Shaman Pass Read Free

Inupiaq word for an Eskimo who tried to be like a white man.
    Sure, he had been raised in Anchorage. But he had been born in Chukchi and was, in fact, a full-blooded Inupiaq. He had been taken out of the village at the age of eighteen months when his adoptive parents, two white schoolteachers, had burned out on the Bush and decided to give Alaska’s largest city a try.
    True, he was back in Chukchi only because his bosses at the Alaska State Troopers had posted him there for his first assignment. And sure, he would be on a plane home to Anchorage the moment the troopers gave him a transfer. But it had been two years now. How long before he stopped being the naluaqmiiyaaq ?
    It was at that moment the right retort came to him like a gift from some ancient god of Eskimo teasing. He looked at Billy. “If your girlfriend likes purple, maybe I’ll give it to her myself,” Active said. “Ah?” He lifted his eyebrows with a grin that said, “Your move.”
    This time Silver laughed out loud and even Horace chuckled. Billy got a thoughtful expression on his face, then frowned and walked over to stand beside the forklift. Horace walked over, too, and shouted something to Billy that sounded like, “That naluaqmiiyaaq act like a real Eskimo sometimes, ah?” But Active couldn’t be sure, over the cough of the idling forklift.
    “What brings you out on a day like this anyhow?” Silver asked Active as the DC-6 taxied in. “I thought Uncle Frosty was going straight to the tribal museum, no fuss, no muss. How did the troopers get involved?”
    Active grimaced. “Beats me. All I know is, the state has to sign some kind of receipt and disclaimer of interest, then turn Uncle Frosty over to the museum to make it all legal and keep the Smithsonian happy. And somebody in Juneau apparently decided the troopers were the right agency to do it. We got a letter from the attorney general saying to meet Uncle Frosty and sign the papers, so here I am. In about five minutes, Uncle Frosty will be Malcolm Anirak’s problem.” He pointed at a red Ford pulling up to the chain-link beside Billy’s snowgo. A magnetic sign on the pickup’s door said CHUKCHI TRIBAL COUNCIL.
    The DC-6 braked in front of Arctic Air Cargo and the four big propellers shuddered to a halt. The cargo door swung up to disclose a crate with SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION stenciled on the side. The forklift rolled toward the plane, forks rising as it went.
    Roger Kennelly, the newsman for KCHK, Chukchi’s public radio station—known as Kay-Chuck—pulled up to the fence on a four-wheeler and rushed onto the tarmac. As the driver got his forks under the crate, Kennelly pulled a camera from his backpack and began shooting pictures, presumably for his side job as stringer for the weekly Chukchi Bay Times.
    “How about you?” Active asked Silver. “Does the city have to sign for Uncle Frosty, too?”
    “Nah, I’m just here to make sure the Inupiat Republican Army doesn’t do anything any crazier than usual.” Silver jerked his thumb at a skinny, intense-looking Inupiaq in mirror sunglasses climbing off a snowmachine just outside the fencing. The cold didn’t seem to bother him, either. He wasn’t even wearing a parka, just a snowmachine suit, a headband around his ears, and gloves that looked too thin for the weather. And his snowmachine looked too old for heated grips. The machine, a trail-worn Ski-Doo, was a fraternal twin to Billy’s Polaris. The dogsled hitched on behind was a ramshackle collection of splintered hickory spliced into continuing service with driftwood, wire, scrap lumber, and duct tape.
    “Ah, the famous Calvin Maiyumerak,” Active said.
    Silver nodded with a wry grin.
    Maiyumerak spotted the two lawmen, raised his right fist in a power salute, then went to the dogsled and pulled a picket sign from under a blue tarp held down with bungee cords. FREE UNCLE FROSTY! the sign said in red Magic Marker lettering. Maiyumerak put it on his shoulder and headed