The Great Alone Read online

  “Yeah,” he said, looking at Mr. Walker. “I can see why you’d want to know.”

  “It’s just a hand of cards with neighbors,” Mr. Walker said, pushing to his feet. “But we’ll leave you to your reunion.” He walked past Dad (who didn’t take a step backward, forced Mr. Walker to change course), took his parka from the hook by the door, and put it on. “Thanks, gals.”

  When he was gone, Mama stared at Dad, her face pale, her mouth parted slightly. She had a breathless, worried look about her.

  Large Marge stood up. “I can’t get my stuff together quick enough, so I’ll just stay tonight, if you don’t mind. I’m sure you don’t.”

  Dad didn’t spare Large Marge a glance. He had eyes only for Mama. “Far be it for me to tell a fat woman what to do.”

  Large Marge laughed and walked away from the dining table. She plopped onto the sofa Dad had bought from a hotel going out of business in Anchorage, put her slippered feet up on the new coffee table.

  Mama went to Dad, put her arms around him, pulled him close. “Hey, you,” she whispered, kissing his throat. “I missed you.”

  “They fired me. Sons of bitches.”

  “Oh, no,” Mama said. “What happened? Why?”

  “A lying son of a bitch said I was drinking on the job. And my boss is a prick. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Poor Ernt,” Mama said. “You never get a break.”

  He touched Mama’s face, tilted her chin up, kissed her hard. “God, I missed you,” he said against her lips. She moaned at his touch, molded her body to his.

  They drifted toward the bedroom, pushed through the clacking beads, apparently unaware that anyone else was in the cabin. Leni heard them fall on the bed with a thump, heard their breathing accelerate.

  Leni sat back on her heels. Good God. She would never understand her parents’ relationship. It shamed Leni; that unshakable love both she and Mama had for Dad gave her a bad, heartsick feeling. There was something wrong with them; she knew it. Saw it in the way Large Marge sometimes looked at Mama.

  “It ain’t normal, kid,” Large Marge said.

  “What is?”

  “Who the hell knows? Crazy Pete is the happiest married person I know.”

  “Well, Matilda’s no ordinary goose. You hungry?”

  Large Marge patted her big belly. “You bet. Your mama’s stew is my favorite.”

  “I’ll get us some. God knows they won’t be out of the bedroom for a while.” Leni wrapped up the meat she’d butchered, then washed her hands with water from the bucket by the sink. In the kitchen, she cranked up the radio as loud as it would go, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the reunion in the bedroom.

  * * *

  BREAKUP IN ALASKA. The season of melting, movement, noise, when the sunlight tenatively came back, shone down on dirty, patchy snow. The world shifted, shrugging off the cold, making sounds like great gears turning. Blocks of ice as big as houses broke free, floated downstream, hitting anything in their way. Trees groaned and fell over as the wet, unstable ground moved beneath them. Snow turned to slush and then to water that collected in every hollow and indentation in the land.

  Things lost in the snow were found again: a hat taken by the wind, a coil of rope; beer cans that had been tossed into snowbanks floated to the muddy surface of the road. Black spruce needles lay in murky puddles, branches broken by storms floated in the water that ran downhill from every corner of their land. The goats stood knee-deep in a sucking muck. No amount of hay could soak it up.

  Water filled tree wells and ran along roadsides and pooled everywhere, reminding everyone that this part of Alaska was technically a rain forest. You could stand anywhere and hear ice cracking up and water sluicing from tree limbs and eaves, along the sides of the road, running in rivulets along every indentation in the oversaturated ground.

  The animals came out of hiding. Moose ambled through town. No one ever took a turn too quickly. Sea ducks returned in squawking flocks and settled on waves in the bay. Bears came out of their dens and lumbered down hillsides looking for food. Nature was spring-cleaning, scrubbing away the ice and cold and frost, clearing the windows to let in the light.

  On this beautiful blue evening, beneath a cerulean sky, Leni stepped into her rubber Xtratuf boots and went outside to feed the animals. They had seven goats now and thirteen chickens and four ducks. Slogging through ankle-deep mud, along watery tire grooves, she heard voices. She turned toward the sound, toward the cove that was their family’s link to the outside world. Although they had spent years here, the property remained stubbornly wild. Even in her own backyard Leni had to be careful, but on days like this, when the tide was in and water lapped up on the shell-strewn shore, it still took her breath away.

