Singing of the Dead

by Dana Stabenow

  The third letter was also an invitation, from her cousin Axenia in Anchorage. Actually the invitation was from a friend of Axenia’s whom Kate had never met, to a baby shower. Axenia was pregnant.

  Kate put the letter down and stared at the bookshelf above Johnny’s head. Axenia and Lew Mathisen were having a baby.

  “What?” Johnny said, and she lowered her eyes to see him staring at her. “Is something wrong.?”

  She stuffed the little yellow card, decorated with colorful birds carrying flowers tied with pink and blue ribbons in their beaks, back into its envelope. “No, nothing. My cousin’s having a baby is all.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked out the window, where night was creeping down into the Park from between the cracks and crevices of the Quilaks. “Will Ethan be worried about where you are?”

  Johnny’s face closed up. “Why, don’t you want me here?”

  She looked at him. “Does Ethan know where you are?”

  He ducked his head. “He knows I come over here,” he muttered.

  “Mmm.” She got up and raised the dishcloth to poke the dough. The imprint of her finger smoothed out almost immediately. Nice to know she hadn’t completely lost her touch. She divided the dough into two loaves and set them back on the shelf beneath the dishcloth to rise. “We’ll take him a loaf when it’s done.”

  “I was wondering when you’d wander in out of the snow,” Ethan told Johnny when they walked in the door.

  “I was over at Kate’s.”

  “And you found her.” Ethan smiled at Kate. He’d shaved and put on clean clothes since last month. His hair was brushed and pulled back into a stubby little ponytail. “How’s life on the campaign trail?”

  Kate set her daypack down next to the door. “You ever listen to NPR?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Some actor was on one morning, and he said, ‘Keep us away from politicians. Lying is our business, and we know it when we see it.’ He was right.”

  Ethan threw back his head and laughed, a big, robust laugh that filled up the room. “Yeah, well, let it be a lesson to you, Kate. Sometimes the job just isn’t worth the salary.”

  Kate shrugged. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “Come on in, I’ll pour you some coffee.”

  Johnny vanished upstairs.

  Kate spoke softly. “How often is Johnny over at the homestead?”

  “I don’t know, a couple of times a week, I’d guess. He likes his alone time, that boy.” He smiled. “He’s a lot like you. Probably why you don’t get along.”

  “It’s getting darker earlier.”

  “Yeah? And your point is?”

  “My point is I left him here so he’d be safe.”

  He smiled at her over his shoulder. “That kid’s safe wherever he goes, Shugak. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” He got out two mugs. “He’s just like you. For all practical purposes, you were autonomous from the age of four, when your dad started teaching you how to track game and how to shoot it. Johnny told me you got him that thirty-thirty of his. First grownup firearm he’s owned, he says. He’s pretty good with it, too, at least at a stationary target. Says he’s looking to shoot his second moose. He doesn’t belong in Arizona, Kate, any more than you did.”

  “Nobody ever offered me Arizona.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, like you would have taken it if they had.” He poured coffee and sat down. “You going to Bobby’s tonight?”

  “Why, what’s going on at Bobby’s?”

  “You got to slow down, Shugak, or you’ll miss all the good stuff. Bobby’s throwing a party for Peter Heiman.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  Ethan grinned. “Nope. Wanna go?”

  13

  The first person they saw was Billy Mike. “Hello, Kate,” he said without a trace of embarrassment, balancing a bag of tortilla chips on a casserole dish as he shut the door to his Honda Wagovan.

  “Covering all your bases, Billy?”

  He grinned, a white slash in his round face. “You should talk. Where’s Anne?”

  “In Ahtna until tomorrow, then here for two days. I caught a day off.”

  “And used it to come to a party for Peter Heiman.” He grinned again. “Hi, Ethan.”

  “Hey, Billy. How you doing?”

  “Same old, same old. How’s Margaret?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Ethan said easily. “She split.”

  “Oh. Oh. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Ethan.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Couldn’t take breakup in the Park?”

