Nothing gold can stay (3 page)

The residents of Kagati Lake, like those of any small Bush village, relied almost entirely on the United States Postal Service to keep them in touch with their friends and families and, indeed, with the rest of the nation and the world itself. Frequently it supplied more than that, in ways the Inspector General of the Postal Service had never dreamed. Mark Pestrikoff had engaged himself to be married and, deciding a one-room plywood and tarpaper shack might not put his best foot forward with his new bride, had flown into Anchorage, bought the makings for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house and mailed it home. He didnt have time for the Nushagak River to thaw, hed told Opal, and postage was cheaper than freight anyway. Construction on the house had lasted longer than the marriage. Mark was still working on the former. Opal had just yesterday taken shipment of two five-gallon buckets of Sheetrock mud, C.O.D., and they sat on Opals porch, tagged and waiting for Mark to pick them up.

Dave Aragon called his orders into Johnson Tire by radio, and in due course tires appeared at the post office, studded snow tires for winter driving and street tires for summer, although the only road in Kagati Lake was the ten-mile stretch between the lake and the dump, and it was neither paved nor maintained during the winter, so Dave didnt really need the snow tires. Hell, he didnt really need the truck, as the village sat right on the lake. People got around in boats during the summer and on snow machines during the winter. Half the people in Kagati Lake had no drivers license.

And of course groceries came in by air. You could always tell when someone had made a Costco run to Anchorage by the way boxes of Campbells soup and pilot bread flooded in, always with the General Mail Facilitys postmark on them. Opal spared a sympathetic thought for the people at the post office at Anchorage International Airport. They were people who earned their paychecks. Shed heard that on April 15 they dedicated employees full-time to standing on the road leading into the post office just to accept income tax filings. After that, she started staying open late on April 15 herself, so she wouldnt feel like a slacker.

Opal sprayed Pledge on the counter and paused for a moment to admire the flex of muscle in her upper arm. Not many women her age could display a muscle that firm, an upper arm that toned. No sagging, no spare flesh, just a smooth covering of muscle and bone. She flexed once more, shook her shining cap of hair into place and swept the dustcloth over the counter. It had been made of burlwood from a gnarled old spruce felled on Josh Demskes homestead, and hand-hewn by her father into the counter she sold stamps over today. She was proud of the workmanship, and of the family history embodied in the dark brown sheen of the wood.

Her living room was filled with mementos of family and friends, most of them Alaskan in origin and some very valuable. There was the pair of ivory tusks carved with walrus heads and polished to a high gloss, yellowing now with age. A nugget of gold out of Kagati Creek, a rough lump the size of her youngest grandchilds fist. A series of Yupik, Aleut and Inupiat masks, wonderfully carved and adorned with beads and feathers, human spirits laughing out of animal eyes. There was an upright, glass-fronted case filled with old rifles, too; one of which was said to have been brought north by Wyatt Earp when he took the marshals job in Nome. A mustard-yellow upright piano, ivory keys worn to the touch, occupied the place of honor in one corner.

Of all her children, her daughter Pearl was the nearest to her heart, and the most accomplished on the piano. She was with the rest of the family at fish camp now, and would not be home for long before going Outside to school. Opal sighed, sad and worried at once. She and Leonard had done their best; home schooling with an insistence of a B or better average, a firm grounding in the Methodist faith. Each of the children could skin a beaver, roast a moose heart, kill a bear, reduce the trajectory of a bullet fired from a.30-06 rifle to mathematical formula, even allowing for drift. They could bake bread, grow potatoes, keep a radio schedule, perform CPR, read. Opal just didnt know how many of those skills would prove useful to Pearl Outside. The boys had chosen to remain home and take up the subsistence lifestyle of their parents, fishing, hunting, trapping. Andy and Joe had married girls from Koliganek and Newenham, respectively, although Newenham was an awfully big city compared to Kagati Lake and Opal and Leonard worried over how Sarah would settle in. Both boys had built homes north of their parents homestead, proving up on their state land in three years instead of the required seven. She was proud of them both, although she tried not to show it too much. She didnt want the boys to get swelled heads.

