Down River

by Karen Harper

  Anyhow, she sensed there was something he wasn't telling her right now, maybe about how they were really going to cross the river to get to that access road. If he thought she was going to walk across a big tree trunk over the rapids or cross in a boat someone had stashed, he was crazy. She'd stay behind, and he could send that chopper with the basket for her. No more white water, not even on a raft farther upstream from the ledge, where he'd assured them all that the river wasn't as rough as when it rampaged past his property. Again, she thought that maybe the plum position of senior partner at the firm was not worth some things. Not only almost dying but the vast beauty of Alaska made you think about what life was really worth.

  7

  M

  itch was proud of the meal they'd just had, and prouder yet that Lisa seemed to appreciate it. For the first time since he'd left the lodge, he felt full. He'd caught a large salmon with a corkscrew, much like the bears speared their fish, and he'd cooked it on their small stove. "Just like I've never had better blueberries," she told him, "I've never had better salmon."

  "I don't want to sound like your idea of a travel brochure again," he told her, "but water tastes the best and food even better in Alaska."

  "Yes, but there's something to be said for Florida lobster, stone crab and citrus salads--not to mention key lime pie."

  "True. And I miss those things, but that doesn't mean I can't go back--to visit, I mean."

  "You could become a snowbird."

  "Maybe. For a month or two. If things go well here financially and Spike and Christine could keep an eye on things when I'm gone."

  "I can tell she thinks a lot of you. I take it she's single."

  "She is now. Her husband abused her."

  "So she left him. Separated or divorced?"

  He frowned out over the water. Everyone around Bear Bones knew, but he'd promised Christine he would never tell any of the guests, and he felt he should get her permission first before telling anyone, even Lisa.

  "Separated," he told her. "Permanently because he died."

  "Oh. She seems to have a mixture of sadness but pride about her. But I guess the Eskimo people have to be strong."

  "Most people in the lower forty-eight don't know it, but the term Eskimo is about on par with calling Native Americans just Indians these days. We say Inuit or use tribal names. Like a lot of people in these parts, Christine's Yup'ik."

  "I certainly don't want to offend anyone. I'm glad you told me. I didn't know."

  There was a lot that she didn't know, Mitch thought, because he'd told her a couple of half truths--but with good reason.

  They sat close together on the bank of the river. Though it roared past them again, it wasn't quite as fierce as it was near the lodge. But Mitch knew it was deeper, since it had picked up several other streams that fed it. Sometimes he could hear granite boulders, grinding, rolling along in its depths like distant thunder. He figured they were just around the bend from where their only shot at a crossing for miles would be, so he had set up their last stopping point here. They both needed strength from a meal. And, he feared, once she saw what he intended, he'd have trouble on his hands. He might have to overpower her and tape her hands and feet to get her across. He wouldn't even know about the way to the other side if he hadn't remembered what one of his uncle's hunting buddies had said about the crossing below the braided rivers. He prayed really hard that it was still there.

  It bothered Christine that Spike had taken Mitch's chair at the head of the table for this very late meal, but everyone was famished. Ginger was the only one not there, because she had gone to feed Spike's dogs about a mile away.

  Though they all desperately needed sleep and it was getting lighter outside again, no one had gone to bed, though she noted that Vanessa had gone up to take a shower, wash her hair and put on fresh makeup. Compared to everyone else, she looked rested and calm. Jonas had taken over the pacing Vanessa had done earlier, but it was actually Mrs. Bonner who had insisted on helping Christine get this food on the table. The woman was rock solid--going up with Spike, being such a support and pitching right in when she and her husband could have lorded it over everyone.

  "I regret that the salmon's cold, but it would be dry if I rebaked it," Christine told everyone. Spike had insisted she eat with them, just as Mitch always did. If Mitch never came back...

  "It's delicious--all of it," Mrs. Bonner said. "Salmon is excellent hot and cold."

