Stone Cross (Arliss Cutter #2) - Marc Cameron Page 0,26

echoed through the bleachers. Everyone shuffled in their seats. The village was still raw from the recent death of Sylvia Red Fox. Birdie didn’t want to think about that one for too long.

“I hear there was a Hairy Man sighting upriver,” a man on the front row said, changing the subject. A murmur of relief at the new subject rippled up and down seats like a wave. “Lots of folks out hunting this time of year,” another man said. “Everybody should remember and be watchful.”

Even Birdie found herself nodding. She’d spent her college years at UAF in Fairbanks, away from village sentimentality and superstition. Her roommates had made fun of her when she told them about the Hairy Man or any of the numerous otherworldly beings that seemed as real as the nose on her face in the loneliness of the bush. Birdie was an educated woman, and still, she didn’t know what to believe. Was the thought of a hairy man wandering over the tundra any more incredible than Lyle Skinner’s spirit needing some spruce branches over the door to find his way back to his house?

Stories about the Hairy Man went on for a full five minutes.

Again, Ethyl Kipnuk listened quietly until she saw an opportunity to speak without interrupting. Birdie had concluded long ago that these meetings would have been half as long had a white person been running them—and twice as long if any Eskimo besides Ethyl Kipnuk had been in charge. It just wasn’t in Yup’ik nature to butt in while someone else was speaking.

Kipnuk reminded everyone of the potluck the following evening to welcome Judge Markham, urging them to bring traditional Native foods. Eyes wandered, Sailor Boy fans flapped, some people dozed, until she mentioned that it was time for door prizes. Birdie was ineligible to win—a rule she’d made herself—so she drew the names out of a woven grass basket. Ethyl won the groceries. That pissed some people off, but not as bad as if she’d won the gasoline.

People began to clear out once the door prizes were awarded, chatting with each other about the Hairy Man, or the visiting judge, or where the caribou were hiding this week. All of them ignored the rows of chairs on the gym floor as they walked past. Vitus Paul, the school handyman, would stack them. That’s what he got paid for. He was on the lazy side, and Birdie thought she might have to remind him, but he got right to it. The teachers pitched in too. Birdie nodded to several sets of parents and went to find Jolene so she didn’t slip out with the crowd. Birdie might not ask anyone else, but her own daughter was going to help.

Two women in their fifties stood at the end of the bleachers chatting while they watched the chairs being stacked. Birdie knew them—she knew everyone in the village. These women were not bad people, but they were probably no more likely to help stack chairs than their grandkids.

Birdie spied Jolene standing at the end of the bleachers, talking to Charlene Ayuluk. Charlene was a good girl. Never in trouble. Had her eyes on the Air Force after graduation. Jolene had trouble making friends sometimes, so Birdie decided to let her talk a minute. She caught the end of the women’s conversation while she stacked chairs.

“. . . they used to have bigger parties when we were kids,” one of the women said. “They used to do up a big deal at Christmas.”

“Those were good times,” said the second woman.

“I know. Right?” the first woman said. “And remember, they used to plan a parade through the village. I wonder why they don’t do that anymore.”

The second woman thought for a minute. “I guess we are they. Maybe we should plan something.”

The first woman shrugged. “Maybe so.” She looked up at the clock on the cinderblock wall behind the basketball hoop. “Listen. I got The Big Bang Theory recorded. I gotta run and watch it before I have to cook dinner.”

Both women waved sweetly as Birdie passed them, pushing a stack of seven chairs toward the storage closet. It would have been easy to blame village culture, but Birdie had seen the same behavior in Fairbanks. Stone Cross was just keeping up with the times.

Jolene came by just then from the other direction, pushing her own stack of chairs along the gym floor. She didn’t speak to her mother, barely even looked at her, but she’d pitched