Free Tisha by Robert Specht Page A

railings. One of them even had a dogsled leaning against the side of it.
    No sooner did we pass the first few cabins than Blossom broke into a jog and I couldn’t hold him back. We jittered past a cabin that had a young birch tree growing from the sod roof, then almost ran into half a caribou carcass that was hanging from a tripod. Blossom was heading right for the stable, which was on the creek side of the road a little beyond the crowd. Somebody was way ahead of him, though. A man inknee-length boots ran out to cut him off, yelling and waving a beat-up fedora. Blossom gave up. It was too muddy for him to risk trying to dodge, so he just slowed down and ambled up to the crowd as though that’s where he was headed all along.
    A little old man appeared under him and grabbed his rein. “Steady as she goes.” He smiled up at me from under the brim of a yachtsman’s cap, a shrunken pug-nose face and teeth stained from chewing tobacco. “There y’are,” he said, “safe in port. Hop right on down, little lady.”
    “Goddamn fool,” another old man said to him. “Can’t ya see she can’t make it by herself? Wait’ll I get a box.”
    Everybody who hadn’t moved out to stop the pack animals and help Mr. Strong unload them stood around and stared up at me. If I hadn’t been in Alaska for a couple of weeks I wouldn’t have realized that most people were wearing their dress-up clothes. But now I was used to how drab everybody looked and how old-fashioned their clothes were, so I knew that even though the men’s shirts were wrinkled and you could hardly tell what the original color was, the fact that they had a tie on meant they were dressed up.
    Chuck had found his mother, I saw—a slight dark Indian woman who had a little girl by the hand. From the quick glimpse I caught of her as she kneeled down to hug him she looked like a beauty.
    I kept smiling and getting smiles in return. A heavy-set Indian woman wearing a shawl gave me a big grin and waved. She had a little girl with her—half-white, I could see. I waved back to her. There were a few other children around, and one little boy in a gray cap and knickers looked away when I smiled at him.
    I tried to figure out which building was the school-house, finally realizing that it had to be a big frame house with a homemade flagpole in front of it. It was opposite the stable a little further up. Mr. Strong had described it to me and I knew that my living quarters were in it too, so I was glad to see that it was larger than Cathy’s place.
    The second old man came back with a box and set it down. “Here you be, missis.” He was almost hunchbacked, he was so stooped over, with a beard that hung from him like weeping willow.
    What with everything else that had gone wrong on this famous trip, I should have known I wasn’t going to make a dignified entrance. I let one foot down while the bearded man tried to steady me. As soon as I put my weight on the box it collapsed right under me and the next thing I knew I was sitting in the mud and everybody was staring down at me. I could hear a couple of the kids laughing and I was so embarrassed I wanted to disappear right then and there.
    The old men helped me up and fussed around trying to get some of the mud off me until they were pushed aside by a big burly woman.
    “Awright, awright, for Chrissake. Leave ’er alone before you wind up killin’ ’er. I’m Angela Barrett,” she announced. “You’re the new schoolmom, I take it. What’s yer moniker?”
    I told her, and she led me over to another woman who was wearing a long navy blue coat buttoned up to the neck. She had a broken nose. “She’s the new schoolmom, awright,” Angela said to the woman.
    “I’m Maggie Carew,” tie woman said. “What’s your name, honey?”
    “Anne Hobbs.” My skirt was clinging in back of me and I could feel water trickling down my legs. I just hoped it didn’t make me look ridiculous.
    “Let’s get you over to the