Annie Blue spoke of how hard life could be in times past. Dogsleds, no planes or four-wheelers. Very little canned foods, lots of spam, which drew some laughs. Most of the food was collected by their own hand, hunting and fishing, picking berries. Gathering wood for warmth. Then she talked about how there were fewer temptations when she was a child. “But children misbehave, even me,” she said.
Blue remembered getting in trouble and having to chop wood and scoop snow for the elders as her punishment. She recommended that these children do the same.
The elders saved the day. Everyone seemed to understand their wisdom and left with their dignity intact, their voices heard. This was good. Snow knew he has witnessed something magical—something mystical, powerful and good. This is the way. He was as sure of it as he had ever been sure of anything. This was the way.
The three kids accepted their punishment well, almost joyously. They actually seemed anxious to start their assigned service. They had to help fix the damage and do some work for the elders as well. Snow knew that the work with the elders included chopping or hauling things but also included sitting down to hear stories about the old ways. That was part of the healing and the education.
Chief Snow shook Moses hand but left quickly. He had been close to tears as he listened to the elders speaking. He did not want anyone to see that. He had underestimated the wisdom of the elder people. Again.
Snow wanted to be clean, really clean, before he met Lilly. He saw from the smoke that Mayor Moses had his steam bath going, so he stopped and asked if he could join him.
“Got a date with that cute nurse?” Moses asked. Snow smiled and looked down. “Come on! Hope you like it hot.”
“The elders court is good. The kids listen. Your idea was good, Mayor,” Snow said.
“Eee, it’s a good start. We need to start doing more with it, adult cases. Child adoption, things like that,” said Moses.
“Eee,” said Snow. Moses and his father turned their heads and glanced at him for a second.
Mayor Moses, his father, and Snow sat in the tiny muk’ee, or “steam bath.” The muk’ee was a simple plywood shack. Moses’s muk’ee was a little bigger than most, but they were all small. It was about eight feet square and six feet high on the inside, with a plywood floor stained dark after years of heat, sweat and water spilled on it. There were some low wooden benches constructed of two-by-fours. They sat naked. Towels hung on nails nearby. There was a small woodstove to provide the heat and a bucket of rocks on the top to pour water for the steam.
Moses was trying to see if he could make the gussok chief beg for mercy by repeatedly sprinkling water on the bucket of red-hot rocks, heating the muk’ee to a torturous temperature. Snow was dying but refused to buckle. Moses laughed.
“You are not half bad for a gussok!” he said to Snow.
Snow did not say anything but would take it as a compliment if he lived. He put a wet rag over his head to survive.
There was bucket of soapy water and a cool bucket to rinse off. They all three took part in the cleansing ritual. There was a tiny entryway where they had hung their clothing.
Snow felt as clean as a newborn babe when he met Lilly at the clinic. She was there with the gangly PA, who still did not quite understand what was going on. Good, thought Snow. He did not particularly care for the PA, who he thought arrogant. Lilly wondered how anyone could be so smart yet so stupid like the PA.
Lilly got behind Snow on the four-wheeler and they headed up the beach. Snow was acutely aware of her arms around his waist and her body against his as she hung on tight. Many passengers did not hang on this way, instead leaning back and hanging onto the rack in back, but Lilly wanted to hold him close.
Snow drove toward Cape Pierce but only went a few miles. Neither spoke as they rode; it was a difficult proposition to talk while riding anyway. The bay was on their left as they traveled south. The water was flat and pink from the sun on the horizon. They seemed alone in the world out here. Snow found a nice spot under a high bank and pulled over. He had brought a picnic basket of sorts—a cardboard box with some pilot bread and other bush staples. Snow gathered wood and made a fire while Lilly spread out a dark-gray, wool blanket and some fried chicken from the AC store.
They did not get to the food because they were locked in embrace, quickly drawn together by an undeniable, primal force of nature: Love.
