Breakup. Part 21

All around the bar, tables and chairs overturned as everyone in Bernie's Roadhouse dove for cover for the second time in two days, with the exception of Ralph Estes, who remained head down on the bar, snoring peacefully. The six Unitarians charged off in six different directions, uttering loud cries to the Lord. Dandy Mike wound up on top of Shirley Inglima, which was what he'd been trying for anyway, and all four Grosdidier brothers were jammed into the same corner.

Mark Stewart and Jackie Webber were on the floor beneath their table.

Harvey, Demetri and Billy Mike had sought refuge with Old Sam, whose gleeful expression was clearly visible from where Kate crouched. The quilting bee rose to its collective feet, folded and stowed their work and made for the back door in calm, orderly procession, bullets flying all around them. Kate, furious with fear, saw the door close safely behind Auntie Joy and suffered a wave of relief that had her sagging weakly against the bar.

"G.o.dDAM!" Bobby roared. "We didn't use this much ammo at Hue!"

"Do something, Kate!" Bernie said, shoving her. Kate shoved Bernie.

"It's your bar, you do something!" Bernie shoved Dan. "It's your Park, you do something!" Dan shoved Jim. "It's your state, you do something!"

The trooper might have been able to hold out against everyone else, but Mutt barked an endors.e.m.e.nt of their views right in his face. Until then he had regarded Mutt as his love slave, but sometimes love is not enough. He cursed, thrashed around until he got 200 his .357 out and very slowly and very carefully got his feet under him to hoist a wary eye over the top of the bar.

The next round took his hat off.

Chopper Jim sat back down again and said very calmly, "I think we'll wait a bit longer before we mount a frontal a.s.sault."

"What do you mean we, white man?" Bobby said.

Kate cursed them all with impartial fervor. "Bobby, hold Mutt." Mutt didn't like it, neither did Bobby, and Jim said sharply, "Kate!" but she was up on all fours and peering around the end of the bar before he could stop her.

The figure in the doorway was reloading and a positive hail of bullets smacked against the outside of the building. Kate recognized Cheryl Jeppsen feeding sh.e.l.ls into the stock of a Winchester. She ducked back.

"It's the Hatfields and the McCoys again."

"Gee, why am I not surprised?" Dinah said wearily.

Bernie swore loud and long. "G.o.ddammit, why do they always have to come and shoot up my place? Why can't they stay home and shoot each other's places up! I hate breakup!"

"Give it up, Kay!" Cheryl shouted. "Go on home and I'll forget you started this!"

"I started it!" a furious voice yelled from outside. "Like h.e.l.l! You started this, you b.i.t.c.h, I was driving down the road minding my own business, and you shot my husband!"

"It's not your road, and it's not your land!"

"Bulls.h.i.t! We've got a right of way!"

A shot was her reply.

"Can't you throw them out of the Park or something?" Kate said to Dan.

"You tell me how, legally," Dan said grimly, "and I'll be more than happy to oblige."

Another flurry of shots and everybody ducked. "I don't know, get creative, take their land back or something!"

"What land?" Dan hissed back. "Their homesteads? It's not federal land anymore, it's state land, or it was until the Jeppsens and the Kreugers won it in the lottery, now it's private property.

201 Both families have already proved up, it's theirs, nothing the Parks Service can do about it now," Dan said, adding with heartfelt sincerity, "thank G.o.d."

"You think maybe you guys could discuss who owns Alaska some other time?" Bobby said politely, adding in a ferocious bellow that could probably be heard in Whitehorse, "LIKE AFTER SOMEBODY COLDc.o.c.kS THOSE TWO CRAZY b.i.t.c.hES OUT IN FRONT OF THIS FRIGGIN SALOON!".

Kate swore ripely-there'd been a lot of that going around lately-and raised her voice. "Cheryl? Cheryl, it's Kate Shugak."

"What do you want?" the woman with the rifle snarled without turning around.

"You think you could kind of take it easy? There are a lot of people in here who don't use your land to get to their homestead. No reason for them to get hurt."

"I don't have any intention of shooting anybody, except that red-haired, bra.s.s-plated b.i.t.c.h outside!"

Cheryl's Christian charity was slipping along with her language. As if to underline the thought, there was another loud Bang! and Kate flinched. So far, it had been the noisiest spring in the Park in her memory. "Cheryl," she tried again, "this is silly. Are you and Kay just going to keep shooting at each other until you run out of bullets?"

Cheryl fired, Kay fired a return volley and a bullet hit the bar right in front of Kate with a businesslike thud. Another shattered a bottle in back of the bar and showered them all with gla.s.s and liquid. Kate sat down.

"Offhand," Dan said, picking brown gla.s.s out of his hair, "I'd say the answer to your question would be yes."

Dinah tasted the back of her hand. "I always did like a shot of Grand Marnier after a meal. Settles the stomach, promotes digestion, gives you that nice little glow, you know?"

Bobby slapped her hand away. "You're pregnant, you're not supposed to be drinking."

