Chapter 10
10
It took a solid month for Ruth and Sarah to feel comfortable leaving the safety of Martha’s farm. In the meantime, they plunged into the work of helping Martha with her herd of Merino sheep. Spring was the busiest time on the farm, since it was both lambing season and shearing time.
Ruth loved getting to know the gentle creatures, with their luxuriant fleece that had built up over the winter. After the shearing, sometimes in the evenings they had time to do some dying and spinning. Working with such soft fibers was a joy.
On the more laborious side, there was the constant task of repairing the fence lines. Predators—wolves and bears—were always a threat to the flock. Every year Martha lost a certain percentage of her sheep to the wilderness.
“Part of the risk you take, living out here,” she explained, as they walked down the fence line in their tall mud boots. Sarah was busy working with the woofers, three young women from Australia, on some guesthouse repairs. “But it’s got its benefits too. People pay a premium for Alaskan Merino wool. I ship all the way to England. I’m hoping you’ll take over my airstrip delivery runs, once you feel okay going into town.”
“I’ll get there. Any sign of trouble for us yet?”
“Not a peep. Well…”
“What?” Alarmed, Ruth stopped her with a hand on the sleeve of her corduroy work jacket. “Did something happen?”
“It’s not about you. There’s just…a lot of new people coming through town.”
Ruth relaxed against the nearest fence post. The electricity was off while they worked on the fence line, but normally, a constant current ran through it. “It’s the summer tourist season. Sightseers, backpackers, rock climbers, you know, people with time to do fun things.”
Martha snorted. “Kinda wondering what that’s like, are ya?”
“Oh, I’m used to working.”
“I know you are,” Martha said gently. Ruth knew that Martha worried about her, that she wanted her to “have a life,” whatever that meant. “Anyways, that’s not the kind of people I mean. These are different. They’re tough-looking, like soldiers. They walk through town like they own it. And some of them don’t even speak English.”
“What do they speak?”
Martha shrugged. “I keep my distance. I overheard some of ’em at the general store, placing orders. One talked to Kathy, the others just roamed the aisles like none of the rest of us were even there.”
“Well, where are they staying? Maybe they’re just picking up supplies, then hitting a trail somewhere.”
“Maybe. But more keep showing up. I’ve seen three little groups like that so far in just the past month.”
Two weeks after that conversation, Ruth got a chance to see for herself. Martha came down with a cold. She was too sick to make the airstrip delivery, and none of the Aussies dared to drive her ancient truck, with its manual transmission and almost completely dead shocks.
Sarah begged to come along, but Ruth insisted on making her first trip to town alone. Testing the waters, seeing if any Chilkoots would pounce from the trees.
But during the entire trip—all the way out to the airstrip, then to The Fang to drop off some sheep’s milk, then to the general store to pick up some decongestant for Martha—all she met was nods and smiles from the residents of Firelight Ridge. No questions. No curious glances. Just…acceptance.
She appreciated that down to her core.
As she completed the long list of errands, she kept an eye out for Gunnar. Had she adequately thanked him for rescuing them? Just in case, she wanted another opportunity to do so. But she never saw him, not even at the gas station. Instead, a young kid in glasses manned the pump.
The only unusual sight was a stranger sitting on an ATV parked by the side of the road on the edge of town. His machine was painted in camouflage colors, and he held a bulky-looking cell phone to his ear. Since Firelight Ridge had such terrible cell service, it was rare to see someone on their phone anywhere besides the general store or behind The Fang. This man must have some special kind of phone, she figured.
He ignored her curious scrutiny as she drove past. After all the friendly greetings from the townspeople, it gave her a strange feeling to be so completely disregarded. It reminded her of…well, of the Chilkoots.
When Bridget arrived to pick up Nelson, the boy surprised them all and begged to be able to stay for the rest of the summer.
“What’d you do?” Bridget gave Gunnar a suspicious frown, after Nelson had disappeared back into his video game.
“Nothing, unless you count all the candy and alcohol. Kidding,” he added quickly before she blew a fuse.
“Are you okay with this? Him staying?”
“I am. He’s helpful. He’s a good kid.”
“He’s not cramping your style? This is summer, your time to…well, get laid.”
“Oh stop. I can get laid all year round.”