CHAPTER 9
THE BREAK
Cliff Johnson, Charlie Johnson’s mostly white father, had been born in Anchorage. He was the great-great-grandson of Isaac Johnson, the bull cook from the whaling ship Saint George. Cliff was raised by his mother and her family. In the summer they lived in Bristol Bay working set-net sites fishing for salmon.
Cliff had learned how to operate heavy equipment and repair nearly anything motorized while serving in the US Army. Later, he worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers to build roads in his home state. Cliff had seen life outside of Alaska and was determined to do better for his family. He developed a taste for material things and became ambitious.
After his military service, Cliff teamed up with his relatives in Bristol Bay, working the set-net site. Set-net fishing was different than drift-net fishing. The drifters used boats to lay out their nets and pull in the salmon, which got hung up in the net by the gills. The set-netters strung their nets out perpendicular from the beach to where they were anchored in the water. The nets were set in place, and you hoped the fish found them. It was hard and miserable work and folks usually lived right on the beach in tents or shacks during the fishing season.
After the season he hung around for a time. He saw that a well was being drilled in South Naknek. They had problems keeping the drill running as it kept breaking down. The contract for the well was from the US government. Johnson used a contact in the Army Corps to help him get the drilling work. He hired onto the drilling crew, putting his mechanical aptitude to the test. Soon he was running the crew. The man in charge of the drilling operation was suddenly replaced by Cliff Johnson. The drill foremen suspected foul play, possibly a kickback by Johnson, and confronted him about it. Johnson struck him with a pipe wrench and broke his arm in two places. Nothing came of the accusation after that. He knew more than the others and worked harder, too.
Over the years, Johnson got all the contracts for drilling wells in the region. He made some money and hired more crew so he did not have to work in the field as much. He had a mixed crew of white men and Natives. The locals tended to stick around longer than transients from the lower forty-eight, so Cliff Johnson hired as many of them as he could, building allegiances.
There was no store in South Naknek where Johnson was based. Most people had their food shipped in or bought food from the two canneries. Cliff saw yet another opportunity. He knew what things he could probably sell locally. The same things he would buy if he could. He had a container shipped up that was loaded with dry and canned goods, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and other essentials. He opened a small store after the canneries closed in the fall.
Business was good. The next year, Cliff Johnson brought in two containers of goods. His girlfriend ran the store, which he now kept open in the summer. He managed his businesses. People sometimes would not have money to pay for goods they needed. Johnson opened lines of credit for people. He had a big heart for people when they needed things, but he could be ruthless in collecting debts, especially toward people who did not pay him because they were too busy getting drunk. More than once he had to threaten people or even get physical with them. Sometime Cliff would himself get drunk before working up the nerve to confront someone indebted to him.
Cliff Johnson soon figured out that the biggest and easiest money was in selling booze. He could make more on one bottle of hooch than a basket full of groceries. So he brought in a container full of alcohol and opened the first bar in South Naknek, right in the front room of his store. He called it Johnson’s Bar, but everybody else called it the “Gin Mill” or simply “The Pit.” The
bar opened in the summer and performed well. Booze flew off the shelf. Sometimes his shipments were gone in a couple weeks, leaving locals thirsty for more.
Johnson next year added onto his store and separated the bar from the store. The bar was only open in the summer. In the winter, the store would function as the bar. Cliff tended to the bar when he was not too busy running his other businesses. Cliff was running a legitimate business but skimmed a lot. A lot of cash not on the books. And he was not above breaking the law. He had a greedy streak and not a lot of scruples.
When the US Postal Service decided to put a small office in South Naknek, Johnson also got that contract. He hired a local lady to run the post office. He had the title of postmaster and oversaw the operation but rarely sorted any mail or went in the post office. Johnson also made himself an ordained minister so that he could pretend to be a non-profit corporation and enjoy huge tax breaks. He carried the charade as far as performing a few marriage ceremonies.
