Deep in the Alaskan Woods

by Karen Harper

  As someone went out through the back door, Alex could hear the buzz of conversation and a strumming guitar outside. The scent of delicious smoke wafted in as she picked up Spenser, opened the back door and went out.

  About ten yards back behind the small crowd was a log cabin that must be the gift shop she would oversee. It was charming, with a large front window that displayed items that were too far away to make out right now. The wooden sign said Gifts and More.

  Most people—maybe twenty some, a mix of men and women—were standing around the grilling site, talking and laughing. Some held beer bottles, some glasses and some cups. A few of them looked at her, nodded or smiled, so she mouthed “hi” and smiled back.

  She noted a man with what looked like an expensive movie camera slung under one arm, a bottle of beer in his other hand. He was short but rugged-looking, and at least he wasn’t shooting the scene. Maybe her cousins had hired someone for publicity.

  At that man’s shoulder was a petite, striking blonde who seemed out of place and yet her appearance screamed, Look at me! She should have been onstage—maybe in front of that camera—with her heavy makeup and long, blond corkscrew hair that must have taken hours to style. Unlike the other casually dressed people, she wore a leather jacket belted around her shapely body with knee-high boots to match. She seemed to be almost hanging on the guy.

  It made Alex realize she’d have to keep an eye on that camera. No way she wanted to be in anyone’s online pics or even on local TV. Of course, it was a million-to-one chance Lyle could ever locate her that way, but weirder things had happened.

  She saw, too, that the young couple was now hovering with an older man who didn’t quite fit the scene, either. Though he wore jeans and a casual plaid shirt, something about him seemed formal. He was a silver-haired guy around sixty, she guessed, and wore glasses that seemed to become a bit darker when he moved from the shade to sun. Those designer glasses and some large gold jewelry—rings and a big watch—also made him seem out of place here.

  Actually, that man might be studying her, too, but she wasn’t sure because of his dark glasses.

  The barbecue pit wasn’t what she had expected, either. About twelve large salmon, splayed, skin side out, were spitted on sharp, sturdy sticks that encircled a silvery ember-and-wood fire. A man with his black hair pulled back in a ponytail was basting the fish. Beyond were two long tables covered with green and white checkered oilcloth loaded with covered dishes, stacks of plates and glasses of what looked like iced tea—no, maybe iced coffee.

  She spotted one of her cousins among the guests. Tears blinded her at first, and she blinked them back. Was that Suze or Meg? She was going to have to learn to tell them apart by their hair. Oh, there was Chip, pulling on his mother’s light blue shirt and asking her something, so that must be Meg.

  Meg saw her, too, and said something to Suze, who was placing casserole dishes on the table. They both rushed her with Chip not far behind. The boy had a round face, sandy hair and freckles. When he smiled, she saw his adult front teeth were coming in.

  “Oh, thank God, you’re here safe!” Meg cried, and hugged her first with Spenser pressed between them, still on his best behavior not to growl or bark. Maybe he sensed they were among friends and family, that—for now—they had come home.

  Suze got in the group hug, then they peppered her with questions. Others stopped and turned to look. Rather than stare, they applauded, and several came closer for introductions, not shaking hands but giving her high fives, so she figured that was the custom here. A few of them who had obviously already had a few beers gave her what they called “the moose salute.” Thumbs in ears, palms forward, fingers stiff to look like antlers. Chip kept doing it, too, laughing so hard he doubled over. The woman with the cameraman just rolled her eyes as if this was all so dumb, but Alex didn’t feel that way.

  So much to learn. So many new people, new ways.

  As the rush of welcoming strangers blurred by, only a few stood out right away.

  “This is Sam Spruce, jack-of-all-trades, a partner in the tracking camp down the road,” Meg said of the man who had been overseeing the salmon bake. “And this is his brother, Josh, who helps at the lodge and the tracking camp.”

  “Wherever, whatever,” Josh said with a little shrug.

  The brothers resembled each other except that Josh had a tattoo of a whale on the left side of his neck, so no trouble telling those two apart.