  "Christine's a great cook," Spike said. "And thanks for saying you'd stay and for buying the airplane fuel, sir," he told Mr. Bonner.

  "Mitch was--and I only use the past tense because he chose to leave us for a different life last year--like a son to me, to us. Since I don't have an heir--"

  "He means a son," Mrs. Bonner interrupted. "We have an heiress, a wonderful, bright daughter in law school who will join the firm next year."

  "Exactly," Mr. Bonner said with a nod. "Just like Ellie's father, Cameron Carlisle, who mentored me and took me into the firm when I married his daughter, I had similar hopes for Mitch."

  "That he would marry your girl?" Spike asked, a sourdough biscuit halfway to his mouth. Iah! If Christine could have reached him under the table, she would have kicked him.

  "At least," Mr. Bonner said, "we had hopes that our Claire would marry someone who would take an interest in the firm--keep the majority of the control all in the family. When Lisa and Mitch announced their engagement, of course--and then Mitch left--the other was out of the question."

  "That they were even dating," Vanessa said, "came as a huge surprise to everyone, because they kept it very sub rosa--secretive," she added as if Christine and Spike needed a translator.

  "I certainly don't mean to rush anyone," Christine told them, pushing back her chair and starting to clear dishes, "but we won't be any good for the search if we don't get a little rest."

  "Will the sheriff be coming out here, Spike?" Jonas asked. "Or the state patrol you mentioned? If they start asking questions, will you need some counsel around? If I can help you with any of that, just say so. I owe Mitch a lot."

  "I'm going up in the plane again and I've got two other guys who fly to search, too. Christine's in charge here if there's any questions from the sheriff or troopers."

  She almost dropped the plates she held. No way did she want to be answering any law enforcement questions.

  Spike continued. "Still, the law better be looking for them and not wasting time here. See all of you in a few hours. Keep your spirits up. Just like Mitch was a good lawyer, he's a smart Alaskan, even though he's not lived here that long."

  Taking a couple of his sister's homemade sourdough biscuits with him, Spike left to get the plane refueled. When Christine came back in to clear more plates, everyone else was still sitting there until Mrs. Bonner, then Vanessa, jumped up to help her. Though she would have protested that just yesterday, she nodded her thanks, because once she got everyone in their rooms, she needed to search Mitch's.

  "I can't believe it!" Lisa cried when she figured out where Mitch intended to cross the river. "Another gorge starts here. This surely isn't where you said we could get to the other side. Do you have a boat here somewhere? The water's just as violent here as by the lodge."

  "Not quite. We're not going through the water, but above it. See?" he added, pointing.

  "What? No, I don't see--Oh. A cable goes from side to side. But we can't just hang on that."

  "Come on. I'll show you," he said, setting out ahead of her again, climbing uphill on a rocky path as they had for the last half hour. "Up ahead, where that cable is tethered, is called a gauging station, a spot where scientists--hydrologists, specifically--used to drop a weighted plumb bob to measure the water's depth. I heard it was built by a geological survey team but was abandoned for lack of funds. Hunters use it now."

  He kept talking. She could tell he was nervous, too. "It's like a little ski lift, I guess, with a cable car. At least that's what I heard from a friend of my uncle's. I'm j
ust glad I recalled what he said."

  "But that cable--"

  "It's made of braided steel."

  "I don't care. It sags. It's old."

  He didn't answer as they neared the spot where the cable was connected to the gorge, bolted into solid rock on this side and attached to what looked to be about a ten-foot tower so it would be fairly level. But the so-called cable car was actually a big, aluminum bucket, a bit smaller, but shaped like the gondola baskets that hung under hot-air balloons. It measured maybe two feet by four feet, and its height might come to Lisa's chest.

  "No way!" she told Mitch, and sat down right where she was.

  "It's the only way across for miles. We'll be over the river in minutes, onto the access road and home quickly."

