“My deepest condolences,” he says, embracing Travis. Grayson hangs back, looking like he wants to punch Wyatt.
“Thanks for coming.”
Wyatt presents Travis with a bottle of whiskey. “Only thing I could think of to bring.”
“It’s kind of you, Wyatt.”
“Deputy,” Wyatt says, extending his hand. Grayson gives a half shake. “I apologize for any words we had before.”
“I’m gonna check on Stu,” Grayson says, spinning out of the room.
“He’s tough with new people,” Travis says.
“He’s a horse’s ass.” A pause fills the space between them.
“How was the funeral?” Wyatt asks, and then punches his skull. “What an insensitive question. I’m sorry.”
“No, Father Clayton did a great job. It was…I think we’re all at peace from it. Talked about Papa’s legacy and being a part of so much history.”
“All that he must have seen in his lifetime,” Wyatt says. “Makes me proud.”
“How so?”
Wyatt doubles back. “That someone can live such a long life.”
“He would’ve been tickled to know about the gold we found,” Travis says. “I knew I had prospecting in my blood, since I believe his father tried at some point.”
“I want to transfer it to money.”
“Sure, I can do that for you at the bank. Since I’m guessing you don’t have any ID?”
“Thank you, Trav. And I’ll be moving into a new place soon. No need to stay in the abandoned storefront.”
Callie pops inside. “We’re already out of pizza. The Mills’s brood came with their six kids. Oh, hi Wyatt.”
“Ma’am, I am so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Wyatt. Travis, help me.”
“Sure thing, babe.” Travis puts down the beer and grabs a few boxes of pizza from the fridge.
“Those kids’ll eat it cold,” Callie says. “Excuse us, Wyatt.”
Trav leaves with Callie, and Wyatt stands there alone in their kitchen. The smell of the family permeating. He breathes them in like a drug, then unscrews the whiskey cap and takes a nip, as Grayson swings back inside.
“I have your number,” Grayson says, pointing with his beer bottle.
“Don’t understand what that means.”
“What do you want from the Barlows? Always hanging around like a leech.”
“Their friendship.”
“Bull honkey. You’re after something more. A lawman can tell. What’s your last name?”
“My last…” Wyatt goes to say Barlow, his true surname, but holds his tongue. Had he made up one before when he first met Grayson at Elson’s? He doesn’t remember. “Killian,” he says.
“Wyatt Killian? What the fuck kind of name is that?”
“The only one my daddy gave me,” Wyatt says, bumping Grayson with his chest.
“You got a problem with that?”
Grayson makes a gun with his thumb and index finger. “I’m gonna check you out. See who you really are.”
Grayson exits the kitchen, not allowing Wyatt any type of comeback. He’s aware Grayson could prove a problem, should he go digging. At some point, he must tell Trav the truth of how they’re connected. Soon, in fact. He has to find the right way to broach the topic, but it’s better if he explains rather than Grayson warning Trav that Wyatt Killian doesn’t exist. He’s worked too hard to live for it all to blow up.
The main room filled with people now. He overhears stories of Papa, people working to keep his memory alive. Stu’s in a chair, cold beer in hand, others are talking to him but his eyes show he’s not present. Wyatt wants to tell him he’s lost a father but found a great-grandfather. However, this is not the right time. In fact, he seems to be creating more strife here than if he leaves, so he does, quietly out the screen door, past the dog house where Chinook nibbles on a bone, into the forest which comforts him with its silence, rounding him whole again.
43
Spring in Laner means hundreds of migratory birds returning to their breeding and nest-ing grounds. The sight of them pouring in after months of its residents encased in ice proves revelatory. But this spring has lower temperatures than usual so the birds don’t flock until closer to summer when the uptick in heat combined with the nonstop midnight sun warms the Bearing Sea to a tropical feel—for Alaska. Even the town’s biggest her-mits can appreciate the greenery, the budding of flowers, the way the sun uplifts. Summer is Laner’s true rebirth, and no one experiences this more than Travis Barlow—at first.
