He stuffed the check into a random pocket. “Okay. You going to be back in town anytime soon?”

She shook her head. “Just to get the rug rat registered for school and that’s not until next week. If you see Auntie Vi, give her the cash. If not, just hang on to it.”

“Okay.” He took a chance. “Good to have you back in your body, Shugak.”

She laughed. “Good to be back in it, Perry. Later.”

The red Chevy pickup was parked next to George’s hangar. She and Johnny tossed their duffels into the back. Mutt jumped in next to them with a joyous bark, tail wagging furiously. The engine started on the first try.

Kate grinned at Johnny. “It’s good to be home.”,

He grinned back. “Yeah. I like Cordova, but…”

She nodded. “It’s a city.”

He nodded. “Too many people.”

“Two thousand and more,” she said, nodding.

They both shuddered. Mutt barked encouragement from the back, and Kate put the truck in gear and they started the last leg home.

The gravel road from Niniltna was rough, the remnants of an old railroad bed graded every spring by the state and then left to fend for itself until the following year. Every now and then a remnant of its former life surfaced as a railroad spike in someone’s tire. The tracks the spikes had held together had been pulled up by the owners of the Kanuyag Copper Mine, the rapidly decaying ruins of which lay four miles beyond Niniltna. The ties had long since been scavenged by Park rats and used to surface access roads, fence gardens, and serve as the foundation for more than one house.

It was going on sunset when they turned onto the game trail that led to Kate’s homestead. It was a little wider and less rough than it had once been, due to all the traffic down it the previous May, but the indefatigable alders were coming back fast and now whispered at the windows of the truck as it went by.