Chapter 1:

April 2023

Yakatuk, Alaska

.The pre-dawn air was bitterly, achingly cold. It came as a shock since only yesterday the weather had been fair enough that Taq had gone out midday without a coat. But, as Grandfather used to say, spring in Yakatuk was like a beautiful but elusive woman, showing her face at times but lingering out of reach. She wouldn't let you hold her until July.

Though, these days, it was more like June.

Taq's muscles clenched against the cold despite two pairs of thermals under his jeans and parka. As he biked down to the dock, he only managed to avoid the many potholes because he knew where they all were. The small village of Yakatuk had been his home all of his twenty-three years, and he could ride through it blindfolded—and in about ten minutes flat. That muscle memory came in handy at 5 a.m., given that there were only three streetlights in the whole place.

It was too fucking early and too damn cold. But he knew that it would be worth it in about an hour.

Ataata—his dad—and his new wife, Jessie, were waiting by their small aluminum motorboat when Taq arrived.

Jessie smiled tentatively at him. "Ulaakut, Taq. I packed you some peanut butter sandwiches." Jessie handed Ataata a small cooler. "And there's muktuk for you, love."

"Ai, such a good woman!" Ataata fussed over Jessie, giving her a kiss and pinching her behind. Taq looked away and gritted his teeth.

"Well, Taq? You can't say thank you?"

"Thanks, Jessie," he mumbled. He didn't talk a lot anyway, and at 5 in the morning, getting any words out felt like coughing up hard-boiled eggs.

"You're welcome, Taq." Jessie awkwardly patted his arm and then, more awkwardly, gave him a hug. Taq stood still for it, but he was tall for his people at six-one, and Jessie was petite, so it was kind of like a marmot hugging a moose.

Taq found it weird that she thought she should do things for him because she was his dad's wife even though he was full-grown and not a little kid or something. He didn't dislike her. But he didn't expect her to last very long, so why get invested? Maybe she could get his father to change his ways, but Taq wasn't gonna hold his breath. That would be like delaying snow until January or having a big movie complex open in Yakatuk. You can wish all you want for things, but that doesn't mean they're gonna happen.

He held the boat while Ataata got settled. Then Taq got in, untied the rope from the dock, and carefully shoved off. Like everything else in Yakatuk, the wooden dock was falling apart and had to be handled gently. The ice and tide had a way of wearing everything down, Inuit included.

Jessie waved goodbye, looking anxious. Taq wondered if she'd really gotten up so early just to hand off their lunch. Newlywed was one thing, but damn. Probably she didn't trust that Ataata was really going fishing with him. Like, maybe he'd visit another woman instead. Well, she wasn't wrong to worry. Taq gave her a little wave back.

"Hey, I'm going to Anchorage next weekend," Ataata said as they floated away from the dock. "Want me to pick anything up for you?"

"Nah. It's fine." Ataata went to Anchorage most Fridays since he flew the cargo plane.

"I'll be there all weekend. My friend Bill, he got tickets to the Wolverines. So I'm gonna hang out."

"Cool."

"Yeah. So keep an eye on Jessie for me, huh?" He gave Taq a wink.

"Sure, Ataata." Taq started the motor. It roared to life.

"Did I tell you that Thom Adjuk got six thousand for a bear skin on eBay?" Ataata said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.

"Oh yeah?" Taq steered away from Yakatuk.

"We should go hunt one! We can split the money. You and me."

Taq shrugged. "Gotta work."

"You make, what, fifteen an hour at the hotel?" his dad scoffed. "One grizzly could pay your wages for a month."

And after the month is over, I wouldn't have a job.

He didn't say it. The engine was too loud to shout over. And, anyway, that wasn't the real reason he wasn't excited about the idea. There was no guarantee they'd find a bear. And they were dangerous to hunt even for great hunters like his friend, Hanta. Ataata was too lazy to be a great hunter and Taq was too soft, according to Hanta. Soft in the heart. Maybe soft in the head. He didn't like killing animals even though it was his people's main food source and he sure enough liked to eat them. Besides, how many people on eBay wanted bear pelts? Six thousand dollars could buy a hell of a lot of cold weather gear at REI. If he were a qallunaat—a white person—that's what he'd buy. Hell, he wore qallunaat clothing himself. His seal-skin pants took up one whole drawer in his dresser, so thick and stiff, but he hadn't worn them in years.

