THERE IS ONE in every village.
They don’t have to be young, they don’t even have to be pretty, but there is one woman in every Alaskan village whose very presence short circuits something in the nervous system of the male of the species, resulting all too often in events that spiral into intervention on the part of a professional peace officer.
In the case of Dulcey Kineen, the femme fatale came in a pleasant enough package, medium height, nice curves, regular features, but with Dulcey it was more attitude than pulchritude. Her hair was thick and black and she wore it long, in a shining cape she could toss around her shoulders, made a man think about wrapping it around his fist and hanging on for wherever the ride took him. Her eyes were a warm, wicked brown, and they had a way of peering from beneath already thick lashes so heavily mascaraed it seemed her lids couldn’t be strong enough to hold them up. She had a habit of using her tongue to toy with her teeth and the corners of her mouth, which she left open much of the time, as if she were about to take a bite out of whatever was nearest, fry bread, smoke fish, that sensitive spot beneath a man’s left ear.
Most women hated her as much as their men loved her, of course. Margaret Meganack had erupted into Bobby Clark’s house when Marvin, that morning’s guest on Park Air, had strayed from the advertised topic, which was the current red salmon run or lack thereof, to wax eloquent on what Dulcey hadn’t been wearing at the Roadhouse the night before. Dinah had banished both Meganacks from the property and interdicted Marvin as an on air guest ever again, and given the subsequent repair and replacement bills you could see her point.
And then there was the time Dulcey ran for Miss Niniltna and won, allegedly on the strength of the blueberry pie she baked for the talent competition. That was fine until Auntie Vi accused Dulcey’s cousin Norma Ollestad of baking the pie for her, which no way Norma would have done, given that little episode a while back involving Dulcey, Norma, and Norma’s boyfriend Chuck. Turned out Dulcey really had baked the pie but she was stripped of her crown anyway. Never a good idea to show up on the auntie radar, and Dulcey had made what Auntie Vi, with uncharacteristic restraint, had described as a nuisance of herself with more than one of the boarders at Auntie Vi’s B&B. Auntie Vi could give a hoot what Dulcey did with whom, but she resented the need to wear earplugs to bed every night in her own home.
Sergeant Jim Chopin said that fully a third of the local callouts to the Niniltna trooper post involved Dulcey Kineen in some way. Either she was enticing men at the Roadhouse to drink so she could drink with them, or she was seducing men away from their wives and sweethearts, or she was vamping men for cash, moose backstrap or a free ride to Ahtna with Costco privileges thrown in, or spurned suitors were getting drunk and wreaking mayhem and madness on a town too small to ignore either. The incident the previous winter involving Dulcey, Wasillie Peterkin and the road grader was still a painful subject to everyone concerned.
Dulcey and the Balluta brothers. Anybody should have been able to see it coming. But nobody did, until it was far too late.
There were three Ballutas, Albert, Nathan and Boris. Their father had been a commercial fisherman, their mother had worked as his deckhand until Albert was seven and big enough to take her place. She returned to their house at the edge of the rickety dock on the river and seldom left it again, the last time when they buried her next to their father out back. She’d been a quiet woman and her eldest, Albert, took after her. He was twenty-eight now, a steady, serious, capable, reliable man. He’d inherited the
Mary B
. outright, along with his father’s Alaganik Bay drift permit, and fished it every summer, coming in high boat two out of three years and piling up a healthy balance in the
They don’t have to be young, they don’t even have to be pretty, but there is one woman in every Alaskan village whose very presence short circuits something in the nervous system of the male of the species, resulting all too often in events that spiral into intervention on the part of a professional peace officer.
In the case of Dulcey Kineen, the femme fatale came in a pleasant enough package, medium height, nice curves, regular features, but with Dulcey it was more attitude than pulchritude. Her hair was thick and black and she wore it long, in a shining cape she could toss around her shoulders, made a man think about wrapping it around his fist and hanging on for wherever the ride took him. Her eyes were a warm, wicked brown, and they had a way of peering from beneath already thick lashes so heavily mascaraed it seemed her lids couldn’t be strong enough to hold them up. She had a habit of using her tongue to toy with her teeth and the corners of her mouth, which she left open much of the time, as if she were about to take a bite out of whatever was nearest, fry bread, smoke fish, that sensitive spot beneath a man’s left ear.
Most women hated her as much as their men loved her, of course. Margaret Meganack had erupted into Bobby Clark’s house when Marvin, that morning’s guest on Park Air, had strayed from the advertised topic, which was the current red salmon run or lack thereof, to wax eloquent on what Dulcey hadn’t been wearing at the Roadhouse the night before. Dinah had banished both Meganacks from the property and interdicted Marvin as an on air guest ever again, and given the subsequent repair and replacement bills you could see her point.
And then there was the time Dulcey ran for Miss Niniltna and won, allegedly on the strength of the blueberry pie she baked for the talent competition. That was fine until Auntie Vi accused Dulcey’s cousin Norma Ollestad of baking the pie for her, which no way Norma would have done, given that little episode a while back involving Dulcey, Norma, and Norma’s boyfriend Chuck. Turned out Dulcey really had baked the pie but she was stripped of her crown anyway. Never a good idea to show up on the auntie radar, and Dulcey had made what Auntie Vi, with uncharacteristic restraint, had described as a nuisance of herself with more than one of the boarders at Auntie Vi’s B&B. Auntie Vi could give a hoot what Dulcey did with whom, but she resented the need to wear earplugs to bed every night in her own home.
Sergeant Jim Chopin said that fully a third of the local callouts to the Niniltna trooper post involved Dulcey Kineen in some way. Either she was enticing men at the Roadhouse to drink so she could drink with them, or she was seducing men away from their wives and sweethearts, or she was vamping men for cash, moose backstrap or a free ride to Ahtna with Costco privileges thrown in, or spurned suitors were getting drunk and wreaking mayhem and madness on a town too small to ignore either. The incident the previous winter involving Dulcey, Wasillie Peterkin and the road grader was still a painful subject to everyone concerned.
Dulcey and the Balluta brothers. Anybody should have been able to see it coming. But nobody did, until it was far too late.
There were three Ballutas, Albert, Nathan and Boris. Their father had been a commercial fisherman, their mother had worked as his deckhand until Albert was seven and big enough to take her place. She returned to their house at the edge of the rickety dock on the river and seldom left it again, the last time when they buried her next to their father out back. She’d been a quiet woman and her eldest, Albert, took after her. He was twenty-eight now, a steady, serious, capable, reliable man. He’d inherited the
Mary B
. outright, along with his father’s Alaganik Bay drift permit, and fished it every summer, coming in high boat two out of three years and piling up a healthy balance in the
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