Sundown on Top of the World: A Hunter Rayne Highway Mystery (18 page)

He said nothing for over fifteen minutes, curious whether Betty Salmon would be the first one to break the silence. He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t.

“Let me know if you need a break,” he said.

No reply.

“What happened back there?” Hunter had already talked to Bart again, but he thought if he pretended not to know the story, perhaps she would be more inclined to talk about it. “Sally said your friend was being flown back to Whitehorse. Was it some kind of emergency?”

“I never should’ve left Eagle,” she said. “I never met a man I could trust.”

“He lied to you?”

“No. Yes. He made me think it would be good for me, going with him.”

“Maybe he thought it was.” Hunter swerved quickly to avoid a pothole and he noticed Betty clutching at the door handle so he slowed down. He had always considered himself a trustworthy man, although he knew his ex-wife would debate that, and obviously Betty Salmon would, too. “I never met Orville. What’s he like?”

She hesitated, then said, “Orville is the only man who wanted to take care of me, instead of wanting me to take care of him.”

The personal nature of that revelation took Hunter by surprise. “He’s a good man, then?”

“That’s what I
thought
.” Her voice faded so he could barely make out what she said next above the noise of the engine. “But maybe he’s like all the rest.”

“We’re not all bad, Betty.” He smiled in her direction and was happy to see her glance at him long enough to notice.

“I guess not. I never met a lot of people, living in the bush.” She stared off at the horizon, a wistful smile on her face. “Sunshine. Orville was like sunshine on a warm day after a long winter.”

“I hope he’ll be back, then.”

“I don’t know.” A sigh. “Sometimes I feel so tired.”

He felt a pang of sympathy, and a sense that Betty Salmon’s life had been a continual struggle for survival in a very harsh landscape, both physical and emotional. If her relationships with others, men in particular, had been mostly cold and hurtful, it would certainly explain her taciturn and reclusive nature. To open up, she needed stroking, not prodding.

“Tell me about April.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I care. I’ve worried about April ever since she went missing in 1972. I was relieved to hear that you had nursed her back to health, and that because of you she didn’t have to watch her baby die, then die herself of starvation and exposure. Thank you.” He glanced over at her, but Betty was staring out the side window and all he could see was the back of her head, wisps of grey and black hair escaping the irregular braid that hung down her back. “And don’t forget that I cared enough about you and Goldie to spend over six hours on this godforsaken potholed highway to bring you back to Eagle.” She still wasn’t looking at him, so he hoped she could hear the smile in his voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I guess I stopped trusting other people a long, long time ago. What happened with Orville today didn’t help.”

She sighed, seemed to hold her breath, then sighed deeply again. “April left before the first snow. She said goodbye in Carmacks, said she found a ride to Tagish to pick up her car.”

Hunter had wondered where she’d left her car, and thought about the note Bart mentioned, the one that identified Blake as Sanford. The note had been found by the RCMP receptionist on October 3, 1973. Tagish was about sixty miles south of Whitehorse, just off the Alaska Highway. Could April have dropped the note off on her way through Whitehorse?

Betty continued, “She told me many times that she loved her baby, although she wasn’t a very patient mother. I am sure she meant to come pick Goldie up in the spring.” Betty sniffed; nervously, Hunter thought. “But she didn’t.”

“It was good of you to look after her baby when she left.”

“I never held a live baby before Goldie.”

Hunter sensed that what she had just said held more than a superficial meaning. “Did April tell you what had happened to her before you found her?”

“She was beat up bad. I was beat up many times in my life, but never so bad as that. They always wanted me to be fit enough to work after, but it looked like who beat her up wanted her to die. It’s just lucky the places she got hit that hard wasn’t where it would’ve killed her.”

“Did the man who beat her kill himself?”

“Why would he do that?”

“The man went missing, too.”

“Good,” she said. “He deserved to die.”

Hunter tried to process that. Did Blake kill himself, or did April kill him? “Did she fight back?”

“When you fight back, they hit you harder.” She said it matter-of-factly, and Hunter thought not for the first time that he was lucky not to know what it felt like to be a woman at the mercy of an abusive man.

“Did she know his name wasn’t really Blake?”

Her tone turned angry. “How am I supposed to know these things? I told her I didn’t want to hear about her men.”

“Her men? More than one?”

Betty Salmon snorted. “Why do you think she left her easy life Outside to move to the northern bush? She was running away from the baby’s father.”

Goldie had fed Hootie and the chickens, collected the day’s eggs, wiped them off and stashed them in the cool of the root cellar, then sat down in the outdoor kitchen with a mug of tea to wait for Betty’s arrival home. It had clouded over, and a cold breeze slid across the back of her neck. She pulled up the collar of her jacket and circled the mug with her hands for warmth.

Yukon Sally didn’t have any answers to the questions that troubled her; as much as she tried not to, Goldie was left to speculate and worry. She’d been so happy for Gran, that she and Orville were enjoying each other’s company, and now this. How would Gran be feeling when she got back home? Would this be the end of Orville’s presence in their lives? If Orville was just wanted for questioning, why would the Mounties send someone to get him? Why wouldn’t they come talk to him in Chicken and then let him go?

Early that afternoon, Sally had come to find her in the Caribou Cabin where she was cleaning the bathroom and changing the bed sheets. “You don’t have current tags on that old rattletrap of yours, do you.” It was a statement, rather than a question.

Goldie shrugged, feeling a little guilty. She and Gran only used the old Merc on the local roads, and so far everyone seemed to turn a blind eye to the fact that it wasn’t insured. Gran wouldn’t even consider licensing it properly. Some old guy she barely knew had given it to her before he left town, at least that’s what she said. She said that was why she didn’t have proper papers for it.

