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over sandbars. They’re capable of hauling a ton of salmon in the spring, or a couple of moose in the fall, workboats, not pleasure craft.
    I hunkered down behind the canoe to keep the aluminum from showing, and we watched through leaves while the boat passed. Definitely two men, definitely with rifles, but we couldn’t be sure of much else. The boat raced on up the river. When it disappeared around the next bend, I climbed down onto the sandbar to listen.
    The sound was steady for a couple of minutes, then slowed and seemed to come from the left, so they had turned up the Little Chena. I crouched down next to the water and smoothed the cut our bow had made, then brushed away the footprints and climbed back up the bank.
    “Let’s drag the canoe farther back so it won’t show.”
    “They’re looking for us, aren’t they, Alex?”
    “Maybe…no, probably. I think they turned up the Little Chena. Thing is, we’re ripe for paranoia.” I picked up the front of the canoe, Angie the back, and we half carried, half slid it thirty feet into the brush. I grabbed the shotgun and we slipped back to the edge of the trees.
    Angie’s denim jacket and jeans were reasonably inconspicuous. My dark green windbreaker was fortuitous, not intentional good management. We sat on the cold ground and listened for maybe ten minutes before we heard the motor again, this time slow and quiet.
    “Alex, they couldn’t have gone all the way to the cabin.”
    “They didn’t. They found our campfire. I scattered it enough to be sure it was out, but not enough to hide it. Sorry, put that on the long list of things I haven’t thought of lately.”
    The boat came around the last bend, moving slowly down the middle of the river. We flopped on our bellies and I jacked another shell into the shotgun.
    “Are you going to shoot them, Alex?”
    “No, darn it, and I probably should. Angie, they could be moose hunters out scouting for a blind. We don’t know that they’re after us, don’t even know if the phony cops who came to the cabin are the same ones who bombed Stan’s truck, or if any of them were the guys Stan heard. If they beach the boat and come for the bank with weapons, I’ll cut them in half, but we don’t want to blow away a couple of innocent hunters.”
    We stopped talking. The boat passed slowly, mid river, one passenger watching each bank, and continued around the next bend.
    “Did they spot us?” Angie was concerned, not frightened. I realized I was seeing the culmination of generations of her ancestors who had faced possible death on a daily basis. If lives were at risk, and if I couldn’t have Stan, then she was the next best partner.
    “They didn’t even bobble, so if they saw us, they’re the greatest poker players since Dan McGrew. Let’s get the boat in the water.”
    We’d been on the water again for less than ten minutes before my internal radar was screaming at me.
    “Angie, we’ve got to get off the river. We could come around any bend and run smack into them. If they dropped off one man on the bank with a rifle, we’d go by like wooden ducks in a shooting gallery.”
    Both of us were feeling urgency and paddling fast. Angie answered over her shoulder, “How about the Chena Slough? Can’t be more than one or two bends ahead, and that runs right next to Badger Loop Road.”
    “Great, let’s go for it.” We hugged the left-hand bank, rounded a deep bend to the south, and paddled like mad out of the river, through an eddy and into the slough. With almost no current in the backwater, we scooted upstream, plowing a swath of ripples through mirror-still water, riffling reflections of overhanging trees. Houses appeared through the trees on the bank, then a thick stand of uninterrupted birch.
    “Let’s stash the canoe.”
    Angie nodded and pulled toward the right bank. I steadied us with my paddle while she climbed out and held the canoe for me. We dragged it twenty feet up into blueberry bushes and high bush