Nothing gold can stay (29 page)

“I notice your prescription runs out this month.

“I have more at home. Amelia paused. “My husband doesnt want kids.

Bill nodded. “Do you?

“Yes. Someday. Not now. The response was automatic, and Bill watched the girl listen to herself say the words. “Maybe, she said slowly. “I dont really know that I do want to have kids.

Bill nodded, as if Amelia had confirmed some inner conclusion. “We have choices about that nowadays. Get the prescription refilled.

“I will, Amelia said, still with that look of surprise. “I will, she said again, more firmly.

There was a noise at the door and Amelia looked alarmed. “Dont worry, Bill said, grinning. “This was strictly girl talk.

Amelia looked relieved.

The door opened and a third woman fell into the room.

At first they couldnt tell she was a woman, she was so covered in snow and frost and mud. Leaves and twigs were caught in hair so lank and matted they couldnt tell what color it was. Her blue jeans were soaked through. She was wearing tennis shoes, one of which was missing, and the white anklet on that foot was torn and the flesh beneath bleeding. Her shirt was ripped at the left shoulder, the same with the T-shirt under it, revealing a long tear of flesh, reaching from the top of the shoulder to halfway down the back. A flap of skin hung loose, to show the shoulder bone gleaming whitely.

They were caught motionless in shock. The woman looked up at them and opened her mouth. Her voice was the merest croak of sound. “Help.

She tried to say more, but couldnt. “Help, she said again, and lay her head down on the floor and closed her eyes.

TWENTY

Portage Creek, September 6

The strain of holding the plane more or less level was beginning to tell in her arms and legs. The pedals pushed hard against the soles of her feet, the yoke pulled steadily against the grip of her hands, and she was constantly on the alert, constantly adjusting her limbs to meet the demands the weather was putting on the exterior surfaces of the aircraft.

She risked a look at Liam. He was staring straight ahead with a grim expression. His blue eyes were narrowed, as if in concentration, as if by concentrating on the control panel he could by sheer effort of will make the plane fly straight and true. His knuckles were white where his hands were knotted on the edge of his seat.

Shed taken the Cessna. Heavier plane, more power. Faster, too, although that didnt seem to matter much. The wind was gusting thirty to thirty-five knots out of the southeast, and the Cessna was being continually buffeted from the right, which meant she continually had to correct for drift.

She glanced down at the GPS, and thanked whatever the gods might be for it. The digital readout recorded their progress. Shed logged in the latitude and longitude of their destination, and it would tell her exactly and precisely when they had arrived, a good thing since they sure as hell werent going to see it very far ahead.

So it wasnt like they were forced into dead reckoning, although the weather on the outside of the cabin made it feel like it. Torn wisps of fog kept the ceiling at a hundred feet. She was maintaining an altitude of fifty feet and even then she wasnt always sure which way was up. The snow on the ground merged with the clouds and the fog to form a sphere of white all around them. She didnt look up from the instrument panel. She was afraid to, afraid she would lose all sense of where the earth was, and fly straight into it.

She couldnt do that. Tim was at fish camp. So was Moses. So were Bill and Amelia, for that matter.

She was following the river in hopes that she would spot the fish camp dock. If she could just locate the cabin, she could buzz it, open the window, yell a warning. Tim, be careful, she thought. Watch your back. Look out for yourself.

Theyd only found each other two years ago. Two years filled with joy and laughter, rage and tears. Two years of getting used to sharing her home with an adolescent boy, the equivalent of one gigantic nerve ending rubbing up against the world. She was doing a good job, she was sure she was, but shed only had him two years. He had just turned thirteen, and she wanted him for another five, she wanted to care for him until it was time for him to go out into the world. She wanted to give him a chance, the same chance her adoptive parents had given her when they rescued her from her birth parents. What was the point of returning to Newenham to live if she couldnt help out her own?

And she loved him. Tim, oh Tim, please, please be all right. Please let whoever this crazy killer is miss the fish camp. Please let him be lost and stumbling around a hundred miles from here, or on his way to Acapulco. Please let this goddamn fog lift.

