He got his first ride on a pickup full of Hispanic day laborers, heading up to Wickenburg looking for work. His second ride had been the drunken car salesman, and the less remembered about that brief ride the better. His third had been Doyle Greenbaugh-Dick Gallagher, dammit-at that truck stop just outside Phoenix on Interstate 10. They'd swung right through Utah, left and up through Idaho, cut across the northeastern corner of Oregon, and he'd gotten off in Seattle. There had been a lot of stops, it seemed as if Dick- that's right, Dick-couldn't see a truck stop without stopping to say hi to somebody. "Half a mo, kid," he'd say, shoving the semi into neutral with a grind of gears, yanking on the parking brake, and giving Johnny a broad wink. "I see a friend I hafta say hi to."
After that, it was easy. He'd taken a bus to the border, walked into Canada, and hitched a series of rides on RVs. Most of them were with older retired couples, which got tricky a couple of times when they'd ask where his parents were. It was lucky he was tall and looked older than he was. Mostly they believed him when he told them he was eighteen, although one woman had demanded to see some identification. He pleaded time in the John and skinnied over the KOA campground fence just in time to hitch a ride with another trucker, this one hauling building materials to Fairbanks. He was an incurious, middle-aged man who sang along to country-western music, which got tiresome after a while.
He walked into Alaska, avoiding the border crossing at Beaver Creek by sneaking around through the woods and catching a ride on the other side with a couple of moose hunters, who gave him a ride and a meal and let him sleep in the cab of their pickup in exchange for chopping wood for their campfire that night. In Ahtna, the fuel truck had been making its fall run into the Park, and he caught a ride on it to the turnoff to Kate's cabin.
And he'd been here ever since.
But it was that long ride Dick Gallagher-say it again, Dick Gallagher-had given him that had set the tone of his journey home. He owed Dick a great deal. They weren't best friends or anything but nevertheless Johnny felt the heavy responsibility of a debt unpaid.
He wasn't proud of thinking it, but he hoped the nut with the gun really had been aiming at Mac.
THIRTEEN
Jim and Johnny left early the next morning, one for work, the other for school. Kate busied herself with packing up for the trip, extra clothing, food, tent. She didn't know how long she'd be gone, and while she expected the usual Bush welcome mat, if things got awkward she wanted to be able to survive a night or two out on her own.
Rifle, ammunition. A lot of ammunition.
Then she traded the rifle for the 12-gauge pump action. If the highwaymen-excuse her-if the assholes on snow machines wanted to rob her, they'd have to get close to do it. Nobody got close to the business end of a shotgun, not if they were sane.
She loaded everything into the trailer, hooked it to the sled, donned bib overalls, boots, parka, and gloves.
She stood in front of the map for a while, running the sequence of the attacks through her mind.
So far, all the attacks had been downriver, south of Niniltna, south of the Nabesna Mine turnoff, south even of where the road left the river to go to the Roadhouse.
First attack, a mile north of Double Eagle.
Second, three days later, six miles downriver from the first attack, just outside Chulyin.
Third, a little north of Red Run, six days later and twenty miles farther south, almost where the Gruening River met the Kanuyaq.
Fourth, thirteen days later, three miles north of Red Run.
Three of four of the attacks had been made on people coming home fat, trailers loaded with groceries, clothes, parts, fuel. Which made a case for Johnny and Van and Ruthe being a target of opportunity.
It also opened up the possibility that someone upriver was alerting the jackals as to potential pickings, at least for the first three attacks. Kate didn't like the thought of that, not one little bit.
"I think they cruised us on the way out," Johnny had said. "There were three guys on snow machines who kind of harassed us that morning. Didn't jump us, just did circles around us and then took off when they saw a truck coming. I knew there was something off about them, but it didn't hit me until later. They were wearing helmets, Kate."
"So you couldn't see who they were."
"And nobody wears helmets on the river, Kate." He'd managed a smile, even if it had looked a little worn around the edges. "Not even an old safety-first girl like you."
Ten minutes later she was moving down the road, Mutt on the seat in back of her, headlight illuminating the road in front of her.
Auntie Vi was up in her net loft mending nets, bone needle whipping in and out, gear swiftly and almost miraculously made whole again. "Ha, Katya," she said.
"Morning, Auntie." Before Auntie Vi could get started in Association business Kate got her oar in first. "You hear about the attacks on the river?"
Auntie Vi gave an emphatic nod. "Sure. Everybody hear."
"I didn't," Kate said.
Auntie Vi looked surprised. Kate, watching her closely, thought the surprise was exaggerated. "How not?" Auntie Vi said.
"Nobody told me. Why didn't you?"
Auntie Vi raised her eyebrows in a faint shrug and bent back over the gear. "You not interested enough in Association business to learn how to run board, you not interested enough in Park business to need to know all that goes on."
"I see," Kate said. Something very like rage rose up over her in a red wave and she fought an inner battle to keep her composure. Mutt, who read Kate better than most humans, looked longingly at the door. "Is this the way it's going to be, Auntie? You're going to shut me out unless I do what you want?"
Auntie Vi didn't answer.
"Well, I know about them now, and I'm going downriver to see what the hell's going on. I'm going to find out who's pulling this shit and I'm going to kick their collective ass. It's a darn shame I didn't know about it before, so I could have stopped it earlier, and Grandma Riley and little Laverne Jefferson and Ken and Janice Kaltak wouldn't have been terrorized and robbed."
Kate left before Auntie Vi could reply.
Her next stop was Auntie Edna's, a prefab home in a little ten-house subdivision at the south end of Niniltna, perched precariously on the edge of the river. This time she knocked, instead of walking in like she did at Auntie Vi's. Auntie Edna's face was stony when she came to the door, but then Auntie Edna's face was always stony. "Auntie Edna," Kate said without preamble, "you know about the attacks on the river?"
Auntie Edna shrugged. "I guess."
"You should have told me."
Auntie Edna raised her eyebrows in elaborate surprise. "You interested?"
Kate could feel her temper begin to rise again, and bit back her first retort. "I'm headed downriver. Do you know who they are?"
Another shrug. "Nobody say."
"Well, I'm going to find them, and I'm going to beat the crap out of them when I do. And after that I'm going to feed them to Mutt. You can put that out on the Bush telegraph if you've a mind to."
She turned to leave.
"Katya."
Kate was in no mood. "What?" The curt tone, the omission of the usual honorific, both were significant, and they both knew it.
"That man that live with you."
This was so out of left field that Kate was momentarily speechless. "There's no man- Oh. You mean Jim?"
Auntie Edna gave a curt nod.
"What about him?"
"White man."
Kate snorted out a laugh. "Unregenerately."
"Not right for Association chair, Native woman, to be sleeping with white man."
At that Kate turned completely around and said incredulously, "Are you kidding me, Auntie? You of all people dare to lecture me on my love life?"
In her youth, Auntie Edna had been married three times, and in between and sometimes during those marriages had enjoyed the company of many other men. She had more children than the other three aunties put together. Her romantic history probably ranked right up there with Chopper Jim's in number and variety.