Though Not Dead Page 5

  Again, he didn’t answer.

  She grabbed his arm. “Dan? Does title revert to the government if the land remains unoccupied?”

  He pulled free of her grasp. “I’ll make you those copies,” he said, and vanished down the hall.

  * * *

  Kate left the Step in a state of considerable disquiet.

  It wasn’t like she had to have title to Canyon Hot Springs. It wasn’t like she spent a lot of time there. It was an overnight trip in winter, and in summer the thick brush made it nearly impassable to anyone without a machete and the determination of Genghis Khan. The unmapped rocky outcrops and sudden spurs of the Quilaks provided their own effective camouflage, too. Kate had gotten lost two or three times on the way there last year.

  The hot springs sat in a narrow canyon where the majority of the real estate was essentially vertical. There was no airstrip and there never would be because there was no conceivable place to put one. She doubted there was enough room to land Dan’s new helicopter there. Probably couldn’t squeeze in a parachute, for that matter. The brush was too thick to bring in a four-wheeler in summer. No, certain access was only by snow machine or by piton, pickaxe, and rappelling rope.

  Two thirds of the Park was taken up by an undulating topography that gradually descended westward from the foothills of the Quilaks, punctuated by glaciers, glacial moraines, rivers, creeks and streams, a butte here and there, and a few freestanding mountains. The other third was given over to the Quilaks themselves in the east and the Chugach Mountains on the southwest coast. The Quilaks and the Chugachs were separated by the Kanuyaq River, which wound sinuously through the Park from above Ahtna to Prince William Sound. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline marked the Park’s western boundary, as did the Glenn Highway, which along with the Kanuyaq River provided relatively easy access to the adjacent land.

  The eastern boundary was marked by the Canadian border, on the other side of which were more mountains and gorges and glaciers, all as impassable as the ones on the Alaska side and as overrun with wildlife, much of it bigger than you were and all of it hungry.

  There was no easy way into the Canyon Hot Springs, and getting out could be as problematic as getting in. Why the hell had Old Sam chosen the most remote, the most difficult to access hundred and sixty acres in the whole Park and possibly all of Alaska to homestead?

  She had never thought of Old Sam as an unsociable guy per se, but then she had yet to be born when he’d staked his claim, so she couldn’t attest to the man he’d been then.

  But she knew people who could.

  Four

  Auntie Joy lived in another of those ubiquitous log cabins with a floor plan that appeared to have been the only design option for anything built in the Park up to the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. Kate’s grandmother’s original cabin, Old Sam’s cabin, Kate’s parents’ cabin—they were all one large room on the main floor with a sleeping loft above. Auntie Joy’s cabin was on the riverbank in Niniltna, about equidistant between Emaa’s and Auntie Edna’s, only a little farther to Auntie Vi’s, an easy walk for a mug up and a good gossip in either direction.

  The square windows set into the log walls were hung with ruffles and lace, and as usual when Auntie Joy threw open the door with her trademark beam of a smile and pulled Kate inside, in stepping over the threshold Kate felt immediately transformed into a claustrophobic elephant in a stained-glass factory. “Mutt,” she said, “stay,” and pointed to the patch of grass next to the door before the gates of mercy closed behind her.

  Inside, every vertical surface was covered with framed photos dating back to the century before last, from sepia prints in gilt frames to black-and-white photos with scalloped edges to Polaroids whose color was fading to a complete set of senior pictures of this year’s graduating class. Every horizontal surface was covered first by a tablecloth or a scarf or a handkerchief or sometimes all three. The next layer involved lace of some kind, usually tatted by Auntie Joy’s own fair hands. The third and ever-changing final layer was decorative, ivory carvings of seals and bears and loons, glass animals that held votive candles, woven baskets from the size of a thimble to big enough to cradle a baby. Old glass bottles elbowed for room with Aladdin oil lamps, including a brass one that looked like it was still warm from Aladdin’s hands, and a dozen different tea sets.