  Sam gestured to a tall man standing nearby and told her, “This is my boss and partner. Suze said you work with herbs, Alex. This guy can fix gourmet food out of herbs in the wilds—knows more wild plants and which ones to survive on than I do.”

  Suze put in, “Alex, this is our distant neighbor—not distant in person, just down the road a ways—Quinn Mantell, alias Q-Man.”

  Their eyes met and held. Oh, he was the dark-haired, tall man from their website, but he’d shaved his beard. He was the first guest who didn’t high-five her but took her hand. His was big, warm and calloused. She had just the hand cream for him, but men hardly ever used it because the scent could be considered feminine. This man smelled of pine and fresh air and—well, masculinity. And they had said he knew herbs, at least in the wild. She felt her cheeks flush as she gently pulled her hand back. She had to say something and not just stare.

  “I saw your picture and the thanks to you on the lodge website,” she told him. “If you managed to bring the internet here, you are the local patron saint.”

  “Oh, I’m no saint,” he said, and smiled so that his green eyes nearly crinkled shut as he reached over to scratch Spenser between his ears. “What’s your buddy’s name here? I had a Scottie when I was growing up.”

  Quinn frowned as though that were a bad memory, but he was the first person who had mentioned or touched Spenser. No yelps, no growls.

  “Salmon’s almost done!” Sam announced to everyone. “Come on, Josh—need some help.” Though Josh didn’t look too happy about it, they went back to basting each large piece of fish and touching the skin of it, as if that were the thermometer.

  Spenser’s nose twitched at the smell of the fish. She didn’t dare put him down right now.

  Introductions went on. It turned out the cameraman was just that, a guy named Chris Ryker from New York who was the videographer for Quinn’s cable TV show. He went by his last name, they said. Luckily, she’d heard Quinn tell him to stow the camera for now. The actress-looking blonde with him was Val Chambers from Los Angeles. Maybe she worked behind the scenes for Quinn’s show. And the older man they’d been with was a New York lawyer somehow connected with the show, by the name of Brent Bayer. He seemed content to just watch rather than come over to be introduced. Other names blurred by.

  Meg said, “Listen, let’s get you inside, give you a chance to wash up first. Chip decided to call you Aunt Alex, and he’ll take you and Spenser to your room. After we eat, we’ll help unpack the truck. You did drive a truck, didn’t you?” she asked in a softer voice.

  “With all I needed for this new life, you bet. Thanks, Chip.”

  Quinn was still standing there, watching, listening. “I must admit,” she said, “I feel like the proverbial new kid on the block.”

  “You’re better than a new kid,” he said, his deep voice softer than before, “but there’s a lot to learn. You’ll find folks friendly and willing to help.”

  Their eyes met and held before she nodded, smiled and turned away. As she followed Chip back into the lodge and down the hall, asking him where he went to school, she didn’t feel afraid anymore, just totally intrigued. Surely she could make this wilderness lodge and this small frontier-type town she’d driven quickly past as well as these new people and this vast land, at least for now, her home.

  5

  Quinn got up with the sun at about 6:30 a.m., thinking he’d overslept. No, he was okay. They were between groups of students here
at the tracking camp. A new group arrived in a few days, ages ranging from twenty-one to sixty-five from two countries besides the US this time. Two weeks later, a smaller advanced bunch. Then more survivor training after the first big snow fell.

  Today he had to pick up Geoff, his cable TV producer, at the airport. They were going to map out the next series of shows. If he could pry his video guy away from Val, he’d have Ryker sit in on the planning session, too. Ryker loved this job, loved being out in nature, and his big-city girlfriend was a real distraction. Wait until Geoff, who had hired Ryker, saw Val hanging all over him. She’d already talked Ryker into renting a B and B room for both of them in town instead of his bunking here, but they could work around that.

  Quinn took a cold shower fast—one of the drawbacks of this place was no hot water unless you boiled it. He got dressed in clean jeans and a new shirt and ambled over to the mess hall where Sam would probably be making pancakes. Sam’s wife, Mary, was sleeping in since she’d felt queasy enough to miss the salmon bake. Besides, she had a few days off from providing the early chow line for students.

