Breakup. Part 14

" 'Yes, they have more money than you and me.' "

"Glad to hear it," Kate said, regaining some of her composure. "If that's all the difference there is, you can help me hump these boxes down to the cabin."

They loaded up, even Mrs. Baker, and Mutt led her train of native bearers single file down the trail with her tail c.o.c.ked at a lordly angle. "What's with all the traffic?" Mandy said behind her.

"I just got here, I'm guessing the go team is back."

At that moment a Sikorsky helicopter with a sling attached have into view over the trees. "Great," Kate said, hastening her pace. "Now maybe they'll get that hunk of junk out of my front yard."

It was unfortunate that just before reaching the clearing Mandy tripped over a tree root and into a clump of alders, dumping her box of canned goods and making enough noise for three bears, two moose and a h.o.a.ry marmot. Her subsequent crash and burn was loud enough to be heard even over the Sikorsky's engine, because it became immediately obvious that the Park Uninvitational Four- Footed Grand Prix across the homestead the previous morning had had a strong and lasting effect.

A shot rang out and a bullet thudded into a tree trunk a foot above Kate's head.

Mutt let loose with a ferocious bark.

Kate yelled, "Stay!" In a move that seemed almost routine by now, she dropped her groceries and dove for the ground, grabbing for Mr. and Mrs.

Baker's ankles along the way, and none too soon, 137 because in the next moment there was a Whoosh! and a cloud of spray hit the bushes directly in front of them.

Kate's eyes began to water and she pulled the neck of her T-shirt up over her face. Mutt whined and dropped flat, rubbing her face in her paws. Mandy sneezed violently. The whites of her parents' eyes turned a bright red and their noses began to run. Mrs. Baker began to cough.

Another bullet thunked into the tree trunk.

The pilot of the Sikorsky must have thought he was back in Da Nang and raised ship high and fast.

138.

The noise of the engine faded.

Kate pushed herself up to her knees and yelled, "Hey! Whoever's in the clearing! Cease fire, dammit!" punctuating her appeal with a tremendous sneeze.

"I hate breakup," Mandy said, choking and coughing.

"Amanda dear, don't you think we should-"

There was another shot and another spray and, incensed, Kate yelled again, "Cut it out, you guys! It's Kate Shugak, and you sonsab.i.t.c.hes had better either shoot me on sight or have an awful G.o.ddam good excuse for shooting and spraying at me before!"

The shots and spray ceased. "Kate?" A voice she recognized as John Stewman's spoke hesitantly. "Kate, is that you?"

Kate's reply was almost m.u.f.fled by another tremendous sneeze. "No, a.s.shole, it's the tooth fairy!"

139 She saw Mrs. Baker reach as if to rub her eyes and s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hand. "No, don't rub it, that'll only make it worse." She stood, wet and muddy and furious. "Stewman, you disarm those people of yours or my dog and I will disarm them for you! And we won't care how gentle we do it, either!"

There was a brief pause, a rustle of movement. "All right, Kate. You can come out now."

They staggered down the path into the clearing to come face to face with Selina and Bickford, white-faced and trembling. Bickford was holding a rifle. Selina had acquired a bright orange can of bear repellent, still held at the ready. The rest of the team were cl.u.s.tered protectively together behind them. Kate couldn't imagine why, if the idiots had thought they were about to be charged by a bear, they hadn't at least run for the cabin.

A stray wisp of the pepper spray caught at her throat. "Put that down,"

she said, coughing. Neither Bickford nor Selina moved. Kate stepped forward and reached for the rifle. Bickford seemed disinclined to give it to her.

Kate looked at him and said very carefully, "Give me that rifle before I take it away from you and shoot you with it."

Bickford was not the stuff of which heroes were made. He surrendered.

She cleared the chamber and clicked on the safety. It was the .30-06 from the gun rack over her door. Now, that would have been downright embarra.s.sing, getting shot on her own doorstep with her own gun. Another time Kate might have found the prospect mildly amusing, but considering the acc.u.mulation of events during the past two days, too many of which had offered bodily harm to her person, she was fresh out of a sense of humor.

All Selina's attention was occupied in trying to clip the can of bear repellent to her belt. Her hands were shaking so badly she wasn't having much success, and irritated as always at a simple job poorly done, Kate slung her rifle, s.n.a.t.c.hed the can, yanked Selina's waistband away from her waist until she could see all the way 140 down to her boots and jammed the clip over the belt. The elastic of the waistband snapped back and the can smacked into her belly. The other woman gave an inarticulate protest.

"Shut up," Kate said.

Selina shut up.

"The only reason you're still living," Kate told her, "is because you didn't score any direct hits." It wasn't easy to glare with watery eyes, but Kate managed it. "Now just what the h.e.l.l is going on here?"

There was some shuffling of feet, a few inaudible mumbles and a great deal of staring up at the sky or down at the ground or off into s.p.a.ce.

