P. Alderman - A Killing Tide

"With a shout, the man gave chase, catching the tip of Coyote's tail. Which is why the tip is white to this day. Coyote ran to Squirrel…"

Her voice faded on a surge of static. Mac leaned forward, straining to hear while he gunned the engine around the next curve.

"…so hot it burned the back of Squirrel's neck, which is why you can see a black spot to this day…Frog, who spit Fire onto Wood..."

"…after a while, the man gave up and climbed back up to his camp on his mountaintop where he felt safe. Coyote then gathered all the people around and showed them how to rub two sticks of wood together, releasing Fire.

"As they do to this day."

There was a moment of dead air, then a long, soft sigh.

"I'll leave you to ponder and dream on that one…it's time for us to wrap it up for the night."

Mac scowled.

"According to my friend Gary, all you fishermen made it across the river bar safe and sound on the flood tide. So I'm happy to report that we've got us another win against the Columbia River ghouls."

The ghostly hulks of three elk appeared out of the mist, trotting across the road. Mac slammed on the brakes, swearing when the truck fishtailed. Unfazed, they disappeared over the side, heading down to the river.

"Oh, and for any newcomers or tourists who are crazy enough to be driving down Highway 30 right about now, try to miss hitting the elk herd around Milepost 94. We don't know you yet, so we don't know whether to regret your passing. But those elk have been our friends and neighbors for as long as Coyote has. We wouldn't take kindly to you hurting one of them.

"You've been listening to KACR, Astoria's community radio at 90.7 on your FM dial, dedicated to helping all men, women, and children learn how to get Fire out of Wood."

There was a moment of silence, then static as the station went off the air. He was left with only the faint glow of the radio dial, the drum of rain on the roof, and the unsettling echoes of his own bleak thoughts.

His hand slapped the steering wheel, hard.

She hadn't mentioned her name.

#

In the basement of an elegant Victorian overlooking downtown Astoria, a man hurled his radio against the cement wall, shattering it.

She knew.

He dropped to his knees, chest heaving, the heels of his hands pressed against his closed eyes. She'd poked her nose where it didn't belong, asking too damn many questions. Refusing to let it go .

She'd signed her own death warrant.

~~~~

Chapter 1

Thursday, 7:45 AM

"Wind's out of the south today."

The tinny voice screeched at Jo Henderson over the static in her headphones. In the background, the staccato whump-whump of the helicopter's rotors sounded like sub-woofers on amphetamines. Her feet were already numb from engine vibration.

Only moments ago, they'd lifted off in the Seahawk from Astoria Regional Airport, running blind. Thick fog streamed past the Columbia River Bar Pilots Association helicopter as they flew toward the freighter waiting in the Pacific, fifteen miles northwest of the CR buoy.

"Got a little fog, though." Tim Carter tapped the instrument panel of the helicopter with the blunt end of his finger.

Master of understatement, that was Tim. Jo exchanged a wry look with their young winchman, Erik Ewald. She rubbed the salt-etched glass of the window with her cuff, wishing she was back at the radio station broadcasting another Northwest legend. Wishing she was anywhere but strapped into a helicopter.

Given their current heading, the ridges of Saddleback Mountain would be behind her right shoulder, the town and the river in front of her. That is, if she could see them.

Glancing down, she forced herself to relax her grip on the armrests before she dug holes in the leather. The helicopter pilots contracted by the Association flew in almost any type of weather, and Tim, whom she'd known all her life, was one of the best. She knew that.

The helicopter hit an air pocket, snapping her teeth together.

"Oops."

Oops?

"Sorry." Tim frowned at the controls. "She's acting a little sluggish today."

Sluggish? She raised her eyebrows at Erik, who shrugged, spreading his hands. Only a few years out of school, Erik was too young to have a sense of his own mortality, to realize he could be gone in the blink of an eye.

Tim caught her expression and chuckled. "Not to worry. I didn't expect this kind of turbulence, is all." His curly hair turned a burnished gold in a brief shaft of sunlight. "Since I bought the place up on Kensington, I can glance out the window for my weather report each morning. Can't beat that with a stick, now can you?"

He revved the engines, dropping below a layer of fog. Jo's fingernails dug back in.

"Course if Margie keeps bleeding me dry," he added, "I might not be able to make the mortgage payments."

"I heard about last night in the pub," Jo felt compelled to say. Tim and Margery's breakup had kept the whole town in gossip for more than a year now. They'd had, according to her friend Lucy who'd witnessed the event, one hell of a public row.

"Margie came in looking for a fight, that's for sure," he agreed. "It's almost like when I handed her the cash, it made her even madder. Lucy had to threaten her with an assault rap to get her calmed down."

"You paid Margie in public ?" Jo shook her head. Men could be so clueless.

"Yeah, not my smoothest move, I guess."

As he angled the big chopper sharply to the left, Jo caught a brief glimpse of Youngs Bay through a break in the fog. In the thin winter light, the water looked cold and deadly. Her heart rate sped up.

According to Northwest legend, when Coyote had traveled to the Sky World, he'd been killed by his fall back to Earth. And wasn't she always admonishing her listeners to take those myths to heart?

She brought herself up short. What was her problem today, anyway? She made her living piloting huge freighters through the Columbia River bar, a narrow channel of shifting sand bars and forty-foot waves. And everyone who worked the big ships, whether they admitted it or not, relied on a combination of luck, skill, and superstition to get them safely back to port. On each crossing, she encountered more danger than she ever would in the short Seahawk flights. Her recent uneasiness on these trips made no sense at all.

"We had a heck of a storm while you were on the air at the radio station," Tim continued. "Gusts up to fifty knots, close-in surge over thirty feet, zip for visibility. Erik and I had no end of trouble holding this baby steady over the freighters. This fog looks like a piece of cake, considering."

"Right." She narrowed her gaze on the back of his head.

He glanced over his shoulder. "You doing okay?"

"Never a qualm, you know me."

He grinned, not fooled in the least. "Haven't seen you at the tavern lately. You develop an allergy for beer?"

"Been busy at the radio station." Since Cole's death, she'd buried herself in work at the community center.

"Yeah, I heard your broadcast the other night. That husky voice of yours…damn, woman. You're trying to make me regret I dumped you back in high school, aren't you?" He and Erik exchanged a very male look that had her shaking her head.

"I dumped you, not the other way around."

Tim thought about it while he rubbed a hand over his chin, then chuckled. "Yeah, you did, didn't you? Your loss."

She rolled her eyes.

"Still, you've gotta have time for a beer now and then, right? Why don't you drop by later tonight?"

"Can't. Prep party."

"Ah."

Saturday was the official opening of the Astoria Community Arts Center. She'd been working herself to the point of exhaustion, but she hadn't been able to stop. The center and its radio station were her tribute to Cole. If she couldn't lay to rest her questions surrounding his death, then at least she could make his dream come true.