The Dead Go to Seattle

by Vivian Faith Prescott

  That was good news. And surely help would come. But until then he had to take care of himself. “Where are you headed?”

  “We’re out hunting,” Jorma said. “There are about twenty of us up there at the top of Rainbow Falls Trail. You?”

  “We’re up past the reservoir area. Are you going north or south?”

  “West, sort of,” Jorma said. “We heard there were some deer left on Zarembo, that you could get access to the roads from the backside. The front side—the lower elevation roads are all underwater.”

  He felt a surge of hope and sat straighter. “Great. I can go as far as you go.”

  Henry huffed, almost laughed. “Then what?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  Henry pointed. “Ummm. These are islands. I thought you knew that.”

  “Yes,” he replied, “but I’ve seen lots of boats, skiffs, even a small ship or two going around. No one’s got close enough for me to holler at except you. I’m sure there are others. I have fire starter, and I can eat from the land. I’ve been doing that for a couple of weeks now.”

  Henry looked back over his shoulder at Jorma and then shrugged.

  The men paddled across to the other side of Woronofski, where they camped for the night. In the morning, they headed across to Etolin and canoed what remained of the shoreline over tops of submerged spruce trees. They camped on the beach again the second night. The third day, early in the morning, they made the crossing to Zarembo Island when Jorma sighted a ship with his binoculars.

  “Shit,” Jorma said.

  Swanton turned sharply to the right, trying to see Jorma behind him. The boat rocked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the Navy,” Jorma said. “The Dewey, a patrol boat. She used to be the Tempest, years ago. But she was refurbished for this mission. A PC they call her. We’ve seen her before.”

  “Dewey as in Mount Dewey? I used to go hiking up there.”

  “I don’t know,” Jorma said. “Dewey as in a Navy admiral, I think.”

  “Why the Navy?” Swanton asked. What was the Navy doing here? Maybe they were sent to help out.

  “Yeah, they came up from Seattle,” Jorma said.

  “Yeah, like in the good old days,” Henry said. “Navy rule. It’s martial law now, and they’re patrolling.”

  He held the side of the canoe tightly. There was hope again. If they came from Seattle they might be already heading back there. “Well, drop me off and they can take me south.”

  Jorma shook his head. “I’m not going near her. Dewey’s got a 25mm auto-cannon aimed at us, probably right now, and .50 caliber machine guns, grenade launchers—the whole bit.”

  That didn’t sound good. But he had nothing to worry about. He wasn’t looting. There was nothing left to loot anyway. “We didn’t do anything,” he said, almost pleading.

  Jorma said, “No, but we’re Natives. Didn’t you notice?”

  He shrugged. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Like I told you, this flood blew us back into the Stone Age.” Jorma shook his head. “No, not the Stone Age, but it’s like we’re still at First Contact, and they don’t trust us.”

  “And, we don’t trust them,” Henry said.

  “I’ll vouch for you,” Swanton said. “Take me there.”

  “Hey,” Henry said, “they’ve been rounding up Natives like they did the Japanese and taking them to camps for their ‘safety’ like they forced the Aleuts. Anyone who had slanted eyes had to go. Anyone with a BIA card is rounded up.”

  “But now it’s worse,” Jorma added. “It’s anyone they think is Native, too.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to risk that,” he said.

  Henry said something to Jorma in Tlingit.

  Jorma was silent for a minute and then said something back.

  “Okay,” Henry said, “here’s what we can do. We’ll drop you off in this cove on the backside. We’ll continue on down the shore and tuck ourselves up where the logging roads meet the ocean.”

  “But, what if they don’t see me? Sure you can’t take me close to the ship?” He didn’t want to risk being stranded again.

  “It’s going to have to do. We have to go,” Jorma said.

  Henry said, “You stay on the beach. Hold up something white and they’ll see you. They’ll be going right past you. Right over top of where Bushy and Shrubby Islands used to be.”

  Jorma said, “Do like they do in the movies. Make them think you’re a friendly.”

  “Aren’t you friendly?” Swanton asked. These young men seemed friendly.

  “Define friendly,” Henry said.