  "My home is thousands of miles away. I'll stay here while you go and send help. But I don't think you should trust it either. I haven't looked down, but, honestly, I just can't do it, and it looks like we'd have to cross one at a time. Alone. The weight of one person in there would be scary enough, but two?"

  "I'll test it first with a trial crossing. We can't send it over empty because it looks like the pulley system will have to be worked by hand to haul it up the last little distance on both sides."

  "Even more than the worry about its condition, I just cannot go in or over this river. It almost killed me--that and whoever pushed me," she protested.

  He came back, dropped the pack and sat down beside her with his knees bent up almost to his chin and his arms linked around his long legs. She thought he would berate her, but his voice was calm and steady, almost seductive.

  "So how are you going to handle that when you get back? Call the sheriff in from Talkeetna and ask him to arrest whom? Pretend to go back to normal, trying to get the senior partner position as if you just fell in? Or do you plan to carefully investigate--try to discover or set up whoever shoved you?"

  "You believe me now?"

  "I'm just strategizing like I would with a client preparing a defense. Whichever of those paths you take, unless you're just going to run--and back to where, to the law firm where someone might have tried to kill you? Those are your choices. You and I made a good legal team a couple of times--the Dailey case, then the big casino money-laundering investigation. You cross that river, after I've checked out the steel cable and aluminum tram first," he went on, pointing down at it, "and I'm your sidekick private detective and co-counsel on this attempted homicide investigation. Even if someone ends up claiming they didn't mean for you to fall in that foaming, freezing river, we'll know who did it and can find out why. Or maybe we'll figure out the why first and that will lead us to the perp. It's possible that the why involves me, too."

  "I'm remembering why you have such a great reputation as a persuasive attorney. But what do you mean it could involve you?"

  "Two reasons. One, maybe someone didn't want us back together to talk things out."

  "About our breaking up? Who cares about that but us?"

  "We're just in the realm of 'what ifs' right now."

  "Do you mean someone could be afraid we know about something they did?"

  "Or didn't do. I don't know. I'm just fishing here again and not even with a corkscrew."

  "Maybe Jonas or Vanessa thought I could sway you to tell the Bonners I'd be their best bet for senior partner. But is that enough motive to try to kill me?"

  "I've been trying to reason it out, but I'm too exhausted to think straight right now," he said.

  "But you have thought straight. I've been agonizing over the who and why, too, and if I just say I slipped on that ridge above the river it would give us at least a couple of days to investigate what really happened."

  "One drawback here is that the perp would know you're lying about falling in."

  "We could say I hit my head and couldn't really recall what happened. We could intimate my memory might come back, then set a trap. But we can't let him or her get wind that we're investigating. Once we get back, he or she will be nervous enough we've had some time to talk, to reason things out. Mitch," she said, turning more toward him, "you really do believe that someone pushed me?"

  "Despite your love-hate relationship with churning water, I believe you would not jump in. And, even under duress and in pain, you've been sure-footed and brave on this trek, so I don't think you fell."

  "Thank you. Even though we're not going to be life partners, I appreciate your advice and your offer," she said, putting her hand on his arm.

  "So do we have a deal? After I test our tram, you will let me send you over to the other side before I join you there?"

  She stared into his dark eyes, sharp and steady--stern but sweet. Yes, Mitchell Andrew Braxton had always shown a tenderness, a gentleness beneath his go-for-the-jugular instincts. But that foaming water would be under her, and she was terrified of falling in just like--

  "Yes," she said. "I thought I'd never trust you again after we broke up, but yes. That much is a deal, and I am grateful for your help when we get back."

  She stuck out her trembling hand to shake his. He took it, pulled her close and kissed her cheek. His beard stubble burned her sore skin, and his words and touch seared deep into her heart.

