Season of Death

by Christopher Lane

  “They like you,” a voice announced.

  Ray looked up and saw a woman standing on the narrow porch attached to the rambler side of the house. She was small, in her early sixties, with long gray hair collected into a pair of braids that reached to her waist. Her skirt was colorful and featured a primitive, repeating pattern. A dentalium shell necklace was draped around her neck.

  “Uncle says if dogs like you, it means you have a heart full of good, not evil.”

  Ray nodded, accepting the compliment while at the same time wondering if there was anybody on the planet that these particular mutts wouldn’t like.

  “Uncle said a Lightwalker was coming. He didn’t mention face paint.”

  Ray decided not to ask what that meant. Instead, he gave the dogs a final pat and joined the woman on the porch. The steps creaked alarmingly as he mounted them.

  The woman laughed as Ray cast a suspicious glance at the wooden floor. “Don’t worry. The house is safe. It will not fall down today. Maybe tomorrow. But not today. Uncle is sure of this.” After another laugh, she offered her hand. “I’m Emma Colchuck.”

  “Ray Attla,” he responded. Her handshake was surprisingly firm.

  When she had released her grip, Emma took a single step backwards and gave Ray a slow once-over. A lopsided grin curled up the left side of her mouth. “Big,” she finally surmised. “I never saw such a big Lightwalker. Or such a red one.”

  “Lightwalker?”

  She nodded, as if everyone knew the term. “Uncle saw you coming.”

  Ray’s eyes darted to the house. The old man must have been at the window.

  “No,” Emma said, frowning. “Not with his eyes. Uncle is a seer. He saw you coming before you knew you were coming.”

  “Is that right?” Ray wondered if Emma was related to Mary back at the center. Hopefully, Uncle wasn’t a nutcase too.

  “Come in,” she invited, smiling radiantly.

  Following her inside, he listened as the floor planks groaned and sang beneath their feet. An earthquake would turn this place into kindling, he decided.

  “Wait here. I’ll get Uncle.”

  Sinking to a seat at the end of a lumpy earth-tone sofa, Ray surveyed the room. It was clean, well kept, attractive in a quaint sort of way. Most of the wood floor was covered by an oval rug of concentric, ropelike rings. Matching crocheted armrests had been placed on the sofa, a stiff-backed chair, and an aging, off-white La-Z-Boy. There was a fireplace on one wall, the hearth above it cluttered with photographs. Unframed, the snapshots had been propped in a uniform row. Ray rose to examine them. Two were of village ceremonies, one in faded black-and-white. A man appeared in each, the first with dark hair, full cheeks, and a husky frame, the second as a shell of his former self: gaunt face, frail body leaning crookedly on a crutch, a head of snow-white straw. Uncle, Ray assumed. There was a tattered, black-and-white of a woman crouched next to a birch-bark baidarkas, a kayak. Near the end of the row was a yellowed photo of Emma in earlier days, standing next to another woman … Betty. Or Barbara, as the folks here called her.

  “How know Ba-ba-ra Colchuck?” a gruff voice asked.

  Turning, he saw Emma wheeling Uncle in. Uncle was smaller, even more shrunken than in the most recent photograph, his mouth void of teeth. The dusting of snow was all but gone, his head nearly bald. Sticklike arms protruded sharply from his shoulders, and two limp, pencil thin legs were strapped to the bottom of his wheelchair.

  “We work together in Barrow.”

  “Ah … Inupiat …” he muttered. “Good people.”

  “The Real People.”

  This drew a chuckle. “All People real people.” He looked Ray over, then glanced up to Emma and grunted, “Too big. Not right be so big.”

  “Raymond Attla,” Emma introduced, ignoring the remark, “this is Peter Colchuck.”

  “Uncle,” he corrected. “I called Uncle.”

  “Porcupine quills, Uncle?” Ray asked, referring to the border of his shirt.

  A curt nod. After a long, uncomfortable pause, Uncle asked “Why face red?”

  Ray instinctively reached up to finger the thick paint. He offered a wry chuckle. “When we landed on the beach the dancers played a little joke on me and …”

  “Stick dance, no joke!”

  Emma winked at Ray. “I’ll go check on lunch.”