The marine forecast for Area 6 had been less than encouraging. A storm warning, south winds at fifty knots, seas at twenty-two feet, rain. The low was a hundred miles north of Dutch Harbor and moving up the Alaska Peninsula. Oh joy.

Oh fog. Oh fucking fog. She was flying blind but for the digital readout mounted to the control panel. She watched it more than she looked through the windshield because the view through the windshield never changed, fog and more goddamn fucking fog. The little green numbers ticked off steadily, one at a time, reassuring her that she was on course and nearing the location she had punched in, that she was maintaining her altitude, that her ground speed was a hundred and five. She believed the readout. She believed it implicitly. Her faith was committed, fervent, and necessary. She might even buy stock in Geo Star. If they got out of this alive. Which of course they would, because she believed.

The minutes inched by a second at a time, with more minutes stretching ahead.

“Im sorry, she said suddenly.

It took him a minute to respond, she suspected because he was too terrified to open his mouth, afraid that the physical act of speech might somehow affect the motion of the aircraft and send them plummeting down. “What for?

“For not telling you sooner.

He did look at her then. “Jesus, Wy. Thats not why Im pissed.

A strong gust blew the tail around to the left. Wy corrected the attitude of the plane automatically. “Then why are you?

“Because you didnt trust me enough to understand.

“It wasnt that. She risked looking away from the GPA for a moment to meet his eyes. “Liam, think about it. We havent known each other that long, weve been together even less than that. I

“I know all I need to know, he said.

“Evidently not.

A gust of wind shook the craft. Liam set his teeth and stared out into the whirling white maelstrom. “So youve been married before. So what?

“If thats how you feel, why the attitude? she demanded.

“It was Gary, wasnt it? Jos brother? The guy I met on the river last month?

“Yes.

He thought of the good-looking man, of his proprietary air around Wy that had so irritated Liam. “The divorce wasnt his idea, was it?

“No.

“Hed still be married to you if he could be.

Her capable hands adjusted the throttle, fine-tuned the prop pitch. The Cessna seemed to respond, their passage through the vortex smooth out an infinitesimal amount. “I dont know. Probably. She risked another glance. “But. You will notice that he is not. Things end. We move on.

“Youre starting to sound like Moses, he muttered.

“I was pregnant, she told him suddenly.

“What? He stared at her. “What did you say?

He is thinking about something other than a fiery plane crash now, she thought with a flash of grim amusement. “I was pregnant, thats the only reason Gary and I got married. I liked him, I loved Jos whole family, but I had plans for what I wanted to do with my life, and they sure as hell didnt include marriage and children, not then. But I got pregnant, and I made the mistake of telling my parents, and they insisted on marriage. So did his. Pretty traditional people, both sets of parents.

“What happened?

The plane hit an updraft and they were borne irresistibly upward, a hundred feet in a snap of the fingers, magic. She coaxed the plane back to fifty feet, then wiped her palms on her jeans, one at a time, and tried to put her hands back on the yoke with something less than the grip of a dead man. Liam, she noticed, was looking at her instead of monitoring the altimeter. She wasnt sure hed even noticed the updraft.

“I lost the baby, she said. “In the beginning of the sixth month. She took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out, one slow molecule at a time. “They let it rot inside me. Just rot away, into nothingness, nonbeing. My belly got smaller and smaller. And then it was gone.

His eyes were stricken. He tried to say something, failed, had to start over. “God, Im sorry, Wy.

“The marriage, such as it was, didnt last much longer. Gary didnt fight me on it.

“But hes always there, waiting, Liam guessed, and smiled humorlessly when he saw the acknowledgment in her eyes. “Smart, good-looking guy like that. Why didnt you stay with him?

“Because I was more in love with his family than I was with him, and after the baby died I realized that. It was a girl.

“What?

“The baby. It was a girl. They told me after one of the tests.

He was instantly overwhelmed by the vision of a tiny Wy, all dark blond hair and big gray eyes and dimples. “Goddamn it, he said. “Goddamn it, Wy.

