The Reaching Out One

Author's Notes: Thanks to primroseburrows and j_s_cavalcante for beta!

Story Notes: --Fraser as a Mountie in Deline, NWT and Ray as a detective in Chicago, IL. Every year they take their vacation time together and look for the hand of Franklin, the reaching out one, and when they run out of time they put a pin in the map and the next year they pick up where they left off. The story begins with Diefenbaker dies and the whole house of cards crumbles. Ray and Fraser have an adventure, confront their feelings, and rebuild their lives on a more solid foundation.
Sex, death, happy ending. (The death is the one mentioned in the summary; there aren't any surprise ones.)

Part I: One Warm Line

"--so I have no doubts about your ability to maintain order while I'm away," Fraser concluded, looking at his subordinate, Constable Mary O'Donnell. He must be getting old; he couldn't look at her without wondering when they'd started making Constables so young.

"Thank you, sir. I'll do my best."

"And, of course, Connie's been here longer than I have--if you get stuck, she can advise you, or direct you to someone who can."

"Yes, sir."

"And we won't be leaving for another month, but I didn't want to take you by surprise." He had just finished ordering the supplies; "notify Constable" was next to the pre-expedition checklist. He was already conditioning the team with long runs every morning, and tonight he'd make a thorough inspection of the sled and begin any necessary repairs.

"Yes, sir. Where are you going on your vacation, if you don't mind my asking, sir?"

Suddenly, Fraser was embarrassed. He knew he was thought of--both by the RCMP and the residents of Deline as more than a little bit eccentric. He was given to understand that Constable O'Donnell had heard many stories about him prior to leaving Depot for this posting--fishing over the limit, the train hijacking, the litterbug, the nuclear submarine, his pet wolf--and he wasn't entirely comfortable with this subject becoming part of the Legend of Sergeant Fraser. It felt too personal, somehow. "Oh, ah, you know. The usual."

"Ah. Going somewhere warm?"

"Not exactly."

Connie leaned around the partition that separated his desk from the reception area. "Sergeant Fraser looks for the hand of Franklin."

"Oh." O'Donnell's face was carefully blank.

"Every year, about this time, he takes his three weeks and picks up where he left off the year before," Connie explained.

"That sounds...interesting. Is there a group that you go with?"

"No." He realized that answer might seem a bit curt, so he elaborated, "I go with my partner. From Chicago. My old partner." O'Donnell was, technically, his partner now, but the RCMP had gotten in the habit of sending new recruits with an interest in remote postings to work with him for a year or so, for seasoning. Almost as soon as the got their legs under them, they were ready to move on. Fraser hadn't had a real partner since Chicago. He didn't mind--as he'd told Ray before their first Franklin expedition, they were always partners, even though they didn't see each other more than once or twice a year.

"Ah! So it's a tradition."

"Yes."

"I don't know what he'd do if he actually found it," Connie added.

Fraser blinked. He'd never considered that before. What if they did find it? Would Ray stop coming to Canada every winter? "We'd think of something else to look for," he answered firmly. Of course they would.

#

Ray's phone was ringing as he entered the house. Better not be work--he'd had a long day.

Work would have called the cell phone, anyway. Maybe Mom. He'd let the machine take it.

"Ray?" Either Fraser's voice was wobbly, or he needed to replace the tape in his answering machine again. "I suppose you're not home yet. Please give me a call when you get in. There's...I don't want to say this to a machine."

He lunged for the phone. "Frase? It's me. I was just walking in the door."

"Ray," Fraser said again. Definitely not the tape that was wobbly.

He sat on the couch. "What's wrong?" He was due to fly up to Canada in less than two weeks--he hoped Fraser didn't have to cancel the trip. He never had yet, but there was a first time for everything.

"Diefenbaker."

Oh, Christ. Dief was at least fifteen by now. He'd known this was coming, in the back of his head, but he'd been trying not to think about it. "How?"

"Heart failure, I think. In his sleep. I just, uh, he stayed home today. He's been doing that a lot lately. He gets tired easily now. Got. I came home a short while ago, and...well. It's obvious he's been gone for several hours."

"Jesus. I'm sorry, Frase." The words seemed inadequate. Fraser had--more than once--called Dief his lifetime companion. It was hard to imagine Fraser without Dief. Hell, it was hard to imagine Canada without Dief. He was like the snow, or the uniform.

"I wish I'd...I wasn't there. He was always with me, and I wasn't there."

Ray took a few deep breaths. He wished he could be with Fraser, now. That he could hug him, or something. "He had good times, with you. He liked his life." It was a weird life for a wolf--it was a weird life for anyone--but Dief had been happy. Ray was as sure of that as he'd ever been of anything.

"I know." Fraser's voice was high and tight, like he was in pain.

Because he was in pain. Ray scrunched a throw pillow up against his chest, resting his elbows on his knees. "I know. I know. I'm here, okay?"

Fraser drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Ray could almost see him, smoothing his eyebrows and squeezing his eyes shut tight, trying not to cry.

But he couldn't say just cry already, because that would embarrass him. Both of them. "I know. He's your friend. I know."

Fraser cried quiet--Ray wasn't surprised. Just some hiccuppy snuffles and the occasional deep-in-the-throat whine that sounded almost like the sound Dief made if you stepped on his tail or something. All Ray could do was sit there and hug his pillow and keep saying, "I know. I know."

After a few minutes, Fraser slowed down, took another deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said shakily.

"No, no, it's okay."

"We've been...we were together a long time," he said, like he had to explain--had to explain to Ray--why losing Dief was enough to make him break down.

"I know," Ray said again. "I know. You lose somebody you love, there's something wrong with you if you don't take it hard."

"Thank you." He made horrible whine again, that keening, hurt-animal sound. "What am I going to do? The ground's frozen. It'll be frozen for another three or four months. I can't--I can't just--" He hiccupped.

When he'd said what am I going to do, Ray'd thought at first he meant something more existential. It was almost a relief to have Fraser put a problem that had a solution in front of them, even if Ray wasn't sure what the solution was. "Yeah, yeah, you can't. We'll have to--what do they do for people?"

"Ah, cremation is, is popular, and there's a facility where, where remains are stored until the spring thaw. But animals, people take them to the dump, and I can't, I can't--"

"I know. It's okay. I know." He got up and paced. "Call the undertaker, ask `em if they can help you. You've been there, what, ten years. They know about Dief." Anybody who'd met Fraser and Dief would understand that Dief had to have a real funeral. "If they can't, bring him down here--I guess in a cooler or something--and we'll take him where they take the dogs from the K-9 unit. They'll, uh, you know, you get the ashes back. We can take `em on the quest with us, or if there's somewhere special you want him to be...."

"Okay. Okay. I can do that." He sounded slightly more together, until the next words. "I don't...I don't know if I can do the Quest this year. I can't--without--"

"Okay." Ray thought fast. It was hard to imagine the Quest without Dief. He didn't help pull the sled anymore--hadn't for the last few years--but he always went with them, even though last year he'd sometimes had to actually ride in the sled instead of loping along beside it. The Quest was him and Fraser and Dief. He was pretty sure Fraser wouldn't go without him, and he was damn sure he wouldn't go without Fraser. But he could also see Fraser curling in on himself, pushing Ray away so he could hole up alone with his pain. Ray wasn't having that. "Yeah, it would be hard. Really hard. We don't have to decide now. I'm flying into Deline this year, so if you don't feel up to it, we'll just do something else. Hang out at your place, or take a road trip. Have a Polish-Canadian wake, definitely. Okay?"

"Okay." He heard Fraser's harsh breathing through the phone. "I should call the funeral home. I'll--can I call you back?"

"Yeah. Absolutely. I'll be up for a while. You, uh, you don't got anybody up there who can come over and sit with you, do you?" Stupid question.

"I'll be all right, Ray."

"I know. Just call, if you, you know. Don't wanna be alone."

"Thank you kindly. I think I--"

"Promise you'll call if you want to," Ray interrupted.

For once, Fraser didn't argue with him. "I promise, Ray."

#

After ending the call with Ray, Fraser sat on the floor of his cabin, his best friend's body in his lap, for several minutes. Ray had been very patient about his breakdown--Ray understood--but he had to pull himself together before he called the funeral home.

Dief looked peaceful, almost asleep, except he had already grown a bit stiff. In the wild, a wolf's body would lie where it fell, preyed upon by scavengers, slowly returning to the elements. Perhaps he should carry Dief out into the tundra, as far as he could walk in half a day, and just leave him.

He tried to convince himself that would be a respectful end for his friend, but he couldn't. Dief had always enjoyed the comforts of civilization. Doughnuts, and television, and cars. He was his own wolf, and he'd chosen to come in. Fraser would have to find a way of dealing with his remains that would honor that choice.

It was growing late--even if Martin was able to help him, it wouldn't be tonight. Slowly, he got to his feet and fetched a Hudson's Bay blanket. He wrapped Dief up in it and carried him to the lean-to. It was cold enough out there, and he'd be protected from any marauding animals. Consulting the slender Deline telephone book, he called the funeral home. Since it was also the Martin family's residence, and the death business didn't keep a regular timetable, he received an answer. "Funeral home and guides, Leonard Martin speaking."

"Len, it's Sergeant Fraser." He managed to keep his voice steady.

"Oh, dear. What's happened?"

Martin probably thought there had been a sudden death--an accident, maybe; Deline didn't have many murders--and he was calling on behalf of the family. "It's, ah. I hope you can help me. It's Diefenbaker. My wolf."

"What--oh. He passed?"

"Earlier today. Since the ground's frozen, I don't.... I know you don't ordinarily deal with animals, but it's, ah...." He felt foolish. Surely no one else in Deline would bother having a funeral for a dog. City people did that.

But Len Martin said, "Of course. I've helped a few other people with arrangements like that. Are you interested in burial or cremation? Cremation's a lot easier, this time of year."

"Cremation, I think," Fraser answered.

"We can't use our facility here, unfortunately--health regulations. But there's a vet in Norman Wells that can handle it. Bring the, ah, the remains to the funeral home, and I'll have him on the next flight."

That was much easier than he'd expected. "Thank you. That's, ah, I greatly appreciate your help. He was a good friend," he said lamely.

"Hm. You'd have to be crazy to send every dog out to be cremated, but sometimes one's special. Do you want the ashes back? It's extra, but...."

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Most people do. If you're going to the trouble, you might as well. It'll take a week or two for the ashes to come back."

"That's fine. I'll bring him in the morning."

"That'll be fine. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you kindly." He hung up and dialed Ray's apartment again.

"Yeah, Frase?" Ray said anxiously.

"It's me. You were right--the funeral home was able to help. They're arranging to send him to a place in Norman Wells. Thank you. I just--I couldn't think."

"It's hard," Ray said. "Listen, did you eat?"

"I'm not very hungry."

"Yeah, but you need to keep your strength up."

He had a point. Fraser took the phone with him to the kitchen and looked in the cupboard. Soup. He could manage that. He opened a can of vegetable beef, poured it into a pan, and set it on the stove. Automatically, he reached down for Dief's bowl.

Blood rushed to his head and the phone slipped from his fingers.

"Fraser? Frase, are you okay?" The phone squeaked.

He picked it up carefully and walked back to the sofa. "I dropped the phone. Sorry. I was--I usually feed Dief, when I...."

"I know." Ray had been saying that a lot, but it was, somehow, a great comfort. When they were together, he and Ray could understand each other without words, and Fraser knew what he was really saying. You're not alone. I understand. I miss him too.

#

The next day, it seemed like everyone who came into the Detachment asked Connie, "What's wrong with Sergeant Fraser?"

And then he had to hear her say, "Diefenbaker died."

And then they'd say, "It's hard to lose a good dog."

Everywhere he went, people told him the same thing. "It's hard to lose a good dog."

And he thought of Ray, and said, "I know."

But they didn't. Dief wasn't just a good dog. Ray knew.

A few people brought food to the detachment. Casseroles and pies. He stayed at his desk, behind the partition, and let Connie deal with them. They said, "I know you don't usually bring a casserole when it's a dog, but he doesn't have anyone else, does he?"

After three days of that, he took O'Donnell off a five-day patrol and did it himself, just to get away from the sympathy. If anything, that was worse. He could almost imagine that Dief had run on ahead of the snowmobile, like he used to, and every time he came over a hill and Dief wasn't there was like coming home to his empty cabin that would never have another heartbeat than his again.

He stopped at all the villages and camps where he usually stopped, the isolated cabins where the inhabitants often didn't see another human being between his detachment's monthly patrols. Most of the people asked after Dief. "You left the wolf home this time?"

God help him, sometimes he lied. "He gets tired these days."

Usually, they let the subject drop. Maria Whiteraven pressed the subject. "I hope he feels better soon. It must get lonely patrolling by yourself."

He put his hands over his face and wept.

#

"You're Sergeant Fraser's friend?"

"Uh, yeah." Ray knew Fraser had been promoted twice since they'd worked together, but it always surprised him a little when people called him something other than "Constable." He'd just gotten off the plane and was helping the pilot unload into the truck that would take him and the rest of the cargo into town. It had only taken a couple of trips to Nowheresville, Canada to learn that he might as well. The airport shuttle--AKA, somebody's truck--wouldn't be going to town until the cargo was unloaded anyway, so it saved time, and let the locals know you belonged. Rich guys who came up to go on a guided hunt didn't help unload.

"Here, you can take him this." The pilot tossed him a small package, about the size of a brick.

"What's--" He looked at the label. The veterinary clinic in Norman Wells. "Oh." He stuffed Dief into his parka and grabbed the next crate.

"He's real broken up about his dog, is what I heard."

"Yeah. Yeah, he is." Ray wasn't surprised that Fraser was upset, but he was surprised it was that obvious. Fraser tended to keep his feelings private.

He was relieved when he finally got to the detachment and found Fraser at his desk, looking more or less normal, not, you know, rending his garments or wailing uncontrollably or anything like that. He stood up with a ghost of his usual elated smile at seeing Ray. "Good to see you."

Ray hugged him, forgetting for a moment the box inside his jacket. Fraser leaned into him, heavy, like a dead weight. "You too, buddy." The corners of Dief's box were digging into his sternum. "Oh, uh, the pilot...this came." He dug out the box and gave it to Fraser.

Fraser took it. "Oh." He swallowed hard and carefully placed the box on his desk.

"Yeah. Should we--?" He wasn't sure what the plan was. Usually their first day together was spent checking their supplies, doing some last-minute packing, and stuffing themselves with as much high-calorie, high-fat food as they could manage. Ray'd have what he knew would be his last beer for three weeks, but only one, because they'd be making an early start. But Fraser hadn't said whether they were going on the Quest or not.

"Let's get some lunch." Fraser put on his coat and looked at the corner behind his desk, where Dief's dog bed had been. He closed his eyes and pushed the tip of his tongue against his lower lip, breathing hard.

That explained how the pilot knew. Maybe nobody here knew Fraser quite as well as Ray did, but if he reacted like that every time something reminded him he'd never see Dief again, people would put it together.

Ray thumped him on the shoulder. "C'mon."

There were two restaurants in town--the one in the hotel and conference center (12 whole rooms, plus a meeting room with internet access and a slide projector), and the diner. They didn't need to discuss where to go--they occasionally went to the hotel restaurant on his last night before going back to Chicago, but the diner was the usual place.

Their boots crunched over a thin coating of snow. It was a little later in the year than they usually traveled--Chicago was starting to warm up--but up here, it was still cold as a mother. Ray tucked his arms inside his parka.

It was a little late for lunch, so once Ray'd wiped the fog off his glasses, he saw that there weren't many people in the diner. The ones that were there glanced up, nodded at Fraser, and went back to their meals.

They sat at a scarred wooden table with four mismatched chairs. The first one Ray sat in wobbled; he got up and switched. The owner/waitress came by, and they ordered. Ray had the bacon cheeseburger, fries, soup, and candied carrots. Fraser asked for soup.

If that was all he was eating, it didn't look like they were going on the Quest.

"The Kennys saw another UFO back in November," Fraser said after a while.

"Yeah? That's the third one, isn't it?"

"Yes. The current theory is that the aliens are looking for uranium."

"Makes sense." There had been uranium mines near Deline when it was still Fort Franklin. A lot of the Native guys who had worked in the mines had later died from cancer; it was still a sore subject.

Every now and then it occurred to Ray how weird it was that he knew so much about a tiny town just south of the Arctic circle, where he spent two or three days every couple of years.

The waitress brought their soup and some bread. Ray shoveled his down while Fraser poked distractedly at his. "Uh," he said, pausing to dig into the pocket of his parka. He almost hated to bring it up, but it wasn't like he'd be reminding Fraser about it--he wasn't going to forget. "Frannie got you a card, and everybody at the station signed it. Well, everybody from the old days. And she, uh, we sent some money to this wolf place in BC. She couldn't find anything closer. Welsh chipped in, and Huey and Dewey, and some of the guys from the K-9 unit--you know they're based out of the 2-7 now? They didn't know Dief, but they know what it's like, they said." He gave Fraser the card. "There's, you know, a certificate in there."

"Thank you." Fraser slipped his finger under the flap of the envelope and tore it carefully. His hands were slow and shaky, like an old man's.

The picture on the front of the card was a constellation of stars in the shape of a dog. The first one Frannie bought had been a picture of a wolf; Ray made her take it back and change it. Fraser traced the stars with his fingers, like it was Braille or something.

The message inside was something about losing a faithful friend, and people had written stuff like, "Sorry, Fraser." When the card came around to him, Ray had stared at it for fifteen minutes, trying to think of something to say, before he finally just scrawled, "See you soon, Ray."

"I, uh, she was gonna mail it but then stuff happened and it ended up that it would get here faster if I carried it," he explained.

Fraser nodded. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I'll...before you leave, I'll write something you can share with the others."

Ray nodded. "Okay."

Fraser picked up his spoon and poked at his soup some more. "I haven't been very hungry lately," he said apologetically.

Ray nodded. His cheeseburger came, and he was hungry, but it didn't seem right to just start chowing down. "You're really in a bad way, aren't you?" He didn't mean to say it out loud, but the words just slipped out.

Fraser stared down at his soup, as if he hadn't heard. Finally he said, "I've come to realize that the difficulty of living a life stripped of all but the essentials is that I have nothing I can afford to lose."

Took Ray a minute to untangle that, to figure out that Fraser was saying I can't live like this.

Fraser wouldn't kill himself; he knew that. But there were plenty of other things he could do. He could take stupid risks--stupider than usual--and get someone to do it for him. Or he could just--decline. Stop being Fraser and start being some shell, some husk, some goddamn walking dead.

Ray wouldn't let him. He didn't know what he could do, how he could fix this, but they had three weeks. If that wasn't enough time--he'd think of something.

"I didn't feel this way when my father died. I don't know what that means. I was sad, but I wasn't...and I knew this would happen. He was an old...but I didn't know it would feel this way."

"Your dad wasn't there every day," Ray pointed out. "Dief was. It's...every minute of your life is different now." When Stella left him, it had been like that. She hadn`t died, sure, but the whole shape of his life, the life he thought he would have forever, was shattered.

What did he do, then?

He'd spent as long as he could pretending it wasn't happening, that any minute Stella would realize she'd made a terrible mistake, and then he'd jumped into somebody else's life. He'd started being Fraser's partner, and then his friend, and one day he just realized he didn't have a great gaping hole in his chest anymore.

No help for Fraser there.

"Maybe that's it," Fraser was saying. "Maybe I'll...get used to this. The way it is now."

"Yeah, maybe." It had hurt again, when Fraser left, but not all that much, really. They were still partners, like Fraser'd said, even though they didn't see each other every day. They talked, they wrote, and they always had the next leg of the Quest to think about. For the last ten years, his life had had three seasons: Gearing up for the Quest, doing the Quest, and recovering from the Quest. In between, he did his job, he paid his bills, had Sunday dinner with his parents, but being Fraser's partner was the important thing.

And he knew it was that way for Fraser, too. Except he was used to having Dief, too. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe you will. Or find a new, you know. A new normal."

Fraser let out a breath. "If you'd said `a new dog'.... A dozen people have offered me puppies. It's horrible."

Ray nodded. "That's...yeah." Dief wasn't a pet.

"They mean to be kind, I know that. But...."

"I know."

They sat for a moment, and then Fraser said, "Your food's getting cold."

"Oh. Yeah." He took a bite of the burger. "Want some of my fries? They're not bad."

Fraser took one. "Hm. Yes. This a good batch. Maddy uses the oil for about two weeks, and right in the middle of the cycle is when they're best." He took another.

"I picked the right time to come, then."

"Yes." Fraser set his half-eaten French fry on the edge of Ray's plate. "About that."

"Yeah?"

"I don't think...I haven't been able to concentrate very well. I don't think I should go. On the quest." He shook his head. "Our supplies came, but I haven't unpacked them. I never finished checking the harness, or--half a dozen other things. It would be, frankly, dangerous to set out so unprepared, and with me...." He shrugged.

"Yeah. Yeah, I got that. It's okay."

"I should have said something before you came all this way."

"Don't be stupid." He almost admitted what they never said out loud: that the Quest wasn't really about Franklin's hand; it was about giving them a reason to see each other every year. Without the Quest, they'd have tried to stay in touch, but with nothing in common anymore, they'd have run out of things to say to each other, and by now, ten years after the partnership, they'd only be exchanging Christmas and birthday cards, if that. Even when they weren't actually on it, the Quest gave them something to talk about--every week or two, one of them would call the other with a question or an idea, and sometimes they'd move on to other topics, sometimes not, but the Quest smoothed things out, the way work had back when they still worked together. It saved them from having to say, "I called because I missed you."

But they never talked about that. Could be if they admitted that the Quest was just an excuse to be together without it being awkward, it wouldn't work anymore. So they both knew it, but they didn't say it. "You still have the pin in the map, right? We can pick it up next year."

At the end of the first leg of the Quest, when they ran out of leave and out of snow for the sled, neither of them had wanted to quit. They'd sat in the tent for a couple of days, until finally Fraser had finally come up with a way to end it without ending it. "We'll just stick a pin in the map and start back here next year," he'd said. Ray still had his own map, on the wall in the apartment, with ten pins in it, one for every time they'd stopped the Quest and started up again.

He wondered if he should put a pin in Deline for this year. "We can do something else. We could just travel around here. Might be nice to see your stomping grounds. You know, when you tell me about stuff, I can picture it, where you are. Or we can go somewhere else. Maybe somewhere...somewhere new." Somewhere Dief never was.

"That might be for the best." Fraser picked up his fry again and ate it. "I'd like to show you around. This is a beautiful area. We could do some fishing." He sounded kind of tentative at first, like he was trying to convince himself they could have fun, but by the end he sounded a little bit more cheerful.

"Fishing's good, sure."

"It would be a shame to let all the supplies go to waste. I'll show you how to mend harness--that's something you should learn to do--and we can do the rest of the preparations together, and then take a couple of short trips, four or five days each. We could follow the patrol routes, or strike out a little bit, see some of the less populated areas. There are advantages either way--if we're in familiar territory, you can get some experience driving the sled." Fraser was usually too nervous to let Ray drive much, because, as he said, the combination of an inexperienced driver and unfamiliar territory could be dangerous. Ray figured he was right--he wouldn't take someone just learning to drive a car out on the Loop in rush hour, either--but since they were always in unfamiliar territory, he never got a chance to practice much. "Otherwise, we can do some exploring. Maybe a little of both?"

"Sure. Let me finish, here, and we can sit down with the maps." He took another big bite of his burger, and Fraser ate some more of his fries. He tried not to think about the fact that if Dief was still with them, he'd be the one eating Ray's fries.

"I'll have to stop back at the detachment and let Connie and Constable O'Donnell know our plans."

"You didn't cancel your leave, did you?"

"No, but I said I might be around anyway." He ate the last few fries. "I'm glad we'll be within reach, anyway. O'Donnell's still pretty green."

"She's been here six months, hasn't she?"

"Five and a half."

"Huge difference," Ray agreed.

Between them, they managed to finish the food. Maddy, a heavyset Native woman, smiled at them as Fraser paid the bill. "It's good to see you eating again, Sergeant."

"Thank you. Here." He handed over what Ray knew was way more money than their meal could possibly have cost, even if Maddy had doubled her prices since the last time he was here. "For Donny's college fund. Could we take some of the cobbler with us?"

"Of course. Two orders?"

"Please."

She brought it in a little metal pan with a cardboard cover. "Enjoy. It's nice to see you again, Detective Kowalski. Are you staying long this time?"

As weird as it was that he knew so much about this little town, it was even weirder that the people here knew about him. He's been here five or six times--the other trips they met up somewhere else to get to where they left the pin--but it was like he was some kind of honorary local. "Uh, yeah. We're gonna be--around." He gestured vaguely.

"We'll be exploring the area, doing some fishing. Constable O'Donnell will know how to reach me if necessary," Fraser added. "And I can't believe I've never taken you to Franklin's Fort," he added to Ray. "We'll have to do that."

Maddy looked at him funny. "You go looking for the hand of Franklin every year, and you've never been to Franklin's Fort?"

"Franklin Fort's on the map; there's no point looking for it," Ray answered.

When they walked back to the detachment, Fraser looked around like he was seeing his town for the first time in a couple of weeks, and answered when people said hello to him. It was good, really good, to see that Fraser felt that much better. But he knew it wasn't permanent, he hadn't really fixed it. Fraser lost Dief, and he realized how lonely his life was. Now with Ray there, he wasn't lonely. But Ray wasn't there for good, just for a few weeks.

He decided not to think about that. He had a few weeks, and maybe when they were up, the loss wouldn't be so raw. Fraser'd realize he could get by until next year, when Ray came back again and they did the Quest, same as Ray got by down in Chicago.

At the detachment, the new Constable was manning Connie's desk. She was pretty--blonde, with her hair back in a French braid like a lot of the girl Mounties wore it--but she looked like she ought to be getting ready for her high school prom. Ray could have a daughter her age, if he'd had kids when he was young. Hell, if he'd had them in his mid-twenties, which was late for his neighborhood. "Good to see you, sir," she told Fraser. "And you must be Detective Kowalski."

"Ray." He shook her hand. "Heard all about me, huh? Good things, I hope." He was used to the new Constables knowing who he was, Fraser's famous partner.

Some of them were pretty star-struck, and wanted to hear his version of the nuclear sub, or the performance arsonist, or the train--which hadn't even been him, but it was hard to explain about how he was actually Fraser's second Ray, and sometimes they just let the misunderstanding stand. But O'Donnell just said, "Indeed. It's nice to meet you."

Fraser told her a little about their plans, and said he'd stop in with an itinerary once they had one. "You'll be able to reach me via the satellite phone if there's any emergency."

"You're not going to look for the Hand?"

"Not this time," Ray answered.

"I thought you went every year." She glanced over at Fraser.

"Our plans changed, Constable." Fraser put a little bit of ice into his tone, and O'Donnell managed to figure out that he didn't want to talk about it. He looked at Ray and over toward his desk. "I'll just get...." Him.

"Yeah."

It only took Fraser a minute to collect the box. Fraser's pickup was parked right outside the detachment, and Ray climbed in, carefully not thinking about how spacious and roomy the seat was when he wasn't sharing it with a wolf.

Then he realized--not like he never knew it before, but all of the sudden it just hit him, like a sledgehammer in the chest--that the wolf was never going to get intimate with his ear again, not now, not when they got to the cabin, not when he was settling down in the tent after a hard day's Questing. Never. He squeezed his eyes shut and murmured, "Fuck. Just...fuck."

Fraser squeezed his shoulder and said, "I know."

#

The box was an oddly comforting weight in the inside pocket of his parka. Heavy for its size, it pressed against his ribs, and, if he wasn't careful, one corner jabbed him in the elbow when he put his hand back on the wheel after shifting gears. The box was heavy, but he felt lighter. Ray had come, and he'd brought Diefenbaker back with him.

He wondered if he'd be thought any more eccentric than he already was if he took to carrying his dead wolf's ashes everywhere he went. Probably. He wondered if he cared. "I still haven't gotten a satellite dish," he told Ray. "I'm sure you're disappointed." Satellite television service had come to Deline a few years ago; Ray frequently professed his surprise and dismay that Fraser hadn't yet succumbed to its allure.

"Still? You should get Tivo. It's great--saves your shows for you so you can watch whenever you want. Skip the commercials."

"That does sound like a valuable service," Fraser agreed. They both knew it wasn't a service he had any need for, though.

When they got to the cabin, Ray slung his duffle bag in a corner and went immediately for Fraser's small stereo system. He'd gotten it because when he moved here, he'd found that he sometimes missed music. Ray was pleased with the acquisition and sent him compact discs every now and then--sometimes commercial ones, sometimes ones he'd recorded himself with songs from different albums. Ray bypassed Fraser's small CD collection, however, and dug a small object out of his pocket, which he plugged in to the stereo with a cable he also took out of his pocket. "Coming home to an empty house and being miserable 101, Frase. Stuff that makes noise is your friend." He pushed a few buttons on the device, and music poured out of the speakers--a tune Fraser was fairly sure he'd never heard before.

"What is that?"

Ray glanced at the device. "Cat Power."

"No, I mean the--thing."

"MP3 player. They don't have those in Canada? Like an iPod?"

"Oh. I've heard of them, yes."

"Have my entire CD collection on this thing. It's great for the in car. Thought I'd take it on the--you know." The Quest, which they aren't going on. "Only problem is you have to plug it into a computer to charge it up, but I could listen to a song or two once in a while when your singing voice just isn't cutting it for me."

"Ah. Well, you can charge it at the detachment. I don't suppose the amount of electricity involved would constitute misuse of RCMP resources."

"Cool."

"I'll just get the maps." The large-format Quest map was hanging on the wall opposite the sofa--Fraser liked having it where he could see it--but he had more detailed topographical maps of the area in his footlocker. Coming back with them, he sat next to Ray on the sofa and spread them out on the coffee table. "We're here," he said, pointing to the symbol that indicated the detachment. They weren't, of course, literally there at that moment, but the dogs were kenneled there, so that's where they'd be leaving from. "This route here is Patrol Route One, out along the Great Bear river. There are some good places to go for trout out that way."

"What are these?" Ray pointed to some pencil markings.

"Homes. This is a small settlement, five households, and the rest of these are single households. Some of them quite elderly. They're not due to be visited for another month, but it can't hurt. Franklin's Fort is over here. It's accessible by road, actually, but we could take the sled. Or not. If we go west and slightly south, along the lakeshore, we can approach Grizzly Bear Mountain, which isn't much of a mountain a'tall, but the view is nice. Or we could fly over here and follow the Idaa trail, which offers some interesting Native historical sites. What do you think?"

"I don't know." Ray cleaned his glasses on the edge of his shirt and peered at the map. "The eye doctor told me I oughta get bifocals, can you believe that? Let's see. All these little lakes here are frozen now, right?" He tapped the Idaa trail section of the map. "So we wouldn't have to go around `em."

