"I told my guys to drop three barrels right about here, and a gas pump and a ladder with them!" The man seemed incapable of lowering his voice. The guy towered over her-towered over Liam, for that matter-and outweighed the two of them combined by at least fifty pounds. He had fists the size of rump roasts and shoulders like cinder blocks. He looked like the Incredible Hulk, and Liam didn't want to make him mad.

Neither did Wy. "Sorry," she said with an ingratiating smile, "we thought this was our dump. We told our guy to put ours here, too. And I brought our ladder with me." She pointed. "There's another three barrels right up the beach, with a ladder lying next to them."

The big man turned to look. "Shit, that must be another half a mile up!" He turned and glared at her. "This would be a hell of a business if it weren't for the goddamn fishermen, wouldn't it?"

"A hell of a business," Wy agreed, and he plowed off to yet another Super Cub that looked far too small to hold him, climbed in, and sprayed gravel all over them as he taxied down the beach.

"He's going to dig himself in if he's not careful," Wy said, observing the maneuver dispassionately. "Yup. Come on."

The big man was out of the little plane and cursing it with all his might when they arrived. Wy went to one strut, nodded Liam to the tail, and waited politely for the other pilot to finish relieving his feelings and take the other strut. He did, eventually, and they bulled the little craft up the beach to the next fuel dump. It was only a few hundred feet farther, but the sand and gravel were loose and when they were done Liam wanted a real shower and wanted it now.

He had to settle for a couple of sticks of beef jerky and a Hershey bar. "First class all the way," he said wryly. He washed down the jerky with bottled water. "So, is this pretty much the way the day went with Bob DeCreft?"

Her head snapped around and she gave him a sharp look. "Pretty much," she said cautiously. "The first warning announcement by Fish and Game came at ten a.m., the second at noon, the third at two. By then, the fuel dump was dry and Bob and I flew straight back to Newenham."

"Uh-huh. And Bob did pretty much what I'm doing, sat in the backseat watching for planes?"

"Pretty much."

"How long were you up?"

"Including stops to refuel? Maybe eight, ten hours."

"So, no herring caught that day. That's why they're opening today?"

"Why they're maybe opening today," she corrected him. "We did get a short opener three days ago in Togiak. April twentyninth, the earliest herring season has ever been. Didn't come anywhere near the quota, though, which is why we get another shot at it."

"When is herring season usually?"

"Another two weeks or so. Middle of May, sometimes later."

"Why is it so early this year?"

"They're saying El Nino-you know, that warm current of water in the equatorial Pacific that sometimes moves too far north and west and throws everybody's weather out of kilter?"

"No snow in Anchorage? Floods in North Dakota?"

She nodded. "That's it. It's affecting more than just the weather. They caught a marlin in Puget Sound, tuna off Kodiak Island."

"Herring in Bristol Bay two weeks before time."

She smiled, clearly pleased with her exceptional pupil.

"You know, last night when I was looking out your window I saw a king jump in the river. It occurs to me it's early for king salmon, too."

"Way too early."

"Wy, did Bob say or do anything out of the ordinary that day? Did he have a fight with anyone on the ground?" Liam hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the big man refueling his Cub. "Duke it out with a pilot over a misplaced fuel dump, maybe?" She shook her head. "Okay, did he get into an argument with anyone on the radio?"

"No. Remember, the spotter can't talk to the boats, only to the pilot."

"So did he get into a fight with you?"

Her hesitation was infinitesimal, and he would have missed it if he hadn't been watching her so closely. "No."

He gave a long stretch. She watched him like a mouse waiting for the cat to pounce. "So it was just a normal day in the air?"

"As normal as it gets during herring spotting. Speaking of spotting." She checked her watch, and this time there was no mistaking the relief in her words. "Two hours to the announcement, or so we hope. We'd better get back in the air."

"Why do we have to go up so soon?"

"We need to do some scouting," she said, and waved him forward. "Find out where those little silver bastards hang when they're making babies. Come on, come on, let's move like we got a purpose."

ELEVEN

So they moved like they had a purpose. The Cub raised up off the beach smoothly and without incident, Liam helping in his usual fashion by clutching the edge of his seat. They headed south down the coast for about thirty minutes before making a one-eighty and retracing their steps. Fifteen minutes later she pointed out the left side. "Look," she said. Even over the headphones her voice sounded tense with excitement.

"For what?" he said, forcing himself to look out.

"Herring."

"What do they look like?"

"Big dark patches in the water. If you see some, poke and point."

"Okay."

All Liam saw was an endless expanse of green with a shoreline that looked too far away, a couple of boats cruising through, their wakes zigzagging with apparent aimlessness, and three other small planes at one, three, and eight o'clock, flyspecks on a light blue horizon. Then there was a glint of something in the distance, at about ten o'clock. He focused on that spot, and saw it again. "Hey?"

"Poke and point," she said, and he poked her in the shoulder and pointed past her left eye.

"Attaboy," she said. "Let's take a look." She made a slow left bank that from a distance would have looked as aimless as the course of the boats below. Ten minutes later they were drawing a perfect circle in the sky, as if they hadn't a care in the world. It was herring, all right, a dark patch with occasional flashes of silver as the fish hit the surface.

"Too small to bother Wolfe with," Wy said. "He's high boat; he's not interested in less than the offspring of an entire species."

"You don't like him," Liam said, looking at the back of her head, which didn't reveal much.

"Nope," she said.

"Then why work for him?"

"Because he's high boat," she said, in a tone that made him feel a fool for asking. "I'd work for the devil himself if he'd been high boat for herring for four years running."

"Fourteen hundred dollars a ton," Liam said.

"We can only hope," Wy said.

They found two other schools-Wy called them skeins-both too small to bother with. One already had a couple of boats sitting on it, waiting for the go-ahead to drop their nets. The second was being scouted by another plane, a Cessna 172 on floats. Liam knew that because they got close enough for him to read the manufacturer's lettering along the side.

"Knock that crap off, Miller," Wy ordered, and it took Liam a moment to realize she was talking to the pilot of the other plane. The 172 waggled its wings and banked hard left rudder. It was a little above and a little ahead of the Cub, and Liam had an excellent view of the bottom of its floats through the skylight in the roof of the Cub as it roared overhead. "Sweet Jesus," he muttered, forgetting his mike was hot.

"Get used to it," Wy said. "And don't forget, when you see a plane out of the pattern, don't be shy about pointing it out. Yell; slap me if that's what it takes to get my attention. Got it?"

"Got it," Liam said, clenching his teeth as the Cub pulled what felt like ten g's as Wy circled to head back down the coast.

"Good."

"Tell me again about the pattern."