Alaskan Fire (34 page)

Blaze looked him in the eye and
said, “I want a gun.”

Jack flinched.  “Why’s that?”

“A gun is faster,” she said
sweetly.  She formed an L with thumb and forefinger, pointed it at his
forehead, and said, “Bang.”

Jack narrowed his eyes.  “A gun
doesn’t do much against a were,” he said.  “Works well enough against a fey,
but good luck getting them to hold still for it.”

“I think I’ll go for silver
bullets,” Blaze said, gunning the engine.  “And a machine gun.”

Jack jumped out of the way, but
grabbed onto the back tie-down bar as she passed and dug his feet into the
dirt.

Blaze found herself sitting
immobile, the machine spinning all four tires and flinging soil everywhere.

“We,” Jack grunted, over the roar
of the engine, “Need to have a sit-down chat, you and I.”

Blaze grabbed a hammer off the
front cargo bin, swiveled, and slammed the head into Jack’s fingers.  Jack
swore and released the 4-wheeler, which suddenly lunged forward, and Blaze,
with only one hand on the handlebars, accidentally pulled it sideways, and the
machine hit the side, rolled, threw her off the seat, and ended up on its side,
pinning her body under a tire.

A few seconds later, Jack walked
up, sucking on his knuckles, glaring at her.

Blaze, who had been unable to
push the thing off of her, and was finding it hard to breathe, just glowered up
at him.

Jack took the machine in one
hand, lifted it, still sucking on his knuckles, and set it right-side up beside
her.  Scowling, he bent and offered a palm, lips still wrapped around his other
hand.

Blaze accepted his grip,
reluctantly, and struggled to her feet.  Her lower half felt like she’d just
taken a beating with two-by-fours, and she was pretty sure her ankle was
sprained.

Jack peered up at her with a long
look, which Blaze returned, glaring down at him, and the silence was only
marred by the still-running engine.

“You know,” Jack finally said,
“For something that is half draft horse, you’ve got the stubborn streak of a
mule.  What kind of gun you want?”

“A .45 Long Colt, a .308 NATO AR-10
Armalite, a Desert Eagle fitted for .50 caliber Action Express, and an AK-47.” 

If he was surprised that she was
able to rattle off makes and calibers, he didn’t show it.  “You know your
guns,” he said simply.

Still holding his gaze steady,
she said, “I also want a bullet press, bullets, steel jackets, a dozen cases of
brass, extra lead, a crucible, powder, silver ingots, and silver nitrate.” 

He stiffened at the last two. 
“You really know your guns,” he said softly.

“My father was a wealthy gun snob,
among other things,” Blaze said.  “Some of it rubbed off.”  He’d gone shooting
at least three times a week, and Blaze had often tagged along.

Jack gestured at the lodge. 
“What about what you brought?  I saw some rifle cases on that last grocery
run.  Those won’t work?”

“Not for what I’m gonna need them
for,” Blaze said.  “I brought a couple shotguns, a few bolt-action hunting
rifles, and an antique muzzleloader my dad gave me before he died.  I can use
the shotguns, but I’m going to have to re-pack the ammo.  I’m thinking silver
and steel buckshot.”  She cocked her head at him.  “The fey
are
allergic
to steel, aren’t they?”

Jack was looking pale.  “It’s as
poisonous to them as silver is to a were.  Steel and iron.”

“So yeah,” Blaze said.  “A ton of
steel bearings.  And a metal mold, to make some silver beads.”  She smiled. 
“Oh, and a ballistics table and a scale, so I can get the weight measurements
right.”

“Uh,” Jack said, “I don’t mind
the steel, honey, but no offense, but I’m not letting you anywhere near me with
silver nitrate.”

Blaze snorted.  “I’m not gonna
shoot
you
with it.”

“No?” Jack said.  “And what about
your little friend out there, when he slices your hamstrings and takes the gun
from you?”  Then he gestured in a southerly direction.  “Or Amber, when she
catches you alone and rips it out of your hands?”

“I thought you said you took care
of Amber,” Blaze growled.  “So if she’s taken care of, and we’re
not
going to be attacked by werewolves, what’s the problem with me carrying
something to defend myself?”

“It could
kill
me, that’s
what,” Jack snapped.

“So?” Blaze asked.  “You can ‘sputch’
me where you’re standing.  Just twist off my head and throw it across the
yard.”

Jack glared at her.  “I’m not
going to do that.”

