Free Dark Witness by Rebecca Forster

put his hand upon the Bible, gave thanks for Pea's guidance, and prayed that he was a worthy servant. He wrote down the verses exactly as he heard them, set the paper aside for reference, and opened the book.
     
    Hebrew 13: 2
    Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
    Leviticus 25: 35-38:
    If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he was a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.
    Jeremiah: 22 :
    Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. For if you are careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people. But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.
     
    Duncan didn't know how long he had been studying the book, but suddenly he was aware that the cold in the tiny room had become tortuous. He shook himself like a wet dog, envying Pea her constant state of Within . How wonderful it would be to never feel anything. Duncan shut the Bible just as he heard the crackling and buzzing of the ancient radio. He smiled more broadly and put on the headphones. God and the radio were both chatty today.
    He heard nothing more than a trucker talk to his dispatcher about the meat he was carrying to Anchorage. Pity he was so far out of the way. Duncan would have liked steak. He took off the headphones and made a mental note to ask Robert what else was in the truck. Surely it was more than human cargo. After all, that was why Duncan had sent him out to look in the first place.
    Duncan left the backroom of the store the same way he had come. He walked across the compound, through the cold, the light snow and the wind. All the while, the words he had read were like neon in his brain, like a dry bush burning bright, like lightning striking: hospitality to angels. . .if a brother becomes poor he shall live with you. . .do no harm to foreigners and the King will ride through the gates . . . harm them and God will ruin this place.
    By the time Duncan went into the main house his step was lighter. He always felt better when there was something important to do. He felt better still when he saw the congregation gathered around the dinner table waiting for him.
    Waiting just for him.
     

CHAPTER 7
    The seven-dog team pulled Andre Guillard's sled smoothly across the early snow that blanketed Denali Park. In the distance, Denali, the mountain itself, rose majestically. It, too, was covered in white. The weather had turned mid-September, which was unusual but not strange. Most of the people who had won lottery tickets to drive the one road that wound through the great park had not made it as far as Savage River because of the unseasonable snowfall. Andre needed neither permit nor car to travel here. Every inch of Denali – and then some – was in his care. He was an Alaskan State Trooper whose job it was to keep peace in what appeared to be a perpetually peaceful land.
    Which it was not.
    Dark days of winter made people fickle and fearsome or just downright crazy. Some were happy to hibernate and wait out the snow; but some were gripped with cabin fever and massacred each other over how the fire was stoked. Add to that the problems with poachers, subsistence hunters without licenses, and rescue missions, and winter was a trooper's challenge. At the moment, though, Andre wasn't challenged at all. It was almost sinful that what he was doing was considered work.
    "Gee!" he called to the dogs and they turned right at his command.
    "Haw!" he called again and they went left, landing back on track, responding as if they and the sled were one living thing.
    Andre had not been raised in Alaska. He migrated there when he