The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [69]
“What did Carl say?” she joked.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. He’s just your answer to everything now. I thought you would have asked him.”
“He said once in a while every few years a teacher will try skiing. No one else skis.”
“So you did ask him?” she asked with a laugh.
“It seems like something we could do to get out and get some air, you know? That or buy a snow machine. Which we can’t afford.”
“Think they can ship skis out here?”
“If they can ship out snow machines and four-wheelers I think they can ship out some skis.”
“Are they expensive?”
“Who cares? If they let us get out and see some country, they’ll be worth it. Skis would make all the difference trying to get around.”
She pointed to the flat landscape. “I can see all the country I’m going to see from here. Maybe next year we get them. We should save our money for now.”
One of the boys undercut another going up for a shot. The shooter’s legs came out from beneath him and he crashed to the hard wood deck and cried out in pain.
“Ouch. That hurt,” John said.
“It looks like he might have busted up his arm. Think we should check on him? What do they do if someone gets hurt like that?”
“Carl said … Just kidding. They send a medevac flight out from the Bethel hospital. I’m going to go see if he’s okay.”
“What if they can’t fly and can’t travel by river?” Anna asked, holding her hand out to catch some of the snowflakes. “What happens then?”
“They shoot ’em, I guess. That or wait.”
THE GIRL ASKED HIM how it felt to shoot one of them. She didn’t ask him if he had. Just how it felt. “Did you feel bad?” she asked.
That morning the air burned cold deep inside his lungs. The breeze cut through his clothing and felt like lit cigarettes pressed against his cheeks and face. Even his teeth were cold. He pretended that he couldn’t hear her behind him in the sled over the sound of the ice and snow scratching beneath the plastic toboggan.
“I don’t think I would feel bad,” she said. “I was sure I would have to kill them, but they never found me. You shouldn’t feel bad. They would have killed you and ate you. I know it. Especially since you’re kass’aq. They would take your guns and your stuff and think nothing of it since kass’aqs started this sickness.”
“What if I told you I’m not gus-suck?” he asked.
“Are you black?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Indian?”
The weight of the girl and the gear in the sled became too great. He stopped, took a breath, and tried to pull again. He couldn’t move her. The snow conditions were changing, creating resistance against the bottom of the toboggan. Or he had run out of juice.
“My cousin once asked me if I would kill someone to have my eyes back. I said I couldn’t, but now I think I could. If they were bad, I could do it. Why would some people choose to stay and help and those others leave? How come people are so different? Do you think it takes something like this to show people’s true side? Like you can see their soul?”
He turned and looked down at her, sitting in the sled, with his pack resting on her legs, the rifle across her lap. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you don’t ask another question all day,” he said.
“What would I do with a hundred dollars?”
“That’s another question.”
“I’m just killing time.”
“You’re killing me. You might as well be one of them and kill me.”
“You don’t have to be mean.”
“Mean? Mean would have been to leave you.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. How many people would have chosen to help me? That wasn’t a question. Not many, that’s how many. I don’t think many people would have helped me. I don’t know why you are different, but you are, John. That’s why I don’t think you should feel guilty.”
“Why would it matter if I’m a gus-suck? Or black? Indian? Or Eskimo? And who said I feel guilty?” he asked.
“That doesn’t matter. Your skin colour. Not to me. And I’m not talking about feeling guilty for killing outcasts, John. I mean sorry for still being alive. If you’re like me, then you feel bad, too. Maybe that’s why I cry at night sometimes. I think that is why you have