There was another shot and almost simultaneously another 202 bottle shattered on a shelf in back of the bar, raining tequila and shards of gla.s.s mostly on Bernie. A second later a withered finger dropped to the bottom shelf and rolled off into Bemie's lap. Dan and Amy both let out involuntary yelps.

Bernie's sense of outrage swelled to heroic proportions. "There goes the Middle Finger bottle! G.o.ddammit! I just refilled it, too, and with Jose Cuervo Gold! This bulls.h.i.t's starting to cost me money!"

He leapt to his feet and started around the bar. "All right, you two, that is just about enough!"

Cheryl swiveled and brought the rifle up. "Don't move, Koslowski! Don't take another G.o.ddam step!"

"Such language, Cheryl," Bernie said mildly, but he froze where he stood. One of the Grosdidier brothers said, "Oh h.e.l.l," sounding more disgusted than alarmed. "I can't look!" Frank Scully screamed from beneath a table, and buried his head in his arms. While Shirley Inglima's attention was distracted Dandy Mike slid one hand beneath her blouse. She didn't object. As far as Dandy was concerned, Bernie ought to throw a shootout every day.

Kate rose to her feet to give Cheryl two people to cover. "Cheryl, this has to stop." There was a furtive noise from behind the bar and she knew Jim was crawling down to the opposite end. She raised her voice to cover the sound of his movements. "Put the rifle down, and maybe the Parks Service can get some kind of arbitrator in to resurvey the land and reroute that road."

Dan O'Brian might have had his own ideas about that but he kept quiet, for which Kate was profoundly thankful.

It didn't do any good. "You go to h.e.l.l," Cheryl said tightly. "This has gone way beyond some arbitrator." The muscles in her shoulders tensed, the barrel of the rifle began to rise, and in that moment Old Sam Dementieff lunged forward to grab hold with both hands, gnarled knuckles gleaming against the dark metal.

Cheryl was around five foot ten, weighed in at 160 pounds and 203 was a hale and hearty forty years old. Sam was five foot one, weighed maybe 100 pounds with his boots on and had at least forty years on Cheryl, but he had a grip like the big claw on a king crab and he hung on like grim death as Cheryl tried to throw him off. The barrel swung first to the left and then to the right and then back again, this time all the way around in a circle so that it pulled Old Sam into a smart trot.

Kate and Bernie both took a step forward, but Old Sam's palms were sweaty and his grip slid down the barrel and off, right over the sight, which must have been fairly painful. Centrifugal force did the rest: Old Sam, moving by then at a medium gallop, slammed into Ralph Estes's back, which caused Ralph's gut to slam into the bar. Rudely awakened, Ralph sat up with a disbelieving snort, turned green and blew chunks across the bar, showering Dan and Amy with predigested popcorn and beer. It was as efficient an example of projectile vomiting as an admiring Kate had ever seen, but then she was out of the line of fire.

Cheryl, momentarily stunned, was motionless for one second too long, just long enough for the basketball fans to switch sports and sweep down in a group tackle. She fought hard, letting out a primal scream that Kay must have heard outside and correctly interpreted, because when Kate crashed through the front door and skidded to a halt in the middle of the parking lot, all she saw were the taillights of Wayne's old International bouncing down the road to Niniltna.

Kate swore in disgust and was turning to climb back up the steps to Bernie's front door when it burst open and Cheryl came flying out. She knocked Kate flat, left the footprint of a size-nine shoe on Kate's chest and made tracks for an ancient and filthy white Econoine van.

Kate sat up, only to be knocked flat for the second time that evening by the Grosdidier flying squad in hot pursuit. The door to the Econoline slammed, the engine started and the van fishtailed out of the parking lot and onto the road, moving at about the same pace as the now long-gone truck.

204.

The Grosdidiers stamped and kicked and cursed, and only belatedly remembered Kate, still p.r.o.ne at the bottom of the Roadhouse's front porch trying to catch her breath. They stood around in a circle peering down at her, identical expressions of gathering concern on their nearly identical faces. "Are you okay, Kate?" Peter said, stretching out a hand.

Her breath returned with a great whoosh and she took in grateful gulps of cool night air. Ignoring Peter's hand, she got to her feet, wincing a little on the way up. "I hate breakup," she said, very quietly but with great feeling.

"She is hurt, guys," Luke said in an odd voice. "Look." He pointed.

Everyone looked, including Kate. Her right biceps was soaked in blood, and she became aware of a throbbing ache in the same area.

"Holy s.h.i.t," Peter blurted, and the Four Musketeers exploded into action.

"Help her up the stairs!"

"Pressure, we've got to apply pressure directly to the wound!"

"Antiseptic, we need antiseptic!"

"Shock! She's going to get shocky!"

"We need to lay her down, put her feet up!"

Four pairs of hands reached for her.

"No!" Kate yelped. "I'm fine! Really! It's no problem. Don't touch that arm, Luke!"

Johnny said earnestly, "It's okay, Kate. We're just trying to help."

