The Singing of the Dead (11 page)

Thus neatly including all non-Native Bush rats in her stand on rural subsistence, too. Anne smiled primly straight into the camera recording the event for later broadcast over the statewide television channel, ARCS, and that was when Kate realized that Anne Gordaoff had plans to run for governor. Kate looked at Pete and wondered if he knew. Probably. He might even vote for her.

Doug Gordaoff passed her, his eyes fixed on the swinging behind of a young woman in very tight jeans, who tossed flirtatious glances over her shoulder as if she were leaving a trail of bread crumbs.

The next question was about sovereignty. Again, Anne came down on the side of self-government for Native villages. “Why not?” she said, softening her voice in an immediate response to Peter's lower key that Kate could only admire. “What have we got to lose? The whole theme for the Nineties was ‘taking responsibility for our actions,’ we were all supposed to shoulder our own weight, stop leaning on the federal government to take care of us. Well then, let us try, let the villages assume some of the duties and responsibilities of self-governance.”

“For example?” the moderator said.

“Law enforcement,” Anne said immediately. “There is no such thing as law enforcement in too many Native villages, who never see a state trooper from one year to the next unless there is murder done.”

Kate thought of Jim, and of how he spent as much time in the air going from crime to crime as he did on the ground investigating them, and thought Anne had a good point.

But this was too much for Pete. “There are only two hundred and seventy-three troopers in the state of Alaska. They can't be everywhere at once.”

“Yes, and why is that, Peter? Could it be that the state has failed to adequately fund the Department of Public Safety, so that there aren't enough troopers to respond to any but the most serious crimes in the smaller communities?”

Darlene was sitting in the front row of the folding chairs directly in Anne's line of sight. She raised her hand in a signal that Kate couldn't quite make out, but it made Anne, who had been gradually leaning forward, straighten in her chair and take a deep breath.

Peter, who had come without handlers, yanked on his own invisible leash and dropped his voice, once again the voice of sweet reason. There was no arguing Anne's point, so he didn't try. “Anne, this issue was supposed to have been resolved with the passage in 1971 of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. For forty-four million acres and a billion dollars, the Native tribes of Alaska would cede aboriginal lands for the TransAlaska Pipeline right-of-way and form corporations to see to the needs of their peoples.”

“Yes, and all ANCSA required in return was that Alaska Natives become white,” Anne flashed back. “We live in the Bush, not in boardrooms.”

“What's next, Anne?” Pete said coolly. “What comes after Natives gain sovereignty? You going to follow the ways of Outside Indian country? You going to open a casino in Niniltna?”

A statement guaranteed to win all the votes there were from the religious right wing of Pete's party.

It was at this point that Kate realized that Peter Heiman might have gubernatorial ambitions of his own. She didn't think Anne would vote for him, though.

Peter had won this round on points, but Anne had him on passion. Darlene tiptoed over to Tracy, standing next to the television camera and flirting with the cameraman, and whispered something to her. Tracy nodded and hurried out of the building. The cameraman yearned after her with a mournful expression on his face. Darlene pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed a number.

The next question concerned each candidate's reaction to the recent initiative passed by an overwhelming majority of Alaskan voters to make English the official language of the state of Alaska.

“A slap in the face to every Native in the state,” was Anne's comment.

“Unnecessary,” Peter allowed, and grinned. He had an attractive grin and he used it well. “I hear Tuntutuliak has passed an ordinance establishing Yupik as the official village language. I hope every time a federal bureaucrat has to fly in there to do business that he has to hire a Yupik interpreter, and I hope those Tuntutuliakers know enough to charge the red-shift limit for the service.”

Even Anne laughed. Kate looked for Darlene to see how she took this, and couldn't find her in the crowd.

Erin Gordaoff, looking lost without Jeff Hosford at her elbow, scurried past. Kate watched her go into the ladies' room.

The moderator gave each candidate two minutes to sum up. Anne touched on her background in the health care profession, of her service to the community on various governmental committees, of her stint as a member of the University of Alaska's Board of Regents. She invoked family icons, the howmanytimes great-grandmother as a direct descendent of Baranov, of the grandfather who was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1955,of the aunt who worked on ANCSA. She thanked her campaign manager and cousin, Darlene Shelikof, and the rest of her supporters for getting her this far.

