Th
e tree branches try to grab us, all right, but we don’t stop until we trip, both of us tumbling together into a dark, black, empty space. It’s like a room, this space, a room made out of trees. Th
e trees surround us like they’re trying to pro-
tect us, and suddenly we feel safe, lying on our bellies in the silvery darkness. We can hear that old Indian walking carefully through the woods, like he isn’t quite sure which way we disappeared. We hold our breath as the sound gets closer and closer and then starts fading away until all we hear is the sound of 42
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H O W H U N T E R S S U R V I V E / L u k e water. We sit up, grinning. On one side of us, a little fi nger of light fi lters through the trees. We stick our heads out. It’s a lip of land that overhangs a river, and across the river the sun is rising. Th
e smell of water gives us energy, makes us feel like we can make it anywhere. We can get Isaac and escape those giant nuns and mean priests and their fog-gray school. I know we can.
We fi nd the road, all right, but it seems like it goes on forever, winding through trees and hills and more trees. Bunna’s started to complain again, and if I weren’t the oldest, I’d be complaining, too. Feels like this road is one big hill with no top and no bottom. We’re winding up the side of it, and there’s a straight wall of rock on one side and—suddenly—nothing on the other. When I look down, my breath gets sucked right out of me. Bunna’s eyes are wide as eggs.
“Holy cow,” he breathes.
Down below us, the side of the road drops off into a deep valley, lined with trees. Th
e trees look soft from up here, like
tundra grass, billowing in the morning breeze like low-lying clouds. A rocky river rushes along the valley fl oor, shining silver green in the morning light. Looking way far down at that river makes you feel strong and dizzy, both at the same time.
But you can still smell the water, even this far up you can smell it, sharp as gunmetal.
“Wow,” I whisper.
At fi rst we don’t even hear the sound of the car behind us, but when we fi nally do, it don’t matter. Th
e only place to go is
43
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down, straight down, which would take wings. We’re trapped.
It’s a priest, driving that long, skinny car. Th
e same car
that took Isaac away—same priest, too, I bet. He’s driving slow, like he’s hunting.
“Shoot,” I say, looking down the mountainside.
Shoot. Breathing it out quick, like a bullet.
Th
ey got us now.
Th
e priest pulls up alongside us, but it’s a diff erent priest, a younger one. He pushes the car door wide open and leans over across the seat, chatting like there’s nothing strange about two Eskimo kids trapped on the side of a road in the middle of Indian country. His eyes are empty, blue like the sky. I never seen eyes like that before.
“Enjoying a little walk, boys?” he says.
Bunna nods fast, like guilty people do. Th
e priest smiles.
“Nice day for it,” he says, patting the seat next to him.
Bunna hops right in without a second thought.
“Only one problem”—now he’s frowning—“you boys
missed breakfast, and now you’re about to miss class as well.”
Bunna glances back at me like a trapped animal. I slide into the car next to him and ease the door shut, trying not to look at that priest and his ice-blue eyes.
“I’m sure you just lost track of the time,” he says.
Bunna lets out a small sigh of relief and nods.
We sit there while the car winds its way back down the road, none of us saying a thing. We don’t know how to talk to priests, and this one is humming like it don’t much matter if we even talk or not. I stare out the window, watching the trees 44
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H O W H U N T E R S S U R V I V E / L u k e whip past us like a wall of green and black stone.
“You boys are from the North, aren’t you?” he says, fi nally, tapping the steering wheel with one fi nger.
Neither of us says a word. Bunna looks at him and raises his eyebrows real quick. Yes. We’re from the North, his eyebrows say.
I frown.
“And I bet you’re both seasoned hunters.”
Now he’s looking directly at me, his eyes like chips of pale blue ice.
I turn away, staring at the wall of trees. “Yes,” I say, soft as leaves.
“Good,” he says, his fi nger still tapping the steering wheel.
“You see, the way this works is Sacred Heart School is run largely through volunteer eff ort.” He peers down at Bunna.
Suddenly all I want to do is pull Bunna away fast and say,
“Listen: we’re not even Catholic.”
But I don’t.
“Do you know what volunteer means?” the priest asks.
Bunna shakes his head. I stare out the window.
Th
e priest’s boney white hand grips that steering wheel, one fi nger still tapping—a long, sharp pointer fi nger.
“Well, it’s like this,” he says. “Th
e Lord gives each of us
talents—each special skills—and he expects us each to use them for others. Th
at’s what we’re doing here—volunteering
our talents for the sake of the school. It’s our way of giving back to God what he has given to us.”
