Tide, Feather, Snow_ A Life in Alaska - Miranda Weiss [50]
John parked the car next to the overturned horse trailer and we got out. The clearing was close to the edge of the bluff, and beyond its edge, the sun shone on the head of the bay, turning it turquoise. Shadows of clouds moved like dark islands over the water. Fireweed, long past its fuchsia bloom, draped the bluff with scarlet leaves down to the beach. Although the flowers were done, the blaze of the plant was even fiercer at this time of year. Across the bay, Dixon Glacier glowed pale blue between treeless slopes that were losing their lush green.
There was a kind of panic in the air at this time of year. The light rapidly dwindled, and you knew that snow, which would begin falling at any time, threatened to hide everything uncovered for the next seven months. You sealed cracks, brought in lawn equipment, and set your mind to withstand the dark and cold. Winterizing was a process of getting your affairs in order. I never seemed to have things figured out. The days were perpetually falling out from beneath me; my feeling of unpreparedness swelled.
ON FOOT, WE headed down the steep dirt road that switchbacked to the beach. This road was the easiest way down to the head of the bay and the only route to the Old Believer village. But we’d heard that the road belonged to the village, and that only “the Russians,” which is how people referred to them, were allowed to drive it. The track was narrow and steeply pitched, with vertical walls cut into the bluff along it. As we descended, I pictured the road during spring breakup, when frost heaves would crack its surface and leave deep ruts and dangerously soft spots.
By most standards, we were in a remote place—more than twenty miles to the nearest hospital, half a dozen off pavement, far from city water and sewer lines. As you traveled out east, the houses got less frequent, in many cases more rustic. There were dozens of rental cabins out here without running water and parcels of land on which young couples were clearing to build. You could see black and brown bears out here, moose, wolves, and lynx; you never heard a siren, and couldn’t count on fire crews if your house caught on fire.
The sound of an engine approached, and a late-model white Jeep passed us on its way up the switchback. A Russian woman sat alone at the wheel as the car bucked up the rutted track. She wore the characteristic head scarf, which we’d seen on Old Believer women who came into town to shop and do errands. In town, their traditional dress set them apart from the rest of us. The women wore ankle-length, pastel dresses and kept their hair in two long braids tied up in a fabric that matched their dresses. The men wore high-neck, embroidered shirts and grew beards. The children dressed like miniature adults. Although the Old Believers kept to themselves, everyone in town had something to say about them and it was usually not good. “They drink too much and throw beer cans out the windows of their trucks.” “They skip out on taxes by buying their cars through their church.” “They abuse their women and work their girls too hard.” A few minutes later, two trucks passed us—driven by Russian men—and then two four-wheelers roared by, loaded with two Russian boys apiece. The remoteness of the head of the bay, we realized, didn’t mean peace and quiet.
After about a mile, the road flattened into a track along the beach. It was nearly high tide, and the mudflats had been overtaken by a shallow layer of cloudy water that pressed mussel shells, eelgrass, and driftwood toward the shore. John stopped, raised his binoculars, and looked out over the bay. “Snow geese,” he said. “About two hundred of them. They must be gathering before going south.” I lifted my binoculars and saw grains of gleaming white way off in the distance. I wouldn’t have known what they were, but as soon as he said it, I saw that they could be nothing else.
Just off the beach sat a slanted but well-kept log cabin on a fenced patch of grass. A dozen cows