“And that’s why we have come together tonight, all the people of Port Orlov, to set things straight—in every way.” Referring to the paper in her hand, she read off the list of donors and citizens and businesses that had contributed money, time, and labor to fixing the totem pole. The hardware store had contributed the paint and cement, the Growdon Lumberyard had worked to restore the wood, a local contractor had supervised the construction of the new base. Many others had chipped in five or ten dollars to the cost. And the Yardarm had provided free drinks for the celebration. “But only one beer per customer,” Nika warned everyone, with a smile.
There was a smattering of applause when she was done with the list, and as Nika nodded at her nephew Geordie, he stepped forward and took hold of the rope that held the covering in place.
“And so, with no further ado and before we all freeze to death, let’s take a look at what we can do when we all pull together. Geordie, let ’er rip.”
Geordie gave a sharp tug on the rope, but, anticlimactically, there seemed to be a snag. Changing position and wrapping the rope around his wrist, he tugged again, and this time the old sail neatly unfurled from the top of the pole, rustling and pooling around the base. The freshly painted faces of the otters and bears, foxes and wolves, gleamed in the light of the arc lamps; their teeth were now white and shining, their fur a rich brown or inky black, their eyes a deep, metallic blue.
At first there was an appreciative silence from the crowd, then the Packers fan tossed his hat in the air, and hollered out the state motto, “North to the Future!” Everyone laughed and started to applaud, and even Slater felt himself caught up in the general exultation.
Kozak sidled up to him, his free beer in hand, and said, “I will still do a ground study before I leave. No charge.”
Slater nodded in thanks.
“But it is quite beautiful now,” the professor acknowledged.
Sergeant Groves, standing a few yards off, gave it two thumbs-up.
Nika put the mike away, ducked down behind the speakers, and plugged in the CD player.
But it wasn’t the Black-Eyed Peas she was playing anymore.
Now it was a native song, a rhythmic chant, accompanied by a low, steady drumbeat. A respectful silence fell over the town square, and some of the older Inuit people instinctively lowered their heads. With eyes closed and arms held akimbo, they began to gently sway and stomp their boots in the snow. The area around the base of the totem pole cleared away, as the elders, and a few of the younger Native Americans, too, started to dance in a slow circle around it. The old women moved like hawks soaring on the wind, arms spread wide, while the men lumbered like bears on the ice. Everyone else made way, watching this ancient ritual unfold in the shadow of the pole, feeling the power, the majesty, and the unspoken sadness, of the dance. It was a nearly forgotten vestige of a world long gone, a world that had started to slip away on the very day the first Russian explorers sailed into these waters in the eighteenth century.
Nika, too, was absorbed in the music and the dance, her shoulders undulating as she stood between the speakers, her eyes closed in mystic communion. It was this ineffable connection that had brought her back to Port Orlov, and it was this same connection that would make it impossible for her to leave. She had come back to rescue her people, to save their culture from extinction, and Frank, watching her now, knew that she would never give that up … even for him.
Just as he knew it would be wrong of him ever to ask it.
The spell cast by the music was interrupted by a crackling burst of static, and the lights in the storefronts suddenly dimmed, then shut down altogether. The speakers on the flatbed sputtered and fizzled, and the streetlamps along Front Street blinked out one by one.
Slater could guess what was happening.
The dancers, like everyone else, stopped and looked up at the omen revealing itself in the sky. The tribal elders hummed and chanted in place, their upturned faces growing wet with tears.
A gigantic ribbon of green light, smooth and shiny as satin, was slowly unspooling … then rippling wider, like a curtain spreading itself open across a blackened stage. It was only the second time Slater had seen the aurora borealis, but he could not have conceived of a more portentous time for it.
Nika, looking delighted, jumped down from the bed of the truck and grabbed his hand.
“Don’t tell me you planned this,” he said, and she laughed.
“I wish I could take credit,” she replied, “but I’m only the mayor, not God.”
Most of the crowd stayed right where they were, but some drifted off toward the shoreline to watch the lights over the water.
Nika, like a kid at a carnival, dragged Frank toward the harbormaster’s shack, then out onto the pier. At the very end, they stood alone with the sky shimmering above them. Slater wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned back into his embrace. Together, they gazed up at the spectacle unfolding in the night, the green now joined by a flickering orange flame that spiraled like a staircase up into the heavens. Even the air seemed to crackle with the electrical energy.
“The spirits are rising,” Nika said, her dark eyes shining in the orange glow.
Across the black waters, Slater could swear that he heard the wolves on St. Peter’s Island baying at the sky.
“They’re going home.”