Page 4 of Thunder Pass

“Go out to the Chilkoots? You won’t catch me out there. The Feds took a whole bunker’s worth of weapons from them, and people say they still got a bunch hidden away. They’re armed up the wazoo.”

Gunnar’s unease grew another notch. Everyone out here had a firearm, it was basic wilderness survival. But the Chilkoots’ arms stash went way past that. As far as he knew, they’d never used all that firepower—they’d been busted before any damage was done. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t. What would happen to a gentle soul like Ruth in the middle of a firefight?

There had to be a way of getting a message to Ruth. A way of checking on her that wouldn’t trigger a gun battle.

“Pinky, remember that old ATV you wanted to sell?”

“Yeah, you said it wasn’t worth more than a dollar.”

It was worth negative dollars, since he’d have to put a new engine in it. “I’ll give you two dollars for it,” Gunnar offered. “And I’ll come and get it off your property.”

“How about a bottle of Jim Beam instead?”

“That stuff will make you ill.”

“It’s treatin’ me good so far. How do you think I lasted this long?”

“How about you keep your Jim Beam and I’ll take the four-by.” Gunnar stuck out his hand.

“Deal.” Pinky shook it vigorously, as if he’d just made the deal of the century.

“I’ll come around in a couple hours.”

After Pinky had gone, Gunnar poked his head into the back office, a tiny room packed full of filing cabinets, paperwork, and a cot where he sometimes spent the night. “How ya doing in there?” he asked the boy sitting at his desk.

What a dumb way to phrase it. For some reason, this boy, Nelson, his nephew, brought out the awkward in him.

Nelson looked up warily, which was the way he did most things. Gunnar couldn’t blame the kid. His mother, Gunnar’s half-sister Bridget, had appeared out of the blue a week ago, parked Nelson with Gunnar, then disappeared, promising to be back soon.

“Okay,” he said. “I think I got your computer to work.”

“You did?”

Gunnar could fix any vehicle he got his hands on, but computers were another matter.

“I found all your old records. I could write you a better program to organize them.”

“You can?” Gunnar shook his head at his moronic two-word responses. “Knock yourself out, but I do everything on paper now. Works for me.”

Nelson shrugged and focused on the screen of Gunnar’s old desktop. With his dark coloring and geeky glasses, he was about as different in appearance from Bridget as he could be. But there was no doubt he was an Amundsen, because he looked eerily like a much smaller version of Gunnar’s father, Anthony. His missing father. The father who’d disappeared when he was seventeen.

That was why every time Gunnar looked at Nelson, his heart twisted. Like now, when Nelson was giving him that pleading look.

“If you don’t use this computer, maybe I could?—”

Gunnar could interpret that hopeful tone just fine. “It’s yours,” he said instantly. “At least as long as you’re here. But you know it can’t connect to the Internet, right?”

“Like, at all?”

“I mean, it could, if there was Internet to connect to. I don’t have Wi-Fi here, and not much cell signal either.”

Nelson didn’t seem concerned. “I’ll figure it out.”

“What are you, some kind of hacker prodigy?”

But Nelson was already immersed in the process of putting the computer back together.

“He’s…an odd duck,” Bridget had told him. “But he won’t give you any trouble. It won’t be for long, I promise. Nelson is wicked smart, he could even be your part-time assistant.” She was ten years older than him—the product of his father’s first marriage, before he came to Firelight Ridge. She’d only been to Firelight Ridge once before. During that first visit, she’d been sweet to Gunnar, letting him show off his favorite place to swim, his favorite tree to climb, that sort of thing.

---