KS00 - Nooses Give (3 page)

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The land, low and flat near the river, began to rise soon after she left it. Blueberry bushes, cottonwoods, and scrub spruce were left behind for currants, birches, and hemlocks. The snow was so deep and was packed down so well beneath its own weight that the Polaris skimmed over it, doing better than forty miles an hour. In spite of the wide swing to avoid the homestead, she reached the abandoned gold mine at four thirty, with more than an hour of twilight left.

She ran the machine into some birches. the nose pointing downhill, and cut branches for camouflage and to sweep the snow free of tracks. Strapping on the snowshoes that were part of the standard winter survival kit she kept beneath the Polaris seat she shouldered her pack, shouldered the 30.06, and hiked the quarter of a mile to the mine entrance that gaped blackly from halfway up the hill next to the creek. It was dark inside until she got out the flashlight. The snow in the entrance was solidly packed down, as if something heavy had been stacked there.

Kate explored and found a branching tunnel, where she pitched the tent and unrolled the sleeping bag. Taking the ax and a collapsible bucket, she went down to the creek and chopped a hole in the ice beneath an overhanging bush. She filled the bucket with ice and water. Back at the tent, she lit the Sterno stove. The exertion and the cold had left her hungry, and she ate two packages of Top Ramen noodles sitting at the entrance to the mine, surveying the terrain in the fading light.

The airstrip ran parallel to the creek, which ran southeast-northwest around the hill of the mine. A narrow footpath led from the mine to one end of the airstrip. She squinted. A second, wider trail started at the other end of the strip, going in the opposite direction. Birches and scrub spruce clustered thickly at the edges of the strip and both trails. The creek was lined with cottonwoods and diamond willow. Mutt visited them all, sniffing, marking territory.

Kate went back for a Chunky and sat again at the mine entrance, gnawing at the cold, hard chocolate as she waited for the moon to come up. An hour later it did, full and bright. By Agudar’s light she walked down the footpath. Mutt trotted out of the woods and met her on the strip. It was as hard and smooth as the strip at Niniltna. The second, wider trail was a snow machine track. It followed the creek southeast, dodging back and forth, taking the easiest way through the trees and undergrowth without coming too close to the bank.

The creek itself was frozen over. No snares. No holes cut into the ice in any of the likelier places Kate spotted for snares.

She went back up to the mine and crawled into her sleeping bag, Mutt next to her. Mutt didn’t dream. Kate did, the same dream as always, children in pain. In the night she moved, restless, half waking, moaning a little. In the night Mutt moved closer to her, the animal’s 140-pound weight warm and solid. Kate slept again.

The next morning the sun was up by nine, and Kate and Mutt were on the creek trail as the first rays hit and slid off the hard surface of the frozen landscape. Kate kept to the trail to minimize the track she left behind. She moved slowly, ears cocked for the sound of an airplane engine, eyes on the creek side of the trail. Again there were no holes, and no snares for holes. There was nothing more to see. Old habits are hard to break, especially the habit of verification instinctive in every good investigator. It had compelled her to give Pete the benefit of the doubt. Now there was none. She went back to the mine.

They waited, camping in the tunnel, carrying water from the creek, Mutt grazing the local rabbit population, for three days. Every morning she broke down the camp and packed it down the hill to the Polaris, and every evening she packed it back up again.

She’d had worse stakeouts. The first morning a pair of eagles cruised by overhead, flying low and slow, eyes alert for any movement on the ground. A gaunt and edgy moose cow and her two calves passed through the area on the second day, moving like they had a purpose. That night they heard the long drawn-out howl of a wolf. Purpose enough. Down by the creek, a gnawed stand of diamond willow confirmed the presence of Dan’s beavers, although the winter’s heavy snowfall kept Kate from spotting the dam until the second day. The third afternoon a fat black raven croaked at them contemptuously on his way to make mischief elsewhere. That evening Kate ran out of Top Ramen and had to fall back on reconstituted freeze-dried spaghetti. Some prices are almost too high to pay.

Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, as she was thinking about fetching her camp up again from the Polaris, Mutt’s ears went forward and she got to her feet and pointed her muzzle west. Kate faded back into the mine, one hand knotted in Mutt’s ruff, the other gripping the handle of her ax, as the Cessna 180 with the tail numbers marking 50 Papa came into view over the trees. It touched down and used up all of the strip on the runout, bright shiny new in its fresh-off-the-assembly-line coat of red and white. Only bootleggers could afford new planes in the Alaskan bush.

