Fire and Rain: A Wildest Alaska Novel Read online

  Mila ended her call and walked up the stairs in three-inch heels, a big smile on her bright red lips. “Hey, Eden.”

  Eden held the door for her, not bothering to return the smile. “Mila.”

  Mila held up a shopping bag. “I bought some new clothes for your little man.”

  Born three years apart, Mila and Eden had played together as kids and had gotten along—provided Eden did everything Mila’s way. Things hadn’t changed much since then. Mila was now a mother of two school-aged kids. Her husband, Charlie, worked on an off-shore oil rig in Prudhoe Bay, earning enough money that she was free to spend her days volunteering in the community—and meddling in other people’s lives.

  Eden shut the door.

  “Is that your helicopter?” Her mother sat on the floor next to Maverick.

  “Daddy fwy copta.”

  That’s what Eden used to tell Maverick any time they played with these blocks. She closed her eyes, fighting a rush of grief. “I haven’t had a shower today. Can you watch Maverick?”

  “Of course!”

  Eden walked to the bathroom, locked the door behind her, and turned on the water. Then she undressed, stepped into the spray, and let the tears come.

  I can’t do this without you, Justin. It hurts too much. When will it get easier?

  She leaned against the wall and wept until the hot water ran out. Only then did she realize that she hadn’t washed. She quickly shampooed and conditioned her hair and washed her face and body, the cold somehow calling her back to herself. Then she turned off the water and dried herself with a warm towel.

  A quick glance in the mirror told her she wouldn’t fool anyone. Her mother and Mila would see her red eyes and know she’d been crying. Her mother would understand, but Mila…

  Who cares what she thinks?

  Towel wrapped around her naked body, Eden walked out of the bathroom and hurried across the hall to her bedroom, where she found the light on and Mila taking Justin’s clothes out of the bedroom closet.

  For a moment, Eden stood there, mouth open, stunned.

  Mila saw her and smiled. “I thought I could help you sort through this. I can take it all to St. Mary’s—unless you can think of a better place. I’m not sure what to do with his uniforms. Does the Coast Guard have a place to recycle them?”

  Eden’s face burned with rage, her pulse thrumming. “Put it back—all of it. Now! You have no right to touch his things or go through our closet.”

  Mila looked surprised. “I’m just trying to help. You’ll need to do this eventually. It’s been three months, so—”

  “If I wanted your help, I’d ask for it. The man I love is dead!” Tears rushed into Eden’s eyes. “You don’t get to tell me how to handle my grief. Put his things back. Now!”

  “Okay. Fine.” Mila began to hang Justin’s clothes back in the closet. “You can’t keep this stuff forever.”

  “It’s not your business what I do with his things. Quit trying to run other people’s lives.” Eden dressed in the bathroom then found her mother sitting wide-eyed on the sofa, the new clothes Mila had bought Maverick folded neatly beside her.

  Her mother looked up at her through pleading eyes, her voice a whisper. “She means well. She bought Maverick some really cute clothes.”

  “I didn’t ask her to do that,” Eden whispered back. “What right does she have to go through Justin’s things? Next time she tries to tag along, just say no. I mean it. I don’t want her in my house.”

  “I’m really sorry, Eden. I know this is hard. I went through the same thing when your father died. Do you want us to go? We came to cheer you up.”

  “I need support, not cheering up. The man I love is dead. My life will never be the same. If you want to help, ask what I need. Don’t let her barge in and take over.”

  Why was that so hard to understand?

  Mila walked into the living room. “Aunt Lydia, I think we should go. I’m not sure Eden is really in the mood for company today.”

  In the mood for company?

  Eden fought to keep her teeth together.

  Eden’s mother got to her feet, bent down, and kissed Maverick. “Baba’s going now, sweet boy. I’ll see you again soon.”

  A few moments later, Eden watched them drive away, feeling both angry and guilty, the day darker than it had been before they’d come.

