In the Barren Ground (3 page)

She whistled for her dogs, flicked off the upstairs lights, and started down the wooden steps to what served as the police station.

She opened the outside door and let out her dogs. While they did their business, she filled their water bowls, and grabbed her to-go backpack, which included survival gear. She selected a rifle, shotgun, and ammunition from the gun room plus bear bangers, air horn, flares. Mentally she ran through her checklist while pulling snow pants over her uniform and stuffing her arms into her fur-ruffed down jacket. Donning her lined boots and regulation muskrat hat with warm earflaps, she snagged her gloves off the side table. She opened the door to call for her dogs. They came bounding in, fur cold to the touch.

Before leaving, she called the RCMP operational communications center in Yellowknife, reported the attack, gave coordinates, and requested a coroner’s team. Twin Rivers was connected to the outside world via a North-Tel satellite communications system. A large dish in the communications enclosure outside received satellite signals that were then converted and relayed to a small cell tower, which in turn broadcast to a tiny cellular network in town. Outgoing calls operated in reverse. Internet, television, and radio signals were transmitted the same way. However, their local network remained only as good as a clear line of sight from the dish to satellites in orbit. Heavy snow, seriously foul weather, technical malfunction could all knock them off-grid entirely.

“Be good now, boys,” she said, giving each one a ruffle and a kiss. “When Rosalie comes in she’ll feed and walk you, okay?”

Hurriedly, she gathered her gear, clicked off the lights, and locked up behind her.

When she’d arrived in Twin Rivers they’d given her a tiny log cabin closer to the river, which she’d really liked, but when it became apparent that she’d have to man the fort herself until reserves arrived, she, Toyon, and Maximus had moved into the apartment above the station usually reserved for the station commander.

Outside the air was brittle. High clouds obliterated the stars. It was minus eleven Celsius. She fired up the truck, loaded her gear, and headed for Jankoski’s cabin on the outskirts of what passed for town. Her wheels crunched through the frozen snow crust, headlights poking twin yellow beams into the blackness.

CHAPTER 3

“Jankoski,” Tana yelled as she banged on his door with the base of her gloved fist. No answer. She banged again, louder. “Jankoski!” A dog barked somewhere.

Tana tried the door. It was unlocked. She creaked it open, stepped inside. The place was hot, reeked of stale booze. She flicked on the living room light. And there he lay, passed out on the sofa. Shirtless, hair mussed. A day or two’s worth of growth on his face.

Two whiskey bottles on the floor. One empty.

She swore. “Wake up, you loser.” She prodded him with her snow boot. He cracked open an eye. It took him a moment to pull her into focus. “Tana, hey, whassup?”

“You’re shit-faced.” She kicked at the empty bottle, sending it spinning across the wood floor. Fury rode her hard. Memories, bad ones, reared ugly heads. “No bloody respect for yourself, you know that? Or the job. You’re supposed to be on fucking standby. We got a call.”

He struggled into a sitting position. His skin was slick with sweat. He stank. Tana winced as her stomach did a dangerous little lurch.

“What call?” he said.

“Fucking loser,” she muttered as she stormed toward the door.

“Wait!” He scrambled to his feet, swayed, and grabbed for the back of a chair. “I can handle it. I’m coming—”

“Like hell you are.” She slammed his cabin door shut in his face, stomped down the wood stairs, and climbed into her idling truck. The cabin door was flung open behind her. “Tana!” he called into the night. “It’s a one-off, okay, no need to report this, right?”

She gassed the engine and spun her wheels, kicking up a spray of snow crystals as she took off in the direction of the airstrip. Anger thumped through her veins. Along with all sorts of other feelings and fears she did not want to articulate. A guy just didn’t sit down and consume a bottle and a half of spirits and was then still able to talk if it was a “one-off.” She had no time for that. Wanted to have no sympathy for him. Bastard was putting her head in a place she did
not
want to be.

The tree-lined track that led to the small airstrip and hangars was eerily silent, shadows lurching in her headlights. She caught the occasional glimpse of animal eyes glowing green in the dark. She drew up outside Crash O’Halloran’s house behind the “airport.”

Tana sat for a moment in her truck, watching his house, thinking of Timmy, feeling as though she was about to strike a deal with the devil. But it was either him, or fail to get out to the wolf attack site tonight.

Tana banged on O’Halloran’s door, praying she’d find him in a better state than Jankoski. The door opened almost immediately, startling her. Warm light spilled out into the night. His dark-blond hair stood on end. He wore a tight, long-sleeve tee. Tattoos poked out from the base of his sleeves. His jeans slung low on his hips. He grinned, and it put dimples into his rugged, weather-browned cheeks, amusement into his light-green eyes. He reminded her of a scarred and cocky junkyard dog. An edginess crackled through her. Because he intimidated her. Just a little.

Then she glimpsed Mindy Koe in the room behind him, snuggled on the sofa, watching TV. Mindy saw Tana’s keen and sudden interest. The girl gathered a blanket around her shoulders, got off the sofa, and exited the living room.

Fuck.

Tana glared at him. “You sober?”

“Unfortunately.”

“‘Unfortunate’ is exactly what I’d use to describe both you and Jankoski,” she said. “I need a flight. WestMin mining camp. Can you get me in, stat?”

He studied her face for a moment. His eye contact was brazen, intimate. Tana held her ground, resisting the urge to blink, or swallow.

He glanced skyward, scratched lazily at his stubbled chin and neck, and then looked toward the small wind sock billowing gently at the end of his porch.

“It’ll have to be a straight in and out,” he said. “Several storm fronts approaching. First wave could punch through before morning.”