  The main four buildings, one on each corner of the three-acre grounds, included his two-bedroom log cabin; Sam and Mary’s, which was the same size; the storage structure; and the larger dining and lecture hall, which could seat up to forty. Behind the lecture hall in the even thicker spruce and alder trees were two bunkhouses, a fairly large one for men and a smaller one for women because relatively fewer came to the camp.

  The two homes on-site were cozy but basic, and the bunkhouses even more so with the bucket showers and Port-a-Johns outside, whereas the two cabins had flush toilets and septic tanks. It was roughing it for sure, but luxurious compared to being out on the trail or tracking in the forests around here.

  “Morning,” Quinn said to Sam, who was bent over the big stove, stirring something. Quinn hit the kitchen refrigerator for orange juice, then got a cup of coffee from the urn. “You’re a nice guy, you know, to fill in for Mary so she can sleep late. How’s she feeling?”

  “So far, so good. So, you ever gonna find a woman out here in the boondocks—which we both know is paradise on earth.”

  Quinn had to laugh. “Don’t start on lovelorn advice for me. You sound like my mother. Who would want a guy who lives mostly in the Alaskan bush—alternating with a New York hotel or my mother’s New Jersey condo now and then?”

  “How ’bout one of them sisters at the lodge?”

  “Would you give it a rest, Sam? No sparks fly, just friendship,” he muttered, and downed the juice and then had some coffee. “Hey, where are the pancakes, my man?”

  “Steel-cut oatmeal’s good for you,” Sam said, putting two steaming bowls of it on the table. “I threw in some raisins like Mary does. Beats granola bars, pemmican and all those plants and stuff you eat out on the trail.”

  Sam and Mary Spruce were Quinn’s closest friends here. Sam’s father had been a trapper in the area for years. Trapper Jake had taught both men when they were young everything they knew about tracking and survival in the wilds, whatever the season. Like Quinn’s father, Jake was gone now, but Sam and Q-Man not only carried on the special knowledge of tracking and wilderness survival, but were now sharing it through Quinn’s books and cable show.

  More than once, Sam had tried to teach his younger brother, Josh, some of the skills he had been taught by their father, but Josh wanted no part of it, even to escape doing odd jobs here and at the lodge. Trapper Jake had been puzzled and hurt that Josh was not interested. With the internet now available here, Josh had become an online gamer, even made money that way to supplement his salaries from the camp and the lodge.

  Josh lived above the barbershop in town, though he camped out in warm weather and didn’t want to stay with Sam and Mary. Maybe Josh was just a loner, not unusual in the wilds of Alaska.

  “Eat up, man,” Sam said. “Got to keep your strength up for the new bunch coming in. You working on a new book, too?”

  “That I am.”

  Quinn’s books on tracking skills and his occasional assistance finding missing persons brought many to the camp to learn basic skills. Some students from as far away as Japan and Austria flew into Anchorage and paid hefty fees for lectures and on-the-field training. Some came back for the advanced classes. Quinn and Sam believed such knowledge, especially in an increasingly digital world, was as essential to the human spirit as any other heritage or history.

  “So,” Sam said, stirring maple syrup into his oatmeal, “you didn’t take the bait about the new lady at the lodge. What did you think of her?”

  “My friend, I do not need you for a dating service. She’s Meg and Suze’s cousin from near Chicago, come to visit and run the lodge gift shop. That’s it.”

  “Oh, yeah, the same gift shop you told me last night you’d be glad to drop off some of our DVDs instead of my doing it this time. Not that many folks just happen to pass through Falls Lake in general, ’less they want to scuba dive the lake to look at the lost pioneer village. I swear, after all these years, I wish Mary would get over losing her grandparents there. But hey, I saw you watching the city girl, Alex. You think she’s running from something?”

  “Isn’t everyone?”

  “Never mind trying to get me off track. You’re busted, man. You liked the looks of her.”

