So Sure Of Death

EIGHT

The owner of the four-wheeler had fallen asleep, his head sunk to his chest at an awkward angle. “You know this man?” Liam asked McLynn.

“No,” said McLynn, who looked pale and strained but alert. “Looks like he's from the village.”

“A village,” Liam said, agreeing, “but which?” He walked over to the four-wheeler and put his hand on the man's shoulder, giving it a gentle shake.

The man woke up with a phlegmy snort. “Whuh? Whazzat?” He blinked at Liam. “Who you?”

“I think that's my question,” Liam said. The man looked confused. “Who are you, sir? What is your name?” Start with the easy stuff first, the information they had no reason to lie about.

“Frank,” the young man said, willingly enough. He seemed less out of it that he had been when apprehended, although the smell of alcohol that emanated from his breath and clothes was still strong. His voice was low, and, like the Kulukak elders, he had the accent of someone who had grown up speaking Yupik at home and English at school.

“Frank what?” Liam said patiently.

“Frank Petla.”

“Where are you from, Frank?”

Frank took time out to remember. “Koliganek.”

Koliganek was a Yupik village halfway up the Nushagak River. “What are you doing so far away from home, Frank?” Liam said, perching on the four-wheeler seat, folding his arms and assuming the mien of someone who had all the time in the world to shoot a little breeze. It was after four o'clock, the afternoon sun was warm on their faces and a light wind was keeping the bugs off. His uniform was damp and uncomfortable, but he ignored it. He heard Prince shift restlessly behind him and turned his head to give her a warning look. Her eyes widened, and she subsided. Wy had moved from the borrowed Cub to her own, cowling up, head down in the engine, back turned to the others, the set of her spine a clear indication that he was still being ignored.

“Fishing,” Frank said. He could have added, What else? but he didn't. Liam's uniform, damp or not, had finally registered. “You a trooper?”

“Uh-huh,” Liam said peaceably.

Frank gave his wrists a futile tug. “You the one got me tied up here?”

“Yeah.”

Frank frowned a little, thinking. “You jumped out of a plane.”

“Sure did.” Although it was something he'd rather not think about.

Frank was impressed. “Jesus, man, you coulda killed yourself.”

From the corner of his eye Liam saw Wy's back stiffen. “I had to talk to you, Frank.”

“Jesus,” Frank said again. “You're worse'n the Mounties.”

Liam smiled. “Why, thank you, Frank. I don't think anyone's ever made me a nicer compliment.”

Frank's expression indicated that a compliment was not exactly what he'd had in mind. Awareness, and with it truculence, settled over him like fog down a mountain.

Liam did not depart from geniality. “What were you doing up here on the bluff, Frank?”

Frank tried bluster. “I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't up here, I was minding my own business, riding my four-wheeler around, when you come flying out of the sky. You threatened to shoot my ass off,” he remembered suddenly. He became indignant, or pretended to. “Waving that gun around like nobody's business.”

“Speaking of waving a gun around-” Prince said hotly.

“Trooper,” Liam said. He didn't raise his voice, but she shut up, jaw closing with an audible snap. He smiled at Frank. “I've got this problem, Frank. Maybe you can help me.”

Frank eyed him suspiciously but didn't say he wouldn't.

“I've got a couple of people assaulted on this bluff, right here, less than two hours ago, by someone we think drove in on a four-wheeler.” He clicked his tongue. “I'm sorry to have to say it, but yours was the only four-wheeler around.”

Frank tried bravado. “That don't mean nothing. Hell, everybody's got a four-wheeler in this country.” He jerked his head in the direction of the air base. “The goddamn military's got a dozen, they're all over the place looking for stuff that falls off their planes. Not to mention shooting moose they got no right to,” he added bitterly.

“You're probably right, Frank,” Liam said, nodding. “Still, I have to say we did a pretty thorough search from the air, and yours was the only vehicle we saw anywhere near here.”

Frank hunched a shoulder. “Not my problem.”

“Probably not,” Liam said. He waited.

Frank grew uneasy in the silence. He tugged at the cuffs, and tried whining. “Man, can't you loosen these up? My hands are hurting.”

