Four years ago, the truck had been bright red and brand-new, but there had been a series of unfortunate encounters with a Super Cub, a grizzly, and a Park rat with a .30-06, so the bloom was rather off the pickup rose. The previous owner of the truck was crossing the parking lot outside the school, and Kate rolled down her window. Hey, Mandy.

Hey, Kate. Hey, Mutt. This as Mutt peered around Kate, ears pricked forward. Hey, kids. Mandy gave the pickup the once-over, followed by a mournful shake of her head and the rote comment. My poor baby.

Kate gave the rote response. Takes a licking, keeps on ticking. How‘s your folks? Good. They might come up again this year. Mandy smiled. Seems they know some of the members of the board of GHRI.

Mandy Baker, known to the dog mushing world as the Brahmin Bullet, the fourth woman to win the Iditarod and the third to win the Yukon Quest, was now working as the dedicated Alaskan spokesperson for the Suulutaq Mine, at a hefty salary and with generous stock options that earned an even more generous amount of shares in Global Harvest Resources Inc.

Be good to see them again, Kate said, and it wasn‘t a polite lie. Mandy‘s Boston Brahmin parents had turned out to be something of a surprise to everyone concerned, including themselves. She nodded at the school. You signing up to get your GED?

Very funny, Mandy said.

I met your staff geologist today.

Holly Haynes?

Yeah, first she bought Auntie Vi‘s B and B for the mine.

Mandy looked unsurprised. They‘ve been talking about the need for a place. I told them Auntie Vi‘s B and B was the only suitable house in Niniltna for what they needed.

And then she helped me break up a knife fight in the Riverside Café between a couple of your other employees.

Mandy swore under her breath.

Be careful what you wish for, Kate said.

Mandy heard the bite in Kate‘s voice and gave her a sharp look.

On a gruesome day the previous winter, Global Harvest‘s former representative to the Park had met an end that was still discussed over the bar at Bernie‘s with fascination, revulsion, and not a little awe. Up until that day, Mandy Baker had been a musher and a damn good one, but Iditarod and Yukon Quest purses went only so far, and besides she wasn‘t placing in the money as regularly as she once had. Previously a trust fund had made up the difference, but in the current depression, with a hundred dogs to feed and vet bills and a live-in boyfriend who needed the occasional bail money, it didn‘t go as far as it once had, either. She could have asked her parents for a loan on her inheritance, which would be considerable, but Mandy was a proud soul who didn‘t like to ask anybody for anything. The only solution to the bills piling up on her kitchen table was to get a job.