Northern Lights

jerked a thumb toward the bed of his truck where at least a hundred sandbags were stacked. "Figured I'd tune up the engine while I was at it. I've been here ever since. Somebody went to Joe's place and killed that dog, it wasn't me. I liked that dog."
    Nate took out the bagged gloves. "Are these yours?"
    Staring at them, Bing rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. The red was dying out of his cheek, with clammy white rising. "What the hell's going on here?"
    "Is that a yes?"
    "Yeah, they're mine, I'm not denying it. I told you somebody took 'em, took my spare gloves and my buck knife. I reported it."
    "Just this morning, too. A cynical person might wonder if you were covering yourself."
    "Why the hell would I kill a dog? Damn, stupid old dog?" Bing scrubbed at his face, then shook another cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket. His hands shook visibly.
    "You don't have a dog, do you, Bing?"
    "So that makes me a dog hater? Christ. I had a dog. He died two years ago this June. Got cancer." Bing cleared his throat, drew hard on his cigarette. "Cancer took him."
    "Somebody kills a dog, you have to wonder if he had problems with the dog or the people who owned it."
    "I didn't have any problem with that dog. I got no problem with Joe or Lara or that college boy of theirs. You ask them. You ask them if we had any problems. But somebody's got problems with me, that's for damn sure."
    "Any idea why that might be?"
    He shrugged, jerkily. "Only thing I know is I didn't kill that dog."
    "Keep available, Bing. If you plan on leaving town for any reason, I want to know about it."
    "I ain't going to stand by while people point the finger at me."
    "Stay available," Nate repeated, and went out the way he'd come in.
     
     
    MEG NURSED A BEER and her temper as she waited. She didn't like waiting, and Nate was going to hear about it when he got back. He'd snapped orders at her like she was some sort of half-wit, green recruit and he was the general.
    She didn't like orders, and he was going to hear about that, too.
    He was going to get both ears full when he got back.
    Where the hell was he?
    She was worried sick about her dogs—no matter how the sensible part of her insisted they were fine, that Nate would keep his word and get them for her. She should have been allowed to get them herself instead of being under some sort of half-assed house arrest.
    She didn't want to be here, worrying, helpless, sipping beer and playing poker with Otto, Skinny Jim and The Professor to pass the time.
    She was up twenty-two dollars and change, and she didn't give a damn.
    Where the hell was he?
    And who the hell did he think he was, telling her what to do, threatening to lock her in jail? He'd have done it, too, she thought as she drew the eight of clubs to fill out a very pretty full house.
    He hadn't been sweet, sad-eyed Nate when he'd stood out in the rain beside that dog. Beside poor, dead Yukon. He'd been something else, someone else. Someone she imagined he'd been back in Baltimore before circumstances had cut him off at the knees. Cut him off at the heart.
    She didn't give a damn about that either. She wouldn't give a damn.
    "See your two dollars," she said to Jim. "Raise it two." And tossed her money into the pot.
    Her mother had given Jim an hour break and was working the bar. Not that there was a lot of business, Meg thought as The Professor folded and Otto bumped her raise another two. Other than their table, there was a booth of four—Outsiders. Climbers waiting out the weather. The two old farts, Hans and Dex, had another booth, whiling away a rainy evening with beer and checkers.
    And waiting, she knew, for whatever gossip might come in the door.
    There'd be more in and out if the river rose. People coming in for a few minutes of dry and warm, ordering up coffee before they went out to sandbag again. When it was done, there'd be more. Piling in, wet and tired and hungry, but not ready to go home alone, not ready to break the camaraderie of bucking nature.
    They'd want coffee and alcohol and whatever hot meal was put in front of them. Charlene would see they got it; she'd work until the last of them were gone. Meg had seen it before.
    She tossed in two dollars to call when Jim folded.
    "Two pair," Otto announced. "Kings over fives."
    "Your kings are going to have to bow to my ladies." She set down two queens. "Seeing as they're cozied up with three eights."
    "Son of a bitch!" Otto watched the nice little pile of bills and