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  From time to time in the text, you will encounter links inviting you to read additional material. These are “sidebars,” the text equivalent of the bonus material on a DVD. While these sidebars may expand your understanding and enjoyment of the story, they generally contain no information that is essential to it. Read them now, read them later, or ignore them altogether. (Actually, do read them — they’re fun.)

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  Book 2

  You can receive occasional updates on the progress and release of the second book in this series, Upon This Rock: Book 2 — A Little Nudge, by sending an email to [email protected].

  Bolt-hole Earth

  BE1 1.0

  NOT LONG AGO, in a small volume of ordinary space in the galactic south, the vacuum began to boil and seethe with non-ordinary energy.

  [Following is a storyboard script for an animated prologue.]

  Panel 1: A swatch of foaming, boiling space. Below it, we see the Sun and several of the planets of our solar system. In the distant background we see a wide swath of stars — The Milky Way.

  Panels 2 & 3: A tiny object is expelled violently from the volume of agitated space.

  Panels 4 through 6: We close in on the object. As we do, we catch glimpses of other celestial objects in the background — Saturn’s rings, the asteroid belt, a NASA probe.

  Panel 7: The tiny object is revealed in close-up. Three glittering spheres, like golden marbles, are combined in the shape of a chevron. The central sphere is slightly larger than the wings. One of the wings is deflated and puckered like a raisin.

  Panels 8 through 11: Our point of view shifts to that of the object as it passes the Moon and approaches Earth. Earth grows larger until it fills the entire frame, which is centered on the landmass of Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory.

  Panel 12: We are hurtling straight down into a landscape of mountains, forest, ice, and snow.

  Mail Day

  MD1 1.0

  WHEN THE SNOWFALL tapered off and the night sky cleared, moonlight flooded the land. A bull moose, or the phantom of one, lurked in thick willow brush at the edge of the field. Proverbs raised his rifle and drew a bead on it.

  “Don’t shoot,” his brother whispered in his ear.

  The two young men stood next to the toolshed across the yard from the main house. Proverbs sighted down the barrel of the rifle and leaned forward. “Why not?” he whispered back.

  “It’s too dark. You’ll miss’im.”

  “I can see him fine.”

  “You’ll wing’im.”

  “I will if you don’t shut the heck up.”

  “Your language, brother.”

  “What about my language, brother?”

  The old bull raised its heavy-antlered head to glance in the boys’ direction before trundling away.

  “Now see what you done.”

  “Me? It was you.”

  But the moose stopped at another clump of willow brush and resumed browsing the tender twigs. Still, Proverbs held fire.

  “What’s wrong?” his brother whispered.

  “Quiet. I’m taking the shot.”

  “When? Tomorrow?”

  MD2 1.0

  DEUTERONOMY CARRIED THE toddler into the common room where the children sat at tables eating a breakfast of oatmeal and canned peaches. Mama was propped up in her lawn lounger with the tabby sitting on her lap.

  “Begone, cat,” Deuteronomy said, swiping at it with her free hand.

  “Gone, cat,” the toddler said, mimicking her.

  The cat stretched leisurely before hopping down.

  Balancing her brother on her hip, Deuteronomy draped the nursing shawl over her mother’s shoulders and unbuttoned the top of her blouse. “Mama, Elzie’s here for his breakfast.”

  Across the room, a boy shouted, “Me first,” and slid off the bench. The other children tried to grab him, but he slipped through their hands and ran to Deuteronomy. “It’s my turn,” he bellowed, trying to push his little brother away.

  “Stop that,” Deuteronomy said. “It’s Elzie’s turn.”

  “No, it’s not!” he insisted. “I’m the eldest.”

  “Hush. You’ll wake Poppy.”

  The boy drummed the wood floor with his heels. “I don’t care!”

  “Now listen to me. Wait your turn or you won’t get any. I mean it.” She signaled for one of the middle girls to come fetch the boy. Then she set Elzaphan on Mama’s lap. The toddler ducked under the shawl and went lustily to work.