She tried not to think of Ruby, her second daughter and fourth child, and as always, she failed. So she was glad when the door to the living room opened. She looked up. “Come on, you know the mail plane wont be here until eleven, Ioh.

A man she had never seen before stood in the doorway, short, stocky, dressed in faded blue jeans and a dark blue windbreaker. A red bandanna was tied round his forehead in a failed attempt to discipline a tremendous bush of dirty grayish blond hair that repeated itself in tufts curling out from the neck of his shirt and the cuffs of his sleeves. He carried a dark blue interior frame pack, fabric stained and worn at the seams with long use, with a shot gun in a sheath fastened to the back.

Opal was used to waiting on hermits, as this area of the Bush supported more than its share, and she smiled, teeth very white in her tanned and healthy face. “Hi there, she said. “What can I do for you?

He looked around the room slowly and carefully, missing nothing, and suddenly the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

“Nice place youve got here. His voice was rough, almost rusty-sounding, as if he didnt talk much and wasnt used to it when he did.

“Thanks, she said, watching him. “My father built it. Felled the logs, finished them, built the place from the ground up.

“He the collector? The man walked over to the nugget, sitting in a place of honor on a little table of its own.

It was nothing a hundred other people hadnt done over the years, but all at once Opal was realizing that she was all alone in the house, and pretty much alone in the village, as most people were at fish camp, waiting for the last salmon of the season to make it this far north. Her husband and children werent due back until the weekend. “Yes. What can I help you with? Did you want to check general delivery for mail? Ill need to see some identification.

He touched the nugget with one forefinger, moved on to a hair clasp made from ivory and baleen in the shape of a whale. “No, you wont have to do that. He swung his pack down from his shoulders and pulled out a pistol. He didnt aim it at her, or even in her general direction, let it hang at the end of his arm, dangling at his side.

“You have to come with me, he said, and smiled at her.

Newenham, September 1

Bills Bar and Grill was one of those prefabricated buildings common in the Alaskan Bush, housing post offices, ranger stations, grocery stores, trooper posts and not a few private homes. The roof was always tin, the siding always plastic in blue or green or brown, the front porch always cedar that weathered gray in a year. Insulation was problematic at best, as during winter the metal siding contracted and shrank from doors and window frames alike, resulting in enormous heating bills. In summer, windows had the occasional alarming habit of bursting unexpectedly from their frames, and doors either wouldnt open in the first place or wouldnt close again if they did.

September was a good time for the prefabs, neither too cold nor too hot. Bills had a chipper, almost cheerful air. The front porch was swept, the windows clean, the neon beer signs glowing and the last of the nasturtiums bursting into bloom next to the porch. Liam escorted Amelia Gearhart up the stairs and in the door. Bill was washing glasses behind the bar. “Oh hell, she said when she saw them coming. She was over sixty, silver of hair, blue of eye and zaftig. She knew it, too, and today had chosen to accent her manifest charms with blue jeans cinched in at the waist by a woven leather belt and a tight pink T-shirt which purported to advertise last Mays Jazz Festival in New Orleans but which really was advertising Bill.

Moses Alakuyak sat at the bar. Too tall for a Yupik, eyes too Asian for a white, he was a mongrel and gloried in it. “Ever see a purebred dog, missy? hed been heard to tell some poor tourist who had wandered in off the Newenham street. “Nervous, stupid, half the time got them some epilepsy or hip problems or some other goddamn thing. Always barking, always jumping on you or whoever else is in range, cant trust them around kids or anybody else, either. Give me a good old Heinz 57 mutt every time for smarts and good manners. Hed glared down at the hapless tourist. “Same goes for people. Mongrel horde, my ass. Well inherit the earth, not the goddamn meek.

The tourist had murmured something soothing and drifted slowly but surely out the door. Anyone in Newenham could have told her she was in no danger; Mount Moses in full eruption was a common sight, worthy of attention and respect, but it was never necessary to get the women and children off the streets.

“Married five months, Moses said, looking at Amelia, “and now shes drinking her breakfast. He said something in Yupik that sounded less than complimentary. Amelia wasnt too drunk to understand, and colored to the roots of her hair.

