Page 65 of Thunder Pass

She was such a kind-hearted person, like a shaft of sunlight in a deep forest. “They’re lucky to have you.” His heart ached with tenderness for her. “What did Elias say about the checkpoint?”

“Oh! Jeez, I completely forgot about that! He said Jared was there with some armed men he didn’t recognize. Jared said no one was being allowed on any of the roads in that area. Elias said that’s not fair, what about people going to Thunder Pass? It was supposed to be opened by now.”

Gunnar frowned. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

“Well, Jared said climbing season is over, and Thunder Pass is off-limits until further notice.”

“That’s ridiculous. They have no right to do that.”

Ruth gave a helpless shrug. “Tell that to all their guns. Elias said that after Bear got nowhere with the Blackbear police, Sam Coburn called the state troopers. They said they’d try to come out in a few days, but they’re dealing with an ongoing carjacking spree. So for now, it’s blocked. Elias says he counted six men and twelve visible weapons, but he thought there were probably more. It would take an actual gun battle to unblock it.”

“Holy shit. I’m glad he got out of there before anything bad happened.” Gunnar rubbed the back of his neck, where tension was gathering. “So with all these armed guards, how did the kids manage to slip away?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing. Once they feel safe, maybe they’ll open up more.”

They went upstairs to see how the kids’ bedroom selection process was going. All of the children wanted to stay close to each other, so they’d ended up choosing four rooms at the end of the corridor on the second story, two kids per room. Noah, as the oldest and de facto leader of the crew, got his own room, though he didn’t look especially happy about that.

“All right, then it’s decided,” said Ruth. She beckoned to the kids. “Everyone come with me and get some sheets to make up your bed.”

“Don’t you mean just the girls?” Noah asked.

“No, I don’t.” Halfway out the door, Ruth planted her fists on her hips and turned to face the little crew. “This isn’t the Chilkoot farm anymore. We do things differently here. I’m making the rules, and my rule is that everyone should know how to make their own bed. I’ll demonstrate once, and then you can all practice on your own bed.”

The look on Noah’s face made Gunnar want to crack up. “Don’t worry, dude, I’ll help you get the corners just right. My father taught me when I was little, and he learned it in the military.”

“What’s the military?” the littlest girl asked.

“It’s…well, it’s a group of people whose job is to defend our country.”

“Do they have guns?”

“They do, at least some of them.”

“Like the scary people at our house?”

Noah put his hand over the little girl’s mouth. “Shut up, Lilith. We’re not supposed to talk about that. I want to make my bed! Come on!” He took her by the hand and dragged her toward the door. Ruth met Gunnar’s gaze, and he saw his thoughts reflected in her eyes.

Definitely a private militia.

And then something else struck him. He should have looked up his father’s military record while they were in Anchorage. Maybe he would have learned more about his time in the Special Forces. His father had never talked much about his time in the Army.

Although there was one time…as he stared at the unmade single bed, a memory flashed through his mind.

His father was pulling the top sheet of Gunnar’s bed as tight as a drum. Gunnar kept bouncing on it, then jumping off at a glare from his father. They were making a game out of it, both of them laughing. “I’d like to see you try this in the Army,” his father said through his chuckles. “Sergeant Grant, drop and give me thirty.”

“Who’s Sergeant Grant?” Gunnar asked as he bounced one more time. This time, his father didn’t laugh. His face turned grim and gray and he growled, “Get off the bed. We don’t have time for this.”

Sergeant Grant.

The name had slipped out as if it was completely natural…as if that was a much more familiar name than Amundsen.

They’d never talked about it again, and Gunnar had forgotten about it until this very moment. But now, staring down at that empty bed, his gut twisted. If it had been a random slip of the tongue, his father’s face wouldn’t have gone all stern. He would have laughed it off. The name Sergeant Grant was significant. Now he just had to figure out why.

31

Ruth and Gunnar both stayed in the boarding house that night, but in different rooms. She barely slept, keeping her ears open for signs of bad dreams from the other end of the corridor. Around one in the morning, Mercy crept into her room, crying, needing to be soothed. Ruth sang lullabies to her until she was fast asleep, then carried her back to her own room.

An hour later, Lilith cried out in her sleep, and Ruth went rushing to her room, which she was sharing with Betsy. The little girl didn’t wake up, just tossed and turned, whimpering something Ruth couldn’t make out. It sounded as if she was saying something in another language. Maybe she should see if Gunnar’s app could identify it.

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