  Deuteronomy’s own breakfast waited at the grown-ups’ table, but before she could sit down, there was the sound of a gunshot outside. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the door. Deuteronomy’s twin came out of the kitchen wearing an oven mitt on her hand. She and Deuteronomy exchanged a glance and listened. When they were about to resume their business, there was a second shot.

  “Go see what’s going on,” Deuteronomy told one of the middle boys. “Tell ’em Poppy is still asleep.”

  POPPY WAS INDEED still asleep, and the first shot only half roused him from a deep, technicolor dream of wisdom. A giant, nude, Chinese woman was squatting in a field of soybeans. Her titanic cunny was a fleshy elevator. The labial doors swooshed open, and it was his turn for a slippery ride to the top.

  The second gunshot shattered the dream like glass. What foolishness now? He recognized the gun from its report. It was the Remington .30-06, one of the hunting rifles. He lay in his warm cocoon of comforters and blankets trying to coax the meaning from the dream before it vanished.

  Too late. It was already gone.

  Poppy Prophecy cracked one eyelid and saw twilight outside the window. The bed next to his own was empty and made up. Taken together, these signs meant that the hour was between 7:00ish, when the girls fetched Mama, and 9:30ish, when the winter sun rose. It would be hard to return to sleep this late in the day, but Poppy yawned and turned over to try anyway.

  No dice. First the front door slammed, and someone stomped their boots on the mat. Then there was a lot of urgent-sounding jibber-jabber through the wall. Then the door slammed again. More boot stomping, more jibber-jabber. Finally, the hallway floorboards creaked, and the bedroom door inched open.

  “Lord?” It was his firstborn, Adam.

  “Speak.”

  “Uh, we have a problem.”

  “Wait till I get up. Then you’ll have two problems.”

  “Yes, lord. Sorry. Uh, Proverbs killed a moose.”

  “Praise the Lord.”

  “Amen. Except he shot it in the field.”

  “Even better. It was delivered to our door.”

  “Yes, lord, except — except that today is Twosday.”

  “So what if it is?”

  “Twosday, lord — Mail Day.”

  At last the fog of sleep lifted from Poppy’s brain. Poaching a moose so near the house on Mail Day was not a good plan. “Hand me my britches.”

  Adam crept into the room and lifted his father’s trousers from the chair. Poppy dug into the bib pocket and pulled out a spark plug. He squinted at it and offered it to his son. “Pull it into the trees.”

  “Yes, lord, except that it’s a big bull, maybe the biggest I ever seen. Boone-and-Crockett big. And it’s stuck in the willows.”

  Poppy reached into the pocket for a second spark plug. His son still seemed doubtful.

  “Go on.
Handle it,” he barked, dismissing him.

  When Adam left, Poppy sat up and swung his bony legs to the floor. He yawned and stretched and scratched. He went to the corner behind the curtain to relieve himself in the honey bucket. Because he was an old man, his juices needed time to drain, and as he waited, he combed his long grey beard with his fingers and prayed, Thank you, Father God, for all my dullard sons.

  Poppy sniffed yesterday’s shirt and put it on, tucked it into his Carhartts, and pulled up his suspenders. He took the Bible from the nightstand and slipped it into its special, tooled-leather holster on his belt. All the while he listened to the sounds coming from outside. First, the age-old Polaris fired up, and then the equally old Yamaha.

  When Poppy entered the common room, everyone fell silent. The children stood up next to their tables and chorused, “Good morning, lord.”

  “Shut up!” he snapped. “Can’t you see I’m trying to listen?” He went to the window and looked out, shielding the glass from the light of the room with his hand. He could see the sno-go headlights down in the field.

  “Boy,” he growled, not specifying which boy he had in mind.

  “Lord?” said the thirteen-year-old, the eldest boy in the room.

  “Come here.”

  The boy sprinted to his father’s side. Poppy continued to peer out the window, and the other children took the opportunity to escape from the common room.

  “Chores!” Deuteronomy whisper-shouted in their wake.

