CHAPTER 9

THURSDAY. RONNIE HAS SURVIVED FOR AN ENTIRE DAY, and so have I. Maybe it's not right to compare our conditions? But in some ways mine is more dire: he's only dying, whereas I'm being asked to live out my days Outside, divorced from my Alaskan life.

Having been through extended hospital stays a half dozen times before with Ronnie, though, I can tell you what the second day is like: busy, hopeful, anxious. There is still some carryover of that day-one-type relief- he got here in time!-that's usually counterbalanced by day-two anxiety: what's really wrong? There are other milestones, like day six, when you realize, it's only a night away from an entire week; surely that's not a good sign. And then, of course, there's the Last Day, which is always a surprise.

But today's surprise arrived shortly after breakfast. Ronnie awoke. Or, as he put it, returned.

His eyes opened, slowly, and he scanned the room. Then he found me. We watched each other silently for a full minute, maybe more.

“They thought you were in a coma,” I said at last. “Not a ‘classic coma,’ mind you.” Ronnie considered this a moment; he was still coming to. Then he rolled his eyes, coughed, and declared he was hungry. I handed over several items I'd gotten from the vending machines for my breakfast, and he devoured them as he explained where he'd been.

“Not a coma,” he said, shaking his head. “The ocean,” he declared, and then asked for my coffee. I handed him the cup. “I've been to the bottom of the ocean. Here and there. I went to where the seals live, the whales.”

“They send their best?” I asked. This wasn't the first time that Ronnie had told me he'd “traveled.” While the rest of the world thought he'd passed out in a bar or fallen into a semi-coma in a hospital, Ronnie would later claim that he had been swimming to the depths of the sea, or summiting the sky, en route to the moon. Shamans were known for such journeys; and indeed, they resembled comas. Long ago, the angalkuq would gather everyone in the qasgiq, a village's largest building, which served as both the men's quarters and communal hall. He (not always, but usually a he) would lie in the center of the floor, often bound. Sometimes the light would be extinguished, and witnesses would be left to deduce what was happening from the sounds they heard. Loud grunts, a struggle, then quieter and quieter as the angalkuq flew farther away, then loud again once he'd returned, perhaps with a crash or thump. Sometimes the angalkuq would narrate the journey, other times detail it upon his return.

Ronnie only ever spoke upon his return, and his accounts were so fanciful I ascribed them to spirits more alcoholic than otherworldly. One time, I was sure Ronnie was plagiarizing the plot of a Disney movie that had recently played at the library. (We'd all seen it, every one of us: it was an actual, first-run movie, after all.) But then, I'd fallen asleep halfway through the movie myself. I was no more judge of what was real than Ronnie.

This time, though, was different. He ignored my crack about the seals sending greetings and instead spoke rapidly: “I saw the boy,” he said. “I saw him.” He looked both excited and nervous. “Not the mother. Did you see her? There's a mother in the story. I can't remember. I can't remember if she's there.” He raised the cup I'd given him. “It's the coffee. Caffeine. This is a drug. I am telling you this.”

“I'd blame alcohol, Ronnie,” I said. “Demon rum.”

But he had already handed the cup back to me. “Wait here,” he said. “I'll be right back. Tell you what I find.” He lay back, closed his eyes, and then jerked awake. “The wolf, Louis-you'll watch for him.” He extended a hand toward me-hard to imagine, Ronnie actually reaching for help, for me-but as he fell back, I slipped out of his grasp.

I didn't move to pick his hand back up. Because maybe he was traveling. I didn't want to hold him back. I didn't want to be dragged any further out of my world, away from my God. Maybe that's it. Or maybe it's just that I didn't want to feel the wolf's teeth sinking into my hand.

What's the difference, anyway, between what Ronnie is doing- slipping in and out of consciousness, traveling from one world to another-and my falling asleep? My dreaming of flight, and then recounting my banal dream after I awake? I don't know. I don't dream of flying. I did it once, really did it, just me and my arms and legs and the air, and I've never wanted to do it again.

IT WAS LATE WHEN I got back on base after my dinner with Lily. Something-or everything-about my “goodbye” dinner with Lily made me desperate to talk with someone, even Father Pabich, though he would probably have treated the whole matter as something worthy of confession.

I couldn't find anyone to talk to, but I couldn't see myself going to sleep, either. I went over to Gurley's Quonset hut. The sentry said nothing; he didn't even look surprised. He let me in through what Gurley persisted in calling the “back door” and then locked everything behind me. I banged my away across the floor in the dark to the small office in the rear. I had been granted access to the building in Gurley's absence, but not the office. He had, however, given me a small desk outside. I sat down and felt around for the desk lamp.

Suddenly, the hut's massive overhead lights clunked on.

“Belk!” Gurley shouted as the door shut behind him. “Working in the dark? Or sleeping?” By the time he reached me, I had some paper out and was pretending to take notes. “If there's one thing I hate more than incompetence, Belk, it's incompe tents trying to suck up.” He clapped a hand on my back. “You've been studying?” He wasn't entirely angry. “You'll be forgiven for this shameless display-working all night, it would seem-if you actually came up with something.”

Came up with something: maybe I'm guessing at the rest of the dialogue, but I know he said this. And “came up with something,” meant just that: invented. This was Alaska, after all, where chaplains swore like stevedores and Eskimo women could tease your entire past from your hand. It was all imaginary, all true. I thought about dinner with Lily. I thought about what Gurley wanted to hear. And then I said what I knew.

“I know where the next balloon will land.”

Gurley's presence changed the acoustics of a conversation; his being there could make your voice sound terribly small, or terribly ominous. Or in my case, both.

He didn't reply. I breathed deeply enough to get the memory of what Lily had whispered echoing in my ear once again. “Shu-yak,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Shuyak,” I repeated, working out the pronunciation and realizing as I did what Lily had said.

Gurley had been yawning and inattentive, but now he focused: “Along the Aleutians, isn't it?” I nodded, though I had no idea. I wasn't even sure it was a real place: perhaps Shuyak was the imaginary province of Yup'ik seers. Maybe it was simply Yup'ik for goodbye. I felt ill. “Easy enough to see why you guessed there,” Gurley said. But he was appreciative, not scolding. “I've guessed at that, too. Let's look.” He unlocked his office and went over to the wall map. I entered and sat. “Truth is, Aleutians don't matter to many people other than the Aleutians. Who, as it happens, are no longer there, poor dears.” He pointed to southeast Alaska. “That's why the Navy has thoughtfully relocated them here.” He frowned, pointed to a spot on the mainland. “No, here. Somewhere. There's plenty of Aleuts to go around. Apparently, the Japs took some, too, in fact. Probably carted them off to some zoo in Tokyo.” He studied his lip with his tongue as he drew his finger along to the end of the Aleutian chain. “Anyway there's nobody left out there, save some poor Jap soldiers, perhaps, hiding in caves out on Kiska.” He sat down and began studying his palms. I wondered if Lily had ever read his life through his hands, and if she had, what she made of the jagged scars that Gurley's pushpin doodles left behind. “It's American soil, but frozen, barren soil, so who cares?” Gurley continued. “I hope all their balloons land there. In any case, I can't find it. Any other ideas?”