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

with a crack
like a .30-06 going off. Demetri had mended it with epoxy but it could still be
seen, a narrow lightning bolt of rich dark brown running almost all the way
from Auntie Joy to Kate.
    Annie, Association secretary-treasurer and its only full-time employee, was
there today, too, sitting at a small desk in the corner, taking notes on a
laptop. Annie's husband, Billy Mike, previous chair of the Niniltna Native
Association, had died last year of a massive coronary. They'd lost their son
Dandy the year before and after a double whammy like that everyone would have
understood if Annie had retreated into a life centered around her last two
children left at home. Both were orphans, both adopted. The baby boy, half
Korean, half African-American, was named Alexei for Annie's grandfather.
Vanessa Cox, who had lost first her parents to an automobile accident Outside
and then her last surviving relatives here in the Park, one to murder and the
other to jail, had been acquired the following year.
    Contrary to conventional wisdom, Annie had not retreated. Instead, she had
soldiered on, doing her duty by Association as secretary-treasurer and by Park
as an upstanding Park rat, first in line to offer aid and comfort to those in
need. She was pretty much an auntie in waiting, Kate thought. She looked up now
from her computer, and the sympathy in her expression made Kate realize that
the four board members were sitting in various states of impatience, waiting
for Kate to start the meeting.
    She looked down at the agenda.
Reading
and approval of minutes.
    Reports. Unfinished business. New business. How hard could this be? She sat
up straight and cleared her throat. "Okay. Somebody read the minutes so we
can approve them."
    There was silence. Kate looked up. "What?"
    There was a look of dawning realization in
Harvey
's eyes, along with a growing and
malicious amusement. "You have to call the meeting to order first."
    "Oh. Uh, okay then. I call the meeting to order. Who reads the
minutes?" She looked at Annie. "You're the secretary, right, Annie?
You take the minutes, right? So you probably read them, too. So go ahead."
    Another uncomfortable silence.
Harvey
settled back in his chair, folded his arms, and looked like someone sitting in
the front row of a Steve Martin concert, with balloons.
    Harvey, fifty-three, born in Niniltna but raised in
Anchorage
, was a commercial fisherman like
Old Sam and a professional hunting guide like Demetri. Active in local
politics, a crony of district senator Pete Heiman, his past term on the state
board of fish and game had been notable for his vocal and vociferous and often
incendiary support of increasing the length of the hunting and fishing seasons
and upping the legal limits on anything with fur or fins. Ekaterina had backed
Harvey
's ascension to the
NNA board as a sop to pro-development voices in the Association, and had lived
to regret it when he openly supported development in Iqaluk. While he had his
adherents, there were among NNA shareholders people still suffering the effects
of the RPetCo Juneau oil spill who as vociferously disagreed.
    Annie looked at Auntie Joy and the two women communed in silence for a
moment.
    "What?" Kate said.
    "You not read your minutes, Katya?" Auntie Joy said. "What
minutes?" Kate said.
    Auntie Joy's radiance dimmed still further. "Viola bring you the
minutes, Katya."
    "No, she didn't," Kate said indignantly.
    Auntie Joy nodded. She wasn't enjoying herself. "Last month, Katya. One
U-Haul box."
    "Auntie, I—" Kate remembered Auntie Vi's visit the previous
month. "Cardboard? Brown?" she said without much hope.
    "Auntie Vi bring."
    Kate slumped a little. "Auntie Vi bring." Where had she left that
box? She had a vague memory of putting it in the back of Johnny's truck. It
couldn't still be there, could it?
    "And Katya not read," Auntie Joy said sorrowfully.
    "No." Then Kate rallied. "So what? The agenda says for them
to be read and approved. So somebody read them,