Plunging into the legwork to get his business up and running, Travis spends sixteen-hour days on the abandoned goods store he’s turning into his fish shack, The Goldmine.
Wyatt had moved to a tiny house with the gold they found and once Travis exchanged his share, he had eighty-eight thousand dollars to sink into the restaurant. He finds some part-time contractors recommended by Elson to do the heavy lifting. A good majority he does on his own, wanting to outlay as little money as possible, since his newfound savings are depleting fast. Anyone who likens owning a restaurant to a loveless marriage sure have it right; the shack takes, takes, takes, and has yet to give. The hours at home are spent fretting over the licenses he needs to obtain, hiring a cook, a waiting staff, setting up a menu, a website, fixing a leak in the basement. The sheer number of boxes that have to be checked never seem to end. Even sleep brings fitful dreams full of more problems, and when he wakes up gagging in the middle of the night, Callie is ready to call quits on the whole venture.
While initially supportive, Callie soon becomes a single parent since Travis assumes that opening a business means he could shirk all other responsibilities. It’s not like she isn’t on her feet all day and the last thing she wants to do is to chase Eli around rather than take a bubble bath with a joint. Initially, Travis seems so excited that she can’t say anything, but soon, he turns more miserable than when he wasn’t working at all. One night after he wakes up choking, she speaks to the ceiling about her fears, and while the ceiling listens, Travis takes offense and starts sleeping on the couch. The sex between them has already dwindled, but the idea of not having him close, even smelling his fogged breath first thing in the morning, bolsters a depression she can’t shake. On the outside, she’s still the same strong Callie, but inside, her wires no longer connect. She wonders if they ever will again.
Wyatt starts showing up to the Pizza Joint every day on his lunch break. He still washes dishes at Elson’s despite their windfall—his money going into renting a house, a wardrobe of new clothes, and saving the rest since he isn’t foolish enough to believe they’ll ever find gold again. The local paper runs a story about the two friends striking it rich up by Anvil Creek where settlers from a hundred years ago sought their own fortunes. For a few weeks, everyone in town have their names on their lips. Soon others travel into the
wilderness, none finding any treasures. It’s considered a fluke, and while some remain jealous, talk soon dies down.
Wyatt figures his upward mobility would finally bring happiness, but the idea that he’ll never find gold again—the well tapped dry—messes with him. It had proved a distraction from missing his wife and child, now they plague even more. While Trav has fitful nights, Wyatt’s are worse. He dreams of his family vividly, loses them in mornings.
Feels them aching, the guilt a steady throb. From the letter he had Kaawishté send, Adalaide’s final thoughts of him were that he gave her up for gold, since he lied about his success. It would have been better to simply believe he perished. He’d forever be punished because of his lies.
Callie and Eli become replacements again. With Trav so busy, Wyatt rarely sees his old friend unless he goes to the abandoned store, and even then, Trav rarely has time.
Wyatt offers to help, but the tools used are too modern and he finds himself lost. Trav never outright says to not come by, but his body language becomes clear so Wyatt supplements the lunch break he used to help Trav by going t
o Pizza Joint instead. Callie waits on him even when he isn’t technically her table, and the two begin talking. Normal chit-chat at first, but it’s clear something has been bothering her and eventually she speaks about Travis being absent, how it’s taking a toll and she needs a break. They talk about California and it seems like she wants to go back there, if just for a little bit. Wyatt pushes her toward this, wondering if time away from Trav might unsettle their relationship even more. He doesn’t want to break them up—well, that’s not true—he does, but wants it to seem organic, and for her to come running to him. If Trav won’t appreciate her, he could. So he listens at those lunches, rarely speaks of his own sorrows. He tries staying with Aylen more, except Tohopka has returned and always makes him feel uncomfortable. Aylen says she never enjoys sleeping in his new house because she’s used to the settlement, and on the nights she does, they fight often. It boils down to her being a poor replacement for Adalaide. There’s little of his wife in this woman, while Callie radiates more of his past than he can sometimes stand.
