Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  sank his last puck."

  "And now you do."

  "That's right. Now I do. Added to that, having our own police force here means we keep on handling our own. Keep the Feds and the State out of it. Town like this can get ignored because of what it is and where it is. But we got a police force here now, a fire department. We've got a good school, good lodge, a weekly newspaper, a radio station. Weather comes in and cuts us off, we know how to be self-sufficient. But we need order, and this building and the people in it are symbols of that order."

  "You hired a symbol."

  "On one hand, that's just what I did." Her nut-brown eyes held his. "People feel more secure with symbols. On the other, I expect you to do your job, and a big part of the job, besides keeping order, is community relations—which is why I took the time to show you some of the town's businesses, give you names of who runs what. There's more. Bing's got a garage, fix any engine you bring in, and he runs heavy equipment. Snowplow, backhoe. Lunatic Air runs cargo and people, and brings supplies into town, takes them into the bush."

  "Lunatic Air."

  "That's Meg for you," Hopp said with a half-smile. "We're on the edge of the Interior here, and we've built ourselves up from a settlement of boomers and hippies and badasses to a solid town. You'll get to know the people of that town, the relationships, the grudges and the connections. Then you'll know how to handle them."

  "Which brings me back. Why did you hire me? Why not somebody who knows all that already?"

  "Seems to me somebody who knew all that already might come into this job with an agenda of his or her own. Grudges, connections of his or her own. Bring somebody from Outside, they come in fresh. You're young; that weighed in your favor. You don't have a wife and children who might not take to the life here and pressure you to go back to the Lower 48. You've got over ten years experience with the police. You had the qualifications I was looking for—and you didn't haggle over the salary."

  "I see your point, but there's the other side. I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

  "Mmm." She finished off her coffee. "You strike me as a bright young man. You'll figure it out. Now." She pushed to her feet. "I'm going to let you get started. Meeting's at two, Town Hall. You're going to want to say a few words."

  "Oh boy."

  "One more thing." She dug in her pocket, pulled out a box. "You'll need this." Opening it, she took out the silver star, then pinned it to his shirt. "See you at two, chief."

  He stood where he was, in the center of the room, contemplating his coffee as he heard the muted voices outside. He didn't know what he was doing—that was God's truth—so the best he could think of was to mark some sort of beginning and go from there.

  Hopp was right. He had no wife, no children. He had no one and nothing pulling him back to the Lower 48. To the world. If he was going to stay here, then he had to make good. If he blew this, this strange chance at the end of the universe, there was nowhere left to go. Nothing left to do.

  His stomach jittered with the same sort of queasy nerves he'd experienced on the plane as he carried his coffee out to the communal area.

  "Ah, if I could have a couple minutes."

  He wasn't sure where to stand, then realized he shouldn't be standing at all. He set down his coffee, then walked over to grab two of the plastic chairs. After carrying them over to the desks, he retrieved his coffee, worked up a smile for Peach.

  "Ms. Peach? Would you come on over and sit down?" And though the short stack was heavy in his belly, he boosted up the smile. "Maybe you could bring those cinnamon buns with you. They sure smell tempting."

  Obviously pleased, she brought over the plate and a stack of napkins. "You boys just help yourselves."

  "I gotta figure this is at least as awkward for all of you as it is for me," Nate began as he plopped a bun on a napkin. "You don't know me. Don't know what kind of cop I am, what kind of man I am. I'm not from around here, and I don't know a damn thing about this part of the world. And you're supposed to take orders from me. You're going to take orders from me," he corrected, and bit into the bun.

  "This is pure sin, Ms. Peach."

  "It's the lard that does it."

  "I bet." He envisioned every one of his arteries slamming shut. "It's hard to take orders from somebody you don't know, don't trust. You've got no reason to trust me. Yet. I'm going to make mistakes. I don't mind you pointing them out to me, as long as you point them out in private. I'm also going to rely on you, all of you, to bring me up to speed. Things I should know, people I should know. But for right now, I'm going to ask if any of you have a problem with me. Let's get it out in the open now, deal with it."

  Otto took a slurp of his coffee. "I don't know if I've got a problem until I see what you're made of."

  "Fair enough. You find you've got one, you tell me. Maybe I'll see it your way, maybe I'll tell you to go to hell. But we'll know where we stand."

  "Chief Burke?"

  Nate looked over at Peter. "It's Nate. I hope to God you people aren't going to take a page from Mayor Hopp and call me Ignatious all the damn time."

  "Well, I was thinking that maybe at first me or Otto should go with you on calls, and on patrol. Until you get to know your way around."

