Cotton Grass Lodge (12 page)

The frown on the pilot’s face relaxed slightly. “The office didn’t know about the change in ownership until this morning. She’s been delivering stuff for two days, just like old times. We won’t let it happen again.” Obviously relieved, the pilot reached a hand toward Duncan and started breathing again.

“Thank you.” Duncan forced his professional demeanor to surface past his desire to swear and pick up a hand full of rocks and pelt the airplane.

The people milling around began to move as one toward the Beaver. Someone suggested a bucket brigade of four-wheelers, and before he could get to Nell, someone whisked her off toward the lodge.

He became a part of those people on the dock passing cases of green beans and tomato sauce from hand to hand up to the waiting four-wheelers. Duncan counted six cases of canning and pickling salt, and eight enormous hanging baskets of purple and white petunias. It took some maneuvering, but the chest freezer made it to shore without a scratch. In something akin to acquiescence, he shut his mind to the unfolding melodrama. At least she’d had the brains to bring beer, not his favorite brand, but beer just the same.

It took two work-filled hours before he reconnected with Nell. She had been flitting from group to group, and finally she stopped moving in front of the steps and scanned the assembled crowd. Duncan was seated on the broad porch steps watching her. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.” He lifted a beer can to his lips hoping the alcohol would somehow mitigate his anger.

“Oh, yeah, I love June first. Haven’t seen some of these people since they left in September.” Nell lowered herself onto a step beside him. “There’s a girl staying over at Naomi and Jacob’s place. I hired her to work at the lodge for the season.”

Duncan squeezed his eyes shut and blew his exasperation out at a mosquito buzzing around his head. “Nell.”

“Don’t matter what you say,” she said. “Alice needs the work; I can’t do it all by myself.”

Duncan was too mad to say anything. One of his father’s old sayings came to mind.
Pick your battles my boy, and pick the ones you can win
. He didn’t want this battle, he was damn tired of fighting it, too. The only option—winning.

“You didn’t mention what a big deal this party is. I was surprised this morning when everyone started showing up.” Duncan carefully watched her deeply lined face for a reaction.

“I’m sure I told you.” Nell’s eyes drooped.

“Did we talk about the groceries you just brought in?” Duncan was resigned to the food, but the situation was getting out of hand.

“Well, I have to feed these people,” Nell said. “I can’t cook out of empty cupboards.”

“Nell, you don’t work here anymore. I have to worry about feeding people and keeping track of the guide agreements and all of it,” Duncan said softly. He wanted to shout. He was tired of being sympathetic. “You have to retire and leave.”

Nell’s shoulders slumped. Her breath came in short shallow bursts. She didn’t react for a full minute gazing out at the lake. “Harry, you’re being obstinate. I ordered the groceries just like we discussed. I got the new freezer on sale. You’ve wanted another one for two years. I can’t be held accountable for how much they cost. Next time—you do it and I’ll stay home.”

The puppy abandoned his play with a group of children and came up onto the steps. He sat down and put his head into Nell’s lap and closed his eyes.

Duncan watched Nell drift off, her heavy lids fluttered and closed as she stroked the dog’s head.

He got up and left to find another beer. They were stacked behind two cases of creamed corn in the hall by the kitchen. He popped the top on one and slurped the foam to keep it off the floor. His favorite bartender would have asked him if he wanted a frosted mug. She would have slipped a coaster with a trendy logo onto the bar in front of him and smiled.

“Duncan?” a timid voice behind him said. “Mr. Mahoney?” Alice stood in the kitchen with the baby slung across her hip. “Could I talk to you for just a minute?”

The beer was working, even at room temperature. He didn’t care what she wanted. The day couldn’t be any more totally out of control. “Sure. What’s up?”

“I’d like to ask for a job at the lodge for the season,” Alice said. “I was here last summer. I know what needs to be done. I’d work hard, and Emily won’t be any trouble. Naomi usually works here, but she’s too close to having her baby.”

“I thought Nell already hired you?”

Alice looked confused. “Well, sure, but Nell hardly knows what day it is. We all know who owns the lodge now.”

