Neither one of them was a pilot, so they chartered Wy Chouinard to fly them into their preferred hunting area, the long, level plateau between the broad plain that sloped down into the Nushagak River on the east and the Wood River Mountains on the west, where a small but fecund herd of caribou fattened…
“Anything else?” “Yeah, the phone was ringing when I walked in the door. Some guy, name of Montgomery, looking for–” “Lyle Montgomery, looking for his daughter,” Liam said with a sigh, and glanced at the calendar. First of September, first of the month. Montgomery was right on schedule. “You know him?” “He’s got a daughter missing. Name of Cheryl.” Liam…
Next up was a zig to Akamanuk, perching precariously on the edge of the Nushagak River two big bends above Newenham. She buzzed the homestead, two buildings, a short airstrip crowded with trees and a tilled rectangle of earth with what looked like a very healthy crop of potatoes. Ted came out and peered skyward. She turned, banked,…
A seven-foot Jayco popup camper perched unsteadily in the back of a Ford F250 truck is not the best of all possible beds for a six-foot-two-inch man. Even sleeping corner to corner, Liam’s feet still stuck over the edge, there was no toilet, no shower and no place to hang his clothes, in particular his…
Liam squinted at her through his one good eye. “You didn’t say Donohoe had somebody with him.” “He didn’t.” Liam sighed and shifted carefully in a tentative attempt to sit upright. His head didn’t fall off so he was more patient than he might have been. “Look, Prince, you’ve obviously discovered some new evidence that…
Read more His head didn’t fall off so he was more patient than he might have been.
The window was open and that damn raven was sitting on the branch of a mountain ash right outside the window, looking as if he had been carved from a single piece of the darkest obsidian. Liam didn’t really know anything about obsidian except that it was a rock of some kind that was black…
The Bay Rover speeded up. Forgetting where he was, Liam yelled, “Faster!” “We’re almost up on the step as it is,” Prince yelled back. “We go any faster we’ll take off, and there’s no room!” Larsgaard looked over his shoulder, saw the Cessna bearing down on his port stern and pointed the bow of the…
They landed in Kulukak and taxied the float plane to the dock. The place was still shrouded in what seemed to be its perpetual cloak of mist. No one was there to greet them, but then Liam hadn’t called to say they were coming. He had confirmed with Charlene that there was no fishing period…
There wasn’t enough room for both sets of long legs beneath the tiny galley table, so he sat on the bunk and sipped his coffee. She shifted her feet out of his way, looking at the imprints her shoes left behind in the carpet. “Uh, sir–you do know that the floor is wet in here?”…
Read more “Yes, I do know the floor is wet in here. This boat is sinking.”
Joan Dunaway was a reporter for the News, and had been one since she and Wy had returned from Europe the year they graduated from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Wy with a degree in education and Jo with a degree in journalism. She’d built up a reputation over the years for ferreting out bad…