Demetri, in fact, had clients who never left the lodge, and he was ambivalent about the prospect of an open-pit mine that had the potential to spoil the perfect view of mountains, glaciers, and wildlife they had hitherto enjoyed. The mine wasn’t anywhere near within eyesight of his lodge, but he had wondered out loud if once completed it could be seen en route between the lodge and Niniltna.
Well, the jury was still out on that, and since Demetri was declining to comment on the logo issue, Kate’s gaze moved to the woman sitting at Demetri’s right, last seen at the Suulutaq Mine on the arm of Vern Truax. Thin, tense, she had thick eyebrows always pulled together in a frown over eyes that sat too close on either side of a long, bony nose, with a tip that flattened against her short, hairy upper lip in a way that bore an irresistible resemblance to the beak on a seagull. Her skin was sallow, too, which only heightened the resemblance.
For a woman who was mostly Athabascan, she was surprisingly unattractive. Kate thought how much it helped when someone she was destined to dislike anyway was physically unlovely to boot. She was still trying to work out how Ulanie Anahonak had been voted onto the NNA board. For one thing, Ulanie behaved like a dry drunk, impatient, rigid, intolerant, and pompous. Essentially as though Ulanie were the only person in the room, Kate thought. For another, she appeared to be a functioning illiterate. She never seemed to find time to read the minutes of the previous meeting that all board members received from Annie weeks before the next meeting, and she appeared incapable of sticking to the agenda, jumping some items and ignoring others. She’d been hostile to Kate from the beginning. In that respect she reminded Kate a little of Axenia.
Ulanie wasn’t well liked within the Niniltna Native Association. It was a mystery where her votes had come from, one Kate thought it might be worth solving one day, when she had time.
On Ulanie’s right sat Einar Carlson, another blond, blue-eyed Aleut by way of a Swedish immigrant who had worked at the Kanuyaq Copper Mine and married into the Park. Einar fished summers and worked construction in the winters. In his forties, a confirmed bachelor, he was tall, spare, and mostly silent. He lived in a one-room cabin across the river from Niniltna, a cabin built by his grandparents when they were first moved from their village in the Aleutian Islands by the military after the Japanese invasion in World War II. Like many Aleuts dispossessed in that war, they had never moved back, choosing instead to make a home in the Park and to raise their children there and in the fullness of time to be absorbed into the Niniltna Native Association. There were fifteen years between Kate and Einar and she didn’t know that much about him, but in the hothouse atmosphere of the NNA board there would be no avoiding getting to know each other very well indeed.
Between Einar and Kate sat Old Sam Dementieff. His grin was razor sharp, his bright eyes all-knowing. No point in trying to fool herself that he couldn’t read her like a book. Kate wondered who had nominated him for the board and why he’d accepted. He wasn’t exactly a political animal.
Old Sam was Eliza and Quinto Dementieff’s son, although Kate had overheard the aunties speculating about that once when she was very small. Eliza had given birth too soon after marrying, One-Bucket McCullough had disappeared shortly thereafter, and Quinto had stared everyone down and raised Sam as his own. Old Sam and Abel Int-Hout, the homesteader next door who had raised Kate, had been good friends, and at least in her eyes they resembled each other a great deal. There wasn’t a rock or a tree in this part of Alaska either man couldn’t find again blindfolded. Abel had married and had three sons, Old Sam had remained single and childless so far as everyone knew, in his later years taking up with Mary Balashoff. They’d probably been together as long as they had because they were so often apart, Old Sam wintering in the Park and Mary, with the exception of occasional booty calls to Niniltna, the lone year-rounder on Alaganik Bay.
Old Sam was an outlaw, that much Kate knew. The taste of illegal king still lingered pleasantly on her tongue. She smiled back at Old Sam, who let’s face it put the rat into Parkus rattus.
The motion to contract the services of the Gaea logo artist for a new corporate logo was carried by a unanimous voice vote and Annie Mike was authorized to contact the artist and inquire as to price and delivery date. “All right, under old business, the board will recall the suggestion made at the last meeting to encourage shareholders living in Anchorage to have regular meetings in Anchorage, so as to foster tribal unity and to disseminate news from the board to the shareholders. I would like to report that I have spoken to my cousin, Axenia Shugak Mathisen, and she has agreed to organize the meetings, one a month for the next six months. I propose we revisit the situation at that time to estimate the program’s success and to decide if it warrants extended funding.”
