Killing Grounds Part 4

"The tribe elected you to the council yet?"

"No," Kate said, "and they won't, either."

Jack detected the note of truculence in her voice and as a matter of self-preservation decided to change the subject. "Speaking of Auntie Joy"

"What about her?"

"Didn't you tell me once she's got a fish camp up Amar-tuq Creek?"

"Not according to the federal government."

"She still suing them?"

"Uh-huh."

Jack grinned. "What is it with the women in your family, you take a vow with Rabble Rousers, Inc., before you're allowed into p.u.b.erty or something?"

"Emaa trained us well." Kate had meant the words to be a joke, but they were too true to be laughed off. "Amartuq where you and Johnny want to go fis.h.i.+ng?"

He nodded. "Do you think it'll be a problem?"

Her answer was oblique. "The period opens at six a.m. The fishermen won't be delivering until ten or so. I'll give you a ride up the creek in the skiff." She raised her head to look at him, a suggestion of a smile on her face. "Be warned. She might let you fish."

He eyed her expression. "Just not with poles and lures?"

She grinned. "I've always liked that about you, Morgan, you're very quick."

"Not when it counts," he said with a c.o.c.ky grin.

A smile spread across her face. "No."

He couldn't resist kissing her under that kind of provocation, and he had a good try at talking his way into her bunk, but she held out for dry land and privacy, and in the end he unrolled his sleeping pad and bag on the hatch cover and she ascended to her lonely bunk in the chart room.

It hadn't been a lonely bunk until she climbed into it with the knowledge that Jack Morgan was lying thirty feet away and one deck down.

"What the h.e.l.l," Old Sam said the next morning. He was standing in the wheelhouse, coffee cup in hand, staring hard out the windows. Kate, zipping her jeans, padded forward in bare feet to look over his shoulder at the gray day outside.

It was six-thirty and the seven boats rafted with the Freya had yet to cast off. The other dozen or more boats had yet to up anchor. She reached around Old Sam and picked up the binoculars. There was a setnet out; through the gla.s.ses she could see white corks bobbing against dull green ripples close to sh.o.r.e. She moved around Old Sam and craned her neck. And there was one drifter, after all, a white drifter with no name lettered on the bow.

It wasn't that everyone had overslept; there were men and women on the deck of every boat within eyesight. They all seemed to be staring at the lone drifter, and from the collective set of jaw on the bay, not liking what they were seeing. Not at all.

Kate nipped the mug out of Old Sam's hand and took a deep swallow of coffee. "Strike?"

"Looks like it, G.o.ddammit," Old Sam said. "Look at that."

Kate's gaze followed his long arm. There was a convulsive ripple over the surface of the water, and several flas.h.i.+ng bodies leapt into the air at once, smacking back into the water with loud splashes. The corks on the only two nets out were bobbing energetically, and Kate could see a figure from the no-name drifter preparing to climb down into his skiff, a figure even at this distance identifiable by the width of his shoulders and the thickness of his chest. "Cal Meany's still fis.h.i.+ng," she observed.

"That setnetter, too," Old Sam said, s.n.a.t.c.hing his coffee back.

"What do you want to bet it's Meany's site?"

"No bet." Old Sam drained his cup. "G.o.ddammit," he said again. "And we were just inches away from a decent season."

"It's not over yet," Kate said.

They looked at each other, thinking the same thing. When fishermen got this p.i.s.sed off, it might as well be.

Hard on the heels of that unsettling thought came a loud crack! over the water. They both instinctively ducked down.

Old Sam swore. "What the h.e.l.l was that?"

"I don't know," Kate said, beginning to rise to peer up over the console, and ducked back again when there was another loud crack! followed by a rapid rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! and a long, loud whistle, followed by a distant explosion. There was a flare of color through a window. "What the h.e.l.l?" She stood up, in time to see a shower of lavender stars fall from the sky, fading rapidly into oblivion. It had already been light out for five hours.