  “I think it was more that she couldn’t take me, anywhere.”

  Billy gave a short, surprised laugh. “You seem to be fine.” He looked from Ethan to Kate, and then to Johnny. “Hey, Johnny.”

  “Hi, Mr. Mike.”

  “Call me Billy, Johnny. How do you like living in the Park?”

  The two of them went ahead as Ethan and Kate brought up the rear. Ethan cocked an eyebrow at her. “What?” she said.

  “Billy’11 have us shacking up all over the Park by tomorrow morning at eight A.M.,” he said.

  She shrugged. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Well,” he said, drawling it out. “I’d prefer that it was true.”

  She stopped on the upslope to the A-frame and looked him straight in the eye. “I understand your need to reinvent your manhood after being deballed by Margaret, Ethan, but don’t imagine for one moment that I’m going to help you. I had a man, a real one, a good one. He was all I needed.”

  “He’s also dead,” Ethan said. “It’s been over a year. How long do you think you can go without?”

  “A lot longer than you, evidently,” she said, and was up the hill and into the A-frame before he could reply.

  “Shugak!” somebody yelled, and she heard the whisk of rubber tires over hardwood floor a second before something hit her in the back of the knees, and she fell into Bobby Clark’s lap. He gave her a smacking kiss. “Goddamn! About time you showed up!”

  Mutt tried to jump on top of Kate, to the peril of all involved. “Goddamn!” Bobby roared again. “It’s that goddamn wolf again!”

  Kate shoved Mutt down, where she stood with her tail wagging furiously and an adoring gleam in her eye. “That chair ought to be a registered weapon,” she said, struggling to her feet.

  Bobby’s grin was wide and lecherous. “The better to get you horizontal, my dear.”

  Dinah, flushed and laughing, was stirring a pot of something at the stove. Katya, perched on Old Sam’s hip, saw Kate, held out her arms and launched. Kate caught her, just. “Hey,” she said.

  “What?” Dinah said.

  “This kid needs a new diaper.”

  Dinah nodded at the corner the crib had taken over. “Have at it.”

  Grumbling, Kate did so, Katya laughing up at her from the crib and doing her level best to prolong the process as long as possible.

  There was a hooraw at the door and they both turned to look as Peter Heiman walked in, shaking hands with Bobby and coming over to kiss Katya on his way.

  “Give me my woman,” Bobby said, snatching Katya.

  For the first time, Kate noticed a big glass jar on the floor next to the door, filling slowly with bills of one denomination or another. She hadn’t noticed a jar when Bobby and Dinah had hosted Anne.

  “Come on, Pete,” Bobby said, wheeling around and heading for the pillar, Katya’s wild giggle floating behind, as well as a pained cry when Bobby rolled over someone’s toes. “Now, everybody, listen up. I’m pirating a little radio air for Pete tonight. We’re all warmed up and ready to roll. Be prepared to make noise!”

  A roar rose from the very overcrowded room, and the loudest yell came from Mac Devlin, the gold miner whose toes Bobby had rolled over, which led Kate to wonder how much Bobby’s aim was off.

  Pete sat down next to Bobby, and they both squared up to the microphone. Bobby flicked a few switches; there was some kind of electronic
whine and into the mike Bobby said, “Okay, folks, it’s show time. Bobby’s all talk, all the time, when it isn’t all music all the time, one and only Park Air. Tonight my guest is Peter Heiman, who is running for reelection this year. Pete, how the hell are you?”

  “Fine, Bobby, just fine.”

  “Running behind in the polls, are you?”

  “More like neck and neck, Bobby. I have a fine opponent this year, and she’s working hard at throwing the bum out of office.”

  “Well, if she’s successful, at least you won’t have to work with Ramona Halford anymore.”

  Pete was surprised into throwing his head back and laughing out loud, and the crowd joined in. “That is surely the truth, Bobby.”

