Ghost Sea: A Novel (Dugger/Nello Series)

by Ferenc Máté

  “Leqwildex,” Nello said beside me. “A rich village. They fished the rapids. Two hundred people lived here when the smallpox hit that spring during the eulachon run. There were nineteen left alive when the salmon came in July. Most were old—moved away, why stay? The village was dead.”

  Charlie was down on the water’s edge, singing a little song, digging with a stick into the mounds of mud that squirted, then digging with his hands and clanging the clams loudly into the bucket.

  Nello went and pried some oysters off a tidal rock. I made a fire with driftwood, and threw the oysters right onto the coals. “Come on, Charlie,” Nello called, and he cut a long switch with a forked end, went to the water’s edge, kicked off his boots, rolled up his pants and waded in. Charlie did the same. They stood in the water with Nello poised like some great heron, switch in hand, its fork below the surface. Then he lunged, stopped, and with a slow, smooth movement lifted the switch with a big rock crab, too dumb to let go, hanging from it. He laid it on the shore on its back. The crab’s legs and claws sawed the air, and I drove the sharp edge of a rock right through his pale belly—an ugly crunching sound. The legs went limp. Grabbing both sets of claws and legs, I tore them from the shell. There was nothing left but a hollow. I stripped the spongy tissue from the legs, rinsed them in the sea, then threw them on the coals.

  We sat under a cherry tree gone wild and leaning precariously seaward from the midden. We ate without a word. Nello threw the shells, clattering, on the rocks.

  “They say that was the best eulachon run ever.”

  14

  THAT SPRING

  The ravages of that most frightful disease continue unabated. The northern tribes are now nearly exterminated. They have disappeared from the face of this fair earth, at the approach of the paleface, as snow melts beneath the rays of the noonday sun.

  Captain Shaff of the schooner Nonpareil informs us that the Indians recently sent back North are dying fast. Out of 100, about 15 remain alive.

  The small pox seems to have exhausted itself, for want of material to work upon.

  —FROM THE PAGES OF The British Colonist

  “I had just turned five,” Nello began, “when it hit our village.

  “My mother got sick; she started to go blind. My grandfather paid the captain of an old steamer that hauled boom chain and steel cable to logging camps to take her down to the hospital in Victoria. He sent me with her to get away from the sickness. He had been chief of our na’mima, but got old and passed down the title to my elder brother, who fell through the ice the next winter and died. My grandfather had a great bird burial pole carved for him; its beak alone was longer than me. Cost him every penny he had, so with no money to pay for our passage, he offered the captain of the steamer all he had left: the pole. He had offered himself as a slave but the captain told him nicely that he didn’t need one and he preferred the pole to sell to collectors in Victoria. My grandfather sat beside the pole with a lost look in his eyes and watched two sailors hack at it with hatchets.

  “It was the most splendid burial pole in the islands, painted all bright colors, even the sick had dragged themselves outside to watch when it went up; now they dragged themselves out to watch it get hacked down. Those sailors were no loggers, didn’t know a damn about how to fell a tree, so they never bothered to back cut, just hacked away stupidly at its front, cursing and laughing all the while. The villagers sat silent. The sailors got angry as they went on, hacked harder, cursed louder, until finally the pole made a sound of pain—leaned toward the sea, turned slightly, then splintered. To my child’s eye, it seemed for a moment that the great bird took flight—flew miraculously over the sea, over the islands, its reds and yellows defiant in the mist—but then it just fell, in a quick sad arc, beak-first into the sand. Only a giant splinter remained standing. The steamer backed close to the beach, churning up the silt of the shallows. They threw a towline around the bird, then the funnel belched soot, and it surged ahead. Some of the village men began beating a slow rhythm on a board.

  “The rope shuddered so tight that beads of water flew from it; then, with an ugly crunch that hurt my heart so much I still recall the pain, its beak cracked at its base and it lunged forward through the water. The beating on the board grew frantic. Women wailed. My poor grandfather stood unmoving, his head down, staring at the gash the bird left in the sand.

  “Out in the bay, the steamer dropped anchor. The drumming on the board grew irregular and it began to rain, a soft drizzle. My grandfather hadn’t moved; just stood and stared. He was still there as, man by man, the drummers fell silent. Night came. A bonfire was lit on the beach, in the rain, near the little house on stilts where the sick people stayed to be near the curing power of killer whales and the sea. My grandfather came and sat on a rusted sewing machine that someone had long ago bartered for a dugout war canoe.

  “In the morning, they carried my mother down. My aunt held my hand as we followed; she told me not to be afraid because the raven would look after me, and to be strong like the Hamatsa and hard like our warriors. Meanwhile, she held my hand so tight she almost crushed my fingers. How could I be strong with all my fingers broken? I was watching them load my mother into a canoe in the rain. We were well away from the shore but still I could hear my aunt shouting advice. Bless her heart.

  “They put us under the tarp that stretched from the deckhouse to the backstay of the riding sail, but the wind and the boat’s rolling sent the rain in under it. We didn’t mind; we’re a people used to rain. The rain is our world. We suffer when the sun comes out and blinds us with the sparkling sea.

