Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

"His mom okay?" Kate said.

"She's in assisted living. She's pretty much all there mentally, she just needs help with the physical stuff. He's a good son, he goes in a lot. He just doesn't usually stay this long without calling. Unless he's on a bender."

"Um." Kate, knowing sympathy would be unwelcome, didn't offer any. "I met a friend of yours today."

"Oh, yeah? Who?"

"Woman by the name of Talia Macleod."

Mandy's face lit with pleasure. "Talia? No kidding? What's she doing in the Park?"

Kate told her.

"Not a bad gig," Mandy said. "An outfit like Global Harvest would pay for a face like that to put on a project this size. Lay a lot of Alaskan hackles, too, her being a local hero and all. And she is very smart and very personable."

Kate, about to refute this, recognized the justice of it in time. "Yes, she is," she said ruefully.

"How'd you meet her?"

Kate described that morning's board meeting, and when Mandy stopped laughing, she said, wiping tears away, "I would have paid real money for a ticket to that show."

Kate could smile about it, too. Now. "I'd have been all right if they hadn't sandbagged me with being chairman. Probably. Anyway. Is this Macleod the real deal, Mandy? Or is she just bought and paid for?"

"A little of both, probably," Mandy said thoughtfully. She looked at Kate. "The thing you have to understand, Kate, is that no one in her position makes any money to speak of. She's not Brett Favre or Kevin Garnett."

Kate recognized neither name but she understood what Mandy was saying. "That's hard to believe. She's got all kinds of endorsements, doesn't she?"

"Sure, in Alaska. But Outside, or internationally?" Mandy shook her head. "As attractive and as personable as she is, she is a biathloner. She skis and shoots and skis. It doesn't make for riveting television, so it's not gonna be what sells Nikes. My guess is she took this job for the paycheck."

"That's what she said. But she talks like a true believer."

Mandy raised an eyebrow. "That's what they're paying her for. She's got a good heart, Kate."

"Then how come the first person she hired was Howie Katelnikof?"

Mandy stared. "You're kidding."

"I wish I was."

"Oh, crap." Mandy closed her eyes. "She didn't run names by you?" Mandy glared at Kate.

"Of course she didn't," Kate said. "Sorry." She started to say something else, and stopped. "What?"

Kate shrugged. "She didn't say hi to Annie. When Harvey brought her into the board room, she greeted every board member by name and had something to say to each of us to show us how well she'd done her homework. But she ignored Annie. Like the secretary-treasurer was beneath her notice. It pissed me off."

Mandy frowned. "Doesn't sound like her. Still, Annie doesn't have a vote on the board, and Talia didn't have much time."

"Doesn't mean she can get away with rudeness. Not on my watch."

Mandy rolled her eyes. "Look at you, de chair o' de board. Wasn't even a job you wanted and now you're the Emily Post of the Niniltna Native Association. My mother, the queen of Beacon Hill, would be so proud."

Kate had the grace to flush, and held up a hand. "Okay, ya got me. But," she said stubbornly, "she should have said hi." She hesitated, turning the mug around in her hands. "Mandy, what do you think of this mine?"

Mandy shrugged. "I think at nine hundred dollars an ounce and climbing every day, Global Harvest is gonna build it no matter what anyone in the Park says. Might as well close our eyes and think of England. What do you think?"

Kate sighed and drained her mug. "The same. At least it's far enough away that it won't impact you."

"Don't you believe it," Mandy said. "Don't you believe it, Kate, it's going to seriously impact both of us." She pointed. "It'll start with that road, traffic, heavy equipment, pretty soon it'll start falling apart even worse than it already is and the state will come in and repair it and probably pave it, and then we'll get every retired insurance salesman who drives up the Alcan in an RV stopping by to have their picture taken with one of the famous Park rats."

Kate stared at Mandy, the memory of an incident in Russell Gillespie's yard in Chistona a couple of years before floating up out of the ether that occupied the back of her brain. They'd caught a tourist who had been rooting around for artifacts in back of the abandoned store in the ghost town. The only problem was, Chistona wasn't a ghost town and Russell's store wasn't abandoned. Apprised of this fact, the tourist had then insisted on taking a photograph of Kate and Russell so she'd have a picture of real Alaskan Natives in her vacation album. She said, a little weakly, "But we're not famous."

"We will be," Mandy said grimly. "Our privacy will be the first thing to go, Kate, I promise you."

"So you hate the very thought of the mine," Kate said, a little startled by Mandy's vehemence.

"Don't hate it. Don't love it, either. I'm just counting the cost." Mandy shrugged. "And way before we have to pay. Best to wait and see. Only thing we can do, really."

They brooded together in silence. "How are the dogs looking?" Kate said, changing the subject.

"Healthy, ready to go." Mandy spoke with little enthusiasm.

"Problem?" Kate said.

"I don't know if global warming could be defined as a problem," Mandy said with a twisted smile. "Snow gets later every year, Kate, and thinner on the ground when it does finally come down. Last couple of years we've been running the dogs on frozen grass after Rainy Pass. Beats the hell out of sled, musher, and dogs." She shook her head and sighed. "I don't know how much longer I can keep it up."

Kate sustained another shock. "You thinking of quitting?"

"I barely finished in the money last year, Kate. The mushing has to pay for itself, or I can't afford to keep doing it."

"What about your trust fund?"

"It never paid for everything," Mandy said. "It'll be enough for me to retire on here."

Now that Kate was looking for it, she could see the fatigue in the lines of Mandy's face and the hollows beneath her eyes. "What will you do with your dogs?"

"Sell them. Won't be a problem."

Mandy's current team of dogs were the result of going on two decades of careful breeding and training. "Mandy-"

Mandy stood up. "Let me refill your mug, Kate, and you can tell me how you and Jim are getting on with the whole cohabitation thing."

Kate bowed to defeat and held out her mug.

The next day, five minutes after Jim sat down at his desk, the phone rang. It was Cindy Bingley. "Jim," she said without preamble, "you've got to do something about Willard."

Jim felt the hair prick up at the back of his neck. "What about Willard?" he said.

"He keeps stealing stuff out of the store. Yesterday he walked out with a gallon jug of white vinegar."

Jim couldn't help it. He laughed.

"It's not funny, Jim," Cindy said. She paused, hearing her voice rise. "Well, okay, maybe it is a little. When I caught him on the steps I asked him what in the world he was going to do with that much vinegar and he said he brushed his teeth a lot."

Jim closed his eyes in momentary supplication of some heavenly entity to intercede on behalf of all fools and children, of which Willard was both.

Willard Shugak, a cousin a couple of times removed from Kate, and Auntie Balasha's grandson, was in his early forties. It was a blessing that he was even still around, if a mixed one. Most people with fetal alcohol syndrome died young.

"And then," Cindy said in despair, "he started to cry. You know how he does."

"Yes," Jim said, sober now, "I know. Do you want to press charges, Cindy?"

"No! Of course I don't! Aside from the fact that Auntie Balasha would probably boycott the store, along with the other three aunties and shortly thereafter most of the rest of the Park, Willard's just a baby. A kleptomaniac baby. Sometimes I wish I could just turn him over my knee. Could you just, I don't know, put the fear of god into him or something? Lock him up overnight?"