  8

  C

  hristine knew she didn't need a key to get into Mitch's suite, because, so far at least, he'd never locked it. She ducked inside and quietly closed the door. It was a long shot, but perhaps she'd find something here that hinted at what had happened, such as a note from Lisa Vaughn. She was getting desperate. She could not lose Mitch. She scanned his small sitting area--ever neat and tidy--and moved quickly to the big rolltop desk that had been his uncle's. She saw stacks of bills to pay, future reservations, some from Tokyo. Those guests would start arriving late next month. Though darkest winter was the best time for viewing the aurora borealis, it was possible to catch pale, wispy glimpses of its grandeur anytime soon.

  Without going through his entire in and out baskets and desk drawers, she didn't see anything unusual, such as a personal note. If she had time for a more thorough search, she'd go through all that later.

  But there was a wadded up, printed e-mail in the otherwise empty wastebasket. She picked it up, unwrinkled its violently twisted form and scanned it. She was sure it must be from Lisa and whatever it said had angered him.

  But it was from his brother saying he was too busy to come this summer, and the kids would be in school in the fall, but he wished him the best in his "frontier adventure." Then a final line that revealed so much. "After all, Uncle John left that place to you, not me."

  Christine sighed. Another family with damaged relationships as sad and bad as her marriage had been, as icy as the whiteout fogs in Fairbanks.

  Mitch hardly ever talked about his brother, but he had his family's photograph prominently displayed on the desktop. She saw it was now lying on its face as if he'd knocked it over, but she'd looked at it several times. An eight-by-ten in color of his surgeon brother, Brad, his pretty wife--another blonde, so maybe both Braxton boys liked blondes--and their two kids, a boy about ten and a girl about six. No doubt, Mitch, too, longed for a family. Well, Christine was never going to have that and maybe Mitch wouldn't either.

  She tiptoed into his bedroom, moving like a leaf on the forest floor. His bed was covered by a quilt in browns, muted blues and greens. The bed was carefully made, though she'd volunteered when she first came to make it every day. He'd told her she wasn't a hotel maid but the lodge manager and chef, and that had given her an early glimpse into the heart of the man.

  She scanned the top of his bureau, his bookshelves, the compartments built into the headboard of his bed. Why he slept in a king-size bed, she hadn't asked, but maybe it was because he was restless at night, thrashed around a lot. Maybe like her, he had bad dreams.

  The folklore of her people taught that each human being had a joncha, a secret identity linked to an animal the person could contact through dreams. When you discovered which joncha was yours, the old be
lief was that you could change into that animal at will, but were also plagued by its weaknesses.

  Her joncha was the silent, stoic and observant wolverine. Though Spike and Mitch weren't Yup'ik, she pictured Spike as the powerful but sometimes bumbling bear. Mitch Braxton was an eagle, wise and daring, but one who could be snared by wanting too much. She'd seen an eagle try to snatch a too-big salmon from the river and get pulled under, his talons caught in the flesh of the fish, the river pulling him down to destruction, just like Lisa Vaughn might have ruined his life--again.

  She collapsed on the edge of the bed, put her face in her hands and sobbed. But did she hear footsteps? Could Mitch be back?

  She bolted off the bed, nearly slamming into Spike as he came around the corner and looked in.

  "What the hell are you doing in here!" he demanded, striding in and grabbing her hard by her shoulders, then pressing her between the wall and his big body. She hit hard at his hands and kicked at his shin, though he barely budged. Memories of brutality, of beatings, roared at her.

  "Don't grab me like that!" she cried.

  He released her immediately, but shouted, "You told me you weren't sleeping with him!"

  "Don't shout. I'm the lodge manager, and I came in to see if he'd left any clues behind, that's all."

  "You haven't answered my question."

  "It wasn't a question but an accusation. You think that of us, you ask him when he gets back! Iah!"

  At first he seemed angry, but she saw realization dawn on his frowning face. "I--I didn't mean to hurt you--or remind you of...him, your husband. It's just--I lost my head. My temper. I won't grab you like that again, I promise."