Liam watched the door shut behind them, and turned to Moses. "What did you say to her?"

Moses was staring at his hands. They were powerful hands: brown, seamed, with large knuckles and thick, well-kept fingernails. "I told her his father's name," he said, and the sorrow and foreboding in his voice stopped Liam in his tracks.

Confused, Liam said, "She didn't know it before?"

"Oh yeah, she knew it," Moses said glumly. "She just didn't know it."

Bill came down the bar. "You okay?"

Moses dredged up a smile. "I will be." The smile turned lecherous. "I know I will be later."

She allowed herself to be sidetracked, and leaned across the bar for a kiss. Again, Liam was awed and a little embarrassed by the display of passion, the obvious appetite, the frank lust.

Moses pulled back and saw the look on Liam's face. "What, you think people over sixty can't have sex or what? Just because you ain't been getting any lately don't mean it's over for the rest of us! Now get the hell out of here! She's waiting on you, God knows why."

"Who is?"

"Who is-don't get cute with me, you dumb bastard, I'm your sifu. Her house is out on the bluff. Go south on Main, turn left on the river road, go three miles, and turn right just after the pavement ends." Moses turned away, and then turned back. "And if you have the strength of will to haul your sorry ass out of a bed with Wy Chouinard in it, stand post for at least twenty minutes tonight." He leveled a finger at Liam, the same finger he had leveled at Wolfe. "You don't use it, you lose it."

The glint in his eye told Liam that Moses wasn't referring solely to tai chi.

NINE

The Blazer was the property of the state and as such should only have been driven on official business, but since Liam didn't have a car yet, along with an apartment or an iron, he decided to risk the wrath of observant citizens and drive it anyway.

Like DeCreft's, Wy's house was on the river bluff. The road in was, again, almost but not quite lost in a tangle of brush and trees. When he had bumped his way to the end of it, he found a surprisingly neat clapboard cottage painted white, with a detached garage and shop, also painted white. Both buildings were old but well kept.

Wy's truck was in the garage. Good. There was a battered white Isuzu pickup parked behind it. Wy had visitors. Not so good. He climbed the steps to the door and raised his hand to knock. The door opened before he could.

"Liam!" Wy said brightly.

There were two people standing behind her in the act of shrugging into their jackets. A tall man with white hair, and a stocky woman with intent green eyes. He recognized them at once from the plane: the other Alaskan Old Fart, with Daughter.

"I don't think you've met Dan and Jo, have you?" Wy said, still in the bright, artificial voice. "Daniel Dunaway, Joan Dunaway, this is Liam Campbell. Liam, this is Daniel and his daughter, Jo. Dan is a friend of my parents. Jo and I went to high school and college together."

"How do you do?" Liam said, holding out his hand.

After a moment of hesitation, Daniel Dunaway took it. His grip was dry, callused, and hard. When Liam turned to Jo, she had her arms folded across her chest and was staring at him out of narrowed eyes. Liam thought better of holding out his hand to her.

Daniel settled one big hand on Wy's shoulder. "It was great seeing you, girl. I'll call your folks when we get back, let them know you're all right."

"Thanks, Dan."

Jo broke off staring at Liam long enough to give Wy a fierce hug. "Anything you need, you call, you hear? And I'm coming out over Labor Day for a week or ten days, okay?"

"Okay."

Daniel Dunaway put one large hand on Wy's shoulder and bent a forbidding stare on Liam. "Wy's one of the family."

"Yes, sir," Liam said.

"She's like blood to us. To me."

"Yes, sir."

The older man gave a curt nod. "So long as you know."

His daughter was a hair less subtle. As she brushed by him on her way out, she said in a low voice, "You hurt her again and you're toast, asshole."

"Yes, ma'am," Liam said. It seemed the most politic response.

The Dunaways climbed into the rental, waved good-bye, and were off.

"Friends of yours?" Liam said neutrally.

"The best," Wy agreed. "Come on in."

"What do they do?" Liam said, following her inside.

"Daniel's retired, sort of. Used to be a heavy-duty mechanic; he's got an IBEW pension. Nowadays he amuses himself with hunting, fishing, and some wheeling and dealing around the Bay. He's got a piece of property out at the airport-he's trying to sell it to one of the local fishermen."

"And his daughter?"

"Jo's a reporter for the Daily News. She just came along for the ride, and for the chance to visit with me."

Liam got his first good look at her, and blinked. Wy was wearing an apron. At least he thought that was what it was-he'd never seen her wearing one before. If he wasn't mistaken, there was lace around the hem.

"I'm just cooking dinner. Would you like some? I tried to get Dan and Jo to stay but they had to catch a plane."

He opened his mouth and his stomach growled, loud enough to be heard over the strains of Constance Demby floating in from elsewhere in the house. Constance Demby was one of his favorite composers, and he had given a CD of hers to Wy. If he wasn't mistaken, the particular cut playing just now was "Oceans Without Shores."

"Well," Wy said, bright and chipper, "I guess you're hungry." She gave a hostessy little laugh that sounded so unlike her he almost asked what was wrong.

Instead, he followed her through to the kitchen. It was a large room that took up the whole south side of the house. The south-facing wall was almost all window. A door opened out onto a large deck that faced the mouth of the Nushagak River where it flowed into Bristol Bay.

The broad expanse of grayish brown water, more than a mile across, moved steadily, powerfully, inexorably south between low bluffs thickly encrusted with trees and brush. Here, the current had swept a stand of spruce trees growing too close to the edge for comfort out to sea. There, it had carved out a backwater and lined a sand beach in a perfect crescent shape with a tidy row of driftwood bleached white by water and time. Farther down, where freshwater met salt, a dozen little estuaries nourished tall stands of marsh grass and dozens of species of wildfowl, from the elegant Canada geese to widgeons with calls like rubber duck squeeze toys to the long-legged, long-billed lesser yellowlegs. An immature eagle, as yet uncertain of the newfound power of his great wings, landed for a breather in a nesting area and was instantly dive-bombed by a flock of furious seagulls. A male merganser, red of neck and of temper, chased off a rival for the affections of the female merganser at his side. A large salmon jumped free of the current and smacked back into the water again with a large, loud splash that echoed clearly up to the top of the bluff and through the open windows of the house perched there.

The sun was still well up above the southwestern horizon, pouring an unceasing flow of golden light over them all. That same sunlight gilded the interior of Wy's house, and Liam tore his eyes away from the incredible view and took stock of his more immediate surroundings. There was a dining room table big enough to seat eight on the left and the kitchen on the right, the two separated by a counter and passthrough. Wy pulled out a stool and he sat down and accepted the glass she handed to him. One sip, and he knew the buttery-smooth slide of twentyyear-old Glenmorangie, which retailed for something like eighty bucks a bottle in Anchorage. God knew how much the stuff cost in the Bush, and Wy didn't drink hard liquor. He picked up the bottle and looked at the label. It was about two-thirds full, the same as the bottle at Bill's. Had she bought it from Bill to serve especially to him? That was how Moses had known what he drank, he realized with a rush of something like relief. There. He always appreciated a nice, rational explanation for the oddities of life.