Stone Cold

  Stone Cold

  By

  A P Bateman

  Text © A P Bateman

  2021

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, printing or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and any character resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Some locations may have been changed; others are fictitious.

  Facebook: @authorapbateman

  www.apbateman.com

  Rockhopper Publishing

  2021

  The Alex King Series

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  Further details of these titles can be found at

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  For Clair, Summer and Lewis

  Chapter One

  Alaska was as good a place to hide as any. Better, in fact. It seemed that people from the lower forty-eight states migrated to Alaska for a variety of reasons. Some wanted a simple life. They ran from the complexities and pressures of modern society, sought solace in the state’s emptiness, its honesty.

  Other people were just on the run.

  Stone recognized the defensive expression some people wore when he had attempted to interact with them. It was a beacon to warn people not to pry. If the eyes were the window to your soul, then the shutters were up on most of the people in the diner. As were most of the people in the small towns he had passed through to make it even this far north.

  He watched the woman sitting at the table across from him. He had been watching a while. She was in her early to mid-thirties, wore her brunette hair long and she was effortlessly attractive. But that was not why he watched. Not the only reason, at least. She was drinking a hot chocolate. The frothy foam had stuck to her nose and she neither seemed to notice nor care. If it had been a date, he would have fallen in love with her a little right there and then. A little more, at least, because she was having a strange effect on him. More than an emotion, a feeling inside that he hadn’t felt for a long time, and a lot of women ago. She was looking over a stack of papers, frowning at the wording, making notes in a pocketbook. She seemed troubled. And Stone recognized trouble.

  “Katy McBride,” the waitress said, pouring a refill into Stone’s cup. It was his third. He still hadn’t ordered any food. He figured this would be the last time the waitress would swing by for a free top-up unless he ordered a plate of something, but he wanted to organize a bed for the night before he filled his stomach.

  “Thanks, Katy,” Stone said.

  “Not me.”

  “What?”

  “The woman over there,” she smiled and nodded to the woman on the other side of the narrow diner. “Go and talk to her, she’s real nice.”

  “I…”

  “Goodness, you could not have made it more obvious!” she chided. She looked around, Stone figured for the owner, who he guessed was the man who was busying himself on the grill, and then she sat down opposite him. Relaxed, unguarded. “You can’t take your eyes off her. It’s really sweet.” She paused. “Unless you’re figuring on being a stalker, then… I guess, not so much.”

  More composed now, Stone shook his head as he replied, “Of course not! I was just looking, that’s all. Is there a crime against that around here?”

  “Nothing’s a crime around here,” she said flatly. “Nothing is anything in particular around here.”

  “You don’t like the wilderness?”

  “I’m done with it, is all,” she replied, shaking her head. “I want something to happen that doesn’t involve a bear rooting around the garbage cans or a new road sign being replaced, just to be shot to pieces within a week like the one before it.” She paused. “What’s with that, anyway? Why do guys have to shoot up signs all over the state?”

  “Guys do it all over,” Stone replied.

  “I guess.”

  “Been here long?” Stone figured her for just nineteen or twenty.

  “My whole life,” she said, looking towards the counter. The guy at the grill was dishing up fries to go with a burger the size of a softball. “I’m going down to Seattle to get some work in the coffee shops soon. While I’m working, I want to finish my nursing training. After that, then I guess it would be good to keep heading south, at least until the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “Keep going,” said Stone. “All the way to Santa Monica Pier.”

  “You’ve been?”

  “I have,” he said.

  “Is LA really that great?”

  “No, it sucks. The freeway is hell. But the drive down the coast is epic. And you can get a great bowl of clam chowder on Santa Monica Pier.”

  “I bet,” she replied, dreamily. “And I’ve always wanted to visit Monterey Bay, The Big Sur. That’s where they filmed Big Little Lies. It looks so… sophisticated. Have you seen that show?”

  “No. Must have missed that one,” Stone replied breezily. He hadn’t exactly watched much TV in the past eight months. Except for the news. And only to see if he appeared on it.

  “It looks so beautiful, Monterey Bay. And warm! So much warmer than here. God, I want more warm weather in my life!”

  “You started training to be a nurse up here?”

  “I did, then had trouble keeping up with the work. It’s the distance between classroom segments in Anchorage and the work placements in places like Juneau and Fairbanks. I’ve worked things out now, Seattle has great medical training, and it will be far better money once I have trained. Better money working in the coffee shop than here in this dump.” She paused. “Sorry, this place isn’t so bad. You should try the short ribs.”

  “Great,” Stone said somewhat distractedly.

  She laughed. “Stop looking over my shoulder!”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m Sam, by the way,” she said.