"I'll be G.o.ddammed," Old Sam said, rising to stand next to her. "I totally forgot." Kate looked at him, and he whacked her across the shoulders. "It's the Fourth of July, Kate! Independence Day, by G.o.d! Fireworks and hot dogs and beer and boring speeches by p.i.s.sant politicians and freedom and justice for all!"

Kate counted backwards in her mind. The opener had been two days before, and it had been July 2. Yes, indubitably, today was the Fourth of July.

"So what do we do now?"

Her question was punctuated by another pyromaniac getting an early start on the celebrations with a cherry bomb. A fountain of water rose up from a s.p.a.ce between two boats and smacked down again, liberally dousing both decks and the fishermen thereon. Old Sam waited until the cursing stopped before answering Kate's question. "Have breakfast. I'm hungry."

Jack made the toast while Kate scrambled eggs with cheese and onions and potatoes. "So do we get to go fis.h.i.+ng, Dad?" Johnny said, b.u.t.tering his toast with a lavish hand and loading on a half a jar of strawberry preserves.

Jack raised an eyebrow at Kate, who shrugged. "No reason why not. The commercial fishermen are on strike, but to my knowledge that's never stopped a sport fisherman."

"Or a subsistence fisherman," Old Sam said.

"Solidarity, anyone?" Jack said brightly. n.o.body laughed, n.o.body even smiled, and he reflected on the foolhardiness of joking in Alaska about something as serious as salmon.

"Doesn't look like anybody'11 be delivering fish anytime soon," Kate said, "so I'll take the two of you up Amartuq in the skiff after breakfast." After an acid remark on the unreliability of wimmen and how a sure-enough boat jockey had only his fool self to blame if he hired one for a deckhand, Old Sam waved his a.s.sent.

"Is he mad?" Johnny said in a low voice as they cast off.

"Nah," Kate said as she started the kicker and the skiff pulled away from the Freya. "He's ecstatic. I'm living proof that all his worst suspicions about women in the workplace are true. The next time he gets together with Pete Petersen they can d.a.m.n my whole s.e.x without fear or favor."

"If he feels that way," Jack said, "how come he even lets you on board?"

She grinned. "If I didn't work summers on the Freya, I'd have to find another tender. Old Sam isn't about to turn me loose on the unsuspecting fis.h.i.+ng population."

Probably, Jack thought, Old Sam wasn't about to allow the population to turn itself loose on an unsuspecting Kate. Probably Kate knew that, because nearly every summer Kate could be found weighing fish on the deck of the seventy-five-foot fish tender, at the beck and call of the crustiest, crankiest Alaskan old fart ever to wet a toe in the Gulf of Alaska. "I thought he liked women. You're always telling me stories about Old Sam's girlfriends. That nurse in Anchorage, for instance."

"He loves women," Kate said. "Just not on the deck of a boat, and in particular not on the deck of the Freya."

"How does he like them?" Jack said, pretty sure he already knew the answer but unable to resist.

"Naked and stretched out on a bed. It's our proper place in the cosmic scheme of things."

"I heard that."

So had Johnny, whose eyes were the size of dinner plates, but neither adult was paying any attention to him.

Jack looked at Kate, at the tilted hazel eyes bright with humor, the breeze generated by their pa.s.sage pulling a strand of her hair loose from its braid and bringing a glow to her cheeks, and knew a mighty temptation to tackle her right there in the stern of the skiff.

Unfortunately, the presence of his son and heir was something of a hindrance, not to mention fifty fishermen who seemed to have gone collectively insane.

All around them salmon jumped and splashed, the school a dark swath beneath the water that cut back and forth between the boats riding at anchor. Cases of beer had appeared on every deck, and aluminum lawn chairs upholstered in plastic green plaid unfolded themselves in bows and on the tops of cabins. A skiff whizzed by, towing Tim Sarakovikoff water-skiing on his hatch covers. His face was split wide in a grin, and he swerved toward them. Kate ducked in time, but Jack was sprayed and Johnny was drenched.

