Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

The miles sped by as Kate tried very hard not to think of all the different ways Johnny could have gotten hurt going down the river. A pickup could have run into them. A snow machine pileup. Some drunk in one of the villages could have been shooting at hallucinations and they got in between him and his target. The river could have opened up one of its inexplicable leads and they could have fallen in, and Johnny's last conscious act before the water closed over his head was to trigger the PLB.

She could feel the beginnings of hysteria, a coldness seeping over her from the inside that was worse than the windchill without. No, she thought, very firmly. You don't know anything. Don't speculate, don't borrow trouble. It'll be as bad as it is and you'll deal. Right now all you're doing is going from your house to Bobby's. All you have to do is hold on until you get there.

The trees lining the road blurred, the stars overhead were a silver smear against the black sky. They met no traffic along the way, and in Niniltna Dinah slowed down just enough to take the turn for the road leading downriver that led to the Roadhouse and then opened up the throttle again. Kate stuck to her tail like a burr, Mutt holding the shoulder of Kate's parka in her teeth to maintain her balance. The two miles between the village and the turnoff at Squaw Candy Creek passed in a blink and then Dinah was negotiating the trail that led to her and Bobby's house. Kate saw with dismay that Bobby's truck wasn't outside.

They killed the engines and went into the house, shedding outerwear as they went.

"I'm freezing, let me make some coffee," Dinah said.

"Talk while you do," Kate said. At her side stood Mutt, tense and ready to rip a new one in whatever had Kate so upset. She looked up and Kate rested a hand on her head. Mutt's ears flattened and she gave an interrogatory whine.

"It's okay, girl," Kate said with more confidence than she felt. "Everything's going to be fine." She hooked the rung of a stool with her foot and sat down. Mutt, not entirely convinced, allowed herself to be persuaded to sit, too, but she wouldn't move from Kate's side, leaning against her thigh, a solid, anxious presence. When Dinah gave her a strip of moose jerky, she took it politely, gave it a gnaw or two, and then set it down, which had to be a first.

"Where's my goddaughter?" Kate asked belatedly.

"With Bobby. We figured it was better Katya was in the truck with him."

"What happened?"

"At about-" Dinah glanced at the clock on the wall and calculated. "-I guess it would have been about one a.m… maybe one thirty, everything happened so fast I wasn't paying attention to the time… Jim banged on the door. He said that Johnny's PLB- Your idea?"

"Yes."

"I think I'll have one welded to Katya's ankle. The Park equivalent of a Lojack. Anyway, Jim said Johnny's PLB went off and wherever the alarm is received alerted Kenny Hazen, who called Jim. Who evidently was in Niniltna?" A raised eyebrow.

Kate raised her shoulders. "I don't know, work, I guess. He didn't make it out to the house last night."

"We need cell towers in the Park and we need them now," Dinah said. "Jim was going out after them. Bobby said he'd ride shotgun. Jim said no, he didn't know what the situation was, if anyone was hurt or how badly, be better if Bobby brought his truck, and the snow machine trailer, too."

Kate drew in a sharp breath.

Dinah held up one stern hand, like a traffic cop, and repeated

Kate's own admonitions to herself almost word for word. "Don't, Kate, don't borrow trouble. They'll bring them back and then we'll see. We can handle whatever happens. Just keep calm."

But Kate noticed that her hands were a little unsteady with the teakettle.

They drank in silence. The minutes crawled by, the drag of every second like a fingernail on a blackboard. It was twenty-plus miles from Bobby's house to where Jim said the PLB was transmitting from. Bobby and Jim would have taken the road to a mile or so past the turnoff to Camp Theodore, Ruthe's eco-lodge. There they would have left the road to Bernie's and taken to the river.

Kate walked to the window and looked out. It was a clear, cold night, and it was early enough that there shouldn't be any traffic on the river and less on the road. She stared at the track that led from Bobby's yard to the little bridge that crossed Squaw Candy Creek and disappeared into the trees, willing the nose of the white Blazer with the trooper seal on the side to appear.

It didn't. By a sheer act of will she turned her back on the window and walked away.

Bobby's house was one large, open A-frame room, except for the bathroom in one corner-bedroom, kitchen, living room surrounding the central work station in one continuous space. At the work station, a doughnut-shaped desk supported a whole bunch of electronic equipment, which was connected to a snake's nest of wires writhing up a central pole to disappear through the roof. Outside, they were connected to antennas and microwave shots and who knew what else hanging off the 112-foot tower that stood out back.

Bobby Clark had lost both legs below the knee in Vietnam. After too long in a vet hospital, he spent the intervening years making a lot of money in endeavors that no one was so impolite as to inquire into before he arrived in the Park, flush in the pocket and with a mind to buy land and build. The A-frame and the tower went up the first year and shortly thereafter Bobby became the NOAA weather observer for the Park. It was gainful employment that gave him a vague aura of respectability and more important, a verifiable income. If said income didn't come close to equaling his expenditures at least its existence laid the hackles of law enforcement personnel who might be otherwise inclined to inquire as to the provenance of his additional funding.

Bobby broadcast Park Air from that same console, a pirate radio station featuring pre-seventies rock and blues, with occasional forays into post-acoustic Jimmy Buffett, and irregularly scheduled public service programs featuring swap and shops, talk radio, and broadcasts for messages on the Bush telegraph. He flew a Super Cub specially altered to accommodate his disability, drove a pickup and a snow machine ditto, and he was Dinah's husband and the father of a three-year-old imp named for Kate. She'd delivered the imp and done duty as best man and maid of honor both at Bobby and Dinah's wedding, all three on the same day, the memory of which never failed to give everyone involved the heebie-jeebies.

She looked around the room, noting the distance between Katya's crib and the California King not that far away, and her eyes came to rest on Dinah, who was watching her with a worried expression. "You're going to need to add on," Kate said. "Katya's getting to be an age where she could seriously interfere with your love life."

Dinah actually smiled. "Tell me about it. She's already interrupted us a couple of times. There is nothing more, um, deflating, than a three-year-old kid saying, 'Daddy, get off, you're squishing her!'"

Kate laughed dutifully.

"We've already talked about building another room," Dinah said. "Where will you put it?"

Appreciating Kate's determination to act as normally as possible, Dinah fell into discussing the proposed addition. It would be built on the east side of the existing house, cutting a hole in that wall, extending the foundation, and building the room on top of it. "She's almost too big for the crib now anyway, she's been climbing in and out of it for almost a year. We think-"

Mutt's ears pricked up and she padded forward. "Listen," Kate said sharply, running to the window.

The white Blazer bumped into the clearing, followed by the brand-new black Ford Ranger Bobby had bought Dinah for her birthday that year. The motion detector lights on the outside of the A-frame lit up the two snow machines lashed to the trailer it pulled, both of them looking worse for wear.