Ross pointed to a turn in the rough path. “Right there. That hammering sound you hear is what we’re headed for.”

“I suppose that’s your aunt, building a house,” Chris said.

“Not quite. But you’re warm.”

“Well, anyway, we’re certainly seeing the native arts and crafts.”

Though Bridie’s protective habit where Chris was concerned told her that this Guildenstern family tour had gone on long enough, Bridie was shocked by this display of bad manners. “I wouldn’t call that polite, Christine Storm.”

“Mrs. Ballantyne, ma’am, you’re forgetting that my Grandmother Storm was part Eskimo, even if Grampa Thor never speaks of her, alive or dead. He clams up about her past and his past. In a way that makes me a kind of woman of mystery, doesn’t it? I hope.”

Ross shook his head. “You’re as mysterious as a glass of clear spring water.”

She found this infuriating. “You seem quite pleased with yourself today.”

“Protective coloration,” he said.

Now what are they talking about, Bridie wondered, fuming.

Ross’s uncle and aunt were working in the cluttered yard of their weather-beaten house on the road behind the beach path. Six or eight sled dogs yapped and snarled in their compound. The man’s hammer strokes sounded an accompaniment to this shrill vocal chorus. As Ross and the two women approached the man at his task of boat-building and the woman busy at some mysterious task as she squatted on the ground, the serious intent faces of the two workers flashed into warm brilliant smiles.

Ross threw more charm than was absolutely necessary, Chris thought, into the introduction.

“Hi, Aunt Angeline!… This is my aunt, Mrs. Asakluk.… Over there working on the boat.… Frank Asakluk. Hiyuh, Frank!… Mrs. Ballantyne … Christine Storm, they’re up from Baranof to see the sights.”

Frank Asakluk waved a hammer at them, gaily, he went on building his boat, he did not come forward. Angeline Asakluk did not rise or offer her hand because both her hands and her bare arms to the shoulders were dripping with blood and grease. Her friendly winning smile beamed above the sanguine headless carcass of a seal suspended on a rack in front of her. Now she reached in through the headless opening and pulled out a fistful of entrails; she was busy, she was expert, it was a task to be finished before the end of the day, but she was politely cordial as an Outside housewife caught critically in the midst of beating up cake batter.

“Excuse me,” she said now. “I’m making a seal poke. Ross, why don’t you take the folks in the house, open up some Cokes. Or maybe you’d like a cup of coffee, I’ve got a pot on the stove, Frank’s a great one for coffee.”

“We’re on our way to lunch,” Bridie said, crisply. “Thanks just the same.”

That same protective feeling surged warmly over Chris for the second time. Ross’s eyes were on her. Her natural curiosity actually overcame her repugnance to the blood, the fat, the purplish viscera, the decapitated cadaver, and the sight of this pleasant middle-aged woman at her task.