Better to rest (5 page)

“Why didnt they call you?

“I got the impression they were about to when we knocked on the door. By then, theyd had a few, and they panicked.

Bill reflected. “Is there a law against possession of a severed limb?

“Youd know that better than I would.

“Ill have to check my index of Alaska statutes. Im sure itll be right under Limbs, Severed. Right after Lifesaving Medical Procedures and right before Limitation of Actions. She shook her head. “Id love to preside over that case.

“Yeah, right. Liam tilted his glass and the last droplet of whiskey dropped onto his tongue with something approaching a sizzle.

Someone besides Moses had gotten to the jukebox, and Santana was telling everyone within hearing to make it real or else forget about it. On the tiny excuse for a dance floor, Mark Walker was showing Cindi Guttierez how to do a natural underarm turn, only he missed her hand. She, an enthusiastic if uncoordinated partner, spun wildly out of control, careened off the table where Jerry Lee Kwethluk and Lyle Willoya were hunched over their usual battle for the Newenham arm-wrestling championship, and slammed up against Eric Mollberg.

Jerked rudely from his peaceful slumber, Eric snorted, sat up, lost his balance, and fell off his bar stool. He might have stayed upright if that garbage sack hadnt been sitting at Liams feet. As it was, he tripped over it and fell flat on his face. The arm with its clenched fist was propelled out of the bag and slid across the floor to come to rest against Erics face.

The way hed kicked it must have loosened the fist, because suddenly the fingers relaxed. Something small and round and bright rolled out of the palm, around Erics head, and into the middle of the dance floor. The music kept playing but people had stopped dancing, and it looked like stopped breathing as well.

The coin rolled and rolled, right into the middle of eleven pairs of paralyzed feet, where it spun in an ever-shrinking circle and eventually came to rest, the side up gleaming dully in the dim light of the bar. Everyone watched it, mesmerized, or perhaps just reluctant to look again at the severed arm.

Eric, whose eyes had followed the coin like everyone elses and watched it until it came to rest, traveled back to the now almost-open hand, forefinger outstretched to where it nearly touched his nose.

He screamed, a high-pitched sound of pure terror. He screamed again, leaped to his feet, and raced to the door, hitting it with both hands held straight out in front of him and disappearing into the night.

“Oh, hell, Liam said, and got down from his stool to stuff the arm back in the bag. He took a few steps forward and picked up the coin, trying unsuccessfully to read the raised print. It looked like it was in English, and it was heavy.

When he stood up, his eyes met Wys, who was staring in horrified incomprehension from his face to the bag in his hands and back again.

Tim sat next to her, and his eyes were pretty big, too. The back of Liams neck prickled in an unpleasant sort of way, and he took a step forward to see who was sitting across from them.

“Hey there, Liam, Jo Dunaway said with a sunny smile that was all teeth. “You remember my brother, Gary.

December 3, 1941

The goddamn radio went out again. We were coming back from Attu and the ceiling came down and we were wandering all over hell and gone. I know the way Ive been over it enough times but even I cant see through clouds. It doesnt help that the frigging maps are all wrong. Half the rivers are missing and the lakes are fifty miles away from their actual locations and we almost ran into a mountain that was only supposed to be 3600 feet high and was really 4600 feet high. Jesus!

Another letter from Helen. Theres some kind of problem with the baby she dosnt say what. I wrote and told her to go see the doctor and tell him well find the money to pay. If old Doc Bailey was still alive this wouldnt be a problem he knew my father and he delivered me he would know I was good for it. I wrote to Mom to go over there. I know they dont like each other but Helen shouldnt be alone. God how I hate being this far away.

Peter the old Eskimo guy is quite a storyteller. He says hes not really an Eskimo hes from a little village on the coast southwest of here. Hes got a name for his tribe but I cant pronounce it let alone spell it. He was telling me the other day about how his people used to paddle big canoes from Alaska to Russia to fight each other. He showed me a vest he said was armor. It dint look real substantial to me but then I want to be bullet-proof and his folks probably only needed to be spear-proof.