The boy whooped. "Hey, come back here, let me try that!"

"No way," Jack said.

"But Dad"

"No," Jack said, and with firm hand sat Johnny down hard on the bow thwart. Johnny pouted.

They pa.s.sed Cal Meany's drifter, his net paid out over the stern, white corks bobbing like popcorn popping as the fish hit it. He and his son were moving up and down the cork line, picking fish so fast their hands blurred in action. The skiff was already two-thirds full. Not a few fishermen were eyeing them with less than favorable expressions on their faces, and several comments were made in raised voices, "scab" being the nicest epithet hurled.

"Is that going to be trouble?" Jack said as they left the no-namer behind.

Kate nodded. "Probably."

"Should we do something?"

"Like what? Tell Meany to stop fis.h.i.+ng? He'd tell you to f.u.c.k off. Tell the fishermen to leave Meany alone? They'd just beat the s.h.i.+t out of you first."

Johnny leaned around his father to see if she was kidding. Her face was calm and unsmiling. He sat back, sober and a little regretful. He was going on adolescence, and this might be the closest he'd ever come to a shooting war. He was kind of sorry to be missing it.

They pa.s.sed the markers and entered the mouth of the creek, a broad stretch of water gray-blue with glacial silt, sandbanks on either side and a few sprouting midstream. Kate reduced speed and threaded a careful path upstream. No matter how many times you'd been up the Amartuq and no matter how well you thought you knew him, he was a noisy, contrary, temperamental beast who delighted in surprise ambushes that usually resulted in the loss of a kicker, if not a hull. Sandbars changed sides, deadheads lurked around every bend, boulders s.h.i.+fted location beneath the force of the spring runoff, until you thought you could hear a deep, mocking laugh in the rush of the water beneath the bow. Kate took her time. If they hit something, at least they'd hit it slow.

Alders and cottonwoods and the occasional scrub spruce crowded the banks. "Look!" Johnny said, pointing. A grizzly lumbered out of the brush and waded out belly-deep into the water. As they watched, he caught a gleaming salmon in his claws and sat down in midstream to eat it. His matted pelt shone golden brown in the morning sun just breaking through the overcast. He didn't bother to look around at the noise of the outboard, concentrating on brunch instead.

Around the next bend a wolverine snarled at them from beneath a clump of diamond willow. On the other side of the creek a family of otters played tag. Jack grabbed his son by the shoulders and turned him to look at a lynx crouched on the branch of a cottonwood, tufted ears c.o.c.ked forward over glowing cat eyes. Two trumpeter swans paddled in a calm backwater, while high above an eagle beat his enormous wings steadily homeward.

Jack shook his head. "You've sure got the wildlife out here well trained, Shugak, I'll say that for you."

Johnny was bug-eyed and speechless. Kate was unable to repress a grin, well aware of the absurdity of taking any responsibility for the perfection of the day or the proliferation of the wildlife, but proud that Calm Water's Daughter was putting her best foot forward nonetheless. What The Woman Who Keeps the Tides was up to in Prince William Sound she preferred not to think about.

Fifteen minutes later the left side of the creek spread out into a wide, flat area of sand and tall gra.s.s. A log cabin with a roof sprouting green moss sat on the bank behind. A smaller creek ran next to the cabin and into the bigger creek, and where the two met sat what looked like a miniature version of what pushed riverboats up the Mississippi a hundred years before.

"What's that, Kate?" Johnny demanded.

"A fish wheel."

"Cool," he breathed. "What's a fish wheel?"

"You'll find out," she promised him.

Of the two of them, Jack had more experience with that sweetly promising tone of voice. He looked apprehensive. She saw the look and smiled at him. He did not feel rea.s.sured.

A woman came to the door of the cobin, saw them and called out, "Vi, Edna, Balasha, come see! Katya is here!"