  “So why do you want to be reelected? My god, man, you have to live in Juneau five months out of the year. You have to associate with politicians on a regular basis. You’ve always got to have your hand out so you’ll have enough to run the next time. The media is breathing down your neck every minute, so you can’t take a whizz without it showing up on film at eleven. That’s no life for a decent human being, and yet you’re sitting up and begging for it. Tell me why.”

  Pete leaned forward and looked Bobby straight in the eye. “Babes, Bobby. Politicians get all the best babes.”

  It was Bobby’s turn to throw back his head and whoop with laughter.

  Next to Kate, Dinah said, “Did I tell you about the new documentary I’ve got going?”

  “No,” Kate said. “What’s it about?”

  “Grab up a pop and I’ll show you.”

  On the opposite side of the pillar from Bobby’s radio station equipment, Dinah had carved out a small workspace. She commandeered a couple of chairs and put them in front of a television monitor hooked to a VCR. Her camera was tucked carefully into the top drawer of a filing cabinet beneath the counter, the bottom drawer having been reserved for exposed videotapes, all carefully labeled. Dinah selected one and inserted it into the VCR.

  Kate, watching the monitor, said, “That’s the mine ruins, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You doing a documentary on the Kanuyaq Copper Mine?”

  “Yes, I am. See, here’s the idea—everybody knows about the TransAlaska Pipeline, how long it took to get approval, the design, the construction; everybody always whoops and hollers about how it’s the biggest manmade construction effort in the history of the world, gets compared to the pyramids and the Great Wall of China.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Dinah waved a hand at the screen. “What about Kanuyaq? The guys who built that puppy humped the parts over rivers and glaciers, on their backs until they got the railroad built. They had hot running water in the living quarters at the mine by 1907. In 1907 most of the rural areas of the South Forty-eight didn’t even have cold running water. Here they had electricity and telephones.” Her smile turned sly. “And then there was Niniltna.”

  “What about Niniltna?”

  “Niniltna was party town for the miners. Niniltna was where the miners got drunk and got laid. Just four miles down the road, all the saloons and booze and gambling and hookers a man could want.”

  “I didn’t know Niniltna was a party town. Not something Emaa or Auntie Vi ever told me.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of that going around,” Dinah said. “I took a drive up to Fairbanks last month, ran into someone at the library who quoted me a little poem about how California got started. It goes like this:

  The miners came in ’49,

  The whores in ’51.

  And when they got together,

  They produced the native son.”

  Kate laughed.

  “Substitute ’99 and ’01 and that could have been written about Alaska. She said that half the first families, first white families anyway, were made up of gamblers-turned-bankers and dance-hall-girls-turned-respectable-matrons, only of course none of their descendants want to admit it today.”

  Kate sat up, a stray thought running loose through the back of her mind. Trying to round it up she almost missed Dinah’s next words.

  “You read up on that time, it wasn’t the greatest for women. The only jobs open to them were housework or prostitution. No penicillin, either, if it comes to that. You’ve got to admire somebody willing to take on that job just to make a better life for themselves.” She thought. “You forget, until you start on a project like this.”

  “Forget what?” Kate said, still distracted.

  “How much was going on here at the same time it was going on everywhere else. The dance halls in Dawson. Front Street in Nome. The Line in Fairbanks. The hook shops in Cordova.” She smiled. “And the Northern Light in Niniltna.”

  “That was—”

  Dinah nodded. “That’s what they called the whorehouse in Niniltna, or one of them.”

  The Northern Light. She’d heard that name before.

  “Kate, are you okay?”

  Kate refocused and saw Dinah staring at her with a puzzled expression. “Sure. Why?”

  “I don’t know, all of a sudden you looked way far away.”

  “You mentioned running into someone in Fairbanks,” Kate said. “The one who told you the poem.”

  “What about her?”

  “It was a woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember her name?”

  “No. She was just someone who was looking up stuff the same place I was. The same newspapers, magazines, like that. We didn’t talk that much.”

