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And wouldn’t that be fun?
The machine coasted to a halt on what appeared to be the main street. Compared with Barlowsville, the place was huge. Twice as many commercial establishments, probably because there were at least three times as many houses on three times as many side streets.
Regardless of how large the town was, everyone seemed to be aware that they had arrived, because people began to exit the stores and restaurants; they hurried in from the residential avenues that led off the commercial area, and the air filled with the rumble of engines as those who lived on the outskirts started their cars or all-terrain vehicles.
Julian shrugged his shoulder and before she even realized that she’d understood what he wanted without benefit of speech, Alex climbed off the snowmobile, then stepped back so that he could as well.
Villagers approached, staring at Alex with open curiosity. She stared right back with increasing concern. They didn’t all have Julian’s eyes, but a damn good portion of them did.
How many Indian maidens had he boinked? Had every one he so much as glanced at produced offspring?
How long had he been here? There were people of all ages with those damnable blue eyes. They were so going to have a talk.
A rustle went through the growing crowd as Julian straightened to his full height. She had to admit he was impressive, and he stood out among the Inuit like a bright full moon in a cloudless night sky, his golden hair flaring in the sun, even as blue highlights gleamed in the ebony tresses of those that surrounded him.
“Ataniq,” they murmured, bowing their heads as if he were a god. Alex really wished she had a copy of Inuit for Dummies so she could look that up. Considering all the blue eyes she kind of thought it meant “Daddy”—and the more she thought that, the sicker she felt.
Alex was about to demand a translation when the entire group stilled, every gaze turning to the East. Alex turned, too.
“Is that a Smart Car?” she blurted.
The tiny vehicle chugged gamely down a snow-packed street lined with an assortment of SUVs and pickup trucks. As it passed the single Hummer—in an identical shade of black—Alex had the odd thought that the Hummer was big enough to have birthed the thing.
The baby car paused next to the snowmobile. No matter how hard she tried, Alex could distinguish nothing but a swaying shadow on the other side of the illegally tinted windows.
Perhaps a long, gray-haired woman wearing a multicolored skirt, clunky boots, and a T-shirt that read save the planet?
Or a teenager who liked to wear hemp pants, nose rings, and a baseball cap emblazoned with the logo go green?
Maybe a—
Alex’s musings were cut short when the door opened and the last person in the world she would ever have imagined might drive a Smart Car stepped out.
Well, perhaps stepped wasn’t the right word, since several of the Inuit men rushed forward and helped the skinny, stooped old man to his feet.
While most of the Inuit wore modern clothes—parkas from Land’s End, Ugg boots, Levi’s—the new arrival appeared to be dressed in traditional Inuit clothing. His parka, made of patched-together bits of black, brown, and white fur, reached to the knees of trousers the shade of a deerhide. Upon his feet he wore boots, also made of skin, though different in color and texture and therefore no doubt from a different dead animal.
One of those who’d rushed to assist him reached across the driver’s seat and withdrew a heavy, carved cane, which he put into an outstretched, claw-like hand. However, when the ancient elder moved toward Barlow he had a spring in his step, and he barely used the cane at all.
“Taataruaba,” he greeted, blue eyes shining in his dark and lined face. Though his voice wavered, nevertheless it carried over the assembled crowd. “Welcome home.” He bowed his head.
“Tutaaluga,” Julian returned, and touched that head as if in a blessing. “It is good to be home.”
Alex moved closer. She wanted to hear what emergency could be so pressing that the young man had been sent across the tundra at top speed to retrieve Julian, yet everyone here appeared as calm as a Sunday afternoon.
The man Julian had called Tutaaluga glanced up, and Julian’s face took on an expression of extreme fondness—although how Alex would know that she wasn’t sure. She’d never seen such an expression when he was around her.
Barlow put out his hand, and the Inuit grasped it. For an instant Alex thought Tutaaluga might kiss Barlow’s ring, if he was wearing one. Instead, Barlow drew the old man’s brown, withered fingers through the crook of his arm, and they moved away from the ever-increasing crowd.
Alex took a step after them, then remembered…she didn’t have to be nearby to hear everything that they said. Her ears were as good as CIA audio surveillance equipment. Especially since the gathered onlookers had gone as still as the sky right before a tornado hit.
“We are sorry to have to summon you, Ta
ataruba,” the old man said.
“I know you wouldn’t unless you needed me. What’s happened?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this.”
