A Grave Denied Part 9

A smile spread across Johnny's face.

Vanessa killed the engine and dismounted.

Johnny got to his feet. "Hey, Van."

"Hey, Johnny. h.e.l.lo, Kate."

"Hi," Kate said.

"Want some coffee?" Johnny said.

"Cocoa," Vanessa said, and unstrapped a sleeping bag and a pack from the back of the four-wheeler.

Our girl Friday has arrived, Kate thought. "You bunking out here, too?" she said.

"Uh-huh." Vanessa unrolled the bag, folded it in thirds, and sat down on it cross-legged. She pulled her pack into her lap and produced a Ziploc bag full of peanut b.u.t.ter cookies. "Have one?" she said to Kate. Her gaze was wide and clear and without a trace of embarra.s.sment.

"Thanks," Kate said, "I had one earlier." She finished her coffee, mostly to give herself time to think. "Virgil and Telma know where you are?" she said finally.

"They're not worried about me," Vanessa said.

The light from the fire flickered over her face. She looked and sounded tranquil, so much so that Kate decided not to point out that Vanessa hadn't answered her question.

So Johnny had told someone where he would be. That was good. That someone was a child. That was bad. But now Kate knew where they both were. That was good.

Chances were Vanessa had snuck out of her house without permission. That was bad. They were obviously close friends. That was good. Just how friendly were they?

That could be seriously bad. They had school tomorrow. Ah-hah. "You've got school tomorrow," she said.

"We'll go from here," Johnny said.

Vanessa nodded. "I brought my books with me."

Kate wondered what would happen if she ordered them to strike camp and follow her back to the homestead.

There was an old attorney proverb, something about never asking a witness a question to which you didn't already know the answer.

She tested the air, trying to estimate the s.e.xual tension between the two. She didn't sense any, but that didn't mean diddly. Adolescents were past masters at hiding things from adults, it came with the job description. She'd had the Talk with Johnny the previous winter, so it wasn't like he didn't know where babies came from.

She remembered something she'd heard Emaa tell the mother of a teenaged boy who was worrying over sending him to college Outside. "You bring them up good, you teach them all the right things, and you let them go. Nothing else to be done."

It all came down to trust. She got to her feet and dusted off her jeans. "Thanks for the coffee," she said to Johnny. "And the consultation." She was rewarded by a look of surprise on Johnny's face, and had to suppress a smile. What did he think she would do, yell and carry on? Tackle him and carry him home over her shoulder? Aside from the fact that she wasn't sure she could, it would cause permanent damage to everyone's dignity, and Kate didn't think such an extreme sacrifice was, as yet, called for.

If and when she did, she'd come back with a rope.

She handed him the mug. "Will you think about what I said?"

"I am thinking about it."

"Where's the rifle?"

He looked as if he might protest, and then gave in and fetched it from where it was leaning inside the entrance to the mine. It was loaded. The safety was on.

"I told you," he said, watching her. "Dad taught me."

"I know he did," Kate said, shouldering the rifle. "Mutt. Stay."

Mutt ducked her head and sneezed.

"Oh no, Kate." For the first time, Johnny showed dismay. "You don't have to leave Mutt here."

"Yeah, I do."

Mutt gave a soft whine when she saw Kate climb on the four-wheeler. "Stay," Kate repeated. To Johnny she said, "You can send her home in the morning when you leave for school."

"Kate!"

She caught a glimpse of his expression as she turned the four-wheeler, and waited until she was facing away from him to let the grin spread across her face.

Kate was never without Mutt. Mutt was never without Kate. It was the only other given in the world besides death and taxes, and Johnny was well acquainted with it. Kate didn't want to leave Mutt with him, but she was doing it because she'd taken back the rifle. Kate would be alone on the homestead. And Mutt, bless her melodramatic heart, was adding to the effect as she gazed yearningly after Kate as if her last hope of heaven was vanis.h.i.+ng down the hill before her very eyes.

Kate felt smug as she put-putted her way home through the dusk. Not for nothing had she learned at the knee of that champion layer-on of guilt, Ekaterina Moonin Shugak.

Later, she would berate herself for being so self-involved that she hadn't noticed the glow of the flames against the sky.

Later she would curse her failure to hear the crackle of the fire.

Later she would not be able to understand how she had not felt the sheer heat of it radiating outward, that she hadn't even smelled smoke.

All this she would think and more, later and all too late, but when she rolled into the clearing and saw the interior of the cabin filled with a hungry, red-orange glow, heard the angry snarl of the flames, felt the vicious heat upon her face, felt the sharp sting of smoke in her nostrils, all she could think was "Johnny!" and all she could feel was a sharp spear of terror so abrupt, so visceral, and so overwhelming that her legs buckled beneath her when she tried to dismount.

