The bunkhouse was only slightly larger than the office. A dozen cots had been wedged into the cramped space, each adorned with a sheet, pillow, and thin blanket. A door at the farside of the room stood open, offering a view of the latrine. Ray could smell the septic pit from where he stood.
“How big is the crew?” he asked, surveying the room.
“It varies. Right now we’re running nineteen.”
Ray counted the cots. “There aren’t enough beds.”
“We sleep in shifts. Or we don’t sleep at all. I’m telling you, this place is hell on earth.” Stepping to a cot, he reached underneath and slid out a creased U-Haul book box. “Here’s his stuff. Nothing of value. Otherwise, he would have taken it with him.”
Sinking to the cot, Ray straddled the box and began fishing through it. Mack was right. There was nothing even remotely valuable: matches, half-empty packets of cigarettes, an empty cigar box, a bottle of Jim Beam with a trace amount of liquor …
He dug past another whiskey bottle and several more crushed Marlboro cartons before discovering a layer of papers. He set them on the cot and leafed through: an unfinished letter to someone named Mona, a handwritten list of addresses, a creased Sports Illustrated featuring a basketball player in mid-dunk, a coverless booklet entitled A Guide to Small Arms, a worn copy of a periodical called Babe … The latter displayed a well-endowed woman who had assumed a decidedly unladylike position. She wasn’t wearing a top. Just a string bikini bottom, a great deal of makeup, and an alluring smile.
“That doesn’t look very comfortable,” Keera observed as Ray quickly slid the magazine under the hunting booklet. “Wouldn’t that hurt your back?”
Ignoring her question, Ray thumbed through another hunting booklet and sidestepped two more issues of Babe before discovering a manila envelope. He tipped it up, pouring the contents onto the cot. Snapshots: a man with an attractive woman in short shorts, the same man with another woman, this one bursting out of a tight halter top, the man grabbing yet another woman in desperate need of additional clothing. The man in the pictures was ruggedly handsome, a real macho type with a killer smile.
“I assume this is Rick,” Ray said, tapping one of the photos.
“Yep. That’s him,” Mack muttered.
In with the snapshots were several letters. The writing wasn’t the same on all of the envelopes, but in each case it was feminine. One envelope was legal size, the address neatly typed. The upper left corner bore a stylized derivation of the yin/yang symbol and the name: Digidine International. The return address was San Francisco. The envelope had been ripped open from the end. Ray stuck a finger in. Empty.
Tossing it onto the cot, he sighed at the pile of useless material. No handwritten confession stating that Sanders had ripped off the explosive and set out to blast Farrell to bits. No bomb-making diagrams. No specs on floatplane engines and ignition systems. No diary filled with paranoid ramblings. Nothing. Just evidences of vice.
Keera lifted the legal envelope, and declared, “He did it.”
“Who? Did what?”
“Rick.” She nodded. “Rick Sanders hooked the bomb to Dr. Farrell’s plane.”
FORTY-ONE
“HOW DO YOU know Rick did it?” Mack asked her, his face twisted.
Keera held the envelope up to him. Mack accepted it, turned it over in his hands, peered inside, then glanced at Ray.
“Don’t look at me,” he said, palms in the air. “I don’t understand her either.”
Mack examined the envelope with a critical scowl. “Who the heck’s Digidine?”
“Never heard of them,” Ray admitted. He turned to Keera. “Who’s Digidine?”
She shrugged.
Ray felt a new and impressive headache coming on. He took the envelope from Mack, folded it carefully, and put it into this pocket. “Can I use your radio?”
“Sure.” Mack shoved Sanders’s belongings back into the box with one smooth motion, then sent it skidding back under the cot with a boot. As they left the bunkhouse, he pointed at the third building. “Let’s use the unit in the cafeteria. It’s got a better range.”
The cafeteria, like the office and the bunkhouse, was the color of a fire engine. No wolf’s face. Just a glossy coat of paint.
Five men were inside, seated at folding tables, heads bobbing as they scooped beans, rice, and some sort of chunky hash from their plates. The room had been sectioned off, the rear converted into a narrow galley where a pair of cooks were laboring over a row of steaming kettles. The overriding aroma was that of garlic, and Ray’s stomach growled at the smell. He was suddenly starving.
