“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.…”
It was the one prayer everyone always knew all the words to, even people who never stepped inside a church except for weddings, funerals, and baptisms, and again, it conveyed comfort by its very familiarity. If her voice got a little louder when they came to “… forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us…,” no one betrayed awareness by so much as a raised eyebrow.
They ended by singing “Amazing Grace,” a hymn pitched for every voice, a song always improved by the number of voices singing it, and a first verse everyone knew the words to thanks to Joan Baez. They sang the first verse through twice, and Anne ended with a soft-voiced “Amen,” answered by the people gathered there in even softer voices, hands clasped, heads bent, as one repeating the word after her.
To Anne’s ears, their “Amen” had an ominous ring to it, a vow taken by everyone present except her. She turned so they wouldn’t see the dismay she was sure showed on her face, and busied herself by replacing the Bible in her bag. She removed the stole, kissed it, folded it carefully, and tucked it in next to the Bible.
When she turned again, Jennifer, her mother, and her aunt had whipped towels from the dishes loading down the kitchen table. “Reverend?” Jennifer’s mother said.
Anne, appreciative of the honor but knowing what was due, heaped a paper plate high with fried salmon, sticky rice, and macaroni and cheese and presented it along with a plastic fork to Pat Mack. He accepted it with a faint smile. As she turned back to the table, she saw approving looks from other elders and was thankful she hadn’t stepped in it during her first memorial service as the flying pastor.
She deliberately scored more points by smilingly refusing to accept a plate for herself until the rest of the elders had been served, which was when she realized that the number of elders in the village was totally out of proportion to its population. Of the thirty or so people there, more than half of them looked to be in their sixties and seventies and in Pat’s case, in his eighties. Dale Mack was one of only two men in their forties, and Jennifer’s mother only one of three women who were. Anne counted four grade-school children, no babies and no toddlers, and Jennifer the only teenage girl. There was a young man Anne was introduced to as Rick Estes by Dale Mack, who kept a fatherly hand on his shoulder as he did so. Rick was polite and nice-looking and couldn’t keep his eyes from straying in whatever direction Dale’s daughter, Jennifer, was moving. He was of course not alone in that, but besides Rick, there were only three other men of his age.
From what Anne could tell, Jennifer was superbly indifferent to them all. She moved through the crowd dispensing napkins and refills of water and pop with friendly smiles, and then with a nod at her mother was out the door. Rick Estes almost rose to his feet to follow her, but Dale Mack, unattending, put a hand on his arm and drew him into a conversation with a couple of elders.
Anne only hoped her own daughters would be able to handle that much attention that well when they were her age. Of course, if Jean-Luc Picard showed up, all bets were off.
She turned her thoughts back to the room. A depleted population was a sight she found all too familiar in the downriver villages. There were no jobs, and the subsistence lifestyle receded farther into the past every time someone of the next generation turned on a television with a satellite feed and saw all the wonders of the world available to them if only they lived in Fairbanks or Anchorage.
Everyone was speaking English, either out of respect for the Anglo flying pastor’s presence or because their ancestral Athabascan had been lost to them over the years. Probably a combination of both. She smiled and nodded and praised the food and listened to stories of Tyler Mack as a little boy, although these were few in number and most of them rendered almost incomprehensible by the mouths full of missing teeth that were relating them. She kept an attentive smile fixed to her face and an ear tuned for other stories beyond the ones being told to her face, and caught a few snippets that tantalized in their brevity and provocation. Most were spoken by the younger men.
“I don’t see why we have to wait on what Rick finds out from Boris.”
“Yeah. Not like we don’t know who.”
“Rose, I think her heart broken by that overriver boy.”
“Alacka. The young heart all the time broken.”
“Catch is way down compared to last year. I don’t know how we’re going to pay for fuel come winter.”
“Still got plenty of trees.”
“I hear Viola Shugak is running the Niniltna store now.”
