TWO MILES DOWN the slough, the snowgos pulled up at Roland Sweetsir’s rusty yellow Suburban, a plume of steam rising from the tailpipe to dissipate in the fog. The rig had “Isignaq Ready-Ride” painted in big red letters on the doors, and “Rut-Rider” in little black ones on the front fenders.
Roland himself was a 50-something Inupiaq with silver hair, a black Native Pride ball cap, and—even on this cold day—a windbreaker.
“Roland,” Active said as they exchanged a single-pump handshake. “Been a while.”
Roland raised his eyebrows. “Ever since that bootlegging case, ah?”
Active nodded back. “And you know the governor, I understand?”
Roland and Mercer bobbed heads in unison. “Roland took my basketball team back to Chukchi once when the weather went down. Remember that, Roland?”
“Ah-hah,” Roland said. “Safe and sound.” He swept an arm downriver toward the village named for the Isignaq. “It ain’t a nice road, but it’s an ice road! It’s gone when it’s hot, but it’s here when it’s not!”
Active and Mercer chuckled at Roland’s ancient joke. Even Pudu, who had brought out his camera without a prod from his mother, grinned a little, sucked into the driver’s whirlwind of affability.
“All right,” Roland said. “Everybody ready for a little rut-ride?”
He swung open the Suburban’s cargo doors and they threw their duffle into the back, then climbed in. As in Two-Five Sierra, Pudu took the front passenger seat so he could get video of the governor on her ride down the Isignaq. She took the left seat in back and Active the right.
Active shrugged off his parka in the heat of the interior and started to toss it on the duffle in the rear. Then he realized what their road was made of, and what was under it, and rolled the parka into a ball and set it on his lap. If they went through, maybe it would keep him afloat long enough to matter. After a little more thought, he loosened the laces of his Sorels so they’d be easy to kick off.
Soon they were rocking along at sixty in the fog. Occasionally, the line of trail markers made of spruce saplings bent around a patch of slush or new ice that meant the Isignaq was frozen almost to the bottom and that the water, in its relentless fashion, had found its way out along the edges and spread over the top of safe, solid ice. The problem was, sometimes what looked like overflow was instead a hole in that ice, with the cold, hungry, green-black Isignaq waiting below to swallow up a snowgo or a Suburban. Active remembered two Trooper searches, both futile, for travelers who had gone through the ice on the Isignaq, though he had never heard of one that involved Isignaq Ready-Ride.
Roland passed around a thermos of coffee and tuned in Kay-Chuck just in time for Gospel Hour. After “I Saw the Light” and “I’ll Fly Away,” they listened to a news report about Alaska’s governor being forced down in the wilderness with only her son, a Bush pilot, and a Bush cop for company.
“But the Alaska Air Guard reports the party is safe,” Roger Kennelly said. “The Isignaq village rescue team left just before dawn this morning to pick the party up from Shelukshuk Canyon. They’ll be riding back to Chukchi with Isignaq Ready-Ride so, with any luck, the governor should make it here for the musher’s banquet tomorrow night and personally present the trophy to the first-place finisher. Speaking of which, the report from Isignaq village is, Bunky Ivanoff was out first, with Brad Mercer hot on his heels. So perhaps the governor will be presenting that trophy to her very own husband!”
The travelers erupted in cheers and Gospel Hour resumed with “Prettiest Flowers” as rendered by a couple of devout Inupiat sisters named Suelene and Rae-Anne Williams.
“Maybe Dad’s gonna pull it out, ah, Mom?” Pudu said.
“That would be super,” Mercer said.
After that, no one said anything, and the Williams sisters filled the Ready-Ride, their strong, plaintive voices a perfect match for the yearning tone of the lyrics. The Williamses were famous around Chukchi for accompanying themselves on the accordion, which was Active’s favorite thing about “Prettiest Flowers.” That, and the third verse with its reference to “eternal morning in the sky, where we will never say goodbye.”
He leaned his head on the backrest and closed his eyes for a nap in the warm cocoon of the Suburban and was pondering the eternal question of whether he and Grace would ever get their eternal morning when Pudu shouted from the front seat. “Arii, Roland, you’re gonna hit it.”
Active jerked up, saw a pond of green slush across the trail, and put his hand on the door handle. Roland had his cup to his lips as Pudu cried out. Roland lowered the cup, cut his wheel, fishtailed around the overflow, and resumed his progress downstream, all with no coffee spilled. He looked over at Pudu with a grin.
“You thought we was going in, ah?”
“I never,” Pudu said.
“Maybe somebody’s been down there at Juneau with them naluaqmiuts too much, ah?
“Maybe so, I guess.” Pudu raised his camera and focused on the governor as she gazed into the fog. “Ah, Mom?”
“How’s trapping this winter, Roland?” Mercer asked. Active leaned his head back again and drifted off as the driver and the governor fell deep into a discussion of the unfair and unfathomable process by which fur buyers set prices.