  Ray’s eyes begged her not to leave him with the old man.

  Once she was out of the room, Uncle said, “You keep People ways, Raymond?”

  Groaning inwardly, Ray realized why the old man intimidated him. He was the Athabascan incarnation of Grandfather. Stodgy, stubborn, crotchety … A keeper of all things old and outdated.

  “I … uh … In some things … I mean … uh … yeah … I try,” he stuttered.

  “Some things? Try?” Uncle grumbled. “Not keep some. Do. Do not. No try.”

  Grandfather to a T. The conversation thus far was a dead ringer of the one he and Ray engaged in every time he ventured to Nuiqsut to visit the old coot.

  “Why you Light-walka, I no understand.”

  Ray turned his attention to the mantel, pretending to study the photos.

  “See woman with baidarkasl She mudder—Betty Reed Colchuck.”

  “She was pretty,” Ray observed.

  “Pree-tee outside. Pree-tee inside,” Uncle mused. “All over good. She …” His voice caught and he launched into a violent coughing fit. Quaking in the chair, he fished out a pack of cigarettes, extracted one, and tried to steady himself enough to light it.

  “Here, let me help …”

  Uncle swore at him between raspy hacks. After three aborted attempts, the quivering hands finally matched the lighter to the Salem and he sucked thirstily. Moments later he was calm, emaciated body relaxed, respiratory problems abated by smoke.

  “She Light-walka, like you,” he puffed. “Always go with Light.”

  Ray nodded, wondering how lunch was coming.

  “I see you come,” Uncle explained matter-of-factly. “See on water. See in water.” Here he laughed and a fresh coughing fit overtook him. The cigarette magically arrested it. “You like swim?” he teased. His eyes were sparkling now. He was enjoying this.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ray said, his patience waning.

  “You no ‘member Lake? No ‘member Riv-a? They try eat you.”

  Ray gazed at him. Did he mean …? No. Impossible.

  “Light-walka …” He frowned at Ray. “Maybe. But no believe. Big waste.”

  Speaking of waste, he felt like saying. “I’m looking for a man named Farrell.”

  “Not look hard.”

  “Do you know him? He’s an archaeologist working up river on a …”

  A bony hand waved him off. “Mark Farrell. Was good man. Respect People.”

  Ray caught the word was. Past tense. As if Farrell wasn’t around anymore. Did the old man mean that? Did he know something? Or was his English just faulty?

  “Lunch,” Emma chimed from the doorway.

  Ray followed a pace behind as Emma steered Uncle into the quirky maze of a house, toward the smell of grilled silvers and smoked caribou. They passed a spotted, rusting mirror framed in splintered wood. An antique Ray felt certain. Pausing to examine it, he flinched at the reflection. In the gloom, the paint gave his tired face a malevolent cast.

  The hall emptied into a washroom. The floor was covered in prehistoric linoleum, the once-white surface now a sun-blotched yellow. It was cracking and peeling up in waves that made walking difficult. Emma bumped Uncle past a freestanding sink and into the tiny kitchen: a clean but ancient stove, a row of cabinets that sorely needed refinishing,

  Ray waited as Emma slid Uncle’s chair between the stove and the wall, into a cramped nook that held a Formica table. Four places were set, the silverware pieced together from a half dozen styles. The plates were mismatched as well.

  “Have a seat,” Emma invited.

  Ray was still in the process of
complying, when Uncle began to chant. His gravelly voice rose and fell, droning on without anything even resembling a melody. The words were unfamiliar to Ray, but he was sure they were some kind of prayer song. To the spirits. The Athabascans, like the Inupiat, believed that animals had spirits with which they could communicate. Uncle was giving respect to the approaching caribou. He might well have been blessing every creature within a hundred miles for as long as it was taking.

  Five minutes later, Uncle’s thin, smoke-robbed voice finally trailed off. After catching his breath, he lifted his glass and paused, implying that Ray and Emma should follow suit. When they did, he toasted, “For car-boo coming.”

  They clinked their glasses together in what Ray knew to be a white custom.

