They rounded the last corner and shot out of the slough onto the main river. The colder air washed over his hair, sticking it to his head.
Cooper reached into the console and grabbed a beer, tossing it to Karl. Karl opened the beer and guzzled it down, then threw the can into the bottom of the scow. Karl shivered. He zipped up his black jacket to his chin and turned his head from the wind.
On the way to Twin Lakes, they passed huge trees floating down river and small ice sheets. As they entered Twin Lakes Slough, they slid sideways. The current ran fast. Karl opened his mouth, but no sound came out. In his mind he yelled “Holy shit!” He glanced toward Cooper. Cooper’s eyes widened. The boat skipped to the side again. With a suddenness that surprised Karl, Cooper dove off the side of the boat, leaping toward the riverbank. Karl felt a deep pain on his cheek and then nothing.
When Karl woke up, he lay on the sandy riverbank. A bluejay squawked. His feet faced the slough, almost touching it, and his head faced the treeline. He moved his fingers and wiggled his toes inside his rubber boots. He turned his head to the right. The scow, about thirty to forty feet away, was wedged up in a large spruce tree that had fallen across the river. The motor was silent, the red jet unit a foot or so out of the water. The scow was suspended as if someone had carefully placed it there. No sense of the violence that had shoved it into the trees’ branches. Cooper wasn’t around. God, hopefully Cooper wasn’t twisted along the riverbank where he saw him jump, or worse, floating down the river.
Karl sniffed the air: a strong musky scent. Bear? No. It was stronger, muskier, like the woods and the sea both. He took a deep breath and raised himself up slightly. To his left, a set of oddly placed tracks, like four paws with a longer track in between dragging behind, made their way across the sand. The tracks had come from the woods. Whatever it was circled him and then went back into the woods again, through the weeds and up the bank into the willows.
A cough startled him. Still stuck a few inches in the sand, he turned the top half of his body toward the sound. Behind him, Cooper walked out of the willow brush with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “You awake?” he asked. “I didn’t want to move you in case your neck was busted. You want to be able to use your prick for a lot more years.”
“Well thanks for that,” Karl said, grimacing as he tried to move. “What happened?”
“I dunno. I was out for a few minutes too. Hit my head, I think,” he said rubbing his head. “Motor’s shot,” he added, pointing to the boat, “got wacked.”
Karl raised himself up onto his knees. “I saw you jump from the boat. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
“I saw you jump too, after I jumped.”
“Jump? I think I was thrown.”
“Oh,” Cooper said. “Sorry. What a bitch of a ride, huh? I’m sure Sven and Veiko will be coming up on the high tide again. Maybe we should walk the bank and see if we can make it to the cabin.”
Karl remained on his hands and knees. “No, I don’t think I can go far. Besides, how would they get to us? The tree is in the way,” he said, nodding to the spruce spanning the slough. “They’d have to cut their way through.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Cooper sat down on a log.
Karl wobbled and then finally stood up and stretched his back. “Christ that hurts.”
“That sucks. Maybe you cracked something.” Cooper flicked his cigarette out into the slough. “I’ll gather some wood then.” He headed down the riverbank, yanking up sticks from the sand.
Karl rubbed his back, below his belt. Maybe his ass broke. That wouldn’t be good. His arms and legs barely moved, but now he had to pee. He walked a few steps up into the grass to face the willows. He started to urinate on a small patch of stunted trees. He sniffed. His pee smelled strong, worse than when he ate asparagus. He lifted his head again and took another sniff. Animal? The thick willows led into the big cottonwood and spruce lining the slough. He scanned them briefly, looking for movement and shape. Nothing. He zipped up his pants and as reached to flatten his hair down, the stench became stronger. He lifted his arm over his head and sniffed his armpit. “Jesus, I stink.” He lifted his other armpit, sniffing himself. “Whew.”
He shook his head and started to walk down the grass to the riverbank. Each step felt like a sharp knife poking his lower back. “My ass hurts,” he grimaced. He sat down on the log.
