by Breakup(lit)
In this, she was less than perceptive of the considerable regard
174 in which she was held in the Park. Whether she knew it or not, she
wore authority like a long cloak, with much was that swept up in its
weighted hem of which she was unaware, including the undivided attention
of the six people sitting before her now. Six pairs of sharp eyes
watched her without seeming to, noticing the lines of control bracketing
the usually mobile mouth, the fresh scab on her temple. None of them
lingered over the scar on her throat, but then they'd all seen it
before, and most of them knew the story behind it, or thought they did.
Like the presence of the wolf-husky hybrid chowing down on beef jerky at
the end of the bar, it only added to the accumulating legend.
The six elders sipped coffee brought by a self-effacing Bernie, who
recognized a tribal council meeting when he saw one. They chatted in low
voices, settling into their seats and getting comfortable with one another.
"Well," Billy said, setting his coffee down. Auntie Vi flipped open her
notebook and retrieved one of her pens. Old Sam's bright eyes flicked
from one face to another. Harvey frowned into his mug. Auntie Joy's
needle flashed through a square of cloth. "I'd like to thank you all for
assembling on such short notice." There were grave nods all around,
except from Old Sam, who grinned his vulpine grin. "We've invited Kate
to sit in on the meeting. She's got a proposal she'd like to lay before
the board."
"What?" Kate said.
"Go ahead, Kate," Billy said encouragingly, and the other four board
members swiveled their heads in unison to look at the youngster come
amongst them.
On her best day Ekaterina Moonin Shugak couldn't have passed a better
buck. You son of a bitch, Kate thought furiously, you set me up.
She sent a scowl across the table that should have fried Billy's brain
in his skull. He took no notice of this lapse in generational respect,
only continued to look at her, waiting, face schooled to an expression
of innocent inquiry. So did the rest of the board.
175 The weight of their expectancy had a perceptible drag all its own,
towing her in, sucking her under. She wasn't strong enough to resist, so
she took a deep breath and waded in. "Cindy Bingley nearly killed her
husband, Ben, this afternoon." Auntie Joy's beam vanished, and Kate
waited for those who had been present to fill in those who hadn't been
before continuing. "This wasn't the first time she's tried it. The next
time he uses his and his kids' dividend checks to finance a drunk, she
might get lucky. I don't think anyone here wants that."
Going immediately on the attack, Harvey went straight for the jugular.
"So what are you saying, Kate? You want the Association to hold back
Ben's and the kids' dividend checks?"
"I don't know, that's pretty extreme action you're suggesting," Billy
observed without heat, "holding up a dividend for a lousy toot to Ahtna."
Kate hadn't suggested it, in fact hadn't even thought of it until now,
but was willing to discuss the red herring Harvey had dragged across the
trail just to get it out of the way. She might score some points of her
own in the process. "It wasn't his first toot, Billy," she said, "and he
isn't alone, as you very well know. Half the shareholders blow their
dividends when they come in. Most of the time it's the wives and kids
who suffer for it."
"They get their own dividends," Demetri said.
"Not if somebody beats them to the mailbox."
Harvey's glassy stare made him look as if he'd been stuffed and mounted,
Auntie Joy beamed at her placidly, Old Sam examined Kate with a critical
eye.
"I suppose we could hold Ben's and the kids' checks for Cindy to pick
up," Billy said.
They studied that in silence for a while. From the expressions on their
faces they were all entertaining visions of shareholders storming the
Association offices for their checks and not relishing the prospect.
"You know," Demetri said, "Cindy's not exactly blameless in this
situation. She's done plenty of partying herself."
176 "She takes good care of those kids," Auntie Joy said.
"He'd sue," Harvey said flatly, because that was what he would do and
don't any of them forget it.
"Not if he doesn't have any money to hire a lawyer," Auntie Joy said,
because she hadn't had much use for Harvey since he hogged most of the
fry bread at a dinner she cooked for the high school basketball team on
which Harvey was a starting forward. That had been over twenty years
ago, but Auntie Joy never forgot an act of greed or selfishness.
"Someone would take it on spec," Demetri said unexpectedly. "There are a
thousand Philadelphia lawyers in Anchorage just drooling at the prospect
of taking on a solvent Native Association for costs alone. They could
drag the case out for years and run their billable hours into the
stratosphere. We can't chance it."
