by Derwin Mak
“Untrue? So what? How many other tribes’ legends are true? You don’t see people out making fun of Anasazi tales or—”
“Oh, come now. You never watched Wile E. Coyote cartoons? That’s Coyote the Trickster turned comical. Besides, this isn’t a legend we’re talking about. It’s one of Bess’s wild tales. The last time I saw her she told me her first husband was a toaster oven and that she could tell colors apart by the way they scratched her ankles. She could come off looking a lot worse. And did you watch Dr. Scott’s interview, even? There’s evidence that the Tlingowa had advanced medical technology and agriculture. They were a very interesting people.”
“Don’t you mean we?” said Kate.
“We. Right. Of course.”
Kate hung up and stared dumbly at the television for a long moment. She glanced at her watch, got to her feet, and headed for the door, donning her windbreaker on the way. Ten minutes later she was pulling her car into the small strip of parking lot next to the pottery co-op. Located in a large metal warehouse on the edge of town, it was where she always went when stress overwhelmed her. The door squeaked when she pushed it open, and fluorescent lights blinked to life when she hit the switch, illuminating a wide open space with tables set out in the middle and drying racks along the far wall. In one far corner were the kilns. The place smelled like moisture and clay and drying glaze.
Kate made her way to the racks and started sorting pieces for the kiln. That was her job, to get everything fired before the next class, and although she hadn’t meant to start the next batch until the weekend, the pieces were ready now and she had time.
She separated the polymer clay pieces from the natural clay pieces and set the latter down on a kiln rack, careful not to clink them together. She’d joined the co-op and started taking pottery classes in her teens, on the misguided notion that this would put her in touch with her heritage. There was plenty of natural clay on Tlingowa land. She could see several pieces that were made from it with their telltale black streaks of coal. However, her father had set her straight. There were no pottery artifacts in any of the Tlingowa sites. Her ancestors were most likely basket weavers.
And so pottery now seemed to her like one of her many wrong turns taken in her lifelong search for home and people. Her decision to drop out of college because her anthropology teacher had based a unit on Michael Scott’s book was another. At the time she’d felt righteous. Now she just felt petty and stuck in a dead end job that didn’t hold her interest.
“The next day the moon-faced man and one of the skinny men drew pictures of tall, straight trees in the dirt and asked where they could find them. Our people explained that the winter was coming and we could spare no one to fell trees, but the moon-faced man drew other strange pictures on the ground. Crooked lines and symbols and a picture that might have been of the flying stick he’d made. He sang insistently, furiously.
“Our shaman saw this and begged our elders to help the strange men, lest they bring a curse down upon us. The next day, four of the strange men left with six of our best hunters. The fifth, the fat man, showed the women how to boil beetles until a paste came from their shells.
“When the men returned with two long, straight tree trunks, the strange men ordered them hewn out like canoes and cut into long strips that they painted with layer after layer of the paste from the bugs. These long pieces of wood were then left to dry, glistening in the sun. ”
“We know that there are tall trees fifty miles from here. But six hundred years ago, the land no doubt looked different. I’m not sure how that pertains to our investigation, though.” This quote was in the next morning’s paper, which Kate read online from her desk at work.
“There’s no evidence of lacquer work, no. Other than the bowl we’ve already unearthed. Right now we’ve got three dig sites. One at the community where the Chinese artifacts were found, one at the saltpeter mine, and one at the sulfur mine. The University of Oregon’s been kind enough to provide additional funding for all this.”
Kate glanced at Randy’s open office door and saw that his desk was unoccupied. He’d probably gone to the break room for coffee or had to go out to meet a client. She was so distracted that she didn’t remember if he’d passed by her desk or not.
She picked up the phone and looked up the University of Oregon’s website on her computer. It took her three calls to get to the chair of the grant committee that had funded Kenderson’s dig.
“I’m concerned that this is all becoming a circus,” she explained. “The dig was supposed to be a small one, focused on that one community. Now you’ve got a person, who isn’t an archaeologist, setting up more digs at other sites without any scientific reason.”
“I see,” said the tired-sounding woman on the other end of the line. “You say you’re the Manager of Cultural Affairs?”
“Deputy Manager.”
“So you speak for the tribe on this matter?”
“Well, no.”
“Because I have a fax from the Manager saying that Dr. Scott can have access to any of the tribal lands that he wants.”
“Oh,” said Kate.
“Did you not get the departmental memo?”
Kate didn’t want to admit that the “department” was nothing more than her and Randy, and that they rarely even used the tribal letterhead, let alone wrote memos. There was little point when they worked a mere twelve feet apart. “So there’s nothing you can do?”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking. Is this letter valid or isn’t it?”
“It ... yeah, it is. Sorry to bother you.” Kate hung up and looked around, grateful that Randy still hadn’t returned and that none of the other attorneys had their doors open.
“The five pale-skinned men directed our strongest hunters to bind the long wooden planks together to make a great tube. The moon-faced man demanded that its outside be carved and shaped just so and that the inside be divided into chambers. Some were packed with powder. At the top of the tube a little hut was fashioned with a peaked roof.