  “Ehhh …!” Uncle grunted. Glass still lifted, he added, “And for Raymond. Light-walka. For his hunt to find Nahani.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  NAHANI RAY’S INUPIAQ was limited, his working knowledge of Athabascan dialects almost nonexistent. Nahani? Was it a place? A name? Maybe it meant white man. Or archaeologist, digger in the earth. Maybe Uncle was more mentally with it than he acted, able to read between the lines and discern the motivation behind Ray’s interest in Farrell. Either that or perhaps he had just wished Ray success in finding the bathroom.

  “Know Nahani?” Uncle asked.

  Ray accepted the tray of fish from Emma. “Uh … Sure,” he lied.

  Uncie said something in Athabascan, something derogatory Ray assumed from the way in which it was delivered. “Nahani woodsman,” he explained. After taking the salmon from Ray, he frowned and added, “No good. Much bad. Dark.”

  “Ah …” Ray sighed, nodding to indicate that he understood. Which he didn’t. He looked to Emma for relief, but all she offered was a smile and the platter of caribou steaks.

  “Nahani live deep Bush,” Uncle said. He paused to put in his dentures, sneering as he snugged them against his gums with a thumb. They were too big for his shriveled mouth, creating a toothy smile that didn’t match the rest of his face. When he had clacked them together several times, testing their stability, he stabbed a steak. “Steal little ones.”

  “Is that right?” Ray tried the salmon. It was delicious, grilled to perfection.

  “He too steal man, woman … everything lost by Bush.”

  “Interesting.” Ray nodded again, sliced off a piece of caribou and stuck it in his mouth. It was a little dry, but quite tasty. Eyeing the empty place setting, he asked Emma, “Are you expecting more company?”

  “It’s for Keera.”

  Ray wondered if that was Athabascan for caribou. Perhaps it was their custom to set a place for the spirit of the coming animals, to show them the proper reverence.

  “No worry Nahani steal little ones,” Uncle grumbled. “They stealed by TV, al-co-hol …” He swore angrily. “White man friend of Nahani. Help him.”

  “Mmm-hmm …” Whatever, Ray thought. “Emma, do you know Dr. Farrell?”

  She started to reply, but Uncle cut her off. “What you think I talk ‘bout?!”

  Ray considered the question. In truth, he thought Uncle was blathering. The old guy was probably a little senile, ranting about the intrusion of white culture … It was the same speech Grandfather liked to give.

  “I talk ‘bout Mark. He stealed from Nahani.”

  Stealed from Nahani … Ray tried to make sense of this but couldn’t.

  “Stealed from Nahani!” Uncle repeated in a louder voice, as if by increasing the volume he could force Ray to comprehend the statement.

  “Okay. Stealed from Nahani,” Ray said. This seemed to pacify the old guy.

  Thirty seconds passed. Uncle chewed his steak like a cow. Ray scooped in food, anxious to finish and get out of there. He was sure now that Uncle was a bona fide nut.

  He would clean his plate, thank his hosts, and excuse himself, claiming to have a prior engagement. With a radio. Promise or no promise, he was heading for Barrow.

  “Uncle thinks something happened to Dr. Farrell,” Emma announced nonchalantly.

  “Yeah,” Ray said. “I caught that. Stealed from Nahani.”

  Uncle’s head jerked up from his plate as if he had just been startled from a nap. “Stealed from Nahani,” he chanted.

  “Mark radioed in on Thursday,” Emma explained. “He requested that his plane be fueled up and ready to go for him on Friday. But he never showed up.”

  “Because …?” Ray paused, expecting another reference to Nahani the woodsman.

  Emma shrugged. “Uncle thinks he’s dead.”

  “Other than the fact that Dr. Farrell didn’t come to the village when he said he was going to, is there any reason to believe that might be the case?”

  She considered this. “No. But Uncle is usually right about these things.”

  These things? Do people get killed on a regular basis out here? “Is he?”

  “He sees into the darkness.”

  Ray scooped up the last of the salmon and hurriedly cut his caribou into three manageable bites. Three bites, and he would be on his way.

  “Uncle witnessed Farrell’s murder.”

  “Murder?”

  “Watch evil,” the old man said, eyes wide. “Watch pain. Watch blood. Watch breath leave.” He rattled off a paragraph in Athabascan.

