The Singing of the Dead by Dana Stabenow Page B

flirtatious glances over her shoulder as if she were leaving a trail of bread crumbs.
    The next question was about sovereignty. Again, Anne came down on the side of self-government for Native villages. “Why not?” she said, softening her voice in an immediate response to Peter's lower key that Kate could only admire. “What have we got to lose? The whole theme for the Nineties was ‘taking responsibility for our actions,’ we were all supposed to shoulder our own weight, stop leaning on the federal government to take care of us. Well then, let us try, let the villages assume some of the duties and responsibilities of self-governance.”
    “For example?” the moderator said.
    “Law enforcement,” Anne said immediately. “There is no such thing as law enforcement in too many Native villages, who never see a state trooper from one year to the next unless there is murder done.”
    Kate thought of Jim, and of how he spent as much time in the air going from crime to crime as he did on the ground investigating them, and thought Anne had a good point.
    But this was too much for Pete. “There are only two hundred and seventy-three troopers in the state of Alaska. They can't be everywhere at once.”
    “Yes, and why is that, Peter? Could it be that the state has failed to adequately fund the Department of Public Safety, so that there aren't enough troopers to respond to any but the most serious crimes in the smaller communities?”
    Darlene was sitting in the front row of the folding chairs directly in Anne's line of sight. She raised her hand in a signal that Kate couldn't quite make out, but it made Anne, who had been gradually leaning forward, straighten in her chair and take a deep breath.
    Peter, who had come without handlers, yanked on his own invisible leash and dropped his voice, once again the voice of sweet reason. There was no arguing Anne's point, so he didn't try. “Anne, this issue was supposed to have been resolved with the passage in 1971 of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. For forty-four million acres and a billion dollars, the Native tribes of Alaska would cede aboriginal lands for the TransAlaska Pipeline right-of-way and form corporations to see to the needs of their peoples.”
    “Yes, and all ANCSA required in return was that Alaska Natives become white,” Anne flashed back. “We live in the Bush, not in boardrooms.”
    “What's next, Anne?” Pete said coolly. “What comes after Natives gain sovereignty? You going to follow the ways of Outside Indian country? You going to open a casino in Niniltna?”
    A statement guaranteed to win all the votes there were from the religious right wing of Pete's party.
    It was at this point that Kate realized that Peter Heiman might have gubernatorial ambitions of his own. She didn't think Anne would vote for him, though.
    Peter had won this round on points, but Anne had him on passion. Darlene tiptoed over to Tracy, standing next to the television camera and flirting with the cameraman, and whispered something to her. Tracy nodded and hurried out of the building. The cameraman yearned after her with a mournful expression on his face. Darlene pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed a number.
    The next question concerned each candidate's reaction to the recent initiative passed by an overwhelming majority of Alaskan voters to make English the official language of the state of Alaska.
    “A slap in the face to every Native in the state,” was Anne's comment.
    “Unnecessary,” Peter allowed, and grinned. He had an attractive grin and he used it well. “I hear Tuntutuliak has passed an ordinance establishing Yupik as the official village language. I hope every time a federal bureaucrat has to fly in there to do business that he has to hire a Yupik interpreter, and I hope those Tuntutuliakers know enough to charge the red-shift limit for the service.”
    Even Anne laughed. Kate looked for Darlene to see how she took this, and couldn't find her in the