Dana Stabenow - Blood Will Tell

BLOOD WILL TELL

Kate Shugak 06

Dana Stabenow

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BLOOD WILL TELL

A Berkley Prime Crime Book I published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

G.P. Putnam's Sons hardcover edition I 1996 Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition I June 1997

All rights reserved.

Copyright 1996 by Dana Stabenow. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN: 0-425-15798-9

Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7

FOR KATHERINE QUIJANCE GROSDIDIER

WE ARE FAMILY

My love and thanks to Axenia Barnes, who told all those wonderful stories to that wide-eyed little girl so long ago, and my thanks to the Chugach Alaska Corporation who saw that they were written down, lest we forget, and my apologies to the Alaska Federation of Natives for my impertinence in borrowing their convention, where each year so much truth is spoken by so many good people.

Once upon a time, a couple of days ago . Look at that one, says Calm Water's Daughter.

Which one? says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides.

That One Who Stands Apart, says Calm Water's Daughter.

Ah. That one. She could be a problem, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides. How long?

Not long now, says Calm Water's Daughter, and she sighs.

What's that you do with the windy mouth, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides, you've been looking forward to that one coming. She is strong.

She is sly. We need her.

So do they, says Calm Water's Daughter.

Excuse me, says Mary, I was looking for the Madonna seminar?

Down the path on the left, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides.

I'm sorry, says Mary, is that my left or your left?

Ayapu, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides, go over the stream and turn right, walk ten steps and turn left.

I beg your pardon, says Mary, it's so easy to get lost up here. At least down there we had direction.

Like I said, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides, we need her more than those ones do. You could be right, says Calm Water's Daughter.

Is this where the crop goddesses are meeting? says Demeter.

Alaqah, do I look like a road sign, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides, the next field over.

Thanks, says Demeter, I'm late for the grain ceremony. I just hope I haven't missed the goat sacrifice.

Those Greeks are all alike, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides, party, party, party.

They're young yet, says Calm Water's Daughter. They'll learn.

BLOOD WILL TELL

ONE.

THE BAD NEWS WAS THE BLOOD IN HER HAIR.

The good news was that it wasn't hers.

The day before, the bull moose had walked into the homestead clearing like he owned it, the same day hunting season opened on the first year in six Kate had drawn a permit, on the first year in ten the feds had declared a hunting season in her game management unit. On a potty break from digging potatoes, she was buttoning her jeans in front of the outhouse when the sound of a snapped branch drew her attention. She looked up to find him head and shoulders into a stand of alders whose dark green leaves had just started to turn. For a moment she stood where she was, transfixed, mouth and fly open, unable to believe her luck. One limb stripped of bark, the moose nosed over to a second, ignoring her presence with what could have been regal indifference but given the time of year was probably absolute disdain for any creature not a female of his own species.

He'll run when I move, she thought.

But I have to move; the rifle's in the cabin.

But if I move, he'll head out, and then I'll have to bush wack after him and pack him home in pieces.

But he can't outrun a bullet.

His rack was peeling velvet in long, bloody strips, and as he chewed he rubbed the surface of his antlers against the trunk of a neighboring birch. He looked irritated. Before long, he would be looking frenzied, and not long after that manic, especially when he caught a whiff of the moose cow that had been summering along the headwaters of the creek that ran in back of Kate's cabin. It was late in the year for either of them to be in rut, but then Kate had never known moose to keep to a strict timetable in matters of the heart.

If I don't move soon, she thought, Mutt will get back from breakfast and then he will run and this argument you're having with yourself will be academic.

The bull was a fine, healthy specimen, three, maybe four years old by the spread of his rack, his coat thick and shiny, his flanks full and firm-fleshed. She figured four hundred pounds minimum, dressed out. Her mouth watered. She took a cautious, single step. The ground was hard from the October frost, and her footstep made no sound. Encouraged, she took another, then another.

The .30-06 was racked below the twelve-gauge over the door. She checked to see if there was a round in the chamber. There always was, but she checked anyway. Reassured, she raised the rifle, pulled the stock into her shoulder and sighted down the barrel, her feet planted wide in the open doorway, the left a little in advance of the right, knees slightly bent. She blew out a breath and held it. Blood thudded steadily against her eardrums. The tiny bead at the end of the barrel came to rest on the back of the bull's head, directly between his ears. Lot of bone between her bullet and his brain. Moose have notoriously hard heads. She thought about that for a moment. Well, what was luck for if it was never to be chanced? "Hey," she said.

He took no notice, calmly stripping the bark from another tree limb.

"You must lower the average moose IQ by ten points," she said in a louder voice. "I'm doing your entire species a favor by taking you out of the gene pool." He turned his head at that, a strip of bark hanging from one side of his mouth. She exhaled again and the bead at the end of the rifle barrel centered directly on one big brown eye. Gently, firmly, she squeezed the trigger. The butt kicked solidly into her shoulder and the report of the single shot rang in her ear.

He stopped chewing and appeared to think the matter over. Kate waited.

He started to lean. He leaned over to his left and he kept on leaning, picked up speed, leaned some more and crashed into the alder, bringing most of it down with him. The carcass settled with a sort of slow dignity, branches popping, twigs snapping, leaves crackling.

As silence returned to the clearing, Kate, not quite ready yet to believe her eyes, walked to the moose and knelt to put a hand on his neck. His hair was rough against her skin, his flesh warm and firm in the palm of her hand, his mighty heart still. She closed her eyes, letting his warmth and strength flow out of him and into her.

A raven croaked nearby, mischievous, mocking, and she opened her eyes and a wide grin split her face. "Yes!" The raven croaked again and she laughed, the scar on her throat making her laughter an echo of his voice. "Hah! Trickster! I see you by the beak you cannot hide!"