A small seam of light drew them forward. Leni’s eyes adjusted slowly.
A vista opened up in the break between the bushes: marshland, as far as the eye could see. Tall, waving green grass through which meandered a lazy, motionless river. Mountains were tucked in close, arms drawn protectively around the marshes.
Leni counted fifteen huge brown bears in the marshes, munching on the grass, pawing for fish in the stagnant water. They were great, shaggy creatures—called grizzly bears by most of the world—with giant heads. They moved in a shambling way, as if their bones were held together with rubber bands. Mama bears kept their cubs close and away from the males.
Leni watched the majestic animals move through the tall grass. “Wow.”
A bush plane banked overhead, began its descent.
“My grandpa took me here when I was just a kid,” Matthew whispered. “I remember telling him he was crazy to homestead land so close to the bears, and he said, It’s Alaska, as if that were the only answer that mattered. My grandparents relied on their dogs to run off the bears if they came too close. The government created a national refuge around us.”
“Only here,” Leni said with a laugh.
She leaned against Matthew. Only here.
God, she loved this place; she loved Alaska’s wild ferocity, its majestic beauty. Even more than the land, she loved the people to whom it spoke. She hadn’t realized until just this moment how deep her love for Alaska ran.
“Matthew! Leni!”
They heard Ms. Rhodes yelling for them.
They ducked back through the scrub brush and came out on the beach. Ms. Rhodes was there, with the younger girls gathered around her. Off to her left, a float plane was pulled up onto the beach. “Hurry!” Ms. Rhodes said, waving her hand. “Marthe, Agnes, get in the plane. We have to get back to Kaneq. Mad Earl has had a heart attack.”
*
MAD EARL DIED.
Leni couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. Yesterday, the old man had been alive, vibrant, drinking moonshine, telling stories. The compound had been a busy place, a hive of activity: chain saws whirring, steel being fired into blades over open flames, axes chopping wood, dogs barking. Without him, it fell into quiet.
Leni didn’t cry for Mad Earl. She wasn’t that much of a hypocrite, but she wanted to weep for the loss she saw in the faces around her. For Thelma and Ted and Moppet and Clyde and the rest of the people who lived at the compound; the blank space left by Mad Earl would hurt for a long time.
Now they were all out in the bay, near the boat launch below the Russian church.
Leni sat in the dented aluminum canoe that her father had salvaged, with Mama in front of her. Dad was behind Leni, keeping them steady in the water.
There were boats all around them, floating in the calm of this bright day. They had gathered for their version of a funeral. It was almost summer; you could feel it in the sun’s heat. Hundreds of snow geese had returned to the head of the bay. The craggy shoreline, empty and slicked with ice all winter, now bore all manner of life. On a rock in the middle of the water, a green and black tower of stone that rose up from the deep, sea lions crowded over one another. Seagulls flew above them in lazy white arcs, yapping like terriers. She saw nesting gulls and diving cormorants. Seals, with black or silver cocker spaniel faces, poked their noses up from the water alongside otters who lay lazily on their backs, cracking clams in quick-moving paws.
Not far away, Matthew sat in a shiny aluminum skiff with his father. Every time Matthew looked at Leni, she looked away, afraid to reveal her feelings for him in such a public place.
“My daddy loved this place,” Thelma was saying, her words swaying in time to the music made by her oar in the water. “He will be missed.”
Leni watched Thelma pour a stream of ashes from a cardboard box. They floated for a moment, fanned out, creating a murky stain, then slowly sank.
Silence fell.
Most of Kaneq was out here, or so it seemed. The Harlans, Tom and Matthew Walker; Large Marge; Natalie; Calhoun Malvey and his new wife; Tica Rhodes and her husband; and all the merchants. There was even a bunch of old-timers, men who lived so far off the grid and so deep in the bush they were hardly ever seen. They had few teeth and lots of stringy hair and hollowed-out cheeks. Several had dogs in their boats. Crazy Pete and Matilda stood on the shore, side by side.
One by one the boats floated back to shore, were beached. Mr. Walker carried Thelma’s canoe up the beach and tossed it into the back of a rusted pickup.
People instinctively looked to Mr. Walker to say something more, to bring them all together. They gathered close to him.
“I’ll tell you what, Thelma,” Mr. Walker said. “Why don’t you all come over to my place? I’ll throw some salmon on the fire and get out a case of cold beer. We can give Earl a send-off he’d love.”
“The big man, offering to host the wake for a man he looked down on,” Dad said. “We don’t need your charity, Tom. We will say goodbye in our own way.”
Leni wasn’t the only one who flinched at the stridency of her father’s voice. She saw shock on the faces around her.
“Ernt,” Mama said. “Not now.”
“Now is the perfect time. We are saying goodbye to a man who came up here because he wanted a simpler way of life. The last thing he’d want us to do is celebrate by drinking with the man who wants to turn Kaneq into Los Angeles.”
Dad seemed to grow while he stood there, fueled by rage and animosity. He moved forward, went to Thelma, who looked as broken as a used Popsicle stick, her hair dirty, her shoulders slumped, her eyes watery.
Dad squeezed Thelma’s shoulder. She flinched, looked frightened. “I’ll take Earl’s place. You don’t have to worry. I’ll make sure we stay ready for anything. I’ll teach Moppet—”
“You’ll teach my daughter what?” Thelma asked in an unsteady voice. “The way you teach your wife? You think we haven’t seen the way you treat her?”
Mama froze, a flush colored her cheeks.
“We’re done with you,” Thelma said, her voice strengthening. “You scare the kids, especially when you’re drinking. My dad put up with you because of what you did for my brother, and I’m grateful for that, too, but there’s something wrong with you. I don’t want to rig the outside of our land with explosives, for God’s sake, and no eight-year-old needs to put on a gas mask at two A.M. and get to the gate with her bug-out bag. My dad did things one way. I’m doing them another.” She drew in a deep breath. Her eyes glittered with tears, but Leni saw relief, too. How long had Thelma wanted to say all this? “And now I am taking my dad’s old friends to Tom’s place to celebrate his life. We’ve known the Walkers forever. We were all friends, a community, before you showed up. If you can come and be civil, come. If you just want to tear this town apart, stay home.”
Leni saw the way people backed away from Dad. Even the bushy-bearded off-the-gridders took a step back.
Thelma looked at Mama. “Come with us, Cora.”
“What? But—” Mama shook her head.
“My wife stays with me,” Dad said.
There was a long moment. No one moved or spoke. Then, slowly, the Harlans began to walk away.
Dad looked around, saw how easily they’d culled him from the herd.
Leni watched their friends and neighbors get into their vehicles and drive away, boats thumping along behind them on trailers or in pickup beds. Matthew gave Leni a long, sad look and finally turned away.
When they were alone, just the three of them, Leni glanced at Mama, who looked as worried and scared as Leni felt. Neither had any doubt: this would push him over the edge.
Dad stood still, eyes blazing with hatred, staring down the empty road.
“Ernt,” Mama said.