Nothing gold can stay (6 page)

The pilot had also brought in a bundle of magazines,
Newsweek
s and
Time
s and
Smithsonian
s and
Cosmopolitan
s, and Rebecca had been moved nearly to tears. The pilot, a leggy woman in jeans with dark blond hair stuffed carelessly through the back of a Chevron baseball cap, could not quite conceal her sympathy. Rebecca, who had her pride, pulled herself together enough to express her thanks, wished the fishermen luck and helped push the tail of the plane around, yet another skill she had acquired this summer. The Cessna blew dust into her eyes as the engines revved up for takeoff, but she stood where she was, watching as it barely cleared the birch trees at the end of the rudimentary little airstrip with the uphill grade and the surface made of rocks rubbed smooth from a hundred years of tumbling in Nenevok Creek. The engine roared a protest in the thin mountain air as the pilot hauled on the yoke and the plane slipped through the minuscule space between Mounts Pistok and Atshichlut. Rebecca had tears in her eyes from more than the dust.

And now here it was, September 1, a Wednesday. On September 6, Labor Day by the calendar but Christmas, New Years and her birthday all rolled into one for Rebecca, Nushagak Air Taxi was scheduled to fly into the Nenevok Creek airstrip and pick up Mark and Rebecca and fly them back to Newenham, where they would board an Alaska Airlines 737 (until this summer the smallest plane Rebecca had been on). In a little over an hour, they would land in Anchorage. Nina was meeting them, with orders to have in hand at the gate a grande cup of the day from Kaladi Brothers, with half-and-half and a packet of Equal already stirred in. Rebecca could almost taste it, and looked up from the watchband she was beading for her grandmother to the calendar on the wall, as if by doing so she could make the days, the hours, the minutes go faster. Dinner at Villa Nova, she thought, or maybe Simons, or Yamato Ya, or Thai Kitchen. She was so sick of salmon. She was a good cook, but there were only so many ways to prepare fish, and she had tried them all.

Maybe a trip to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, she thought, examining her palette and selecting a number 11 seed bead in lime green. Rain or shine, the fair was always crowded over the Labor Day weekend, kids standing in line for their last Octopus ride before school started, serious, tight-lipped women examining the crafts building for blue ribbons, cowboys roping calves in the arena, lumbermen rolling logs in the pond, Roscoes Skyline Restaurant selling the best barbecued ribs this side of Texas on the Red Path. But no, Roscoe had forsaken the fair for the Sears Mall, and for that matter, Labor Day was the last day of the fair, wasnt it? She used to know these things. Fine, they could stop at Roscoes at the Sears Mall on the way home. Rebeccas mouth watered at the thought.

No more washing dishes in cold creek water, of filtering drinking water for both sand and beaver fever. Rebecca thought of the Amana Heavy Duty Washer, with its Extra Large Capacity and Seven Cycles, and of the Amana Heavy Duty Dryer with Nine Cycles residing in the laundry room of their home on the Hillside. No more scrubbing of clothes in the tin washtub. No more spit baths in that same washtub. No more listening to Mark complain because his jeans never dried on the line strung between the cabin and the toolshed. How were they supposed to dry without sun? It wasnt her fault hed chosen to buy a gold claim stuck down a hole.

No more picking lettuce out of the garden, instead of buying it already pickedand washedfrom City Market, like a civilized human being. She could look for a new job, a real job in a downtown office with a computer and a modem and a telephone and copy and fax machines, in an office with no mosquitoes or black flies, where she could go down to M.A.s hot dog stand at the corner of Fourth and G and have a Polish Special on a sunny summer day, and to the Snow City Cafe for a salad sampler on a crisp winter day.

She had never felt so isolated, so abandoned, so alone.

She looked at her palette, a paper plate with piles of beads, seed, square, frosted, tubular, in shades of green and purple and gold.

“Say it, she said out loud. “So bored. She looked at the piece in her hand, which had begun to curve eastward around the vintage German teardrop, and threaded a faceted garnet onto her needle. A little splash of color in this otherwise otherworldly piece, something to draw the eye but not enough to overpower the whole. Yes, she thought. Alone, lonely, but most of all, bored.

