Manhunter. Loreth White Anne

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СКАЧАТЬ room is in there, evidence and equipment room over here on the right.” He unlocked and swung open a door, revealing shelves with snowmobile helmets, two satellite phones, and other equipment on the left, racks for rifles and shotguns down the centre, and shelves with evidence bags near the back.

      “And this is the gym.” Donovan squared his shoulders as he opened another door into a small square room furnished with rudimentary weights, a treadmill, and a bike.

      It was painted stark white, with a small window. Like a cell. Gabe could imagine snowdrifts piled so high they covered that tiny window. A small fist of tension curled in his stomach. Along with it came a tingle of claustrophobia.

      This was going to be tougher than he thought.

      This was going to be his prison, his self-inflicted punishment for what went wrong that day.

      He wondered now, as he stared at the small room, if he’d ever find his way back, or if Black Arrow Falls really was the end of his road, his permanent rock bottom.

      “And this here is your office,” Donovan said, moving back into the main room and opening a door into a partitioned-off area. The fist in Gabe’s gut curled tighter.

      A large window looked out over the desks in the mini-bullpen, while another offered a view out the back of the building over a few tired clapboard houses, leafless scrub, and mountainous wilderness beyond.

      He stared silently at the cramped alcove with its ancient computer and regulation desk, his blood beginning to thump steadily in his veins.

      “Look,” said Donovan suddenly, his cheeks reddening slightly as he spoke. “For the record, I think you made the right decision that day. You got the Bush Man.”

      “I lost four members and a civilian.”

      Donovan’s cheeks burned redder. Gabe wasn’t making it easier for the guy, but his will to ease things for his young constable was buried somewhere inside him, too.

      Donovan cleared his throat, his eyes flicking away. “I…should finish showing you around.”

      “Right.”

      He cleared his throat nervously again. “As you know, there are no telephone landlines into Black Arrow Falls,” he said.

      Gabe didn’t know. Didn’t really care, either. He hadn’t bothered to read up on his new detachment beyond the mere basics. The posting had come fast once he’d put in the request. He’d taken it just as fast.

      “Phone service and high-speed Internet are provided to the town via satellite dish,” Donovan was saying. “The dish picks up the signal, feeds it to individual homes and businesses via local landline. We have our own sat dish and radio antennae mounted on the detachment building. There’s a repeater on a hill some miles out, so radio range is fair, but we take a sat phone to communicate with dispatch when we need to head into the bush for any distance.”

      “Power?”

      “Supplied by Yukon Electrical via a diesel-generating plant. Diesel is flown in. Same with regular gas. The Black Arrow Nation runs the gasoline outlet. The Northern Store across the street sells groceries, some dry goods, and provides mail pickup. Mail plane flies in once a week, so does passenger and delivery service with Air North. We have a resident doctor now and two nurses at the community health clinic. The clinic has videoconferencing facilities. Dentist flies in once a month.” He snorted. “Most months.”

      “How long you been here, Constable?” Gabe asked suddenly.

      “Five months, sir.”

      “Your first posting?”

      “Second. I was in Faro for two years. I like the north, Sergeant.”

      Gabe inhaled deeply, reaching for patience. “So it’s just you and me for now, then, Constable?”

      “And Rosie.”

      “Yeah.” And Rosie. Gabe walked over to the wide window cut into rough-hewn log walls. It looked out over the dusty main street.

      “It’s not like much happens up here from fall into winter,” Donovan offered. “Apart from the odd domestic or drunk disturbance.”

      That’s what ate at Gabe.

      Seventeen years had come to this?

      “And there was the grizzly attack last week,” he said. “That caused a bit of a stir. The file is on your desk.”

      Gabe wasn’t listening, his attention suddenly snared by the woman striding down the road with the hunting rifle slung across her back and a troop of wolf dogs following in her wake.

      Silver.

      She’d cleaned up, and be damned if she didn’t look even more alluring.

      Wearing a denim jacket over a white cotton dress that skimmed her tall moccasin-style boots, her long black hair had been released from its braid and swung loose across her back, reaching almost to her butt.

      Donovan came to his side. “That’s Silver Karvonen. She’s the tracker the conservation office contracted to hunt the man killer. Like I said, file is on your desk.”

      Gabe’s eyes shot to Donovan. “Man killer?”

      “Well.” The constable cleared his throat again, “The grizz didn’t actually kill the guy, but the CO said he would have if the hunter hadn’t rolled down into the ravine. Bear probably has a taste for human blood now.”

      Gabe’s pulse accelerated slightly. “That your opinion or the CO’s?”

      He flushed again. “Well, mine, actually, Sergeant.”

      Gabe glanced back at Silver making her way toward the general store. He hadn’t been this interested in anything for a long, long time. “You say she’s a tracker?”

      “One of the best north of 60. Does man tracking, too. They fly her out for some of the real tough search-and-rescue missions, mostly across the North, and especially if there are kids involved. She has a real thing for the lost children. She just won’t give up if there’s a minor missing.”

      Intrigue stirred something to life inside him.

      “Otherwise she manages the Old Moose Lodge during the summer months for an outfitter based out of Whitehorse. The Old Moose property lies just beyond the town boundaries on the shores of Natchako Lake, where she has a cabin. The outfitters own the hunting concession up here,” he said. “And Silver occasionally guides parties who fly in and pay megabucks for the big game.”

      Gabe watched Silver order her wolf pack to sit before climbing the old wooden stairs of the Northern Store across the street. Gabe knew the population of Black Arrow Falls was 90 percent Black Arrow Gwitchin, a very small subgroup of the Gwitchin Nation that stretched across the Canadian North and into Alaska, but Silver had gotten those laser-blue eyes from somewhere else.

      “Karvonen,” he said quietly, contemplating the woman vanishing through the store door. “That’s not a local name.”

      “Finnish. Her mother СКАЧАТЬ