After a moment John Stewman stepped manfully forward. "Well, Kate, some of us got a little nervous after the bear incident yesterday. And then we heard about what happened to that woman up to the mine-"

"That was thirty miles from here," Kate said. n.o.body looked convinced.

She shook her head and swore tiredly. "I didn't used to feel this old,"

she said, mostly to herself. To Bickford she said pointedly, "I a.s.sume that sky crane was to get that hunk of junk out of here once and for all?"

He nodded mutely.

"Good. Call it back. The sooner I see your backsides heading up that trail, the safer I'm going to feel. Mutt!"

There was a rustle at the opposite end of the clearing, and Kate looked around to find an extremely wary Mutt, yellow eyes turned an original shade of magenta, standing at the edge of the clearing in what could only be described as a tentative manner. Generally instinct and training compelled her to protect, but after the last two days Kate didn't know that she blamed Mutt if her first reflex was to run as far from the homestead as she could get. "It's okay, girl, it's safe to come out now."

Mutt wasn't entirely convinced, but she did come out of the bushes.

Mandy, who had borne the brunt of the pepper spray, she gave a wide berth. "Thanks a lot," Mandy told her, and gave a 141 convulsive sneeze, which was the signal for first her mother and then her father to follow suit.

"Come on," Kate said, and led the way into the cabin, where she pumped up a bucket of water into which Mandy immediately immersed her entire head, and emerged snorting and trumpeting like an elephant down at the local mud hole. Kate pumped up another bucket of water and Mandy's parents made do with a more refined rinse. Kate simply stood at the sink, head beneath the spout, and pumped. She wrung out her hair and groped for a towel. Head wrapped in a turban, she blinked at the room.

Mandy had replaced the rifle in its rack over the door. The rest of the cabin looked much as she had left it. Lucky for the NTSB.

Mr. Baker had dried off and gone back outside, and through the kitchen window Kate could see him standing next to Kevin Bickford, who had his Earlybird cap pulled low over eyes that were darting nervously back and forth. The Sikorsky was back, and they were watching the sling being maneuvered around the engine. Kate just hoped the corpse didn't disintegrate when they tried to lift it into the air.

Mrs. Baker was standing next to the couch, staring down at the hole in it. Evidently she'd missed it the previous morning. She looked up to see Kate watching her, decided it would be a breach of good manners to ask and moved to the other leg of the couch to sit down, a little heavily, as if all this might have been just a little too much, finally.

"Goodness," she said at last. "Amanda dear, you never told us how exciting life is in Alaska."

"It isn't always like this, Mother," Mandy said, but her voice was weak, and Mrs. Baker looked about as convinced as Mutt had when Kate called her into the clearing.

Mandy combed fingers through her damp hair. "We'd better get the rest of those supplies down the trail before it gets dark."

It took the four of them three trips, by which time the jet engine was gone. Stewman and the rest of the team remained behind for an hour or so, locating, photographing, cataloging and bagging 142 any sc.r.a.p of metal they had missed in the previous search that Kate could not immediately identify or claim, all under Mutt's bleak and intimidating eye. Kate gave her a piece of beef jerky in reward, and something about the sight of those large, sharp teeth ripping into the strip of meat made the investigators work faster.

The pickup looked even more flattened without the engine than it had with it. Kate resolutely turned her back on the mortal remains. Mr.

Baker, chatting again with Bickford, beckoned her over. "Well, Ms.

Shugak," he said in his best lord-of-the-manor air, "I believe you know Mr. Bickford of Earlybird Air Freight."

"We've met," Kate said, without enthusiasm.

"Splendid," Mr. Baker said jovially. "We've just been discussing your little, her, dilemma, in regard to compensation for this, her, unfortunate accident."

Kate opened her mouth to inform both of them that she didn't regard the situation as a "little, her, dilemma," but something in Mr. Baker's gaze stopped her. "Have you?" she said slowly.

Mr. Baker, hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels and smiled at Bickford, who smiled back, a little sickly, Kate thought.

"Mr. Bickford and I have found much to discuss," Mr. Baker said, even more jovially. "It seems I am acquainted with his employer." He beamed at the two of them.

"His employer?" Kate said, drawing a blank.

"Yes indeed. Patrick O'Donnell and I are old friends. We manage to get in a game of squash whenever he's in town, and he's been out to the house for dinner quite often. A charming man."

"Who is that, dear?" Mrs. Baker came out of the cabin dusting fastidiously at her hands.

"Patrick O'Donnell, Margery," her husband replied. "You remember. The chief executive officer of Earlybird Air Freight."

"Why, of course," she said. She slid an arm through her husband's and bestowed a smile on the Earlybird man that was cordial without in any way encouraging overfamiliarity. "And how is dear Patrick?"

