by John Straley
I had a couple of hours to kill before my appointment with Emma Victor. I bought a raisin and cinnamon bagel from a woman standing beside a cart on Franklin Street. She had huge frame glasses like Elvis Costello’s and she was learning to play the mandolin. As I licked cream cheese off my fingers I listened to several butchered versions of “A Sailor’s Hornpipe” done in swing time.
The sun was out and when I looked straight up at the tallest buildings in town I could see the waterfalls and the yellowing tufts of grass on the bluffs behind them. It was a beautiful morning, and the landscape seemed to press in and make Juneau seem like a smaller, less sophisticated town than it really was.
I was beginning to feel kind of out of sorts about what I had done to Emanuel. So I went over to the law library in the courthouse, sat at a desk in the corner, and copied down the serial numbers of the five grand. Then I took a cab to the hospital and left an envelope with $2,500 and a get-well note in it. He probably deserved half of it for trying to kill me, and it left me $2,500 for cab fares.
It was a twenty-two-mile drive out to Tee Harbor, past the mouth of the glacier and around the twisting corners of the coastal road. The driver wasn’t excited at first about the prospect of deadheading all the way back until he looked in his schedule and saw there was a ferry in soon at Auke Bay and he might be able to pick up a fare there. An extra twenty gave him some added motivation.
There was a long flight of steps down to the water off the edge of the road. The house was built on pilings over the tidelands. A gangway led to a log dock. A sixty-foot trawler-style cruiser was moored to the dock and beside it was tied a single-engine floatplane. The house had been built of cedar lumber that had grayed with age. It was built back into the hillside with a low profile to the wind. From the water, the house would blend evenly into the forest. The front door was made of two hand-hewn cedar planks. The door knocker was a brass doe’s head. When I used it I heard a woman’s voice from behind the door call, “It’s open!”
Emma Victor was sitting on a round of firewood next to a picture window looking out over the harbor. She had been cleaning a fishing reel and was holding a can of light oil and a clean cotton rag. She wore a blue sweater and her red hair was pulled back in a bun. Her skin was fine white, like old manuscript paper, and her eyes were silty green.
“There’re sea lions working some herring out there.” She pointed and her hand was steady. I could imagine her holding a fly rod perfectly still.
Out past the point of her deck the sea lions slid through the water in slippery loops, barely disturbing the surface as they appeared, crunching silvery fish in their jaws. An eagle sat on the top of the piling that held the dock in place. It watched the water by the sea lions and ruffled its feathers slightly.
“They’ve got to eat, might as well be the herring. I don’t imagine the herring feel that good about it. But at least they don’t dwell on it. Or do you think they do, Mr. Younger?”
“I imagine it’s a very short surprise for them.”
At her feet was an enormous brown bear rug. The head was mounted with small eyes that seemed like tiny, close-set punctures in the massive skull. There was a plastic tongue curled behind the snarling teeth. The snout was square and as large as a loaf of bread. The taxidermist had wrinkled it slightly to enhance the snarl but he could do nothing about the small lifeless eyes.
“Are you a hunter, Mr. Younger?”
“Not a very good one. But I go out sometimes.”
“Uh-huh.” And she smiled at me as if I had just failed some important litmus test.
“Well, Louis was a very good hunter. You know, I came from San Francisco. I saw many glamorous things when I was growing up. San Francisco was so beautiful when I was young. Some of the hills were bare and wild like they still are here. The air was sweet and even mysterious. I thought I could never be human in any other place. My family took a trip to Alaska and I met Louis. I fell in love with him, and I spent that first winter with him. My brothers thought that I went off to college, but I came back here. Back then Louis and I did everything together. I don’t know if you ever had the experience, Mr. Younger, of a love that just lifts you up off your feet and keeps you there?”
I shook my head but she was staring out to the bay. She turned slightly away from me.
“I remember once we were walking his trap line up north and the weather turned bad. It was dark and he didn’t want to take the risk of the long trip back to the cabin. I was cold and tired and I didn’t know what I was doing out God knows where. Then he found a hollow where the wind had blown around a stump and we took off our snowshoes and burrowed into the open pocket under the snow. When we crawled in, it was quiet and completely dark. Louis lit a single candle, and oh my….”
She looked back into the room and she worked her hands in front of her eyes slowly as if she were actually touching her vision.
“It was a cathedral, encrusted with diamonds. The snow sparkled so magnificently. The air was still and the wind was very faint out above the snow. I curled into his arms. We made love for the first time in that snow cave, Mr. Younger.”
She looked straight toward me, focused on the past but aware of the effect of being blunt.
“We made love, and our breath formed a thick crust on the snow. Then we slept the most beautiful, peaceful sleep. When I woke up I never thought of San Francisco as my home again, and I gave my life to Louis.”
She came back from her memory and stared at me across the room.
“Do you think it’s healthy to dwell on a death, Mr. Younger?”
“I suppose it depends on whose death and why you have to dwell on it.”
“My husband took this bear.” She kicked the rug with her toe, hitting the bear on one of its canines. “It was the same year that we were married, out near Mole Harbor on Admiralty Island. Walt Robbins was with him. The bear almost mauled Louis. In fact, it scratched his rifle. Something like that never frightened Louis. He was very young then, and very funny.”
