AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Barbara climbed out of the back. “Did we hit him?”
“You just saw him jump the car. You think he’d do that if we hit him?”
But Barbara thought she had heard a thud. She crouched down. Her eyes scanned the ground. A drop of bright red glistened in the mushy snow. Blood. She reached out a hand and her fingers touched something sharp. A jagged sliver of glass. Barbara picked it up carefully and looked back at the car. No damage. But blood and glass on the ground.
“I swear, we didn’t hit him.” Al got out and stood by the driver’s door, looking nervous.
Barbara straightened, her back creaking. “You know that boy?”
He shook his head: “Look, they’re not bad kids here. But they get bored. Makes ’em do dumb stuff sometimes. Drugs. Alcohol.” He shrugged. “Kids will be kids.”
Barbara offered a conciliatory smile. “We were all young once, right?”
“Right.” Al’s face relaxed. He climbed back into the driver’s seat.
Barbara’s smile faded. She looked after the boy thoughtfully. Kids will be kids. Maybe Al was right. But the boy hadn’t looked drunk. Or high.
He’d looked scared to death.
3
Al pulled up outside a white clapboard building sandwiched between DH Drugstore on one side and the Roadhouse Grill (and Hotel) on the other.
Barbara frowned. “I asked to be dropped off at the police department.”
“This is the police department, ma’am.”
Barbara peered through the cab’s window, and now she could just make out a hand-written cardboard sign stuck beside the door: “DH Mayor and Police Dept.”
“They’re getting a new sign made,” Al said.
“What happened to the old one?”
“Some kids stole it.”
Right.
Al grinned. “Let me get your bag.”
As he unloaded her case, Barbara climbed out of the car. Now the rush of adrenalin from the near-collision had faded, she could feel the cold. Colder here than back in Anchorage. Not as many tall buildings to provide shelter from the bitter northerly wind that cut across the river and sliced at your skin like a million tiny razors. There was a smell it carried on it too. Familiar. Unpleasant. Spruce, dank water and fish. And maybe a drift of weed. It wasn’t illegal here. Maybe someone was smoking inside one of the houses, although Barbara couldn’t see any open windows.
She stamped her feet and clapped her gloved hands together, suddenly feeling hungry.
Al brought her bag around.
“That’ll be a hundred and forty dollars, ma’am.”
Would it now? she thought. There was no meter in the cab, and she was pretty damn sure that the woman she had pre-booked the cab with had quoted her $120. But it had been a long day, and she wasn’t really in the mood to argue. Now she was here, Barbara felt a familiar impatience. To start the job. To do what needed to be done and then get out of this place. Maybe it would turn out Al was right. Maybe she could just tick those boxes and go do some sightseeing. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew that it was unlikely. Barbara had never really been one for standing and looking at stuff. Your eyes could only tell you so much. And they could deceive you. To really get the measure of a place you needed to live it, smell it, feel it. Get your hands dirty.
She fished her cash out of her wallet and handed Al three fifties. Hopefully, enough to keep him quiet about her visit.
He nodded. “Thanks, ma’am. Just give me a call when you want to leave—and keep an eye on the weather. If a storm rolls in, the air taxi won’t run, the train only comes through Talkeetna once a month in winter and the trunk road gets impassable pretty quickly. You might find yourself stuck here a while.”
Great. Barbara looked around. Despite the lights, she could feel the darkness weighing in heavily all around her. The brightness of Main Street only seemed to amplify the wilderness surrounding them. This was a harsh place. A wild place. “Nature’s got an appetite for the unwary,” her dad used to say, usually after a beer, or six. “You gotta make sure you’re the hunter, not the prey.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Barbara said. “And can I get a receipt?”
“Sure thing.” Al pulled a wedge of receipts out of his pocket and handed them to her. “I’ll leave ’em blank,” he said with a wink.