  “Someone murdered Farrell?”

  “Nahani,” Uncle answered. “Light-walka find.”

  Turning to Emma, Ray asked, “He actually saw someone kill Dr. Farrell?”

  “Yes,” she answered, nodding. “In the spirit realm.”

  “In the spirit realm …” Ray muttered. He gulped down another wad of caribou and stabbed the final bite, intent upon making a speedy escape. Uncle had witnessed a murder in the spirit realm and was ready to testify that Nahani was the culprit. The question was could he pick the woodsman out of a lineup? What a crock! “I don’t suppose he collected any evidence on his journey into spiritland.”

  Emma frowned. “Uncle was right. You don’t believe.”

  “Well …” Ray tried to think of a polite way to explain that no, he didn’t believe in superstitious mumbo jumbo. He was a college graduate. A police officer. A citizen of the modern world.

  Ray had once been assisted by a shaman in an investigation of a real murder. Aside from that, and three decades of Grandfather rambling on about tuungak and piinjilak, he had never paid much attention to, much less placed stock in, the supernatural.

  “Believe not por-tant,” Uncle suggested. “You Light-walka. You protect Keera.”

  “Right …” he groaned. Setting his fork down, he wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “Thank you for lunch. It was delicious. But now I have to be going.”

  Uncle jabbed a finger at him. “You wait.” His eyebrows rose. “Till after dee-sert.”

  “But I have to find a radio and …”

  “No got radio,” Uncle said. “Got cell phone though.” He shifted in his chair, produced a cellular, and handed it to Ray. “Stand up.”

  Ray squinted at him, then glanced at Emma. “Huh?”

  “Stand up. Better re-spection.”

  “Reception,” Emma corrected with a smile. “If you sit, there’s more static.” She rose to clear the plates and attend to dessert while Uncle extracted his dentures and inspected them for food particles. Ray stood there, feeling like Dorothy mired in Oz.

  He dialed in his calling-card number from memory, still taken aback by the fact that an aging “seer” carried a Motorola. The line rang three times, and Ray was on the verge of hanging up, and skipping out—pte-dee-sert—when Betty answered. “Barrow PD.”

  “Betty …? Ray.”

  “Hey, there. How’s the potlatch?”

  Ray glanced at Uncle. He was working a tiny strip of caribou out of the back molars with a penknife. “Oh, just great.”

  “Your buddies just radioed in. They’re about thirty minutes out. Sounds like things got a little hairy. According to Lewis, you’re all lucky to be alive.”
<
br />   “Lewis is lucky to be alive in more ways than one.”

  She laughed. “He said you were hanging around to do some police work?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. Did Lewis mention how Billy Bob was doing?”

  “Said he was doing fine. There’s a doctor waiting at the airport to patch him up.”

  “Good.” Ray started to sit down but a surge of static forced him up again.

  “Ray? You still there?”

  “Yeah. Listen Betty, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to contact the State Historic Preservation Office in Juneau. See if a Mark Farrell has been in there recently.”

  There was a pause then, “Will do. Is there a number where I can reach you?”

  Ray frowned. If he hung around for dessert … “Yeah. If you can get right back to me.” He read her the number on the phone. “Say, what about that missing-person report?”

  “Nothing’s been filed. No one lost in the central Bush in the past two weeks.”

  “Okay.” Ray watched as Emma glided in with four plates of blackberry pie. She set one at the empty seat.Apparently the invisible caribou spirit had a sweet tooth. “Well … See what you can turn up in Juneau. I’ll be waiting to hear.”

  “Sure thing, honey. Talk to you in ten.”

  After pressing END, Ray repeated the procedure, entering his calling card, and dialing a number. Emma had returned to the kitchen, probably for coffee. Uncle was replacing his dentures, cursing as he fought to get them straight.

  “Hello?!” a distraught voice answered on the first ring.

  “Margaret?”

  “Ray? Oh, I was so worried.”

  “About what?”

  “About you. I thought something had happened. Where are you?”

  “Kanayut.”

  “When are you coming home?” She sniffed several times.

  “Are you crying?”

  “I … I was … Before you called.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you, I was worried.”