Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 06 - Blood Will Tell

by Blood Will Tell(lit)

  "I was thinking I was shooting a moose where my dad shot his moose.

  "I was thinking his dad's dad shot his moose there.

  "I was thinking I would pick cranberries to go with that moose.

  "I was thinking I would be picking those berries the same place my mother picked those berries." "Yes," a woman's voice said from the audience. "I was thinking I would be picking those berries the same place my mother's mother picked those berries.

  "That moose, those berries, they will feed me, the same way they fed my mother and father, the same way they fed my grandmother and grandfather.

  "But they won't take away my hunger."

  "No," the voice in the audience said. "No," echoed someone else.

  "That moose, I shoot it where my father shoots his moose, I shoot it where my grandfather shoots his moose."

  "Yes."

  "Yes."

  "Yes!"

  "Those berries, I pick them where my mother picks them, I pick them where my grandmother picks them."

  "Yes!"

  "The land is my culture. The land is my history. The land is my living.

  It feeds me, it clothes me, it teaches me."

  "Yes!"

  "The moose."

  "Yes!"

  "The berries."

  "Yes!"

  "The caribou."

  "Yes!"

  "The salmon."

  "YES!"

  "The moose, the berries, the caribou, the salmon, the beaver, the marten, the otter, the wolf, these are my mother and my father, these are my brothers and my sisters. They feed me, they clothe me, they house me. The Old Woman She Keeps the Tides for me. Raven he gives me the land and the light. Agudar he guides me."

  Agudar must have been guiding her then because she was speaking in tongues, without conscious thought, in the grip of an exhilaration as unexpected as it was unidentifiable. The crowd was on its feet, cheering her on, and she felt their support as a physical presence. Johnny stared at her from the front row, openmouthed.

  "I say," she said, grasping the sides of the podium with fingers numb from the force of her grip, "I say that when a thousand years of history and culture is judged illegal, then the law is wrong, not the People."

  The crowd cried out its approval, and Kate had to raise her voice to invoke the traditional end of the story.

  "That's all!"

  There was such a roaring in her ears when she collapsed into her chair that she was afraid for a moment that she might faint. It took a moment to realize that the sound was the beating together of hundreds of palms, the shouting of hundreds of voices.

  Olga was looking at her with wonder. The older woman started to say something, realized she would go unheard over the noise, and closed her mouth. Slowly, her hands came up and began to clap. The other panel members joined in. The room echoed with it. Mutt was on her feet, gazing at Kate with wide, alarmed eyes.

  Kate was frightened. She didn't want to be good at this kind of thing.

  What frightened her even more was how much she had enjoyed it.

  NINE.

  KATE DROPPED JOHNNY AT JACK'S OFFICE AND DROVE TO the Sheraton, parking in the rear with Mutt sacked out on the back seat.

  She'd had a long night, too.

  Ekaterina was waiting in the cafe at a booth next to the window. Kate was happy to see the lines of her face had relaxed and smoothed out.

  Ekaterina looked almost sixty again. "How do you feel?"

  Ekaterina brushed the question aside. "Fine. All I needed was a little nap. How did the panel go?"

  "Fine." Kate picked up the menu. Her stomach was growling, she hoped loudly enough for Ekaterina to hear.

  If Ekaterina heard it, she ignored it. "I hear you made a speech."

  Kate sighed and put down the menu. "Who called?"

  "Who didn't?" Ekaterina said.

  Kate picked up the menu again, concentrating on the sandwiches, feeling color creep up into her cheeks. "All I did was tell a story."

  "Ay, that one must have been some story."

  Kate looked up sharply and surprised a twinkle in her grandmother's eye.

  She dropped her head before an answering smile crossed her face. "Is there a cheeseburger on this menu that costs less than ten bucks?"

  "Hotel food," Ekaterina said, letting the subject go, much to Kate's relief.

  They ordered. The waitress took away their menus and Kate had nothing left to hide behind. Now was the time for her to report to her employer on the early-morning raid on Dischner's offices. "Dammit, emaa," she said, suddenly angry and exasperated, "what the hell is going on?"

  Ekaterina looked startled at the sudden attack. "With what?"

  "Emaa, don't do this to me again, please!"

  Ekaterina managed to look even more mystified. "Don't do what again?"

  Kate wasn't buying it. "Don't do to me what you did when I was trying to find out who killed Ken and that ranger. What the hell is going on? You come out to the homestead and tell me that Sarah is dead and there's a problem with the board over Iqaluk. Now Enakenty is dead, too, and I find out that you didn't tell me Lew Mathisen is involved, that Axenia probably got him involved, and you sure as hell didn't tell me Edgar Dischner is involved. So I'm asking. What the hell is going on?"