Duncan looked at the solemn faced girl with her tiny baby and squashed the temptation to be rude or sarcastic. He needed help. “Yes, but Alice, I’m going to get roaring drunk. Please, come and talk to me tomorrow. After noon.”

****

Hanna watched from where she sat on the porch as Duncan meandered amiably between irregular knots of people. He seemed to be relaxing after the fiasco with Nell and the groceries. She watched him cordially meeting these new people. She admired his ability to mingle with strangers. She knew most of these people, she liked almost all of them. but she sat on the porch. She’d rather wait and let the crowd wander by.

Maybe he’ll work out after all. His reaction to the delivery of five thousand dollars’ worth of groceries was nothing short of extraordinary. He never raised his voice, or threw anything, or kicked the dog.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled when a disturbance at the edge of the four-wheeler track got her attention. The Shaman came into the yard and walked toward the lodge. People greeted him as he passed. Not with backslapping bravado but with cautious interest.

Duncan started up the steps of the lodge to where Hanna sat. “I’m glad to see you sitting down. Seems like you’re always in a hurry.” He leaned against the banister and took a drink of the lemonade he’d switched to. “How long are you here for this time?”

She didn’t answer his question. She was distracted by the green of his eyes, “Have you got a can of peaches?” Hanna asked.

“Peaches? I, umm, don’t know. Why?”

She pointed over his shoulder, “You’re going to have to pay the Shaman.”

He turned, his eyes followed where she indicated to the slight, scruffy man standing in the yard. “What are you talking about?”

The people closest to the Shaman moved hastily, widening a circle around him as if a bolt of lightning was on its way out of the clear afternoon sky. The drinkers around the bonfire scooted their chairs around to get a better view of the area in front of the tables where he stood.

Hanna would have laughed except Duncan was so sincerely unaware of what was about to happen. “He’s blessing the season.” She always got the creeps whenever the Shaman made a blessing; for Hanna, laughter was out of the question.

The Shaman lifted his hands palms up and chanted in a low voice, his arms began an eerie Tai Chi like motion. A dance of blessing for the lodge and for the coming season. He faced the four directions: north, east, south, and west. When he finished his peculiar endorsement, there was a scatter of applause. Several Amens and thank-yous could be heard.

The Shaman looked pointedly at Hanna. Goosebumps crept up her spine.

“Hummm—interesting,” Duncan said. “Does it work?”

“Do you really want to find out if it doesn’t?” Nell said from behind him. She was standing in the doorway to the lodge. She walked to him and handed him a large can of sliced cling peaches in heavy syrup, “You do it.”

“Do what?”

“We take care of our Shaman, and we pay for services like blessings with canned peaches.”

“Oh.” Duncan cast a quick look at Hanna.

“This is so stupid,” she mumbled and avoided looking toward the Shaman.

“If peaches are what it takes for a successful season—” Duncan went down the steps. “—I’ll definitely buy.”

Chapter 11

The morning of June sixth, Duncan found Alice in the lodge kitchen. She was putting the finishing touches on breakfast when Duncan came in the back door at six-thirty. “Are you always going to be here this early?” he asked.

She tipped her head down and peered over non-existent wire-rims, a look reminding him of a particularly sarcastic macroeconomics teacher he’d once had. “Scones don’t just magically appear at seven a.m.,” she said. The baby was lying on a pallet in the corner cooing and watching her mother work around the kitchen.

“Ahh, right.” He poured a cup of coffee, scraped a finger around the edge of the bowl she’d used to mix the scones, and stuck it in his mouth. “If these are good, I might keep you on after the round-up.”

The timid mouse he’d hired had taken to her job with spectacular self-confidence. “Get out of my kitchen.” Her eyes flashed. “By the way, did you take trash out after I left last night?”

Her question wrinkled Duncan’s forehead. “Yes.” He tried to remember what happened last night, a door left ajar, a light left on, he’d gotten distracted and—

“You didn’t get the bag all the way to the garbage shed.” There was the look again. “’Cause Nameless has it strewn all to hell and gone over the lane by the machine shed. I’m not pickin’ it up, and aren’t you glad it was the dog and not a bear?”

