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Auntie."
    Auntie Vi held up a finger. "Forgot." She jerked a thumb backward.
"I bring something to you."
    Kate opened the rear passenger-side door and found a small U-Haul box.
"What's this?"
    "Association stuff. You take."
    "I've got the newsletter, Auntie, I don't need—"
    "You take!"
    Kate took, and without further ado or admonition Auntie Vi stepped on the
gas. The Explorer wheeled around in something approaching a brody, narrowly
missing Mutt emerging incautiously from the brush. She yelped and affected a
kind of reverse vertical insertion, levitating up and back so that Auntie Vi's
tires just missed her toes. She looked at Kate, ears straight up and yellow
eyes wide.
    "You got off lucky," Kate said. She turned to see Johnny had come
out on the railing of the deck.
    "So," he said, "you going to that meeting next month?"
    Her eyes narrowed.
    He leaned on the railing and grinned. "You know. The one on
Wednesday?"
    She dumped the box in the back of his truck and started for the house.
    "On the fifteenth?" He started to back up. "You know, the one
at ten a.m.?"
    She hit the bottom stair and he ran for his life.
     
     
     
     
    THREE
     
    J ohnny sat very straight behind the
wheel of his pickup as he made his first solo journey into Niniltna the next
morning. He drove with sobriety and caution, and pulled into Annie Mike's driveway
with nary a nourish.
    This sedate impression of middle age disintegrated when the front door
opened and Van stepped out onto the porch.
    Vanessa Cox's posture was so good that she would always seem taller than she
was. Her dark hair was thick, fine, and straight, cut bluntly to brush her
shoulders, with a spiky fringe to frame her dark eyes. She had a slim, straight
nose, a full, firm mouth, and a delicately pointed chin.
    For years her attire had consisted of bibbed denim overalls with a marsupial
front pocket and buckled shoulder straps, worn over a T-shirt in summer and a
turtleneck in winter, usually accessorized with Xtra Tuffs and a down jacket.
Recently, her wardrobe had expanded to include low-rider jeans, cropped
T-shirts, and Uggs. She wore thin gold hoops in her ears and her lips shone
with gloss.
    Johnny didn't notice any of this in detail, of course. All he knew was that
his best buddy Van had suddenly and inexplicably turned into a girl. "You
look good," he said.
    Her answering smile revealed a surprising set of dimples, a crooked left
incisor, and a sparkle in her eyes that was as unsettling as it was
exhilarating. "Thank you," she said demurely.
    "Want a ride?"
    She hopped in without answering. He may have put little more English on his
departure than he had on his arrival, and who can blame him?
    It was a beautiful day, barely a wisp of cloud to obstruct the view of the
Quilak
Mountains
scratching a harsh line into the eastern sky. The Kanuyaq was as yet ice-free,
and running low after a dry spring and a warm summer had pushed all the
snowmelt down to the Gulf. The days were crisp, the nights cool but not yet
cold.
Canada
geese practiced their V formations overhead, browsing moose cows were waiting
for the siren call of moose bulls in rut, and two yearling grizzly cubs shot
across the road inches in front of the blue pickup's bumper. Johnny took his
foot off the gas but retained enough wit not to stamp on the brakes, and the
cubs' hindquarters disappeared into the brush on the other side of the road. A
second later and he would have clipped their hindquarters.
    Johnny pulled to a halt at the corner, where Annie's driveway met the road
to the
Niniltna
School
, and paused. He looked at Van and
suddenly driving up to school in his very own vehicle in front of all the kids
seemed less appealing. On impulse, he turned left.
    "This isn't the way to school," Van said. She had her window down
and the cab was filled with the sound of dry leaves and fallen spruce needles
crinkling beneath the truck's tires.
    "I was thinking we could skip."
    "Skip school?" she said.
    "Just once," he said. He