“Still going to be cheaper than shopping in Kuskulana. You know they double the prices the minute we walk in the door.”
“Think the trooper made it?”
This speaker was immediately hushed, and Anne remembered the damp and wrinkled state of Jim Chopin’s uniform.
Someone plucked at her sleeve, and she turned her head to see the round, foolish face of Jennifer Mack’s auntie Nan standing at her elbow. “Missus Priest, can I see you outside? Just for a minute?” She spoke barely above a whisper, her head turned as if to hide what she was saying from whoever might be watching.
“Of course.” Anne, oppressed by the dimness of the room and the weight of old resentments and secrets, could do with some fresh air. She made as if to put her plate down.
Nan clutched at her arm. “No, no. I go away. You wait, Missus Priest, you wait. A little while goes by and then you come outside. No one come with you. Please?”
The urgency in Auntie Nan’s voice was obvious and compelling. Instead of putting her plate down, Anne turned the movement into another forkful of mac and cheese, and bent her head to listen to an old woman tell a story in English so heavily accented, she couldn’t make out any word except “raven.” She laughed when everyone else did, and when she stopped found Jennifer’s mother at her side. For the life of her, she could not remember her hostess’s name, and eating her food under her roof was not the time to ask. “Would you like some more, Reverend?”
“No, no, thank you, I’ve had too much as it is. It was all so wonderful, though, thank you so much.”
The other woman took her plate, and Anne said, “Is there a—?”
Mrs. Mack flushed. “I’m afraid it’s outside.”
“Not a problem,” Anne said. “Where—?”
Mrs. Mack pointed, and Anne escaped.
Outside she stood blinking in the bright sunlight. The air was made sweet by the scents of cottonwood and alder, while birdsong came at her in surround sound. The voices in the cabin continued in their steady, somehow vaguely sinister hum. Auntie Nan was nowhere to be seen, and thinking she might as well avail herself of the premises, such as they were, she went around behind the cabin.
When she came out again, Auntie Nan was waiting for her. “You come now, Missus Priest,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder at Dale Mack’s cabin.
Anne, still a little dazed from the brilliant sunshine, went without asking why.
Nan led the way, down a narrow almost invisible path that began where the village met the woods. After a while Anne noticed that Nan was carrying a rectangular black bag with a headset peeking out of it.
Anne’s bag, in fact.
Fifteen minutes later, they were in a little clearing.
Two people waited there. One was Jennifer Mack. The other was a young man Anne did not know.
When they told her what they wanted, she said, “No. Absolutely not. Out of the question.”
They explained further, and she said, “But—”
More talk, and she said, “If you’re underage—”
They talked for a while longer, and she said, “Without a license—”
When the time came, Auntie Nan was at her elbow, waiting, Anne’s stole in one hand and Anne’s Bible in the other.
When it was done, the other three vanished into the trees, Auntie Nan and Jennifer down the trail to the village and the young man in the opposite direction. Anne wa
s left standing alone in the little clearing, wondering if she had just dreamed it all.
She repacked the stole and the Bible, picked up her bag, and found the path. It felt narrower, somehow, and darker, as if the sun-dappled woodland she had passed through not half an hour before had transformed itself into a threat to take back the townsite of Kushtaka one leaf, one branch, one root at a time. And maybe anyone it found wandering on the path while it was at it.
She burst out of the trees and into the village, panting, sweat beading her forehead. What have I done? she thought, panicking.
She said the words out loud. “God in heaven, what have I done?”
The murmur of voices inside the Macks’ cabin had risen since she left it. People were yelling at one another, men and women both, and as Anne stood there, there was a sudden sound of flesh on flesh. One of the young men staggered backwards out of the open door, followed by another ready to take another swing. They weren’t drunk. They were angry, and they were taking it out on each other with their fists.
The rest of the village’s population poured out of the Mack house, looking more like a mob than like a civilizing force. Then Pat Mack saw Anne standing there and nudged someone else. Everyone who wasn’t fighting waded in and took an arm or a leg and it was over.
