Chapter 6
6
As she drove back down the road toward Firelight Ridge, Ani kept a careful eye out for camouflage Jeeps. She didn’t see any, nor did she pass any in town. Had they already gone back to Blackbear, or Kursk, or wherever they’d come from?
Lila was on shift at The Fang, which opened at noon. If there were military folks around town, people would be talking about it and she would have heard.
But Lila shook her head when Ani posed the question over a glass of club soda. “I haven’t heard a peep about anything like that. Why would the military come out here?”
“I really have no idea.”
“It could have been someone who painted their Jeep to look like camouflage. Hey, Bear,” Lila called to the big bar owner, who was busy at the other end of the bar, restocking bottles. “Have you seen any Army personnel around?”
“Nope.” Bear—huge, tattooed—swept a glance across the motley selection of Firelight Ridge eccentrics who held down the stools at the bar. “Anyone else?”
Pinky, named after the missing pinkie finger he’d lost during a battle with a porcupine, raised his hand. He wore his usual battered army jacket with a peace sign embroidered on the back. “I seen some come through here back in the nineties.”
“Eighteen-nineties or nineteen-nineties?” asked Trader John, one of his buddies. His cackle of laughter turned into a hacking cough. Ani knew he was a former miner, heavy drinker, cannabis grower, and amateur herbalist who preferred his own remedies. She hoped he took care of that cough, but she wouldn’t dare to give him any advice about it.
“Nineteen. Asshole.” Pinky grumbled.
“So you haven’t seen anyone from the military today ?” Ani asked him.
“Today? No. The nearest base is up in Fairbanks. Don’t know why they’d come all the way out here, unless they’re doing training exercises in the mountains.”
“If they were doing that, we’d be flooded with boots on the ground,” said Bear. “And at least a few would have come in here.”
“Maybe Russia decided to invade us,” said Pinky in a melodramatic tone. “Or they could be chasing aliens. They already have some in cold storage in New Mexico.”
“Is that right?” Bear asked dryly. “You’ve seen that with your own eyes?”
“They don’t let regular people see ‘em, don’t be silly. It’s not safe. They could have viruses from another planet. They’re testing ‘em, you see. Just like aliens take us up to their spaceships for testing, then put us back just like new, just like what happened to Jackie from…”
He broke off to the sounds of scoffing. “That was a damn prank, remember?” said Bear.
“He had us all going for about six months before he fessed up.” Trader John tapped his beer mug on the bar in a request for a refill.
“Have another ale or two, Pinky,” said an old man in a deer hunter’s cap. “See if you can’t come up with some new conspiracies. We heard all these already.”
Pinky shrugged off the ribbing from his buddies and happily accepted another glass of ale.
Lila caught Ani’s eye and said lightly, “Aren’t you sorry you asked?”
“I’m not sure. They’re pretty entertaining.”
“They are, aren’t they?” Lila beamed at the bar crew affectionately. Then her smile dropped as the door of the bar swung open. “Oh my. Look who just walked in.”
Ani spun her stool around. Her breath caught in her chest as she watched two soldiers in fatigues stride through the door. They paused in the center of the bar, then scanned the suddenly quiet premises.
“Who’s driving that green Nissan Sentra out there?”
Ani’s heart nearly flipped over. She was. She was driving the Sentra. And of course they’d seen it at Gil’s place. Automatically, her arm started to lift all on its own. But Bear’s voice stopped her.
“What’s the problem, soldier?”
The younger of the two, a twenty-something Black man, stepped forward. “The only problem is we’re trying to find the person driving that green Sentra.”
“Are they in trouble?”
“That’s a matter for the authorities.”
“Aren’t you the authorities?”
The other soldier stepped forward. Slightly older, but still so young to Ani’s eyes. “Not for this. Above our clearance level. We’re just here to pick up the driver of that Sentra.”
Clearance level? Oh my God, oh my God. What was going on? She should just stand up right now and confess. If she didn’t, she could end up in…what, the brig? Guantanamo?
She hadn’t done anything wrong, she reminded herself.
Blowing off the military would be wrong. But so would lying to them. If she stood up right now, she’d have to tell them where Gil had gone. She’d boasted about her ability to keep a confidence, so she didn’t like that idea. On the other hand, Gil was just a stranger, and maybe he had done something wrong. She should just tell these guys what she knew, which was barely anything, and go on with her life.
The old Ani would have.
But the Ani she was right now sat glued to the stool, silent, unmoving except for the frantic pulse beating in her throat.
“Probably some tourist,” Pinky finally said. “I don’t know about any green Sentras around here.”
The others shook their heads as well. “Can’t you run the license plate?” asked Bear.
“Funny thing, it doesn’t have a license plate.”
Ani had noticed the same thing, but Gunnar had told her that no one cared about that sort of thing out here. The license plate holder had rusted out and he’d never bothered to replace it.
“Registration?” Bear asked.
“It was last registered in Wyoming about five years ago.”
“Abandoned vehicle,” said Trader John wisely. “Or maybe it was stolen.”
“Aliens might have left it when they snatched the driver,” said Pinky.
This time, everyone seemed to take his alien theories seriously. They all nodded as if that made any sense at all, as if aliens kidnapped people from green Sentras most days of the week.
The two soldiers shared a glance that spoke volumes about their opinion of the raggedy crew at the bar. “Let’s try something else. Do any of you know where we could locate Gil McGowan?” asked the younger one, who seemed to be fighting back a smirk.
