“Who else?

“They had another daughter. Ruby.

“What happened to her?

“Nobody knows. Wy sighed. “Leonard took all four kids out hunting one fall some years back. They spread out in back of a herd of caribou. Ruby got lost. They never found her.

“Poor Leonard, Liam agreed.

SIX

Rainbow Creek, September 1

Peter Obadiah Cole was widely believed by other Bush rats to be on the run from the law, and that was true.

He was also on the run from Congress, the courts and the White House; in fact, from all branches of government. He was on the run from traffic, in the air, on the ground or out at sea. He was on the run from bad movies, and television commercials, and television reporters with shellacked hair who couldnt pronounce the name of the place they were reporting from. He was on the run from Mormon missionaries knocking at the door wanting to save his soul, from local politicians who made promises to get into office and then made more to get into higher office and never did get around to keeping the first ones.

He was on the run from no-smoking sections in restaurants.

He was on the run from jets taking off around the clock from Anchorage International Airport.

He was on the run from people tossing butts out of the windows of their cars while they waited for the lights to change at Fourth and L.

He was on the run from Jet Skis run by drunks all over Big Lake. He was on the run from people letting their dogs run loose on the Coastal Trail, shitting all over the place and biting little kids and fighting each other every chance they got. He was on the run from the Kmarts and the Wal-Marts and the Fred Meyers and the Eagles and the OfficeMaxes, all the big ugly box stores full of high-priced crap that nobody really needed and paid too much money for anyway.

He was on the run from faxes and e-mail and voice mail. He was most especially on the run from cell phones.

Hed been born in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1949, the only child of parents who worked hard and never said much. His father had been a veteran of the war in the Pacific, and as soon as he was old enough, Peter followed in his footsteps and joined the Marines. He spent three tours in Vietnam, and never would have rotated out if goddamn Nixon hadnt declared peace with honor and brought them all home, with the Cong nipping at their heels all the way.

Nobody spit on him when he came home. He regretted it. You dont train somebody in special weapons and tactics, hone him into a killing machine and then get in his face when he gets off the plane.

Back home in Alaska, work was gearing up on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and there were Texans and Oklahomans everywhere you looked, most of them welders and drunk welders at that. They traveled in packs, swaggering around town in their cowboy hats and their cowboy boots and their flashy belt buckles and their snapped shirts and their tight jeans and they acted like they owned the world. He was in Chilkoots one night, back when he still believed in women, and a group of them took exception to him, as one of them put it, “cutting one of the fillies out of our herd. Hed made it out the back door just enough in advance of the sirens pulling up out front, the bouncer giving him an approving thump on the back as he went through. The pipeliners had to be carried out, he read in the newspaper the next day.