“You can leave me there, fetch me tomorrow once it’s clear.”

“
If
it’s clear,” he said. “What’s with Jankoski?”

“He’s unavailable.”

A slow, sly smile creased his face. “Let me get changed. Then I’ll get the ol’ Beaver girl warmed up.” He closed the door in her face.

Tana cursed under her breath, removed her gloves, and fumbled with her cell phone. Wind was already increasing, tiny crystal flakes beginning to prick her cheeks. Coyotes yipped in the woods, their cries rising in pitch and excitement. She wondered what had been killed as she pressed the Dial button. When her call picked up, Tana said, “Rosalie, I’m flying out with O’Halloran—been a fatal wolf mauling north of the WestMin camp.” She gave Rosalie the details, then said, “I might not make it in tomorrow. Can you look after my boys, let them out, feed and water them? Their kibble is in the kitchen upstairs, moose meat in the fridge. I’ve left the door to upstairs unlocked.”

“No problem.” A pause. “So, where’s Jankoski?”

“He no longer works for us.”

“Was he wasted again?”

“Again? So he’s a drunk? Why did no one tell me?”

“Most people out here run into trouble with liquor now and then, Tana. Who’s going to take his contract—Crash?”

The man who likely flew in the illegal alcohol that almost killed Timmy Nakehk’o. The man who has an underage woman in his house right now. Not on her life.

“We’ll find someone. This is a one-off. He can send you the bill.”

Crash exited his door dressed in an antique leather bomber jacket lined with shearling. He wore an old leather flight cap and metal-rimmed goggles perched across his brow. He brushed past her. Not a word. She turned in his wake and saw that the back of his jacket sported a faded cartoonlike image of a big-breasted, naked woman with wings.
He was dressed like a freaking World War II pilot?
She watched as he made for the airstrip and unlocked the gates that opened into the fenced-off runway area. He paused.

“Coming, Constable? You can park next to the hangar.”

Tana muttered another curse under her breath and crunched toward her truck. She drove around to the hangar while he ran through his exterior flight check and opened the cargo door. He folded the back passenger seat forward, hopped in, and helped load her gear up into the barrel chest of the de Havilland Beaver. It was mustard yellow with a fat burgundy stripe down the side. Cartoon teeth had been painted around the prop. It looked heavy. It looked capable of eating a smaller Cessna or Super Cub for snacks.

“You sure the WestMin strip is long enough to land this thing?” she said.

“You want to take all this gear, you’re going to need this plane,” he said as he took the bag containing the electric fencing from her and stuffed it into the back. He held out his hand for her backpack, to which she’d strapped her shotgun and rifle. “Might not have quite the short-takeoff or landing performance of a smaller bird, but it handles comparably to a Super Cub or Helio.” He met her gaze. “You can of course use Jankoski, if you prefer.”

She hefted her pack up toward him in silence. He stashed it, and said, “Go around to the passenger side and jump in. Headgear is on the seat.” He closed the cargo door in her face.

Tana inhaled deeply and went around the plane. She climbed in, seated herself in the copilot seat, and put on the earphones she found there. The cockpit was tiny, spartan, and cold. When he took the pilot’s chair his arm butted up against hers.

He began to work the wobble pump manually in order to pressurize the fuel lines. It clunked like a primitive crank. Then he pressed the start button. The engine whined and coughed like a car engine struggling against a flat battery to turn over before it caught. He gave it throttle and the whole plane shuddered and rattled to life. Tana wondered if Jankoski, even in his state, might have been a better bet with his Cessna.

O’Halloran taxied out into position at the end of the runway.

“So, where’s the old flying outfit from?” she asked with a nod toward his jacket, trying to distract herself as the engine built rpms and the Beaver shook at the seams to be let go.

“My grandfather’s. He was shot down over Holland.”

“How’d you get his gear, then?”

“They gave it to my dad, after my grandfather’s body and wreck were found by some Dutch school kids. My dad also became a pilot. Taught me to fly when I was fourteen.”

“That’s her age, you know?” she said.

“Who?”

“Mindy. She’s only fourteen. Did you know that?”

He glanced at her, something dark and fleeting in his face caught by the cockpit lights. A slow grin curved his mouth, setting those dimples back into his weather-beaten cheeks. “Is
that
what you think?”

She said nothing.

“Mindy and I are just friends.” He drew his goggles down over his eyes and suddenly looked every bit the Black Devil, or the Blond Knight. Or whatever a battle-worn, World War II flying ace was supposed to be named. All he needed was a silk scarf. “Besides, you don’t look a whole lot older than her yourself, Constable.”

“If I catch you,” she said quietly into her mouthpiece, “I swear, I’ll put you away. Statutory rape.”

He shot her another glance. Heat seemed to crackle off his body. It was tangible. A warning. “Is that right?” he said.

“That’s exactly right,” she said into her mouthpiece.

“What happened at the mining camp—why do they want you?” he said as he let his plane rip onto the snow-covered runway.

“Wildlife incident,” she said, pressing her hands tight against her thighs.

“What kind?”

“I’ll know when I get there.”

He watched her face for a moment, as if measuring her mettle, and she wished to God he’d just watch where he was going.

“Ready, Constable?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

And the Beaver lifted, barely, just getting enough height for her fat belly to miss the tips of the black spruce that lined the end of the runway.

“So here’s the safety drill,” he said as they chugged higher into the sky and banked north into the black, endless emptiness. “Survival equip is stashed in back. Unless it’s scattered all over the ground.” He gave a dark chuckle.

Tana closed her eyes and concentrated on not throwing up. And she tried not to think about where he might have gotten his charming nickname.