Whisper to the Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  Although even the aunties had their blind spots. Willard Shugak was one. And to Kate’s considerable surprise, Howie Katelnikof was another, or had become one lately. Perhaps they had decided that now that he was out from under the influence of Louis Deem, Howie deserved their best redemptive effort. If so, Kate didn’t think turning a blind eye to Howie’s repeat offender status was quite the right tack.

  Kate had her own issues with Howie Katelnikof. However, she knew that Howie wasn’t smart enough to stay out of trouble for long. She could wait.

  “I don’t like mine, Katya,” Auntie Vi said again, and Kate was recalled to the present.

  “I don’t, either, Auntie,” Kate said, “but you can’t stop it.”

  Auntie Vi’s expression became, naturally, even more obdurate. “Why not?”

  Johnny clattered in the door and headed for the kitchen with the single-minded voracity of the average adolescent. “Fuggedaboutit!” Kate said. “Wash those hands or you go hungry.”

  Johnny rolled his eyes and muttered something about Kate’s anal attention to personal hygiene and stamped into the bathroom. Kate served the sandwiches cut in halves with a bowl of tortilla chips and another of salsa. Johnny dived in like he hadn’t eaten in a month, and Kate, a notorious feeder, tucked in with only marginally less appreciation, while Auntie Vi nibbled around the edges of her half of a sandwich with the air of someone who seldom ventured beyond the realm of PBJ on pilot bread, and who liked it that way just fine, thank you. An occasional desecration of mac and cheese by diced ham was about as far into the culinary wilderness as any of the four aunties cared to go.

  Afterward Johnny cleared the table and washed up and Kate walked Auntie Vi to her car. “Look at it this way, Auntie,” Kate said. “We’re Alaskan citizens. We’ll get royalties. More, as citizens of the region, we’ll get jobs. If there’s steady work, maybe some of the kids will move home from Anchorage. Maybe some of them won’t leave in the first place.”

  Auntie Vi closed the driver-side door and Kate thought she might have gotten away clean, until Auntie Vi rolled down her window. “That what you say at meeting?”

  Kate’s heart sank. “The board meeting?”

  Auntie Vi gave her an impatient look. “What other meeting there is?”

  The board of directors of the Niniltna Native Association met quarterly, in January, April, July, and October. Last year, board president and NNA CEO Billy Mike had died, leaving a vacancy. Without even running, indeed over her strong objections, Kate had been nominated to fill out the rest of his term, largely at the instigation of the diminutive woman at present fixing her with the beady eye through the car window.

  Kate had missed her first NNA board meeting in July by virtue of the fact that she had been deckhanding for Old Sam Dementieff during the salmon season. Disapproval of her dereliction of duty was ameliorated by the fact that three other board members, Demetri Totemoff, Harvey Meganack, and Old Sam himself, were also fishing. Impossible to argue with the fact that everyone needed to make a living, and that in Alaska much of the time that meant working through the summer. So it was with a reasonable certainty that she would not be scolded, at least not for that, that Kate felt she could say, “I’m not Emaa, Auntie.”

  “Nobody say so,” Auntie Vi said.

  “Like hell,” Kate said.

  Auntie Vi looked away, scowling to hide what Kate knew was a beginning smile. Kate was the only one who dared to lip off to Auntie Vi, and though she’d never admit it, Auntie Vi enjoyed the fight.

  “I’m not Emaa,” Kate said again. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am. Running the Niniltna Native Association for the rest of my life is not on my agenda. I’ve got a life, I have a job that pays pretty well, I have Johnny to provide for, and I have a home to look after. Don’t say it!” She held up a hand, palm out.

  Auntie Vi did her best to look wounded. “Not say nothing.”

  “Yeah, but you were thinking it.” They both looked at the house, a virtual palace by Park standards, built in three days and change by a volunteer army of Park rats. “I’m grateful, I always will be, but not to the point of indentured servitude.”

  “You not coming to meeting?” Auntie Vi said sharply.

  Kate sighed. The next meeting was October 15th, a month away. “Of course I’m coming. I said I would, and I don’t make promises I’m not going to keep.”

  “So you saying what, then?”

