The Woman Who Married a Bear (11 page)

“You're speaking of Alvin Hawkes's death?”

“Yes, I am. I hope for it every day, but there's no one to punish men for their unspeakable acts against families. You want to do some good for my mother-in-law, for our family? Kill Alvin Hawkes. But don't defile our family.”

The sea lions were gone. There was only a slight, ever-widening ripple on the water. I looked at the bear and it stared back with its comical, dead snarl. The clock ticked.

“Could I speak to your children?”

I wanted to close my eyes for the response.

“My children are traveling, Mr. Younger. And
no,
if there is anything that I can do about it, you will not talk to them about anything. I am going to contact my attorney this afternoon.”

“Why did you call me and invite me out here if you felt this way?”

“I wanted to see Judge Younger's son for myself and see if I could convince him to give up this foolish investigation.”

“Mrs. Victor, I want to ask you about Walt Robbins.”

“I imagined that you would have already heard the filthy gossip that has surrounded us since this thing started. Walt Robbins is like many other men who do not respect the sanctity of our family. I'm sure you've heard rumors about the trouble years ago in Stellar. It had nothing to do with the children or with me.”

The eagle sat on top of the piling next to the float plane ripping the fish with the point of its beak as it held it in one of its talons.

“Mr. Younger, my children and I are the victims. We do not need our life disturbed any further.”

“If I may ask, Mrs. Victor, what are your plans? Are you going to continue the guiding business?”

“You may ask, but then you will have to leave. Neither the plane nor the boat are of any use to me. I am in the process of trying to sell them both to bring in some income.”

“Could you sell them to Robbins?”

“I could sell them to whomever I want, and I don't like your tone. I think it is time that you go.”

“What about your son, Lance? Does he want to take over the business?”

“My children's concerns are none of your business. Good-bye, Mr. Younger.”

I ambled out of the house. I thought about asking to stay for lunch but I didn't, and I also didn't call for a cab.

I stood on the side of the road next to the stair landing and waited for a car to drive by. I heard a few bird songs in the brush, ravens and perhaps a thrush, the water licking on the rocks below. I imagined a bear snuffling in the shallow roots just out of sight. In half an hour only one car came down the road and it drove past, accompanied by a rush of wind in the Doppler effect that all dangerous-looking hitchhikers know.

Finally, a talkative carpenter stopped his truck and gave me a lift to the Auke Bay store.

Although I hadn't shaved that morning and had a bandage on my hand where a gun had bit me, I didn't feel evil. But the teenage girl behind the glass hot dog carousel scowled at me as she pointed to the pay phone. I needed to call a cab but instead I called my friend at the airport and added two more names to my list. Then I telephoned long distance to the Pioneer Home in Sitka.

After the nurse had been gone for about two minutes, I heard Mrs. Victor's voice on the other end. I introduced myself, because I didn't think she would recognize my voice, but she cut me off halfway through the introduction.

“Your daughter-in-law does not want me looking into this case. She says I'm exploiting you for your money and that I can't do any good for your family.”

“She and I don't see things the same way.”

“Mrs. Victor, did your son tell you about any trouble he had in his family life?”

There was a long pause on the line. I could hear shallow breathing.

“My son… had done bad things, things I cannot tell you about.”

“You hired me to find the whole truth.”

Another pause.

“I cannot tell you about these things over the phone. Not standing here at the nursing station.”

“I understand. I'm on my way to Stellar. Will I find what I'm looking for up there?”

“I don't know, Mr. Younger. I suppose it depends on how good a hunter you are.”

I told her I wanted to see her just as soon as I got back.

Before I hung up, she said, “I will pay you whatever it costs, but I need to know—how much money will it be? I can make arrangements.”

“I've decided to do the case for twenty-five hundred dollars, and I've already been paid.”

“By whom?”

A little Tlingit kid holding a Dolly Varden trout by the gills was tapping on the phone booth with the edge of a quarter.

“The answer to that is what I hope to find in Stellar.”

The kid tapped louder and louder as I called a cab to take me to the airport. A raven stood in the parking lot watching the Dolly Varden swing from his hand.

