Yukon River

("Yukon River," part of the Little America collection, now available from the Ohio State University Press, was first published by Missouri Review, where it was a runner-up for the Editor's Prize. )

I loved Sam J. Miller review on Blogging Brilliant Stories
http://samjmiller.com/2010/04/24/blogging-brilliant-stories-yukon-river-by-diane-simmons-in-the-missouri-review/.

Sam has some interesting thoughts about endings.

Here's how the story begins:

It’s mostly drunk Indians where I’m working at the moment. Better than mostly white guys. Indians just drink. White guys, it’s got to be you look like somebody.

ThereeOne night this guy Len shows up; he’s stopping in Seattle to get some final stuff before heading to Alaska. He’s going to settle on some land he bought, out in the bush, way up the Yukon River. He doesn’t think I look like anybody but he wants me to come with him.

Every night he waits for me in the Doughnut Hole two doors down. It’s a dump and nobody’s ever there but him and a bum lady Irene. Irene tells Len things she has learned from messages coded into license plates of cars that go by on First Avenue. She tells him he was burned at the stake in a previous life so not to worry about that again. He should watch out for green death rays though. Don’t worry about the other colors, Irene says. Len frowns, listening carefully so that Irene won’t feel bad. . . .