She had a moment to marvel at her own pomposity before Old Sam said, “I still think it’s a bad idea. Who knows what kind of trouble they’ll get us into over there?”
“Any more old business?” Kate said. “No? Good, let’s move on to new business.”
As expected, Auntie Joy’s hand shot into the air, and with no enjoyment at all Kate said, “The chair recognizes Ms. Shugak.”
Auntie Joy rustled the stack of papers she had in front of her, but she forgot to pass them out around the table. Kate didn’t remind her. She cleared her throat and looked around the table. She wasn’t nervous, precisely, but she’d never set forth a proposal of her own before, and the only person on the board she’d talked to about it beforehand was Kate. Auntie Vi, of course, was another matter, and they all knew what was coming.
“I make a motion to charge for people berry picking on shareholder lands,” she said.
Nobody said anything. Harvey was going to before Kate caught his eye and stared him down.
Auntie Joy took a deep breath, and continued. “Lots of people come into the Park nowadays. This mine tell people we are here. Tourist come. They pick our berries. That okay,” she said quickly, glancing around the table, “so long as we charge them.”
And so long as they didn’t find Auntie Joy’s secret nagoonberry patch, Kate thought. That would escalate the fee from dollars to a life.
“Lots of berries,” Auntie Joy said. “Plenty for to make money from.” She looked down at the papers clenched in her fists and frowned. She looked up at Kate. “That’s all.”
It was a traditional Native way to end a story, but it wasn’t all, not by a long shot. “Is there a second?” Kate said.
“Second,” Ulanie Anahonak said.
Kate wondered what Ulanie wanted from Auntie Joy, and had a presentiment that they were all going to find out very soon. “It is moved and seconded that the Association charge a fee for nonshareholders to pick berries on Association lands. The motion is on the floor and open for debate.”
Harvey raised his hand. It still pissed him off that he had to wait for Kate to recognize him before he spoke, but she’d enforced it with enough brutality during the last two board meetings that they were all now cowed into obedience, for the moment. “The chair recognizes Mr. Meganack.”
Harvey rose to his feet. “A lot depends on if it’s affordable. The picking fee will have to be high enough to pay for signs marking Association land so people can tell where they’re supposed to pick, and for the labor to put them up and to maintain them.”
They all thought about the hundred or so miles of hitherto unmarked roads and lanes and hiking trails and moose tracks connecting the Park to itself, the Roadhouse, and the outside world.
Harvey waited for it to sink in, and added, magnanimous in victory, “It’s not a bad idea, Joy. Might have to tweak it a little, but sure, we can chew it over.”
“It’s not a good idea,” Old Sam said.
“Out of order,” Kate said.
Old Sam gave her his bad-boy grin and a shrug of what might have been apology. She kept looking at him, and after a moment he raised his hand. Kate waited just long enough to make the silence felt, and said, “The chair recognizes Mr. Dementieff.”
He leaned forward to look at Auntie Joy. “I’m sorry, Joy, but it’s a bad idea. Park rats been marrying each other and burying each other and going to school together and hunting and fishing and flying together for a long time now. There was that bump in the road after ANCSA, when Native rats got money and land and white rats didn’t, but we got through it, and so far as I know nobody got killed over it and everybody who was friends before is still friends now.”
He looked around the table, his dark, seamed face pulled into sardonic lines. “Only shareholders can pick berries on Association land, Joy? That means no white Park rats or black Park rats or Filipino Park rats can pick berries on Park land?”
It was clear that Auntie Joy hadn’t thought of it that way. “Not what I mean,” she said. “I talk about—”
“It’s what would happen, though.” Old Sam sat back and folded his arms. “I’m not saying we can’t do it. I’m saying we shouldn’t. It’ll probably cost us more money than it’ll make us, and how we gonna enforce it? We gonna hire rent-a-cops and dress them up in NNA uniforms with our ugly-ass logo all over ’em and turn ’em loose? Yeah, that’ll work, especially if we hire our own and give them sidearms.” He paused to let the rest of them imagine what would happen if they put somebody like Josep Shugak in a uniform so he could enforce tribal law on sworn enemy Sergei Sondergaard’s ass. There would be blood, and not over who picked what berries where.