NINE

THERE ARE SOME
questions so graceful that they should only be asked, because at some point it becomes interruptive to try and answer them.

One of the most time-consuming questions asked in this part of the country involves where the “real Alaska” is. Most of the people living north of Haines consider southeastern Alaska to be a suburb of San Francisco, inhabited by drug-addled phoneys and bureaucrats, with a few loggers and fishermen holding on against all odds. The phoneys and the bureaucrats have an image of the modern white resident of the north as a 400-pound Oklahoma building contractor with a 50-pound gold-nugget watchband and an antebellum attitude toward the darker races. Anchorage falls in the middle of this mess.

Anchorage grew up too fast to keep pace with its ability to dress itself. Today its buildings mostly resemble monumental subarctic toasters, all reflective surfaces to steal the beauty of the surrounding landscape.

Anchorage is hip deep in the twentieth century. In a downtown bar you can find a deranged redneck watching a Rams game on the wide-screen TV alongside an arts administrator who is working on a production of
Waiting for Godot
to tour the arctic villages. Both of them will walk around the Eskimo man bundled up asleep on the sidewalk, but the arts administrator will feel an ironic sense of history.

During a heated discussion on the “real Alaska” issue, I heard a woman from Eagle River say to a man from Tenakee, “Okay, smart-ass, if Anchorage isn't an Alaskan city, what is it?” This might be one of those graceful questions. As my plane was flying over the city in preparation for the landing, it ran through my mind many times, like the mantra of an urban planner: “What is it?”

There were several people I would have liked to see but I wouldn't have time. There was the painter who took a knock on the head and could then speak Polish; there was one of the best mandolin players on the West Coast who lived in a trailer in the spectacular neighborhood of Spenard; and there was the sewage system engineer who could bench press 460 pounds. But I only had half an hour between planes.

On the trip to Anchorage I had read the information from the airlines file. None of the principals in the case had flown in or out of Sitka right before or after Todd was shot. Neither Walt Robbins nor any of the Victors were on the lists. Nor were there any R. Walters or Victor Lances or the like. I'd thought of that.

I read through Alvin Hawkes's medical file while 1 waited for my Stellar-bound jet to take off. The sun was setting and the temperature outside was near freezing. I glanced up and saw the baggage handlers packing cases of beer onto the conveyor belt. These cases were being checked through as excess baggage. Stellar is a damp community as far as alcohol goes. It's illegal to sell liquor but not to possess it. So any trip to Anchorage, whether business or pleasure, requires excess baggage.

If you live in southeastern Alaska and are used to being stared down at by the mountains with your back against the ocean, the country around Anchorage is a reprieve. The horizons are broad and open. The mountains slope up from the tidal flat, cupping Anchorage but not crowding it against the shallow waters of Cook Inlet. There is a much safer feel to landing or taking off in Anchorage than there is in Juneau, where the mountains stick up like granite nets that will catch you if you overrun the runway.

The flight to Stellar takes about an hour by jet. They serve hot pretzels and drinks. Across from me sat a young business couple. The man wore a Harris tweed jacket and gray slacks. The woman wore a tan silk blouse with a scarf and a blue flannel skirt. They both had on leather Top-Siders and maroon parkas. They each ordered white wine and then conversed about some papers the man took out of his leather valise. Behind them, an Eskimo couple sat with their screaming baby. They were both wearing flannel shirts and nylon windbreakers. The man held the screaming child up in front of his grinning face and sang to it. The baby was in flannel pajamas and its hair shone in the light of the reading lamp, frizzing out like the down of a young goose. The father sang softly in Yupik. The stewardess suggested that he give the baby something to suck on, explaining the difference in air pressure on the inner ears could cause pain. She said this once too often and too loud. The father smiled politely and kept singing. The professional couple glanced backward in annoyance and moved their heads closer together to confer.