  “I’m saying I’m not Emaa,” Kate said, meeting Auntie Vi’s eyes without flinching. “I am not my grandmother. Don’t think I’m going to lead an effort against the Suulutaq Mine. I’m not against progress. I’m not against change. I’m not against industry coming into the Park, especially if it’s going to bring jobs with it.”

  Auntie Vi was staring at her with a stony expression, and Kate smiled, a little grimly. “Kinda sorry you forced me onto the board now, aren’t you, Auntie?”

  Auntie Vi snorted, and thereby avoided a direct answer to a simple question, a skill all the aunties were famous for. “You say mine bring jobs. Hah! Jobs for Outsiders, maybe. No jobs for us.”

  “Auntie,” Kate said. “The mine workers are going to need a place to wash their clothes. They’re going to want to buy potato chips. They’re going to want to mail packages. Sometimes they’re just going to want a night away from camp, out on the town, even if that town is dry. They can buy a burger and a latte at the Riverside, cookies at one of the basketball team’s bake sales. They could even have a beer at Bernie’s if they can score a ride that far. Two thousand workers during construction, Auntie. Niniltna will be the closest community to them.” Kate shrugged. “We’ve even got a road out. Well. For half the year anyway.”

  Auntie Vi leveled an admonitory finger. “What about road, Katya? Not good enough for big trucks. They pave it, then what?”

  The thought of semi-tractor trailers running in and out of the Park a quarter of a mile from her doorstep did not please Kate at all. “Hah!” Auntie Vi said, triumphant. “Everything change with mine, Katya. Everything! Not just digging big hole in some land away far from here.” She started the engine. “You be at that meeting.”

  “I said I would be, Auntie.”

  “October fifteenth!”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  “That on a Wednesday!”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  “Ten A.M.!”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  Auntie Vi nodded, a sharp, valedictory movement. “You be there.”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  Auntie Vi held up a finger. “Forgot.” She jerked a thumb backward. “I bring something to you.”

  Kate opened the rear passenger-side door and found a small U-Haul box. “What’s this?”

  “Association stuff. You take.”

  “I’ve got the newsletter, Auntie, I don’t need—”

  “You take!”

  Kate took, and without further ado or admonition Auntie Vi stepped on the gas. The Explorer wheeled around in something approaching a brodie, narrowly missing Mutt emerging incautiously from the brush. She yelped and affected a kind of reverse vertical insertion, levitating up and back so that Auntie Vi’s tires just missed her toes. She looked at Kate, ears straight up and yellow eyes wide.

  “You got off lucky,” Kate said. She turned to see Johnny had come out on the railing of the deck.

  “So,” he said, “you going to that meeting next month?”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  He leaned on the railing and grinned. “You know. The one on Wednesday?”

  She dumped the box in the back of his truck and started for the house.

  “On the fifteenth?” He started to back up. “You know, the one at ten A.M.?”

  She hit the bottom stair and he ran for his life.

  CHAPTER 3

  Johnny sat very straight behind the wheel of his pickup as he made his first solo journey into Niniltna the next morning. He drove with sobriety and caution, and pulled into Annie Mike’s driveway wit
h nary a flourish.

  This sedate impression of middle age disintegrated when the front door opened and Van stepped out onto the porch.

  Vanessa Cox’s posture was so good that she would always seem taller than she was. Her dark hair was thick, fine, and straight, cut bluntly to brush her shoulders, with a spiky fringe to frame her dark eyes. She had a slim, straight nose, a full, firm mouth, and a delicately pointed chin.

  For years her attire had consisted of bibbed denim overalls with a marsupial front pocket and buckled shoulder straps, worn over a T-shirt in summer and a turtleneck in winter, usually accessorized with Xtra Tuffs and a down jacket. Recently, her wardrobe had expanded to include low-rider jeans, cropped T-shirts, and Uggs. She wore thin gold hoops in her ears and her lips shone with gloss.

  Johnny didn’t notice any of this in detail, of course. All he knew was that his best buddy Van had suddenly and inexplicably turned into a girl. “You look good,” he said.

  Her answering smile revealed a surprising set of dimples, a crooked left incisor, and a sparkle in her eyes that was as unsettling as it was exhilarating. “Thank you,” she said demurely.

