Whisper to the Blood (8 page)

"Beginning with?"

"Well, just for starters, we'll be taking applications the first of
next month for a hundred jobs, to Park residents only, entry level twenty
dollars an hour, six-weeks-on, six-weeks-off rotation."

The front two legs of Old Sam's chair hit the floor. "Twenty dollars an
hour?"

"A hundred?" Kate said. "That isn't a lot."

"During exploration and development, we expect the mine will employ a
minimum of two thousand," Macleod said, and was obviously pleased with the
expressions she saw around the table. "When we move into production, the
payroll should be around a thousand."

"Twenty dollars an hour?" Old Sam said.

"Time and a half for overtime," Macleod said.

"What kind of jobs?" Kate said.

"So far, we've got one person on the payroll, as caretaker on the site.
I'm looking for a second so they can work in rotation. As I'm sure you know,
we've got a trailer out there already, a small one serving as a rudimentary
office, lab, and bunkhouse. We'll be bringing in more housing shortly. Future
jobs will be in drilling and analyzing core samples to define the extent of the
mine, and in support of same. Some people will be working with microscopes and
test tubes, others will be washing dishes and making beds."

"Twenty dollars an hour?" Old Sam said.

"Anything over eight hours a day, anything over forty hours a week is
overtime," Macleod said. "You'll train them?" Kate said.

Macleod nodded. "On the job. And they get paid for it, at the full
rate, starting their first day."

"Twenty dollars an hour?" Old Sam said.

"Double time for state and federal holidays," Macleod said.

"Where will they live?" Kate said.

"They live where they work, on site. Right now, there are four trailers
sitting in Ahtna, three fifty-man sleepers and one for offices. And that's just
the beginning."

"Twenty dollars an hour?" Old Sam said.

Old Sam Dementieff, a contemporary of Auntie Joy's and someone who knew
where all the bodies were buried, was ancient, vigorous, practical, and
irascible. He had no time for fools and he considered everyone who wasn't him
or Mary Balashoff, his main squeeze, a fool. That included Kate, who deckhanded
for him on the
Freya,
his fish tender, during the salmon season. All
that being said, he was loyal through and through, although to whom and to what
could be changeable. Most of the time he was loyal to the Association, by which
he meant the tribe. He was loyal to the Park and to the Park rats who lived in
it, whether they were shareholders or not. Or he was to the ones who'd survived
at least one full winter without turning tail and making tracks south. After the
Park rat in waiting passed that first crucial test, Old Sam was known to say,
"Weeeellll, you're showing me something. Let's see you make it through
another." He was Everyfart, the quintessential Alaskan Old Fart, and not
only did he know better than anyone else, he said so, early and often. The hell
of it was that he was right most of the time.

Macleod smiled at him. She even looked amused when he didn't visibly wilt
from the heat in that smile. "When we really get started, it's going to go
twenty-four seven, two twelve-hour shifts. With overtime, one employee could
pull down as much as nine thousand dollars a month."

"How are you going to get the trailers out to the mine?" Kate
said.

"Same way we got this one out there. Airlift. We've leased a helicopter,
a Sikorsky, I think they told me, until we get the airstrip in."

"Airstrip?" Kate said. "Where will you be flying your
employees in from? Ahtna?
Anchorage
?"

"Wherever we hire them from," Macleod said. "Park people will
be flown in from Niniltna, until we get the road in. But, yes, other employees
will fly in from Ahtna,
Fairbanks
,
Anchorage
."

"Outside," Kate said.

Macleod spread her hands. "Some of the expertise necessary to
exploration and development isn't available to us here in
Alaska
."

Auntie Joy cleared her throat deliberately. All eyes turned toward her. She
was red-faced and sweating. Kate knew how much she loathed speaking aloud in
front of strangers, so she appreciated the courage it took today for Auntie Joy
to say what she had to say. "Fish? Caribou? Moose? Bear? All wildlife?
This mine bad for those things."

"Mrs. Shugak," Macleod said, "Global Harvest Resources knows
that we have to be good neighbors to the people who live in the Park. That
includes respecting the fish, the wildlife and the environment, and the
subsistence lifestyle practiced by everyone who lives here. We're going to use
the very best science available to us to run an operation that has the lowest
possible impact on the Park, and on the lifestyle of the people who live in it."