  Ekaterina said nothing, and exasperated, Kate said, "What is it? Is it Axenia? Are you afraid of what I'm going to find out about her? Emaa, talk to me!"

  The waitress brought Kate's Diet 7-Up and Ekaterina's tea. Ekaterina waited until she had left again before meeting Kate's angry, anxious eyes, her own steady and unreadable. "You're the investigator, Katya."

  She made an indefinable gesture with one hand. "Investigate."

  Kate could have lost her temper at that point. Instead she repeated,

  "Are you afraid of what I'll find out about Axenia? Is that it? If it is, I can find some way to fix it, but I have to know, now, before I dig any further into this mess, and believe me, emaa, it is a four-star, government-certified, Olympic gold medal mess."

  Ekaterina said nothing.

  Kate said, getting desperate, "They would need someone on the inside, and Axenia's an ideal candidate. Is that what happened? Did Mathisen romance her because she's a share holder of the corporation that is contesting ownership of Iqaluk?" Ekaterina said nothing. A cloud moved across the sun, and for a fleeting moment the change of light brought all the lines back to her skin, draining her face of the vigor that had once characterized it. "Are you sure you're feeling all right, emaa?"

  Kate said, brows coming together.

  "I'm fine," Ekaterina said testily. "Stop pestering me."

  "Fine," Kate snapped.

  "Good," Ekaterina snapped back.

  The food arrived and they ate in silence.

  Kate mopped up salt with her last french fry and tried one last time.

  "Whatever I find, I won't hide it, emaa. If you don't help me, I won't be able to."

  Ekaterina said nothing.

  Kate left the hotel in a quiet rage and hit the first pay phone she saw, punching out the 800 number of Jane's credit union with savage precision. "Account number?" She gave it. "Password?" She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Ward well. W-A-R-D-W-E-L-L. Yes, that's right.

  Yes, I need to withdraw five thousand dollars, and I would like that in a cashier's check, please. Yes, I'll be picking that up in person. Which branch?" From Jane's statements it looked like she did most of her business at the Juneau Street branch, which made sense since Jane worked downtown and lived in Muldoon. "The Benson branch, please." They wouldn't know Jane at the Benson branch. They might keep the check waiting---and the $5,000 out of her account--for days, maybe even as much as a week. "Yes. Yes. Thank you." She hung up and dialed the 800 number for Starbuck's. Jane sent a Braun coffee maker and an assortment of coffees to her mother, her boss and Archbishop Francis T. Hurley.

  Kate hung up for the second time. It hadn't helped; she was still mad, and she drove around until she found an automatic teller an
d withdrew another $300 from Jane's account. She took the cash to the post office on Ingra and bought a money order and a stamped envelope. She addressed the envelope to Family Planning in Fairbanks, stuck the money order inside and dropped it into the mail chute.

  She felt a little better then but no less determined. With a single-minded sense of purpose she ran Axenia to earth in her own office.

  Except that she no longer worked there.

  Two years before Kate, through Jack, had put Axenia to work typing, filing and answering the phone at the state district attorney's office.

  The pay wasn't bad and the benefits were excellent, and Kate had extracted a promise from Axenia to start taking classes at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She didn't care what classes, she told Axenia, she didn't care if she wound up majoring in Eastern religions, she just wanted her taking a class every semester for a couple of years.

  Maybe she'd find a discipline she'd like to pursue to a degree, maybe not; regardless, the experience wouldn't hurt her, and it was one way to make friends. Town life could be lonely for bush refugees; Kate knew from personal experience. At that point in Axenia's life, Kate thought that rubbing elbows with the kind of people determined to get themselves an education was just what Axenia, a directionless, eighteen-year-old adolescent ruled by her hormones, needed more than anything else. Kate had been subsidizing Axenia's education at $64 a credit hour for the price of a copy of Axenia's grade slip every semester. Kate had followed her cousin's academic career with interest and some amusement, from Introduction to Criminal Justice, which she found mildly nattering, to Accounting 101, in which Axenia floored her by getting an A. When Axenia took English 111, she knew she had won. The only thing other than gun-point that would get Axenia into an English class was the fact that it was required for a degree.

  "When did she quit?" Kate asked. If it had been in September, maybe Axenia was going to school full-time.

