Feather From a Stranger Read online

  “Now, you saw how I did that,” Kyle told, rather than asked her. “Just do the reverse to take ‘em off.”

  Mara stepped outside of her vehicle to let Kyle show her exactly what he had done. She climbed back into her rig as Kyle continued, “You might need to put ‘em on again up in the Yukon, but if there is good snow pack, you should be okay with the tires you got on. Don't worry about the clunky ride, that's normal. Remember, keep it under thirty.”

  “Thanks. I will.” Mara told Kyle before driving off at a snail's pace.

  The chains clunked as she continued to work her way up another steep grade that was almost as bad as the last one. She could feel the chains grip the road and help pull her up the hill. Not until reaching the border and seeing that the terrain was indeed fairly level, did she relax.

  Turning into the parking area for Canadian Customs, she got out and unhooked the chains in just the way Kyle had told her. Backing up, she drove off them, put her SUV in park and retrieved the chains from the ground, silently thanking Kyle for his help.

  “Afternoon, Ma'am,” a uniformed custom agent said as she pulled her vehicle up to the drive-through window. “Why are you visiting Canada?”

  Mara resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the absurd question. She was tired and the question felt annoying and unnecessary. According to Milepost, this was the only road into Alaska and part of the infamous Alcan—better known as the Alaska Highway. As far as she knew, there was no other way into or out of Alaska except by air.

  “I don't know. I was just bored for something to do; that's why I uprooted myself, spent the last three days traveling here by land and sea, losing my wedding ring, finding it again and receiving ominous messages from strangers, you moron,” she muttered when the agent stepped away for a moment.

  “Excuse me,” the agent said, leaning closer to hear.

  “I'm in the process of moving to Alaska,” Mara answered out loud.

  “I'm going to need to see your ID and examine your supplies,” the agent told her. “Pull off to the side, please.”

  Mara had heard that customs officials would randomly search incoming vehicles. She told herself that maybe the break in travel would calm her nerves as she pulled her SUV off to the side.

  “Step out of the vehicle, please,” the agent said authoritatively.

  Mara did as instructed. Too tired to even protest the disruption in her carefully organized packing, she watched the agent open her rear door and systematically unload everything from the back of her SUV. Forty minutes later, she had packed it all back in and received clearance to proceed, relieved that the agent had not mentioned the feather while he was rifling through her belongings. She didn't want to have to try to explain its origin or, worse yet, be ordered to leave it behind. As far as she had been able to determine, Canadian regulations about importation were ambiguous, which made it hard for travelers to know what to expect. She had read that the border agents had a great deal of discretionary power. She saw no need to mention the feather now. Besides, it had been in plain view, lying near the bottom of the bag where its presence would have been obvious. The inspection had been otherwise thorough. The agent, she reasoned, must have seen it and determined that it was not a problem.

  Before walking away, the agent stopped and spoke.

  “You have obviously given a lot of thought to your safety,” he said. “I wish everyone were as well equipped as you are. Sure would make a Mounties’ job easier.”

  Mara answered a surprised, “Thank you,” taken aback that someone had actually noticed her efforts to plan her trip carefully, especially this person who she had determined to be an annoying pain. She decided to acknowledge to herself that he had only been doing his job and not trying to hassle her.

  She had taken pains to come well equipped. It was February and this was a sub-arctic zone. Early research had shown her that although this sparsely populated area was well travelled in the summer, winter was an entirely different story. With Milepost listing services an average of one hundred miles apart, she had realized during the planning for this trip that she need to be prepared. She had learned from travelling the Amazon that, without gear, she would be no match for the weather if she broke down. She would have felt safer with Brad's twelve-gauge shotgun, but Canadian regulations were strict and she had chosen to avoid the hassles of having to declare it at customs. Instead, she had left it behind in a locked storage vault at a security firm where a trusted friend of Brad's worked. The friend had said something about sending it out to have some work done on it about a week before she left anyway, so she wouldn't have had access to it if she wanted to. She would, instead, have it shipped to her later.