“I'm sorry, Frank,” Liam said, shaking his head sadly. “I can't do that.”

Frank tried belligerence. “Why not? You got no right to hold me, man, I'm a Native. You got to turn me over to my elders.”

“Your elders are about eighty miles northeast of here,” Liam said dryly, “and I don't think they're going to want to have anything to do with you anyway. Village elders don't hold with murder any more than the state does, Frank.”

Frank tried bluster again. “I don't know what you're talking about, man.”

Liam became serious. “I think you do, Frank. I think you know exactly what I'm talking about.” He saw the panic in Frank's eyes, and dropped his voice to a confidential level. “Look, Frank, I know how it is, you get a few drinks in you, you get in a fight with your girl, you climb on the four-wheeler and light out. You drive out over the tundra, you wind up here, you don't really know how, and you find a couple ofgussuksmessing with the bones of your ancestors.”

“Yeah,” Frank said, eyes locked to Liam's. “Messing with my ancestors, man.”

“So you lose it. You coldcock one, you let off a couple of rounds at the other, winging him-nice shooting, Frank, by the way.”

“Thanks, man,” Frank said involuntarily.

“So you did shoot him,” Liam said softly.

Frank tried panic. “No! I didn't shoot nobody! I don't even have a gun!”

Liam looked surprised. “You don't? Well, gee, Frank, who does this rifle belong to, then?” He picked up the.30-06 he'd leaned against the left front tire. “You had it when I caught up with you.”

“I found it,” Frank said. “It was laying on the ground.” Inspired, he added, “I almost ran over the top of it with my four-wheeler, man. Somebody must have dropped it.”

“Maybe a hunter,” Liam suggested. “Sure,” Frank said eagerly. “A hunter.” Liam scratched his chin. “Well, maybe that's so, Frank.” He paused, and looked skyward for revelation. “It's a pretty nice rifle, guy what owns it must take pretty good care of it. Doesn't look like it's been laying out too long.”

Frank hunched a shoulder.

“What do you think he was hunting?” Liam said.

“What?” Frank said. “Who?”

“The man who lost the rifle,” Liam said patiently. “What do you think he was hunting?”

“I dunno,” Frank said, bewildered. “Ducks, I guess. Geese? Plenty of those around, this time of year.”

“Well, sure,” Liam said, warmly congratulatory. “Ducks and geese.” He paused, and added reluctantly, “Of course, they aren't in season at the moment. Another month or so to go before you can even buy a duck stamp.”

Frank forced a smile. “That don't mean nothing out here.”

“No,” Liam agreed. “You're surely right about that, Frank.” Frank brightened, until Liam added, “Of course, I don't believe a lot of hunters go after ducks and geese with a thirty-ought-six, now, do they? You'd have to be a mighty fine shot to do that, wouldn't you?”

“I dunno.”

“A shotgun would be more likely for someone looking to bring home some birds for the stew pot, now, wouldn't it?”

“I dunno,” said poor Frank.

“And I think any hunter worthy of the name takes better care of his firepower than to leave it lie in a swamp somewhere.” Liam shook his head disapprovingly. “Lousy thing to do to a fine piece of equipment like this here Winchester.”

“It's a Remington,” Frank said. “A two-eighty. Oh.” He looked wildly around for support and found none.

“It's your rifle, isn't it, Frank?” Liam said sorrowfully.

“I guess so,” Frank said, looking ready to burst into tears.

“And you shot this man and hit this trooper with it, didn't you?”

Too late Frank realized what he'd admitted to and tried desperately to backtrack. “I never shot nobody!”

“I can see how it would happen,” Liam said, ignoring Frank's outburst to paint a revised scenario. “You're fishing out of Newenham, you're between periods, you borrow a four-wheeler and you come here to visit the village. Maybe your folks come from here, and you've come to pay your respects.” Liam folded his hands and did his best to look pious. “But maybe you had a few before you came, and when you got here you found two people poking their noses in where they didn't belong.”

