She smiled. It was more a baring of teeth than an expression of amusement, and if Jim had seen it, the marrow would have chilled in his bones.

Oh yes. Kate Shugak had plans for Jim.

The red run petered out the third week of August and George Perry flew into Mudhole Smith Airport to fly Kate and Johnny back to the Park. He was very businesslike, cutting short Kate’s attempts at conversation on the ground and becoming totally absorbed in the controls of the Cessna once they were in the air. He’d even been perfunctory with Mutt, who seldom met a man she didn’t like. Finally, Kate said, “It’s okay, George. You can relax.”

She was riding shotgun, and she could feel him stiffen next to her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do,” she said. “I’m done trying to reorganize Chugach Air Taxi. Although I do think you should call Jake Baird over to Bethel. He’s got some ideas he could pass along. But”- this as he began to stiffen again-“I’m done trying to do it for you. I promise. It’s your business, hands off.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” She took a deep breath. It was never easy for Kate Shugak to admit she’d been in the wrong, especially when she wasn’t absolutely sure she had been. “I got a little off there for a while. It freaked me out, you guys building that house for me and all. I felt like I had to pay you back.”

“All of us, all at once,” he said. He glanced at her. “Is it true you went to one of Marge Moonin’s Tupperware parties?”

“Oh hell,” she said, and had to laugh. “I hosted one in my new house.”

When he stopped laughing he said, “I would have paid good money to have seen that.”

“If I’d known that, I would have charged admission,” she said, and the rest of the flight went much more smoothly, both in the air and inside the cabin.

On the ground in Niniltna, she endorsed her paycheck from Old Sam and handed it to George, who would take it to the bank in Ahtna. “Half in savings, half in cash,” she said.