Fine words, Kate thought. They would have been more convincing if they
hadn't sounded so well rehearsed. "You're going to have to get a lot more
specific than that," she said.

"We know," Macleod said. "And we will. We're just getting
started here, Kate. We're not naive enough to think there won't be problems. Of
course there will be. But every step of the way we expect a Park-what is it you
call yourselves?-a Park rat at our elbow, telling us what we're doing wrong.
We'll be listening for that advice, and we'll be acting on it."

"You better be listening for it," Old Sam said, "because
you'll be getting it. A lot of it."

"Thanks for dropping by, Talia,"
Harvey
said with an enthusiastic handshake.

"My pleasure," Macleod said. "Ask me back any time."
With a wave and a smile she was gone.

"Anything else?" Kate said. "Great, we're outta here."

The last thing she heard as she escaped through the door was Auntie Joy's
faint, despairing, "No, Katya, no further business, meeting
adjourned!"

FIVE

A
untie Vi opened the door before he
had to knock twice. "What," she said inhospitably, but Johnny knew
better. "Is that fry bread I smell, Auntie?"

Auntie Vi grumbled and opened the door wide enough for him to enter.
"Got a nose on you like that Katya," she said, shooing him up the
hallway to the kitchen. "I start bread, she show up on doorstep. Better
than a bear at sniffing out food, that girl."

He grinned down at the heavy cast-iron skillet on top of the stove. Half a
dozen flat, gently puffed circles of dough were already turning a golden brown
in sizzling oil. On the counter next to it sat a bowl of bread dough.

Auntie Vi poked him in the side. "You want fry bread, you make."
He gaped at her. "I don't know how, Auntie."

"Best you learn, then." Briskly, she showed him how to pull off a
handful of dough, flatten it and stretch it into a circle, and hang it over the
side of the bowl to wait its turn in the frying pan. She handed him a spatula
and he got the pieces in the pan onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.
When he put the spatula down and reached for one of them, she smacked his hand.

"But, Auntie, I'm hungry, I—"

"You eat when you finish," she said. "But they'll all be cold
by then!"

She cast her eyes up to the heavens. "Fine, then. One. One!"

"Where's the powdered sugar? Oh. Thanks, Auntie." He tossed the
fry bread from hand to hand, and when it had cooled a little sprinkled the
sugar over it generously. The first bite was a little crunchy, a little chewy,
a little greasy, and a lot sweet. He closed his eyes. "Auntie, this is . .
. this is just one of the best things I ever want to put in my mouth."

She gave a skeptical grunt but he could see that she was pleased.

They finished frying the batch-Johnny managed to talk her out of another
piece before they were done, and three more after that- and then he made her
sit down at the table, poured her a mug of coffee, and cleaned up the kitchen.
She put down two pieces herself, along with three cups of coffee, while maintaining
a running criticism of his kitchen skills. There was also a lesson in the
proper cleaning of a cast-iron skillet, involving warm water, no soap, and
drying it over a hot burner.

As he was folding the dish towel and hanging it on the oven door handle, he
said, "Auntie, did that guy I told you about last month ever show
up?"

She eyed him as he sat down across from her. "He come a week ago. He
stay here. You know him."

He nodded. "Yeah, from when I was Outside. Is he okay for money?"

She shrugged and picked up a deck of cards and began to shuffle them.
"All right, I guess. He pay his rent on time."

"Good. Is he looking for work?"

"He look," she said. "Don't know if he find."

"I was wondering if maybe he could get on at the mine," he said.

She looked at him. "They hiring?"

His turn to shrug. "It was all over the school at lunch. Global Harvest
is going to start hiring the first of next month, with preference given to Park
rats."

Her lips pressed together.

"What, Auntie?" he said.

She glared at him, but there might have been a lurking twinkle in the back
of her eyes. "I just hear this myself from Auntie Joy. Who tell
school?"

"A lady came from the mining company. She's the skier, they hired her
to be their representative. She talked to us at lunch, told us about the mine
and how they were going to start taking applications right away and hiring next
month. It's a big deal. Twenty bucks an hour, Auntie."

