Fire And Ice

With a jerk that brought him up out of his chair, Liam came back into himself again and battled for control. Bit by bit, it did come back, leaving him drained and spent.

He checked his watch. Seven o'clock. The sun was streaming in the window, long glissading columns of incandescent light. Somewhere nearby was the one person who could offer him comfort, and maybe even make him di

He stopped by Bill's for directions, if she could be persuaded to give them, and found Moses perched on what Liam was coming to consider his usual stool. The shaman greeted the trooper with his usual respectful welcome, "Ah yes, here comes the man without a clue!" He drained his beer, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt, and added, "Root from below, suspend from above. It won't give you everything, but it'll give you something." He fixed Liam with a piercing if somewhat bleary eye. "Let her go. She's on her own journey; you're only slowing her down by hanging on to her with your grief and your guilt."

With ponderous dignity he descended to the floor and made for the men's room. He didn't miss a step when he flipped off Cecil Wolfe, who was presiding over a boothful of boisterous young men. Cecil threw back his head and roared with laughter, which sound brought Moses to an instant halt.

Moses looked straight at Cecil Wolfe, his voice clear, his words sober and distinct and audible to everyone within earshot. "You will pay," Moses said.

Cecil was startled for a moment, but only for a moment. He laughed again, slapping Kirk Mulder on the back. "Of course I'll pay -I always pay for my crew, that's why they stick with me!"

Mulder laughed with him, and the rest of the men in the booth joined in, a hearty, forced sound. They couldn't keep it up forever, and Moses waited patiently. When the conditions were right, he spoke again. His voice was dispassionate, matter-offact. He wasn't making a threat or sounding an alarm. He was simply reporting the truth, without bias, without prejudice, really without much feeling of any kind. "Wolfe, you're an asshole and don't deserve warning. Nevertheless, it is true. You will pay."

Wolfe's expression indicated that few people called him an asshole to his face and got away with it. Liam made as if to step forward.

"No," Bill said, putting out a restraining hand. "Moses will handle it. He always does."

Wolfe eyed Moses for a fulminating moment. Moses stared back, unblinking, unafraid. Everyone waited.

Wolfe broke the silence with another of his bellowing laughs. "Ah hell, Moses, you're too little to slug and too drunk to know what you're saying. Come on, boys, I'll buy us another round. And," he added with a broad wink at Moses, "just so you don't break your streak as a soothsayer, Moses, I will pay. Barkeep! Another round for the table! Hell, another round for the house!"

"See?" Bill said. She turned to ring the brass ship's bell fixed to the wall, and the resulting clang brought whoops of joy from every corner.

"Yes, but he didn't handle it, Wolfe did," Liam said.

Bill smiled. "Did he?" She began setting up glasses and uncapping bottles.

Laura Nanalook came up to the bar carrying a tray loaded with empty bottles and glasses. She looked up and caught Liam's eye. "Oh." A flush swept up over her face. "Hello."

Bill filled another glass, topped it off with an onion, and nodded toward Wolfe's table. "Serve Cecil's table first-he's buying."

If Liam hadn't been watching so closely, he would have missed the expression of revulsion that swept fleetingly over Laura's angel face. It was as rapidly gone, and she loaded her tray with professional efficiency and took it to the booth. Wolfe, sitting on the outside, laid a hand on her hip. It was a brief gesture, but it was heavily suggestive of both knowledge and possession, and it was not lost on the other men sitting with him. Laura Nanalook was private property, off-limits to the rabble. The rabble saw, and understood. They'd wait. They'd been thrown scraps before after Wolfe had taken the edge off his appetite.

Gary Gruber sat at one end of the bar, a besotted look on his face as his eyes followed Laura Nanalook about her business. She moved through the crowd with grace and efficiency, dispensing drinks from her tray with a wide, mirthless smile flashing on and off as if controlled by a switch. Gary Gruber wasn't the only one; Moccasin Man and the Hell's Angel were watching her from a corner booth. Liam wondered where the Flirt was, and as if in answer to his thought, she came in the door, dressed now in cutoffs and a T-shirt cut up to there. She spotted Moccasin Man, noted who he was watching, slid into his lap, wrapped an arm around his neck, and kissed him, long and hard. Moccasin Man lost interest in Laura Nanalook, especially when the Flirt wriggled around in his lap like a cat making a place to curl up for the duration.

The Hell's Angel watched laconically, until another man stopped by the booth. They spoke briefly, and something changed hands, followed by something else. The Hell's Angel gave a casual look around the room. His eyes met Liam's. Even more casually he turned back to the table and said something to Moccasin Man, whose hands stopped moving. The Flirt pouted in protest. Moccasin Man held her still, and with an elaborate show of nonchalance looked around the bar, eyes coming to rest finally on Liam's face. Liam didn't move. A hand slid up to cup one of the Flirt's full breasts, and the Flirt gave a voluptuous wriggle and pressed against him for just a moment before moving the hand back down to her waist with a playful slap and a promising glance from beneath her lashes. Over her head Moccasin Man smiled at Liam, revealing a mouthful of small white pointed teeth.

Liam didn't smile back.

"I don't know why Tiffany bothers owning a house with a bedroom in it," Bill said disapprovingly at Liam's elbow. "What'll it be, whiskey or beer?"

"Tiffany?" Liam said. "That's the Flirt's name, Tiffany?"

"The what?"

"The woman sitting in Moccasin Man's lap."

"Who?"

He jerked his head in the direction of the booth.

"Oh, you mean Evan. Yeah, that's Tiffany Saunders. How do you know her?"

"We flew in on the same plane, along with Moccasin Man and the Hell's Angel."

"Hell's-oh. Oscar. Right." A slow smile spread across Bill's face. "I guess he does look sort of like a Hell's Angel."

Laura returned to the bar, reloaded her tray with a wooden expression, and departed again.

"Never mind her for now-you can't help someone who won't accept it," Moses said at his elbow, causing Liam to start. "Bill! I need another beer! What!"

This to a young man and woman standing a few feet away. The young man looked a little disdainful, the young woman painfully respectful. Both were Yupik in appearance: short, stocky, golden of skin, raven of hair, brown eyes tilted upward in the fashion of their Asian ancestors. "Uncle," she said, bowing her head.

She nudged the young man. "Uncle," he repeated. He didn't bow his head.

"What?" Moses said, climbing back on his stool.

The young woman screwed up her courage. "We will marry next week. We want your blessing."

"No you don't," Moses snapped, and gulped at the beer Bill brought him. "You want to know if you'll live happily ever after. You shoulda asked me that before you went and popped the question, now shouldn't you, Amelia?" He drained his glass and fixed her with a steely stare. He spoke two words, and two words only, in what Liam assumed was Yupik.

The young woman's face turned dead white and her body swayed as if receiving a blow.

Moses turned his back on them. The young man muttered something beneath his breath, grabbed her arm, and hustled her out of the bar.