Dana Stabenow - A Grave Denied

“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.”

“Kate!”

She caught a glimpse of his expression as she turned the four-wheeler, and waited until she was facing away from him to let the grin spread across her face.

Kate was never without Mutt. Mutt was never without Kate. It was the only other given in the world besides death and taxes, and Johnny was well acquainted with it. Kate didn’t want to leave Mutt with him, but she was doing it because she’d taken back the rifle. Kate would be alone on the homestead. And Mutt, bless her melodramatic heart, was adding to the effect as she gazed yearningly after Kate as if her last hope of heaven was vanishing down the hill before her very eyes.

Kate felt smug as she put-putted her way home through the dusk. Not for nothing had she learned at the knee of that champion layer-on of guilt, Ekaterina Moonin Shugak.

Later, she would berate herself for being so self-involved that she hadn’t noticed the glow of the flames against the sky.

Later she would curse her failure to hear the crackle of the fire.

Later she would not be able to understand how she had not felt the sheer heat of it radiating outward, that she hadn’t even smelled smoke.

All this she would think and more, later and all too late, but when she rolled into the clearing and saw the interior of the cabin filled with a hungry, red-orange glow, heard the angry snarl of the flames, felt the vicious heat upon her face, felt the sharp sting of smoke in her nostrils, all she could think was “Johnny!” and all she could feel was a sharp spear of terror so abrupt, so visceral, and so overwhelming that her legs buckled beneath her when she tried to dismount.

She staggered and nearly fell before reason reasserted itself. No, she thought, in one of the few clear thoughts she was to hold dear that night, no, Johnny, wonderfully, marvelously prescient Johnny was safe and whole and unburned, tucked into his bedroll at the entrance to the Lost Wife Mine, kept company by an equally wonderful Vanessa and guarded by even more wonderful Mutt. She knew a moment of absolute relief as overwhelming as the moment of sheer terror that had preceded it, and her legs did give way this time, pitching her forward onto her hands and knees, utterly undone, vulnerable as she had never been in her life. She stared, dumbstruck, unable to move, struck motionless by disbelief.

There was an ominous creak and a small pop! of sound, and through the window she could see the flames lick higher, higher, tickling at the ladder to the loft and then the loft itself.

This was her father’s house. He had built it and brought her mother home to it, Kate had lived there all her life, and now it was going, eaten alive by a ravenous, red-maned beast.

The next thing she knew she was on her feet and moving forward.

“No,” she said out loud, and she was at the door.

“Don’t do this,” she said, and the door, already open, swung wide.

“Stop right now, you idiot!” she screamed, and she was inside.

It’s late, almost midnight here at the mine camp. I let the fire burn low so it’s just coals. The stars are out but very faint. Pretty soon, with the sun up all the time, I won’t be able to see them at all.

Van’s asleep across the fire from me, all curled up in her sleeping bag. I wonder what the deal with her folks is. They don’t seem to worry about her a lot, she pretty much comes and goes like she wants. They’re some sort of cousins of her parents, I think. She doesn’t talk about her real parents at all. I asked her where they were and she said they were dead and that’s it. I asked her where she lived before the Park and she said Outside and that was that. I like her, though. Maybe because she doesn’t talk much. She’s different from other girls that way. Except for Kate.

There was a rustle in the bushes a little bit ago and Mutt went off to check it out. She came back without any feathers or fur around her mouth, so I guess whatever it was got away. I saw a bear this evening, a brown, I think. Its skin was all loose, like it hadn’t eaten in a while, but the fur was really long and shiny. I think it was a sow although I didn’t get a close look. I didn’t see any cubs. She was eating horsetail. Ick. Kate told me bears will eat anything when they first wake up from hibernation, they’re hungry and there’s no salmon up the creeks or any berries on the bushes yet. Dad told me he shot a bear once that had an unopened can of tuna fish in its gut. And Ruthe told me that male bears will eat bear cubs if the female bear isn’t watching. I guess protein is protein. Ruthe told me bears are different in different places in Alaska. Like salmon don’t get all the way up the rivers and creeks in Denali Park and so the bears there eat mostly plants, with every now and then a marmot to supplement the fat they need. Plus maybe an occasional tourist, Ruthe said, although I think she was joking. I think.