  “What did she look like?”

  Dinah thought. “Heavyset. Curly gray hair. Big eyes, long curly eyelashes, made her look like a ten-year-old. She—” She saw Kate’s expression. “What?”

  “Have you got a working computer here?”

  “Sure.” Dinah scooted over one space, and Kate reached into the daypack and pulled out Paula’s computer disk, a second copy of which Kenny had made for her.

  Kate moved her chair in front of the keyboard. This time she ignored the DIRT file and clicked on NOVEL, the seventh draft. She scrolled down a few pages. Paula’s typing was similar to her handwriting, chaotic, with a lot of ellipses, dashes, exclamation points, and pairs of brackets, every kind there was to be had on the keyboard, holding in inserted thoughts and comments that were straining to burst free and spill all over each page.

  Kate found the FIND function and used it. Dinah, reading over her shoulder, said in a marveling voice, “Wow. Did you know?”

  Kate shook her head and scrolled slowly down the page.

  “Do you think it’s true?”

  “She was a researcher. She took notes on what she found. If it was written down right in the first place, then it’s true.”

  “Wow,” Dinah said again. “Do you think Anne would talk about it on camera? It’d make for a great segment in the documentary. The candidate’s family history. And maybe soon the Senator’s family history.”

  “The filmmaker raising her ugly head,” Kate muttered.

  “Hey, I resent that remark.”

  There was laughter on the other side of the pillar. Dinah peered around the counter. “Bobby and Pete are signing off. Hey, who’s the blond stranger you rode in with?”

  “Ethan Int-Hout. Abel’s son.”

  “Oh yeah.” Dinah sighed, a sigh of pure female appreciation. “My, doesn’t he look just fine.” She turned her head to look at Kate, one speculative eyebrow raised.

  “Johnny’s staying with him while I’m on the road.”

  “Huh. Johnny going to stay in the Park?”

  “He says he is.” Kate closed the file and pulled the disk. “Dinah?”

  “What?”

  “Hang on to this disk for me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And don’t tell anyone what’s on it.”

  Dinah’s gaze sharpened. “Why not?”

  Kate sat back in her chair, linked her hands behind her head, and stared at the ceiling, unmoved by the increasing sound of rising voices and
loud music and clinking glasses from the other side of the pillar. “Did I ever tell you about Darlene?”

  “Darlene? Darlene who?”

  “Darlene Shelikof. She’s Anne Gordaoff’s cousin, and her campaign manager.”

  “Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “We went to school together.”

  “At UAF?”

  “Yeah. Anne wasn’t there. She was going to nursing school Outside somewhere, I think. But Darlene was there, and she was running elections even then.”

  Dinah was mystified. “And this concerns you how?”

  “The student government elections. She was behind one of the candidates for student body president. What the hell was his name?” She shrugged. “I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that I was curled up in a chair in the Student Union Building late the night of election day, kind of in a corner back where no one could see me, and I saw Darlene go into the student-union office. That was where the ballot box was being kept until the official count the next morning. I got curious—”

  “Always your problem.”

  “—and I followed her, and I watched through a crack in the blinds, and I saw her fill out a bunch of ballots and stuff the ballot box.” Dinah’s eyes were round. “You’re kidding me!”

  “No. Darlene’s been stealing elections for a long time.”

  “You think she’s stealing this one?”

  Kate thought it over. “Not stealing, no. A student election at a small college, sure, if she thought she could get away with it. But a statewide election, with all the lights on? No.”

  “What, then? Why are you telling me this story?”

  “She told me after I hired on to Anne Gordaoff’s campaign that there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t say or do to get Anne elected to office.”

  “But Anne’s ahead,” Dinah said.

  “Yeah. And Darlene would do anything and say anything to keep it that way.”

  “But why would this matter?” Dinah picked up the disk. “Who could possibly care? It was seventy-five years and three generations ago, Kate. No one gives a damn about that stuff nowadays.”