"Right." Fraser smiled to himself--on the first leg of the Quest, Ray had been--in his words--"freaked" by the idea of stopping overnight on a frozen lake. "What if there's, like, a sudden thaw? I wake up under water, I'm not gonna be a happy camper." Despite Fraser's assurances that the ice was eight feet thick and would not melt through before they woke, even if the temperature somehow rose thirty or forty degrees overnight, he'd been twitchy and anxious the entire night. Now, after years of Arctic travel, he rightly regarded frozen lakes as shortcuts. "And there's fish there, too, right? I mean, there's fish pretty much everywhere."

"Yes," Fraser agreed. "So should we do that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, let's go with that, if the flights work out."

"It's not tourist season yet, so we should be able to find a pilot who can use the work. Should we start down at Rae Lakes and travel north, or the other way around?"

"I don't know. Can we start at Rae Lakes and make it the whole way back here, or will we have to fly back either way?"

"Probably we'd have to fly, but let me see...."

#

It was funny how much Fraser's cabin felt like home. He'd spent maybe ten or twelve days there, total, but he knew where everything was. Part of that was just Fraser being really organized--everything had exactly one right place where it belonged, from the can opener to the extra toilet paper rolls--but there was more to it than that. Being in Fraser's cabin was like living in Fraser's head, and even though they didn't see each other every day anymore, Fraser's head was still a very familiar place.

"Are you sure you don't want me to help?" Fraser called from the couch.

"No, I got it. You keep workin' on the maps." They'd been going over the maps for a couple of hours--with a short break while Fraser called around for a pilot--and he was sick of looking at them. He'd decided to treat tonight like a day on the trail, and putting dinner together was one of his jobs. "Spaghetti okay?" Pasta was one thing they couldn't eat on the trail, unless it was the kind that came pre-cooked in a foil pouch. Boiling the water used too much fuel. They'd be heading out the day after tomorrow, so it was a good chance to eat something other than trail-food.

"Yes, that sounds good. We'll have to travel in shorter legs than usual--the dogs aren't fully conditioned. We'll drive six hours the first day, and then seven the next, and eight for the rest of the trip. We can start a little later in the mornings--I know you'll like that--and then have the evenings to fish and explore."

"Sounds good." He put a big pot of water on the stove and, while waiting for it to boil, poked around for things he could add to the jarred sauce. There were a few mushrooms in the fridge--a little dried out, but basically okay--and some garlic in the potato bin. The half-loaf of homemade bread in the breadbox was a little stale, but not growing things yet, so he decided to make some garlic toast. "We're gonna take food, right? In case the fish don't feel like bein' caught?" Since they were usually well above the tree-line on the Quest, Fraser couldn't indulge his living-off-the-land fetish, but it would be just like him to try it now.

"Yes, Ray."

"Good." He put some butter in a skillet to melt, and crushed some garlic cloves with the flat of a knife.

"We'll have to stop for resupply halfway up the trail," Fraser mused. "I don't want to try to carry too much weight."

"Okay." The water was finally boiling, so he dumped the spaghetti in and opened the jar of sauce. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"I don't think so. We can have the pilot leave our crates in Gameti; it's just a matter of locating someone who can store them for us for a week or so. It wouldn't do to get to our supply cache and find that everything's been destroyed by a grizzly."

"No, that would not do," Ray agreed. Funny how the idea of marauding bears didn't freak him out any more. Much. The rifle permit Fraser'd managed to get for him a few years back helped a lot, and Fraser drilling him on where to find a lethal shot on various dangerous animals. He'd never had to kill anything yet, but knowing he could do it if he had to kept him from being nervous.

"I'll make a few calls; someone will know someone. We might have to pay a few dollars."

"Sounds good." Ray used to be annoyed by Fraser's tendency to pay people for services that didn't cost them anything--things he'd do for someone without even a thank-you--and then say something about his duty to inject funds into the local economy. Then he'd found out that the median income around here was something like ten bucks. Fraser's salary wasn't anything to write home about, but it put him in the top ten percent for the area. Sure, people would haul your truck out of snow bank or store your supplies for a week just to be neighborly, but if you had the money to offer them, that was neighborly too.

Once dinner was ready, Fraser left the maps behind and they sat at the table to eat. Fraser managed to put away a good-sized serving of food, and they told a few stories about recent cases. Ray told about the drug dealing clown--a literal clown, red nose and everything--and Fraser about a guy with a forged guide's license. Ray knew better than to scoff at that--to get a guide's license you had to prove you knew how to survive in this country, and taking tourists out into the wilderness if you didn't know how to survive was practically attempted murder.

After dinner Fraser turned off the kerosene heater and started a fire in the woodstove, then brought an armful of harness in from the lean-to and they went over it, checking all the buckles and inspecting the stitching. Anywhere they found a weak point they re-stitched it with thick oiled thread. Ray tried several times, but couldn't get his stitches as tight and near-microscopic as Fraser's. A couple of straps were cracked and worn enough that Fraser had to swap them out entirely. Once they were finished with the repairs, they went over everything with mink oil and saddle soap. They worked in silence some, and talked some, and after a while Fraser switched off the stereo and sang "Northwest Passage," with Ray joining in on the parts where he knew the words.

It seemed enough like a night on the trail that it didn't seem weird at all when the fire burned down low and Fraser got out their bedrolls and spread them on the floor, Ray's with the "tuck in on the floor" badge that Fraser had made for him, sewn near the top.

He didn't mind tucking in on the floor anymore. It felt like home.

#

Fraser thought Ray might ask why he was putting their bedrolls out on the living room floor--he had a perfectly good bed in the bedroom, and there was a sofa that Ray usually slept on when he was here--but he didn't say anything. Fraser was glad--he didn't want to explain. Didn't know if he could explain.

Dief had snored something awful--it had only gotten worse as he got older--but Fraser was used to it. He'd never quite gotten used to the sounds of Chicago at night, but the sudden silence of Deline without Dief was louder.

But Ray sighed and snuffled as he settled into his blankets, and it wasn't so bad, now. "Have I ever told you the story of the woman who married a crow?"

Ray yawned. "Don't think so. This an Inuit story?"

"A Dene story," Fraser answered. "Big Bird was a widow with one son and one daughter," he began.

"Big Bird? Like in Sesame Street?"

"No. Big Bird was a woman, a human woman. She was the widow of the great leader Peace River, and she wanted her daughter to marry a man as wealthy and powerful as her husband had been. None of the local men were suitable, so she sent her son to the riverbank to watch for a stranger who might be worthy to marry her daughter."

Fraser had forgotten that the story of Big Bird's Daughter and Crow had a dead dog in it until he got to that part, but it was too late to stop then. He managed to keep his voice steady as he told how Big Bird's son had killed the old dog to appease the handsome stranger who was Crow in disguise, and how the family had realized, too late, that their daughter's new husband was really the Trickster crow when they found the dog with its eyes plucked out and three-toed tracks around it.

When he finished the story, with Big Bird's daughter escaping, and Crow flying away, shorn of his white beaded disguise, Ray said, "Hm. There's a story like that. Got it as an email forward a while ago--which is, you know, how we Midwestern white folks share our culture stories. That an' Reader's Digest. There was this guy, and he was walking along a road. After a while his dog turned up. A while after that he remembered that his dog had been dead for, um, for years. He realized he had to be dead too. It was hot and the road was kinda dusty, but there wasn't anything else to do, so he just kept walking. Finally he got to these, you know, gates. Pearly gates. Like heaven?"

"Yes," Fraser said.

"So this guy at the gates, who the first guy, the one on the road, thought had to be Saint Peter, said why don't you come on in, have something to drink, wash all that dust off of you. We've got champagne, we've got beer, we've got Evian, whatever you want. The guy said okay and started to go in, but St. Peter said Sorry, just you, your dog can't come."

"Oh," Fraser said sadly.

"No, it's okay. The guy said, well, then, no, fine, I'll just keep walking a while. And they did, the guy and the dog. A while later they got to another gate, this one was just wood, you know, sticks, with the bark still on and everything. There was another guy there, and he said to the walking guy, do you want to come in and have a drink? I've got a pump there, you can get yourself some water. The first guy said yeah, okay, but I have this dog. The other guy said, that's fine, we've got a bowl here, he can have some water too. He went in and had some water and, you know, sat down for a while, and after a while he said, this place is really nice, what's it called? And the guy who lived there said, this is heaven. First guy said, what about the place back there with the pearly gates and all? The guy who lived there--I guess he's supposed to be Jesus--said, yeah, no, that's not heaven. We don't let people in heaven who'd leave their best friend behind."

Ray fell silent, and Fraser figured that was the end of the story. "That's a good story."

"Yeah, I didn't tell it good. But I meant, like, Big Bird shoulda realized something was hinky when Crow told her to kill the dog."

"Very likely," Fraser agreed.

But he knew there was more to the story than that, too. Ray wasn't sure if he believed in an afterlife--they'd talked about it a few times--but Fraser knew there was. He'd see Dief again someday.

He wished he'd found a way to tell Ray about his dad. That he'd kept on seeing him after he died. If he had, then he could tell him, now, how he kept thinking he heard scratching inside the closet, and opening the door to find nothing in there but a closet.

Ray's breathing evened out as he fell asleep. Fraser felt sleepy, and not particularly desperately unhappy, but he couldn't quite sleep yet. He shut his eyes and listen to Ray breathing. Ray was a good friend. He was fortunate, truly fortunate, to have had two such very good friends in his life.

And he knew--he knew--that Ray was always his friend, every day, even when they weren't together. But it would be hard, only having one friend, and that friend thousands of miles away.

But that would be later, and now there was Ray, breathing quietly beside him.

#

Ray was more than halfway asleep when he heard it. The low, mournful howl that spread out across the night like a siren, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. No answering howl came up from inside the tent--the cabin, they were in the cabin--no answering howl. No Dief telling his kind, his people, that he was here, that he had come in, but he was here.

Ray stuck his hand out of the bedroll--he could do that, they were inside--and Fraser's hand met his, and squeezed.

#

Ray's hand was still in his when he woke up. Fraser raised their joined hands and looked at them stupidly for a moment, until he remembered how they'd gotten that way. The wolves.

"Frase?" Ray mumbled.

"Yes?"

"Coffee?"

"I'll make some." He tucked Ray's hand back inside his bedroll and got up.

Even though the cabin had electricity, he made coffee in a stovetop percolator, not a drip machine. He sometimes drank coffee between expeditions, but not that often, so having different coffee equipment for home and camp didn't make sense.

He got out a skillet and the last of the bacon and eggs, sliced some bread for toast. In time, Ray emerged from his bedroll and staggered to the bathroom, taking a cup of coffee on his way. In the early days of the Quest, Fraser had prodded him to get up, reminded him that time was passing, they were losing daylight. He'd learned that only made Ray huddle deeper into his bedroll. Left alone, he'd get up. There were natural patterns to everything--caribou migration in winter, the spring thaw, the return of the rich trophy hunters in summer. They happened on their own timetable, and it was the same with Ray getting out of bed.

Returning, he looked more alert, although his hair was still standing up in the places it usually lay down, and flat in the places it usually stood up. Fraser dished the bacon and eggs onto plates, and they sat and ate.

"'sfunny," Ray said after a while. "At--in Chicago, I never eat breakfast. Don't even get hungry until ten or eleven."

Fraser knew--they'd had words about it more than once, when he'd lived in Chicago. "Life up here requires a higher caloric intake. In order to--"

"I know. It's just weird. Here, I wake up hungry." He shrugged. "It's almost like I'm somebody else when I'm here."

Fraser didn't know what to say. He thought Ray felt at home here. That going on the Quest every year was as important to him as it was to Fraser. That being here was a connection, not an escape.

Ray must've seen his thoughts on his face, because he said, "Hey. Hey, it's okay. I like being Canada-Ray. Maybe more than I like Chicago-Ray. It's just weird, how fast I switch over. Switching back is harder," he mused. "First couple of days back, I get up and have a big bowl of oatmeal and whatever pemmican I have left in my pockets, and then I can't figure out why it feels like I'm walking around with a brick in my gut." He crunched another piece of bacon. "And then I remember that Chicago-Ray doesn't eat breakfast. But I never have to remember that Canada-Ray does. It's just weird." He shrugged, apparently accepting the weirdness.

Maybe you should stay. The thought popped, fully formed, into his head, and for a horrifying second he thought he'd said it out loud. But Ray didn't say, "You're unhinged," so he figured out he must not have. "I could send some pemmican home with you," he said irrelevantly.

"Yeah? Maybe. I have to remember not to eat it first thing in the morning, though. Might be okay for lunch. Healthier than anything in the vending machines, that's for sure."

"Well, the fat content is rather high for city living."

"Probably not any higher than Doritos. My last physical, the doc told me I had to start reading labels. It's all this desk work--remember how much exercise we used to get chasing bad guys down alleys? Now it seems like I spend half the day on the phone."

"You look fit," Fraser objected. Ray was dressed in the two-piece thermals he favored; it would have been obvious if he was carrying much extra weight.

"Yeah, I been swimming. Two-three times a week. Bloom-close, bloom-close." He grinned and made abbreviated swimming motions with his hands. "I'm not that good at it, but I figure all that thrashing around trying not to drown is good exercise."

After breakfast they dressed and showered, and Ray stowed the bedrolls in the lean-to, and then they drove back to the detachment. The plan for the day was to check the sled and oil the runners, then take the dogs out for a four-hour run. In the afternoon they'd sort gear and pack what they'd need for the trip.

Halfway to town, Ray said, "You guys don't have mandatory retirement, do you?"

"The RCMP? No. Mandatory retirement is on its way out all over Canada, actually. There have been several age-discrimination suits--"

"Yeah, yeah. We still have it in Chicago, though. At sixty-two. The union had me go see a retirement planning counselor."

"Yes?" They were getting old. Ray would be sixty-two in...he calculated in his head. Seventeen years. Not that far off, really, when you thought about it.

"Turns out I shoulda been putting a hell of a lot more in my IRA. If I want to keep living in Chicago, I'd have to get some other job. Mall security guard or some shit."

"That sounds...unsuited to your talents," Fraser said. He was glad the RCMP would let him keep working until he dropped over.

"Yeah. Yeah, so what I figured is I'd move somewhere with a lower cost of living." Ray fiddled with the window crank on his side.

"That sounds sensible."

"Yeah. I was thinkin', you know, Canada's nice to old people. And I hear the Dene respect their elders and all."

Fraser braked suddenly, even though there was nothing ahead of them. "Here? You want to live here?"

"It was just an idea," Ray said quickly. "I got lots of time to think about it."

"It's a good idea." Possibly the best idea he'd ever heard. Slowly, he started driving again. "Yes. I'll look into the regulations. You'd have your pension, so you wouldn't be a drain on the economy. And you speak one of the national languages. More or less."

"I get by," Ray agreed. More seriously, he added, "I could learn some French, if it'd help."

"Hm. If your immigration score is very close to the line, it might." He hadn't had to answer many--or even any--immigration questions since his time at the Consulate, and of course the rules changed slightly every year. But he couldn't think of any good reason Ray wouldn't qualify for permanent residency, or even citizenship, if that's what he wanted. "Really? You'd really want to...."

"Yeah. Yeah, I really do. When I was a rookie, there was this old guy, retired detective, who was always hanging around the station. Like, almost every day he'd be there for at least a couple hours. He didn't have any kids, any family. The job was all he had, so when they kicked him out, he couldn't leave. He'd make the coffee, sweep up, tell boring stories about back in the day--we all thought he was pathetic. I don't want that."

"No. No, of course not."

"Up here, there's gotta be stuff I can do, right? And--" Ray's voice dropped until it was almost inaudible "--you."

Fraser nodded. "Certainly. The youth center can always use help, and the volunteer fire department. And if you wanted to go on a patrol from time to time, I have a feeling the CO of the local RCMP detachment could be persuaded to let you, provided the proper ride-along waiver of liability forms are filed." It wouldn't be exactly regulation, but there were advantages to being in charge.

"Great. That sounds...really great. Something to look forward to."

It had almost slipped Fraser's mind that they were talking about seventeen years in the future, not now. It would be a long wait. "Yes. You'll have to come up one summer, closer to the time, so we can build another room on the cabin."

"Yeah. I mean--I could get a place, but, yeah. If you'll have me. Living alone gets old."

"It does," Fraser agreed fervently. He'd always considered himself a solitary person, but the last two weeks had proved how very wrong he was.

"Okay, so we got the last twenty years of our lives figured out," Ray said, sounding satisfied. "Now we just have to get from here to there. We can do that."

#

When Fraser parked the truck in front of the detachment, Ray decided to take a little walk. He was glad--really glad--that Fraser liked his plan. He'd been thinking about it for months, since the retirement meeting, but it never seemed like the right time to bring it up when they talked on the phone. He kind of already knew that Fraser would be into it, but there was always that voice in the back of his head saying, it's dumb, he's gonna think it's dumb, or queer, or that you can't hack it up here full-time, and have you thought about Florida, Ray?

Now that he'd said it, it felt almost like he'd just proposed or something.

And Fraser had said yes. But it was weird, looking at Fraser and thinking, this is the guy you're going to spend the rest of your life with. So instead, he took a walk around Deline and thought, this is the place you're gonna spend the rest of your life. There was the diner he'd eat in every day, there was the hotel his folks would stay in if they came to visit--which they wouldn't, because they'd be really old by then, but maybe his brother would come--that stray dog was pissing on the stop sign he'd stop at every time he drove to the store. There was the bank machine where he'd draw out his pension.

No music store, but that was okay. Amazon.ca could get him anything he wanted. And if he and Fraser were sharing a place, he'd just get cable, whether Fraser said okay or not. While he was out on patrol, if necessary.

He stopped in the co-op and bought as many chocolate bars as he could fit in his pockets. Candy on the trail was a continuing source of disagreement between him and Fraser. He argued that anything with as many calories as a Snickers had to be A-one-double-plus trail food; Fraser that more lasting energy was provided by--you guessed it--pemmican. Fraser relented enough to buy chocolate-flavored energy bars from his favorite trail outfitter, but Ray preferred to leave those for the second half of the trip, when he was burning calories like crazy and anything tasted good.

He wasn't too surprised when the checker greeted him by name. He'd been in town almost a whole day--word would've gotten around. "Hi--" He checked where a name tag would be in a regular supermarket; there wasn't one. Probably everybody here knew the Co-op cashiers' names. "Sorry, I don't know everybody yet."

"Linda. Are you going to find Franklin's Hand this year?"

"Nah, we're actually doing the Ida trail this time."

"The Idaa trail?"

"Yeah, that one."

"My grandparents traveled that route every year, in birch bark canoes, north in fall and south in spring, as children and when they were first married. When they started their family they settled here year `round, for the school. They took me and my brothers and sisters one year, so we'd know what it was like. We used the aluminum canoes, but otherwise it was the same. We went in summer, though. I've never been in winter."

"We're usually up above the circle, above the tree line, when we're looking for the hand," Ray said. "This'll be like lying on a beach in Florida, as far as I'm concerned."

"Be sure you stop at Sliding Hill," Linda advised him. "There's a tradition, you cut the top of a spruce and slide down. If you go straight down, you'll live to see your gray hairs. If you spin out halfway down, the land isn't happy with you, and you'll die early."

Traditions up here were sometimes scary. "Did you make it the whole way down?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"Do you want some tobacco?"

"Oh, I don't smoke anymore."

"For offerings," Linda explained. "It's traditional." She took a pack of cigarettes from under the counter. "My grandfather always used this brand."

He paid for the cigarettes. "Do you just burn them, or what?"

"No, tear the paper and sprinkle the tobacco."

Taking his change, he stowed the candy bars in his pockets and headed out.

There was a bulletin board by the door, and he paused to look at it. There was a flyer for the volunteer fire department--they were looking for people, like Fraser had said--and one for the school play. Someone was selling a snowmobile, and someone else had a litter of sled dog puppies. The Learning Center wanted anyone interested in a Yoga class to call and leave a message; they needed eight people for the class to happen.

Maybe when he lived here he could do a boxing class. Or dance, if the young guys here were as unwilling to fight an old guy as the ones at his old gym in Chicago. Probably the people here knew their own Dene dances, and if they had cable, the kids knew how to freak, but ballroom might be a cultural experience, kinda. The festive dances of Midwestern white folks.

With a shrug, he headed back to the detachment.

#

"Sergeant? There's someone here to see you," Connie called around the partition.

Although he wasn't, technically, on duty today, Fraser had found a few phone messages that he felt he should return before they left, and was now sitting at his desk writing them up. "Just a moment." If it was an emergency, Connie would have said.

But before he could get up from his desk to greet the visitor, she came around the partition. She was dressed in city clothes, a navy pants suit with a parka over it. "Sergeant Fraser? I'm Dr. Calloway."

"Hello." As far as he knew, the Health Center wasn't due for a visit from an MD for another month, and anyway, she wasn't their usual doctor. "How can I help you?"

"I'm a psychologist with the RCMP. They sent me to talk with you."

"I had my annual psychological evaluation eight and a half months ago," Fraser objected.

"Some of your colleagues have expressed concerns."

Some of his colleagues. Connie, O'Donnell, or both of them? "I'm fine. And I'm on leave," he added, putting his paperwork back in the drawer with slightly more force than was strictly necessary.

"You seem to be here today," Calloway pointed out.

"Briefly. Wrapping up a few things. I'm afraid I don't have time for a psych evaluation today. My friend is here; we're leaving tomorrow to sled the Idaa trail."

"Your friend's here," she repeated.

"Yes."

"Right now?"

"Yes. My leave ends on the 21st, and if I'm required to make myself available for a psychiatric evaluation then, I will certainly make myself available. But today I am on leave."

Dr. Calloway sat down in his guest chair. "Sergeant, this isn't a formal evaluation. I'm simply here to talk with you. A friendly chat. I understand you've been going through a difficult time."

"The RCMP sent you the whole way here from--where? Edmonton?"

"Regina."

"From Regina, because my dog died. Lovely. Very efficient use of official funds. I. Am. Fine."

"Is there somewhere more private we can talk?"

"No." He got up and carefully pushed his chair under the desk. "Connie," he said, shrugging on his coat and walking out to the reception area and carefully ignoring the psychologist at his heels, "I'm on leave. I'll be available by satellite phone for any emergencies unrelated to my personal mental health."

"I...understand," she said, glancing at Dr. Calloway and back at him.

"Please give Dr. Calloway any assistance she requires arranging transport back where she belongs."

Connie hesitated, then nodded. "Have a nice vacation, Sergeant."

"I shall."

Dr. Calloway hurried after him as he stalked around back to the kennels, her woefully inadequate footwear slipping on the ice. Fraser had surprisingly little trouble resisting the impulse to offer assistance.

"Sergeant Fraser, I completely understand your hostility. But you're not in any trouble, and your colleagues only contacted me out of a sincere concern for your well-being. A concern that I share. You--"

"This is not hostility. This is indifference." He unlocked the shed where they stored the sled and pulled the tarp off of it. Turning the sled on its side, he splashed some linseed oil on a rag and began rubbing it into one of the runners.

"I see. However--"

"I'm attempting to prepare for an expedition of, well, of moderate rigor, but your interference is not welcome, and may, in fact, verge on the legal definition of harassment."

Dr. Calloway sat gingerly on the edge of the Rubbermaid crate that he stored dog food in, and crossed her legs knee over knee. "Would you say that your behavior over the last two weeks has been normal?"

"Did I neglect to mention that I am on leave? Or is there some aspect of that status that you fail to understand?"

"Yes, in fact. The part where you're evidently spending your leave at work."

"I'm not. I keep my sled team here, as allowable under policy 47 stroke G, use of unused RCMP resources for storage and maintenance of personal property used intermittently or occasionally in the performance of official duties." The RCMP had switched over almost entirely to snowmobiles; policy 47/G was intended for Members to keep their own teams in the kennels that were still attached to most of the remote detachments. He wasn't doing anything he shouldn't be. He worked on the other runner. He'd have to inspect the sled again later; he knew he wasn't able to concentrate well enough to notice any minor flaws.

"Fraser?" Ray stuck his head in the shed door.

"Ray. Give me a hand, here?"

"Sure." Ray gave Calloway a curious look as they lifted the sled and set it outside on the snow. Catching sight of him, the dogs set up a cacophony of barking. "We're ignoring the shrink?" he asked quietly, under the din.

"Yes."

"Good plan."

"The harness is in the truck. I'll be right back."

#

As Fraser disappeared around the corner, the psychologist came out of the shed. "You're Detective Vecchio?" She looked more surprised than was really flattering, especially since she couldn't even see the experimental hair under the hood of his parka.

"Kowalski. I was, uh, I was undercover as Detective Vecchio for a while." He knew it was weird, a cop being undercover as a different cop. Probably Fraser's official record still listed him as Vecchio.

"But you are Sergeant Fraser's old partner from Chicago?"

"Yeah." Everyone in town knew who he was and what he was doing there--even if Fraser hadn't said a word, it was surprising someone hadn't told her. "Yeah. Look, I know he was weird for a couple of weeks there. I'm not surprised O'Donnell felt like she had to tell somebody, and once he thinks about it he won't blame her any. But he's, you know, he's gonna be okay," Ray said, with slightly more confidence than he felt.

"I'm glad you think so. And I'm very relieved to see that you're--" She hesitated as if she were rethinking her word choice at the last minute. "Here. To support him at this difficult time. But his behavior was extremely erratic--weird, as you say--for the last two weeks. Some professional counseling seems to be indicated."

"Well, okay, but it's gonna have to be after we get back from our trip. I don't know why they sent you when he's on leave. If our plans hadn't changed, we'd have been gone before you got here."

"Making the travel arrangements to get here was rather difficult," Calloway said, like she thought he was blaming her for not getting there sooner. "I intended to arrive yesterday, but the flight from Norman Wells was unavailable."

"Maybe that's `cause I was on it," Ray answered. This time of year, most of the pilots took out the cabin seats so they could hold more cargo, and the occasional passenger rode in the copilot's chair. It was a good thing the RCMP hadn't somehow twisted the pilot's arm into taking Calloway instead of him. If she'd gotten here first, before him....

Well. Fraser had been bad, yesterday. He continued, "Is he gonna be in trouble when he gets back, if we leave on our trip without him sitting down with you first?"

"Ah, his cooperation with counseling is, at present voluntary. If he's ordered to cooperate, then he would of course be subject to disciplinary action if he chose to ignore that order."

"But they can't really order him to do nothin' if he's not here," Ray said. "So, worst case scenario, he comes back and finds orders to present himself for counseling ASAP, he does that, everything's cool. Right?"

"That's correct," she said, as Fraser came back around the corner with his arms full of harness. "But--"

"Great. See you." He went over to help Fraser hitch up the dogs.

"I thought we were ignoring her."

"Just tellin' her everything's fine."

Fraser nodded. "We'll go out toward the airport, then loop around and head north along the shoreline."

"'kay."

The dogs bounced around like a class of grade-school kids let out for recess early, but they managed to get them all harnessed up, and Ray took his spot on the front of the sled, with Fraser standing behind him. Fraser shouted, "Okay, boys," and they were off.

The dogs started off fast and whipped up a biting wind. For the first hour or so Ray hunkered down as much out of the wind as he could, but he got back into the groove soon enough. It wasn't that it stopped being cold, but that was just how it was here, You accepted it and moved on. Halfway through Fraser let him take the wheel, and had him do a lot of big circles and figure-eights. His first ones were more like wobbly ovals, but soon he got the hang of it, and the tracks the sled left in the snow looked like they could've been drawn with a compass.

Despite the big breakfast, Ray was starving by the time they headed back to the detachment, and had to cram down two of the chocolate bars he'd just bought while Fraser drove.

At the detachment, Fraser hauled him up off of the sled and said, "Go inside and get warm; I'll put the dogs up. Soon as I'm done we'll go for lunch."

Ray decided not to argue. Once they were on the trail, there'd be plenty of work to go around. "Yeah, okay."

He brushed as much snow as he could off of his clothes and stomped his boots on the mat before he went in. Constable O'Donnell was at the civilian aide's desk again, and gave him a look like a puppy that's just messed the carpet. "Sergeant Fraser's mad at me, isn't he?"

So she was the one who'd called the shrink squad in on him. But Ray couldn't really blame her--just out of the academy, she was stationed up here in the middle of nowhere, and then it looked like her CO was cracking up. In her place, he might've kicked that problem upstairs too. "You did what you thought was right. He'll respect that." And really, he was grateful someone had tried to help Fraser, even if the specific thing she'd done wasn't very helpful. Maybe before he left he'd slip her his home number, so if Fraser looked bad again, she could let him know instead of the RCMP brass.

"Oh. Good."

"Eventually," Ray added. "You might wanna, you know, keep your head down, coupla days."

#

At the bottom of the first supply crate, Fraser found the Ultra-Paws boots he'd ordered for Dief. He clutched the edge of the crate to steady himself.

"Frase?" Ray stepped up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah." He passed a hand over his face. "Yeah, I'm okay." He handed Ray the package with the boots in it. "We should take these; they might come in handy if someone injures a paw."

"Sure, yeah," Ray said softly, giving his shoulder a final pat before turning to find a place for the dog boots in the pack.

"I got you some new gloves, too. Like the ones I had last year. They're in here somewhere."

"Cool, thanks. Always lookin' out for me, huh?"

"We're partners, Ray." He needed this. He needed this so much. He didn't know what he'd do if Ray wasn't here.

"Yeah, I got that." Ray smiled at him, the slow, lazy smile that lit up his eyes and brought a horrible pun springing to his mind: radiant Ray.

The gloves were on top of the next crate he opened. "Oh, I forgot, I got you some new thermals, too. I had to throw some of your old ones away when I unpacked last year." He tossed Ray the packages.

"I bet I'm the only cop in the world whose partner buys him underwear," Ray remarked, tearing open the plastic and rolling the items up for neater storage and stowing them in Ziploc bags.

"That's unlikely," Fraser said, then scrambled to come up with evidence to back himself up. "Buck Frobisher and my father, for instance--well, perhaps not. Uhmm, Detectives Huey and Dewey...."

"You may have a point there," Ray agreed. "Those guys are, like, freakishly close, and isn't the view nice from this glass house?"

Fraser smiled. "Yeah. If I'd remembered I ordered those, I'd have washed them."

"That's okay. They're white. No chemicals."

"True." They packed some more, sorting the food into packages, deciding what to use first and what to crate up for their cache. When Ray produced his usual stash of candy bars, along with a pack of cigarettes, Fraser raised an eyebrow. "Smoking and swimming, Ray? Are you attempting to wean yourself off oxygen?"

"Linda at the store said we needed `em. It's traditional."

"Oh." He hadn't thought of that, somehow. There were a number of spiritually important sites on the Idaa trail, and it was customary to leave an offering. "Very true. The spirits like Lucky Strikes?"

"That's what Linda said her grandpa used." Ray shrugged.

"Ah. Good." He packed them in the bag where they stowed various small essentials--salt, soap, twine, and the like.

Once they were packed, Ray fixed dinner with the last of the fresh food, and they turned in early, in their bedrolls on the living room floor.

"Have I told you the story of Raven and the man who had suffered enough?" Fraser asked, propping himself up on one elbow so he could see the low flame in the woodstove.

"I don't think so. You gonna tell me now?"

