The taller woman had a beige braid that fell almost to her waist, and eyes so pale they seemed to take their color from the faded sky. “Welcome to Kaneq. I’m Geneva Walker. Gen. Genny. The Generator. I’ll answer to almost anything.” She smiled, revealing dimples. “My family is from Fairbanks, but I fell in love with my husband’s land, so here is where I’ve stayed. I’ve been here for twenty years.”
“You need a greenhouse and a cache at the very least,” Large Marge said. “Old Bo had big plans for this place when he bought it. But Bo went off to war … and he was a great one for getting a job half done.”
“A cash?” Dad said.
Large Marge nodded brusquely. “A cache is a small building on stilts. Your meat goes there, so the bears can’t get at it. This time of year, the bears are hungry.”
“Come on, Ernt,” Natalie said, reaching down for the chain saw at her feet. “I brought a portable mill. You cut down the trees and I’ll saw ’em into planks. First things first, righto?”
Dad went back into the cabin, put on his down vest, and headed into the forest with Natalie. Soon, Leni heard the whir of a chain saw and the thunking of an ax into wood.
“I’ll get started on the greenhouse,” Geneva said. “I imagine Bo left a tangle of PVC pipe somewhere…”
Large Marge walked up to Leni and Mama.
A breeze picked up; it turned cold in the blink of an eye. Mama crossed her arms. She had to be cold, standing there in a Grateful Dead T-shirt and bell-bottom jeans. A mosquito landed on her cheek. She slapped it away in a smear of blood.
“Our mosquitoes are bad,” Large Marge said. “I’ll bring you some repellant next time I come to visit.”
“How long have you lived here?” Mama asked.
“Ten of the best years of my life,” Large Marge answered. “Life in the bush is hard work, but you can’t beat the taste of salmon you caught in the morning, drizzled with butter you churned from your own fresh cream. Up here, there’s no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. We each survive our own way. If you’re tough enough, it’s heaven on earth.”
Leni stared up at the big, rough-looking woman in a kind of awe. She’d never seen a woman so tall or strong-looking. Large Marge looked like she could fell a full-grown cedar tree and sling it over her shoulder and keep going.
“We needed a fresh start,” Mama said, surprising Leni. It was the kind of rock-bottom truth Mama tended to avoid.
“He was in ’Nam?”
“POW. How did you know?”
“He has the look. And, well … Bo left you this place.” Large Marge glanced left, to where Dad and Natalie were cutting down trees. “Is he mean?”
“N-no,” Mama said. “Of course not.”
“Flashbacks? Nightmares?”
“He hasn’t had one since we headed north.”
“You’re an optimist,” Large Marge said. “That’ll be good for a start. Well. You’d best change your shirt, Cora. The bugs are going to go mad for all that bare white skin.”
Mama nodded and turned back for the cabin.
“And you,” Large Marge said. “What’s your story, missy?”
“I don’t have a story.”
“Everyone has a story. Maybe yours just starts up here.”
“Maybe.”
“What can you do?”
Leni shrugged. “I read and take pictures.” She indicated the camera that hung around her neck. “Not much that will do us any good.”
“Then you’ll learn,” Large Marge said. She moved closer, leaned down to whisper conspiratorially into Leni’s ear. “This place is magic, kiddo. You just have to open yourself up to it. You’ll see what I mean. But it’s treacherous, too, and don’t you forget that. I think it was Jack London who said there were a thousand ways to die in Alaska. Be on the alert.”
“For what?”
“Danger.”
“Where will it come from? The weather? Bears? Wolves? What else?”
Large Marge glanced across the yard again to where Dad and Natalie were felling trees. “It can come from anywhere. The weather and the isolation makes some people crazy.”
Before Leni could ask another question, Mama came back, dressed for work in jeans and a sweatshirt.
“Cora, can you make coffee?” Large Marge asked.
Mama laughed and hip-bumped Leni. “Well, now, Large Marge, it seems you’ve found the one thing I can do.”