  “As friendly as they’re going to be,” Jorma said.

  Swanton said, “Well, I have a white T-shirt on.”

  “That’ll do,” Henry said.

  Swanton stood on the shore as the men canoed away, heading to the logging roads on Zarembo. He took off his white T-shirt and stuck it on a piece of driftwood. He waved it in the air. Nothing. What if the ship didn’t see him? He’d be doomed. He’d die out here. He sat and watched for about a half hour as the ship came closer. When the ship appeared, it headed right for him. He stood up and waved his white T-shirt.

  In the coffee shop, some years from now, two old women sit around telling stories.

  TOVA: They say the flood happened because the earth was in mourning. The earth is a woman, you know?

  FERN: Yeah, I know that.

  TOVA: Well, people became too violent against the woman. That’s what my auntie Suvi used to say. And when they killed the woman, the tide wouldn’t go in or out. Maybe it was the moon. Maybe it was the melting of the planet. They’re still studying it.

  FERN: But things have settled down now. I feel all right. This place feels good now, doesn’t it?

  (A waitress pours coffee for them and sets down two plates of strawberry rhubarb pie.)

  TOVA: Yes, but things come in cycles, you know.

  FERN: That wasn’t the first flood? I mean, I know about the one in the Bible.

  TOVA: No, there’s the Hopi one with the Insect People, the Wooden People from Guatemala. There are lots. Ours won’t be the last.

  FERN: (Raises eyebrows but says nothing.)

  TOVA: Well, things aren’t really settled. The earth is now 80 percent water and humans are now 75 percent water. Reminds me, I need to take my water pill.

  FERN: Yeah, those were tough times.

  TOVA: Yeah, we barely made it.

  FERN: Yeah, if you hadn’t rounded up your aunt’s skiff, we might not have gotten out.

  TOVA: Before I met up with you and the others, I’d gone up to Great-Grandma Tova’s to get her. My dad had fueled up the Sea Wolf. There were a lot of people on the boat. I begged him to wait so I could go get Grandma, and he said he’d wait for me. But Grandma didn’t want to go with me. She’d lost three toes by then and she was so heavy. I was ready to drag her butt down to the dock. She said she was ready to die and lit up another cigarette. She had a DVD of Jerry Springer on the television. The generator was running out back.

  (Tova pauses, coughs.)

  FERN: (Reaches for Tova’s hand and pats it.) I know. I’ve heard the story, hon. But tell it again. Stories, we should tell them a lot. I know you feel bad about it.

  TOVA: Yeah, I left her. I left her there. When I headed down to the dock, I saw the Sea Wolf heading past the breakwater. Dad left me. That’s when I saw Auntie Suvi, Auntie Rikka, and Mom on the Ocean Maiden. They were rounding up all the single mothers, the elderly, anyone they could. Suvi gave me her skiff tied up next to the boat and told me to round people up. That’s when I found you and Sarah and Johan. You were going to head up the mountain, remember. But I think your ankle was sprained or something.

  FERN: Yeah, and I was limping. You saved us, Tova. You’re a Jesus.

  (Waitress comes over again.)

  WAITRESS: Ladies, there’s a new guy in town who’s collecting flood stories. So, if you two are interested, I can give him your name. He wanted me
to recommend people who could tell him stories. He’s usually in here for coffee early in the morning. He says he gets up before the Raven cries. He’s the first one in here. He meets me at the door for coffee. Talk, talk, talk. He sure chatters.

  TOVA: What does he look like?

  WAITRESS: Young, long black hair. He says he’s from the Interior—Canada. Got a real strange name … ah … Stooge?

  TOVA: Tooch?

  WAITRESS: Yeah, that’s it … how’d …

  TOVA: Stories are like the planet. Everything comes in cycles.

  WAITRESS: (Waitress looks confused.) Ah, well, more coffee?

  TOVA: No, no my bladder can’t handle it anymore.

  FERN: If he comes in tomorrow, tell him we’ll meet him here after the lunch rush. He can buy us pie.

  (The waitress smiles and nods and walks to the next table.)

