Whisper to the Blood (43 page)

"Second," Demetri said, and everyone looked at him in surprise.

"Moved and seconded," Kate said, with a nod to Demetri.
"Debate?" No one said anything so she held up the NNA mug with the
ink blot logo. "This logo sucks. It's not instantly recognizable, it
doesn't say Park or NNA or anything at all, really. Plus it's poorly drawn and
it's ugly. Symbols are important. Take Global Harvest's logo, for one example.
Sunrise
over the Quilaks.
They're practically branding the Park with it. I move that at today's general
meeting we tell the membership that the board is starting a contest, beginning
today and running, what, six months? Mr. Totemoff?"

"Make it nine months," Demetri said, standing. "Give momentum
time to build, word of mouth to spread, get people excited. The more entries we
get the more choice we'll have. Choose the winner at the October board meeting
and unveil the new logo at the general meeting next January. Besides, be good
not to do any of this before, during, or after fishing season."

"No kidding," Old Sam said, and flashed his evil grin when Kate
gave him the evil eye for speaking out of turn.

"The motion is to have a contest for NNA shareholders to create a new
Association logo. All in favor?"

Unanimous.

Really, Kate thought, there was nothing to running a board meeting.

Not when you'd spent the last month memorizing the first ninety-five pages
of
Robert's Rules of Order (Newly Revised, In Brief),
there wasn't.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Y
ou can't stop the Suulutaq
Mine," Kate said, "and I'll tell you why. "

A thousand dollars an ounce." Most of the Niniltna Native Association's
237 shareholders were in the
Niniltna
School
gymnasium that
afternoon, sitting on gray metal folding chairs. There was a continual
susurration of whispering, an occasional baby's cry, the clink of dishes as
aunties Vi, Edna, and Balasha set out a potluck lunch on a row of tables at the
back of the room.

Kate was front and center on the little stage, speaking into a microphone,
not liking the sound of her voice as it reverberated off the high ceiling, not
liking being the cynosure of all eyes, hating the position of responsibility
and leadership into which she had been thrust this day. Oh Emaa, if you could
see me now, wouldn't you be pleased.

In a line of folding chairs on the stage sat the other members of the board,
Auntie Joy still hurt, Old Sam sardonic, Demetri taciturn, Harvey pugnacious,
but they were there, lined up at her right hand like the good soldiers they
were. At a card table on her left, Annie Mike took industrious notes and
recorded votes. Solidarity forever. Right.

"We can't demonize the people who want to build it, either," Kate
said, "because at a thousand dollars an ounce they'll build it anyway. And
then here we'll be, the mine a going concern and the people running it with no
reason to do us any favors." She paused, and added, "Or hire any Park
rats."

A lot of them didn't like what they were hearing. Fine, they could fire her
in the vote to follow.

"I'll tell you what we can do," she said. "We can get in bed
with Global Harvest, all the way under the covers, and make sure we're watching
over their shoulders every step of the way. That is what this proposed advisory
committee is for. You don't like the idea of earthen dams? Fine, tell Global
Harvest to come up with something better. At a thousand dollars an ounce, they
can afford it.

"You're worried the arsenic they use in the extraction process will
pollute the groundwater? At a thousand dollars an ounce they can come up with a
process that leaves a friendlier environmental footprint.

"You're worried about what the influx of increased population will do
to the nature and character of the Park? Okay, we set some guidelines, starting
with they can't build a road from the Nabesna Mine to Suulutaq, they have to
build their own airstrip. We set more guidelines about the use of the road to
Ahtna, too, like maybe they can access it only on a limited, supervised,
case-by-case basis. At a thousand dollars an ounce, they can afford it."

Auntie Vi had paused, plate in hand, to listen. On either side, aunties
Balasha and Edna were listening, too.

"You're worried that Global Harvest is going to hire all Outsiders for
the good jobs?" Kate said. "Then our first order of business is to
ask Global Harvest, 'What do you need in the way of employees?' and get them to
help us create-and fund-an educational program for the kids of the Park. At a
thousand dollars an ounce"—she was startled when almost everyone in
the room said it with her—"they can afford it!"