"Don't be so negative, Taq. You're too much like your mother. I'm gonna sleep. Wake me when we get there." He settled his cap lower over his face, shut his eyes, and slouched down in the boat.

Ataata's words were light, but they stung. Negative, like his mother? Like the way she'd kicked out his cheating ass? Taq turned away from the water to glare at his father, but Ataata had his eyes closed. Even in the dim light, his age was starting to show. There were silver strands in the black hair that peeked out from under his sheepskin-lined cap. Creases were permanent on his brown forehead. His strong jaw had pooches now, like a chipmunk with acorns in its cheeks.

Still, Ataata was easily the handsomest man in Yakatuk. Maybe in all of the Alaskan Inuit. Hell, half the homes in Yakatuk had the poster with Ataata on them that the Alaskan Historic Society had put out a few years ago. The poster had a calendar for 2019 over a large photo of his dad—Pilip Geela of Yakatuk, it said underneath. He stood proudly in profile wearing a traditional seal-skin coat and looking out over a frozen landscape at sunrise.

It was so fucking weird. Weird that Taq's father was sort of famous. Weird being his son—like people expected him to be as good-looking, or as social and charming. Taq wasn't. He took after his mom's side of the family—big-boned and broad-faced with long black hair he wore to his waist that was so thick Grammy teased that she needed an ulu to cut it.

Taq was fine with not being as handsome as his dad. He didn't like attention. He preferred to disappear.

The boat hit a wave and bounced.

"Ai! Watch it!" Attah grumbled before going back to sleep.

Taq ignored him. The truth was, he didn't mind that his father always slept on the way to their fishing spot. Because the best part was coming up, and it was all Taq's.

As they came out of the bay where Yakatuk sheltered, the water opened up to a wide fjord with mountains on three sides. It looked like a lake, all boxed in, but that was an illusion because the water turned left ahead and continued out to the sea. But just here, all you could see were mountains.

The peaks were tall—two thousand feet or more—and gray-blue, craggy, and bare except for a little scrub or lot of snow, depending. There were woods inland, but not on these mountains, not here where the winds off the sea blew down anything that dared stretch skyward. At dawn on a crisp, clear morning, as it was right now, it was as if the golden light of heaven spilled out behind the deep velvet-blue of the mountains and set the turquoise water of the fjord to glowing softly. For the precious minutes of sunrise, the landscape was so vast and sharp, it hardly seemed real. Taq had never been anywhere except Anchorage, but he knew in his heart this was the most stunning place on Earth.

It was early April, but much of the bay was already free of ice. Mini white icebergs dotted around the aqua water like ice in a glass of Kool-Aid. The air was so rich it was like a drug, and the new light washed everything with magic and made it seem like anything was possible. On this day. This was a brand-new day, why not? Anything could happen.

Taq put his favorite playlist on his phone, plugged in his earphones, and steered the boat down the center of the fjord, humming to himself. He and Ataata liked to fish for char where the bay met the sea. It would take twenty minutes to get there, and Taq was in no rush. He pulled back on the tiller, letting the boat slow to a putt-putt pace. He smiled at nothing. At everything.

If they hadn't just been talking about bears…. If they'd set out even five minutes earlier… Taq might have missed it. But a large dark shape on the land to his left caught his eye and made him look twice.

It was a grizzly, an adult. It was skinny, its brown fur hanging loose and its triangular head more angular than it should be. Bears were fucked by the warming seasons, just like the Inuit were.

Taq glanced at Ataata, but he was asleep. Good. He had no interest in hunting a bear right now. Hell, they didn't even have guns. Then he noticed that the bear wasn't just idly lumbering along the bank. It was stalking something, walking slowly and intently. He scanned down the bank.

Shit. Two guys were fishing. Taq squinted. He didn't recognize them. One was a really big guy in a red parka, black wool hat and gloves, pale face. He looked like a qallunaat. The other one had a gray parka over a slim build and darker skin. He might be Inuit? There was still thick ice along the shore, and they were out a few feet from land on the ice, their lines in the water.

They didn't see the bear.

Taq stood up in the boat, heart pounding. He waved both arms over his head and shouted at the two men. "Hey! Hey!"

He didn't have much hope they'd hear. He was too far out from the shore. They probably couldn't even hear the putt-putt of the motor since they were upwind. But they did hear. The smaller man looked up sharply and scanned the water, spotted him. Taq waved more furiously and pointed.