She was articulate, humble, and smart enough not to attack Peter. Mudslinging didn't work in Bush elections, where Native villagers in particular were unfailingly polite to candidates of either party whether they voted for them or not, and expected their children to be, too.

She was also a younger woman to Peter's older man, and Pete didn't hesitate to point that out, referring to his many long years in Alaska, summoning up family apparitions of his own going back three generations of Alaskan history, his record as a successful businessman and employer of over a thousand Alaskans, his two terms in Juneau.

The audience applauded, the stage lights overhead dimmed, and everybody shook everybody else's hand. Comments from the crowd held the honors of the evening to be about even. More than one person was laughing over Pete's Yupik interpreter, and Kate heard someone say,“Think Dan O'Brian'd like having to do business for the Parks Service in Athabascan?”

“So?” Billy Mike said.

“I admit,” Kate said, “I'm impressed.”

His round moon face was split by a wide, and what could have been relieved, grin. “Good. Great.”

“I don't have to like her to keep her safe,” Kate said. “I don't even have to vote for her.” He laughed, scoffing at the possibility. “Tell me, Billy, this advance I've got in my pocket. It's drawn on the Niniltna Native Association bank account. I'm wondering how the other three hundred and forty-six shareholders would feel about this use of the tribal chief's discretionary portion of the general fund.”

“The board okayed it at Monday night's meeting.” He looked back at the crowd and said,“So? Do you see anyone suspicious?”

“Well,” Kate said, watching the crowd gather around the tables dispensing cookies and Kool-Aid,“other than the joint I saw Michael Moonin sucking on, Rudy Brooks selling six hits of what I figure was cocaine, too many people drinking too much Windsor Canadian out of paper bags, and the narrowly averted infliction of what would have been statutory rape by Nathan Kvasnikoff upon the person of Carole Pyle—although I must say Carole looked more than willing until her dad, Ray, showed up—” She looked at Billy, whose laughter had faded into round-eyed dismay. “No.”

Billy looked from one side of the crowd to the other. “What? You saw all that? Here in the gym? What—why—”

“Billy,” Kate said, and he turned back to her. He looked so hurt that she was moved by an unaccustomed stirring of sympathy. “There are over eight hundred people here tonight, maybe more. You get this many people together in one place, you're bound to have some of that stuff going on.”

“Why didn't you stop it?”

“None of it was anywhere near Anne,” Kate said. “That's what you hired me for, remember? To protect Anne Gordaoff.”

“I know, but —”

“Billy.”

He lapsed into unhappy silence.

Tracy appeared, the ghost of a grin on her face. “So. Bathed in the presence of the candidate, have you now become a true believer, ready to walk in the paths of righteousness?”

“Ask me tomorrow morning.”

“Why tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow morning, the check clears the bank,” Kate said. Billy winced, and Tracy laughed. There was a scrabble of canine feet, and Kate looked down to see Mutt on tiptoe, ears straight up, nose pointing at the door. “Mutt?” She hopped down from the chair. Mutt streaked away through the crowd. Kate looked around for Anne and found her still on the stage.

“Go to Anne, Billy.”

“What?”

“Go to Anne, now. Stay with her, I don't care where she goes or what she does, until I get back. Got it?” He said nothing and she raised her voice. “Got it?”

He looked shaken, but he said,“Got it,” and stuck his chubby little chin out like he meant it. He began pushing his way through the crowd to Anne, and Kate took off after Mutt.

She found her finally, in the parking lot, whining at the blue van Doug and Darlene had driven from the lodge to the gymnasium.

Inside was the tall blond man who was the candidate's daughter's fiancé.

And if the gunshot wound in his chest was any indication, he was riding shotgun for the last time.

Nome

July 1900

The little girl had long dark curls done up with pale pink ribbons that matched the trim on her dress. She stood in the doorway of the Aurora Saloon and gazed inside.

A tall man wearing a big gray hat and a black suit came to the door. “I have to say you're the youngest customer I've ever had in this saloon, little girl. What can I get for you? Maybe some lemonade?”