  “Hi Sam, I’m… John,” he said stiffly. He could not get used to not using his real name and had to think about which card he would pay with. The names had not matched in Albuquerque, and he had taken to the road quickly, changing his car as a result and heading back east five-hundred miles or so, before heading north, having already indicated to the chatty waitress where he had been heading.

  “Nice to meet you, John. So, are you going to ask her out?”

  “Hell no!” he said, a little too quickly. A couple of the other diners looked over at him. He ducked his head a little. “No. I don’t know her. Besides, I’m just passing through.”

  “It’s how it’s done out here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled. “Well, people live off grid. They come into town for supplies, a drink, get a fix of burger and fries or a pizza and then they go back for weeks or even months. Usually for the whole winter. They shoot caribou, fish for salmon. Live out of tins of beans. Town is town and the inhibitions are down.”

  “So, time is short. Make hay. Or at least make love…”

  “Exactly!” She checked the counter once more, then picked up the coffee jug and started to get up. “You see what you like, and you go for it. No
ne of that long-winded dating game stuff out here. You hook up as soon as you can. Shit, the nights are cold enough on your own, anyway.”

  Stone smiled. He sipped some coffee and looked at her as she stood up. “Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.”

  She bent down, whispered in his ear. “She could do with a friend,” she said and walked back to the counter. Her order was waiting and the man behind the counter was glaring at her and shaking his head. He did not know he was losing his waitress soon, so Stone guessed she would have the last laugh.

  Stone frowned at the comment, then looked back at Katy McBride. She still had not wiped the foam from the hot chocolate off her nose. She was frowning at the paperwork spread out on the table in front of her and did not seem to be making any headway. He finished his coffee and dropped a few extra dollars down for Sam and her nurse training fund. Then he got up and nodded to her as he left. She looked surprised that he had not gone over and talked to Katy McBride, but she was laden with plates of ribs and steaks and was already behind on clearing the empty dishes from the other tables. Her matchmaking services would not be required.

  Outside, the air was cool. The sun was high in the clear blue sky and there was still a little thin ice on shady ground. He hefted the backpack over his shoulders and fastened it, before slinging the shotgun onto his right shoulder. Bears were waking up all over and he had been forced to fire a warning shot at a hungry-looking grizzly the day before. It had been rangy and thin and scraggly, but when it stood on its hind legs, it had been over ten-foot tall. It had been Stone’s first encounter with a bear, and he hoped it to be his last.

  He was heading into town. The diner on the edge of town had been his first stop. Tired, cold and in need of a rest, he had taken half-an-hour or so to regroup, reassess before turning up someplace new. He needed a place to stay, had camped rough last night, but tonight he was heading someplace warm and with a shower. And a big steak with something full of carbs and fried on the side. Washed down with a beer or two.

  The verge was too rutted and hard to walk on, the frozen ground threatening to turn an ankle, so he walked down the patchy and poorly maintained asphalt road and as it stretched out in front of him, he could see the town looming ahead.

  Lame Horse.

  It was, even by Alaskan standards, a hell of a name for a town.

  He heard the pickup behind him. Too close to town to hitch a ride, he stepped into the side of the road and continued to walk. The truck slowed and drew up alongside, the passenger window open.

  “You ran out on me back there.” Stone looked at Katy McBride. “Figured you’d come over at some point. You spent enough time looking.”

  “You’ve wiped the cream off your nose.”

  “That’s what you were looking at?” she asked, seemingly embarrassed.

  Stone smiled. “Well, that as well.”

  “I’m Katy,” she said. “But you already know that. Sam isn’t exactly subtle. Or quiet.”

  “You must have me down as a stalker.”

  She smiled, put the selector into park and switched off the engine. “Not exactly. And I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I thought you were. Where are you heading?”

  “North.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “South,” Stone smiled. “Not really got a plan.”

  “That goes for half of Alaska’s population,” she said. “The other half found the plan didn’t work out so much.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “So, you’re on foot?”

  “Clearly.”

  “Alaska isn’t the place for that,” she said. “Hundreds of miles between towns and the threat of bears this time of year.” She paused. “Cougars, too.” She smiled when she saw Stone’s expression, clearly leaning towards the double entendre. “That’s mountain lions…”

  “I know,” he grinned. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t set out that way? Without transport, I mean.”

  “No. I had a truck.” Stone rested his hand against the doorframe and leaned closer. He could see she was slim under all the clothes. But she looked strong. Her hands were calloused, and her fingernails were trimmed. Or bitten down. He could not tell. “Some guys relieved me of it.”

  “Seriously? Did you call the police?”

  Stone hesitated. Everybody in Alaska was running from something. He could not afford too many questions. “Not yet,” he said.

  “I’ll take you to the Sheriff’s office in Emerson,” she said. “It’s about four hours’ drive.”

