Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Dana Stabenow

  There was a window next to the painting and through it Liam could see a thermometer fixed to the eaves of the house. It read fifty-one degrees. That was warm for the north side of a house, which meant it might have been a lot warmer in Kagati Lake than he had originally thought. Warm temperatures delayed rigor, so Opal Nunapitchuk could have been dead longer than ten to twelve hours, which only put more time between the killer and the scene.

  He looked at the table standing next to the dark green recliner. It was a slab of burlwood, sanded, polished and finished with a coat of Verathane. A trick of the fading evening sun reflected off the glass on one of the watercolor paintings and landed on the table, which was covered with a fine layer of dust, except where something sort of square had been sitting until very recently.

  Scattered around the room were three other tables, one hutch and the mantelpiece. All of them needed dusting, and all of them were missing objects that had heretofore kept at least the area beneath them clean. “Prince?”

  A flash went off behind him. “Sir?”

  “Light a lamp if you can find one, would you? It’s getting too dark to see.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And get pictures of all the tabletops and the mantelpiece.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “I didn’t see any. But dust everything anyway. Start with the counter and the cash box.”

  He heard the sound of an engine, no, two, outside. They paused, idling, and he heard Wy’s voice. He went swiftly to the door and in the dusk saw a man on a four-wheeler with two Blazo boxes strapped on behind with bungee cords. He looked to be in his late fifties, early sixties, maybe, a burly man with thick dark hair streaked silver that hung raggedly below his ears, and dark, narrow eyes nearly hidden in a mass of wrinkles that began in the middle of his forehead and cascaded down into laugh lines bracketing both eyes and mouth. He saw Liam over Wy’s shoulder, and Liam stepped forward.

  “What’s going on?” the man said, his smile fading as he took in Liam’s uniform. He looked from Liam to Wy, who couldn’t meet his eyes and looked ashamed of it. He killed the engine and dismounted. “Where’s Opal?”

  “Who are you, sir?” Liam said.

  “This is Leonard Nunapitchuk,” Wy said. “Opal’s husband.”

  Liam removed his hat and took a deep breath. “Mr. Nunapitchuk, there is no easy way to say this. Ms. Chouinard flew in this afternoon to deliver the mail, and she found your wife.”

  Leonard Nunapitchuk’s skin paled beneath its ruddy tan. “Is she hurt? Opal? Opal!” He stepped forward, only to halt when Liam held up a hand.

  “I’m afraid she’s dead, Mr. Nunapitchuk. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Leonard Nunapitchuk stared at him without comprehension. “Opal is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” Opal’s husband shook his head decidedly. “No, she isn’t. I was just here, last weekend. We were all here.” He waved a hand, and Liam looked beyond him, across the airstrip where the trees parted for a path. The moon had risen as the sun had set and painted a stepstone path of silver across the ripples of Kagati Lake. The breeze paused, and in the momentary lull Liam heard the murmur of voices, punctuated by a laugh.

  There was a sudden shaft of light from the open door of the house as Prince lit the large Aladdin lantern sitting on the hutch next to the door, and Liam looked at Leonard Nunapitchuk, who was about five feet four inches tall and whose belly was just barely restrained by a wide, worn leather belt. There was a hunting knife in a stained leather sheath hanging from the belt. He had a rifle, a Remington.30-30, it looked like, hanging over his shoulder.

  His clothes, a fatigue jacket over a cotton shirt in faded blue plaid and jeans, were grubby. His boots were shiny with fish scales. He smelled like woodsmoke, sweat and salmon, like Moses did when he came back from Old Man Creek.

  It looked like fish camp had been a success and that Leonard wanted to tell his wife all about it. “Opal? Opal, where are you?”

  “Sir,” Liam said, and something in the single, forceful syllable got through the way nothing else had before.

  Realization came hard to Leonard Nunapitchuk’s eyes, but it came, followed by shock and the awful need to know, to see, to make sure there hadn’t been some dreadful mistake, because of course there must have been some mistake, this couldn’t be happening, not to him. Liam had seen the reaction before, and he stepped to one side so that Leonard could go through the door.

