“You need to shut up.”
“I heard some hunters from Stone Cross spotted one three miles upriver just last week.” Firelight gave more depth to his beard, making it seem longer and fuller than it was. His green eyes sparkled, full of mischief—and a hint of cruelty. Sarah’s mother had warned her about that look, but she’d never noticed until after they were married.
“I’m telling you, David.” Sarah let the armload of wood clatter to the tile floor beside the stove. “If you ever want to see me naked again . . .”
David flipped on the living room lights immediately at that and lowered the flashlight. He gave a nonchalant shrug. “It was probably just the wind.”
“Probably,” she said, hands to the fire, soaking up the heat. “It sounds just awful though.”
“Could be a brown bear,” David said, “going for the caribou shoulder in the meat shed. Whatever it was, you should stick close to me tonight.”
The idea of marauding grizzly bears didn’t calm Sarah much more than a lurking Hairy Man.
She glared at David, seized with a sudden thought.
“What caribou shoulder? All the meat I know of is in the freezer. Since when do we have caribou in the shed?”
“Bobby stopped by this afternoon on his way back downriver.“
This was a gut-punch. “Where was I?”
David shrugged. “Beats me . . .”
Sarah hit him in the shoulder. “Was Aften with him?”
Bobby and Aften Brooks were from outside Chicago. They taught high school in Stone Cross, a Yup’ik village eight miles downriver. Eight miles might as well have been fifty out here on the marshy tundra, so they didn’t get together often. Still, Aften was about Sarah’s age and was the closest thing she had to a friend for five hundred miles.
A mixture of anger and despair clogged her throat. “I can’t . . . I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Relax,” David scoffed. That spark of cruelty flickered in his eyes again. “It was just Bobby and one of his teacher buddies. They only stayed a minute. Bobby left us a fresh shoulder and I gave him some salmon.”
Sarah shot a look at her husband as she picked up the poker from beside the stove, wondering how deep into the winter it would be before she smashed him in the face with it. For now she used it to stir the coals, making room for a couple more pieces of spruce. Resin popped like gunshots. Flames curled out the open door, throwing more light on the varnished log walls. But more light brought more shadows.
Another croaking moan pulled David’s attention to the large picture window that faced the river. His own scary stories about bigfoot and bears had gotten the better of him. He sat back on the overstuffed couch in the center of the great room.
“It really is just the wind, you know,” he said, trying to convince himself. “Branches rubbing together.”
Sarah sank into the cushions beside him, still holding the iron poker. The couch was old and soft, but in relatively good shape as far as bush furniture went. There were no roads here, so everything had to be brought in by boat or aircraft, which meant things got used until they were completely worn out. This couch smelled just a little bit like old fishing gear, which provided the lodge with good ambience.
Sitting there on the fishy-smelling couch, she leaned back, letting her head fall sideways as she gave David a halfhearted smile. He was handsome enough, in a vaporous way, but no one would have described him as solid. Sarah’s mother said he was either conniving or vapid, depending on her mood. Sarah’s older brother called him a “popped-collar Thad” and said he looked like he should be back East at a prep school instead of living in Chugiak, Alaska.
When Sarah had let it slip that she and David got a gig managing a remote lodge in the Alaska bush for the winter, her mother had mistakenly thought she was asking permission. They’d fought, the way they always did, sullenly. There was no yelling, not even a raised voice. Sarah’s mother was an expert at flaying skin with quiet words. Looking back, the only reason she’d married David at all was because her mother had been against it.
Another moan came in on a gust of wind, this one lower, a plaintive croaking that rattled the windows.
Sarah shot to her feet and clomped quickly across the room. She was still in her Muck boots—verboten when clients were there—but she’d clean up the bits of mud in the morning. She double-checked the deadbolt on the front door—as if that little piece of metal would stop anything. There were just too many other ways inside. The main room was not very big as lodges went, just over twenty feet square, but it was high, with floor-to-ceiling windows that made her feel cold and exposed. No one had to defeat a lock. There were a million rocks along the river to smash through the glass. David had joked when they got there that at least she’d hear whatever it was that killed her. She’d nearly strangled him then. She returned to her spot in front of the fire, staring into the flames, trying to settle her thoughts, defiantly turning her back to the windows and her husband.
David reached out with the toe of his slipper and touched the back of her thigh, causing her to jump.
“Sorry,” he said. “How about we have a shower? Then I can paint your nails for you.”
His customary glibness had returned.
She looked over her shoulder at him, incredulous. “Do you want a girl who splits firewood and caulks logs or one who dolls herself up with nail polish? ’Cause I don’t see how you can have both for the next couple of months.”
“Jeez,” David said, lips pooched out like he was wounded. “I’m just saying you don’t have to let yourself go because we’re living in the bush.”
“Keep it up,” Sarah said. “That’s the way to talk me into the shower.”
“Really?”
She scoffed. “I’m not about to take my clothes off so I can be murdered with soap in my eyes—not with that awful noise out there.”
“I’ll be in the shower with you,” David said, raising his eyebrows up and down the way he did when he wanted sex. He was pretty much a giant human gland, so his eyebrows were moving all the time.
She ignored the suggestion and stared into the fire, trying not to imagine four months of this.
“You should have told me when Bobby stopped by.”
His dismissive chuckle galled her enough to chase away some of the chill.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not meaning it at all. He patted the couch cushion beside him. “At least sit—”
Every light in and around the lodge went out at the same time, leaving them bathed in the orange glow of the fire—and the shadows. Lots of shadows. The ever-present hum of the generator was gone. They turned it off every night to save on fuel, but the lights ran on backup batteries. They should have stayed on for a while. Voles or squirrels must have gotten into the wiring.
The hissing sound of the river seemed louder now, closer, more invasive. David didn’t appear to notice. He slumped in defeat, slowly beating the back of his head against the couch. No generator, no shower—even if he by some miracle managed to convince Sarah it wasn’t a stupid idea.
The sudden blast of a car horn outside caused Sarah to jump. David bolted to his feet.
The racket of Rolf’s makeshift alarm was grossly out of place against the sounds of the wilderness. The handyman had rigged the contraption using a boat battery, weighted milk jugs, and fishing line to warn him if bears tried to break into the meat shed.