“McGowan?” Pinky screwed up his face. “Name sounds familiar. Ain’t that a brand of spice?”
“Used to be some McGuires in Blackbear. Couple of gay guys,” added an elderly Ahtna gentleman drinking with Trader John.
“I heard they were bisexual,” corrected Trader John. “Swinger types.”
“Things used to be pretty wild out here back in the day. Wasn’t it a McGowan who ran naked through town every midsummer’s eve?”
“That was a woman!” Pinky cackled with laughter, his eyes twinkling with light. “Amy McGowan. I used to set up a lawn chair right on Pioneer just waitin’ for her to run by.”
“Hey!” The soldier’s firm voice cut through the laughter. “Can we get back to basics here? Does anyone in this bar know Gil McGowan?”
Ani bargained with herself. She didn’t really know him. They’d barely just met. She didn’t know where he lived when he wasn’t here, she didn’t know his profession, she didn’t know his favorite color or where he’d grown up or where he stood on the issue of toilet seats left up or down.
All she knew was that he had black hair and green eyes and warm hands and a gruff voice and that he’d offered her a choice, stay or go. He’d respected her. And then he’d asked her if she wouldn’t mind keeping his whereabouts to herself.
She held her tongue as the soldiers scanned every face in the room. To physically keep herself from lifting her hand in the air, she tucked it into her jacket pocket.
A piece of paper crinkled under her fingers. That was odd. Was it a receipt? But she always tucked her receipts into her wallet. Besides, where would she have gotten a receipt? Kathy at the general store didn’t give out receipts unless you requested one, at which point she would give a sigh so heavy you’d immediately rethink it.
Anyway, she hadn’t worn this jacket since…since the Blackbear airport, she realized suddenly. When she’d been sitting next to Victor Canseco. He’d been on her left, and the paper was in her left hand pocket.
She was dying to take it out and look at it, but forced herself to stay still so as not to snag any attention from the soldiers.
Luckily, Pinky raised his hand just then. The two soldiers zeroed in on him.
“You know Gil McGowan?”
“Not real sure about that. Mostly I’m wondering about those aliens you got in cold storage. Do you know what planet they came from? Can you communicate with ‘em?”
The younger soldier let out an involuntary burst of laughter, before shooting a glance at his superior officer and composing his face back to military blankness.
“To be honest, it’s probably easier to communicate with them than it is with you lot.” The older soldier shook his head in disgust.
Bear spoke up then. “How about you leave us a number to call if we see someone come for that Sentra?”
“We’ll take what we can get,” the older one muttered, and marched across to the bar, where he planted a business card on the scuffed wood.
“Either of you thirsty? It’s on the house, for your trouble.”
Please say no, please say no , Ani chanted internally. She didn’t trust herself not to burst out with a full confession if they stayed much longer.
You didn’t do anything wrong, she reminded herself yet again. Yes, you did. You hid information from members of the United States military. Was that a crime? She knew it was a crime to lie to the FBI, but what about soldiers in fatigues?
And what about the Posse Comitatus act? She vaguely remembered it from high school civics. It meant that the U.S. Military wasn’t allowed to operate on US soil. Why were these guys involved in whatever this was? Were there exceptions to that law? Or did it only apply to open warfare? As soon as she got a chance, she’d look it up. Maybe that would provide a clue as to what they were doing here.
Luckily, the soldiers passed on the offer of a drink, and a few moments later they disappeared into the bright sunshine outside the front door. Slack with relief, Ani dropped her forehead onto the bar and gave a moan.
“I am not cut out for this,” she murmured to Lila.
Lila patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. “Want me to call Charlie?”
Ani snorted with laughter, since if any of them had experience skirting the law, it was their own corporate Robin Hood, Charlie Santa Lucia. “That’s not a bad idea. Except she’s got enough to handle right now.”
She pulled out the piece of paper in her pocket. It had been ripped from a lined notebook and carelessly crumpled. Unfamiliar writing scrawled across it.
Ice castles in the sky. Bellsong loud, never stops. Skin melts. Everything red, everything dead.
That part was in black ink. In blue ink, at the bottom of the paper, were the words, Everything depends on Gil.
What in the world…?
She tucked the piece of paper back into her pocket. Every word of it was unsettling. Was it some kind of poem? Clues to a riddle? The only part that made sense was the line about Gil. Maybe he’d written that later, with a different pen.
He must have put it in her pocket without her realizing it. Or maybe he hadn’t even realized it. After all, if he’d wanted to send a message to Gil, he could have just told her what it was. Victor had been so out of it, who knew what he’d actually intended to do.
Except that in some way, he’d tried to reach out to her. He trusted her. He’d even asked Gil to protect her. Was she going to just go back to her life and ignore that? Her old life was over anyway. Time to try something different.
Decision made, she lifted her head off the bar. “No need for Charlie. I’ve got this.”
“You do? What are you going to do?” Lila asked as she picked up Ani’s empty soda glass.
“It’s safer for you if you don’t know,” Ani said mysteriously as she slid off the stool. “But I might be gone a couple of days. If you see Gunnar, tell him his car is in your parking lot and he can have it back.”
Lila’s mouth fell open. “Ani, what has gotten into you?”
“This is the new Ani. Get used to it.” With a sassy smile and a plan, Ani headed for the door. It felt good. She decided she liked this new version of “good-girl” Ani Devi.