The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: Over the Gulf
She flies Warrick's Otter to Juneau through the rain and learns his pack loses its seat tomorrow night, then finds Annalise and Elden waiting on the dock.
"No," I said.
He didn't look surprised.
"The first one, then?"
"How much?"
"What did the Tennants pay you?"
"Nothing."
He thought about that for a second.
"Then whatever I say, it's a raise."
"Say it anyway."
"Two thousand to Juneau. Tonight. Cash when the floats touch."
I looked past him, down the shoreline.
A de Havilland Otter sat at the public tie-down, red and white, on amphibious floats with the wheels tucked up inside them.
COLDFOOT was painted on her tail in plain black letters.
"Your pilot left her here?"
"He quit at breakfast and walked to the terminal. I bought a ticket on the jet."
"And then you got off the line."
"I never got on it. I followed you."
I walked down to the Otter and put my hand on her cowling.
Cold metal. An oil streak on the belly nobody had wiped.
"Who keeps her up?"
"My sister."
I pulled the fuel caps and dipped the tanks with my own stick.
Full. Somebody up north knew her business.
"Rain over the Gulf all afternoon," I said. "Low along the coast. We stop in Yakutat for fuel."
"You're saying yes."
"I'm saying two thousand."
He climbed into the right seat without being asked.
He had to fold himself to fit.
I ran the checklist out loud, the way I always did, and he didn't interrupt once.
We were off the water at twelve-forty.
Anchorage tipped away under the wing.
The Chugach went by on our left, already white on top.
For twenty minutes he looked out the window.
Then we hit the first rain over Prince William Sound, and the Otter started to bounce.
He stopped talking.
He held the grab handle above his door with his whole hand.
His face went the color of skim milk.
I reached behind my seat and dropped a paper bag in his lap.
"What's this?"
"It's a bag."
"I don't need a bag."
"Okay."
The Otter dropped fifty feet and caught.
He opened the bag.
He didn't use it. He just held it open, ready.
"I'm not sick," he said. "I'm thinking."
"About what?"
"About lunch. I'm deciding against it."
I laughed before I could stop it.
It came out of me rusty.
He looked over, surprised, then back at the windshield fast.
"Don't make me turn my head," he said.
Over Icy Bay the rain eased.
He put the bag down on the floor, folded very neatly.
"You want to know about the second job," he said.
"No."
"I'll tell you anyway, so you can say no properly."
The rule was old.
An Alpha has to have a Luna seated beside him at the Gathering.
Three Gatherings without one, and the pack loses its seat.
The land goes into the High seat's trust.
"My father died four days after last year's Autumn Gathering," he said. "Then Midwinter. Then Summer. Tomorrow night is three."
"And then the Crewes get Coldfoot."
"The Crewes have wanted a mine road across our land for ten years. My father told them no in person. Twice."
The rain started again, lighter.
"Marry somebody from home," I said.
"Every woman in my pack is married, my sister, or the cook."
"What's wrong with the cook?"
"She's seventy. She said no first."
I bit the inside of my cheek.
"Why me? You don't even know what to call me."
He was quiet so long I thought he'd gone green again.
"A Luna sits next to her Alpha in that hall," he said. "If someone in that room gives an order, she hears it with him."
"So?"
"So if somebody orders me into a mountain, I want the one person in that hall who can't be ordered sitting next to me."
I kept my eyes on the gauges.
"Still no."
"Okay."
"You keep saying okay."
"You keep saying no."
We landed at Yakutat in a crosswind that made him close his eyes.
I fueled her myself.
He bought two coffees and a bag of beef jerky at the counter and didn't eat any of it.
"What do I call you?" he asked, when we were airborne again.
"Pilot's fine."
"Pilot."
He tried it out. It sounded worse than "you."
He didn't say anything else about it.
The last leg ran down the inside passage in the gray, with the mountains standing straight up out of the water on both sides.
Juneau came up in the last of the light, lit windows stacked up the hill.
I set her down in the channel and taxied to the float dock with the rain ticking on the glass.
He opened his door before I'd shut her down.
He stepped onto the float, swayed once, and stood very still.
"Ground's moving," he said.
"That's the dock. It floats."
"Then I'm fine."
He counted out twenty hundred-dollar bills into my hand without looking at them.
I tied her off and straightened up.
Two people were waiting at the top of the ramp under a black umbrella.
A white wool coat.
A charcoal overcoat over a suit.
Annalise had her arm through Elden Crewe's, and she was looking past me at the empty water behind the Otter.
She was waiting for the Beaver. For her gown.
Elden wasn't looking at me at all.
He was looking at Warrick, and he was smiling.
"Holloran," he said. "You came without a Luna."
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