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.”