  Now she saw canoes down on the water, a flotilla of brightly colored boats gliding past.

  Tourists. Probably unaware of how fast things could change in Alaska. The water beneath them was calm, but the small bay filled and emptied twice a day in fast, rushing tides that could strand or drown the unwary before they recognized the danger.

  Mama came up beside Leni. She smelled the familiar combination of cigarette smoke, rose-hip soap, and lavender hand cream that would always remind her of her mother. Mama looped one arm over Leni’s shoulder, gave her a playful hip bump.

  They watched the tourists glide into the cove, heard their laughter echo across the water. Leni wondered what their lives were like, those Outside kids, who came up here for a vacation and backpacked up mountainsides and dreamed of living “off the land,” and then went back to their suburban homes and their changing lives.

  Behind them, the red truck rumbled to life. “It’s time to go, girls,” Dad yelled.

  Mama took Leni’s hand. They began walking toward Dad.

  “We shouldn’t go to the meeting,” Leni said when they reached him.

  Dad looked at her. In their years in Alaska, he had aged, turned thin and wiry. Fine lines bracketed his eyes, creased his sunken cheeks. “Why?”

  “It will upset you.”

  “You think I’d run from a Walker? You think I’m a coward?”

  “Dad—”

  “This is our community, too. No one loves Kaneq more than I do. If Walker wants to act like a big shot and call a meeting, we’re going. Get in the truck.”

  They crammed into the old truck.

  Kaneq was a different town than it had been when they moved here, and her father hated each and every change. He hated that there was now a foot ferry that brought tourists from Homer. He hated that you had to slow down for them because they walked in the middle of the road and wandered around googly-eyed, pointing to every eagle and hawk and seal. He hated that the new fishing-charter business in town was thriving and sometimes there wasn’t an empty seat at the diner. He hated people who came to visit—lookie-loos, he called them—but even more, he hated the outsiders who’d moved in, building houses near town, taming their lots with fences and building garages.

  On this warm evening, a few hardy tourists moved down Main Street, taking pictures and talking loudly enough to startle the dogs tied up along the roadside. They gathered outside the brand-new Snackle Shop (where you could buy snacks and fishing tackle).

  A sign on the Kicking Moose Saloon read TOWN MEETING SUNDAY NIGHT. 7 P.M.

  “What are we? Seattle?” Dad muttered.

  “Our last meeting was two years ago,” Mama said. “When Tom Walker donated the lumber to repair the transient dock.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he said, pulling into a parking space. “You think I need you telling me that? I can hardly forget Tom Walker acting like a big shot, shoving his money in our noses.” He parked in front of the burnt-out Kicking Moose Saloon. The bar’s door was flung wide open in welcome.

  Leni followed her parents into the saloon.

  For all the changes that had taken place in town, this was the one place that had remained the same. No one in Kaneq cared about the blackened walls or the smell of char, as long as the booze flowed.

  The place was already packed. Men and women (mostly men) in flannel shirts were bellied up to the bar. A few scrawny dogs lay curled beneath the barstools and out of the way. Everyone was talking at once and music played in the background. A dog whined along to the sound, howled once before a boot shut him up.

  Mad Earl saw them and waved.

  Dad nodded and headed to the bar.

  Old Jim was bartending, as he had for decades. With no teeth and rheumy eyes and a beard as sparse as his vocabulary, he was slow behind the bar but congenial. Everyone knew Old Jim would give them a drink on credit or take some moose meat in trade. Rumor was, it had been that way at the Moose since Tom Walker’s dad built the saloon in 1942.

  “Whiskey, double,” Dad yelled out to Jim. “And a Rainier beer for the missus.” He slapped a handful of wadded-up pipeline bills on the table.

  Taking his drink and Mama’s beer, he headed to the corner, where Mad Earl and Thelma and Ted and Clyde and the rest of the Harlan clan had staked out a collection of chairs clustered around an overturned barrel.

  Thelma smiled up at Mama, pulled a white chair in beside her. Mama sat down and the two women immediately bent their heads together and started talking. In the past few years, they had become good friends. Thelma, Leni had learned over the years, was like most of the Alaskan women who dared to live in the bush—tough and steady and honest to a fault. But you didn’t want to mess with her.

