"My cousin in Tetlin Redoubt says there's going to be a war and many of our People will be killed." His eyes had grown large with earnestness and Gnady believed him.
"Who will kill them?"
"The Czar's army, and cossacks, and promyshlenniks."
"Why?"
"The DSM has been killing many Russians and the Czar told the Imperial Army to put a stop to it."
"I have heard the DSM is everywhere, how can the soldiers get them all?"
Ambrose grinned. "They can't, and that's a good thing."
"Why, my friend?"
"Because I am in the DSM, and I think you should be, too."
"And who would see to my store?" Gnady poked a thumb toward the structure he had built with his own hands before stocking it with a modest supply of goods he knew everybody needed or wanted. After five years he was making a good living, and he owned the land on which his store sat.
"What about Tatania?"
"My wife would rather talk than sell goods, I would be destitute within a week."
Ambrose laughed. Gnady smiled with him until Tatania smacked the back of his head.
"I can run our store just as good as you can, maybe better—people don't walk away from my bargains feeling cheated!"
The very next week brought news of this great council along with more rumors of war. So he came to find out what would happen if there was a war, and what would happen afterward. If the Den drove the Russians out of Alaska, would the deed to his property still be valid?
Who would make what sort of decrees? The Czar had always been comfortably remote even if his cossacks and promyshlennik tax collectors had not. But the system had been in place for over a century and a half, it was a known thing.
Which Den would rule the new government? Some half-Eskimo from Russian Mission or Holy Cross, way down at the mouth of the Yukon? This required his personal attention.
In the end, he and four others from their area brought two dog sleds down the frozen Yukon to Minto. He learned that news of the impending council of war had gone out to the frozen reaches of the Den Republik by dog sled, skier, and in two ironic instances, via Russian mail plane. Over the following week delegates and freedom fighters began arriving.
Gnady talked with many people and learned of the recent success at Toklat. Many he spoke with didn't seem concerned about the Russian Army. There were man others who thought the DSM were a band of brigands and outlaws who in no way represented the average Den .
Three weeks after the fight at Toklat, the War Council convened.
"I will act as chairman until this assembly elects one," Chandalar Roy announced. "And that will be our first order of business, so be thinking about who you'd like to nominate. Every man and woman in this room who have reached the age of fifteen, as well as those standing outside, have a vote."
Gnady listened closely, watching for word traps or ambiguity.
"We'll vote on everything," Chandalar said, "including who gets to make the hard decisions about where and how we'll fight the Czar. I suggest we use the rules in this little book to run our meeting, they make sense for this many people."
He covered the main points in Roberts Rules of Order and then grinned as shuffling feet and whispered conversations in the room began to drown him out.
"Okay! Nominations are open."
Chandalar was unanimously elected First Speaker. Gnady voted for him because there wasn't anyone else in the room he trusted that much, even thought he'd never met the man before this night.
"Each representative will speak for one thousand people. In some cases that will be two or three villages, in others probably up to ten," Chan told them.
"So every delegate needs a voter herd?" somebody asked. They all found that funny.
"Within your area—" Chandalar pointed to a map with villages outlined "—nominate two candidates, people you trust, people you know will do a good job for you as well as themselves. Then the people from the same area will secretly vote for one of the candidates. Whoever wins will be your delegate to the War Council."
Gnady joined the throng at the map. His area included Circle and Eagle as well as his own village, Old Crow.
"There are signs with the names of the villages on them
all around the room," Chandalar shouted over the din. "Go to the sign that has your village's name on it. If you can't read, ask somebody who can, we're all in this together."
Gnady knew eleven of the twelve people under the "Circle—Eagle—Old Crow" sign. A long-haired, mustached man with somewhere between forty and thirty years, wearing well-made moose-hide clothing leaned against the wall under the sign. His face proclaimed him to be angry.
They all stood around looking at each other as the people in the room sorted themselves out. Their number stayed at thirteen.
