Feather From a Stranger Read online

  “It's the Yukon Quest, The Iditarod and all the qualifying races for them.” The clerk answered flatly as she stuffed Mara's groceries into plastic bags.

  She handed Mara her receipt without looking up, and started unloading items from the hand-held basket of the customer next in line. Mara noticed that the clerk's nails were manicured to perfection with black nail polish and that she had a small, blue tattoo in the shape of a cross at the base of her thumb. Embarrassed for staring, she quickly looked away when the clerk started talking to her again.

  “February and March are when all the dog races happen. If you get a chance, try to catch the Iditarod start in Anchorage next Saturday. It's right down on 4th Avenue.” “Thanks, I'll try,” Mara replied.

  Realizing that her newness to Alaska was more than obvious to the clerk, she picked up her bag and left the store. She wasn't due down on the Kenai for another week. It would be easy to stick around and catch the start of the race everyone seemed so excited about. Besides, she had promised Sarah that she would call on her sister when she got to Palmer.

  She found a phone book, looked up Ellen and Dan Williams, and gave them a call. Ellen was Sarah's older sister and lived with her husband and their daughter up Knik River Rd. just outside of Palmer. Mara had met Ellen once at her college graduation. She doubted they had exchanged even more than a sentence. She would stop by and say hello for Sarah, though, and let Sarah know how her sister was doing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Best

  Laid Plans.…

  ELLIE HAD BEEN IN ALASKA FOR ABOUT FIFTEEN YEARS AND, EXCEPT FOR graduation, had not been back east. Sarah, on the other hand, was totally a city girl. Busy with her burgeoning career, she had never taken the time to visit Alaska. The two were as close as they were different, and managed to not let the distance ruin the bond they shared as sisters.

  Making her way back across the parking lot, Mara counted no fewer than eight more vehicles, each one sporting the now familiar bumper sticker that read, Valley Girls Kick Ass. Parked next to her, so close that she had trouble opening her door, and at an angle that was going to make it hard for her to back out, was a black pick-up truck that sported the image of a marijuana plant covering most of the back windshield, and marijuana leaf shaped taillight covers. A bumper sticker read, Good Cop! Here's a Donut. Maybe there was a little more than farming going on in this community by the looks of the people she had met so far.

  An hour later, she pulled into the drive past a sign that read, Glacier View Flight-seeing and Services. Near the end of the drive was a log and stone cabin with a huge pile of cut and split wood stacked outside the front door. The smell of the wood smoke coming from the chimney permeated the air.

  “Mara? I can't believe it! I'm Ellie. Welcome to Palmer!” Ellie Williams exclaimed, pulling the car door open to embrace her sister's best friend. Instantly, Mara felt like she had known Ellie her whole life.

  “You look just like the pictures Sarah showed me,” Mara said, hugging Ellie back, “Only better. Here's one of Sarah and me that I took last Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, look how thin she is,” Ellie said, touching the picture affectionately. “She looks like a model, doesn't she?”

  “Let me get those bags,” a man introducing himself as Ellie's husband, Dan, said while hoisting them out of the tailgate door of Mara's SUV.

  “Thank you. I'm Mara,” she said, extending her hand, but Dan swooped her into his arms for a brotherly hug before she knew what was happening.

  “Please, Dan….Ellie… I wasn't meaning to stay.”

  “We wouldn't think of letting Sarah's best friend stay anywhere but here,” Dan said.

  “You need a real home after all that time on the road,” Ellie added.

  “Are you sure? I don't want to impose. I just wanted to say hi for Sarah and bring the jacket she sent you.”

  Mara reached into her vehicle and removed a jacket from a designer box. Immediately she knew the jacket was all wrong. It was white linen with satin banding down the lapels. She knew Sarah had chosen it from the haute couture collection of the design house that she worked for, but it was more than obvious that it just would not work in Alaska.

  “Oh, that Sarah,” Ellie said, holding the jacket up. “She's determined to make me look fashionable if it's the last thing she does. It's too beautiful to wear. I'll save this for a special occasion.”

