Midnight come again (21 page)

The coffeemaker burped its way to a finish and Alice poured out. "We don't act alone, independently of each other. We're a tribe. When we do something well, it doesn't reflect on us personally, it reflects on the tribe as a whole. We're not supposed to be singled out, to be set apart, to be praised for something we do on our own."

"To be individuals?" "I guess," Alice said, pausing with the tray in her hands to consider.

"Yeah."

"Tough on someone like Stephanie, who goes it alone, who excels in the sciences, who has ambition." "She'll manage," Alice said. ' get what she wants, she'll have to."

But she would leave the village, Kate thought, and unlike her mother, she would very probably never come back. Alice was right about that.

They went out onto the porch, where they found Ray and Dorothy sitting on deck chairs. Dorothy was knitting a sweater. "What is that?" Kate asked. "Is that qiviut?"

Qiviut was the soft hair from the belly of the musk ox, a large, slow, stupid animal with sadly drooping horns and a very thick coat. They had once roamed the northern latitudes of Alaska by the thousands until hunters had killed them all. Reintroduced from Greenland in the 1930s by the University of Alaska, the various herds now numbered over three thousand. The qiviut, the softer hair that came from the belly, fell out naturally, was collected and spun into yarn and distributed among western Alaskan village women to be knit into hats, shawls, tunics and scarves, mostly for sale to tourists in Anchorage because nobody local could afford it.

Dorothy nodded, and waited patiently as Kate fingered the soft stuff and admired the intricate pattern that depended from the needles. Alice passed around coffee and Kate took a seat next to her at the top of the steps. Conversation centered around salmon, the legislature's total lack of ability in coming up with a subsistence plan, salmon, the move to the Chevaks' fish camp upriver to be undertaken in two weeks' time, salmon and the passage of the English-only initiative in the last election and the subsequent lawsuits popping up between Native speaking villages and the state.

"Your grandmother would have had something to say about the English-only initiative," Ray said with a reminiscent smile.

"Yes, she would," Kate said. "She'd find a way around the bylaws to award Niniltna tribal money to the village of Tuntuliak to help with their suit against the state, and then she'd fly down to Tuntuliak and suggest that every federal and state employee who wanted to do business there hire a Yupik interpreter. And she'd probably tell them what to charge, and it wouldn't be cheap." "Ay," he sighed, "I remember one time in Juneau this senator from Anchorage made some remark about villagers sucking on the public tit for so long they didn't know how to eat on their own. It was time to wean us, he said. Your grandmother was there."

Kate winced. "Is he still living?"

Ray laughed, his belly shaking. "Ekaterina didn't say anything. I don't think she ever said anything in public. Not to lose her temper, anyway, and she was as close to it that time as I've ever seen."

"What did she do?" Because, of course, Emaa had done something.

"We were talking about it that night in her room, a bunch of us, and she found out he was part-owner of a chain of gift stores in downtown Anchorage, along with some other tourism-related stuff, a bus line, I think, like that. So she got the president of the Alaska Federation of Natives to suggest moving the AFN convention from Anchorage the next year." Ray laughed again. "She didn't have to call him, he called her.

The next morning a little before six, woke us both up. I figure it was about two minutes after the newspaper hit his doorstep. She invited him to the next meeting of the Rural Governance Commission."

"What happened?" Kate said, fascinated.

"He went. He didn't change his vote on anything important, as I recall, but he actually showed up and listened. Afterward, he said he had no idea there was such a split between rural and urban Alaska."

"How long had he been in the state?"

"Oh, he was born in Anchorage. He'd only been to the Bush once, of course, to Barrow with his high-school wrestling team."

Alice collected the mugs and went upstairs to chase Stephanie away from her books and into bed. Dorothy packed up her knitting and said good night. Ray and Kate continued to sit on the porch and watch the sun travel around the sky in that horizontal fashion that seemed odd only to people who live south of the fifty-three. "You knew her well," Kate said. She was only just beginning to realize how well.

Ray cast her a glance that was half wary, half amused. "Very well."

"I didn't know."

He shrugged. "We didn't try to keep it a secret."

Implied was the suggestion that perhaps Kate hadn't cared enough to notice. She wasn't getting a lot of compliments on her attitude lately.

"She talked about you a lot," Ray said.

"She didn't talk about you at all."

He shrugged. "It was not her way, to talk of private things."

"I suppose not."

Kate was glad she was sitting down.

It had never occurred to her that Ekaterina might have taken a lover.

She felt dizzy with the discovery.

Well, and why not? Emaa was a strong and powerful woman, and for some men strength and power were seductive qualities.

But she was old.

She looked at Ray, and Ray looked back at her, the twinkle in his eyes very pronounced.

Evidently not that old.

Kate got to her feet. "It was nice to meet you, uncle."

He held her hand. "It was good to talk of Ekaterina again. When she died--" His voice failed him, and he seemed to look beyond himself, beyond them, seeing something he couldn't share.

"How long did you know her, uncle?" He took his time coming back. "A long time," he said. "Yes, a very long time."

"Did you ever think of, well, making it permanent?" Ray sighed. "I asked her. She couldn't leave Niniltna, and I can't live anywhere but Bering."

Kate was silent.

"I don't know what she would have said about this last election."

"I do," Kate said. "English the official language, no subsistence bill, the state fighting tribal sovereignty. Seems like we're going backwards." He stood up. "That's not why I miss her, though." He looked at Kate. "That's not even the half of it. I miss her laugh most, I think. You couldn't help but laugh with her" *

He paused, his eyes uncomfortably piercing. "This thing that happened to you in September."

