I know. Bobby Clark‘s going to pick up the mail route, for the summer anyway. He going to be able to unload the mail?

He said he‘d put his legs on for the duration. Course, he‘s charging me the equivalent of highway robbery for a salary, and Dinah‘s not feeding me because I stole her husband, and Katya‘s pissed ‘cause I stole her daddy.

Good for Bobby, Kate thought. Bet he‘s just happy he doesn‘t have to deal with passengers.

George laughed. Always the worst part of the job. And I found a guy who spent the winter in Prudhoe Bay, flying supplies and crew to drilling rigs out on the ice. I put him on the Niniltna-mine run, turnabout with the other new guy, Bud Schaefer. Flew over with Schaefer yesterday. Haven‘t met the other guy yet.

Her. Name‘s Sabine, for crissake.

Can she fly? Kate said.

Wouldn‘ta hired her otherwise. Oh. Sorry, my sarcasm button kicked off there for a second. He made a minute and probably unnecessary adjustment to the trim. Doesn‘t mean Sabine ain‘t no name for a pilot.

Kate made a silent vow to introduce the name Sabine into every conversation she had with George from that day forward.

It was quiet in back, and Kate looked over her shoulder to behold all ten passengers sound asleep in uncomfortable positions. Holly Haynes was sitting in the seat behind her, her jacket jammed between her head and the window. Ferrying paperwork into the Anchorage office, she‘d said on the strip. Her expression was bleak and there were shadows under her eyes.

Probably reporting in person on Lyda‘s death, too. Kate thought less of Truax for handing off that job.

She faced forward again and George spent the rest of the flight in Park gossip. She heard all about Gene Clauson getting caught with a case of beer and a fifth of whiskey in his plane on the ground at King City, a currently dry town. Plus, George said, relishing the story because it wasn‘t about him, all three of his passengers had booze in their luggage, including airline bottles stuffed in their shoes, a suitcase full of whiskey and rum, and three bottles of Kahlua in a Dora the Explorer knapsack. Not feeling his pain, Kate said.

Fifty-five-thousand-dollar fine, George said. Twenty days in jail.

Still not feeling it, she said, and retaliated with a libelous description of Randy Randolph, heartbreaker to the Park, and his career approach to marriage. George had been so busy he‘d missed the story entirely, and by the time he‘d stopped laughing they were on approach to Merrill Field. He put them down in landing that was a runway paint job and taxied over to a hangar Kate remembered from past arrivals. This one seemed bigger somehow. Possibly because it had a brand-new coat of paint, a new sign, and the old gas pump had been replaced by a new one, shiny in chrome and red enamel. When they rolled to a stop a young woman in Chugach Air colors came trotting out with a step stool, and a young man in like colors whizzed out on a four-wheeler hauling a trailer for the baggage and freight. The door popped open, the stairs were let down, and passengers and pilot were on the tarmac marching toward the office attached to the hangar mere moments later. Slick.