Deadfall (7 page)

M
onday night was long, wakeful, and completely quiet, with no further incident. Alex woke in the wee hours to find Jessie’s side of the bed empty, and he was half aware that she had spent more time trying to find a comfortable position than sleeping. The air was chilly as he climbed out of bed and went to the door of the outer room.

“Can’t sleep, Jess?” he asked the shadow that occupied the end of the sofa nearest the stove, from which he could smell the sweet scent of burning pitch and hear logs crackling as they came to life. She was sitting in the dark, facing the dog lot, once again wrapped in the afghan.

She turned her face toward him, and in the glow of the flames that shone through the glass of the stove door he glimpsed her weary smile.

“I’m okay, but I can’t just quit trying to figure out who could be doing this. Sorry. I tried to be quiet.”

“You were. I didn’t hear you—just knew you weren’t there and woke up.”

“Get cold?”

“Nope, just lonesome.”

He crossed the room and sat down close to her, inside the afghan that she held open for him. They watched the flickering fire in silence for a few minutes, until the wood blazed, increasing the glow.

“I had a bad dream,” she confessed shortly.

“What was it?”

“I was running the race, the other side of McGrath. You know—where all the willow and snow machine tracks make the trail really hard to follow, and you can lose it if you’re not careful? I couldn’t seem to find it—kept going and going, and winding up back where I started. I knew I was lost. There weren’t any markers, and there was no one to tell me where the trail was. Then there
was
someone, but they were following me and I couldn’t see them. I knew it was someone who wanted to hurt my dogs, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get away. They kept coming closer, and—I could hear their phone ringing…. Then, all of a sudden there was a giant hole in the trail and I was falling into it—the whole team pulling us right in, they wouldn’t stop—like they couldn’t hear me yelling at them—and the phone kept ringing—and I woke up. Not very hard to figure out, huh?”

She was very still. He put his arm around her and could feel the tension in her body.

“It’s okay, Jess. I’m here…right here.”

She sat up straight and rigid for a second or two, before leaning back against him. “I
hate this
. Really, really
hate this
.”

“I know. So do I.”

“I’m so tired, Alex. Seems like every bone in my body aches and my mind won’t stop. It feels like a bird that flies into the house and keeps frantically hitting the windows, trying to get out.”

A
lex and Jessie fed the dogs together the next morning and checked their condition.

“They need exercise,” she said sadly, pouring warm food into the last bowl. “I should be running some of them with the four-wheeler until it snows.”

“Don’t even think about it. They’re fine,” he told her bluntly. “A few days without a run won’t hurt them.”

“Is it only going to be a few days?”

“I certainly hope so.”

She stopped to pet a female that approached, wagging her tail in anticipation.

“Hey, Sadie. You just want a little sugar, don’t you? She’s going to have another litter.”

“Great. She has good pups. How many of hers did you take along on the race last year?”

“Four, and I’m thinking of adding the Darryls this year, if they work well at wheel.”

As they were bringing the feed buckets to the cabin for cleaning, Linda Caswell pulled up, the back seat of her Blazer full of grocery bags. She grinned at Jessie’s questioning lift of an eyebrow.

“If cooking makes you feel better—we’ll cook. It’s a little early, but I thought, if you’d help, I’d get the fruitcake done ahead of time this year. We can test it at Thanksgiving.”

They carried sacks of food into the cabin and Linda began to sort the supplies into piles on the table. Linda’s fruitcakes were highly prized by friends and family, appreciated even by those who claimed to hate the traditional holiday confection. She refused to use the usual candied citrus, made them instead with dried apricots, peaches, dates, pineapple, cherries, pecans, and a generous amount of fruit brandy—before and after baking—prior to storing them away for a month or more to ripen. Preparing the ingredients—chopping and dicing—usually took her a day; mixing and baking the loaves, another. But with two of them working, she thought they might complete the job in one.

“Great idea,” Jessie agreed, and began to fill the kitchen
sink with soapy water for washing the breakfast dishes—clearing space in the small kitchen.

