by Ed Ifkovic
“Miss Ferber.” He grasped my hands. “Everyone is talking about your visit.”
“That’s the danger of visiting a town of five thousand. Visitors become the story.”
“Only famous visitors.” He nodded at Clint. “Lovers of Alaska.”
“Are we intruding?” I asked.
“No, no. Of course not. Come. Let me buy you lunch.” He was already reaching for his parka, which, I was delighted to see, was a brilliant red, fringed with beads, and covered with embroidered emblems. The hood was lined with a ruff of gray fur.
“Me, too?” Clint asked.
“Of course.” Noah tapped him on the shoulder affectionately.
On the sidewalk Noah tucked his arm under my elbow.
“Miss Ferber,” he began, but I held up my hand.
“Please call me Edna.”
He nodded, smiling.
I smiled back. Leaning in, I looked up at him. What caught my eye was the profile: that angular high-cheeked face and the slightly crooked aquiline nose under darting black eyes, deep set and a little weary, as though he lacked sleep. In the cold air his ruddy complexion seemed curiously tropical: a beachcomber’s coveted tan. A crooked smile that gave him a sardonic look, a hint of perpetual bemusement. That, and the shock of hair, long and straight and shiny black, bunched over his back collar. In the cold he didn’t put up the hood of his red parka. A tall man, over six feet. Each time he glanced at me—huddled as I was in the thick parka and a swarm of scarves—he leaned down into my neck and smiled. I smelled woodfire, a hint of burnt spruce perhaps, wonderful.
Even though Noah held my elbow, he moved quickly— though finally he slowed down, as Clint and I moved at a snail’s pace, a raspy sound coming from Clint’s lungs—despite the fact that he walked with a limp, a rhythmic dragging of his right leg.
Last summer, arriving late for dinner at Hank’s and being seated next to Noah, I was immediately captivated, but when he stood to leave, he reached for a cane and limped out the door. I’d been stunned. It was as though I’d failed to notice a crack in an exquisite Baccarat vase, but which, contemplating it, made the object possess more worth, fascination. The defect simply galvanized the work of art.
Noah opened the door of a small shack, pulling on the stuck, buckling door, and I looked for a sign. Nothing. An inn with no name. A small cardboard sign was taped to a window: “No Whores Allowed!” Clint nudged me to look, tickled. Inside, standing in the murky darkness, I spotted clusters of men sitting at oil-cloth covered tables, clouds of blue-gray smoke hovering near the ceiling from which naked light bulbs were suspended on frayed cords.
“White folks don’t come here,” Noah said.
“Probably the fault of the advertising.”
Noah laughed out loud.
Seated by a front window cloudy with caked dust, Noah told a chubby young woman in braids—“Marla,” he called her and she melted—what he wished. Nervous, I begged off lunch. Already my stomach turned. I smelled burnt oil, grill grease gone stale and unattended, and something sickly sweet, like spun sugar. But Noah seemed to know what he was doing. He slipped a cup of Labrador leaf tea across the table, and I sipped it. It had a calming effect—a subtle hint of some wild weed, musky, like dried flower seeds, marigolds, maybe. And then a simple lunch of dark flat frybread that, following his example, I dipped into a huge bowl of Bush rabbit stew.
“With a bit of ptarmigan game bird. To spice it up. And fried cranberries.”
I sat back, watching Clint and Noah ravage the meal, their faces close to the deep bowls, spooning up the meat with torn pieces of dark bread. Then I discovered that my own bowl was empty, totally, a chunk of the nut-flavored bread wiping up the last of the stew.
“You’re a woman who loves food,” Noah said. “Usually I’m the first one finished.”
“I questioned what I was eating.”
“You gotta trust me.”
“Obviously, I do. I usually peruse a menu closely, terrorize the waiter, exasperate my dinner companions, and then demand something not on the menu.”
“I’m surprised no one’s poisoned you,” Noah said.
“They wouldn’t dare.” I lifted my chin. “I’ll not allow it.”
Sitting back, joyously sated, Noah lit a cigarette and Clint stuffed his pipe.
“Tell me about your Native Alyeska Fellowship, Noah,” I began.
