((Point Lay & Atuaska Alaska) (6/1996))
Dr. Siluk under the wing of the plane, Point Ley, Alaska 6/1996
I looked down at the unfriendly ground, everything
smelled fresh and
newly
washed: brown, and white, and the pilot Aaron—an Alaskan-Russian from Barrow, chased a solid
mass of caribou, across Brooks
Range; we were to them: steel death over their heads, hysteria, as Their
tails and hoofs and horns, trotted, then leaped and galloped as the
small
aircraft buzzed, and whistled and strutted like an angry crane Bobbing and
fanning, jaggedly in the sky, overhead.
Aaron, he was bootlegging, while carrying the mail
from Barrow, to Point
Lay, and
then onto Atuaska!...
He per near whispered: “I got a case of Jack Denials, $250-dollars a
fifth,” that was eighty percent profit.
The aircraft touched down, as a group of the Inuit
character, a stirring
account of the Eskimo, —dressed
extraordinary, a symbol of the far-North of long ago, stood awaiting—; said
Aaron, as they slowly walked
up to
the aircraft, opened the door, with an enduring smile, “Hello Chaps, I got some
sweetener for you all, and a little mail,” which was a
package very small.”
As we took off for Atuaska, the tundra, was
lightly brown and green,
thin
it seemed—wet and heavy, and the sun was lightly bright, but The day was gray—;
once in Atuaska, it was all so brown, muddy and yellowish brown, with tall
telephone poles along the road…and they were waiting Likewise, and they
got their sweetener Too!
#3424 (9-11-2012)