Cooper walked down the beach with an armload of wood in his hands, puffing on a cigarette. He plopped the armload in the sand a few feet from Karl. Cooper stacked the wood in a teepee shape: smaller sticks on the bottom, the inside filled with grass with larger sticks on top.
Cooper sniffed the air. “You stink, bro. Shit your pants?”
“No, I smell. I think a critter marked me while I was out.” That would’ve been a sight—something peeing on him while he lay unconscious.
Cooper took out his lighter and lit the fire. It smoldered and then burst into a small flame.
Karl wiggled himself on the log trying to get comfortable but couldn’t. He stood. He arched his back, trying to relieve the pain. He rubbed his butt down by his tailbone. Something protruded. What the heck? Is a bone sticking out? He patted it. It wasn’t hurt bad, just sore. He felt the rounded end. He couldn’t sit again, so he stepped a few feet away from the fire and lowered himself to the ground. He knelt onto the sand, taking in a deep breath. He leaned over and put his hands down so he was on all fours. It seemed natural. He stretched out his back. That felt better.
“Maybe someone will be here soon,” Cooper said.
Karl cocked his head, listening for the sound of an outboard, a rescue coming upriver. No prop whined in the distance. The noise of a distant prop sounded to Karl like a large mosquito. He swatted a mosquito from his face.
“Better get back near the smoke,” Cooper said. “The mosquitoes have found us.”
“No, this feels good.” Karl pressed his feet and hands into the sand. A mosquito buzzed him again. He tried to lean back, put his weight on his legs to stand. Pain shot up through him. No, it would be better to stay put. It felt good on his hands and knees. In fact, it felt really good. No pain. He decided to wait like that for high tide to bring another scow upriver. He listened again for a prop. Instead, the muddy slough water flowed by, lapping against the fallen logs, the rocks, and the riverbank.
Date: 1980s
Recorded by John Swanton
The First Assimilated Sámi in the World
On the back deck of the Miss Janet, his commercial troller, Isak peed into the sea. A small white patch on his dick caught his attention. Paper? Lint? He brushed it, but the spot didn’t wipe off. What the heck? He finished peeing and zipped up his pants. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Cold salt air filled his lungs. Sometimes, if he let his mind go, if he didn’t think about things, he could believe they hadn’t happened. Uncle didn’t die last week. He didn’t find Uncle’s boat flipped on its side, floating like a whale sleeping on the sea. He didn’t find Uncle drowned, entangled in the troller’s rigging.
Isak turned and walked over to the fishhole and looked down inside. Only four bright salmon lay in ice. After three days of fishing it wasn’t looking good. The past few years hadn’t been good at all. But what could he do? His family had always been fishermen: his grandfather, father, and now he, and maybe his son. Back home, in the old country, his family had once thought he might grow up to be a noiade, a shaman. But what kind of job was that? His parents didn’t reveal this to the missionaries, of course, They’d only whispered about it.
Now, he shook his hand. It still stung. He still felt the rap of the schoolteacher’s ruler. He was supposed to write his punishment a hundred times, but he’d defied that schoolteacher. He’d written it a thousand times, no maybe ten thousand times: Do. Not. Speak. Sámi. He’d written it, once, for each one of his people. The blackboard chalk had filled the room like a smoky campfire. They said maybe he was sick in the head, but he wasn’t sick. He couldn’t
stop writing. Over and over and over and over. And maybe that’s when he noticed the first spot on his pointing finger. He’d been very young then. He didn’t tell anyone. After a while the spot had disappeared, but maybe he’d become comfortable with seeing it there.
