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.”
“Tell ’em, Ernt,” Mad Earl said, leaning forward, reaching down for a jug hidden beneath his chair, uncorking it with a thunk.
“Tom Walker is a rich, arrogant prick,” Dad said. “We’ve all known men like him. He didn’t go to ’Nam. Guys like him had a million ways to dodge the draft. Unlike me and Bo and our friends, who stood up for our country. But, hey, I can get over that, too. I can get over his holier-than-thou attitude and his rubbing his money in my face. I can get over him leering at my wife.” He stepped down the rickety porch steps, splashed into the murky water that pooled along the bottom step. “But I will not let him destroy Kaneq and our way of life. This is our home. We want it to stay wild and free.”
“He’s fixing up the tavern, Ernt, not building a convention center,” Thelma said. At her raised voice, Moppet got up and walked away, went over to play with Marthe and Agnes.
“And a hotel,” Mad Earl said. “Don’t forget that, missy.”
Thelma looked at her father. “Come on, Dad. You guys are making a mountain out of a molehill. There are no roads over here, no services, no electricity. All this complaining is counterproductive. Just let it go.”
“I don’t want to complain,” Dad said. “I want to do something, and by Christ, I will. Who’s with me?”
“Damn right,” Mad Earl said, his voice a little slurred.
“He’ll raise the price of drinks,” Clyde complained. “You watch.”