A fine and bitter snow (3 page)

All pretty much business as usual at Bernie's.

"Kaaaay-tuh," Katya said.

"That's me," she told her, and they rubbed noses in an Eskimo kiss.

Katya leaned over in a perilous arc to tug at one of Mutt's ears. "MMMMMMMMMutt," Katya said.

Mutt endured, looking resigned at this assault on her dignity and person.

The song ended and Bobby and Dinah came back to the table. Bobby gave Kate a salacious grin. "How'd you like to keep Katya overnight?"

"Bobby!" Dinah smacked her husband without much sincerity. "Behave."

"Why? That's no fun," he said, and kissed her with a mixture of gusto and conviction that involved a certain amount of manhandling, which appeared to be received with enthusiasm. Sally and Gene had nothing on these two.

"Jesus," Kate said, "get a room," and perched Katya on her hip for the walk to the bar. Bernie, what hair he had left caught in a ponytail, intelligent eyes the same brown as his hair set deeply in a thin face, had a stick of beef jerky and Kate's club soda waiting. Mutt exchanged a lavish lick for the jerky and lay down at Kate's feet, where everyone was very careful not to step on her.

It was crowded that afternoon, full of talk and laughter, loud music and smoke, and the clink of glass, the pop of bottle caps, and the fizzle of soda water. Bernie was constantly in motion, sliding up and down the bar as if on skates, dispensing beer, screwdrivers, red hots, rusty nails, salty dawgs, and, for one foolhardy table, Long Island iced teas all around, after delivery of which, Bernie confiscated everyone's keys and designated Old Sam Dementieff to drive them home in his pickup. Old Sam got out his martyr look, but fortunately they all lived in Niniltna and he accepted his assignment with minimal grumbling. Bernie returned to his post, and Kate, folding straws into weird

Old Sam cast his eyes heavenward. "Some men," he said to Bernie in a withering tone of voice, "some men purely have to be taken by the pecker and led." He shook his head and finished his beer. "How up are you on your Bible studies, Sergeant?"

"Way down," Jim said.

"Read up on Jacob," Old Sam said, and moved to a table with a better view of the game to continue his play-by-play. Michael Jordan was back, and Old Sam was way more interested in that than he was in anybody's love life.

He didn't look much like Cupid, but then, he'd never much cared for Ethan Int-Hout, having been corked by his father a time or ten out on the fishing grounds. In his eighty years on the job, Old Sam had had some earned life experience in the dictum, Like father, like son.

And in Like grandmother, like granddaughter. Ekaterina had never been one to go long without a man, either.

2

Kate felt the exact moment when Jim Chopin stopped watching her walk away, and she breathed easier for it, although she would have died before admitting it. By the time she got to Dina and Ruthe's table, the two women were out dancing on the floor, with whom, Kate couldn't quite tell. The song was "Gimmee Three Steps," and pretty much everyone was out there, but Dina was easy to find because of her cane, and where Dina was, Ruthe would not be far away. Dina wore a black sweatshirt and, with her white hair, looked from behind like a bald eagle. Ruthe, as usual, looked about half her age, and moved like it, too.

As Kate watched, John Letourneau danced into view. So this was where he'd been headed when she knocked on his door. He was dancing with Auntie Edna, who looked like she was having a wonderful time, until John rock-stepped back into Dina, whose cane somehow became tangled in John's legs. John went down and took about three other dancers with him. Christie Turner tripped over the pile and spilled an entire tray of drinks all over John. Everyone got up again, all laughing, except John, who took a step toward Dina, who held her cane out at arm's length, its rubber tip against John's chest. He batted it away, and then suddenly Ruthe was dancing with him, jitterbugging or bebopping or swing-dancing, or whatever it was called, doing a series of what looked like complicated turns without missing a beat.