  Sean sat shirtless on a bench in the men’s locker room, cold pack on his aching shoulder and bicep. He’d made it through the fitness assessment and had surpassed the minimum requirements—but not without pain.

  The locker room door opened, and Captain Walcott entered, clipboard in his hand.

  Sean stood.

  “As you were.” Captain Walcott glanced at the clipboard. “I was just reading through the results of your assessment. You did well—better than I expected.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re having some pain now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain nodded. “When you’re done here, stop by my office.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Walcott turned and left.

  Ten minutes later, Sean knocked on his office door. “Reporting as asked, sir.”

  “Yes. Please, take a seat.” Captain Walcott glanced down at his clipboard. “I’ve spoken with the Critical Incident Stress Management Team and medical. They say you’ve put forth substantial effort and are healing well. What are your thoughts about returning to duty?”

  Sean had anticipated this question, and he thought he knew the answer Walcott wanted. But he couldn’t lie. “I know what it takes to control the hoist line and to pull a two-hundred-pound man on a litter inside the cabin. I don’t believe my arm is sufficiently strong again to do that job without risk to me or to the people we rescue. Not yet.”

  For some reason, Captain Walcott looked pleased. “I appreciate the honesty of your answer, and, after talking with your team, I agree. We don’t want you to reinjure yourself, and we don’t want your arm to fail during a critical moment in an evolution.”

  “No, sir.” Sean didn’t want that, either.

  He didn’t want any more deaths on his hands.

  “As you know, I recommended you for advancement before the incident. Your scores from Leadership and Management School were outstanding. You’ve nailed your RPQs and your EPME. You’ll sit for the exam next week, and I expect you to do well.”

  Sean had to fight to keep the smile off his face, remembering his conversation with Eden about military alphabet soup. RPQs were Rating Performance Qualifications, while EPMEs referred to Enlisted Professional Military Education. Then he remembered that he and Justin had planned to take the exam together, and any urge to laugh vanished. “Yes, sir.”

  “In the meantime, I’m putting you back on active duty, but not on a flight crew. Leavitt is about to take a month of leave—three weeks of paternity leave and a week’s vacation. I’d like you to take his post while he’s out. We’ll see how well the shoe fits.”

  Dalton Leavitt was one rank above Sean, an E6—petty officer first class. He went out with flight crews when needed, but he played more of a training and managerial role in the shop, helping new AETs master their qualifications.

  Captain Walcott went on. “Some of the newer guys are pretty green, and none of them has your electrical engineering degree. You know the electronics on the helos as well, if not better, than anyone here. This will give you a chance to strengthen your leadership skills while we wait for the outcome of your exam. It will also give that arm a little more time to heal. You’ll start tomorrow. Report to Leavitt at zero six hundred hours.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sean stood.

  “These past three months have been hard for all of us here at Air Station Kodiak, but they’ve been especially hard for you, and, of course, Koseki’s widow and child. You’ve handled it as well as anyone could.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The captain’s words made him feel like a fraud.

  The incident was th
e first thing on his mind every day and the last thing on his mind as he fell asleep at night.

  “You should know that our investigators and drug interdiction team are still working with local, state, and federal law enforcement to arrest anyone associated with the Marjorie T and meth smuggling here on the island. They won’t give up.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Sean wanted anyone associated with any potential meth ring to be arrested, though nothing would bring Justin or David back.

  “One last thing.” Captain Walcott looked up at him, brow furrowed with curiosity. “I’ve always wondered why you chose to enlist. With that degree and your aptitude, you could have gone to OCS and started your career as an officer. You could still go to OCS if you wanted.”

  Sean had no interest in Officer Candidate School. “I wanted to be part of a flight crew, sir. It seemed to me that an officer’s commission would take me out of the sky and land me in an office. I’m doing my dream job—or I was until the incident.”

  “True enough. Very well. We’ll see you early tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sean left the captain’s office and walked back to the locker room to get his gear, overwhelmed by a need to get away.

