Stone Cross

by Marc Cameron

  “Hello!”

  Nothing.

  No fire in the stove. Odd.

  He flipped the switch on the wall, then stuck his hands back under his armpits, hugging himself to stay warm. The wood stove was out. Stone cold. Dammit. It didn’t matter where everyone had gone. He had to get a fire going, or they’d find him dead on their floor when they got back.

  There was a good supply of kindling in a bucket beside the stove, along with a few brittle pieces of old spruce crown and some newspaper. Somebody here knew how to start a fire. The matches were in a small glass mayonnaise jar. He had to swing his arms for almost a full minute in order to get the blood flowing enough to twist off the lid and hold a match in his fingers. Even then, his hands were so wooden he dropped two matches before he could get the flame to the paper he’d crumpled inside the stove with his shaky hand. The small twigs in the spruce crown were filled with sap that went up like gasoline as soon as the burning paper ignited them. Vitus took his time, feeding the growing flames progressively larger pieces of kindling. He was still shivering like a jerky marionette by the time he could add actual logs. His hands were starting to ache, which was good. At least he could feel them again.

  He wished he could crawl inside of the stove and warm up more quickly, but settled for squatting in front of the open door with his shirt open, letting the heat bounce off his exposed skin. It took five minutes for the shivering to abate enough for him to remember he was hungry. He was going to have to borrow some food before he returned home. The river had a lot of ice, but it was still flowing. Maybe he could borrow a boat too so he wouldn’t have to ride through the bog again to get back to Stone Cross. It wasn’t all that cold outside, so long as he wasn’t soaking wet.

  Vitus hung his coat on the back of a chair in front of the stove, stood for a moment to watch the steam begin to rise off the fabric. He thought about taking off his pants too, but he was too afraid someone would walk in on him. That was probably a crime, he thought glumly—being naked in somebody else’s house—even if you were freezing to death. Instead, he decided to see what there was in the pantry and then bring something back to eat in front of the fire so his pants could dry.

  The lodge kitchen was set up for feeding a dozen people, with long stainless-steel counters, a six-burner gas stove, and a walk-in pantry that contained an overwhelming amount of canned and dried food. He’d just finished making himself a peanut butter sandwich when he heard the hollow, dripping-water sounds of a raven outside the window. Blue-black against the snow, the tulukaruq squawked and squabbled, hopping back and forth to peck at something in the snow. Ravens were tricksters, but when they made a fuss, there was usually something worth investigating. Vitus leaned forward, craning his head over the sink to get a good look.

  His mouth fell open at what he saw. A pale blue hand, fingers curled into a frozen claw, stuck out from beneath a snowdrift. The ravens ignored the hand. They were interested in something else. Something more gruesome, something bright and red against the snow.

  CHAPTER 14

  Cutter sat on the left side of the airplane, directly behind the pilot. The stopover in Bethel hadn’t taken long. The sun wouldn’t set until seven, which gave Cutter time to get settled and scout the village before nightfall. He had a feeling that when it got dark out here, it would be really dark, especially in this weather. A green David Clark headset protected his hearing and connected him via intercom to everyone else onboard, while he watched the tiny droplets of water skid by on his window, vibrating from turbulence and prop wash. The fog was getting worse. High wings, mounted on the top of the plane, gave passengers an unobstructed view when there was anything to see but clouds. The Caravan was a nice ride, fairly new, but it was more farm truck than company car.

  Earl had isolated the intercom so only he and Markham’s law clerk in the right front seat were privy to their conversation. The two of them sat chatting away, while everyone else rode in silence for the first few minutes of the flight. Even Natalie Beck, who was surely used to the scenery after three years of teaching in the bush, appeared content to lean her forehead against the window and watch the wet and foggy earth pass beneath them.

  Earl’s voice suddenly crackled over the headset, causing Cutter to glance toward the cockpit.

  “A couple of nice moose in the water off the left wing at about eight o’clock.” He flipped the switch isolating him and Grinder again, leaving everyone else to look at scenery worthy of a National Geographic cover.

