Chapter 4
4
In the summer, Gunnar rented vehicles to any tourists who wanted them—mostly ATVs for people who wanted to explore the wilderness trails without backpacking. Summer was party season, with a constant flow of new arrivals, many of them young and adventurous, fulfilling their dreams of seeing Alaska.
He didn’t have to lift a finger to get all the hookups he could ever dream of. All he had to do was help a cute girl with the gas pump out front, and the next thing he knew, she’d be back with a picnic lunch from Firelight Ridge Adventures and an invitation to take the rest of the day off.
And then there were the all-night parties. In a place where it never got completely dark and there was no one to tell you to turn the music down or not to smoke that unfamiliar herb, raves could go on through the night and into the next day.
As a working man in the busy season, Gunnar missed most of those, but he’d gone to his share over the years. They were a blur of beautiful young people he’d never see again, music he’d never heard before, drugs he couldn’t identify. Already this summer, he’d been invited to three such parties, but he hadn’t made it to a single one.
That was the life of an uncle suddenly in charge of a kid he barely knew. Thanks a ton, Bridget.
Maybe he should thank his sister for real, non-sarcastically, because he really didn’t miss those crazy parties. Recovering from all-nighters was a lot of work.
“Well?”
He jerked back to attention as the flirty girl in the Volkswagen Jetta smiled at him. “Is the gas free around here or maybe you have a barter system? I could…you know, fill up your tank.”
She winked as her friend snickered. The Jetta was filled with backpacking gear, and they both looked fit and athletic. His type, normally. But he couldn’t keep his thoughts from straying to Ruth Chilkoot. The way Luke had shut her down in that cottonwood grove, it made him burn. Was she really okay? He had to come up with another way to check on her, something that wouldn’t get her in trouble. But Luke had told him to stay away from the property if he didn’t want to get shot at. He took that threat seriously.
“That’ll be seventy-five bucks,” he told the girl in the Jetta. Damn, his thoughts really did keep wandering.
“ What? ” The two girls exchanged a glance. “Is that a joke?”
“No joke,” he said cheerfully. “It costs a lot to get fuel shipments out here. You’re free to check out the competition.”
“Where’s the competition?”
“You could probably sweet-talk a five-gallon gas can out of Old Solomon. He works on the barter system. You might have to give up that Patagonia backpack for it.”
The girl made a face at him, then dug out her credit card. “Well, whatever.” Another smile. “If you like rock-climbing, we’re headed to Thunder Pass.”
“I’ll pass, sorry. Gotta work. Mean boss, you know how it is.”
“You want me to talk to him?”
“You are talking to him.”
That got a laugh from her. The other girl leaned over to join the conversation. “This is your gas station? Aren’t you our age? Why do you own a gas station? I don’t even own a cat.”
Which was why, even though they were about his age, he and these girls from Outside had almost nothing in common. Their lives looked so carefree compared to his, as if they floated through life on a magic carpet of money.
“It was my dad’s, then he left, and now it’s mine. End of story.” Gunnar completed the credit card run and handed back her card. Talking about his father wasn’t something he enjoyed. He missed his dad and he hated him and he loved him and he wished he was still here and he wondered why he’d disappeared and about a million other things at the same time.
“Any tips about Thunder Pass?” the girl called after him.
“Check the forecast. Bring rain gear. Those storms come fast.”
“Is it true that people die out there on a regular basis?”
He looked past Firelight Ridge to the sharp peaks beyond, where Thunder Pass nestled in the saddle between two ridges. “Put it this way. They don’t run rescue missions out there anymore, not after three helicopters got caught in a storm. If you get into trouble, you’re on your own.”
The girls’ smiles froze at his ominous tone. Then he lightened it up. “But it might be worth it if you find the gold.”
They brightened again. “So that’s real?”
“Hell no. Would I be running a two-pump gas station if there was gold in Thunder Pass?”
They laughed along with him. “Roger that. Thanks again, cutie.” The girl at the wheel winked at him again. “Maybe we’ll see you again. Cocktails on me. Literally, if you play your cards right.”
He played along, but his heart wasn’t in this little flirtation.
What was wrong with him? All winter, he looked forward to when the spigot of hot young backpackers turned on and he could find someone to hang out with any night he chose. Was he losing his edge?
“Did the credit card reader work?” Nelson asked him when stepped back into the garage. The kid was waiting just inside the door.
“Like a charm. Thanks, kid. You’ll have me in the twenty-first century before I know it.” And whether he wanted it or not, Gunnar thought. He liked the feeling of being lost in time. But being connected with the rest of the world had its benefits too.
“You still have to connect to the Internet to upload the transaction.”
“Yeah, yeah, one more reason to visit The Fang.”
Nelson trailed him toward the vehicle currently on the lift—Frank Stetson’s plow truck, which had blown a head gasket just as the last snow melted away. “I found something weird in your computer.”
“Ants? Termites?”
Nelson giggled, which Gunnar took as a major victory. His nephew was usually so serious, so focused on whatever project had his attention. “Like bugs. That’s funny.”
