The Singing of the Dead by Dana Stabenow Page A

had loved her, had followed her into the wilderness, and had not come out again.
    “Look out for Johnny for me, okay?”
    She waited until Jack's son had regained some of his composure, carefully not looking at him while he did so. The books on the shelves looked dusty. Usually she had them out so often they never sat in one place long enough to gather dust. “And then there's school,” she said. “You'll need money for college.”
    His head came up and he said, voice steadier, “Dad had an education insurance policy. Not that it matters, because I'm not going to college anyway.”
    “Really,” she said. “You're not going to college?”
    “No. I hate school. Everybody there's a bunch of do-nothings and fuck-offs. They're not learning anything. They're just hot-rodding around, drinking, doing dope, chasing girls, and stealing radios out of cars.”
    “I—what?”
    “I'll keep going until I'm sixteen,” he said, jaw coming out. “Dad explained, the law says I have to go until then. But after that I don't have to, and I won't.”
    “And you were planning on doing what, instead?”
    “I don't know yet,” he said. “Fish, maybe. Commercially. Or guide. Or subsistence. Like you.”
    Kate closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again. “You don't want to work that hard, Johnny.”
    “Why not? You do.” He nodded at the cabin. “And you're doing fine.”
    “I'm not getting rich at it.”
    “Yeah, but you're not starving, either. Neither will I.”
    She stared at him.
    “So we don't need any money,” he said. “You don't have to go on this job, and I don't have to leave the homestead.”
    “Yeah,” she said, “we do, I do, and you have to.”
    “I won't.”
    “You will,” she said through her teeth, “if I have to pick you up and carry you.”
    “I'll run away,” he said. “I don't want to live in Niniltna.”
    “You have to go to school; you just told me you knew that yourself.”
    “I'll commute,” he said. “I can ride a bike in until it snows and then I can ride a snowmobile. You did.”
    “You're not staying here by yourself,” she said distinctly.
    “Why not?” he demanded, words straight and sure as an arrow. “You did.”
    They glared at each other.
    Standoff.
    When no one answered the front door, Kate went around to the back, Johnny trailing reluctantly behind. She found Ethan seated on a kitchen chair balanced on its hind legs with its back against the corrugated plastic of the greenhouse wall, shooting slugs off the late crop of red cabbage with a BB gun. On the ground at his right was a twelve-pack of Corona, a lime, and a paring knife. On the ground at his left was a Rottweiler with a slobbery grin and a lordly sense of his own dignity. He rose to his feet and paced forward to touch noses with Mutt. Nobody wagged any tails but nobody growled, either. “Hey, Gort,” Kate said, and got a head shoved beneath her hand in reply.
    Around the corner came Gort's twin sister. “Hey, Klaatu,” Kate said. Klaatu touched noses with Mutt, used the rest of her energy for a perfunctory tail wag, and flopped down in Gort's vacated shade with a voluptuous moan.
    Pop! went the BB gun, and another shiny, slimy black slug fell from a leaf, which was mostly holes by then.
    “Hey, Ethan,” Kate said.
    “Kate,” he said without looking around. Pop! went the BB gun, thud went another slug, and in celebration Ethan drained the bottle in his left hand.
    “This is Johnny Morgan,” Kate said. “Johnny, this is Ethan Int-Hout. Abel was his dad.”
    Johnny looked Ethan over with no visible approval and didn't bother to say “Hi.” Ethan looked back and didn't bother to say “Hi” back.
    Kate walked over to the twelve-pack and looked inside. There were ten bottles left.
    Ethan did look at her then. Seated, his eyes were level with hers, a direct, piercing blue. His hawk-featured face was set, and his rare, warm smile was not around that morning. He hadn't bothered to shave, not for days,