I had two pretzels and a glass of Jack Daniel's and after I finished reading I stared out the window. We were flying northwest over the mountains toward the delta country of the Kuskokwim. Outside, I could see the snow-covered outline of a mountain peak, and to the north of that peak I could faintly see a flickering light, perhaps a campfire. The temperature on the ground was zero degrees Fahrenheit and the temperature outside the airplane window was minus fifty degrees.

Alvin Hawkes had been a healthy young man. He had been injured once by accident when a tractor slipped off the jacks but had suffered no major illnesses. He did have a problem with motion sickness for which he took medication while working for Victor. There were several notations about this motion sickness because the medication he got, including what he was taking during the last week of Louis's life, had the side effect of blurring his vision and causing a ringing in his ears. Yet elsewhere those symptoms were attributed not to medication but to “anxiety.”

I also found that, according to the official measurement, when he entered prison, he was five feet eight and weighed 150 pounds. Louis Victor was six foot three and he'd weighed 212.

It was 8:00
P.M.
when we landed in Stellar. It was fourteen degrees, which was cold for this time of year, even in Stellar.

The baggage area was small and sparse. There were ten of us waiting under the tin roof. I wasn't waiting for luggage but to see if I could recognize anyone. A Yupik Eskimo man in an insulated jumpsuit began to throw the luggage off the carts but no one made a move until he started unloading the cases of beer and whiskey. Then people started toward him with purpose.

A man wearing gray wool pants and an old army parka with a wolf ruff came up to me.

“Hello, Cecil.”

He smiled and we shook hands ceremoniously. The last time I had seen Edward he had been the translator in a civil case against a bootlegger. The attorney had wanted to find a Yupik word for rapist. There is no precise word, but we came up with an appropriate phrase that satisfied both the court and the witnesses. We lost the case and Edward and I had spent several days in a hunting camp to compensate ourselves for our loss.

Edward looked well. The strength in his body pointed toward the ground. His posture was straight and solid, eyes clear and handshake firm. The rumors were true—he was sober. His handshake, his walk, and even his tone of voice made me think he had been sober for a while. And there was something wary in him. Or at least this was something new that I thought I saw. A barrier. Some mistrust or unwillingness to let down his guard. He knew I wasn't sober, or wouldn't be soon. It was awkward, so instead of spending time on the pleasantries, I went right on.

“Edward, do you know Hannah Elder? She works for the Department of Social Services. She moved here about six months ago.”

“She's pretty. You know her?”

“Old friend. Do you know where she lives?”

His eyes were laughing and he scratched his head in a parody of someone who was slow-witted.

“No, I don't think I do.”

He laughed and motioned me to carry my bag to the outside. I began to feel a thaw.

“But maybe I can find it. I was supposed to meet my cousin. He owes me money. He didn't fly in. So I'll take you there.”

We stepped outside to get into his truck. Even in the dark you can tell the country is flat, just by the way the wind blows—strong in your ears and in your bones, but without the accompaniment of trees or ocean. It's just a flat bluster that first hits your ears. When coming from Southeastern my instinct is to stand on my tiptoes to get a good look around. At first, the delta looks empty but it holds hidden surprises revealed by just the slightest changes in elevation. Like a sleight-of-hand artist, the tundra distracts you in the distance, then pulls a coin out from behind your ear.

We drove past the jail and the hospital, both large concrete structures with low profiles to the wind. There were street lights in the parking lot that spread lonely circular pools of light onto the snow.

Edward told me about his family, how one girl was a cheerleader for the wrestling team, how the boys were all doing well in school. He told me the hunting seemed to be getting worse and that he didn't know if it was because of the weather or because of his age. He told me all of these things but I had to ask him about them all specifically. He was happy to reply but didn't want to impose his stories on me without an invitation. He invited me to stay with him at his house if he couldn't find where Hannah lived.

We drove out along the edge of the river and finally on one of the high banks we stopped at a small house that stood alone. It had a steeply pitched roof and a window on each side of the door. It looked as if it had been designed from a child's drawing. The light from a window spilled like milk out onto the river.

“I'm pretty sure this is her house. Looks like her stuff.”