  He carried his gear back to his room, put on a pair of hiking boots, and got his daypack together—water, rain gear, bear spray, energy bars. Then he headed out, climbed into his vehicle, and drove the short distance to the trailhead behind the Loran Building. He shouldered his pack and started up the trail to Old Woman Mountain.

  Sean had already gotten his workout for the day, so he set out at an easy pace, willing himself to let everything go. The crash. His sense of guilt. The dream. As he moved uphill, mud squishing beneath his boots, fresh air filling his lungs, some of the tension left him.

  Overhead, a pair of eagles soared against a blue backdrop. Though the fog from this morning had mostly lifted, the light had a misty quality about it, a breeze blowing from the east, the air carrying the scent of spruce, salt spray, and moist earth. Around him, everything was green, and some plants were in flower.

  Not that Sean knew much about the flora. He could tell a Sitka spruce from an alder and a birch, and he could identify fireweed by its bright purple flowers, but that was about it. A Boy Scout he was not.

  He came to a bend in the trail and spotted a dark-haired woman walking through a meadow off to his left, a basket on her arm. It took a moment before he realized it was Eden and that she had Maverick with her. She knelt, picked something from the ground, and showed it to her son, who took it from her and sniffed it.

  Sean hesitated, unsure whether he’d ruin the moment for Eden if he said hello. Then again, he couldn’t very well head up the trail without saying something.

  “Out for an adventure?” He kept walking slowly.

  If she wanted to talk, she’d let him know. If she just waved at him, he’d continue on his way without bothering her.

  Eden turned, waved—and walked toward him, Maverick beside her.

  Chapter Three

  Eden found herself smiling as Sean left the trail and walked through the meadow toward them. “Out for a hike?”

  “I thought I’d get some fresh air.”

  After what had happened this morning with Mila, Eden had needed the same thing. “It’s a good day for that.”

  His gaze shifted to her basket. “Are you out for a picnic?”

  Eden tousled Mavie’s hair. “We’re foraging.”

  “Foraging.” Sean repeated the word as if he’d never heard it.

  She held up her basket. “We’re harvesting wild foods for supper—whatever we can find. The mountains are better than Safeway. There are all kinds of good things here for food and medicine—nettles, fireweed, fiddlehead ferns, claytonia, salmonberry shoots.”

  Sean knelt, looked at the shoot in Maverick’s hand. “What have you got there?”

  “Sambewwy.” Maverick held it up.

  Sean took it, sniffed. “What do you do with it?”

  Eden laughed at his expression. “I usually pickle them or use them in stir-fries.”

  Eden showed him the patch of salmonberries she’d found and harvested a few more shoots, which she let Maverick place in a paper bag. “I don’t pick many shoots in any one area because that means fewer berries. I come back for leaves in a few weeks and for berries later in the summer. I make the berries into jam. You’ve eaten it.”

  “I have?” He chuckled. “Can I help?”

  She was hoping he’d ask. “I’d like that.”

  They moved across the meadow. Eden showed both Maverick and Sean how to find and identify the edible plants, sharing the knowledge she’d been given, tucking the harvested leaves and shoots into different paper lunch sacks for easier sorting later.

  “Always use gloves to harvest nettles.”

  “You can tell wild onion because its leaves are flat and because it smells like onion. If it doesn’t smell like onion, it’s not wild onion but death camas.”

  “Once you know which plants grow in which environments, you know what to look for in a sunny meadow or the edge of a stream or the forest.”

  They moved toward the edge of a damp, forested area where Eden found claytonia, watermelon berry sprouts, docks, and one of her favorites—fiddlehead fern.

  Maverick stuck a fiddlehead in his mouth, grimaced at the texture of the chaff.

  Sean nodded. “My thoughts exactly, little dude. You can eat this?”

  Eden couldn’t help but laugh as she took the fiddlehead from Mavie. “You remove the chaff first. I put them in the dryer inside a sleeping bag sack and run it on the fluff cycle until the chaff is gone. Have supper with us tonight. I’ll make nettle pesto.”