Kate stiffened. Next to her, Mutt tensed and gave a soft whine. "What thing in September?"

"Don't get smart with me. I might have been your grandfather, if I'd met your grandmother first," he said sternly. "Unlike the rest of my family, I read the papers."

The fight went out of her. "All right, uncle."

"This thing in September," he repeated. "It has hurt you." She said nothing.

"It could not be otherwise." He paused. "Just don't let it destroy you."

He went inside, and Alice came out. "You're leaving? Shoot, so soon?"

Alice walked her to the gate of the little picket fence surrounding the yard. "Who was the man who came into the bank this afternoon, Alice?

That your boss let in after he locked the door?"

"Who? Oh, that was Senator Overmore. Senator Christopher Overmore, Bering's senator in the legislature."

"Oh," Kate said on a note of discovery. "That's why he looked so familiar."

"He's running for the U.S. Senate."

"Yeah, that's right. I forgot."

"Hard to with the nine million posters he's got plastered all over the state. You can't even watch Frasier re runs anymore without Chris Overmore butting in on Niles and Daphne." Alice sounded indignant

"Maybe you should pay attention," Kate suggested.

Alice lifted one shoulder. "Who cares, anymore? Nobody believes anything politicians say. It's not like they're working for us, all they do after they get into office is run for reelection. Money, money, money, that's all it's about. I wouldn't vote for George W. Bush at gunpoint, just because he's made enough money to buy every American citizen's vote ten times over. It's obscene, Kate. And Chris Overmore's just as bad, got his hand out everywhere you turn. Why do you think he came to the bank and got all buddy-buddy with Mike?"

"Why, Alice," Kate said in mock surprise. "I didn't think you cared."

Her brief spurt of temper over, Alice laughed. "Remember, if you don't vote--"

"--you can't complain," Kate finished for her, and they both laughed at this echo of Kate's determination that Alice take an interest in politics when they were in college together.

"About the other thing," Alice said, suddenly serious. "What you asked me to do." "Yeah," Kate said, uncomfortable. "I don't know, Alice, maybe you better forget it. You could get into real trouble--"

"I want to do it," Alice said. "And you wouldn't ask me to if you didn't have a good reason." She grinned. "My one chance to play Nancy Drew and you want to yank it? No way!" She hesitated. "And, Kate? Thanks for asking."

Kate walked back to the airport at a slow pace, thinking of Alice's unhesitating loyalty to a classmate she hadn't seen in thirteen years, but mostly of Ekaterina and Ray, marveling at his existence in her grandmother's life. A lover. Emaa had had a lover. Kate shied away from the mental image that conjured up. Sex might not have offended Emaa's sense of dignity but it offended Kate's sense of Emaa's dignity. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry or rage. Emaa had had a lover, a lover serious enough to propose marriage, a lover in love enough to hang on when she refused.

A lover like Jack.

For the first time since his death, Kate thought about what it had meant to have Jack always there. She had been so sure of him, of his affection for her, of his faith in her, of her trust in him. It had never occurred to her that he would cheat on her. He wouldn't, she knew it right down to her bones. He would never endanger her health, he would never betray her trust. How many women could say that about the men they loved, and with such certainty?

The pain she had been suppressing for so long struck suddenly, straight at her gut like a knife, twisting hard and deep. It stopped her in her tracks, the breath going out of her body in a rush. She bent over, arms wrapped around her belly, and gasped for air which suddenly seemed in very short supply. Mutt pressed close, curving her body around to come into as much contact with Kate's as possible.

A truck went by, slowed as if to stop. She straightened up and waved to show that she was all right.

"Probably drunk," a disgusted voice said, and the truck kicked up gravel and dust as it accelerated away from her.

Another time she would have been angry at the assumption. Now, it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other and move down the road. Mutt paced next to her, glancing up from time to time, never straying far from Kate's side.

It was nine-thirty by the time she arrived at the hangar. Baird looked frayed and irritated. "Did you have a nice day off?"

She looked at him blankly. "What? Oh. Yes. I suppose so."

"You ready to go to work now?"

"Let me grab a couple of hours first. I'm not due on until midnight anyway." She walked out without waiting for a reply, knowing he was fuming behind her and not caring much.

Jim was in the bunkhouse, stretched out on his bunk. He raised his head as she came in.

"What are you doing out of the hospital?" she said, stopping just inside the door.

"I hate hospitals. I checked myself out."

She pulled off her sweatshirt and sat down to take off her shoes. "I met a friend of yours tonight."

"Oh yeah?"

"A girlfriend."

"Who?"

"Name of Stephanie. Stephanie Chevak."

"Who? Steph--oh." A pause. "How did you meet her?"

"I know her mother, Alice. Ran into Alice in town, Alice took me home to dinner, where I met her family."

"Oh."

"Cute kid."

"Yeah."

"Didn't know you went after them that young."

"Knock it off, Shugak."

For the first time in their relationship she'd given him the needle and he didn't have a smart comeback. Kate let her second shoe drop. "What happened to you, Jim?"

He started to shake his head, winced and stopped. "I don't know. I can't remember. The doc said head trauma sometimes results in short-term memory loss."

"Permanent?"

"Don't know yet. All I remember is getting a ride into town. I don't even remember who from."

"Were you robbed?"

He nodded. "My wallet's gone."

"What was in it?"

"No ID, if that's what you mean." He was trying to sound indignant, and failing.

She knew that, she'd found his wallet with badge attached in the bottom of his duffel bag. "Money?"

"A hundred in twenties, maybe. A driver's license in the name of Jim Churchill. A VISA card, same. That's about all." "You said something in Russian to me at the hospital."