Noah exhaled smoke and snubbed out the cigarette. “You know, Alaska isn’t like the Deep South these days, Edna. I mean, those civil rights battles. All that agitation in the streets and Negroes fighting to sit at lunch counters amazes us. The fire hoses. The vicious dogs. In Alaska we Natives were here first. There’s lots of intermarriage, the old sourdoughs on the tundra needing women, falling in love with them, having children. But we’re still second-class citizens. We lack education, medical care, legal rights. White civilization has done a number on us—TB, liquor, welfare, poverty, suicide. Growing up, we were told not to speak Qwich’in. The white teachers in the BIA schools would spank us if we did. I remember one sign in school: ‘Speak English, Talk to the World.’ Well, what about our world? So now I’m a voice for my Qwich’en people, for others, a lawyer who can sometimes do wonders.” He smiled. “Sometimes, in court, Natives actually win.”
I sipped my tea. “Last year you said statehood would benefit Natives.”
“I think it will. Statehood will settle land claims, get us education. You know, we’ve been waiting to redress Native claims since America bought Alaska from the Russians. We’re still waiting.” He watched Marla clear the dishes, said something to her in Qwich’in, and she returned with generous slices of huckleberry cake.
I bit into the cake, warm, buttery, speckled with crunchy berries.
“Hank and The Gold—especially Sonia—are desperate for statehood.”
“Frankly, I am happy you and Sonia have each other,” I said.
His eyes wide, he laughed a long time. “How you put things, Edna. We’re two independent forces—two planets from different galaxies—who bounce off each other.” He hesitated. “I love you but stay away. Come back. Yeah, love, but…”
“Hank and Irina are pushing the marriage,” Clint said.
“That’s not always a good thing,” I said. “I imagine Sonia doesn’t take to suggestion.”
“Especially from her parents,” Clint added.
Noah was frowning. “I’m the bright little Athabascan boy from Fort Yukon, sent to boarding schools for rich white boys, to the University of Washington law school after the war, returning dressed in sweaters and sharp-creased Eddie Bauer khakis and penny loafers. Look what we did—we Arctic-rich Pygmalions—with the little red boy. Part of the deal was that I marry Sonia. Irina wants grandchildren. But I don’t know—this is also my world here.” He pointed at the tables with Indians. “But suddenly I’m in flannel and buckskin and wolf fur and”—he waved his hair wildly—“my hair goes on forever.”
“The man in the flaming red parka,” I commented. “Bull’s- eye.”
“Marry the girl,” Clint said quickly, punching Noah in the shoulder.
Noah’s eyes shined. “I keep proposing.”
“Sooner or later,” Clint stressed, “she’s gonna say yes.”
Outside the restaurant Clint and Noah each took one of my arms—I felt like a rag doll flopping on the icy sidewalk—and we walked toward the Nordale. Turning the corner, I sensed Noah’s hold slacken, then tighten. He stopped walking, and Clint, off-kilter, jerked away, with me nearly toppling to the ground. The three of us shuffled, then stopped, a frozen tableau, as Noah acknowledged a young woman walking toward us. She’d spotted us first, and, striding forward, her face set in an impish grin, seemed ready to collide.
“Maria.” Noah’s voice was scratchy.
“Well, Noah.” Her grin got wider.
Noah got fluster
ed, something I didn’t expect. He looked toward the street, gazed into the air, at the ground. He mumbled, “My sister Maria. Maria, Miss Edna Ferber.” A thin smile. “Of course, you know Clint.”
Clint half-bowed to her.
Close up, Maria was very much Noah’s sister. Tall, willowy, she had the same ebony hair, long like her brother’s, and that beautiful face, those deep-set black eyes and the pronounced cheekbones. But there was something shabby about her, a cloth coat with a shoulder seam unraveling, cloying drugstore perfume, blotchy rose-colored rouge dabbed generously on her cheeks. Noah was staring at Maria, and none too happily. She struck me as a bar girl, one of the pretty women I’d spotted last summer lingering in the red-light district, a notorious stretch of one-room shacks and endless neon-ugly bars on Fourth Avenue. She stood before us, waiting, tapping a high-heeled shoe, baiting him. Her brother didn’t say anything.
