“Big guy’s stubborn,” Billy said.
“He can be a bit ornery.”
They watched Maverick make a spot for himself in the back seat among the pile of duffels.
Billy climbed in shotgun and Cassie started the truck, pulled out onto Yukon Route 9, and headed toward the US border crossing at Little Gold.
“Where you going rafting?” Billy asked.
“Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
“No kidding. You flying in?”
“I’ll fly from Fairbanks and land on one of the gravel bars.”
“Guide waiting?”
“I am the guide,” Cassie said. “One of two on the trip, anyway.”
“So you do know your way around the wilderness.”
“I’m competent.”
“Who are you guiding?”
“A group of ecotourists from Japan.”
“You married?”
The question caught Cassie off guard, she glanced over at him; he pointed to the white, untanned ring of skin on her ring finger.
Billy put up his hands. “Sorry, none of my business.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Fair enough.”
While they drove, Cassie learned that Billy had loved backpacking and nature from an early age. He told her he had enough money saved up to fund several more long backpacking trips into the wilderness. It wasn’t until they reached the border crossing at Little Gold that she found out his last name was French.
A bored-faced US Border Patrol agent barely glanced at their passports and cleared them through immigration and into Alaska with a wave of her hand. Five miles down the road, Billy said, “Do me a favor. Up here, pull over for a sec?”
He pointed out three towering spruce trees in a cluster ahead, and Cassie pulled over on the shoulder and put on her hazards.
“Be right back,” he said, jumping out of the truck and dashing down the embankment into thigh-deep grass.
Cassie reached back and petted Maverick, figuring Billy had just gone to relieve himself, but he came back quickly, carrying a small waterproof daypack and a steel rifle case. He leaned through the open passenger-side window and asked, “Can you unlock the back for me?”
Cassie did. “That yours?”
“Of course,” he said, sliding the rifle case and pack below Maverick. “You think I’d go into the Alaskan wilderness without a gun?” He slid back into the passenger seat. “I hope you have one?”
“I’ve got two,” she said.
“You registered them for Canadian transit?”
She arched an eyebrow. “No,” she confessed with a smile, pulling back on the highway. “Just keep them well hidden.”
When they reached the abandoned mining community of Jack Wade an hour later, Cassie let Maverick out of the truck to go pee and run around in the small creek next to the remnants of an old perpetual motion gold dredge.
Billy soaked his feet in the creek and threw sticks for the dog and looked at the dredge. “Crazy how this stuff is still standing.”
Cassie stared at the rusty machine. “Back in the nineteen hundreds they used to pull a couple hundred thousand bucks’ worth of gold out of these streams with this kind of equipment.”
Billy let out a low whistle and pointed to the run-down living quarters, the corroded tin siding stained orange and brown. Flanking the living quarters was a large garage, with a security shutter rolled down over the old wooden doors. Over the shutter, heavy steel throw bars locked into the building’s wall.
“Don’t know why they keep this place locked up like Fort Knox, looks like it’s going to fall down any minute,” Billy said.
Cassie looked at the beer bottles scattered around the creek bed and replied, “Keeping the drunk kids out I suspect.”
Behind them, they could hear Maverick sniffing through the heavy grass.
“Someone caught a scent,” Billy said.
As he said it, a grouse flushed and Maverick bolted after it. Cassie called to the dog, but he was already off and running.
“Shit, I gotta go get him,” Cassie said. “Mind following me in there?”
The forest was thick with conifers and willows. Cassie trudged through the woods and called for the dog. She could hear his excited panting ahead and the sounds of small branches breaking. She quickened her pace until she hit a large clear-cut.
Timbered ridges surrounded the cut, and long green grass moved in a lazy wind. Cassie could see Maverick’s tail bobbing through the grass.
Billy came huffing up behind her. “What’s this place?”
“Logging cut from the looks of it.” Cassie moved through the high grass, calling for Maverick.
When they got to the middle of the field, they stopped. Two long, parallel strips of grass were matted down and ran the length of the field.
“This looks like a landing strip,” Billy said. “What the hell is a landing strip doing out here?”
Cassie knelt down to examine the pressed grass when Maverick came running over with a dead squirrel in his mouth.
“Maverick, drop it!”
The dog dropped the squirrel at her feet and wagged his tail proudly.
“Great,” Cassie said, securing him to his lead and walking toward the woods. Billy lingered for a moment longer, staring at the landing strip, then followed.
Back at the truck, Cassie wiped Maverick’s paws and put him in the back seat again.
Billy leaned against the hood. “Where are you heading exactly?”
Cassie shut the door. “Past Eagle. Ned showed me a place to camp along one of the Yukon’s tributaries.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking of doing the same thing.”
Cassie looked at him suspiciously. “I planned on camping alone. I need some time to clear my head.”
“Oh, no, of course. I wasn’t saying we camp together. If you’re able to drop me at the preserve north of Eagle, I’ll just walk the river bottom and find a place to pitch my tent. I can throw you some gas money if you want.”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s on the way for me,” Cassie said, opening her door and climbing in. “Come on, I’d like to get up there before noon.”
