Read Online A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online
Authors: Dana Stabenow
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looked at Ekaterina and laughed; she couldn’t help herself. For a change Ekaterina looked off-balance. It was a bitter and entirely unamusing sound, Kate’s laughter, and Kate let it die a natural death. She paced once around the room, her hands shoved in her pockets. “I went Outside last year, did I tell you? Jack has an interest in an apple orchard in Arizona. We rented an RV and drove everywhere. Beautiful country. Not like Alaska, but beautiful in its own way.”
“Sounds like fun,” Ekaterina said neutrally, alert to the seeming change of subject, watching her granddaughter with wary eyes.
“Mmm. One day, while we were driving everywhere, we came to a Indian gift shop by the side of the road, and we stopped. The man who was running it, a Navajo he said when we asked him, wanted to know where we were from. We told him, and he wanted to know, where do Indians live in Alaska? Jack said, a lot of the time next door. He didn’t believe us. I told him I was an Aleut, and he looked at Jack, and he looked at me, and he looked at our camper van, and he looked at my clothes, and he didn’t say anything, but it was obvious he didn’t believe that, either.”
Ekaterina chuckled, and Kate smiled. “I know. So we showed him pictures of where we lived, and he laughed. He wanted to know what kind of reservations we had, and we told him, none, or none like they do Outside. He still wouldn’t believe us, but he was too polite to call us liars to our face, and so he sold me this gorgeous silver bracelet and took us home for supper.”
Kate stopped next to the stove, her hands held out over it. “Home was a twenty-year-old Airstream trailer propped up on bricks and insulated with newspapers, sitting next to a dry creek bed. No power, no running water, but the creek ran most of the year, he told us. His oldest girl was thirteen. She was pregnant. They wanted to know about Alaska and we had a map and showed it to them, and they couldn’t read enough to understand it. His wife was drunk from the moment we stepped into his trailer, and before we left her sister and her sister’s husband showed up with another bottle. It was a school day, but none of the kids had bothered to attend. What was the point? He asked us. There were no jobs on the reservation.”
The old woman looked at her, one arm on the table, the other planted on a knee, her face impassive, and Kate said gently, “They stay home, emaa. They never leave it. And do you know who they have for tribal police? The FBI. There’s your self-determination. There’s your sovereign nation. Don’t you see, that by forcing Xenia to stay here, you would be forcing her to give up any chance she has at a future?”
Ekaterina sat still, again her eyes half-closed. She said, “Billy Mike was in Prudhoe last year when the Barrow whalers landed that bowhead. They were not in kayaks, they were in Zodiacs with outboard motors. Their harpoons had exploding heads. One of the oil companies provided a tractor with a come-along and winched the whale ashore, after the hunters had struck three times and finally killed it. A third of the meat was ruined by the time the carcass was beached. Another third spoiled before it could be harvested, before even the polar bears could gather to finish it off, the way they were put here to do. This is your twentieth century, Katya. This is your civilization. Don’t you see that if Xenia leaves, she abandons the culture that gave her birth?”
Kate smiled at the old woman, and flicked the switch next to the door, plunging the room into arctic afternoon gloom. “And yet you have electricity in your house, emaa. You have running water in your kitchen and bathroom.”
“Provided by the association for its members,” Ekaterina said composedly.
Kate flicked the switch again, restoring the light. “Funded by taxes on Prudhoe Bay oil, emaa.”
Four
Unfortunately Kate knew exactly where to find her cousin Xenia.
Bernie’s Roadhouse was
“Sounds like fun,” Ekaterina said neutrally, alert to the seeming change of subject, watching her granddaughter with wary eyes.
“Mmm. One day, while we were driving everywhere, we came to a Indian gift shop by the side of the road, and we stopped. The man who was running it, a Navajo he said when we asked him, wanted to know where we were from. We told him, and he wanted to know, where do Indians live in Alaska? Jack said, a lot of the time next door. He didn’t believe us. I told him I was an Aleut, and he looked at Jack, and he looked at me, and he looked at our camper van, and he looked at my clothes, and he didn’t say anything, but it was obvious he didn’t believe that, either.”
Ekaterina chuckled, and Kate smiled. “I know. So we showed him pictures of where we lived, and he laughed. He wanted to know what kind of reservations we had, and we told him, none, or none like they do Outside. He still wouldn’t believe us, but he was too polite to call us liars to our face, and so he sold me this gorgeous silver bracelet and took us home for supper.”
Kate stopped next to the stove, her hands held out over it. “Home was a twenty-year-old Airstream trailer propped up on bricks and insulated with newspapers, sitting next to a dry creek bed. No power, no running water, but the creek ran most of the year, he told us. His oldest girl was thirteen. She was pregnant. They wanted to know about Alaska and we had a map and showed it to them, and they couldn’t read enough to understand it. His wife was drunk from the moment we stepped into his trailer, and before we left her sister and her sister’s husband showed up with another bottle. It was a school day, but none of the kids had bothered to attend. What was the point? He asked us. There were no jobs on the reservation.”
The old woman looked at her, one arm on the table, the other planted on a knee, her face impassive, and Kate said gently, “They stay home, emaa. They never leave it. And do you know who they have for tribal police? The FBI. There’s your self-determination. There’s your sovereign nation. Don’t you see, that by forcing Xenia to stay here, you would be forcing her to give up any chance she has at a future?”
Ekaterina sat still, again her eyes half-closed. She said, “Billy Mike was in Prudhoe last year when the Barrow whalers landed that bowhead. They were not in kayaks, they were in Zodiacs with outboard motors. Their harpoons had exploding heads. One of the oil companies provided a tractor with a come-along and winched the whale ashore, after the hunters had struck three times and finally killed it. A third of the meat was ruined by the time the carcass was beached. Another third spoiled before it could be harvested, before even the polar bears could gather to finish it off, the way they were put here to do. This is your twentieth century, Katya. This is your civilization. Don’t you see that if Xenia leaves, she abandons the culture that gave her birth?”
Kate smiled at the old woman, and flicked the switch next to the door, plunging the room into arctic afternoon gloom. “And yet you have electricity in your house, emaa. You have running water in your kitchen and bathroom.”
“Provided by the association for its members,” Ekaterina said composedly.
Kate flicked the switch again, restoring the light. “Funded by taxes on Prudhoe Bay oil, emaa.”
Four
Unfortunately Kate knew exactly where to find her cousin Xenia.
Bernie’s Roadhouse was
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