I offered to pay Edward for gas but he chuckled. It was a tinkling sound and he covered his mouth so it seemed to come from his hand. He stuffed the money back into my jacket pocket while we were both sitting in the front seat of the truck.

“Can I call you if I need a ride?” He shrugged and shook his head as he put the truck in reverse.

I heaved my shoulder against the truck door and stepped out onto the creaking snow. He drove away. The wind sucked up the sound of the motor and he seemed to be gone very quickly. I didn't quite know what I was doing standing in the road getting colder and colder. I hadn't intended to try to see her when I asked Edward about Hannah, but I didn't struggle when he started taking me to her.

No one in the world will tell you that arriving unexpectedly at the door of someone who used to love you is a wise thing to do. No living person would recommend it. Especially when it's fourteen degrees on the lower Kuskokwim.

She came to the door. The light from a small reading lamp inside backlit her shoulder-length blond hair, but the porch light cast an even glow on her face. All of this in the darkness and wind of the delta. An emptiness stirred in my chest as she focused her eyes on me. She wore a purple sweater with a yellow ribbon laced around the neck. I almost laughed to see her still so beautiful.

After a moment she exhaled.

“Oh God … what are you doing here?” But she was smiling. I felt that maybe I would still see spring.

“I'm working a case. I needed to come up here.”

We walked into her living room. One of Chopin's nocturnes was playing from the speakers of her small tape player. It was the one with the change that she liked so much: the whole notes changing key in the middle of a phrase. The walls had cheap paneling that buckled on the seams. The room smelled vaguely like stove oil and smoked fish. There was a Yupik loon mask hanging above her table, the long neck curving toward the ceiling with carved figures circling it on the ends of slender rods. The figures, small carved fish and the faces of otters, danced in the heat that rose from the oil stove. There was a reproduction of a Morris Graves sea bird hanging opposite it. The table had one chair. There was a futon with a sleeping bag rolled in the corner. A narrow loft looked down on us.

“Two questions. Are you in trouble? And are you still drinking?”

“Someone would like to kill me. In fact, they shot Todd trying, but I don't think that they will follow me up here. And yes, I'm still drinking. But I'm not sure that the two are directly related this time.”

She sat in the chair. “Todd? What have you done to Todd?”

She cupped her chin in her hands, rocking back and forth. “What have you done?”

“Listen … will you listen, Goddamn it. I'm to blame for a lot of things and I'm willing to accept the responsibility for them if I have to. I'm to blame for the things I said on the night you left. If you want to throw me out for that you'd be right to. But not Todd…. You don't know a fucking thing about it, and you're ready to pass judgment. So don't… You don't …”

My jaw was set and I couldn't bring myself to look at her, afraid of what might come bubbling up.

I looked out the window. There was snow on the banks of the river, and ice flowed slowly in the broad current. On the plane I had heard that it was raining in Sitka. Sometimes I feel it's been raining since I was a little boy. Tonight the moon was throwing shadows off the smallest tufts of grass that stuck up through the snow. A cloud passed in front of the moon and the shadows lightened.

“You like it here, Han? Better than Southeastern?”

“It's different. It's cold, like another country.”

She stood beside me looking out the window.

“Does the cold get into your bones like the rain does? Sometimes I think the rain is like grief that I have to endure.”

I looked at my feet. She rubbed her palm between my shoulder blades.

“That's not the rain, Cecil. That's grief. Let's have something to eat.”

She cooked two caribou steaks and some boiled cabbage and cheese. I made a salad. She was very excited about a ripe avocado that was bruised and small.

This is a strange country. The world along the river was preparing for the twilight of winter. Somewhere to the north, there were bears digging into burrows on hillsides, rolling in the smells of caribou and moose grease. There were ptarmigan squatting behind small hummocks out of the wind, whales drifting above the shoals of great underwater canyons. But nowhere would there be anything as peculiar as this little weary avocado, which had probably been raised in sandy soil near the Mexican border, then picked, packed, trucked, barged, flown, trucked again, displayed, purchased, brought home and peeled to be put in our salad, which we would eat with a mouthful of caribou steak.