Bickford's expression indicated that he had about as much to 143 do with dear Patrick as the parish priest did with the pope, but he struggled gamely to keep up. "The last I heard, he was fine, ma'am. He spends most of his time at corporate headquarters in New York, of course."

"Of course," Mrs. Baker agreed. "Will he be coming up to oversee this fuss, do you think?"

Bickford tried not to look appalled at the thought. "I don't think so, ma'am." He hastened to add, "I'm sure that he is in constant communication with the Anchorage office, however."

"A pity," she said. "It would be so nice to see dear Patrick again."

Mr. Baker patted her hand consolingly. The hand was adorned with a diamond solitaire the size of Plymouth Rock. Bickford noticed, and tried not to goggle. "I was just telling Mr. Bickford, dear, that I know Patrick would wish that every effort be made to redress this dreadful situation. No one hates litigation more than he does, and I'm sure Ms.

Shugak would agree that there is nothing to be gained by action that would be most distressing for all concerned." He raised an expectant eyebrow in Kate's direction.

"Oh, of course," Kate said in a faint voice, mostly because it seemed to be required of her. Litigation? Like with lawyers? Lawyers cost money, and at this moment the one-pound Darigold b.u.t.ter can on the table in the cabin held less than two hundred bucks, and that much only until she filed her taxes. Mandy was watching from the doorstep of the cabin, a slight smile that was hard to read on her face.

"So I feel that, really, for the best interests of all concerned, a prompt, just settlement would be most beneficial. I'm sure Patrick would agree, aren't you, dear?"

"Certainly," said Mrs. Baker. "He would be most upset at anything less."

"Where do you bank, Ms. Shugak?" Mr. Baker said.

Kate stared at him with the fascination usually exhibited by a deer frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car. "Ah-"

"Yes?" Mr. Baker prompted.

144 "I really would prefer cash," she said, trying like h.e.l.l not to sound apologetic and failing miserably.

"Cash?" Both of Mr. Baker's eyebrows went up. "Are you accustomed to keeping that amount of currency on hand?"

After a beat, Kate said, "How much-currency-are we talking about?"

"We were discussing an amount in the area of fifty thousand."

"Fifty thousand?" Kate's voice went up into a squeak, which what with scar tissue and a naturally low register was quite a feat. Mandy hid a grin. Kate cleared her throat and tried again. "Fifty thousand? Dollars?"

The eyebrows were still up, and Mr. Baker said blandly, "I believe so."

He glanced at the Earlybird man for confirmation. Bickford gave a glum nod. "Of course, if there was some question-"

"No," Kate said, getting her voice back under control. "No indeed." She acquired a little blandness herself and sent some of it Bickford's way in a wide, bright smile. He looked even more glum. "I might be able to stretch fifty thousand to cover the damages."

Bickford cast a disparaging eye around the sixty-year-old homestead, including outhouse with ventilated door, cabin with patched roof, trashed garage, smashed cache, speared snow machine and squashed but obviously aged truck, and visibly restrained a disbelieving snort.

"Excellent," Mr. Baker said, and gave Bickford a warm, approving smile, beneath which Kate, now that she was looking for it, could clearly discern the feral grin. "There's no hurry, of course. Ms. Shugak will be happy to take delivery of her settlement- tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow would be fine," Kate said happily.

Mr. Baker extended a regal hand. "I'll be speaking to Patrick soon, Mr.

Bickford, and I won't forget to mention how very helpful you have been."

"Thanks," Bickford muttered, and slunk off in the wake of the departing NTSB crew. Stewman came over to say goodbye, but Mutt, who had yet to forgive any of them for the bear repellent, 145 wouldn't let him get within speaking distance of Kate, and he was reduced to waving a dismal goodbye. The Tom Sawyer grin was in abeyance.

Kate, dollar signs dancing in front of her eyes, wouldn't have seen it anyway.

When the last of them had vanished up the trail, Kate regained enough sangfroid to look Mr. and Mrs. Baker over with a speculative eye. "Just how well do you know dear Patrick?"

Mr. Baker affected an elegant shudder. "Only too well. He sits on the board of my bank. A corporate genius, but-"

"He's a ruffian," Mrs. Baker said, with a slight but nevertheless distinctly disdainful lift of her upper lip. "He actually drinks his soup from the bowl at table."

So do I, Kate thought, but decided it politic not to say so. Instead, she said, "I think it's time you called me Kate."

"Why, thank you, Kate," Mr. Baker said, with a warm smile from which all presence of jungle had been banished. For the moment. "My name is Richard."

"And I am Margery," his wife said, and in her smile this time there was no repeat of the peer-to-peasant demeanor that had withered the speech on Bickford's tongue.

"Richard, Margery, would you and your daughter care to join me for a late lunch?"

"That sounds lovely, Kate. Thank you."

Kate stood to one side and let them precede her. "I should have known,"