"If you want me to."

"Sure, lay it on me." Ray crossed his arms behind his head and shut his eyes.

"There was a young man, a medicine man, whose medicine was the Raven. Raven's a trickster figure, like Coyote, or Crow from the story I told you last night. With Raven as his spirit animal, the young man's medicine was powerful, but it never worked quite as he expected. He had bad luck. He was traveling with his wife when his wife died in childbirth, so he decided to find some other relatives. Raven followed him everywhere he went, but would not help him."

"If he had something other than Raven for his medicine, that one would've helped him?" Ray asked.

"Yes, generally."

"Sucks to be him," Ray observed. "Sorry. Keep going."

"Raven is a scavenger who eats what other hunters had killed. The young man was angry with Raven, so he didn't share his meat with Raven. Raven was angry with him, and never helped him, which made the young man angrier, so he still didn't share with Raven. The young man became angrier and angrier, and Raven became angrier and angrier."

"One a' them vicious circles," Ray said, without opening his eyes. "Yeah, I can get that."

"Yes, exactly. Raven decided to play a dirty trick on the young man, and he fixed it so that the young man couldn't find his relatives or even any other humans. The young man was driven crazy by his rage and his loneliness, so he decided to kill Raven, even though Raven was his medicine."

"That's, like, bad ju-ju?"

"Yes--killing one's medicine is...generally ill-advised. But he was determined to do it, so he made a long thread out of sinew from the animals that he hunted, over many days, and he rubbed the thread with coals from his fire so that it would be black and almost invisible in the dark. When he had finished his thread, he caught some rabbits and when he cleaned them, he left a lot of meat on one of the leg bones. He made a snare with his thread and left it with the meaty bone and the rest of his scraps outside his camp.

"When Raven flew down to eat the meat, the young man pulled his snare tight around Raven's leg. Since it was such a long thread, and it was black and almost invisible, Raven didn't notice and flew with his bone to the top of a tall tree."

"He didn't notice? Dumb bird."

"Well, that's how the story goes. The young man decided to give Raven one last chance to see reason. He told him, why are you giving me so much bad luck? I can't find my people, and I am lonely. Raven laughed and said, I am enjoying this. I can keep you from seeing any people for the rest of your life."

"How'd he do that, anyway?" Ray asked.

"I don't know, Ray. Magic."

"Oh. Sorry, I'll be quiet."

"It's okay." Fraser picked the story up again. "The young man said, I'll kill you, you villain. Raven laughed and answered, you can't kill me, because you cannot fly.

"The young man yanked on the thread and pulled Raven down to the ground, and tied the thread to a pole. Now you're my prisoner, he said, and it's your turn to beg. Raven found that he could not escape from the thread on his leg, and he tried to make a deal. He told the young man that he'd watch out for him, and find him a new wife, and make sure that he had a long and happy life. The young man said, no, you are a liar and I can't trust you. I'm going to kill you anyway.

"Raven said, all right, but first you must listen to my last words. And he was right, the young man did have to listen, because that was the custom. Raven said, when I die, dry my body and carry it with you. Next time you are worried or sad, put my body on the ground and dance around it three times, and sing this song that I will give you. He sang the song for the young man to remember.

"It is also the custom that a dying person's last wishes must be carried out, so even though the young man beat Raven to death, he did as Raven said and dried his body and carried it with him. Killing Raven did not improve his luck; he traveled for another month and still did not see another human person. He remembered what Raven had said, and he put his body on the ground and danced around it, singing the song that Raven had given him.

"Raven's body began to move, and soon he came back to life. You thought your troubles were over when you killed me? Raven asked. Ha! He flew into the air and kept flying until he was far away, because the young man had suffered enough."

A long moment after he finished, Ray said, "That's it? What happened, did the guy find his family then?"

"The story doesn't say. Maybe he did."

"I hope so. Jeeze. That's a mean bird."

"That's what Raven's like," Fraser agreed.

"I don't get that story. Killing the raven didn't help him with the rage and the loneliness, right? So what was he supposed to do? Just wait it out?"

"Maybe."

"Or was he supposed to give the Raven his food even though Raven was screwing with him?"

"Maybe," Fraser said again.

"That's not a very helpful story, if you don't know what the guy was supposed to do, or how it turned out."

"I don't know if it's supposed to be helpful."

"The guy didn't do anything wrong, did he? I mean, before he killed the Raven, which maybe he shouldn't've done, but he was pretty much fucked before that. He was just screwed over because Raven was his medicine, instead of one of the better animals? That's not fair."

"I guess maybe it's a story about why bad things happen to good people. That's one of the big questions, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but there isn't a reason bad things happened to the guy. Raven just decided to fuck with him for fun."

"That's the reason. Some people are just unlucky. Even though they didn't do anything wrong."

"Yeah, I guess." Ray tucked his arms inside the bedroll and turned on his side. "I hope things turned out OK for the guy. Next month he found his family, got a new wife, or maybe a best friend or something, and he lived happily ever after. You know." His eyes drooped closed, and his breathing started to even out.

"Yes. Yes, I know."

Part 2: A Land So Wild and Savage

Most of the course Fraser plotted went right over the lakes, to take advantage of the smooth ice. On land, Fraser explained, there would be rocks and trees and logs in the way. The feeling of ice under the sled rails was familiar, but they were in sight of shore most of the time. The tall pines blocked out the horizon. The first hour or so felt almost claustrophobic.

Over the years, Ray had learned to read the land up north of the treeline--to see it as something other than an endless sea of white. He wondered how long it would take him to learn to see this land. Maybe they could canoe it during summer sometime--once he knew what was under the snow, he'd be able to keep his bearings better.

They stopped early, when the sun started to go down, and made camp on the shore. After picketing the dogs, they bored through the ice and set some lines, even though Fraser said this wasn't one of the best fishing spots. "We might get lucky," he said. "You never know."

Back on shore, Fraser put his hand on a tree trunk. "You know what this is?"

"Birch tree?"

"Well, yes. But this scar here is where the bark was removed, probably decades ago. Maybe to repair a canoe, or make a cooking pot, something like that." He slapped the tree. "Let's see if we can find a downed tree for firewood."

Fraser found the tree, a few hundred yards from their campsite, and Ray chopped it up, while Fraser put up the tent and fed the dogs. He was pretty good with an axe, for a city guy. Once they had the fire going, Fraser broke a branch off a spruce tree. "Bark tea--you want some?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll melt some snow." Bark tea was one of those things that tasted disgusting in town, but just seemed right on the trail.

"Check the lines, while you're over there."

They'd dropped a few lines, at different depths in the water. Ray tugged on them one by one, and on the last, deepest one, pulled up a fat whitefish. "Awesome," he said admiringly. "Hey, Frase!" He held the fish up and pointed to it.

Fraser looked up from peeling his spruce stick and waved back. "Good! Put the line back in, maybe we'll get one for breakfast, too."

He smacked the fish against the ice to stun it before sticking a gloved thumb through the gills and removing the hook. He re-set the line and went back to camp, where Fraser tipped the spruce bark into a pot and started cleaning the fish. "Should we boil this or roast it?"

"Let's roast it," Ray answered. When they ate the dried fish in their packs, they'd have to boil it. "Maybe when we get to one of the better fishing spots, we could set some nets and get enough fish to smoke. That would be fun."

Fraser did not define fun in the traditional way. "Sure, if you want." Since Fraser was taking charge of the fish, he dug through the packs for side dishes. "Does couscous go with fish?"

"Yes, excellently."

He boiled a little water in the cooking pot and added some dehydrated carrots. Once they were cooked, he stirred in the couscous.

The fish was flaky and delicious, even seasoned with nothing but salt and smoke. Ray ate his share with his fingers, licking them when he was done. Putting his plate aside, he stretched out with his head on one of the packs, sipping at his bark tea. Fraser started gathering up the plates. "I'll get those in a little bit," he objected.

"It's no trouble."

"Well, okay, I'm not gonna fight you for it," Ray agreed.

"Thank you." Fraser scrubbed the plates and pot with snow and stowed them back in the packs, then came back and stretched out by the fire, his posture mirroring Ray's.

Ray watched the fire and waited for Fraser to tell him a story. But Fraser just poked at the embers with a stick and said, "You drew an interesting parallel between oral storytelling and email forwards as a method of transmitting culture," which Ray eventually figured out was his way of saying it was Ray's turn to tell something.

"Oh, um, okay. Remember when they had the tsunami in--wherever it was, over in Asia, a few years ago?"

"Yes."

"Did anybody send you the one about the hippo?"

"Mm. I don't remember it."

"Just about everybody I know sent it to me, `cause there's a turtle in it."

"It's about a hippo and a turtle? Was the turtle stepped on?"

"No, it's a really big turtle. And a baby hippo. It's a good story. They made a book of it, with pictures--I got it for one of Frannie's kids that Christmas it came out. The baby hippo was orphaned--I think his family washed out to sea or something, that part's kind of sad. But the people there rescued him with boats and stuff, and took him to this animal sanctuary." Ray was fuzzy on some of the details of the story, so he just made up the parts he couldn't remember. "The sanctuary didn't have any other hippos--no, I think they did, but they were grown-up hippos and they figured they wouldn't want a strange baby. So the only place they had to put `im was in with this giant turtle. It was a big pen, and it had a pond, like hippos need, and they were about the same size. Turtle was something like a hundred years old, and he's far from home--you know how back in sailing-ship days they used to stop on tropical islands to get water, and they'd take these giant turtles with `em, sort of fresh meat on the hoof?"

"Yes, I've heard of that. The turtles lived on isolated islands and had no fear of humans, and the sailors hunted without thought to preserving a viable breeding population. The practice often lead to ecological disaster."

"Yeah. So that's the turtle's story. He's the only one like him in the entire sanctuary, probably the whole country, and the baby hippo was all on his own, too. The people at the sanctuary probably figured, OK, we'll put `em in there together and probably the turtle'll mind his own business and the hippo'll mind his, and once he's grown up he can go in with the other hippos. But the hippo decided he was gonna make friends with the turtle--maybe he thought it was another hippo `cause of the shape, or maybe he's just a friendly hippo; they don't know. The turtle was kind of bugged for the first couple days, but then he decided he liked this hippo kid, so he started taking care of him. They'd sleep cuddled up together--that could be `cause turtles like heat, I dunno--turtle would show him what kind of plants were good to eat, they'd play together in the water--turtles can be pretty fast in the water. Some people figure the hippo thought the turtle was his mother, some people figure they were just pals. But, you know. One of those things."

When he finished, Fraser said, "That's really remarkable. Are you sure this really happened?"

"Uh-huh."

"Most reptiles, including tortoises if I'm not mistaken, don't raise their young," Fraser pointed out. "I don't know how the tortoise would know how to take care of a baby hippopotamus."

"Yeah, that's what makes it such a great story. It's kind of the other way around from that Raven story last night. Sometimes things work out okay even though there's no good reason for it."

"Hm," Fraser said. "Ready to turn in?"

"Yeah, that'd be good."

Getting ready for bed was Ray's absolute least favorite part of any day on the trail. Because even though the last thing any sane person would want to do when it was freeze-your-nuts-off cold was strip bare-ass naked and put on different underwear, they had to do it. If they didn't give their inner layers a chance to air out, the long underwear would turn into a clammy, hypothermia-inducing second skin. Or so Fraser said, anyway--Ray had never tested it. The only thing that made the whole process even faintly bearable was the trick he'd come up with, of warming the new set of underwear over the stove immediately before changing into it. Fraser had complained about the waste of stove fuel on the first trip, but by now he was used to it, and--since warming two sets of clothes didn't take noticeably more fuel than one--warmed his too.

"Cold, cold, cold, cold," Ray chanted as he shucked out of his clothes, adding "Fuck that's cold," as he hit the "naked" point of the process, "cold, cold, cold, okay, getting toasty now. Nice toasty underwear. Yikes." He dived into the bedroll to put on his socks.

"Does the chanting help?" Fraser asked, buttoning up his union suit.

"It makes me feel better."

"Ah."

Ray thrashed around in the bedroll. "Hey. How come we have lasagna-bed? It's not that cold." Fraser had interleaved the two bedrolls together, making one large one, like he did on the very coldest nights up in the Arctic circle. Ray no longer remembered why he'd decided to call it lasagna-bed--he suspected he'd been slightly hypothermic when he came up with the name.

Fraser crouched beside him, thumbing his eyebrow. "You're used to having Dief in with you," he pointed out gently.

"Oh. Yeah." Ray smiled sadly, remembering how Dief used to crawl into Ray's bedroll, turned around in a tight circle by his feet, and squirmed back up to lie down with his head under Ray's chin. "He was a good hot-water bottle."

"I can separate them if you want," Fraser said. "I expect you'll be all right."

"Nah, it's cool. Climb in." He knew from experience that Fraser threw off even more heat than Dief, and, even with the toasty underwear, he was still pretty chilly.

Fraser settled in next to him. "So tomorrow we'll keep heading north. Two days driving should take us to Nidziika Kogolaa."

"Which is what?" Ray asked.

"A village--or what used to be a village. It was abandoned after the flu epidemic of `29. Most of the foundations and chimneys can still be seen, and even some of the structures are partially standing."

"Gosh, yeah, that sounds really exciting."

"It's an historically important site--it was an important trading center from the late 19th century until the epidemic, and the artifacts found there can aid in tracing the adoption of European technology and ways by the Dene. It's a fascinating portrait of a culture in transition."

"Cool," Ray said vaguely.

"So we're in for an exciting few days. Better get some sleep."

And Fraser dropped off, like he did, in about ten seconds. Ray snuggled up next to him and fell asleep too.

#

The second night, Fraser hesitated setting up the bedrolls. Ray had been surprised to see them folded double last night, and although he'd accepted Fraser's explanation without question, Fraser himself knew that it was, if not an outright lie, at least incomplete.

Fraser knew that there were plenty of people who were fond of him--his sister, some of his classmates from Depot, the residents of Deline, the old crowd from Chicago. But there were only two that touched him, and now one of them was gone. Dief hadn't been an especially cuddly dog, but he would jump up on Fraser to greet him, bump against him to make a point or emphasize a joke, rest his head on his knee for an ear-scratch, or--rarely--roll onto his back to luxuriate in a belly rub.

For the last two weeks his skin had hungered for touch. And after Ray left, it would be a long forty-nine weeks before anyone touched him again. He wanted as much as he could get, as though he could store it up in his layer of subcutaneous fat.

But that wasn't fair to Ray. If he was that starved for touch, he could bring one of the sled dogs in. Resolutely, he folded the bedrolls into thirds, separately, and stepped out of the tent to feed the dogs.

They'd fallen into the rhythm of camp chores, each knowing what needed to be done, and doing it without discussion. Fraser knew without asking, without checking. that Ray would have dug out the feed pans and filled them with high-performance kibble, and topped each bowl with a dollop of oil and a handful of dried fish. Fraser would distribute them to the dogs, and by the time he'd collected them again, Ray would have melted a pot of snow so that he could fill them again with water. Before he even began peeling a branch for spruce tea, he knew the kettle would be on the boil by the time he finished. That was partnership, and it was a kind of intimacy too.

Dinner was dehydrated chicken cacciatore, beef-barley soup, and cherry cobbler. No stories that night--Fraser couldn't think of one. Instead, they talked about old cases, previous incarnations of the expedition, in the shorthand that Fraser loved. "Remember that time with the ducks?" Ray would say, and Fraser'd answer, "Which time?"

Ray said, "The Russians," and they were both right there, on the same line of the same page. No further explanation was needed when Ray continued, "That was some old guy. Wonder if he ever thought maybe he really was imagining it all, like everybody thought."

"Possibly." Fraser knew that he did, sometimes. Between expeditions.

"Don't know if I could do it. Keep the faith that long, in deep cover."

"I'm sure you'd answer the call, if your country needed you."

"I think if all that's standing between the U.S. of A and total destruction is one skinny Polack, maybe the skinny Polack had better run for the border."

"Well, sometimes a tactical retreat is the wisest and bravest course of action."

After the warming of the underwear, they ducked into the tent, and Ray started his underwear-changing song. "Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold--hey, no lasagna bed?" He paused with his parka, snow pants, and fleece shirt off, but his jeans and flannel still on.

"It's not that cold."

"Dunno, I'm kind of chilly."

"Put your underwear on while it's still warm," Fraser suggested.

"Yeah, okay," Ray agreed, shedding the rest of his clothes. "Fuck that's cold. Okay, toasty underwear, warming up now. Warm, warm, warm." He crouched next to the bedrolls and started unfolding his. "You wanna help me make the bed, here?"

"Oh. Certainly." Quickly, they fixed the blankets and crawled inside.

Ray snuggled up, a warm weight against his back. "My hands are frozen. You mind?"

Mind what? "Not at all."

Ray wormed one arm under Fraser's body, draped the other across him, and folded his hands--which were, indeed, quite cold--over his chest. "Okay?"

"Of course. We do have some chemical heat packs in the bags," he added belatedly.

"I'm good," Ray answered into his shoulder. "Cozy."

#

When Ray woke up, his arms were numb. Both of them. Somehow Fraser had gotten turned around during the night and was laying across him, his head pressing down on Ray's shoulder. Stella's parents had had a cat that did that--came in when you were sleeping and camped out on your chest.

At least Fraser's breath didn't smell like Salmon Surprise.

He was really sacked out, though, and that was weird. Usually Ray was the last one to wake up. But Fraser probably hadn't been sleeping real well.

Ray was glad Fraser hadn't called him on that stupid "I have to put my arms around you because my hands are cold" thing. "I have to hug you because you're sighing too much" would have sounded weird, but what he'd come up with wasn't much better. Probably Fraser thought he was scared of the dark or the bears or something, but Ray would let him think that, if he wanted.

One of the dogs started barking, and after about a second the rest of the team joined in. Fraser woke up all at once, the way he did, lifting himself up on his hands and looking confusedly down at Ray. He shook his head a little. "Terribly sorry."

"No problem. I'll regain my three-dimensionality in a day or two, I bet," he said, taking a few experimental deep breaths.

Fraser wiggled into his clothes inside the bedroll, which let a certain unavoidable amount of cold air in, but Ray decided he'd complained enough for one morning. When Fraser left the bedroll and put his boots on, Ray knew the next thing he'd do was open the tent flap, which meant even more cold air, so he did the mature thing and stuck his head under the covers.

Fraser patted him on the top of his furry hat--the only part of him still sticking out--before he left to feed the dogs.

The abandoned village, which they reached in late afternoon, turned out to be surprisingly cool. Fraser wouldn't let him explore the half-ruined cabins-- "strictly prohibited by Northwest Territorial regulations governing archeological sites, Ray, and dangerous, besides," but there was no law against walking around them and peering in the falling-down parts.

"This is wild," he told Fraser. "Down in Illinois this would either be a historical recreation area with people in funny costumes and a hot dog stand and gift shop, or else it would be paved over to make an RV park. Either way, they wouldn't just leave it sitting here and tell people not to touch it."

"Hm. People do still camp here, but not enough to require an RV park. And the period when this trail was used for seasonal migration is still--barely--in living memory, so elders in the surrounding communities are able to interpret the site. Costumed re-enactors aren't really necessary."

There was only time for a quick look around before they had to start making camp, or else lose the light. Once they had the dogs settled in and the tent up, Fraser hesitated, studying a stand of spruce trees. "What do you think about staying here for a day or two? We can set some nets and perhaps smoke a little fish, and we really should check out the cemetery."

"Okay," Ray agreed, although he wasn't sure what was so special about the graveyard.

"Excellent. In that case, we'll make a spruce bed." Fraser took out the axe and started lopping branches.

"We're going to sleep on branches? Why?"

"Spruce boughs make a surprisingly comfortable and fragrant bed. Here, Take these to the tent." He piled some branches into Ray's arms. "You'll see."

Once Fraser had cut enough branches and woven them into a rough mat, Ray tried it out. It was a lot more comfortable than you'd think sleeping on a bunch of tree branches would be--sort of springy. "Smells like Christmas."

"I suppose it does." Fraser extended a hand and pulled him up. "Let's go cut ice."

To set the nets, they had to chop two big holes in the ice, and thread the net through from one to the other. It was sort of like trying to put the drawstring back in a sweatshirt hood after you'd pulled it the whole way out by mistake, only bigger, colder, and much wetter. He wasn't sure if Fraser was having a harder time of it than usual or not, but after a while he sent Ray back to shore for the lantern.

When he came back, the sun was setting, a ball of fire on the close-up horizon, turning a long strip of ice into orange juice.

Frozen orange juice. Whatever. Ray wasn't good at metaphors. It was pretty, was all. He tromped over to Fraser, who was poking around at the second ice-hole with a stick, same as he'd been doing when Ray left. "Kinda seems like the old-fashioned fishing-line method is a little easier," Ray remarked.

"Well. Yes, in a way. Although this method actually predates the use of hooks and lines. But the net allows a larger number of fish to be caught, with less attention from the fisherman. Or men, as the case may be. I believe we may need to drill a guide-hole."

Ray crouched by the hole. "What do you do? Just poke around under there and try to snag the net with the pole?"

"Yes. Easier said than done, I'm afraid." Fraser straightened up and cracked his shoulders.

"Let me give it a try," he said, grabbing the pole, a spruce branch Fraser had cut and peeled, with one of the smaller branches left on at the end to make a sort of hook.

Fraser handed it over without a struggle. "You're welcome to give it a try, but I can't imagine you'll have any more success than I have,"

Ray snagged the net on his first try. He did his best to refrain from an unseemly display of triumph. His best was, unfortunately, inadequate. He was just getting into his victory dance when Fraser gave him a shove. He staggered several steps, like Wile E. Coyote, before he hit a slick patch and fell on his butt, skidding several more yards. Meters. Whatever.

Fraser was watching him with an expression of concern, which changed to a hesitant smile when Ray came up laughing and charged him, holding the fishnet pole like a lance. He managed to keep his feet under him that time, and at the last moment he swung the lance wide and body checked Fraser, tumbling them both ass over teakettle onto the ice.

Fraser wound up flat on his back, sort of pinned, except Ray suspected he could get out from under Ray if he really wanted to. "It's very bad luck to interrupt a guy's fishing-net victory dance," Ray informed him.

"Terribly sorry," Fraser said. "I had no idea."

"Yeah. You probably oughta read up on these local customs before you travel."

"I've been remiss," Fraser agreed meekly.

"It'll be your fault if we don't get any fish."

"Yes, I'm sure if that's the case, the vibrations caused by your dance on the ice scaring the fish away will have had nothing to do with it."

"Damn straight. See, the vibrations--from the victory dance--make the fish curious, so they come up and get caught in the net," Ray bullshitted.

"That's very logical."

Ray got to his feet--his knees were starting to go numb where they were pressed against the ice--and helped Fraser up. Ray's knees creaked, and so did Fraser's shoulder. He should probably consider himself lucky neither of them broke a hip, horsing around on the ice like kids.

The next day, Fraser got up at the usual time, but Ray took advantage of the opportunity to laze around in the spruce bed, since they were sticking around that day. Hitching up the dogs and moving on, Ray felt connected to every other explorer, every other adventurer--not just Franklin and the Inuit who crossed over the pole in the ice ages, but the ones to come, too. The first settlers on Mars, or whatever. Wanting to find out what's over the next hill was a universal human impulse. Staying in camp was different. In a good way. Like they were making the wilderness a home, saying, "This place is ours, now." It was like they were the first people in the world, or maybe the last. Apocalyptic.

When he finally did get up, Fraser was lashing together some straight sticks with twine. Ray shook his head and poured himself a cup of coffee. Halfway through drinking it, he scraped the sleep-crumblies out of his eyes and put on his glasses, and noticed that Fraser'd made one of his camp flagpoles--three sticks lashed together at the ends--and put up the Quest flag.

Fraser had surprised him with the flag on the second leg of the Quest. The bottom third of the flag was white, representing snow, and the top was dark blue. The American and Canadian flags were sewn in the top two corners, and in the middle there was a stylized team of sled dogs--a very familiar white half-wolf at the front--racing eternally toward a reaching-out hand. The words "One warm line" were stitched in gold thread under the dogs. It was incredibly lame, and Ray had almost cried the first time he'd seen it.

They didn't put it up every time they made camp, but when they were staying in one place for more than a single night, they usually did. Fraser had earnestly explained that if any other travelers passed by and saw their camp, it would be appropriate to have some sign that would identify who they were. Ray chose not to point out that the flag of the Kowalski-Fraser Quest was not exactly an internationally recognized symbol.

Working on his second cup of coffee, he nodded toward Fraser's contraption of sticks. "So what's that?"

"A washstand."

"Looks more like, uh, three sticks tied together," Ray pointed out.

Fraser made a final knot, then aligned the sticks to the vertical and twisted. The three sticks opened up, crossing each other about a third of the way up, making a sort of tripod, and Fraser nestled a stainless-steel bowl in the crook of the branches. "Tah-dah!"

"Wow, yeah, that's real impressive."

Fraser laid out his shaving kit--the cutthroat razor, cake of soap, brush--and poured some hot water from the kettle into the bowl. Ray--as usual when Fraser shaved--couldn't take his eyes away. He told himself it was completely natural--someone's holding a knife at your partner's throat, even if it is your partner himself, you want to keep an eye on the situation. He knew Fraser shaved like that every day--an electric razor was too fancy for him, and disposables were a waste of natural resources--and if he didn't know how to do it, he'd be dead by now, but on the first leg of the Quest, Ray'd hardly been able to breathe while Fraser shaved, wondering if this was going to be the day his hand slipped. He knew there wouldn't be a whole lot he could do for a guy with a slit throat, hundreds of kilometers from any help.

He'd gotten used to it, but watching him was a habit now. Fraser propped a small unbreakable mirror against the washbowl and lathered his face, then stropped the razor a few times, lathered again, and began the shave.

Ray remembered the time his dad had taken him to the barbershop--he couldn't have been more than four or five. Dad had settled down in the chair and said, "Shave and a haircut," and when it was Ray's turn, he'd said the same thing. All the guys laughed, but the barber had lathered up his face and then scraped the foam off with the back of a comb, which for a long time Ray had thought was what shaving actually was.

He thought of it now because it almost looked like that was all Fraser was doing--Ray knew that was all down to how wickedly sharp the razor was. When Fraser did his "a straight razor gives the best shave in the world, Ray," routine, he sometimes dropped a strand of hair and cut it midair with a swipe of the razor. One of the things a lot of people didn't get about Fraser was that he was a little bit of a show-off. You just had to know what to look for.

Ray was trying to decide if he wanted a second bowl of oatmeal enough to bother cooking it when Fraser said, "Want a shave?"

Ray considered. He could go weeks without shaving on the trail, but as soon as Fraser shaved and he didn't, he started feeling like a pig. And his plastic safety razor was buried in the bottom of one of the packs. "Yeah, okay. Try not to kill me this time." Fraser hadn't yet, but there was a first time for everything.

"I'll do my best. Sit here."

Ray took his coffee cup and sat on a rock near Fraser's goofy washstand (not quite as goofy as the stick latrine he'd built one time--something like an old-fashioned drying rack, but instead of clothes you hung your ass on it--but still pretty goofy).

Fraser crouched in front of him with the shaving mug and brush to lather up his face--which, really, Ray could have done himself--then stood behind him for the shave, tilting Ray's head back so that it rested against his hip. The razor felt like water on his skin. Fraser's ungloved hand in his hair, steadying his head, was like fire.

They checked the net--about a dozen whitefish and one medium-sized trout--and Fraser had him sprinkle some of his tobacco in the holes before they re-set the net.

Fraser cleaned the fish, and then Ray got the job of divvying up the fish guts among the dogs while Fraser raked the coals out and hung the fish between two sticks to smoke dry.

After the fish thing, they hiked over to the abandoned village, Fraser--for some reason--carrying the axe. Each of the graves had its own little waist-high picket fence around it, reminding Ray of the white plastic one his parents put up around their Astroturf lawn wherever they parked the RV. All the graveyards up here had them--even the modern one in Deline. The fences made the graves visible from a distance, and the superstition was that they kept the spirits of the dead from walking. Maybe keeping animals away from the bodies had something to do with it too, but the fences weren't all that sturdy.

What was funny was that the fences were in way better shape than what was left of the town. "When did you say this place was abandoned?"

"1929." Fraser leaned over one of the fences to straighten a wooden cross that was tilted drunkenly on its side. "Everyone who comes through this way helps maintain the graves. It's considered respectful, and the ancestor spirits will help with good hunting and fair weather if they can."

So they went around fixing up the graves--straightening crosses, wiring up sections of fence that were falling down. Fraser used the axe to rough out replacements for a couple of pickets that had broken or gone missing.

A few of the graves were doubles--one picket fence, two crosses. The area inside of the fence was a little narrower than a double bed--about the size of their spruce bed back in camp. "Let's make sure we get one like that," Ray said, pointing to one of the doubles. If he was going to retire in Deline, it made sense he'd be buried there, and he didn't want his spirit fenced off from Fraser's.

"Those are mostly married couples," Fraser said.

"So?"

"Good point."

#

Considered leaving Diefenbaker in the Nidziika Kogolaa cemetery, but ultimately brought him back to camp. Tending graves is somewhat comforting. Perhaps should bury D. behind cabin after spring thaw.

Ray suggested that we be buried together. He's very dear to me. I hope his plan to retire here comes to fruition, but am trying not to count chickens before hatched.

Caught 12 whitefish and one trout. Smoking the whitefish; trout for lunch. Perhaps we should stay here another day.

Fraser looked up from his journal when Ray began shuffling a deck of cards loudly and clumsily, with his thin inner gloves on. "C'mon, finish up. I want to win back some of that air I owe you."

"I'm almost finished." The only times it was easy to write in the journal were those when Ray was completely exhausted and happy enough to doze in the bedroll while Fraser wrote. On in-camp days like this one, Fraser could get in about fifteen minutes of writing before Ray's attempts to get his attention grew truly distracting. "Why don't you make some fire starters?" Sometimes giving Ray a chore to do bought him a few more minutes.

Making fire starters, or "fuzz sticks" involved taking a stick and shaving strips from it, leaving them attached at one end. The finished product looked a bit like a large pine cone, and lit easily. Making them was good practice of woodworking techniques; unfortunately, Ray's skills didn't seem to have advanced beyond the fuzz sticks stage. But he was able to make them fairly quickly, and he piled up several of them while Fraser finished writing up the last few days in the journal.

When they reached Sliding Hill, a few days later, Ray was eager to experience the tradition of sliding down the hill on a spruce branch to predict the future. Evidently Linda at the Co-Op had told him about the custom.

"We aren't Dene," Fraser pointed out. "It might not work for us."

Ray shrugged. "We might as well try it. C'mon." Ray started up the hill, but Fraser hung back. Once Ray realized Fraser wasn't keeping up with him, he turned. "What's the problem?"

Fraser didn't answer, and Ray tramped back through the snow to his side. "You okay? Hey, if you don't want to do this, we don't have to." The portion of his face sticking out between his scarf and his knit cap wore an expression of concern. "You think it's, you know, disrespectful or something?"