Kate cut the outboard engine and the bow of the skiff nosed up onto the gravel. Johnny jumped out and tugged them in the rest of the way, Jack following more slowly. Mutt took the bow in one leap and galloped madly up the bank as Auntie Joy and Auntie Vi and Auntie Edna and Auntie Balasha came out of the cabin, laughing and chattering excitedly, taking turns patting Mutt, who ducked her head at each in turn, very much in the manner of royalty granting an audience. When etiquette was satisfied, she led the way down the bank with her tail at a lordly angle, escorting the four old women as if it were their first trip down to the water's edge.

Kate climbed ash.o.r.e last, and looped the bow line around a low-hanging branch of diamond willow.

Auntie Vi said with a twinkle, "The old man fire you, or you quit?"

"Auntie!" Kate shook her head in mock reproof. "Old Sam can't fire me, I'm too good to lose. And I can't quit," she added, "because without me n.o.body would deliver to him." Everyone laughed. "You know Jack Morgan, don't you, aunties? And this is his son, Johnny."

Jack inclined his head in a gesture that was half nod, half bow and all respect. Jack had always been good with Kate's elders, possibly because he knew he would never have gotten anywhere with her if he hadn't. Johnny followed his example, the gravity of good manners resting easily upon his youthful shoulders.

"Jack and Johnny are on a fis.h.i.+ng trip. We just stopped in to say hi."

Auntie Joy inspected father and son with bright eyes, head c.o.c.ked to one side, looking like a plump, inquisitive bird. "You go up creek to fish?"

Jack nodded. "Yes, Joyce. We do."

"What for you go up creek? You stay here. Plenty fish for everybody. Okay, girls?"

Auntie Vi agreed heartily. Edna and Balasha, who didn't live in Niniltna and therefore didn't know Jack as well as the other aunts did, were s.h.i.+er but just as hospitable, which had as much to do with the expectation of the free labor such guests would provide as it did with innate hospitality. When Calm Water's Daughter sent such a gift up the creek, one was wise to accept it without complaint.

"It's settled then," Auntie Joy said. She beckoned with an imperious finger, and Jack bowed to the inevitable and meekly shouldered pack and pole and sleeping bag and empty coolers up the bank and into the cabin. Johnny, who by rights could have expressed serious annoyance at this hijacking of his male-bonding fis.h.i.+ng trip with his dad, looked at Kate for inspiration. She grinned at him. He was a good kid. He sighed, shouldered his own gear and followed his father.

And the gates of mercy closed behind them, Kate thought, and followed both her men up the bank, still grinning.

Auntie Joy bustled around and produced spiced tea in chipped mugs. She had to call Balasha and Johnny up from the creek, where Balasha was instructing Johnny in the mysteries of the fish wheel. "You should see how it works, Dad," Johnny said around a mouthful of Oreo. "It's so cool, it's like this paddle wheel, only the blades scoop up salmon in them. And Balasha let me eat some eggs right out of the fis.h.!.+" He demonstrated, holding his hands over his head with an imaginary salmon stretched between them. "You squeeze, and the eggs just shoot out into your mouth!"

"Mostly," Jack said, reaching out a hand to pick a cl.u.s.ter of pink eggs that had adhered to his son's cheek.

Johnny grinned at him, unrepentant.

"What did they taste like?"

"Cold and salty." Johnny smacked his lips together. "Better than popcorn. Yum!"

Balasha said something in Aleut to Auntie Vi, who replied briskly. Kate caught the word qaryaq, which meant salmon roe, and "Siksik!" which meant, sort of, "No way!" and all four women looked on the boy with approval. Johnny, apparently, was in. Unaware, he crammed another Oreo down after the qaryaq.

"So, Auntie Joy," Kate said. "Has Lamar Rousch been around yet this year?"

Auntie Joy curled a lip. "That boy don't come back since I run him off last year."

Johnny looked curious, but he knew enough to shut up and listen.

"Lamar's the fish hawk for this area, and this fish camp is on federal land," Kate explained, "Why's a guy working for the state enforcing federal law?" Jack asked.