Isak remembered when he’d finished writing on the chalkboard, on the walls, on the floor, on the desks, and on the windows, that he’d stood back and looked at what he’d done. Do Not Speak Sámi. Do Not Speak. From that day on, he didn’t. But wait—maybe this was not his story. Hadn’t he heard this same story before? Wasn’t it his grandfather’s story, one that had been passed down from generation to generation, told so many times the story had become his? But wasn’t he born in Wrangell, not the old country? His grandfather was the one born in Finland, on the border of Norway. It must be his grandfather’s story, or his father’s story. Yes, that was it. But why could he still smell the chalk dust? He remembered how the drum sounded when the old shaman pounded it. He remembered how his language felt on his tongue, the way the letters formed words, and tumbled over tundra and lake. How could he know this? He had only recently started speaking his traditional language.
The Sámi language had reappeared to him one day. Maybe because he was far from the parsons and priests, and the missionaries and the government bureaucrats, the looks, and the downcast eyes, he was now able to remember. It had happened a few weeks ago. It was early morning when he’d stepped out onto the front porch of his house. The sun hadn’t risen over the mountains yet. It was cold out. At first, it felt like a “senior moment.” But he wasn’t really old. He was fifty now. But the English word for what he saw wouldn’t come. What came instead was bihci, then duollu, then ritni, then … nothing. Not even English. The words melted into a small puddle on the porch rail. It had left him with a hollow feeling. He had finally remembered the English word, though, on his way to his truck. There was frost on the truck’s windows. Frost on the road to the harbor. Frost—that was the word.
Now Isak went back into Miss Janet’s cabin and shut the door and then headed across the strait. Back in Wrangell, he unloaded his four salmon at the seafood plant and tied his boat up in the harbor. He got into his small truck and headed to the post office before going home. The post office was an old building left over from Wrangell Fort days. It had been refurbished over and over again. The post office wasn’t open, but the lobby was unlocked so folks could check their mail after-hours. Inside the lobby the old brass mailboxes gleamed. One might imagine there were treasures inside: a shiny bar of gold, an old coin, a single ruby. Each box was magic, bringing Stallo. No, here it was Raven the trickster. The trickster left the white envelopes in the boxes: a license to fish halibut, a license to fish for dungies, a renewal notice, a property tax, a business license, a permit. Then again, maybe it was Stallo. Stallo was meaner than Raven, scarier. He’d never imagined Raven as scary, but like a brown-skinned man with long black hair, sometimes with a bird’s beak. Sometimes Raven appeared in his head as a black bird. But Stallo was different. Stallo was a troll. Stallo was ugly and vicious and stole children and drowned people. Uncle? What the heck was Uncle doing that caused his boat to flip sideways? Sure, Uncle shrimped with a beam trawl so that could happen, but Uncle was experienced. He couldn’t think about it.
Isak fumbled for his keys inside his wool jacket. He grabbed the key ring, and as he brought his right hand up to the keyhole, he stopped, his breath caught in his throat. A white patch of skin spread between his forefinger and his middle finger. It looked like he’d dropped Clorox onto his hand. He flicked it, but it didn’t come off. He brushed it on his jacket. He hurried and opened the post office box and removed one white envelope, a letter from the Fish and Wildlife office. Probably they wanted him to renew his license to hunt deer, or worse, they wanted him to report he didn’t get any deer when he hunted. Who reports nothing? Nothing is nothing. Bullshit paperwork. There was a time when there wasn’t paperwork. His family used to hunt for deer whenever they needed to eat. They knew when the deer were fat and when they were thin, when they were rutting, when they had babies. They knew when the deer would be in the mountains and when the deer would be on the beach. They’d learned this from living on this island for generations, from living among the Tlingit. But this was another world. Now there were tags, and licenses, and permits, and stickers, and even signs. Everything had to be written and documented. He tried to avoid it. They wanted him to pay them money to get a license and tags. He gritted his teeth and opened the envelope. Crap! He took a deep breath. They, the state, the feds, whatever, were denying him a permit to fish halibut. What the heck? It must be a mistake. He walked over to the garbage can sitting beside a tall wood table. He ripped the envelope in half and dropped it into the can. He paused. If it was Stallo, he didn’t want to jinx anything. He didn’t like to speak bad about it. Them. Even though it was bad. It was the same with the Tlingits: careful what you say out loud. He stuck his arm into the garbage can and retrieved the two halves of the envelope and stuffed them and his mail keys into his coat pocket.
