“I-hell, I don't know. He didn't poke his nose into much, Old Walter. He minded his own business, and he let people mind theirs. He was a good neighbor.” Mike Ekwok sounded as if he had only just learned this fact, and was surprised that it was so.
“Sir-” Prince said.
“Did Wassillie say if the guy was rowing the dory, or if he had the outboard going?”
Prince consulted her notes. “Rowing.”
“That matches the Jacobsons' statements. But Donohoe said the dory he saw had the kicker running.”
Comprehension dawned. “Two different boats.”
Liam shook his head. “The same boat. Two different men.” He leaned his aching head on one hand. “I'm in his house,” he muttered, staring at the walrus head. It wasn't leering now. “Who else would hit me?”
“Who do you think did?” Prince said, but she knew. So did Ekwok if his open mouth and staring eyes were any indication.
“Old Walter, that's who. He was in the first skiff, the one Jacobson saw going out, the one Wassillie saw coming in. He shot the crew of theMarybethia,and then he came home and either told his son what he'd done or his son guessed. Young Walter went out to destroy the evidence, and that's who Donohoe saw.”
Prince stared at him, mouth slightly open.
“Young Walter must have been frantic to get rid of the evidence. He set fire to the boat, but it wouldn't burn, so then he tried to sink her. He must have been pretty sure he'd succeeded because he left to go back into town.”
They left Ekwok behind in their run for the boat harbor. In spite of his aching head and the accompanying slight sense of disorientation, Liam was first down the gangway when they arrived, and first to step on board theCheyenne.So it followed that he was the first to see the bodies.
“Son of a bitch!” Prince's voice rang out across the harbor. She leapt first to one downed man, then the other. “Mother-fucking son of a BITCH!”
“Donohoe and Wassillie?” Liam said.
Prince's face was red with rage. “Yes,” she said tightly, regaining her poise. Mike Ekwok, looking scared, edged away from her. She knelt, felt for pulses. “Both dead. Looks like shot.”
“Tell me this, Prince,” Liam said. “Did the little old guy you set to guard them look anything like Walter Larsgaard?”
She stared at him, confused. “I don't know, I-he was Native,” she said. “He was short, and he had black hair, and dark skin with wrinkles, and-”
“And besides, they all look alike,” Liam said.
She flushed.
“They better stop all looking alike if you want to get ahead in this job,” he told her. “I don't suppose you noticed if he had a rifle?”
“He was wearing a big coat,” she said. She looked down at the sprawling forms of the two fishermen. There is no attitude as awkward as death. It didn't matter if you were a ballet dancer; death took pride in the ungraceful splay of limbs, the disjointed twist of the neck, the ungainly looseness of hands and feet. To look at death and know some carelessness of your own had caused it was not pleasant.
“Where's the… what was his boat's name?” Liam asked Prince. She looked at him, mute. “Young Larsgaard. Where is his boat?” She remained silent. “Prince, snap out of it! Where's Larsgaard's boat?”
He felt a timid touch on his elbow. “I know where it is, Sheriff.”
But of course by then theBay Roverwas long gone.
The shovel came whistling down. Wy rolled. It smacked into the dirt next to her head and she scrambled to her feet just in time to catch the business edge of the shovel against her shoulder. She looked down for a stunned moment to see blood welling from the cut. The shovel was coming at her again, McLynn amazingly calm, still with that determined frown on his face, as if he were in the process of deciding where the shovel would do the most good and estimating range and trajectory to target. Time seemed to slow down, as if she were in a dream. Only the blood was real.
The blood was in fact very real, staining the sleeve of her shirt, and the sight propelled her to her feet, just in time to catch the shovel on her shoulder. She turned, managing to deflect its edge, but the force of the blow sent her staggering into the other tent. The wall collapsed. The rest of the tent, unaccustomed to this kind of abuse, collapsed with it, and canvas engulfed her.
For a panicky moment she thought she couldn't breathe. Blows came at her from every direction, one catching her foot, another her thigh, a third her elbow, as she rolled and twisted and fought, the canvas as much as McLynn. She rolled into an object that fell over with a crash, probably one of the tables on the inside of the tent. Other crashes followed as she blundered through the folds of canvas. She had a gun in her plane, part of the survival gear required by law of any Bush pilot. If she could just get to the Cub and get the gun… Another blow caught her squarely between the shoulder blades.
“Goddamn it!” Suddenly, gloriously, she was angry. The hell with the gun, she was going to clean this little bastard's clock right here and right now with her bare hands. She caught a glimpse of daylight and dove for it, squirming out into the fresh air, a half step ahead of the maniac with the shovel. The shovel hit the opening in the fold of canvas a second after she had exited it, and she reached down to grab the canvas and yank it as hard as she could, pulling it out from under his feet. McLynn lost his balance and fell heavily. He was back on his feet almost at once, never dropping the shovel. All those years digging ditches in old graveyards had toughened him up.
The shovel came up again, and this time something happened, something deep inside her. Her feet were parallel, a shoulder's width apart, and without volition her hands and arms moved into Ward Off Left, right hand cupped and down, left hand cupped and up, most of her weight forward on her left knee. Of its own will her left hand shifted so that her forearm caught most of the blow, yielding but not giving way before it. Her right foot stepped forward and her right arm came around and up into Right Push Upward, her right hand grasping the shovel handle. She went into Pull Back and McLynn was jerked off balance and he lost his grip on the shovel and then lost the shovel.
Wy didn't know who was more surprised, herself or McLynn. “It works!” she said involuntarily. “You cranky old bastard, it actually works!” She looked at McLynn, who still couldn't figure out how he'd lost his weapon, and smiled at him. He fell back a step at the sight of that smile, and it widened. “God, I wish Moses could have seen that.”
“It's okay,” a weak voice said from the door of the one tent left standing. “I did.”
Wy looked over to see Jo, bloody and maybe a little bowed, but otherwise conscious and back in the world.
It took them an hour of making wider and wider circles in the air before they found him, and that only after they'd spotted two other boats and come down to find they were the wrong ones. TheBay Roverwas on a south-southwesterly heading, throttles all the way out. “How are we for gas?” Liam said.
Prince's voice was grim over the headset. “There is no av gas in Kulukak, so our nearest refueling is Togiak or Newenham.” Her eyes narrowed as she checked the dials. One readout didn't please her, so she flicked the plastic cover with her finger. That must have helped because her brow cleared. “Depends on where he's going, sir,” she said. “We're good for another hour or so.”
Liam didn't inquire into the “or so.” He'd always found ignorance an enormous comfort in the air, and he saw no reason to change that now.
“What do you want me to do?” she said.
“We might as well tell him we're here.”
She looked apprehensive. “You're not going to jump out of this plane, are you, sir?”
“You're not going to make me jump off the float again, are you, Prince?” he replied. “Just lose some altitude, make a couple of passes, let him know he's not alone.”
“He's got a rifle, sir.”