  FERN: Remember when? It was after the flood …

  TOVA: (Just about to put a forkful of pie in her mouth. She sets the fork down on the pie plate again.) Yeah, I sure do … I found Swanton’s satchel. I wonder if that guy is still alive. I doubt it. He’d be ancient by now. Hell, Fern, I’m ancient. Should I give Swanton’s stories to Tooch, eh? Maybe he could get them published.

  Swanton waved his white T-shirt. Did the ship see him? Maybe they didn’t. Then the ship appeared to bear down on the island. Yes, they’re coming. The ship slowed and then launched a rubber boat from the stern. The small boat made its way closer.

  Swanton waved and yelled, “I’m John Swanton. Smithsonian Institution.” He almost forgot the white T-shirt. He’d tied it to a stick. He waved it around in the air. He could see two sailors in the boat. One steered and the other held a rifle on him. The boat nosed up to the beach, finally landing. One sailor was a woman, the other male. Both were dressed in digital camos.

  He put down the white flag. “I’m John Swanton,” he said. “I work for the Smithsonian Institution. I’m an ethnologist, and I’ve been stranded. Can I catch a ride?”

  The Dewey didn’t look that big out in the pass, but as they motored closer, she grew in size. Once aboard the bigger ship, he noted crates and totes stacked everywhere along the stern and up on the back platforms behind the cabin. The chief petty officer found him a bunk next to several other sailors and he lay down. He fell asleep right away and dreamed of the Devils Thumb, the Witch’s Tit, Ratz, and Kates Needle, their sharp jagged peaks like the teeth of the earth devouring itself. He saw falling and tumbling rock.

  He awoke sweating, the room closing in. He went out on back deck. It was dark and the stars were out, which was unusual, lately, with all the rain. Two sailors walked about on guard duty. He waved and sat down on a large tote that looked like it would hold his weight. He rubbed his hands together, warming them with his breath.

  One of the sailors came over. “Hi, I’m Seaman Hughes. What brings you to these parts?”

  Funny, the one thing he learned while living in Alaska is that people always want to know where you’re from. “I’ve been in Wrangell, working for the Smithsonian collecting stories. I’ve been trying to get home. Are you headed south?”

  “No. North to Kake.”

  “North. Ah crap—” He paused. Why would they go to Kake? Nothing there but a small village. “Kake?”

  “Yeah, supposedly the Natives there won’t let us take care of their totems and all their stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Yeah, the stuff they have in museums—should have in museums. They keep them in closets. You know, the stuff they dance in.”

  “Oh.”

  “Our mission is to gather all the totems, masks, blankets, everything. In Kake, there’s the largest totem pole in the world.” Hughes raised his rifle as if to poke the sky. “We need to save it.”

  “Really?” As much time as he’d spent with the Natives, he wasn’t sure that’d go over well.

  “Really,” Hughes repeated. “You know, since the flood, all the Natives’ stuff has been damaged. We’re going to take care of it for them. Plus, we’re providing a safe place for the Natives. We have camps in Sitka, Juneau, and in Haines. But some don’t want to go. It’s weird, though, there’s nothing, nothing in the villages. No schools, hospitals, churches. I don’t know how they’re surviving.”

  “This is their land, you know,” said a voice from behind. “They were here before you came.”

  He looked up to see another sailor, a tall man. He nodded to him.

  “Abrahamson, shouldn’t you be up on the bow?” Hughes said.

  “Yes, but you’re filling him full of shit.”

  Seaman Hughes shook his head. “They won’t survive without us and neither will all this stuff.” He swept his hand over the back deck. “We can’t lose the culture.”

  Abrahamson walked forward and nodded sideways at Hughes, suggesting he go away.

  Hughes frowned. “I’ll go up front then. I’d rather be next to the cannon anyway.” He made a fake salute and walked on the port side up to the bow.

  The tall man scooted a tote from the stack and moved it over near him. “Hi, I’m Seaman Jackson Abrahamson. I’m assigned to this ship.”

  “Assigned?”

  “I’m a writer, a poet mostly. I got a job with the artist’s corps. This is my assignment. Well, sort of.” Abrahamson looked around and then lowered his voice. “I was forced.”

