Bad River by Marc Cameron

Author:Marc Cameron [Cameron, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2024-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 28

Anchorage

CHIEF PHILLIPS APPROVED CUTTER’S ANNUAL LEAVE BEFORE THE plane from Utqiagvik touched down in Anchorage. Mim had two tickets booked on the red-eye to Rapid City, South Dakota, by the time he got home.

The Marshals Service had prepared Cutter for travel on short notice both in and out of Alaska. Mim made frequent trips to gain practicum hours for her nurse practitioner license. It didn’t take either of them long to pack. The face-to-face confrontation Cutter had planned with Coop Daniels was going to have to wait, but there was time to have a sit-down dinner with the family before he and Mim had to be at the airport.

The family . . .

Cutter was hesitant to focus on it too long for fear it would all evaporate. For the moment though, he sat back and enjoyed the fleeting comfort.

A chilly rain had followed him home from the Arctic, and now pelted the living room window, buffeting the glass with periodic gusts of wind, but inside . . . inside was heaven.

Snippets of Mim’s heated conversation with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Constance, carried in from the kitchen on the rich, peppery odor of seasoned chicken broth. Cutter had learned it was wise to give those two a wide berth when they were in the middle of a debate, no matter what the topic was. He hid out in the living room with Mim’s nine-year-old twins, Matthew and Michael, while they practiced their Grumpy “Man-Skills,” whittling feather sticks for the fireplace.

The boys sat at opposite ends of the hearth, out of each other’s blood circle, both working with rapt focus. Pocketknives out, they carved thin layers of wood off pieces of birch kindling. They left the curled shavings attached, resulting in a feathered piece of wood that would ignite easily and stay lit long enough to get a fire going. Cutter and his brother had grown up with Grumpy’s two-matches-per-fire rule, which meant tinder, kindling, and larger fuel had to be prepped and organized before any spark was set. Grumpy taught Ethan, and Ethan taught his boys. All Arliss had to do was make sure they didn’t cut their own thumbs off.

“Air, fuel, and a heat source,” Michael said, half to himself, half to demonstrate to his uncle that he knew what he was doing. His dark hair and easy way with people reminded everyone of his father.

“Yep.” Matthew was the spitting image of Arliss at that age, at least in the face. The shaggy blond locks and the resting-mean mug were the same. But Matthew was already well-muscled, where Arliss had been on the runty side. Both boys stuck their tongues out while they carved. Each with several fingers and at least one thumb already bandaged with first-aid tape. Once white, the tape was now gray from days of building forts and playing in the woods behind the house.

Old wounds. Scars they could tell their grandkids about someday.

It wasn’t long before the boys had a fire of birch and spruce popping like gunshots in the fireplace.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.