“Noah, you don’t call.”
“I’ve been busy, Maria.”
She raised her voice. “Sam Pilot is in town. A month now.”
“Where’s he staying?”
A harsh laugh. “My couch.”
Noah turned to me. “Sam is from Fort Yukon, too. A distant relative, but then we all seem to be related.” To Maria he said, “What’s he doing in town?”
“Getting ready to die—from the sound of his midnight hacking.” A pause. “He’s a tired old man.”
Noah leaned into me. “A trapper from Fort Yukon. Tough as nails. A grandson of a famous shaman.” He lowered his voice. “A common thief, if not worse.”
Maria watched him closely. “He read about Jack Mabie in The Gold.”
Clint was itching to say something. “Edna, Sam Pilot was the only friend Jack Mabie had from the old days. Partner in crime, they say. Shared a frontier cabin over a winter or two. Fistfights, black eyes, marshals running them out of the villages, shared cans of beans and sourdough bread and cheap wine from dandelion greens.”
Maria went on. “He hasn’t seen Jack in years—was surprised the old coot is still alive.”
I said to no one in particular, liking the sound of the words, “The meanest man in Alaska.”
“I never met him.” Maria said. “Sam got a lot to say about him. He says Jack tried to kill him once. He plans to visit him at the Frontier Home—surprise him.” A light laugh. “He says Jack owes him twenty bucks.”
Noah wasn’t happy. “Sam Pilot used to be a dangerous man, Edna. A killer.”
“Now he’s just—feeble.” From Maria.
“I’d like to meet this Sam Pilot,” I said.
Noah’s glare was not kind. “An old Athabascan man who once told me only sissies go to school.”
“But you didn’t listen to him,” Maria said quietly.
“I haven’t seen him in years.”
Maria clicked her tongue. “I have, unfortunately. He’s old and cranky and smelly and…and now and then he shows up at my apartment.”
“You could turn him away.”
Maria scoffed. “I don’t treat family the way you do, Noah.”
With that, her head thrown back, she walked away.
“Your sister is beautiful,” I told him.
A gritty tone. “She’s forgotten that she was born in Fort Yukon. She’s an Indian like me.”
My eyes trailed after his sister. “It’s her life, Noah.”
He pulled away but turned to face me, his eyes fiery. “I love my sister, Edna. There’s only the two of us here, brother and sister…” A helpless shrug.
I didn’t know what to say. Again I turned to look at the departing Maria and noticed she had stopped at the end of the sidewalk, facing us, staring, arms folded over her chest.
Noah groped for words. “We don’t understand each other.”
I blurted out, “Perhaps you should work on that, Noah.” My words stung him, his face closing up. “It might be your failing.”
Startled, Noah started to say something, but paused. Then, his eyes dancing, he laughed, “Edna, you’re the only person I know who can slice bread with her tongue.”
Chuckling, Clint rocked on his heels.
I bowed to both men.
Chapter Four
The jukebox at Cleary Creek Roadhouse was playing a staticky version of Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart” when Sonia, Noah, and I walked in. A honky-tonk girl in a flared square-dance dress leaned over the jukebox, her body swaying. As we passed, she looked up. She was mouthing the words of the mournful song, tears streaming down her cheeks. She offered us a feeble smile and pointed to a table, and I realized she was the barmaid.
“This is not a good beginning,” I whispered into Noah’s shoulder.
Competing with the jukebox was an old man, perched on a stool, blowing into his harmonica. A plaintive “Home Sweet Home.”
“Jack’s already here.” Sonia pointed to a table near the long pinewood bar. He was slumped down in his seat, legs stretched out, eyes closed, a tinny wheeze escaping his throat. As we approached him, the harmonica player stopped, to a smattering of applause, and someone nearby whooped it up. Jack, startled, sat up, letting out a ferocious belch that caused the weeping waitress to titter.
Not a good beginning.
Sonia had insisted on another meeting with Jack—“There’re one or two more stories I can get out of him”—and Noah, who’d not met the old-timer, was all for it.
“The history of Alaska,” he’d told me. “A dying breed.”
“Yes,” I’d replied, staring into his eager face, “all contained in a bottle.”