John, perforce, went along, as Auntie Edna faded quietly to the table where Auntie Balasha and Auntie Joy were quilting squares and knocking back Irish coffee. As Kate watched, Auntie Vi came in and made a beeline for the table. The four old women put their heads together and spoke earnestly and at length, with much nodding and shaking of heads. Auntie Joy got out a little notebook and a pen and started making a list.

Lynrd Skynrd got the break they were waiting for and the song faded away, punctuated by whistles and applause from the dance floor. And then, oh my, Creedence Clearwater Revival started rolling down the river and Katya let out a "YES!" loud enough to break her auntie's eardrums and made urgent movements toward the dance floor. Dinah and Bobby were already out there, and they welcomed Kate and Katya with whoops of joy. The circle started small and grew, evolving into sort of a conga line that stamped and shimmied and boogied around the bar, between the tables, around Old Sam Dementieff, who was still grimly focused on the game, out the back door and in the front, scooping up people inbound from the parking lot in its wake. Bobby was the heart of the line, the beginning and the ending of it, rocking back and forth to the beat and frugging and shrugging and clamming and jamming and beating the band. The song wasn't long enough for any of them, so it was a good thing when someone put five dollars into the jukebox and the Beach Boys took them all to Kokomo immediately thereafter. Bernie, in response to universal acclaim, turned up the volume, and the roof of the Roadhouse like to come off.

Katya was laughing and clapping her hands. "Clearly," Kate told her, "you are your father's child."

"She got rhythm all right," Jim said at her shoulder, and Kate became aware not only that he had taken part in the conga line but that he was directly behind her, his hands still on her waist. And maybe even a little lower than that.

She was three feet away from him in a single step. He raised an eyebrow. She didn't like the look of it. Neither did she like the look in his eye as it rested upon her, as she couldn't identify it. She knew all his looks and this wasn't one of them.

She looked around for Mutt and discovered to her dismay that Mutt might have taken part in the dance, as well. She was leaning up against Chopper Jim's manly thigh, gazing adoringly up into his face, tail thumping the floor.

Kate, revolted, said, "Mutt!"

Mutt was instantly galvanized and shot to Kate's side. Her expression, to Kate's severe gaze, looked distinctly sheepish. "Stop seducing my dog," she said to Jim without thinking.

The look in his eye didn't change; in fact, it seemed to increase when he smiled, long and slow. "Give me another target."

"Jeeeeem!" Katya said, and held out her arms with another of her blinding smiles.

Kate looked down at her and said, "I'm saving you from yourself right now," and marched back to Bobby and Dinah's table.

"Thanks, Kate," Dinah said, receiving Katya in a four-point landing.

"My pleasure," Kate said.

Bobby fished keys out of his pocket. "Come to dinner?"

"I'd like to," Kate said, looking around. "I wanted to talk to somebody first—hey, where'd Ruthe and Dina go?"

Dinah followed her gaze. "I don't know; I don't see them. They must have left. Did you see John Letourneau trip over Dina's cane?"

Bobby threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Did I! That Dina."

"She didn't do it on purpose, Bobby," Dinah said.

Bobby roared again. "Given their history, who knows? And who cares anyway? It was fun to watch John Letourneau fall off his high horse. Dignity, always dignity," he said, and started to laugh again. "Ever see
Singing in the Rain,
Kate? Best goddamn movie ever to come out of Hollywood."

"About thirteen times, all at your house," Kate said.

"We can watch it again tonight," he said, waving an expansive arm. "After dinner. So you coming?"

She shook her head. "I've got to talk to Dina and Ruthe."

"Caribou stew," he said.

She wavered, always susceptible to an appeal to her stomach.

"Plus, you need a haircut," Dinah said, giving her a critical look.

Kate shook her head. "I'd like to, but I really have to talk to Dina and Ruthe. It's about Dan. Rain check?"

Dan appeared at the Roadhouse door just as Kate reached it. He saw her, opened his mouth, and then something behind her caught his eye. He smiled, then laughed out loud when Christie, in a floor-mounted launch of which Katya would have approved, landed against his midsection, her legs prewrapped around his waist, and planted a long, intense kiss on his lips. Kate stepped around them. As she passed, Christie raised her head and their eyes met.

