Free A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow Page B

boss came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “We’re outa here, Mac.”
    “What?”
    “The federal government’s stopped the pipeline until they satisfy environmental concerns and native claims.” His boss sighted on a piece of drill pipe and spat disgustedly.
    When Nixon signed the TransAlaska Pipeline Act in 1973 and got the pipeline project back on track, there were resident environmentalists crouched protectively over every foot of prospective pipe-laying. It was almost more than Mac Devlin could bear, but the money was so good he stuck with it until pipeline construction was complete in 1977, when he told Alyeska Pipeline Service Corporation, his current employer, to go piss up a rope, took his savings and bought out some marginal gold mining claims in the Park. He fought off the depredations of d-2, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, to maintain a going concern and retired Outside to wait for the price of gold to come back up.
    It had, eventually, and now Mac Devlin was back in the Park, agitating for permission to expand his operations. He refused to hire locally, he bought his supplies in Seattle, he even flew his employees Outside for their R-and-Rs, all of which made him less than popular with the people of Niniltna. Mac’s miners were the main reason for the presence of the baseball bat behind the bar of the Roadhouse, as well over half the fights there began between a MacMiner and any local who happened to be (a) out of work and (b) present.
    Passing all this under rapid review, Kate said casually, “I thought it was the EPA who stopped your operation.”
    “Yeah, it was, but that little prick Miller was who turned me in. If I ever catch up to him, I’m going to take him outside and see how high he can bounce.”
    “That may be difficult, Mac.”
    Mac laughed heartily. “Have you seen that little prick, Kate?”
    “No,” she said. “Nobody has, for the last six weeks. He’s gone missing. You wouldn’t happen to know where, would you?”
    “Missing? The hell you say.” And then the intent of the rest of her words hit him. Mac said slowly, his eyes narrowing, “Why would I know anything about some punk ranger being missing?”
    Kate shrugged. “Just a passing question.” She met his eyes, and said softly, “Have you got an answer for me?”
    Mac stared at her, his brown eyes lacking their usual veneer of merriment. “What are you doing here, Kate?” he said, his voice very soft.
    “I’m looking for the little prick ranger, of course,” she said calmly. “And for the Anchorage D.A.’s investigator that came up here looking for him two weeks ago. He’s missing, too.”
    Mac said nothing. Kate kept her face impassive.
    It was at that moment she became aware of a distant rumbling. Noise in the bar died down as others became aware of it, too. The ground began to shake and rumble in a rhythmic fashion. “Earthquake?” Kate called to Bernie.
    “I don’t think so,” he started to say, but “Earthquake!” someone else screamed, and the rest was madness. Half a dozen people jammed themselves in the doorway, all of them trying to get through it at the same time, blocking exit to the thirty or so other patrons yelling and shoving ineffectually behind them. Bernie hotfooted it down to the end of the bar and looked out the window. “I thought so,” he said, and had to shout it again to make Kate hear him over the yells of alarm filling the room. “It’s not an earthquake. Look.”
    Kate, seeing that there was no way past the bodies that jammed the doorway, shrugged and came to peer over his shoulder.
    Drawing up outside the Roadhouse was a bright yellow D-9 Caterpillar tractor. It had tracks over two feet wide and weighed about thirty tons and, with its 250-horsepower engine, had a top speed of six to seven miles an hour. Six to seven miles an hour pushing Mt. St. Elias in front of it, that is. It was standard operating equipment for excavations on the