Refuge Cove (New Americana 2)

“I had no idea,” Emma said. “So the pipeline actually turned out to be a good thing for the tribes.”

“Most people think so.”

“But you don’t?”

“My father was involved in one of the early protests at the pipeline. A man was killed. My father went to prison for it. He died there. My only memory of him is a sad face behind bars. My mother, who was beautiful, died of grief—which is a polite way of saying she drank herself to death. You might say that my own view of the pipeline, and Sealaska, for all the good it does, is . . . tainted.”

He banked the plane into a sharp right turn, pitching the wings so steeply that Emma felt a jolt of terror. Only as the Beaver leveled out did she begin to breathe again. Through the windscreen she could see that now they were headed landward, toward the forested mountains.

“Do you always turn like that?” she asked, still half-breathless.

“You mean did I do it to scare you? No, it’s just the most efficient way to turn. And it’s not as dangerous as it looks.” He made a slight course correction. “We’re going back over the muskeg where I picked you up. From there, with your help, we might be able to find Boone’s trailer. If he’s there, I’ll radio the state troopers. Keep your eyes open. Let me know if you see anything worth mentioning down there.”

In other words, he was through talking. It was almost as if she was beginning to understand the man. At least the story about his parents had given her a clue to his brooding, solitary nature. She remembered the photograph she’d seen—John holding the little boy. Was that child his son? What had happened to him?

She turned toward the side window, which gave her the best view of the ground. From the air, the forest was like a thick green carpet. Here and there, small lakes and open patches of muskeg dotted the landscape. Boone’s truck, she recalled, had been painted in a camouflage pattern. Even the shell that covered the bed was splotched with tan, green, and brown paint. The trailer, she remembered now, had been painted the same way. But the trash-littered clearing around it, and the well-traveled logging road, should make it easy to spot.

“There’s that patch of muskeg,” he said. “I spotted you coming out on the west side of it. So I take it you were coming from the east, right?”

Emma struggled to recall the terror-blurred details. “I remember heading toward the sunset. So yes, I was most likely coming from the east. But I was dodging through brush and trees. I changed direction again and again, just to get away.”

“But the dogs were behind you. They’d have been coming from the trailer.”

“Yes, that does make sense.” She studied the vast forest below. “I thought my one hope lay in making it to the highway or the water. But I can see from here that I had miles to go. I never would’ve made it, would I?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“You saved my life, John. I hope I haven’t made you sorry.”

His muted laugh crackled through the headphones. “Ask me later,” he said.

With the muskeg as a starting point, he flew in a widening spiral, each loop taking the plane farther to the east. Emma did her best to keep her eyes on the forest below, but after a few minutes of circling she began to feel dizzy. She touched John’s arm, about to say something, when he spoke.

“Down there. Just ahead. I see something.” Breaking pattern, he flew in lower. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “Look at that!”

Emma gasped when she saw it—the blackened metal frame of a trailer, surrounded by ashes and burnt debris.

Mute with shock, she stared down as the plane passed over it. She had done this. The fire she’d started as a delaying tactic had spread to the whole trailer.

She found her voice. “Honest to God, I never meant to do that.”

“At least I can understand why Boone was after you,” John said. “You’re sure this was the place?”

“It’s got to be. I can’t believe we didn’t see the smoke last night.”

“You wouldn’t have seen it over the trees while you were running. And it would have been behind me when I spotted you from the air. Even if we’d known about it, there’s nothing we could’ve done. At least the forest was too wet to burn. And at least we know Boone didn’t die in the fire.”

“And he saved the dogs. They were miserable beasts, but I wouldn’t have wanted them to die, chained to the wheel like that.” Emma pictured Boone chasing her with murder in his heart. She didn’t want to think about what he might have done if he’d caught her.

John circled and flew over the spot again. “No sign of the truck. Boone must have moved it away in time to save it.”

“He probably didn’t have time to save much else,” Emma said. “All my packed things were in the trailer, along with the supplies Boone picked up in town. At a minimum we know that he got away with the truck, his rifle, and the dogs. He probably had my cash on him, too. He’d put it in his pocket.” As the plane circled and flew on, she took a last look at the burnt remains of the trailer. “Where would he go?”

“Since nobody’s seen him in town, I’m betting he went home to his mother,” John said. “The family homestead is about fifty miles from here. Boone’s brother, Ezra, lives with her. They keep to themselves, run trap lines in the winter for cash. As far as I know, Boone’s the only one who’s into the drug trade. That’s probably why he had that trailer, at a safe distance from the family home. We can fly over, maybe see if Boone’s truck’s there. Are you up for that?”

“Let’s do it.”

They fell silent as John banked the plane and flew along the foot of the steep coastal mountain range. Lost in thought, Emma relived last night’s escape, remembering how she’d set the fire and fled.