  There were a great many horizontal surfaces, Auntie Joy never having met a piece of furniture she didn’t like, the older the better, and the room was crowded with chairs and end tables and a dining set that perched uneasily on delicate carved legs on a faded but scrupulously clean linoleum floor. Kate had never been to the sleeping loft but she would have bet large that Auntie Joy had managed to squeeze a tulle-draped canopy in under the roof.

  There was also an overwhelming preponderance of pink, pink ruffles, pink lace, pink doilies, an afghan knitted in different shades of pink, a quilt assembled from squares that ran from pink plaids to pink polka dots. Kate wondered if Auntie Joy had ever read Christina Rossetti.

  There must have been a cookstove in the clutter somewhere because Auntie Joy said, “You sit now, Katya. I make tea.”

  She gave Kate a slight push, and Kate almost stumbled over a pair of porcelain dogs guarding a high, round, spindle-legged table covered with china figurines dressed like characters out of the Angelique novels. She caught her balance, sucked in her gut and edged between the dogs and a bright red La-Z-Boy recliner. It was by far the newest thing under this roof and Kate more or less fell into it.

  Auntie Joy bustled, if one could be allowed to bustle in that jam-packed little room without breaking anything, and shortly Kate had tea in a cup and saucer adorned with a dainty tracery of leaves and vines and pink roses that she hoped wouldn’t break in her hands, and a matching plate of cookies baked to a crisp brown glory that melted in the mouth. “I want the recipe for these, Auntie,” she said indistinctly.

  Auntie Joy beamed. “Before you go, I write.” She settled herself into an elegant openwork chair carved from some dark wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, picked up her tatting, and let her fingers busy themselves with an intricate pattern while she fixed Kate with an expectant gaze.

  Time for business. Kate put the saucer down on the only available square inch of empty space on the top of a wooden spool draped in some pink velveteen fabric, then drained the cup and set it down even more carefully on the saucer. Then she watched it for a moment to make sure everything else on the tabletop wasn’t going to shove it over the edge. Satisfied, she turned to Auntie Joy. “I’m—Old Sam named me executor of his will.”

  It was as if someone had flipped a switch. The tatting shuttle slowed, the beam dimmed and then went out entirely, and for the first time in a long time Auntie Joy looked her age. “He say he do that,” she said, in a voice devoid of emotion.

  The way life had drained from Auntie Joy’s voice from one sentence to the next was unexpected and startling. “When?” Kate said. “When did he tell you?”

  Auntie Joy made a vague gesture. “Back a ways. He tell us all.” Kate divined that Auntie Joy meant Old Sam had told all four aunties about his will. “Long time gone.”

  “Well, it would have been nice if someone had told me,” Kate said. “Maybe given me some advance notice.”

  Auntie Joy gave Kate a very auntly look, and Kate was instantly ashamed of herself for whining. “Sorry, Auntie. But it is a little overwhelming, the amount of property he had.” She noticed a slight stiffening in the chair opposite. “For one thing, I didn’t know Uncle had proved up on a homestead claim on Canyon Hot Springs.”

  To her further surprise, Auntie Joy, already gray around the edges, turned ashen. “He do that, yes,” she said, almost whispering. “Long time gone, he do that.” She raised her head. “He leave it to you?”

  Kate nodded. “He left me the whole kit and caboodle outright, with a letter telling me how he wanted everything distributed.” She thought of telling Auntie Joy about Old Sam’s Niniltna cabin and the Freya, and the
n she thought better of it. Incrementalization in this case could be dangerous, especially to her. If all four aunties were going to explode with outrage over the disposition of Old Sam’s worldly possessions, better she give them the news in a body. Detonate it in a single blast in a safe place somewhere, away from women and children.

  Then she thought about telling Auntie Joy about Dan O’Brian’s offer to incorporate the hot springs into the Park. Again, she thought better of it. The love-hate relationship between the Park rats and the Parks Service was such an insubstantial little tightrope, capable of dissolving underfoot and dumping the high-wire walker on his or her ass at the slightest misstep. Park rats reveled in a subsistence lifestyle that was in great part due to the management skills of Chief Ranger Dan O’Brian and his pitifully small staff of tree-hugging bunny lovers. If a grizzly walked through someone’s yard, his presence could very well be attributed to Dan’s taking down yet another poacher hunting bears for their bladders, which ounce for ounce were the highest-selling commodity on the Asian black market. If you got your moose that year, most likely it was because Dan had been so vigilant in policing the moose population that dishonest big game guides had moved their illegal trophy hunting operations up to the Gates of the Arctic or over to the Wood-Tikchik State Park.