  Standing here watching Ellie, Mara could feel the love she had for her sister and she knew Sarah felt the same way about Ellie. She would write Sarah later that the jacket was just perfect, just as she knew that Ellie would likely do the same.

  “And don't even consider yourself an imposition,” Dan laughed after returning from taking the bags inside the house. He put his arm around Ellie's shoulders and motioned for Mara to follow them inside. It was apparent that any further protesting would be futile as Mara walked behind them into the one story log home.

  Both Ellie and Dan were thin and sinewy; their faces were etched with the weathered look wrought by a life lived close to the land. There was easiness to them both and they were clearly happy in their chosen life. They welcomed Mara to stay for a few days and cleared a comfortable spot for her by moving their daughter, Anna, out of her room to sleep on a cot in the hallway.

  “Here's my most favoritist blanket for you to use,” the five year old said as she helped her mother prepare Mara's room.

  “You mean your most favorite blanket,” Ellie corrected her, gently.

  “Yes, my most favoritist blanket,” Anna said as both Ellie and Dan stifled smiles.

  Anna was a delightful child, as sweet and endearing, as she was blond. Mara took to her immediately, finding her outgoing, pure, and unaffected yet by life.

  During dinner that night, the new friends talked about the Sarah they both knew. They learned that they both loved her unconditionally as they willed her success in her role as the new financial director for a major fashion house in New York City's garment district. They joked, looking down laughing at their bulky winter clothes, at how the two women closest to Sarah were probably the farthest removed from a fashion statement than either of them had ever imagined possible. They continued to laugh about the look that would surely be on the face of their perfectly coiffed sister/friend if she were to see the two of them now.

  Schlepping around the cabin in fleece pants and long-sleeved T-shirts, they giggled with laughter as Dan stood to put on his heavy canvas jacket. He headed out the door to the yard outside, saying he had to finish stocking up their Cessna for a flight to Cantwell in the morning.

  “I'll come help you in a minute, Daddy,” Anna said from her place at the table between Ellie and Mara.

  Anna was plainly the apple of her father's eye and she equally adored her Daddy. She was quite into being with the two women at the moment, though. Sitting there with both elbows on the table and her head resting on the upturned palms of both hands, she listened to them talk.

  Dan had talked earlier about his business and how he flew supplies out for various organizations, including the many sled dog races that were held around the state. In the summers, he and Ellie turned their business into a flight-seeing operation for tourists, and also transported some loads of freight out into Bush communities. Tomorrow he would be dropping some supplies off along the Denali Highway for a couple of mushers who were training along the remote road in the interior of the state. Smiling at the two women who were obviously in the process of becoming fast friends, he turned back for a moment.

  “Don't forget that my brother is coming by for the night to help me get ready in the morning, Sweetie.”

  “Oh…I did forget,” Ellie replied. “I'm glad you reminded me so I can get some fresh sheets out to the bunkhouse. The two of them are as close as two brothers can be, and just as different, too. Excuse me while I run some sheets and towels out there.”

  Anna ran out the door after her father. “I'll help you now, Daddy,” her voice trailed off as the door slamme
d shut behind her.

  Mara stood and began clearing the table. “I'll get these dishes for you.”

  As soon as Ellie returned, the two women finished tidying up the kitchen before sitting down at the table to get to know each other better. Over the next hour or so, Ellie learned the details about the death of Mara's husband and about her new job in Alaska. In exchange, Mara learned that Ellie and Dan had just celebrated their twelfth wedding anniversary and were thinking of adding another child to their family.

  Mara could do little more than stare open-mouthed when after a quick knock, the door opened and in walked a now familiar face. Standing right there in Ellie's kitchen was Doug Williams, the man she had met on both the ferry and the Alaska Highway.

  “Hi, Sis,” he said, giving Ellie a squeeze around the waist before turning to Mara.

  “Mara?”

