Outside, he climbed back on the snowmobile and looked at the sky while he was waiting for the engine to warm up. It was almost three thirty, and it was cold and getting colder. It would be dark soon. He really ought to head for the barn.
But he wanted to see Doyle Greenbaugh, make sure he was all right.
It had been a long drive, almost twenty-five hours from the outskirts of Phoenix where Greenbaugh had picked him up to the warehouse in the International District in Seattle, where he'd got off. When they'd both got tired of listening to golden oldies on a series of radio stations, they'd started talking. Greenbaugh had never been to Alaska, but like everyone else in the known universe said he'd always wanted to go. Partly because he was homesick, and partly because he wanted to make sure Greenbaugh didn't fall asleep at the wheel, Johnny had told him all about his home state, and then he'd told him all about himself.
He wouldn't have done it today, but he'd been a lot younger then, and a lot less wary of casual friendship, and he'd been so very grateful for the ride that he had been willing to pay his way with conversation. In one ride, he'd traveled almost a thousand miles, well out of his mother's reach. He knew his grandparents weren't coming after him. He wondered if they'd bothered to tell her he'd left. He hoped not, and on the whole, he thought not. They hadn't liked his father any more than their daughter had, and they hadn't liked him much, either. By the time Jane knew he was gone, he'd be well out of reach, and by the time she caught up with him, he'd have Kate on his side.
And Greenbaugh had been so very interested, and not in a bad way, either. He'd bought Johnny a huge and sorely needed meal in a diner at a truck stop in Idaho and between mouthfuls of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy he'd urged Johnny to keep talking. He'd listened uncomplaining to Johnny talking about his dad and had laughed at all the best stories and sympathized in all the right places. He'd come across as good-hearted, with an occasional flash of temper that faded as quickly as it sparked. He hadn't much education but he was sharp enough to own his own rig, which was admirable, even if he had lost it in the end.
No, not a bosom buddy, but someone to whom Johnny owed a debt of gratitude, so instead of turning right for the road to home he turned left and went out to Bernie's, a fifty-mile trip that had his nose bright red and his cheeks numb by the end of it. A helmet with a face shield would have cut down on the frostbite but nobody ever wore a helmet in the Bush.
The Roadhouse parking lot was crowded but it was easy enough to find a spot for the snowmobile. He went up the steps and opened the door. Inside, the belly dancers-one in full diaphanous regalia, one in bra and blue jeans, and a third in what looked like an Indian sari-beat on tambourines and clanged on finger cymbals and shook their hips at an adoring crowd consisting of the four Grosdidier brothers and Martin Shugak and a couple other guys he didn't recognize. Johnny watched the dancers himself for a few minutes, just to make sure they had the steps down. He wondered if Van had ever wanted to learn to belly dance.
Old Sam Dementieff and the usual crowd of old farts sat around a table watching football on ESPN on the enormous television hanging from another corner. Leaning against the bar, Mac Devlin stood, red-faced and angry, holding a bottle of beer. Someone else was sitting on the stool next to him, shoulders hunched, but he had his back turned and Johnny couldn't tell who it was. At a table in the back, Pastor Bill, his congregation a little smaller than in years past, exhorted the righteous to be faithful, to which everyone replied with a hearty "Amen!" and drinks were ordered all round, some of them not sodas. It looked like the no alcohol in church rule had been waived, which once the news got around might go far to increase the size of the congregation.
In the center of the room stood Talia Macleod, who he recognized from the lunchroom at school earlier that day. She was the focus of a group of Park rats who stood in a circle facing her with a communal expression that made him feel a little uncomfortable. Most of them were staring at her chest, currently displayed in a soft turtleneck sweater the color of which matched her hair and looked as inviting to the touch.
"In the past year alone the price of gold has gone up eighty-one percent," she said, although it sounded more like a purr, "silver a hundred and twenty-three percent, and zinc a hundred and thirty-two percent." She smiled at her admirers, and a collective quiver ran over the group. "I've heard all the naysaying and the doom and gloom, but when has Alaska ever gone the way of the South forty-eight when it comes to the economy? Whenever there is a recession Outside, we get a boom."
Howie Katelnikof, visiting with Auntie Edna and Auntie Balasha at their corner table, scurried over to stand a step behind Macleod. "She's right," he said, punctuating his words with a portentous nod.
Everyone wasn't buying into it, though. "And whenever Outside gets a boom, we go bust," Mac Devlin said loudly from the bar.
Without looking around, Macleod said, "True, but with gold on the way up to a thousand an ounce for the first time in history, even if we do get a little bust it'll never fall back to what it was. Guys, I'm telling you, Global Harvest is in it for the long haul. We won't be ripping out any railroad tracks on our way out of the Park."
"We sure won't," Howie said.
"You will when the gold runs out," Mac Devlin said. His contempt felt a little over the top, a little manufactured, and no one was listening to him anyway.
Doyle Greenbaugh came to Macleod's elbow with a tray of drinks, and Johnny saw her hand him a credit card that was as gold as the nuggets Global Harvest was prepared to pull out of the ground in Iqaluk, along with a brilliant smile. Howie smacked him genially on the back and made sure he snagged the first drink on his return.
"It'll be twenty years minimum before the gold runs out," she said, "and by then Global Harvest will have found something else worth harvesting. It's a big fucking Park, in case you hadn't noticed."
They laughed at that, Howie loudest of all, titillated by her use of profanity.
"You!" Bernie said, pointing at Johnny. "Get out, and don't come back for another five years!"
His voice was loud and meant to carry, so naturally all activity came to a halt while everyone turned to look where he was pointing. It was a technique that Bernie had perfected over the years in ridding the Roadhouse of wannabe underage drinkers.
Johnny felt his face redden. "I'm not looking for a drink, Bernie."
Any other time an underage entered the bar Bernie wouldn't let up until the door hit him in the ass. But then Bernie had not been the same since a year before, when Louis Deem had robbed his house of a greater part of Bernie's gold nugget collection and in the act of escaping had killed Bernie's wife and eldest son, Fitz. Fitz had been a friend of Johnny's, and he could not look at Bernie now without pain and sympathy. Bernie, unable to face it head on, turned his back abruptly and said in a hard voice, "Then get the hell on outta here."
Johnny caught Doyle Greenbaugh's eye, and nodded at the door. Greenbaugh nodded and said, "Take five, boss?"
Bernie nodded without looking around, and Greenbaugh snagged his coat and followed Johnny out on the porch. "Man, that Koslowski is one cranky old bastard."
Johnny stiffened. "He's a good guy, Doyle. He just lost his wife and son last year, and he's not over it yet."
"I heard. Helluva thing." Greenbaugh blew on his hands and shoved them into his pockets. His coat wasn't down and wasn't a parka, and he started to shiver almost at once. "How you doing, Johnny?"
"I'm fine. I dropped by Auntie Vi's to see if you'd shown up, and she said you were working here."
"Yeah, I remembered your stories about the place. I didn't believe the half of it when you told me." Greenbaugh grinned. "Especially the belly dancers."