Gideon Oliver was beginning to wonder if coming along with Julie to her training session had been such a good idea. It had made sense when they'd planned it. His fall classes at the University of Washington-Port Angeles would not start for another week, and his notes were fully prepared. He had finally finished the proto-hominid evolution monograph on which he'd been working for most of the summer and sent it in to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The one case he was handling for the FBI (two skeletons buried under the parking lot of a membership discount department store in Tacoma) was on hold; he'd finished his analysis and wouldn't be called as an expert witness until the case came to trial in November, if then.
So why not use the unaccustomed free time to accompany Julie on a trip to the pristine far north, to Glacier Bay, Alaska, which neither of them had seen before? Wouldn't it be better than being separated for a week? Her days would be taken up, of course: She would be attending the five-day Glacier Search and Rescue training course. But he could spend his days in long, cool, solitary walks, and look at icebergs floating in the bay, and maybe take one of the excursion boats up Tarr Inlet to see the glaciers calving. Or read a novel. Or just relax and do nothing for a change. And the evenings and nights would be all theirs. This would be a great vacation, a tonic for both of them.
Only it wasn't going to work out. There were only two trails in the thickly wooded vicinity of the lodge, totaling three and a quarter miles; he had already been around them twice. They had forgotten to bring any novels and none were available at the lodge, the newsstand having closed when the tourist season ended a week earlier. And there wasn't an iceberg to be seen; the nearest ones floated out of sight, thirty miles beyond the Beardslees, in the bay's northern reaches. And the excursion boats to the glaciers had, of course, closed down along with the newsstand.
The one good thing was that the nights were all theirs, and that would make up for a lot. Just being wherever Julie was made up for a lot. Still, it was going to be a long week. Here it was, not quite the end of the first day, and already he was bored stiff. He turned an ear to the discussion around him in hopes that the subject had changed to something more amenable.
"…feel that way about it, what's wrong with a mechanical prusiker?” someone was spiritedly demanding. “The Heibler clamp, for example?"
This was met with incredulous laughter. “The Heibler? You gotta be kidding! The minute you put any lateral load-bearing stress-"
Gideon tuned out again. He looked out over the quiet water. He looked for a while at the other party across the room. The silver-haired man at the head of the table, wasn't he familiar? No, he decided; he simply looked like the generic Hollywood version of the Great Novelist, as seen on movie screens a hundred times: long, wavy white hair, craggy features, cashmere jacket, even an ascot tucked into an open-throated shirt. Gideon's interest wandered, and he looked out the window again. He uncrossed his legs. He toyed with the dessert menu card. He sighed.
Julie turned toward him. “Gideon? Anything wrong?"
"No, just a little restless. Too much coffee, I suppose."
"I don't think that's what it is. I don't think you enjoy being my spouse."
"I love being your spouse. It's my all-time favorite occupation."
"That's not what I mean."
He nodded. “I know."
What she meant was that he didn't like tagging along to someone else's meeting with no role of his own to play. And she was right.
"I think it was the ‘and spouse’ that did it,” she said.
"I think you're right."
A list of attendees had been waiting for them in their room when they'd arrived. “Julene Oliver,” the sixth entry had read, “Supervising Park Ranger (GS-13), Olympic National Park, Washington. And spouse."
When he'd seen that, he'd had terrifying visions of the “spouses’ programs” awaiting him. “My God,” he'd said, “I can see it now. ‘Morning bus tour to Kumquat Village, where you will be greeted by lifelike Indians and served a traditional Indian lunch of mud-broiled salmon cakes, to be followed by a program of authentic Indian war dances. In the afternoon, a leisurely visit to nearby Totem Shopping Mall.’”
"I wouldn't worry about it,” she'd said. The closest mall's in Juneau."
"I'm glad to hear it. I must be lucky. Come to think of it, I guess there won't be any bus tours either."
There wouldn't be any bus tours because there weren't any roads; none besides the dirt strip between the lodge and the little airport at Gustavus ten miles away. The only way in or out of Glacier Bay was by boat from the coast, or by airplane-one scheduled flight a day in, one out; a tree-skimming, thirty-minute hop between Juneau and Gustavus.
That had all been this morning. By the end of the week, he now feared, he'd be more than ready for a visit to Kumquat Village. Maybe by tomorrow.
The harried-looking man on Julie's other side detached himself from the general conversation and leaned across to them.
"You're talking about spousal activities?” he asked Gideon. “You're not finding enough to do?” The possibility seemed to cause him real concern. “It's a shame you're the only spouse here. If we had a few more I'd have arranged something interesting. Maybe,” he said, his eyes brightening, “I could-"
"That's okay,” Gideon said quickly. “That's all right. No problem at all, Arthur."
In the absence of the superintendent of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (on vacation in Hawaii) Assistant Superintendent Arthur Tibbett was the ranking park official and the host at the welcoming dinner for the class. A soft, compact man with a vaguely beleaguered air, he seemed a fish out of water at this table of fit, outdoorsy men and women; a paper-pusher among the nature children. Already he bore the mark of his kind, the bureaucrat's habitual little pucker of anxiety between his sandy eyebrows. His interest in-and probably his knowledge of-prusiks and Kleimheists had run out early. For the last twenty minutes he had been going through the motions: here a minuscule nod, there a preoccupied murmur of agreement, here a vacant smile while his fingers tapped restlessly on the table.
Spousal programs seemed to be more in his line. “Last year,” he told Gideon with his first show of enthusiasm, “we flew them to Haines to see Lust for Dust, which is really a great show. And did you know they have the world's tallest totem pole there? But I just can't justify the cost for one person. My budgetary allocation for-"
"Really, I'm fine, Arthur.” Spousal activities. Was the term itself repellent, lascivious even, or was it just his mood? “I'm having a great time. Don't give me a thought. Really.” He tipped his head toward the table at the other end of the room. “The white-haired man over there…he looks awfully familiar. You wouldn't happen to know who-"
"Oh,” Tibbett said lukewarmly, “you mean Professor Tremaine."
Gideon snapped his fingers. “Tremaine! That's M. Audley Tremaine, isn't it?"
"It is?" Julie said, impressed.
The three of them looked across the room at the suave and celebrated host of “Voyages,” television's preeminent science program and king of the Sunday-afternoon ratings, if you didn't count football season.
"He looks exactly the way he does on television,” Julie said. “Will you just look at that tan?"
"He didn't get it around here,” the pallid Tibbett said, managing to make it sound like an accusation.
"What's he doing here?” Gideon asked. “The lodge is closed for the season, isn't it?"
"Technically, yes, but it's kept open for Park Service training at this time of year, and he just horned in, to put it candidly. The man doesn't have a scruple about bypassing regulations. A friendly telephone call to his good friend the deputy secretary of the interior, and here he is with his entourage, working on his great opus."