father with a gun, which, from everything Kate had heard, would have been just like Frank Korsakovakof. A protective father and a good man. Anastasia had found it hard to go up against him, so the story went, but Demetri had prevailed, and in the end, Frank had come around. And now both Frank and Anastasia were gone. She made a mental note to stop in and see Demetri soon.

In the photograph, the polyester clothes and the hair, either board-straight or permed to a curlicue, put the time in the mid- to late seventies. They all looked tanned and fit, and so very vigorous. So alive. There was a man standing to the right and a little behind Ekaterina. Kate took a closer look. Ray Chevak, from Bering. Emaa’s-what? Even back then, he wasn’t young enough to be called “boyfriend.”

It was unnerving to see how far back Ray and Ekaterina’s relationship went. Kate hadn’t known about it until after Emaa’s death, and she didn’t want to know more, didn’t want her imagination to work out any of the details.

She heard a noise on the porch and went to the door. Mutt was on the top step, Gal between her front paws, her face screwed up into an expression of deep distaste as Mutt washed her with a raspy pink tongue. They both became aware of Kate at the same moment. Gal sprang away and hissed. Grr, Mutt said in return. Gal jerked her tail and padded between Kate’s legs. She gave an imperious meow, but when Kate got her some food, she barely waved a whisker over it before going right to Ruthe’s chair and curling up.

“Welcome home,” Kate said. She was immensely relieved. She didn’t want to have to tell Ruthe that Gal had disappeared. She bent to give the cat a scratch behind the ears and found her fur damp to the touch from Mutt’s ministrations. She looked over at Mutt. “You make a pretty good nurse.”

Mutt gave an elaborate yawn, and cleaned up Gal’s food with a single swipe of her tongue. It was all show, because Kate knew for a fact that Mutt had dined very nicely the day before on the remains of a moose carcass not a mile from the homestead.

She noticed a book she had missed beneath the sofa and bent down to pick it up. Wedged under the couch was a narrow tin box, of the size to hold standard file folders. It was locked. Kate looked for a key in hopes that there might be names and numbers for her to call-not that either Dina or Ruthe had ever referred to having anyone to call in the event of, other than each other. There was a key rack with hooks sprouting from little tin chickadees, with airplane keys, snow machine keys, and truck keys, but no keys to fit the tin box. She set the box to one side, not feeling things were to the point that she had to break into it.

“Hey,” a voice said from the deck.

She looked up, to behold Jim Chopin peering at her through the window. She didn’t notice that the sight of him didn’t cause its usual knee-jerk antipathy. “Hey, yourself.”

He came in. “What are you doing here?”

She waved a hand. “Trying to clean up for when Ruthe gets home.”

He looked at her and forbore from saying what was on both their minds.

“You?” she said.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I wanted to see if I’d remembered to lock the door.”

“There’s no lock.”

He examined the doorknob. “I’ll be damned.”

“Dina didn’t believe in locks in the Bush. Said if she and Ruthe were both away from home and somebody got lost in a blizzard that she wanted them to be able to get in.”

“I don’t know who’d stagger up this mountain in a blizzard, but it’s a nice thought.”

“I caught a couple of guys poking through the rubble.”

His eyes sharpened. “Who?”

She shook her head. “Don’t know them. I ran them off.”

“Get tags?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t think they’ll be back. And I’ll get Bernie to spread the word that I’m looking after the place.”

Which all by itself would be enough to keep the cabin and the surrounding property sacrosanct, Jim thought. At least for a while, at least until they knew if Ruthe would live.

“I hear you got the guy,” she said.

“Yeah. Knife in hand. Blood wasn’t even dry on it. Tests already confirmed Ruthe’s and Dina’s blood on it.”