Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 07 - Breakup

by Breakup(lit)

  In this, she was less than perceptive of the considerable regard

  174 in which she was held in the Park. Whether she knew it or not, she

  wore authority like a long cloak, with much was that swept up in its

  weighted hem of which she was unaware, including the undivided attention

  of the six people sitting before her now. Six pairs of sharp eyes

  watched her without seeming to, noticing the lines of control bracketing

  the usually mobile mouth, the fresh scab on her temple. None of them

  lingered over the scar on her throat, but then they'd all seen it

  before, and most of them knew the story behind it, or thought they did.

  Like the presence of the wolf-husky hybrid chowing down on beef jerky at

  the end of the bar, it only added to the accumulating legend.

  The six elders sipped coffee brought by a self-effacing Bernie, who

  recognized a tribal council meeting when he saw one. They chatted in low

  voices, settling into their seats and getting comfortable with one another.

  "Well," Billy said, setting his coffee down. Auntie Vi flipped open her

  notebook and retrieved one of her pens. Old Sam's bright eyes flicked

  from one face to another. Harvey frowned into his mug. Auntie Joy's

  needle flashed through a square of cloth. "I'd like to thank you all for

  assembling on such short notice." There were grave nods all around,

  except from Old Sam, who grinned his vulpine grin. "We've invited Kate

  to sit in on the meeting. She's got a proposal she'd like to lay before

  the board."

  "What?" Kate said.

  "Go ahead, Kate," Billy said encouragingly, and the other four board

  members swiveled their heads in unison to look at the youngster come

  amongst them.

  On her best day Ekaterina Moonin Shugak couldn't have passed a better

  buck. You son of a bitch, Kate thought furiously, you set me up.

  She sent a scowl across the table that should have fried Billy's brain

  in his skull. He took no notice of this lapse in generational respect,

  only continued to look at her, waiting, face schooled to an expression

  of innocent inquiry. So did the rest of the board.

  175 The weight of their expectancy had a perceptible drag all its own,

  towing her in, sucking her under. She wasn't strong enough to resist, so

  she took a deep breath and waded in. "Cindy Bingley nearly killed her

  husband, Ben, this afternoon." Auntie Joy's beam vanished, and Kate

  waited for those who had been present to fill in those who hadn't been

  before continuing. "This wasn't the first time she's tried it. The next

  time he uses his and his kids' dividend checks to finance a drunk, she

  might get lucky. I don't think anyone here wants that."

  Going immediately on the attack, Harvey went straight for the jugular.

  "So what are you saying, Kate? You want the Association to hold back

  Ben's and the kids' dividend checks?"

  "I don't know, that's pretty extreme action you're suggesting," Billy

  observed without heat, "holding up a dividend for a lousy toot to Ahtna."

  Kate hadn't suggested it, in fact hadn't even thought of it until now,

  but was willing to discuss the red herring Harvey had dragged across the

  trail just to get it out of the way. She might score some points of her

  own in the process. "It wasn't his first toot, Billy," she said, "and he

  isn't alone, as you very well know. Half the shareholders blow their

  dividends when they come in. Most of the time it's the wives and kids

  who suffer for it."

  "They get their own dividends," Demetri said.

  "Not if somebody beats them to the mailbox."

  Harvey's glassy stare made him look as if he'd been stuffed and mounted,

  Auntie Joy beamed at her placidly, Old Sam examined Kate with a critical

  eye.

  "I suppose we could hold Ben's and the kids' checks for Cindy to pick

  up," Billy said.

  They studied that in silence for a while. From the expressions on their

  faces they were all entertaining visions of shareholders storming the

  Association offices for their checks and not relishing the prospect.

  "You know," Demetri said, "Cindy's not exactly blameless in this

  situation. She's done plenty of partying herself."

  176 "She takes good care of those kids," Auntie Joy said.

  "He'd sue," Harvey said flatly, because that was what he would do and

  don't any of them forget it.

  "Not if he doesn't have any money to hire a lawyer," Auntie Joy said,

  because she hadn't had much use for Harvey since he hogged most of the

  fry bread at a dinner she cooked for the high school basketball team on

  which Harvey was a starting forward. That had been over twenty years

  ago, but Auntie Joy never forgot an act of greed or selfishness.

  "Someone would take it on spec," Demetri said unexpectedly. "There are a

  thousand Philadelphia lawyers in Anchorage just drooling at the prospect

  of taking on a solvent Native Association for costs alone. They could

  drag the case out for years and run their billable hours into the

  stratosphere. We can't chance it."