“Stories to tell you, Edna,” Sonia had emphasized.
“Yes,” I’d said, “hyperbolic tales of craven murder and, I suppose, simple meanness.”
“The meanest man in…”
Groaning, I’d held up my hand. “Noah, please. If I hear that phrase one more time you’ll encounter the meanest woman in the world.”
Which was why, the next night, around eight, we sat with a sloppy-tongued Jack Mabie at the roughhewn pine table covered with beer rings and jackknife inscriptions scratched in. Kilroy, I noted, hadn’t been there—or at least at my stained and wobbly table.
“You’ve been drinking,” I told Jack, which surprised him, causing him to blink wildly. It was as though I’d insulted him by observing the color of his eyes.
Noah stuck out his hand. “Jack, we haven’t met.”
“You sure about that?”
Noah nodded.
“I know a lot of Indians.” He growled. “Most losers, fools, and downright thieves.”
Noah bowed. “I answer to all three conditions.”
Jack called the barmaid. “You know, I’m sitting here and I ain’t got another bottle in front of me.” He waved his empty bottle.
The roadhouse was on a dirt road leading out of Fairbanks, a mile or so from Jack’s Frontier Home cot, a desolate stretch of the Richardson Highway, and I wondered how he’d found his way there. He’d suggested the place, peculiarly, because it was a touristy place with sawdust on the floor, spanking new glossy prints of the frontier days on the walls. A table of Outsiders nearby, a family that looked fresh off a Pan Am flight. But the tables were mostly locals, backslapping folks who yelled across to one another, raised bottles of beer in salute. Jack already knew a few of them by name.
“You like this place?” I asked him.
“I like any place that gives me free liquor.”
“I like any place that doesn’t give me the willies.”
Jack eyed me closely. “Lady, you talk mumble jumble.”
Sonia grinned as she reached over and squeezed my hand affectionately. Then, still laughing, she leaned into Noah’s shoulder, and he whispered something in her ear. Shaking her head and widening her eyes, she smiled back at him. For a moment the two stared at each other, companionable, private, th
e secret communication of lovers in a public place. A lovely tableau, I thought, perfect and rare, though it excluded me and the irascible Jack.
Watching them, Jack narrowed his eyes. “You two a couple, right?”
Noah nodded, his hand grazing Sonia’s cheek.
Jack’s penetrating look suddenly morphed into hardness. He hissed at them, “You know, pretty people always end up real unhappy.”
“Why would you say that?” I asked him, piqued.
Dramatically, he pointed at Sonia and Noah, his baleful stare moving slowly—the word menacing came to mind—from one to the other. “She’s like this beautiful blond girl out of a damn storybook. Once upon a time…” He glowered. “He’s like…like a John Wayne Indian. Apache warrior. Marauder—war paint and poisoned arrows. No good can come of this.”
Noah bristled and looked ready to say something, but Sonia, smiling, tapped the back of his wrist as she flicked her head back, a look in her eyes that said—leave it alone. He’s baiting you.
Noah caught his breath. In a thick, unfriendly voice he said, “Sam Pilot is in town, Jack.”
Jack waited a moment, scrunching up his face as if trying to recollect a face. “That old bastard?” Then he laughed. “I thought the ass was long dead.”
Jack fiddled with the empty beer bottle. He upended it, his lips sucking on the glass. A hint of white foam speckled his upper lip. His tongue rolled out, made it disappear. The barmaid placed a bottle of beer in front of him, but he didn’t look at it. He chuckled. “The only buddy I ever had. But a real bastard.”
Noah was staring at him closely. “You know, Jack, Sam’s a distant relative of mine.”
Jack pressed a finger into Noah’s chest. “All Indians say they’re related. Ain’t never met one who said he didn’t share blood with everyone. Athabascans, well, you know, rabbits.” He made a scary face. “Hocus pocus voodoo man. Christ, that man’s eyes could set paper on fire.”
Noah watched him, unhappy. “He’s staying with my sister, Maria.”
“Ain’t seen that fool in a dog’s age.” Jack tilted his head, lost in thought. “Winter back twenty maybe more years. Shared a cabin outside of Old Crow. One more day and I’d killed the bastard.”