“Your grandmother needs a ride home from Chicken. I don’t think Mark’s jeep is right for that road; too open. Your poor gran would be windblown and covered in road dust. Maybe that fellow from Canada will go get her. He seems like a nice enough guy. You want me to go ask him?”

Goldie had asked her about Orville’s truck, and she said Orville and his truck were both being taken to Whitehorse; something about questioning in a serious crime, but the trooper wouldn’t say what.

“You mean Hunter, the man from Canada, don’t you? I’ll ask him myself. Where is he?”

She found Hunter and the big guy playing horseshoes on the pitch behind the lodge. It was Hunter’s turn to throw, and she waited for him to finish before she approached. He got a ringer. Goldie clapped, and both men turned to look at her.

“Dumb luck, boss,” said Sorry, walking toward the stake to pick up the horseshoes. “My turn.”

“What can we do for you, Goldie?” said Hunter.

“I need a huge, huge favor, if you have time.” She began to explain, and he drew her away from the pitch and his partner as if to give her more privacy. When she’d finished, he nodded his head slowly, as if he was trying to think something through.

“I have to make a phone call,” he said, “but we’ll be staying here another night so I can certainly take the time for it.” He asked her a couple of questions that she couldn’t answer, then told his friend he had to go.

“Where you goin’?” the big guy called out.

Hunter said he’d be back in a few minutes. “You could use the time to practice.”

She’d followed Hunter, and from a discreet distance, listened in as he spoke to someone he called Bart on the satellite phone. Hunter’s end of the conversation didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know, but it had to do with Orville and it sounded as if what happened had been no surprise to Hunter. It made her wonder if Hunter was somehow involved with the Mounties.

“Was that the police?” she asked when he’d hung up.

His frown at the question made her uncomfortable, and made her more certain he’d been talking to the police, or maybe was a police officer himself. He did have that look about him, clean cut, almost military in appearance, like a State Trooper.

Instead of answering her question, he said, “I’ll go pick up your grandmother.”

“Why can’t Orville drive her back?”

He frowned again. “How long have you known Orville?”

“Just a few days.”

“Did he say anything about where he was or what he was doing just before he came to Eagle?”

She shook her head dumbly.

“Don’t worry about your grandmother. She’ll be home safely by tonight.”

She hadn’t been too worried about Gran until he’d said that. It was the first indication that perhaps her going off alone with Orville had been something worth worrying about. Goldie sipped her tea, then checked the position of the sun. She didn’t expect Hunter to be back with Gran for at least an hour, maybe more, and she knew she couldn’t relax until she’d had a chance to talk to her grandmother about what had happened.

Hootie’s head went up, his ears pricked forward. Someone was on the road heading toward the cabin. She stood up, feeling an unfamiliar shiver of fear. Life had been so predictable until recently. Violence hadn’t been a part of her personal experience, but hearing about the abuse her mother had suffered, and now with the implication that Orville could have harmed her grandmother, Goldie was suddenly feeling a vague uneasiness, with fear hovering on the horizon like a storm cloud.

The sound of a motor drew closer, and Mark’s jeep emerged from the trees. A sense of relief made her want to run to him, but instead she forced herself to stand beside the summer kitchen and wait for him to come to her. He approached with his head down, watching the ground as he walked, carrying a grocery sack with something heavy in the bottom. As he got close, he lifted his head, tossing his hair off his forehead and breaking into a lopsided grin. She felt a tickle under her rib cage and couldn’t help but smile back.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding out the grocery sack. He’d brought beer, he said. “I knew you were on your own, and thought we could just hang out together until your grandmother gets home.” He cocked his head to one side, his eyebrows raised, as if asking for her okay.

“I could sure use the company,” she told him. “I’m used to being alone out here, but it’s not every day a girl’s grandmother gets stranded in Chicken after her travelling companion gets picked up by the police.”

He grinned again as he popped the top on one of the beer cans and offered it to her.

“Where’d you get these?” she asked, taking it from his hand. Her fingers brushed his for an instant; it gave her a sensation almost like an electric shock.

“Those tourists from Oregon who arrived today brought a stash of booze. They took Sally’s advice in a big way.” There were no bars or liquor stores in Eagle, so Yukon Sally always suggested to her clients that they bring their own favorite alcoholic beverages when they came to stay. “I bought a six-pack off them and had these two chilling in the freezer.”

“You’re one of those bad influences everybody warned me about,” she said with a laugh. “First wine, now beer. You trying to get me drunk?”

“If you manage to get yourself drunk on one can of beer, you deserve it.” He popped the top on his own beer and held it out toward her.

“A toast?” she said.

“Yeah, a toast.”

“Okay, what are we toasting?”

“Why not us?”

“Us?” The thought gave her a thrill, but what exactly did he mean?

“Yeah. To us – you and me – having a fun summer.” His eyes seemed to be searching hers for a reaction.

She could feel heat rising up her neck. “A fun summer,” she repeated, doubtfully. What was he expecting from her? There’d been a couple of older girls she knew from Eagle Village who’d let themselves get involved with outsiders during the summer. They thought they were in love and believed the feeling was mutual, but the outsiders went away and never looked back. Adding to the girls’ heartbreak, the local boys made fun of them and called them sluts.

“Well, yeah. I thought you liked me.”

“Maybe I do.” She liked him at lot. She would have loved to touch him, brush that hair back off his forehead, lay her cheek against his chest, feel his arms around her. She felt an almost magnetic pull toward him, but she fought against it. Instead, she sat down on the bench behind the table, giving him no choice but to sit down opposite her.