When construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was complete and all the good jobs were moving on to the next big oil field, he sank his savings into the Nabesna Mine in the Park, a small gold dredging concern on Miqlluni Creek that included a bunkhouse, offices, and a selection of heavy equipment, and settled into a marginal existence, producing just enough gold to pay for his attempts to increase and extend his lease. Anybody he hired was called a MacMiner. Rowdy, raunchy roughnecks to a man, they were the inspiration for the baseball bat behind the bar at the Roadhouse.
Mac, in fact, had never been popular in the Park. He wouldn't hire Park rats, he brought his supplies in from Seattle, and he was such an unattractive little shit to boot, a short, heavyset man with the same general build as a culvert, with a red, thinning brush cut, small, mean blue eyes, and a wet mouth that was always flapping. Jim didn't think he'd gotten laid once since he'd moved to the Park, which could account for his cantankerous attitude.
Mac turned pointedly back to his audience. "We're talking three miles wide, five miles long, and two thousand feet deep. That's bigger than the Kennecott Mine in Utah, and that sucker's big enough to be seen from space."
"How big is the Park, Mr. Devlin?" Macleod said.
Mac affected not to hear.
"It's about twenty million acres, isn't it?" Macleod said, raising her voice. "Twenty million?" She emphasized the last word. "Global harvest's leases are on less than sixty thousand." She distributed her charming smile with perceptible effect and predictably the crowd warmed to her. She was a lot prettier than Mac. "I've always been lousy at numbers. What is that as a percentage of the total acreage of the Park? Three percent? Four percent? You'll barely know we're there." She smiled again. "Until you start cashing our paychecks."
She took all the honors, and Jim followed in her triumphant wake to a booth in the corner as a muted buzz of conversation rose behind them. "Nicely done," he said as they seated themselves.
She gave a slight shrug, looking over the rudimentary menu with a meditative frown. "Mr. Devlin is unhappy at the price Global Harvest paid for his mine holdings, especially after we announced our find. He is determined to make a nuisance of himself until we buy him off."
"And will you?"
"The longer we ignore him, the lower his price will go." She put down her menu and smiled at Laurel Meganack, a very pretty thirty-something who arrived pen and pad in hand to take their order.
"Whose call is that?" Jim said.
She turned the smile on him, but this time he could see just how sharp all those beautiful teeth were, and he wasn't surprised at her answer. "Mine."
EIGHT
Snow had came late to the Park that year, but winter had come early, three weeks of consistent below-zero temperatures in early October. The Kanuyaq froze solid practically overnight, and when it snowed twenty inches in twelve hours the first week of November the river promptly took up its winter role of Park Route 1, carrying dog teams, snowmobiles, and pickup trucks between Ahtna and the villages downriver, also known as the 'Burbs. The ice got a little mushy nearer the river's mouth on the Gulf of Alaska, but farther north and certainly as far as Niniltna it made for a fine highway, better, many said, than the actual road into the Park. It was certainly wider, with room for many more vehicles, as well as the occasional race, and its reach was much farther.
Early on the morning after Thanksgiving Johnny hitched the sled to his snow machine and packed it with tent, sleeping bag, two different sets of five layers of clothes, and everything on Bingley Mercantile's shelves with a high percentage of fat content, including two large jars of Skippy peanut butter and two more of strawberry jam.
"If you get in trouble and can't build a fire," Kate said, "you can always use a spoon. Do you have your GPS?"
"For the third time, yes," Johnny said.
Kate tucked in some more fire starters and a second large box of waterproof matches. "Have you got your PLB?"
"For the fifth time, yes," Johnny said.
"You checked the batteries?"
"And I have spares," Johnny said.
"You've got them in an inside pocket."
"Where they'll stay toasty warm and ready to use if I need them."
"Rifle?"
"Gleaned and loaded and strapped to the snow machine."
His patience was monumental and meant to be noticed, but she couldn't help herself. "Extra shells?"
"Two boxes, Kate."
"Good." She prowled around the snow machine. "Have you got that tool kit I put together?"
"In the sled."
"Extra gas?"
"In the sled."
"And Van's riding with you?"
"Yes, Kate."
"And Ruthe's got her own machine."
"Yes, Kate."
"Maybe I'll just ride to Ruthe's with you."
"Maybe you won't," Johnny said. "Maybe I've been driving the snow machine back and forth to Ruthe's cabin for going on three winters now. Maybe I know the way."
He was right. Still, Kate fretted. "You're not going to deviate from your route, are you?"
"No, Kate. We'll be following the Kanuyaq a lot of the way. It's kind of hard to miss." Sheesh. By contrast, Jim this morning had tossed him a casual wave and said only, "Have fun, kid. Yell for help if you need it," before clattering down the steps and heading off to work.
"You can take Mutt," Kate said.
"I really can't," Johnny said. "Van's riding with me. I'd have to unload the sled to make room for Mutt. Then we'd have Mutt and nothing to eat. Oh, wait, we could eat Mutt."
"Very funny. Ruthe could take her."
"Then Ruthe'd have to unload her own sled. We'll be fine, Kate."
"I know you will be," Kate said, not believing a word of it. "Just, you know, just be careful, okay?"
"I always am."
"Ruthe's no spring chicken. Look out for her."
It was Johnny's considered opinion that Ruthe Bauman could outthink, outshoot, and outsurvive better than any other sentient being in the Park, with the possible exception of the woman standing in front of him, but he wasn't suicidal enough to say so. "I will," he said instead, and climbed on the snow machine.
"You're back Sunday evening before eight, or I call out the National Guard!" she said, raising her voice to be heard over the engine.
"You got it!" He put the machine in gear and slid smoothly out of the clearing, keeping the speed down to just short of flight. He received a Mutt escort for a quarter of a mile, all the way to where the track to the homestead met the road to Niniltna.
"See you in a couple a days, girl!" he yelled, and opened up the throttle.
She barked until he was out of sight, and then trotted back down the trail to find Kate shivering in the clearing. She butted Kate's thigh with her head, more purposeful than affectionate, and with the full force of a hundred and forty pounds of half wolf, half husky behind it it did not fail of effect. Kate stumbled in the direction of the house, Mutt shepherding her with repeated bumps and nudges and the occasional nip at the hem of her jeans, all the way up the deck and inside.
"I hate being a mom," Kate told her.
Mutt went to curl up on her quilt in front of the fireplace. Kate went to the kitchen to clean up after yesterday's turkey dinner. After that, she made bread, measuring out flour and yeast and salt and water with a ferocious attention to detail. Yesterday she'd made rolls, but there had to be bread for turkey sandwiches.
Bobby, Dinah, Katya, Ethan Int-Hout (Margaret had walked out on him, again), Dan O'Brien, and Ruthe had all been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at Kate's house. Ethan had pled a prior invitation to Christie Calhoun's, whose spouse had just walked out on her, and who was home alone with three daughters who would do as well as any to stand in for Ethan's own. Jim, who didn't like Ethan living even as close as the next homestead over, heaved a private sigh of relief. Kate didn't notice, or pretended she didn't.