Dale’s wife came over and, red-faced, apologized. “Please don’t think we’re like this,” she said. “This isn’t us. Usually.”
Over her shoulder, Anne caught a glimpse of Jennifer, standing in the doorway of the cabin with her arms folded across her breast. She looked at Anne over her mother’s shoulder, her eyes dark and proud and unyielding, before she vanished back inside.
Later, sitting in the skiff carrying her back to the Kuskulana landing, Anne thought again, What have I done?
It was an unwritten law. Like a doctor’s obligation to his patient, a pastor’s first duty to her flock was to first do no harm.
But if she had helped put out the fire before it started? she thought, almost despairingly.
Surely that was a good thing?
Twelve
THURSDAY, JULY 12, AN HOUR LATER
Kuskulana
What members of the Kuskulana village council weren’t fishing somewhere in Prince William Sound met at the chief’s house. The tale was quickly told.
“Jesus,” somebody said, “they coulda killed the trooper.”
“They don’t care,” someone else said. “Those Kushtakers still think it’s 1777, when Alaska wasn’t even a twinkle in Captain Cook’s eye.”
“Let it be a lesson to him not to interfere in their affairs,” said the first man, “is the way they’d think of it.”
“True,” Roger said. “But now I’ve got to go get my skiff off the bottom of the Gruening River. Along with everything else, it’s a fucking hazard to navigation.”
“See what being a good citizen gets you?” the second man said.
The laughter that followed was grim and soon silenced. Still, after some discussion, the consensus was that it was Kushtaka’s problem. A Kushtaka boy was dead, which was sad, but he wasn’t a Kuskulana boy, which would have been a lot more sad and might have required action on their part, and summer was a busy enough time already without dealing with a cross-river feud that had been ongoing since before statehood.
At this inopportune moment, there was a knock on the door. Roger opened it and found Kenny Halvorsen standing on the other side. He was in his mid-twenties, of medium height and build, with dishwater blond hair unevenly cut and brown eyes. He wore frayed jeans with a faded Raven, Inc., sweatshirt and a pair of XtraTufs rolled down. He was unshaven and gaunt and his eyes were red, as if he were hungover. Or, unthinkably, had been crying. “Mitch is dead,” he said.
Roger blinked at him. “What?”
“Mitch,” Kenny said, “Mitchell Halvorsen, my brother, is dead. Something wrong with your hearing? Or you high muckety-mucks just don’t want to remember there are Halvorsens living in your village, too?”
Roger bristled, but Carol appeared next to him and laid a calming hand on his arm. “What’s this all about, Kenny? Did I hear you say something about Mitch?”
Kenny’s voice rose. “He’s dead, goddammit, dead! Those fucking Kushtakers killed him, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it!”
* * *
“Have you heard from Ryan?” Roger said when they were home again.
Carol looked surprised. “No. Have you?”
Roger felt a sick feeling somewhere behind his breastbone, and did his best not to let it show. “I tried calling him on his cell,” he said, trying for offhand. “He didn’t pick up.”
But they’d been married too long. “They’re probably halfway down the Kanuyaq by now,” Carol said, as if willing both of them to believe it, “camped out on purpose in some dead spot so they can party without their parents calling them every five minutes.”
He didn’t say anything, and her eyes narrowed. “Ryan didn’t have anything to do with this, Roger.”
He waved a hand. “No, no, of course not.” He hesitated. “If he knew about Mitch—”
“He didn’t,” Carol said in her chief’s voice.
Roger didn’t reply, but the crease between his brows deepened.
Thirteen
THURSDAY, JULY 12
Kuskulana
Jim was starting to feel as if he could find his way from Niniltna to Kuskulana blindfolded. “Roger,” he said as he stepped from the Cessna.
“Jim,” Roger said.
