“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said.
“Public speaking is not my favorite activity.”
“You’ll be a smash.”
He hugged her more tightly in encouragement, then they separated enough that he could look down into the dark pools of her eyes. It was a sight he knew he would never tire of.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said, his voice faltering; already, he regretted that he hadn’t come up with some better opening.
“About?”
“About what I’m going to do now that I’m no longer working for the AFIP. I was thinking that—”
There was a banging on the door and a snowball hit the window as a bunch of teenage boys, horsing around outside, hollered, “Get a room, Mayor!” and “So when do we get to see the totem pole?”
Nika, laughing in embarrassment, pulled away. Glancing at her watch, she shouted, “It’s not time yet. It’s officially scheduled for six P.M.”
“Looked like it was the right time to me!” one of them hooted outside the window, as the others, dispersing into the night, guffawed.
Slater tried to regroup, but Nika had returned to the table where she had left her speech and was looking it over one last time. Making one final addition — Growdon’s Lumberyard and Mill — she folded the paper into the pocket of her coat. “Oh, I almost forgot I had this on me,” she said, pulling out an opaque plastic baggie labeled Nome Regional Health Center. “The orderly gave it to me on the way out.”
Slater took the bag and unzipped it.
“I found it on the bridge, and they gave it back to me along with my other personal belongings.”
Slater could hardly believe what he was seeing. A Russian Orthodox cross, made of silver, and studded with emeralds.
“It must have been Charlie’s, or maybe it belonged to his wife.”
Slater knew better.
“But now Charlie’s dead,” Nika said. “And Harley, too.”
Slater knew that a memorial service for the Vane boys was scheduled for the following Sunday, but he wondered just how many mourners would turn up.
“I guess we should just give it to his wife,” she concluded.
“Rebekah didn’t make it, either,” Slater said. “She died from the flu, at the treatment center in Juneau.”
Nika hadn’t known that, and the news rocked her for a moment. “What’s to become of Bathsheba?”
“Last I heard, she was heading back to the cult in New England. Apparently, the lost lamb is still prized there.”
Nika nodded, looking relieved. But then, studying the cross again, she said, “So what do we do with this then? It looks awfully valuable.”
It was a terrible breach of medical protocols, Slater thought, for the cross to have been returned at all — under normal circumstances, he would have raised hell over it — but in this one instance, it was a godsend. The worst mistake he could make at this point would be to make its existence known, or to release it to anyone else, ever again. Turning it over, he saw that there was an inscription on the back, in Russian of course, and even as he wondered what it said, he slipped the cross into the pocket of his own parka and said, “I’ll take care of it.”
“Come on, Mayor — we’re freezing our asses off out here!” one of the teenagers shouted from the pier.
Nika said, “Maybe we should get this over with.”
Slater opened the door, and they walked toward the commotion around the totem pole, which was still veiled in its tattered sail.
Calling out to a couple of the partiers, she asked them to swing their trucks and cars around, and aim their headlights at the pole. Then she climbed up into the back of the flatbed, disconnected the speakers from the long, trailing power cords, and plugged in a microphone instead. The music abruptly stopped, and the crowd grew quiet as the vehicles pointed their lights at the pole. The only sounds were the crackling of the fires in the trash cans and the rustle of the wind, the never-ending wind, blowing off the sea. The night was clear.
Standing in the bed of the truck, mike in hand, Nika welcomed them all, first in English, then in the Inuit’s native tongue. There was a lot of happy nodding in the crowd, especially among the older people, at the sound of their own, almost forgotten language being spoken. It wasn’t hard for Slater to see how this vibrant young woman could also have become their tribal elder.
“Before I get to the reason we’re all here tonight, I want to take this opportunity to answer a few of the important questions that have been coming into the community center all day,” she said.
“Yeah, what burned last night?” a kid in a down parka called out. “I heard it was St. Peter’s? I can still smell the smoke.”
“Yes, there was a fire in the old colony. But I have been informed,” she said, nodding toward Slater, who was standing close to the truck, “that it has been entirely contained, and the Coast Guard will be overseeing the island from now on.”
“That’s still our land,” an older Inuit man complained. “It’s ours, by treaty.”
“They can have it,” another one answered him. “The damn place has been cursed for a hundred years.”
Nika held up a hand, and said, “It’s still ours. But for the time being, it’s off-limits.”
Slater knew that it would stay that way — strictly off-limits — forever.
“And what was the deal with that quarantine?” a white guy in a Green Bay Packers hat asked. “That’s bullshit, the government telling me where I can, and can’t, go. I couldn’t get to my ice-fishing shack.”
There was a lot of muttering and nodding heads, and Slater heard two or three people saying something about conspiracies.
“That was an emergency measure,” she said, and here she spoke carefully, following the script that she and Slater had rehearsed in Nome. “I can tell you now that there was the remote chance of a communicable disease reaching Port Orlov, and to be on the safe side we had to cordon off the immediate area. There is no threat now, however. None whatsoever.”
“And what really happened to the Vanes?” the Packers fan asked. “Charlie Vane still owes me a hundred bucks for a snowblower.”
“As I reported in the community newsletter,” Nika patiently explained, “Charlie and Harley Vane died in a car crash on the Heron River Bridge. We’re planning to hold a memorial service next Sunday.”
“That won’t get me my hundred bucks back.”
Nika, wisely, let that one pass, and just when Slater thought the whole event was going to devolve into a Tea Party rally, she asked everyone to gather around the foot of the totem pole for the unveiling.
“For too long now,” she said, “we have all been living with a disgrace in the center of our town. And as your mayor, I take a lot of the blame for that. This totem pole was built, by some of our Native American ancestors, two hundred years ago, and it was bequeathed to their descendants. It’s more than just some stately souvenir. It represents the Inuit people — their history, their legends, their spirits. It was meant to remind us of our heritage, and at the same time to watch over us in the present day.”
She allowed her words to sink in before continuing.
“But we have not watched over it. We’ve allowed the paint to fade. We’ve let the wood crack. We’ve let it almost fall over.”
The Inuit in the throng looked distinctly uncomfortable at this reminder of their own neglect, and even the nonnatives looked vaguely embarrassed, too.
“It’s the symbol of Alaska, and as such it should always stand tall. The way that all Alaskans, whatever their background, and wherever they came from, do.”
This was one sentiment that could be counted on to meet with general approval, which it did.