They both laughed, although the truth was, this summer had been different so far. A lot less flirting, a lot more digging around for information about his father.
Then Bridget sobered. “Let’s go somewhere private, I need to tell you what I’ve been up to.”
With the kitchen door firmly closed, they sat at the table and shared a beer while she recounted her wild adventure.
“It started when my old friend T.J. messaged me on Instagram that she’d seen Dad.”
“Dad?” It took a moment for that to click. “ Our dad?”
“Our dad. Anthony Amundsen. Look.” She showed him her phone. He peered at the photo, which showed one side of what looked like their father’s face. Hard to say for sure.
“Where was this?”
“Key Largo, Florida.”
“ Florida ?” Florida was about as far away as anyone could get from Alaska, while still being in the same country. “Why didn’t you tell me all this?”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I wanted to confirm it was him first.”
Gunnar’s heart drummed against his chest. He could barely form the next words. “Did you find him?”
“No. Sorry.” Bridget put a comforting hand over his. “But I did talk to several people who knew him. It was definitely him, even though he wasn’t in the area anymore.”
“So he really is alive.” Of course he’d believed it—but without seeing his father with his own eyes, sometimes it was hard.
“He is. Or he was. I found the place where he’d been living. I even went through the trash in the dumpster behind his condo.”
“Find anything?”
“You could say that. When I got back into my rental car, I found a man inside. He told me he was our father’s colleague, and he was helping clean up loose ends. I thought he might kill me, so I told him who I was. He knew all about me. It turned out that he hadn’t been planning on killing me, just warning me off.”
“Why would he do that? And what did he mean, ‘colleague’? What kind of colleague?”
“He wouldn’t say. He didn’t say much, to be honest. Just that I should go home and stop being nosy.”
Gunnar took a long sip from the bottle of ale. “Nelson said you think Dad was—is—a CIA agent.”
Bridget’s bright blue eyes narrowed. “That kid…where did he get that? Did he eavesdrop on me?”
Gunnar threw up his hands. “Not getting in the middle of that.”
She shook her head ruefully. “Nelson is too damn smart for his own good. Anyway, it might not be CIA. Maybe special forces, something super-secretive like that. Black Ops. I don’t know. But I know this. There’s more to Anthony Amundsen than he ever told us, or his first wife, or his second wife. Rest in peace,” she added quickly.
Gunnar shrugged it off; his mother had died when he was too young to have any memories of her. “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this. It sounds so crazy. CIA? Black Ops?”
“Right? Anyway, I begged that guy for something, some little crumb of information. Here’s what I said. I was like, I left my son in Alaska so I could find out what’s going on. And you know what he said? That’s the place you should be looking for answers, Alaska. And I said, Alaska’s a big state, man. Come on, give me something.”
She paused for dramatic effect.
“And?” Gunnar asked impatiently. Was this a story or real life?
“And he said, there’s some weird cult family with a funny name. Chill something.”
“Chill something. Chilkoot ?”
Talk about chills.
Did Anthony Amundsen have some connection with the Chilkoots?
Those questions and more kept him up at night, even after Bridget had left, promising to come back in August to pick up Nelson.
As the summer weeks went by, Gunnar was happy to have the kid around. Sometimes he filled in at the pumps. Occasionally, he even agreed to go canoeing or four-wheeling. But Alaskan summers always passed so quickly, and he was so busy he didn’t have much free time for things like investigations into missing fathers.
Besides, something was different this summer. A strange, almost ominous atmosphere took hold of the town. A rock climber fell to his death in Thunder Pass, causing it to be shut down. It wasn’t the first time an accident had happened there, and it had never been closed before.
Strange.
And then there were the military-looking types who kept showing up in town. They never stayed long, but no one seemed to know what they were doing in Firelight Ridge, or where they were going.
As for Ruth, he only caught a glimpse of her now and then, zipping through town in Martha’s truck. She was just as busy as he was, so he figured she was doing just fine. He thought about asking her for help figuring out his father’s secret connection to the Chilkoots.
But she was trying to put distance between herself and her family. So, every time he spotted her, he just watched her drive past. How happy and free she looked in her sleeveless T, showing more skin than he’d ever seen the formerly shy Ruth reveal, with her red braid shining in the summer sun. Was this Ruth Chilkoot, unleashed? If so, he was all for it.