What was that illness when you were afraid to go outside your own home? He remembered reading a story once about a woman who hadn’t left her house in twenty-one years. They’d given it a name, interviewed doctors, sounded Greek—agoraphobic, that was it. Why agoraphobic? The Agora was an area of shops in Athens dating back to classical times. He’d traveled in Europe the summer after he’d graduated from college, a gift from his parents, relieved that their son had made it through school without their having to pick up child support as an additional expense. He remembered the women of Greece fondly. One minute you were looking at a statue carved two thousand years before, the next you saw the model for it strolling down the street with that marvelous Hellenic arrogance that says, “We were building the Parthenon when you were chipping out arrowheads and don’t you forget it.” Greek women brought that arrogance to bed with them, where it said, “Okay, show me what you got, I dare you.” Jim dared every chance that came his way.
Yes, there was something special about the women of Greece, something extra, a bonus. Of course, there were more than a few Alaskan women you could say that about, too. He immediately thought of the five-foot package of dynamite back at the airport, and tripped over a rock thrown up by the gravel fill of the roadbed. He caught himself and swore. A goose, species unidentified but about the size of a Stearson, exploded out of a hummock of grass two feet to his right, honking angrily. When Jim got his heart restarted, he moved on.
Slowly but steadily, he left the hum and bustle of the municipal airport behind, and so it was with annoyance that he heard the buzz of something airborne nearby. He saw the plane soon after he heard it; small, single-engine, a Cub, he thought, although the engine sounded thin and tinny. It was red with white letters, and as he watched, it climbed, stalled, dipped a wing, dropped into a brief spin, leveled out and gained speed to climb again.
Jim disapproved. There wasn’t enough light at night for acrobatics, not even in Bering in July. There was a pilot who was just sitting up and begging for a crash.
The Cub banked right and dipped below the tops of another cluster of alder trees nestled into a bend in the road. Jim quickened his step, rounded the trees and saw that he’d been right, the plane was on a short final to the gravel road that looked more like a controlled crash than a landing. It bounced twice, hard, before giving an almost perceptible shrug and settling down on the ground, rolling out to a stop, not five feet from his toes.
He looked down at the plane. It was a Cub, all right, but the wingspan was only three feet wingtip to wingtip.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. It was a model aircraft with a working engine, ailerons, rudder, rolling tires that were miniature tundra tires if he was not mistaken, the whole nine yards. If it were life-sized and it was September, he could have climbed in and headed out in search of caribou. He crouched down to examine it more closely, astonished by the accuracy of the detail.
Hasty feet thudded up the road, and he looked up to see a girl approaching at a trot, a control box clutched in one fist. Eyes wide, out of breath, she skidded to a halt on the loose gravel ten feet away.
They stared at each other. “Hello,” Jim said finally.
She said nothing.
Jim nodded at the Cub. “Nice plane.”
Silence.
Jim squatted on his haunches, elbows on his knees, hands dangling, and did his best to look harmless. “You build it?” He dusted off his best smile.
She moved forward a step, pulled closer either because of his charm of manner or because she was afraid he might steal her airplane.
“My name’s Jim,” he said, and held out a hand. “I’m a pilot, too.”
Later, when he got to know her better, he would realize that it was the “too,” the implied equality, that had brought her the rest of the way. She stopped on the other side of the Cub and squatted down in an imitation of his stance.
“What’s your name?” he asked, letting his hand drop.
She gave his question the same careful consideration he would learn she gave all questions put to her. “Stephanie,” she said at last. “Stephanie Chevak.” Her voice was a mere whisper of sound he had to strain to hear.
“Jim,” he repeated. “Jim Cho—Churchill.” He held out his hand again, and after a moment she took it, obviously unaccustomed to the gesture but equally obviously determined to meet him courtesy for courtesy. Her hand was tiny in comparison to his, and felt a little sweaty against his palm. Her fingernails were clipped short and grimy, her fingertips callused. She worked with those hands.
She was Yupik, round-faced with narrow brown eyes tilted toward her temples and a ponytail of long black hair. Her skin was a smooth, dark gold in color, her cheekbones high and flat. Her chin was pointed and very firm, and Jim had a suspicion it would grow more so with age. Kate had a chin like that. Shut up, shut up, shut up.
She wore a kuspuk made of blue flowered corduroy trimmed with white rickrack, over a pair of faded blue jeans with nothing left to the knees and a pair of hightop Reeboks with heels that lit up every time she put her feet down. They glowed now, a neon pink that would have looked more appropriate on a cafe sign in Anchorage flashing “Eats! Eats! Eats!”
She put her hands on the leading edge of the model’s wings and with great care turned the red model airplane belly up. There was a square of black plastic cut into the belly. Stephanie ran her hands down the fuselage and pressed a corner of the plastic. It popped open to reveal a lens.
“A camera!” Jim said, surprised.
She looked at him, her expression unsmiling but not unfriendly.
“You taking pictures from up there?” He jerked a thumb up.
She hesitated, then nodded once.