Mark, on the other hand, was thriving. Hed pulled nineteen ounces of gold out of the creek, once he had identified a deposit and had worked out how to pan it. Rebecca thought of his salary as a BP geologist, working one week on and one week off the North Slope oil fields, and one evening took pencil in hand to figure out the dollar value of Marks take. Gold had been selling for two hundred fifty-four dollars an ounce when they left Anchorage in June. Nineteen times two hundred fifty-four equaled four thousand eight hundred and twenty-six dollars. The mine and the surrounding five acres had cost them twenty thousand dollars, which didnt include state permits and fees, supplies and transportation, or the house sitters fee. Marks salary was one hundred and fourteen thousand a year, which would be cut by nearly a third because of all his time off this summer. Paid vacation time only covered three weeks.

She looked back down at her work, and sighed. One good thing to come out of this summer, shed filled her Christmas list. A woven bead necklace for Mom, a sweater for Dad, sweatshirts with beaded designs for her niece and nephews, beaded Christmas ornaments for friends, all were done and already neatly packed away in the single box that contained her personal belongings, all that she had brought in and all she was taking out.

Mark, on the other hand, had not even begun to pack. Every available inch of space was littered with his clothes and geology books and gold pans and pickaxes and pry bars and what seemed to be hundreds of rock samples. The shack was too small for this much clutter, but Rebecca had soon given up on trying to keep Marks gear in order. She kept the cooking area clean because they had to eat, but she left Marks stuff strictly alone. He didnt complain, at least out loud.

She heard his step on the path to the cabin and looked up when the door opened. “Youre early, she said. “I havent even started lunch.

“I know. No, its okay, he said when she put her work to one side and began to rise. “I wanted to talk to you.

His face was grave and her heart skipped a beat. “What about? Is something wrong? Had Nushagak Air Taxi somehow left a message that through some unavoidable mix-up they wouldnt be picked up on Monday?

He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her, leaning forward to place his hands on her knees.

She looked at him and some part of her thrilled yet again to his dark good looks, the thick black hair curling against his collar, the dark eyes, the firm-lipped mouth. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow, his legs long and well muscled. Naked, he looked like a god. They had made love standing in front of a mirror once, and she still marveled at the memory, dark and light, masculine and feminine, strength and softness. It remained her best orgasm to date.

He took the piece from her hands and examined it. “Whats this?

“I dont know yet.

“What do you call the method again?

“Bead weaving.

“Right, right. Pretty, whatever it is.

She removed it from his hands, square hands with strong fingers and neatly clipped nails, permanently grimed now after three months of grubbing in the dirt. “You didnt quit work early to come in and talk about my beading. Whats up?

“Besides me? His hands traced a firm path up her hips, urging her legs apart. It melted her, as it always did. He knelt between her legs to suck at the pulse in her throat, nibble on her earlobe, bite her nipples through the knit fabric of her T-shirt.

He raised his head and kissed her, long and slow, flirting with his tongue and his teeth. She dropped her beadwork and reached for his zipper.

He pulled back and framed her face in his hands to smile down at her. In a low, husky voice, he murmured, “What would you say if I told you I wanted to quit my job, and for us to stay out here year-round?

Newenham, September 1

The hopelessly drunk, the terminally idiotic and the criminally inclined had for a change taken the rest of the day off, and Liam was home by five-thirty and gloriously off duty, as Prince was on call for the evening. “Tim? he said when he stepped in the door. “Wy?

No answer. He went out on the bluff between the house and the river and stood post for fourteen minutes, until his thighs decided enough was enough, and then went through all thirty movements of the form three times. It was thirty now instead of sixty-four, Moses had informed him a week earlier, because Liam had learned enough not to have to break each movement down into each of its component parts, and had given him a whole new set of names to memorize. Liam was fully conversant with the statutes describing assault in its various degrees, and had kept his hands in horse stance instead of fastening them around Moses neck.

Doing form wasnt enough to soothe his conscienceBills “social worker remark still rankledbut he showered and changed into jeans and unpacked the bag of groceries hed bought on the way home. Dinner for two, with wine, no less. She couldnt be mad at him if he made her beef Stroganoff washed down with cabernet sauvignon, could she? The cabernet had cost more than all the rest of the ingredients put together.