FIVE

The next morning was clear and cold enough to generate a thin layer of frost, but the wing covers were quickly removed and the problem solved. She was sorry for that. She wanted to be very busy. Liam had the worst case of fear of flying shed ever seen, and so long as she was doing things with the plane he wouldnt bother her. If she made it look too easy, they would have to talk about the night before.

They leveled off at a thousand feet and she drew a bead on Bear Glacier, which according to the map hung off the lip of Carryall Mountain. “Carryall, if the little Yupik she retained from her upbringing in Ikikika, a village on the shore of One Lake, was accurate, was an anglicized version of one of the many words her ancestors on the Yupik side of her family used for
bear.
She didnt know if it stood for black bear or brown bear or polar bear, or feeding bear or sleeping bear or running bear, for that matter. She ought to study up on her Yupik. Maybe she and Tim could take a class. Maybe she and Tim and Liam could take a class.

She gave a mental snort. Yeah, right, thatd happen. Liam was all but packed for his transfer back to Anchorage, where he would have no use for Yupik. Other language skills, perhaps. Bureaucratese, maybe. Brownnosing, definitely.

She pulled herself up short, ashamed for automatically assuming the worst. Just like Jo. Liam hasnt said if hes leaving or staying, she told herself. You could ask, instead of getting mad over nothing.

Then again, if she asked, hed have to answer. And then hed ask her to come with him, which would entail leaving her home, selling her air-taxi business, and pulling Tim out of school to start all over again in a city whose population thought
Bush
meant half an hour out of town.

And then she would be faced with her own decision: Go or stay.

It wasnt like she didnt have a choice. It hadnt killed her to break it off with Liam the first time.

It had only felt like it had.

She found herself getting angry all over again. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, grateful the noise of the engine covered the sound. She cast a surreptitious glance over her shoulder at the man sitting behind her, rigidly upright, knuckles white on the edge of his seat, his breathing audible over the headset. Liam wasnt noticing anything except how he was personally holding the plane up in the air.

According to John and Teddy, the crash site wasnt far from an airstrip not too overgrown with brush and long enough for a Super Cub, which in turn was accessible by what had been a game trail just wide enough to take a four-wheeler in from Icky. It was quicker to fly, though, and Liam had wanted to inspect the site as soon as possible.

The Wood River Mountains grew on the horizon, four-and five- and six-thousand-foot peaks covered with the winters first snowfall. A series of four long, deep, narrow landlocked fjords filled up four long, steep, narrow valleys between the mountains, lying before them like the fingers of a giants spread hand. Not quite like the outspread hand of the night before, but close enough to bring it to both their minds.

Liam cleared his throat. “So. Where are we landing? He tried not to let the fact that he didnt care where it was so long as he was on the ground, alive and whole and soon, show in his voice.

Wy made an unnecessary adjustment to the prop pitch. “Its a dirt strip, about three thousand feet. I think the Parks Service put it in during a survey of the Togiak Wildlife Refuge.

“And everybodys been using it to hunt from ever since.

“Pretty much. I know Charlene patrols up here pretty regular, and she sees planes down there a lot.

Charlene Taylor was the fish-and-game trooper for the Newenham district. “Poaching?

“She thinks so, although she has yet to catch anyone in the act. Wy adjusted her headset and fussed with the arm extending the voice-activated mike to her mouth.

“You have any ideas about this wreck?

She shook her head. “Its got to be old, before my time.

“Did you ask around the airport?

“Didnt have time; you wanted to be in the air at first light.

“Right. He made a minute shift to ease the strain on his vertebrae. The plane hit an air pocket and bounced. He stiffened back into immobility, like that would help smooth out the flight. Wys braid dangled over the back of the seat in front of him. It swayed gently with the motion of the Cub. He tried not to look directly at it.

They flew on for a few minutes more, until they took a sudden, hard right bank and nosed down. Liam sucked in a breath. “There, Wy said.