  Everyone was impressed by this professional assessment of the situation.

  Everyone also wanted to know where Demetri had come by the easy

  familiarity with legal jargon, but Bush manners prevailed and no one asked.

  Personally, Kate didn't think Ben could leave off drinking and chasing

  women not his wife long enough to retain an attorney, so the point was

  moot. "Ben is a shareholder, like the rest of us," she said. "ANCSA

  funds were allocated by congressional act. It's probably a federal

  offense to interfere with their distribution. Ben gets his check, same

  as you, same as me, same as every other Niniltna shareholder."

  They thought about that for a while. Tribal elders spent a lot of time

  thinking in silence, which led to rational problem solving and sensible

  decision making. It was one of their greatest strengths.

  Demetri stirred. "She could divorce him. That way, she could attach his

  dividend for child support."

  "If she hasn't divorced him yet, she's not going to," Billy said.

  "He is a charmer," Auntie Joy admitted with a rueful sigh.

  "What the Association could do," Kate said. Billy looked at her

  encouragingly. "What the Association could do," she repeated, setting

  her jaw, "is tackle it from the other end."

  177 Bernie returned to refill their mugs and set a plate of Oreo cookies

  on the table, his inspired contribution to a harmonious meeting. Seven

  hands reached out, and everybody except Harvey opened up the cookies and

  licked the frosting off the inside.

  "It's not just Ben and Cindy and their kids who need help. I'm sure

  you've all heard about the shoot-out the Jeppsens had with the Kreugers

  here yesterday," Kate said. "Some of you were present for it." Her hand

  moved to her left temple to finger the scab left by the

  too-close-for-comfort graze. Six pairs of eyes followed the gesture. Old

  Sam chuckled, and Auntie Joy looked at him, scandalized. "Three people

  were hurt. But," she said, and paused for effect. "But," she repeated,

  "because we had emergency medical technicians in the bar, we had

  treatment ready to hand."

  "Th
ere wasn't anybody hurt that bad," Demetri observed. He'd had too

  many near misses with wannabe Great White Hunters for a couple of minor

  bullet holes to upset him.

  Auntie Joy transferred her scandalized look from Old Sam to Demetri.

  "True," Kate said. "But I believe the result would have been the same

  even if someone had been badly hurt. The point is, we had trained people

  at the scene to deal with the situation." She paused again. "People

  trained in Ahtna, by the Ahtna Native Health Foundation."

  She held up her right hand. "I caught myself a splinter the other day, a

  bad one. Figured I'd need a tetanus shot. When I was in Ahtna this

  morning, I stopped by the health clinic and talked hina Barnes into

  giving me a DPT booster. You all know Irina. She's the community health

  representative for the Ahtna Native Association, trained in town by the

  Public Health Service in emergency medical care and standard

  immunization and testing procedures." Kate paused. "A useful person to

  have around. We could do with one of our own."

  This time it was Billy who broke the silence. "What are you saying, Kate?"

  178 Kate took a deep, steadying breath and spoke her first words in an

  advisory capacity to the Niniltna Native Association board of directors.

  "I'm saying it's time we started some kind of clinic of our own, right

  here in Niniltna. Half the villages in this state already have some kind

  of health care clinic. Why not ours? Raven Corporation has a nonprofit

  health branch that's been trying to get a foot in the door here for years."

  Harvey said, face set in taut lines of disapproval, "We don't want any

  outsiders telling us how to live. We can take care of our own."

  Kate thought again of the Bingleys, of her cousin Martin's lifelong

  struggle with alcohol and drugs, of Chick Noyukpuk's, of her parents'.

  Of her mother's. Yeah, she thought, and we've done such a good job of it

  so far. She had to fight to keep from saying so out loud, and tried

  instead for a placating smile, but her facial muscles were unaccustomed

  to the effort and she gave it up. She did take a beat to rein in her

  temper, because abusing elders, especially in the presence of other

  elders, was no way to get anything accomplished in the village. On the

  other hand, she and tact were no more than passing acquaintances.

  Learn, then, Katya, a stern voice said.

  She closed her eyes. The board, watching and waiting, saw a shadow pass

  across her face, the usually smooth skin acquire lines that aged it into

  a harsh mask that had seen too much of suffering and sorrow. A mask that

  recalled the presence among them of an older, wiser woman whose

  deliberate and resolute speech echoed in the rasping voice of her

  granddaughter.

  Kate opened her eyes and the mask vanished.

