Read Online Whisper to the Blood by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online Page B

pleased.
    They finished frying the batch-Johnny managed to talk her out of another
piece before they were done, and three more after that- and then he made her
sit down at the table, poured her a mug of coffee, and cleaned up the kitchen.
She put down two pieces herself, along with three cups of coffee, while maintaining
a running criticism of his kitchen skills. There was also a lesson in the
proper cleaning of a cast-iron skillet, involving warm water, no soap, and
drying it over a hot burner.
    As he was folding the dish towel and hanging it on the oven door handle, he
said, "Auntie, did that guy I told you about last month ever show
up?"
    She eyed him as he sat down across from her. "He come a week ago. He
stay here. You know him."
    He nodded. "Yeah, from when I was Outside. Is he okay for money?"
    She shrugged and picked up a deck of cards and began to shuffle them.
"All right, I guess. He pay his rent on time."
    "Good. Is he looking for work?"
    "He look," she said. "Don't know if he find."
    "I was wondering if maybe he could get on at the mine," he said.
    She looked at him. "They hiring?"
    His turn to shrug. "It was all over the school at lunch. Global Harvest
is going to start hiring the first of next month, with preference given to Park
rats."
    Her lips pressed together.
    "What, Auntie?" he said.
    She glared at him, but there might have been a lurking twinkle in the back
of her eyes. "I just hear this myself from Auntie Joy. Who tell
school?"
    "A lady came from the mining company. She's the skier, they hired her
to be their representative. She talked to us at lunch, told us about the mine
and how they were going to start taking applications right away and hiring next
month. It's a big deal. Twenty bucks an hour, Auntie."
    Auntie Vi shuffled cards in silence. "Your friend got job at Bernie's.
Temporary, while Amy gets teeth fixed in
Anchorage
."
She swept the cards up with an air of finality, and he took that as a hint to
leave.
    As he got up, she said, eyes on the cards as she shuffled them, "That
mine lady rent room here, too."
    "Oh," he said, taken aback. "Okay. That's good, I guess."
He couldn't help ending the sentence on an interrogatory note.
    "Of course good," she said briskly, tapping the cards on the table
and sliding them back into their box. "All money in the bank for me. Mine
a different story. Good for me maybe, but maybe bad for the Park. Now shoo
you!"
    Outside, he climbed back on the snowmobile and looked at the sky while he
was waiting for the engine to warm up. It was almost three thirty, and it was
cold and getting colder. It would be dark soon. He really ought to head for the
barn.
    But he wanted to see Doyle Greenbaugh, make sure he was all right.
    It had been a long drive, almost twenty-five hours from the outskirts of
Phoenix
where Greenbaugh had picked him up to the
warehouse in the International District in
Seattle
, where he'd got off. When they'd both
got tired of listening to golden oldies on a series of radio stations, they'd
started talking. Greenbaugh had never been to
Alaska
, but like everyone else in the known
universe said he'd always wanted to go. Partly because he was homesick, and
partly because he wanted to make sure Greenbaugh didn't fall asleep at the
wheel, Johnny had told him all about his home state, and then he'd told him all
about himself.
    He wouldn't have done it today, but he'd been a lot younger then, and a lot
less wary of casual friendship, and he'd been so very grateful for the ride
that he had been willing to pay his way with conversation. In one ride, he'd
traveled almost a thousand miles, well out of his mother's reach. He knew his
grandparents weren't coming after him. He wondered if they'd bothered to tell
her he'd left. He hoped not, and on the whole, he thought not. They hadn't
liked his father any more than their daughter had, and they hadn't liked him
much, either. By the time Jane knew he was gone, he'd be well out of reach, and
by the time she caught up