A deeper sleep Read Online Free PDF

at a thousand feet and adjusted the prop pitch. The engine smoothed out. "He was coming home from Betty Moonin's late. He said he didn't see the moose until he hit it. His bumper caught the ass end of the moose, which then slid over the top of his hood and busted out his window. The moose then took a dump in Eknaty's lap."
     
    He grinned when Kate laughed. "Both the moose's back legs were broken, so Eknaty shot it and butchered it out before it froze solid. He loaded it in the back of his pickup, which actually still runs even though the front end is totally trashed, and brought it to me." He added parenthetically, "We really could use a brown shirt in the Park. I don't have time to be screwing around with critter problems."
     
    Brown shirts were Alaska State Troopers who enforced those wildlife regulations with regard to animals. Blue shirts were Alaska State Troopers who enforced those wildlife regulations with regard to humans. "Tell your boss, not me," Kate said. "What'd you do with the meat?"
     
    "I told him to have Billy Mike distribute it to elders."
     
    "You didn't keep the liver?"
     
    "Was I supposed to?"
     
    "You were supposed to keep it and give it to me."
     
    "Oh. I didn't know that. Next time."
     
    Kate subsided, mollified. "I love a moose liver."
     
    "Tasty?"
     
    "And huge. You can get half a dozen meals out of one moose liver. Remind me to make you my moose liver pate one day."
     
    "I like mine fried with bacon and onions."
     
    She gave him an approving smile and he felt his heart turn over, before he remembered his heart had no business doing any such thing.
     
    Kenny Hazen, Ahtna's chief of police, was waiting for them at the airport. Mutt, who woke up from her comfortable snooze on the backseat as they landed, greeted him with her usual excessive enthusiasm for the male of the species. "You are such a slut," Kate told her.
     
    Kenny jerked his head. "Come on. Robbie hates people coming in late to her courtroom."
     
    "Any word?" Kate said as she climbed in.
     
    Kenny put his truck in gear and the wheels spun a little on the ice of the apron before taking hold. "They were out for four days."
     
    Kate looked over her shoulder at Jim, with Mutt in the backseat. "Doesn't mean anything," he said.
     
    They all knew different.
     
    Ahtna, a bustling community of around five thousand, was the market town and transportation hub for the region. Safeway, Costco, and Home Depot had all opened stores there in the past ten years, and Fred Meyer was rumored to be scouting for a location. The University of Alaska Ahtna held down one end of Mountain View, Ahtna's main street, and Ahtna's brand-new courthouse the other. Ahtna was also the seat of Alaska's fifth judicial district.
     
    The Sadie Neakok Courthouse in Ahtna had been open for business for less than a month when the State of Alaska v. Louis Deem landed on its one bench with a thud heard round the Park. Funded by a federal grant, it was part of a pilot program to conduct the state's judicial business in the smaller communities in the more inaccessible parts of the state. Climbing the front stairs, Kate suffered the same shock of surprise she had the first time she'd seen the building, as it was remarkably handsome, an infrequent occurrence with public buildings in the Bush, or anywhere in Alaska for that matter.
     
    The curve of the sides reflected the curve of the river it was built on. Surrounded by a small park, the courthouse was two stories high. Inside were two courtrooms: a small one for arraignments and a big one for trials. There were administrative offices and judge's chambers on the second floor. The lobby and the courtrooms were paneled with spruce harvested from the spruce bark beetle kill from the Chugach National Forest and wainscoted with river rock from the Kanuyaq River. The windows were many and large, and they actually opened.
     
    The massive wooden doors at the entrance bore a cedar carving of Raven, great black wings