“But mostly,” Old Sam said, “we shouldn’t do it because it’ll just piss people off. We got enough berries to share, I say let everybody pick ’em where they find ’em. It’s the generous thing to do, and it’ll keep the peace in the Park. For a while anyway.”
He said the last words under his breath, and only Kate heard them.
There was a brief silence. “Is there any more debate?” Kate said.
Demetri raised his hand. Kate recognized him and he said, “No matter how low the fee is, people will resent it. It won’t stop them picking. They’ll just avoid the marked areas so they won’t have to pay the fee, and look for unmarked areas to pick in. Some of those areas are private property, especially the areas you can drive to. I’m sorry, Joy, but something like this just seems like kick-starting a war.”
Another silence. “Anything more to debate?” Kate said.
There wasn’t.
“Very well,” Kate said. “The question before the board is on the adoption of the motion to charge a fee for nonshareholders to pick berries on Association lands. All in favor?”
Auntie Joy raised a defiant hand. Ulanie Anahonak raised hers, too.
“All opposed?”
Everyone else raised their hand.
“The nays have it, the motion is defeated.” It was the longest Auntie Joy had gone without her usual radiant smile, and for a moment there Kate was afraid she might even burst into tears. “I have an item of new business, too,” she said, leaping into the breach. “As you all know, what with the discovery of the ore deposits at the Suulutaq Mine and the influx of people and the increase in business in the Park, we’ve been getting a lot of pressure to bring in a cell phone service.”
Demetri raised an eyebrow but refrained from comment.
“Two phone companies have already approached me and two other members of the board to inquire into the prospect of a partnership with the Niniltna Native Association in the construction and operation of a cell phone service. Mostly they need someone to run interference with Park rats for site selection for cell towers, for which they are willing to give the Association a percentage of the proceeds. I move that we create a subcommittee to conduct negotiations with these companies and any others that pop up in the meantime, with the caveat that the subcommittee’s primary function is to look after shareholder interests and not the cell phone company’s interests.”
Old Sam grinned his vulpine grin and Kate realized that had come out a little more tart than she’d meant it. “Second,” he said.
Harvey, Demetri, and Marlene volunteered for the subcommittee, and the motion was carried with little discussion.
Ulanie Anahonak raised her hand.
“The chair recognizes Ms. Anahonak.”
Ulanie sat up very straight and pursed her lips. She looked like someone’s maiden aunt, circa 1900, lacking only the corset and the leg-o’-mutton sleeves. Although Kate wouldn’t put it past Ulanie to be wearing a hair shirt underneath her REPEAL ROE T-shirt. “I make a motion that we fund an external audit on the Grosdidier brothers’ clinic.”
Kate thought back to those few moments at the clinic, Phyllis Lestinkof in tears as Matt ushered her out, Ulanie leaving without treatment and without displaying any signs of needing any, either. This wasn’t going to be good.
No one else thought so, either. The silence following Ulanie’s motion was even more deafening than the silence that had followed Auntie Joy’s. Annie Mike’s fingers paused for a moment on her keyboard, and she looked up to meet Kate’s eyes for a fleeting moment. “Second,” Kate said, although the tone of her voice left no one in the room under the illusion that she was in favor of Ulanie’s proposal.
Auntie Joy’s hand was first in the air. “The motion before the board is to fund an external audit of the Grosdidier brothers’ health clinic,” Kate said. “The floor is open for debate. The chair recognizes Joyce Shugak.”
“What for this audit?” Auntie Joy said straight across the table, glaring at Ulanie. It did not appear that Ulanie’s support for Auntie Joy’s berry-picking motion was going to automatically instill reciprocal support in Auntie Joy for Ulanie’s motion. “Those boys good boys. They do good work. They keep us healthy, they save our lives. Not needed to look over their shoulders.”
