“And you anticipate it.”

“Yeah, which is what wrecks me even before I get on the damn plane. And no matter how many times I park my ass on a plane it never gets better.” His sigh was heavy even over the headset. “I hate it.”

“The feeling, not the flying?”

“Yeah. I mean, look at that.” It was obvious it took an effort for him to turn his head to see out the window. “The best view in the world. Augustine and Iliamna and Redoubt. The Bay with all the boats carving those long, curving white wakes in it. Even on a cloudy day it’s amazing, and it was just as amazing in Newenham, and it was when I flew into the Park to talk to Jim about Grant’s murder.” His shoulders raised in a slight shrug. “I know it’s a privilege, this view, to see it. I know that. But…”

“You’ve always felt like this?”

“Always.”

He didn’t mention his father, the Air Force ace. He’d never said but she’d met the man and she could guess what his reaction would have been to his only son’s fear of flying.

To distract him she embarked on the history of the town they were heading for. Kapilat had at one time been the big town on the Bay, home to five salmon canneries, a king crab processing plant, a hospital, a hotel, three bars, and four churches with actual resident pastors and priests. There had even at one time been a sit-down, popcorn-selling theater. It had been the main port of call for the Alaska Steamship Company in Southcentral Alaska. Everyone from all the other Bay settlements had perforce come to Kapilat to buy fuel and supplies, pick up their mail, and get their hair cut and their broken bones set. The Coast Guard had stationed a patrol boat there and some of their onshore housing was still standing. Kapilat had even sent the first woman to the territorial legislature, Harriet Browne, a pilot, in fact. She’d needed to be one, since there were only four voting districts in Alaska at the time and hers had stretched from Kenai to Adak to Cordova, resulting in her logging thousands of miles on her Stinson Reliant. Wy had found a photo of Browne standing in front of it on the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame website, and approved of Browne’s choice of aircraft as she had no doubt that Browne would have taken advantage of constituent business trips by running freight on the side. Wy would have.

Even better from an admittedly Alaskan standpoint, Browne had married at least five times—“One way to secure a majority,” Liam said—and her constituents had nicknamed her High Drift Factor Harry Browne, or High Drift Harry for short. She boasted that she had been excommunicated from the Pennsylvania Ministerium (Browne was originally from Pennsylvania), the Catholic Church (her third husband’s religion), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (her fourth’s). That didn’t seem to have lost her any votes, either, as she had been returned to office eight times and was still around to help lobby D.C. for statehood in the late fifties.