“Then you should trust I’m not
going to pepper you with silver buckshot.”  Blaze started back towards the
4-wheeler.

Jack grabbed her hand.  “No.”

Blaze stopped and turned,
scowling down at his grip, which held her like a vice, then up at him.  “
No
?”

“You’ve already got guns,” he
insisted.  “Pull them out and use those.  Load your shotguns with buckshot and
blast the little bastard next time he shows up.  Leave the silver out of it.”

“Let go of me,” Blaze growled.

“No,” he said.  “No goddamn
silver.  That stuff is…”  He hesitated, gave a slight shudder.  “If you had any
idea how much it
hurts
, even a stray flake getting caught on the skin,
you wouldn’t even be considering it.”

“I said I wouldn’t pelt you with
the stuff,” Blaze bit out.  “What’s the problem?”

“Look,” Jack said softly, holding
her gaze with his green eyes, “I like you, but I don’t trust you.”  When Blaze
frowned at him, he added, “I’m old.  Hell,
ancient
.  And I didn’t get
that way by trusting someone with something like that.  You wanna bring a
bullet press and all the goodies out here and make your own steel-core bullets,
that’s fine.  No silver.”

“We have forty werewolves for
neighbors,” Blaze growled, “And you said yourself they were gonna run out of
food and go looking for greener pastures, probably to the north.  We’re north.”

“I said no,” Jack said
stubbornly.  “I see that shit anywhere near this place, it’s all going in the
river.  Guns, press, bullets, everything.  I’m dead serious about this.  No
silver.”

Blaze glared at him, then
reluctantly hobbled over to the 4-wheeler and switched the engine off.  “Fine.” 
She started towards the porch.  “I hurt like hell and I’m going to bed.  Lock
the chickens up when you come in, okay?”  She had limped twenty feet before
Jack threw his shoulder under her arm and gave her some support.  “Thanks,” she
said, honestly grateful for the reprieve.

“You break anything?” Jack asked,
giving her legs a worried look as they walked.  “It landed right on top of
you.”

“Bent my knee backwards a little
bit,” Blaze said.  “Think it sprained an ankle.  My hips are aching from where
the tire landed on them.  Other than that, though, I think I’ll be fine.”

“I can get you some help if you
need it,” Jack suggested.

Blaze snorted.  “And pay the
hospital fees when they MedEvac my ass to Anchorage?”  She shook her head.  “I
quit my job with the state.  No insurance.  Something like that, it’d use up
the funds we need to get ready for next summer.”

“Oh,” Jack said, as they reached
the steps and climbed across the porch.  “Well, I was kind of thinking of a
more locally-produced home remedy.”

Blaze laughed.  “Like what? 
Cranberry wine?  Spruce needle vodka?”

He licked his lips as they
stepped inside the threshold.  “Well, there’s some whiskey in it.  And some
root beer.”

Blaze hurt.  A lot.  It was only
then starting to sink in, as he helped her to her bed.  “Well,” she said,
“Frankly, I feel run over.  A little alcohol might help.”

Jack helped her to her bed and
eased her under the covers.  “Okay, hold tight a minute.  I’ll be right back.”

Blaze lay back against the wall,
staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell she had been thinking.  She
probably
should
take the flight to Anchorage.  She’d heard of internal
bleeding from things like this, and her hips were throbbing like someone was
raking coals across the bones.

What Jack brought back smelled
like watered down root-beer, with a faint splash of whiskey, and it had odd
berries and spruce-needles and what looked like tree bark floating in it.  She
sniffed at it, giving it a dubious look.

“Drink it,” Jack muttered.

She gave it a tentative sip. 
Blaze grunted when the first taste made her arms go tingly.  “Holy crap,” she
said, looking at it.  “What
is
this?”

“Somethin’ I learned a long time
ago,” Jack said.  “Drink up.”

And Blaze did.  The effect was
almost instantaneous.  “Wow,” she cried, staring at the pieces of bark and
berries in the bottom of the cup.  “We need to figure out how to package that
up and sell it.”

Jack bristled.  “I’d rather not.”

“Screw the hunting lodge,” Blaze
said, amazed at how suddenly revived she felt.  “We could get rich bottling
that stuff.  What’s in it?”

“It’s a secret recipe.  I’m not
sharing it with anyone.”