Fraser considered letting Ray believe that. "Well, no. Perhaps it is a bit, well, culturally imperialistic of us to co-opt this tradition, but I'm afraid my objection is more...emotional."

"You have a morbid fear of hills or something?"

"If you're not going to live to see your gray hairs, I'm afraid I don't...well, I'd rather not know," he admitted.

As he'd expected, Ray shook his head and smiled. "You're goofy, Fraser. Look." He pulled off his cap. "I've got gray hairs already." He bent his head so that Fraser could examine his scalp. As he'd said, there were several strands with gray roots where the dye had grown out. "So I think we're good." He tugged the hat back on.

"If we already know the outcome, why perform the ritual?"

"For fun."

"Ah."

Ray cut a large branch. "Here, you sit behind me."

"I'm fairly sure the tradition requires that we sled down one at a time," Fraser objected.

"Yeah, well, we're going together," Ray answered.

"Why?"

Ray gave him a look. "You don't make it down, I don't want to either. We go together."

Ah. Fraser say down behind Ray without further complaint.

"I'll steer," Ray said. "You lean the way I lean."

"I don't know if you're supposed to steer," Fraser pointed out.

"Do you know that we're not?"

"No."

"There you go, then."

When they made it to the bottom of the hill without spinning, Ray bounced up and said, "Think we should go for best two out of three?"

"I'd rather not tempt fate, if you don't mind."

#

A few days after the sledding place, they got to Gameti, the only non-abandoned village on their route. As they got near it, Fraser did his tour-guide routine. "Like the abandoned villages on the trail, Gameti began as a seasonal settlement and trading outpost. It became a permanent village in the 70's with the construction of an airstrip and school."

Ray blinked. "The nineteen seventies?"

"Yes. The era of regular seasonal migration has ended now, but most of the inhabitants of Gameti still make their living through subsistence hunting and fishing--supplemented by tourism and related industries--selling traditional handicrafts and the like--and some government assistance. I hope we make it there before the community centre closes--I should check my email."

Ray shook his head. "They have the internet? They don't have roads, the people live off hunting and fishing, and they have the internet?"

"Yes, Ray," Fraser said patiently. "Satellite internet service has connected our more remote communities to the outside world in a way never before known. It's very exciting."

"Uh-huh."

Gameti turned out to be a lot like Deline, only even smaller, and with more log cabins than trailers. And they must've gotten even fewer visitors than Deline; lots of people came out to look at them as they sledded into town. And, judging from all the barking that started up, it wasn't the novelty of seeing two guys on a dogsled that brought them out, but the novelty of seeing anybody that didn't live there. Once, Ray would have been astonished that people actually chose to live in a place like that, but years of people asking him why in hell he left Chicago in winter just to go to the one place on Earth that was even colder, instead of going somewhere warm like a sane person, had made him more tolerant. People lived here because it was home, nothing more complicated than that.

By the time they stopped outside the general store, a bunch of kids were following them, and the grownups were watching from doorways like it was a parade. Fraser picked out a couple of the tallest kids and paid them off in candy bars to watch the dogs while they went inside.

It was a weird thing, stepping into a building lit by fluorescent bulbs, when for a week he hadn't seen any artificial light brighter than an open fire. And the selection of stuff to buy--four whole aisles, everything packaged in colors not found in nature--was almost dizzying. Ray wandered around picking stuff up and looking at it while Fraser talked to the shopkeeper. He had to remind himself that in two weeks he'd be back in the world of 24-hour superstores, just to keep himself from buying one of everything. Eventually he settled on a bag of chips, a Coke, and some replacements for the candy bars Fraser had given away.

"--capable young officer, but not especially familiar with the community," Fraser was saying to the store owner.

"Seems like we get a different Constable every time," the man complained. "How are they ever going to get familiar with the community?"

"Ottawa likes to rotate young officers through the detachment," Fraser explained. "It does tend to put them at a disadvantage."

"I guess they have to learn somewhere," the man agreed grudgingly. "Who's this? Not another new one."

"No, this is Ray."

"Ah! Chicago!" He leaned over the counter to shake Ray's hand. "Sergeant Fraser's told us a lot about you."

"Nice to meet you," Ray said dutifully.

"We're on vacation, actually, but of course if there's been a crime wave...." Fraser and the store guy both laughed at that.

"Why's that funny?" Ray asked.

"Gameti hasn't reported a single crime in the last ten years," Fraser explained.

"Okay, that's...weird."

"It's a very small community, Ray. Only about three hundred people."

"Yeah, but I bet there isn't an apartment building that size in Chicago that hasn't had a crime in ten years." "Well, unlike an apartment building, everyone here has permanent ties to the community, which acts to inhibit criminal behavior, as well as allows minor matters to be handled by the families of those involved."

"Huh. I guess."

"Your supplies are in the back," the store owner said. "Do you want to load up now?"

Fraser checked his watch. "I'd like to stop at the hall first. You'll be here for a bit, won't you?"

"Yeah, till six. Why don't you come around for supper? Denny's making--well, I don't know what she's making, but I bet you could use a break from your own cooking."

"Ray's been doing most of the cooking, actually. But--" He glanced at Ray, who nodded. "--we'd be glad to, if you're sure it's no trouble."

"Always room for one more--or two." He rang up Ray's purchases and the toilet paper and dental floss Fraser had picked out. "Come back for your supplies whenever you're ready, and you can put the dogs up in the shed behind the house."

"Thank you kindly." Outside, Fraser told one of the girls watching the dogs, "You might want to let your mother know your Uncle Charlie asked us to dinner. If it's any trouble, have someone let us know--we'll be at the hall."

The community hall was one of the few buildings that wasn't made out of logs. There was a gym, where some teenagers were playing basketball, a couple of empty classrooms, a little library with six computers and some small kids listening to a grown-up read a story. All of the computers were being used, mostly by kids, and Fraser pulled off his gloves to sign a clipboard with "Computer Use Sign-In" on it.

They'd only been there a minute or two before the woman reading the story gave the book to an older kid and came over. "Sergeant Fraser, how nice to see you. I hope there hasn't been any trouble?"

"No, nothing like that. I'm on vacation." He introduced Ray.

"You probably want to check your email. Let me free up a computer for you."

"I don't want to be any trouble."

"No, no, they all know the rules--if they aren't doing homework, they have to give up the computer if someone else wants it and they've been on for more than thirty minutes. Let's see. Sarah, that doesn't look like homework."

A teenage girl who was on MySpace said, "Bea has been on longer."

"Bea is doing research for a school assignment."

The girl complained a little more, but signed off and let Fraser on the computer.

While he was getting his Mountie on, Ray wandered over to where the little kids were and listened to the story. It was Dr. Seuss--Yertle the Turtle. Ray liked that one. When the lady got to, "All the turtles are free, as turtles, and maybe, all creatures, should be," all the kids clapped, and he did too.

One small boy tugged on the bottom of his parka. "Tell us one of your stories."

"Uh, I don't really know any stories," Ray said.

Without looking away from the computer screen, Fraser said, "Tell them the one about the turtle."

After that, it was clear that the kids weren't going let them out of there alive without hearing the stranger's turtle story. One thing palling around with Fraser had taught Ray was how to give in gracefully, so he told the story, hamming it up with extra details about how sad and scared the little hippo was when his whole family got washed out to sea, and how, a few hundred miles away, the old turtle, the only one of his kind in the park, felt like something was missing but didn't know what. The kids watched him with wide dark eyes, clutching each other's hands for comfort at the scary parts, and laughing with relief when he described the baby hippo curling up with the old turtle, finally feeling like he was home.

When he finished, the woman sent the group of kids over to a cabinet to get out materials for a craft, and thanked him for helping. "The children here don't see many strangers."

"Oh, no problem. I like kids. Never had any, but my sister has six of `em." With the real Ray Vecchio thousands of miles away in Florida, Frannie had seemed to take it for granted that he'd keep playing the role of Uncle Ray when her first was born, and by now it seemed like half the time the Vecchios forgot he wasn't really one of them.

"Is the story about the hippo and the turtle traditional in your culture?"

"Uh, no, it's a thing that happened a couple of years ago. I just, uh, I like turtles."

The kids' craft turned out to be making turtles out of egg cartons. Ray shed his coat and gloves to help with gluing on the wiggly eyes.

He was helping a kid decorate her turtle's shell in the pattern of a soccer ball when he noticed Fraser was finished on the computer. "Oh, hey. I guess you're ready to head out," Ray said, handing the black marker back to the kid. "Here, just fill those in, you'll be golden."

"We do have some flexibility in our schedule," Fraser said.

"Nah, we'd better get back to the dogs." One thing he knew about traveling by dog sled was that you couldn't just park the dogs like a snowmobile.

They got back into their cold-weather gear--parkas, hats, mittens over two pairs of gloves--and went back outside. "Charlie Parker might invite us to stay the night," Fraser said. "He usually does. Do we want to?"

Ray considered. "Do they have hot showers here? And--that guy's name is Charlie Parker?"

"Yes, and yes, it is, Stanley Kowalski."

"Shaddup."

"Understood."

Going through the crate of new supplies in Charlie's storeroom was like Christmas morning. As far as dried food went, they were down to a few packets labeled as pad thai; Ray had reconstituted one packet and pronounced it inedible based on smell alone. Fraser'd insisted on giving it a fair chance, which equaled out to taking one bite and spitting it out. The sled dogs had eaten the rest of the pot, but without much enthusiasm. Since they didn't pack a lot of extra food, it was a good thing they'd been lucky with the fishing, or they'd have had to eat the nasty pad thai.

Now they had plenty of dinners to choose from--chicken parmesan, turkey chili, beef stroganoff--and some extra treats, including two cans of mandarin oranges and one of pineapple. Canned food was a real luxury on the trail, considering how much it weighed compared to dried. Fraser would probably want to eat the fruit as soon as possible, to get rid of the weight--a sacrifice Ray was more than willing to make.

They re-packed the sled with the new supplies, and took advantage of the opportunity to get rid of the food packages and other trash left over from the first leg of the trip--anything they couldn't burn, they had to carry out with them, so as the food supplies went down, the trash pile built up. Ray was just glad Fraser wasn't quite fanatical enough to insist that they carry out what went in the latrine instead of burying it.

The shed where Charlie told them to put the dogs looked like it had been a kennel in a previous life--there were two chicken-wire pens, one for dogs and one for bitches, with attached outside runs, still in pretty good shape. A shiny new snowmobile in the corner showed why Charlie didn't need it for his own dogs anymore. It was kind of ironic--Fraser's sled dog team marked him out as a well-off kind of guy, compared to everyone else around here. Even with gas prices as high as they were, a snow machine was cheaper to keep up than a team of sled dogs, which had to be fed whether there was snow on the ground or not. Back in Deline, the only people who kept dogs teams either had some money to spare, were heavily into competitive racing, or used them to take tourists on dogsled tours--or some combination of those things. Even though this town was a little more remote, it probably wasn't much different.

They got everybody settled and waited while the team ate--since the dogs weren't staked out as they were on the trail, they had to keep an eye out in case one of the dogs tried to steal someone else's share. Fortunately, sled dogs were fast eaters.

The Parker home had a sort of mud porch that adjoined to the kitchen. It didn't take a crack detective to figure out that's where people left their boots and coats and things, so they hung their stuff up with everyone else's before going into the house.

"Sergeant Fraser, you're looking well," a woman standing by the stove said. "Unpack your things and I'll put them in the laundry machine for you. And where's that house dog of yours?"

Fraser passed his hand over his face. "Ah, thank you. Diefenbaker has passed away, I'm afraid." His voice was steady as he said it, but Ray gave his elbow a squeeze anyway. "I brought my old partner Ray instead."

"Woof," Ray said obediently.

"I'm Denny Parker," she said. "You've met my brother Charlie, of course, and most of the kids running around here are mine." She gestured vaguely at the rest of the house. "Sergeant, maybe you'll take a look at Etseh's new GPS--he can't get it to work right. Would you like tea? Edie! Come put the kettle on for the visitors."

A girl of about twelve left her homework on the table to come over to the stove and carry a big enamel kettle to the sink, and Fraser went over to where an old guy was sitting by the windows. The girl looked at him with frank curiosity. "You're not a Mountie," she said. "And you can't be a tourist. What are you?"

"Don't be rude," Denny said, smacking her shoulder with a wooden spoon.

"It's okay," Ray said. "How do you know I'm not a tourist?"

"Your boots and parka aren't new."

"Good eye. I'm a detective, from Chicago. But I come up here every year, to hang out with Fraser."

"How come?"

"He's my best friend. D'you have a best friend?"

The girl scowled. "I did." She climbed up on the counter to get down a teapot and some cups. "Mama, should we use the good ones?"

"Yes, be careful."

Edie put a blue and white teapot and some matching cups on the counter and jumped back down. "I did, until she went to stupid Yellowknife."

Ray remembered something Fraser had said when he was doing his tour-guide bit. "She went away for school or something?" The Gameti school only went up to Grade Nine, so if the local kids wanted to graduate, they had to go to a bigger town--Deline, Norman Wells, Yellowknife, wherever they had relatives they could stay with.

"Yes. She promised she'd write, but she never does."

"Edie, you know that's not true," Denny interrupted. "She sent you a long letter last week."

"Yeah, and it was all about how much fun she's having with her city friends. I bet when she gets back in summer she'll be all, ooh la la, I'm too good for you."

Ray felt like he ought to be able to say something helpful--he and Fraser proved that you could stay best friends even if you lived hundreds of miles apart--but it was different with kids. He and Fraser were adults, so they weren't going to grow apart. Fraser was practically the poster boy for loyal, and he wasn't in touch with his best friend from when he was Edie's age.

On the other hand, he did know what he and Fraser had that made the long-distance best friends thing work. "It's hard to find stuff to talk about when you're apart most of the time. Me and Fraser, we have this Quest thing that we do--looking for Franklin's hand? Maybe you and your friend should come up with some kind of project you can do over the summer. You can write back and forth to plan it out, and that way you guys'll have something special that her city friends aren't a part of."

"Like what?" Edie asked skeptically.

Ray shrugged. His insight into the preteen girl mind didn't stretch that far. "You have to figure that out; it's part of the fun." That sounded lame even to him.

"Hmph." Edie's expression let him know what she thought of that piece of adult wisdom. She scooped tea leaves into the pot and added some water from the kettle. "Milk and sugar?"

"Just sugar. Fraser takes his straight."

She gave him one of the cups, and took the others over to Fraser and the old guy, then ran upstairs. Ray sipped at his tea--it was plain old Tetley, which made a nice change from spruce bark, as far as he was concerned. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked.

"No, you're a guest. And you've helped already, with Edie."

"She didn't seem too impressed."

"That's the age. You never know what's sinking in." She reached into the cupboard next to the stove. "It's unusual for someone from down south to come up here every year. You don't hunt, do you?"

"No." He didn't, but he wondered how Denny knew--it couldn't be that he didn't look rugged and manly enough, could it?

"I didn't think so. Sergeant Fraser doesn't much like sport hunters."

"Yeah, I can see that." He shrugged. "I like it up here. And Fraser's not exactly a lay-out-on-the-beach kind of guy, so if we're going to take our vacations together...."

"You must be very close."

"He's the best."

Dinner turned out to be Hamburger Helper made with ground caribou. It was surprisingly good--Ray had two helpings. The adults had a dried-fruit cobbler for dessert--the kids got packaged snack cakes, which was pitched as a special treat in honor of the guests, but Ray noticed there was no way the cobbler would stretch to feed everybody.

As they were finishing up, Charlie and Denny exchanged a look and Denny said, "You'll spend the night, of course."

"We have the tent," Fraser demurred. "We could pitch it outside."

"You can have the boys' room," Charlie answered, and that was that.

The boys--ages ten, eight, and five--put up a good argument that since Ray and Fraser were using their room, they ought to be allowed to sleep out in the tent. Ray, with visions of going outside in the morning to find two frozen-solid kids, was relieved when their mom vetoed the idea.

Once it was decided that they were staying, things got festive. With occasional interruptions for chores--washing up the dishes, doing his and Fraser's laundry, a last check on the dog team out in the shed--they told stories and played a Dene game that involved passing a rock from hand to hand and guessing who had it. Ray tried not to mind that even the five-year-old was kicking his ass at it. Ray managed to drag up just enough cultural sensitivity not to point out that it would make a great drinking game.

It was a surprising amount of fun, considering the complete absence of alcohol and car chases, but after a couple of hours Ray started feeling a little overwhelmed--after a week on the trail, he just wasn't used to such a big crowd. They wound up turning in not long after the smallest kids.

The room that was theirs for the night had bunk beds, with matching comforters that had rocket ships on them. Ray immediately said, "I call top bunk."

Fraser gave him a funny look. "You call it what?"

"I call dibs on it."

Fraser smoothed an eyebrow. "Certainly, if you like."

"I do like. And I dibs the first shower, too."

Being able to take a hot shower before bed, instead of changing into underwear that by now had already been worn three or four times, felt like the height of luxury. Since the village's winter water supply had to be trucked in--just like in Deline--the Parkers had rigged their shower to shut off automatically after five minutes. Ray managed to get everything washed with thirty seconds left to just wallow.

It felt pretty strange to be going to bed in just his boxer shorts. After getting under the covers, he felt around on top of the blanket for his hat before remembering that he didn't need one to sleep indoors. His last thought before falling asleep was that he ought to tell Fraser about that when he got back from the shower.

Some time later, Ray woke suddenly, unsure of where he was and off-balance from a creepy dream he only half remembered. The Parker boys' bedroom was darker than anywhere he was used to sleeping--in Chicago he had a streetlight right outside his window, and the tent was thin enough that plenty of light came in from the moon and stars reflecting off the snow. It was disorienting, too, not having Fraser right next to him.

"Fraser?"

"Yes, Ray?" Fraser said from the bunk below him.

"Are you awake?"

"I am now." Fraser sounded just a little bit peeved.

"Oh. Sorry."

He sighed. "Is something wrong?"

"I had a bad dream." It sounded stupid out loud, like something only a little kid would be bothered by. My brain made pictures that scared me.

"'bout what?"

"I don't really remember. I was back in Chicago." Maybe if he could piece together what the dream was about, it would be less unsettling than the few scattered images that were floating around in his mind. "I think it was my first day back or something. I was sitting at my desk and the phone was ringing and ringing, and everybody was yelling at me to pick it up, but I couldn't. For some reason."

"Mm. Terrifying."

"There was more." He tried to remember. "Lieutenant Welsh called me in and tried to give me a case, but when he handed me the file, I dropped it." That sounded even stupider than the phone thing, but just picturing the file scattering across the office floor made his heart beat faster. "No, I didn't drop it, I never took it. I didn't have any arms in the dream. Man, that's weird. I was walking around with no arms and nobody noticed. What do you suppose that means?"

"Well, from a Freudian perspective, dreams about dismemberment are thought to reflect a fear of castration."

"That's real funny, Fraser."

"Then again, from a Freudian perspective, many things are thought to reflect castration anxiety. The phallus looms large in psychoanalytic theory."

Which was Fraser's idea of a dick joke. "Yeah, well, I got no problems in that department."

"So I've noticed. Well, perhaps there's some problem that you feel is being ignored by your colleagues back home."

That was better than the castration thing, anyway. "Like what?"

"I don't know, Ray. It's your dream. Do you feel that there's something missing from your life in Chicago?"

Of course there was something missing from Chicago: Fraser. Every time he got on the plane to go back, it felt like he was leaving part of himself behind. "Oh. Yeah. Thanks, Fraser."

"Glad to help."

Part 3: The Roaring Fraser

In the morning, Charlie urged them to consider staying in town another night so that they could attend Sunday services the next day. A quick discussion with Ray led to an agreement to push on--although a cradle Catholic, Ray was not a regular churchgoer, so Fraser was not surprised.

That night he wrote in his journal:

Team full of energy after their night under cover. Took advantage of long stretch of clear snow to let them run full-out. After this exertion, they were calmer and more willing to work.

Ray was likewise exhilarated by this brief burst of speed. He stood up on the sled and made what can only be described as "a joyful noise" while the wind whipped tears from his eyes.

On recommendation of Etseh Parker, camped early at good spot for loche and set hooks immediately after staking dogs. Expect Ray will be reluctant to eat his share of liver. Will remind him of need for healthy fats, iron, and vitamin D in harsh northern environment.

Ray also fractious after night under cover. Is shooting spruce cones at me with slingshot purchased from middle Parker child. Will stop writing now before his aim improves.

Fraser carefully wrapped the journal in plastic and stowed it safely in his pack before scooping up a snowball and flinging it at Ray. Ray--displaying his usual good sportsmanship--put away the slingshot and returned fire in like kind.

Fraser was able to gain an early strategic advantage by ducking behind the tent; unfortunately, that advantage was mitigated when Ray circled around to attack him from behind, shouting, "Bombs away, sucker!" They battled fiercely for a few minutes, until Fraser started to work up a sweat. Perspiration could be a gateway to hypothermia in subzero temperatures, so Fraser knew he'd better end it quickly.

He ended it by launching himself at Ray and tumbling them both into a snow bank (after first surreptitiously scanning the area for protruding rocks, tree stumps, or other hazards, of course). "No fair!" Ray complained, attempting to wriggle out from under him.

"You started it," Fraser pointed out reasonably, pinning Ray's hands with his.

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Lemme up."

"Make me," Fraser suggested, sitting back on Ray's thighs.

Ray gave it a good try, thrashing and bucking under him, but Fraser had the advantage of greater mass, and simply waited him out.

Waited him out, that is, until Ray managed to shift him to one side just enough that his thigh brushed against Fraser's crotch, and--

Well. There was friction, and it had been a long time. But perhaps wrestling was not the best idea just at present. He rolled off of Ray and to his feet.

Ray sat up and, pulling off his hat, ran a hand over his hair, looking a little confused. "Frase?"

"Yes, Ray. I should--get more firewood," he declared, the first productive activity that came to mind.

"Okay," Ray said vaguely.

After picking up the axe from the campsite, Fraser hiked into the woods until he found a suitable fallen bough. By the time he'd chopped it into stove-sized logs, his...inappropriate physical reaction...was nothing more than a mildly embarrassing memory.

Ray was sitting by the fire, but jumped to his feet when he saw Fraser returning with an armload of wood. "Hey. Hi. You want some tea? I, uh, made tea."

"Thank you." He stacked the wood while Ray poured him some tea. Their fingers brushed as he accepted the tin cup.

"So, uh, we're okay, right?" Ray shifted anxiously from one foot to the other.

"Of course, Ray. Why wouldn't we be?"

"Dunno." Ray shrugged and sat down next to him. "Cool."

#

"Success, Ray!" Fraser strode back from the lake, holding up the butt-ugliest fish Ray had ever seen, barring maybe the giant foot-long scumsucker they had at the fish and reptile store where he bought turtle stuff.

"That's something human beings eat?" Ray demanded. "It looks like something you'd run away from."

"It's a loche, Ray. Very nutritious, particularly the liver."

"Oh, God."

Fraser slapped the fish down on a stump and slit its belly. After tossing a long string of guts into a dog bowl, he gently prized out a giant dark-brown lump the size of a woman's fist. "Look at that," he said happily.

"I might puke," Ray warned him.

"Nonsense. It's delicious. Melt some fat in the large skillet, would you?"

"Yeah, sure." Ray had already arranged three rocks in the fire to make a rest for the kettle earlier, so it was easy to plop the skillet down on them and drop in a knob of lard.

They'd spent the amount of time it took to have a cup of tea Not Talking, capital en, capital tee, about what had happened. About how Fraser had popped a woody while wrestling him to the ground. Which was perfectly normal and nothing that hadn't happened plenty of times when Ray was a kid and wrestling with his buddies. It didn't mean anything.

Except that Fraser had jumped off of him and gone of into the woods alone for about as long as it would take to jerk off, which maybe meant that it did mean something.

What kind of something, Ray didn't know.

And then they'd Not Talked about it, but the awkwardness hadn't lasted long, and now they were just talking about other stuff. Normal.

After cutting the liver into slices, Fraser started filleting the fish, so Ray got out some flour to coat the fillets with, and added some salt and pepper. "What do you want to have with that?" "Hm. Potatoes?"

"Sure." He mixed up some dehydrated potatoes with dehydrated milk--a double serving, in case the fish tasted as awful as it looked.

When he got back from throwing the fish guts to the dogs, Fraser was hunkered down by the fire to cook the fish. He still had his gloves off from cleaning the fish, and Ray found himself watching Fraser's hands as he turned the fillets over.

After a while Ray went over and stood behind him, resting his hands on Fraser's shoulders.

"Hm?" Fraser asked.

"Nothin'."

"Hm." Finished turning the fish, Fraser settled back on his heels, leaning into Ray's hands. Standing on the back of the sled all day was hard on his back these days. "Maybe tomorrow we should set some snares for rabbits."

"Okay," Ray agreed, kneading the muscles of Fraser's shoulders. He'd been pretty horrified the first time Fraser killed and gutted a cute furry animal for them to eat, but after ten years he was used to it, and he was getting tired of fish.

"Mm. That feels good." His head drooped forward; Ray tugged off his gloves one at a time with his teeth and rubbed his neck. "Tomorrow we should reach--do that again....

Ray tried to find the spot he'd hit. "Here?"

"No--" Fraser wriggled, trying to get Ray's hands where he wanted them. "Hang on." He shrugged out of his parka, so Ray could get at the sore spots without grabbing handfuls of Gore-Tex and down instead.

And Fraser under his hands was so relaxed and content that Ray just turned off his brain for a while and enjoyed what he was doing. They didn't need to talk, except for little sounds of interrogation and contentment. "Mm?" Ray asked.

"Mm," Fraser answered. "Mm!"

"Mm," Ray agreed.

Somehow, with his brain switched off like that, it didn't seem like any kind of a big deal to lean forward just a little bit and kiss the corner of Fraser's mouth. Fraser didn't--when he turned his brain back on, Ray would be shocked, but he didn't--run away, or tense up, or say, "Pardon me, Ray?" He kissed back, all weird and upside down, until he managed to turn around so he could kiss Ray right-side-up.

Ray found himself tumbling over backwards, his head cushioned on Fraser's parka, Fraser's hands pressing down hard on his shoulders, Fraser's cock rubbing against his through layers of snow pants, jeans, and thermals. His tongue surged up into Fraser's mouth, his hands locking behind Fraser's back, holding on for dear life.

His brain came back on line one little bit at a time. First he started hearing the fish crackling in the pan, Fraser's fingertips turning red with cold where they were pressed into the snow, the heavy, earthy smell of the fish liver. Then he noticed another smell, acrid and artificial. "Fraser."

"Mm?"

"Fraser, I think my boots are on fire."

"Uh-huh."

"No, I mean literally."

"Oh, dear." Fraser rolled off of him, and Ray sat up to inspect his feet.

"Not on fire," he reported. Damn good thing, since they were a bush plane flight from the nearest shoe store. "Melted." The deep tread on the sole of his right boot was a molten crater; the left was just a little wavy. He stomped around in the snow a little to cool them down. "And you'd better get your hands warmed up."

Fraser was looking a little dazed. "Uh...very right." He knocked some of the snow off of his parka, put it on, and held his hands over the fire. "Are your boots all right? If they aren't watertight, you could be in real danger of frostbite. We'll have to--"

"I think they're okay," Ray answered. He'd have to take them off and check thoroughly, but the boot soles were made of a bunch of different layers, and it looked like only the top--bottom--the outside layer melted. "We'd better eat this," he added, pulling on a glove and taking the pans of fish and potatoes off the coals.

Fraser's back went sort of stiff. "Yes, Ray," he said, like he figured that was Ray's way of saying, it never happened.

Which wasn't what Ray meant at all. Maybe it ought to have been, but the part of his brain that would normally be saying, this is not one of your better ideas, Stanley Raymond, hadn't switched back on yet. "No, it's just that if we don't eat now, it'll be either cold or burnt, and we forgot to bring the microwave along, so...."

"Understood." Fraser smiled shyly and handed him the plates.

The ugly fish wasn't half bad. Ray could've done without the liver, but he forced a couple of bites down so that Fraser would feel like he could skip the Arctic Nutrition lecture.

The sight of Fraser licking butter and fish grease off of his fingers should have been outlawed--Ray couldn't begin to imagine how he'd gone ten years without jumping him. He was going to be lucky to last ten more minutes.

He wound up having to last longer than that, though. Fraser insisted on cleaning up the dishes and walking along the picket line to make sure the dogs were all settled in and comfy for the night. Ray couldn't do anything more helpful than hop along behind him saying, "Come on, Fraser, can't we do that later?"

Finally, they were in the tent, the lantern turned down low, kneeling facing each other on the lasagna-bed, Fraser's hands moving down the front of his parka, undoing all the fastenings. Ray felt oddly naked once the parka was pushed down over his shoulders, even though Fraser was still four layers away from skin.

Fraser leaned in and kissed him, hands steadying Ray's shoulders. His mouth was hot, and wet, and--gah. Ray couldn't think. Fraser's hands dove under all four layers at once tracing a warm line up Ray's ribs, down his chest and belly. All the blood that wasn't in his cock seemed to rush to where Fraser's hands were. "Ray?"

"Yeah?" Ray breathed.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Hell of a time to ask, Fraser," Ray pointed out, nuzzling into the fur collar of his parka, trying to find some neck.

"It's not too late," he pointed out, sucking on Ray's earlobe. "We could go back to how it was before."

"Yeah, but why'd we want to?" He managed to get his hands organized enough to undo the buckles and zippers, get Fraser's coat open. Once he was in there, he went straight for a nipple--his own were sensitive as hell in this cold, and he wanted to know if Fraser's were too.

"Oh! Oh...my. Good point." His hands wandered up Ray's chest, stroking his nipples with both thumbs.

And damn, that felt good. Just...damn. He had to get his hands under Fraser's shirts, show him what that felt like on bare skin. "Too many fucking clothes," he mumbled, trying to undo the straps that held up Fraser's snow-overalls.

"That buckle sticks. Just--" He took his hands out from under Ray's shirts, making him whimper, and pushed the straps down off of his shoulders. "Better?" he asked, sliding his hands back under Ray's shirts.

"Yeah, greatness." Of course Fraser's shirts were mostly tucked in, and he had that stupid red one-piece thing on, so he couldn't get to skin in one easy motion like Fraser had--he had to untuck and burrow in and pop the buttons--buttons that one of them was going to have to sew back on tomorrow--and then, finally he had his hands on Fraser.

To look at him, anyone might have expected Fraser's skin to feel like marble, or porcelain, or something not quite human. But it felt like skin; Fraser was human and real and gasping into Ray's mouth, quivering like a bird-dog. "God, Ray, I don't--Ray--"

"I know. It's okay."

"It's just...." Fraser shrugged helplessly.

"I know. Okay? I know."

That seemed like a good time to lose the rest of their clothes, which took entirely too long as far as Ray was concerned, and not only because Fraser felt like it was a good time to make sure they weren't going to have to be airlifted out of there because Ray's boots had melted.

Next time they did this, he was bringing extra boots, just in case.

