Northern Lights

superior education away, yet look what he had."
    John brooded into his drink. "I imagine he'd still be amused that I continue to envy him his woman."
    Nate let that sit a minute, drank coffee. "Did you two climb with a group, or alone?"
    "Hmm." John blinked, like a man coming out of a dream. Memories, Nate thought, were just another kind of dream. Or nightmare. "Groups. There's camaraderie in the insanity. The best I remember was a summer climb on Denali. Groups and solos picking their way up that monster like ants on a giant cake. Base camp was like a little town all of its own and a crazed little party."
    "You and Pat?"
    "Mmm, along with Jacob, Otto, Deb and Harry, Ed, Bing, Max, the
    Hopps, Sam Beaver, who died two years ago from a pulmonary embolism. Ah, let's see, Mackie Sr. was there, as I recall. He and Bing started to beat the snot out of each other for something, and Hopp— the deceased Hopp—broke it up. Hawley was there, but he fell over drunk and cracked his head. We wouldn't let him climb. And there was Missy Jacobson, a freelance photographer with whom I had a short, intense affair before she moved back to Portland and married a plumber."
    He smiled at that. "Oh yes, Missy, with her big, brown eyes and clever hands. Those of us from Lunacy had put our party together like a holiday. We even had a little flag we were going to stick on the summit for photo ops for the paper. But none of us made it to the top."
    "None of you?"
    "No, not then. Pat did later, as I recall, but on that climb we were plagued with bad luck. Still, that night at base camp we were full of possibilities and goodwill. Singing, screwing, dancing under that wonderful, endless sunlight. As alive as I think any of us had ever been."
    "What happened?"
    "Harry was sick. Didn't know it, but by morning he was running a fever. Flu. He said he was fine, and nobody wanted to argue. He didn't make it five hours. Deb and Hopp got him back down. Sam fell, broke his arm. Missy was getting sick. Another group coming down took her back to base. The weather turned, and those of us who were left pitched tents and huddled down praying for it to pass. It didn't, got worse. Ed got sick, then I got sick. One thing after another until we had to call it and go back. Miserable end to our little town holiday."
    "Who got you back to town?"
    "Sorry?"
    "You have a pilot?"
    "Oh. I remember being stuffed into that plane, everyone sick or
    pissed or sullen. Can't remember the pilot. Some friend of Jacob's, I think. I was dog sick, that I recall vividly. I wrote about it at some point. Tried for a little humor in a piece for The Lunatic."
    He polished off the whiskey."I always regretted not hoisting that flag."
    Nate let it go and wandered to Charlene. "Can you take a break?"
    "Sure. When Rose is back on her feet."
    "Five minutes. You're not that crowded yet."
    She shoved her order pad in her pocket. "Five. We don't keep things moving in here, people will start going to The Italian Place. I can't afford to lose my regulars."
    She clipped her way out of the restaurant into the empty lobby. The sound of her heels made Nate think of the tango, and he wondered what sort of vanity would overcome a woman's need for comfort when she was going to be hopping on her feet for a few hours.
    "To your knowledge, Patrick Galloway was going to Anchorage to look for work."
    "We've been through this."
    "Indulge me. If he went there, and got a wild hair to do a climb, who would he most likely hire to fly him to Sun Glacier?"
    "How the hell am I supposed to know? He wasn't supposed to be climbing, he was supposed to be looking for a job."
    "You lived with him for close to fourteen years, Charlene. You knew him."
    "If it wasn't Jacob, and he was in Anchorage, it would probably have been Two-Toes or Stokey. Unless he got that hair when neither of them were around, then he'd have hired whoever was handy. Or more likely have bartered something for the flight. He didn't have any money to spare. I only gave him a hundred out of my household fund. Any more, I knew he'd piss it away."
    "You know where I can find either of those pilots?"
    "Ask Jacob or Meg. They run in that world; I don't. You should have told me they brought him back down, Nate. You should have told me and taken me to see him."
    "There was no point in putting you through that. No," he said before she could object. "There wasn't."
    He nudged her into a chair, sat beside her. "Listen to me. It won't help you to see him that