Stu stays steeped in the past as well. First with Bobby, now Papa, both deaths not entirely settling. Stu wanted to solve Bobby’s murder while Papa was still alive, show his father that his life’s calling had not been for naught. Papa sometimes remarked that the sheriff of a tiny town like Laner spent too much of the day veering moose off the road and drunks back into their homes. Papa’s life had been insular for so long that he wasn’t aware of dangers that existed on the edges of Laner, which had darkened in the past decade. He refused to believe that Stu actually did real police work. So Stu finds himself seeking out that danger, spending nights amongst the underbelly without any backup.
Grayson is too far up his own ass to notice Stu’s descent while becoming a regular at Raye’s and pining over Lorinda by sometimes standing out of her apartment singing “In Your Eyes” at the end of a bender. He only stops when she threatens to file a restraining order.
While Cora feigns sleep and worries about her husband, imagining all kinds of gruesome outcomes that could arrive with a knock on the door. She throws herself into pickling like she did before taking care of Papa became a full-time profession, until she runs out of places to store the jars.
So it’s summer, but a lot of the residents of Laner behave as if it’s still winter: cold and isolated, melancholy and morose, with no hope that the sun could part the clouds.
44
In the kitchen, Stu shakes his head at the sheer amount of vegetables Cora pickles. Radishes and turnips, gingers, and something that looks like severed pinkies. He’s finished his regular shift and Cora went to bed after watching an old episode of Murder She Wrote. He loads his gun, sticks it in the holster, and munches on some vinegary bites in each jar until he’s full. There’s a poker game happening in the basement of a house on the outskirts. Even though he owes the guy who runs the game a shit ton of money for the last five times he lost, he begs to be invited again hoping this time someone connected to the heroin trade might be at the table. A start to getting closer to any connections to Bobby. He wears a cap low over his eyes and uses Cora’s Hyundai so as not to arouse suspicion. This man’s house is in the middle of the woods, not a soul around to hear any screams. He could use this to his advantage if need be. The basement smells of water damage, but the stakes are higher than the surroundings might reveal. Thousands of dollars in the pot.
The game is run by a Russian ex-pat named Grigory, a trunk of a man with a dark mustache like a brush, tiny dots for eyes, and puffed-out cheeks. He speaks in a thick accent, his expression never revealing his poker hands. Three others at the table. A Native American barely older than a teenager, but not one Stu recognizes from the settlement, not the one he’s been searching for. None of the other players will recognize Stu either, since Grigory’s place is past the border and not in his jurisdiction. The two others are brothers from Nome. They’ve been at games before. Big spenders who wear fur coats, smoke thin cigars, and sport sunglasses indoors like they’re celebrities in hiding.
“We’re waiting for the sixth,” Grigory says, taking a sip of brown liquor. He offers it to Stu, but Stu always declines. “Also, do you have my money in case you lose?”
The fur-wearing brothers snicker.
“I got you covered,” Stu says, slapping his pocket with a wallet protruding as if it actually holds the ten-or-so-thousand he owes.
“Pass me one of those cigars,” Grigory says, his voice sounding like he’s gargling. He clips off the end. “That will be your dick if I don’t get what’s due.”
The fur-wearing brothers guffaw and even the Native American boy chuckles. Stu laughs as well to fit in but stops as he hears mice scurrying in the walls.
“Don’t mind them,” Grigory says. “They eat up the dead bodies I keep behind the dry wall.”
“I don’t have all night,” Stu says, his hand floating toward the gun, seeing how fast it’ll take him to line up a shot and kill the ringleader. But who is this man’s boss? He must find out even if it destroys him in the process.
“Patience, my pet,” Grigory says, puffing away.
The door at the top of the stairs swings open and an unruly light shines in. The sound of feet walking down the creaky stairs. Darkness shades the owner of the body until he reaches the table. Tohopka, who ran out on him that time at the settlement when he knocked on his trailer to ask questions. They’ve never been this close to one another before.