The pilot was tall and rangy and well-muscled, and the unloading was easy and practiced. All the seats save the pilot’s had been removed and the remaining space filled up with case after case of Windsor Canadian whiskey, in the plastic bottles. Glass bottles weighed more and took more gas to get into the air. Glass bottles cut into the profit margin.

When he had all the boxes out on the ground, he tucked one box beneath each arm and started up the path toward the mine. Kate and Mutt retreated farther into the darkness.

He made the trip up and back six times, twelve cases in all, stacking them inside the mouth of the mine where the snow was packed down all nice and hard, where he’d stacked different cases many times before. He whistled while he worked, and when he was done he paused in the mine entrance to remove his cap and wipe his forehead on his sleeve. In the thin sun of an Arctic afternoon, his fifty-year-old face was handsome, although his nose and chin were a little too sharp, like his smile.

He replaced his cap and started down the hill, whistling again. He wasn’t halfway to the plane before he heard it, and the sound spun him around on his heels.

Kate stood in front of the stack of boxes, swinging from the hips. The blade of the ax bit deep. A dark-brown liquid spurted out when she pulled it free. The smell of alcohol cut through the air like a knife.

“Hey!” he yelled. “What the hell!” He started back up the slope. Without a break in her swing, Kate said one word. “Mutt.”

A gray blur streaked out of the mine to intercept him, and he skidded to a halt and almost fell. “Shit!”

The blade bit into another case. More whiskey gushed out. “Goddamn it! Kate!”

“Hello, Pete,” she said, and swung.

“Kate, for chrissake cut that out—that stuff’s worth a hundred bucks a bottle to me!”

The ax struck again. He made as if to move, but Mutt stood between them, lips drawn back from her teeth, head held low, body quivering with the eagerness to attack.

“You fly to Ahtna and pick up your shipment,” Kate said, torn voice harsh in the still afternoon air. The ax bit into the sixth case. “You drop it here and store it in the mine entrance. You fly back to Niniltna, landing at the village strip so the tribal policemen can see how squeaky clean you are. You hike back down to your homestead and spend the next week running your trapline. You were catching beavers, you told everybody at the Roadhouse one night. You even showed them a pelt.”

Cardboard and plastic crunched. “Only you don’t have a trapline. There isn’t a hole in the ice between here and your homestead, or a single snare to drop down a hole. You’re not trapping beaver—you’re using your snow machine to bring the booze down a case at a time.”

He shifted from one foot to the other and tried a disarming smile. “Well, shit, Kate. Guy’s got to make a living. Listen, can we talk about this? Don’t!” he shouted when she swung again. “Goddamn it, I’ll just buy more!”

“No, you won’t.”

“You can’t stop me!”

“No?” She swung. The ax chunked.

It took fifteen minutes in all. Kate had always been very good with an ax. He cursed her through every second of it, unable to walk away. When she was finished, she struck a wooden match on the thigh of her jeans and tossed it into the pile of broken boxes. There was a whoosh of air and a burst of flame. She shouldered the ax and walked down the hill. Mutt followed, keeping between Kate and Pete, hard, bright gaze watching him carefully.

When she approached the Cessna, Pete’s voice rose to a scream. “You fucking bitch, you lay a hand on that plane and I’ll—

Mutt snarled. He shut up. Kate raised the ax and swung with all her strength. The blade bit deep into the airframe just above the gear where the controls were located. She pulled the blade free, raised the ax for another swing, and several things happened at once.

A bottle she’d missed exploded in the mine entrance and everybody jumped. Mutt barked, a single, sharp sound, and kept barking. There was a scrabble of feet behind Kate. The ax twisted out of her hands and thudded into the snow six feet away, and she whirled to face a blade that gleamed in the reflection of the whiskey fire. She halted in a half crouch, arms curved at her sides.

Where was Mutt? A bark answered the question somewhere off to her right. She couldn’t look away from the blade to see what Mutt had found more important than guarding her back. They would discuss the matter, in detail. Later.

The bootlegger’s grin taunted her, and he wasn’t looking so handsome anymore. “Sorry, Kate.” He gestured at her scar with the knife. “Guess I get to finish what one of your baby-rapers started. No offense,” he added. “I’m just making me too much money to let you walk away from this one.”