“Be sure she doesn’t get out the door with all of them, Jess,” Alex instructed with a grin, and left the two absorbed in their culinary occupation of the day, pleased to see Jessie’s mood lighten, even slightly. Nevertheless, when she accompanied him to the door and kissed him good-bye, she clung just a little, in an uncharacteristic way.

“Don’t forget to call me,” she requested as he put on his coat.

“I won’t,” he told her.

As he went down the steps toward his truck, he heard the deadbolt thump solidly into place in the front door. It renewed his uneasiness as he headed for Palmer, more determined than ever to track down the offensive cause of their tension. The longer this threat lasted, the more damage would be done to Jessie’s self-assurance and confidence. Bound to affect their relationship, it was intolerable.

As his anger and resentment grew, he put his foot down a little heavier on the gas pedal, impatient with the time it took to reach his destination and some possible solution. He was so close to the situation, he felt he was blinded by the emotion of it, which added to his anxiety. As the truck rumbled over the railroad tracks and into Wasilla, he pounded the wheel with a frustrated fist, causing a woman headed the other direction in a van to give him a startled glance as she passed.

J
essie and Linda spent the morning slicing dried fruit and crushing pecans. By noon they were ready to take a break for lunch.

Looking out the window at the dog lot for the dozenth time, Jessie frowned.

“It’s really warmed up out there,” she said. “I should give the mutts more water.”

“Is that a good idea?” Linda looked up from the bowl into which she was scooping apricot pieces from the cutting board.

“I can’t take this out on the dogs—it’s not fair. I’d normally water them. If we go out together and you keep watch with the gun while I do it quickly, I think it would be okay.”

After thinking it over for a minute, Linda agreed, even though there was really no way to spot a sniper should one be interested in concealing himself among the trees and brush.

“Okay, but let’s take the cell phone and lock the house.”

From the windows, they cautiously examined everything they could see around the cabin before pulling on their coats and boots and going out onto the porch. Linda carried the shotgun and walked with Jessie as she poured water in the pan for each dog; both of them watched nervously as they moved through the lot. They had reached the last row of dog boxes when Linda’s troubled voice stopped her friend cold.

“Jessie?”

From where she had been bending over in the farthest corner of the dog lot, Jessie rose and, bucket in hand, stood to watch a figure walking confidently up the long gravel drive toward her house. The two women stepped behind one of the boxes and stood silently examining the visitor. Linda rested the barrel of the shotgun on top of the box, pointed in the man’s direction, ready for anything.

“Who is it? Do you recognize him?”

“No, not from here. Wait a minute—see what he does.”

She appreciated it when visitors called before making an appearance, and they usually arrived in their own transportation. It was miles to Wasilla. Had this one hiked all the way? Hitchhiked, maybe, and been dropped off somewhere on the road? In either case, it was obvious that he had no wheels of his own, or had left them somewhere.

The figure, as he came closer, appeared to be a young man, from the way he moved and his slim build. He was wearing jeans, a jacket of characteristic Carhartt reddish brown, and a
dark baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. On his back he carried a large green pack that looked crammed and lumpy.

He moved with a stride that created the impression he had been walking for some time and seemed used to the pack. Carefully avoiding puddles in the drive, he came steadily onward, stopping only when he reached the steps to the porch. There he shrugged off the pack, letting it slide onto the third step, where it would be easier to shoulder again. Raising both hands behind his head, he stretched his shoulders, then dropped his arms and turned to face the watching women.

“Hi—Miz Arnold?” he called.

Jessie could feel her heart hammering in her chest, and her mouth was dry. She saw Linda’s hand tighten on the stock of the shotgun. Though she hadn’t yet put a finger on the trigger, her right hand hovered close.

“Who are you?” Jessie challenged, hearing and feeling her strained voice almost break. “What do you want?”

The man—boy, really, she could see now as he took off his hat—stood staring at her with an unhappy, puzzled expression.

“But you said I could come. It’s Billy…Billy Steward. Don’t you remember? You said I could help with the dogs.”

The relief was so intense that for a minute Jessie was afraid her legs would collapse under her, and out of her whirling thoughts came a phrase her Missouri grandmother had used: “The sand went right out of her.” It was so appropriate that she barked a short, stress-releasing laugh and half choked on it.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, she laid a restraining hand on Linda’s arm.