“Now, wait just a minute!” McLynn exploded. He was on his feet, and feeling much healthier, if the look of outrage on his face was any indication. “This man was grave-robbing! I got here and he was stuffing all the artifacts that I had excavated over the summer into a bag!” He pointed, triumphant. “That bag right there, tied to the handlebars!”

Liam looked thunderstruck, and slid the drawstring of the dark blue nylon stuff sack from the right handlebar to hold it aloft. Its contents pressed against the sides to cause interesting bulges in the thin fabric. “This bag?”

“That exact bag!” McLynn stood where he was, glaring. “I was going to stop him and he shot me!”

“Frank,” Liam said, his heart broken. “This can't be true.”

“I didn't shoot anybody,” Frank said obstinately.

Liam emptied the contents of the sack on the ground.

McLynn pounced. “There, there's the carvings we found in two-E, probably amulets. This is the needle we found in five-F, and this is the awl we found in six-C.”

“And this?” Liam held up what looked very much like a knife carved from a translucent length of bone. It had a short hilt, carved with figures long since worn to little more than faint ridges, and a short, wide, slightly curved blade that came to a sharp point. There was blood on it, dried brown and flaking, but it was something Liam had seen too often to mistake now.

Frank looked frightened. He said nothing.

McLynn hesitated.

“That's a storyknife,” Wy said from behind Liam.

He'd known she was there and didn't jump, but Prince and McLynn did. “What's a storyknife?”

Too interested in the artifact to maintain her attitude of frozen fury, she took the knife and held it up. “I've got one of these. Mine's made of ivory. It's much smaller, though. This is beautiful. Look at the carving on the hilt. And it's old, too.” She lowered the knife and looked at Prince. “It's a toy used by young Yupik girls. They take their younger siblings down to the riverbank and carve stories into the sand. Teaching stories, mostly, about kids who disobey their parents and are subsequently killed and eaten by monsters.”

Prince chuckled. “That'll teach 'em, all right.” She winced and put a hand to her head.

“I'm surprised to see one here, though,” Wy said. “I thought storyknifing was a custom practiced only on the Delta. North of the Kuskokwim Mountains, anyway.”

McLynn came forward and nipped the storyknife out of her hands. “Yes, well, that's all very well, but it is an important part of my research and my paper-”

“That's the knife we saw sticking out of Nelson's mouth when we found the body,” Prince said.

“I thought it might be,” Liam said, and took the knife from McLynn. He looked at Frank.

“I didn't do it!” Frank said frantically. “I found the sack! It was laying on the ground!”

“Right next to the rifle, I bet,” Liam said.

Frank didn't even hear him. “I didn't take nothing! I didn't shoot anybody! I didn't kill nobody! I didn't do anything! I want a lawyer!”

There were six people, one of them dead, and two 2-seater planes, not to mention a pilot with a bump on her head. “Can you fly?” Liam asked Prince.

She managed a nod, although it looked painful.

“No shit, now, Prince,” he said sternly. “Are you fit to fly?”

“Yeah, no shit,” Wy said, the owner of the plane Prince was about to strap on.

“I can fly,” Prince said shortly.

Wy surveyed her with a narrow stare. Prince met it without flinching. “All right,” Wy said at last. She really had no other option, not if she wanted the Cub back at its tiedown that evening, and she knew it. She had an early flight the next morning, too, into a strip like this one that the Cessna was too heavy for, and she wasn't sure how many times the dentist from Anchorage was going to let her borrow the other Cub. “What about you?” she said, staring fixedly at a point somewhere above Liam's right shoulder. “We're flying full. How do you get back?”

The afternoon sun glinted off the rooftops of the Air Force base, ten miles to the east, and Liam, unwillingly, was put forcibly in mind of Moses' announcement of Colonel Charles Bradley Campbell's arrival in Newenham, and his request to see his only son and heir. It was a reunion Liam would just as soon take place in private. “You take McLynn back. Prince will take the suspect and the body.” To Prince he said, “Take Frank here to the local lockup. Get Wy to show you where. Take the body to Alaska Airlines. Get it out to Anchorage on the next jet. I'll call the M.E.” Which crusty old bastard would have a few pithy things to say on the subject of filling up his morgue. “I'll take the four-wheeler over to the base and hitch a ride in from there.”

