“Yes, you are, Liam said, taking her by one arm.

She pulled free. “You know which councilman? she said belligerently.

“Yes, he said, taking her arm again.

“Thats Councilman Darren Gearhart, she said. “ H-a-r-t. No e.

“Yes, he said. This time she followed him to the passenger door of the Blazer.

“Im his wife, she said as he sat her down. She leaned back against the headrest and fell asleep as easily and instantly as a child.

“Amelia, Amelia, Amelia, he said. “What the hell am I going to do with you?

The letter of the law required that he take her into custody.

So he took her to Bill.

TWO

Kagati Lake, September 1

Opal Nunapitchuk was a happy woman. Fifty-six years old, with three children and eight grandchildren, she was the postmistress of the tiny (population thirty-four in summer) village of Kagati Lake. A corner of her living room, furnished with a wooden counter polished smooth by forty years of elbows and a cubbyholed shelf fixed to the wall, was devoted to the getting and sending of letters, magazine subscriptions, bank statements, utility bills, Mothers Day cards and birthday and Christmas packages between the citizens of Kagati Lake and the outside world, and to the upholding of the generally fine standards of the United States Postal Service. People could sneer all they wanted to, but in Opals opinion the best federal service her taxes provided was the post office and priority mail (delivery guaranteed in two days for three dollars and twenty cents). She loved being the bearer of good tidings, and she was ready with Russian tea and Yupik sympathy when the tidings were bad. She was a thoroughly round peg in a thoroughly round hole and she knew it.

The residents of Kagati Lake, like those of any small Bush village, relied almost entirely on the United States Postal Service to keep them in touch with their friends and families and, indeed, with the rest of the nation and the world itself. Frequently it supplied more than that, in ways the Inspector General of the Postal Service had never dreamed. Mark Pestrikoff had engaged himself to be married and, deciding a one-room plywood and tarpaper shack might not put his best foot forward with his new bride, had flown into Anchorage, bought the makings for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house and mailed it home. He didnt have time for the Nushagak River to thaw, hed told Opal, and postage was cheaper than freight anyway. Construction on the house had lasted longer than the marriage. Mark was still working on the former. Opal had just yesterday taken shipment of two five-gallon buckets of Sheetrock mud, C.O.D., and they sat on Opals porch, tagged and waiting for Mark to pick them up.

Dave Aragon called his orders into Johnson Tire by radio, and in due course tires appeared at the post office, studded snow tires for winter driving and street tires for summer, although the only road in Kagati Lake was the ten-mile stretch between the lake and the dump, and it was neither paved nor maintained during the winter, so Dave didnt really need the snow tires. Hell, he didnt really need the truck, as the village sat right on the lake. People got around in boats during the summer and on snow machines during the winter. Half the people in Kagati Lake had no drivers license.