A rush of cold air fills the kitchen on a spring day in the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk as a man dusted in frost steps through the door.
Justine Paul, age 34, silently mixes himself a glass of lemonade, drops into a chair and exhales into his lap. Soon, he retreats to his childhood bedroom, where he stares out the window studying how fast the clouds move — the way he’s always sensed a storm before it breaks. A metal baseball bat leans against the doorframe.
When the Bering Sea wind bullies the house, Paul wonders if police listen through cracks in the walls. Waking beneath the Michael Jordan posters in his room, he sometimes fears he’s dreaming. That his body might still be 100 miles away, across the tundra in a 7.5-by-9-foot jail cell…