“What, Ulanie,” Old Sam said, “you worried Matt and the gang are dealing prescription drugs out of their garage?”
Old Sam did have a way of cutting to the chase.
“I don’t know anything about prescription drugs,” Ulanie said, keeping a commendable hold on her temper, “but I do know they’re giving advice about birth control.”
Well, that did it. The table erupted. Kate sat back and let it. Riot didn’t have to be an unproductive process.
“Horrors, Ulanie,” Marlene said, her voice cutting, “is it possible that licensed health-care professionals are advising women how not to get pregnant? On our dime? In our Park? What is the world coming to?”
Demetri looked at Ulanie with obvious distaste. “We pay them to look after our health, Ulanie. That includes reproductive health. And the advice they give their patients is none of our damn business.”
That was a long speech, coming from Demetri, the second in one day. Had to be a record.
“Besides,” he said, “we run an outside audit of all Association books and activities once a year. The board reports the results to the shareholders every January. Why pay for another that targets only one of our programs? Especially one that’s doing so much good?”
“You seen the numbers?” Old Sam said to Ulanie. “What am I saying, of course you ain’t seen the numbers or you wouldn’t be making such a goddamn fool proposal. Since the boys opened that clinic? Alcoholism in the Park, down. Clap, down. Rapes, down. Child abuse, spousal abuse, down. Okay, maybe only a couple percentage points for some of them, but we’re sure as hell headed in the right direction. Pretty sure the boys have single-handedly stopped the spread of AIDS in the Park, too. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Through it all, Ulanie sat where she was, erect, her lips pursed in their regulation disapproving pucker, clearly not expecting this wholesale condemnation but not flinching away from it, either. One thing you could say for Ulanie, she wasn’t a coward. She waited them out, looked at Kate, and raised her hand.
“The chair recognizes Ulanie Anahonak. Ms. Anahonak.”
And Ulanie said sweetly, “I repeat my motion. I move that the board fund an outside audit on the Niniltna Health Clinic. Is there a second?”
There wasn’t, immediately. Ulanie used the brief si
lence to say, just as sweetly, “I’m sure the Grosdidiers are doing a wonderful job down at their clinic. The audit will only prove that to be true, and reinforce how well we’re being taken care of. Won’t it?”
Kate opened her mouth, for the first time in one of these meetings without knowing what was going to come out of it. Into this dangerous breach Annie Mike said, without displaying any vulgar rush to fill the dangerous silence following Ulanie’s words, “Forgive the interruption, madam chair and ladies and gentlemen of the board, point of order?”
Kate’s mouth shut with a snap. “Yes, Ms. Mike?”
Unfazed, Annie said, “According to the bylaws, outside audits of nonprofit arms of the corporation will require a majority of the board as cosponsors.”
“So what?” Ulanie said. “Einar?”
“Excuse me, Ms. Anahonak,” Annie said, “but I believe the bylaws as written provided for a three-person majority of the original five-member board before a motion involving expenditure could even be proposed. This was, I believe, an attempt on the part of the Association’s founders to expedite debate and promote constructive action.”
For “Association’s founders” read Ekaterina Shugak, Kate thought, and for “expedite debate” read “avoid bloodshed during board meetings.” Clever Emaa.
Ulanie’s face had reddened and her mouth wasn’t pursed anymore, it was a tight, thin line.
“However, the language of the clause reads ‘a simple majority.’ ” Annie looked at Kate. There was the faintest suggestion of a raised eyebrow.
“Thank you, Ms. Mike,” Kate said, not a muscle moving on her face to reflect her inner rejoicing. She turned to Ulanie. “Ms. Anahonak, the board now numbers nine. A simple majority is five. As a matter affecting the debate, I would like to poll the board on those inclined to favor Ms. Anahonak’s motion.”
Ulanie’s hand shot up. Einar raised his hand. Harvey looked like he would have if he’d been in the majority. Everyone else’s hands stayed firmly at their sides. Kate said, “I move that we table Ms. Anahonak’s motion until the next board meeting, so that she will have had time to consult with her colleagues as to the, uh, viability of said motion.”
A Night Too Dark Page 27