She raised an eyebrow at him,
then shook the contents of the bottom of the cup at him.  “It’s not so hard to
figure out.”  She picked out an unripe cranberry, held it up.  “See?”  She
squished it, tasted the bitter green juice, and winced.  She dug through the
bottom.  “Birch bark, spruce needles, some tree fungus, moss…  Yep, I could
make this.”  She looked up at him, grinning.  “You really need to work on your
clandestine potion-making skills.”

“I suppose I will,” he growled. 
“You feel better or not?”

“Feel great,” Blaze said.

“Good,” Jack growled, taking the
cup from her.  “Stop over-analyzing everything all the time.”  He turned and
stalked out, leaving Blaze feeling blissfully warm and tingly.

Wow,
she thought, as she
closed her eyes and started to fade,
That’s some really potent whiskey.

The adult Jersey Giant chickens
didn’t lay eggs the first day.  Which, Blaze knew, wasn’t surprising,
considering their sudden new change of habitat.  This left Jack to drag the
goat carcass out of the fridge and finish it off in front of her, while she
picked at a bowl of cereal she had put together from what remained of the jug
of milk that Jack had chugged that night.

Even having seen it several times
before, Blaze had to stop and gawk at how much Jack ate.  Looking at him, and
looking at the goat he had picked clean, Blaze didn’t think that she could fit
that much meat on a
plate
, let alone in her stomach.  She once again
thought about the werewolves and how they were devastating the landscape.

“How did you survive all that
time?” Blaze asked, watching him.  “There must’ve been times when you ran outta
food.”

Jack flinched.  Too slowly, he
said, “I went hunting.”

“You mean you
never
went
hungry?”  Considering how much he ate, she found that hard to believe.

He cracked a rib bone in half,
started sucking out the marrow.  “Let’s just say that the people hated weres
for a reason.  We get hungry, we get…cranky.”  He threw the bone aside, picked
up another.  “A starving were is about the closest thing to an honest-to-god
hell-hound that I can think of, and it eats everything in sight.”

“Even people.”

Jack stiffened, then immediately
tried to hide his reaction by nonchalantly picking meat from his teeth with a
talon. 

“You ate people, didn’t you?”
Blaze asked.

Jack grimaced and glanced out the
window at the yard.  “We should probably go open up the barn, let the animals
out.”

“
Did
you?” Blaze demanded.

He gave her a flat, irritated
look.  “That’s none of your damn business.”

“I’m living with you,” Blaze
growled.  “I think it’s my business.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“So you
did
!” Blaze cried. 
She took a step backwards, appalled.

Scowling, now, he growled, “You
get that hungry, you don’t really think straight.”

“And the wolves?” Blaze asked. 
“Is that what we’re gonna be dealing with this winter, when they start heading
to greener pastures?”

Jack grimaced.  “I’m hoping that
Amber was smart enough to set up contacts in town, get meat shipped out to
her.”  Then he sighed and shrugged.  “But maybe.”

A cold feeling started worming
its way through Blaze’s veins.  She found herself really, really wanting some
silver nitrate.  Jack’s threat, however, had left no room for misunderstanding—he
saw it, it was going to disappear, along with all her guns, gun packing
materials, and ammunition.

“So when did you eat people?”
Blaze asked.

Jack’s body tensed, every muscle
going taut.  “I really don’t want to talk about it.”  He stood up, grabbing the
goat carcass.  “I’m gonna be outside, working on the greenhouse.  You wanna
come help, that’d be nice.”  He hesitated and looked back at her.  “Could
always use some help with the designs, right?”

Blaze smiled, despite herself. 
“Sure.”

To her surprise, Jack didn’t seem
at all fazed by all the exotic ideas she had had and wanted to try.  She
detailed them out, from a small single-story greenhouse that incorporated
rabbit hutches to an extensive two-story generator-powered setup with pigs,
cows, and chickens on the upper story, their excrement washed down through
gunnels by a sprinkler system where it hit a vat, fermented, created methane to
run the generator, and then was fed through a hydroponics system directly to
the roots of the plants she was trying to grow.

They decided on a big two-story
setup, generator-lit through the winter, irrigated, insulated, and heated, with
space for trees to grow up through catwalks above, the catwalks themselves
filled with places to plant tomatoes, peppers, and vining plants, with rabbit cages
and nest boxes hanging underneath.  They staked out the thirty-by-eighty base
for the greenhouse directly over the spot where they’d planted the feather, and
Blaze might have imagined it, but she almost thought she felt a tingle when she
walked directly over its hiding place.  That gave her a little thrill of anticipation,
as she considered what Jack had told her it would do to her plants.

