The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [9]
She paused and asked the flight attendant for a diet cola.
“Yup, you’re headed somewhere special,” she continued after opening the can and taking a long sip. “I’m not a huge fan of the Native foods, as you can tell. But these people, they’re the best sort of patients from a nurse’s perspective. Sure there are problems, you’ll hear plenty about that, but you’ll never meet kinder folks. How long have you two been married?”
“Two years.”
“That’s great. Do you have a layover in Bethel?”
“We’ve got an in-service there, before we go to the village. We’ll be there two days,” Anna said.
“That’s super. Do you want to grab lunch one of those days? I’d love to take you around, show you the town, and grab some Chinese food.”
Anna laughed. “Chinese food? I thought we were going to the tundra!”
“Girl, Bethel has cuisine from all over the world. We might be the so-called armpit of Alaska, but we have some of the best restaurants you’ll find anywhere. Look at me! Would a chunk like this lie about food? We’ve also got cab drivers from Albania, Korea, Yugoslavia— you name it.”
“Taxi cabs?” Anna asked.
“Honey, you haven’t lived until you’ve ridden in a Bethel cab, that and get a bingo game or two under your belt. I’ll give you the full scoop on all the must-do things in the thriving metropolis of Bethel at lunch.”
“Thanks for the offer,” John replied, “but I’m sure they’ll have food for the in-service. We’ll be pretty busy.”
Anna elbowed him.
“What John means to say is that we’d love to sneak out of in-service and go with you. We’re in this for the adventure.”
“Just so long as it doesn’t involve botulism,” he added.
She elbowed him again. He turned away from their conversation and stared back out his window.
Jagged peak after peak passed beneath them. He wondered if any of the summits below were named, and whether anyone had travelled that impossibly rough and desolate terrain. It wasn’t just miles that would be separating them from their old life; it was an ocean of impassable ice-covered mountain ranges.
He stared down at the land below him and soon the mountains began to shrink. The jagged peaks and glaciers melted into the earth and a watery moonscape replaced the mountains. Rust-coloured lakes with thin winding rivers speckled the foreign world racing beneath them.
HE WATCHED FROM ABOVE as three young men entered the principal’s house carrying weapons. When they didn’t come out, he waited for shots. He watched all afternoon and into the night for the young men to leave. He hadn’t heard or seen the principal since the village called the curfew.
He was worried about someone coming back into the school and thought about returning to his hiding spot, but he had to wait to see. So many times Anna had begged him to go to the principal’s house and demand that the balding man find a way to get them out safely, but he didn’t. He knew better. She was already getting sick by then, and he couldn’t risk breaking the quarantine and getting the principal and his family sick, or get shot in the process. He imagined the men inside the house, ransacking it, looking for food, supplies, or worse.
The classroom window had a light glaze of frost. With his fingernail, he scratched her name. ANNA. Then he licked the ice beneath his nail. He was thirsty and hungry. He hadn’t cracked into any of the school food hidden in the attic, and he had moved all that he could from their house before the fire. So long as someone didn’t burn the school down, he would be okay. Enough food, if rationed carefully, to last him at least six or eight months, maybe longer.
The letters faded and he scratched them again. Motion caught his eye. The three young men walked slowly. They were empty-handed. They moved down the stairs to the boardwalk, and then out onto the moonlit snow in front of the principal’s house and knelt down on the ground. He heard a gunshot, and one of the men fell forward. Another flash and shot came from inside the doorway. A second man fell. The third got up to run, and made it halfway across the wooden play deck when the shot hit him in