  Like every other Park rat, Kate owed a great deal of the quality of her life to Ranger Dan and his gang. Unlike too many other Park rats, she knew it. She didn’t want to start a war between the Park rats and the Parks Service if she could possibly help it. Besides, it was Auntie Joy’s reaction that interested Kate most at present.

  She waited, saying nothing, and finally, in a soft, insubstantial voice, Auntie Joy said, “He say what to do with hot springs?”

  Kate shook her head. “No, Auntie. He told me what to do with a lot of his other stuff, but not that.”

  The plump little woman with the faded, wrinkled face looked down at the tatting in her lap.

  “Auntie?” Kate said, leaning forward, a hand outstretched. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Auntie Joy looked up, and the tears had filled her eyes and were slipping down her cheeks. Her smile was shaky. “Nothing, Katya. Ay, who knew we miss that cranky old man so much?”

  And with a finality that would not be gainsaid, she changed the subject to Laurel Meganack and Matt Grosdidier, and Auntie Edna’s ballooning restaurant business, and the prospects for the Kanuyaq Kings basketball teams in this year’s forthcoming season. That little point guard on the women’s team, Anushka Tuktoyuktuk’s daughter—had Kate ever seen anyone go up after her own rebound like that? Gatcha, but that girl ferocious like a wolverine. If she don’t foul out, the women’s team never have to worry over turnovers like last year, didn’t Kate agree?

  * * *

  If anything, Kate was even more upset when she left Auntie Joy’s than she had been when she’d left the Step.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t expect Old Sam to be missed. She missed him herself. She always would. He’d had an innate ability to cut through the crap in a way she admired and tried hard to emulate. That she had a bullshit detector at all was very much due to Old Sam, and her association with him had only fine-tuned it. It was one of her most useful tools, both on the job in Anchorage and today in her profession as private investigator. Nobody could lie to Old Sam, and that included Kate. He’d peeled her like an onion last spring, dissecting the reasons behind her general dissatisfaction at being stuck in the whirlpool between the Scylla of the Suulutaq Mine and the Charybdis of the board of directors of the Niniltna Native Association. Everybody wanted a piece of her. She had felt like the barbarians were at the gates and she was holding those gates against them all alone, with no surety that she—or the Association, or the Park, for that matter—would be able to outlast the siege.

  Old Sam hadn’t waved a magic wand and cured all her ills that spring day, but in a few words and with one surprising quotation, he had illuminated her problem, given her insight, and made her feel better. She didn’t know anyone else who could do that.

  Maybe Jim.

  But Jim was in California.

  She shoved her instinctive and knee-jerk resentment back down beneath the surface of her psyche and drove to one of six matching houses sitting on six matching lots. They were downriver from town, about halfway to Squaw Candy Creek and the turnoff to Bobby and Dinah’s. The little housing development was five years old, financed with HUD funds administered by the Niniltna Native Association. Bush Alaska was always low on housing, and this little development had been Kate’s Emaa’s last hurrah before she died, half a dozen brand-new homes brought upriver in modules via barge and assembled by Park rats grateful for paying jobs they didn’t have to go to Anchorage to find. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, with earth stoves for heat, propane for cooking, and running water from a communal well and wired for electricity to the Ahtna power line. These were the ne plus ultra in Park accommodation, all modern conveniences laid on and with minimal monthly mortgage payments at a negligible interest rate. Now that Kate thought about it, they might have been the first new houses built in Niniltna since Harvey and Auntie Vi built theirs twenty years before, when they got their ANCSA land allotments.