“Oh.” Wy hesitated. He was surprised to see a flush rise into her cheeks. “I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you,” she said lamely. “Your father-”

“You've seen him?” The words snapped out before he could stop them.

She nodded. “At Bill's, when I took Prince to find Professor McLynn. He was looking for you.”

“I heard.”

“Oh,” she said again. “He told me to tell you he was here, because you didn't like surprises.”

“He was right.” About that, if about nothing else.

Wy opened her mouth, looked at Prince and McLynn, and closed it again. “Come on, Professor,” she told McLynn. “Let's get back to town.”

“I need to stay here,” he said obstinately. “Somebody has to guard the dig.”

Liam sighed, and said, gently but firmly, “You need that shoulder looked at, sir, and as I said before, this is now a crime scene. I have to take some pictures, draw some sketches, do an inventory. You can come back tomorrow.”

“You're not staying here overnight, are you?” McLynn demanded. Liam shook his head. “Who's to stop some other cretin”-a pointing finger accused Frank Petla, who cringed away from it-“from coming in and trashing the place? I have weeks of work invested here, Officer, and months, hell, years of research! I have a paper to finish for delivery before the American Archeological Society that will open up an entirely new line of inquiry into the migratory patterns of the indigenous-”

Liam said in a mild voice, “Your work will have to wait at least a day, sir. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.”

Something in that mild tone convinced McLynn to shut up, but he glared impartially at everyone as he was assisted into the back seat of the borrowed Cub. With less care, Liam and Prince jammed Frank Petla into the back of Wy's Cub. Nelson's body had been bagged and stowed beneath Frank's seat. Frank looked down at the plastic-covered head lying beneath his feet and whimpered a little. Everyone ignored him.

Five minutes later Wy was in the air. She banked and made a wide circle around the bluff, watching Prince take off and dropping in directly behind her, her nose on Prince's six like a sheep dog herding one of its flock back to the barn.

Liam fetched camera and sketch pad from his crime scene kit. He wasn't going to knock himself out; he had a prime suspect in the bag, not to mention two superb witnesses to two additional assaults, one a distinguished scholar Liam assumed was a highly respected member of his field, no matter how much the pompous little fart annoyed him personally, and the other, glory of glories, an Alaska state trooper. Juries had a fondness for hard evidence, though, and he set about collecting some for those twelve good and true men and women.

He started in the service tent. One of the tables had been knocked completely over, a second leaned up against a third. Possibly where Prince had fallen when Petla hit her. She could have crawled outside afterward.

He righted the table. Scattered on the floor he found several items Petla had missed. There was a seal-oil lamp fashioned from a hollow stone. A tiny ivory otter, cracked and yellow with age and grimed with dirt, had rolled beneath one of the cots. Caught in the fold of fabric between tent wall and tent floor, he found a single walrus tusk, broken off halfway up its ivory length, which must have given the bull one hell of a toothache. It looked suspiciously white, and suspiciously like it was fresh off the walrus. It reminded him of the walrus head on Larsgaard's kitchen wall.Asveq.

There were walrus in the bay, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, hauling out in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 provided for their complete and total protection from any and all human predation, until such time as they could be harvested in concert with an “optimum sustainable population keeping in mind the carrying capacity of the habitat.” When a walrus got tangled up in a net chasing the same school of reds a fisherman was after, the fisherman in question generally decided that the habitat was carrying its full load of walrus and wouldn't miss one. A lot of walrus washed up on the Bay's beaches, dead of lead poisoning. Most of them had no heads, a little-known-little-known in scientific circles, that is-side effect of lead poisoning.

The Yupik, of course, had been harvesting walrus for the last ten thousand years, eating the flesh, making clothes and snowshoes and sled runners and water bottles and boat hulls from the skin and carving the tusks into masks and dolls and totems of animal figures, like the otter Liam had found.

And storyknives.

Liam was a little hazy on the rules of engagement regarding walrus tusks. Only Alaska Natives could take them, he thought, but they could be sold to non-Natives. Could they be sold simply as a tusk, or a pair of tusks, or did they have to be made into something? He couldn't remember. Charlene Taylor, the fish and game trooper for the district, would know. He'd ask her sometime.