“Well, hey,” Jim said. “That’s kind of neat. I suppose you take the tape home and show them on the television afterward?”
She said something in her small voice.
“I’m sorry, what?” Jim said.
“Transmitter,” she said again.
“Oh,” he said. “You’ve got a transmitter in there?” He gestured at the body of the model airplane.
She nodded.
A smile spread across Jim’s face. “What do you do, broadcast?”
She nodded.
“Where to?” he said. She didn’t answer, and he thought he saw a hint of a challenge in her glance. “Of course,” he said. “You’re a ham, aren’t you?”
There was the barest allusion to a smile at the corner of her mouth.
“A ham radio operator,” he said. “I know a ham. Name’s Bobby. Operates a transmitter out of Niniltna. You ever talk to him?”
“Clark the Park Spark?” Still in the tiny voice, but her first indication of real interest.
“That’s him.” Something in the quality of her expression changed. It was the first time in Jim’s life that his consequence had been increased simply by knowing Bobby Clark. “Anyway, I remember him telling me that there are cable channel frequencies reserved for hams.”
“Fifty-seven to sixty,” she said promptly.
“Yeah, Bobby called it the ham band. So you broadcast pictures from your plane on the ham band to, where? Your home television?”
She nodded.
“How far is the signal good for?” he said, trying to entice her into more than a nonsyllabic reply.
“Five miles.”
“No kidding?”
“So long as you have a direct line of sight.”
He looked around. “It’s a little dark to be taking pictures, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Special film?” he said.
A pause, another nod.
“Who’s watching?” She looked confused. “At home,” he said, “right now. Who’s watching television?”
Her face closed up. He had trespassed, who knew how. He went for a change of subject. “You build the plane?”
A pause, a slight nod.
“Nice job,” he said, and meant it.
“Thank you.�
� Her voice was a little stronger this time.
“You have help?”
She shook her head.
“You do it all yourself?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“Wow.” He looked at her with an admiration that was not at all feigned.
An expression flashed across her face and Jim tried to identify it. It wasn’t, as he might expect, pride. Embarrassment? Why embarrassment for a job so well done? She’d done all the work, she should take all the credit and then some. “Well, you did a terrific job. This looks just like the one I fly. Different colors, is all. Plus maybe a little bigger.”
She almost smiled that time.
“It was a kit?”
She nodded.
“You send away for it?”
She nodded.
“How long did it take you to build?”
She considered. “Five months.”
“You’re kidding. From the time you got the kit, only five months?”
She nodded again.
“Wow.” Jim’s whistle was low and admiring and honest. “That’s pretty impressive. You build the engine, too?”
She shook her head. “Not this time.”
This time his smile was natural and without guile. “Next time?”
This time she did smile back and it was a revelation, lighting the little face with humor and intelligence.
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“You going to be a pilot when you grow up?”
“Yes.” It was a simple statement of fact. “And an engineer.”
“What kind?”
“Aerospace.”
“You want to build rockets?”
“I want to fly them,” she said.
“Oh,” Jim said. “You a Star Trek fan?”
Her smile came back, wider this time, matched by a twinkle in the brown eyes. “Star Wars.”
“Aha,” Jim said. “ ‘Ancient weapons—”
“—and a hokey religion—” she chimed in irresistibly.
“—are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid,’ ” they both intoned.
She giggled. It was an enchanting sound. In the next instant she was serious again, her voice back to its whisper. “They never should have taken Darth Vader’s mask off.”
“In Jedi?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“What should they have done instead?”
She thought about that, very grave. “They should have let us see his face in Luke’s,” she said at last.
Jim was trying to decipher this cryptic utterance and form a reply that wouldn’t get him laughed out of town, when Stephanie’s face changed. Jim watched her realize that she was talking to a stranger on a lonely road late at night, a male stranger, and a gussuk male stranger, at that. She stood up.
Jim did, too. She was right; she shouldn’t be talking to strangers. Still, he said, “You want some help getting your Cub home?”
She shook her head, ponytail whipping vigorously back and forth.
“Yeah, well, I guess you got it out here all right.” He stood looking down at girl and model plane. “Why are you out here so late at night, Stephanie?”
Her change of expression was swift and immediate. All she did was shrug, but Jim felt the definite slam of a door in his face. “I’d like to see you try out her wings in daylight sometime. If that’s okay?”
Another shrug, a good way to return a noncommittal answer to a specific question. She tucked the plane beneath an arm and set off down the road in the opposite direction from the airport.
“Good-bye,” he called after her. “Nice meeting you.”
She hesitated, and looked over her shoulder. Their eyes met straight on for the first time, and he thought he saw her smile, but he could have been wrong. She started walking again, a sturdy, determined little figure, neon pink lights flashing from her heels.
It was a lonely stretch of road, and he worried about her for a moment. But she lived here and he didn’t, and she obviously knew where she was going. Still, he wondered what her parents were thinking, to let her out at this hour.
He wondered if her parents knew she was out at all.
He shook his head and retraced his steps back to the airport.
