Chapter 12

Siv sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. It had been a long day, and had been filled with sadness. They had buried Ed that evening. Even at the graveside, Aya spat out a continuous stream of epithets and threats toward her mother and Lena. Soon the threats extended to the rest of the group!

The young girl behaved so badly that they had to keep her bound and tethered to Joseph, just to keep her from going on a rampage and attacking her mother, Lena or anyone else.

It was the time of long days, in Alaska. At eleven PM, it was still twilight.

Even so, everyone had been too stressed out to do anything other than try to get some sleep. Siv had made a show of going to bed in one of the many unused rooms in the lodge. After all, it stood to reason that she couldn't sleep on the bloody bed where Ed had expired.

However, once she was sure that there were no stragglers moving about, she moved back to her own bedroom. She paused only for a minute to study the bloodstained mattress, shook her head and then went to the closet.

She emerged shortly dressed in traveling clothes. Out of habit she strapped on her 1911A pistol—it had been her father's WWII issue side arm. Her next stop was the front desk of the lodge where she collected a pad and pen. She then went into the kitchen, made herself some strong tea and sat down.

She wrote furiously between sips of tea.

When she had finished, she rose. She washed the mug, placed it on the drainer and went out the back door. She left the pad in the middle of the kitchen table.

The next morning Emma woke early, even though she had hardly slept. She was very worried about the state of mind of her oldest and dearest friend. Emma dressed and went in search of Siv.

Emma walked into the room that Siv had selected the previous evening. A knot of worry twisted in Emma's stomach. Siv had not slept in that room!

With fear filling her heart, Emma ran down the corridor and into ED and Siv's room. It was as they had left it the evening before.

"The kitchen! She must be in the kitchen," said Emma.

But no, the kitchen was empty, too.

Then she saw the pad of paper, filled with words. Though it was a letter to Aya, Emma read it with shaking hands, fearing the worst.

"Oh no! NO!"

Emma was awash with conflicting emotions. She just stood holding the pad, uncertain as to her next move.

Should she raise the alarm, or respect the wishes of her friend? It was one of the old traditions, after all. Still, Siv was not in her right mind. Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. It was more a question of spirit. Just as Siv said in the letter, Aya had killed her mother's spirit.

"I've lived my whole life trying to respect and retain the old ways. Siv has chosen one of those ways to deal with the wreck of her life. She has no fight left in her, poor woman," thought Emma.

She slowly sagged into a chair, pillowed her head on her arms, and wept. Her heart was breaking, for yet another loss.

Fifteen minutes later, Lena found Emma still holding the pad of paper, as she wept wretchedly.

Lena picked up the pad and read with growing concern. Though Native herself, Lena was not as connected to the old traditions. She had been married to a white man that hated the Native ways. He had taken every chance to beat them out of his wife.

Her husband had been a brutally abusive man. One day he had made the mistake of beating his wife in public. Flint had been part of the crowd, and had taken umbrage at the terrible treatment the man was dishing out.

When Flint tried to help the poor woman, the man became enraged at Flint.

"How dare you question the way I treat my squaw?" roared the man as he had lunged at Flint.

Flint had snapped the man's neck like a twig!

The death was ruled self-defense by the authorities.

Ever the caretaker, Flint had helped Lena get back on her feet. She had pledged an undying allegiance to her savior, and had worked for him ever since.

Not hampered by any form of religion or tradition Lena raised the alarm, running from room to room waking everyone to form a search party. As she came to Aya's room last, she paused there. Should she tell the miserable girl or not?

"No. Let's see if we can find the woman before she can get too far into the forests and lost to us in the wilderness." Lena thought to herself.

She quickly turned on her heel and retraced her steps arriving to a confusion of activity in the Kitchen. Emma was arguing with the others.

"It is the way of our people! Leave her alone!" said Emma.

Lena was about to enter the fray when she felt a restraining hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see her husband.

"Let me see what I can do first, Dear One."

Over the years she had learned to trust in her husband's logic and steadfastness. She nodded her acquiescence, and stepped back to watch.

Joe walked quietly into the midst of the argument and softly announced that he would like to have a word. His gentle manner was ignored, at first, but his softly spoken words slowly brought the others to a stop.