"I know," she said, still fending them off. "And I appreciate it. But please don't. I'm begging you. Please." The stairs rocked gently beneath her feet. Wet mud seeped through her shirt to her skin. Her left knee thought about giving. She strengthened it with a mental threat. "I'm fine, guys. Really. I'm fine." She turned and took the steps at a slow limp, followed at close range by a fourGrosdidier escort.

Inside, Bernie was surveying the shambles of his bar. He closed 205 his eyes and shook his head. "Breakup," he said with loathing.

Resentfully, he cracked the seal on a new bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold.

The withered, slightly yellow middle finger floated down through the amber liquid to rest gently on the bottom.

Mutt left a handful of hair in Bobby's fist and bounded over to Kate, placing her paws on Kate's chest. Kate would have fallen right over if Paul, bringing up a close rear, hadn't slapped both hands on her shoulders. A rough tongue slurped the side of Kate's face, once, a second time, followed by an inquiring yip.

"I'm okay, girl," Kate said, not at all sure that was the case. "I'm all right. Settle down now."

Jim reholstered his pistol, which he had never fired. His eyes narrowed on Kate. "Is that blood?"

"I caught one in the arm," she muttered, sitting down heavily. "It just creased me. You got something I can tie it up with, Bernie?"

"Sure," Bernie said, long-suffering. "I got nothing better to do with my linen inventory." He produced a clean square of worn cotton sheeting, and the four Grosdidiers jumped forward as one.

"Hold it!" Kate barked. They halted, identical expressions of disappointment on their faces. Kate handed the cloth to Bobby and sat down so he could reach her.

Behind them furniture shifted as tables and chairs were righted. The back door opened and the quilting bee filed back inside in effortless dignity. Auntie Joy and Auntie Vi saw the blood on Kate's arm and hurried over to exclaim and offer Bobby advice. Bernie handed out broom and dustpan, and someone dropped change into the jukebox. The first song to play was, appropriately enough, Jimmy Buffett's "Boat Drinks," which made everyone laugh, a little shakily, and feel better.

"Doesn't look too bad," Bobby said, tearing the cloth into two strips.

"Bullet or gla.s.s?"

He scrutinized the wound. "If you made me pick, I'd choose 206 gla.s.s." He looked at her and smiled, without much more humor than Mutt showed baring her teeth. "Another battle scar for you, Shugak."

"Yeah," she said, closing her eyes for a moment, "now I can strip my sleeves and show my scars with the best of you."

"Whatever." He folded one of the strips into a pad and used the other to tie the pad to her arm, his hands deft and gentle. It smarted, and Kate winced. When he was done she said to Bernie, "You got some aspirin?"

He produced an economy-size bottle of Bayer. At her look, he said, "After the last two days, you don't think I need this much aspirin to run this place?" Kate took four and washed them down with warm Seven-Up.

"That's twice, Kate," Bobby said, his outward calm belied by the rage simmering beneath. "That's twice those b.i.t.c.hes have taken their best shot at Dinah." They hadn't been shooting only at Dinah, but under the circ.u.mstances Kate respected his tunnel vision and didn't comment.

"They've managed to clip you both times."

"Not to mention what they've done to my bar," Bernie growled.

"Not to mention," Bobby agreed. "Maybe it's time for a little executive action, you know?"

"Kate?" Jim said, studiously polite.

"Yes, Jim?"

He had replaced his hat, adjusting it so the brim formed a level line just above his eyes, which were steady and very, very cold. The bullet hole through the crown, above and just a little off center of the gold braid tie, lent a certain emphasis to his calm, precisely s.p.a.ced words.

"Would you drive me out to the Kreugers' and the Jeppsens' homesteads, please? I'm afraid I don't know exactly where they are."

"What are you going to do, once you're there?"

"Gee, I don't know," Jim said, descending momentarily into mild sarcasm.

"Arrest them?"

"What for?"

"I'll think of something," he said, very dry.

207 Bobby's roar was back, with interest. "Yeah, attempted murder kind of leaps to mind!"

The wound on Kate's arm throbbed painfully. She looked past the trooper to see Mark Stewart standing very close to Jackie Webber. His chin was up, his shoulders back, the rangy, youthful body held gracefully erect.

His clothes fit well, his face was clean-shaven, his smile swift and charming. He was a looker, and he knew it. He was accustomed to the adulation of the female of the species, and expected it.

His eyes met hers with easy, unworried self-possession.

He smiled.

Something inside her clicked into place.

Something else snapped in two.

It was the last straw. It was the final nail, it was too much on the plate, it was too many irons in the fire. It was jet engines falling out of the sky, it was bear charges, it was plane crashes, it was bodies revealed by melting snow, it was wives shooting at their husbands and too-heavy duties a.s.sumed too soon and it was murder most foul and it was overload, it was too much, it was breakup, that was all, the breakup of winter, the breakdown of marriage, of the social fabric, not to mention the very fabric of modern technology itself, and there was no shelter from the fallout.