Kate looked around to see who the claim was being staked in front of, and she saw Jim Chopin watching. She looked back at Christie, who smiled and buried her head in Dan's shoulder.

Kate shut the door behind her with more force than necessary.

The Roadhouse was twenty-seven miles down the road from Niniltna, nine feet and three inches outside the Niniltna Native Association's tribal jurisdiction, and therefore not subject to the dry law currently in effect. Or was it damp? Kate thought it might have changed, yet again, at the last election from dry to damp, or maybe it was from wet to damp. It seemed like every time she checked her mail in Niniltna, either the Alaska Beverage Distributors or whatever passed at the moment for the local temperance league had someone standing outside the post office with a petition.

Kate couldn't understand it herself. The first time Niniltna passed a dry law—no liquor allowed to be owned or sold within tribal boundaries—alcohol-related crime dropped 87 percent the first month and Trooper Jim Chopin was made conspicuous by his absence, a consummation devoutly to be wished for, in Kate's opinion. When it went to damp at the next election—no one could sell liquor, but people could have it for private consumption in their homes—the stats went back up and Jim was more in evidence. When it went to wet—liquor allowed to be sold within tribal boundaries—incidents of child abuse, spousal abuse, assault, burglary, rape, and even murder all went through the roof and Jim spent more time in the Park than he did in Tok, where his post was based.

It was evident to Kate that booze made you stupid. If she could have made alcohol disappear by wishing it so, it would have vanished off the face of the entire planet. On the other hand, Bernie was a responsible bartender, who had been known to disable snow machines to keep drunks from driving home. She'd seen him refuse service to pregnant women, and Auntie Vi kept a running tally of who was and who wasn't to keep Bernie informed. If people have to drink, Kate thought, swinging out of Bernie's parking lot, Bernie's is the place Pd send them.

The last of the light had gone while she was inside. It was one of those rare clear winter evenings when it was warm enough to be outdoors, only three below by the thermometer nailed to the Roadhouse wall. The stars seemed to be in a contest to see which could shine the brightest, and Kate roared down the road, with Mutt up behind and the Pleiades overhead for company. One knee was balanced on the seat, the other leg braced on the running board, hands light on the handlebars. The wolf ruff of her parka made a frosty tunnel for her to look through, and the headlight showed a trail packed hard by truck tire, snow machine tread, and dogsled runner. The alder, birch, and spruce crowded in on either side, and once, a bull moose whose rack looked like it was about to fall off ambled onto the trail. She slowed, and he vanished into the brush opposite. She thumbed the throttle again.

Kate loved driving through the Arctic winter night. The snow, a thick, cold, unfathomable blanket swathing the horizon in every direction, reflected the light of the stars and the moon and the aurora so that it returned twicefold to cast the shadows of tree and bush in dark relief. On those nights, the Park seemed to roll out before her forever, a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new. No darkling plain here, and never mind Matthew Arnold, whom Kate had always found to be a humorless grouch anyway.

The snow machine took a sudden dip in its stride. Mutt bumped into Kate but kept her balance.

At the top of a long slope that curved right, she slowed enough to take the turnoff. This trail was barely a rut between thick stands of spruce, and it required attention and a slow speed, so slow that Mutt grew impatient and hopped off to streak ahead, her plate-sized feet skimming over the surface.

A few minutes later, Kate pulled into a clearing and killed the engine. The rising moon lit a peaceful woodland scene right out of Laura Ingalls Wilder. A small log cabin perched on a precipitous hillside. The foundation was made of smooth gray rocks from the Kanuyaq River, overshadowed by a large deck that projected from the first floor, looking south. The roof was peaked and frosted with two feet of snow, through which a stovepipe chimney rose. A thick spiral of smoke curled from the top. Trees crowded around the eaves as if for comfort or, perhaps, to listen in on conversations that over the years had had much to do with them.