Her voice was strained. “Afterward the doctor talked to me. He said something went wrong.

“What?

She shook her head. “He used a lot of medical terminology, but what he said was, I couldnt have any more children. She turned to meet his eyes. “Not ever, Liam. No babies out of this belly. Not ever.

They stared at each other.

The GPS beeped, loud enough to be heard over the wind buffeting the plane, and they both jumped. Wy looked down and saw the coordinates of the Portage Creek airstrip flashing on the digital readout. She peered through the windshield. Nothing but fog. She checked the altimeter. Fifty feet, sixty feet, fifty-five feet, she couldnt maintain a steady fifty in this wind.

The GPS stopped beeping. Theyd overshot the strip. Climb and bank or just bank? Fifty feet in the air in winds gusting to forty was not the place to indulge in turns, however gentle, and however flat the terrain. She increased power and pulled back on the yoke. The wind slammed into the side of the plane and the tail crabbed around, but they climbed to a hundred feet. “Hold on, she said, unnecessarily because Liam would have been holding on with his teeth if he could have, and put the plane into a full-power left turn.

The rudder fought her for every degree of turn. The wind howled its delight, slapped the underside of the right wing with all its force, the right wing came up and for a moment Wy thought the Cessna was going into a snap roll. She increased power, kept her stranglehold on the yoke and her feet firm on the rudder pedals, and prayed that the rudder wouldnt rip off. The wind had them by the scruff of the neck and they were being shaken and tossed and jostled and jarred and jolted all over the place, their seat belts and a minimal amount of centrifugal force the only things keeping them in their seats.

They hit another updraft, a small one but strong enough to jerk the plane up five feet. Liams head banged against the window with the sudden movement. “Jesus Christ, Wy! This is gonna tear her apart!

“Dont worry! Shell hold together! You heard me, baby, she thought. Hold together.

The Cessna came around, slowly, screaming in every seam and rivet, but she came around. This time Wy didnt screw around, she took it down to the deck, twenty feet off the ground, flying every foot of the way, hopping the tops of trees, fighting her way around torn wisps of fog, straining her eyes in search of eighteen hundred feet of gravel strip, thirty feet wide with spruce and birch and alder and cottonwoods crowding the sides and one end ending in the Nushagak River.

It appeared suddenly out of the mist, so like an apparition and so much what she wanted to see that for a moment she doubted it.

“There! Liam yelled.

“I see it, she said, and went in for a full-power approach.

The first time the wind blew so hard and so steadily down the airstrip that the Cessna had too much lift to land.

“I cant get her down at full power, she shouted to Liam. “We have to go around.

“Do what you have to, he said. “Never mind me, just get us down.

She risked a look at him and saw that his face was white but determined. He looked like he thought he might die, but that there was nothing he could do about it.

“Were fine, she said.

“I know. Nothing he could do but trust her.

They were coming off the end of the runway now, gaining altitude but not enough to lose the airstrip. They went into another left turn and the wind slammed into them again. This time they were more ready for it, braced. Wy felt like she was riding a bucking bronco, only higher.

“You ever go sailing? Liam shouted.

“What?

“Sailing, like on a sailboat.

“No, she said, working the yoke and the rudder in subtle movements, trying for the best altitude to produce the most forward motion and the least turbulence. The horizon, a mass of dark green intersecting with a mass of dirty white, tilted up.

Liam kept shouting. “When the winds blowing, the sailboat heels over, to the right or to the left, depending on the tack the boat is taking into the wind. Why doesnt the boat go all the way over and swamp, you ask?

She was bringing the Cessna around to a southwesterly heading before the storm blew them to Anchorage, but she shouted back, “Why?

“Theres a part of the hull that sticks down like a sword out of the center of the keel. Its filled with lead. Ballast.

“Oh. Right. Good. Their airspeed kept fluctuating, and she had no idea what their true ground speed was. Her biceps were beginning to tremble from the strain of hauling so long and so steadily on the yoke.

“I never think theres enough ballast, he shouted.

“What?

“I never think theres enough ballast on a sailboat. I always think its going to go all the way over. It never does.