  “The engine throbbed as the anchor chain came in. My mother’s eyes smiled up at me but her face was still. By then the smallpox had made her almost blind but she tried to pretend that she still saw me as before. There was a sour smoke from the coal fire in the boiler. We moved ahead and the great bird rolled, went down, then leapt like a fish trying to throw a hook. Our village vanished in the mist. I heard a long wail, soft like the rain.

  “At the bottom of our passage we didn’t turn west toward the strait like I thought we would—I could see the clouds above it racing north, whipped to a wedge by the wind—instead we turned east, into the islands. I heard the mate argue with the captain. The mate said to try the strait, for the love of God, but the captain yelled back that he wasn’t going where the wind could blow you off the deck, and the waves were so goddamn steep they fell on you like a wall. What would be the use anyway: the squaw would surely die. The mate told him not to bullshit about the squaw, that all he really cared about was not losing his blessed pole. I kept wondering what a ‘squaw’ was. The captain ruled—we weaved east and south among the islands. In the canoe passage the tide was so low the bird’s beak kept hitting bottom.

  “My mother lay quietly. I poured some water between her lips and pushed a morsel of dried salmon past her teeth. She chewed out of obligation. The storm started to break over the strait and shafts of sunlight shot down from the clouds. I liked that boat—I can’t remember why—maybe I thought it would make my mother well again.

  “WE BUCKED THE TIDE. It took us until afternoon to catch sight of Broken Islands, and beyond them the clouds racing up the strait. We swung near Hope Village. I could see the beach, the midden, the houses, all deserted; no smoke, no people. The canoes were there, all right, pulled high on the beach, black against the white of the clam shell, but there was no one—not even the old or sick, who normally stay behind when the rest of the village moves to summer fishing grounds. Anyway, it was too early for the salmon run and the eulachons had gone. Besides, the roof planks and the wall planks were all there—like the canoes.

  “We headed west.

  “I was looking forward to going down the strait, especially in the blow. Children have no fear, not even when their little world is ending. Maybe they just don’t know that word, the ‘end.’ Anyway, I was hoping for a blow. Hell, I had been out there before; just me and my uncle, he was of the Killer Whal
e Clan. He loved killer whales. They would come into the strait in the summer, favored a bight on the big island, where the Nimpkish River brought the best morsels to the sea and attracted salmon. But my uncle didn’t go to fish; he went to pray.

  “He and I would paddle out to the bight just before slack tide and we would sit there, tearing smoked clams with our teeth off the yew skewers—goddamn clams harder than your boot sole—and my uncle would sit like a rock staring down at the water as if that would somehow make the killer whales sound. The air around the whirlpools smelled of the bottom of the sea.

  “Sometimes he would stand up and chant; at others he’d have a pee over the side. I was never sure which it was that brought up the whales, but my God, when they came! Always from the north. Always from the north. A small female led the herd—she used to sound with a quick fling of her head—then three or four young males side by side, some more females, and at the end the ‘old man,’ my uncle called him, with his tall fin split from battle. He would sound and hang in the air an improbably long time, shedding sheets of water, his big black body and white cheeks aglow in the sun, the smell of the spray he shot filling the air with stink, and my uncle there with his arms open wide, beaming with pride as if he had, by magic, conjured them from the deep. Maybe he did. I wouldn’t bet against it even now.

  “So he’d stand chanting, and he’d never notice the wakes from the whales coming at us, always on our beam as we drifted in the stream, and when they hit, he’d be taken by surprise, lose his balance, and as often as not fall into the sea.

  “The whales came every time, always together. They stick together all their lives; like us Injuns. Not like us whites.

  “THE CAPTAIN KEPT his steamer near the shore where the wind was calmer, but still we came down the strait bouncing, the bird bobbing. At the fork, instead of going on straight south to Victoria, he swung east up a sound toward the snowy mountains. We slowed, and the big bird banged the stern, and the captain came out and asked nicely how my mother was. By then she was so blind she didn’t even blink when I leaned down to her. Her skin began to slough away.

  “The captain said we could make better time if he went up the sound and left the bird with a friend on a homestead, then we could barrel on full speed to Victoria. But with the wind funneling up the sound, it was even rougher than the strait, so he would leave my mother and me for an hour on a sheltered little island. They rowed us ashore with some salmon and water and two blankets. Said she would eat better on firm ground. They put her in the lee of the salal, then steamed away, full speed, up the sound.

  “We never saw them again.

  “I covered her with the blankets, then cut some hemlock branches with an oyster shell and built a lean-to over her. I poured more water on her lips, but most of it ran down her face. I can’t remember how many days we stayed there. The sun was often out but the nights were cold.

  “It was a beautiful sunny morning when she died. There was a mist over the sea, and the water was so flat, you couldn’t tell where it ended and the shore began. The sun was on her face. I could tell she liked it. She sort of smiled. And it stayed. That smile. After a while, I put a raven feather under her nose like I’d seen my brother do with shot bear, but the feather didn’t move. I held it for a long time.

