Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 07 - Breakup

by Breakup(lit)

  him see her enjoying his discomfort before she said, "Auntie Vi wanted

  me to talk to you about the dividend the board is thinking about issuing

  for the Chokosna timber profits."

  He didn't like the sound of that. "What about it?" he said guardedly.

  "She and Auntie Joy think that some of it ought to be spent on a health

  clinic."

  His face changed. "We've got a compact with the health clinic in Ahtna."

  "Fifty miles away," Kate agreed.

  "It's close enough for minor health problems," he said.

  If he'd looked any more stubborn, she could have accused him of having a

  jackass for a father. Harvey Meganack had the high, flat cheekbones of

  his Aleut ancestors combined with the height of his Norwegian ones. He

  was further distinguished from his fellow Park rats by affecting the

  dapper in dress. True, he wore jeans, but they were pressed, as was his

  oxford shirt with the button- down collar. The latest in Eddie Bauer

  parkas topped the ensemble, and he wore a baseball cap with an Alyeska

  logo covering a bald spot he hid when the cap was off by parting the

  rest of his hair just above his right ear and combing it over. His smile

  was toothy and full of empty charm.

  Harvey was a commercial fisherman and self-proclaimed independent

  businessman, whose pockets were frankly to let to the highest bidder

  when it came time to assign construction contracts on tribal lands, and

  who knew just enough about business to get the Association into real

  trouble. Kate was pleased not to be related to Harvey in any way at all,

  although that probably only held if she didn't climb her family tree

  more than two generations.

  "Fishing was lousy last summer," Harvey added, "and it's been a tough

  winter. The money should go out to the individual families."

  Kate held his gaze for a moment, and then deliberately looked beyond him

  to the Bingley house. When she looked back at him,

  167 he'd flushed again, the brown of his skin darkening to an

  uncomfortable bronze.

  Unwisely, he attempted bluster. "Dammit, Kate, that don't happen all the

  time, it don't even happen most of the time. So Ben Bingley went on a

  tear with his kids' dividend checks, so what's new? All shareholders

  aren't Ben Bingley. Association money should go into the hands of the

  shareholders by as straight a line as possible, not be spent on some

  health clinic it'll cost us most of our logging profits to build and

  most of the yearly dividends for the rest of our lives to maintain."

  It was the same line of reasoning he spouted at every Association

  meeting, an effective line that had gotten him elected to the board for

  four consecutive terms. Kate did not burst into applause, so he cast

  about for support. Demetri Totemoff stood stolidly at his elbow, looking

  at Kate out of tranquil eyes. A square-bodied, blunt-featured man with a

  permanently cautious expression, Demetri was a big-game guide who

  specialized in European hunters, spoke fluent German from his twenty

  years of Army service in Diisseldorf and was Kate's second cousin once

  removed.

  "Maybe you'd better think this over, Harvey," Kate said. "And maybe

  you'd better talk it over with the board, the whole board, before you

  start spending your dividend." She nodded at the Bingleys' house. "We

  could use a substance-abuse counselor in Niniltna."

  Involuntarily, he followed her gaze. He couldn't deny it, but he wasn't

  convinced, either. Fine, she hadn't expected de Lawd to pass a miracle;

  she had only promised Auntie Vi she would try. About to make good her

  escape, she was halted by Demetri's voice.

  "Harvey, the girls are all out to the Roadhouse today, working on their

  quilt." Kate remembered that Luba Totemoff, Demetri's wife, had been one

  of the quilters the day before. "Joyce is visiting, so she'll be there,

  and you know Old Sam practically lives at the Roadhouse this time of

  year. Maybe we should head on out there, talk it over." He raised an

  eyebrow at the board's chairman. "Billy?"

  168 Face as blank as a pane of glass, armed like Rambo about to head

  into the jungle-or Steven Seagal into the Alaskan Bush- Billy nodded

  obediently.

  "Good," Kate said, "great," and headed for her brand-new, much-abused

  truck. "Good luck. See you all later." Later in the year, she thought,

  but didn't say.

  "Kate." Again Demetri's voice stopped her in her tracks.

  Without turning she said, "What?"

  "You've taken an interest in the subject. Seems only right you should

  attend."

  Her tired brain chased itself in circles trying to find a way to get out

  if it, but her synapses were starting to close down, and besides, this

  was an elder making a request. "Sure," she said, turning and mustering

  up a smile, albeit one that could have used work on its sincerity. "I'm

  right behind you."

  Harvey reluctantly and Demetri inexorably shepherded Billy into his

  pickup, and climbed into Harvey's brand-new Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer.

  They moved off down the road, the Yuppiemobile in the lead.

