She nodded. By now, it would be next to impossible to find anyone who had given him a ride, even if his story were true, which it wasn't. "That's quite a trip. You must have seen some country."

"Oh, yeah," he said, his face lighting. "Beautiful. Like nothing I've ever seen. I've never been anywhere before, just home, and—well, just home, really. This was like—this was—" He shrugged and spread his hands. "Amazing."

"Yeah," she said, "I've heard."

"You've never driven it yourself?"

She shook her head. "The two times I've been Outside, I flew."

"You ought to drive it," he said earnestly. "At least once."

"I've been told that," she said, nodding. She let the amiable silence lie between them for a moment or two. "So the Park was the first left turn after you crossed the border," she said, smiling at him. Kate's smile, while not as lethal as Jim Chopin's, seldom failed to have an effect, either.

He smiled back. "Well, maybe not the first turn. But one of them."

"It's a hard place to pass up. I know. I've lived here most of my life."

"I wondered." He gave her a curious look. "If you don't mind my asking, are you an Indian?"

"I don't mind," Kate said, "and no, I'm an Alaska Native. Aleut, mostly, but if you go back a generation or two, it's quite a mix. Pretty much everyone who dropped by Alaska dipped their pen in my ancestors' inkwell, from the Russians on down. Heinz fifty-seven American."

Mutt lay down, and again Higgins scratched her head and retained his hand, and again Mutt leaned into it, as opposed to moving out of the way or even just tolerating it.

"Just about the most beautiful dog I've ever seen," Higgins said quietly.

"She's half wolf," Kate said.

His eyes widened. "Really?" He looked back at Mutt. "Wow. She seems pretty civilized. I always thought wolf hybrids were dangerous around people."

"Mutt's the exception. And she's got a pretty big backyard to run off any aggression she might be feeling." Although the aggression was always there, and on tap when it was needed.

"Where did you get her?"

"She was a gift." Kate nudged the conversation back on track. "Must have been tough, your first winter in the Park."

"It wasn't that bad," he said. "I met Dina and Ruthe at the Roadhouse, and they were looking for someone to do odd jobs around their place for the winter. Cut wood, like that."

Kate nodded. "Yeah, they're always looking for someone. Not many can stick out an Interior winter, when they've just gotten here."

"Yeah, your fall doesn't last long," he said, nodding. "I got here and, bam! it snowed. It was early compared to home. I was surprised."

The first snowfall had been on October 17. "And then it kept snowing."

"For six days," he said ruefully, "and Dina and Ruthe had a heck of a lot of path to shovel."