The man looked over his shoulder and stiffened when he saw the bear. It was closer to them now, maybe two hundred yards, and when it saw the man look at it, it gave up on stealth and charged toward them.

"Holy shit," Taq breathed. Oh fuck, oh fuck. He wouldn't want to be on that shore. And he didn't wanna see this, either. Grizzlies were no joke, man. And a starving bear against two guys with fishing poles? They were fucked.

He watched with horror as the two men dropped their poles and backed off the ice onto the shore where they couldn't be cornered. Lot of good it would do them. The bear kept coming.

Taq sat down hard, grabbed the tiller, and gunned the motor to full speed, turning for the shore. Maybe the sound of the boat would spook the bear. Maybe he could do something. But unless time stood still, there was no way he'd get there in time.

The smaller man held up his hands to the bear, and he and the big guy backed away down the shore. The bear was utterly fixed on them. It was all but licking its chops.

"Please, please, please, please, please," Taq whispered, racing the boat toward the shore.

The two guys turned and ran. Oh, bad move. Bad, bad move! No one could outrun a bear. But they were separating, running in a V, so maybe they figured at least one of them would survive. Then the smaller dude, who was surprisingly fast, even on that slippery, rocky shore, unzipped his coat while still running and let it fly. His wool beanie went with it, revealing long, reddish brown hair that whipped behind him as he ran. He next ripped a thermal shirt over his head and tossed it, his feet flying.

What the hell? Did he think the bear would stop and smell the clothes? Or was he planning to dive into the water? That would be a death sentence. It was so cold, he'd only survive a few minutes, and bears were good swimmers. It would just follow him in. He should—

Huh? Taq rubbed his eyes with the hand that wasn't on the tiller and blinked hard. The guy sort of stretched as he ran. His face turned paler and… and… longer? There was a flash of what looked like a pair of jeans going flying. The guy's long reddish hair was somehow in front of his face, covering him, even though he was running, or….

Taq blinked and blinked again. There was a… a wolf running in front of the bear. Or, no, a husky? It was reddish-brown with a cream face. Where the hell had it come from?

Taq let go of the tiller and stood up, straining to see. He was still a good hundred yards offshore, but he could see well enough. A husky ran at breakneck speed down the shore. Taq searched behind it for the bear. It hesitated, swaying as it looked for its prey. Then it veered to go after the big guy. He, too, had taken off his red parka and was now ripping a sweatshirt over his head. The bear gained on him fast. Oh god!

Something streaked in from the bear's left, barking furiously. The husky.

Taq was frozen in the boat, which was still putt-putting slowly but mostly drifting in place. A chill went through him even as his heart pounded in his ears. It was a man and a husky against a bear. This was not gonna end well. A husky was no match for a bear. There was many a story of a loyal dog dying trying to protect its owner from a beast like this. So forget for a moment that the husky had come out of nowhere. That it had, in fact…. No. Fuck no. Whatever else that dog was, it was soon gonna be bear meat.

The big man was still running, awkwardly, while shoving his jeans down white, pillar-like thighs, his cock flopping into view every other step. He appeared to slip and fall, but the barking husky blocked Taq's view of him.

"Get up! Get up!" Taq muttered, clenching his fists.

The bear lunged. But the husky put itself between the spot where the man had fallen and the bear, baring its teeth and snapping and growling like a demon thing. The bear reared back. It did a confused little dance, paws turning left, then right, and shook its huge head. It raised up on two feet, sniffing the air. Then it gave a roar and lurched forward, one enormous paw swinging. The husky danced out of the way, still snarling.

And then, from nowhere, there was a second dog. It was a huge, floppy dog, like one you'd see on TV, all brown and white spotted with a great brown head.

"What the…?" Taq whispered.

The big dog joined the husky, planting its legs and snapping and barking at the bear ferociously, like it'd rip its face off. And, oh yeah, now Taq recognized the breed. That dog was fucking Cujo. A Saint Bernard or whatever, just like in that movie, and it looked just as rabid and ferocious too.

A swell rocked the boat and Taq realized he was just standing there, sort of numb, while the boat drifted. Hell, he was as confused as the bear.

What the hell, man? Where did the dudes go? Where did that fucking Saint Bernard come from?

You know where.

"Nope. No. No way," he whispered.

