Jack let maybe forty-five seconds pass before following her, pretending they weren't all perfectly well aware of where he was going.

They rendezvoused at the skiff. "Hi," Kate said.

"I feel like a teenager sneaking out of his parents' house," Jack said.

She laughed. "Fun, isn't it?"

"Fun, hell," Jack said, and tackled her, toppling them both into the sand.

"Oof," Kate said.

"You taste like salt water."

"Urn."

"And you smell like woodsmoke."

"Urn," she said, and that was pretty much all she was allowed to say for the next few breathless moments, except for "Ouch!" and "Never mind, do it again." Things were rapidly approaching the point of no return when they both became aware of the advancing sound of an engine. They looked up. There was still plenty of light on this Arctic summer night, and coming straight up the creek fifty feet off the deck was George Perry in 50 Papa, the grin on his face matching the grin on the face of the trooper sitting in back of him. The port window was folded down, and over the noise of the Super Cub's engine George yelled cheerfully, "I'll set her down on that RPetCo strip about a mile upstream! Take your time!" They roared past. Chopper Jim even tipped his hat.

The mood had definitely been broken. "Goddammit!" A furious Jack was on his feet, beating the sand out of his jeans and buttoning his fly with clumsy fingers. "We're out in the middle of the goddam Bush and I still can't find enough privacy to get laid! What's next, a goddam grizzly walks in on us?"

From the other side of the creek, a goddam grizzly huffed at them, a salmon hanging from his mouth, before ambling up the bank and out of sight, enormous hindquarters shifting back and forth like perambulating beanbag chairs.

Jack whipped around and looked at Kate, his expression fierce. In the next moment, they both burst out laughing.

Kate tucked in her shirt and smoothed her hair back with a shaky hand. "We'd better go see what Chopper Jim's got.'

"A fat lip, is what he's about to get," Jack muttered.

"Somebody's been killed, Jack."

His hands stilled on his fly. "What?"

"Last night. Or early morning. We found his body in the water this morning."

"In the bay?" She nodded. "A fisherman?"

She nodded again, and told him. He listened in frowning silence, and when she came to the end, said, "Why didn't you tell me before?"

She thought of the boy, Frank, and of the girl, Dani, and said, "I just wanted to forget about it for a while."

He examined her face, saw what he needed to there and nodded once. "We'd better get up to that airstrip."

Kate led the way back to the fire. "Auntie Vi? We're going to head up to the strip."

"We heard, Katya. Go careful. There is bears here."