When he was finally done with the boots, Fraser burrowed down under the blankets, and for about a second Ray thought he was going down there to check his feet, but he stopped before he got there, thank God, and if he'd thought Fraser's mouth was hot on his mouth, it was even hotter on his dick.

Ray shut his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands over them for good measure, because if he looked, if he even thought about what Fraser was doing, he was going to shoot off right then.

Even taking every imaginable precaution, he wasn't going to last long. Fraser swiped his tongue across the tip of Ray`s cock, his balls tightened, and he just had time to say, "Frase, I'm--" before he did.

Fraser swarmed up against him and just held him, until he caught his breath and stopped shaking. "All right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm great. It's, uh, been a while. That was, wow." Fraser was going to figure out pretty fast that he dropped about fifty IQ points post-orgasm, so there wasn't much point trying to hide it.

"I aim to please," Fraser said.

It wasn't too long before Ray noticed Fraser hadn't gotten his. "Oh, hey, let me get you," he said--real suave there, Ray--and snaked his hand down between them.

"I can take care of it."

"Yeah, there's a time and a place for self-reliance, and this ain't it. Here, turn around, so your back's against my chest." Ray had never gone down on a guy--looked kind of like that was going to change, but maybe not today.

"I don't want you to feel obligated--"

"Shaddup."

"Understood." Fraser shifted around.

His ass was right up against Ray's crotch, and if he hadn't just come that could've got real interesting real fast, but just like he was never going to see twenty again, he was never going to see two hardons inside of an hour, either. So he got Fraser in hand--so to speak--and tried a few of the strokes he used on himself.

Fraser made the right kind of encouraging noises, but he didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and he kept making these aborted little thrusts with his hips, like he wasn't getting quite what he wanted and didn't know how to ask.

"Hey," Ray said into his ear. "Hey. What'm I doing wrong?"

"It's fine, Ray. I'm just--it's hard for me to...I can't always...it's all right." He tucked his chin down against his chest, so Ray was looking at the back of his neck, gone all pink with embarrassment.

Oh, dear--as Fraser would say. "Kind of a delicate mechanism, huh? Here, put your hand over mine, show me how you do it."

"All right." Fraser sounded kind of resigned, like he didn't think it would work, but he put his hand over Ray's, and pretty soon he figured out what he was doing wrong--or what he was doing right, and Fraser was doing wrong, which was a turn-up for the books. Fraser's hand on his showed him that what Fraser liked was a firm grip and hard, fast strokes--but Fraser's idea of a firm grip was just about bone-crushing, and if that was what his poor dick was used to, Ray wasn't surprised he had trouble getting off.

They were going to have to have a little talk about how it wasn't actually like choking a chicken, later. But he wanted Fraser to get off, so for now he gave him the kind of rough treatment he was used to. Fortunately, once Fraser saw he'd gotten the message, he relaxed his grip on Ray's hand, and Ray jerked him hard and fast, talking to him as he went. "That's good, Frase, am I getting it now? You like that? Okay, good. We're buddies here, you're fine. I've got you." Fraser shuddered in his arms as he came. "All right."

"Thank you, Ray," Fraser said, his voice thick like he'd been crying.

"You okay?"

"Yes. Yes. I just, I don't--do that often."

Well, Ray didn't either, but-- "What, not even by yourself?" He started feeling around for something he could clean up with. Normally he'd just use whatever sock, t-shirt, or shorts his hand fell on first, but they didn't have a lot of extra clothing, and he didn't really want to be wearing crusty shorts for the rest of the week.

"No. I realize it's a natural biological function, but--there's a handkerchief in my parka pocket," Fraser said.

"Okay." He caught Fraser's parka by its fur collar and dug around in the pockets, left-handed. Jeeze, Fraser kept a lot of crap in his parka pockets--a couple of shotgun shells, some pemmican, some things Ray couldn't even identify--finally he found the handkerchief. "No wonder you're so uptight," he said as he mopped up. You don't drink, you don't dance, you don't jerk off. Well, we'll fix that."

"We--will?"

"Uh-huh. I for one have a healthy sex drive for an old guy." Suddenly, it occurred to him that maybe Fraser didn't want that. Just because he'd been into it once, didn't mean he wanted it again.

A moment later, reason reasserted itself. This was Fraser. He didn't do one night stands any more than he danced the hootchie-cootchie in a pink tutu while drop-kicking kittens down the stairs. And if he took it into his head to start, it sure as hell wouldn't be with his partner. "It's a natural biological function, but what?"

Fraser shifted against him. "But it doesn't serve any particular purpose, other than the release of, ah, tension. And--you may have gathered--my upbringing was not one where--frivolity--was, ah, encouraged."

"You don't say." Yeah, Ray knew that about him. It sort of made sense that people who didn't think a five-year-old ought to have a toy bulldozer wouldn't be real keen on recreational sex, either. And being shifted around from one remote town to another on Her Majesty's whim probably didn't do much to foster a healthy attitude toward sex, either. "Well then, we've got a lot of lost time to make up for."

#

Sleeping naked with an equally-naked Fraser on his back was even warmer than sleeping next to him in thermals. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised--the guy was like a blast furnace, and the point of clothes was to keep heat in. With nothing between him and Fraser, all that glorious warmth was his.

The hand cupped over his dick was pretty nice, too.

He also had a hard-on--another guy's actual hard-on--pressed up against his ass, which he felt like he ought to be way more freaked out about than he was. If it had been any other guy's, sure, that would be a problem, but this was Fraser. Ray couldn't quite figure out why he hadn't thought of this before. They loved each other; they understood each other. He'd managed to figure out that once he didn't have the job tying him to Chicago, the only thing he wanted to do was be with Fraser. If he was just a little bit smarter, he could've had this, instead of going steady with his own right hand for ten years.

On the other hand, it was possible--hell, maybe even likely--that if he'd realized years ago that he was sexually attracted to Fraser, he'd have cut and run. Just freaked out and never seen him again. That would've been a hell of a shame. Maybe he needed all that time to figure out that he wasn't straight; having sex with people he loved was his thing, and he just thought he was straight because he'd loved the same woman for most of his life. What a frigging idiot he was--he'd gone on a handful of first dates, and damn few second ones, because there wasn't any chemistry. No wonder there hadn't been any--he was already in love with somebody else.

Whatever. Ray wasn't a thinker; he was a doer, and right now, there was something he wanted to be doing. Now that he'd wised up, he wanted everything. "Fraser," he whispered, pushing back a little with his hips. "Hey, Frase."

"Mm-hm?"

"You awake?"

"Yes, Ray," Fraser said sleepily.

"You got something you can fuck me with?"

"Mm? Of course I--oh, you mean...yes, the goose fat salve should work, don't you think? We have plenty of that."

"Okay." Goose fat salve was the stuff they used on their faces to protect the exposed skin from freezing, and to keep their eyelashes from freezing together, so he knew Fraser kept it handy. But Fraser didn't move. "Uh, Fraser?"

"Oh--now?"

"I didn't mean next week."

"As you wish." Fraser rolled away from him a little and rummaged around in his parka pockets. Ray felt unexpectedly bereft until his warm weight settled against his back again. "You're sure this is something you want?"

"Yep."

"Have you ever--"

"No. Come on. Pitter-patter." He hoped Fraser didn't get the idea Ray wanted him to hurry before he changed his mind. He wouldn't be completely wrong, but he knew Fraser would insist on having a Serious Talk before fucking him if he thought that was the case.

"All right, be patient." Fraser's fingers went into the crack of his ass, rubbing the salve around his asshole as if it wasn't any more personal than putting it on his eyelids.

Which, okay, maybe it wasn't. It's possible he should've realized some time over the last ten years of Fraser oiling up his eyelashes that what he really wanted was Fraser inside him.

"Do you want me to stretch you with my fingers first?" Fraser asked, a fingertip circling his asshole.

Good question. All Ray knew about anal sex came from locker-room jokes and a men's magazine article he'd read with a sort of horrified fascination, which had mostly been about how to convince a girl to let you in her backdoor. "Dunno. Is that, uh, standard procedure?"

"It's not absolutely necessary, but it can help make things go more smoothly."

Fuck smooth. "No. Just, uh, give me it all."

"Very well." Fraser slicked up his cock with a wet, sucking sound, and slid into him.

"Oh. Christ." He screwed up his eyes and scrabbled at the bedroll for something to hold on to.

Fraser stopped. "Are you all right? Am I hurting you?"

"Yeah, little bit. Keep goin'." It hurt, kinda, but mostly he was feeling things he didn't know how to even name. It was good, really good.

"It does get better," Fraser said uncertainly.

"I know. Come on, give me more."

"As you wish." Fraser pushed into him a little more.

This was--fuck, this was something else. It felt like he was being turned inside out. Stars--fucking auroras bloomed behind his eyes. "What the hell?"

"That would be your prostate, Ray."

"The--augh! The thing they want you to get checked for cancer all the time?"

"Yes."

"Gotta start taking care of that thing," he panted. "C'mon. More."

Once Fraser was the whole way into him, he started thrusting, slow and not too deep, stroking Ray's cock in rhythm with his thrusts. "Is this all right, Ray?"

"Yes. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Good." He knew he wasn't going to last long--it was all too new, too intense. He hoped Fraser didn't, either--he had a feeling after he came, being on his knees with his ass in the air was going to start feeling pretty stupid.

"Good. Ray. Thank you--close--"

"God, Fraser!" He came just as Fraser exploded inside him, movie-perfect. "Oh. God. That was good. Real good," he added weakly. Fraser was slumped against his back, breathing into the back of his neck.

"Thank you," Fraser answered, a little vaguely.

"Any time." He chuckled. "Seriously. I mean, maybe not on the actual dogsled, but only because frostbite is a serious peril not to be taken lightly."

"I'm glad to hear you admit that."

"Huh? What, you were expecting some kind of big gay freakout?"

"I meant about the frostbite. Your attitude about the inherent hazards of life in the north is, at times, dangerously cavalier."

#

They made a slightly later start that morning than usual--the morning's activities, while delightful, left him with an uncharacteristic lassitude that kept him abed with Ray until the dogs' demands for breakfast became too frenzied to ignore. Their day progressed, by unspoken agreement and in deference to the demands of the environment, with no change except the occasional moment of heated eye contact that went straight to Fraser's groin. In the evening, sex and physical affection replaced singing and storytelling--a pastime that was, at least, equally enjoyable.

He wasn't particularly surprised by the enthusiasm with which Ray threw himself into this new endeavor. Ray was never one to do anything by halves, whether it was teaching a young gang member to channel his aggressive impulses into the sport of boxing, pursuing a gang of lake pirates, or exploring the Arctic with his best friend and partner.

He was surprised, however, by Ray's insistence that Fraser receive equal pleasure from their encounters. Perhaps he shouldn't have been--after the twelve years of their partnership, he had ample evidence of Ray's generous spirit.

"Fraser, I gotta tell you this," Ray said during their third sexual encounter. "You give a mean blowjob, but you're really not so good at jerking off."

"I've never had any complaints," he said, a little stiffly. He'd had few sexual partners compared to most men his age, but he found that with sufficient research and willingness to learn, he was able to give uniform satisfaction.

"Well, yeah, you have. From this guy, here." Ray held Fraser's penis loosely in his palm, sliding the foreskin around between his thumb and forefinger. "That not always being able to come thing? That would be a complaint."

One thing Fraser knew about himself was that he had a number of unusual talents. Perhaps the least useful of these was his talent for saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. "Well, perhaps. But I don't see how it affects you."

Fortunately, Ray--his amazing, beloved Ray--had a complimentary talent for frequently overlooking it when he did. "Because I love you, you giant freak. Okay, here's the thing--most of your euphemisms for masturbation will give you the wrong idea. Spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, beating your meat--it sounds kinda violent, I guess."

Ray was stroking him just enough to be a distraction, but Fraser managed to focus on what he was saying. "I didn't realize you had an interest in etymology. It's truly astonishing how much of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary associated with sexual topics have violent etymological undertones. The word `fuck,' for example--"

"Fraser, I am not interested in the entomology of the f-word--well, actually, maybe I could be interested, but not right this minute."

"Etymology," Fraser said helpfully.

"What about it?"

"Entomology is the study of insects."

"I do not care, Fraser. You may be the guy who knows the difference between entomology and etymology, but I am the guy who knows how to jerk off without doing himself an injury, and which one of those areas of expertise do you think is more useful in everyday life?"

"Ah. Yours, I would think."

"Damn right." He brought his other hand into play, holding Fraser's cock with one hand and stroking it with the other, as if it were a kitten or some other small animal. "So here's the thing. The death grip on your cock? Not a good thing. You get yourself used to that, it's an arms race between getting off and cutting off your circulation."

"You have a real gift for metaphor," Fraser commented.

"Uh-huh. Are you getting what I'm saying, or are you just pulling out irrelevant details to focus on?"

"I'm sorry, Ray."

"Yeah, it's not me you should be apologizing to, it's--this guy have a name?" he asked, indicating Fraser's penis.

"Er, no." Fraser wondered why anyone would give a part of their body its own name, but if he asked, Ray would probably--rightly--point out that he was focusing on irrelevant details. "I don't generally talk to it, either."

"Yeah, well, it only takes an extra moment to be courteous." Ray grinned up at him. "Yeah, okay, talking to it, probably not necessary and a little weird. But I bet anything you got yourself into this mess by treating jerking off like a chore, something to get over with as fast as possible."

"Actually, when doing chores I've found that undue haste can be--" Irrelevant details again. And in fact, if he finished that sentence, he'd find himself making Ray's point for him. When polishing his boots or washing the dishes, he took the time to do it properly. Masturbation--which he usually mentally termed self abuse, the description used in the book on puberty that he'd received on his 13th birthday--he generally attempted to shoehorn into his morning shower without allowing any extra time for the exercise. "Yes, Ray."

"Yeah, that's what I figured." Ray licked his own palm and rubbed it in slow circles over the head of Fraser's cock. "This kind of thing, it takes some practice to learn what works. Lucky for you, I've had lots and lots of practice."

Fraser swallowed hard. What Ray was doing was...pleasant. Surprisingly pleasant. "I can, ah, see that."

"Seriously, in my prime, I coulda jerked off for America, if it was an Olympic sport."

Fraser tried to quash the mental picture that suggestion was giving him. "How would they judge it?"

"Dunno. Like figure skating, I guess. So many required elements, extra points for style." Ray shrugged.

"I didn't realize you followed figure skating."

"I don't. But when the Olympics are on, nobody puts anything good up against `em, so once every four fucking years, I suck it up and watch some damn figure skating. That a problem for you?"

"Not at all."

"Good. And stop doing that."

"What?"

"In case you haven't noticed, we are having sex, Fraser. You should be thinking sex thoughts, not constantly trying to change the subject."

"I'm sorry, Ray," Fraser said, abashed. Ray was completely right--he was trying to do Fraser a good turn, and he was not being particularly cooperative. "I'll try to focus."

"Good. Good. And I'll help you." Fraser wasn't sure exactly how he was going to do that, unless Ray had added mind-control to his list of talents, but Ray evidently did. He settled back, positioning Fraser against his chest, and gave him a few slow, firm strokes. "Lemme tell you how I do this, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, Ray continued, "Well, there's lotsa ways. Let's say I've had a hard day, okay? One of those days when nothing goes right. And you know how I get. All wound up. Tense. Maybe I'm at work hopping around hoping somebody'll give me a reason to beat the crap out of `em, but nobody does."

Fraser could picture it. He'd seen Ray like that often enough, during his time in Chicago. "Okay."

"So when work's done, I start putting all that tension somewhere else. Fighting or fucking, it's all testosterone, right? I'm driving home in the Goat--it's a warm day, I've got the windows down, I'm leaning against the windowsill, whole bit. Since it's a warm day--maybe it's the first warm day of the spring--half the girls on the street are wearing little dresses and no stockings, so I stop at a red light and I'm watchin' `em, pretending like if I talked to `em they wouldn't laugh and call me grandpa."

Fraser wanted to point out that he's nowhere near old enough to be the grandfather of a girl of nubile age, but he's supposed to be focusing. In his mind, he puts Ray in one of his tight white t-shirts, with the sleeves rolled up. Ray's tense--full of anxious energy--but he's smiling. "Okay."

"So by the time I get home, I'm about half hard, but I don't take care of it right away. This is, you know, something I'm in charge of. I know I'm gonna get off eventually, unlike the rest of the day where I couldn't get anything to go my way, so it's kinda fun to just, you know, anticipate it. So I open the mail, check if there's anything decent on TV, stuff like that."

The Ray in Fraser's mind received mostly bills, and perhaps one of the charity solicitations that resembled a personal letter, which he opened and scanned for a moment before dropping it on the countertop with a huff. He deviated from the real Ray's description of his activities, opening the refrigerator and drumming his fingers on the edge of the door.

"Maybe I'll take a shower, `cause I was too dumb to look at the weather report and find out ahead of time that it was gonna be the first warm day. So I just kind of throw my clothes every which way, `cause you're not there to bitch about it, and hop in the shower. Cool, but not cold, `cause I do want to get off eventually. But first I wash up. Spend a little more time than ab-so-lutely necessary here--" He stroked Fraser's chest, making slow circles around his nipples "--and here." Ray's hands moved to his scrotum

"Mm. Nice." When Ray was gone--Fraser tried not to think about it, but Ray would be going home soon--he'd be able to imagine this, Ray pleasuring himself alone.

Maybe Ray would think of him.

"Yeah, it's nice. So I do that for a while, there in the water. It's warm, and the soap is kinda slippery. Maybe I stay in there until the hot water runs out. No need to rush things, right?"

No, there was no need to rush things. Funny how he'd never realized that before. Ray's body was warm against his back, his voice warm in his ear, and he didn't have to hurry to finish up, because there wasn't anywhere else he needed to be.

"Now, maybe you can't play with yourself in the shower for an hour, what with the whole trucked-in water thing you've got up here. Now that is a crazy system."

Ray was one to talk about thinking sex thoughts. Plumbing was perhaps not inherently anerotic subject matter, but Ray was definitely drifting into one of the less sexy aspects of the topic. "Trucked-in water is a considerable improvement over the previous system."

"What was the--never mind. We're still in the shower, and we're in Chicago, where we don't have to think about where the water was before it came outta the tap. But yeah, it's starting to get a little chilly, so I'm gonna get out of the shower. I'll dry off, check the roots in the mirror, see if I need a touch-up, think about how I look pretty good for an old guy."

"You look wonderful."

"Mm, thanks. So I'm thinking' about how I look pretty good for a guy my age, and head on into the bedroom."

"You're not going to get dressed?" That was fine, he could enjoy the visual--but even when he had the luxury of private living quarters, and it was warm enough to be in a state of undress without discomfort, he never walked around naked.

"Why bother putting on clothes when I'm just going to take them off again? I could put on a towel. You want me to put on a towel?"

Perhaps he should. But it was a fantasy. He could let Ray walk around naked in a fantasy. "Er, no."

"Okay, so I'm walking into the bedroom. You like the view, huh?" he added as Fraser's cock twitched.

"It is a most engaging visual." A visual he'd schooled himself not to think about during those brief moments in the shower--but now Ray was encouraging him to think about it. It wasn't as if he was fantasizing about Ray without his consent.

"Okay, so I'll go in and get on the bed. I'm kind of leaning up against the headboard, I've got my legs apart--" Fraser moved his legs further apart, giving Ray more access. "I'm still down here with one hand, just kind of keepin' myself interested. Maybe up here with the other one." He ran his hands over Fraser's chest, pinching his nipples lightly. "I like that sometimes, how `bout you?"

"I've, uh, never tried it." It had been a most agreeable surprise when Ray touched his chest the night before. It hadn't escaped him that men's nipples responded to cold in much the same way that women's did, but he'd never made the leap to more enjoyable forms of sensory input.

"Well, they're on there, you might as well get some use out of `em." He ran his fingertips down Fraser's sternum. "Now we'll get the other hand in on the fun down here." He cradled Fraser's scrotum. "If you hold on to these guys when you're--never mind that. Give `em a little squeeze, let `em know you haven't forgotten about `em." Both hands wrapped around his cock. "Once I've had enough of playin' around, I'll start workin' it." His hands tightened a little and sped up--not as tight or as fast as when Fraser did himself, but some.

Against his expectations, Fraser felt himself responding. He tensed, and his breath caught in his throat. If he could catch his breath, he'd have said No, wait, this isn't--but he couldn't form the words, and Ray was saying, "It's all right. It's all right. I've got you," as he came.

He put his arm over his face as Ray quietly cleaned him up. Settling back beside him, Ray gently moved his arm down to his chest, holding his hand. "You look kinda freaked."

Keeping his eyes closed, Fraser sighed, but didn't answer.

"C'mon, open up. What'd I do?"

His eyes flew open. "Nothing, Ray. You were-e" Belatedly, he remembered his manners. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Ray raised their joined hands to his mouth and kissed his knuckles. "So, what?"

"I'm just feeling--overwhelmed." It was a small word for what he was feeling, but more or less accurate.

"Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Overwhelming like jumping into a cold swimming pool on a hot day, or overwhelming like being chained to the floor in a sinking ship?"

"Ah...I'm not sure I understand the categories."

"Hm. One's something you plan to go out of our way to avoid ever happening again, the other's something you want to get used to."

"Oh. Ah, the latter." Although perhaps a better metaphor would be going down on a sinking ship and suddenly learning that he was able to breathe water. He would get used to it, certainly, but his life might never be the same.

#

Fraser called the dogs to a halt and bent down to tell Ray, "There's a storm coming."

Once, Ray would have demanded to know how Fraser could possibly know that, but he knew by now that Fraser could predict the weather. Maybe it was some kind of Mountie thing. "Okay. Where are we going to camp?"

"Blood Rock, I think. That mountain up there."

Ray shielded his eyes with his hand. "Huh. Okay."

"The storm shouldn't hit until well after dark--probably around midnight, and last until the next night. But let's keep moving, so we have time to get everybody settled in."

Making camp before a storm meant a lot of extra work--they'd need plenty of firewood, for one thing, and Fraser would want to make some kind of shelter for the dogs, and maybe a windbreak around the tent if there wasn't a naturally sheltered spot to put it. Once they were hunkered down, there wouldn't be much to do other than ride it out.

Except--it occurred to him--they now had lots of new options for ways to pass the time. Things that wouldn't get old quite as fast as playing card games and singing songs did. "Yeah, okay. Pemmican?"

Fraser gave him a handful and they pressed on.

When they got to Blood Rock, Fraser strapped on his snowshoes and tramped around until he'd selected the best site for the tent. Fraser took charge of the tent and the dogs--he set up the tent and built a lean-to out of snow and branches to keep the worst of the snow and wind off the dogs, then strung a rope from the tent to the doghouse so that they'd be able to feed and water the team without getting lost.

While he did all that, Ray cut and carried firewood. Lots and lots of firewood. They probably wouldn't be able to keep a fire going during the worst of the storm, but they'd want to keep it going as long as possible, for warmth, cooking, and water-melting purposes. Once Fraser told him there was enough firewood, he cut spruce, and Fraser wove them another Christmas-tree bed.

By the time they'd finished making camp, the wind was starting to pick up. Ray stuck close to Fraser's side--even after ten years, being out in an Arctic storm still made him a little nervous. "Why do they call it Blood Rock, anyway?" he asked, hoping that a Dene story might distract him from the howling wind.

"It was the site of a quarry where the Dene mined a particular red stone that they used to make tools, before Europeans came with metal tools," Fraser explained.

"Oh. Good. I was worried it was gonna be something scary."

"Well, the mountain is also believed to be the skull of a giant old man," Fraser admitted. "Yamozhah, the traveling man, and his brother Ts'idzoo, the old man's grandsons, killed him by splitting his skull and dropping hot rocks inside, which turned him to stone."

Naturally. Of course there was some gory reason for the name. Ray scraped the last traces of stew out of his plate. "Why'd they do that? Was their grandfather a bad guy? Or were Yamaha and--whatever--the bad guys?"

"Dene stories don't always have clear cut bad guys and good guys," Fraser explained. "But Yamozhah is generally considered a heroic figure, and Ts'idzoo a villainous one."

"So what about the grandpa?"

"I'm...not sure," Fraser admitted. "The Dene leave offerings here for the grandfather, but whether that's to honor him or placate him, I don't know."

"Wow, a Dene story you don't know?" Ray shook his head in mock disappointment.

"Well, I don't know everything."

"Can I get that in writing?" Ray bumped his shoulder against Fraser's.

Fraser cleared his throat. "Perhaps the storm will afford us an opportunity to address some of my other, ah, areas of ignorance."

Fraser making sexual innuendo was probably going to take him another ten years to get used to. Ray grinned and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, that it might."

#

Ray settled back against their packs, his legs sprawled every which way. "Jeeze, Frase. Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Depot," Fraser answered automatically.

Ray picked his head up to give him a startled look. "Seriously?"

"It wasn't part of the official curriculum, Ray." It was more than a little frightening how easily he could imagine what Ray was thinking.

"Oh. Yeah. I told you about the post-orgasm IQ drop, right?"

Fraser nodded, sitting back against with his head against Ray's chest. It was approximately noon and they hadn't dressed yet, which would have felt practically sinful but for the fact that they couldn't leave the tent without putting themselves at risk of death.

"So I guess it was, uh, one of your classmates?"

"No," Fraser admitted.

"Townie? Groundskeeper? Horse?"

Fraser shook his head at each question. Ray wasn't going to like the answer, but he knew that if he didn't volunteer the information, Ray would keep pressing. "Instructor."

"Oh." Ray's hand settled on his shoulder. "That's, uh...I don't know how they do things in Canada, but at the Academy in Chicago, that would not be cool. Even if it was an opposite-sex situation."

"Er, yes. It would be considered inappropriate behavior at Depot, as well. It was, on reflection, not one of my finer moments." Perhaps not the absolute debacle that his relationship with Victoria had been, but still, not something he could look back on without a considerable degree of embarrassment.

"Oh, jeeze, Frase, I didn't mean...I meant it wasn't cool for him--it was a him, right?"

"Of course." Fraser didn't want to think about how he might've learned fellatio from a woman instructor.

"I mean, it's like sexual harassment or something," Ray clarified.

"I'm not entirely sure that the concept of sexual harassment had been invented in 1979. And I assure you, my participation in the--improprieties--was entirely voluntary." It hadn't occurred to him until years afterward that Sergeant Baker had been taking shameful advantage of his position. He could only hope that then-Cadet Fraser's enthusiastic response hadn't encouraged him to repeat the behavior.

"Improprieties," Ray repeated, rubbing his shoulders. "Yeah. I don't know, Frase. How old was this guy?"

"I don't know. Forty?" They hadn't talked very much. "I found his attention flattering. At the time." From the perspective of age, he could see that what he'd thought had been sexual attraction had mainly been loneliness, navet, and a puppyish eagerness to please.

"Yeah, that's...probably normal. But that's why practically the first thing they tell you in teaching-somebody-stuff school is `don't bang the students, even if they ask you to.' When I did that Police Explorers thing, a whole day of the training was about not banging the students. There was role playing," Ray added mournfully.

"The young people in that program are high school students, aren't they? Cadets at Depot are adults," Fraser pointed out.

"It's for ages sixteen to twenty, and they were real clear that you can't do the nineteen-year-olds, either."

Although Ray was stroking him affectionately, his voice was downright peevish. "I do realize it was a mistake," Fraser said, hoping to placate him.

"Yeah, I'm not mad at you, you stupid Mountie."

"What, then?"

"Haven't you noticed I don't like people taking advantage of you?"

Fraser knew better than to argue that he hadn't been taken advantage of. The fact that he'd been too foolish to recognize it at the time didn't mean that he hadn't been. "It was more than twenty-five years ago," he pointed out instead.

"Yeah, I think I like the idea of somebody taking advantage of you when you were a little baby Mountie even less."

That stung. Baby Mountie, indeed. "I was nineteen, Ray. A grown man with the capacity to make rational decisions."

"Why don't you try telling me that if it was, I dunno, O'Donnell getting schtupped by an instructor old enough to be her father, you'd say, `Well, she's a grown woman with the capacity to make rational decisions.'"

Fraser hadn't thought of it like that. He'd likely attempt to discern the identity of the instructor in question and push for an investigation and disciplinary action. Certainly he wouldn't feel that the young officer in question was equally responsible for the--impropriety. Rather, he'd feel that the young officer had made a regrettable error in judgment, but the instructor had committed a serious breach of trust. "Hm."

"Yeah, I figured once I put it like that, you'd see it my way." Ray traced Fraser's collarbone with his fingertips. "So was this guy at least nice to you?"

"Oh, certainly." Oddly enough, he hadn't given the question much thought. "He was very patient with my, er, early efforts." Although, now that he thought about it, what he'd thought of as patience had mostly been long-suffering sighs and the suggestion that he try again. And the relationship--if you could even call it that--had mostly involved him on his knees in Sergeant Baker's office. "We went on a hike once," he added. That had been...well, it had been very kind, actually. He'd been frazzled from the near-constant company of his troopmates, and missing home, and a few hours nearly alone and in the out-of-doors had been just what he needed.

"Yeah, that's...that guy sounds like a real prince."

"Well, we can't all be lucky enough to marry our high-school sweethearts."

"And divorce them ten years later? Yeah, I was real lucky there." Ray carded his fingers through Fraser's hair. "No, actually, I was. We trusted each other, and we kinda figured the sex stuff out as we went along, which is probably the right way to do it."

Fraser thought he was probably right. "There are disadvantages to growing up with no other young people within courting distance."

"Hm, yeah. So who else was there? Tell me it wasn't just the bank robber and the cradle robber."

"No, there was--let's see. The young man in Moosejaw--that only lasted about a week. And then in Arctic Bay, a year or two later, one of the nurses posted to the medical station. That was mostly a matter of convenience--we were both new in town, unattached, and about the same age. Her contract ended and she went back down south." They had parted without acrimony, at least. No one had been shot. "And then Victoria, which you know about. And you, which you also know about."

"Sounds like you had a couple of long dry spells there," Ray observed. "S'okay, so've I. You were always into both, then?" he asked sleepily. "Guys and girls?"

"Mm-hm."

"Cool." Ray yawned and shoved at the packs behind him, making enough room to lie down, pulling Fraser back with him.

Outside, the wind howled. Beneath his head, Ray's heart beat. There were far worse places to be.

"How much longer you think that storm's going to last?" Ray asked a while later.

"Another six or eight hours, I'd say."

"Mm. I bet we can get it on at least twice more before it stops."

Fraser calculated refractory periods. "Yes, at least," he agreed.

"Cool."

#

Fraser was writing in his journal. Ray tried to like it when he did that, he really did. Fraser loved having his Dad's journals, and it was good to have a record of all their adventures. The idea of Fraser's journal was great.

But when he was actually writing in it, Ray wanted to bounce over him like Tigger and say, "What are you sayin' in there? Anything about me? Huh? What didja put about me?"

At least Fraser had given up suggesting that he write his own. He'd tried, once. His entries were things like, "Cold. Lots of snow. Fell on butt 4 times."

Fraser, on the other hand, would probably write in that thing for hours if Ray let him. Which he never did.

