LITMIR.BIZ

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knees calling out to the poor bastards, because you don’t know how to set a trap line.”

      “We could sell fur parkas, you know,” he said, his voice rising. “We could do that together, if you would just sit still and start sewing. We’re broke.”

      A line of color crept up his neck, but Anne Girl shook her head as if it wasn’t her problem. “I must’ve married the wrong man then.” And then she motioned with her head toward the Killweathers’ house. “Go ask your Frederik. He knows everything. Maybe he can teach you to work.”

      Anne Girl stopped in the doorway and tapped the handle with her finger. Her expression had transformed into one of impatience and disgust, as if looking at him made her want to vomit. “Are you going to just sit there?”

      “I didn’t mean that you should sew for us,” John paused. “For me.”

      But she had already walked out the door with the two buckets clanking against her legs.

      “Go pick then. Pick your damn heart out until you have enough to feed the entire village!” John yelled after her.

      Outside, the wind cut through Anne Girl’s qaspeq and she shivered. She felt the noise of the cannery settle on her skin, and she stopped mid-stride. She took in a long breath. “Ha, the entire village,” she muttered as she turned back toward the house.

      John was staring out the window when she returned. He didn’t move when she opened the door, even after a gush of wind flapped the curtains. Anne Girl saw that she missed a chunk of hair above his left ear during his last trim. Maybe he would let her cut it now. Real quick. She stood in the doorway, and it seemed like the new moon had come and gone before John looked up.

      “I’m eating nails,” Anne Girl said and met his gaze. “Sorry. Winter gets to me, you know.”

      The corners of John’s mouth turned up slowly until he looked something like a spotted seal, grinning at her. “You are nails,” he chuckled. “You just now figure that out? I knew that the first day you flung that damn salmon at me.”

      “If it wasn’t for that salmon . . .” Anne Girl paused as she realized that John wasn’t angry at all, that he had forgiven her that easily. Just like that—he forgot, and for a brief second she understood that happiness can exist. “Come with us.” Anne Girl tossed one bucket toward him. “Them long legs of yours will be good for the hills. Please.”

      “Nah, you go,” John said. “It’s too fine of a day for me to hold you back. That pilot that flies in packages for the mission is at their house. He says it’s a good time to be flying in the bush now. Good time.”

      Anne Girl’s hand went to her mouth, “Ooh, you can be one of them pilots.” She giggled. “My mom loved a pilot—probably my father. Then he flew away,” she said. “Couldn’t get far enough, I bet.”

      “Now the truth comes out. What else do you have hiding under that hood? A pilot? A boat captain? I don’t believe a word you say.”

      “You shouldn’t,” Anne Girl said. “My dad was probably a fat beluga.”

      “Don’t believe that either,” John countered, and he stood up to stretch. “You would have eaten us out of the house by now.”

      Anne Girl took all of him in. “Hmm . . . a flying Norwegian.” She traced the grains in the door with her fingernail, trying on the idea of living with a pilot. She almost liked the sound of it. All the places she could go. “Hmm . . . we can fly to Anchorage. I want to see a movie there. Pray, if Frederik says that will help.”

      John chuckled. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself. I got to learn first. Might have to go to Anchorage for that.” And he motioned toward the bluff. “Get out there. I know you are dying to go. I’ll tell you all about it when you get back. We want five buckets!”

      Jumping up, Anne Girl gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Listen real good and tell me if Frederick talks to himself. Alicia says he does!” Across the village, past the grassy bluff where the land rolled into gentle, soggy tundra, Anne Girl, Alicia, and her cousins trudged through the soft ground, their eyes fixed on the horizon, searching for the pale pinkness of salmonberries.

      Anne Girl watched the younger girls run up and down the trail, and she remembered a time when she had sprinted through the tundra. She wasn’t much older than they were, but her mother’s death and her marriage to John had changed her. She felt the weight of responsibility in her blood, slowing her down. Now she picked for food, not to play. Yet it was nice to feel the breeze that skipped the surface for a thousand miles brush her cheeks. It was good to breathe again. No one warned her that living so close with a man would be like sitting in maqi with the stove door open, heat clinging to her flesh. He was always clinging, like a girl.

      “You girls watch it, uh. You might be stepping on berries!” she hollered. But a smile played on her lips. She couldn’t help herself, no matter how much she wanted to be serious.

      “Don’t go too far. The carayak will get you.” Alicia joined in, although she laughed, because no one was worried about ghosts.

      “You always say that.”

      “Well, how else we going to get them to listen?” Alicia answered. She stopped and cupped her hands around her eyes, so that she could see only the patches of salmonberries. “We need to go this way,” she said, and pointed to several rolling hills toward the village of Ekuk.

      Anne Girl picked up some tea leaves and stuffed them in her pocket. She would show John how to make some good tea. She looked up and spotted a lone figure lumbering in the distance. “Is that Sweet Mary . . . or a bear?”

      Alicia’s head snapped toward the direction of Anne Girl’s finger. “Better be Sweet Mary. You see it roll? Hmmm . . . looks like Mary. A bear would have caught wind of us by now.”

      “I don’t know,” Anne Girl said. “Sweet Mary won’t leave us any berries, you know. Probably planning to feed the cannery with them. All them cannery men. One by one.”

      “Well, someone has to,” Alicia answered. “She will not let one starve, if she can help it.”

      Anne Girl watched the figure and tried to determine whether it had a long braid trailing behind it. That was Sweet Mary’s pride. When she was finally convinced that the round spot wasn’t a bear, Anne Girl looked down at the green carpet beneath her feet. She jumped a little to feel the marsh quiver around her. “Better her than me. That’s too much damn work,” Anne Girl laughed. And then she felt bad. Everyone in the village loved Sweet Mary, who would give her last meal to anyone who needed it. Yet she was a busy woman, making a name for herself at the cannery. When they were younger, Marulia had told Anne Girl to stay away from Sweet Mary, that the larger woman would cause stories to stick to her legs. The whole village would know, Marulia had said. But it seemed silly now.

      “You like it up near that church?” Alicia asked.

      “Yeah, it’s good.”

      “You lie.”

      “No, it’s good when the cannery is closed. Quiet. I don’t have to haul water as far,” Anne Girl said. “Actually, I don’t have to haul water at all. It seems that’s all John likes to do.” Anne Girl wanted to say more, but she stopped herself. She knew that he was talking to Frederik right then, and she didn’t want to say anything to Alicia just yet. She didn’t want Alicia to make up any stories about her, because the woman would talk once she gleaned enough information. That was the one thing that she missed about her mother—she knew the difference between stories and gossip and never went so far as spreading any of the latter. Her mother had said gossip was as bad as the coughing disease that went through the village many years ago and took her parents.

      “Except,” Anne Girl said. She grabbed Alicia’s arm and pulled her close so that she could smell the faint odor of smoked fish in her friend’s hair. “Except, sometimes I hear them singing.”

      Alicia’s eyes widened.

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