“Knock it off, Moses, Bill said. She looked at Liam. “What do you want to do, Liam?

He sighed and looked around the bar. It was empty except for them, but it was going on ten-thirty and it wouldnt be long before the lunch crowd showed. “Hell, Bill, I dont know. This is the third time this week.

“Want to swear out an arrest warrant?

An arrest warrant. State of Alaska, plaintiff, versus Amelia Gearhart, defendant. To any peace officer or other authorized person, you are commanded to arrest the defendant and bring the defendant before the nearest available judicial officer without unnecessary delay to answer to a complaint/information/indictment charging the defendant with violation of Alaska Statute 28.35.030, driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. If Liam requested one, Bill would sign it; hell, she wouldnt even have to take Liams oath, Amelia was her own worst prosecution witness. The criminal process would begin, he would arrest Amelia, Bill would set bail and order Amelia to court, and she would be charged, arraigned, tried, convicted and sentenced. DWI was a Class A misdemeanor and carried a mandatory sentence and fine. More important, she would have a record, and penalties escalated for repeat offenders.

He looked at her. She was just a kid, seventeen years old, a devout Moravian who had dropped out of school to marry without her parents approval. Her husband saw no reason for marriage to interfere with his previous lifestyle, which had included the determined chasing of skirts as far up the Nushagak as Butch Mountain. He spent more time in the bag than out of it and never refused a fight, and Liam knew it was only a matter of time before he had to pick up Darren on his own DWI. Hed won election to the city council by standing rounds for the regulars at Bills and the Breeze for a week straight before the voters went to the polls, and had thus far spent most of his time in office trying to change the local ordinance governing bar closing hours, at present set at two a.m., to five a.m.

Amelia stumbled in place, and her hair fell back from one cheek. Moses lips tightened into a thin line, and Liam stretched out a hand to raise Amelias chin, revealing a bruise high up on her left cheek. “Did Darren hit you, Amelia? he said.

She pulled away. “Im the councilmans wife, she said, enunciating her words with care.

“Yeah, yeah, youre the councilmans wife, Moses said, and stood up to grab her and muscle her into a chair. “Youre not gonna arrest her, he told Liam shortly, “and youre not gonna charge her, he said to Bill, “so dont stand around with your thumbs up your asses like you are.

“You have an alternative suggestion? Bill said, irritated.

“Shes going to hurt herself eventually, Moses, Liam said.

“She did that when she married the jerk, Moses replied.

Liam remembered the evening in Bills in May, the first day he met the shaman, when Amelia and Darren had come to Moses for his blessing. Moses, drunk and verbally abusive, had withheld any such thing, and at the time Liam had thought him harsh. “The problem is, she might hurt somebody else at the same time, he said now.

“Ill handle it, Moses said.

“How? Bill said.

“I said Ill handle it!

Bill refused to be outshouted. “HOW?

Moses glared at her. “Ill take her up to fish camp, dry her out, talk some sense into her.

If it were possible for Bill to pout, she would have pouted. “But you just got back.

Moses expression changed. “Turn the bar over to Dottie and Paul, and come with.

Bill stood very still for a moment, and then leaned across the bar and swept Moses into a lavish kiss, to which he responded wholeheartedly.

Liam examined the king net hanging from the ceiling for holes and found it in himself to be grateful there was a bar between Moses and Bill. For two people who were older than God and who woke up nearly every morning in the same bed, their enthusiasm for each other never seemed to wane.

He thought of Wy, of waking up in the same bed every morning with her, and found himself looking forward to being older than God himself.

Bill pulled back, her face flushed. “Well, fish camp aint New Orleans, but its not a bad second best.

Moses responded with what could only be described as a salacious grin. “Well have to boat you home, lady, because you wont be able to walk.

When Liam got to the post, Prince was already there and in his chair, typing up a report. He nodded at the computer. “What have you got?

She made a face. “Elizabeth Katelnikoff got off the night shift at AC this morning at eight a.m. like she always does, and got home to find Art Inga and Dave Iverson wedged into the window of her bedroom, half in, half out.