“Hey, you need a ride to town?”
The question came from a guy in a pickup, the bed loaded with gear, parked in front of the main terminal building.
“Yeah, sure, thanks,” Jim said, and climbed in.
“Where you headed?”
“Ah, the docks,” Jim said with sudden inspiration.
“Great, me, too,” the driver said, and put the truck in gear.
“Mike Mason.”
“Jim Churchill.”
“You looking for work, Jim?”
Jim shook his head, hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the receding airport. “Got a job. Baird Air.”
“Oh, yeah?” Mason laughed. He was a wiry, sandy-haired man with a thin face and an eager expression, as if he was excited about what was around the corner, as if life had not yet kicked him in the teeth too many times to dim that excitement. He wore a shiny new gold band on his left hand that he kept touching, tapping against the wheel, rubbing between his fingers, as if to reassure himself that it was really and truly there.
“Yeah,” Jim said, “I just started today.”
“What’s he pay?”
Jim realized he didn’t have a clue, but he had his pride. “Top dollar.”
“He ought to,” Mason said frankly. “He works his help like dogs, is what I hear.”
“Woof,” Jim said.
Mason laughed. “I’m a fisherman myself.”
“I figured, from the gear. Salmon?”
Mason nodded. “I just tore up a set on a deadhead last week.” It didn’t seem to bother him much, in spite of the dollar value of the gear involved, which ran into the thousands. Maybe the wedding band accounted for his unquenchable optimism.
Just wait, Jim thought. He himself couldn’t get along with women he wasn’t married to. He skittered away from that thought and said, “Who do you deliver to?”
“Whoever pays the best,” Mason replied.
“Who’s been paying the best lately?”
“Lately, it’s a tossup,” Mason said, braking for a pair of Canada geese and nine fuzzy offspring grumbling sleepily along in their wake. They made it safely across the road, and the truck rolled forward. “The Japanese are usually the highest bidders, but there’s buyers coming from all over now. Korea, Taiwan, Russia, you name it.”
Russia. Suddenly Jim remembered why he was in Bering. Not to mention the body bag currently en route to Anchorage and the medical examiner. “Russia?” he said casually, trying to sound like a rube. “You mean like actual Russians from actual Russia?”
“Yeah, although they’re awful picky about what they’ll take. Guess the communist manifesto has given way to crass commercialism. About time, too. Better they should spend their money on fish than on bombs.”
“Ahuh,” Jim said. “I personally have never felt the need to glow in the dark.”
Mason gave him a suspicious glance, as if he doubted Jim’s patriotism, but you get that a lot in the Alaskan Bush and Jim felt safe in ignoring it.
Jim thought for a moment. Mason was a fisherman, Burinin aka Burianovich had purportedly fallen from a boat on the docks. It had to be common knowledge by now, and natural curiosity should serve as a reason for asking. “Speaking of Russians, we had to load the body of one on a plane for Anchorage this evening. You hear anything about that?”
“Oh hell, yeah, I practically saw it happen.”
Jim went on alert, but he said casually, “No shit?”
“Oh yeah, man, it was a mess. I was just finishing up delivery to Peter Pan when there was this big hooraw about three boats down. We all went to look.” He shuddered. “Man, he was a mess. Blood everywhere.”
Jim reflected on how odd it was that Baird and Mason, two men who wrested their
living from sea and air, could be so squeamish about a little blood. To be fair, he’d seen more than his share.
“What happened?”
“He fell. Pitched headfirst right off the side of the boat and landed on his head next to the gangway.”
“What did he fall from?”
Mason shrugged. “Nobody really said. There were Russians all over the place yelling in Russian, and then the trooper showed up and tried to calm everybody down. Easy on the eyes, the new trooper, you seen her yet?”
Not from head-down inside a tote, Jim thought. “No.”
“Not that I’d be interested,” Mason added hastily, fingering his wedding band.
“Doesn’t hurt to look,” Jim said soothingly.
“Right, right, looking’s no sin.” Mason didn’t seem convinced. “Anyway, this one Russian, hairy little bastard, looks like Mr. Spock, you know, with the ears, he yells at the rest of the Russians to shut up, or at least they did so I guess that’s what he said. The trooper asked him if anybody saw what happened, and he said no, and they all went along with him.”
Jim caught the inference. “But you don’t think so?”
“Well…” Mason’s voice trailed off. “There were about thirty of them, is all. Seems like somebody would have seen something.”
“Anybody from shore see anything?”
Mason shook his head. “One guy, beach ganger, said he heard the sound of the fall and went to look. That was about it.”
“What do they think happened?”
Mason shifted down to cross a narrow, railless wooden bridge over one of many streams. “The trooper got out a tape measure, and did some climbing around on the boat. Said from where he landed he must have fallen from the starboardside ladder to the catwalk outside the wheelhouse.”
Again there was doubt. “But?”
Mason shrugged again, irritably. “Hell, how should I know? Trooper’s paid to look into that sort of thing, she said how it was, that’s how it was.”
Midnight Come Again Page 9