Free A fine and bitter snow by Dana Stabenow Page B

door.
     
    It was as clear and calm this morning as it had been the night before, the big high pressure system hanging over interior Alaska strong enough to keep it that way for the next three to four days. He had done preflight and refueled the Cessna with the shield on its side the night before. All he had to do was roll her out, and he was in the air five minutes later. He was on the ground in Niniltna in less than an hour, taxiing up to the hangar that served as headquarters for George Perry's two-plane air taxi service. George was there, pulling the backseat from his Super Cub and loading the back with mailbags. "Thank God for the U.S. Postal Service," he said in greeting.
     
    A U.S. Postal Service mail contract had been the savior of more than one Bush air taxi running on duct tape and the owner's sweat. "What's with all the packages going out?"
     
    George grinned. "Christmas returns."
     
    "Oh." The only Christmas presents Jim sent were to his parents, usually something out of a catalog. In return, he got a card accompanied by a baseball cap with the logo of whatever sports team his father was currently following, and a box of his mother's homemade fudge. The fudge, he ate immediately. The cap usually went to the first kid he saw in the next village he flew into. The card lasted longer than either of them.
     
    "What's up?" George said. "Somebody get uppity enough to require the personal attention of the law?"
     
    Jim gave a noncommittal grunt. George had heard that grunt before, and he changed the subject. "See you at Bernie's later?"
     
    "I don't know. Depends on if I have to make a run."
     
    "Try." George grinned. "I hear somebody made a successful winter assault on Big Bump."
     
    "Ah. It's Middle Finger time."
     
    "You got it."
     
    "George?"
     
    "What?"
     
    "Tell me about weather in the Park."
     
    George cocked a quizzical eyebrow.
     
    "Pilot to pilot," Jim said.
     
    George's take was that it was typical Interior weather—a lot of cold, clear days in the winter and a lot of hot, clear days in the summer, if you didn't count the blizzards and the forest fires, respectively. "We're in between the Alaska Range and the Chugach Range," George told him, "with the Quilaks at our backs, and we're far enough away from all of them to keep us CAVU more often than not. So what's all this about?"
     
    "Something in the wind," Jim said. "I'll let you know."
     
    "Will it be good for the air taxi business?"
     
    "Yes. In fact, start figuring out how much you'd charge to haul prisoners to Ahtna, Tok, or Anchorage. And try to keep it below highway robbery."
     
    "Wilco." George, not the most curious of men, tossed the seats in on top of the mail and cut the conversation short. "Gotta go. Got three passengers waiting on a ride into the Park, and it ain't so often this time of year I got a full load coming back from a mail run."
     
    George took off and Jim walked around the hangar and down the road. His destination wasn't far, but then, nothing in Niniltna was far from anything else. A block in that direction was the school, a block in the other the river, and in between was the airstrip and the mostly handmade homes of the town. The Niniltna Native Association building, prefabricated, vinyl-sided, and tin-roofed, stood on its own ground a little farther out and a little higher up, looking like a benevolent uncle with a fat belly, kicking back in the winter sunshine.
     
    Ekaterina Moonin Shugak had ruled her kingdom from there. In her titular place was now Billy Mike, the association's new president and tribal chief. But through a long and profitable acquaintance with the Park and all its residents, Jim knew where the real power lay.
     
    He went to see Auntie Vi.
     
    Auntie Vi lived in a big house that used to be filled with children and was now filled with guests who paid far too much for a bed, a bathroom down the hall, and an unvarying breakfast of cocoa and fry bread. It was good cocoa, Hershey's, homemade, and