Back in his truck, he placed his hands on the steering wheel. “Fuck,” he said out loud. This time, on his left hand another white spot spread across his knuckles. By the time he got home, the spot had grown larger. Inside the house, he hid his hands from his wife, Liv. She didn’t need to know yet. But then, what if he gave it to her? Whatever it was? In the bathroom he stood at the toilet afraid to unzip his pants. But he had to pee. He inhaled and unzipped. He made a sound like a kid, and then muffled it. He didn’t want Liv to come marching into the bathroom. If he’d closed his eyes it would have felt normal. It would have been normal. But it wasn’t. The white spot was much bigger now.
In their small kitchen, he sat down to dinner with his wife. Liv had made a good meal of creamed shrimp on toast. He ate with his right hand, the one with the smaller spot. She didn’t seem to notice. He kept his left hand sitting on his lap. Liv didn’t ask him about his day. As always, she waited for him to talk. Silence was one of their familiar houseguests. It had always been this way. Halfway through dinner he asked her what she did today. But he didn’t really listen. She said something about the phone company where she worked part-time: their new billing system was crappy. She had gone grocery shopping. She worked in the garden. Finally, he nodded to the two ripped pieces of envelope on the table. “I got that in the mail. It’s a letter from the state. It’s about the halibut moratorium.” Moratorium was a stupid word. No one he’d known had ever used that word before the government started regulating the halibut fishery.
“I fished,” he said. “Me and Luther fished together on his boat that couple of years. My knee hurt. I couldn’t fish by myself. He offered to help. He got the permits.”
Liv nodded. “I remember. I told you to—”
He held up his right hand to stop her. She stared at his hand, but she didn’t say anything.
“I know,” he said. “Remember when I didn’t fill out the paperwork, and then you made me. I did. I told them all about the halibut I fished for all these years. I told them I was fishing with Luther. I gave them all the receipts I could find. But I didn’t get a permit. I didn’t get one. This here says it.” He waved one half of the envelope. “They say I can’t fish without it. They aren’t issuing any more.”
Liv set her fork down on the plate. Was she going to say “I told you so”? She sometimes did that. She’d warned him that Luther was going to screw him over. But Luther was his friend. Sure, he’d hinted to Luther about how he should write a letter on his behalf to the state about how they’d partnered. He’d always thought of it as a partnership. But Luther died last year. Liver failure. Luther’s son or daughter would probably get the permit to fish halibut now. His son was a teacher in Nome, and his daughter worked for the city.
“Can you appeal?” Liv finally said.
Isak picked up the letter and read it, trying to make sense of their language, which blurred on the page: verifiable date on such participation; non-vi
able amounts of QS; allocation formula. “I think so.” But he wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d fish anyway? It’s not like anyone told on anyone in Wrangell. People were tight-lipped, unless you were sleeping with their wife, or something like that. So what if he fished without a permit? They’d think he was dumb. Stupid Lapp. Dump Lapp. All his life he’d heard the words, “Lapp Family,” “Savages,” “Trolls,” “Midgets,” “Card People,” “Dirty Folk.” His father had said, “We’re Finnish.” Only Finnish: that’s what he was supposed to be. He’d said the word Finnish almost as many times as he’d written those other words on the chalkboard so long ago. On the first government paper he’d ever filled out, he’d checked the box “Other.” It might have been a credit account at the grocery store, or maybe it was a NOAA form. But after a while of filling out paperwork, he finally started to check “Finnish.” It was easier. If you checked “Other” there was a space for what “Other” meant. He didn’t know how to describe himself.
Now, Isak set the piece of envelope down. Liv took another bite of her dinner. She was usually opinionated, saying what she felt she had to say. Maybe she didn’t want a fight. He held up both of his hands above his second helping of creamed shrimp. He twisted them for her to see. “I’m turning white.”
The Dead Go to Seattle Page 10