She staggered and nearly fell before reason rea.s.serted itself. No, she thought, in one of the few clear thoughts she was to hold dear that night, no, Johnny, wonderfully, marvelously prescient Johnny was safe and whole and unburned, tucked into his bedroll at the entrance to the Lost Wife Mine, kept company by an equally wonderful Vanessa and guarded by even more wonderful Mutt. She knew a moment of absolute relief as overwhelming as the moment of sheer terror that had preceded it, and her legs did give way this time, pitching her forward onto her hands and knees, utterly undone, vulnerable as she had never been in her life. She stared, dumbstruck, unable to move, struck motionless by disbelief.

There was an ominous creak and a small pop! pop! of sound, and through the window she could see the flames lick higher, higher, tickling at the ladder to the loft and then the loft itself. of sound, and through the window she could see the flames lick higher, higher, tickling at the ladder to the loft and then the loft itself.

This was her father's house. He had built it and brought her mother home to it, Kate had lived there all her life, and now it was going, eaten alive by a ravenous, red-maned beast.

The next thing she knew she was on her feet and moving forward.

"No," she said out loud, and she was at the door.

"Don't do this," she said, and the door, already open, swung wide.

"Stop right now, you idiot!" she screamed, and she was inside.

Monday, May 5 It's late, almost midnight here at the mine camp. I let the fire burn low so it's just coals. The stars are out but very faint. Pretty soon, with the sun up all the time, I won't be able to see them at all.

Van's asleep across the fire from me, all curled up in her sleeping bag. I wonder what the deal with her folks is. They don't seem to worry about her a lot, she pretty much comes and goes like she wants. They're some sort of cousins of her parents, I think. She doesn't talk about her real parents at all. I asked her where they were and she said they were dead and that's it. I asked her where she lived before the Park and she said Outside and that was that. I like her, though. Maybe because she doesn't talk much. She's different from other girls that way. Except for Kate.

There was a rustle in the bushes a little bit ago and Mutt went off to check it out. She came back without any feathers or fur around her mouth, so I guess whatever it was got away. I saw a bear this evening, a brown, I think. Its skin was all loose, like it hadn't eaten in a while, but the fur was really long and s.h.i.+ny. I think it was a sow although I didn't get a close look. I didn't see any cubs. She was eating horsetail. Ick. Kate told me bears will eat anything when they first wake up from hibernation, they're hungry and there's no salmon up the creeks or any berries on the bushes yet. Dad told me he shot a bear once that had an unopened can of tuna fish in its gut. And Ruthe told me that male bears will eat bear cubs if the female bear isn't watching. I guess protein is protein. Ruthe told me bears are different in different places in Alaska. Like salmon don't get all the way up the rivers and creeks in Denali Park and so the bears there eat mostly plants, with every now and then a marmot to supplement the fat they need. Plus maybe an occasional tourist, Ruthe said, although I think she was joking. I think.

I wonder what it's like to sleep a winter away. I wonder if you dream when you do. If I was still stuck in Arizona with Gram, I wouldn't mind sleeping the year away.

I won't go back. I don't care what anyone does or says. I won't go back.

I didn't tell Kate about the bear.

She didn't make me go back with her. She wasn't mad, either. Instead we talked about how the dead guy got in the glacier. She went all over the Park today talking to people about him.

I like the way she talked to me, like I was a grown-up, too. I almost am.

Kate's thirty-five. Twenty-one years older than me. Sometimes it doesn't seem like that much.

7.

It could be two totally different things," Jim said, handing Kate a mug of coffee. She wasn't cold. She didn't understand why she was s.h.i.+vering so violently that the coffee threatened to spill over the rim. Reaction, she thought, clinging to the thought, and clamped her teeth together so they wouldn't chatter.

"We could have a firebug loose in the Park," Jim said.

She managed to control the s.h.i.+vering enough to sip at the coffee. Made by Annie and poured from Billy's thermos, it was strong and creamy and very sweet. Annie had laid on the sugar with a lavish hand. The s.h.i.+vering began to subside.

"We could be looking at someone going around starting fires for kicks," Jim said.

Kate, wrapped in a blanket and ensconced in her red pickup with the engine running and the heater going full blast, finally found enough composure to where she was sure she wouldn't stutter when she spoke. "One"-she held up one finger-"Len Dreyer was murdered, near as I can figure sometime last fall. Two. Len Dreyer's cabin was torched, sometime after fall and before spring. Three, I've been asking questions about Len Dreyer all over the Park. Four, somebody torches my cabin." She looked through the winds.h.i.+eld.

It was seven o'clock according to the digital readout on the dash, and the light of the newly risen sun was merciless. The cabin wasn't much more than a crumpled, smoking ruin. With difficulty, Kate said, "My father built that cabin when he homesteaded this land."

"You could have been inside it when they torched it," Jim said.

"He brought my mother to that cabin when they were married," she said. Her voice was husky from the scar to begin with, and the smoke hadn't helped.