  “Hey, Leni,” Moppet said, smiling up with her mouthful of which-a-ways teeth. Her sweatshirt was too big and her pants were too short, exposing at least three inches of pipe-cleaner-thin shins above her slumped woolen socks and ankle boots.

  Leni smiled down at the eight-year-old. “Hey, Mop.”

  “Axle was home yesterday. I almost shot him with my arrow,” she said with a grin. “Boy, was he piss-a-rood.”

  Leni bit back a smile.

  “You got new pictures to show me?”

  “Sure. I’ll bring ’em next time we come up.” Leni leaned back against the burnt log wall. Moppet tucked in close beside her.

  At the front of the bar, a bell clanged.

  The conversations around the bar quieted but didn’t silence. Town meetings might be an accepted custom off the grid, but you could never really shut up a room full of Alaskans.

  Tom Walker moved into place behind the bar, smiled. “Hey, neighbors. Thank you for coming. I see a lot of old friends in this room and plenty of new faces. To our new neighbors, hello and welcome. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Tom Walker. My father, Eckhart Walker, came to Alaska before most of you were born. He panned for gold but found his real wealth in land, here in Kaneq. He and my mom homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres and staked their claim.”

  “Here we go,” Dad said sourly, downing his drink. “Now we’re gonna hear all about his buddy the governor, and how they went crab fishing when they were kids. Good God…”

  “Three generations of my family have lived on the same land. This place is not just where we live, it’s who we are. But times are changing. You know what I’m talking about. New faces attest to the changes. Alaska is the last frontier. People are hungry to see our state before it changes even more.”

  “So what?” someone yelled.

  “Tourists are flooding the banks of the Kenai River during king season, they’re navigating our waters, they’re packing the marine ferry system and coming to our dock in droves. Cruise ships are going to start bringing thousands of people up here, not just hundreds. I know Ted’s charter business has doubled in the last two years and you can’t get a seat at the diner in the summer. Word is that the foot ferry between us and Seldovia and Homer could be filled every day.”

  “We came up here to get away from all that,” Dad shouted.

  “Why are you telling us all this, Tommy?” Large Marge called out from the corner.

  “Glad you asked, Marge,” Mr. Walker said. “I’ve finally decided to spend some money on the Moose, fix the old girl up. It’s about time we had a bar that didn’t blacken our palms and the seat of our pants.”

  Someone whooped out in agreement.

  Dad got to his feet. “You think we need a citified bar, that we need to welcome the idiots who come up here in sandals, with cameras hanging around their necks?”

  People turned to look at Dad.

  “I don’t think a little paint and some ice behind the bar will hurt us,” Mr. Walker said evenly.

  The crowd laughed.

  “We came here to get away from the Outside and that screwed-up world. I say we say no to Mr. Big Shot improving this saloon. Let cheechakos go to the Salty Dawg to drink.”

  “I’m not building a bridge to the mainland, for God’s sake,” Mr. Walker said. “My dad built this town, don’t forget. I was working at the saloon when you were trying out for Little League in the Outside. It’s all mine.” He paused. “All of it. Did you forget that? And now that I think of it, I better fix up the old boardinghouse, too. People need somewhere to sleep. Hell, I’ll call it the Geneva. She’d like that.”

  He was needling Dad; Leni saw it in Mr. Walker’s eyes. The animosity between the two men was ever-present. Oh, they tried to walk a wide berth around each other, but it was always there. Only now Mr. Walker wasn’t moving aside.

  “Do you frigging believe this?” Dad turned to Mad Earl. “What’s next? A casino? A Ferris wheel?”

  Mad Earl frowned, got to his feet. “Hold on a sec, here, Tom—”

  “It’s just ten rooms, Earl,” Mr. Walker said. “It welcomed guests a hundred years ago when Russian fur traders and missionaries walked these streets. My mother made the stained-glass windows in the lobby. The inn is a part of our history and now she’s all boarded up like a widow in black. I’ll make her shine again.” He paused, looked right at Dad. “No one can stop me from improving this town.”

  “Just ’cause you’re rich, you don’t get to shove us all around,” Dad yelled.

  “Ernt,” Thelma said. “I think you’re making too much of this.”