  “She seemed...friendly but wary. Intriguing for that reason, that’s all.”

  Quinn was glad Sam finally cut the conversation as they downed their breakfast and more coffee, then went back to what Quinn’s dad used to call “shooting the breeze.” They discussed what topics might be good to suggest to their cable TV producer, Geoff Baldwin, who was bringing his wife, Ginger, with him this time since the weather was still warm. They were glad he was bringing his wife rather than sending Brent Bayer back again. His lawyer and top investor, Brent, was a control freak.

  Mary came in, looking tousled, her long, reddish hair loose instead of pulled back into a ponytail. She patted Quinn on the shoulder and kissed Sam’s cheek, then dished out oatmeal for herself. They were a happy pair, though he knew they wanted children, who did not seem to appear.

  Quinn admired their marriage. They reminded him of his parents before the tragedy. Solid, but a bit spicy.

  “So,” Mary asked, her green eyes riveted on Quinn, “Sam says there was a pretty, single new guest visiting her cousins at the lodge. What did you think of her? I hear you chatted her up some. Don’t know why all three of those girls are still single.”

  “No playing matchmaker,” Quinn warned, pointing a finger at her. “Your better—I mean, your worse—half has already tried.”

  She just gave him a smug little smile. Maybe they’d been talking about that last night. Pillow talk. Had he been so obvious? Not to Alex Collister, he hoped.

  “What, am I being tracked by both of you?” he challenged, raising his voice. “Gonna put me under surveillance to be sure I behave—or don’t?”

  “I know all about striking a match and causing instant flame and fire,” Mary countered, ignoring his phony bluster. “It was that way between me and Sam from the first. I’ll check her out myself, but Sam and I rest our case.” She rolled her eyes, then went back to drinking coffee.

  “Both of you have been working too hard and you’re losing it, so I’m glad we have a few days off,” Quinn said, rising. “When Geoff and Ginger get here, we have better—serious—things to talk about.”

  He washed his dishes with a scrub brush in cold water and headed for the door. He was going to stop to pick up those DVDs of the most recent Tracker Q-Man TV seasons and drop them off at the lodge gift shop.

  * * *

  “Everyone was so nice to pitch in last night to unload my truck,” Alex told Suze as they stood in the Gifts and More log cabin after breakfast. Suze had just spent an hour going over the business end of things here: using the cash register, keeping inventory, sto
ring and ordering supplies.

  On his leash, Spenser followed tight to Alex’s heels on the rough flagstone path as he had ever since their arrival—except when he was cavorting with Chip or trying to dig in flower beds. Scottish terriers were bred to root out rabbits and even rats. “It took no time at all,” she added, “and these boxes of my herbal products they put in here are heavy.”

  “You’ll find it’s all for one and one for all in this community when there’s a problem or task. Here’s one of the two keys to this building for you to keep,” Suze said, extending what looked like an old skeleton key. “Despite the unpopulated area, I’d lock it if you come in for a restroom break, to eat or whatever. We advertise in town, but most of our guests are our lodgers or guys who are here for the tracking and survival school.”

  “I figured they’d be kept really busy there—classroom and field trips, so to speak.”

  “Oh, guess I didn’t tell you. It starts in a couple of days, but students often come early and sometimes stay late, either here or at a couple of B and Bs in town. They have only cold water at the camp unless they boil it. Even Quinn, Sam and his wife, Mary, come in for hot showers sometimes, so we keep one room at the end of your hall for that. Their camp staff lives mostly in town, so they have gas heat and septic tanks like we do here. Listen, I have to make some phone calls, then zip into town for supplies. I’ll take you with me next time, introduce you around, but I know you want to put things to rights here.”

  “I do. Thanks for everything. I hope to open up this afternoon or definitely tomorrow so you can mention that in town or in the lodge. I’ll just make a handwritten sign for my beauty products and display them in that corner there. I’ll use that old door on top of the barrel you showed me out back to make a rustic display. I’ll add some flowers or plants to soften the effect. I was really thrilled to see you have a great growing season here with the cool-weather pansies and asters.”