  Less than a thousand feet below, Cutter could just make out the sweeping oxbows of the Kuskokwim, one of the two mighty rivers, along with the Yukon, that formed the southern and northern reaches of the YK Delta in Western Alaska. There were a few trees right out of Bethel, but not enough to call any one spot a forest. Tall cottonwoods grew along the banks of the river and its many smaller tributaries, towering over clumps of more stunted willow, alder, and birch. Gnarled spruce stuck up here and there, out of place, like patches someone had missed when shaving.

  Thousands of lakes and ponds pocked the flat tundra below, some frozen enough to be covered with ice, others gaping black holes of open water against a background of patchy snow. They flew over several villages on the river north of Bethel, handfuls of weathered houses, short gravel airstrips, boats along the bank.

  Lola’s voice squelched in the headset. “Even the smallest villages look like they have a school.”

  “Yep,” Natalie Beck said. “I think the minimum is something like fifteen kids. The school serves as the community center, library, gym, theater on movie night, art center, wood shop. Ours is the only building in Stone Cross big enough to hold everyone for a funeral.”

  “A lot of funerals?” Ms. Paisley asked.

  “Too many,” Natalie said, so quiet her voice cut out a little on the intercom. “We had one for a student right before I flew out.”

  “Are you from Alaska?” Lola asked, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

  “Michigan,” Natalie said. “Ann Arbor.”

  Ewing cleared his throat. “I’m a Buckeyes fan.”

  “Go Blue,” Natalie said out of habit, still subdued.

  Paisley laughed. “Ann Arbor is beautiful. Surprised you left it for bush Alaska.”

  “This place has its charms,” Natalie said. “You fall in love with the people.”

  Lola spoke next. “New Zealand Maori have a saying: It’s the people, it’s the people, it’s the people.”

  “I like that,” Natalie said.

  Ms. Paisley half turned in her seat. “My boss told me we shouldn’t use the term Eskimo, but I’ve heard them call themselves that.”

  “They do indeed,” Ewing said, one of his usual pronouncements of wisdom.

  “The Canadians I’ve met don’t like it much,” Natalie said. “They seem to prefer Inuit. I just follow the lead of whoever I’m speaking with. The people I know in Stone Cross don’t seem to mind Eskimo. If you’re unsure, just call them Yup’ik . . . or, better yet, don’t give them a label.”

  Cutter didn’t know if this teacher was wise before she came to the bush, or if the bush made her so. Either way, she spoke with the maturity of someone with a lifetime of experience.

  “Stone Cross is supposed to be a fairly grim place,” Markham said. “At least according to Lieutenant Warr. Is that how you would describe it?”

  Natalie continued to look out the window.

  The mic picked up her soft groan. “I might not be the one to talk about those details. I’m still an outsider.”

  “You appear to be a bright woman,” Mr. Ewing said from the back of the plane. “There must be some positive things if you return for what, your fourth year?”

  “Oh,” the teacher said, turning, though she was talking over the intercom. “There are plenty of upsides. I’ve never seen anyone with more respect for their elders. And they have this intense relationship with the land and water . . . But honestly, I would be dishonest if I didn’t tell you about the domestic viol
ence, sexual assault, and the rampant poverty. More than a couple of the children in our school have been sexually abused, and it’s not a very big school. The people voted in the local election to make it a dry village. Sale and even possession of alcohol is a crime. Some people bootleg—an eight-dollar plastic bottle of R&R whiskey can bring a couple of hundred bucks—but most don’t have that kind of money. They get around that by making this nasty home brew in five-gallon paint buckets. Baker’s yeast, sugar, and some kind of fruit juice.”

  “Like the pruno inmates make in prison,” Lola offered.

  “If pruno smells like old bread dough and an orange-juice can you dug out of the garbage.”

  Lola turned up her nose and gave an understanding nod. “That is exactly what pruno smells like.”

  Natalie beat the side of her head softly against the window while she spoke. “It’s a real problem. I’d say most of the violent crime is directly related to home brew. And many of the students I deal with in SPED suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome.”

  “You make the whole village sound horrible,” Paisley said.

  “Oh, it’s far from horrible,” Natalie said. “But there are some horrible situations. Like I said, to leave out those issues would be dishonest.”

