Chapter 3

Relatively

Early in 1972, George Foster looked at his conclusion sitting in the typewriter:

It would be easy to see the Hare at Fort Good Hope as assimilated, and their cousins at Colville as living “the original Indian lifestyle.” Indeed, the Hare at Colville Lake frequently make that comparison. But that is only relatively true. Most of the residents of Colville have traveled by airplane; most of the residents of Fort Good Hope have traveled by dogsled.

He felt he’d said everything he needed to say. “I think that’s it,” he told his wife.

“Great,” Sylvia replied. “I’ll copy it over. You can read the whole thing in a week or so. If it still hangs together, we’ll send it off.”

No matter how pleased he’d be with a rereading, there would be changes he’d need to make. “You’re too indulgent. I’d hate to make you type it all over for a few late changes. You have your own teaching to do.”

“Well, I won’t type the whole thing over for minor changes. Just the changed pages. You need to put your best foot forward. This is really your first paper where you did the investigation alone.”

He hadn’t felt alone. At Fort Good Hope, she’d collaborated every step of the way. It was the first expedition when he had been in charge; it would be the first paper for which he was the sole author -- the first one for which he was even the main author. “It is? I could have sworn there was a sexy girl with me every night. Must have dreamed her -- not the first expedition where I had wet dreams about her.”

“I was in bed with you,” said Sylvia. “I typed for you. You were alone in gathering the information.”

“Not even that’s totally true. You’re an anthropologist’s dream, and this time I don’t mean wet dream.”

“Well, you’ll have to do without me next trip. Should have thought of this when we were discussing my going off the pill.”

They had spoken about that. “Well, you might not take. You haven’t so far. And we did think of that. A child is more important.”

“I might not have taken so far.”

Was she saying what he thought she was? “Darling! You think... ?”

“I’m two days late. It’s happened before, but I feel...”

“Oh, dearest! Oh, darling. Oh, Sylvia. Oh!” This was wonderful.

“Oh.”

They kissed. He hugged her tight, and then -- guiltily -- raised his arms to her shoulders. He sprinkled her face with kisses.

“I warn you,” she said, “I’m not sure.”

“It doesn’t matter. Well, it matters, matters enormously, but it doesn’t affect the fact that I love you.”

“It doesn’t matter enormously right now. Whether I’m pregnant will matter enormously next summer.”

With the income from the trust, he didn’t have to look for funding before he could go somewhere to anthropologize, but the people he was competing with did. An expedition every summer was a luxury. “I don’t need to go on an expedition every summer. Vrooman stayed here last summer.”

“You’re going! We decided. I’m not going with you.”

“Well, in that case, it’s time to start saying goodbye.”

It was a very elaborate goodbye, involving kisses before getting in bed. Then it involved kisses all over her body with special attention to her abdomen. “You’ll be disappointed if it’s not true,” she said.

“I might regret its not being true. I won’t regret these kisses.”

“Now, George, now!”

And it was now. He climbed between her legs, careful to put no weight on her abdomen. She placed him, and -- excited by her hand as well as her news -- he drove into her firmly. He was able to hold back, though, until she spasmed around him. Then he pumped his seed -- his presumably redundant seed -- into her.

Again careful of her abdomen, he rolled off her. She backed up against him, and he tucked the covers aver them both. He placed his arm so that he could hold her without oppressing her with its weight. He kissed the back of her head as they both drifted off to sleep.

He took the retyped paper to Vrooman, who liked it -- had a few suggestions, but generally liked it. He took all but one of his department chairman’s suggestions. Vrooman’s spoken English was excellent, but some of his preferences for writing sounded stilted. Sylvia suggested a few smoothing changes in expression herself. She typed this up, and he sent it in to American Anthropologist.

As this was happening, he got in the habit of looking questioningly at her when he got back from class -- or when she got back on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Neither would speak, but she’d give him a thumbs up. When she missed her next period also, she made a doctor’s appointment to confirm her pregnancy. The tests were positive, and they had a fine dinner to celebrate.

“I’m not made of glass, you know,” she said in bed that night. “That’s one thing I asked the doctor. There’s damn little that straight sex can do to harm the baby at any stage. Anything would cause me discomfort first, and the first trimester is even safer than the others.”

“So, what are you saying? We’ve never tried it swinging from the chandelier. Want to try before you get too heavy? Of course, we’d have to get a chandelier first.”

“Just don’t act as if I might break.” Well, she wouldn’t break. Sylvia was tougher mentally than she was physically, but she wasn’t a china doll either way.

On the other hand, “I’m not treating you like you might break. I’m treating you like you’re precious. And so you are. Sometimes I forget, but I’m clearer now than ever.”

“Remember that when I spit up every morning. Well, if I’m precious, then you have to do what I say. Lie back.”

“Careful!” he said as she straddled him.

“I’m being careful. I can’t do this nine months from now.” She took him in hand and fitted him to her entry. It was as sexy as it was frightening. She slowly slid down his cock until he was embedded. The slowness reduced his fright for her while it increased the voluptuous feeling.

He held her breasts in both hands as she began her movements around him. Soon, though, he brought his right hand between her moving legs. He stroked there before fingering her vulva. Since the lips were tight around his cock, he went straight to her clit. He tried to be gentle there -- if she was precious, she was most precious here. His tension rose, but he wasn’t going to have an orgasm in this position.

The feeling of her moving clasp on his cock was exquisite. It got even better when she straightened, and her vagina clutched around his cock. When she collapsed onto his body, he rolled them both over. That slipped him out, but not for long. He went back in and pounded in and out for less than a minute. His orgasm was explosive. “Oh, Sylvia,” he said as he poured himself within her.

When he came down from that high, he remembered and moved off. Then he cuddled her and, when he’d got sufficient energy back, tucked the covers over them both.

They had another celebration when American Anthropologist accepted the paper. He told Vrooman the next day. “I’m not surprised,” his department chairman and mentor told him, “it was good work -- necessary work. I was hesitant when your wife asked to go along to Colville, but she’s given great assistance to you.”

“That’s coming to an end,” George told him. “We aren’t telling people yet, but she’s pregnant. She can’t get away next summer, and then there will be the child. I’ll be sorry to go away from her myself.”

“There might be another option,” Vrooman said. “Urban anthropology is a legitimate field. This paper is on acculturation and more needs to be done on acculturation. The old way is disappearing, true. Actually, it has disappeared. The airplane isn’t killing the aboriginal culture; the steel trap and the market for hats did that in the nineteenth -- maybe the eighteenth -- century. I don’t know how partly-acculturated urban Dene lived in 1900; nobody studied them. I suspect that the compromises that partial acculturation brings are going to be more variable over time than either the dominant urban society or the more aboriginal lifestyle. We don’t know, and -- if nobody studies them -- we’ll never know.”