The way she’d appropriated his kitchen and her smart mouth might have garnered a trip into the personnel department in San Francisco, but Duncan was eternally grateful. He put the coffee cup down and went out the back to pick up the offensive garbage.

A few minutes later, he came back into the kitchen and washed up. His hand worried absently at three angry mosquito bites on his forehead.

On June first, when Nell returned with the groceries, she’d gone to her old bedroom. She’d never questioned where she was going to sleep, she just complained about the new paint. The ensuing argument escalated to a shouting match. It only stopped because of Duncan’s sensitivity to his customers perceptions. All they saw was him being mean to the old lady.

Duncan had spent the last six agitated nights in a room in the unfinished bunkhouse. A room with no screens.

“Do you have anything in particular for me to do today?” Alice asked.

Duncan considered for a minute. “Yes, when Nell gets up, your job for the day is to keep her as far away from me as possible. Do some kind of soup for lunch and have salmon salad for sandwiches. Tom is supposed to be sober enough to show up today, so I plan to work with him on the bunkhouse.” Duncan took his cup and went out onto the front porch to contemplate his day. Alice was working out very well.

The gray morning held the sound of a loon echoing across the lake. A welcome drizzle overnight had washed the dust off everything around the lake. A cow moose and her new calf browsed on alders at the edge of the yard.

His heart leaped when Hanna walked out of the brush from the direction of her cabin. She stopped walking and cautiously appraised the leggy cow. Then she continued her approach making a wide detour away from the animal.

“Good morning,” Hanna said as she mounted the steps and joined him. The mist had gathered on the fine hair around her face, and it sparkled like a tiny tiara.

“Good morning yourself.” Duncan liked the way she moved. He wished he could see how she looked in something besides Carhartts. “Coffee?”

“Nope, thanks. I’ve had all I need. Is Nell leaving today?”

“I don’t know.” Duncan scrubbed a hand over his face and found the sore, itchy bug bites. “She’s like one of these.”

Hanna scrunched her face up in sympathy. “I’ll bring you some salve. I have a friend who makes organic ointment. It takes the itch away.” She whispered, “Might not work on Nell, though.”

Duncan took a deep breath. “What am I going to do with her? I’ve left several messages for her daughter in Wasilla. I haven’t heard back, yet.” His pulse raced, he was going to need pills for high blood pressure at this rate. Why didn’t Nell’s family do something? Didn’t they care enough to call him back? “Do you know her kids? Are they idiots?”

“No. Busy I guess. Look, I’m leaving for Anchorage this morning.” Hanna moved from where she leaned against the porch rail to the chair across the small table from Duncan. “Do you want me to take her with me?”

“I’d jump at the chance to have her gone. But, no. If no one’s going to be there to pick her up, she’s better off here. Damn it.”

“After today, I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks, maybe longer,” Hanna said. “Charlie will be making the flights up here. Like I said before, you’re welcome to use my guest cabin in a pinch. I was going to have Alice house-sit at my place. Then, if it looks like you won’t need it, she and Emily can move into the little cabin for the rest of the summer.”

“Thanks,” Duncan said. “She has a long way to come down the lake from Jacob’s.”

His heart pounded with curiosity and disappointment. “Where are you going to be gone to for longer than two weeks? You’ve gotten to be a fixture around here. I’ll miss you.”

Hanna’s eyes widened. “Why, Mr. Mahoney. Have you changed your mind about me?”

“Yes, have you changed your mind about me?” Had he really said it out loud? He liked her more than he wanted to admit.

“No.” But there was a smile on her face. “I’ll be gone to my real job, and then I’m covering for one of the other pilots.” She grinned. “It’s a nice trade. Extra hours mean more savings, and by the end of the summer, I’ll have the money for my own plane. And he’s fishing with my uncle in Bristol Bay, so I’ll have fish for my freezer, too.”

Alice came to the door. “Duncan, there’s a call for you.”

Duncan reluctantly pulled himself away from his conversation with Hanna and went to answer the call. The smell of toast drifted over him as he crossed toward the desk under the stairs.

Tom nodded at him from the kitchen. He hadn’t been able to work at all yesterday. His blood-shot unkempt look didn’t bode well for today, either.