He cut up the beef and put it into a frying pan to brown, adding a dollop of the wine for the hell of it. He poured out a glass of Glenmorangie for himself and broke into the bag of egg noodles. He was filling the pot with water when the phone rang.

“Yeah? he said, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

Princes voice said, “Weve got a body down at Kagati Lake, sir.

He put down the noodles and turned off the burner. “Where?

“Kagati Lake, a hundred or so miles north of here.

Something about the name niggled at the back of his mind. He carried the walk-around phone into the living room, where the one wall that didnt have a window had a map of the Bristol Bay area taped to it. He found Newenham and followed the river up. “I dont see it.

“North and west. North of the lakes, she said, and he moved his finger to the left, encountering the mail route Wy had penciled in, asterisks marking the stops. He traced it up the map, Four Lakes, Warehouse Mountain, Weary River, the names some people hung on some places. Russellhe stopped.

The route ended at Kagati Lake.

Prince had taken the floats off the Cessna and put the wheels back on the week before in anticipation of freeze-up, and they were in the air forty-five minutes later. “You sure she said she wasnt hurt?

“Im sure, Prince said patiently. “She found the body, is all.

On either side Newenham airport fell rapidly away from them and Liams stomach gave its usual takeoff flip-flop. “Shes going to kill me, he muttered through clenched teeth.

He hadnt meant to be heard, but the headset was a good one and Prince turned her head to stare. “Why would she be mad at you?

The plane hit a pocket of dead air and dropped fifty feet. Liam grabbed for the edges of his seat. “Because shes done nothing but find dead bodies since I came to town.

“Thats not your fault.

He forgot his terror long enough to send Prince a pitying glance. “Youve never had a permanent relationship, have you, Prince? A serious one?

Defensive now, she shook her head. “Still

“Still nothing, Liam said. “It doesnt matter if its my fault or not. It will be by the time I get there.

He stared resolutely ahead, trying to ignore the thousand feet of space between himself and Mother Earth.

Prince mumbled something he couldnt hear. “What?

“Nothing, Prince said, and tossed Liam the FAAs Airport/Facility Directory. He opened it, and found the airport sketch for Kagati Lake. “Its a gravel strip, two thousand forty-five feet long, fifty-five wide.

“Elevation?

“Eight hundred eight feet.

“Light?

Liam squinted down at the page. “Says its unimproved. That mean no lights?

“If there were lights it would say. Prince tapped the dial of a gauge on the control panel. The needle didnt move. “Wed better hustle if were going to beat the sun.

It hadnt registered with Liam until this moment that the sun was in the act of setting. There wasnt any snow yet, piled into neat, defining berms along the sides, so it could be hard to spot an unfamiliar runway in the dark. “How long?

“Weve got a little bit of a tailwind, Prince said. “Id say about an hour.

Liam thought of Wy, alone on the ground in Kagati Lake but for the doubtful company of a corpse. “Can we push it?

Prince grinned beneath mirrored aviator lenses that made her look like one of the extras in
Top Gun.
“What the hell, the states buying.

She kept the throttle all the way out and they raised Kagati Lake in fifty-nine minutes. It was still light enough to see 68 Kilo parked at the west end of the strip, near a large sprawling building that looked as if it had begun its long life as a one-room log cabin, and then had skipped the split-level phase entirely to metamorphose into something that was a cross between a plantation house and a barn. The roof was variously shingled, tarpapered and capped with sheets of corrugated plastic.

Wy emerged from beneath the wing of 68 Kilo and looked up. Prince waggled her wings. Wy didnt wave back.

“See? Liam muttered.

The 180, which even Liam had to admit was a well-mannered beast, set down smoothly, jounced once in and out of a pothole, recovered neatly and rolled to a stop.

As always, Liam was first out. Wy was waiting for him.

“I dont want to find any more dead bodies, she said.

“I know, he said.

“I never used to find dead bodies.

“I know.

“I never, ever found a single dead body before this year.

“I know.

“No more dead bodies, she said. She was very definite. “Of any kind. Nobody I know, nobody I dont know. Not next to the fuel pump at the Newenham airport, not in the middle of the ruins of an abandoned village, and especially not at a Bush post office where Im delivering the U.S. mail.