by Breakup(lit)
Baker, chatting again with Bickford, beckoned her over. "Well, Ms.
Shugak," he said in his best lord-of-the-manor air, "I believe you know
Mr. Bickford of Earlybird Air Freight."
"We've met," Kate said, without enthusiasm.
"Splendid," Mr. Baker said jovially. "We've just been discussing your
little, her, dilemma, in regard to compensation for this, her,
unfortunate accident."
Kate opened her mouth to inform both of them that she didn't regard the
situation as a "little, her, dilemma," but something in Mr. Baker's gaze
stopped her. "Have you?" she said slowly.
Mr. Baker, hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels and smiled at
Bickford, who smiled back, a little sickly, Kate thought.
"Mr. Bickford and I have found much to discuss," Mr. Baker said, even
more jovially. "It seems I am acquainted with his employer." He beamed
at the two of them.
"His employer?" Kate said, drawing a blank.
"Yes indeed. Patrick O'Donnell and I are old friends. We manage to get
in a game of squash whenever he's in town, and he's been out to the
house for dinner quite often. A charming man."
"Who is that, dear?" Mrs. Baker came out of the cabin dusting
fastidiously at her hands.
"Patrick O'Donnell, Margery," her husband replied. "You remember. The
chief executive officer of Earlybird Air Freight."
"Why, of course," she said. She slid an arm through her husband's and
bestowed a smile on the Earlybird man that was cordial without in any
way encouraging overfamiliarity. "And how is dear Patrick?"
Bickford's expression indicated that he had about as much to
143 do with dear Patrick as the parish priest did with the pope, but he
struggled gamely to keep up. "The last I heard, he was fine, ma'am. He
spends most of his time at corporate headquarters in New York, of course."
"Of course," Mrs. Baker agreed. "Will he be coming up to oversee this
fuss, do you think?"
Bickford tried not to look appalled at the thought. "I don't think so,
ma'am." He hastened to add, "I'm sure that he is in constant
communication with the Anchorage office, however."
"A pity," she said. "It would be so nice to see dear Patrick again."
Mr. Baker patted her hand consolingly. The hand was adorned with a
diamond solitaire the size of Plymouth Rock. Bickford noticed, and tried
not to goggle. "I was just telling Mr. Bickford, dear, that I know
Patrick would wish that every effort be made to redress this dreadful
situation. No one hates litigation more than he does, and I'm sure Ms.
Shugak would agree that there is nothing to be gained by action that
would be most distressing for all concerned." He raised an expectant
eyebrow in Kate's direction.
"Oh, of course," Kate said in a faint voice, mostly because it seemed to
be required of her. Litigation? Like with lawyers? Lawyers cost money,
and at this moment the one-pound Darigold butter can on the table in the
cabin held less than two hundred bucks, and that much only until she
filed her taxes. Mandy was watching from the doorstep of the cabin, a
slight smile that was hard to read on her face.
"So I feel that, really, for the best interests of all concerned, a
prompt, just settlement would be most beneficial. I'm sure Patrick would
agree, aren't you, dear?"
"Certainly," said Mrs. Baker. "He would be most upset at anything less."
"Where do you bank, Ms. Shugak?" Mr. Baker said.
Kate stared at him with the fascination usually exhibited by a deer
frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car. "Ah-"
"Yes?" Mr. Baker prompted.
144 "I really would prefer cash," she said, trying like hell not to
sound apologetic and failing miserably.
"Cash?" Both of Mr. Baker's eyebrows went up. "Are you accustomed to
keeping that amount of currency on hand?"
After a beat, Kate said, "How much-currency-are we talking about?"
"We were discussing an amount in the area of fifty thousand."
"Fifty thousand?" Kate's voice went up into a squeak, which what with
scar tissue and a naturally low register was quite a feat. Mandy hid a
grin. Kate cleared her throat and tried again. "Fifty thousand? Dollars?"
The eyebrows were still up, and Mr. Baker said blandly, "I believe so."
He glanced at the Earlybird man for confirmation. Bickford gave a glum
nod. "Of course, if there was some question-"
"No," Kate said, getting her voice back under control. "No indeed." She
acquired a little blandness herself and sent some of it Bickford's way
in a wide, bright smile. He looked even more glum. "I might be able to
stretch fifty thousand to cover the damages."
