The other patrons sitting at the bar roared their approval, including the women.

Bill slapped the bar towel down. “That’s it, Alakuyak. Out. Out!”

He repeated his evil grin, only it was a lot more personal this time. He didn’t leave, either, instead swaggering over to the jukebox. Moments later, Jimmy Buffett was singing about a smart woman in a real short skirt. Bill, her eagle’s mane of white hair considerably ruffled, ignored him, and called Liam to come pry Eric Mollberg off her bar.

There was no answer. She left a message that should have melted down the voice-mail circuitry and slammed the phone into its cradle.

“Bad day?”

She looked up to see Wyanet Chouinard regarding her with a sympathetic eye. “Bad month,” she said, casting a sidelong look at Moses, now regaling a tableful of other old farts with some yarn about a duel to the death with a king salmon the size of Moby Dick.

Wy followed her gaze. “I hate men,” she said in agreement.

“Liam?”

“And Tim.”

“What’s wrong with Tim?”

Wy sat on a stool. “Nothing caning wouldn’t cure.”

Bill, startled out of her irritation, laughed. “Ship him off to Singapore, then.” She pulled Wy an Alaskan Amber and set it on the bar in front of the pilot.

Wy took a long pull and said, “I can’t do that. He’d probably start a war, and then I’d have the State Department all over my ass.”

They laughed together this time. “But seriously, folks,” Bill said. “What’s wrong with Tim? Usual teenage stuff?”

“That, too.”

“What else?”

“I’m letting his mom see him. He hates her. And he hates me for making him see her.” Wy took another long, soothing draft of beer, and regarded the mug with a weary kind of satisfaction. “The great thing about winter is that daylight decreases by five minutes and forty-four seconds a day and I can drink earlier every time I come in here.”

“Yeah, you’re such a heavy drinker, Chouinard.”