Chapter 5
EAGLE, ALASKA
THEY MADE IT to Eagle just shy of noon and Cassie parked the truck in the parking lot of the Eagle Trading Company, the only grocery store in town, and got out.
“Lunch?”
“Sure,” Billy said, pulling out his wallet.
Cassie waved it away. “I’ll buy if you take Maverick down by the river, let him run around a bit.”
Billy didn’t argue and Cassie headed inside and grabbed two premade sandwiches at the deli. She paid with her credit card and headed outside and walked to the shoreline where Billy threw sticks in the river for Maverick to fetch. Cassie sat down at a picnic table on the gravelly shore and looked from Billy and Maverick over at Eagle. The place reminded her of the countless small towns she’d passed through growing up in Montana—western settlements frozen in time, their purpose for survival chewed up and spit out by the turn of the twenty-first century. But considering the harsh Alaskan environment, Eagle still had its charm and the residents had an easiness about them—like the worries of the modern world were irrelevant—which Cassie thought was probably true.
“They have an airport here, you know,” Billy said, coming over and sitting down. “About a quarter mile east of the village where all the natives live.” Their drive to Eagle consisted of Billy rattling off conspiracy theories about the landing strip they had seen in the clear-cut. “Could be used for the wild animal trade.”
“What?”
“That landing field, what if they’re using it to ship bears and exotic animals? I read an article that they are worth a fortune on the black market.”
“It’s most likely for fire crews or getting supplies in for local authorities. I think all that time alone in the wilderness has made you a bit paranoid.”
Billy laughed and took a bite of his sandwich. “Ye
ah, Ned was probably right. I’ll tell you, though, around day fifty in the bush, I started seeing shit.”
“Seeing shit?”
“Hallucinating.”
“What kind of things did you see?”
“My dead mother for starters. She’s been dead for fifteen years, but there she was, clear as day.”
Cassie looked skeptical.
“Okay, let me explain better.” Billy set his sandwich on the table. “Day fifty, I’m camping on the side of this small river, thirty miles from any sort of civilization and I just felt something. It was like a warm breeze on the skin; then I just look up, and there she was. Standing in the middle of the stream, smiling at me.” He smacked his hands together. “Then boom! Every good feeling I’ve ever had about her came rushing at me all at once and she was gone. From that moment on, it’s felt like her death isn’t so finite.”
Billy rested his chin on his knuckles and he watched the water drift lazily by. “But on the flip side, I also ran into dark patches, felt like a bad acid trip—bad spirits maybe. The natives up here call them Kigatilik.”
Cassie lifted an eyebrow.
“I know, I know. I sound crazy,” he said. “But you ever come to a place by yourself that raises the hair on the back of your neck? Like your body recognizes a threat that your brain can’t comprehend?”
“Sure.”
“Means dark spirits live there. At least the native shamans say so,” Billy said. “I took an anthropology class at Reed that focused on the northern Native Americans. Part of the reason I came up here. I’m pretty sure the natives in this area are descendants of the Hän people, means people of the river. One of the first tribes up here to have made contact with the Europeans.”
Maverick came running over, soaked from the water. He shook and drenched the pair, panting and smiling. Cassie leaned forward and kissed the dog on the head. “Well, as long as I have Mav with me, I think I’ll be safe from dark spirits.”
Billy gave her a wide grin. “No doubt about that.”
Ten minutes later they were back in the truck and heading down Front Street going north. The dirt road flanking the Yukon River was treacherous and twice Billy had to get out and guide Cassie over the deep ruts and crevices.
After a little over four miles, Billy had Cassie drop him off in a heavily wooded area. He grabbed all his belongings and leaned through the open passenger-side window and said his good-byes.
Cassie wished him luck. “Stay away from those evil spirits.”
“I’ll be okay. Thanks for the lift, Cassie.”
“Any time, Billy.”
Picking up the rest of his stuff, he turned toward the river. She waited until he disappeared before driving on.
Cassie kept going north for another three miles, until, a half hour after dropping off Billy, she finally came to a flat section with an opening in the trees well off the side of the road. A fire pit sat in the middle of a small campsite.
She put the car in park and consulted her map where Ned had marked the spot and announced to Maverick that they’d arrived.
Cassie stepped outside, let the dog out of the truck, and looked over the campsite. It was surrounded on three sides by low-hanging willows, ferns, and small spruce trees. A large poplar dominated the northern edge of the site and looked like the perfect place for her to hang her antibear food container. The sound of rushing water could be heard from the east and Cassie found a small opening in the vegetation that was most likely a trail that led to the river.
Ned wasn’t lying when he said it was the perfect place to camp.
Cassie rummaged in the back of her pickup and took out a pistol case she had hidden below the seat. She opened the case and took out a Colt Python .357 with a bone-white hilt. Engraved in the bone was the etching of a bucking horse and the name Cassandra.
Cassie opened the cylinder, loaded six bullets, and slapped it shut. Next she grabbed a leather holster from under the seat and cinched it around her belt and put the .357 in its place.