  “Boy,” Poppy said, “I want you to get a jug of cooking oil from the kitchen and go to the shed and fetch the chainsaw and take it and the oil down to your brothers. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Then why are you still standing here?”

  The boy flew from the room. Poppy left the window and crossed the room to the warm corner, where Mama reclined in her lounger. “Good morning, Mother,” he crooned, leaning over to peck her cheek. “I hope you —” At that moment, the toddler’s little head popped out from under the shawl. Startled, Poppy raised his fists in alarm and staggered backward.

  “Sorry, lord,” Deuteronomy said, hurrying over. She extricated the child from the shawl and refastened her mother’s blouse. “I’ll just get him out of the way.”

  But Poppy had already recrossed the room to the head table, where he sat with his back to the wall. Another girl, the youngest of the eldest girls, came out of the kitchen bearing his breakfast on a tray: four strips of crispy bacon with three scrambled eggs; fresh, hot-buttered cinnamon rolls; canned peach slices; and a mug of white coffee. The girl served him without speaking. She paused for a moment with the empty tray to see if there was anything else he required.

  Outside, in the distance, the two old sleds opened their throttles with twin roars. At first it sounded like they were making headway, but first one machine stalled out and then the other.

  After a few minutes, the sno-gos roared again, only to stall out once more. They were a Centurion and an Enticer, names that had nothing to do with snow, both from the unmemorable year of 1980, the year Orion Beehymer had purchased them new and brought them here to the mine. Both machines had done their time and deserved to be retired, but how was Poppy going to replace them? His third sno-go, an old Ski-Doo Skandic, was even more decrepit.

  “Fetch me my boots.”

  Deuteronomy was the only offspring left in the room, so she went through the kitchen to the mud room to fetch her father’s boots, insulated overalls, and parka.

  STANDING ON THE front porch with a second mug of coffee, Poppy heard the chainsaw start up and begin to gnaw away at something. He offered a little prayer to Elder Brother Jesus to bless his sons with the good sense to deploy tarps on the snow before cutting.

  Poppy climbed down the steps and followed the path to the toolshed. He heard the dog barking inside, and when he opened the door, two of his middle sons were fencing with swords made out of surveyor stakes.

  The dog was the first to notice Poppy’s presence. Her tail drooped, and she slunk out the door. When the boys finally looked up, they dropped their swords and hung their heads.

  “Why aren’t you two helping your brothers?” he asked them.

  The younger boy said, “Because Adam told us to go back to the house, lord.”

  “Does this look like the house to you?”

  “No, lord.”

  “How ’bout you?” he asked the older boy. “Does this look like the house to you?”

  “No, lord, it don’t.”

  “If you two can’t find something useful to do with yourselves, I’ll find you something. Follow me.”

  They followed their father around the toolshed to the little promontory overlooking the field and willow brush. Poppy was shocked by what he saw in the dawning light. What were his genius boys thinking? They had taken a stupid act — shooting an out-of-season moose right next to the yard — and made it worse. Blood splatter had turned the snow pink, and two long streaks of blood and gore crossed the field. A sawed-off moose head with enormous antlers lay nose up in the snow, glassing the sky with soulful eyes.

  “You,” Poppy said, pointing at one of the middle boys, “round up all the shovels you can find, and you,” he said, pointing at the other, “run to the house and tell your sisters to send everyone to the field. Now! Immediately! Everyone! Now run, both of you.” He swatted the nearest one on the back of the head as he raced by.

  Before heading down to the field himself, Poppy cocked his ear toward the valley in the west and held his breath to listen.

  POWDERY SNOW FLEW across the field in a miniature blizzard. Adults and children alike flung snow with shovels, raft paddles, bucket lids, and mittened hands. The bloody skid marks vanished. The pile of steaming viscera disappeared under a hill of pure white.

  Poppy stood apart at the eastern edge of the field watching the western sky. When Adam shouted at him, he dropped his gaze to inspect the job. There was no telling how the disturbed snow would look from the air, but from this vantage, it looked innocent enough.