He looked unhappy, and Jim couldn’t tell if it was because he was entertaining the state trooper unawares for the second time that day or just because of the general situation. There was plenty to be unhappy about, all right. Jim reached into the plane for his crime scene bag and closed the Cessna’s door. “Take me to him.”
* * *
The body was in the crawl space of one of the two houses under construction that Jim had noticed the last time he was in Kuskulana. As he clocked it, all of two hours before. It seemed a lot closer to town from the air than it did on the ground. It was situated south and east, half a mile from the village down a rudimentary road a pickup truck wide with a couple of serious bends in it.
The crawl space beneath the unfinished house was four inches short of allowing him to stand upright, and his back protested at the necessary stoop. He ignored it, and continued to play the beam of his flashlight around the dark subterranean space, made more claustrophobic by the boxes of various sizes and shapes stacked around it. Above his head was the only light source, an open hatch through which the sunshine streamed, where it wasn’t blocked by the half dozen heads peering down, Roger and others of his village cohorts who had been summoned to the scene.
“Get out of the light, guys?” Jim said.
Not one of them moved.
Squarely in the patch of interrupted light lay the body. This was Mitchell Halvorsen, although Jim would have to take the Kuskulanans’ word for it until the ME made a positive, because the body had decayed to the point of unrecognizability. The smell was pretty bad.
A rough but sturdy ladder built of two-by-fours led from the floor above to the crawl space. The body lay next to it, on its left side, knees bent, as if it had been sitting, back to the ladder, and then fallen over. As his flashlight moved up the torso, the face seemed to move.
The flashlight jerked in his hand. It took all of his considerable self-control not to leap for the ladder. Big tough Alaska State Trooper.
“Jesus!” someone said above him, a different voice this time.
Swallowing hard, he bent forward to look at the face more closely. “It’s just bugs, eating on him.”
“‘Just,’” the voice said weakly. “Jesus.”
“I think I’m gonna hurl,” a third voice said.
“Not into the crawl space,” Jim said, pitching his voice to be heard, and was rewarded by a scramble of feet and legs, rapid footsteps, and the distant sound of retching.
Maybe his r
eputation for sangfroid was safe after all. He bent over the corpse, but didn’t see anything new. He took a long last look around the crawl space. Now that his eyes had become more accustomed to the dark, he saw that the boxes were mostly cardboard with the names of the contents scrawled on the sides, DISHES, TOWELS, SILVERWARE, SHEETS. They lined the four walls of the space, leaving the area in the center, where the ladder led down from the hatch, free. The floor of the crawl space was packed ground covered in sheets of clear, heavy-duty plastic, which so far as Jim could tell, ran up all four sides of the space. There was no kiss of moisture on his cheek. He couldn’t smell so much as a single spore of mildew. Good construction job. Hermetically sealed, practically.
He looked at the body at his feet.
Tomblike, even.
The dust lay thick on the plastic underfoot, scuffed by innumerable footprints. It also showed the markings of many more boxes than currently present.
He got out his phone and switched on the camera, with flash.
Ten minutes later, he was back in the waning sunlight of his second evening on the Gruening River in three days, the body in a bag on the unfinished floor of the house next to him. Roger and four of the other Kuskulanans watched him with much the same appalled expression. The sixth man, younger, red-eyed and wild-haired, was staring at Kate.
She’d been coming out of the post office when he’d touched down in Niniltna, and had ridden shotgun back to Kuskulana. Now she stood to one side, meditating on a fine old paper birch growing at the edge of the clearing, hands in her pockets. The hatch to the crawl space was in front of her. One toe was tapping it thoughtfully, as if keeping time to some song only she could hear. Mutt was standing next to her, alert and watchful.
Jim slotted his flashlight back into his belt and pulled off his cap to wipe a clammy forehead on his uniform sleeve, taking a couple of steps forward to stand beside her, ostensibly to clear out his lungs. Almost as an afterthought, he bent over to look at the hatch, both sides, very slowly and very carefully indeed.
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