  Stone shrugged. Questions led to answers. Which led to problems. “It’s OK. It was just a pile of junk anyway. I’ll get some more wheels when I hit civilization.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said. “Well, OK. I can offer you a lift to Lame Horse,” she said. “But it’s only there.” She pointed and laughed. “Anyway, it was nice to meet you…”

  “Rob.”

  “Really?” she smiled. “I thought it was John. Or at least that’s what I heard you say to Sam back in the diner…” Stone shrugged, annoyed with himself for making the slip. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Rob…”

  Stone smiled, looking at her behind the wheel. She was half the width of the wheel and it made her appear vulnerable. There were a few tiny crow’s feet at her eyes, but he suspected they were what his grandmother had called laughter lines, and her face was pretty and kind looking. He had liked the look of her in the diner, and he liked the look of her more now that he was so close to her. He shrugged and said, “Oh, hell, I’ll take that lift.” He opened the door and Katy started the engine. It was a rough-sounding diesel and had seen better days. She pulled out from the side of the road and the box got up to third gear and fifty miles-per-hour was showing on the clock when she started to slow. She pulled across the road and stopped outside the motel.

  “That was worth it, if only for the awkward silence,” she smiled. “This is the only place to stay in town. It’s also a bar and diner. Surprisingly good, considering where we are.” She thumbed behind her at a wooden shack. “That’s another bar, but it’s a bit of a dive. A drinking den where all the world’s problems are put to rights. And usually where trouble can be found.”

  “Sounds like any other bar.” She laughed and he asked, “So why did you go to the diner outside of town?”

  “Privacy,” she said. “Small towns, big gossip. The motel owners are nice, but they do like to talk.”

  “Not much of that in a small town, I guess. Privacy, that is.”

  “It will get really busy in a week or so. May is the month for that.”

  “Yeah, how so?”

  “Gold fever will hit, again. The ground is thawing, and the casual labor will come drifting in,” she paused. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Stone shook his head. “No, I’m just heading north.”

  “What’s up north?”

  Questions. Problems. He should have kept walking.

  Stone opened the door. The cold air swept inside the heated cabin. “I just want to keep moving,” he said. “See how far I can get before the end of the summer.”

  “OK,” she said, a little puzzled. She seemed to sense that she had pushed too much and backed off. “Well, nice to meet you, Rob. Or John… Enjoy your time in Lame Horse before heading north.”

  Stone nodded a thanks and closed the door behind him. He watched the pickup pull away and head down the strip. He kept watching until it was out of sight. Another time, another place and talking to Katy McBride would have been high on his agenda. That had been right up until they had pulled into the town of Lame Horse, and he had seen his truck parked outside the dive of a bar opposite.

  Now he had something else on his mind.

  A drinking den where all the world’s problems are put to rights. And usually where trouble can be found…

  Chapter Two

  The bar was a shack made almost entirely from eight by four plywood sheets. Or chipboard. Stone w
as not sure which, DIY was not his skillset. And nor was it that of the person who had built the bar, either. One interior wall consisted solely of doors, all nailed at various angles. Stone had seen a similar concept before in Manhattan. Strangely, it had worked there, but that place would have employed an interior designer at five-hundred bucks an hour and spent money on an artist distressing the doors with a hammer and brushes and paint, and some of the doors had previously been on the dressing rooms of small theatres on 42nd Street and Broadway. Many had been signed by musicians and actors. And the guy putting them up had a spirit level and a set square and had used hidden fixings. Here, they had been screwed in and it simply worked to keep out the draught.

  There were four men in all. One behind the bar staring at an early baseball game on a fuzzy television set that had been new once. Right about when Stone was in his second year of elementary school. The man did not look up, but Stone had entered quietly. Two men sat at the bar, one watching the game, the other watching his life ebb away in his reflection at the bottom of the glass. Both were bearded, sixty, grey and had lived their best years two-decades ago.

  The other man was in mid-thirties, tattooed and wore a single grade of hair over his head and face. The same length, like he was wrapped in Velcro. He had been chewing on a big sandwich and was now frozen, the sandwich halfway from plate to lips when he caught Stone’s eye.

  This was Alaska. Practically everybody owned a gun, and most still carried one like it was eighteen-sixty. The state had seen the gold rush, the lawlessness it had brought with it, and in many ways times had not changed. The gold was still here, the miners used more high-tech surveying and excavation techniques, even updated their Facebook status, and Twitter accounts between shifts, but there was still an old feel about the place. Nowadays, the guns were more about freedom of expression and democratic rights, but out in the bush bears, wolves and cougars were a real threat. Most hikers and tourists from the lower forty-eight carried bear spray and that was usually enough. Some carried a shotgun with non-lethal rubber bear rounds, and that too was usually enough. But Alaskans carried guns, packed a spare and had two in reserve. Stone could see a big stainless steel .44 revolver in a leather holster on one of the bar-fly’s hips. He was in no doubt there were more guns in the room.