There was a picture of Louis Victor above her fireplace. He was standing hip deep in the white water of a northern river, reeling in a king salmon that was dancing with its tail on the surface of the water as if at the photographer’s request. Louis’s forearms were dark and muscled. He was gritting his teeth.
“It does not surprise me that my mother-in-law would hire you. It does not surprise me and it does not amuse me. What is it that she thinks you can find?”
I sat on the couch facing her and the open stretch of water beyond her window. “She wants me to find the whole truth.”
“You’re not an Indian, are you, Mr. Younger? Do you understand anything about Indian people?”
“I know enough to know … that I know very little. I know enough to know that a person can’t make assumptions.”
“Which is more than most people know. But how do you expect to find the whole truth for this old Indian woman when you don’t know what the whole truth would feel like to her?”
“I probably will never know what the whole truth feels like. But I’m a curious guy, and I have only one choice and that is to keep going forward and asking questions. When people evade my questions, I know that something is being hidden from me, and I keep pressing. When people seem to tell me everything and nothing appears to be hidden, then I stop looking. For me, that seems to be the truth. But when someone tries to stop me, then I have to keep looking.”
The eagle slid from the piling into the air as if riding down the face of an invisible wave and plucked a shiny fish from the water. Its wing beats were labored as it flew away with its catch.
“Well, let me ask you a question then, and see if you evade me. What are you charging her?”
“What?”
“I’ve done some checking on you, Mr. Younger. You come from a good family. Your father was the Judge, wasn’t he?”
I nodded.
“He seemed like an honest man. He wouldn’t have taught you to exploit an old woman for her money.�
��
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Victor, but any arrangement between me and my client is confidential.”
She looked out the window and smiled.
“Professionally said, Mr. Younger. Don’t misunderstand me. My mother-in-law was an intelligent woman in her day but now she’s old and—you know.” She tapped her fore-finger against her temple. “She’s not as sharp as she once was. And old people often fall victim to the money-making schemes of others. The nurses at the home tell me what goes on with my mother-in-law so that I can protect her. I telephoned you from here the other night as soon as I heard she was thinking of hiring you.”
“She called me and asked me to help her. My rates are fair.” My stomach sank as I said these last words and I hoped that my teeth were not clenched. “Do you want me not to work on this case for some reason of your own?”
“Listen to me, young man.” Her voice was thick, yet hissing. Her eyes seemed darker and closer together. “My husband is dead, and the man who killed him is in prison. What good, besides to your pocketbook, will this investigation do? Our family has been destroyed. Our privacy has been violated time after time and our lives are in ruins. We are the victims, for God’s sake! That man in prison is sitting in his room just down the road doing … doing handicrafts and watching television. He doesn’t have a tenth of the sorrows we have. You want to do something useful? Do something to him. Make him feel something close—even close—to what we feel.”
She was not crying but was looking at me steadily.
“He should not be alive. He should not be alive to talk or to laugh or to eat good food. He should not have any small pleasures as long as we have to suffer. For years we’ve suffered, and other women have suffered in the same way. We’re being made fools of by the law. The family—the family is the only thing worth dying for and, Mr. Younger …” She pointed a steady index finger at my nose. “If it’s worth dying for, it’s worth killing for.”
“You’re speaking of Alvin Hawkes’s death?”
“Yes, I am. I hope for it every day, but there’s no one to punish men for their unspeakable acts against families. You want to do some good for my mother-in-law, for our family? Kill Alvin Hawkes. But don’t defile our family.”
The sea lions were gone. There was only a slight, ever-widening ripple on the water. I looked at the bear and it stared back with its comical, dead snarl. The clock ticked.
“Could I speak to your children?”
I wanted to close my eyes for the response.
“My children are traveling, Mr. Younger. And no, if there is anything that I can do about it, you will not talk to them about anything. I am going to contact my attorney this afternoon.”
“Why did you call me and invite me out here if you felt this way?”
“I wanted to see Judge Younger’s son for myself and see if I could convince him to give up this foolish investigation.”
“Mrs. Victor, I want to ask you about Walt Robbins.”
“I imagined that you would have already heard the filthy gossip that has surrounded us since this thing started. Walt Robbins is like many other men who do not respect the sanctity of our family. I’m sure you’ve heard rumors about the trouble years ago in Stellar. It had nothing to do with the children or with me.”
The eagle sat on top of the piling next to the float plane ripping the fish with the point of its beak as it held it in one of its talons.
“Mr. Younger, my children and I are the victims. We do not need our life disturbed any further.”
“If I may ask, Mrs. Victor, what are your plans? Are you going to continue the guiding business?”
“You may ask, but then you will have to leave. Neither the plane nor the boat are of any use to me. I am in the process of trying to sell them both to bring in some income.”
“Could you sell them to Robbins?”
“I could sell them to whomever I want, and I don’t like your tone. I think it is time that you go.”
“What about your son, Lance? Does he want to take over the business?”
“My children’s concerns are none of your business. Good-bye, Mr. Younger.”
