Kate, now that the adrenaline rush that always accompanied flouting authority had faded, sat down on a tree stump, facing her aunties. She looked only at Joyce, however. "I know all about it, auntie."

Auntie Joy said nothing. Neither did any of the others, but Kate detected a group stiffening of spine, and was satisfied. "I had breakfast with Lamar Rousch in town last week, at the Coho Cafe. When we got the news about the price drop, a man at the counter offered a penny more a pound. Lamar said he was Joe Durrell, and that he was an independent fish buyer. Lamar said Durrell usually bought for the restaurant trade, in Anchorage and in cities down the West Coast, but I heard that sometimes, when it looked like he'd make a buck on the deal, he'd buy in bulk for j.a.pan, too."

Auntie Joy maintained her owl-eyed stare. "Guess where I saw him next? Mr. Joe Durrell?" They didn't answer her, but then she didn't expect them to, not now, not ever. "He was in George Perry's plane, on his way up Amartuq Creek." She paused. "Could I have a little of that tea? With honey, please. I've been so thirsty since I finally woke up." She threw in a wince and a hand to her sore ribs for good measure.

Woodenly, Auntie Balasha rose to her feet, poured out a cup of tea from the pot on the spider grill at the side of the fire, anointed it with honey and handed it over. Kate sipped at it gratefully. "Thanks, auntie. I needed that. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Durrell on his way up Amartuq. Yes, well, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, in fact 1 didn't even recognize him at first, but then George came back without him." She sipped tea. "He had you in the back seat instead, Auntie Joy."

She cradled the hot mug between her palms and regarded her aunties. They stared steadily back, without expression, it seemed without blinking. "I couldn't figure it out, why you'd be going to town, and especially why you'd be flying to town. And then I got too busy to think about it, until I got laid up." She smiled at the four old women. They didn't smile back. "Nothing to do but think when you're laid up."

She drained the mug and set it down. "The way 1 figure it is this, aunties. You've been fishing subsistence, all right. But I took a look at that pile of bones behind the camp. That's an awful big pile. You've been catching yourself a bunch of fish."

"I've got a bunch of family," Auntie Joy said. Auntie Vi put a calming hand on her knee.

"Yes, you do," Kate said, nodding. "Yes, you do, auntie, but the amount of fish you've got smoking doesn't square with that pile of bones." She waited. She waited in vain, and sighed. "Okay. You're selling them to Durrell, aren't you? King salmon, filleted and boned and ready to slap on a grill. n.o.body fillets a salmon the way you do, aunties. How did you hook up with Durrell, anyway?" They didn't enlighten her, and she waved a hand. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. What happened on the Fourth? Did he commit the cardinal sin of paying by check? So you had to go into town and cash it in the bar, while you held him hostage, along with his fillets?" She grinned. "Or did you just con him into a round-trip ticket to the Fourth of July parade?" She laughed, but she laughed alone. "Whatever. I have to admit, you guys got style."

Her laughter seemed to break the spell. The aunties shifted in their seats, exchanged covert glances. Auntie Balasha even got up to refill Kate's mug.

"Thanks, auntie." She sipped at the brew, strong and sweet and reviving. "You know, aunties," she said dreamily, gazing off into the distance, "if you sell the fish you catch on that fish wheel, you are not subsistence fishing, you are commercial fishing." She looked across the fire at the four old women one at a time, all trace of laughter gone. "And there are only two places in Alaska where you can legally commercial fish with a fish wheel. One of them is the Tanana River, and the other is the Yukon, and Amartuq Creek doesn't run into either one of them."

No one claimed ignorance of geography. "Refusing to serve a questionable legal doc.u.ment, and a federal doc.u.ment at that, is one thing." She took a deep breath, and let it out. "But Lamar's a natural born fish hawk. He believes in what he's doing, and he's good at it. I got a sneaking suspicion he might already have an idea of what you're up to. And aunties, if Lamar catches you selling a subsistence catch to a commercial buyer?" The firelight flickered across her unsmiling face, and her voice held no trace of its former laughter. "He catches you at that, and he'll have you out of here in two seconds flat, tribal history, cultural imperative and all."

Footsteps sounded in the brush behind her, and she rose to her feet. "Thanks for the tea, aunties. Hey, guys. What, Jack, you couldn't find a bear to feed the kid to?"

Kate smiled at the eagle sailing thirty feet above the creek. The eagle, not overwhelmed by her charm, glared balefully back, and backwinged to land in a treetop to scan the creek for unwary salmon.

"What?" Jack said. She raised her hand. "Taste." He took her hand automatically. "What?" "You said I tasted salty. The last night we were on the bank of this creek. Don't you want to make sure?"

His eyes lifted quickly to hers, and his slow smile told her exactly what he was thinking. Still, he hesitated. "How are your various aches and pains?"

"Variously achy and painy," she said, "but don't let that stop you."

"In that case." He accepted her hand and took his time pushing back her cuff. His lips were warm against her wrist, his tongue warmer. "Urn," he said. "You do taste kind of salty." "As salty as the other day?" One eyebrow quirked up. "Let me check." Checking took a while, and involved unb.u.t.toning the cuff of her shirt and rolling the sleeve back to her elbow.

The sun had tangled in the tops of the trees, flushing the clouds with a rich pink-orange glow, and the fish camp had settled into its routine of gutting and splitting and hanging the day's catch, followed by dinner and, Kate was startled to see, the production of the Monopoly board. Edna caught up the dice and shook them like she was standing at the c.r.a.ps table in Vegas. She saw Kate looking and one of her eyelids lowered in a long, slow wink. Johnny, for a change, was asleep.

