by Ray Hudson
“Chakna?”
“Yeah, I mean, really?”
“I dare you.”
Then I saw a flowering shamrock in the window. It was a fluffy mass of leaves and blossoms. I started giggling.
Both me and the bookmark were back to our normal selves. As normal as I would ever be. After I said goodbye to Anna and ducked away from a hug, I walked back to the dock and waited behind one of the massive metal buildings until I was alone. Then I inverted the bookmark into my pocket and went home. Nothing to it.
The Elder Cousin balanced at the edge of his chair and his eyes widened as I told him where I had been. He murmured under his breath and jotted a few abbreviated notes in a small spiral-bound notebook. I leaned back and waited. He closed the cover, carefully clipped the pen into his shirt pocket and looked at me real hard.
“You seem very happy this evening,” Mom remarked as the three of us sat eating dinner. Spike and Tulip hadn’t noticed my absence at all. I guessed they were better mystery writers than detectives.
Before I could swallow and reply, Dad put down his fork and said, “As it should be, my dear. As it should be. He lives a very protected life.”
I couldn’t stop smiling.
After dinner I was back in my bedroom, glad to be around familiar things. The desk with my computer, the basketball that had rolled into a corner, and the worn nylon backpack resting on the floor. I had placed the bookmark on the shelf above the desk, where my paperbacks were arranged by author and my model planes by size. A glass jar held the two bluish beads from Anna. I climbed onto the bed and opened a world atlas. I turned to the page showing the arctic ice cap sitting like a crown at the top of the world. Further down the page I ran my fingers across the Aleutian Chain and wondered what Anna was doing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vasilii’s small eagle-shaped ivory cleat sitting where I’d placed it on the desk. Every now and then when I wasn’t looking directly at it, and occasionally when I was, it preened its wings.
WORDS IN UNANGAM TUNUU
Interested readers should consult Anna Berge and Moses Dirks’s Niiuis Mataliin Tunutazangis = How the Atkans Talk: A Conversational Grammar, and Knut Bergsland’s Aleut Dictionary: Unangam Tunudgusii. Both books are from the Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. The following guide is adapted from Berge and Dirks.
1. “g” is pronounced like the “g” in “girl,” but the tongue does not stop all the air. (Shown as “g” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
2. “” is pronounced like the Unanga “g” but with the tongue farther back in the mouth. (Shown as “gh” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
3. “k” is pronounced like the “k” in “kite.” (Shown as “k” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
4. “q” is pronounced like “k,” but with the tongue farther back in the mouth. (Shown as an underlined “k” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
5. “x” is like the “k” in “kite,” but the tongue does not stop all the air. (Shown as “x” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
6. “” is pronounced like the Unanga “x” but with the tongue farther back in the mouth. (Shown as “xh” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
7. “ng” is pronounced as in “song.” Unlike in English, this sound can be found anywhere in a word (as in qalngaa = “raven”). (Shown as “ng” in the “Approximate Pronunciation” column.)
WORD MEANINGS AND PRONUNCIATIONS
POSTSCRIPT AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The true story of how the Unalaska people had their good-luck charms stolen by people from the Islands of Four Mountains and how they got them back was told to me by Nick Galaktionoff Sr., a tradition bearer from Unalaska who received it from a long line of elders, including Alex Ermeloff, Andrew Makarin, and Marva Galaktionoff Borenin. For this, Nick’s account should be consulted in Unangam tunuu or translated into English and read. Other Unanga tales—including those about the Summer-Face-Woman, the Moon’s Sister, and the Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons are found in the masterful collection made by Waldemar Jochelson, edited and translated by Knut Bergsland and Moses Dirks: Unangam Ungiikangin kayux Tunusangin / Unangam Uniikangis ama Tunuzangis / Aleut Tales and Narratives (Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks). The bookmark translation is paraphrased from text 81, Big Raven, told by Filaret Prokopyev. I want to thank Dr. Lucy Johnson for the opportunity to study basketry fragments from one of the Islands of Four Mountains. Past and present staff at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, made it possible for me to examine basketry from Kagamil Island. As I write, analysis continues on the findings from multidisciplinary investigations in 2014 and 2015 of five archaeological sites in the Islands of Four Mountains. The results will undoubtedly add much to our understanding of life on these islands.
This novel benefited from readings by many people. Members of David Weinstock’s Otter Creek Poetry Workshop and Nancy Means Wright’s writing group critiqued portions of the manuscript. Ann Cooper’s and Barry Lane’s careful readings helped focus the story. John Melanson’s Carol’s Hungry Mind Café was the perfect refuge for writing. Aquilina D. Lestenkof provided valuable suggestions and assisted with words in Unangam tunuu. Elizabeth Laska at the University of Alaska Press enlisted the generous aid of Dr. Anna Berge for advice on the glossary. Dana Henricks was the best proofreader ever and helped me see passages with fresh eyes. Special thanks go to my wife Shelly, AB Rankin of Unalaska, and Jackie Pels with Hardscratch Press, along with Martha Amore, Debra Corbett, and Debby Dahl Edwardson for commenting on earlier drafts. Without the astute, patient, and generous comments I received from James Engelhardt at the University of Alaska Press and novelist Gerri Brightwell, I would have floundered hopelessly in my first venture into fiction. How strange it was to write something without endnotes or a bibliography. Krista West and other staff members at the University of Alaska Press guided me through every stage. Peat Galaktionoff sent messages and photos from Nikolski to remind me of that unique place. Carolyn Reed kindly allowed the use of her unparalleled art for the cover. For all my friends in the islands, always and forever, Txin qaaasakuqing. For my family at home, this is for Emma, Maiya, and the boys—Ethan, TJ, Noah, Matias, Marcello, Olen, and Axel.
The author about the time he first heard the story of the people of the Islands of Four Mountains and their lucky charms. Drawn in 1987 by the potter Cavan Drake when he was eight.