“I know him. He’s one of the junior mushers I’ve been training.”

Collecting the bucket she had dropped, she led the way across the yard, smiling apologetically at the perplexed young musher, who waited by the steps.

“It’s okay, Billy. I’m sorry—I’d forgotten I said you could come and help. I’ve just had a few other things on my mind the last couple of days. What’s in the pack?”

“Rope—and harness. You said you’d show me….”

“Right. I remember. Come inside. We’ll make a cup of tea and talk about it.”

“I’ve got to get out of here, just for a little while,” she responded to Linda’s objections a little later. “I’m going to take him back to town. Can’t let him work in the lot now, with this going on. We can all go in my truck and make a quick stop at the grocery store to get something for dinner before we come back.”

“I thought you didn’t want to leave the dogs.”

“I don’t, really, but I think it’ll be all right for just a short time—maybe an hour? There hasn’t been anything for two whole days. I’ll call Alex and tell him we’re going.”

Alex answered her call from the lab in Anchorage and, after some thought, agreed to the quick trip to Wasilla.

“Don’t be gone long,” he cautioned. “And don’t go anywhere but the Stewards’ and to Carrs for the groceries. Call me as soon as you get back, okay? Watch carefully for anything suspicious, anything that you can’t explain.”

They locked the cabin and left the shotgun in its place on the wall, but Jessie took along the Smith and Wesson .44 that she carried with her when she was training or racing sled dogs. Moose were a hazard all mushers learned to avoid when possible, since they could devastate a harnessed team with their hooves if they weren’t stopped. But more than that, the handgun was security. One very like it had saved her life once during an Iditarod race.

Linda and Billy were quiet as Jessie started her truck and swung it around in the wide space by the front steps. At the end of the driveway she stopped to wait for two cars to pass before pulling out onto the road heading south in the direction of Wasilla.

“I’m really sorry, Billy,” she told her would-be helper, knowing how much he had looked forward to working with her at the kennel. “When things are better, you can come and spend a week if you want. I’ll even put you on the payroll.”

He nodded and grinned, his initial disappointment lifting.

“Do you have dogs of your own, Billy?” Linda asked, smiling.

“Yeah. I got two that I got from my dad. Lady and Totem.”

“Totem?”

“When he was a puppy he looked like a bear on a totem pole when he showed his teeth.”

“Good name,” Jessie said approvingly. She turned on the radio and found a station that was playing rock and roll oldies. It was good to be going somewhere—away from what she was beginning to feel was a prison, even if it was the cabin that she loved and had helped to build.

The day was overcast, with pale clouds that hinted at snow soon to come, though they had brought a rise in the temperature. The wind, having plundered the gold from the birches along both sides of the road, had died, leaving the ground beneath the trees a mosaic of yellow leaves. Bare, their branches contrasted whitely against the black-green of scattered spruce.

She drove steadily along a straight section of the road, enjoying the hum of the tires against the macadam surface, tapping her fingers, in time to the music against the edge of the steering wheel. Ahead, the road made a sharp curve to the left. Jessie knew that it was poorly banked, requiring care and a slower speed. Though it was dry now, in the winter it could be dangerously slick with ice or snow. She touched the brakes lightly to moderate the speed of the truck before entering the turn.

The pedal plunged abruptly all the way to the floor under her foot. There was a brief, light resistance approximately half an inch from the floor when she could feel something take hold, just a little, but not enough to reduce their speed. She pumped the brakes repeatedly. Nothing.

“What’s wrong?” Linda asked, frowning.

“No brakes,” Jessie muttered, still trying to get them to work. “Haven’t got any. Hold on.”

Though she steered across into the empty opposite lane, in an attempt to stay on the road, the truck entered the curve at approximately forty-five miles an hour, and immediately she could feel the centrifugal force at work on the vehicle. Irrevocably it was drawn to the right, rocking off the ground on two wheels as she fought to keep it under control. The curve increased and as they came into the middle of it Jessie could see a car approaching.