The Interlopers

26

THE TIMING WORKED OUT AS well as if I'd planned it that way. It took a couple of hours to get Libby's car towed into the town ahead: a handful of buildings bunched around the bleak and lonely highway junction. Then we had to arrange to have replacement parts sent out from Anchorage. By the time all the necessary phone calls had been made, it was plenty late enough in the afternoon that I could start driving again without any fear of arriving at my destination on time.

We reached Beaver Creek well after dark. The Canadian officials checked us out of their country, leaving us in a kind of international limbo, since we wouldn't be officially admitted to Alaska until the corresponding U.S. authorities had looked us over in Tok, over a hundred miles ahead.

The border community we'd just entered was no bigger than Haines Junction, if as big: just a few businesses scattered along the road to keep the customs shack from getting lonely during the long winter nights. We had no trouble at all in finding the motel, since it seemed to be the only one around. Like many of them up there, it looked as if it had been concocted by a house-trailer manufacturer and trucked here in sections, and maybe it had. In other words, it was a long narrow, railroad-car kind of building, of typical mobile-home construction, covered with ribbed, white-painted metal.

The room to which we were shown had two beds, a heater, a chair, and a tiny dresser, all crowded into a space barely adequate for a clothes closet. However, it was clean and warm and we were happy to have it. It had been a rough day, and we hadn't really slept much the night before. When the proprietor had left us, Libby tossed her trench coat on the chair and started to unbutton her jacket. I went to the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I've got to feed the pup, give him some air, and lock up the truck. Which bag do you want?"

"The same little one… Oh, hell, if it's any trouble, never mind. I can sleep in my undies, and I hope to God you're not feeling masculine and virile, because I'm not feeling a bit feminine and seductive. God, what a drive! If you insist on eating dinner or something, be quiet when you come in, because I'll be asleep."

It was almost like being married again. I grinned and went out, stirred up a bowl of food for the pup and, while he was eating, took her suitcase and mine and shoved them inside the motel-room door. When he was through, I turned Hank loose briefly, then locked him up and walked slowly toward the part of the building that served as a cafй. There were cars parked in front of the units of the long motel, and suddenly I found my glance drawn to a mud-covered, beat-up-looking little two-door job that seemed vaguely familiar.

At least, the sloping rear deck reminded me of a car I'd seen before and so did the fancy wheel-covers simulating wire wheels, although one of these was now missing and the rest were so dirty that no hint of chrome was visible any more than the original color of the car could be determined in the dark, through the coating of mud. There was a star-shaped crack in the windshield and a broken headlight; the kind of mementos one tends to pick up during, say, a fast thousand-mile dash along a wilderness road full of loose stone and gravel.

I stood there only a moment; then I moved on into the cafй and ordered a hamburger, and a beer since they served nothing stronger. The damn little fool, I thought. I told her to go home; what the hell does she think she's doing up here?

But that was a silly question. Obviously, Pat Bellman had trailed me clear to Alaska to take revenge for the friends I had killed; or she still had her eye on the dog collar that, properly filled, was worth fifty grand to a Chinese gent called Soo.