  She pulled her pickup in next to a battered Ford Ranger that looked as if it had more miles on it than the space shuttle, killed the engine, and got out, followed by Mutt. The door opened and Virginia Anahonak stuck her head out. “Hi, Kate. Heard you pull up.”

  “Hi, Virginia. Heard you were renting a room to Phyllis Lestinkof.”

  “You heard right.”

  “She here?”

  “She’s here. Did you want to talk to her?”

  “Please.”

  “Come on, I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”

  “That’s okay,” Kate said. “I’ll wait out here.”

  Virginia’s eyebrows worked a little overtime at that but she went back inside. Kate wanted to give the news to Phyllis first, without anyone listening in. She didn’t know how thin the walls were in these little houses, but Virginia had a well-deserved reputation as the Niniltna town crier.

  The door opened and Phyllis came out, looking a little puzzled. “You wanted to see me, Kate?”

  Phyllis looked thinner than she had the last time Kate had seen her, in the Riverside Café last May, pleading for help from the father of her child. She wasn’t much taller than Kate, with short dark hair, dark eyes, and smooth brown skin. She wore a loose-fitting T-shirt over jeans with the top button undone. She was eighteen years younger than Kate and a distant relative by way of, if Kate remembered correctly, Auntie Balasha. The Lestinkofs were originally from Tatitlek and relative newcomers to the Park, the family having moved here after the destruction of the original village during the tidal wave that followed the 1964 earthquake. The Lestinkofs had lost so much family that Mrs. Lestinkof, Phyllis’s grandmother, could not bear the thought of relocating with the rest of the village to a new site on the mainland. Phyllis’s father married into the Park, one of the Anahonak sisters, which made Virginia her aunt. It made Ulanie Anahonak her aunt, too, the difference being that Ulanie was a churchy type with definite opinions on children born out of wedlock to godless and amoral mothers. Virginia’s moral stance was far more relaxed.

  Virginia peered at them through the living room curtains. “Walk with me,” Kate said.

  Phyllis fell in next to her. Mutt took point, trotting ahead to sniff at various clumps of grass and tree roots, choosing a select few to anoint along the way.

  “You deckhanded for Old Sam on the Freya this summer,” Kate said.

  “Yes,” Phyllis said.

  “He thought you did a pretty good job.”

  They reached the river road and turned left, Kate walking slowly with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. It wasn’t really cold yet but it wasn’t warm anymore, either. The river moved past on their right, and the Quilaks bulked large on their left. A trio of ravens nagged at an eagle flying low across the river, prospecting for a la
te silver to take home to the nest.

  “He said that?” Phyllis said.

  “He wrote me a letter,” Kate said. “You know, to read after he died. He said so in that.”

  “Oh.” They walked a couple more steps. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  They were far enough away from the house now. Kate stopped. “No. I’ve got some good news, or I hope you’ll think it is. Old Sam left me his cabin on the river, but he wanted you to live there when he was gone.”

  Phyllis stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”

  Kate had to repeat herself, and then say it a third time before Phyllis believed her. She started to cry. “Please tell me this isn’t a joke. Please, please tell me you aren’t kidding.”

  “I’m not joking,” Kate said. “I own the cabin, but Old Sam told me to let you live there as long as you wanted to. With the baby coming, he knew you needed a place, and he knew your parents’ house wasn’t an option.”

  Phyllis was so overcome she had to sit down on a driftwood log. Kate sat next to her. “That old man,” Phyllis said over and over again, hugging herself and rocking back and forth. “That old man.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and looked at Kate. “Virginia’s been really nice, but she doesn’t have room for me and her own kids, too, especially after the baby comes. Do you mean it, Kate? This really isn’t a joke?”

  Kate looked at the round, anxious face swollen with tears. “It really isn’t, Phyllis. Old Sam’s cabin is yours to live in. Old Sam said to charge you rent.”

  “Oh. Rent. Yeah.” Phyllis bit her lip. “How much?”

  “A buck a year.”

  Phyllis stared at her, dazed, and Kate let the grin she’d been holding back spread over her face. “Yes, I actually said that, a dollar a year, every year. What say we let the rental period begin the first of October?”