Cliff Johnson married a local woman, Nancy, and they had two children, a boy and a girl. He also had an illegitimate boy with a local girl in Naknek; she named their son Charlie and gave him the Johnson surname.
The baby was born the same summer that an Eskimo named Frank N Beans moved to South Naknek from a village up by Bethel. He went to work for Cliff Johnson drilling wells in the summer and tending bar in the winter, despite the fact that he did not speak English well.
Charlie Johnson grew into a wild boy who fought easily. After he found out about his father, he became much wilder and more unpredictable. He hated his father for not claiming him as his son even though he shared his name.
Chief Snow got a call from Trooper Dick, who had news from the state medical examiner’s office.
“Bullshit Bob died from a gunshot wound.”
“Really. Amazing. I never would have guessed.”
“His BAC was so high he could have died from alcohol poisoning if he was not a professional drinker,” Dick said with just a hint of respect.
He is going to make me ask, thought Snow as he waited. “How high was it?”
“A .42 blood alcohol content when Mr. Bullshit decided to shoot himself. By the way, the ME said the entry looked like he held the rifle out away from his body at least a foot or so,” Trooper Dick added.
“Amazing dexterity for someone at .42 BAC, wouldn’t you say?” Snow asked, not really expecting a response.
“I know what you think, but there is nothing here. You said so yourself after you interviewed everyone. There’s no case even if we had a case.”
“What about the shell casing? Any prints?” Snow asked hoping for something.
“No, no prints at all, not even Bob’s. That is not that unusual, as you well know. The old rifle was the one. No prints on that either. Don’t know why we even bothered.” Trooper Dick said it like he had personally dusted the rifle for prints, not the lab rats.
“I know, I know. I still smell a rat, you know. Just hoping for something, I guess. Did they check for DNA?” asked Snow.
“No.”
“Have them check for DNA on the shell casing and rifle, can you? I wonder if we have Buck Nelson or Charlie Johnson in the system. I bet they both are. If they find anything, they can run it through their database and CODIS.”
“I can do that for you, Snow. It’s no skin off my nose. I think you are wasting your time. Even if they get something, what does it prove? Anyone could have touched that gun, including either one of those shit-birds.”
“I know. It would be a favor to me, Dick.”
“I do have something for you on your friend Buck Nelson. I got a report that a big white guy is trading alcohol for ivory. Nothing substantial, but maybe you want to follow up on it. It sounds like your boy.”
Snow got the info from Trooper Dick. Maybe he could hang something on Nelson yet. He would have to do some nosing around.
Snow went by the Round House and saw Stanley Beans chain-smoking Marlboros outside. The weather was definitely turning to summer if Stanley was doing a load of laundry, again.
It is time for you to pay for all those loads of laundry, thought Snow. “Stanley. I won’t repeat whatever you tell me. It’s just between you and me. Okay?” Snow knew Stanley would never risk crossing Nelson.
“What?” Stanley said. He looked at Snow. His eyes looked like fish eyes, magnified by the thick, greasy lenses of his black eyeglasses held together with black electrician’s tape.
As they talked, a red salmon jumped in the river in front of them. Jumper! Snow pointed at it, but Stanley had seen it already. Sign of summer for sure. Bears soon, Snow thought as he remembered the grizzly attack, rubbing the scar on his shoulder. He still had bad dreams about that. He heard the bear snuffling over him, smelled its breath, felt its jaws clamp onto him. It was a nightmare, but Snow still felt lucky to be alive.
“Buck Nelson trading booze for ivory. Tell me the truth, please. Remember, just between you and me.”
“I hear things about Buck. He’s a bad man. He got all of Bullshit Bob’s things after he died. Bad. I heard he sells booze. I don’t know about the ivory. You should talk to Peetook Tooksook upriver. You should talk to him. He might know. Talk to my brother, Frank.”
“Already tried once, but guess it’s worth another shot,” Snow said.