"May I suggest, Emma, that perhaps Siv is not thinking very clearly at the moment? What if we go bring her back and have a few long talks with her and Aya. After all of that, if she still wishes to follow the ancients we will let her go without argument.

Sara loudly objected to what was, to her, an outrageously barbaric custom.

Joseph, calmly turned toward Sara and said, "Sara, I'm quite aware of the Hippocratic oath that medical people take to 'first do no harm'. However, I would have to say that we neither have the expertise, nor the facilities, to care for someone that might need years of treatment. Furthermore, we can't send her to a hospital since she is already dead to the outside world.

"I am also aware that you are not of our culture. This has been our way for centuries. I don't question your belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the thousands of his followers that martyred themselves for their Faith, why do you question our ways?"

Sara looked as if she had been slapped across the face. Ever so slowly a pink hue began to rise from her collar and spread up to her scalp. The woman stood speechlessly open mouthed.

Joseph continued, "Would you agree with my assessment, Sara? Do you really think that we can care for such a one under our current circumstance?"

Sara bowed her head and turned away.

"And you, Emma? Is my compromise satisfactory?" asked Joseph.

Emma stared at him fiercely, but she slowly calmed and nodded her agreement.

"Good! Now let's go get our sister," he said.

All donned their coats, picked up their weapons and filed out the door. Surprisingly Kate was the best tracker of the group having learned from her paternal grandfather. Siv had not bothered to cover her tracks, believing that her head start during the night was sufficient.

Because it is always slower to track than to run away, it took the search party four hours. They broke out of the forest onto the shore of a vast lake rimmed with the vivid greens of different types of conifers. Beyond the trees could be seen the snow capped mountains that encircled the valley, all topped with a cloudless blue sky.

It was the kind of wilderness view that took one's breath away and made one glad to be alive. Not a day for death.

A long way up the beach sat the person they were seeking. She sat on a huge piece of driftwood looking out over the water. The place was obviously a favorite feeding ground for bears.

The group fingered their weapons nervously. All were armed because ... well this was the bush of Alaska. There were a lot of predatory animals about.

Moving closer to Siv, they could hear her singing her death song in a beautifully clear voice.

As the searchers surrounded her she looked from face to face and noted with sadness that Aya was absent.

"As I thought. Her heart is against me. Please just leave me here?" Siv said with a sadness that was beyond comprehension.

Lena moved to squat in front of Siv.

"Siv, she doesn't know you left. I didn't give her your letter."

The forlorn woman didn't even look up she just mumbled, "It doesn't matter. She hates me for killing Ed."

Joseph squatted beside his wife so he could look up into Siv's bowed face.

"Siv? Siv, please look at me."

Without moving her head Siv raised her eyes to his. Joseph shuddered at what he saw. It was like looking into the abyss of despair.

He thought, "Surely this woman is dead, already!"

He forged on anyway.

"Look, Siv, both of you are upset. Please come back and we'll talk."

"What's the point? I spent all of those years getting between Ed and Aya, just so that he wouldn't beat on her. And just look what they did..." Siv's voice just faded away.

Lena and Joe each took one of Siv's hands—they were icy cold. The idea was to make physical contact, nothing else. Joseph didn't want to spook the unhappy woman.

He said, "Why don't you come back to the lodge with us and we can talk for a bit? You must be frozen."

"Just leave me alone, Please!"

"We need you to come with us, Siv. This isn't the way ... at least, not right now."

"Why do you care now? Where the hell were you people when I needed you?" asked Siv.

"Let's go back to the lodge and talk about all of this. Ok?"

As Joseph spoke he slowly, gently pulled Siv to her feet. There was no fight left in the woman, and she came along docilely.

"Bears!" yelled Kate.

The group had almost arrived at the place where, an hour before, they had exited the forest. All turned at Kate's warning to see a huge sow grizzly bear, with two cubs, pawing around the place Siv had been sitting. She had chosen well and would have been dead by now, if not for the efforts of her friends.

The return trip went much faster, and everyone was thankful to be back inside the lodge. Emma went and made coffee and tea. She had learned by now that Joseph simply would not drink tea. 'A woman's drink', he called it.