Page 28 of Thunder Pass

“Okay, well, you’d have to go with me. I’ll need your help.”

“Of course. Where are we going?”

“Prison. To see my mother.”

14

It didn’t seem fair to Gunnar that Naomi Chilkoot was still in prison when Luke had been released. Luke was the mastermind behind the Ice Falls plot, after all. But Naomi had been the driving force behind the “adoptions”—some legitimate, some not—to expand the Chilkoot clan. Those charges had gotten her sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He had no problem with that.

She was serving her sentence at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in Eagle River, and wouldn’t come up for parole for many years. Soraya was also serving time there on charges of resisting arrest and breaking an FBI agent’s nose. Gunnar imagined that the two of them were a handful for the guards and probably the other prisoners, too.

Ruth’s offer to visit her mother and learn whatever Naomi knew about Anthony Amundsen touched him deeply. She’d never even been outside of Firelight Ridge, never gone to Blackbear or even Kursk, the last gas station before the sixty-mile road to Firelight Ridge began.

The idea that Ruth’s first-ever trip to the outside world would be to a prison didn’t sit right with him.

“If we’re really going to do this, we have to work in something fun as well,” he’d insisted.

“Like what?”

“Leave it to me.”

He picked her up at Martha’s farm, where Sarah saw her off with tears in her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Ruth kept murmuring. “We’re only going for one night, two at the most.”

“But what if something bad happens at the prison? What if they see you’re a Chilkoot and put you in prison too?”

“It doesn’t work that way. I haven’t committed any crime, so they can’t just put me in jail.” Ruth sounded as if she wasn’t entirely sure of that herself, so Gunnar nodded his agreement.

“I’ll be with her the whole time, Sarah,” he told her. “I’ll make sure nothing bad happens.”

Sarah twined one of her strawberry-blond braids around her index finger. “Are you sure I can’t come with you?”

“It’s not safe for you. Neither of us has an ID. If we get stopped, you might get sent to social services.”

“But what about you? Won’t you need an ID?”

“I have a plan for that,” said Gunnar. His plan wasn’t strictly legal, but it would work. Fake IDs weren’t that hard to come by. He drew the line at getting one for a minor like Sarah, though. The risks outweighed the benefits.

“Until we get back, stick close to Martha’s,” Ruth told her sister. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” Sarah wiped a tear away. “Will you promise to be careful? And come back as soon as you can?”

It took a lot more hugging and a few more tears, but finally they were able to hit the road.

“You okay?” Gunnar asked after they’d gone a few miles toward Snow River.

“I’m okay.” Surprisingly, Ruth didn’t look rattled by the tearful goodbye. “Sarah’s in her dramatic phase. I was like that too when I was her age, but Naomi always told me to knock it off. I don’t want to do that to Sarah.”

Gunnar snorted. “She doesn’t seem like she’d take it well anyway.”

“Probably not. Ever since Sarah came, she’s been a little different from the rest of us. But I asked her if she wanted to find her real parents and she said, not yet. One thing at a time. She’s happy to be away from the compound and she likes Firelight Ridge. She loved going to school and she wants to go back this fall, if Maura’s teaching again.”

“Has anyone from the Chilkoots tried to get her to come back?”

“No. Not yet. Honestly, it’s been so quiet that I’m a little worried. It feels like they’re planning something else big and don’t want to make waves before it happens.”

He groaned. “Goddamn Chilkoots. Can’t they just chill out and enjoy the mountain air? Why do they always have to be up to something?”

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