And then they built it.  Blaze
was amazed at how easily Jack seemed to put her different ideas together into a
cohesive whole.  “We’re gonna need insulated glass,” Jack said, once they had
the frame up.  “That’s gonna be the expensive part.” 

Blaze, who hadn’t considered that
part, winced.  “How expensive?”

“That much glass?”  He
considered.  “Probably sixty thousand.  If you got a bulk discount.”

Blaze cringed.

Looking at her, Jack shrugged.  “But
we can cover it with Visqueen until we’ve got the money for glass, grow stuff through
the summer months until we can make it permanent.”

“Let’s do that,” Blaze managed. 

They got the rolls of Visqueen and
a dozen tomato plants shipped out the next day, and between the two of them,
they managed to get the massive rolls of plastic stretched over the frame in a day
of tugging, pulling, cursing, and struggling with the breeze.

“I’m rapidly becoming Bruce’s
best client,” Blaze muttered when they were finished, eying the greenhouse. 
Her plans were to use it to keep the lodge supplied in fruits and veggies,
instead of having to hire a plane to fly groceries out twice a month.  She
needed something permanent—the area routinely had six or more feet of snow accumulate
during the winter, which would shred the flimsy plastic—but Visqueen would have
to do for now.

Jack gave an unconcerned shrug
and took another slug of his root beer.  He’d taken his shirt off again, though
he still wore the chainmail tunic and his sword.  “I saw some boxes of seeds in
the first supply runs,” he offered.

Thinking about planting the
greenhouse, Blaze got a thrill.  She quickly curbed the instinct, though. 
“It’s the first week of August.  We’d never get anything to develop by the
first frost in September.”  She had been planning to start the seeds that
winter, in the big sunny windows of the front prow of the lodge.

Jack winked at her.  “Trust me. 
You’ll want to plant them now.”

“Right in the
ground
?”
Blaze demanded. 

“Hell, you should call those
friends of yours, get some trees and stuff sent out.  Whatcha like?  Grapes?  Apples? 
Mangoes?”

The thought of growing mangoes in
Alaska left Blaze utterly flabbergasted.  All she could say was, “We didn’t
insulate it.”

“Winter might give ‘em a bit of a
jolt,” Jack agreed.  “But I’ll bet you anything they survive.”

She turned to face him, suddenly
wondering just how much a
blacksmith
knew about
gardening
.  She
squinted at him.  “You didn’t grow your own food much, did you?”

He slugged his root beer, then
crushed the can and cracked the top on another.  “All the damn time.”  He
grinned at her.  “Told you, honey, you’ve got a secret weapon.”  At first,
Blaze thought he was talking about himself, but then he gestured at the
greenhouse and the feather buried underneath.

A magic feather…

Curious to see just how
wars
could
be fought over something like that, Blaze humored him.  They planted about a
dozen different varieties each of tomatoes, peppers, melons, and cucumbers, planted
a twelve-by-twelve area of nothing but herbs, and hired yet another charter to
bring out a load of exotic fruit trees that Blaze had ordered through one of
her friends in town.

By now, news had once again
spread—Blaze was pretty sure that someone at Bruce Rogers’ charter service knew
someone out on the Yentna—and the neighbors had stopped by to watch the process,
the most polite pretending to need to borrow this wrench or that before they
stopped to stare, while the rest just stopped to stare.

Jennie Mae Hunderson, the owner
of the Ebony Creek Lodge, was the loudest amongst the starers.  “You think
you’re gonna get
mango
trees to grow in
Alaska
?”

“Got the soil tested,” Blaze
said.  “It’s supposed to be pretty good.”

Jennie Mae scoffed.  “But
mango
trees?”

“And avocados,” Blaze agreed.

“You’re wasting your time,”
Jennie Mae laughed.  “I have trouble getting my
cucumbers
to grow.  I
get a single, fist-sized watermelon a year, if I’m lucky.”

“She’s got a green thumb,” Jack growled. 
It was the first time he’d spoken since the neighbors started to show up, and
Blaze could tell he was not enjoying the company.

Jennie Mae peered at him.  “And
what you doin’ dressin’ up like that for, Jack Thornton?”  The way she said it,
she was a disapproving aunt.  She gestured to the sheath he carried slung over
his back.  “You gonna protect those pigs from bears with a sword?”

More chuckles from the
spectators.