Ray dug his iPod out of his pack. He'd give Fraser at least two more songs before he started bugging him--that was fair, wasn't it?

The iPod turned out to be a bad idea. Music to him had always spelled move, and there wasn't room in the tent to do much more than tap his fingers. And even that made Fraser glance up from the journal and give him an excessively-patient look.

"Sorry." After a few minutes of trying to listen while being completely still, he turned off the iPod and stuffed it back in the pack with a sigh. Maybe he'd try some Fraser-admiring. That usually held his attention for a few minutes.

A while ago they'd put their clothes on and folded up the blankets, just to give the day some kind of shape. But even the fully-clothed version of Fraser was worth looking at. It was amazing he'd been looking at Fraser for twelve years without noticing what terrible tenderness he had for the curve of his eyebrows, the gentle bow of his lips, the back of his neck, sweetly vulnerable as he bent over the notebook.

Ray breathed on his fingers to warm them, then traced the curve of Fraser's ear.

Fraser glared at him, but from the way his eyes were sparkling, Ray knew he was mostly pretending to be annoyed. "Let me finish this sentence."

"Okay," Ray agreed, and waited.

He wondered what the longest sentence in Canadian history was. Fraser seemed to be going for the record.

Finally, the pen stopped moving. He capped the pen and looked at what he'd written. "Perhaps the semicolon was cheating a bit," he admitted, closing the notebook and putting it away.

"Okay," Ray said, since he didn't want to open up a discussion about how he didn't know his semicolon from his asshole. Instead, he leaned in to kiss Fraser--

But at the last moment, Fraser ducked to one side and licked his ear. "Hm," he said, doing it again. "I think I understand the appeal."

"I have delicious ears," Ray agreed, licking Fraser's. "Yours ain't half bad, either."

As soon as Fraser's mouth moved on, trailing down his jawbone, his ear started feeling cold from the moisture. He yanked his hat down over it.

Their mouths met. Fraser's tongue explored his mouth, stroking each of his teeth. Ray sort of wished he had brushed them, but Fraser was stuck in the same tent he was, and hadn't had a chance to brush his either, so Ray guessed he couldn't really complain.

Fraser's mouth left his and he started working his way down, taking advantage of Ray's unbuttoned parka and flannel--something he'd been bitching about not long before--to mouth Ray's nipples through only two layers of clothing.

Ray let him, for a moment, twining his hands in Fraser's hair. "Hey. Hey."

Fraser looked up at him. "Mm?"

"Let's do this the other way around this time. I'll go down on you." He hadn't done that yet. He'd jerked Fraser off, Fraser had fucked him, he'd fucked Fraser, Fraser'd sucked him off--this was next on the list.

Fraser sat back slightly. "Are you sure?"

"Uh-huh," Ray said, stroking Fraser through his jeans. "I want to." He did. He wanted to know Fraser every way it was possible to know him. He wanted to wake up next to him every morning and fall asleep next to him every night until the slow heat-death of the universe.

Since that wasn't possible, he'd take having Fraser's dick in his mouth.

Ray knew this was going to be difficult, between Fraser's death-grip sensitivity issues and his own general inexperience. His ass was tight in ways his mouth wasn't. He might end up getting a sore jaw out of this, but oh well. Fraser seemed to have the idea that the point of sex was to make sure the other person got off. Which, okay, cool, but it meant that Ray had to be equally committed to making sure Fraser got off.

Fortunately, an advantage of having spent a lot of time getting up-close and personal with Fraser's cock before trying this was that he was putting together a decent idea of what it liked, other than the death-grip thing.

It took a little maneuvering to get the position right. If he could've had Fraser sit up on a chair or the edge of a bed, so Ray could kneel in front of him, it would've made the angles easier, but hey, they were in a tent. No furniture. Instead he sprawled on his belly between Fraser's legs, propping himself up on his elbows enough that he wasn't going to get a crick in his neck.

So, okay. He gave a few experimental licks while he thought about strategy. He was relieved to find that cock basically tasted like skin--a little muskier and just, generally, more than, say, an arm, but not categorically different.

He remembered that Stella sometimes wrapped her hand around the base, if she didn't feel like taking the whole thing. A sort of semi-death grip and lots of attention on the head might do the trick.

He tried it. Fraser made a sort of strangled gasp.

"Okay?" Ray asked.

"Yeah. Yeah. Please, ah--"

"Got it." Ray gave him more of the same, and the reactions he got were pretty good--Fraser's hands going through his hair, murmurs of encouragement, little jerks of his hips that let Ray know Fraser would have been thrusting up in his mouth if he wasn't so damn polite.

They were gonna have to have a talk about that, too, but on his first time having a dick in his mouth, Ray would take polite. He tightened his mouth around it and pushed down, taking in a few inches, then pulled back, and down again, doing the thrusting for him.

Didn't take too long to get Fraser slicked up with precome. That tasted okay, too. Salty and sort of Fraserish. Beat ugly-fish liver by a mile, that was for sure.

Probably didn't have the same nutritional benefits, which was a damn shame. Maybe Ray could convince him it did--that they ought to suck each other off at least once a day to make sure they got enough...something. Vitamin S, for sex.

Yeah, probably not. His story would have to be a lot more believable than that if Fraser was going to fall for it.

The only problem with this--it had been a problem in the Stella days, too--was that his mouth was too busy to talk. Having all those thoughts go through his head without going out his mouth made him twitchy.

Fraser's balls were real sensitive--seemed like he left them out of the fun when he jerked off, which probably worked out to a good thing, since balls liked death-grips even less than cocks did. Ray gave Fraser's cock a last nuzzle and moved on to them.

"Ray?"

Maybe ball-licking had been something Sergeant Lecher left out of Fraser's private Cocksucking 101 lessons. Now that he thought of it, Fraser hadn't done that to his. He let the testicle slip out of his mouth long enough to say, "S'good. You'll see."

"As you wi--i-i-i-i! Ray!"

Ray smirked. Score one for instinct.

#

When they fell asleep--restless from the long day of relative inactivity--the storm was still raging outside. When Fraser woke, the world was quiet. He swallowed a few times and stuck his fingers in his ears, not entirely sure that the quiet he was hearing was real and not inside his own head.

But it was. Moving quietly so as not to wake Ray, he pulled on his outside clothes and unzipped the tent door.

Outside, the sun was coming up, casting a pinkish glow over the fresh snow. The tent was half-buried; the sled was just an uneven hump in the snow that could have been a rock or anything else not made by the hand of man. The world might have looked like this on the sixth day, when the first man on Earth woke up.

Retreating into the tent, he shook Ray. "Ray. Ray. Ray."

Ray scrubbed a hand over his face. "What?"

"Come outside."

"What for?"

Fraser was a little embarrassed. Ray had seen mornings before. He'd seen fresh snow before, too. But now that he was awake, it was a little late to change his mind. "You'll see."

Ray blinked owlishly. "Okay," he finally said. "Gimme a minute."

Fraser sat back on his heels and waited as Ray got dressed. Ray took his time about it, but didn't complain or say--as Fraser half-expected he would--this better be good, Fraser.

Finally, he was ready, and Fraser, who was closer to the entrance, crawled out first, then offered Ray a hand up and out.

Ray kept holding onto his hand as he looked around. "Wow." He sounded--fortunately--genuinely impressed. "This--I dunno. This is something."

"Mm-hm," Fraser agreed. Ray had been the only thing lacking to make the morning perfect.

Well. His jaw tightened. Except his other beloved friend. But it was foolish to ruin something so nearly-perfect thinking of what he couldn't have, so he wrapped his arms around Ray and pulled him in close. "I love you," he whispered in Ray's ear.

"I love you too, buddy." Ray patted his arm, squeezing him through layers of Thinsulate and Gore-Tex and down. He sighed. "I guess we have to do regular morning-stuff, huh?"

"We could stand here until we turn to stone," Fraser said. "But I'm not sure I'd recommend it."

"Dunno. We could be our own Inuit story."

"Dene story," Fraser said.

"Whatever. The story of the two white guys who couldn't keep their hands off each other long enough to not starve to death."

"I take it that means you're hungry?"

"Starving." Ray gave his arm a last squeeze and went to dig out the firewood.

Part 4: The Road Back Home Again

The new fallen snow was light and loose, hard going for the dogs, so they had to go slowly and stop early. Fraser found that he didn't really mind--they had sufficient supplies, especially given how considerably they'd been supplementing with wild fish and game, and he felt--irrationally--as though extending their time on the trail would extend his time with Ray. In reality, of course, Ray's vacation would end when it ended, and delaying the end of their journey would simply shorten the time they had left in Deline at the end of it.

Four days after the storm, they reached Fence Narrows. "I don't see any fences," Ray pointed out when they had made camp and Fraser told him what the place was called. "Not even those little graveyard ones. Nothing narrow, either."

"People used to build fences here every year, when the caribou came through. The fences would block the way so that the caribou had to pass through narrow places where the hunters were waiting for them," Fraser answered. "They would harvest all the caribou they would need for the spring and summer in a few days."

"Oh." That made sense. And it was less freaky than the giant-skull mountain. Ray poked at the fire with a stick. "So what's next?"

"Ah, Hottah Lake. After Hottah Lake, the Dene would follow the river to Great Bear Lake--the same lake where Deline is--and then travel over land to Fort Norman to trade."

"Uh-huh." Ray sniffed and ran a hand over the top of his hat. "What about us? Where do we go from here?"

"We, ah, we call and arrange for a plane to meet us at Hottah Lake and take us back to Deline."

"That's kind of what I figured." He dug in the packs. "What do you want to eat? How about the beef stroganoff?"

"That sounds fine."

Ray put some snow over the fire to melt. "So, I've kinda lost track of the dates. How much time do we have left?"

"It's the fourteenth." Ray was going back to Chicago on the 20th, and Fraser was due to report back at the detachment on the 21st. "Five days."

"That's, you know. That ain't peanuts." Ray's tone belied his words. They both knew the vacation was coming to an end.

"We can stay here, or up by Hottah Lake, for a few more days. We have enough supplies if we're careful."

"Nah. We should probably, you know. Go back. I mean, there's no point just sitting out here in the wilderness not going anywhere."

Fraser nodded.

"We can, you know, hang out at your place. That'll be cool." Ray sounded as though he were trying to convince himself.

"Yes. We can...." He tried, without success, to think of something they could do in Deline. Other than have sex, which he hoped was a given. "Go to Fort Franklin."

"Yeah, cool." Ray tore open the packet of dehydrated beef stroganoff and emptied it into the pot of boiling water.

"I'll call in the morning to arrange the pickup for the day after tomorrow." Early morning tended to be the best time to reach a bush pilot. He almost wished, however, that he wouldn't be able to contact the pilot, or that the pilot would be unable to pick them up right away.

It wasn't, he knew, that he wanted to sit next to Hottah Lake with Ray for a few days while they waited for a flight. If he did, he could simply say so, and Ray would humor him. The problem was that he didn't want Ray to leave, and a rebellious, irrational part of his mind insisted that if they didn't go back to Deline, Ray wouldn't be able to leave.

Which was arrant nonsense--if it were really necessary, the plane could take him directly from Hottah Lakes to Yellowknife, where he'd connect to Calgary, Edmonton, and--eventually--back to Chicago. What he wanted to halt was the passage of time, and that was--obviously--impossible. But the new intimacy of their relationship--delightful as it was--would make losing Ray again even more painful.

"Great." Ray swallowed hard and gave the beef stroganoff a stir. "We might as well eat."

They ate in near silence, neither of them showing much appetite.

"My cooking that bad?" Ray asked, trying for humor.

"No. Excellent as always. Just...you know."

Ray nodded. "Yeah." He scraped the tines of his fork against the tin plate. "You know I, uh, I to go back. It's not like I want to."

"I know." He wasn't sure which, honestly, was harder to take--being left behind by someone who wanted to stay but had no choice, or by someone who simply didn't choose to be with him. He had more than sufficient experience of both.

However--and this was key--Ray would be back. Next year, and the year after that, and on until he retired and came to stay. "It's only forty-nine weeks until next time."

"Less," Ray pointed out. "We did it a little late this year."

"True. Make it forty-six weeks, then."

"No time at all."

"It'll come around again before we know it. Spring's coming up, and the tourist season. That always just flies by." The amount of trouble tourists could get themselves into was mind-boggling.

"Baseball season," Ray added. "And then it's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, bing bang boom. Then we'll start really putting together the plan for next year."

"I could come down for a day or two. Over Christmas, or...something." He'd made two short visits back to Chicago since moving back north. It was a rather grueling trip, and not entirely worth it when he was using the vast majority of his leave for the Quest, but it could be done.

"That'd be nice. We could...I dunno. Do stuff." Ray shrugged. "And, you know, we'll call and stuff."

"Of course."

They lapsed into silence, which was broken by a strange sound. Something like a bird call, if somehow the calls of a pileated woodpecker and a thrush were combined--

"Fraser, it's the phone," Ray told him.

"Oh. Very right." Of course it was. He still wasn't used to the idea of having satellite phone service this far from town.

The phone had migrated to the bottom of one of the packs, below the first aid kit and extra ammunition. It rang dozens of times before he was able to get it out and answer. "Fraser."

It was O'Donnell, calling him about a missing person's case back in town. Billy Ledreaux, 89 years old and quite sick, had gone out on the land and left his oxygen tank behind. O'Donnell didn't ask him to come back early, but it was clear that she was feeling out of her depth.

He gave her some advice on organizing a search, while he considered what he'd do next. Billy had been suffering from shortness of breath and dizzy spells for several months--even though he hadn't know what was wrong, he'd been too sick to go out fishing or hunting for months. Why had he gone now? Someone might know--maybe one of the other elders, or Billy's teenage grandson. But O'Donnell would have a hard time getting anyone to confide in her, or even knowing how to ask.

He'd have to go back. If there was a chance his assistance with the search might make a difference between finding Billy alive or not--and there plainly was--there was no decision to make. He instructed O'Donnell to have a plane meet them at Hottah Lake, and hung up with a sigh.

Now for the hard part--he had to tell Ray that some of their precious remaining time would be spent on a rescue mission. Returning to the fireside, he said, "There's been a slight change of plans."

"I heard part of it," Ray said. "I guess we're heading back early?" His easy words were at odds with his expression of disappointment.

"A little early. I hope you don't mind." He sat down next to Ray.

Ray took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Doesn't sound like we have much of a choice."

Fraser was reminded, again, of why he loved this man. "No," he agreed. "As much as I regret the timing, we can't really expect Billy to wait until my vacation has ended to be found."

Ray shrugged. "It'll give us something to do other than mope, anyway. The missing person is an old guy?"

"Yes--old, and not in the best of health. He was diagnosed with lung cancer a few weeks ago. His children are urging him to go to Yellowknife for treatment, but the doctors have admitted that the required course of treatment is quite aggressive, and he might not survive it. He's indicated that he doesn't want to die in the city, so it's been a source of...friction."

"A family thing, huh? How sick is he?"

"As recently as last summer, he regularly went out on the land to hunt and fish--he used to frequently bring matters like poaching and illegal dumping to my attention--but he's been staying close to home for the last few months." Like a lot of the Dene elders, Billy Ledreaux had been as tough as old leather--they shrank, they slowed down, but they kept going. The last time Fraser recalled seeing him, sitting near the stove at the co-op, he'd looked more like a blown egg. Fragile. "I believe he's quite ill now. He certainly has the skills and knowledge to live off the land in nearly any conditions, but perhaps not the physical capacity."

"So why'd he go out now, if he knows he's too sick? Is he--?" Ray circled an index finger next to his temple.

"No, mentally he's still very alert--unless that's changed in the last few weeks. But for the Dene, going out on the land can be more of a mental and spiritual quest than a simple camping trip. He may have felt that he needed to go out on the land in order to make a decision about whether to go to Yellowknife for treatment."

"Mental and spiritual quest, huh? Kind of like us."

Fraser shrugged. "I'm not sure that the Dene would characterize any activity undertaken by white people as `going out on the land.' It requires a sense of connection to place that can only be acquired over a lifetime. But yes. In any case, if that's what Billy Ledreaux has done, he'll take all reasonable precautions for his safety, but he'll be heading for a remote location, perhaps one that's known only to him. On the other hand, if he's attempting to demonstrate to his family--and perhaps to himself--that he's still a capable hunter and not an invalid, he'll go to hunting locations where he expects to be successful, which will make his movements slightly more predictable. On a third hand, well...he might be thinking that his family will evacuate him to Yellowknife when he becomes too sick to protest, and on some level he may have gone out onto the land to die. In that case, he will be very hard to find indeed."

Ray shifted his weight. "So we ought to see if he talked to anyone before he went, about why he was going. His friends, maybe."

"Yes. Yes, and the other elders will be unlikely to divulge such information to Constable O'Donnell. It would be considered a private matter, and she's a stranger."

"Will they tell you?"

"Maybe. After ten years here, I'm considered less of an outsider than she is, and it's generally known that I respect the local traditions. If they believe he doesn't want to be found, however, they'll be of little help."

"So if they stonewall you, that's some kind of an answer right there."

Fraser nodded. "Or it may be an indication that they simply don't know."

"Well. I guess tomorrow's going to be an early start and a long day."

"Yes, the best thing we can do now is get some rest," Fraser agreed. It was frustrating to know that a man was in danger and not be able to do anything more active to help, but he knew staying up worrying would only make him less effective tomorrow.

#

"Hup, hup, hup!" Fraser called to the dogs, encouraging them to jump into the hold of the bush plane that would take them back to Deline. He'd probably feel guilty if Ray mentioned it--a person's life was in danger--but Fraser had cheered up considerably after hearing that he was needed back in town.

Ray was reminded of one of Fraser's dad's crazy sayings--not the one about tying your wallet to your underwear (which took on a slightly surreal air when he learned that Mounties tied their guns to their lanyards--he imagined Fraser's dad walking around with all his valuables tied to various parts of his body and clothing)--but the one about how "duty is a passion." Personally, he thought that duty made a piss-poor substitute for passion--and having an actual passion for a change had reminded him just what a lousy substitute it was--but there was no missing that Fraser cared a lot about his town and his job. An emergency was just the thing to make him feel better when he was missing Dief and Ray.

Once the dogs were loaded into their crates (stacked two high, three in the middle where there was room), they threw the rest of the gear on board and climbed in behind it. "How's the search going?" Fraser asked the pilot.

He shrugged. "They started at sunup, had about thirty five, forty people go out. Pete's flying a search pattern, but Chuckie's stuck doing supply runs. I made some sweeps on my way here, but everyone agrees Billy probably went north or east. Didn't see any sign of him, anyway."

Fraser nodded and said, "Probably right, unless he went to Grizzly Mountain, which is rather far for a man of his years."

"Yeah, that was one of the spots I checked. Ready to go?"

After the pilot started up the plane, it was too loud to talk without shouting. One of the dogs whined for twenty solid minutes, the high, anxious sound cutting over and under the roar of the engines. Probably Kit--she never like flying. She'd be fine as soon as they landed--she always was--but Ray was reminded of the anxious, keening sounds Fraser had made the night he called about Dief.

That had been a rough night. Fraser was suffering, and there was nothing Ray could do, hundreds of miles and four plane flights away. They were partners, and you didn't leave your partner alone when he was in trouble.

This long distance thing just sucked. It had sucked when they were partners, and it was going to suck even more now that they were--what? Boyfriends, except a boyfriend sounded like something Frannie would have. What did they call it when you got your same-sex...whatever...on your health insurance, like being married? They had it for Chicago city employees now, it was in the paper....

Domestic partnership. Right. He thumped his head against the plexiglass window. So they were partners, and now they were partners still, again, more, but not the domestic part, because domestic meant you lived together, and they didn't. Yet, anyway.

It had just about killed him when Stella went down to Urbana-Champaign for college, and that was only a couple of hours' drive. He was older now, and slightly more patient...but he was also a hell of a lot more aware of what could go wrong when you spent 49 weeks a year away from the person in the world you cared most about. They both had dangerous lives.

And Fraser seemed vulnerable in a way he hadn't been before. Physically, sure--Dief had been the best backup imaginable without opposable thumbs--but emotionally, too. Fraser was good at putting aside his feelings and moving on--maybe not an approach the therapy crowd would approve of, but it worked for him. Ray knew he was disappointed, for instance, when his relationship with his long-lost sister never got particularly close. Fraser had hoped for the kind of intimacy that came from years of memories of fighting in the backseat on long car trips, going to the same schools and having the same teachers, eating the same family dinners. Maggie was, basically, a stranger who shared half his DNA. Either one of them would give the other a kidney if they needed it, but they had trouble staying in touch.

Anyway, that had happened, and Fraser was sad about it, but he was basically fine.

Same way with difficult cases. There had been a few that hit Fraser hard. The suicide of a teenager he'd been trying to help had knocked him for a loop, and he had to deal with a lot of domestics--which were shitty enough when it was some scared woman you'd never see again, but worse when you had to bump into her around town and see the fresh bruises and know nothing had gotten any better. But Fraser was a rock--all that bad stuff swept over him like a glacier, and after it passed, he was still there.

But this thing with Dief...well, it had fucked him up bad. What had he said back at the diner, the day Ray got there? I have nothing I can afford to lose. Maybe it was like that wacky duet he had going on with Dief had been the solid center, the weight that let him be knocked down over and over and bounce back again every time, like one of those inflatable punching bags for kids.

He wasn't bouncing back as fast as he used to himself, either. After a day on the job, he usually went back to his apartment and sat on the couch with a beer until it was time to go to bed. His new partner suggested they go out for a beer, he'd make up excuses not to go. Cases got hard, instead of digging in like a terrier and shaking until something fell out, he'd think why not just let this one go?

Hearing himself think that scared the shit out of him, so he'd always dig back in and pursue it, but he didn't feel driven. There was no zing. And a Kowalski without zing was like a Fraser without duty.

So he was leaving Fraser up here alone--which Fraser had basically told him he didn't think he could hack--to go back to a life that basically kind of sucked.

Yup, that was about the size of it.

He decided to stop thinking and look at the scenery. Look, there was some snow! And trees! And...more snow!

When the plane landed, Fraser jumped out running. "I should get to the detachment as quickly as possible. You can hitch up the dogs and drive them to town." There was the slightest hint of a question in his tone.

He knew the question wasn't just--wasn't even mostly--about whether he could drive the dogs by himself. They were going back from being two guys who gave each other mind-blowing orgasms and fell asleep tangled up like puppies to partners again, the cop kind of partners. Two guys with a job to do. And Fraser was maybe wondering if he was okay with that--which he totally was. Loving Fraser to sleep with him was new, but he'd loved Fraser to work with him for years. "Yeah, I can do that. I'll meet you there."

Fraser nodded, thumped his shoulder, and ran over to the RCMP truck.

Ray helped the pilot unload their gear, dumping some of it inside the airport building to pick up later. They'd left the dogs in harness when they loaded them into the plane, which made hitching considerably easier--all Ray had to do was remember which dog went where. That was a little trickier than it seemed, since the order of the team changed from year to year, and even slightly from day to day. The two wheel-dogs were easy to pick out, since they were heftier than the rest of the team, and he easily recognized the lead dogs, but the eight in the middle were kind of a jumble. He had to make a few guesses, but it would probably be fine--it wasn't very far to town, and it was a straight shot.

After hitching up he had to take the crates inside, and then he was ready to go. Standing on the back of the sled, he shouted, "Hike!"

One of the wheel dogs turned to look back at him, and yawned.

"Hike!" He tried again.

The dogs shook themselves and started off. Slowly. The sled was making a strange noise, too, like the sled had a flat tire and he was riding on the rim. Which was impossible, since sleds didn't have tires.

The pilot, who was walking around the plane doing a post-flight check, called out to him, "You might want to take the brake off!"

Oh. Yeah. "Thanks!" He smacked the back of his head with a gloved hand--Jeeze, distracted much?--and kicked at the lever to disengage the brake. "Hike!"

This time, the dogs set off. Shortly after the airport disappeared from sight behind him, the town buildings came into view up ahead. Once they got into town, the dogs slowed and started looking around, distracted by the cars, the houses, the people. Every few seconds he had to shout, "On by! On by! Hike!"

When they got to the detachment, he hopped off the sled and walked the dogs around back. He knew that if they were going right back out--which they probably were--it would be by snowmobile, so he took everybody out of harness and put down food and water. The dogs nosed their way around their runs, making sure everything was the way they'd left it, bolted down their food, and curled up to sleep.

He went back around to the front of the building and went inside. The detachment was busier than he'd ever seen it--two women and a guy, all strangers to him, were sitting around Connie's desk, and Fraser was bent over a large map with Connie herself. He looked up when Ray entered. "Just a moment, and I'll help you put the dogs up."

"Already done," Ray answered, knocking the snow off his boots and going over. "What are we looking at?"

Fraser went over the map with him. A big circle indicated the maximum distance Ledreaux could have covered, and a few little lines in highlighter showed the territory the search teams had covered--only a fraction of the area inside the circle--a very small fraction, not one of the good ones like 7/8ths. "Jeeze."

Fraser nodded. "I think talking to Billy's friends--and perhaps Jeremiah Ledreaux, was well--is the most productive use of our time. There's already considerable manpower out in the field."

That made sense. Adding two more guys to the ones that were looking for a needle in a haystack wasn't going to have a big impact on the chances of finding it. Getting some inside info on which part of the haystack the needle liked best would help more.

Fraser added, "With the amount of tree cover here, the air search isn't making much progress. We're having some thermal imaging equipment brought in from Yellowknife, which will help considerably, but it won't arrive until late afternoon."

So they wouldn't be able to use it much before tomorrow, by which point the old guy would have been out in the cold for two nights. Not good.

On the other hand, they'd just been out in the cold for two weeks, and this guy had lived here all his life. He could still be okay--it wasn't like he was some confused old person who'd wandered away from the old age home in a bathrobe.

"Nearly everyone is at the Ledreaux home, so we'll go there." Fraser zipped up his parka and pulled on his gloves. "Connie, let me know if anything develops."

"I will."

They hopped in the truck and drove toward the lake. "Could you...Ray, could you try talking with Jeremiah--Billy's grandson?" Fraser asked. "He has a certain...distrust of authority figures that might make him more willing to confide in someone with no official standing. I'll be more effective with the old men, since they know me, but teenagers are sometimes more forthcoming with strangers."

"Sure," Ray said. He was glad Fraser didn't expect him to stand around with his dick in his hand while Fraser worked.

That conversation took them the whole way to the Ledreaux place--nothing was very far from anything else in Deline. The Ledreaux house was a trailer with a couple of extra rooms built on--a lot of houses in Deline were like that. Fraser knocked and went right in. Nobody seemed surprised to see Fraser--it was a police kind of knock.

An older lady came up to him and said something in the local lingo. Fraser answered the same way--he'd picked up some of the language, naturally. "Ray, Louise might know where to find Jeremiah." He tilted his head toward a woman about their age, standing at the sink washing dishes.

When he spoke to her, she turned quickly, wiping her eyes with the corner of the dishtowel. "Do you want something to eat? There are sandwiches." Without waiting for an answer, she went to the refrigerator and took out a plate of sandwiches.

Ray wasn't particularly hungry, but it occurred to him that bringing food might be a good way to break the ice with the kid. He took a couple sandwiches in a paper towel and asked where he could find Jeremiah.

"He's in the garage. Here, take him some of these. He hasn't eaten." She gave him more sandwiches.

"Thanks."

It was only a few yards to the garage, but his hands almost froze--he couldn't put his gloves on, since he had his hands full of sandwiches. Inside the garage it was a little warmer, and a lot noisier. Jeremiah had the stereo blasting and was under the hood of a pickup that looked older than he was. When Ray let the door bang shut behind him, he looked up for a second, then back down at the engine.

"Hi. I'm Ray Kowalski."

"I know who you are. The one who goes out on the land with Sergeant Fraser."

Ray thought about telling him Fraser said white guys didn't go out on the land, but didn't. Maybe Fraser was some kind of an exception. "Yeah."

Ray put the sandwiches down on the bumper. "Your--I guess she's your aunt--asked me to bring you these. Sandwiches. I'm not sure what kind they are, but they're not bad."

The kid rubbed his hand against his jeans and took one. "Caribou bologna," he said after taking a bite. "We put it up last spring."

Ray nodded. "You're gapping plugs?"

"Yeah."

He picked up a plug and the gap gauge, and when the kid didn't tell him to fuck off, figured he was halfway in. "Looks like you're running kind of rich."

"Yeah. I've been playing with the timing, but I'm still getting black exhaust."

"You have a fuel pressure test kit?"

"No."

"How about a tire gauge?"

Jeremiah got one, and Ray showed him how to check fuel pressure with a tire gauge, a length of spare tubing, and some hose clamps.

After they'd worked for a while, he said, "You worried about your granddad?"

"He can take care of himself."

"Yeah. Okay, start `er up, let's see what we've got." There was a small chance that the improvised fuel-pressure tester would melt or explode, so he figured putting the kid safely inside the truck cab was the responsible thing to do.

Fortunately, it didn't take long to get a reading. "Okay, shut her off. Pressure's a little high," he said as Jeremiah got out of the cab. "I guess putting in a new carburetor isn't something you want to do if you can avoid it."

"Yeah."

"Let's try flushing out the return fuel line."

They got started on that, and after a while Jeremiah said, "Etseh's fine. Everybody should just leave him alone. He can make his own decision."

Ray nodded and handed him a wrench. "Your Gran's worried, though."

"She doesn't know about man's things."

"Hm." A few minutes later, Ray said, "He's out doing guy stuff? Like what, hunting?"

"I'm not telling you where he is. Even if I knew, I mean. You just want to drag him back so they--the women--can make him go to Yellowknife."

Ray was pretty sure he did know, or at least had some idea. "Nah. Fraser just wants to check on him. If he's fine, he'll say `sorry for bothering you' and leave `im alone. Maybe your gran and aunts won't like it if he does, but Fraser doesn't care about that."

"He's fine," Jeremiah said. "Why wouldn't he be?"

"I heard he was pretty sick."

"He feels okay now. Sick people can get better."

Not people with lung cancer, Ray thought. "He felt okay yesterday. What about today?"

The kid shrugged. "I'm sure he's still fine."

"Did he take his oxygen tank with him?" Ray asked, even though he knew the answer.

"He doesn't need it. There's oxygen everywhere."

Ray drummed his fingers against the side of the truck. "You know what happens to an engine if the throttle plate isn't letting enough oxygen in?"

Jeremiah gave him a look that said I've seen subtle, and subtle you ain't, buddy. "Hand me that hose clamp."

Ray handed it to him.

"If they find him and bring him back, Mom and Etsi and everyone'll say it proves he needs to go to Yellowknife so the doctors can take care of him. He can take care of himself," Jeremiah said, keeping his eyes on the work he was doing.

"They can't make him go, unless a judge says he's mentally incompetent. Which we know he isn't. Fraser won't let him be forced into something he doesn't want."

"You don't know my aunts."

"Can they put out a hit on him? Have a bunch of armed goons beat the crap out of him in an alley?" Ray asked rhetorically. "Have you ever heard the story about Fraser, the busboy, and the mob boss?"