Stu’s first instinct to charge at the guy, stick the gun in his face, and make him spill any names. But no telling who else at the table might be packing, so it’s best to hold off doing anything impulsive.
“Tohopka,” Grigory says, as Tohopka nods.
They begin playing. Stu winning some early hands: a full house, a flush. He finds that Grigory enjoys it when others think they have the upper hand. Then Grigory strikes. Stu will use the early rounds as a time to gather information.
“I don’t know if this is the right crowd,” Stu begins, the baseball cap kept even lower over his eyes so he won’t reveal any nervousness. “Lookin’ to purchase some tar, if anyone knows a hook-up.”
The fur-wearing brothers tilt their chins at each other, clearly in the know. Except they come from Nome, not the ring he’s after. Let the bigtime police force deal with their own mess. The Native American boy looks clueless, no different than how he appears during every hand. But Tohopka has a connection. A band of sweat drips from his forehead.
“Don’t know what you mean,” Grigory says, petting his mustache. “This tar you speak of.” “H,” Stu replies. “Heard there was a main seller in the area.”
“And where you from exactly?” Grigory asks, eyeing Stu over his cards.
“Bismol,” Stu says, a town about twenty minutes west. Nothing much there except for an Eskimo settlement and a petroleum plant.
“Ah, work at the plant?”
“Yes, sir,” Stu says.
“And you’re looking for a little…vacation?”
“Sure am.”
“’Fraid I can’t help you,” Grigory says, raising his voice as if a microphone listens.
“Got no business in drugs. Never had. Now can we play cards?”
The rest of the table agrees, but Tohopka watches Stu differently. Does he realize he knows this man but is unsure how?
“Tohopka, I believe it’s your turn,” Grigory says.
Tohopka pushes a chip forward.
“What about you?” Stu flat-out asks Tohopka, who twitches in response. “Who’s your supplier?”
“How do you know he uses?” one of the brothers asks.
“Can tell from the fat black sacks under his eyes,” Stu says. “Dead giveaway.”
“I might,” Tohopka says, his voice a peep.
“Would give you a finder’s fee.”
Tohopka tugs at his lip. “That so?”
“No,” Grigory says, waving his hands like a conductor. “When you come here, you here to play, not make side deals. Do that on yo
ur own time.” He gestures to one of the brothers to bet.
“I know you from somewhere,” Tohopka whispers. He goes to reach for his gun, but second guesses and flips the table instead. Chips and cards are launched to the sky while Tohopka makes a run for it up the stairs.
“What the hell?” Grigory shouts, as Stu whips out his gun and charges after.
“Stay right here,” Stu yells. “The police are on the way and it’s best if you all comply.”
His bum leg burns as he runs, the pain shooting up his thigh with each stair. He radios in backup, giving the coordinates as best he can since the house is camouflaged by the woods. Once he’s outside, it’s impossible to see far ahead of him. The moonlight obscured by clouds. He freezes, listening for any movement. A twig snaps and he pursues the sound, but when he arrives at the spot, only darkness awaits along with a pair of boots. Tohopka has gone barefoot to mute his footsteps. A rush of wind circles, masking any chance to pick up more movements. Faintly in the distance, he hears someone scurrying away. But they’re already too far. He’s forty years Tohopka’s senior and doesn’t stand a chance.
“Fuck,” he shouts, creating an echo. He can still hear it in the trees, shifting throughout the woods.
Backup arrives about a half hour later. Grayson along with two other police officers, Cole and Bickley, two guys who recently joined the force barely out of school. Stu monitored the front door with his pistol trained, but no one emerged from the basement. They were smart to listen because he would’ve shot to maim.
It’s three in the morning once they take the rest of the table down to the station. Cole and Bickley brew muddy coffees and then get to grilling. The Native American boy weeps and offers nothing. The brothers act cool, having been through this questioning before. They call their lawyers and refuse to talk. Stu requests to be alone with Grigory.
“I assume this means I am not getting my money,” Grigory says, fishing for a cigarette and having a hard time being in handcuffs.
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