“All the while, the moon-faced man drew more strange symbols in the dirt and sang in triumphant tones to his fellows. They did not seem to be as happy as the moon-faced man, but they obeyed his instructions. ”
After work, Kate drove out to the dig site once more. The sun was low in the sky and, much to her dismay, she saw a long line of cars parked around the site. There seemed to be three times the number of archaeologists alone since she’d last visited.
Dr. Scott wasn’t there, so she took her jeep across the sand flats toward where the archaeologists said the saltpeter mine was located. The vehicle’s suspension creaked and groaned in protest as she sped along, raising a cloud of dust in her wake.
Another large cluster of cars was parked around this second dig site, and Dr. Scott stood on a low rise, bellowing instructions. At the sight of Kate pulling up, he paused, mid-bellow, then said, “Carry on.” He dropped his arms and turned to face Kate as she trudged across the loose dirt to him.
The site was littered with screens, shovels, and twine strung between pegs. Kate stepped over and around these various obstacles until she stood on the rise, facing Dr. Scott. He was a full head taller than she was.
“Kate,” he said. “I’m so sorry I haven’t had a chance to visit.”
“Visit?” she said.
“Yes. To see how you are. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? You’re all grown up. How’s Bess?”
Kate folded her arms across her chest. “She died last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“We had to put her in a home.”
“That’s rough.”
Kate looked out over the dig, at the swarm of archaeologists screening dirt and laying artifacts on plastic trays. “Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“I take it that you don’t... agree with my methods.”
“I’m tired of having my family made fun of.”
“I never meant to be disrespectful.”
&n
bsp; “Sure you didn’t.”
“Kate, please. I gave your father a cut of the royalties, and I’ll do the same for you if that’ll make it better.”
“I’m not interested in money,” said Kate. “I just want you to leave. Now. This was supposed to be a little dig, looking at one little community.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dr. Scott. “I can see that you’re upset, but I promise you, your tribe will benefit from this exposure. People will know more about you and have a greater respect for your lands and history.”
“How can you talk about respect given what you did to Bess?” Kate shouted.
The archaeologists all stopped digging and looked up at her. Kate felt her face go hot.
Dr. Scott let out an uneasy chuckle. “Now, Kate—”
Kate turned her back on him and stormed off. She ignored the uncomfortable silence in her wake and got back into her jeep. As she pulled away, she stole one last glance over her shoulder. Dr. Scott had returned to directing the dig.
Tears stinging her eyes, Kate turned her jeep away from the road and toward the coast.
“The strange men built their craft on the flats near the sea, out of reach of the highest tides, by the rock with the dark stripes from which we watch the whales migrate north.”
There was one high, flat rock along the coast, at the very edge of the Tlingowa land, where Kate’s father had taken her whale watching. It was the highest point for several miles and had several exposed coal veins. Now the formation loomed in front of her.
Her jeep lost traction on the loose sand, so she put it into park and got out. First she walked, then jogged, then ran.
“On the first day after the new moon, the men sang their farewells and gave us tokens. Green stone carvings and fine sticks to eat with. Then they scaled the wooden craft and disappeared into their little hut at the top.”
A stitch was forming in her side, so Kate slowed to a walk and stumbled on toward the beach. She tripped over a pile of rocks and went down, skinning her knees smartly.
“One of our men lit the end of the length of rope they had bound the craft with, and the flames consumed it slowly, deliberately, leaving a trail of ash on the ground.”
Kate looked back at the pile of rock. It was odd how it was stacked like a little, low wall.
“The fire leaped into the hollowed tube, and flames spewed out, causing the sand and rocks to fly as the craft lifted off the ground.”
Kate’s gaze followed the length of the rock pile, then jumped to a low hillock, then to another larger pile of rock. She blinked, then turned full circle. She stood inside a large depression.
“It lifted off with the sound of thunder, and fire a thousand times brighter than the little flying stick. ”
Kate scuffed the dirt under her feet with her sandals, then got down and dug with her hands. The moist sand moved aside easily, pale yellow giving away to dark soot, a great, thick layer of it.
“As our people watched, the strange men flew off, toward the horizon, leaving a trail of smoke that shone gold in the sunset. ”
“Wait,” Mr. Scott had said. “You mean to say that men from across the Pacific, from China, came here, and built a gunpowder rocket?”
Bess’s eyes focused on him for a fleeting moment, then she was back to her muttering, chanting the jingle from a laundry detergent commercial. As quickly as it had come, her moment of coherence had fled.
Kate stood up and looked around again. Ten paces from her was a shallow trench. She stepped over to it and started digging. About eight inches down she found rocks laid out to form a channel, charred black as pitch. She followed the length of the channel with her gaze, then dug another hole at the far end of it. Again she hit soot.
Her fingers brushed something smooth and cool. She dug around it and found herself staring at a clay fragment. She tugged it loose and held it up. Its surface glowed rose, a reflection of the sun setting on the horizon. She took it in both hands and twisted, feeling it press deep into the pads of her fingers. She tapped against the rocks she’d exposed and heard the familiar clack. This was too hard to be dried clay. It was fired clay.