Everyone was impressed by this professional assessment of the situation.
Everyone also wanted to know where Demetri had come by the easy
familiarity with legal jargon, but Bush manners prevailed and no one asked.
Personally, Kate didn't think Ben could leave off drinking and chasing
women not his wife long enough to retain an attorney, so the point was
moot. "Ben is a shareholder, like the rest of us," she said. "ANCSA
funds were allocated by congressional act. It's probably a federal
offense to interfere with their distribution. Ben gets his check, same
as you, same as me, same as every other Niniltna shareholder."
They thought about that for a while. Tribal elders spent a lot of time
thinking in silence, which led to rational problem solving and sensible
decision making. It was one of their greatest strengths.
Demetri stirred. "She could divorce him. That way, she could attach his
dividend for child support."
"If she hasn't divorced him yet, she's not going to," Billy said.
"He is a charmer," Auntie Joy admitted with a rueful sigh.
"What the Association could do," Kate said. Billy looked at her
encouragingly. "What the Association could do," she repeated, setting
her jaw, "is tackle it from the other end."
177 Bernie returned to refill their mugs and set a plate of Oreo cookies
on the table, his inspired contribution to a harmonious meeting. Seven
hands reached out, and everybody except Harvey opened up the cookies and
licked the frosting off the inside.
"It's not just Ben and Cindy and their kids who need help. I'm sure
you've all heard about the shoot-out the Jeppsens had with the Kreugers
here yesterday," Kate said. "Some of you were present for it." Her hand
moved to her left temple to finger the scab left by the
too-close-for-comfort graze. Six pairs of eyes followed the gesture. Old
Sam chuckled, and Auntie Joy looked at him, scandalized. "Three people
were hurt. But," she said, and paused for effect. "But," she repeated,
"because we had emergency medical technicians in the bar, we had
treatment ready to hand."
"Th
ere wasn't anybody hurt that bad," Demetri observed. He'd had too
many near misses with wannabe Great White Hunters for a couple of minor
bullet holes to upset him.
Auntie Joy transferred her scandalized look from Old Sam to Demetri.
"True," Kate said. "But I believe the result would have been the same
even if someone had been badly hurt. The point is, we had trained people
at the scene to deal with the situation." She paused again. "People
trained in Ahtna, by the Ahtna Native Health Foundation."
She held up her right hand. "I caught myself a splinter the other day, a
bad one. Figured I'd need a tetanus shot. When I was in Ahtna this
morning, I stopped by the health clinic and talked hina Barnes into
giving me a DPT booster. You all know Irina. She's the community health
representative for the Ahtna Native Association, trained in town by the
Public Health Service in emergency medical care and standard
immunization and testing procedures." Kate paused. "A useful person to
have around. We could do with one of our own."
This time it was Billy who broke the silence. "What are you saying, Kate?"
178 Kate took a deep, steadying breath and spoke her first words in an
advisory capacity to the Niniltna Native Association board of directors.
"I'm saying it's time we started some kind of clinic of our own, right
here in Niniltna. Half the villages in this state already have some kind
of health care clinic. Why not ours? Raven Corporation has a nonprofit
health branch that's been trying to get a foot in the door here for years."
Harvey said, face set in taut lines of disapproval, "We don't want any
outsiders telling us how to live. We can take care of our own."
Kate thought again of the Bingleys, of her cousin Martin's lifelong
struggle with alcohol and drugs, of Chick Noyukpuk's, of her parents'.
Of her mother's. Yeah, she thought, and we've done such a good job of it
so far. She had to fight to keep from saying so out loud, and tried
instead for a placating smile, but her facial muscles were unaccustomed
to the effort and she gave it up. She did take a beat to rein in her
temper, because abusing elders, especially in the presence of other
elders, was no way to get anything accomplished in the village. On the
other hand, she and tact were no more than passing acquaintances.
Learn, then, Katya, a stern voice said.
She closed her eyes. The board, watching and waiting, saw a shadow pass
across her face, the usually smooth skin acquire lines that aged it into
a harsh mask that had seen too much of suffering and sorrow. A mask that
recalled the presence among them of an older, wiser woman whose
deliberate and resolute speech echoed in the rasping voice of her
granddaughter.
Kate opened her eyes and the mask vanished.
