Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

She stood in front of the map for a while, running the sequence of the attacks through her mind.

So far, all the attacks had been downriver, south of Niniltna, south of the Nabesna Mine turnoff, south even of where the road left the river to go to the Roadhouse.

First attack, a mile north of Double Eagle.

Second, three days later, six miles downriver from the first attack, just outside Chulyin.

Third, a little north of Red Run, six days later and twenty miles farther south, almost where the Gruening River met the Kanuyaq.

Fourth, thirteen days later, three miles north of Red Run.

Three of four of the attacks had been made on people coming home fat, trailers loaded with groceries, clothes, parts, fuel. Which made a case for Johnny and Van and Ruthe being a target of opportunity.

It also opened up the possibility that someone upriver was alerting the jackals as to potential pickings, at least for the first three attacks. Kate didn't like the thought of that, not one little bit.

"I think they cruised us on the way out," Johnny had said. "There were three guys on snow machines who kind of harassed us that morning. Didn't jump us, just did circles around us and then took off when they saw a truck coming. I knew there was something off about them, but it didn't hit me until later. They were wearing helmets, Kate."

"So you couldn't see who they were."

"And nobody wears helmets on the river, Kate." He'd managed a smile, even if it had looked a little worn around the edges. "Not even an old safety-first girl like you."

Ten minutes later she was moving down the road, Mutt on the seat in back of her, headlight illuminating the road in front of her.

Auntie Vi was up in her net loft mending nets, bone needle whipping in and out, gear swiftly and almost miraculously made whole again. "Ha, Katya," she said.

"Morning, Auntie." Before Auntie Vi could get started in Association business Kate got her oar in first. "You hear about the attacks on the river?"

Auntie Vi gave an emphatic nod. "Sure. Everybody hear."

"I didn't," Kate said.

Auntie Vi looked surprised. Kate, watching her closely, thought the surprise was exaggerated. "How not?" Auntie Vi said.

"Nobody told me. Why didn't you?"

Auntie Vi raised her eyebrows in a faint shrug and bent back over the gear. "You not interested enough in Association business to learn how to run board, you not interested enough in Park business to need to know all that goes on."

"I see," Kate said. Something very like rage rose up over her in a red wave and she fought an inner battle to keep her composure. Mutt, who read Kate better than most humans, looked longingly at the door. "Is this the way it's going to be, Auntie? You're going to shut me out unless I do what you want?"

Auntie Vi didn't answer.

"Well, I know about them now, and I'm going downriver to see what the hell's going on. I'm going to find out who's pulling this shit and I'm going to kick their collective ass. It's a darn shame I didn't know about it before, so I could have stopped it earlier, and Grandma Riley and little Laverne Jefferson and Ken and Janice Kaltak wouldn't have been terrorized and robbed."

Kate left before Auntie Vi could reply.

Her next stop was Auntie Edna's, a prefab home in a little ten-house subdivision at the south end of Niniltna, perched precariously on the edge of the river. This time she knocked, instead of walking in like she did at Auntie Vi's. Auntie Edna's face was stony when she came to the door, but then Auntie Edna's face was always stony. "Auntie Edna," Kate said without preamble, "you know about the attacks on the river?"

Auntie Edna shrugged. "I guess."

"You should have told me."

Auntie Edna raised her eyebrows in elaborate surprise. "You interested?"

Kate could feel her temper begin to rise again, and bit back her first retort. "I'm headed downriver. Do you know who they are?"

Another shrug. "Nobody say."

"Well, I'm going to find them, and I'm going to beat the crap out of them when I do. And after that I'm going to feed them to Mutt. You can put that out on the Bush telegraph if you've a mind to."

She turned to leave.

"Katya."

Kate was in no mood. "What?" The curt tone, the omission of the usual honorific, both were significant, and they both knew it.

"That man that live with you."

This was so out of left field that Kate was momentarily speechless. "There's no man- Oh. You mean Jim?"

Auntie Edna gave a curt nod.

"What about him?"

"White man."

Kate snorted out a laugh. "Unregenerately."

"Not right for Association chair, Native woman, to be sleeping with white man."

At that Kate turned completely around and said incredulously, "Are you kidding me, Auntie? You of all people dare to lecture me on my love life?"

In her youth, Auntie Edna had been married three times, and in between and sometimes during those marriages had enjoyed the company of many other men. She had more children than the other three aunties put together. Her romantic history probably ranked right up there with Chopper Jim's in number and variety.

Auntie Edna thrust out her jaw. "Don't change subject, Katya. You sleeping with that man don't look good. You boot him out, get you a nice Native man. That be better for everyone. Your kids be shareholders on both sides."

"Just for the sake of argument, Auntie, what nice Native man would you recommend?"

At this Auntie Edna looked momentarily at a loss, and then rallied. "Them Mike boys is all good men, Annie raised them right."

"And they all live in Anchorage," Kate said, and made a come-along motion with her hand. "Come on, Auntie. Serve 'em up. Who else is vying for my hand?"

"Martin Shugak, he-"

Kate's rage dissipated in an instant and she burst out laughing. "Martin! Oh, Auntie!"

"What wrong with him?" Auntie Edna said pugnaciously.

"What's wrong with him?" Kate rolled her eyes. "Well, first there's the little problem of his being my cousin-"

"Second! Second cousin!"

"-and so our children would all be born with two heads. Not to mention he's a drunk, so they'd all have FAS, and he's chronically unemployed, so they'd all be hungry, and-" Kate shook her head. "I'm headed downriver, Auntie. Do you know who's doing these attacks?" She waited, and when Auntie Edna said nothing she started down the steps.

"Not necessary, Katya," Auntie Edna said behind her.

Kate paused in the act of mounting the sled, and looked at Auntie Edna with a gathering frown. She didn't like what she heard in Auntie Edna's voice. "Why not, Auntie? Somebody has to stop them. And," she added with little satisfaction and less pride, "it's almost always been me."

"Maybe already somebody stop them," Auntie Edna said.

She gave Kate another long, hard stare, and then Auntie Edna turned and went back inside, the door closing firmly behind her.

Jim gassed up the Cessna and flew back to Suulutaq. There was a thin line of clouds on the southern horizon, the edge of a low front that had so far been held off by the high hanging in over the Park. Otherwise it was another clear, calm day, and this time he knew where he was going.

In half an hour he was over the trailer. He continued on up the valley, all the way to the end, as far as he could get without running into a cloud filled with rocks. Here the landscape closed in, a series of pocket basins that in spring were carpeted with grasses, interspersed with rocky crags clothed in lichen and kinnikinnick. There was one exit, a high, narrow pass where rose the spring that formed the headwaters of the Gruening River, which cricked and jigged and jagged down the other side, collecting the flows of errant streams and creeks to itself before its course smoothed out to join up with the Kanuyaq River at Red Run.