  Prince looked around from lighting the Coleman lantern hanging from a bracket next to the kitchen door and saw Leonard. “Sir, I-”

  Liam held up a hand and she stopped.

  Leonard saw Opal in the same moment, and a terrible groan ripped out of his chest. “No,” he said. “No, Opal, no.” He dropped to his knees. “Opal. My Opal.”

  He was weeping now, and when he dropped forward to crawl toward her Liam had to restrain him. “I’m sorry, sir. You can’t touch her yet.”

  “She’s my wife!”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Nunapitchuk wrapped his arms around his body and rocked back and forth on his knees. “Opal. Why? Why, why why why?”

  Liam heard voices, and Wy’s voice responding. Before he could turn, Nunapitchuk was on his feet. “The children can’t see this, they can’t see this.” He ran his sleeve across his face and went outside, Liam following.

  There were five more people in the yard, two young men no taller or slimmer than their father and their wives, one a young woman who looked like Opal must have thirty years before, with a plump baby perched on her hip doing his best to snag a dragonfly as it buzzed past. His mother caught him just before he took flight after it.

  All of them stared at Liam, at Leonard. It was obvious by their shocked faces that Wy had told them of Opal’s death. He knew a faint guilt that she should have assumed this burden, but it was very faint, and he adjusted the duck-billed hat with the seal of the Alaska State Troopers on it and stepped forward to put the necessary questions to the bereaved.

  Down the shingly scaur he plunged, in search of his Elaine. Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine, the lily maid of his Astolat. She had left him before, his wandering love, but never for long, and she was always glad when he found her again, glad to return to her chamber up a tower to the east.

  Long years had they lived there, and would abide together there again soon. He missed her presence during the day and her warmth during the night. She knew so little at first, but he taught her, and taught her well, so that she kept his shield and tended his wounds with skill and love.

  He wished that like Lancelot he had a diamond to give his Elaine for her loyalty, her faithfulness. He trusted her as he trusted no other, to tend his hearth, his clothes, his home, to cook his meals, to warm his bed, to stand beside him summer and winter, his companion, his lover, his friend. She surrounded him with grace and beauty.

  Yes, a diamond to give.

  He quickened his step over a fallen log and ducked beneath a low-hanging branch. A ptarmigan exploded out of the brush, catching him by surprise. He unshouldered his shotgun. Ptarmigan was good eating. Elaine baked them in a butter-wine sauce that turned brown in the oven, crisping the skin of the birds and marinating the flesh with a flavor that was at once sweet and sour. When they had it, Elaine would mix in a little evaporated milk to turn it into a cream sauce, and serve it over flat noodles.

  Elaine. Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat. His lady, his love, his queen. Children together, teenagers together, married the day after high school graduation. There had never been anyone else for him or for her.

  They didn’t need anyone else, he told her when she had come back from the doctor with the news that they could never have children of their own. They had each other, and their cabin in the wilderness. They ran their trapline in the winter, planted their garden in the summer, lived life the way it ought to be lived, day by day, year by year, seeing the seasons in and out together.


  In winter the wolves might howl, but they had stout log walls and a thick door between them and the hungry pack. The temperatures might drop to forty below zero, but they had six cords of wood stacked in a pile beneath its own shelter, and thick parkas and mukluks Elaine had made from furs gathered from their own trapline. They had a cache filled with moose and caribou and ptarmigan and goose and salmon and berries, a root cellar beneath the house filled with carrots and potatoes, and a pantry filled with canned goods, so they’d never go hungry.

  In summer, they had fourteen hours of daylight and never wasted a moment of it, working all day, loving all night. He closed his eyes for a moment to revel in the deep delight the thought brought him. Elaine, gazing up at him with serious brown eyes, dark hair falling back from her smooth skin, mouth open a little to catch her breath, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders, her heels digging into the base of his spine, reaching for the sun, the moon and the stars. He gave them all to her, and she gave them back again.

