Dan had to smile at the hopeful note in her voice. Sorry.

So, Old Sam said, putting into words what they were all thinking, who the hell is this guy?

A day later the Grosdidier brothers had their patient at the airstrip, bandaged like a mummy and ready to load on George‘s Otter turbo for transshipment to Providence Hospital in Anchorage. Out of what she assured herself was a misplaced sense of responsibility, Kate was there to see him off. Peter Grosdidier roughhoused with Mutt while the other three brothers stood talking to Kate. Old Sam, who had taken a proprietary interest in the stranger, was present, too.

He‘s still not talking? Kate said.

Matt shook his head.

What‘s wrong with him?

Matt shrugged. It could be post-traumatic amnesia. Or maybe dissociative amnesia, or even repressed memory.

What‘s any of that goddamn medical mumbo jumbo mean in English? Old Sam said.

Matt made a vague gesture that encompassed the Park. His mind might be repressing something that happened to him out there. Hell, everything that happened to him out there. Pretty fair guess that it wasn‘t a walk in the, well, Park for him. How long post-traumatic amnesia lasts is usually related to how serious the injury is.

Do people usually come out of it?

Yeah, Matt said. Usually.

The corollary to that being sometimes they didn‘t. He had a lot of injuries, Kate said.

Tell me about it, Matt said with feeling. I had to order in a new supply of four-byfours.

Kate looked down at the unknown woods warrior. If he does come out of it, how long will it take?

Matt looked down at the guy, too. No idea. But you don‘t get over that amount of trauma in a day or two. One thing for sure, he probably isn‘t a Park rat or he would have survived his trek in better shape.

And he woulda got himself found a lot quicker, Old Sam said.

Maybe, Kate thought, and maybe not. Not every Park rat was as backwoods apt as Old Sam.

Everyone looked at the unknown hiker wrapped in olive green Army blankets, his one good eye open and fixed in a thousand-mile stare on something over his head that none of the rest of them could see. They all looked away again with the halfashamed, half-relieved embarrassment the sane felt in the present of the not so. Kate had been relieved to see that the swelling on his face was reduced to the point where the shape of his features had returned to something less gargoylian, although it was still a roadmap of what he‘d been through.

It was with relief they heard the approach of the Otter, and turned to watch it touch down at the end of the strip. It pulled to a halt in front of the Chugach Air Taxi hangar and George came out to open the door and pull up a step stool for the passengers to disembark. Mine workers got off the plane in less of a hurry to go back to work than they had got on to go on R & R. Many looked rather the worse for wear, and Kate hoped none of them would be operating heavy equipment any time in the near future.