"I'm Waterman Stoddard," the man in moose hide declared. "I want to be your delegate."
"Why?" Gnady asked, surprising himself.
"I've been to university, I know how to talk to politicians no matter where they're from."
"But how do you feel?" Gnady asked. "Why do you want this, because you can talk? Who can't?
"Feel about what?" Clara Oldsquaw asked.
"About this new government, about the old government!" Gnady threw his hands up. "If you think it's worth fighting the Czar, and for what? What do want to have happen when this is over? We know people by what they believe. So what does he believe?"
"Gnady's right," Clarence Oldsquaw said in his slow way.
Gnady completely ignored Clarence, as was his custom. "And where do you live and how long have you lived there?" He stared at Waterman Stoddard. "I sure ain't never seen you before now."
"I've lived outside Eagle for about five years. I'm from down in the Confederacy, originally."
"The what?" Clara asked.
"The Confederate States of America. They're just south of the United States and east of the Republic of Texas."
"Never heard of none of 'em," Clarence said, staring at the floor in a thoughtful manner.
"I know where they're at," Gnady said. "You come a long ways, Mr. Waterman Stoddard. Why?"
"No room down there for someone with an itch to be their own person and not bend into what's expected of you. I'd do a good job for y'all, and that's a promise."
"How do you make your bread? What is your work?"
"I hunt, trap, and fish. Never been hungry nor naked, want for naught."
"There is a problem, however," Gnady said quietly.
"Problem? What problem?"
"I, Gnady Ustinov, wish to be delegate." Stoddard opened his mouth but Ganady hurried on. "I am a property owner from Old Crow, where I was born. I have four years of Father Petroska's school so I can read, write, and cypher. I own the only store in town and everyone knows I do not cheat them."
Heads nodded within their small circle. Shouts echoed through the spacious room from larger, more divided groups. Gnady hoped these people liked him, which was something he had never before considered.
"So why do you have a Russian name?" Stoddard asked.
"My father was Russian, my mother is Den . Many of our people have Russian blood, and English, and French, and Eskimo, and Tlingit . . . even Yankee and Rebel blood. I was born in fish camp in the middle of the dog salmon run."
"Why do you want to be delegate?" Stoddard asked, continuing to work his mouth after he finished speaking.
"Who knows what these downriver people will demand of us? We need a delegate who can see things as they are, not what might be."
"But if you don't have a glimpse of the future, aren't you stuck in the past?" Stoddard's eyes seemed lit from within. "This is all about the future. That's what y'all have to realize. We have a chance here to make something none of us have ever seen: a representative government that listens to our needs." The hunter chewed his invisible cud for a few heartbeats. "We need a delegate with vision, not just fear."
"That is easy for you to say," Gnady snapped, more st
ung than he wished to admit. "You have nothing to lose, no family to consider. Be a radical on your own account."
Catherine Alexander spoke for the first time. "Enough. We are to pick two people out loud and vote for one in silence. The rest of us have heard you both." She glanced at the others. "I nominate both you."
"So now what?" Clara asked.
"Somebody has to second the nominations," Waterman said.
Incomprehension stared at him from all eyes.
"Somebody has to agree out loud with her."
Gnady wondered if Waterman's obvious knowledge about how this meeting worked would take votes away from him. He nudged Clarence.
"Sure! I agree with her," the old man said and lapsed back into silence.
"Okay." Waterman looked around. Picked up a piece of paper off the table. "You write down who you want to be delegate on a piece of paper and then put the paper in here." He tapped a birch bark basket next to the stack of paper and box of heavy Russian pencils.
"What if I can't write?" Clara asked.
"Not a problem," Gnady said instantly, again surprising himself. "Mr. Stoddard and I will make little pictures for you. If you want to vote for me, you make an x beside my little picture, if you wish to vote for him, you put your mark next to his."
"What kind of little picture?" Soloman Dundas asked.
"Well, Mr. Stoddard hunts and fishes for a living, so I'll draw this little fish picture for him." Gnady looked into Stoddard's eyes. "That work for you?"