I ambled out of the house. I thought about asking to stay for lunch but I didn’t, and I also didn’t call for a cab.
I stood on the side of the road next to the stair landing and waited for a car to drive by. I heard a few bird songs in the brush, ravens and perhaps a thrush, the water licking on the rocks below. I imagined a bear snuffling in the shallow roots just out of sight. In half an hour only one car came down the road and it drove past, accompanied by a rush of wind in the Doppler effect that all dangerous-looking hitchhikers know.
Finally, a talkative carpenter stopped his truck and gave me a lift to the Auke Bay store.
Although I hadn’t shaved that morning and had a bandage on my hand where a gun had bit me, I didn’t feel evil. But the teenage girl behind the glass hot dog carousel scowled at me as she pointed to the pay phone. I needed to call a cab but instead I called my friend at the airport and added two more names to my list. Then I telephoned long distance to the Pioneer Home in Sitka.
After the nurse had been gone for about two minutes, I heard Mrs. Victor’s voice on the other end. I introduced myself, because I didn’t think she would recognize my voice, but she cut me off halfway through the introduction.
“Your daughter-in-law does not want me looking into this case. She says I’m exploiting you for your money and that I can’t do any good for your family.”
“She and I don’t see things the same way.”
“Mrs. Victor, did your son tell you about any trouble he had in his family life?”
There was a long pause on the line. I could hear shallow breathing.
“My son… had done bad things, things I cannot tell you about.”
“You hired me to find the whole truth.”
Another pause.
“I cannot tell you about these things over the phone. Not standing here at the nursing station.”
“I understand. I’m on my way to Stellar. Will I find what I’m looking for up there?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Younger. I suppose it depends on how good a hunter you are.”
I told her I wanted to see her just as soon as I got back.
Before I hung up, she said, “I will pay you whatever it costs, but I need to know—how much money will it be? I can make arrangements.”
“I’ve decided to do the case for twenty-five hundred dollars, and I’ve already been paid.”
“By whom?”
A little Tlingit kid holding a Dolly Varden trout by the gills was tapping on the phone booth with the edge of a quarter.
“The answer to that is what I hope to find in Stellar.”
The kid tapped louder and louder as I called a cab to take me to the airport. A raven stood in the parking lot watching the Dolly Varden swing from his hand.
NINE
THERE ARE SOME questions so graceful that they should only be asked, because at some point it becomes interruptive to try and answer them.
One of the most time-consuming questions asked in this part of the country involves where the “real Alaska” is. Most of the people living north of Haines consider southeastern Alaska to be a suburb of San Francisco, inhabited by drug-addled phoneys and bureaucrats, with a few loggers and fishermen holding on against all odds. The phoneys and the bureaucrats have an image of the modern white resident of the north as a 400-pound Oklahoma building contractor with a 50-pound gold-nugget watchband and an antebellum attitude toward the darker races. Anchorage falls in the middle of this mess.
Anchorage grew up too fast to keep pace with its ability to dress itself. Today its buildings mostly resemble monumental subarctic toasters, all reflective surfaces to steal the beauty of the surrounding landscape.
Anchorage is hip deep in the twentieth century. In a downtown bar you can find a deranged redneck watching a Rams game on the wide-screen TV alongside an arts administrator who is working on a pro
duction of Waiting for Godot to tour the arctic villages. Both of them will walk around the Eskimo man bundled up asleep on the sidewalk, but the arts administrator will feel an ironic sense of history.
During a heated discussion on the “real Alaska” issue, I heard a woman from Eagle River say to a man from Tenakee, “Okay, smart-ass, if Anchorage isn’t an Alaskan city, what is it?” This might be one of those graceful questions. As my plane was flying over the city in preparation for the landing, it ran through my mind many times, like the mantra of an urban planner: “What is it?”
There were several people I would have liked to see but I wouldn’t have time. There was the painter who took a knock on the head and could then speak Polish; there was one of the best mandolin players on the West Coast who lived in a trailer in the spectacular neighborhood of Spenard; and there was the sewage system engineer who could bench press 460 pounds. But I only had half an hour between planes.
On the trip to Anchorage I had read the information from the airlines file. None of the principals in the case had flown in or out of Sitka right before or after Todd was shot. Neither Walt Robbins nor any of the Victors were on the lists. Nor were there any R. Walters or Victor Lances or the like. I’d thought of that.
I read through Alvin Hawkes’s medical file while 1 waited for my Stellar-bound jet to take off. The sun was setting and the temperature outside was near freezing. I glanced up and saw the baggage handlers packing cases of beer onto the conveyor belt. These cases were being checked through as excess baggage. Stellar is a damp community as far as alcohol goes. It’s illegal to sell liquor but not to possess it. So any trip to Anchorage, whether business or pleasure, requires excess baggage.
If you live in southeastern Alaska and are used to being stared down at by the mountains with your back against the ocean, the country around Anchorage is a reprieve. The horizons are broad and open. The mountains slope up from the tidal flat, cupping Anchorage but not crowding it against the shallow waters of Cook Inlet. There is a much safer feel to landing or taking off in Anchorage than there is in Juneau, where the mountains stick up like granite nets that will catch you if you overrun the runway.