Jeremiah huffed. "No."

"It happened when he was in Chicago--well, obviously. I guess you don't have mob bosses up here."

"Not many."

So Ray told him about the Warfield thing, and what had happened when Fraser just wouldn't back down. Ray hoped it didn't occur to Jeremiah to ask just what would happen if Fraser agreed that Ledeaux would be better off in Yellowknife. "He figures your grandfather might need help. It turns out he doesn't, like I said, he'll leave him alone if that's what he wants."

"That is what he wants."

"It might not be what he needs." Ray wiped his hands on a rag. "He doesn't want to die down in Yellowknife, right?"

"Right."

"Why d'you figure that is?"

"Because this is his home. He belongs here."

"Yeah. Here. Where his family is, right?"

Jeremiah nodded.

"Not all by himself down in Yellowknife. Or all by himself out on the land. Right?"

The kid fussed around putting tools away. It was almost inaudible when he finally said, "Right."

#

"Fraser." Ray put a hand on his shoulder and gave a little squeeze, but his tone was businesslike.

He nodded to the elder he was interviewing and looked over his shoulder at Ray. "Yes?"

"Need you to take a statement."

Ray was practically bouncing with eagerness to be on their way as Fraser thanked the old men and said his good byes, but he knew that the minute necessary to satisfy courtesy would be worthwhile. Outside, Jeremiah Ledreaux was waiting by an old burn barrel. "He figures he knows where the old guy is. But listen, if he's right, don't let on to his mom and aunts that he knew and didn't say," Ray explained.

Fraser nodded. "Understood. I'll take you to the detachment, and you can show us on the map."

Jeremiah shook his head. "I don't know it on the map. I can show you the way."

Fraser caught Ray's eye and tilted his head to one side. "Just a minute," Ray said, and they moved a few steps away. "Yeah, I know, you think maybe he just wants to take us out and lead us around for a few hours so we can't find the old guy, right?"

"It does seem possible."

"He's being straight with us. I convinced him we're on the same side."

Fraser hesitated. They'd established, years ago, that they couldn't work together if they didn't trust each other. He still trusted Ray--more than ever. "All right. Let's go."

"You're not even going to fight me about going along?"

"No. We'll have to find another snowmobile, though."

After a brief period of unavoidable delay, they set out with two snowmobiles and enough gear to make a rudimentary camp if necessary, plus a bag of medical equipment pressed on them by the health station nurses.

Speeding along on the snowmobile, with Ray clinging to his back, was jarring but exhilarating. Even going at a cautious pace, the snow machine was about three times faster than a dogsled going full-out, and it was rather difficult to keep Jeremiah to a cautious pace. He often sped on ahead, only stopping to allow Fraser and Ray to catch up when they were almost out of sight.

After several hours, they passed through an area of soft snow, where a single set of snowmobile tracks were plainly visible. Jeremiah stopped next to them. "Look. I knew he'd come this way. We're on the right track."

"Good," Fraser said, looking at the tracks. They wove back and forth even though there were no obstacles, and in many places the tracks left by the wide rear runners were deeper on one side than the other, suggesting that Ledreaux had been driving erratically.

Fraser met Ray's eyes and then looked down at the tracks. Ray studied them for a moment, then nodded. He knew the significance of what he was seeing.

Jeremiah, however, seemed oblivious to the evidence. Fraser decided, after a moment, not to draw his attention to it. If the boy's grandfather was in distress, he'd know soon enough. He reported back to the detachment that they'd found signs of Ledreaux's trail, and they kept going.

After a few hundred metres, the snow firmed up and the tracks disappeared. Several kilometers further on, Fraser noticed a hole in the snow that looked as though something large had fallen and thrashed around. Quite likely a man on a snowmobile, although from the size of the crater, Fraser couldn't absolutely rule out a moose. Jeremiah stopped by it for a moment, then continued without comment.

Over the next twenty kilometers or so, they saw evidence of several more falls. Fraser was relieved to see a bright red tent up ahead. They hadn't traveled as far as Jeremiah had indicated they would have to, so it looked like Ledreaux had stopped before reaching his destination. But he'd been well enough to set up the tent, which was a very good sign. This time, when Jeremiah sped up, Fraser kept pace with him.

As they neared the tent, Ledreaux came out of the tent and stood in front of it, leaning on a walking stick--or, to be accurate, a figure to heavily wrapped in parka, hat, and scarf to be recognizable came out of the tent. But it was very probably Ledreaux--Jeremiah seemed to recognize the tent, among other evidence.

"Etseh!" Jeremiah called over the sound of the snowmobile engines. The figure raised a hand in greeting.

When they reached the tent and Fraser cut the snowmobile engine, Jeremiah was talking to Billy in the local dialect. Fraser, while far from fluent, was able to gather that Jeremiah was telling Billy about the village-wide search for his whereabouts. Jeremiah broke into English to tell Fraser, "But you can see he's fine. We didn't need to find him, right, Etseh?"

Billy looked at his grandson and then at Fraser. "I think that it's time for me to go home," he said slowly, stopping between words to breathe with a reedy, rasping sound.

Fraser nodded. "Yes. Ray, could you get the--"

"Right here." Ray had already pulled the oxygen cylinder out of the medical kit. He helped Billy put the mask onto his face, while Jeremiah watched, looking sad and confused.

Fraser walked over to him, feeling that he ought to say something comforting yet profound, but all he could manage was a manly thump on the shoulder. It was almost a blessing that his own father had died in the line of duty, rather than growing old and weak. Dad would certainly have preferred a little more time, but then, he'd managed to get more time anyway, and without the inconvenience of an aging physical body. "Let's, ah, pack up his gear," he said to Jeremiah.

They struck Billy's camp, taking down the tent and lashing the gear to the wooden sledge hitched to the back of his snowmobile. When they finished, Billy moved slowly over to them, and handed Jeremiah the keys to his machine. "You drive my snow machine home," he said.

Jeremiah tried to push the keys back into his hand. "It's your machine."

"I'm an old man. A sick man. I'll ride behind you."

"Uh--" He looked over his shoulder at the rented snowmobile.

"Ray'll drive that one," Fraser volunteered. Ray nodded agreement.

Jeremiah nodded slowly, and took the keys.

#

The ride back to town went a little slower than the trip out. That was okay with Ray--he wasn't too bad with a snowmobile, but he wasn't great, either. It was sort of like riding a motorcycle, but there were a few small but important differences that kept screwing him up. They had to stop a couple of times to give the old guy more oxygen, too, but he did seem to be doing okay.

When they pulled up in front of the Ledreaux house, members of the family spilled out, everyone talking at once in a mixture of English and Dene. The enthusiasm and general chaos reminded Ray of the Vecchio household. The way he and Fraser were absorbed into the chaos heightened the comparison.

As soon as the women had Billy wrapped in blankets and settled in an easy chair by the woodstove, with a cup of tea and his oxygen tank, Mary Ledreaux informed them that they'd be staying for dinner.

Other than wanting to get Fraser alone, Ray didn't mind much--he hadn't eaten anything since the sandwiches when he and Jeremiah were fixing the truck, and it looked like the Ledreaux women had been cooking since Fraser had called to tell them they were bringing Billy back. Platters and bowls of everything from Kraft macaroni and cheese to caribou sausage and glistening chunks of raw fat were brought out from the kitchen and put on every flat surface. Louise fixed a plate for Billy, and then insisted that they serve themselves next. Ray took helpings of everything he recognized and a few things he didn't, but that didn't look particularly gross. The buffalo-style ptarmigan wings turned out to be really good.

The occasion got pretty festive, pretty fast. Ray knew the Ledreaux had feared for the worst, so even though he still had terminal cancer, getting Billy back alive felt like a reprieve. Like most of the Dene, the Ledreaux didn't drink, but there was a lot of talking and laughing, and more people seemed to be streaming into the tiny house every minute. Somehow, a toddler ended up sitting between him and Fraser on the plaid couch, eating off of their plates.

After an hour or two, the friends and neighbors started to drift out of the house, leaving just the members of the Ledreaux family. Mary and Louise urged him and Fraser to stay too, but they managed to escape after accepting a large package of dried goose and duck meat, "For next time you go out on the land."

Fraser's cabin was cold and dark, and felt like it had been standing empty for much longer than two weeks. Ray went around turning on all the lights--twice, since the first time, Fraser followed him turning them off--and put on some music.

Once Fraser caught on that he was trying to make the place seem lived-in, he did his part, putting the kettle on and building a fire in the woodstove. Ray accepted a cup of tea--even though the Ledreaux had crammed so much food into him that he felt like he might explode--and they settled on the couch. It felt downright weird not to be sitting on a stump in the evening. "Been a long time since we worked on a case together."

Fraser nodded. "Yes. It was...."

"Fun," Ray filled in.

"I'd hesitate to characterize what could easily have ended in tragedy as--"

Ray gave him a playful punch in the shoulder.

"Yes, it was fun." Fraser cleared his throat. "I'll have to go in to the detachment tomorrow to make a start on the paperwork, which will not be fun. Ottawa is not going to be happy to pay for the services of four Auxiliary Constables and a search plane when we eventually found the missing person by asking the last person to see him where he was."

"I guess you'll just have to put that you'd never have found the guy without my amazing persuasive skills."

"We very well might not have, unless he came back on his own. How did you convince him? I take it violence wasn't involved?"

"Oh, very funny. Helped him gap the plugs and flush the fuel line on his truck, told him a caribou story. Say, what do you think's gonna happen with the old guy?" He felt a little guilty about convincing Jeremiah to talk by telling him Fraser wouldn't let his grandfather be sent to the city, when he hadn't actually asked Fraser's opinion on the issue.

Fraser shook his head. "The residents here have to make difficult choices between remaining in the community and getting access to state-of-the-art medical care. It's one of the drawbacks of living in a remote community."

"Do you think he should stay?"

"It's his decision. But in his condition, realistically, even the best care isn't going to give him much more time. If the health center here can give him oxygen treatments and pain management--which they probably can--staying here will provide a better quality of life."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. I mean, his people are here. You gotta--nobody wants to spend the last part of their life alone, without anybody that cares about `em." Ray stopped. Maybe not just the last part, either. And you didn't always know when the last part was gonna be, either. "Anyway, I told the kid if his grandfather wants to stay, you'll back him up."

Fraser nodded. "It's a private matter, though. I don't have any particular influence on the decision."

"Yeah, but you can do that thing you do."

"True. I'll go and talk to the family in a day or two." He sipped his tea. "I hope you can find some way to occupy yourself tomorrow. It's unfortunate that I have to work while you're here--but it does give me two more days of leave that I can use later."

Ray nodded. It sucked, but they'd have the evening together, anyway. And if it meant Fraser could make it down for Christmas or whatever, it would be worth it. "Yeah, I'll--I don't know. Do somethin'." He shrugged. "When's the last time you changed the oil in your truck?"

"You don't have to do that, Ray."

"I know I don't have to."

"...Understood."

#

He woke a short while before he had to, tangled up in bed with Ray. This kind of intimate proximity had begun to become familiar to him, but the juxtaposition of Ray and his ordinary life was captivating. He could get used to this. He could wake every morning like this, with Ray's head on his shoulder, Ray's hand on his biceps, Ray's--he blushed even to think the word--Ray's cock pressed against his hip.

Except he wasn't going to get used to it, because Ray had to leave in a few days.

Fraser could--possibly--go back to Chicago. Openings for postings in the Chicago Consulate tended to crop up frequently, and although he was overqualified for such an assignment, he stood a good chance of receiving it if he asked.

But such a move would leave Deline without an experienced law enforcement officer. Few senior officers requested such remote assignments, and many similar communities experienced even more rapid staff turnover than the Chicago Consulate. He had never sacrificed duty for his personal happiness, and to do so didn't seem like an auspicious opening to this new chapter of their relationship.

It would be better, then, to stick to the plan Ray had suggested at the beginning of his visit. They'd continue as they had for the next seventeen years, until Ray reached mandatory retirement (or perhaps a little sooner--Ray might be persuaded to retire before the CPD required him to do so), and then they could be together in Deline.

"I can hear you worrying," Ray said into his collarbone. "Stop that."

"Sorry." He brought his hand up to the back of Ray's neck. "I was thinking about--"

"I know what you were thinking about. Let's not ruin this thinking about it, okay? We've got plenty of time to be miserable later."

"Right you are."

"I know just what'll take your mind off it, anyway." Ray moved against him in a way that was, indeed, incompatible with gloomy thoughts.

After they made love, Ray volunteered to make breakfast while he had a quick shower and got into uniform. Ray evidently felt no particular need to get cleaned up, but then, he wasn't working that day.

Breakfast was oatmeal and some of the dried meat Mrs. Ledreaux had given them. They'd eaten all of their fresh food before leaving on the quest, and, of course, there hadn't been time to buy new supplies yesterday.

"You could do the grocery shopping today, if you like," Fraser suggested as they ate. It went against his nature to ask a guest to work, but Ray wasn't exactly a guest, and he'd indicated yesterday that he did not wish to be treated as one.

"Sure. If you won't need the truck."

"If I need to go anywhere, I can take the snowmobile. I'll make you a list."

Ray shrugged. "I know what you buy."

"Very well." Fraser took out his wallet.

"I also have my own money."

"Of course you do, but you'd be buying things for my house."

"Our house."

The words gave him a momentary thrill of happiness. Yes. It was their house, whether Ray was there or not. Except he'd mostly not be there, which made what they were doing now a bit like playing house. Pretending that Ray lived here now. But he could pretend that if he wanted. "Yes, you're right. I'm sorry."

"No problem. Takes some getting used to. You never lived with anybody before, did you?"

"No. Well, not since I was a child, of course."

"Yeah, that's not really the same." Ray scraped the last of the oatmeal out of his bowl. "C'mon, I'll drive you to work and then do that shopping."

#

After dropping Fraser off at the detachment, Ray took the truck out to the Northern store--Fraser told him that the larger selection there made it a better choice for major stocking-up than the Co-op.

He was glad Fraser hadn't laughed out loud when he said that thing about "our house." It was just that he felt like he lived here, even though he didn't.

Northern was sort of like a very small Wal-mart with a very idiosyncratic selection. There was a display of snowmobiles in the middle of the store, separating the general merchandise side--everything from bed sheets to blenders to chainsaws--and the grocery side. He picked up some oil, filters, and an oil filter wrench from that side, and then got started on groceries.

Everything up here cost about four times what it did normally. He'd noticed that before when he bought candy bars and chips, but somehow, he'd thought real food would be cheaper.

Clearly he was wrong. A carton of orange juice, for instance, was almost twenty dollars. Actual oranges were even worse--no wonder Fraser had been mildly obsessed with fresh produce in Chicago.

He was trying to decide whether, at almost two dollars apiece, they really needed eggs, when a woman stopped her cart next to his. "You're Ray, who found Etseh Ledreaux!"

That made a change from "Ray from Chicago" or "Sergeant Fraser's Ray." "Guilty," he answered.

"Are you staying, then?" She glanced down at the shopping cart.

"No, I'm, uh, just getting some stuff for Fraser's place." He couldn't really call it "our house" to a stranger; she wouldn't understand.

"Oh. Well, nice talking to you."

It seemed like every second person he saw in the store stopped him to tell him they knew who he was, and ask if he was staying. Downright weird.

The only part of the store where the prices weren't shocking was the meat department. The beef, chicken, and pork options were fairly pricey, but the moose, caribou, duck, and goose were very reasonable. He revised his dinner plan of "tacos" to "moose tacos."

He almost changed his mind again when he saw how expensive the tomatoes and lettuce were, but what the hell. It wasn't like he was spending all his money on beer and women. He might as well spend it on produce and Fraser.

#

After he took the groceries home, got the rest of their stuff from the airport, changed the oil and filter in the truck, re-organized Fraser's CDs by genre, and made a couple of sandwiches, he drove back to the detachment to give Fraser one of the sandwiches and see if he was done working yet.

It turned out he wasn't--another hour or so, he said--so Ray decided maybe he'd stop by the Ledreaux place and see how Jeremiah and the old guy were doing, maybe check the truck was still running rich, or if flushing the fuel line had done the trick. Parking in front of the trailer, he thought about knocking on the door, but decided to go around back first.

Which turned out to be the right call. He didn't even have to go into the garage; Jeremiah and Billy were sitting on a couple of cinderblocks near a fire in a cut-off oil barrel.

"Hi," Ray said awkwardly.

Jeremiah glared at him some, but the old man said, "Sit."

He pulled up another cinderblock and sat. "Truck running okay?" he said after a while.

"Yeah," Jeremiah answered.

He nodded. "Cool."

The other two men nodded, and they sat and looked at the flames for a while.

"I am going to die soon," Billy said.

"Don't say that," Jeremiah said, his hands bunching into fists in his parka pockets.

Ray scratched at his hairline under his hat. "Everybody dies," he said, managing not to finish it up with, baby that's a fact.

"I've had a long life. I was only a boy when we moved in off the land and my father took work carrying uranium ore. He was not much more than half my age now when he died from cancer, the uranium sickness."

Ray nodded. "That's...yeah, that's rough." There were worse things than being a meatpacker's kid.

"I could go to Yellowknife and live longer, maybe. A few more months, a year. I have already been out on the land for the last time. I will die here, where my father died. Where my children and grandchildren were born. I will not leave behind the important things so that I can maybe live a little longer."

"I--yeah. I think that's the right call," Ray said, like he thought maybe this old guy needed his approval or something.

"I will tell my daughters, and they will not understand."

"Women." Ray shrugged.

"Eh. My daughters, they went to the white school. Today, we have some Dene teachers. The children learn to respect elders, to respect the land. My daughters did not learn this."

Ray started to put together that Billy was telling him this as a token white guy. He maybe wanted Ray to tell him how to explain it so that it would make sense to somebody with a white outlook. He sighed, rubbed his hands together over the fire. "A lot of people in cities don't live as long as you have. And old people down south end up spending years in the old-age home because they don't have family to help them when they need it. Or they live by themselves in a little rented room that smells like cabbage and cat pee. There was this old dude I used to play chess with. He was a--well, that's not important. We played chess in the park once a week or so, and I was the one who found his body when he died, because he didn't have anybody else. So the way they do things in the city's...not always so good. Being near the people who care about you is better than being near a hospital. I mean, if you have to pick one."

Billy nodded slowly. "I will tell my daughters this."

#

"You just relax, okay? I'm gonna get dinner, as soon as I hit the can. You've been wrestling paperwork all day." Ray shoved him in the general direction of the sofa before continuing to the bathroom.

Instead of sitting down, however, Fraser took the opportunity to make a quick examination of the refrigerator and cupboards. He'd half-feared that he'd come home to find that he--pardon, they--were now the proud owners of the Northern's entire selection of Pop Tarts, potato chips, candy, and other highly processed snack items. But except for a pack of Oreos and some Ritz crackers, everything Ray had gotten was something Fraser purchased, at least occasionally--or, in one instance, had purchased once and deeply regretted, but it was Fraser's own fault for not warning Ray that one of the two brands of frozen pizza stocked by the store was completely inedible.

"Checking up on me?"

Fortunately, Ray sounded more amused than annoyed. Fraser shrugged sheepishly, and told Ray about the problem with the pizza.

"If it's bad enough you won't eat it, it must be awful," Ray said, looking at the box.

"Dief--Dief did, but not without considerable complaint."

"Should we just throw this one out?"

"No--the school sometimes has movie nights for the young people; I'll find out when the next one is and donate it. Someone must like those things, or the store wouldn't keep ordering them."

"They have another kind," Ray said. "Are those any better?"

"Marginally. I've found it easier just to make my own when I'm in the mood for pizza, though."

"Easier?"

Perhaps easier wasn't precisely the right word. "Less disappointing."

"You ever put pineapple on it?"

"Frequently," Fraser admitted. "Pineapple and caribou sausage. Quite tasty, actually, although I haven't managed to make any converts."

"People up here consider the pineapple the weird part, right?"

Fraser felt he had to tell him. "Ray, people everywhere consider the pineapple the weird part."

"Funny guy. Okay, so we're having tacos," he said, putting the pizza back in the freezer and getting meat, tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese out of the refrigerator.

"What can I do to help?"

"Are you gonna sulk if I say nothing?" Ray asked.

"I might." Fraser wasn't entirely sure he knew how to sulk, but he could try.

"All right, you can shred the cheese." Ray handed him the block of cheese and started rummaging through the cupboard where he kept his pots and pans.

"What are you looking for?"

"Cheese grating thing."

"I don't have one."

"Oh." Ray looked stumped.

"I have a knife," Fraser pointed out, selecting one from a drawer. "Several, in fact." While Ray cooked the taco meat and chopped the vegetables, Fraser whittled the block of cheese into a pile of orange shreds (the point of the exercise) and a rough approximation of a seal (an unhygienic expression of whimsy).

When Ray saw what he'd done, he shook his head. "You're unhinged."

"I'm afraid so," he agreed.

"I like that about you. What does that say about me?"

Fortunately, the question didn't seem to require an answer.

The tacos were surprisingly good--Fraser made a mental note to look at the packages from the shells and seasoning mix, in case the store had more than one kind.

After they'd eaten, Ray did the dishes, made a pot of tea, and set the table with matching cups, a sugar bowl, and some Oreos. On a plate.

Clearly something was up. Fraser's initial impulse was to ask what, exactly, that was, but a moment's reflection convinced him to wait for events to unfold.

He didn't have to wait long. Once the Oreos were arranged to on the plate to Ray's satisfaction, he poured tea into their cups and said, "Here's the thing."

Fraser looked at him with an expression of alert attentiveness.

"I don't want to go back."

Oh, that. "I know."

"No, I mean I really don't want to go back." Ray separated the two layers of an Oreo and dug a deep furrow in the white filling with a fingertip. "I want to stay here. Is there a way we can do that?"

"Yes." Fraser surprised himself by answering without thinking. "I mean, there are--logistical--things to consider--yes." He felt his heart rate speed up, and it suddenly became difficult to swallow. Ray--here, with him, forever. The thought was almost too good to bear.

Ray let out a sigh. "Great. That's...I mean, that's okay with you? That's the biggest thing. The rest of it, I figure we can figure out."

"It's more than `okay' with me. I--I wouldn't ask you to give up your job, your home--"

"I know, and you're not asking. But, really--what am I giving up? The job's...yeah, I humped that job for almost twenty years, and that's enough. And home? My home's here. I think maybe it has been for a long time. Chicago's just where my past is. And I have it on good authority that it's not too hard to get there from here--you gotta change planes four or five times, and on the last one you might have to ride with somebody's groceries on your lap, but that's, you know, doable. I'll go down every now and then and see everybody, maybe go to a game, maybe buy some fruit without taking out a mortgage, and then I'll come home."

Home. Here in Deline, with Fraser. Now, not 17 years from now.

It sounded good. Dangerously good. He'd learned better than to trust happiness. There had to be a catch, and--oh, yes. There it was. "I hope you haven't--this is an insulting question--I know I was...in a bad state, when you arrived. I hope you haven't decided to stay because you fear I'll be unable to cope on my own."

Ray shook his head. "No. Well. No. I mean, I don't think the timing is some wacky coincidence, but it's more a `life's too short to be unhappy' thing. You know? I mean, Dief, yeah, that's rough, but you guys were good together. He stuck with you even if it meant going to Chicago, which has to be even more of an adjustment for a wolf than it is for a Mountie. If you'd wasted a couple of years being apart for no good reason, you'd sure regret it now."

"Yes. Yes, that's true."

"And that thing with the old guy--Billy. He had to pick between being where he really belongs and being alive longer. And you and me, we belong together, right? We've already wasted too much time. I shoulda never gone back to Chicago in the first place." He shook his head. "My life there pretty much sucks, Fraser. I mean, not every minute of every day, but I don't think there were too many days I didn't wish I was with you instead. I know, that sounds weird, since we weren't even--you know."

"No, it doesn't." He'd felt the same way. The few weeks he spent with Ray each year were in vivid color, compared to the muted palette of his everyday life. "In that case, the only difficulty I can foresee is that it won't be immediately apparent to Immigration Services how you mean to support yourself financially, since your pension won't take effect for several years."

Ray shrugged, evidently unconcerned. "We'll get it worked out." He stared down at his teacup, rotating it between his hands. "You really want me to stay?" he asked, looking up shyly.

"Of course. You really want to stay?"

"Of course. Didn't I say that?"

"Yes, you did," Fraser agreed. He was just having trouble believing it--not because he doubted Ray, but because he doubted his own luck. "In that case--" He extended his hand across the table. "Welcome to Canada, Ray."

#

After spending the morning knocking around town--he got a library card and picked up an application for the volunteer fire department, among other things--Ray turned up at the detachment at noon. "I didn't have time to smush a sandwich for you today, so we'll have to go out for lunch," he informed Fraser.

Fraser turned off the computer surprisingly quickly, and they headed down the street to the diner. He steered Ray to one of the tables in the back, a strange choice for Fraser--his lunch break was a good time for people to find him and tell him things they didn't want to officially report, but wanted him to know anyway, so he usually sat where he'd be easy to spot.

After they'd ordered coffee and a couple of sandwiches, Fraser said, "I spent a surprising amount of the morning on the telephone with the immigration department. Most of it on hold, but I did eventually manage to speak to a live person. To establish permanent residency--which after three years would allow you to apply for citizenship, if you choose--you'd need to be sponsored by either an employer or family member."

That didn't sound good, and the fact that Fraser wasn't quite looking at him seemed even worse. "Okay," he said cautiously.

"Since none of your considerable skills are in particular demand in the region, finding an employment sponsor seems...unlikely." Their table happened to have two salt shakers, and Fraser evidently developed a sudden need to make sure they each had exactly the same level of salt in them.

"And I don't have any Canadian family members. As far as I know."

Fraser cleared his throat and blushed from the neck up. "Establishing a family relationship through marriage to a Canadian citizen would probably be the most, ah, expedient course of action." He carefully tipped a few grains of salt from one shaker to the other.

Ray frowned. "You saying you know a woman who'd be willing to marry me as part of an immigration scam?" That didn't seem like something Fraser would be able to know about and not turn him in for.

"Not as a scam, no." Fraser scraped salt from the threads of the salt-shaker lid with a fingernail. "I realize this is rather precipitate, from the conventional point of view, but from another perspective...."

"Who are you talking about?" He didn't know any Canadian women. Maggie, maybe. Was that what Fraser meant? Maggie might go along with it, but he'd technically be screwing his brother-in-law, and that would be...icky. Better than going back to Chicago alone, yeah, but still, not high on his list of choices.

"Me," Fraser said, blushing even harder.

"Fraser." He tried not to laugh. He didn't succeed. "I can't marry you."

Fraser looked at him for the first time in the entire conversation. "Why not?"

"Because." He gestured back and forth between the two of them. "Obvious reasons."

Fraser licked his lower lip. "Ah. Perhaps you're not aware... Canada has had same-gender marriage for almost three years now."

Ray squinted at him. "Seriously?"

"I never joke about immigration law."

"Shit. If I knew that, I'd have proposed earlier." He sat back in his chair. "Shit." He felt himself smiling so wide his face hurt. "Shit."

Fraser ducked his head shyly. "So is that a yes?"

"Uh, yeah. That'd be a yes." They grinned at each other like idiots for a minutes, until it occurred to Ray to ask, "Isn't that gonna be a problem with, you know, the job?" He knew there were a couple of gay cops in the CPD--they couldn't get thrown out for it like when Ray was a rookie--but they had to be twice as good as anybody else just to have a chance.

"The RCMP can hardly object to a Member exercising a legal right extended to the population at large," Fraser said, a little stiffly. "And two years ago two Members--who were both men--married, which was a bit of a media circus, so the marriage of a Mountie and a Chicago detective should be comparatively unremarkable."

That was one way to put it. "Okay. So the RCMP'll be cool with it. What about, you know, the locals?" Ray gestured vaguely at the room around them, like he thought maybe Fraser wouldn't know who he meant otherwise.

Fraser shrugged. Before he could say anything, Maddy came over with their sandwiches. "You're looking more cheerful than usual, Sergeant," she said putting them down.

"I've just become engaged to be married."

Maddy looked at him, and then back at Fraser. "Congratulations. It's about time. You boys need any ketchup?"

"Uh--yeah, please," Ray said.

She gave them the bottle out of her apron pocket, and walked back toward the counter, saying, "Darlene! Guess what?"

"We should find out within an hour or two if it's likely to be a problem," Fraser said.

By the time they finished eating, three more people had come over to congratulate them, and one guy sitting at the counter turned his head away, real obvious-like, when they walked by on their way out. Ray figured that was a pretty decent ratio.

Outside the detachment, he told Fraser, "I guess I oughta go home and make some phone calls." He wasn't looking forward to some of those conversations, but he figured his parents and friends ought to hear the news not too much later than the 650 residents of his new hometown. "Pick you up at four?"

"Yes, thank you." Blushing again, Fraser leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "Bye." Before Ray could respond, he scampered--there was no other word for it--back into the detachment.

#

"Mom. Mom. Mom. Look, why don't you put Dad on?"

There was a rustle as the phone was handed over, and his father said, "Stanley? What did you say to your mother?"

Dad already knew something was up, so there was no point trying to soften it. "That I'm moving to Canada and marrying Fraser."

A long silence followed. "This better not be your idea of a joke."

"Nope."

"You taking the GTO?"

"I haven't decided yet. Probably not. I don't wanna give it up, but there's only gravel roads up here, and there's no highway to the town, so I'd have to have it brought in on a barge, and it's a whole mess. But I haven't decided for sure."

"Okay. Well, let your mother know when the wedding is."

Ray nodded, then remembered his father couldn't see him. "Okay. It'll be in Canada, but we could do it somewhere near the border, maybe....dunno. We haven't talked about it yet. Uh, is Mom okay?"

"She's in the bathroom."

That wasn't really an answer, but he said, "Okay. Okay. Uh, I love you guys, and I'll let you know when we, uh, when we set a date."

He hung up and dialed the next call before he had a chance to rethink it. He'd decided to do the calls in descending order of awfulness, get the worst over with. "Cop shop," Frannie said cheerfully.

"Yeah, Frannie, it's Ray. Put me through to Welsh."

"Hi, Ray. How's your vacation? How's Fraser? He's okay, isn't he? I mean, you're not calling because something happened, are you?"

"We're both fine. Is Welsh around?"

"Oh, yeah, let me put you through."

She ended up putting him through to the desk sergeant--they'd only had the new phone system for six or eight months, and Frannie didn't have the hang of it yet. Fortunately, the desk sergeant did, and she transferred him to Welsh's office.

"Hey, Lieu, it's Kowalski."

"Kowalski. We're not expecting you back until Monday." And since Ray never called from his vacation just to chat, of course he knew that something was up.

"Yeah, I know, it's about that. Here's the thing. I, uh, I won't be back on Monday."

"Oh? And when can we expect to see your smiling face again?"

"Well, that's the thing," he said again. "Never. I'm, uh, I'm staying in Canada. I mean, I guess I'll come back and get my stuff, and I can stop in and do...whatever I have to do. But I'm moving to Canada."

