Midnight come again (36 page)

Stephanie looked up, startled. Kate's voice had rung in the little room like the big bell in a tower.

Kate, grave, inclined her head in a small, formal bow.

Somewhat clumsily, Stephanie rose to her feet and returned it, small face solemn and intent.

They clasped hands and shook, formally.

"You'll be all right?" Kate said.

"I will be all right," Stephanie said, still formal. She sat down again, and bent over her book, "Good." Kate hesitated. "There is a man, a pilot. His name is Jacob Baird." A peculiar kind of listening stillness came over Stephanie. Kate waited.

"The fat man," the girl said at last. "With all the planes."

"That's the guy. He's in the hospital. He'll be okay, but he's stuck there for a while. He might like a visitor, someone who can speak his language." She gestured at the model of the Super Cub sitting on the bed. "Another pilot."

The back of Stephanie's head was unresponsive.

Either she would or she wouldn't. Kate thought she would, and turned to go.

"Arrivederci," Stephanie said suddenly.

Kate looked at her.

"That's Italian for goodbye."

Kate nodded, not trusting her voice to speak, and left the room.

On the porch, Ray said, "Why did you come here without your name, Katya?

Were you ashamed of it?" "No!" she said.

She was startled by her own vehemence. "No," she said more calmly. "Not ashamed." She leaned against the railing, staring toward the town and the river beyond. "Sick of it, maybe." She thought, and added in a lower voice, "Soul sick."

She turned to look at him. "What did you do when Emaa died? How did you manage?"

His smile was slow and sweet. "How did you?" She thought of his words as the Alaska Airlines 737 rose up into the sky over Bering and banked east, the first leg of her journey home. I can't be sad, Jack, she'd told him, that cold winter day in the Park, when they'd scattered Emaa's ashes up and down the Kanuyaq River. She's with me, right here, right now.

She's in every rock and tree in the Park. She's in the water we drink.

She's in the air we breathe. She'll be in every flake of snow that falls, all the winter long.

She ' come up the river with the first salmon in the spring.

She ' be on board every seiner that puts out to sea in the summer.

She ' be on the foothills with the berrypickers in the fall.

She ' always be here. I can't be sad she's gone, when she never left in the first place.

Even over the sound of the jet engines, a faint, anguished howl could be heard from beneath their feet. The other passengers exchanged irritated and amused expressions, but they might as well settle in for the long haul. The back seat of a Cessna was one thing. The cargo hold of a 737 was quite another. Mutt would make her displeasure known all the way to Anchorage.

Kate smiled as the foothills of the Kuskokwim Mountains rose up beneath them, the beginnings of the Alaska Range. If they followed it as it curved around the southern half of the state, the range would lead them unwaveringly to the Quilak Mountains.

And home.

And memories of Abel, and Emaa, and Alice.

And Jack. Companion to me in every place.

... weightless I soaring with it shall be for you Light bright shining

--Bright Shining It was late when they landed at the airstrip in Niniltna, almost evening, almost August. George gave her a ride home and a promise to keep her return to himself, "For tonight, at least," he'd added, giving her a hard look. "There are some people who've been worried about you.

Who'll need to know you're back safe."

"I know. Thanks, George."

She shut the door of his van and stepped back so he could make a U-turn.

It hadn't rained in a long time; the dust of his passing hung over the old gravel railroad roadbed long after he was gone.

She looked down and saw a railroad spike, rusted a dull orange but still a spike, one of those used to hold together the Kanuyaq and Northwestern Railroad track, some seventy years before. Lucky George hadn't picked it up in one of his tires. People did, still, every now and then.

She'd spent the rest of July in Bering, running Baird Air until Baird was back on his feet. She handed in her notice then, over his vociferous protests. He'd even offered her a share in the business. She'd stayed on long enough to train her replacement, a bright, eager eighteen year-old boy, fresh out of high school with, after one summer on the Kuskokwim, no wish to take up fishing as a permanent way of earning a living. He was the son of a cousin of Ray's, and Ray had vouched for him. Baird had grudgingly allowed as how the boy wasn't a total idiot and a complete waste of time, which Kate correctly deduced to mean that Baird had found himself an employee with more than just a pulse going for him.

The spike was warm from the sun and heavy in her hand. She stuck it in her pocket and hoisted her pack over one shoulder. She took her time going down the path, stopping to pick a handful of salmonberries here, a raspberry there. Mutt plunged into the brush, scattering ptarmigan in one direction and spruce hens in another before leaping back out on the path to run mad circles around Kate, laughing up at her human with her tongue lolling out.

Birds called in the trees, a bull moose with a full, velvety rack munched his way unconcernedly through a stand of diamond willow, and she could hear the gurgling of the creek in the distance. It sounded pretty tame, but then it was late in the season. The mountains would be reluctant to give up the last of the runoff, snowmelt from the narrowest valleys and the deepest crevices that only the longest days of the highest sun could reach.

"Maybe I'll go for a swim," she said out loud.

A single, joyous three-note call sounded from the branches of the spruce tree on her right. There was a quick flutter of wings as she turned quickly to look up, but all she saw was the tip of a branch bouncing gently up and down.

She smiled. "I'm home, Emaa. I'm home."

Mutt shot out from the brush again and shouldered deliberately into her, knocking her on her butt before disappearing again down the path at a mad gallop.

Kate lay on her back for a moment, staring up at the blue sky, stunned.

Mutt came charging back, skidded to a halt three feet from Kate, leaned down on her forepaws and stuck her butt up in the air, tail wagging furiously back and forth. Big yellow eyes pleaded for fun.

"Hey," Kate said, getting to her feet.

Mutt barked, a short, sharp, happy sound.

A surge of well-being swept through her, and she didn't even feel guilty about it. She was alive, the sun was shining and her dog wanted to play.