  Among her supplies, she had the recommended amount of cash in American dollars, two credit cards, her birth certificate, two pieces of picture ID, as well as her passport. Additionally, in a large box she carried essential cold weather survival gear. This included a good snow shovel, a box of matches, a package of fire starters, a candle, a heavy sleeping bag rated to sixty below, commercially prepared dried food packets, a portable water filtration system, flares, a tow rope, two extra tires, and a flashlight with extra batteries. She also had a cell phone with a car charger, a combination battery/jumper cables/ signaling device, four gallons of bottle water, as well as an extra bottle of antifreeze for her vehicle.

  “Enjoy your stay in Canada,” the agent said, waving her ahead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Canada

  MARA DROVE AWAY FROM THE LOG CUSTOM'S BUILDING AND ONTO THE Alaska Highway entering British Columbia. The first turnout she came to offered a panoramic view of the greatest expanse of land she had ever seen. The snow covered mountains rolled one after the other into an endless greatness unlike anything she had ever seen before. It felt good to stretch her legs here and she lingered longer than planned before moving on. By the time the day was done, she had entered the high mountain passes of the Yukon Territory.

  Steep white sides rose straight up from the shoulders of the road where a tunnel had been sliced through fifteen feet of snow. In the intense sun, Mara could see the shadow of her vehicle moving on the snow walls alongside her. She stopped long enough to take a picture of its dark silhouette against the white backdrop. The sky was a clear, deep, blue, and even her darkest pair of sunglasses did little to cut the endless glare. Although the temperature readout on her rear view mirror now read minus twenty degrees, it felt warmer.

  Several times she stopped to take walks along the peaceful road. She shed her down jacket, which was too bulky for the sunny, still afternoon. Walking in total comfort, she wore only jeans, a light sweater, socks, gloves and winter mocs for warmth. By the time she had passed through Haines Junction and reached the tiny town of Kluane at the lower end of Destruction Bay it was dusk. There, she checked into the only motel in town and shut down for the night.

  Wandering the next morning into the restaurant next to the gas station across the parking area from the motel, she sat for several minutes trying to get the attention of the waitress. Hungry and in need of a strong cup of coffee, she was becoming increasingly irritated at the lack of response from the waitress who all but ignored her in favor of re-stocking the gift cabinets near the front of the room. Resisting the urge to complain, she walked outside to get some gas. Maybe the waitress would be more attentive when she came back in after filling her tank.

  After sliding her credit card into the slot on the gas pump, she was startled to turn and see a craggy-looking attendant inches from where she stood. Unkempt tufts of gray hair hung out from under his tattered stocking cap and framed his ruddy, scowling face. When he wiped his hands down the front of his dark brown coveralls, it was impossible to tell where the old grease stains met the new.

  “That's my job,” he barked, yanking the hose from her grasp with one hand, and wrestling the gas cap loose with the other.

  “Cheap, blastin’ American cars,” he grumbled, spitting on the ground, then wiping his mouth with his sleeve.


  Repelled by the brown stains she saw on his teeth when he spat, Mara tried not to look directly at him as he continued his rant.

  “Why d'ya wanna drive one o’ these pieces a junk anyway—you Americans are all alike with these damn piles a worthless steel. Makes a guy wanna just hang up the closed sign and just let you all fend for your stupid foreign selves, though I know none o’ ya spoiled pansies could even if ya wanted to, and even if'n ya had a guidebook to show you how. Stupidest bunch o’….”

  The sound of a man's voice cut him off mid sentence, “Why don't you just give the lady her gas, Ben, so she can go inside?”

  Ben gave an exasperated wave at the man who had walked up behind Mara, and grumbled under his breath while he fiddled with putting the gas cap back on. Mara turned, surprised to see Doug Williams standing behind her. Sitting behind the steering wheel in Doug's truck was Thor. Escorted by the man who had found her ring, Mara entered the warmth of the restaurant.