"You mentioned that. Any particular reason?"

"Gettin' married."

"I see. Anyone I know?"

"Yep."

He sighed. "I figured. Have you told Francesca yet?"

"No. She's on my list."

"Do me a favor and call her at home."

"Will do."

"And Detective?"

"Yeah?"

"Good luck." He didn't add, "You're going to need it," but Ray heard it anyway.

"Thanks, Lieu."

Next on his list was Stella, but he realized as he was dialing that if he told her, he'd be telling Vecchio, too. He canceled that and dialed the detachment instead.

"Sergeant Fraser." He sounded tired.

"Hey, it's me."

"Oh, good."

"Ringing off the hook, is it?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well." Ray managed not to point out that he had no one to blame but himself. "I was just about to call Stella, and I thought maybe we ought to do that one together. With the whole Vecchio situation."

"Ah. Thank you for thinking of it, but I think...not."

"You sure?"

"It...might be easier to talk to Ray--the other Ray--if he's had a little time to absorb the information."

"Okay."

"If you don't mind."

"No, it's okay. Yeah, I'll call, then. You doin' okay?"

"Yes. The response has been...overwhelming, but mostly positive. Do you know if we're planning to have the ceremony locally? A number of people have asked."

"No. I mean, I dunno. I guess we can. My parents might wanna come, but they're pretty good travelers. Dunno how they'll feel about the whole tiny-plane issue, but they'll deal with it. In summer, maybe."

"Summer sounds good. The Kennys have suggested that we pick a date soon if we plan on using the lodge facilities. I'm given to understand they'll be a bit miffed if we don't."

"Okay. So, summer, at the lodge. We've got a season and a location, so the thing is about half planned, right?"

"In fact, I gather there are a number of other considerations we haven't even begun to, ah, consider. We haven't selected colors, have we?"

"Colors?"

"Evidently one has to have colors."

"Red, I guess. I mean, you're gonna wear the uniform."

"Excellent. We have colors. One color. We may need another. Green? I'm partial to green."

"Only if we want it to look like Christmas in July."

"Oh. Yes. Well, we can decide about additional colors later. Ray, did you know...that is, I've gotten the impression that it's generally believed that we've been, ah, intimate partners for quite some time."

"Yeah, I think Welsh thought that too. Somebody shoulda told us."

"It might have saved some time. Connie is alerting me that I have several other calls waiting. I should answer them, on the off chance that one of them may concern police business of some kind."

"Yeah, okay. See you later."

"Wait, Ray--how did your parents....?"

"Handle the news? Dad okay, Mom hysterical. Dad thinks she'll come around."

"Ah. Good. Well, I should--"

"Yep." He hung up and dialed Stella in Florida.

A bored teenager answered, "Kayvee Pins, the area's premiere family fun center. We set them up, you knock them down. How can I help you?"

"Yeah, let me talk to Stella."

"She's very busy, can I help you?"

"This is Ray Kowalski. As in, the guy whose last name she's still using. You want to let me talk to my ex-wife, or you want a kick in the head?"

A moment later, Stella's voice came down the line. "Ray, why are you threatening my employees?"

"Only one employee."

She sighed. "What, Ray?"

"I'm getting married. Thought you should be--well, not the first to know, but in the top ten. Top five." If you didn't count the 650-odd residents of Deline.

"Who's the lucky gal? I'll send her the Ray Kowalski user's manual."

"It's Fraser. And I think he already has it."

"That's not funny, Ray."

"Nope. It is kinda fun, though."

"You're not gay. I know you. Our marriage--us--wasn't--wasn't a lie, or a phase, or anything like that."

"No. No, it wasn't. But it was a long time ago." He rubbed at his eyelids. "Fraser's...like, an exception. To everything." Up to and maybe even including the laws of physics.

"I don't know what to say."

"How about `congratulations'?"

"Congratulations," Stella echoed.

"Thanks." He coughed. "I know it seems...kinda weird. But I think we're gonna be really happy."

"I hope so." Her voice went all serious. "You deserve to be happy."

"Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, been a while."

"I know. Good luck, to both of you."

"Thanks. Uh, so, it's gonna be in the summer, here in this town where we live. We'll send you and Vecchio an invitation when we pick the date, but if it's too far or whatever--" Or if they were too freaked out to want to come, which was likely "--we'll understand."

"It's hard to get away when you own your own business, but we'll see."

"It's real pretty up here, and there's a hotel. Indoor plumbing and everything." Was he trying to convince her to come? It kind of sounded like he was.

"It sounds nice."

"It is. Uh, so go ahead and tell Vecchio the news, if you want, and Fraser'll talk to him later."

#

"Benny, what the fuck?"

Fraser winced. "Ray, I'm at work."

"Yeah, well, so'm I. Stella just came out of the office and told me you and Stanley are getting married. This some kind of joke? Some kind of immigration scam? You can tell me, I won't turn you in."

"It's not a scam." Would Ray really consider it preferable that he perpetrate a scam than marry the partner he loved?

"Since when are you gay?"

"Ah, for quite some time, actually."

"You never said anything."

"It didn't seem relevant."

Ray sighed. "Shit, Benny." Fraser could almost hear him shaking his head. "What, weren't we friends? You didn't think you could tell me?"

That wasn't the response he'd been expecting. "I didn't want to...create an awkward situation," he temporized. In fact, he'd feared that Ray would react with anger or disgust if he knew. Clearly he'd underestimated his old friend.

"That have anything to do with why you haven't been in touch so much? You figured if I knew you were gay, I wouldn't want to be your friend?"

"I'm afraid I did," Fraser admitted. He hadn't consciously decided to avoid his first Ray, but after one occasion when Ray Vecchio commented on how much he talked about Ray Kowalski, he'd found himself cutting their conversations short. "I'm sorry."

"Aw, hell. Maybe you did right not to tell me before. I didn't know any gay guys--that I knew about--back then, anyway. We opened up the alley down here, and the first league we got was this league of gay bowlers. I wanted to turn them down, thought they might keep the families away. But Stel said business is business, and anyway they could sue us, so we let `em in, and they're good guys, you know? I could do without some of the music they pick out, but they pay their bills and don't puke in the men's room too often, and they always do their bit when we have the charity bowl-a-thon every year. And they bring in the tournaments, which is a big moneymaker in this business."

Fraser smiled. One thing the two Rays had in common was their practical outlook on life. "Well, I don't think my taste in music has been affected by my orientation."

"Yeah, I don't figure you for the techno type. Stanley, he's good to you? He treats you okay?"

"Yes. Yes, he does."

"Okay. You tell him from me, he's not good to you, I'll come up there and knock some sense into him."

"I'll pass along that message," Fraser promised.

"Good. So, okay, you're at work, so I'll let you go, but we'll talk more later. And you let us know when the--you know, the wedding--is, and we'll come."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know I don't. Hey, did you decide yet who you want to stand up for you?"

"No," Fraser said cautiously. "The plans are...not very far advanced." Was Ray offering? It sounded as if he was, perhaps, but it wouldn't do to assume.

"Okay, well, let me know when you do. I mean, maybe you want your sister to do it. You're marrying a guy, I guess you can have a girl best man if you want to."

"I believe traditions in this matter are somewhat flexible," he agreed.

"Well, let me know. You don't want me to do that, maybe I can give a toast or something."

"Thank you, Ray. I'm...thank you."

"Yeah, well. Take care, Benny. Talk to you soon."

After ending the call with Ray Vecchio, he managed to do a small amount of work before Pauline Kenny came into the detachment with a sheaf of computer print-outs and several brochures, and a calendar, and indicated that she would like to know when they'd be having the wedding. Two weeks in July and one in August were unbooked.

He made a note of the available dates, promised to discuss them with Ray at the earliest opportunity, and thanked her for her help.

And tried to catch his breath. When he'd suggested marriage, he'd envisioned a weekend trip to one of the major cities and an exchange of vows in front of a justice of the peace, perhaps followed by dinner in a nice restaurant. Given how rapidly the plans had snowballed, he wondered if by the time the wedding came, they'd be hosting a three-ring circus, complete with trained elephants.

He hoped not. Even in summer, the climate wasn't particularly suitable for elephants.

#

"Let's go with July," Ray said. "Third week in July."

"Any particular reason?"

He shrugged. "Looks like a lucky date."

Fraser wrote that down. "Should we have the ceremony on the Saturday, then? That will allow the guests to go home on Sunday and be back at their jobs on Monday."

Choosing the date was the most urgent item--he couldn't expect the Kennys to hold several dates open during their busiest season while they made up their minds--but the questions various people had asked over the course of the day had allowed him to compile a list of other decisions they had to make. They worked on wedding plans for another hour, managing to cover the subjects of cake, music, flowers--one of the local women felt she could do something nice with local plants--and a number of other equally pressing matters.

Although Fraser had never planned a wedding before--and Ray admitted that his first one had been planned mostly by Stella and his mother--he found that planning a wedding was not entirely unlike planning an arctic expedition or a large-scale law enforcement operation, with the key exception that hurt feelings were a more pressing consideration than physical danger. For instance, both Maddy and the Kennys had expressed interest, and he feared causing a rift with whoever wasn't chosen. But Ray suggested that whichever didn't do the reception could be responsible for the rehearsal dinner--a neat solution that Fraser hadn't thought of, because no one had mentioned that there would have to be a rehearsal.

Once they'd planned as much as they could, Ray stretched and announced he was going to get to work on dinner. Fraser offered to help, but Ray said, "I've got it. Why don't you call Maggie?"

Fraser nodded. He didn't want to, particularly, but Ray had made all of his calls already. But then, Ray had always been braver than he was. Still, he picked up the phone and dialed Maggie's trailer, hoping cravenly that she was out in the field.

"Mackenzie."

"Fraser," he answered.

"Hi, Ben. How are you?"

"Fine, and you?"

"Fine. It's not Christmas, or my birthday, so what's up?"

"Ah. Well. There is some news, in fact."

After a long silence, Maggie said, "Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"Oh. Yes, certainly. Well, Ray's here for his vacation."

"Right, the quest thing."

"And I'm getting married. On July 19th."

"Married? You didn't mention you were seeing anyone."

"I, ah...."

"It's only been three months since we talked. You're not marrying some woman you just met, are you?"

"No. Definitely not. Wrong on all counts, in fact."

He could almost hear Maggie thinking on the other end of the phone. "It's a man? Ray?"

"Yes." He hurried on quickly, "It's in July, which I believe I said, and I hope you'll come, if you're able to arrange leave."

"I'll...think about it. You know how it is in remote detachments. It's hard to get away."

"Yes, I know."

Maggie laughed, but not with any noticeable amusement. "When we met in Chicago, I kind of thought Ray was interested in me. I guess I--didn't realize. You both must've thought I was so dumb."

On reflection, perhaps that should have been a clue. "Not at all. Ray was--and is--predominantly heterosexual. And we weren't, ah, intimate at the time. I believe his interest in you was genuine."

Ray, who was bouncing from foot to foot in time to some unheard rhythm as he chopped potatoes, looked over his shoulder at Fraser and mouthed, What?!

He mouthed back, I'll explain later. "At any rate, we'd both enjoy seeing you again."

"Yes. Yes, I'll try to get leave. It would be good to see you in person. Dief, too."

He winced. "Dief, ah, Dief passed away recently."

"I'm sorry," Maggie said automatically. Then, in a different tone, "Recently?"

"Yes, about a month ago." Calculating, he was surprised to realize it had been so long. "Very peacefully."

"Dief died a month ago, and you just got engaged."

"Yes," Fraser answered. "Your tone seems to suggest that the events are related in some unsavory way, which I'm not sure I appreciate."

"No, nothing like that. I just remember--you know, from when Casey died--most people figure it's a bad idea to make major life decisions when you've just had a significant loss."

"I'll take that under advisement," he said, perhaps a little more tartly than absolutely necessary. Maggie ended the call not much later.

"So?" Ray asked when he went over to the kitchen.

"Maggie seems to be under the impression that our engagement is an irrational decision brought on by grief." He took a piece of carrot from the pile Ray was chopping.

"Well, that's flattering." Ray shook his head and dumped the carrots into a pot where some meat cubes were simmering. "But other than that, she's cool?"

"More or less."

"Good." Ray put a lid on the stewpot and leaned one hip against the counter. "In that case, I think we should celebrate our engagement."

Fraser licked his lip, mouth suddenly dry. "Indeed. Did you have anything specific in mind?"

"I have an idea or two."

"Oh."

"You know what I like about Mounties?"

"Ah...no, I'm afraid I don't."

Ray grabbed his Sam Browne belt and pulled him in close, grinding his erection against Fraser's hip.. "They come with handles."

"So we do," he said faintly, as all the blood rushed away from his head. He refrained from pointing out that the cross-belt had been removed from the newer un-dress uniform for exactly that reason, and allowed Ray to drag him into the bedroom.

Once there, Ray began stripping him out of his uniform with admirable efficiency, licking and kissing each area as he uncovered it. "Love you, love this," he mumbled into Fraser's skin.

"My left elbow, Ray?" He was finding the sensation almost disturbingly erotic. He'd never think of elbows the same way again.

"Your left everything," Ray answered, sliding his mouth down Fraser's arm.

"Something's wrong with my right side?"

"No, that's good too." Ray demonstrated by switching to his right elbow. "Hm. Tasty. Bed?"

He backed over to the bed and sat down, mentally adding larger bed to his list. Ray pulled off Fraser's half-boots and socks--without, Fraser noticed with some disappointment, kissing his toes--and opened his pants. "Hm, nice," he said, weighing Fraser's cock in his hand. "Stand up a minute."

He stood, and Ray pulled off his pants and underwear, shooting the latter across the room by means of the elastic waistband. Fraser was mildly embarrassed to be naked while Ray was still fully clothed, but when Ray tumbled him back on the bed, covering Fraser's body with his, the variety of sensations--soft fleece of his sweatshirt against his chest, rough denim against his legs and groin, mouth on his, and Ray's deliciously clever hands everywhere--left no room for embarrassment.

Helplessly, he thrust against Ray's thigh.

"What're you--okay, okay, here," he said, shifting so that Fraser was rubbing between his legs, at the rough seam where four layers of denim met and adding, "Weirdo."

Fraser was too far gone to take offense, and after a few more thrusts, he clutched Ray's shoulders until his knuckles went white and finished with a gasp and a convulsive shudder.

When his vision cleared, Ray was sitting back on his thighs. "Looks like I'm gonna have to do laundry," he said mildly.

"Oh. I'm terribly sorry."

Ray punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Doofus." Unbuttoning his soiled jeans, he freed his erection and gave himself a few lazy strokes. "You wanna help me with this, or watch?"

"I'll help. I like to help."

"Yeah, that's my second favorite thing about Mounties." He took Fraser's hand and guided him in the slow, easy strokes that he liked, letting his hand drop away once Fraser had gotten started.

He was delightfully responsive, making little sounds of approval and lust and twitching his hips to guide Fraser to the sensitive spots, teasing himself, until it became too much and he thrust unashamedly into Fraser's hand, then climaxed across his chest.

Panting, Ray rolled off of him and collapsed against the pillows. "Huh."

Fraser wiped a splatter of come off of his chin with the sleeve of Ray's t-shirt. "I think....

"Yeah?"

"I think married life will suit me."

#

"Hi, Ray," Connie greeted him as he entered the detachment. Fraser's vacation was over now, and Ray had decided to stop by for a cup of coffee before getting started on the long honey-do list Fraser had left for him. "Will you be doing anything around town today?"

"Yeah, I've got lots of errands to do. Wedding stuff."

"Good! You can distribute these while you're at it." She gave him a stack of flyers headed "FREE DOG."

"Okay, sure," he said, looking at them. The rest of the text said, "Bill Byerly's Dog. Female. 6 mos. Old. Kind is called a Pointer. Comes with food, bed, leash, more. Has shots. Spaded. Spayed. Ask at the RCMP." Rolling the flyers up, he stuck them in his pocket. "Who's Bill Byerly, and why are you giving away his dog?" he asked on his way to the coffee machine.

"He was a schoolteacher here, but moved away over the weekend," Connie explained with a shrug. "He didn't even tell the school he was planning to leave, just got a flight out, and left behind everything he couldn't carry. Including the dog."

Ray knew his was a nasty suspicious bastard, but he couldn't help asking, "He, uh, left of his own free will, though?"

"Yes," Fraser said from his little cubicle. "The school principal found a letter of resignation in the mail slot when she opened up the building in the morning, and the airport staff were able to verify that he wasn't under any duress."

It was kind of weird for Fraser to talk to him without coming out of the cubicle to look at him. "You stuck in there or something?"

"The dog won't let me move." Fraser sounded a little annoyed.

Ray took his coffee around the partition. "The dog's here? What, are you the dogcatcher too?"

"Animal control falls under the general heading of promoting public safety and well-being. We usually put strays out back, but this dog doesn't seem equipped for the weather."

"Where is it?" Ray didn't see a dog anywhere in Fraser's little nook.

"Sitting on my left foot, at the moment."

Ray looked under the desk, which was pretty difficult because Fraser wouldn't budge to let him. The dog--white with brown spots, and about half-grown--was curled up with her chin resting on Fraser's foot. When she saw Ray, she growled, whined, and thumped her tail, all at the same time. Ray decided not to try to pet her. "That dog is schizo or something."

"Her feelings about her situation seem decidedly mixed," Fraser agreed. "She seems to prefer it if I don't move my feet or legs."

"Poor thing. Why would someone bring a dog all this way and not take her with him when he left?"

"I have no idea," Fraser answered.

"Sounds like a great guy." Ray looked at Fraser's computer screen, where he was filling out a summons for Bill Byerly. "You're charging him?"

Fraser nodded. "Animal cruelty. As far as we can tell, he didn't make any plans for her care before leaving. O'Donnell had to break in yesterday when the neighbors complained about incessant howling."

"Cool." He glanced under the desk to take another look at the dog, who wagged and whined again. "I'd better get started on my list. Do you need any dog stuff, while I'm out?"

"No, Constable O'Donnell brought all of her supplies and accessories from Byerly's apartment."

Having to share his office with a strange dog didn't seem like the best thing for Fraser, so as Ray went about doing his errands, he did the best he could to find a home for schizo-dog.

He didn't have much luck. Most of the locals didn't see the point of having a large dog that couldn't pull a sled or do anything else useful. One of the health center nurses said she wished she could take the dog, but she'd be going back to Toronto in June, and it would be too difficult to find a dog-friendly apartment from several provinces away. Most of the school teachers felt that they'd gone to enough trouble on Bill Byerly's account, thank you kindly. By four o'clock, he'd accomplished everything on his list, but still hadn't found a place for the dog.

When he returned to the detachment, Fraser was standing outside with the dog, which was on a leash and wearing an RCMP hooded sweatshirt, with her front paws through the sleeves, and trotting back and forth along the strip of dead grass in front of the detachment, nose to the ground. "Just pick a spot," Fraser was saying. "It isn't rocket science. You'll have another chance tomorrow."

"The dog is wearing your clothes?"

"Constable O'Donnell's proved to be a better fit," Fraser answered. "Although some alterations may be necessary. Her coat is..." He gestured vaguely with his free hand. "Inadequate for the climate."

"Yeah, I guess so," Ray agreed. "I guess nobody volunteered to take her in yet?"

"No." He hesitated. "Her...activities...in the detachment last night required a considerable amount of cleaning this morning, which Connie rightly points out is not included in her job description, and Constable O'Donnell's lease unfortunately disallows the keeping of pets. I hope you don't mind."

Ray was trying to figure out why he'd mind what O'Donnell's lease let her do or not when he realized what Fraser was getting at. "We're taking the dog?"

"Just for the night." He cleared his throat. "Or until other arrangements can be made. If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," Ray answered, looking back and forth from Fraser to the dog. "If you don't mind. I mean, are you gonna be okay, with, you know. Having a strange dog in the house?"

"She's a nice dog."

"Well, yeah." But she wasn't Dief. Having her in the cabin would almost have to remind Fraser of what he'd lost.

But maybe Fraser wasn`t worried about that. "All right, then. I'll just get her food." He handed Ray the leash and went back inside.

The dog started to follow him, and stood at the end of the leash, whining slightly and staring at the detachment door. "He'll be right back," Ray said. Poor dog--after she'd been abandoned by her human, it as no wonder she wasn't happy about being left with another stranger.

When Fraser came back out, the dog circled around behind him, wrapping the leash around his legs. Crazy dog.

They had to hoist her into the cab of the pickup, and then she spent the whole ride quivering in the space next to Fraser's feet.

"Man, that is one weird dog."

"She's just nervous. She'll settle down," Fraser predicted.

#

"You don't have to stay under there. Well, yes, but you might be more comfortable in the other room. It's warmer, for one thing."

Ray stood in the doorway to the bedroom, watching Fraser. He'd been on the couch working on his immigration paperwork--it turned out there was a lot more to it than just getting married and being handed a green card--but he'd gotten up to investigate when he heard Fraser's voice from the other room.

He was lying on his stomach next to the bed, where the dog had been ever since they got home.

"It's Ray's house too. I think his feelings are hurt that you don't seem to like him. He's very nice once you get to know him. Yes, I know you've had a hard day."

Moving quietly, Ray went over and sat on the floor next to Fraser. Fraser glanced over at him and smiled. "Hey, dog," Ray said.

"Her name's Queenie," Fraser said.

"That's stupid. Maybe she's pissed off because the guy gave her a stupid name. I know what that's like. Hi, dog. You want some biscuits or something?" He peered under the bed--Queenie was curled up in a ball against the wall, with her nose resting on one of Fraser's shirts.

"Maybe you should tell her that you don't think she's weird," Fraser suggested.

"She is weird." She'd spent the entire day hiding under different pieces of furniture--if that wasn't weird, he didn't know what was.

"Well, yes, but it's rude to draw attention to it."

Feeling a little stupid, Ray looked under the bed again. "I don't mind that you're weird. Fraser's kind of weird too, and I like him. A lot."

Fraser sat up. "Let's go into the other room for a minute."

"Okay," Ray said cautiously. He was reminded of Mom sending him out of the room so she could tell Dad he was being a jerk--a good idea in theory, maybe, but not very practical in a small apartment, since he could always hear what was going on anyway.

But it turned out Fraser wasn't worried about fighting in front of the dog. Once they were back in the living room, he perched on the edge of the couch and said, "I think we should consider asking Queenie to stay."

"Didn't we already?" She was here, after all. Ray moved his folder full of paper aside and sat down next to Fraser.

"I meant on a, ah, long-term basis." He put his elbows on his knees and knitted his fingers together.

Ray scratched the back of his head. "You said you didn't want a new dog." A guy could change his mind, sure, but he didn't think it would be good--for anyone--if they took the dog in out of a sense of guilt or obligation.

"I didn't. But she needs a home, which we're able to provide. And you might appreciate some company when I'm away on patrols. It would be a mutually beneficial arrangement." Fraser's chin was tucked down against his chest, but he was looking up at Ray with his eyes.

He was talking about duty, but it sounded to Ray like he was saying this was something he really wanted. "Maybe we should think about it for a couple of days," he suggested. "See if she settles down."

"We can do that," Fraser agreed. "But I think perhaps the uncertainty of her situation is contributing to her anxiety. The sooner we make a decision, the sooner she'll be able to feel secure."

Which maybe meant that Fraser didn't want to get attached to the dog and then have Ray say she should go somewhere else. Or maybe he already was attached. "You figure she'll like it here?" he asked, figuring Fraser would have an easier time answering that question than one about whether he liked the dog.

"Yes, I think so. We'll have to ask her, of course."

Right. "Yeah, okay. One thing, though--we're going to have to change her name."

"Why?" Fraser asked.

"One, it's a dumb name, and B, two guys together with a dog named Queenie? Think about it."

"Ah. You may have a point."

They went back into the bedroom and Fraser asked Queenie how she felt about coming to live there. After a moment, Fraser got up off the floor. "She's thinking about it."

"She's thinking about it. That's great. We have to decide right away so the dog will feel secure, but the dog gets to sleep on it?"

"She's just suffered a major life upheaval."

"Yeah, yeah, okay."

He went back to his immigration stuff, and Fraser filled out the form to sell himself a dog license, "Just in case." When he got to the space for the dog's name, he went back into the bedroom, and Ray heard a muffled, one-sided conversation. When he came back, he said, "How do you feel about `Regina'?"

"As a name?"

"Yes."

He thought about it. It was easy to see how Fraser'd gotten there from "Queenie," and it kind of made sense for a dog that was going to be hanging around an RCMP detachment. "Okay, as long as we pronounce it so it doesn't rhyme with `vagina.' Did she make up her mind yet?"

"No, she's still thinking." But Fraser got out Constable O'Donnell's sweatshirt and started cutting and sewing. "This won't be warm enough for long walks," he said as he worked. "We'll have to make her something heavier."

"I think they sell those."

"Not in Deline," Fraser said. "If I can get a caribou hide, I'll make her a parka."

Great. Now they were going to have a bird-dog in caribou clothing. "That's not going to make her confused about her species?"

"Now you're just being silly, Ray."

Ray decided not to point out that he wasn't the one talking about making dog clothes out of traditional materials.

#

Late that night, Ray woke to the sound of jingling tags and toenails on the wooden floor. Next he heard Regina slurping from the water dish they'd left in the kitchen. He wondered if he ought to get up and see if she needed to go outside, but before he could steel himself to do so, the dog trotted back into the room and jumped up onto the bed, turning in several tight circles before flopping down between their legs with a heavy sigh.

"Hey Fraser," Ray said, nudging him.

"Hm?"

"I think the dog made up her mind."

#

"Dr. Calloway," Fraser said, shaking her hand. "I've been expecting you." She knew that, of course, but he hoped she might take the hint that he preferred not to be dropped in on unannounced. "We can talk in my office." He noted that she had chosen sensible footwear this time, as well.

"Thank you. You're looking well."

He nodded. He'd insisted that he was fine before--but he actually was, now.

When Dr. Calloway came behind the partition and took a seat, Regina got up from her bed and ducked under the desk. "You have a new dog?" she asked.

"She was abandoned by a temporary resident last week."

"Getting a new animal can be an important step in recovering from pet loss. Not a replacement, you understand, but--"

"Yes, I know." Regina was as different from Dief as it was possible to be--shy where he was bold, a different sex, different breed, and a transplant to their northern home rather than a native--but he was confident that she could prove to be a fine companion.

The doctor moved on to another topic. "How was your vacation."

"Very relaxing." He knew that if she spoke to anyone in town, she'd soon hear his important news--she may already have, in fact--so he figured he had better tell her, or she might think he had something to hide. "I've gotten engaged."

"Congratulations." She looked at him expectantly.

"Thank you?"

"Is that something you've been planning for a while?"

"In a way." It was not quite a lie--if spending all of their time together and not talking about why could be considered planning to get married, which Fraser decided it could.

"Someone local?"

"No."

Dr. Calloway didn't speak, clearly waiting for him to say something more. It was an elementary interviewing technique, and one that he was not going to fall for. He was comfortable with silence.

More than comfortable. He was at home with silence.

He mentally composed the first section of his daily report. After that, he considered the sample wedding invitations that had arrived on yesterday's plane from Yellowknife. They'd both agreed that they wanted something simple, but that still left them with four or five choices. The ones with the horizontal red stripe were nice, but they also had some gold leaf, and that, he felt, was a little gaudy.

Finally, Calloway broke. "How do you feel about your engagement?"

All that waiting, and she'd lobbed him a softball. "Deliriously happy."

"Ah?"

"Yes."

She asked him inane questions for another hour--if his appetite was normal, was he sleeping well, had he processed his loss. He wasn't entirely sure how one processed a loss--there were no forms--but he responded that he had.

Finally, she took her leave. Less than a minute later, Ray bounced inside. Knowing him, he'd probably been waiting outside for her to leave. "So, you sane?" he asked, giving Fraser a kiss and Regina a pat.

"Dr. Calloway indicated that she has no major concerns."

"No major concerns, huh? I guess we can live with that. Lunch?"

Fraser helped Regina into her coat and then put on his own. Although he'd avoided delving into the subject with Dr. Calloway, he was, in fact, very happy. Losing Dief had been a painful end to a very important chapter of his life, but as he prepared to step out of the detachment with his new family, he as though he was stepping into an entirely new book. He was eager to turn the next page, and the one after that, and the one after that.

He reached out his hand, and Ray took it. Together, they stepped out the door and into their future.

Fin.

#

Notes: I did a lot of research for this story. A lot of what I found didn't make its way into the story, but it was worthwhile, and a little bit of fun. Here are some of the sites I looked at.

Deline (deh-li-nay) is a real town in the Northwest Territories, on the shore of the Great Bear Lake, with a population of about 650 and an RCMP detachment. The town's website is at www.deline.ca. An older version of the site is available here: http://www.deline.ca/Old%20Site/main.htm and includes a map of the town. Click on the map, then on the red dots to see photos (including one of the RCMP detachment!). For some reason a lot of this content isn't available on the new site. Another good way to see the town of Deline is on Google Earth--just download the application and put "Deline, NWT" in the search box. If you compare the Google Earth images and the map, you can get a fair idea of what you're looking at.

A few of the details about Deline in this story are factual--they do, for instance, have cable television, and the hotel has 12 rooms--but most were invented for narrative purposes (for instance, one tourism site stated that Deline has two restaurants, but I couldn't find any further information about them, so I made up the diner). Feel free to ask if you would like to know if a given detail is true or not.

While Googling for information on Deline, I found YouTube clips of a UFO that was seen, and filmed, by the Kenny family, the proprietors of the Gray Goose Lodge. That tickled me, so I used it as a throwaway detail early in the story. (UFOs are not a major theme of the story.)

Most of the residents of Deline are Dene but all of the local people that are named on the town website and other sites included in my research have Anglo or French names, so I've used that pattern when naming background characters--that's why they're named things like Connie and Len Martin rather than Running Elk Whitefeather or something like that. All characters and names are fictional, except for the Kennys, who I decided qualify as public figures since they've sought publicity for their UFO videos. The only true details about them are their names, their proprietorship of the lodge, and the fact that they believe they have seen, and filmed, UFOs.

Most of my info on the Idaa trail came from this site: http://www.lessonsfromtheland.ca/IdaaHome.asp?lng=English . Click on "start your journey" to follow Ray and Fraser's route, or use the "Online Story" button to read a meticulously-researched children's story about some modern-day Native kids who travel the route with their grandparents and learn about their heritage. If you're at all interested in the landscape, wildlife, Native culture, and/or history of the NWT south of the treeline, I highly recommend this site!

The Dene story about Big Bird comes from here: http://www.indians.org/welker/bigbird.htm . The story Ray tells in response is a traditional story of my culture (that is, generic white folks), which I have recounted here from memory. The Raven story comes from the old version of the Deline home page--it has frames, so I can't link to it directly, but pick "museum" on the dropdown menu and then click the "Stories" button. The story I used is called "The Man and the Raven"; there are some other Raven stories there too. More info on Owen and Mzee, the hippo and turtle of Ray's second story, can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_and_Mzee .

End The Reaching Out One by Alex51324

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