So Sure Of Death

“Why of course?”

“Sound carries in a fog.”

Liam thought of the various noises he had heard in and around Kulukak that morning, the rifle shots, the boat engines turning over, the landing plane. “Yes, it does. Did he see the person driving the skiff?”

“He saw a man, he said. He didn't know who he was.” Prince looked up, triumph in her eyes. “But his description sounds a lot like Walter Larsgaard.”

Liam thought about that for a few moments. Prince waited, her expression indicating a willingness to leap into the Cessna and fly down to Kulukak this minute to make an arrest.

Liam wasn't so sure. He'd seen Molly's picture; all right, maybe she did have a face-and a body-that would launch a thousand dories, maybe even one that might get her husband killed.

But her children? Her brother-in-law? Her husband's deckhands? Herself, ostensibly the object of her lover's affections?

He shook his head. Prince looked disappointed and Liam said, “Just thinking to myself. Here's a little piece of information for you. A fisher named Darrell Jacobson saw a New England dory leave Kulukak harbor at about ten p.m.”

“Who was driving it?” she said eagerly.

“He didn't know, he's not from Kulukak, but Jacobson was headed for Togiak, so we can pull him in for an identification if need we need him.” He could almost hear Prince's tail thumping the floor and held up a hand, palm out. “Look, we've got a couple of pieces of information, and we'll use them when we need to, but let's not jump the gun. Larsgaard fishes where he lives, I think he's his father's sole support, and he's tribal chair besides. He's not going anywhere. We'll brace him tomorrow, ask him what he was doing out on the Kulukak at that time of night. If it was him, maybe we can surprise an answer out of him.” He stood up and put his mug in the sink. “Now I'm hitting the rack, and I suggest you do the same.”

Prince handed her mug over without protest. “Sir-”

“It's Liam,” he reminded her, taking the mug.

“Is it okay if I bunk here for the night, Liam?”

“No.” He wasn't aware that he'd barked the word until he saw her flinch.

She nodded at the bunk opposite. “You've got the room, and as you know, I haven't had time to-”

“No. Well, I mean… well, I mean, no.”

“But-”

“I mean, no, you can't sleep here. I-it isn't a good idea. I don't-I can't-”

“But Liam-”

He realized, first, that he was babbling, and, second, that his forehead was beaded with sweat. He whipped around and slid the hatch back. “Goodnight, trooper.”

She sighed. “Goodnight, Liam.”

“Maybe you better call me sir after all.”

“All right,” she said, submissive. “Goodnight, sir.”

He gave her a sharp look. Submissive didn't seem quite in character for Trooper Diana Prince.

“Goodnight,” he said, and stood stiffly as she slid past him and up the stairs to the deck. Her hair nearly brushed his nose. It smelled good, some kind of fruity scent. He didn't want to be smelling her hair. He slid the hatch smartly closed behind her, and waited as the boat tilted and righted itself again as she stepped to the slip.

Some sound came to him a few moments later, which might have been that of muffled laughter, but it might also have been the sound of water lapping against the pilings. He went back to bed without trying to figure out which.

FOURTEEN

The next morning dawned early, like all summer mornings in the Bush. The sun would be officially up by six-fifteen, although it had been light out for hours before that. By the end of July they were losing four minutes and twenty-four seconds of daylight every day. You'd never know it by the extended sunrise.

The advantage was that there were very few times of day or night during the summer when you couldn't see your way down the path. It was a steep one, carved into the crumbling side of the bluff, a length of manila line looped between wooden posts the only thing between Wy and disaster. Some of the steps were large rocks, flat sides up, set into the dirt. Others were reinforced with scraps of wood left over from various building projects, onebytwelves, two-by-fours and one piece of metal grating. On normal days she rather enjoyed testing the limits, seeing how fast she could get down to the beach, but this morning she walked slowly, one hand just touching the rope, tapping each post with her fingertips as she passed it.

The mouth of the Nushagak opened before her, a wide stretch of water gray with glacial silt moving with stately deliberation between banks a mile apart. It formed part of the lifeblood of the Bay, along with the other hundred rivers of the area, providing the way home for salmon returning from the sea. It was, as well, the umbilical cord co

In her more fanciful moments, she thought of the river as a woman, old and infinitely wise, loving but stern, never capricious but never quite predictable, either. When she took a life, or lives, when she sucked down a skiff with swift gray intent, or opened a lead in her frozen winter face to swallow a snow machine, she had her reasons, good ones, and if those on shore were left to mourn, why, death was a part of life, after all, and that was the way of the world, and the river, to give and to take with the same hand.

The beach was a wide strip of gravel and sand littered with driftwood bleached white by time and tide. That driftwood made for wonderful fires, and Wy could see the smoke from several here and there. Fishermen out early for the first red of the day.

The closest one was right at the base of her cliff. The last step was a big one, twenty inches to the beach. She jumped it, landing both feet solidly in a patch of gravel that rattled loudly on impact.

The man feeding the fire didn't so much as turn around.

“I already practiced, old man,” she said to his back.

“I know,” he said. “I saw you on my way down.”

“Oh.” She hesitated, and then moved forward to sit next to the fire, a little apart from him.

They contemplated the flames in silence. The weight of the river pulled at the banks, tangling in its current here a downed spruce, there an empty skiff that had slipped its mooring. A river otter chittered at her young where a creek flowed into the river. An eagle soared overhead, causing a flock of ducks and half-grown ducklings clustered at the edge of the water to fall silent. The tide was out, revealing the muddy banks of the river and the goose grass growing there. The water was half salt, half fresh, and the marsh on the Delta supported a rich and varied avian lifestyle. The ducks were fattening nicely, and both Moses and the eagle eyed them with approval. When the last salmon had made its run up the river, the ducks and the geese would be next on the menu.

Wy looked at Moses. He wore a dreamy expression, one she didn't see often, one he did not permit to show through his usual cantankerous crust. His mouth, usually held in a disapproving line, was relaxed, caught in a half-smile. He seemed to be remembering something pleasant. It didn't happen often, and she didn't try to interrupt.

He looked up suddenly and caught her eyes in his. “Are you angry when it rains? Do you blame God?”

“Blame?” she said, puzzled. “Who's to blame? The weather's the weather. It happens.”

A light, brief shower of raindrops fell on her hair and she looked up, startled. There were clouds overhead, big, cottony cumulus clouds not heavy enough with moisture to shed any of it. Had they been there when she came down the bank?