He frowns down into the valley. “Now, me, I’m not much 45
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of a hunter, but I do know a thing or two about carpentry. And Father Mullen—you and your brothers met him last night, I believe? Well, he’s a boxer. Would’ve gone professional if he hadn’t been promised to the priesthood.”
I think of that old priest with the mashed-up face and feel the sting of his ruler running up my arm. So our brother Isaac was kidnapped by a boxer. A boxer priest. I look over at Bunna, nervous, but Bunna is not thinking about these things. I can tell.
“And old Sister Sarah, why she can make anything grow—
even up here in the frozen north land,” the priest continues.
“What about the other one?” Bunna says.
Th
e priest looks down at Bunna, surprised.
“Th
e other one?” he says.
Bunna rolls his eyes upward. His eyes say iñukpasuk loud and clear, so clear even the priest understands.
“Oh,” he laughs. “Th
e tall one—that’s Sister Mary Kate.”
Bunna looks up, curious, like he really really wants to know about Sister Mary Kate’s special talent.
“Well, let me see. Sister Mary Kate is very”—he taps the wheel—“she’s so very eager and so very . . . ah, big,” he says.
“And I’m sure that must be useful, don’t you think?”
He’s still smiling. I swallow a smile, too.
“So what about the hunting?” I ask, surprised to hear myself talking so easy all of a sudden.
“Ah. I was just coming to that. You see the thing is, we want to eat, now don’t we?”
Bunna nods.
46
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“Well, so that’s where the hunting comes in. Everything we get here comes through donation or hard work. We need you boys to work for us by hunting.”
Bunna looks down at his lap. He’s still holding t
hat dumb toy gun, fi ngering it nervously, like he’s forgotten he has it.
“Do you hunt horses?” he says, his voice doubtful.
Th
e priest looks puzzled. “Hunt horses?”
Th
en he looks down at Bunna’s gun. Bunna shoves it into his pocket, embarrassed, but it’s too late. Th
e priest is laugh-
ing.
“Ah, yes. I had forgotten. Cowboys, eh?”
Bunna scowls. He don’t like to be laughed at.
“Well, I’m sorry, boys, but we haven’t any horses.”
He pats the steering wheel like it’s a dog.
“Guess we’ll just have to make do with this old buggy.”
Th
en he leans down toward Bunna like he’s sharing a big secret. “And you know, I don’t think cowboys hunt horses as a rule. Th
ink about it. How would they get around if they
started eating all their horses?”
Bunna glares at me real quick.
“Yeah,” he says. “How would they?”
We drive on in silence, the priest smiling and still tapping the steering wheel real soft, like maybe it helps him think to tap it that way.
“So you’re the Aaluk boys,” he says at last.
Th
e way he says it is like he already knows, so we don’t say anything.
“And which one are you?” he asks Bunna.
47
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“Bunna,” Bunna says.
Th
en he looks at me. “And?”
“Luke,” Bunna says.
“You’re the oldest, aren’t you?” Still looking at me.
I raise my eyebrows. Yes.
“Well, there’s no point in trying to run off , you know. It’s about 300 miles to Fairbanks, and I doubt you boys could make it that far. And besides, if you try this again, Father Mullen will be the one to come after you.” He gives us a look.
“And believe me, Father Mullen cannot abide a runaway.”
Abide is one of those church words. I’m not quite sure what it means, and I don’t want to fi nd out, either.
“You’d rather help us hunt, now, wouldn’t you?”
I nod. My mouth is suddenly dry as dust.
“All right then, here’s the deal: You don’t run away anymore. Instead you work hard in school and earn your way by hunting. Th
at’s easy enough now, Luke, isn’t it?”
I nod, and he smiles. He thinks he’s solved everything, thinks everything is easy all of a sudden. He doesn’t know about my name, my Iñupiaq name. My real name is not Luke and it’s not easy, not at all. But I could hunt; he’s got that right.
I’m a hunter, and hunters know how to survive.
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Snowbird
OCTOBER 1960
CHICKIE
—
All four beds in my dorm room have girls assigned to them.
We never knew each other’s names until we got put together in this room. Th
ere’s Donna, who’s Yupik, sitting stone still
on the bed across from me, like she’s in church or something.
And on the top bunks are two other girls named Rose and Evelyn. Rose and Evelyn are Athabascan, and from the way they act, you might think they knew each other before they got here, but they didn’t. Evelyn is from Northway, and Rose is from Nenanna.
Rose and Evelyn are chatting away, but Donna just sits there, like she’s waiting for someone to give her permission.
She always wears this necklace with a big old gold coin on the end of it, and when she gets nervous, she takes hold of that coin and rubs it with her thumb real soft, like she hardly knows what she’s doing. Like maybe it’s magic or something.
