Though Not Dead by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online

they’re always going to be the ones most requested, so the older ones we have to look up by hand for now.” He pulled down an ancient volume.
    “What’s that?”
    “A cross-reference of anyone who has ever staked a claim or applied for an allotment anywhere in the Park.” He opened it. The pages, some of which were bound into the volume and some of which had been added later, were lined and dated and filled with writing in many different hands. “Jesus, there are a lot of people in the Park whose last names begin with D.” He ran his finger down one column, then another. “Dementieff, Dementieff.” He turned the page. Halfway down the column he stopped. “Samuel—Leviticus?” He looked at Kate.
    “That was his middle name.” Dan remained incredulous, and Kate said, “It was in his will and everything.”
    “Jesus,” Dan said again, “the things some people name their kids. You’d think they wanted them to get beat up in kindergarten. Okay, Samuel Leviticus Dementieff, a single man, applied for”—his voice changed, acquiring an edge—“a hundred and sixty fucking acres of unimproved land in March of 1938.” There was a corresponding file number, and after ten minutes of yanking open various file drawers, swearing, and a paper cut that left a trail of bloody fingerprints from 1935 to 1939, they had the file open on the table and were standing side by side, staring down at it.
    There were three documents, all handwritten in that spiked longhand with the sky-reaching P ’s that dated its creator as having learned to write English in America sometime before Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley. Each document was clearly marked “Copy” with a black stamp. The first was the application itself, in two paragraphs, dated March 30, 1938. The paper was yellowed with age and the ink had bled and faded but the words were perfectly legible.
    “ ‘I, Samuel Leviticus Dementieff,’ ” Kate read out loud, “ ‘of the city of Cordova, Alaska Territory, do hereby apply to enter under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862 the one hundred sixty acres in the Quilak Mountain foothills located approximately eighty-five miles east of the village of Niniltna.…’ ” There followed latitude and longitude of the four corners of the property, with a note made thirty-six years later of the property tax number given the parcel by what was then the state of Alaska.
    “How did he get a surveyor out there?” Dan said. “He’d have had to import one from Fairbanks, or even Anchorage. Must have cost him a bundle.”
    Kate shook her head. “You’re forgetting the Kanuyaq Mine.”
    Dan frowned. “It was closed by then, wasn’t it?”
    “It closed that year, but until then they would have needed their own surveyor on staff. With the right encouragement, he probably wasn’t averse to doing a little moonlighting on the side.”
    “I hope he charged Old Sam a chunk of change. Jesus, think of the bushwhacking it would have taken to get back there then, not to mention humping the theodolite and the tripod in. And a tent, and food, and a gun. Hell, I’ll bet you couldn’t get a GPS to work back there today.”
    The second paragraph began, “Land office at City of Ahtna, Alaska Territory.” This time Dan read it out loud. “ ‘I, Frederick Cyril McQueen, Register of the Land Office, do hereby certify that the above application is for surveyed lands which the applicant is legally eligible to enter under the Homestead Act of 1862’ ”—Abraham fucking Lincoln—“ ‘and that there is no prior valid adverse right to the same.’ ”
    “Title search should be so easy nowadays,” Kate said. “Or so cheap. Not to mention which, I think you might have gotten Lincoln’s middle name wrong.” Dan rolled a fulminating eye in her direction and she added hastily, “Just a guess.”
    They turned back to the file. The second document was a printed form titled “Proof Required Under the 1862 Homestead