He set the fragment of tusk on the table. Next to one of the cots a Blazo box did duty as nightstand, bookshelf and clothes drawer. One of the books stacked on it was a companion publication to a cultural exhibit, published five years before by the University of Alaska Department of Anthropology. The prologue thanked McLynn for contributing. He leafed through it, stopping when he came to a chapter headed “Aboriginal Life in South-western Alaska.”

There were illustrations of various artifacts, including bent-wood visors, seal-gut tunics, wooden breastplates, spirit masks wonderfully carved and decorated with beads, feathers and shells, and ivory figurines representing salmon, otters, seals, whales. It was illustrative of a rich and varied culture, and deeply interesting to Liam, who as a resident of southwest Alaska for less than three months was a stranger in the strangest land he had ever visited.

He turned the page and halted. The caption read, “Storyknife,” and the illustration showed something eerily similar to the ivory knife that had been used to murder Don Nelson. The one in the book was more slender in form, more graceful in curve, with a narrower blade and a softer point, but still the two were recognizable as serving the same purpose. Liam's eyes dropped to the text. The knife in the book, unlike the murder weapon, had been carved of ivory, although the text indicated that they could be carved of bone, wood or antler as well. Tradition held that storyknives were made by uncles for nieces. There wasn't all that much to be known about storyknives, he gathered, as it was a custom that had died out about the same time contact had been made with the first Russian explorers. The curse of a culture with no written language.

He closed the book and looked at the map of Alaska stuck to the near wall of the tent with duct tape. Bristol Bay was south and east of the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, but not so far and not so thin of rivers that the Delta Yupik couldn't have wandered into the Bay. They must have come, and brought their storyknives with them. The method of Don Nelson's murder was all Liam needed for proof.

He opened the book again and saw the owner's name inside the cover. Don Nelson, a street address, Seattle. If found, return postage guaranteed. He closed the book again. If he wasn't mistaken in his Seattle geography, that address was north of the University of Washington. Nelson, who looked young enough to be a graduate student, might have been enrolled at U-Dub. Maybe a call would put Liam in touch with his next of kin.

Not a task he was looking forward to, that he ever looked forward to, the part of the job that any law enforcement officer dreaded. He put the book back and bumped the Blazo box in the process. A small spiral notebook with a bright blue cover dropped from the folds of a white Gap Beefy T-shirt, size medium. He opened it and read a few entries in a big, looping hand.

June 28

Found an otter charm, probably off a visor. Man, did the old folks know how to carve! There is more art in an Aleut visor than there is in a '57 Chevy. Says a lot about a people when they could make something so necessary and so functional so beautiful as well.

July 1

A family from Icky came down the river today in skiffs. Looked like they were going fishing. Said they were descendants of the people who lived on this bluff. Lynny pissed off the father when he said this was now Park Service land and they were trespassing. Daughter sure was pretty. Tried to talk to her but Mom wasn't having any. Maybe I'll look her up, if Lynny ever gives me any time off. Hasn't happened yet.

July 6

Uncovered a storyknife today. Made of bone, old enough for the carving to be worn smooth. Lynny's all torqued because it's too far east.

July 9

There's a dump site of some kind a mile east from camp. Lynny's not interested in anything but what we can find here. Which means what he can find to support his thesis. Academics.

The one-word condemnation made Liam smile. He'd been to graduate school himself. The truth was that Nelson, if he was a graduate student, would eventually have evolved into an academic himself, scrambling to defend his own thesis from the attacks of competitors. The fight for an original thesis was bellicose and bloody, especially since the advent of offset printing. If you wanted tenure, you had to publish. If you wanted to publish, you needed a thesis topic sexy enough to satisfy your committee and attract a publisher. Liam had suffered through his share of required texts, and his opinion was that academic writers who could get through a hundred thousand words without once using the phrase “As we shall see” were deserving of the Nobel Prize in literature, not to mention the grateful adulation of advanced students everywhere. But then, not everyone could be Barbara Tuchman. Liam was still mad at her for dying.