"Hey, you!"

Kate dumped her pack and gave chase. It was tag you're-it all the way down the path, until Kate tackled Mutt with a low dive and they rolled into the clearing in a tangle of arms and legs and ferocious mock snarling.

Mutt sensed it first, of course. She shook off Kate like she was brushing away a mosquito and stood on tiptoe on all four paws, looking toward the cabin, ears up, nose testing the air.

"What?" The questioning growl had Kate on her feet, hands loose and ready. "What is it, girl?"

She turned to the cabin and saw him.

A boy stood in the open door, a thin boy, maybe twelve, maybe thirteen, already taller than Kate, with the promise of future bulk in the width of his shoulders and the length of his limbs. He had his mother's tow-colored hair.

He had his father's deep blue eyes.

Kate tried to speak, and failed. She licked her lips, and tried again.

"Johnny?"

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM ANOTHER DANA STAB ENOW MYSTERY THE

SINGING OF THE DEAD now available from st. martin's/minotaur paperbacks! dawson city, december 24, 1897

She walked out on stage wrapped in fifty yards of sheer white chiffon, a pair of high-heeled shoes with jeweled buckles, and nothing else.

There was a second of stunned silence in the packed, smoky saloon, before deafening and prolonged approval threatened to raise the roof.

She waited, a faint smile on her face, for the first roar to moderate and pitched her voice to be heard. "Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to the Double Eagle's Christmas Eve auction." Her voice was husky, with the slight hint of an accent she tried to control. She let her smile broaden, giving it her special up-from-under and through-the-lashes look, part Madonna, part whore, all woman, and added, "I'm the best present you ' ever find under any Christmas tree you ever saw."

This time the stage literally trembled beneath her feet, and she gave a fleeting thought to all the gold dust spilled on the floor this night, now being shaken through the cracks in the floorboards. It wouldn't go to waste. At the end of fourteen months, she had twenty-seven thousand dollars in the bank. She was twenty-two years old, although she admitted to nineteen, and it was her great good fortune that she looked even younger than that. Most laboring men Outside, of any age, were lucky to earn a dollar a day. She could have kept working for years, especially here, where men outnumbered women six and seven to one, but she had plans, big ones. One more winter, one last contribution to her savings, and she would be ready to move on.

She looked around the room at the sea of faces upturned to her, and felt that thrill of power she always felt at being the center of so much concentrated male attention. The chiffon began in a spiral of fabric at her ankles and finished up in a graceful swath around her shoulders, the loose end draped over her bare arm. So closely bound together were her feet that she could only take tiny, mincing steps, which was just as well given the height of the heels on her shoes. Big Ben had wanted her to go barefoot, but she knew what the heels did to the line of her legs, displaying their graceful and well-turned length to best advantage, making a man imagine them wrapped around his waist.

One miner had fought his way forward to the edge of the stage. He was ragged, bearded, and smelled as if he hadn't bathed since the river froze over. He looked hungry, and so very hopeless. She gave him a special smile all his own, inviting everything, promising nothing. She was a whore, but she was an honest whore. She gave value for money received, so long as the money was received. That didn't mean she couldn't be kind.

"It's going to be a long, cold, lonely winter, boys," she said, and there was a shout of agreement. She walked down to center stage and out onto the catwalk thrusting into the room, the little mincing steps causing her breasts to shimmy. The tuft of hair at the vee of her legs was a shadowy patch beneath the chiffon; she put a little extra into the roll of her hips to underline just what was on the auction block that evening.

"For me, too," she added, pouting, and they howled like wolves on the scent. Again she felt the thrill, a flush of power that began somewhere low in her belly and spread up her torso and down her limbs. A faint film of perspiration broke out over her skin, and a commensurate low, prowling growl rose from the crowd. She performed a three-quarter turn and paused to cast a roguish glance over her right shoulder. "We have a saying here in the north country, boys. I know you ' heard it. The odds are good, but the goods are odd." She winked a violet eye at one man standing in the back, watching her over a glass of Big Ben's watereddown whiskey. He was a regular of hers, a banker who was as conservative with his own money as he was acquisitive of others'. He hadn't liked the idea of his favorite dance partner taking herself out of circulation for the entire winter, but then he wouldn't be bidding this evening, either.

She had no doubt that he was ready to take her evening's earnings in deposit, however, just as soon as it had been paid over and Big Ben's commission deducted. She let one hand skim suggestively down her cocked hip, reminding him of what he'd be missing.

His eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigar clenched in his teeth, and she laughed her husky laugh. "I'm sure you ' agree, these goods aren't the least bit odd."

Big Ben and Japanese Jack had been priming the bidders for the last week with announcements of the auction, including tantalizing hints as to exactly what skills and services the highest bid would bring. The flyers were papered all over town and every claim from Log Cabin to Circle City. The always needy miners of the Klondike had been quivering for days at the prospect of the Dawson Darling dancing the slow, juicy waltz just for them for six exquisite months. No one would notice the dark or the cold with the Dawson Darling waiting in his bed.

"Here I am, gentlemen," she said. "It is generally held that my looks are pleasing and that my figure is good." She waited for the chorus of agreement and was not disappointed. "What are my terms?"

She tossed the end of chiffon over her shoulder, where it trailed behind her like the train of a wedding dress as she walked downstage again. She came to the end of the catwalk and met the fierce blue eyes of a tall blond man standing near the double doors. In a room full of men who wanted her without reservation, the biting intensity of his look gave her pause, but she rallied and held his gaze, a definite challenge in her own. "Terms? Well, I'm willing to sett myself tonight to the highest bidder, to act as his wife in word--" she paused delicately "--and in deed--" there was another roar "--for the next six months, from this night, December 25th, until June 25th."