  “I'm sure glad to see a friendly face,” she told Cap, looking back at the still muttering Ben.

  Noticing her exasperation, Cap said, “I get a little tired of Ben getting ornery with his customers. He's been cranky like that for all the years I've been passing through here. I guess he figures he can act any way he wants since he's got the only service station for a hundred miles in either direction. He's probably mad because his assistant isn't in yet.”

  “Kyle'll be here in a couple of hours,” Cap called over to Ben who had just come inside. “He and I just pulled about four cars out of the ditch down by Haines and he was going back into town to get his chains before heading up this way.”

  Ben grumbled something unintelligible before opening the door to head back outside.

  “Get those windows and check the fluids while you're out there, too, would ya Ben?”

  Mara was struck by the way the orders given by Cap sounded gentler than the same words would have been coming from somebody else.

  “Thanks again for the help,” she told him. “I was getting worried that I was going to have to forget about breakfast this morning—and maybe even gas.”

  “Mind if I join you?” Cap asked, not waiting for her to answer as the two sat down at one of the many open tables. “I'm pretty hungry myself.”

  “Why, no—of course not—please do,” Mara fumbled, embarrassed that she hadn't spared him from having to ask.

  Within minutes the waitress appeared to take their order.

  “I'll take two eggs, sausage, a tall stack of pancakes, wheat toast, and a large orange juice,” Mara said, handing her menu to the expressionless woman taking her order.

  “That it?” the woman said without looking up.

  “I'll have the same, Berta,” Cap said without waiting for the waitress to ask.

  Berta returned a few minutes later, plopping two glasses of ice water down on the table along with two bundles of silverware wrapped in paper napkins.

  “How'd you say you wanted them eggs?” she asked Cap, again not bothering to make eye contact.

  “Over easy,” he answered.

  “You, too?” she said to Mara, shifting from one foot to the other without looking up from the pad she was writing on.

  “Make mine scrambled,” Mara responded, resisting the urge to snipe at the downright bitchy waitress. She was secretly happy that she had always been able to indulge her healthy appetite without fear of putting on extra weight. Besides, she reasoned, she was smart to order a big meal like this that would last her throughout the day—just in case the rest of the people in the Yukon were as unfriendly as they were in this place.

  She wondered about Doug Williams as she peered over her coffee cup and watched him eat. Did he have family nearby? What had brought him to this remote Canadian town? From what he had said to Ben, he came through here regularly.

  “So, that must have been you I saw pulling cars out of the ditch back north of Haines,” she ventured in the way of conversation.

  “Yeah, that was me,” he answered. “Seems like I always end up doing that at least a couple of times this time of year.”

  “That Kyle you referred to,” she continued, “I wonder if he is the same guy who helped me put my chains on? About 20? Drives a white beater truck?”

  “Probably was Kyle,” Cap answered before taking a long sip of his coffee.

  “So, you're from around here?” Mara continued.

  “No—not here—Alaska—Homer, Alaska,” Cap told her. “I flew into Haines last night from Juneau and picked my truck and Thor up off the ferry.”

  “Juneau. Oh,” she replied, not wanting to ask the obvious question of why he had to fly from Juneau when the ferry had just come from there—but that sure enough explained why she hadn't seen him again after the day he found her ring.

  “Do you go there often?”

  “Not any more than I have to,” Cap said, taking another long drink of coffee.

  “Luckily I know a couple of guys who work on the ferry. They looked after Thor so I could spend an extra night in Juneau for the close of the special legislative session on fishing quotas.”

  Mara listened as Cap told her that he was a commercial fisherman and had been one of many attending the consortium to lobby for protection of fishing quotas.

  “I own a 58 ft. seiner named Fire Ring Roamer,“ he volunteered. “I lease a permanent space in the Homer Harbor. I also have part interest in a small processing plant on the Homer Spit—that's a five mile long piece of land that sticks out into the bay in case you haven't heard about it yet.”

