Read Online Though Not Dead by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online Page A

“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?”
    “I guess,” Phyllis said, still dazed. “Sure. I—I don’t have anything, like dishes or sheets, but it doesn’t matter; I’ll manage. I saved all the money I earned on the Freya and I can hitch a ride to the Salvation Army thrift store in Ahtna and—”
    “You don’t have to,” Kate said. “I’ll leave all of Old Sam’s dishes and linens and household stuff in the cabin. Yeah, yeah, I know, and you’re welcome. Give me a day or two to pack up his books and guns and a few other personal things. Phyllis, listen to me now.” This said as Phyllis departed this realm for another altogether, one with her own roof over her own and her baby’s heads. “There’s a dozen cords of firewood; you can use that. You have to pay for your own electricity, and if anything breaks, you fix it. Okay?”
    “Okay,” Phyllis said. “Okay, Kate.” She stood up, a different person than the one who had sat down ten minutes before. “I’m going to go tell Virginia. She’ll probably be as happy about it as I am.”
    Kate noticed that Phyllis didn’t call Virginia auntie.
    She wondered if that was yet another thing that was changing, from one generation to the next, in the maelstrom of other changes that had engulfed the Park when gold in commercial quantities was discovered fifty miles away.

Five
    The red pickup stopped in the driveway leading to Old Sam’s cabin, which included a sod roof and a wooden walkway to a floating dock. The dock had a woven alder bench on it. Kate still had a hard time looking at the bench without seeing Old Sam slumped there, before a serene, slow-moving river, beneath a dark sky scored with stars.
    She set her teeth and walked out to the end of the dock anyway. Clouds had rolled in overnight, according to the weather report the thin end of a frontal wedge that would probably bring with it the first fall storm. She sniffed. Next to her, Mutt raised her nose and sniffed, too. The breeze was not quite sharp and smelled moist. It was too cold for rain, not yet cold enough for snow, but there would be precipitation of some kind within the week.
    Across the river the deciduous trees had yet to drop their leaves, and so formed a billowing golden glory that followed the water’s edge and even on this overcast day turned the usually gray surface of the river a dull yellow. Behind them the occasional tall sentinel spruce etched a lonely outline against the sky. They were few and far between following the past decade’s onslaught by the insatiable spruce bark beetle. The docks attached to the dwellings on the opposite shore tugged at the water flowing past, carving furrows and ripples into its surface.
    She heard the sound of an airplane, identifying the high-pitched whine as Chugach Air Taxi’s single Otter turbo well before she looked up to track its path overhead. She waved, and George waggled his wings in reply. The plane disappeared behind the trees lining the airstrip in back of town. The same plane that had taken Jim away the night before was now returning with a load of Suulutaq Mine workers for Tuesday shift change. The Suulutaq changed out their hourly employees ten to twelve a