Sybilla, on her best society dame manners, said, “What do you do, dear?”
“I’m a pilot.”
The martini, which was disappearing fast, paused midway. “You fly airplanes?”
“Yes.”
Sybilla nodded her head at Wy’s glass. “No consumption of alcohol within eight hours of flying.”
“Yes.”
“I will feel that much more safe when I fly with you, my dear. Do you work for an air taxi, or are you freelance?”
“Both, now, I guess. I owned my own air taxi in Newenham before we moved here. I’m basically on call for now.” Only to the state of Alaska so far, but flight hours were billable hours no matter who she was in the air for.
“You owned your own business?” Something snapped together behind Sybilla’s eyes and she became suddenly far more present. “What was your annual gross?”
Wy answered that and other questions about net income, expenses, insurance, depreciation, amortization, and taxes as best she could without her files in front of her. In the end Sybilla was pleased to give an approving nod. “Well done, my dear, well done, indeed. You sold it when you moved here, you said?”
“I did.”
“Profitably, I hope.”
Wy straightened in her chair. “Of course.”
Sybilla signaled the waiter, addressed him by name, and ordered another martini. He looked at Wy and she shook her head. “Do you mean to start another business here in Blewestown?”
“I don’t know,” Wy said. “Not right away, at any rate.”
“Thinking of starting a family, are you?”
It didn’t matter what she said to this old lady, who would very probably forget it before lunch was over. Wy told her the truth. “No. I’m infertile.”
Sybilla nodded. “I see. And how does your husband feel about that?”
“He says he’s okay with it.” As usual, whenever Wy thought about it, she wondered if it was true. “We have one son, adopted.”
Sybilla’s third martini arrived. Her hand was steady and her diction was perfect. Maybe octogenarian livers, having stood up under all their hosts could throw at them for that long, were impervious to further abuse. “I didn’t have children, either, but in my case it was by choice. I had a good voice and a talent for business and, god knows, Alaska during the pipeline years was the place to make money. If you knew how, and I did. Customers would come in after nine weeks on the line, deposit an entire paycheck with the bartender, and drink until it was gone.”
Wy had heard the stories. “Were they ever unhappy when they sobered up?”
Sybilla raised her eyebrows. “Some were, yes, but they were all over twenty-one. If they wanted to party in my club and they could afford to do so, I was happy to oblige.”
Wy laughed. As she knew from long experience of the Bristol Bay fishery, there was no easier task than separating young men from their money. “And your husband?”
“I didn’t meet Stanley until I was in my forties.” Sybilla smiled at Wy over the rim of her glass, mischief in her eyes. “He came into Barney’s one evening and never left.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Every woman should have that experience at least once.” Sybilla sighed reminiscently. “He was so handsome, my Stanley, and so very… determined.” Her voice layered that last word with meaning. She smiled to herself and Wy could plainly see the vibrant, laughing ghost of the younger woman reflected in the older woman’s eyes. “Much like your Liam, I should think. Not the kind of men to take no for an answer.” She quirked an eyebrow in Wy’s direction. “I’m all for women’s lib or whatever we are calling it nowadays, but oh my. There is something to be said for a man who wants what he wants and won’t stop until he gets it.”
“What happened to Stanley?”
“We had seven glorious years. And then he died. A drunk driver. At eight o’clock in the morning, can you imagine?” A sigh. “I sold the club and our house and moved to Blewestown.”
“Why Blewestown?”
“Stanley designed and built the road here, for one thing. We spent a great deal of time here together. It was a way to remain close to him. And my brother lives here, and he’s my only family, so I thought…”
“Is your brother still—here?” Wy said delicately.
Sybilla’s mouth pulled down. “Oh yes, he’s still here. Not that we see much of each other.”
Not by Sybilla’s choice, Wy deduced, and thought dark thoughts about the brother. Their food arrived, and it was hot and good if unremarkable and Wy was hungry. So was Sybilla, who had cleaned her plate as if she were eight instead of eighty. “What’s for dessert, Wayne?” she said when the server returned.
He rattled off the selections and Sybilla chose the molten chocolate cake and Wy coffee with cream. Sybilla wanted to know what it was like, running an air taxi, and Wy beguiled her with stories of flying the mail to remote communities with airstrips like rock gardens and no flight service so dropping a half-used roll of toilet paper out the window to determine wind speed and direction was standard practice. Not to mention the inevitable curmudgeons who were annoyed that women, who had no business with their feet on the rudders in the first place, were entrusted with ferrying the You-Ess Mail. “That is to say, the ones who didn’t propose marriage before I took off again.”
Sybilla laughed delightedly. “How very flattering!”
“Not flattering at all. Golda Meir would have looked good to those guys.”
“Oh my dear, the adventures you have had! How perfectly marvelous! Alaska has always been good at that, you know, at giving women an equal shot at whatever job was going. Mostly I think because there were so few people here to begin with, businesses were happy to hire anyone with a pulse. I had no trouble raising a loan to build my club.” She winked at Wy. “Of course, it didn’t hurt that the bank president had a reserved table down in front every Saturday night.”
No, indeed.