“No offense,” she agreed, and as he took a step forward dropped to her hands, kicked out with her right foot, hooked his ankle, and yanked his feet out from under him. He landed hard on his back, hard enough to jolt the knife out of his grip. She snagged it out of the air and in one continuing smooth motion had the point under his chin. The grin froze in place.

She pressed up with the blade. Very slowly and very carefully he got to his feet. She kept pressing, and he went all the way up on tiptoe. “What is this,” she said, “a six-inch blade?” A bead of bright red blood appeared, and he gave an inarticulate grunt. “I personally think your brain is too small for the blade to reach if I stick it in from under your chin.” She pressed harder “What do you think?”

His voice broke on a sob. “Jesus, Kate, don’t, please don’t.”

Disgusted, she relaxed enough for him to come down off his toes. The point of the knife shifted, and he jerked back out of range. Blood dripped from his chin. He wiped at it and gave his hand an incredulous look. “You cut me! You bitch, you cut me!” He backed away from her as if he could back away from the blood too. His heel caught on something, and he lost his balance and fell over the bank of the creek. It was short but steep, and momentum threw him into a heavy, awkward backward somersault. He landed on a fallen log. Kate heard the unmistakable crack of breaking bone from where she stood. The whiskey fire was high enough to show the white gleam of bone thrusting up through the fabric covering his left thigh.

Becoming aware of a low rumble of sound, she turned. Mutt stood in the middle of the airstrip, legs stiff, hackles raised, all her teeth showing as she stared into the trees. A steady, menacing growl rumbled up out of her throat. Kate followed her gaze. Five pairs of cold, speculative eyes met her own. Five muzzles sniffed the air filled with the scents of burning whiskey, leaking hydraulic fluid, broken flesh, the rust-red smell of fresh blood.

Behind them Pete clawed his way up the creekbank and saw. “Kate.” His voice sweated fear.

She turned her head to look at the man lying on the frozen creekbank, and she did not see him. She saw instead eight kids in Alakanuk, drunk and then dead drunk. She saw a baby drowned in Birch Creek, left on a sandbar by parents too drunk to remember to load him into the skiff with the case of beer they had just bought, and just opened.

She saw her mother, cold and still by the side of the road, halfway to a home to which she never returned and a husband and a daughter she never saw again.

Kate picked up the ax and took a step back. Five pairs of eyes shifted from the prone man to follow her progress. “Mutt,” she said, her torn voice low.

The steady rumble of Mutt’s growl never ceased as she, too, began to retreat, one careful step at a time.

“Kate,” Pete said. “That thing with your mother, that was business. A guy has a right to make a living, you know?”

Her camp was already packed and stowed. The ax went in with it. The brush concealing the Polaris was easily cleared, and she’d left the machine pointed downhill for an easy start. She straddled the seat. “Kate!” His voice rose. “Your mother would fuck for a bottle! Shit, after a while she’d fuck for a drink! Goddamn you, Kate, you can’t leave me here! Kate!”

The roar of the engine drowned out his scream.

Gathering clouds hid the setting sun. It would snow before morning. It was sixty miles across country to her homestead. Time to go. Mutt jumped up on the seat behind her, and Kate put the machine in gear.

If you enjoyed “Nooses Give,” we think you’ll like
Breakup
. It’s a novel in the popular Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow, and it’s now available as an e-book at
stabenow.com
.

KATE SURVEYED THE YARD
in front of her cabin and uttered one word. “
Breakup
.”

Affection for the season was lacking in the tone of her voice.

Ah yes, breakup, that halcyon season including but not necessarily limited to March and April, when all of Alaska melts into a 586,412-square-mile pile of slush. The temperature reaches the double digits and for a miracle stays there, daylight increases by five minutes and forty-four seconds every twenty-four hours, and after a winter’s worth of five-hour days all you want to do is go outside and stay there for the rest of your natural life. But it’s too late for the snow machine and too early for the truck, and meltoff is swelling the rivers until flooding threatens banks, bars and all downstream communities—muskrat, beaver and man. The meat cache is almost empty and the salmon aren’t up the creek yet. All you can do is sit and watch your yard reappear, along with a winter’s worth of debris until now hidden by an artistic layer of snow, all of which used to be frozen so it didn’t smell.