Somehow recognizing this, Mack said, “While you’re on the horn, I’ll fix you up a couple of plates.” He leaned over the pots. “Stew, beans, and rice. How’s that sound?”
It was all Ray could do to keep from drooling. He nodded, “Great.” It would delay them an extra thirty minutes, but at the moment, he didn’t care. Besides, if Keera was right, if she actually did have some supernatural line on where Farrell was, they might not be going directly back to the village.
Mack pointed down a narrow hall at a dented door. “That’s the radio room.”
Radio room turned out to be a generous description. It was actually a bathroom no larger than an airliner lavatory. Next to the toilet, instead of a sink, a radio unit had been attached to the wall. Two questions arose in Ray’s mind. First, how were you supposed to close the door? He ended up standing on the toilet seat in order to give the door clearance. Second, where did the men wash up after using the bathroom? Maybe they didn’t.
Seated on the toilet, he flicked the power switch and set the tuning knob to the right frequency. Thumbing the mike, he called, “Barrow PD. Come in.” After adjusting the volume, he tried again. “Barrow PD. Come in.”
The static surged and a voice called back, “Howdy. This here’s the Barrow.”
“Billy Bob?”
“Yes, sirree. Is this Ray?”
“Yeah. What are you doing in the office? Why aren’t you in bed? Are you okay?”
“Wall … Let’s see … Yep. I’m doin’ perty good. Doctor fixed me all up. Said mostly my wounds was superficial. Um … He said I shouldn’t move around a lot, but that I didn’t have to just stay in bed all the time. And … Um … I’m in the office cause the captain wanted to talk to me about our huntin’ trip. He’s bent outta shape, Ray. ‘Bout as happy as a rattler that just got his tail run over by a semi. ‘Specially the part about us reeling in a head. He wuddn’t keen on that whatsoever.”
“Yeah, well he’s not the only one.”
“What’s been goin’ on with you, partner? Where are ya?”
In a stinky indoor outhouse, he felt like saying. “At Red Wolf.”
“Red Wolf? Ain’t that a beer?”
“I’m not sure. But it is a zinc mine.”
“Zinc? What do you use zinc for?”
“For …” Ray tried to remember for what but couldn’t. “Is Betty around?”
“Nah. She left for the day. Carl is supposed to be man-nin’ the fort. But what with Lewis out, he had to go on patrol. So I told the captain, since I was here anyways, that I’d set in for a while. Till I got too sleepy. Them medicines do that, you know.”
“How’s Lewis?” Ray had forgotten to ask.
“Doin’ perty good considering. The doctor told him not to move around for about a week, cuz-a his shoulder. Got ‘em in a big ole cast. You can sign it when you get back.”
The knob on the bathroom door jiggled. There was a thump, then a series of bangs, a curse. A voice outside demanded to know what idiot had locked the door.
“Be out in a minute!” Ray shouted. “Listen,” he told Billy Bob, “I need you to run a check on a company called Digidine.”
“I think I heard of them. That’s a fast-food chain, right?”
“No. It’s a company based in San Francisco. I need you to find out what they do.”
After a long pause, he called, “Billy Bob?�
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“Yeah. I’m here. I was just thinkin’. It’s Saturday evening, Ray. I don’t think they’ll be nobody around down at Digitime.”
“Oigidine. D-I-G-I-D-I-NE. And I don’t care what day it is. Just do it.”
After another pause, the cowboy asked, “How?”
Resisting the urge to curse, Ray said, “Call Betty. Tell her what I need.” He read the Digidine address. “And Billy Bob, do it now. We’re about to leave.”
“Gotcha, partner. AS-A-P. Shore thing. You can count on me, Ray.” There was a pause. “Now … what was the name of that company again—Digi-sum-thin’?”
“Get your fanny outta there!” a voice outside the bathroom bellowed. Something hard collided with the already-bruised door and the entire room shook.
“Hang on!” Ray repeated the specifics quickly, insisting that Billy Bob contact Betty, and reminding the cowboy that he would call back in twenty minutes. He then hung the mike on the radio and mounted the toilet to perform a Houdini-like exit. In the hall, an unshaven worker with a pinched face glared at him, hopping from one foot to the other.