He flipped to the last page of the journal, which was dated the previous Saturday.

July 25

Lynny went to town yesterday, like always. He told me to work on three-C but I poked around the dump site instead. Hate to admit it but I think it's modern. Feeling sick. Couldn't eat. Don't know how I could have picked up a bug out here. Lynny must have brought one back from town.

Poor Nelson. The sick and the dead, he thought irrepressibly. He chastised himself for the irreverence, and pocketed the journal to read through completely later. Frank Petla had seemed familiar with the village site and the surrounding area; perhaps he'd made a habit of dropping in to see what he could scrounge in the way of marketable artifacts. Perhaps that habit had been witnessed by Don Nelson. Perhaps Nelson had noted it down in his journal. The district prosecutor, a short, bellicose redhead of Irish descent who advocated the return of the death penalty, would like that. The jury would positively love it.

He picked through the rest of the detritus, not finding much. There were a lot of tools, and six large three-ring binders labeled “Costumes,” “Weapons,” “Utensils,” “Hunting,” “Crafts,” “ Religion.” They were filled with a cramped, deliberate handwriting totally unlike Nelson's sprawling penmanship, by which Liam deduced that they were McLynn's notebooks. They included penciled drawings of various artifacts of such precision and delicacy that Liam reluctantly revised his opinion of McLynn's talents up a notch.

There wasn't much else. Some clothes that smelled as if they hadn't been washed in weeks, some recreational reading featuring such diverse characters as Emma Woodhouse, Richard Sharpe and Job Napoleon Salk. There was a Walkman with a dozen tapes, including the Beastie Boys, Loreena McKennitt, Fastball and theTitanicsoundtrack. Liam was not impressed, but then under Bill's tutelage he was learning to appreciate Jimmy Buffett. Plowing straight ahead come what may. That's me, Liam thought, the cowboy in the jungle.

He poked around some more, but there wasn't much else to find. He was reluctant to leave, though, and not just because Colonel Charles Bradley Campbell was waiting for him at the other end. Liam had never been on the site of an archaeological dig before and he admitted to some curiosity. All the neat little squares with all their neat little layers being revealed one at a time. There were half a dozen brushes of various sizes and kinds of bristles lying around; Liam realized that the brushes must be what were used to reveal the next layer down, and marveled at the patience the science required. It was probably enormously taxing physically as well: long hours of crouching over a specific section of dirt, moving the bristles patiently back and forth, back and forth. There was a square sieve made of wire mesh in a wooden frame; they must strain the dirt before they tossed it so they didn't miss any pieces, however tiny. Kind of like casework, Liam thought. Only in casework he was the sieve.

It was by now late afternoon, and the sun still beat on the outside of the tent, raising the interior temperature to what felt like ninety degrees. Flies buzzed over the patch of dried blood, but they didn't sound very enthusiastic about it. During the excavation process the flaps would probably have to remain closed to keep the bugs out, so there would be little or no circulation. Liam preferred a job that kept him outside much of the time, even if it meant that he must occasionally suffer the slings and arrows- not to mention the knives and bullets-of outrageous citizenry. But he'd take fresh air with a bullet over crouching in an old grave in a closed tent any day.

He went back outside and drew in a breath of that fresh air. It tasted good. It was a beautiful view, too, he thought, without knowing it joining Wy in her admiration of the fall of ground from in front of the bluff to the river below, the scattering of glittering lakes and streams, the distant surface of the bay gleaming blue in the sun. Yes, the old ones had known what they were doing when they built here. A defensible position, an accessible escape route, food, water and a vista that went on forever. He wondered what they had thought about the edge of the ocean where it vanished over the horizon. Did they fear it? Yearn after it? Was it where they ascended to heaven? Was it where they placed their gods' homes?

He turned and looked at the dig, the two tents, walls flapping in the afternoon breeze. The prospect seemed somehow forlorn, almost lonely, and a fragment of verse from his favorite poet came to his mind, describing another forsaken graveyard nobody visited. So sure of death was this place, too, from which living men shrank, as if denying a place of death denied your own. Liam knew better.

So did Don Nelson, now.