Yes.

And she didn‘t recognize him?

Jesus, Jim, Old Sam said, defying all efforts to exclude him from what he knew was a hell of a story in the making. He wasn‘t hardly human when he come out of the woods. His own mother wouldn‘t a recognized him.

Okay, Jim said. So now he‘s on his way to—

Anchorage. Matt said he needed a big hospital, preferably one with a stable full of shrinks.

Okay, Jim said again. Say he is Gammons. He parked his truck, hiked out into the Bush, got lost returning his body to nature—

Lyda flinched at the sarcasm in his tone.

—evidently nature turns him down, and a month later he staggers onto Kate‘s homestead. That about it?

Nods all around.

Okay, he said for the third time, and there was no mistaking his irritation now. Just fan-fucking-tastic. If Gammons is alive—more or less, from what I saw—then who the hell belonged to those pieces you people pulled out of the woods a month ago?

And he glared at Kate and Old Sam and Lyda like it was all their fault.

Eleven

It was coming on seven o‘clock at night, and Niniltna was in post-holiday mode, with crooked bunting hanging from the eaves of houses and Alaska and USA flags fluttering from porches. Everyone who wasn‘t at fish camp or waiting on Alaganik Bay for the Fish and Game to announce an opener or working at the Suulutaq was out in force. Many of them had been drinking since the day before and were full to the brim with good spirits and bonhomie. Jim turned a blind eye to any and all lingering fireworks, and against all expectation on his way home did not actually see anyone driving under the influence, for which he was profoundly thankful. He and Kenny had caught their bad guy in Ahtna, although the bad guy had not given up without a fight. Jim, not a small man, and Kenny, a very large man indeed, had both been put to strenuous effort to subdue one guy maybe five eight weighing maybe 150 pounds. All he had to do was resist and keep on resisting, and this he did with vigor and enthusiasm. The trailer park mob that poured outdoors to watch didn‘t help, many of them previously known to both Kenny and Jim and many more well lubricated in celebration of the day. For a while the arrest appeared to be teetering on the edge of precipitating a riot. Kenny was finally driven to putting his hand on his sidearm in a show of force. He didn‘t pull it, he didn‘t go that far, he just let it sit on the butt of the .357 Magnum. Jim was fully occupied in hanging on to their bad guy and couldn‘t even hitch his gun belt in support, but that was okay. Enough of the crowd had seen Dirty Harryand were ready to abandon their fellow to his fate on the strength of it.