"We could try circulating a petition to go dry again," Auntie Joy said
doubtfully.
Harvey rolled his eyes, but then Harvey liked a martini before dinner
and a shot of Drambuie afterward. Niniltna had gone dry once, by a
three-vote margin. Dry meant that no alcohol, not for retail sale or
personal consumption or gin for Harvey's martini, was allowed on tribal
land, none, zero, zilch, zip. The Association had
179 hired shareholders to act as guards to check planes at the airstrip
for incoming contraband, armed guards that were empowered to break up
any intercepted shipments on the spot. It was a miracle that the Dry Act
had passed at all, a miracle aided by a sagacious decision to hold the
election during the summer, when most of the fishers were out in Prince
William Sound.
When the fleet got back into town, another petition was circulated and
another vote was taken, this time for the village to go damp, which
meant alcohol couldn't be sold but it could be imported in small
quantities for personal use. The second petition passed by a four-vote
margin, having been held during the AFN convention, when all the dry
votes were in Anchorage.
Everyone was afraid of what the circulation of a third petition might
bring. No one wanted any bars opening up again in the village; at least
the Roadhouse was twenty-seven miles away and Bernie was a responsible
bartender. He didn't serve drunks or pregnant women, and he forcibly
removed truck, snow machine and D-9 keys from driving lushes and bedded
them down in one of the cabins out back.
For a nominal fee, of course. Social work came a long way behind
capitalism on Bernie's list. "Certainly we can try, Auntie," Kate said,
"but since the last vote went against us, maybe we should try something
else. Like a clinic," she added doggedly.
"What's a clinic got to do with Ben and Cindy Bingley?" Harvey said.
"Everything," Kate said. "If we fund a clinic, we can hire counselors.
If we have counselors on staff, locally accessible so our people don't
have to go to town for treatment, which they won't anyway, we can tackle
this problem at the roots. Other associations and corporations have
already done so. Look at Ahtna. They've got a full-time substance-abuse
counselor wired into the AFN sobriety movement."
"Our people won't go to Anglo doctors," Harvey said.
Kate said patiently, "They will if the board members are the Anglo
doctors' first patients. In the meantime, why don't we set
180 up some kind of additional funding to apprentice our own people to
the staff of the clinic and, if they are so inclined, maybe pay to send
them to medical school? They don't have to be doctors, they could be
nurses, nurse-practitioners, physician's assistants, counselors. That
way, eventually we would have our own people treating our own people."
"And," Auntie Joy added, "it might keep the kids home." All five of
Auntie Joy's children had moved to Anchorage to pursue education and
careers. Auntie Joy lived up the Glenn Highway from Anchorage, but it
was a long, cold drive in the winter and she never saw enough of her
grandchildren.
"Most of our money's tied up in capital construction or investments,"
Billy said, doubtful. "The sawmill at Chokosna. The salmon plant in
Cordova. The market holdings Outside."
Auntie Vi glanced at Kate from the corner of her eye. "What about the
dividend you're about to declare from the Chokosna logging profits? The
shareholders aren't expecting that, so they wouldn't miss it."
Harvey bristled. Billy shook his head and said, "I don't know. The
shareholders want money, and the Association has given it to them from
the first year it showed a profit. They've been happy with that for a
long time, going on twelve years now."
"And what do you think they are going to say," Harvey said triumphantly,
"when we cut back on the quarterly dividends to maintain this clinic?"
"And this will be something new," Demetri observed, as dispassionate as
always, "and you know elders. They like to move slow. And they vote."
Oh, Kate thought, you mean like the six people at this table right now?
"Shareholders are used to going to Ahtna or Anchorage for health care,"
Harvey said, and smiled at Kate. "I haven't heard any complai
nts."
"But then," Kate said, with a smile as false as Harvey's, "you
181 weren't looking down the wrong end of Cindy's thirty-thirty today,
were you, Harvey?" That was too close to impudence for her elders, and
five different kinds of disapproval radiated in her direction. Again,
Kate reined in her temper. "Where's Suzy Moonin going to get prenatal
care for her and my cousin Martin's first baby? When Carl Stoff broke
his leg, he had to be medivacked to Anchorage. When Eknaty Kvasnikoffs
little brother-I forget his name-"
"Brian," Auntie Vi said.
"When Brian Kvasnikoff got appendicitis, he died because the weather was