  The fresh-faced girl sitting behind what had been Axenia's desk was dressed as if she'd just come off a Nordstrom shopping spree with Jack Morgan, only her purpose had been to Dress for Success instead of Dress to Kill. "I don't know," she said, helpless. The phone rang and the girl picked it up. "District Attorney's office, how may I help you?" She listened, concentration marring her nineteen year-old brow. "Certainly, sir, I'll put you right through." She pressed a button, said, "Mr.

  Bickford is on line three, ma'am," listened to make sure the connection was made, and hung up with an air of subdued triumph that broadcast how new she was to the job. She caught sight of Kate again and her face puckered back into its worried frown. "Oh. Ah. Yes. Axenia. As I said, ma'am, I don't know when she quit. She wasn't here when I was hired, and I don't know where she is now."

  With infinite patience, Kate inquired, "Might there be someone here who does?"

  "Shugak!" she heard a voice say from the doorway. She turned to see a big-bellied man with-a red face and a huge grin coming toward her.

  "Brendan?" she said. She was engulfed in a comprehensive embrace from which she feared she would not emerge alive, and said, voice muffled,

  "Dammit, Mccord, you're worsen any bear I ever wrassled. Turn me loose."

  He did so, leaving his meaty hands on her shoulders and giving her a friendly shake that rattled the teeth in her head. "Long time no see, lady. Jack told me you were in town. How you been?"

  "Okay. Really," she added when she saw his expression. "Really okay."

  Her jacket was open and the scar in plain view above the neck of her T-shirt. He touched it with one gentle forefinger. "Looks like it healed up bad."

  She pushed his hand away. "Cut it out, grandma. How have you been? Still chasing the bad guys?"

  His hand dropped. "Even catching some of them."

  "All right."

  "Brendan! Come on!" an impatient voice shouted from somewhere out of sight.

  "I'm on my way!" he shouted back in a voice that shook the rafters.

  "What are you in town for?"

  "The AFN convention."

  His brow creased. "AFN--oh right, I saw something about that on the news last night." He quirked an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were into politics."

  "I'm not." "Oh." Something in the way she said it gave him pause. "Well.

  You in town for a while?"

  "A while."

  "Great! Let's do lunch before you leave." He grinned hugely. "I'll buy.

  That way you'll have to listen to all my war stories." "Simon's?" she said.

  "Ouch." He winced. "You always were a firstclass eater, Shugak."

  "Then it's a date."

  "Bren, dammit!"

  "On my way!"

  Kate put a hand on his arm. "Hold up, Bren. Where's Axenia?"

  Sandy brows disappeared in astonishment beneath an untidy thatch of hair. "Didn't you know? Axenia got herself a job with the fedrul gum mint "Say what?"

  "Thee Fed-E-Ral Gov-Em-Ment," he said, spacing the syllables out.

  "Bureaucrats R Us. Those wonderful folks who brought you the nine-hundred-dollar monkey wrench."

  "You're kidding. How come?"

  He shrugged. "Don't know. She didn't say. I expect it's because they don't have to pay Social Security." He grinned. "Or maybe it's because you Native types just purely hate the state."

  "Up yours, Mccord." He blew her a kiss, and she walked out of the building in the best mood she'd been in all day.

  She found Axenia answering the phone on the second floor of the Federal Building on Ninth Avenue. The door behind her read

  "U. S. Forest Service." Kate hoped Jane's office wasn't close by.

  Her cousin's face changed when she saw Kate and she hung up abruptly.

  "Hello, Axenia," Kate said, exuding charm. It didn't take; Axenia looked wary. "Hello, Kate."

  Kate looked around at the file cabinets surrounding the reception area, at the several offices with titles like Timber Management" and "Forestry Science Laboratory" on the doors. She strolled over to one of the cabinets and read the labels. Lease sales, lease bids, all by location.

  "You didn't tell me you'd transferred jobs."

  "You didn't ask."

  Kate turned and shoved her hands in her pockets. "When?"

  "A year ago."

  "Umm." Kate strolled back to the desk and perched on one corner. "You like it better here?"

  Axenia shrugged.

  "You get a raise, maybe?"

  "A little one."

  "You doing the same thing here you did over at the D.A.'s? Answering phones, a little typing, filing?"

  "What's with the third degree?" It was clear from Axenia's face that she had meant the question to be lighthearted; instead it came out resentful and suspicious.

  Kate looked at her, waiting.

  At first glance the resemblance between the two women was obvious. A second look highlighted the differences: Kate was all muscle and bone, her chin was firmer, her eyes more direct, more controlled and far more self-assured. Next to her Axenia was younger, softer, rounder, less finished, a little clumsy. The potential was there, but it was as yet unrealized. Kate folded her arms and stared down at her cousin, examining her face for traces of what she had become, of what she might become.