It seemed to Liams fevered gaze that she was intent on their doing chin-ups on the peaks of the Wood River Mountains. “Right there, do you see it? Wy said, and aimed 78 Zulu at a strip of snow that might have had a patch of gravel beneath it the size of a babys diaper. The strip got bigger the nearer they got to it but not much. Wy circled once, taking a look at the surface and coming much too close to the sides of the encircling mountains, and brought them in on an approach that feathered the tops of the stand of slender birches surrounding the strip. She pulled so far back on the throttle that they were practically hanging stationary in the air when they touched down. They didnt use up much of the strip, eithera good thing, Liam thought when a bull moose wandered out of the trees at the other end of the runway. He stopped and regarded them with an expression of mild surprise for a moment, before wandering back into the woods, evidently unworried by the thought that they might be after his rack.

They set off, finding and following the track through the brush and snow left by Johns and Teddys four-wheelers without difficulty. It was late October and they were lucky. It had snowed twice already that year, but so far only enough to stick, and the good news was it wasnt over their boots.

“Did they get anything? Wy said when, after twenty minutes, the silence got too oppressive to bear.

“What?

“Teddy and John. Did they get anything?

“Oh. Yeah. A moose. Big bull. It was skinned out and hanging in the shop.

“Good.

“Yeah. Isabella and Rosell be happy.

She stood it for ten minutes more. “Liam

“Look, he said. “Were here.

They had emerged from the woods into an area of glacial moraine, pile after pile of gray gravel so uniform in size it looked graded.

“Theres no snow on the gravel, Liam said, confused.

“Thats why, Wy said, pointing.

In back of the moraine loomed the glacier, and even at that distance they could hear the sound of running water. “Its not cold enough yet to stop the meltoff. Wont be long, though. Teddy and John hit it just right. Another snow and they wouldnt have found a thing. How close did they say they were to the face when they found the arm?

He pointed at the four-wheeler tracks, which continued straight to the mouth of the glacier. “I figure we follow those, we find what Teddy and John found.

Wy took another look at the glacier, which looked far too unstable for her tastes. “Right.

They followed the tracks, which ended short of the wall of ice. The bottom half of the face was rotten and riddled with holes that created gaping caves, too dark to see inside.

“You dont think its inside one of those? Liam said.

“Even John and Teddy arent that dumb, Wy said. She felt a prickle at the base of her neck. It was nippy out this cold, clear morning. She should have exchanged her jacket for a parka.

They cast back and forth along the wall of ice, careful not to stray too close, the detritus from recent calving fresh on the ground in front of them. Theyd almost given up when they found the blood and guts of the moose John and Teddy had shot. Wy unshouldered the.30-06 she had brought from the plane.

“You hear a bear?

She shook her head, eyes watching the edge of the trees. “Not yet, she said, which didnt reassure him.

“I thought they were all asleep by now.

“Nope.

There were ravens gathered at the corpse, shredding intestine with strong, bloodied beaks. They were unalarmed by the arrival of the humans, and continued to feed.

“So Im not seeing any plane wreckage, Liam said, almost relieved. “They might have been shining us on.

Wy felt the prickle at the back of her neck again and tried to zip up her jacket, but the zipper was as far up as it would go. The face of the glacier glittered in the cold, clear light, fractured and chasmed and impenetrable. Bushes and grasses had implanted themselves at the sides of the face wherever a handful of dirt had collected in a hollow of rock. Even

“Hey, she said. “Blueberries.

They were large, as big as the first knuckle of her little finger, and frozen. They melted in her mouth like candy, sweet and tangy.

Blueberries. Shed loved them as a child, loved picking them, loved the rich blue stain they left on her hands and lips and tongue, loved the tart, tangy taste that exploded in her mouth when she bit down. She could hide herself away in the bushes taller then than she was, and sit with a pail in her lap and pick and eat and pick and eat, and not come out again until the strident voice of her foster mother called her out. And sometimes not even then; sometimes she thought that if she could just fall asleep in the blueberry patch, when she woke up her real mother and father would be there, all love and smiles and welcome home, Wyanet.

An eagle flew overhead, for a moment blocking the sun, aware of their presence but indifferent to them, and she started, staring down at the handful of berries. “Liam! Come have some berries! Theyre She stopped.