Snow found Frank N Beans at his mother’s place, a gray, bare, wood-frame house. Frank sat out back on a homemade wooden bench designed to hang gill nets they used for fishing salmon. On the ground was a long lead line he was hanging with light green net. The green reedy grass was knee high already. The local people had found ages ago that this tough string grass was good for making baskets. Some folks still hand-wove them.
On his short, strong hands, Frank wore light-brown wool gloves with the fingers cut off at the first knuckle. Hanging gear was tedious work and took hours, even days. Frank had a nice rhythm going and continued to work with the white plastic nine-inch needle filled with white hanging twine as they talked. Move the line. Check the length with wooden stick. Thread the needle back and forth through five net diamonds. Adjust the twine to hang out the right length. Then half hitch, jerk tight, half hitch, jerk tight, reverse half hitch double jerk tight. Repeat the process into infinity. Each length of net was fifty fathoms long, 300 feet of tying knots every eight inches or so.
Frank had been living in Togiak for only about ten years. Originally he was born in a three-room cabin in Aniak, up by Bethel. He had five brothers and three sisters, five half-brothers, and one half-sister. The wooden cabin had been very full, especially in the winter. His family was Yupik Eskimo. They lived by subsistence hunting, fishing and whaling. He remembered his childhood with fondness even though it had been a hard life. He was too young to know how hard his father worked to provide for them the bare necessities. He remembered the thrill of going with his father and brothers out to hunt caribou. Frank recalled the mystery and majesty of the huge herds; how his father made them all give thanks to the Great Spirit when they made their kills; the wide-open, endless, beautiful, wild and forbidding country that was as wondrous as it was deadly and unforgiving.
His father died hunting whale when he was ten. His father had been a hero to him. Frank was devastated by his death. He became very quiet and talked little. His mother, Lima, had sent him to live with his uncle, who was a good man like his father, except when he drank. Things were forever different for Frank N Beans.
He was closest to his brother Stanley, who seemed to deal with the death of their father better than Frank. But, like only a brother can know, Frank knew that Stanley suffered just as much in his own way.
One winter night, Frank N Beans was in his nest of a bed. His uncle came home. He was drunk. He crawled into Frank’s bed and began to fondle him. Frank froze with fright. When his uncle mounted him, Frank started to squirm. His uncle put his big, strong hand roughly over Frank’s mouth. Frank submitted to his uncle in a mixture of fright, revulsion, and some strange sense of excitement. His u
ncle finished and left him. Alone, ashamed and changed.
His uncle repeated this act many times over the next years. Frank never talked to anyone about it—never. He was too ashamed. His uncle was likeable when sober but turned into a demon when the booze coursed through his veins. He beat his wife and the children and did those unspeakable things to Frank.
When he was sixteen, his uncle tried to sodomize Frank again. Unexpectedly, Frank burst out in fear and anger and punched his uncle, over and over. He punched him bloody and may have killed him if not for Stanley. His auntie never forgave Frank for this act. Nothing was ever spoken of these things. No one wanted to shame the family or themselves. It was a curious hell.
His uncle never tried to do it again, but Frank carried the scars. He bottled the feeling of fear, dread and self-loathing. He somehow felt some responsibility despite his being a boy. He had liked some of it, he thought with hot shame. Only when he drank could he numb the feelings. And sometimes the liquor released a torrent of tears or malevolent rage. He never knew whether his brother Stanley had experienced the same torment, though he suspected.
When his uncle committed suicide by shooting himself in the head when he was drunk, Frank allowed himself no feelings about it. No happiness, sadness, relief—nothing was allowed. It was the only way to preserve his sanity.
When Stanley Beans moved to South Naknek to start a new life, he wrote a simple letter to his brother in his best eighth-grade English. Frank soon followed. He wanted to shed the yoke of shame that was his burden in Bethel.
Frank had worked for Cliff Johnson’s dad off and on for many years. He found some measure of happiness there.
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