  "That's a good idea. Ms. Peach and I'll start working out a shift schedule, week by week."

  "You can start calling me Peach now. I'd just like to say I expect this place to stay clean, and that chores—which includes scrubbing the bathroom, Otto—get put on the schedule like everything else. Mops and buckets and brooms aren't tools just for women."

  "I signed on as deputy, not as a maid."

  She had a soft, motherly face. And, like any mother worth her salt, could sear a hole through steel with one firm look. "And I'm being paid to work as dispatcher and secretary, not to scrub toilets. But what has to be done, has to be done."

  "Why don't we rotate those chores for the time being?" Nate interrupted as he could see combat fire light both faces. "And I'll talk to Mayor Hopp about our budget. Maybe we can squeeze out enough to hire somebody to come in and swab us out once a week. Who has the keys to the weapon cabinet?"

  "They're locked in my drawer," Peach told him.

  "I'd like to have them. And I'd like to know what weapons each of you deputies is qualified for."

  "If it's a gun, I can shoot it," Otto retorted.

  "That may be true, but we're wearing badges." He tipped his chair back so he could see the gun Otto wore in a belt holster. "You want to stick with the .38 for your service revolver?"

  "It's my own, and it suits me."

  "That's fine. I'm going to take the 9mm SIG from the cabinet. Peter, you comfortable with the nine you're carrying?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Peach, can you handle a firearm?"

  "I've got my father's Colt .45 revolver locked in my desk, too. He taught me how to shoot when I was five. And I can handle anything in that cabinet, the same as GI Joe here."

  "I served in the Corps," Otto retorted, with some heat. "I'm a Marine."

  "Okay then." Nate cleared his throat. "How many residents, would you say, own weapons?"

  The three of them stared at him until, finally, Otto's lips quirked up. "That'd be about all of them."

  "Great. Do we have a list of those residents who're licensed to carry concealed?"

  "I can get that for you," Peach offered.

  "That'll be good. And would there be a copy of town ordinances?"

  "I'll get it."

  "One last," Nate said as Peach got up. "If we have occasion to arrest anyone, who sets bail, decides on the term, the payment of fine, and so on?"

  There was a long silence before Peter spoke. "I guess you do, chief."

  Nate blew out a breath. "Won't that be fun?"

  He went back into his office, taking the paperwork Peach gave him. It didn't take long to read through it, but it gave him something to pin up on his corkboard.

  He was lining up pages, tacking them on when Peac
h came in. "Got those keys for you, Nate. These here are for the gun cabinet. These are for the station doors, front and back, the cells and your car. Everything's labeled."

  "My car? What've I got?"

  "Grand Cherokee. It's parked out on the street." She dumped keys into his hand. "Hopp said one of us should show you how you work the heat block for the engine."

  He'd read about those, too. Heaters designed to keep an engine warm when at rest in subzero temperatures. "We'll get to it."

  "Sun's coming up."

  "What?" He turned, looked out the window.

  Then he just stood, his arms at his side, the keys weighing down his hand, as the sun bloomed orange and rose in the sky. The mountains came alive under it, massive and white with the gold streaks sliding over them.

  They filled his window. Left him speechless.

  "Nothing like your first winter sunrise in Alaska."

  "I guess not." Mesmerized, he stepped closer to the window.

  He could see the river where he'd landed—a long, saggy dock he hadn't noticed before, and the sheen of ice under the lightening sky. There were hills of snow, a huddle of houses, stands of trees—and he noted, people. There were people, bundled up so thickly they looked like globs of color gliding over the white.

  There was smoke rising, and Jesus, was that an eagle soaring overhead? And as he watched, a group of kids went running toward the iced ribbon of river, hockey sticks and skates over their shoulders.

  And the mountains stood over it all, like gods.

  Watching them, he forgot about the cold, the wind, the isolation and his own quiet misery.

  Watching them, he felt alive.

  Three

  Maybe it was too damn cold, maybe people were on their best behavior, or it might have been that the holiday spirit was entrenched in that week between Christmas and New Year's, but it was nearly noon before the first call came in.

  "Nate?" Peach came to his door holding a couple of knitting needles and a hank of purple wool.

  "Charlene called from The Lodge. Seems a couple of the boys got into a ruckus over a game of pool. Some pushy-shovey going on."

  "All right." He got to his feet, fishing a quarter out of his pocket as he walked out. "Call it," he said to Otto and Peter.

  "Heads." Otto set down his Field & Stream while Nate flipped the coin in the air.

