“Not planes,” Liam said.

“Not planes,” Bridget agreed.

“I should move to Ireland,” Liam said ruefully, and in response to Bridget’s raised eyebrow said, “I hate to fly. We had to stop off at Nenevok Creek on the way back to Newenham. You should see the strip into that place.” He shuddered, a gesture not wholly feigned.

“Why Nenevok Creek?” Wy said, thinking of Rebecca Hanover counting down to Labor Day and liberation.

“Alaska Airlines picked up a Mayday from there and relayed it to us.”

Wy put down her fork. “A Mayday from Nenevok Creek? Is that the Hanovers?”

“You know them?”

“I flew them in in May, and I’ve been doing supply runs in there all summer.”

Liam considered. “How well did you know them?”

Wy raised her shoulders in a slight shrug. “Not personally, it was business-wait a minute.” She stared hard at Liam. “Why are we speaking in the past tense?”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry, Wy. Mark Hanover is dead.”

“How?”

“One shot, point-blank, from a shotgun.”

“Who did it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Where’s Rebecca?”

“We don’t know that, either.”

She was still for a moment. Jim and Bridget sat silent, listening. “Who made the distress call?”

“That’s what’s weird,” Liam said. “We don’t know. Alaska Airlines one-three-three intercepted a Mayday from somebody who said they were at Nenevok Creek, that someone had been shot, and that they needed help. They didn’t identify themselves, and when we got there, all we found was Hanover’s body.”

“And no Rebecca,” Wy said.

“No. It could be that she saw it happen, that she ran for her life, and that she was too afraid to come out. We’ll go back in the morning, do a search of the area, see if we can’t pick up her trail.”

“You think it could be the same guy who shot Opal?” Wy said, echoing Prince’s words.

“The postmistress in Kagati Lake,” Liam explained to Jim and Bridget. “She was killed the day before.” In answer to Wy’s question he shook his head. “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. That’s a long way to travel in a pretty short time. Guy’d have to be part mountain goat and part moose.”

“He doesn’t have to be traveling on foot,” Jim said. “Too early for snowmobiles, but maybe a four-wheeler?”

Liam shook his head again. “True, but the terrain is up and down a lot of mountains and over and around a lot of creeks and rivers between Kagati and Nenevok. It’d probably take him just as long to walk as ride. Plus, a different weapon was used the second time, too, although there’s no law says he has to use the same one twice.”

He paused. “Wy, you said you felt sorry for Rebecca Hanover. Why?”

Wy made a face. “From what I could see, her husband had the gold bug bad. She was the one who met the plane because he was always hip deep in the creek, washing that dirt. She seemed lonely.” Wy thought for a moment and added, “She seemed bored.”

“Did she ever seem resentful?” Liam suggested. “Angry, maybe?”

“No,” Wy said. “Like I said. Lonely. She looked tired every time I saw her, too, like she wasn’t used to doing without Chugach Electric.” She speared her last bite of moose with her fork and smeared up the last of the sauce, cooling now and a little congealed but still delicious.

The fork paused halfway to her mouth. “Wait a minute,” she said, a sick feeling beginning in the pit of her stomach. “Nenevok Creek?”

Liam looked at her, alert to the sense of strain in her voice. “Yeah. Nenevok Creek, or rather the airstrip about halfway between Nenevok Lake and Nuklunek Bluff. Why?”

She put down the fork, rose to her feet and walked over to the wall map, tracing the same route Liam had the day before. She located the creek without difficulty, and estimated the distance between the airstrip at Nenevok Creek and the airstrip on Nuklunek Bluff at a little less than ten air miles. For someone hiking the same distance, say going from the bluff to the creek, he could follow a relatively easy slope down the bluff, wade through about a mile of swamp, the most difficult portion of the route, and then pick up the creek and follow it the rest of the way. The airstrip was right on the creek, and the gold mining camp was a two-minute walk from the airstrip. It wouldn’t have been a particularly difficult hike, especially if the hiker was someone who knew the area.

Someone, say, like John Kvichak. Or Teddy Engebretsen.

Wy thought back to the last trip she had made into Nuklunek that afternoon. John Kvichak had waited with the last of the moose meat, and had helped load it into the Cessna with swift efficiency. Wy couldn’t remember a time when John hadn’t had a smile and a joke ready to share. This afternoon, he’d been silent and serious. He had also been in a hurry, so much so that he’d dropped his pack when he went to put it into the airplane. The zipper of the flap pocket had been open, and out had spilled a copy ofRiders of the Purple Sage, a spoon smeared with peanut butter, and a cell phone.

“Wy?”

She turned and looked at Liam. “Can a cell phone on the ground raise a jet airplane at twenty thousand feet?”

The three people at the table exchanged glances.

“They’re always after making you turn the things off before they take off,” Bridget said.

“Depends on what channel they’re both on,” Jim said. “If the communications man on the jet was channel-surfing and the guy on the ground was broadcasting steadily, probably. It’d be mostly a matter of chance, I think.”

“There was that guy hunting caribou in Mulchatna,” Liam said.

Jim snapped his fingers. “Right, I remember that story.”

“Yeah,” said Liam, “he ground-looped it and an Alaska Airlines jet going to Gambell picked up his Mayday. It was in the paper.”

The sick feeling in the pit of Wy’s stomach increased.

“What’s bothering you, Wy?” Liam said. “You see something when you were out there today? Come on, I can use all the help I can get.”

“Oh shit,” John Kvichak said when he opened the door.

She was so beautiful, in her own way as beautiful as Elaine, so rounded and so feminine. She was frightened at first, of course, but as soon as she realized she had no choice, she calmed right down.

Women were like that. They were a lot smarter than most men gave them credit for, they knew how to survive. They were the weaker sex, certainly, but that didn’t mean they were any less intelligent. She knew the instant she looked into his eyes what survival would entail.

He had nothing but contempt for her husband. The cabin was poorly built, there wasn’t enough food to last more than a month, the man hadn’t done any hunting to take up the slack when the food ran out. A poor provider.

And she didn’t weep when she saw her husband’s body. Her eyes were fixed on him. Poor little woman, she needed rescuing. Lucky for her he happened along.

Or was it? Was it instead part of God’s holy plan? She was a gift to him as much as he was to her; could one argue with any conviction that such things were the product of simple fate? No, it could not be so. She was a gift, and he would guard her and treasure her accordingly.

He told her that he was hungry. She cooked for him, noodles with green onions sliced into them at the last moment before serving and a few drops of sesame oil added, a dish new to him but which he liked very much. He said he was thirsty. She made him coffee, good coffee, too, the best he had had in many years.

She fussed a little when it came time to take off her clothes, but that was only due to the natural modesty of women.

She lay still beneath him, like Elaine, Elaine-fair, and kept her eyes closed, the way Elaine had at first. Her skin was so soft to the touch. He told her to open her eyes. They were so large, the pupils expanded almost to the edge of the blue irises. Her breath came in soft expulsions of air that touched his face in quick pants. Her hands lay at her sides until he told her to place them on his back. It was fine, so very fine, to be held within those arms again.