Read Online Whisper to the Blood by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online Page A

get the airstrip in."
    "Airstrip?" Kate said. "Where will you be flying your
employees in from? Ahtna?
Anchorage
?"
    "Wherever we hire them from," Macleod said. "Park people will
be flown in from Niniltna, until we get the road in. But, yes, other employees
will fly in from Ahtna,
Fairbanks
,
Anchorage
."
    "Outside," Kate said.
    Macleod spread her hands. "Some of the expertise necessary to
exploration and development isn't available to us here in
Alaska
."
    Auntie Joy cleared her throat deliberately. All eyes turned toward her. She
was red-faced and sweating. Kate knew how much she loathed speaking aloud in
front of strangers, so she appreciated the courage it took today for Auntie Joy
to say what she had to say. "Fish? Caribou? Moose? Bear? All wildlife?
This mine bad for those things."
    "Mrs. Shugak," Macleod said, "Global Harvest Resources knows
that we have to be good neighbors to the people who live in the Park. That
includes respecting the fish, the wildlife and the environment, and the
subsistence lifestyle practiced by everyone who lives here. We're going to use
the very best science available to us to run an operation that has the lowest
possible impact on the Park, and on the lifestyle of the people who live in it."
    Fine words, Kate thought. They would have been more convincing if they
hadn't sounded so well rehearsed. "You're going to have to get a lot more
specific than that," she said.
    "We know," Macleod said. "And we will. We're just getting
started here, Kate. We're not naive enough to think there won't be problems. Of
course there will be. But every step of the way we expect a Park-what is it you
call yourselves?-a Park rat at our elbow, telling us what we're doing wrong.
We'll be listening for that advice, and we'll be acting on it."
    "You better be listening for it," Old Sam said, "because
you'll be getting it. A lot of it."
    "Thanks for dropping by, Talia,"
Harvey
said with an enthusiastic handshake.
    "My pleasure," Macleod said. "Ask me back any time."
With a wave and a smile she was gone.
    "Anything else?" Kate said. "Great, we're outta here."
    The last thing she heard as she escaped through the door was Auntie Joy's
faint, despairing, "No, Katya, no further business, meeting
adjourned!"
     
     
     
     
    FIVE
     
    A untie Vi opened the door before he
had to knock twice. "What," she said inhospitably, but Johnny knew
better. "Is that fry bread I smell, Auntie?"
    Auntie Vi grumbled and opened the door wide enough for him to enter.
"Got a nose on you like that Katya," she said, shooing him up the
hallway to the kitchen. "I start bread, she show up on doorstep. Better
than a bear at sniffing out food, that girl."
    He grinned down at the heavy cast-iron skillet on top of the stove. Half a
dozen flat, gently puffed circles of dough were already turning a golden brown
in sizzling oil. On the counter next to it sat a bowl of bread dough.
    Auntie Vi poked him in the side. "You want fry bread, you make."
He gaped at her. "I don't know how, Auntie."
    "Best you learn, then." Briskly, she showed him how to pull off a
handful of dough, flatten it and stretch it into a circle, and hang it over the
side of the bowl to wait its turn in the frying pan. She handed him a spatula
and he got the pieces in the pan onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.
When he put the spatula down and reached for one of them, she smacked his hand.
    "But, Auntie, I'm hungry, I—"
    "You eat when you finish," she said. "But they'll all be cold
by then!"
    She cast her eyes up to the heavens. "Fine, then. One. One!"
    "Where's the powdered sugar? Oh. Thanks, Auntie." He tossed the
fry bread from hand to hand, and when it had cooled a little sprinkled the
sugar over it generously. The first bite was a little crunchy, a little chewy,
a little greasy, and a lot sweet. He closed his eyes. "Auntie, this is . .
. this is just one of the best things I ever want to put in my mouth."
    She gave a skeptical grunt but he could see that she was