  Before he could learn why the woman who seemed to keep crossing his path was now standing in the kitchen of his brother's house, and before Mara could imagine how he had remembered her name, the door opened again, admitting a heavily made up twenty-something woman with long, blond hair. Wearing a cowboy hat with a tight, red, long-sleeved shirt tucked into her equally tight jeans, she bounced through the door and stood on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around Doug's broad shoulders from behind.

  “Come on, Dougy,” she giggled, kissing him on the neck and ignoring everyone else, “We have to put the horses up.”

  Without benefit of any introduction, Doug gave a quick wave as he followed the woman out the door.

  “See ya later,” he called back, walking away with one arm wrapped around the shoulders of the woman Mara recognized as the recipient of the amaretto latte from the grocery store parking lot.

  With a scowl that seemed out of character, Ellie said, “Doug is Dan's younger brother and that woman is his latest babe. Her name's Sassy.”

  Not sure of what to say, Mara began fiddling with a book that was lying on the table.

  “The two of them have been an on and off item for about two years now, although both his brother and I think he can do a lot better,” El-lie continued.

  “Oh,” Mara answered, feeling that she needed to say something. “I sure was surprised to see him when he walked in. I ran into him both in Haines and along the highway. I certainly have to say that for somewhere as big as Alaska, it sure feels like a small place.”

  “Well, with only one road in, that's easy to do,” Ellie answered. “He looked plenty surprised to see you, too.”

  “I can imagine…” Mara answered.

  “Doug usually stops in for a week or so on his way to and from Homer— about every couple of months. Sometimes he stays longer, depending on how he and Sassy are getting along. Of course, if it's fishing season, we hardly see much of him at all,” adding, “He's a commercial fisherman.”

  “Yes, he told me that much,” Mara answered, explaining how Doug had rescued her from the gruff service station attendant and that they had had breakfast together afterwards.

  Seeming to want to explain more after her initial terse comments about her brother-in-law, Ellie added, “He and Dan are really close. Doug…Cap… I'm sorry…I know a lot of people know him by that name—is a wonderful man and both of us adore him and want him to feel welcome here any time. That's really why Dan built the bunkhouse out back—for Doug.”

  Ellie scowled again. “It looks like we'll be having one more guest out there tonight.”

  Through the kitchen window, Mara watched Doug scoop Anna up in his arms while Sassy tickled the girl's tummy.

  “Stop tickling me, Aunt Sassy,” Anna squealed laughingly as Doug sat her back on the ground, leaving the girl to run back to helping her father load the plane.

  An uncomfortable silence replaced the jocular mood that had prevailed as the two women fell into the mechanics of doing the dishes. Ellie said little else except to ask under her breath whether it was possible that Doug would ever wise up and find himself a respectable woman. Mara said nothing, secretly wondering how such a nice guy could be attracted to someone who seemed so different from himself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Time to go

  THE SOUND OF A PLANE'S ENGINE STARTING UP NOT FAR FROM THE HOUSE woke Mara the next morning. Not wanting to get up, she scooted along the mattress to the foot of the bed. Pulling the blankets up around her shoulders for warmth, she peered out the window that was located just beyond the footboard, where she saw Dan in his green and white Cessna taxiing down the long drive toward Knik River Rd. She watched him slow about twenty feet from the highway and turn the single engine plane around so that the tail faced the road, where he sat with the engine idling. She leaned her elbows on the windowsill and looked around, not daring to move away from the window lest she miss the thrill of watching Dan lift off over the bluff.

  The Williams family homestead consisted of a compound of buildings that encircled a large space at the end of the drive and off to the right. The house stood on the side of the circle, separated from the highway by about five acres of raw land. It was made of the biggest logs Mara had ever seen and a log pole fence was all that separated it from the raw land. Along the front of the house, about eight feet out, stood another log pole fence. She found it easy to imagine that it must be a garden area in the summer.

  Several small trees scattered around the house had cages of wire around them that stood about seven feet tall. Anna had called them ‘moose fences’ when she showed them to her yesterday. True to their name, Mara could see piles of moose droppings scattered among the hoof prints in the snow around the fenced trees. She smiled as she remembered the conversation she had had with the young girl yesterday.

