The Russian stood firm at a hundred. He couldn't speak a word of English but he knew a desperate man when he saw one. He was right; the fisherman eventually peeled five grimy twenties from a roll that would have choked a hippopotamus and exchanged them for the hat.

Kate waited until the men had moved on before going to stand next to the Russian fisherman. "What kind of fur was it?" she asked.

He was counting his money, laboriously, licking his fingers between each bill. Unsatisfied with the first count, or perhaps disbelieving it, he counted a second time before looking up, his face split with an immense grin. It widened when he saw Kate, and he fired a stream of Russian in her direction.

She spread her hands and gave him a rueful smile that he had no problem interpreting and that left him undiscouraged. He pantomimed chugalugging a drink and looked at her hopefully, a big, rumpled, enthusiastic puppy dog. "Oh-kay?" he said, evidently the limit of his English vocabulary.

What the hell, she thought. Might as well provide herself with some cover in case she ran into someone else off the Avilda. The prospect of meeting Jack with an enormous Russian in tow also had its appeal. "You know the Shipwreck?" she suggested out loud, and the Russian's grin threatened to split his face in two. It appeared he knew the Shipwreck. Kate smiled, shrugged and nodded.

Without further ado her new friend placed a massive and proprietary arm around her shoulder and urged her down the road.

"Wait a minute," she said, holding up both hands. He halted, his face failing ludicrously. "No, it's okay, I'll go with you, I'm going that way anyway. But the hat." She demonstrated, pulling off her own, a baseball cap with the Niniltna Native Association logo stitched across the front. She pointed after the other fishermen, patted the canvas on her hat and rubbed her fingers together. "What was it made of? Your hat?"