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other two, holding so much junk, Jim was surprised it was still floating. His bailing can was made from a sawed-off plastic gallon milk jug. His kicker looked like Ole Evinrude had put it together with his own hands, and his fuel tank looked like it was about to rust through from the inside. The bottom was covered with a collection of bits of two-by-four and a torn-off section of rain gutter and a piece of rebar and cogs and gearwheels and other unidentifiable machine parts, including a quart-size ziplock full of mismatched nuts and bolts. There was a twelve-pack carton of beer dissolving around the last can, the same brand as he’d found on the beach. Jim spotted a fishing reel—but no poles—and a ballpeen hammer and a couple of screwdrivers and a pair of needle-nosed pliers, but no toolbox. The tools looked as rusty as the fuel tank.
    He looked up at Pat Mack, sitting in his own skiff, glowering. Jim didn’t think Pat was glowering at him, specifically, but at the world in general, and more likely at his recently deceased nephew, without whose labor the old man would now have to get along. Such as it was. “Whose son was Tyler’s, again?” he said.
    Pat patted his pockets automatically, and stilled. “Piers’.”
    Jim thought. “I don’t remember Piers.”
    “Died when his boat swamped on the Kanuyaq flats ten years ago. His wife died right after. I took on the boy.”
    Jim nodded. “The body has to go to the medical examiner in Anchorage, Pat.”
    “Why? Useless little fucker stumbled into the goddamn fish wheel. Ain’t nobody’s goddamn fault but his own.”
    “State law,” Jim said. “Every accidental death requires an autopsy. I’m sorry.” He moved to the body. “Roger, give me a hand here?”
    Still shivering, Roger climbed out of his skiff and complied.

 
    Act II

 
    Four
    WEDNESDAY, JULY 11
    Kate’s homestead
    It was the second week of July, an unusually fine day in the second month of a cool, rainy summer following a winter of record snowfall that had delayed the usual explosion of vegetative fecundity to the end of June. Only now could it be said that the deciduous trees were fully in leaf, rich shades of green in massed banks against a pale morning sky. Kate curled up on the couch, a mug of coffee in hand, and watched the light brighten in back of the Quilaks. Given birth by two tectonic plates pushing each other to the surface and nurtured on intermittent volcanic action and glacial wear and tear, the range of mountains forming the eastern border of the Park as well as the border between Alaska and Canada were in appearance simultaneously breathtaking in their beauty and terrifying in their menace. As the light of the rising sun crept westward, outlines changed and shadows grew and shrank, and if she watched for long enough without blinking, she could almost imagine the mountains marching in her direction.
    Which Kate supposed they were. Kate had been born after the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, 9.2 on the Richter scale, but she’d heard about it often enough from Emaa and Old Sam and the aunties. Terra firma was an illusion. A quake a day was the norm in Alaska, where every day was a triumph of optimism over experience.
    Kate never took the ground beneath her feet for granted.
    Aboveground movement in the yard caught her eye, and she turned her head to see Mutt materializing out of the underbrush in what always seemed to be an act of teleportation. Even after a partnership moving into its tenth year, Kate still marveled at the ability of a 140-pound half wolf–half husky to vanish and reappear at will into the landscape.
    Mutt gave an enthusiastic shake and trotted across the yard and up the steps. A moment later, Kate heard the latch click. Claws ticky-tacked across the wood floor. A cold nose shoved itself under her arm, sloshing the coffee in her mug. “Knock it off, monster,” Kate said, giving Mutt’s head a rough scratching. “Good hunting?”
    “Wuff!” Mutt said, her