  “Oh,” he said, “like the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps?”

  “Yeah, like that, only they have some strict rules.”

  Abrahamson held out a small book. “This is one of the few books I can read from or share with the sailors: Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Well, that’s not true. We can read Billy Collins, too.”

  Seaman Abrahamson smiled and then closed his eyes and recited: “The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main, the thirty thousand miles of river navigation, / the seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches. / Always the free range and diversity—always the continent of Democracy!”

  Swanton looked the man over, wondering if he was being tricked again.

  “Pretty strange, huh?” Abrahamson said. “Colonization poetry.”

  “You Natives tell some great stories, that’s for sure.”

  “We call ourselves Indians where I’m from.”

  “What nation are you?”

  “Kwakwaka’wakw. I’m not a threat. Or, so they think,” he said, winking at Swanton. “They aren’t rounding up any of us from the States. But up here—”

  Somewhere in the dark, someone coughed.

  Seaman Abrahamson looked around. “I’ve told you enough,” he said, and added, “or not enough.”

  Smithsonian Institution

  Bureau of American Ethnology

  Washington, DC

  S. D. Harstead, Chief

  The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution

  Washington, DC

  Sir: I am submitting this collection of stories with the recommendation that it be published in the Bureau’s series of Bulletins. As you might have supposed, Dr. Swanton was detained in Wrangell, Alaska, by some unknown influences and was weary of collecting stories. Therefore, Dr. Swanton’s decision to obtain my assistance was essential.

  I worked in collaboration with Dr. John R. Swanton as his assistant, transcribing and translating stories. Thus, I would appreciate being listed as co-author. It’s not about pride, but a matter of decolonization. Wrangell folk are not “informants” as you call them. It’s about sharing, about living on after you’re dead, about what it means to be human, about what it means to live on an island shaped like a snow goose flying to the riverflats. Furthermore, you might note that Swanton, ever the ethnologist, simply observed the bull kelp on the surface of the sea; I saw the bull kelp attached to the holdfast.

  Yes, most of the stories were told in English, the colonizer’s language, but translations were necessary as Wrangell fol
k’s dialect, worldview, and storytelling styles are different from standard Western worldview. This is due to the fact they live on a fairly isolated island, and, in addition, the Scandinavian and Tlingit have intermarried and coexisted for generations. As well, as it’s also likely they are simply accomplished storytellers.

  Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to Dr. Swanton. The last time I saw him, or rather the last time I heard his story, he was walking on the beach. Two Tlingits rescued him. You might look for him in Seattle.

  In conclusion, I have taken liberty with the collected stories, this story. I’ve been around long enough to know things. After all, I did steal the light, and, at that same moment, stories were let into the world. I am bringing the light again.

  Mr. Tooch Waterson

  Wrangell, Alaska

  The outboard on the Lund sputtered to life. From the bow, Johan raised his fist in the air. “Yes,” he said.

  Tova held the throttle and turned the handle and the skiff. She pulled her hat down farther over her ears. She was tired. The ground wasn’t a good place to sleep in this kind of weather with everything wetter than usual. For the past few days, she and her friends Johan, Sarah, and Fern had been camping on the beach and, when daylight came, they’d head off again. They followed a young black bear swimming from island to island, seeming to know a safe passage. Back in Wrangell, when they told Tooch they were leaving the island, he’d told them to follow the animals. The animals always knew.

  They had been traveling for a couple days now, navigating through downed trees, logs and debris, from Wrangell to Saint John Harbor, across to Douglas Bay, past Totem Bay, and into Keku Strait up past Devils Elbow, past Big John Bay, Dkaneek Bay. The landmarks were barely recognizable.

  As they headed toward the village of Kake, Sarah sighed audibly. “You sure you heard right?” She asked Tova.

  “Yeah, Kake. Kéix’,” Tova said again in Tlingit. “They’re my Grandmother Berta’s people. They’re known to be fierce. I heard they have supplies—food—and it’s the thirteenth largest island in the US. They lost some land mass, but they’re better off than other places.”