  “Okay,” he shouted back to Adam, “send ’em home.” But as soon as he spoke, he heard the first faint sound of an engine. He began jogging back to the others, following his own tracks through the waist-deep snow. “Into the trees!” he huffed, waving his arms. “Into the trees!” The whole family retreated into the tall spruce and birch woods on the western edge of the field. The airplane would fly directly overhead, and he wondered if there was time to get everyone up to the house.

  “Lord,” one of his daughters said. The huddled children looked at her uneasily. It was Deuteronomy. “Lord, Sarai is sinning with her mouth.”

  “Deut!” her twin gasped.

  “She said that if shooting a moose is such a righteous act in the Father’s eyes, why do we have to hide it from the eyes of men?”

  All of the little snot-noses, without actually looking at their father, keenly observed him for his reaction.

  MD3 1.0

  BACKCOUNTRY RANGER JACE Kuliak shined a flashlight out his kitchen window to check the thermometer that was nailed to the side of the house. The temperature had risen overnight. Outstanding!

  He filled the thermos with black coffee, zipped up his layers of polyester and down, and went out to hitch the sled to the park service’s spanking new Ski-Doo Tundra LT. It was a handsome, powerful machine, and today’s assignment, a trash run to Cadigan Glacier, would put it through its paces. Forty miles each way (64 km) and a heavy load on the return trip. He gunned the engine and raced down the dark street to the trailhead.

  The McHardy Creek Trail was a round-about way to get to the glacier, but Jace had a couple of things he wanted to do along the way. Besides, he’d have the trail all to himself this early in the day. Hell, he had the whole, freakin’, diamond-frosted world to himself, and he didn’t mind shouting out loud how sick that was. He opened the throttle as much as he dared. His headlights skittered over the frozen landscape.

  After the trail crossed an
d recrossed the creek a dozen times, it made a sharp dogleg north and meandered up the backside of Eureka Ridge. But Jace hung south and took the Mizina cutoff.

  The spur trail, narrower and much less traveled, climbed abruptly out of the glacial plain onto a high bench on the flank of Stubborn Mountain. The deep-throated beast between Jace’s legs despised gravity and leaped and charged all the way up. From there, the trail hugged the side of the mountain and crossed several known avalanche chutes. But Jace flew across them without even looking up.

  Soon the trail began its long descent to the river. Not wanting to miss his turnoff in the darkness, Jace eased back the throttle and paid close attention to the berm at the edge of the trail. He almost missed it anyway and had to brake hard to turn into the woods. Then he wove back and forth through the trees on a little-used track. When finally he reached the forest edge, he stopped and killed the engine. Silence rushed in to surround him.

  Jace removed his helmet and retrieved the thermos. To the east, a picture postcard sunrise was unfolding, and a wall of jagged mountain pinnacles held back the pinking sky. Awesome scenery, for sure, but mere scenery was not what drew Jace to this spot, and he turned his back on it without so much as a glance.

  No, he sat on the snowmobile seat facing, not east, but west where the moon still hung in a blue-black sky. He made himself comfortable, poured a steamy cup of coffee, and sparked his first spliff of the day. The snowmobile was Jace’s high-performance sofa, and Alaska was his own fucking living room. He tipped back his head and exhaled two lungsful of sweet Mercury 4 in a cloud of breathcicles. Nice.

  Before him stretched a long, straight boulevard of snow. Beneath the snow lay a private airstrip, the last six hundred yards (549 m) of which clearly encroached upon National Park Service land. A big, fat, federal case was what it was.

  Beyond the airstrip lay the weathered compound of a small, defunct copper mine. Stubborn Mountain Mine had been a bit player in the great Caldecott copper discoveries of the 1910s and 20s. In those territorial days, this part of Alaska belonged to the Guggenheim Trust, whose claims at Caldecott, with ore as rich as 75% pure copper, were the most productive in the world. A century later, the played-out mines belonged to the federal government and served as a tourist destination in the heart of a national park. All of the mines, that is, except the Stubborn Mountain Mine, which belonged to a self-righteous prick who thought nothing of bulldozing public land for his airstrip.