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Although this dentist she took me to in Anchorage, Dorman, was okay, even if he was way too tan to be an Alaskan. He likes Kate, I can tell, but then every man she’s ever met likes her. Except maybe all the ones she put in jail, and sometimes I’m not so sure about them. Except if she’s never had a cavity I don’t know why she needs her own dentist. She sure was awful quick to get us on a plane when I got my toothache.

Here’s the grossest picture I could find of a cavity on the Internet. Mine was a lot smaller.

So here we are in Anchorage, staying at Dad’s town house on Westchester Lagoon. Kate and Mutt are out for a walk on the Coastal Trail. There’s nothing on television and I don’t want to go anywhere until I don’t drool when I talk. Disgusting. So I’m sitting here writing a post for my twenty-seven followers (Bobby, you better not read this one over Park Air like you did the one about counting caribou with Ruthe Bauman. She didn’t speak to me for a week). We’d be on a plane back to the Park right now if the weather hadn’t socked in behind us. Van texted me that it’s blowing snow and fog and Mrs. Doogan strung a rope from the front door to the bullrail so everyone could feel their way to their vehicles. I checked the National Weather Service website and the forecast is for more of the same for the next day and maybe two.

I’d still rather be there than here. Too many people in Anchorage, going too fast in too many cars.

So would Kate, and Mutt. We’ve been weathered in in Anchorage before and they both get antsy and cranky and snappish. Mutt I can understand, but Kate doesn’t want to go to the movies or shopping or out to eat, she just keeps looking east, trying to get a bead on what’s coming next out of the Gulf, and if it’s flyable.

Okay, a few minutes later, they’re back and Kate got a call (she actually answered her cell phone!) and we’re going to go see somebody. Later …

Comments

    Bobby says, “Too late, kid.”

    Ruthe says, “I’m still not speaking to you.”

    Van says, “Miss you, babe.”

    Katya says, “johnny bring me a unclmilton moon form toyzrus”

    Katya says, “mom says please”

    Mrs. Doogan says, “Good narrative flow, Johnny, if a little elliptical on occasion. Topic sentences aren’t mandatory in journal form, but you do want the reader to be able to follow the thread of the story. Resist the parenthetical phrase, too. For a moment there in the fifth paragraph I thought you were in Anchorage with Ruthe, not Kate.”

Tuesday, October 25th, that evening, by Johnny

We have a case, and I get to help!

Well, I get to go along, anyway.

We went downtown to this old restaurant on Fifth Avenue, the Club Paris, and met this old fart named Max. He’s a retired state trooper (here’s the Alaska State Trooper website) and I mean really retired, he’s so wrinkled he looks like he shrunk in the wash and then got left in the dryer for a week. He’s kind of feeble, walks with a cane, but he’s even smarter than Kate and he sure can put away the martinis. The waitress, a total babe named Brenda, calls him by his first name and she never lets his glass get more than half empty before she’s got a refill on the table. Brenda gave Kate a funny look when Kate ordered a Diet 7UP. Real women drink martinis, I guess.

Best steak sandwich I ever ate. About halfway through it Max said, “Heard a weird story last week. Grandson of an old flying buddy from Red Run.”

“Red Run?” Kate said.

Max nodded. “I know, last village on the Kanuyaq before you hit the Gulf. Why I thought to tell you about it.”

“What’s his name?”

“He’s a Totemoff.”

“Which one?”

“Gilbert.”

Kate forked up a big hunk of New York strip and chewed with her eyes closed for a minute. She swallowed and opened her eyes and said, “Chief Evan’s grandson.”

Max nodded.

“What’s his story?”

“He got kidnapped.”

Kate actually stopped chewing. “What?”

Max nodded. I felt cold air on the back of my neck as the door opened and Mutt’s ears went up. “But I’ll let him tell you the story himself. Gilbert, you know Kate Shugak.”

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