Which, now that Liam thought about it, would explain that air of eternal youth.
"Bob DeCreft," she said, meditatively. "He moved here, oh, about five, no, six years ago now, I think it was."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Why does anyone move to Newenham? Why did you? Starting over is a time-honored Bush Alaska tradition." Liam tried not to squirm beneath the penetrating look she shot him. "You're pissed at me, aren't you?" she said suddenly. "For blabbing your story out in the bar yesterday?"
Liam said nothing, examining the glass of Coke in his hand with an air of total absorption.
She pointed her finger at him. "Best thing I could do for you. No sense in trying to make a secret of things in the Alaskan Bush, Liam."
"Five people died on my watch," he found himself saying. "Never mind they shouldn't have been driving on the Denali Highway in February in the middle of a thirty-below cold spell with no survival gear and three little kids. Never mind they should have checked the level of antifreeze in their car before not doing any such thing. Two troopers under my command ignored two calls-not one but two -alerting our post reporting those folks missing. Maybe we could have got to them in time, maybe not. Fact is, we didn't, they died, and I was in charge." He looked Bill straight in the eye, unsmiling. "I'm about as white as you can get without bleach. So were the two troopers who missed the calls. The family that died was Athabascan, from Fort Yukon. You know how hard it is to get the villagers to trust us in the first place, Bill. How much harder is it going to be for me with the villagers around here, coming in under that kind of cloud?"
"Exactly why I told your story," she replied promptly. "You think the news didn't get here before you did? The Bush telegraph is better than smoke signals or jungle drums any day. It wouldn't have been long before everybody knew it. If you'd tried to hide it, there's some would have used it against you. Best to have it all out in the open."
Liam said nothing, and Bill heaved an impatient sigh. "Give them a chance, Liam. I meant what I said yesterday-you do your job right, that's what they'll judge you on."
"Even the villagers?"
"Especially the villagers," she retorted. "The Yupik have a strong sense of family, and an even stronger sense of community. The ones that aren't head down in a bottle, which is about half of them, are firm believers in law and order; in fact, they generally try to dispense it themselves through their village councils. When the councils fail, they'll call you in. They'll do everything they can to avoid it, but when the elders can't resolve the problem, or when the offense is just too much for the village to stomach, they'll call you in. You'll be their last hope, their last resort. They want to trust you. They want to believe that you'll do right by them."
"If you say so."
"I do say so," Bill said, "but I can tell that the only way you're going to be convinced is to see for yourself. You will. Anyway," she said, jumping back to the original subject in a way that he would come to recognize was characteristic of her conversation, "I could go outside and throw a rock and be guaran-damn-teed to hit somebody who got sick of their spouse, their marriage, their job, their home, or all of the above, and subsequently got on a plane going north and got off here, ready to start over."
She refilled Liam's Coke and drew one for herself. "Had three of 'em in the bar last night. One woman was living in Denver, Colorado, walked out on her air force husband with the clothes on her back and their daughter, and wound up sliming fish on a processor off Newenham. Now she's opening an espresso stand down to the docks. Another woman walked out on an abusive husband in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a week later was dispatching for the cop shop in Newenham."
"That'd be Molly?" Liam said, remembering the pudgy little woman, her brown hair flattened by the headset, talking nonstop into the mouthpiece, dispatching emergency services to those in need all over the town. She'd looked harried, true, but not the least bit victimized.
"That'd be Molly," she confirmed. "One guy had two businesses, three Mercedes, and four ulcers in Missouri, threw in his hand and came up; now he's a cop for the Newenham P.d."
Liam hazarded a guess. "Roger Raymo?"
She shook her head. "Cliff Berg."
"Oh yeah. He's got the wife with the shotgun."
Bill laughed, tossing her head back, her full silver mane shaking behind her shoulders. She looked even more zaftig close up, Liam thought.
He felt a presence next to him, and turned to look up at the man who had been holding the cold bottle to his face. This close, you could see why. There was an angry-looking weal down the side of his face, beginning on his forehead, continuing over his left eye, and ending in a torn left earlobe. The man himself was tall, six-six, Liam estimated, with the shoulders and forearms of a lumberjack. His face was heavy and bluntfeatured beneath close-cropped white-blond hair, and his eyes were a light blue so pale they seemed almost colorless. His grin was a cross between the Joker's and Yorick's, wide and mirthless. He threw down a five. "Thanks, Bill."
"You're welcome, Kirk." Bill was civil but not friendly. "You met the new trooper? Kirk Mulder, Trooper Liam Campbell."
"How do, Trooper Campbell."
"Mr. Mulder." Liam inclined his head, every nerve on alert. At some visceral level, he was aware of being in the presence of the enemy.
The colorless gaze looked him over. "Where's your uniform?"
Liam, in an unaccustomed moment of bravado, pulled his badge. "Figure this is all I need."
"Maybe so." This is all I need, his mocking gaze seemed to say.
Liam took the war into the enemy's camp. "Nasty scratch you got there."
The rictus grin flashed again. "Nothing a cold beer can't fix."
Bill handed over change, Kirk shoved it back. "That's fine, Bill. See you next time."
Bill and Liam watched the young giant saunter out. "I swear to God, I think Wolfe's got some place he breeds 'em up special for his crews." She nodded at the change. "He could have left the five on the table, or even on the bar. But no, he has to stand there and wait for me to make change, so he can make the magnanimous gesture, so I have to thank him for it. They're all like that, that bunch."
"Which bunch?"
"Cecil Wolfe's bunch," she said.
"Cecil Wolfe of the Sea Wolfe?"
She sneered. "Yeah, probably the only book he's ever read in his life." She nodded at the closing door. "That's his first mate, Kirk Mulder. Arrogant little bastard."
There was nothing little about Kirk Mulder, but then Liam didn't think the reference had been to Mulder's physical size.
And he worked for Cecil Wolfe. So did Wy, Liam thought.
The scratch on his face looked like it had been left by an animal. A cat, maybe? Mulder didn't look the type to have a cat around, or the type any self-respecting cat would stay around for long. A dog? Same thing. An eagle? Eagles didn't attack humans, or not in Liam's experience.
A raven? For a moment Liam was back beneath the wing of the 206, with the rain falling on his face and a big black bird peering down at him. He shook himself. Get a grip, Campbell.
Making another of her conversational leaps, Bill got back to Liam's question. "I figure Bob DeCreft was no different than any of the rest of us. He came looking for a life with a little more freedom in it, a little more color, a little more adventure." She cocked an eyebrow at Liam. "It can still be had in the Alaska Bush, you know."
She swept both hands up over her long fall of gray hair, and Liam couldn't help noticing how the movement thrust her very nicely shaped breasts against her shirt. She noticed him noticing and flashed a flirtatious smile with no hint of encouragement in it. "Anyway, one year Bob flew in and bought himself a little house on the bluff."