But it was true. He knew it. And this… this magic or whatever it was. It was like peeking into another world, another universe. And he wasn't sure he had the right to be seeing this.

The bear took a few steps back from the barking, snapping dogs. It shook its head and danced with its paws left and right again. And then, as if at some signal, the husky turned tail and ran as fast as it could away from the bear. The Saint Bernard followed.

The bear took one loping stride after them, then stopped. It lowered and wagged its head.

No, shit, bear. Me too.

The bear could outrun the dogs. Probably. But maybe it was weak. Or maybe it was wary of canines in a pack. Or maybe it just had no idea what the fuck was going on. It turned and loped back the way it had come, double-time.

It was over.

Taq sat down with a thud on the seat, his knees too weak to hold him up. He was breathing hard, like he'd just been in that battle himself. His hands were shaking.

He looked for the dogs, up and down the shore, but they'd taken off and were out of sight now. He couldn't feel his legs. He rubbed at his thighs with hands as stiff as paddles. He shook his head, much like the bear. The lapping water rocked the boat.

Ataata sat up, yawning. "What're we doin' here? This isn't a good place to fish."

Taq looked at him blankly.

"What's the matter with you? You're all pale and shiny. What happened?"

Taq swallowed. "I thought… nothing."

He glanced around but all signs of the drama were gone. It might as well have been a dream.

"You see something?" Ataata asked.

"I dunno. No."

"Taq! Your head is always in the clouds. How about you move this frigging boat? We can't sit here all day. And wake me up when we get there." Ataata pulled the cap down over his eyes and closed them.

Taq hesitated. But he had to know that he wasn't crazy. He had to know, period.

He revved the motor and steered for the shore. When they got close, he found a spot where the ice along the shore was thin. He jumped out into the water, grateful he'd worn his rubber boots, and pulled the boat up onto the rocky bottom. It was a pain with Ataata's weight in the boat.

"Now what're you doin'?"

"Gotta take a leak. Watch the boat, Ataata."

"Why doncha just piss off the side?"

Taq ignored him, jogging up the shore.

From behind him, Ataata laughed. "Oh, I get it. I thought you looked kinda green! You know, if it's over eight inches, you get to give it a name!"

Taq ignored him—his father was nothing if not classy—and kept going.

He found bear tracks and footprints and paw prints all jumbled together in the places where the melting snow had left mud and traces of ice. He hadn't imagined it then. The bear prints came and went off to the west. Taq spotted something bright red to the east and walked to it. It was a parka. Men's XXL. It was a red coat—like, super insulated. Too bad it was too big for him. He dropped it and walked on. He found the gray parka, black gloves, a couple of hats, and a pair of jeans half-buried in the snow. Then another, larger pair of jeans. And two pairs of boots.

Taq kicked one. It was a totally normal boot, a winter workman's boot, way newer than most of his own clothing. He looked around at the barren shore. A cold gust of wind wrapped around his legs and made him shiver. "Dude. What the fuck happened here?"

He'd seen it, seen it for his own damn self. But he didn't believe it.

If he didn't know better… if he just went with what it had looked like and wasn't worried about being bat-shit crazy, he'd say it was just like those movies. The ones with the sparkly vampires.

His mom loved those movies. Taq would never admit it to his friends, but he thought it was pretty cool that the movies had that Quileute Tribe. Jacob and his friends reminded him a little of them, he and his friends in Yakatuk. That is, if they were way better-looking and could turn into wolves.

Because of those movies, he knew what he'd seen. Hell, he saw the smaller dude do it, right in the middle of running. Only he hadn't become a giant CGI wolf. He'd changed into a dog.

And no one was ever gonna believe him.

Taq considered taking the clothes. But then he thought about how the two guys would be back for them. They'd be pissed off if they had to walk around in the cold all bare-assed naked. And he was pretty sure he didn't want to get on the wrong side of dudes who could shift into fur and scare off a grizzly.

And if there were goddamn supernatural beings around here? Taq wasn't sure he wanted them to know he existed.

He dropped the clothes and went back to the boat. Ataata was sitting up drinking coffee from a thermos.

"What were you doin’?" he asked suspiciously. "What were you looking for?"

"I thought I saw something."

"Well, did ya?"

"Nope."

He pushed the boat into the water and climbed in. Soon the boat was running at full speed down the center of the fjord toward the open sea.

HOW TO LOVE THINE ENEMY BOOK PAGE