  “Want a ride?”

  She hopped in without answering. He may have put a little more English on his departure than he had on his arrival, and who can blame him?

  It was a beautiful day, barely a wisp of cloud to obstruct the view of the Quilak Mountains scratching a harsh line into the eastern sky. The Kanuyaq was as yet ice-free, and running low after a dry spring and a warm summer had pushed all the snowmelt down to the Gulf. The days were crisp, the nights cool but not yet cold. Canada geese practiced their V formations overhead, browsing moose cows were waiting for the siren call of moose bulls in rut, and two yearling grizzly cubs shot across the road inches in front of the blue pickup’s bumper. Johnny took his foot off the gas but retained enough wit not to stamp on the brakes, and the cubs’ hindquarters disappeared into the brush on the other side of the road. A second later and he would have clipped their hindquarters.

  Johnny pulled to a halt at the corner, where Annie’s driveway met the road to the Niniltna School, and paused. He looked at Van and suddenly driving up to school in his very own vehicle in front of all the kids seemed less appealing. On impulse, he turned left.

  “This isn’t the way to school,” Van said. She had her window down and the cab was filled with the sound of dry leaves and fallen spruce needles crinkling beneath the truck’s tires.

  “I was thinking we could skip.”

  “Skip school?” she said.

  “Just once,” he said. He patted the steering wheel and gave her a sidelong grin. “We don’t have to make a habit out of it, but today’s kind of a special day.”

  She considered. “Where do you want to go?”

  There weren’t a lot of places to hang out in the Park, and that was a fact. “We could go watch the bears at the dump,” he said.

  She smiled. “Been there, done that.”

  “It’s a nice day. We could hike up to the Lost Wife Mine.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel like sweating.”

  “Riverside Café and the espresso drink of your choice?”

  She raised one shoulder and let it fall. She turned her head and opened her eyes. One eyebrow might have raised, ever so slightly.

  “Want to go to Ahtna?” he said.

  Technically, he had his driver’s license. He had his own truck in his own name, bought and paid for with his own money, earned in a dozen odd jobs. He had deckhanded with Kate for Old Sam Dementieff the previous summer. He’d hauled, cut, and stacked wood for Auntie Balasha, Auntie Joy, Auntie Vi, and Annie Mike. He’d swabbed floors at the Roadhouse and canned salmon for Demetri Totemoff. He’d even helped Matt Grosdidier smoke silver salmon the month before, although for that job he’d gotten paid in fish, not that he was complaining. Neither was Kate. He’d even filed paperwork for Ranger Dan and Chopper Jim.

  And it wasn’t like Kate had told him he couldn’t go to Ahtna if he wanted to. Of course, he hadn’t asked her. Mostly because he had had a pretty good idea of what her answer would be, especially if he was cutting school the second week of the year, and using his brand-new truck to do it. And then of course there was the little matter of his license being provisional until he was eighteen. He could drive himself but he wasn’t supposed to drive anyone else underage. But who bothered with that in the Bush?

  He had a niggling feeling that Kate and Jim both might have an answer for that. What they would like even less was their destination. Ahtna was a big town, over three thousand in the town proper. Every student in Park schools had been weaned on stories about the kids at Peratrovich High.

  Ahtna was the biggest town closest to the Park, bigger even than Cordova, and you had to fly or take a boat to Cordova. Ahtna had a movie theater, a courthouse, a DMV, a Safeway, and a Costco, making it the market town for the Park. It had bars, and two liquor stores. The Park had Bernie’s Roadhouse, where owner, proprietor, and bartender Bernie Koslowski by virtue of also being the Niniltna basketball coach knew the birthday of every kid in the Park. There was no buying a drink at the Roadhouse if you were underage.

  Ahtna was a different story. It was easy, so they said, to get lost in the crowd in Ahtna. It was easy to pass for legal. All you needed was a fake ID, and sometimes you didn’t even need that. The very mention of Ahtna’s name brought an intoxicating whiff of sin to any Niniltnan in his or her teens, and a corresponding shiver of fear to their parents.

  But “Sure,” Van said, before he could think better of his invitation, and smiled at him again.