  She hadn’t planned to say that. The words had just popped out.

  One eyebrow arched. “Nettle pesto? Okay. You’re on.”

  Sean carried Maverick on his shoulders as they made their way back down the trail to the parking lot. Then he climbed into her vehicle, Maverick falling asleep on the short drive home. While Eden carried Maverick inside and put him in his crib to finish his nap, Sean carried her basket. She found him standing in the kitchen, peeking into each of the bags.

  “Where did you learn all of this? Is it one of those Kodiak things?”

  “More of an Alaska thing.” Eden put on gloves, scooped the nettles, and dropped them into a colander to rinse them. “My Alutiiq grandmother taught me, but my ancestors survived this way. My mother and I used to forage a few times a week when I was a little girl. Nature provides—if you know what you’re doing.”

  He glanced around the kitchen. “Can I help?”

  “Want to get some salmon out of the fridge to grill?”

  While he fired up the grill, Eden steamed the nettle leaves and then put them into cold water. Then she ran them through a food processor with walnuts, garlic, and lemon juice, adding olive oil until she had the consistency she wanted. When that was done, she handed a small bowl of the pesto to Sean along with a basting brush. “To coat the salmon.”

  He sniffed, eyebrows shooting up. “You got it.”

  In thirty minutes, she had pasta with nettle pesto and a salad of wild onion, claytonia, docks, and watermelon berry shoots sitting on the table with a lemon dressing. It had been so long since she’d cooked a real meal, and something about it made her feel more like herself.

  Clinging to that feeling, she got out a bottle of chilled chardonnay and two glasses and set them on the table, too. Maverick was awake now, talking to himself in his crib, so she changed him and got him into his highchair while Sean finished with the salmon. Soon, the three of them sat around the table.

  “Here we are again, hey, Maverick?” Sean smiled. “But this looks much tastier than a Safeway chicken.”

  “I hope you like it. Everything but the pasta, olive oil, and lemon was harvested here.”

  He seemed impressed. “The salmon, too?”

  Eden spread her napkin on her lap. “Justin caught that last time you two…”
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  It was like being ambushed. One moment, she’d felt almost normal, and the next…

  Shadows flitted through Sean’s eyes. “Our last fishing trip for winter kings.”

  Eden swallowed the lump in her throat, poured the wine. “Yes.”

  Sean raised his glass. “To Kodiak.”

  “To Kodiak.”

  Sean set his glass aside and served Eden salmon. He’d seen the color drain from her face when their conversation had naturally brought them around to Justin. He’d felt it too—that pang in the heart. “Will Maverick want some?”

  “I’ll give him some of mine.” Eden took a few small pieces of salmon from her own plate, along with pasta and a little salad. “He’s not crazy about the greens, but he loves salmon and pasta.”

  As if to prove his mother’s point, Maverick picked up a piece of fish and mashed it into his mouth with a flat palm.

  Sean couldn’t help but chuckle. “That was efficient. You really do love salmon, don’t you, buddy?”

  “Oh, he does—even roe.”

  “Smart boy.” Sean speared some of the salad. “Here goes. Kodiak weed salad.”

  There was an explosion of crisp flavors on his tongue, a tang of succulent leaves, lemon, and something that tasted like cucumber but wasn’t.

  Eden laughed softly. “You look surprised.”

  He chewed, swallowed. “That’s really good.”

  “I’m glad you like it. Try the pesto.”

  He took a bite of the pasta next, the earthy taste of nettles blending with the walnuts, olive oil, and pasta. “Delicious.”

  The pesto tasted even better on the grilled king salmon. And for a moment, Sean ate with gusto, completely forgetting his manners. He glanced up to find Eden watching him, the hint of a smile on her lips. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you like it.”

  He dabbed his lips on his napkin. “What else do you harvest from the hills?”

  “All kinds of berries—salmonberries, cranberries, lingonberries, thimbleberries, blueberries, huckleberries, spruce buds. There are medicines, too, like devil’s club, yarrow, and willow.”