Dodge wondered if he’d be the one flying them. Hopefully. He was a little worried about the family out there in the bush.

The thought of flying didn’t rattle his gut so much. He’d handled his recent flights without incident. Nothing to get sweaty-palmed about. And he no longer felt like retching every time he landed.

See, he could kick the demons.

The thought of flying out to Spike’s place turned his thoughts to the rogue bear.

And Holly, Echo’s dog.

And then, of course, Echo.

Maybe he should apologize. Just to clear the air, nothing more.

The radio turned to a mix of country and folk, and he tapped his fingers to a song by the Yankee Belles, an all-girl country band that had found some favor among his fellow pilots overseas.

One of their hit songs was about a soldier who’d lost his life and the girl who couldn’t forget him.

He turned off the radio.

He crossed over the Copper River, then turned north toward town, passing the suburbs, the new cabins and lodgings, the Fish Lake floatplanes, then the Roughneck Roadhouse, which had him thinking about their sourdough flapjacks. He passed the school, where a group of kids slapped their sticks around.

He finally pulled into Mulligan’s Hardware on Seward’s Way and got out.

The sun had reached its apex—high noon, a good six hours of daylight left. Funny how he’d again started orienting his days around the sunrise and sunset, bracing himself to endure the darkness.

Ace Mulligan, Moose’s father, stood at the counter as Dodge walked in. A big man, Ace had a smile and an answer for nearly any problem, be it construction or politics. He’d even served as mayor for a while until he was beaten by a write-in voter wave for a local bulldog named Stubbs.

To Dodge’s knowledge, Stubbs was still in charge.

“I heard you were back, Dodger.” Ace called him by his old hockey nickname. “Moose said you’re going to fly for him with Air One.”

Ace wore a bushy red Fu Manchu mustache, a gimme cap backward on his head, a pair of Carhartt overalls, and a black thermal turtleneck. “He’s coming up in a few weeks for the Rowdy. He’s going to play in the annual pickup match, for the townies. Are you hopping in on the game too?”

Dodge would be on the other team, the guys from the bush, with the Starr brothers and the Bowies—who technically lived in town after their parents were killed, but no one argued—and of course, the Remington brothers. Moose Mulligan had rung his bell a few times on the ice, and his kid brother, Axel, was even bigger. But it was Topher Dahlquist who had nearly broken Dodge’s collarbone his senior year.