"Johnny could have been inside it, too," Jim said.

"They lived their whole married life in it. I was born in it. I've lived most of my life in it."

"Don't you get it!" he bellowed, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, hard. The coffee went everywhere, unregarded. "If you'd been sleeping inside when they torched it, you'd be dead!" He stared at her, furious, and then he kissed her, hard, his hand at the back of her head so she couldn't move. Faced with two hundred-plus pounds of thoroughly p.i.s.sed off male, she was smart enough not to try. Besides, she wasn't sure she was capable of forming a fist. he bellowed, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, hard. The coffee went everywhere, unregarded. "If you'd been sleeping inside when they torched it, you'd be dead!" He stared at her, furious, and then he kissed her, hard, his hand at the back of her head so she couldn't move. Faced with two hundred-plus pounds of thoroughly p.i.s.sed off male, she was smart enough not to try. Besides, she wasn't sure she was capable of forming a fist.

Billy Mike raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look," his wife chided.

"Like h.e.l.l," Bobby said, and then gave in to the insistent tug of Dinah's hand.

The four of them formed a semicircle, drinking coffee to ward off the morning chill and eating chunks of heavily b.u.t.tered bread fresh out of the oven, also made and brought by Annie, who had kept baker's hours all her life and with the advent of an adopted child into her home had neither the time nor the inclination to start changing things now. "Where are they going to stay?" she said.

"They can stay with us," Bobby said, looking at Dinah.

"Sure, if they will," she said. "They won't. Kate for sure won't.

Johnny might." She looked around. "Where is Johnny, anyway?"

"Kate said he was camping out with a friend overnight. He's okay." Bobby looked at the pile of rubble, embers glowing red. "Or he will be until he sees this. Probably melted all his Aero-smith CDs. Darn."

Dinah carefully avoided Annie's eyes. Bobby's abhorrence of any rock and roll recorded post-Credence Clearwater Revival was well-known.

"We could get her a trailer, or a camper," Billy said. "Maybe an RV." He thought. "Kenny Hazen's got some big-a.s.s Winnebago he goes fis.h.i.+ng with down on the Kenai in August. He likes Kate. I bet he'd loan it to her, maybe until she gets a new cabin built."

"Sounds like it might be a plan," Bobby said, thinking it over. "How's the road?" He was referring to the gravel road leading into the Park. It was graded twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, and the rest of the year left to fend for itself. In spring, it was death on the transaxel.

Billy winced. "They haven't graded it yet. They want to wait until they're sure it won't snow again."

Bobby snorted. "So basically we're waiting until Memorial Day, like usual. Well, h.e.l.l. I guess we could do the convoy thing, have a truck with a come-along on it before and another behind."

Billy nodded. "That'd probably work."

"Sounds like a good idea," Dinah said. "But ask Kate first." She sneaked a glance over her shoulder. Ah. Things had regressed from kissing back to yelling.

"How'd you do this?" Jim said, grabbing a wrist and forcing her hand from her sleeve, to reveal what seemed to his horrified eyes like third-degree burns on the back. Blisters had already formed.

Kate mumbled something.

"What?" Jim said, managing to infuse the single word with enough menace to back down George Foreman.

Her wide mouth set in a mutinous line. "The cabin wasn't all burned down when I got here. I went inside to get some things."

"I see," Jim said. "You went inside a burning building. To 'get some things." Are you out of your friggin' mind?" Are you out of your friggin' mind?" He had her by the shoulders again, and he was shaking her, again. He had her by the shoulders again, and he was shaking her, again.

She wrenched free this time. "Will you knock it off! I'm okay!" She stared at him haughtily, very much in princess of the Park mode, and hoped that he couldn't see she was about to burst into tears.

His face was brick red and he was literally speechless with rage. He took a few gulping breaths, glared at her for a moment, and then slammed out of the truck and stamped over to Bobby, who surveyed him with interest. "Count to ten," he told the trooper.

Jim expressed his opinion of Kate's intelligence in a few well-chosen phrases that commanded the admiration of everyone present.

Bobby, careful to keep his back to the truck in which Kate still sat, grinned. "Scared you, did she?"

"Up yours, Clark," Jim said, and with a mighty effort, forced the door closed on his rage and locked it, tucking the key away for a time when he could get Kate alone and bring her to a realization of the error of her ways. He didn't hold out much hope of succeeding but he was eager to try. He reached up to pull off his cap and noticed his hand was trembling. He swore again and slapped the cap against his knee. "What time did she show up?" he said to Bobby.

Bobby checked Dinah's watch. "About four hours ago, give or take. I called you and we came right back out."

Jim nodded and pulled the cap back on, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it down over his ears. "An hour to get to your house. So she left the fire about five hours ago, give or take. She wouldn't have left until she was sure it was gone. So it was probably torched around midnight. Maybe. Unless it was something more sophisticated than a match."

"You know anything about arson?"