Evelyn has put a towel over the mirror on our dresser. She 49
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says it’s spooky and I say she’s right because before she put that towel there, I kept seeing people out of the corner of my eye.
And when I’d turn to look, I’d realize that it was just that darn mirror, following my every move like something creepy.
I have decided that I defi nitely do not like mirrors.
Evelyn says her grandpa is the traditional chief of Northway, and Rose says her grandma is like a chief because she tells everyone what to do and everyone listens. I tell them that Aaka Mae makes the best bread in Kotzebue, but she is not bossy. I also tell them that Aaka Mae never runs out of fl our because Swede owns the store.
“Who’s Swede?” Evelyn asks.
“Th
at’s my dad,” I say.
“Why do you call your dad ‘Swede’?” Evelyn says.
I give Donna a look. “Th
at’s his name.”
“What do you call your mom?” Rose says.
I glare at both of them. “I don’t have a mom,” I say. “She died when I was born.”
Everyone gets real quiet.
“My mom left when I was fi ve,” Donna says.
She’s talking so soft, we almost have to quit breathing to hear her. And she’s looking right at me.
Left? Forever? Th
at’s worse than having your mom die.
“Her name was Sister Ann,” Donna off ers.
“Your mom was a nun?” Evelyn says.
I glare at Evelyn for the rude way she says it, but secretly, I really want to know, too. How could Donna’s mom be a nun?
“My parents died from measles. I was raised at Holy Cross 50
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S N O W B I R D / C h i c k i e
Mission by Sister Ann. Before she got called to serve somewhere else.”
Rose and Evelyn shift on their bunk, uncomfortable.
Truth is, none of us knows what to say.
“When I was a baby, I thought she was my mother,”
Donna says.
From the way she says it, warming her hand on that gold coin necklace of hers, I’m guessing she still thinks it. I stare at her necklace and swallow hard. “What kind of money is that?”
I blurt it out without meaning to.
Donna looks at me, surprised, then looks down at her necklace like she just discovered it.
“It’s not money. It’s a Saint Christopher medal. He’s the patron saint of travelers,” Donna says. “Sister gave it to me the day she left.”
Seems odd to give someone a traveler’s medal when you’re the one leaving, I think. But I don’t say it.
“Did you live with her?” Rose asks.
“Yes,” Donna says.
“Did you sleep in the same bed with her?”
Donna gives Rose a funny look. “No.”
“Do nuns sleep in beds?” Evelyn asks.
I’m wondering about this, too, but when I look at Donna, she has such a lonely look on her face that I say, “Of course they do,” right away, glaring at Evelyn.
“I wonder if they even have hair,” Evelyn says.
“Well, obviously,” I say. Watching Donna.
“How would you know?” Evelyn challenges.
51
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I have to admit, she’s got me there. How would I know?
“You think you have to be bald to be a nun?”
“Yeah, but how would you know which ones have hair
and which don’t?”
“Easy.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Prove it.”
“What do you want me to do,
pull out a piece of their hair?” As soon as I say it, I’m sorry.
“Yeah,” Evelyn says. “A piece of hair. A piece of the tall one’s hair.”
Never let your opponent smell fear. Th
at’s what Swede
always says. I keep my face as blank as snow.
“Easy,” I say again.
“Bet she doesn’t have any hair at all,” Rose says.
“Bet she does,” I say.
Bet it’s the same color as mine, too, I think, but I do not say it.
Th
e nuns are all at chapel, and we’re supposed to be in bed. I fi nd Sister Mary Kate’s room in one shot because her name is on the door. It’s not even locked. Th
is is going to be easy.
Sister’s room is small, with no bunk bed. It has a bedside table just like ours. Th
ere are four things on that table: a book
that says DIARY on the front, another book that says Th e
Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, a Bible, of course, and a funny-looking comb with a long, pointy handle. I pick up the 52
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comb, and sure enough, there’s one strand of hair on it, one strand you can barely see, because Sister Mary Kate’s hair is blond as sunlight, just like mine.
I smile. I know I should go right back to our dorm room, but I am a curious person, and I don’t give up that easily.
Swede says curiosity killed the cat, but I am smarter than the cat. I pick up the diary and open it to the fi rst page.
Sister’s diary is fi lled with a cursive handwriting that is very pretty, but skinny and kind of hard to read. I have to squint to make it out, like someone who needs glasses.
The children looked so small and needy
sitting before me like a sea of dark faces.
It would be hard to tell the difference
between the Indians and Eskimos, except
for the fact that they seem to segregate
themselves into two groups.
I stop reading, surprised. Hard to tell the diff erence between Indians and Eskimos? Maybe Sister needs glasses.
Father Mullen told us that this animosity is
My Name Is Not Easy Page 5