Auntie Vi shuffled cards in silence. "Your friend got job at Bernie's.
Temporary, while Amy gets teeth fixed in
Anchorage
."
She swept the cards up with an air of finality, and he took that as a hint to
leave.

As he got up, she said, eyes on the cards as she shuffled them, "That
mine lady rent room here, too."

"Oh," he said, taken aback. "Okay. That's good, I guess."
He couldn't help ending the sentence on an interrogatory note.

"Of course good," she said briskly, tapping the cards on the table
and sliding them back into their box. "All money in the bank for me. Mine
a different story. Good for me maybe, but maybe bad for the Park. Now shoo
you!"

Outside, he climbed back on the snowmobile and looked at the sky while he
was waiting for the engine to warm up. It was almost three thirty, and it was
cold and getting colder. It would be dark soon. He really ought to head for the
barn.

But he wanted to see Doyle Greenbaugh, make sure he was all right.

It had been a long drive, almost twenty-five hours from the outskirts of
Phoenix
where Greenbaugh had picked him up to the
warehouse in the International District in
Seattle
, where he'd got off. When they'd both
got tired of listening to golden oldies on a series of radio stations, they'd
started talking. Greenbaugh had never been to
Alaska
, but like everyone else in the known
universe said he'd always wanted to go. Partly because he was homesick, and
partly because he wanted to make sure Greenbaugh didn't fall asleep at the
wheel, Johnny had told him all about his home state, and then he'd told him all
about himself.

He wouldn't have done it today, but he'd been a lot younger then, and a lot
less wary of casual friendship, and he'd been so very grateful for the ride
that he had been willing to pay his way with conversation. In one ride, he'd
traveled almost a thousand miles, well out of his mother's reach. He knew his
grandparents weren't coming after him. He wondered if they'd bothered to tell
her he'd left. He hoped not, and on the whole, he thought not. They hadn't
liked his father any more than their daughter had, and they hadn't liked him
much, either. By the time Jane knew he was gone, he'd be well out of reach, and
by the time she caught up with him, he'd have Kate on his side.

And Greenbaugh had been so very interested, and not in a bad way, either.
He'd bought Johnny a huge and sorely needed meal in a diner at a truck stop in
Idaho
and between
mouthfuls of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy he'd urged
Johnny to keep talking. He'd listened uncomplaining to Johnny talking about his
dad and had laughed at all the best stories and sympathized in all the right
places. He'd come across as good-hearted, with an occasional flash of temper
that faded as quickly as it sparked. He hadn't much education but he was sharp
enough to own his own rig, which was admirable, even if he had lost it in the
end.

No, not a bosom buddy, but someone to whom Johnny owed a debt of gratitude,
so instead of turning right for the road to home he turned left and went out to
Bernie's, a fifty-mile trip that had his nose bright red and his cheeks numb by
the end of it. A helmet with a face shield would have cut down on the frostbite
but nobody ever wore a helmet in the Bush.

The Roadhouse parking lot was crowded but it was easy enough to find a spot
for the snowmobile. He went up the steps and opened the door. Inside, the belly
dancers-one in full diaphanous regalia, one in bra and blue jeans, and a third
in what looked like an Indian sari-beat on tambourines and clanged on finger
cymbals and shook their hips at an adoring crowd consisting of the four
Grosdidier brothers and Martin Shugak and a couple other guys he didn't
recognize. Johnny watched the dancers himself for a few minutes, just to make
sure they had the steps down. He wondered if Van had ever wanted to learn to
belly dance.

Old Sam Dementieff and the usual crowd of old farts sat around a table
watching football on ESPN on the enormous television hanging from another
corner. Leaning against the bar, Mac Devlin stood, red-faced and angry, holding
a bottle of beer. Someone else was sitting on the stool next to him, shoulders
hunched, but he had his back turned and Johnny couldn't tell who it was. At a
table in the back, Pastor Bill, his congregation a little smaller than in years
past, exhorted the righteous to be faithful, to which everyone replied with a
hearty "Amen!" and drinks were ordered all round, some of them not
sodas. It looked like the no alcohol in church rule had been waived, which once
the news got around might go far to increase the size of the congregation.