  He had promises to keep, and miles to go before he slept. He abandoned the too-heavy jade by the side of the creek, adjusting the lighter pack on his shoulders as he headed south by ways known only to the wild things of forest and stream. What other treasures would he find to lay at her feet?

  Elaine, my Elaine. I’m coming home, my lady, my love, my queen. How will you reward me this time, my own, my lady, my love?

  FIVE

  Nenevok Creek, September 1

  Mark couldn’t understand why she was so angry. In seven years of marriage, he hadn’t known she could get this angry. He’d never known silence could be so loud, either; this one was thunderous, reverberating off the steep sides of the three peaks and tumbling down the mountainsides until it filled the valley down to the very surface of the creek.

  One moment she had been in his arms, and the next he was on his ass, his chest still smarting from the foot she had used to push him away. The silence began as she made him corned beef sandwiches with mustard and lettuce, just how he liked them, on bread out of the Dutch oven the night before. Nothing interfered with Mark’s appetite, so he wolfed them down with the macaroni salad and the large dill pickle Rebecca produced to go with them. He’d made the effort, holding up his end by carrying his plate to the wash tin on the counter, but when he tried to pull her into his arms again, she had slipped free, sat down and used the bead tray to block any further attempt at embraces.

  In seven years of marriage, he had never once been incapable of seducing her into seeing things his way.

  Now, clad once again in hip waders, he bent over the creek to wash dirt out of a pan in pursuit of that elusive gleam of color. An eagle cried overhead, and he raised his head to look, shading his eyes against the sun. A rustle of brush warned that some wild thing was nearby, how sharp of teeth or long of claw he had no idea. He ignored it, as he always did. “Come on, honey,” he’d said to Rebecca, “we’ll leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Pity about that bear charging them the first week. It had only been a fake charge, the sow had skidded to a halt fifty feet away, bellowed out a roar of defiance and then turned abruptly on the space of a dime and lit out for the hills like she had been shot from a catapult. They had come to no harm, but the experience had unsettled Rebecca. Well, that and the moose eating all the broccoli and cauliflower out of the garden and then approaching the cabin to nibble at the bark of the logs. “They’re eating the house!” she’d said when he had come home that evening.

  He had laughed and loved her out of her fear. God, she was beautiful, his wife. He couldn’t see her even in jeans and T-shirt without wanting to rip them off and wallow in her, inhaling her, burying himself in her.

  He’d never been quite sure how he had managed to win her. Looking like she did, Rebecca had had men lining up three deep wherever she went. He had beat them all to the gate, by god.

  He tilted the pan and let the rest of the water drain out. There were a few specks of color, nothing more. He rinsed out the pan and looked upstream. There was an outcropping of large rocks at the first bend that he had been slowly, steadily zeroing in on. If he hadn’t run out of summer he would have discovered the big one, the pocket where the heavier gold had settled as it was being washed downstream. No mere dust there, he was sure, but nuggets the size of peanuts, nuggets by the pound, never mind the ounce. One more summer and he would hit pay dirt. Why couldn’t she understand that?

  Bewilderment was giving way to resentment. She was his wife. She had promised before God and man to love, honor and obey him. He hadn’t insisted on the traditional words; she had. In his turn, he had promised to provide for her, to endow her with all his worldly goods. His worldly goods were about to increase in a big way. Under the next rock or around the next bend, the gold beckoned him on, promising wealth and riches beyond his wildest imaginings and, evidently, her comprehension.

  Gold. Number 79 on the periodic table. He’d panned his first gold at the Alaska State Fair two years before. He hadn’t wanted to go, but Rebecca had beaded some artsy-craftsy thing into a small brass ring and entered into one of the competitions, and she’d dragged him along for the judging. He had wandered off and discovered a long trough with water circulating through it. The water was very dirty.

  “Like to try your hand?”

  He looked up and saw a man twice his age, half his weight and a foot shorter than he was peering at him through Coke-bottle lenses. “At what?”