“About time …” he muttered, hurrying inside.
Ray found Keera and Mack at a table sampling the stew. “What did you find out?’’ Mack asked between bites. He gestured to an empty chair and a full plate of food.
“Nothing yet.” Ray sat down and speared a chicken cube. The stew was either very good, or he was exceedingly hungry. Or both. He wolfed it down and had eaten most of the beans, half the rice, when Mack rose, plate in hand. “Help yourself to more.”
As the beefy man was procuring a second helping, Ray asked Keera, “You really think this Rick guy is responsible for the bomb, huh?”
She nodded, her expression one of utter sincerity. Having spent the past ten minutes rearranging her food with a fork, her plate remained full.
“Not hungry?”
“No. Besides, I hear better on an empty stomach.”
“Ah …” Ray decided not to ask. “If Sanders did do it,” he postulated, “there had to be a reason.” He paused to finish his rice. “But I can’t figure out what it was.”
“Money,” Mack suggested, retaking his seat. “Just about anyone will do just about anything for money. I’ve been a businessman for over thirty years. I’ve seen it all. People are selfish and greedy, in that order. For enough money, they’ll shoot their own mother.”
Ray considered this. Mack was right. Whether white, Native, European, Inupiat, people were given to avarice. “Yeah, I guess,” he acknowledged. “But … It still doesn’t make sense. Sanders gets fired. That ticks him off. He’s mad at Hal. Why wouldn’t he go looking to get even? Why would he take out his anger on one of the boss’s friends, a guy who digs up old skeletons and relics?”
“I’m telling you, Sanders would cut off his arm and give it to you for a price.”
Ray frowned. While money might well be the motivation, it didn’t clear anything up. “Maybe Digidine has something to do with it.”
“It does. I already told you that,” Keera chided. “You don’t believe me.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just …”
“You don’t believe me,” she complained. “How can I make you believe me?”
“Tell you what,” Ray negotiated, “if my people turn something up on Digidine, something hard and fast that helps connect the dots, then I’ll believe you.”
“And you’ll go upriver to find Farrell’s body?”
“His body!” Mack gasped, spewing beans.
“Okay. Yeah. We’ll go looking for him, if something comes of Digidine. If not, we head for home.” He felt sure that he would come out on top in this little agreement.
Keera reached her hand over and shook his. “It’s a deal.”
Ten minutes later, the man Ray had met in the hallway returned to the cafeteria.
“Be back in a minute,” Ray said. He left Mack to inhale another load of stew, Keera to stir and rearrange. Standing in the hall, Ray toggled the power button on the radio, removed the mike, and stretched the cord to its full length.
“Barrow PD. Come in, Barrow PD.” He glanced at his watch. It had only been fifteen minutes. Chances were slim that Billy Bob had learned anything about Digidine.
“Ray? Hey, there. I was just fixin’ to call you.”
“Is that right?” He wondered exactly how the cowboy had intended to do that, not knowing his whereabouts or proximity to the radio. “What have you got for me?”
“Wall … I talked to Betty. She made some calls to somebody or other. Next thing I know, she’s called back with ever-thang you could ever want to know about Digitel.”
“Digidine!” Ray corrected, his heart sinking. It would be just his luck to get the full rundown on some other, totally unrelated company.
“Right. Digidine. Anyhow … You gotcha a pencil or sum-thin’ to write with?”
“Just tell me.”
‘ Okay … Wall … Digidine is in San Francisco. And … Let’s see here … They make some sort of … Uh … A kind of a thing that goes in … uh … Cain’t read my own … Uh …
“They make … uh … computer mo-dems. And … Um … And it says here that … Digidine has … two plants. Both of ‘em in … San Francisco.”
“Okay. Thanks for trying, Billy Bob. I’ve got to go.”
“… And they got, uh … two hundred employees. And they’re owned by a conglomerate.”
Already reaching for the power button, Ray froze. “What kind of conglomerate?”
“Chi-neez corporation. Uh … Hu-noon.”
“Hunan?”
“You heard of ‘em?”
