Auntie Vi flushed deep red and scolded him in Aleut, with a couple of extra words Kate recognized as being Athabascan and profanity thrown in for good measure. The other three aunties were rocking with laughter, and Jim, grinning widely, lumped down to his own boat.

Even Doug was smiling. "Thanks, aunties," he called as they pulled away. "I owe you one. Hell, I owe you ten!"

"We'll save you some steaks!" Kate called, and the two men waved once before getting back to the serious business of fishing salmon for a living.

They watched the Tanya find a spot to set their gear and turned their own attention to the halibut. It had white flesh but its blood was as red as any salmon's, and a considerable amount of it was spread across the Freya's deck, mixed in with seawater that had kept it fluid.

Kate had always been interested in the stomachs of everything her family shot and ate. The stomach contents of game were stories in themselves. She remembered a Sitka doe once that had had a belly full of seaweed dotted with blueberries and a couple of pop-tops. Halibut were especially fun to excavate since they spent their lives vacuuming up the floor of the ocean. This monster's most recent meal had consisted of a Dungeness crab, two pollock, about a hundred tiger shrimp, a can of cat food with holes punched in it, a small piece of coral and one dark brown rubber hip boot, a little the worse for wear.

"Tell me there's not a foot inside that boot," Old Sam commanded. Unenthusiastically Kate investigated. The boot was empty. Everyone relaxed. They all knew halibut were bottom feeders, and they all knew what sank to the bottom of the ocean when it fell overboard, and they all knew that halibut liked their food ripe. It didn't stop them from eating halibut, or crab either, for that matter, but a foot in the hip boot might have given them indigestion afterwards.

They pitched the guts over the side and began carving the carcass into cookable chunks. The halibut cheeks alone would be enough for an evening meal for the six of them. When they finally got the spine out the resulting fillets were immense.

So was the heart. "Jesus," Old Sam said. "Look at that, will ya."

He handed it to Kate. She needed both hands to hold it.

The dark red lump of grainy flesh pumped once against her palms. In one leap she was at the railing, where she dumped the still-beating heart down on the gunnel and backed away. Old Sam cackled with laughter, and the four old women giggled. A tinge of color darkened Kate's face. She should have tossed the damn thing over the side and be damned to it.

Mutt came to her rescue. She stood two feet from the rail, neck stretched to its farthest limit, the stiff hairs on her ruff raised, lips curled back from her teeth, nostrils flaring. She looked at Kate, eyes wide, and didn't find any help there. She turned back to the halibut heart, extended her neck another inch and sniffed once at the jerking flesh. Her lip curled even farther and she backed up a step, uttering a low "woof deep