  The man had handed him a battered gold pan that looked as if it had come across the Chilkoot Pass in 1899, and that was when he’d first realized he’d stopped in front of the Alaska Mining Association booth.

  He’d filled the pan with dirt and water and swirled it around. The man showed him how to tilt it so the water ran out and the dirt settled in a half-moon at the bottom. He dipped more water and dirt, swirled out more water and dirt, wetting his sleeves to the elbow, soaking the front of his shirt and jeans, repeating the motion again and again until there, in a few grains of sand, there it was, a single tiny perfect flake of gold, gleaming up at him, beaming up at him.

  He’d looked up and the man had grinned at him. “Nothing like it, is there?”

  No, he thought now, looking down at the pan in his hands. Nothing.

  Fine. He set his jaw. They’d never had a bump in the marriage before, but all marriages had them. They’d ride it out. Anchorage wasn’t much of a proving ground, all the modern luxuries, the modern conveniences. Out here, a man was tested.

  A woman, too.

  His resentment began to fade. Hell, it wasn’t her fault she’d never hauled water from the creek, or chopped wood for a fire to keep her warm. It would take time for her to get used to the life, that was all. Maybe he had enough time before the hard frost set in to dig a new hole, move the outhouse closer to the cabin. That’d probably make a big difference.

  He looked at the rock upstream, a shard of quartz sparkling at him with a come-hither look in its eye. The sun was well behind one of the mountains by now, and getting to it earlier every day. Not enough daylight left to fetch the pry bar. For a moment he was sorry he hadn’t taken on someone to help, someone who might know more about mining than he did, but he dismissed the thought almost at once. At least that was one thing he didn’t have to worry about out here, no men to vie for Rebecca’s attention. Out here, he had her all to himself. Days hunting gold, nights sleeping with Rebecca. Although they never got all that much sleep. Last night, for example. He shrugged his shoulders, and the marks still stung.

  Why couldn’t it be enough for her, too?

  He put away his equipment in the shed and hung the hip waders to dry. The smell of salmon frying and rice boiling greeted him as he opened the door. He brightened. Good. She must be over her mad. He’d known it wouldn’t take long.

  He pulled the door closed behind him, and without turning around from the counter, she said, “I don’t care what you do, Mark, but I’m flying out of here wit
h Wyanet Chouinard on Monday.” She flipped the salmon steaks onto a plate and put it on the table. “Supper’s ready. Sit down and eat.”

  He sat automatically. “But, Rebecca-”

  She brought the rice, the soy sauce and the salad, already dressed. “No, Mark,” she said, and whatever he had been going to say was stopped dead by the firm decision in her voice. “I have done everything you’ve asked me to. I quit my job when I didn’t want to, I turned over our home to a house sitter I didn’t know, I left behind my friends-”

  “I sold it,” he said, looking at his plate.

  “-and family and-what?”

  “I sold the house.”

  Silence. He looked up to see her fork suspended in midair, her blue eyes staring at him unblinking. “Before we left in May, I sold the house.”

  More silence. Compelled to fill it, he said, “I sold it to Jeff Kline. He always liked it, and you know he’ll take good care of it. You don’t have to worry about our stuff, I paid a mover to pack it up and put it into storage. We’ll have it shipped out here after I add on a couple of rooms to the cabin.”

  He looked up and her eyes were fixed on his face but she was looking more through him than at him. “Rebecca?” He took her hand. She let it lie in his, limp, lifeless, unresponsive.

  “How could you sell it?” she said finally.

  He misunderstood. “It was in my name. It was my house before we were married. We never did get it changed over.”

  “No,” she said, her voice coming more strongly. “Howcould you?”

  He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, couldn’t quite face that wounded look. “Just give it a chance, Rebecca, okay? We’ll be together and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?” He took a deep breath and made the supreme sacrifice. “And maybe we can have that kid you’re always bugging me about. Great place to raise kids, isn’t it? No drugs on the street corner, no crazy people shooting up the high schools, no television to monitor. You could teach him, home-school him, you know, and I could teach him everything else. You’ll like it, Rebecca, you’ll-”