Wolf Fur Hire(25)

A minute later, as she dug her computer out of the satchel she stored it in, the generator roared to life, and she abandoned the half-charged device for the DVD player and television Buck had left sitting up against the wall in the living room.

She put on the DVD and stood back, waiting. On the small screen, the camera shook, and a woman appeared, sitting down with a log wall behind her. She had big blue eyes, leathered, aged skin, and an easy smile. “This is for Buck’s daughter?” she asked someone behind the camera.

“Yeah,” Link murmured from off camera. “Her name’s Nicole.”

The woman’s smile got bigger. “I know. He talked about her a lot. Too much sometimes. He wouldn’t shut up about her.”

“Can you say your name and how you knew Buck into the camera?” Link urged.

“Okay.” The woman looked into the camera. “I’m Desdemona Lancaster, and I was friends with Buck Lund. Her daddy.”

“Perfect. And what did he used to say about Nicole?”

“That she was marked up just like him. He was really proud his birthmark had gone to his daughter. He had pictures he showed everyone. One was of her when she lived here. She was maybe two, in this little red jumper, and Buck was holding her tight while she grinned and pulled at his beard. He said that one was his favorite because you could see both their marks.”

Nicole stood stunned and slid her hand over her mouth. She sat heavily onto the couch and leaned forward to see and hear the interview better.

“And the other?” Link asked.

“The other picture was of her at high school graduation. She grew up pretty, but she’d covered the mark with make-up. Buck said his ex-wife had sent it to him. That woman wouldn’t let him be a part of Nicole’s life, but from time to time, she sent pictures and notes and little drawings Nicole did in school. He lived for those letters.”

“Did he ever re-marry?”

The woman’s face fell a little. “Not in the traditional sense, but he had a woman for many years. She was Yupik, like him.”

“Any children between them?”

Desdemona shook her head. “They were happy just the two of them. Affectionate. A good team. Always laughing when they came into town, even when they’d gone gray. She was heartbroken when he was killed.”

“If you could tell Nicole anything about her dad, what would it be?” Link asked softly.

“I would tell her he was a good man. He took care of everyone. Knew everyone’s name. He was never too busy to have a chat with someone who needed it. And he loved her.” Desdemona’s gaze arched from behind the camera to straight into the lens. “He loved you.”

As Nicole hugged a couch pillow to her middle, the next interview came on—an older man sitting in a rocking chair on a porch. He told a story about Buck going on a hunting trip with him, and them both being stuck out in the cold for a night and having to sleep on uncomfortable spruce branches in snow caves they’d dug. He told of Buck’s love for macaroni and cheese, and she laughed as he described his habit of carrying the pasta in every pack he traveled with, and how he and some of their other friends nicknamed her dad Mac. She loved macaroni and cheese, too. It was the only cheap, boxed food Mom had ever allowed her to eat when she was growing up.

The interviews came one after the other with Link always asking revealing questions, always guiding them to keep talking, to share good memories. Buck had liked cats, hated trapping wolverines, lost a pinky finger on a saw, walked with a limp after he fell off a ladder in his late twenties, loved witty one-liners, adored Alaska in the winter, built his cabin from the ground up, worked at a gas station in Galena in the off-season, never met a stranger, and he died loving two people. His woman, Clotilda Black, and Nicole.#p#分页标题#e#

“This is the last interview,” Link said from behind her. How long he’d been standing there, Nicole hadn’t a clue. Quiet wolf.

“Come here,” she said.

Link sat on the couch next to her, draped his arm around her waist, and pulled her against his side. The beating of his heart was steady under her cheek as a pretty woman with silver hair sat down in front of a log house. She smoothed her pants and clasped her hands in her lap before she looked up at the camera.

“Can you say your name and how you knew Buck?” Link asked.

The woman didn’t look at Link but stared directly into the camera, never glancing away. “I’m Clotilda Black, and I was with Buck for fifteen years until the day he died. I guess a part of me is with him still.”

“What would you like to tell Nicole, if you could talk to her now?”