Camp was set within an hour. She dragged a dead log from the woods and set it next to the fire pit so she would have a place to sit. She decided that she would sleep in the back of the truck with Maverick, not wanting to trust the bear situation. But she pitched her red Cabela’s tent nevertheless and used it to store her clothing and supplies.
With everything done, she got out the satphone, locked her food box in the truck, and started putting together her fly rod. She collected Maverick and together they used the game trail that headed east to the river.
The summer season had turned Alaska into a tapestry of green and faraway blues and made the mountains that jutted above the Yukon seem more painted than real.
As Maverick basked in the sun, Cassie fished on the fringe of a small eddy next to a large, flat-topped boulder. Two hours and a sizable trout later, she took out her satellite phone, and climbed up on the boulder.
She lay down, resting the phone on her stomach, closed her eyes, and felt the sun beat down on her face. Despite the heat, she remembered snow falling over mountains. She saw the silhouette of her father trudging away through knee-deep powder, and the voice of Emily, her older sister.
He blames himself, Cassie. You can’t do the same.
Cassie recalled how pale Emily’s face had been that day, how she held a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup, how it trembled in her hands as she placed it on the table next to Cassie’s bed.
Cassie’s eyes jolted open.
To the west, a dark nimbus cloud lingered on the horizon. The scent of rain hit her nostrils. Cassie contemplated the satellite phone, then sat up and dialed. The call cut straight to the familiar voice mail: Hey, this is Derrick—
The recording ended and the answering machine beeped. Cassie kneaded the bridge of her nose, and tears welled in her eyes. She needed to let it out. All the pent-up emotion and anguish that had been building for months. Everything she’d masked in front of her family, friends, and doctors had to be let go.
Cassie finally choked out, “Derrick, my secret is…”
She paused and looked down at the glinting sun on the swirling water, felt her throat constrict, and said, “Deep down I know it was my fault. I ignored the signs. I… the truth is, I’m not doing better. It’s all a sham, I’m not doing better at—”
The phone beeped and an animatronic voice told her the voice-mail box was now full. She hung up and placed it by her side. It had been over six months since that fateful morning, and in that time, she’d refused to cancel Derrick’s phone service. Against everyone’s advice, she’d needed to keep hearing his voice.
Cassie remembered waking early that winter morning to the slap of barn doors in the howling, snowy wind. She remembered going outside to shut them, then collapsing into the snow at the sight within the barn. Her screams had been so animal she hadn’t recognized them as her own. Then the strong hands of her father holding her upright. She recalled how sore her throat had been in the days that passed.
As she sat on the boulder looking out at the Alaskan wilderness, Cassie put a hand to her flat stomach. She questioned her place in the world, if the impulsiveness of her trip was yet another way to escape the harsh realities of the past year, or if it was the exact kind of therapy she needed.
Whether it was muscle memory or not, Cassie took out the worn photograph from her wallet and unfolded it, gazing at her favorite picture of her family. Derrick, Emily, Trask, her father, Maverick—and herself, three years prior, all smiles in the sweltering Fort Benning heat. It was one of the happiest days of her life. She remembered how proud everyone was of her.
How proud Derrick had been.
Cassie’s eyes welled and spilled tears as the wind picked up. She rocked back on the boulder and looked at the impossible blue sky and then at the billowing dark clouds moving in.
She thought of Derrick and the life they might have had together.
She wondered if her own life was worth living without him.
Chapter 6<
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YUKON RIVER, ALASKA
Sunday, June 23rd
SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT, Maverick lay curled up like a donut against his mom’s purple sleeping bag in the back of the truck.
A summer rainstorm had passed through quickly, and Cassie had spent most of the evening by the fire trying to read a paperback, but her thoughts kept drifting to Derrick. Around ten she gave up and cleaned up camp, storing her food in the food box and hanging it from a high branch in the poplar tree.
As she slid into her sleeping bag, she secured her .375 H&H Magnum rifle by her side and pinned the Colt Python in its holster between her air mattress and the wheel well. She then shut the truck cap’s back window and latched it before checking to make sure the side windows were locked. She wasn’t going to make any mistakes when it came to the dangers that crept around in the Alaskan wilderness.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
* * *
Hours later, Cassie woke to Maverick’s growling.
The shepherd was standing, his ears trained. Cassie knew every nuance of the dog’s personality and understood how quickly Maverick could switch from a loving family member to a consummate professional—to a marine.
“Maverick, down.”
Instantly, the dog dropped on his haunches, but his head remained high, and his ears planted still. Cassie opened the side window of the truck cap.
It was well past midnight and the forest was cast not in darkness, but in deep blue shadows. Other than the low murmurs of the river and the chirping of crickets, the camp sat in near silence. A light wind blew from the west, causing faint smoke trails to rise from the dying fire.
She put a hand on Maverick’s back. The hair along his spine was stiff, standing on end. That low growl rumbled from his throat once more. His nose was tracking—his pointed ears searching.
Crack! Crash!
The sounds came from toward the river where she could not see—a large branch breaking under tremendous weight, and what, something falling?
Maverick found his feet again. Cassie snatched up the .375, turned on her head lamp, and aimed the beam in the direction of the noises. She stared at the large poplar on the northern edge of her campsite where she had stashed her food.
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