Jack had declined an invitation to play on the grounds that he was taking Kate down to the creek to watch the stars. Four pairs of brown eyes looked up at the pale blue sky, and four old women diplomatically refrained from comment.

"Well?"

"Huh?" He raised his head and blinked at her.

"Do I? Taste as salty as the other night?"

"I'm still not sure. Let me"

She stiff-armed him, and he fell back on the sand. She came up to lean over him. "Because I couldn't possibly."

His hands wandered. "Couldn't possibly what?"

"Urn, yes, right there. I couldn't possibly taste as salty as I did Thursday."

"You sure talk a lot."

"But it's such a good story."

He sighed heavily. "All right. What? And hurry the h.e.l.l up, would you?"

Kate let herself lean against him. This was the hardest part, but if she was ever going to talk about it to anyone, it would be to Jack. "That business last summer with Seabolt got to me, Jack. More than I knew. A lot more."

His arms tightened.

"Christianityit's just too start-and-stop for me. Too .. . I don't know, too static, I guess. You're born, you live, you die, you go to heaven or h.e.l.l." She paused. "Heaven's never been that much of a lure."

There was a smile in his voice. "Or h.e.l.l that much of a threat?"

She smiled. "I guess not." She was silent for a moment. "I've never felt so helpless as I did last summer. Or so frustrated. Or so bewildered. I've never believed, so I didn't understand. I still don't." She took a deep breath. "It's been a long time since I've hated that much, or that strongly." Her laugh was shaky. "I forgot how much it takes out of you."

He made a comforting noise.

"The first time we went to talk to her, when Old Sam introduced Anne to me as a minister, I kind of lost it."

"You tarred Flanagan with Seabolt's brush, is that it?"

She nodded. "I pretty much ridiculed her every time she opened her mouth." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Old Sam knows her, and likes her. I think he's even attended one of her services, and you know Old Sam is the biggest unreconstructed heathen around."

"Except for you."

"Except for me," she agreed. "So, afterwards, we got into the skiff to leave, and he told me what he thought of my behavior." Kate winced. "Of course he was right, so all I could do was tell him to stuff it."

"What did he do?"

She smiled against his chest, antic.i.p.ating his reaction. "He took me by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and tossed me over the side."

Jack pulled away to stare down at her incredulously.

"And then he took off with the skiff, and made me walk the whole five miles from the Flanagans' site to Mary's. Soaking wet."

Jack's jaw dropped and stayed that way.

"I had to cross the Amartuq on foot, on an incoming tide." She looked at him out of the corner of one eye. Jack's face was turning a slow purple. "Halfway over I tripped on a salmon and fell in and got wet all over again."

He laughed so hard he slid a foot down the sand. The tears rolled down his cheeks and he wrapped his arms against his belly and rocked back and forth, the laughter booming out of him and echoing across the surface of the water with such force that it startled the eagle into irritated flight, his great wings beating audibly at the air.

"Oh, Lord," Jack said, gasping for breath. His head fell back against the log. "Oh, Lord."

She waited patiently.

He sat up finally, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Why did you tell me? Old Sam never would have."

"He'll never tell anyone," Kate agreed. Old Sam wouldn't, either. If someone ever asked him about it, Old Sam would draw himself up to his inconsiderable height, stare down his beaky nose and invoke the sacred rite of Family Business. Old Sam didn't hold with no outsiders poking their noses into his G.o.ddam business. When Old Sam saw a problem, he took executive action, and that was the end of it.

"Why, then?" Jack persisted.

Kate smiled down at him, a wide, sweet smile that made his heart skip a beat and then start hammering high up in his throat. "You needed a laugh."

"Why?" he said, although he was pretty sure he knew.

"You're still mad at yourself that you didn't make Johnny tell me he saw Dani Meany and Evan McCafferty down by the creek."

He looked away.

"I like that about you," she said.

He was amazed. "What, that I'd withhold evidence?"

"That you would put your son first."

He reached for her but she pulled away and got to her feet. "No way, Morgan. Coitus interruptus once on this beach is about all I can stand." One eye closed in a bawdy wink and she turned.

He tackled her.

"Hey!"

He was laughing down at her when she wrestled her way around to face him. "What the h.e.l.l," he said, grinning. "We haven't tried the skiff yet."

He slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's hoist and dumped her into the skiff. The next thing she knew, they were in midstream and Jack was heaving the ten-pound Danforth over the bow.

"You planned this," she said incredulously when he began to unfold an air mattress.

He didn't deny it. "You know what Whitekeys says."

"What?"

"Sp.a.w.n, sp.a.w.n, sp.a.w.n till you die, baby." And he tackled her again.

On the bank four little round brown birds sat side by side, bright eyes observing with interest. Fish camp had a long and honorable history as a site for seduction, as the four of them, had they been of a mind to, could have personally testified.

"Hope they don't scare fish," Edna said to Joy in soft Aleut.

"Hope they do," Vi answered, a frankly salacious glint in her eye.

The four aunties collapsed into m.u.f.fled giggles.

The couple in midstream didn't hear them over the rush of water down Amartuq Creek.

And if they did, they didn't care.

ALSO BY DANA STABENOW.

Prepared for Rage

Blindfold Game

The Kate Shugak Series

A Deeper Sleep

A Taint in the Blood

A Grave Denied

A Fine and Bitter Snow

The Singing of the Dead

Midnight Come Again

Hunter s Moon