  They went to Ahtna forthwith.

  It wasn’t an easy drive, a battered gravel road that had begun life as a remnant of the railroad roadbed for the Kanuyaq River & Northern Railroad, built to haul copper ore from the Kanuyaq copper mine to the seaport in Cordova, there to be loaded onto bulk carriers and shipped to foundries Outside. The copper ran out after thirty years and the mining company left, pulling up the railroad tracks behind it. Unfortunately, they weren’t quite as conscientious about the railroad spikes that had held the tracks together.

  The road had not improved in the interim. Maintained by a state grader twice a year, once in the spring after breakup and once in the fall before the first snow, it was ridged and potholed, with shoulders crumbling to narrow a road that was barely wide enough for one car to begin with. Overgrown in some places with alder and stands of rusty brown spruce killed from the spruce bark beetle, and with cottonwoods where it crossed creeks, the road of necessity to its original purpose followed the most level possible ground, which meant it followed the twisting, winding course of one river and creek after another, which did not make for good visibility. Head-on collisions were frequent occurrences, as were sideswipes and rollovers, as the only places to pull over were the trailheads into cabins, homesteads, mining claims, and fish camps.

  Johnny negotiated all these hazards more or less successfully, and even managed to cross the bridge at Lost Chance Creek without incident. It was a relief when they hit pavement just outside of Ahtna. When he’d driven that road the last time, he’d had Kate with him. Kate was the grown-up, his legal guardian, and as such responsible for him. This time, he was with Vanessa. It was his truck, and it had been his idea to go to Ahtna. Plus, she had that whole girl thing going on.

  Not that he ever thought of women as the weaker sex, in need of protection from the big strong he-man. Not with Kate Shugak an in-his-face example every day, he didn’t. It was just . . . well, he wasn’t sure just what it was. All he knew was that this trip was his responsibility and he didn’t want it ending in a ditch somewhere between Ahtna and Niniltna.

  Van gave a little wriggle of delight when the ride smoothed out and all seven thousand parts of the pickup stopped banging against each other, which noise was replaced by the hiss of vulcanized rubber on asphalt. “I love paved roads,” she said.

  He grinned at her. “Me, too. So, where do you want to
go first?”

  “Costco,” she said instantly.

  He pretended to groan. “Shopping. I shoulda known. Do you have a card?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “I’m on Annie’s family card.”

  So they spent a solid hour in the hangar-sized big box, Van trying on every item of clothing, male and female, there was on offer, Johnny mooning up and down the tools and auto parts aisles, and both of them drifting inexorably to the book table.

  “That was fun,” she said as they were leaving.

  He gave her a quizzical look. “We didn’t buy anything.”

  She gave him a sunny smile. “So what? Someday we will.”

  He laughed. “Okay. Where next? You hungry?”

  “Starving!”

  He could have taken her to McDonald’s—Ahtna had one of those, too—but Johnny was determined to be cooler than that. “Can we afford this?” she said, wide-eyed, as they pulled into the parking lot of the Ahtna Lodge.

  He grinned at her. “I didn’t spend all my money on Old Blue, here,” he said, patting the dashboard. He opened the door and said over his shoulder, “Most of it, but not all of it.” His grin widened when he heard her laugh behind him. She’d had the same laugh since he’d first met her, a loud, brash blare of no-holds-barred amusement that sounded like it came right out of one of the songs of those old blues singers Kate listened to sometimes, raunchy, rough-edged, knowing, sad. He’d seen adults startled and sometimes alarmed by that laugh, as if they hadn’t expected it to come out of the mouth of someone so quiet, or so young.

  He didn’t see the man in the parking lot turn his head at the sound of that laugh, gaze at Van for a moment, and then look at Johnny. He didn’t see the man’s eyes widen. Johnny held out his hand and Van came around the front of the pickup and took it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if they’d been holding hands for years.

  They walked up the steps and through the restaurant doors. A slender, dark-haired man with a gold hoop earring in one ear and a white apron wrapped twice around his slim waist spotted Johnny at once. “Hey, kid,” he said, shifting the tray of dirty dishes he was holding from one shoulder to the other so he could shake Johnny’s hand. “How you been? How’s Kate?”