Mudlark by Sheila Simonson Page B

people's
territory, not Nisqua's. How could he sell it? It wasn't his."
    Darla cocked her head. "You sound as if you want that abomination down the beach to go in."
    "I don't. I'll have to look at it every day when I sit down at the computer. But at least the builders are
going to extend the sewer line. The worst pollution along this approach comes from septic tanks like the one under
my garden."
    "Pollution's only one issue."
    Tom sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Once you grant the idea of land ownership at all, you're
asking for large-scale litigation. The corporate big boys can beat you at that every time. It's their law, Darla."
    Darla said intensely, "I can make the law work for us."
    "Not yet, brat."
    Jay had been sipping his tea and listening without expression. "The law's an ass."
    Darla looked bewildered, but Tom laughed. He raised his mug in salute. "The first thing we do, let's kill
all the lawyers."
    Darla flushed a deep, unbecoming red.
    Bonnie had gone to the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee. She said over her shoulder, "Don't
let them pull your leg, Darla. They're just quoting Shakespeare."
    Darla's mouth quivered. "It's not a game."
    "No?" Tom shoved his hair off his forehead. "Isn't the tribal council playing games, too?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "I hear they just passed a law defining a member of the tribe as anyone with one-quarter Nekana
blood."
    Darla's fist clenched on the table. "There has to be a line."
    "My grandmother was Nekana. She was always proud of that." Tom looked up at Bonnie
as she came back to the nook, then glanced at Jay and me, too. "My grandmother and Darla's, my
great-aunt Caroline, were sisters. They thought of tribal membership as a matter of kinship."
    "I don't see your point." Darla's voice was cold.
    Tom met her eyes. "Their grandfather was a Frenchman, Darla. Pierre LaPorte. The
marriage was registered with the diocese of Nisqually. Believe me, I've seen the records. I figure
that makes me something less than a quarter Nekana. What's more, unless you and your children
are into endogamous marriage, your little membership rule is going to exclude your own
grandchildren from the tribe."
    Darla wasn't about to concede, but the sullen set of her jaw suggested he was hitting
close to home. "There has to be some kind of line."
    "Why?"
    "Why? Voting rights. Property--"
    Tom leaned back in his chair. "Property?"
    Darla's eyes dropped.
    "You're buying into racism."
    "Why didn't you speak up, then?" she flared. "We held a big hearing. Everybody was
invited to speak."
    "I thought you'd want me to take a blood test."
    I began to feel sorry for Darla.
    Jay sipped tea. "Is there a lot of tribal resentment against the resort?"
    Tom shrugged. "There's bad feeling, yes. There's bad feeling among a lot of local people.
My grandfather made a living, sort of, from an oyster bed in Shoalwater Bay. I lease out the rights to
that, and my tenants tell me they can't pay the rent, the oysters are dying off. The crab-boat
operators claim they can't keep going either. Not enough crab. The salmon runs are
dwindling. Logging's on its last legs. Farmland is being covered with mobile homes. All the
traditional ways of making a living around here are threatened by population growth."
    I thought of Ruth's logger son who was out of work half the time.
    Tom went on, "Even the retired people, whose mobile homes are part of the problem,
are raising a fuss. They don't want noise and heavy traffic. The resort symbolizes all that. People
like you and Annie McKay will have an easy time mounting a crusade against it, Darla. But stopping
construction of the resort won't solve the problem of growth. It's here to stay."
    "Annie McKay," I murmured. "Surely she's not related to you too."
    Tom's expression lightened. " She's not, but her husband's a cousin." He grinned. "On what my
grandfather always called the cadet branch of the family. Successful branch is another way of looking at it. Those
McKays own the