There was a ripple of laughter, and a couple of people even exchanged high
fives.

On stage, the board members gave each other covert looks. No one had stirred
up a shareholders meeting like this since Ekaterina Shugak had been chair, and
Ekaterina, a woman who personified dignity, had not encouraged public displays
of either approval or dissent.

"Is there any further discussion? No. Okay. I'll ask you now to vote on
the expansion of the board of directors, the creation of the mine advisory
committee and the contest for a new association logo. Voice vote first. If
there is no clear majority on voice vote, Ms. Mike will distribute ballots.
Then, a voice vote on the election of myself to the board of directors,
followed by a shareholders' confirmation vote on the board's selection of
chair."

She looked at Annie. Annie nodded.

"The motion before the Niniltna Native Association is to increase the
membership of its board of directors from five to nine members, with all the
rights and responsibilities accruing thereto. All in favor?"

W
hen it was over she touched Auntie
Joy on the arm before she could leave the stage. "Come with me, please,
Auntie."

Out of the crowd she picked out Auntie Vi, Auntie Balasha, and Auntie Edna.
Avoiding all the glad-handing and congratulations pointed her way, she led them
into the kitchen, where she threw everyone else out and closed and locked the
door.

"We have to serve food, Katya," Auntie Vi said, bridling.

"They can serve themselves for a few minutes," Kate said. She
folded her arms and looked them over with a bleak eye. "I'm only going to
ask you this once. If you lie to me and I find out later that you lied, I will
never trust you, any of you, individually or together, ever again."

Auntie Vi ruffled up like an irritated cockatoo, but before she could say
anything Kate said baldly, "Did you hire Howie Katel-nikof to kill Louis
Deem?"

A ghastly silence fell over the room. It was an incongruous setting for this
discussion, stainless steel cupboards, counters, sinks, and appliances, with
here and there evidence of hasty meal prep, a few elbows of macaroni, a lone
potato chip, a brilliant purple spill of grape Kool-Aid mix.

The four aunties exchanged sidelong glances and by some secret signal agreed
to maintain a wary silence. Kate hadn't really expected anything else. This
confrontation was about the future, not the past.

"If you did, you took the law into your own hands," she said.
"You set yourselves up as judge, jury, and executioner." She paused,
giving Auntie Vi a chance to break into her standard accusation about Kate not
doing her job and the aunties having to step in. Auntie Vi glared but did not
speak.

"Have you noticed what's happened since?" she said. "It's
spreading, this vigilantism of yours. It's like an infection, spreading across
the Park like some kind of disease. You settle the score with Louis, then Mary
Bingley decides she can handle Willard's shoplifting on her own, Demetri beats
the crap out of Father Smith for blading his trapline, Bonnie keys the truck of
the kid who put a salmon in the mailbox, Arliss shoots Mickey before he hits
her again."

Kate shook her head. "And then you do it again."

She waited, watching as they exchanged sidelong glances.

"Yeah, you get the Grosdidier boys to track down the Johansens and beat
on them."

Their heads snapped around at that, all right. "Don't bother denying
it. You did, I know you did, we'll leave it at that."

She frowned at the floor for a moment, and looked up again. "Don't you
see, Aunties? You're the center. If you don't hold, it's almost like you give
permission for things to fall apart."

"We tell no one," Auntie Joy said, and then at a fiery glance from
Auntie Vi her mouth shut again with an audible snap.

"Auntie," Kate said with admirable patience, "this is the
Park. You sneeze on one side of it, five minutes later on the other side of it
you're dying of pneumonia. Did you really think you could keep it a secret? Any
of it?"

Again she looked at Auntie Vi, and again Auntie Vi remained silent, although
it was pretty obvious the top would blow off the bottle in the not-too-distant
future.

"Okay," Kate said. "Best we say nothing more about this, to
anyone. For the record, Howie ratted you out, and then reneged on his
confession. Now he's saying he didn't kill Louis at all, and Jim and I halfway
believe him. He and Willard only have one shotgun out at their place, and we
checked. The shot in the shells they've got doesn't match the shot that was
found in Louis's body."