  "We could try circulating a petition to go dry again," Auntie Joy said

  doubtfully.

  Harvey rolled his eyes, but then Harvey liked a martini before dinner

  and a shot of Drambuie afterward. Niniltna had gone dry once, by a

  three-vote margin. Dry meant that no alcohol, not for retail sale or

  personal consumption or gin for Harvey's martini, was allowed on tribal

  land, none, zero, zilch, zip. The Association had

  179 hired shareholders to act as guards to check planes at the airstrip

  for incoming contraband, armed guards that were empowered to break up

  any intercepted shipments on the spot. It was a miracle that the Dry Act

  had passed at all, a miracle aided by a sagacious decision to hold the

  election during the summer, when most of the fishers were out in Prince

  William Sound.

  When the fleet got back into town, another petition was circulated and

  another vote was taken, this time for the village to go damp, which

  meant alcohol couldn't be sold but it could be imported in small

  quantities for personal use. The second petition passed by a four-vote

  margin, having been held during the AFN convention, when all the dry

  votes were in Anchorage.

  Everyone was afraid of what the circulation of a third petition might

  bring. No one wanted any bars opening up again in the village; at least

  the Roadhouse was twenty-seven miles away and Bernie was a responsible

  bartender. He didn't serve drunks or pregnant women, and he forcibly

  removed truck, snow machine and D-9 keys from driving lushes and bedded

  them down in one of the cabins out back.

  For a nominal fee, of course. Social work came a long way behind

  capitalism on Bernie's list. "Certainly we can try, Auntie," Kate said,

  "but since the last vote went against us, maybe we should try something

  else. Like a clinic," she added doggedly.

  "What's a clinic got to do with Ben and Cindy Bingley?" Harvey said.

  "Everything," Kate said. "If we fund a clinic, we can hire counselors.

  If we have counselors on staff, locally accessible so our people don't

  have to go to town for treatment, which they won't anyway, we can tackle

  this problem at the roots. Other associations and corporations have

  already done so. Look at Ahtna. They've got a full-time substance-abuse

  counselor wired into the AFN sobriety movement."

  "Our people won't go to Anglo doctors," Harvey said.

  Kate said patiently, "They will if the board members are the Anglo

  doctors' first patients. In the meantime, why don't we set

  180 up some kind of additional funding to apprentice our own people to

  the staff of the clinic and, if they are so inclined, maybe pay to send

  them to medical school? They don't have to be doctors, they could be

  nurses, nurse-practitioners, physician's assistants, counselors. That

  way, eventually we would have our own people treating our own people."

  "And," Auntie Joy added, "it might keep the kids home." All five of

  Auntie Joy's children had moved to Anchorage to pursue education and

  careers. Auntie Joy lived up the Glenn Highway from Anchorage, but it

  was a long, cold drive in the winter and she never saw enough of her

  grandchildren.

  "Most of our money's tied up in capital construction or investments,"

  Billy said, doubtful. "The sawmill at Chokosna. The salmon plant in

  Cordova. The market holdings Outside."

  Auntie Vi glanced at Kate from the corner of her eye. "What about the

  dividend you're about to declare from the Chokosna logging profits? The

  shareholders aren't expecting that, so they wouldn't miss it."

  Harvey bristled. Billy shook his head and said, "I don't know. The

  shareholders want money, and the Association has given it to them from

  the first year it showed a profit. They've been happy with that for a

  long time, going on twelve years now."

  "And what do you think they are going to say," Harvey said triumphantly,

  "when we cut back on the quarterly dividends to maintain this clinic?"

  "And this will be something new," Demetri observed, as dispassionate as

  always, "and you know elders. They like to move slow. And they vote."

  Oh, Kate thought, you mean like the six people at this table right now?

  "Shareholders are used to going to Ahtna or Anchorage for health care,"

  Harvey said, and smiled at Kate. "I haven't heard any complai
nts."

  "But then," Kate said, with a smile as false as Harvey's, "you

  181 weren't looking down the wrong end of Cindy's thirty-thirty today,

  were you, Harvey?" That was too close to impudence for her elders, and

  five different kinds of disapproval radiated in her direction. Again,

  Kate reined in her temper. "Where's Suzy Moonin going to get prenatal

  care for her and my cousin Martin's first baby? When Carl Stoff broke

  his leg, he had to be medivacked to Anchorage. When Eknaty Kvasnikoffs

  little brother-I forget his name-"

  "Brian," Auntie Vi said.

  "When Brian Kvasnikoff got appendicitis, he died because the weather was