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long has it been since it rained here?”
    “You want to talk about the weather?”
    “I want to know how old those tracks are back there. They were well defined but dry. They could be a day or a month old, but they haven’t been rained on.”
    She had the courtesy to blush. “I’m sorry. I keep underestimating you, don’t I?”
    He shrugged. “You don’t know me from Adam’s off ox, as my mother likes to say. All you know is that I can fly a plane.”
    “Thank you.” She awarded him a quick, dazzling smile. “It rained here four days ago. We had a downpour. Is there any way to determine their direction?”
    “Not that I can tell. But tracking wasn’t my easiest merit badge.”
    “Let’s go back and take a quick look,” she said. “Maybe I can see something you didn’t.”
    With a gesture he offered her the lead. She declined. He carefully retraced their path.
    The ground had been churned many times in the past. The willows were broken off or worn away for a full ten meters. The vehicle hadn’t been alone. Jerry could count three different sets and thought there might have been four.
    After pointing this out to Magda, he hesitated and then said, “So what else do you see?”
    “Nothing. But perhaps there are things we should look for and ponder their significance.”
    “You have an extensive vocabulary for a girl who was raised in the middle of Russian Amerika.”
    “We call it Alaska. Both of my parents are well read and like to discuss what they read. One can learn much just listening, let alone reading. We should look for things they dropped or dragged.”
    “Equipment?”
    “I was thinking more in the order of oil drops.”
    “Oil drops. How can that tell us their direction?”
    “If they were moving at speed, the drops will point in the direction they were going.”
    “Okay, let’s look for oil drops.”
    “Won’t take long,” she murmured, walking past him while searching the ground along the road. “They don’t take care of their equipment.”
    “That could get them in a lot of trouble out here in the middle of—”
    “There!” she said, somewhat more excited than he thought she would be.
    They weren’t oil drops. Someone riding in the vehicle had emptied dark liquid, quite a lot of it. The largest splash mark lay southernmost, the constantly diminishing smaller marks pointed north.
    “Damn,” Jerry muttered. “They’re going the same direction we are.”
    “Yes, they are.”
    He looked up at her. “Thank you for teaching me that.”
    “You’re welcome. Let’s go, we’re almost to the Czar Nicholas Highway.”
    He followed Magda and her dogs into the brush. For an hour he silently followed, trying to keep his mind on the situation and destination rather than where her presence led him.
    “Let’s stop for a while,” Magda said. She sat on a large rock, which now seemed rare. “Would you like some squaw candy?”
    “The kind your father gave me?”
    While opening her pack she gave him a smirk. “And what other kind would there be?”
    He barked an embarrassed laugh, feeling more vulnerable than he would ever admit. “I meant the smoked fish. Don’t be silly.”
    Her face went solemn and she handed him a strand of salmon. “Why would you call me silly? That’s something one says to a child.”
    “My God, Magda, you are most definitely not a child!”
    Her face softened and he felt his body relax. This didn’t seem to be the place to explain how attractive he found her. But it did seem like the right time.
    “I think you’re amazing, beautiful, and dangerous, in that order. I would happily accept any sort of sweet you offered me.”
    She grinned. “That was pretty good. Let’s go now.”
    He followed her as she moved lithely down the trail, watching the land ahead of her and her feet never stumbling or stepping in the wrong place. Yamato decided her toes had eyes. With a start he realized his complete trust in her.
    “Where did you attend university?” she