  “These are moose nuggets,” the young girl had said, picking up one of the inch-long, hard, shiny ovals to show her. “I made some necklaces out of some once!”

  To which Ellie had been quick to add, “Anna means that some people cover them with lacquer and make jewelry for the tourists, and we did that as a mother-daughter project last year.”

  About two hundred feet directly across from the house was a large wooden building that housed a hangar, a shop, and a stable area. Wide double doors that took up most of the front of the building made it possible for the plane to move into the hangar from the large yard, and also allowed for a certain amount of security as the door was easily viewed from the house directly across from it. Splotches of brown grass, worn down and matted tightly to the gravel packed ground, peaked through the snow of the well-trafficked yard, forming the heart of the family compound.

  Dan had shown her the hangar when she arrived. A door at the far end of the building led to the shop and stables. Inside, an open doorway created access between the stable and shop. Outside the stable was a fenced corral for the horses and another door into the stable. Two chestnut horses, their breath forming a fog in the crisp winter air, stood in well-trodden snow eating from a trough attached to the outer edge of their enclosure. A smaller white horse, with a long mane that reached nearly to the ground, and with an equally long tail, wiggled in between them to get a bite of feed.

  The bunkhouse stood just beyond the stable. All of this resulted in a U-shaped arrangement of buildings around the yard. Ellie had told Mara earlier that Dan had put the bunkhouse up for his brother to stay in during his frequent visits. In that way, Ellie explained, both Doug and the family could have privacy.

  Still leaning on the windowsill, Mara's attention returned to Dan and his plane as she heard the engine rev up and saw the plane begin to taxi up the driveway. She watched Dan accelerate until lifting it off the ground just to the left of the hangar and fly off the edge of the bluff.

  “Bye, Daddy! See you tonight,” she heard Anna call to the plane as she watched Dan tip the wings before flying across the Knik Valley toward Cantwell until disappearing into the horizon.

  Letting the curtains fall back across the window Mara thought about what a loving family they were, this kin of her friend Sarah.

  Afte
r showering and getting dressed, she joined Ellie and Anna for breakfast. Ellie told her Dan would return in about eight hours, after dropping supplies for a couple of mushers on the remote Denali Highway, re-fueling in Cantwell, and then flying back home. Barring any unusual delays, he would be back in time for dinner tonight. Often Anna or both Ellie and Anna would accompany him, Ellie told Mara, but they chose to stay behind this time because she was visiting.

  “I think I'll make a moose roast,” she told Mara, pulling a frozen package from the freezer. “Dan just loves moose roast and I hope that you do, too.”

  “Moose roast,” Mara scrunched her nose before realizing that her reaction showed. “I haven't ever tried it.”

  “It's really good, Mara,” Anna said, sensing Mara's reluctance and grabbing her hand to reassure her. “You're gonna love it, really. Everyone loves Mommy's moose roast.”

  “That's enough, Anna,” Ellie said pulling the child to her in a motherly embrace. “I guess I should have asked you first, but moose is really good, Mara. I can't wait to see if you like it as much as we do.”

  “I'd love to try it,” Mara said out loud, while struggling inside to find a way to tell Ellie that she would be leaving today.

  She was anxious to begin her new life, find a house, start her job—besides; she didn't want to impose, especially now that Ellie had other guests. She already felt guilty knowing that her presence was distracting Ellie from helping her husband as usual.

  “As hard as it is to go, I was actually planning on leaving this afternoon,” she said to Ellie, trying hard to keep her voice upbeat.

  “Doug and Sassy will be fine if that's what you're worried about,” Ellie said, trying to get her to change her mind. “I hardly even know they're here most of the time and they seldom eat with us. Do you really have to go so soon?”

  “Ellie, if I stay here too much longer, I will never leave. You're just spoiling me rotten. Besides, I'm keeping you from helping Dan and he's too much of a gentleman to complain.”