“This whole thing is ridiculous,”
Jennie Mae said, seemingly powered by the crowd around her.  She gestured to
the greenhouse, the barn, the livestock.  “Who keeps pigs in the woods? 
Everyone knows the bears’ll get ‘em.  You’re just flushing your money down the
toilet, girl.”

The low rumble in Jack’s chest
was hopefully only audible to Blaze, who was standing right beside him.  Bearing
his teeth, he said, “People used to raise pigs in the woods all the time,
before they started depending on some huge factory to raise them in crates, who
then sends ‘em to a slaughterhouse that kills a thousand of ‘em in an hour for
their bland, barely-edible ‘meat.’”

Jennie Mae didn’t take the hint. 
“And
yaks
?” she sneered.  “This is America, not Mongolia.”

Blaze thought she saw the first
bit of hackles sprouting on Jack’s back, and Blaze quickly stepped in front of
him and said, “I did some research on hardy livestock for out here.  Stuff that
doesn’t eat much, can withstand the cold, and has lots of uses other than just
meat.  Yaks and goats topped the list.  Can’t hurt to try, right?  I’ll invite
you all over when we butcher our first one in the fall.  Should taste a lot
like bison.”

“You’re gonna
eat
them?” 
The way the woman said it, Blaze had just suggested they all eat maggots. 
Blaze flushed, suddenly feeling every eye on her, suddenly acutely aware of her
awkward body and the amused scorn in their faces.

I must look like a retarded
giant,
Blaze realized, miserable.

“All right,” Jack snapped,
slamming the shovel into the dirt, “I’m sure you all have something better to
do than stand around on someone else’s land, gawking at them like a bunch of
fucking idiots.  Get the hell lost.”

Jennie Mae gave them an almost
smug look before she turned and stalked off, taking the neighborhood with her.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Blaze
muttered, watching the last of their backs disappear around the shop.  “I want
to be friends with those people.”  To be truthful, however, she was relieved they
were gone.

Jack snorted and picked up the
shovel again.  “They were being rude.”

They finished planting the trees that
evening and went up on the catwalks to sit and watch the plants grow.  Once
they got to a reasonable height, Blaze thought she would introduce chickens, to
see if they would help control pests like aphids and chickweed.  The rabbits
were already in the hutches, their manure falling at the bases of the new
trees.

“You think this is gonna work?”
Blaze asked, listening to the rustle of rabbits and the mulling of animals
outside, feeling her first real pangs of anxiety about her whole plan.

“You need this stuff for the
lodge, right?” Jack asked.  The needy look in his eyes added,
And your pet
wereverine?
  He had, she’d noticed to her dismay, taken quite a liking to
goat.

“Yeah…” Blaze said tentatively. 
“Barging food out here is so expensive…”  Guy Meyers, the man who ran the
barging service, didn’t even
make
enough barge trips to cover that kind
of food bill.  Not to mention what it would cost to
buy
it.

“So we make it work,” Jack said. 
And that was the end of the discussion.

That night, while feeding the
chickens, Blaze saw the tiny fey man again.  He was standing at one end of the
greenhouse, examining the door curiously.  He pried it open just enough to look
inside.

“Hey!” Blaze snapped.

The tiny man jumped, his braids
gleaming iridescent green-purple as they swung in the sunlight.  He backed up,
drawing his sword.  In the sunlight, it almost appeared to be a very long, very
thin shard of milk-glass, cloudy, but not too cloudy to be opaque.  Then,
glancing nervously behind him, he suddenly flashed out of existence.

“This is
my property
!”
Blaze shouted.  “I see you again, I’m going to pepper you with steel buckshot,
you thieving little bastard, you got that?!”

If the fey man heard or cared, he
made no sound.

Cursing, Blaze strode back to the
lodge, went into the room, and started unpacking her shotgun from the case.

“You see him again?” Jack asked,
coming to lean against her doorjamb, watching her.

“Was sniffing around the
greenhouse,” Blaze muttered.  “I see him again, I’m gonna give him something to
think about.”  She started jamming buckshot cartridges into the chamber, then
slammed the pump, loading a round.

“Just so you know,” Jack said,
“You shoot a fey with buckshot, you’re looking to start a war.”

“What, it doesn’t matter that the
thieving bastard’s snooping on my property and already stole your sword?” Blaze
demanded. 

Jack gave a dismissive shrug.  “They
take pride in that sort of thing.  It’s like a rite of passage for most of the
tribes.”