Besieged Read Free

always accompanied by at
least two others from this moment forward until her time in Alaska was done.
    She sighed. The situation was getting
weirder and weirder.

Chapter Three
    One week later
     
    By the time Peggy and Benjamin left the
outskirts of Barrow in order to dogsled into a remote village, over a week had
passed since their last excursion. More than enough time for the memories of
the fright she’d been given out on the tundra to wane in significance, if not
die out altogether.
    Not one oddity had occurred over the course
of the past week. No bizarre feelings of being watched, no worries of being
stolen by what had to be mythical men. No nothing.
    Peggy had come to believe that Benjamin’s
family had invented the legend of the stone dwellers as a way to keep Aunt
Chari’s memory alive. If they believed she’d been kidnapped, when in fact she’d
probably been attacked by a hungry wolf or polar bear, then they could believe
she was still alive, still able to—hopefully—find a way back to the village one
day. Without the legend of the stone dwellers, they had nothing. Just a
missing, beloved woman who was no doubt long dead. Sad really.
    This hypothesis was the only one that made
sense to Peggy for she found it a bit odd that no other anthropologist had ever
recorded any Inupiaq legends about the stone dwellers. Nor had she heard any
other indigenous person speak of such, with the small exception of Benjamin and
Sara.
    Peggy smiled up at Benjamin as she took his
extended hand and allowed him to help pull her up onto the coach of the sled.
“Brrr,” she grinned. “Looks like another freezing cold journey.”
    Benjamin’s eyes softened. “You should stay
behind. I’m used to this but you—”
    “Need to get used to this too,” she
interrupted. She smiled warmly, but firmly. “Besides, I enjoy our conversations
when we ride over the tundra together.” They were trekking back to Chakuru
today in order to trade precious whale blubber for homespun parkas. She settled
into the cab of the settee-like contraption, nestling into the polar bear furs
Benjamin’s mother had packed for her. “You never did finish telling me that
story about your reindeer herder of a great-grandmother.” Her eyes squinted a
tad. “What was her name?”
    “Sinrock Mary.” He grinned, a boyish dimple
denting one cheek. “She caused quite a stir in her day. Women didn’t own
property back then, of course. But granny not only held onto her herd, she did
it better than any man.”
    Peggy chuckled at that. “Sounds like my
kind of woman.” She smiled fully at Benjamin, causing him to blush and look
away. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized the teenager had developed
a small crush on her, a fact that made her oddly proud. To a sixteen-year-old
boy, after all, her twenty-nine years must sound rather old, she mused. “So
tell me all about Sinrock Mary.”
    Over the course of the next five hours
Benjamin told her all about his great-grandmother, as well as countless other
familial stories. The Inupiaq, she knew, relished a good tale in the same way a
chef relishes good food. Indigenous people told their stories with exquisite
care, thereby preserving their verbal lore from the taint of time and from the
tarnish of contact with outsiders.
    They arrived in the small hunter-gatherer
village of Chakuru during the sixth hour, none the worse for their ware. The
dogs were tired by the time they arrived and Peggy’s backside hurt from
prolonged sitting, but other than that everything was as it should be.
    Peggy smiled at the indigenous children who
rushed up to excitedly greet the sled, breathing deeply of the brisk wind while
she ruffled the hair of one slight boy. She loved visiting this village for
when she looked around it felt like she’d taken a step back in time. And in
many ways she had. This village was so remote that it wasn’t even on the
official Alaskan map.
    Benjamin politely inclined his head toward
the elder