Kate pressed the fragment to her chest and let the tears flow down her cheeks.
Mortal Clay, Stone Heart
Eugie Foster
“AI-YAH, Shu-mei!”
I started, nearly dropping the unfinished earthenware bowl. Baba has said—sometimes exasperated, sometimes amused—that the element that governs my spirit is not metal or fire, wood or water, but clay. And I suppose it’s true. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had an affinity for finding the hidden grace inside pliant earth, the hard strength and flowing forms that the industry of my hands and the fire of the kiln can set free. But this affinity frequently makes me unmindful of such things as the passage of time and Baba’s homecoming.
“Clay on your face, and is that slurry on your sleeve?” My father continued to scold me as I fumbled the bowl aside. “Do you think you could manage not to disgrace me with a grimy-faced welcome for the visitor I’m expecting tomorrow? The daughter of the Emperor’s Overseer of Terracotta Sentinels should be refined and decorous.”
“Hmpf. Do the terracotta soldiers concern themselves with the impression they make upon me?”
“Shu-mei, you’re no longer a child. Have you considered how other girls your age are already married, even mothers?”
I pretended to scrutinize the bowl, hoping that Baba wouldn’t notice the heat suffusing my cheeks. I couldn’t tell him my heart already belonged to another. Although I didn’t delude myself that the man I admired regarded me with the slightest measure of consideration I held for him, it was too embarrassing and absurd to admit my one-sided love to anyone.
“What do I need a husband for?” I mumbled. “Kong Fuzi says that contentment can be found ‘with coarse rice to eat, water to drink, and—’”
“Be silent!”
I couldn’t have been more astonished if Baba had spouted hooves and bleated like a goat. “The mouth is the gateway to misfortune” was how other fathers instructed their daughters. But Baba had dismissed my nurse when I was four, after she had scolded me for demanding to be taught the abacus. He’d taught me himself how to do sums and read, and the arts of philosophy and debate.
Baba relented. “Forgive me. You couldn’t have known. The Emperor has prohibited any discourse regarding the Hundred Schools of Thought.”
“What?” Relief that my father was not, after all, transforming into a goat vied with shock.
“The only principles one may extol are those prescribed by the School of Law.”
“That’s ridiculous. How can any man prohibit another from thoughtful contemplation?”
“Qin Shi Huangdi is not a man. He is the Emperor. And he has decreed that all the histories and analects in opposition to the School of Law be consigned to fire.”
The treasury of bamboo slip scrolls in my studio hung before my mind’s eye. “But how can the empire move forward if it cannot study the past?”
Baba fixed me with a hard stare. “Shu-mei, I am in the habit of indulging your stubbornness, but you must understand the position I am in as one of the Emperor’s officials. There can be no hint of sedition from this house.”
I’d never seen my father look so grim. “I understand.”
In the morning, Old Baishi, Baba’s retainer, loaded our library into the firebox of the little dragon kiln built into the natural hillside at the garden’s edge. Bleak and disconsolate, I turned to clay for commiseration, and it obliged me with a yellow Qilin. Adorned with the antlers of a deer, the hooves of an ox, and the tail of a lion, Qilin are the celestial emblem designating the element of earth, the natural foil to water—absorbing it. And water was the element and symbol of Qin Shi Huangdi.
As seditious acts went, it was admittedly a feeble one. But it helped, venting my outrage in this manner until late into the night.
I woke the next day to the afternoon sun chiding my eyes, with barely enough time
to make myself presentable for Baba’s guest. I donned a malachite coat and an ebony skirt that swirled like the sea, all the while wishing for a comfortable shenyi and the company of clay. As I finished securing the jade-green sash, I heard the hi-hiin whinny of a horse.
I hurried out, rehearsing appropriate phrases of welcome. But at the entrance, all words deserted me. It was not Baba with some stuffy official but the crown prince of the empire, Prince Fusu, handing the reins of his mount to Baishi.
Although I stood mute and stock-still, he noticed me and bowed. “No one could mistake you for anything but a refined and well-born lady today, Shu-mei.”
I was goggling like a fish, but I couldn’t look away. Memories of our previous meeting transfixed me, juxtaposing with this moment: Prince Fusu before me now and Prince Fusu from that other afternoon, drenched and seeking refuge from a sudden downpour.
He’d thought me a servant—my hair in rags, my shenyi splattered by clay. His first words to me, by way of introduction, were, “You, girl, could you fetch your mistress and bring me a towel? I’m near to drowning on your doorstep.”
I bowed to conceal my embarrassment and irritation. “I’m Shu-mei. My father, the Imperial Overseer of Terracotta Sentinels, does not keep household servants. I’m afraid there’s only myself—that is, unless you’d prefer our gardener, old Baishi, to attend you?”
“That won’t be necessary,” he replied, curt and dismissive. He stepped past me, and I shut the door to the rain, wondering whether I’d invited the more turbulent storm inside.