"Sure. What you gonna use for yours?"
"How about a pipe, the kind you smoke?" he quickly drew a simple outline. "Like that."
"I like this way," Soloman said. "It ain't confusing or nothing."
"I'll make thirteen ballots and we can get on with it." Gnady sketched them out quickly. There was a part of him that had yearned to create art, but he didn't know where to begin, so he ignored the tiny voice.
"There, one for each of us." He picked up a square of paper and walked over to a windowsill where he could brace the paper so only he could see it. Carefully, he put an X in front of the pipe.
Three other ballots already lay in the basket when he dropped his on top. He rubbed his hands together and, feeling self-conscious, moved over and leaned against the wall. He hadn't been this nervous when he asked Tatania to marry him. But, he thought wryly, she had been pregnant at the time and he would have been amazed if she'd turned him down.
He wiped sweat from his forehead as he looked around. Nobody here was pregnant.
"Who's gonna count them up?" Clara speaks louder than she needs to, Gnady thought, wondering if her hearing was deteriorating.
Catherine Alexander said, "Let's you and me do it, Clara."
Waterman Stoddard wiped his large forehead and leaned against the wall next to Gnady. "If I win, I want you to help me do what I need to do," he said so only Gnady could hear. "If you win I'll do everything I can to help you."
Gnady held out his hand. "Done."
They shook.
Catherine looked up from the two small piles of paper. "Mr. Stoddard, I'm sorry, but you didn't win."
Gnady's spirit soared upward from the abrupt dip it made when she first called Stoddard's name. One glance at his opponent told him Stoddard had just made the same trip in reverse. They both glared at her.
"But you only lost by one vote." She fanned the ballots out on the small table. "Everybody can see for themselves."
Gnady surveyed the room. Other winners and losers were being declared. Some of the winners looked more dejected than did the losers.
"Congratulations, Mr. Delegate," Waterman shook his hand. "I meant what I said. If I can help."
"Between us," Gnady said, "we know a great deal. I would that you help me watch them"—he nodded toward the noisy room—"to make sure our people are not meanly used."
"Sounds like a good idea to me." Waterman moved off through the crowd.
A bell rang and the room went silent.
"Would the delegates please come up here by me?" Chandalar called out.
Gnady felt many eyes on him and wondered if the other delegates felt as embarrassed as he did.
He found himself in the middle of the line. It felt as though a thousand people crowded the room, staring at them.
"This can stop anytime soon," a woman next to him muttered.
"From my right, over here, please introduce yourselves to the People." Chandalar made it sound like an order.
"I'm Blue Bostonman," the large woman said. "From Aniak." Gnady could see that she would be a difficult customer if she felt the goods were shoddy.
"Fredrik Seetamoona, from Elim."
"Ain't that an Eskimo name?" someone shouted from the crowd.
"My dad was Yu'pik, but my mom was Den . How many of you are Den and nothing else?"
Gnady liked Fredrik's sand.
"I'm Paul Eluska, from Kokrines, and my granny was Eskimo from up at Anaktuvuk Pass." He nodded at Fredrik. "Hell, me 'n' him are probably cousins."
The crowd laughed and the tension in the room, which Gnady hadn't realized existed, broke.
"Eleanor Wright from Nulato." She tossed her head and the long, black-shot-with-silver hair fanned briefly behind her stocky body. Her eyes defied one and all to cross her.
"My name is Claude Adams," the small, slightly built man said. As he looked around at the crowd, light flashed off his spectacles. He spoke in a soft voice and Gnady knew this one was smarter than himself. "I am from Holy Cross and am part Russian, Eskimo, Aleut, Yankee, and Den . I don't how much of which, but it doesn't matter because I am here tonight."
Applause seemed to burst from the air.
The bell rang again.
"We have much to do," Chandalar said. "Next."
"I am Nicole Grey from Tanana. I will do the best I can."
