The Raven's Gift Read Online Free PDF

sucked at her lips, and said after a short silence, “That girl should come inside now. Cold out there, you know? Unless maybe you want her to freeze so you don’t have to take care of her?”
    “Where? Tell me where he was going, or I’ll shoot you, too.” Heraised the rifle again, to prove he was capable, but she wasn’t even looking. He lowered the barrel to the floor.
    “You only shoot the bad ones,” she said. “I know. Get more woods for tonight’s fire. Bring that girl inside. You go get woods down by the river for us. That’s where that man you killed was going, to find driftwoods for an old woman’s fire.”
    He started out the door and the old woman called after him. He stopped. “The hunter?” she said. “I don’t know nothing more about him than you.”
    “WHAT SORT OF PLACE IS THIS?” Anna asked as their taxi, a ramshackle green Suburban with cardboard covering the holes in the seats and one door wired shut, bobbed its way down the roller coaster of a road, a narrow paved stretch with ridiculous undulating heaves.
    “It’s so … so wide open. The sky seems so huge. And it’s flatter than I imagined,” she said, peering out at the land surrounding them, and then turning her face up to see the sky.
    “Except for the road,” he said. “This is crazy. Hold on.”
    The vehicle flew down another dip, up the other side, and bounced hard enough for him to hit his baseball cap on the roof. He winced and rubbed his scalp.
    The cab driver, a white older man with his yellow hair slicked straight back, and one gold tooth, peered at them in the rear-view mirror. The man obviously wasn’t Korean, but the black lettering on the Suburban’s door read KOREAN CAB.
    The radio beeped. He pushed a button and took the receiver. “Twenty-four.”
    The radio speaker squawked and a sultry woman’s voice said, “Twenty-four? Post office, Swanny, airport.”
    “Roger,” their driver said. “You sound sexy today, Rose.”
    “Screw you, Del.”
    The tundra gave way to houses and buildings, seemingly placed atrandom intervals, with long silver aluminum pipes connecting them like metal feeding tubes.
    The cab swerved across the other lane and pulled into the parking lot of the post office. He hit the horn with two short blasts.
    “Sorry about that,” the driver said. “New-teacher time of year, ah? Where you cats from?”
    “I’m from the Midwest,” Anna said. “He’s from Wyoming.”
    “Midwest, ah? My first girlfriend was from Chicago.”
    Anna chuckled and squeezed John’s leg. “I’m happily married, Del,” she said, “but I’ll keep you in mind if I need an upgrade.”
    A Yup’ik woman with short jet-black hair emerged from the post office. In one arm she carried a baby, in the other a large parcel. Three kids trailed behind her.
    “You guys will have to scoot together,” the driver said.
    Anna slid across the seat and the family climbed into the Suburban. The three kids piled into the seat beside them, and the mother and the baby sat in the front. Anna made a funny face at John, and he knew what she was thinking, always the overprotective one. No car seat for the baby.
    “Swanson’s Store,” the mother said. The kids stared at Anna and John without saying a word. “Don’t stare, you!” the mother commanded. The kids looked away, then looked back. John winked at the boy and he smiled. “Sorry,” the mom said, “we just moved to Bethel from the village. They’re still getting used to so many kass’aqs . That’s you guys. I’m Molly.” She reached back and offered her hand to Anna and John. They shook. Her hand was soft, warm. John wondered if he’d squeezed too hard because she turned her eyes away from him. “These are my kids: Val, Mik-Mik, Marylynn, and baby.”
    “You guys are cute!” Anna said, patting the girl beside her on the head. John hoped she wasn’t already breaking some cultural rules.
    “She’s ugly like a ling fish!” Mik-Mik said.
    “You’re a