  “The next morning some crows came, so I began to bury her like our people do at the summer grounds where the shore is all rock. I built a house gently over her. Rocks, driftwood, bark, and lots of shells to make it pretty.

  “I can’t recall how many days passed before the church boat came down the sound and saw me standing on the shore. At first I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave my mother. They took me to Victoria, to a mission. Full of Indian kids with no parents. My father came at Christmas and took me to my nonna and nonno, near Pisa.

  “They say there were eight thousand of us Kwakiutl that spring, but barely nine hundred left by the fall.”

  15

  BEAR

  Now I shall press my right hand against your left hand. O friend! Now we press together our working hands that you may give over to me your power of getting everything easily with your hands, friend!

  —PRAYER OF Kwakiutl bear hunter after the kill

  T he wind had shifted; it came around the point and whipped the smoke of the fire in our faces. Charlie, who had been listening with his eyes fixed on Nello, absorbing if not understanding every word, got up and looked anxiously around for something to clear away and wash, but we had eaten with sticks and our fingers, so he backed shyly toward the woods, said, “Me back soon,” and walked toward a low hole in the brambles.

  “Just take care you don’t sit on a bear,” Nello called after him.

  The last of the crab claws burnt on the coals; no one wanted them. “There’s water in the creek,” Nello said. “And some nice blackberries.” When we didn’t respond, he went alone to the creek, knelt, and cupped his hands to drink.

  The sun beat warmly down. I closed my eyes and, with the breeze and smoke wafting over me, drifted off.

  A terrifying bellow shook the air. “Charlieee!” Nello howled. “Bear!” And he lunged head-down, like a madman, through the hole into the woods.

  Pumping the Winchester, I ran after him, gasping as I got to the hole where the brambles had been crushed, where, in the silt by a stream, bear tracks glistened, sharp-edged in the sun. I splashed up the creek hearing, “Charlie! Charlie!” up ahead. The cobweb light of the brambles ended and I burst into the forest gloom. Through the wall of cedars the light filtered from the shore, and bowers of colossal firs and hemlocks blocked the sky. There was no undergrowth; the bear trail swept on across the duff of rotted needles.

  A cry such as I had never heard, not even in the slaughterhouse of war, rose up ahead.

  I ran, leaping over fallen trunks, slipped and fell, holding the Winchester in the air. I found them in a hollow where the air reeked of bear. Nello stood at the foot of a giant cedar, staring up like Mary at the cross, and up on the tree trunk, the body hung slack, facing out. It hung by its white arms a few feet off the ground, the arms extended, its wrists wedged in the branches, the shoulders wrenched, the long hair covering the face, head tilted sadly sideways and down. Nello didn’t move. He stood with his powerful arms crossed strangely on his chest.

  I was struck by how well kept were the shoes dangling in the air and how white the shirt, tidily buttoned at the collar. But from the collar down, all the way to where the belt sagged slack and empty from the hips, there was a dark and gaping hollow, a cavern of ribs and shredded flesh. Something that seemed like a part of Nello moved and uttered a strangled sob. Only then did I see he had been holding Charlie, the little face buried in his chest. I looked back up at the body and thought, Thank God it’s over. Tears ran down my face. Nello, still holding Charlie, walked past me and looked up. “The pillow,” he said. “You know him?” I couldn’t reply. “Did you know him?” he repeated.

  Whoever he was, with that stubbly beard, he looked tired. The shreds of cedar bark that the bear’s claws had torn into ribbons gave the scene an aspect of festive sacrifice. Only then did I see that his wrists were tied with rope, and in his mouth what had seemed at first like a rolled-back tongue was a roll of cedar bark.

  He had been gutted, the soft parts gone. The bear had left only the pelvis and the ribs, and they already swarmed with flies and winding trails of ants. The holster on his belt was still snapped closed.

  It occurred to me that I should scramble up and cut him down, give him a decent burial, but the tide was turning, the pass was going slack. I crossed myself and left.

  A RYTHNMIC THUDDING came from the beach, an aggressive sound, like war drums. And I had both the guns. I ran through the half-light of the brambles and didn’t stop until I was at the gap, looking up and down the beach. The skiff was gone; the drumming was near. I eased myself into the sunlight of the empty beach. Behind a point of brambles, I heard the thud, thud, thud. I held the rifle waist-high; at this close range
there was no need to sight. As I stepped around the point, the drumming stopped. Standing with the hatchet in his hand, Hay blinked excitedly in the sun. At his feet lay the carved wolf’s head, surrounded by wood chips. “If I can cut the head off, it’ll fit under my bunk,” he said.

  Maybe it was the dead man, or the long days and sleepless nights, or the blinding beach after the forest gloom. Whatever it was, something in me snapped, and I fired the rifle, pumped and fired again and again. The cove shook with the echoes and the wolf’s head flew to pieces and lay shattered in the sand. I turned the gun on Hay with my finger still on the trigger. Out there, way out there, like out at sea, things change, things can happen. One forgets that anything exists but “out there.” Someone rang the ship’s bell. We didn’t move.

  “The tide’s turning,” I said.

  I shouldered the hot barrel and went down to the water’s edge to await the skiff’s return.

  16