  “Aren’t the troopers doing anything about the crime?” Paisley asked. “It’s a little place. It can’t be that difficult.”

  Natalie laughed derisively, then apologized. “People here are no different from people anywhere else. They are smart and vibrant and rich in culture. They get plenty of missionaries who think they need to be rescued.”

  “But they do need rescuing?” Markham said, a little too smugly for Cutter’s way of thinking.

  “Everyone needs rescuing, Judge,” Natalie said. “Like all of us, though, they have to be the ones to rescue themselves.”

  “Do you think we’re in danger?” Ms. Paisley said. “Of getting mugged, I mean.”

  “No,” Natalie said. “At least not any more than you would be in Anchorage.”

  “Not saying much, these days,” Lola said.

  “Stone Cross has wonderful people,” Natalie said. “And a handful of assholes, just like everywhere else in the world. Don’t get me wrong though. I love it. I wouldn’t be living in an apartment with a couch that smells like cat pee and a grime ring around the tub that looks like it was sandblasted in, if I didn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off and she sat up straighter in her seat, as if steeling herself for something. “We’re about there.”

  Cutter pressed his forehead against the window. He saw nothing but fog.

  “How do you know where we are?” Paisley asked. “The rest of us can’t even see the ground.”

  “It sounds weird,” Natalie said, “because I’m a science nerd, but you build up a sort of radar out here. You just know when you’re getting close to home.”

  The village of Stone Cross ghosted into view just then, as if to illustrate her point. A dozen aluminum boats sat along the riverbank, looking sad and abandoned out of the water. They were tumped this way and that as if they’d been deposited by a receding flood. Rough clapboard houses ran along the river for about two hundred yards, then up five short, muddy side streets, like sparse and uneven teeth on an old comb. A gray-white church lay at the eastern point of the southernmost tooth. Stone Cross K-12 was at the opposite end of town, where the main street ran along the river. The school was easily the largest structure in town and had an outdoor basketball court as well as playground equipment.

  The three-thousand-foot gravel runway was located almost a mile out, past the dump, farther from the bank of fog that ran along the river. A parade of ATVs was already heading out of town as they flew over. Some of them pulled plywood trailers.

  “Welcoming committee,” Earl said into his headset as he banked the airplane to the left on final approach. “Hondas should be there by the time we land.”

  “Those are green,” Judge Markham said, face against the window. “I expect they’re some model of a Polaris. Honda ATVs are usually red. That yellow one is probably a Can-Am.”

  Earl half turned, before focusing again on landing the aircraft. “Do a lot of four-wheeling, do we, Judge?”

  “A fair amount with the grandchildren,” Markham said, sounding pleasant enough.

  “Well,” Earl said, “in the bush, Honda is a generic for every kind of ATV. It’s like when you order a Coke in Texas and it could be Dr Pepper or Sprite.”

  “Noted,” Markham said, nodding slowly. If he was offended, he didn’t show it.

  The plane settled in, the discomforting blare of the stall warning pouring through the cabin as the pilot used throttle and angle to bleed off the speed necessary to make the airplane stop flying. They glided just a few feet off the runway before touching down with little more than a bump. Clouds of snow blew by the windows. The stall warning horn fell silent. Earl rolled to a wide gravel apron at the very end, then gunned the throttle to turn the airplane around before taxiing back to the line of waiting ATVs. Cutter noticed that he turned again so he was facing slightly downhill, probably to keep from having to rev the engine to get moving when it was time to go. This gravel surely wreaked havoc on propellers.

  The ATVs growled up to surround the plane as soon as Earl shut off the engine. He asked everyone to stay seated until he had a metal stand situated to keep the tail from squatting as the weight moved aft as they deplaned.

  Cutter scanned the crowd through his window. It looked like the scene of some unwinnable scenario in protective training. Passive faces he didn’t know, no clear avenue of escape, and virtually everyone had a rifle over their shoulder.

  “Well, that’s stuffed,” Lola said, her forehead pressed against the window. “Want me to get out the rifle?”