  "You know, I think I'll come along," Jim said, readjusting the set of

  his hat. Beneath the brim his eyes laughed at her. "I'd like to see the

  end of this story." He looked back at the cab of his borrowed truck,

  where Mark Stewart still sat, motionless, expressionless, a graven image

  to loss. In a lower voice he added, "And I just might get to the end of

  another story while I'm at it."

  In no mood to suffer gladly the all too often painfully observant eye of

  the Alaska Department of Public Safety's finest representative, still

  Kate could think of no way to prohibit Chopper Jim's attendance at what

  showed every sign of being a knockdown, drag-out family fight in which,

  if Demetri had his way, she feared she was meant to figure prominently.

  "It's a public bar," she said ungraciously. "Mutt! Come!"

  Mutt, sitting in blissful inattention with her head pressed adoringly

  against Chopper Jim's knee, came awake with a snort and launched herself

  at the open door of the truck.

  169

  The convoy pulled into the Roadhouse parking lot and parked in the last

  row closest to the road. Kate sat for a few moments, examining the

  various vehicles and the surrounding area with care. Demetri, Harvey and

  Billy waited for a moment, shrugged and went inside. Mutt looked over,

  head cocked. "In a minute," Kate said. She completed her inspection,

  listened for shots and heard none, and decided it was safe to turn off

  the engine.

  Silent still, silent all, and Kate relaxed and climbed out. The first

  thing she saw was Frank Scully's Cherokee Chief, brazenly sporting its

  green-and-white Washington plates. She approached for a closer look. Its

  out-of-date green-and-white Washington plates. That did it. She wheeled

  and went back to the truck. Aha. Like every good sourdough, Mandy had a

  tool chest built into the back. The key was on the ring.

  170 Inside the tool chest was a pair of vise grips. Mutt looked a little

  alarmed.

  Kate returned to Frank Scully's truck, fastened the vi
se grips to his

  back license plate and ripped it off. She went around to the front of

  the truck and performed the same service for the front license plate.

  Both plates went sailing across the road to disappear into a stand of

  alders.

  "There." Kate strode to the truck, replaced the vise grips, closed and

  locked the toolbox. She dusted her hands. "All done."

  Bonnie Jeppsen's truck pulled in next to hers, and Chopper Jim and Mark

  Stewart climbed out. "You took your time," Kate said.

  "This thing needs a new gearbox."

  "Oh. Good thing Bonnie's got a steady job."

  "Yeah."

  He started to head for the bar and Kate touched his elbow. "Look at

  this, Jim, here's a vehicle with no license plates."

  "Why, so it is," Jim said happily, and extracted a book of tickets from

  an inside pocket. The Chief was unlocked, and the

  registration-Washington state, Kate noted-was in the glove compartment.

  Jim positively glowed. Chopper Jim was never so happy as when he was

  writing someone a ticket. He'd been ecstatic when two years before the

  state had changed the law so he could write tickets on private property.

  For her part, Kate just loved keeping Chopper Jim happy, and her sense

  of well-being increased as she walked in the door of the Roadhouse and

  the first person she saw was Frank Scully.

  "Ah, my good Eskimo friend," he said, lurching forward to drape a

  friendly arm around Kate's shoulders. "How ya doing, Katie?"

  Oozing cordiality, Kate said, "I'm not an Eskimo, Frank, I'm an Aleut.

  Try to keep up."

  Clearing a nearby table, Bernie blinked and poked a finger in his ear to

  see if it was still working.

  Frank blinked bleary eyes. "Aloot. Right. Sorry. Keep forgetting." He

  weaved off to annoy someone else.

  171 "Is it safe?" Kate said, peering into the bar's gloomy corners.

  "Have the Hatfields and the McCoys all gone home?"

  "So far," Bernie said darkly. A new thought brought a hopeful sparkle to

  his eye. "Maybe they've killed each other and there's nothing left to do

  but bury the bodies."

  "The sooner the better," Kate agreed.

  Unfortunately, Demetri was right. Auntie Joy and Old Sam were both

  members of the Roadhouse quorum that evening, Auntie Joy sitting between

  Auntie Vi, who had abandoned Velveeta pizza sales for handwork, and Enid

  Koslowski, who was looking in a much better humor this afternoon than

  she had at the previous day's meeting of the quilting bee. Probably got

  lucky last night, Kate thought disagreeably, and didn't pause to

  speculate on whether that cranky little internal comment might arise

  from jealousy. Luba, Demetri's wife, rounded out the circle. Quiet, a

  little shy, she kept her neatly braided head bent over her work.