The expressions that crossed their faces were interesting, to say the least.
Shock, surprise, then anger. "He's been blackmailing you, hasn't he?"
Kate said. It was what she'd realized that evening, moments before Old Sam came
in the door to tell them about Macleod's murder. "Saying he'll tell if you
don't give him money?"

Again, she read her answer on their faces. "Well, now that you know we
know, you don't have to pay him any more."

She looked at them, at these four doughty, indomitable forces of nature,
Balasha in her seventies the youngest, the rest of them over the eighty mark.
They'd been a power in Kate's life from her birth.

She could count on one hand the times she'd gone up against them, and never
without guilt or remorse. It grieved her now to have to lay down the law to
them, but someone had to.

"Insofar as what happened out there today," she said, and they
looked up at the grim note in her voice. She nodded at the door. "They
confirmed me in office, Aunties. You got what you wanted. And you'll get it for
two more years."

"Katya—," Auntie Vi said.

"Two more years," Kate said again, her voice not rising but her
tone inflexible, "the time remaining in Billy Mike's term of office. Then
I step down." She surveyed their consternation with no little
satisfaction, and maybe just a hint of a tremor that she might be wrong about
this. Only now was she beginning to wonder about Ekaterina's choices when she had
been named to the board. Was it, after all, what she had really wanted? Or had
it been forced on her, too?

She banished the niggling doubts and said firmly, "Two years is long
enough to find and groom the next chair, and bring them up to speed. Two years
is long enough to build a policy to ensure that Global Harvest treats fairly
with us over the Suulutaq Mine."

"That mine not a done deal, Katya," Auntie Vi said sternly.

"No," Kate said, "and I imagine you and a bunch of other
people are going to have a lot to say about that over the next fifty
years."

"Somebody strong needed to guide the people during that time,"
Auntie Vi said.

"A lot of strong people will be necessary," Kate said. "I'm
not Emaa, Aunties." She said it again just to be sure they heard her,
whether they believed it or not. "I'm not Emaa. She was Association chair
for twenty years, and after a while she got so she thought she'd been anointed
rather than elected."

This was heresy. There were shocked and reproachful looks. Okay, fine.
"You remember Mark Miller, Aunties? The park ranger who went missing seven
years ago? Yes, I can see that you do. She was willing to have an innocent man
convicted of that crime rather than see one of her own go down for it."

They didn't say anything, and prudently, she didn't ask them if they had
approved of Emaa's actions. "I'm not Emaa," Kate said again. "I
won't ever be Emaa. I'll do what I can for the shareholders, for the
Association, for the Park during the next two years, and I'll do my best to
handpick a competent successor. But you should also know one of the first
things I'm going to do is propose an amendment to the bylaws for term limits
for board and chair. Two terms, max, and then they're out. George Washington
was right about that."

"What!"

"Katya, this lousy idea, you—" "Ekaterina would roll in
her grave!"

"Then she rolls," Kate said. "No one should be in power for
that long, Aunties. After too long, the people holding office start to feel
invincible, arrogant, as if the power is theirs by right and not by the consent
of the governed. One shareholder, one vote. One board member, two terms."

"Won't pass," Auntie Vi said.

"Yes, it will, Auntie," Kate said. "If I have to convince
every shareholder one at a time, baby to elder, including every one of you,
yes, it will."

They looked to a woman spitting mad, even Auntie Joy. Kate grinned at them,
although it was an expression lacking any real amusement. "You wanted me
to be on the board. You wanted me to be chair. Be careful what you wish for,
Aunties. You might just get it."

She went to the door and paused for her parting shot. "Oh, and on a
personal note."

She looked at Auntie Balasha. "I'm not moving into town, Auntie. I like
my homestead, and I've got all the company I want or need. I don't want to be
any closer to family. I don't want to be any closer to the other shareholders,
or to the Association office. I'm right where I want to be, and I'm going to
stay there."