  “What I want to do is have Earl turn the plane around,” Cutter said. “But I suspect we’re going to have to get used to everyone having guns and knives.”

  * * *

  Cutter walked ahead of the judge, his hands free, eyes playing across the crowd as he made his way down the folding stairs.

  The bulk of the greeters stood by their ATVs and looked on in stony silence. It was difficult to tell if they were upset to have visitors or just indifferent. The first smile of the group came from a bear of a man beside the bottom step. He wore the brown uniform and ballistic vest of a village public safety officer. Trained by the state, but paid by the nonprofit Native corporations, these VPSOs provided law enforcement, fire, and rescue response in rural villages where there weren’t enough troopers. They worked alone. Dark bangs stuck out from the edges of a black wool beanie. He had the slightly Asian features of a Yup’ik Eskimo. The patch on his shoulder read: FIRST RESPONDERS IN THE LAST FRONTIER. His Sam Browne duty belt held handcuffs, pepper spray, and a Taser—but no sidearm. Hunching forward slightly, eyes half shut against the snow, he stepped forward when he saw Cutter.

  “Are you the marshal?”

  Cutter extended his hand. “Deputy Arliss Cutter.”

  “Ned Jasper,” the VPSO said. “The L.T. told me about the threat to your judge.” He tossed a nonchalant look over his shoulder. “Don’t pay any attention to all the guns.”

  “Hard not to,” Cutter said. “In our line of work.”

  “True enough,” Jasper said. “But these guns aren’t for you. We’ve had a couple of rabid foxes lately so everyone is a little bit on edge.”

  “Rabies . . .” Lola’s hand drifted to the pistol on her belt. “That’s a relief.”

  Ned Jasper shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “It is at that,” Lola muttered. She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself. “Step off the airplane into the food chain.”

  Cutter motioned her forward. “This is my partner, Deputy Lola Teariki.”

  “Welcome to Stone Cross.” Jasper glanced back and forth from Cutter to Lola. “I never met a marshal before. To be honest, I’ve only heard stories about you guys.”

  Lola smiled. “About the marshals riding int
o town to get the outlaw?”

  Ned studied her for a moment, then looked back at Cutter. “Something like that.”

  “Thanks for meeting us,” Cutter said. “I’m assuming we load our gear in the trailers.”

  “Afraid so.” Ned gave an embarrassed grin. “I was gonna pick you up in the school van, but it’s got a dead battery. You can pick which Honda you wanta ride on and we’ll take you to the school. It’s a ways though, so if you got hats, you should definitely put them on.”

  A Native man with a round face and broad middle made a beeline for the judge. Thick salt-and-pepper hair was mussed in back like he’d just gotten out of bed to come meet the plane. His zippered sweatshirt was open to the chill and a tremendous belly pushed a thin T-shirt out away from his body so it hung like a skirt past his waist. One leg of his sweat pants was tucked into black rubber boots. The other, slightly too long, was sodden with snow.

  “Melvin Red Fox,” he said, offering a hand, squinting a little as if he’d forgotten his glasses. There was a sadness in his deep brown eyes that was unmistakable, as if he was on the verge of breaking into tears. “I’m the Stone Cross city manager.”

  Markham shook the offered hand, working hard not to react to the man’s disheveled appearance. “Thank you for having me out to assist. I look forward to seeing more of your village.”

  “That won’t take long,” Melvin said, giving a forced smile. He reached to touch Markham on the elbow. “I joke. We are very proud of Stone Cross. We got a big potluck planned at the school tonight. Don’t worry, both parties to the case are invited so no one will think you’re playin’ favorites before the arbitration.” He hooked a finger over his shoulder at a green four-wheeler. “Come on, Judge, you can ride up front with me.”

  “I should probably ride—”

  Red Fox ran a hand over his thick hair. “If you think I’m gonna try and talk to you about the arbitration while we ride, you ain’t been on that many bush Hondas. I’m good as deaf anyhow.”

  The VPSO loaded the sleeping bags and other luggage into the nearest plywood trailer. “Here, Judge,” he said. “I made you a seat out of sleeping bags if you’d rather ride in the back.”