  Mara nodded with interest, eager to hear more about this fishing lifestyle that was so new to her.

  “Our buyer is an independent, though,” Cap said, looking at her intently as he revealed this apparently important information.

  “Makes it fairer for all of us—you know—everyone on a level playing field with their catch.”

  Watching him as he talked, Mara felt attracted to this well-spoken stranger. He had an unassuming way about him that made her feel as if she had known him for a long time. He wasn't hard to look at either—tall, with a medium build and a full head of thick brown hair that fell in loose curls that defied taming, and that lightly grazed his shirt collar. When he talked, his green eyes captivated her in a way that made her lose track of time. She couldn't help but notice how they mirrored, perfectly, the green of his shirt. Somewhere along in the conversation, she picked up on the fact that he mentioned he was thirty-six.

  “You haven't said much,” he said, noticing that she seemed a bit pre-occupied. “Like I said, I think thirty-six is too young to have to be dealing with all this political strategizing, but like my brother says, you gotta grow up eventually, you know—face the real world and not just do what you love without puttin’ some effort into it.”

  Before she could respond, he continued, “Besides, when you're going it alone like I am, you might as well try to stay busy.”

  Mara didn't answer for a moment, wondering what he had meant by going it alone.

  She tried to suppress the unexpectedly giddy schoolgirl-like thoughts that this attentive, attractive stranger she kept running into seemed to be summoning up inside her.

  “So, you're a single guy?” No sooner had she said those words, than a warm flush moved up her neck and over her face.

  “I'm sorry,” she quickly added, “It's really none of my business.”

  “Just haven't found the right person yet,” he answered without looking up, changing the conversation back to stories of his life as a fisherman and making her feel for a moment that she were part of that world.

  There was something about this area that brought out an openness and candor in people in a way that Mara had never experienced before. It was honesty and a purity that she found refreshing—a closeness born, perhaps, from the isolation. No matter what their occupation, without exception, everyone she had met so far on this journey had displayed this same passion for life; this same non-threatening openness that made you
feel instantly bonded with them. There was a single-mindedness to them all, an independence and lack of pretension that set them aside from others she had known before now. These were people actively engaged in life and unafraid to tackle any obstacle that might come their way. In listening to Cap, she could actually feel his passion for the sea come alive when he talked about his work. She put any thoughts out of her head that her interaction with him was anything more than the kinship shared by two travelers.

  “I'm more interested in your work than you would probably guess,” she said, focusing on the commonalities of their work.

  Doug stopped eating for a minute to look directly at her as she spoke, his interest piqued by her statement.

  “I'm a biologist—a research biologist—and I'll be joining a team in Alaska that is actively studying global warming and its effects on plankton,” Mara told him.

  “Well, anything you learn would surely be of help to me and others like me,” Doug replied, digging his fork back into the stack of pancakes on his plate. “Welcome to Alaska. Where'll you be working?”

  “Some place on the Kenai Peninsula,” she answered. “I've never been there, so I'm not sure exactly where it is yet. I'll be working out of the wildlife office in Soldotna, initially.”

  “Not too far from Homer,” Doug replied. “I think anyone who comes this far to take a job sight unseen is going to make a fine Alaskan,” he said winking. “Soldotna's about 75 miles north of Homer. Looks like we'll be neighbors of sort.” Winking again, he took a sip of coffee. “Seventy-five miles is practically next door in a state as big as Alaska.”

  Mara finished eating without talking. Doug was right in noticing that she was taking a job sight unseen. Apparently he had also been quick to notice her adventuresome spirit. She was thankful he didn't ask anymore about her.

  As much as she appreciated his kindness and his friendly demeanor, she was reluctant to reveal too much personal information to someone she would probably never see again. The conversation had been enjoyable, though, and part of her hoped that somehow she would run into Doug Williams again.