Gnady had seen her before, but not in Tanana. He couldn't remember where it was, but he remembered she had the situation well in hand. It gnawed at him. Then he realized he stood next to her and all were waiting for him to speak.
"I am Gnady Ustinov from Old Crow. My grandfather was a promyshlennik who built an odinochka and settled down. The rest of my family is Den and I was named for my grandfather. I own a trading post in Old Crow."
He stopped and allowed himself to breathe, waiting for someone to object to his presence. The crowd now stared at the man next to him. He smiled; everybody on the Yukon knew Andrew.
"I am Andrew Isaac of the Dot Lake Den . My male ancestors probably slipped into a lot of strange beds, but I'm all Athabascan as far as I know."
The laughter and applause died quickly.
"Anna Samuel from Fort Yukon." She possessed extraordinary beauty and yet had to be in her middle-to-late years. She exuded self-possession.
"I am Alexandr Titus from Minto. We got Russian blood in the family, and pretty near every other kind, too. I got cousins in every village in Den country. I'm proud to be here."
"Joanne Kaiser, I have a small lodge in St. Anthony. I always give full value and I've never let anyone go away hungry. My mother was from the Republic of California and my dad was a Russian-Den soldier. But I'm here to help."
"Kurt Bachmann, from Klahotsa." The large man glowered at them all, made sure nobody else was speaking before he again opened his mouth. "I'm here to protect what is mine, what I have earned. I suspect what we just did is illegal, even treasonous, and I'm going to make sure everything follows the letter of the Czar's law."
"Mr. Bachmann"—Chan's voice sounded cold enough to shatter—"this is a revolution. We no longer wish to follow the Czar's laws and the purpose of this body is to successfully throw off the Russian yoke. Do you understand that?"
"So who's gonna run things, make the rules, enforce what laws?"
"We're working on it. But there is no way we can allow anyone loyal to the Czar to remain in this room. You either swear to serve the Den People above all others, to fight their enemies, and defend their borders, or you leave now."
> "I'm not a Den , but I live here, I own a business, I serve as leader in my village. What you just asked me to swear allegiance to is everything I believe in, but why are we fighting the Czar?"
"You're in the fight, Mr. Bachmann, either on our side or the Czar's. Which is it?"
"I'm with you, of course, you've got me surrounded." He laughed and looked around at the others. Nobody laughed with him.
"Would the next delegate please introduce himself?"
"Joshua Golovin," the big man said, looking over at Bachmann. "Chena Redoubt, where the Russians treat you like moose shit. I need help to show them the error of their ways."
"I am Wing Demoski, from Beaver, I used to teach school with my husband until promyshlenniks killed him and thought they killed me. Soon after, I joined the DSM and killed all three of the animals who took my old life. I have been killing the Czar's cossacks and promyshlenniks ever since. I believe in the Den Republik!"
Everyone in the room applauded.
Gnady felt a thrill of pure pleasure when the last delegate spoke.
"I am Ambrose Ambrose from the village of Nabesna, on the Nabesna River. We're all related to everyone in Northway, just across the river."
"I thank everyone for their participation," Chandalar said in a loud voice, "and now ask all but the delegates to leave the building. We have much to do."
"We can't watch?" an old man asked in a querulous tone.
"I'm sorry." Chandalar's voice seemed made of stone. "But since we don't know everyone, we can't let anyone not on the council or their immediate advisors sit in and listen. We will make reports at the end of each day. Thank you all for understanding."
Gnady waved Waterman Stoddard over. "You're my advisor, okay?"
"Thanks. But let's call me chief of advisors, that way we can get more people in here."
Chandalar's voice boomed out, "Delegates, introduce your advisors if they exist."
Questions raised about the definition of "advisor" were quickly answered. During the quick debate more than one person yawned.
"We have a growing army," Chandalar said. "We need a general to run it. If there is anyone you know who can do a better job than Slayer-of-Men, I want to hear about it right now."
Russian Amerika (ARC) Page 14