Free Deadfall by Sue Henry Page B

It was miles to Wasilla. Had this one hiked all the way? Hitchhiked, maybe, and been dropped off somewhere on the road? In either case, it was obvious that he had no wheels of his own, or had left them somewhere.
    The figure, as he came closer, appeared to be a young man, from the way he moved and his slim build. He was wearing jeans, a jacket of characteristic Carhartt reddish brown, and adark baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. On his back he carried a large green pack that looked crammed and lumpy.
    He moved with a stride that created the impression he had been walking for some time and seemed used to the pack. Carefully avoiding puddles in the drive, he came steadily onward, stopping only when he reached the steps to the porch. There he shrugged off the pack, letting it slide onto the third step, where it would be easier to shoulder again. Raising both hands behind his head, he stretched his shoulders, then dropped his arms and turned to face the watching women.
    “Hi—Miz Arnold?” he called.
    Jessie could feel her heart hammering in her chest, and her mouth was dry. She saw Linda’s hand tighten on the stock of the shotgun. Though she hadn’t yet put a finger on the trigger, her right hand hovered close.
    “Who are you?” Jessie challenged, hearing and feeling her strained voice almost break. “What do you want?”
    The man—boy, really, she could see now as he took off his hat—stood staring at her with an unhappy, puzzled expression.
    “But you said I could come. It’s Billy…Billy Steward. Don’t you remember? You said I could help with the dogs.”
    The relief was so intense that for a minute Jessie was afraid her legs would collapse under her, and out of her whirling thoughts came a phrase her Missouri grandmother had used: “The sand went right out of her.” It was so appropriate that she barked a short, stress-releasing laugh and half choked on it.
    Taking a moment to catch her breath, she laid a restraining hand on Linda’s arm.
    “I know him. He’s one of the junior mushers I’ve been training.”
    Collecting the bucket she had dropped, she led the way across the yard, smiling apologetically at the perplexed young musher, who waited by the steps.
    “It’s okay, Billy. I’m sorry—I’d forgotten I said you could come and help. I’ve just had a few other things on my mind the last couple of days. What’s in the pack?”
    “Rope—and harness. You said you’d show me….”
    “Right. I remember. Come inside. We’ll make a cup of tea and talk about it.”
    “I’ve got to get out of here, just for a little while,” she responded to Linda’s objections a little later. “I’m going to take him back to town. Can’t let him work in the lot now, with this going on. We can all go in my truck and make a quick stop at the grocery store to get something for dinner before we come back.”
    “I thought you didn’t want to leave the dogs.”
    “I don’t, really, but I think it’ll be all right for just a short time—maybe an hour? There hasn’t been anything for two whole days. I’ll call Alex and tell him we’re going.”
    Alex answered her call from the lab in Anchorage and, after some thought, agreed to the quick trip to Wasilla.
    “Don’t be gone long,” he cautioned. “And don’t go anywhere but the Stewards’ and to Carrs for the groceries. Call me as soon as you get back, okay? Watch carefully for anything suspicious, anything that you can’t explain.”
    They locked the cabin and left the shotgun in its place on the wall, but Jessie took along the Smith and Wesson .44 that she carried with her when she was training or racing sled dogs. Moose were a hazard all mushers learned to avoid when possible, since they could devastate a harnessed team with their hooves if they weren’t stopped. But more than that, the handgun was security. One very like it had saved her life once during an Iditarod race.
    Linda and Billy were quiet as Jessie started her truck and swung it