“Thanks.” Gunnar squeezed his shoulder lightly, feeling real affection for the boy. It felt good to have family around, even if he’d only met Nelson a few weeks ago. For so long it had been just him and his father, and then just him. He’d forgotten what it was like to be around people you were connected to. In fact, he’d always been a little envious of the Chilkoots, despite all their weirdness. At least there were lots of them. “So what’s the real weird thing you found in my computer?”
“You should come and look at it. I can’t really explain it because I don’t know what it is.”
Frank Stetson’s plow truck could wait, Gunnar decided. He wouldn’t need to plow anything until October, late September if they got an early snow dump. He followed Nelson into his back office.
This was where he’d kissed Ruth. Right up against that wall, there. He could just about see her startled gray eyes now. Her lips had parted under his, as if she meant to say something, and instead started kissing him back.
He hadn’t known it was her first kiss until afterwards. It had never crossed his mind that someone around his age might have never kissed anyone before.
“Here.” Nelson swiveled the desktop computer so he could see the screen. “It’s another whole desktop.”
Gunnar frowned at the unfamiliar-looking image on his computer. When he logged on—which hadn’t happened in a while, seeing as it hadn’t been working—he saw swirls of orange and purple. But this screen was an image of what looked like Thunder Pass. “What do you mean? Where did that come from?”
“Does someone else use this computer?”
“No. Well, not anymore. It was my father’s. He left it when he…left.”
Nelson showed no interest in that history. “It must have been his. It’s like another whole computer within your computer,” he explained. “He has his own files, his own apps, photos, all of that, but it’s walled off from anyone who doesn’t have the password.”
“How’d you get into it, then? Never mind,” he said quickly, when it looked like Nelson might launch into an overly technical explanation. “You said it was weird and that you couldn’t explain it. What’s the weird part? He probably just didn’t want anyone else looking at his porn searches or whatever. By the way, if you see anything like that, just shut your eyes, okay? You’re too young.”
Nelson rolled his eyes. “There’s no porn on here. It’s not like that. The weird part is this database he was keeping. It’s a bunch of entries and numbers.”
“Accounts payable or some normal-world shit like that?” Gunnar didn’t run the business like that. He operated on a mix of barter and cash and other methods that might keep him off the IRS’s radar. He did enough aboveboard business that he still needed to pay taxes, but less than he probably should. If some agent wanted to troop all the way out here and audit him, they were welcome to do so.
And then it hit him—“Shit. A second set of books, maybe? Fraud?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Nelson shrugged indifferently. “I can’t figure out what it is. Just seemed like you might want to see it.”
“Yeah…thanks, kid. That’s…weird. You’re right.” Gunnar stared down at the columns and rows of numerical entries. They didn’t look like the kind of numbers he saw in his business, but maybe his father used to charge a lot more. Or maybe he’d inflated the numbers. Or had his own system of tracking his payments and expenditures.
With Anthony Amundsen, you never knew. The man was unpredictable. Which was probably a kind way to describe someone who’d disappeared without a word of explanation. The only reason he knew his father was alive was a note that had appeared in the garage a few years ago.
“Hey, you feel like some pancakes?” he asked Nelson. “The Magic Breakfast Bus is back for the summer, and you really haven’t lived until you’ve tasted Billy Jack’s buttermilk pancakes.”
Nelson got that resistant look he wore whenever Gunnar mentioned going outside. “I already had some of the granola my mom left.”
“You can try a bite of mine. Come on, have you ever had pancakes and maple syrup in an old yellow school bus painted like a technicolor sunrise?”
Nelson must have figured there was no point in resisting, so Gunnar put up the “closed” sign and they strolled down Pioneer Road toward the school bus parked on a gravel pad that Gunnar had helped prep for Billy Jack. Gunnar knew about half the people they passed—everyone but the tourists snapping photos with their phones—but he refrained from stopping to introduce everyone to the excruciatingly shy Nelson.
He pointed out the familiar landmarks to the boy: the historic first trapper’s cabin, its roof so thick with moss that it had to be propped up by extra two-by-fours. Granny Apple’s Boarding House, which had begun life as a brothel, and still sported the only wooden shutters in town—no one else bothered with that level of privacy. There was the original hardware store with its tin ceiling and classic bay window storefront. Lila Romanoff lived there now, although she spent most of her time with Bear at The Fang.
Every time an ATV rolled past them, a plume of dust would rise up and Nelson would start coughing. Gunnar shifted positions so that his body would block the worst of the dust. Then Nelson pointed excitedly at a dog riding shotgun with Lasse Ulstrom, perched on the seat as if the human at the wheel was nothing more than a chauffeur. Dust storms forgotten. The magic of Firelight Ridge in action.
He was even more glad he’d dragged Nelson out to the Magic Breakfast Bus when he caught sight of a long blond ponytail that could only belong to Charlie Santa Lucia, sitting at a table in the back.
Wasn’t Charlie some kind of expert hacker familiar with the shady side of the law? Maybe she’d be able to make sense of those numbers in his father’s computer.
At the very least, he could introduce Nelson to someone who spoke his language.