Wayne brought the check and Sybilla gained her feet with some effort but her steps were perfectly steady on the way back to the car, even down the stairs in too-big shoes. Wy could only marvel. Three martinis would have put her on the floor and the next morning would not have been pretty. Sybilla’s really was the Greatest Generation.
When they turned on Alder and drove past the trooper post, they saw a young woman unlocking the door. “Oh, there’s that nice young Petroff girl. Such a shame about her father. I wonder if she knew him?”
Evidently Sybilla’s cognitive issue had kicked back in. Wy made a noncommittal murmur.
“Such a handsome young man, once he lost his puppy fat. All the girls after him, one could easily understand how it happened. Still, people can be so unkind. They were both in my class, you know.”
Wy stopped at the stop sign. “What class?”
“Oh my dear, didn’t I mention? I taught music and voice at the high school after I moved down here.” She sighed. “So much tragedy for one family.”
They pulled up in front of Sunset Heights, and the attendant, whom Wy now knew as Liz, came out to assist Sybilla from the Forester. It was high enough that it was a little matter of her swinging her legs over the side and sliding. She smoothed down her skirt and beamed at Wy. “What a lovely afternoon! What was your name again, dear?”
“Wy,” Wy said. “Wyanet Chouinard.”
“Wyanet, of course, dear. You’ll come to tea one afternoon soon, won’t you?”
“It would be my pleasure, Sybilla, thank you.”
Liz made a signal for Wy to wait and ushered Sybilla inside. Wy was checking her phone when she emerged again to knock on the passenger side window. “Thank you,” she said when Wy rolled down the window.
“What for?”
“First for the rescue and repatriation and then for the lunch.”
“I enjoyed it.”
“Come again, won’t you? Most of our residents would be all the better for visits from friends and family.”
“She’s the
first friend I’ve made in Blewestown,” Wy said.
Liz smiled. “And now you have two.”
“What’s wrong with her? I know she’s old, but—”
“Dementia,” Liz said. “It manifests in forgetfulness, mostly.”
Wy raised her eyebrows.
Liz sighed. “To the point that sometimes she goes walkabout before she gets dressed, yes, but so far she has always returned to the here and now. She’s generally fairly cognizant and she is wonderfully healthy otherwise. It’s easy for her to fool us into thinking she’s fine, and then we turn our back for one minute and—” She snapped her fingers. “Sometimes it’s worse than keeping track of a two-year-old.” She hesitated. “She’s better when she has something to focus on. Like a visitor.”
At least they weren’t chaining Sybilla to her bed. “I’ll be back often.”
“Good.” Liz stood back and waved her off.
Halfway to Sourdough her phone sounded the opening bars of “He’s So Fine” and she pulled to the side of the street. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. I need a ride.”
“Where to?”
“Across the Bay. Kapilat.”
Wy remembered the tiny community, half old, half new, perched on the edge of the fjord. “Usual rates?”
“Usual rates,” he said grimly.
She didn’t laugh. “Meet you at the tie-down.”
Seventeen
Thursday, September 5
HE WAS STANDING NEXT TO THE CESSNA when she pulled up. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” He looked glum.
“I fueled up when I got back from Anchorage. Let me do the walk-around and we should be good to go.”
He grunted. Monosyllabicy, if that was even a word, was his chosen means of communication when he was forced to fly.
She did the walk-around, noting that he’d already untied the lines and coiled them neatly next to their cleats. Poor Liam. He did what he could. “Okay, climb on in.”
In the left seat she moved the yoke and the rudder pedals with her chin on her shoulder to check that the control surfaces were still working per spec. Next to her Liam buckled on his seatbelt and with both hands took a firm grip on his seat, preparatory to him helping her get and keep the aircraft in the air. Because she loved him she pretended she didn’t notice.
Five minutes later they were in the air and following the Spit out into the Bay. He had yet to move a muscle.
“Hey,” she said.
He sounded tense even over the headset. “Hey yourself.”
“Did you feel like this when I took you up as my spotter during herring fishing?”
She couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses when his head turned but the tension in his jawline said it all. “Every second.”
She was silenced for a moment. “God. I’m sorry, Liam.”
“I’m an Alaskan. Worse, I’m an Alaska state trooper. What am I gonna do?”
The three islands guarding the entrance to a pair of narrow fjords slid beneath them before she spoke again. “If I’d known…”
“Can’t be helped, Wy.”
What was courage, again? Being terrified of something and doing it anyway? By that definition Liam Campbell had to be the bravest person she’d ever met. “What does it feel like?”
“What?”
“Being afraid to fly.” She was genuinely curious, and a little ashamed that she had never asked him before. “Is it only mental or is it physical, or what?”
He thought about it, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed his grip relaxing on the edge of the seat. He didn’t go so far as to let go but his knuckles were less white. “It starts with the physical. I get this, I don’t know what to call it, this white flash up the back of my legs and up my spine when we lift off. It’s debilitating, like I’m not sure if I could walk if I stood up. Or even if I could stand up.”
“And you anticipate it.”
“Yeah, which is what wrecks me even before I get on the damn plane. And no matter how many times I park my ass on a plane it never gets better.” His sigh was heavy even over the headset. “I hate it.”