Bickford cast a disparaging eye around the sixty-year-old homestead,
including outhouse with ventilated door, cabin with patched roof,
trashed garage, smashed cache, speared snow machine and squashed but
obviously aged truck, and visibly restrained a disbelieving snort.
"Excellent," Mr. Baker said, and gave Bickford a warm, approving smile,
beneath which Kate, now that she was looking for it, could clearly
discern the feral grin. "There's no hurry, of course. Ms. Shugak will be
happy to take delivery of her settlement- tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow would be fine," Kate said happily.
Mr. Baker extended a regal hand. "I'll be speaking to Patrick soon, Mr.
Bickford, and I won't forget to mention how very helpful you have been."
"Thanks," Bickford muttered, and slunk off in the wake of the departing
NTSB crew. Stewman came over to say goodbye, but Mutt, who had yet to
forgive any of them for the bear repellent,
145 wouldn't let him get within speaking distance of Kate, and he was
reduced to waving a dismal goodbye. The Tom Sawyer grin was in abeyance.
Kate, dollar signs dancing in front of her eyes, wouldn't have seen it
anyway.
When the last of them had vanished up the trail, Kate regained enough
sangfroid to look Mr. and Mrs. Baker over with a speculative eye. "Just
how well do you know dear Patrick?"
Mr. Baker affected an elegant shudder. "Only too well. He sits on the
board of my bank. A corporate genius, but-"
"He's a ruffian," Mrs. Baker said, with a slight but nevertheless
distinctly disdainful lift of her upper lip. "He actually drinks his
soup from the bowl at table."
So do I, Kate thought, but decided it politic not to say so. Instead,
she said, "I think it's time you called me Kate."
"Why, thank you, Kate," Mr. Baker said, with a warm smile from which all
presence of jungle had been banished. For the moment. "My name is Richard."
"And I am Margery," his wife said, and in her smile this time there was
no repeat of the peer-to-peasant demeanor that had withered the speech
on Bickford's tongue.
"Richard, Margery, would you and your daughter care to join me for a
late lunch?"
"That sounds lovely, Kate. Thank you."
Kate stood to one side and let them precede her. "I should have known,"
she told Mandy once the couple was inside.
"Known what?"
"That your parents would be all right."
Mandy Hushed a
painful red right up to the roots of her hair. "Up yours."
"Bite me," Kate replied amiably, turning.
Mandy put a hand on her arm. "Listen, Kate? Thanks. Thanks a lot."
"For what?"
"I'm not sure. All I know is, Mother and Dad have really relaxed. This
morning they were talking to Chick like he's a human
146 being instead of something out of an old Western movie." She paused,
and added, unable to conceal her surprise, "They've even been talking to
me like I'm a grown-up instead of a ten-year-old. I don't know what you
did-"
"I didn't do anything," Kate said honestly. "I didn't, Mandy." She
added, "Unless you count nearly getting them eaten by a bear, almost
getting them in a plane wreck and-" Almost too late she remembered Mandy
didn't know about the firefight and swallowed the rest of her sentence.
"Well. They won't go home complaining of an uneventful visit."
Mandy grinned. "Maybe that's what did it."
"Whatever. Anyway, if I helped, I'm glad. They're good people."
Mandy smiled, the slight smile she'd had as she watched her father go to
work on Kevin Bickford. "He's something, my old man."
"Your old lady's not half bad herself."
"No," Mandy admitted. "She's not."
"And together they make one hell of a team."
"Yes," Mandy said slowly, and smiled. "They do."
The lines of Mandy's face had relaxed, and the anxious look in her eyes
was gone. She looked ten years younger. Kate said, "Mandy, were you
afraid they'd talk you into going home with them?"
The other woman, hands in her pockets, studied the ground and thought
about it for a moment. "I guess I was," she said slowly. "I guess I
actually was." She looked up at Kate and laughed. "What an idiot.
Thanks, Kate."
"We do family therapy." Kate had held out her hand, palm up. "That'll be
five cents."
Mandy made a production of digging a nickel out of her pocket, and then
demanded a receipt for tax purposes.
Balance restored, they went inside, and were just sitting down to tuna
fish sandwiches (with mayonnaise, diced white onions and
147 sweet pickles on white bread, Kate's specialty) when from the
clearing Mutt gave a sharp, warning bark.
