From Here to Paternity

about something. Tenny seemed glad to hear from her and said she was on her way to the re-sort office to do a little paperwork. They could just ask for her at the desk there whenever they wanted.
    Jane and Shelley dressed hurriedly and woke Katie to say they were leaving for a bit and not to let anyone in while they were gone. Then they set out to trudge to the lodge. The heavy snow was now only a blowing mist off the pines, and everything looked incredibly clean and crisp. “It’s hard to believe there’s mud and pine cones and trash under all this, isn’t it?“ Jane said.
    Halfway down the road, they had to climb onto the snowbank at the side to let a snowplow grumble by. As they stood there, Shelley said, “Don’t look right now, but there’s somebody following us.“
    Jane’s heart gave a frantic lurch, but she pretended to gaze around casually and spotted a man in a navy ski outfit lurking farther up the road. “I think I recognize him,“ she said quietly. “One of the sheriff’s men.“
    “I wonder if he’s protecting us or spying on us,“ Shelley said.
    “I don’t think I like either choice.“
    When they got to the lodge, the receptionist said that Tenny was, indeed, in her office, but was on the phone now if they wanted to wait.
    “Let’s go to the gift shop,“ Shelley suggested.
    “I can’t afford to go in there again,“ Jane said. “I’ll wait out front. I want to see what’s become of our ‘escort’.“
    “Get a load of the bulletin board,“ Shelley said.
    A listing of events on a large board in the lobby was constantly being updated. This morning it announced that HawkHunter would be doing a reading from his best-selling book, I , HawkHunter , in Lounge A at 7:00 p.m. on Monday night. Public invited. Reception to follow. Cost: $5, to be donated to the Native American Legal Rights Fund.
    “I don’t know if it’s admirably open-minded or just plain stupid of the Smiths to offer him a forum,“ Shelley muttered. She went off shaking her head in wonder.
    Someone had just shoveled the front walk and the sun had emerged for a moment. The light hitting the brickwork made it steam. Jane sat down on one of the benches and looked around. There was no sign of the navy-clad officer. Maybe he’d come into the lodge behind them and was watching her from inside. Or maybe he was trailing after Shelley.
    Jane gazed at the bricks at her feet. She hadn’t noticed before, but they were laid in a very unusual herringbone pattern. She’d been thinking about bricking over her cement patio in the spring, and this would be a nice pattern to copy. At first, as she studied the design to memorize it, she wasn’t consciously aware of the oddly shaped, shiny white pebble next to her foot. Then she picked it up idly to toss away and realized it wasn’t a pebble.
    It was a tooth! Of all the weird things to find. But of course! It must be HawkHunter’s tooth. The one Pete had knocked out in their fight right here. She couldn’t quite bring herself to throw it away. When HawkHunter got over being so proud of missing it, he’d probably want to get the hole in his mouth filled in, and the original tooth might serve as the best model for a replacement. She’d give it to Linda Moose foot to give back to him, she thought, slipping it into her pocket.
    “Jane, I’ve discovered the mother lode of the best cinnamon rolls in the world,“ Shelley said from behind her. “I’m going to hate going home to my own cooking.“
    Tenny joined them in the casual dining room just as they were being seated. When the waiter had brought their coffee and taken orders, Shelley said, “Tenny, we were wondering about Flattop. Had your uncle ever thought of using it for an airport runway?“
    “Of course,“ Tenny said. “He talked about it for years, but he had some geologists out three years ago, and it’s impossible. Shelley, what’s wrong? You look as disappointed as Uncle Bill was.“

Chapter 20

    “It has to do with the quality and type of the rock,“ Tenny went on. “The central core of the ridge is very hard, but too narrow for a runway. At least a runway that would take a big plane. You could land puddle jumpers up there, but not anything really commercial. Everything to the sides is—I can’t remember the name they called it—something too soft and crumbly anyway. Uncle Bill had two different groups of geologists in and they both agreed that you’d have to virtually shore up the entire ridge