“The feeling, not the flying?”
“Yeah. I mean, look at that.” It was obvious it took an effort for him to turn his head to see out the window. “The best view in the world. Augustine and Iliamna and Redoubt. The Bay with all the boats carving those long, curving white wakes in it. Even on a cloudy day it’s amazing, and it was just as amazing in Newenham, and it was when I flew into the Park to talk to Jim about Grant’s murder.” His shoulders raised in a slight shrug. “I know it’s a privilege, this view, to see it. I know that. But…”
“You’ve always felt like this?”
“Always.”
He didn’t mention his father, the Air Force ace. He’d never said but she’d met the man and she could guess what his reaction would have been to his only son’s fear of flying.
To distract him she embarked on the history of the town they were heading for. Kapilat had at one time been the big town on the Bay, home to five salmon canneries, a king crab processing plant, a hospital, a hotel, three bars, and four churches with actual resident pastors and priests. There had even at one time been a sit-down, popcorn-selling theater. It had been the main port of call for the Alaska Steamship Company in Southcentral Alaska. Everyone from all the other Bay settlements had perforce come to Kapilat to buy fuel and supplies, pick up their mail, and get their hair cut and their broken bones set. The Coast Guard had stationed a patrol boat there and some of their onshore housing was still standing. Kapilat had even sent the first woman to the territorial legislature, Harriet Browne, a pilot, in fact. She’d needed to be one, since there were only four voting districts in Alaska at the time and hers had stretched from Kenai to Adak to Cordova, resulting in her logging thousands of miles on her Stinson Reliant. Wy had found a photo of Browne standing in front of it on the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame website, and approved of Browne’s choice of aircraft as she had no doubt that Browne would have taken advantage of constituent business trips by running freight on the side. Wy would have.
Even better from an admittedly Alaskan standpoint, Browne had married at least five times—“One way to secure a majority,” Liam said—and her constituents had nicknamed her High Drift Factor Harry Browne, or High Drift Harry for short. She boasted that she had been excommunicated from the Pennsylvania Ministerium (Browne was originally from Pennsylvania), the Catholic Church (her third husband’s religion), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (her fourth’s). That didn’t seem to have lost her any votes, either, as she had been returned to office eight times and was still around to help lobby D.C. for statehood in the late fifties.
Wy descended to five hundred feet as unostentatiously as possible in the hope that Liam wouldn’t notice, banked right to follow the bay east, and soon they were over the mouth of Mussel Bay. While the leaves on the deciduous trees had turned they still clung stubbornly to their branches, brilliant splashes of yellow and gold against the lush green backdrop of the evergreens that marched determinedly up the sides of the mountains, checked only by the snow and ice marching as determinedly down. Standoff. A dark red undergrowth formed picket lines between the warring factions, fireweed that had topped out and gone to seed and rusty leaves.
“Look,” she said, and tipped the Cessna very slightly and very gently so he could look down at the water. He actually turned his head and even more miraculously kept his eyes open when he did. As if in reward, a late run of silvers jumped and splashed in the water below, powered by their own frantic need to return to spawn in the place of their birth. “Everything else followed those silvers into here,” Wy said. “The Sugpiaq first; the Russians next, following the sea otters that followed the silvers; Western colonists after that; and après ça, le déluge. The Outside canneries, the white forefathers of the town of Kapilat, the ships of the Alaska Steamship Company, the US Postal Service, the US Coast Guard, the Blue Canoe.”
“How big did it get?”
“I looked up the census numbers. In 1959, the year the US Congress passed the statehood act, Kapilat had a population of eight hundred. Doubled in the summer when all the Outside workers came to catch and can the salmon.”
“Like Newenham.”
She nodded. “Then in 1960, the Sterling Highway was built, 138 miles long, from Blewestown to Tern Lake, connecting the Seward Highway in mid-spate between Anchorage and Seward.”
“The death knell.”
“The first toll, maybe.”
Once it became one of the few Alaskan towns with road access, Blewestown began to grow in population. Already in decline, the deciding blow for Kapilat came in March 1964 when the 9.2 Alaska Earthquake dropped Mussel Bay and Kapilat and the entire coast of Chungasqak Bay five and a half feet in elevation. The following April the moon and the sun lined up opposite each other with the earth in the middle and the spring tides washed up over the boardwalk that was Kapilat’s main street. It cleaned out the first floors of the homes and businesses built alongside it, too. A year later the canneries had decamped for Kodiak or offshore in the form of floating processors that caught, flash froze, and transported everything direct to Adak or Dutch Harbor, there for air shipment Outside or internationally.
“The Japanese do love Alaskan fish,” Liam said.
“Lucky for us.” She banked left and flew halfway up the bay to a salt-water slough with a bridge over it. Over the bridge the end of the strip appeared and she set down as gently as she could. The tension leached out of Liam as if someone had pulled a plug. He saw her noticing and he laughed, a short, relieved burst of sound. “At least no one shot a blade off the propeller that time.”
“There’s that,” she said, grinning. Although the memory was no cause for humor. They could both have been killed. Lucky she’d had that hacksaw in her tool box.
Spoils of the dead Page 14