  Harvey, Demetri and Billy sat at a table a safe distance from the

  quilters. The old women had a tendency to start in on the nearest man

  just for the pure enjoyment of it, and since Auntie Joy and Auntie Vi

  had changed all three men's diapers, a safe distance in this case meant

  all the way across the room.

  Old Sam was seated at his usual table, surrounded by the usual suspects,

  watching more television. Today the arts had been abandoned for sport,

  in this case basketball, and from the hooraw going on in that corner of

  the room it would appear some money was riding on the outcome.

  Ralph Estes was passed out with his head on the bar. Must be Saturday,

  Kate thought. If he was running true to form, he'd been drinking since

  Bernie had opened the front door at eight that morning, and had been

  asleep since three or four that afternoon.

  In a far corner Dandy Mike licked the tip of one finger and ran it

  across Karen Kompkoff's collarbone. From the dazed look in Karen's eyes,

  it wouldn't be long before Dandy was beating feet out back. Dandy's

  custom alone probably paid the overhead on Bernie's cabins.

  172 At Kate's entrance, Billy stood up and went over to murmur something

  in Old Sam's ear. The old man, eyes on the television screen, ignored

  him. Billy was insistent. Old Sam swore loud enough to be heard over the

  Unitarian congregation practicing their hymns in the opposite corner,

  and shoved his chair back. Meanwhile, Demetri went to talk to Auntie Vi

  and Auntie Joy. Auntie Vi gave her crisp nod, Auntie Joy her joyous

  smile, and both rose to follow him back to his table, from which he

  actually crooked his finger at Kate.

  Chopper Jim, standing at her shoulder, exacerbated her irritation with a

  deep, rich chuckle. Mark Stewart, still the pillar of sorrow, stood at

  his side. They both watched as her chin came up, her shoulders stiffened

  and she all but marched across the room.

  "Katya." Auntie Vi looked mildly surprised but welcoming. Auntie Joy

  beamed. Harvey looked apprehensive, Demetri stolid and Old Sam thin and

  gaunt and apparently immortal. He distributed his thin, gaunt and

  apparently immortally nasty grin around the group and straddled a chair

  from a nearby table, his hands on the back and his chin on his hands.

  Kate looked slowly from face to face, as if she were seeing them all for

  the first time. Harvey, the self-important businessman and incipient

  dandy. Demetri, the guide, square and stolid and as monosyllabic as his

  wife. Billy Mike, the tribal leader and commercial fisher with the

  bright button eyes and the wide, cheerful smile. Auntie Joy, subsistence

  fisher, housewife, mother, grandmother, robust, laughing, her tubby

  figure dressed always in flowered, be- furred and rickracked kuspuks.

  The fifth board member was its newest, Old Sam Dementieff, commercial

  fisher, tenderman, movie critic, basketball fan and father of twelve,

  who had outlived his wife and five of his children and three of his

  grandchildren and for whom Kate occasionally deck- handed in the summer.

  Old Sam had taken Kate's grandmother's place on the board, reflecting

  the shareholders' need for an elder of stature in the governing body.

  173 Auntie Vi, the board secretary, acquired a lined school notebook and

  a pen with two spares, one behind each ear. Auntie Vi believed strongly

  in redundancy.

  Kate stood around the perimeter of the group, unable or unwilling to

  bring herself to sit down. Harvey was the youngest board member at

  forty-five. Billy was what? Forty-eight? Demetri was fifty, Auntie Joy's

  entire family had just celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday, and Old Sam

  was a hundred and three if he was a day. Auntie Vi had been thirty for

  the last forty years and was determined to remain so until she died.

  Harvey was pro-development, period. Demetri usually sided with Harvey,

  Auntie Joy usually against him. Auntie Joy would vote for anything with

  the word "education" in it, Demetri for anything prefaced by the phrase

  "rural preference." Billy Mike changed sides so often there was no

  decoding his bias, and as for Old Sam- She pulled herself up short. She

  had no business analyzing and measuring their characteristics, their

  prejudices, their strengths, their weaknesses. They were her elders and

  betters, who, like Emaa, always had look
ed and always would look at

  events through a local lens and would adjust accordingly their vision of

  what should be. These were Emaa's sisters and brothers, her daughters

  and sons, her mothers and fathers, and Kate would defer to them and to

  their wisdom. She would, she repeated to herself sternly.

  Together, they had lived a total of more than three centuries and were

  at present marching resolutely toward their fourth. It was an impressive

  accumulation of wisdom and perspective. The difficulty was that

  sometimes that wisdom and perspective hardened into a stance inimical to

  change, to new ideas, to fresh faces, to youth. Kate had been born and

  raised among them, but at thirty- four she was by far the youngest

  person in the group, and she knew that had she not been Ekaterina's

  granddaughter she would have had no place there.