He had a nice smile and she liked his voice, which was deep and soft. She pointed. “That lady doesn't have any clothes on.”

He looked over his shoulder at the painting of the reclining nude hanging in back of the bar. “She sure doesn't. Why don't you have a seat on the porch, and I'll bring you a glass of lemonade. Real lemons, fresh off the boat, and you can tell me where to find your mother. Here—”

There was a rustle of silk, and a woman with dark red hair and tired eyes rushed forward to scoop the little girl into her arms. She glared at the man. “Leave her alone!”

The big man looked surprised. “Is she yours, Angel? I thought—”

“No, she's not,” the woman said, and the little girl squirmed when the woman's arms tightened around her. “But she has no business in here, and you have no business with her, so just leave her alone.”

The man's face darkened, and the little girl was suddenly afraid. “I wasn't doing anything except getting her a drink. I didn't—”

“A drink!”

“Not a drink drink, goddamn it, just some lemonade to keep her settled while we looked for—”

“ Victoria!”

Everyone's head turned to watch the woman wade through the mud from the other side of the street. “ Victoria Mae Wilson, I told you not to stray!” She saw who was holding her daughter and flushed. “How dare you! Give me my daughter!” She snatched the little girl from the red-haired woman's arms and glared impartially from the woman to the man. He looked resigned. The woman's expression was harder to define. She looked weary and apologetic and, for a moment perhaps, even on the verge of tears.

The little girl watched them both over her mother's shoulder as she was borne off down the street, her mother trailing righteous indignation like the wake of a large ship.

There was a silence between the two people on the steps of the saloon. People, mostly men, pushed past, some pausing to touch their hat brims to the man, some to give the woman a familiar chuck under the chin. They stood as the mother and child had left them, watching the throng of men panning elbow to elbow for gold in the icy waters of the Bering Sea on the beach that formed the other side of the main street. The Arctic summer sun didn't so much set at this time of year as it circled the horizon, weakening in intensity toward the late evening hours but never entirely waning. “Angel—”

“Don't,” she said.

His lips tightened. “I don't know how much more I can stand it, watching him treat you like he does.”

“It's none of your business,” she said without anger. Anxiety always brought out her accent, and this was no exception. He had to work to follow her words. “And he'd kill you, if you tried anything. He'd kill you, Matt.”

“Would he, now?” he said thoughtfully, his hand raising to settle on the butt of the pistol strapped to his side. “Would he, indeed?”

She put a restraining hand on his arm. “Don't, Matt.” She tried to smile and almost succeeded. “Just don't.”

His hand came up to grasp hers. “What hold does he have on you, Angel? You don't have to do this, you could go back to just dancing. God knows my customers love your Flame Dance.” He grinned and added, “I don't mind saying it keeps my heart ticking over nicely, too.”

Her smile was more the real article this time.

“I don't know for how much longer, though,” he said. “Nome's about played out. I hear tell how Alaska Steam is cutting the price of a ticket Outside to fifteen dollars. That's down from seventy. I figure a lot of people are going to take advantage of that to get the hell out once and for all. I might myself.” He looked at her. “How about you?”

She looked away, back at the beach front and the path of gold the sun was making over the ocean behind them. “I don't know. He hasn't said.”

“Is it that kid of yours?” he said suddenly. “Has he threatened your baby?”

Her smile vanished and she turned to go back inside. He restrained her. “Is that it, Angel?”

“I told you never to call me that,” she whispered. “I'm sorry I ever told you.”

“Told me what? Your real name? Why not? It suits you.” He raised a hand to smooth back a lock of hair, still red, still lustrous, that had fallen forward on her brow. “It's beautiful. Like you. I want to call you by it.”

“You can't,” she whispered. “I don't want you to.”

“Is it the baby?” he said again. “Because if it is—”

“Because if it is you'll do what?” The Greek's suit was tailored of fine tweed, and his boots were well-made and shined to a mirror finish, but nothing would ever hide the rapacious expression in his cold dark eyes. His teeth flashed when he smiled at the two of them. “You're losing me money, Darling, standing around on the porch talking.”