Kate's newfound sense of harmony with the universe shattered. "Oh
Christ, and what fresh hell is this?"
"And she reads Dorothy Parker," Mandy told her parents smugly.
Margery sniffed. "A vulgar woman."
Richard grinned. "You only say that because she insulted you at tea that
day in New York."
"She insulted everyone, from what I hear," Mandy said, biting into her
sandwich.
"You knew her?" Kate said, gaping. "You knew Dorothy Parker?" Mutt
barked again. "Dammit," she said impatiently and crossed the room to
wrench open the door. "Oh shit."
It was Billy Mike, coming down the trail as if the hounds of hell were
at his heels, his round face flushed, his barrel-shaped chest heaving,
his usually neatly combed hair standing up in tufts all over his head.
In a low voice Kate said a very bad word.
Her tribal chairman slid to a halt in front of her door. "What?" she
snapped. Her tone of voice was inappropriate for speaking to an elder.
She knew it and didn't care.
He knew it and took no notice. "It's Cindy and Ben Bingley."
Kate stiffened. "What about them?"
He gulped for air. "She's got him held hostage at their house."
"Their house? Their house in Niniltna?"
He nodded, panting.
Kate stared at him. "You drove twenty-five miles during breakup to tell
me that? What the hell am I supposed to do about it? Chopper Jim's up to
the mine, checking out that bear attack. Call him in."
He shook his head violently. "She says she'll only talk to you. She's
got a rifle, Kate. Billy's hunting rifle."
Kate thought of the scene at the airstrip the previous afternoon. "So
what's the big deal? Maybe she'll shoot him, maybe she
148 won't. And if she does shoot him, maybe she'll miss. She did
yesterday. Either way, it's no big loss." She turned to go back inside.
"You want some coffee and sandwiches?"
Billy's voice was panicked. "Kate! She said she wanted to talk to you!
Nobody else, only you! You've got to do something, you have to!"
Kate's outward indifference fooled no one, least of all herself. Her
eyes closed and for a moment, for just one precious moment, she
pretended she wasn't Ekaterina Moonin Shugak's granddaughter and
anointed heir. The same vacuum that had yawned at her feet at the
previous year's Alaska Federation of Natives convention yawned again, an
ever-deepening chasm of obligation and responsibility that threatened to
suck her in and rob her of her autonomy, her privacy, her solitude, her
independence, everything that was important to her.
More important than family? Emaa's voice said in her head. More
important than your tribe? For shame, Katya. For shame.
Damn you, old woman, she thought furiously, stay out of my head.
She opened her eyes and found the elder Bakers regarding her with
curiosity, and Mandy with more than a little sympathy. Kate was going
into town, and they both knew it.
She swore once beneath her breath. "All right, Billy," she said shortly.
"I'll follow you in."
"Good," Billy said, although he didn't look convinced. He pointed over
his shoulder in the vague direction of the road. "I'll just- I'll get my
car."
"Fine."
Mandy smothered a smile.
"Right," Billy said. He backed up a few steps. Kate did not follow him.
He paused to point over his other shoulder. "My car. I'll wait for you.
I'll just- I'll follow you in."
"You do that," Kate said evenly.
149
The Bingleys lived five miles outside Niniltna, in a subdivision of a
dozen houses whose construction had been subsidized by a low- interest
loan program offered by the Niniltna Native Association in conjunction
with the FHA. It was a pity the loan didn't extend to road maintenance,
because there was a pothole the size of a lunar crater at the turnoff.
There was no going around it, and Kate, calling curses down on Billy
Mike's head, set her teeth and geared down. Mutt braced her front paws
on the dash and dug in her claws. They climbed the opposite side of the
pothole to emerge bumper to bumper with Billy's Honda Civic Wagovan.
Billy's wasn't the only vehicle present, and all of the front-row seats
had long since been filled. Dandy Mike was there with Karen Kompkoff,
his GMC long-bed Turbo Diesel V8 backed around so they could snuggle
together in a sleeping bag in the bed and not
150 miss any of the show. Auntie Vi, never one to miss an opportunity to
make a buck, was selling Velveeta-topped pizza for a dollar a slice out
of her second car, a brand-new Ford Aerostar, evidently too new to rent