“Yeah. I’ve heard of them.” He wished that he hadn’t. He wished that Billy Bob hadn’t mentioned the name either.He wished that hearing it didn’t mean what it meant: that he had lost his deal and would be required to head upstream on a corpse hunt with a ten-year-old Athabascan seer.
FORTY-TWO
“WHAT’S THE STORY?” Mack asked when Ray returned to the table.
Ray’s answer took the form of a belabored, groaning sigh.
Keera beamed at this, somehow guessing that the news was to her advantage.
“Digidine is owned by Hunan,” Ray told them.
“Hunan?” Mack shoveled in the beans. “Farrell’s corporate sponsor?”
“What does that mean?’’ Keera asked.
“I have no idea,” Ray admitted. “But if this Sanders guy rigged the floatplane, and if he was in contact with Digidine, which is owned by Hunan, which sponsors the archaeological dig …” He clamped his eyes shut against the tentacle-like connections.
“So we’re going upriver, right?” Keera asked. “You promised.”
“Yeah … I know …” He shook his head. “I should probably have a talk with Janice Farrell. Fill her in. Let her know that her husband seems to be …”
“Dead,” Keera said flatly.
“Missing.” He glanced out the open front door and sighed heavily. “Problem is, we’ve only got a few hours of light left.”
“I’d say three … three and a half hours till dusk,” Mack estimated helpfully.
“That’s enough time to get up to Shainin Lake and back,” Keera said.
After another melodramatic sigh, Ray agreed, “Yeah. Maybe. And I suppose we could spend the night at the dig site, if we have to.”
“You’re welcome here,” Mack said magnanimously.”
“If we get hung up, I know the Bush,” Keera said. “I know my way in the dark.”
Ray nodded, hoping they wouldn’t get hung up. “We better get going.”
Mack hurriedly stuffed two more wide loads of stew into his mouth, washed them down with a gulp of coffee, and bolted to his feet. “I’ll drive you down.” He led them to the ATV and started the engine while Ray and Keera climbed into the trailer.
As they rumbled and jolted their way down the winding track, Ray squinted into a furious sun and tried to sort out what they
had learned on their visit to the mine. Not much. At least, nothing that made sense. Just a jumble of bits and pieces. The type of explosive used to sabotage Farrell’s plane matched the type used at Red Wolf. Okay. And there was even a brick of the stuff missing. Good. That should mean that someone at Red Wolf was responsible for the bomb. Maybe.
And then there was Sanders. Disgruntled employee communicating with Hunan, or at least an arm of the corporation. Coincidence? Doubtful. How many employees of this mine just happened to be receiving letters from the sponsor of a nearby scientific expedition? Okay. Say Hunan had contacted Sanders. Why? About what? Had they paid him to steal the plastique and rig the plane? That actually made sense, sort of. Except … Why would Hunan want to murder the leader of the dig it was funding?
Ray stared at the craggy, steel gray peaks looming on the farside of the valley, as if they might hold the solution to all the world’s problems. A moment later, the river presented itself: a beryl serpent slithering through a narrow forest of yellow and red. Gazing south, he thought he could make out the archaeological camp. Not the camp itself, but the location of the Zodiacs. Farther upriver, a crescent mirror reflected the sun’s glare. Shainin Lake? Maybe with a gas-powered motor they could make the trip up and back relatively quickly. All they had to do was find Farrell’s body.
Ray was pondering this, wondering how to extricate himself from the whole silly plan, and speculating as to whether or not there was enough gas in the raft’s engine to even get to the lake, when they reached the twine-bordered square of exposed earth.
“Can we stop for a minute? I want to look around, if that’s okay.”
Mack shrugged, squeezed a brake, and switched off the ignition. “Doesn’t bother me. Just don’t go inside the ropes. Farrell gets all hot “and bothered about that.”
Ray walked to the corner of the cordoned-off area. It was unremarkable: a neat, level square of dirt. He made his way along the side, then down the rear rope, to the pit. It was in the back corner, a full three feet deeper than the rest of the site. Leaning across the boundary, he peered in and saw what looked like plastic jugs half-buried in the wall. High-stepping over the rope, he hopped into the hole.
Season of Death Page 27