I make a motion to charge for people berry picking on shareholder lands, she said. Nobody said anything. Harvey was going to before Kate caught his eye and stared him down.

Auntie Joy took a deep breath, and continued. Lots of people come into the Park nowadays. This mine tell people we are here. Tourist come. They pick our berries. That okay, she said quickly, glancing around the table, so long as we charge them.

And so long as they didn‘t find Auntie Joy‘s secret nagoonberry patch, Kate thought. That would escalate the fee from dollars to a life.

Lots of berries, Auntie Joy said. Plenty for to make money from. She looked down at the papers clenched in her fists and frowned. She looked up at Kate. That‘s all.

It was a traditional Native way to end a story, but it wasn‘t all, not by a long shot. Is there a second? Kate said.

Second, Ulanie Anahonak said.

Kate wondered what Ulanie wanted from Auntie Joy, and had a presentiment that they were all going to find out very soon. It is moved and seconded that the Association charge a fee for nonshareholders to pick berries on Association lands. The motion is on the floor and open for debate.

Harvey raised his hand. It still pissed him off that he had to wait for Kate to recognize him before he spoke, but she‘d enforced it with enough brutality during the last two board meetings that they were all now cowed into obedience, for the moment. The chair recognizes Mr. Meganack.

Harvey rose to his feet. A lot depends on if it‘s affordable. The picking fee will have to be high enough to pay for signs marking Association land so people can tell where they‘re supposed to pick, and for the labor to put them up and to maintain them. They all thought about the hundred or so miles of hitherto unmarked roads and lanes and hiking trails and moose tracks connecting the Park to itself, the Roadhouse, and the outside world.

Harvey waited for it to sink in, and added, magnanimous in victory, It‘s not a bad idea, Joy. Might have to tweak it a little, but sure, we can chew it over. It‘s not a good idea, Old Sam said.

Out of order, Kate said.

Old Sam gave her his bad-boy grin and a shrug of what might have been apology. She kept looking at him, and after a moment he raised his hand. Kate waited just long enough to make the silence felt, and said, The chair recognizes Mr. Dementieff.

He leaned forward to look at Auntie Joy. I‘m sorry, Joy, but it‘s a bad idea. Park rats been marrying each other and burying each other and going to school together and hunting and fishing and flying together for a long time now. There was that bump in the road after ANCSA, when Native rats got money and land and white rats didn‘t, but we got through it, and so far as I know nobody got killed over it and everybody who was friends before is still friends now.