down the hall.
* * *
Cutter located Lola right away, even in a sea of other people with jet-black hair. She stood at the far end of the gym, next to a table with two stainless-steel coffee urns and an orange insulated water jug. Her jacket was unzipped, allowing quick and easy access to her pistol. Her hands hung loose and relaxed at her sides. She spoke with a Native woman wearing jeans and a blue fleece jacket over her kuspuk. Cutter couldn’t see the woman’s face, but he was sure it was Daisy Aguthluk. Ned Jasper stood quietly to one side.
Lola nodded politely, listening to what Aguthluk was saying. She glanced up when Cutter was still halfway across the gym. Her arm stayed down by her side, but she lifted her hand slightly, warning them not to approach. Cutter reached to touch the judge by the elbow, but he shrugged it off and plowed ahead like a moth to a flame.
Aguthluk caught the look in Lola’s eyes and turned, arms folded staunchly across her chest. She was in her late fifties, maybe even sixty, which added another layer of difficulty to the mix. If she did decide to take violent action, the headline would be DEPUTY MARSHALS SLAM ELDERLY NATIVE WOMAN IN SCHOOL GYMNASIUM BRAWL. Hell, there would be videos on YouTube as soon as it happened.
Lola took a half step forward, blading her body so she could pounce if Aguthluk moved for a weapon under her fleece. Cutter felt the white-hot rush of adrenaline down his arms. He took a deep, cleansing breath to keep his movements fluid, and then crowded in close so he was just a few inches from the judge.
If there was ever a time to get underfoot, this was it.
Markham cleared his throat, sounding authoritative as ever. He looked the woman dead in the eye.
“Mrs. Aguthluk,” he said, still walking.
Her face was pinched, eyes narrowed, mouth a tight line.
The judge stopped just five feet away. All his usual bluster had bled out of him. Standing before this squat Native woman who had very likely been the person who threatened to carve out his beating heart, he seemed to wilt, not from fear, but from shame.
Aguthluk gave him a slight dip of her head. “Yes?”
“I am Anthony Markham,” he said. “I owe you and your family an apology.”
CHAPTER 24
Morgan Kilgore heard the gunshot about the time that he set the girl’s crooked jaw. She was a big girl, apparently able to handle a lot. He hoped so, because this little dance was far from over. It wasn’t her fault she married a spineless punk who’d left Rick’s son to die in the mountains. But she was up to her neck in it now, especially since Kilgore had to leave her alone in the cabin with his partner. Rick Halcomb wasn’t the gentlest of souls, not by a long shot. Even odds whether she’d still be alive when he got back. That would be a waste. Shameless, really. But like Kilgore’s dad always said, Sometimes, it just bees that way.
Kilgore couldn’t let the opportunity of a gunshot pass, even if his leaving did drop the girl in the grease.
A gunshot meant hunters, and hunters meant food—not just the meat they brought down, but the supplies they packed in with them on the hunt. Morgan Kilgore was particularly interested in coffee. Like plundering guerillas living off the land, he planned to hunt down the hunters and get him some, even if it was that instant mud stuff. He and Rick had never planned on the river freezing up, not in October, which meant they’d run out of important supplies the day before. They were supposed to get more, but that had yet to show up, and Kilgore’s head felt like somebody was driving a spike through it.
He picked his way across the spongy ground, taking the only route possible by following an old game trail along a meandering river. If there was a hunter out here, the places he could walk or ride would be limited too, so Kilgore figured his chances were good they’d run into each other eventually. He didn’t have to worry about snapping twigs or crunching leaves. The ground was too wet for that. Ice crystals laced the moss and feathery lichen. It was snowing now, and pockets of the stuff stuck here and there in the shadow of a rock or willow scrub. But nothing frozen enough to walk on. Every step made