  Ernt shot Thelma a sharp look. “We don’t want a bunch of tourists climbing up our asses. We say no to this. No, g-damn it—”

  Mr. Walker reached up to the bell above the bar, clanged it. “Drinks are on the house,” he said with a smile.

  There was an immediate uproar: people clapping and whooping and bellying up to the bar.

  “Don’t let him buy you with a few free drinks,” Dad shouted. “This idea of his is bad. If we wanted to live in a city, we’d be somewhere else, damn it. And what if he doesn’t stop there?”

  No one was listening. Even Mad Earl was moving toward the bar for his free drink.

  “You never did know when to shut up, Ernt,” Large Marge said, sidling up to him. She was wearing a knee-length, hand-beaded suede coat over flannel pajama pants tucked into mukluks. “Does anyone make you get a business license to fix boat engines down at the dock? No. We don’t. If Tom wants to turn this place into Barbie’s Dream House, none of us will tell him otherwise. That’s why we’re here. To do whatever we want. Not to do what you want us to.”

  “I’ve taken shit from men like him all of my life.”

  “Yeah. Well. Maybe that’s more about you than him,” Large Marge said.

  “Shut your fat mouth,” Dad snapped. “Come on, Leni.” He grabbed Mama by the bicep and pulled her through the crowd.

  “Allbright!”

  Leni heard Mr. Walker’s big voice behind them.

  Almost to the door, Dad stopped, turned. He yanked Mama close in beside him. She stumbled, almost fell.

  Mr. Walker moved toward Dad, and people came with him, stood close, drinks in hand. Mr. Walker looked casual until you saw his eyes and the way his mouth tightened when he looked at Mama. He was pissed.

  “Come on, Allbright. Don’t run off. Be neighborly,” Mr. Walker said. “There’s money to be made, man, and change is natural. Unavoidable.”

  “I won’t let you change our town,” Dad said. “I don’t care how much money you have.”

  “Yes, you will,” Mr. Walker said. “You have no choice. So let it go and lose gracefully. Have a drink.”

  Gracefully?

  Didn’t Mr. Walker know by now?

  Dad wasn’t one to let things go.

  THIRTEEN

  All the next day, Dad paced and fumed and railed about dangerous changes and the future. At noon, he got on the ham radio and called for a meeting at the Harlan family compound.

  For the entirety of the day, Leni had a bad feeling, a hollowness in the pit of her stomach. The hours passed slowly, but still they passed. After dinner, they drove up to the compound.

  Now they were all waiting impatiently for the meeting to start. Chairs had been dragged out of cabins and unstacked from sheds and set up in a haphazard fashion on the muddy ground facing Mad Earl’s porch.

  Thelma sat in an aluminum chair, with Moppet sprawled uncomfortably across her, the girl too big for her mother’s lap. Ted stood behind his wife, smoking a cigarette. Mama sat beside Thelma in an Adirondack chair with only one arm, and Leni was beside her, sitting in a metal fold-out chair that had sunk into the muck. Clyde and Donna stood like sentinels on either side of Marthe and Agnes, both of whom were carving sticks of wood into spikes.

  All eyes were on Dad, who stood on the porch, alongside Mad Earl. There was no sign of whiskey between them, but Leni could tell they had been drinking.

  A dreary rain fell. Everything was gray—gray skies, gray rain, gray trees lost in a gray haze. Dogs barked and snapped at the ends of rusty chains. Several stood atop small doghouses and watched the proceedings in the center of the compound.

  Dad looked out over the crowd gathered in front of him, which was the smallest it had ever been. In the last few years, the young adults had ventured off their grandfather’s land in search of their own lives. Some fished in the Bering Sea, others rangered up in the national park. Last year Axle had impregnated a Native girl and was now living in a Yupik settlement somewhere.

  “We all know why we’re here,” Dad said. His long hair was a dirty mess and his beard was thick and untrimmed. His skin was winter pale. A red bandanna covered most of his head, kept his hair out of his face. He patted Mad Earl’s scrawny shoulder. “This man saw the future long before any of the rest of us. He knew somehow that our government would fail us, that greed and crime would destroy everything we love about America. He came up here—brought you all here—to live a better, simpler life, one that went back to the land. He wanted to hunt his food and protect his family and be away from the bullshit that goes on in cities.” Dad paused, looked out at the people gathered in front of him. “It’s all worked. Until now.”

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