He clomped down the curved staircase that led into the lobby, then stepped outside, where a fierce wind off the ocean greeted him. It was snowing too. Not hard, but enough to cause his jaw to clench all over again.
He didn’t feel like freezing on his walk home.
“Alexei! Alexei!”
He sucked in a breath. He didn’t feel like having company on his walk home either.
“Alexei, can I have a moment of your time?” The nasally voice gave away who was calling for him before Alexei even turned around.
Unfortunately, there was nowhere for him to hide, nor was there anyone nearby with whom he could suddenly strike up a conversation and thus avoid the person calling his name.
“Alexei.” Rev. Sheldon Jackson scampered to a stop beside him, his chest rising and falling in quick breaths.
“Reverend Jackson.” He offered the short, slender man a tight smile. “How lovely to see you.”
Alexei didn’t know if the Presbyterian minister heard the sarcasm in his voice and chose to ignore it, or if he was too oblivious to register it in the first place.
Either way, he reached out and gripped Alexei’s sleeve. “I need one of your ships. Immediately.”
“One of my ships?” And here he’d been expecting the man to hound him over some sort of donation.
“Yes.” The man pressed a hand to his chest and blinked from behind his thick spectacles. “It’s most urgent, I assure you.”
“And just why do you need one of my ships?”
He blinked again, as though Alexei was the one with the odd question. “For the reindeer, of course.”
“Reindeer.” Alexei started walking. He didn’t have the patience for Rev. Jackson today.
But the short man trotted alongside Alexei, his legs pumping ridiculously fast to keep up. “Yes, reindeer! I’ve just received word that a herd is available for transport from Siberia, and we must act before the opportunity is lost.”
“Right.” Alexei glanced sideways at the minister. “And just why are we moving reindeer from Siberia to Alaska?”
The reverend’s eyes grew round. “Because of the food shortage in Unalaska. I was just there on a voyage intended to procure artifacts for my museum, and I saw the need of the natives myself.”
Alexei’s jaw tightened at the thought of Rev. Jackson’s museum. Sheldon Jackson might have originally been sent to Alaska as a Presbyterian missionary, but the man had somehow worked his way into becoming the minister of education for the entirety of Alaska. That included educating not just the American children but the Indian children from Alaska’s various tribes.
Unfortunately Rev. Jackson was under the impression that the best way to educate the children was to force them to leave the homes where they’d grown up and move into boarding schools, where they weren’t allowed to speak so much as a word of their native language. He thought that by teaching sewing and cooking to girls and blacksmithing to boys, he was training them to be a part of the new, changing world around them.
But Rev. Jackson was very concerned about the children losing their culture, so he’d taken it upon himself to collect different artifacts from across Alaska. A whaling suit from the Inupiat, an oil-blubber lamp from the Aleuts, baskets from the Tlingit, and on the list went.
Alexei could only imagine what kinds of artifacts he’d collected on his most recent trip.
“I spent some time talking with Kuluk.” The reverend stopped to reposition his hat, which was blowing off his head, then raced to keep up once again. “He’s the chief of the tribe in Unalaska.”
“That’s Inessa and Ilya’s grandfather,” Alexei muttered. “I know who he is.”
“Yes, well, he was telling me the seals are nearly gone from the waters around the island. That it’s getting harder and harder to find food, and the tribe there is increasingly relying on deliveries from your ships and the Revenue Cutter Service to meet even their most basic needs.”
“None of this is new, Reverend.” Alexei wiped a smattering of snow from his cheek, then ducked his head against the wind. “The seal population has been declining for over a decade. But if you’re suddenly concerned, perhaps you should write a letter to the secretary of the interior, asking that the quota on seal hunting be lowered.”
“Why would I do that when we can transport reindeer to the island?”
Alexei shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“The people of Siberia and Finland have been herding reindeer for centuries. It provides them with a constant source of food and pelts.”
Alexei stopped walking and turned to face Rev. Jackson. He wasn’t a large or important looking man, but he had connections, and he was certainly passionate about helping Alaskan Natives, even though the two of them often disagreed on how best to help them. “So you want the Aleut, who have spent centuries hunting seals, to suddenly start raising reindeer? Do they even know what to feed a reindeer?”