  He slapped it on the back of his hand. "Tails. Okay, Peter, you'll come with me. Little altercation over at The Lodge." He snagged a two-way, hooked it to his belt.

  He stepped into the entry, began dragging on gear. "If it hasn't broken up by the time we get there," he said to Peter, "I want you to tell me the players straight off, give me the picture. Is it something that's going to turn nasty or can we resolve it with a few strong words?"

  He shoved out the door, into the blast of cold air. "That mine?" he asked, nodding toward the black Jeep at the curb.

  "Yes, sir."

  "And that cord plugged into that pole there would be attached to the heater on the engine."

  "You'll need it if it's going to sit for any time. There's a Mylar blanket in the back, and that'll cover up the engine and keep the heat in for up to twenty-four hours, maybe. But sometimes people forget to take them off, and then you're going to overheat. Jumper cables in the back, too," he continued as he pulled the plug. "Emergency flares and first-aid kit and—"

  "We'll go over all that," Nate interrupted, and wondered if navigating down a road called Lunatic Street would entail the need of emergency flares and first aid. "Let's see if I can get us to The Lodge in one piece."

  He climbed behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition. "Heated seats," he noted. "There is a God."

  The town looked different in the daylight, no doubt about it. Smaller somehow, Nate thought as he maneuvered on the hard-packed snow. Exhaust had blacked the white at the curbs, and the storefront windows weren't exactly sparkling, and most of the Christmas decorations looked the worse for wear in the sunlight.

  It wasn't a postcard, unless you looked beyond to the mountains, but it was a few solid steps up from dreary.

  Rugged was a better term, he decided. It was a settlement carved out of ice and snow and rock, snugged tight to a winding river, flanked by forests where he could easily imagine wolves roaming.

  He wondered if forest meant bear, too, but decided it wasn't worth worrying about until spring. Unless all that hibernation talk was bullshit.

  It took less than two minutes to drive from station house to lodge. He saw a total often people on the street and passed a brawny pickup, a clunky SUV, and counted three parked snowmobiles and one set of skis propped against the side of The Italian Place.

  It seemed people didn't exactly hibernate in Lunacy, whatever the bears did.

  He went to the main door of The Lodge and walked through it just ahead of Peter.

  It hadn't broken up. He could hear that plainly enough through the shouts of encouragement—kick his fat ass, Mackie!—and the thud of bodies and grunts. What Nate calculated was that a Lunacy-style crowd had gathered, consisting of five men in flannel, one of which turned out to be a woman on closer inspection.

  Encircled by them, two men with shaggy, brown hair were rolling around on the floor, trying to land short-arm punches on each other. The only weapon he saw was a broken pool cue.

  "Mackie brothers," Peter told him.

  "Brothers?"

  "Yeah. Twins. They've been beating the hell out of each other since they were in the womb. Hardly ever take a swing at anyone else."

  "Okay."

  Nate nudged his way through the press of bodies. The sight of him had the shouts toning down to murmurs as he waded in and hauled the top Mackie off the bottom Mackie.

  "All right, break it up. Stay down," he ordered, but Mackie number two was already springing up, rearing back. He landed a solid roundhouse to his brother's jaw.

  "Red River, numbnuts!" He shouted, then did a victory dance, fists lifted high, as his brother slumped in Nate's arms.

  "Peter, for Christ's sake," Nate said as his deputy remained immobile.

  "Oh, sorry, chief. Jim, settle down."

  Instead, Jim Mackie continued to bounce in his Wolverines to the cheers of the crowd.

  Nate saw money being exchanged, but decided to ignore it.

  "Take this one." Nate shoved the unconscious man into Peter, then stepped up to the self-proclaimed champ. "The deputy gave you an order."

  "Yeah?" He grinned, showing blood on his teeth and an unholy gleam in a pair of brown eyes.

  "So what? I don't have to take orders from that shithead."

  "Yeah, you do. I'll show you why." Nate spun the man around, shoved him against the wall, had his hands behind his back and cuffed in under ten seconds.

  "Hey!" was the best the reigning champ could manage.

  "Give me grief, and you'll sit in a cell for resisting arrest, among other things. Peter, bring that one over to the station when he wakes up."

  With no apparent loyalty, the crowd shifted its support to Nate with catcalls and whistles as he muscled Jim Mackie toward the door.

  Nate paused when he saw Charlene ease out of the kitchen. "You looking to press charges?" he asked her.

  She stared, finally blinked. "I. . . well, hell, I don't know. Nobody's ever asked me that before. What kind of charges?"