by Gar LaSalle
They would depart when the shaman had traded enough to purchase the weapons and cannons Anah needed for the coming raiding season.
As Anah watched Klixuatan fumble with Jacob’s ropes, he began bellowing at the sky.
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And it was in this state of distraught agitation that René Marté and Eben Cull found Anah.
Marté had held back on approaching the Northerners, anticipating that if he could not succeed in bringing Emmy and Sarah to them before the negotiation, he would be better served by tracking Emmy afterward and returning with three captives instead of two.
Unfortunately for Marté, he did not understand the relationship between Anah and Jacob and thus had not expected the negotiation to fail. When Marté told Anah he had travelled with Jojo and Emmy and knew they were the negotiators behind Ksi Amawaal’s ploy, Anah became silent. He started chanting to himself.
Klixuatan and the other Northerners quietly backed away behind Marté. And then, in one swift motion, Anah drew his knife and leaped high at Cull, plunging his blade deeply into the man’s neck and downward into his chest.
As Cull collapsed, Anah whirled and pulled his blade across Marté’s throat.
Marté fell across Cull.
Wiping his knife on Marté’s back, Anah stood and then spit on their bodies.
Later that afternoon, Klixuatan returned with gold and other goods he had traded in exchange for the seven other captives. They struck camp and began preparations to move westward.
Safely hidden, Jojo watched them load their canoes and throw the trappers’ remains into the river.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
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Jojo
Jojo, Emmy and Sarah followed the four canoes from a safe distance, and fortunately, because the rain was constant now, visibility upstream was limited.
By the way the Northerners moved swiftly downstream, Jojo knew they were eager to depart the Tsimshian stronghold before anyone discovered who they really were. He knew Anah likely had what he wanted and almost certainly had assumed that Ksi Amawaal would behave as he, Anah, would have behaved himself, keeping the gold and killing the whites.
The river was moving swiftly now, and the ice had all but melted. They soon passed the shoal where they had escaped the bear. Thirty miles farther downstream, Jojo pulled them ashore to rest.
He moved into the woods and, a few miles downstream, found the Northerners encamped, all nine in their party huddled around one fire. Jojo watched for over an hour until all the men had moved under the canoes to sleep.
“I can see Jacob. There are no other captives, he told Emmy and Sarah on his return.
“How is he?” they both asked.
“He is not moving.”
“What do you mean? Is he sick?”
“He is gagged and tied and is being carried by the shaman.”
Jojo saw Emmy draw in a deep breath, then, as Sarah pulled close to her, lift up her head and recover.
“What is your plan, Jojo?” Emmy asked.
“We will need to follow them for another day. They are moving fast, and they will be close to Fort Simpson in less than two days. Tomorrow night we will move ahead past them and get soldiers from the fort to intercept them.”
“What if they move inland to avoid the fort?” asked Emmy hesitantly. “We will miss them then.”
Jojo nodded, considering the pain he heard in Emmy’s voice. He did not have an answer for her.
The next morning, they moved slowly down the stream, until Jojo pulled them aside a half-mile above the Haida camp and reconnoitered again.
Inspecting the ashes left from the fire on the shore, he knew the raiders had left at least an hour beforehand.
They followed again carefully, pulling aside frequently to allow Jojo to scout for a trap and prevent a blunder into Anah’s camp. The second night, he returned to Emmy and Sarah after three hours.
“They moved downstream much closer to the fort than I thought they would,” he told them. “They have moved their canoes up to the woods and are preparing to portage them and bypass the fort starting in the morning. That will slow them down, but we do not have time to wait until they are asleep and get to the fort in our canoe. I can get past them to the fort, but it will have to be on foot. Alone. You must wait here with Sarah for me to return.”
“And if they leave before you get back?” Emmy asked.
Jojo saw a fierce woman staring intensely at him.
“You must stay here,” he said. “You must wait for me to return with the soldiers. You will be safe here.”
Emmy and Sarah both were crying.
“How is Jacob now?” Sarah asked anxiously.
“He is drugged, most likely. I think that is why he is not moving. And they have him tethered to a tree,” Jojo said.
He saw his words were not reassuring to the women. “They are drinking whiskey. Much whiskey. They think they are safe from the Tsimshian. They are very drunk now. They will not be up early. I will be back in time, Missus Evers.”
Five minutes later, in the midst of another downpour and in black, cold darkness, Jojo departed for his run to the fort. He ached from the run, and the relentless rain had seeped through his sealskin, penetrating enough that his arms and legs were starting to numb.
As he pushed himself quietly through the forest, hoping he was far enough away to skirt the camp with some safety but close enough to the sound of the river to keep his bearings, he thought about the futility of it all if he did not succeed in his run to the fort—if he was too late, if Jacob was dying, or if Jacob was worse off because of the brutality of his experience by Anah.
Jojo thought about that ignorant, insane rogue, of Anah’s arrogance he had witnessed during the man’s negotiation with Ksi Amawaal, and the warrior’s cold, smooth murder of Marté and Cull. He thought about how some of the tribes he’d encountered during his travels with his father were savage and uncontrolled, but remembered that MaNuitu ’sta had taught him those tribes that had endured long enough to develop a culture around families had learned ways to control their young men and women.
But Anah was such a dominating monster, Jojo surmised that he really had never been controlled in any way by whomever had raised him. No comeuppance, no responsibility to anything other than unbridled passion. There was a failure in that clan’s culture, and the very thing that likely had given it strength — the far-reaching terrifying reputation of Anah — almost certainly had caused the clan to rot from the inside out.
Jojo had seen that by how all of the other men in his party watched Anah move and deferred to his slightest gestures. He was like a mean, rogue bear heading a pack of hungry dogs.
Jojo wondered whether Anah was an evil, unkillable, unstoppable spirit.
The rain stopped; he could again hear the audible marks of his movement and realized he was making too much noise. He slowed down, then stopped and listened.
No other sounds.
It started to rain again, so he ran for several more minutes until he came to the break in the woods where he was certain the Northerners were likely to portage away from the river.
He then stopped and listened again, waiting for the rain to quiet.
It finally did.
Nothing.
He was about to move again when he heard it—behind him the muffled snapping of soggy twigs being broken by footsteps.
Had he been discovered?
He cocked the pistol under his sealskin, unlatched his knife in its sheath, and stopped. Listened.
No more sounds from the direction of the encampment, but there definitely was something coming through the brush off to his right.
Animal? It was too dark to make out anything. Too much time lost. He had to run now, and as he did so, he felt a bitter terror at the thought of being overtaken
by one of the Northerners, possibly Anah himself, and then being cut down short. Failing.
He threw down the pistol—too much to risk on wet powder—then ran as fast as he could. There would be no time for a fight, in any case. If a Northerner sentry was pursuing him, his only chance was to make straight for the fort. And then he would have to avoid being shot down at the fort’s gates by a sleepy soldier sentry.
He wondered if he would survive.
Running harder now, he pulled his knife out of its sheath and smiled at the irony of it all.
Chapter Forty
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Emmy and Anah
Emmy was exhausted. Still, she lay awake most of the night waiting.
When she did nod off, she drifted into the day and saw herself facing the Northerners, spiriting Jacob away from them. Then she and Isaac were together again. He was disagreeing with where they should go with Jacob, and their son was confused, and she heard the Northerners coming back to her home on Whidbey again.
This time she told Isaac, who was hurt, to lie down and hide because she would take care of Jacob.
Then the Northerners were pounding at the door again, and Rowdy her dog was trying to help, and the children were safe, and Isaac was safe.
She startled awake, regained her bearings, and pulled out Isaac’s pocket watch. It was five in the morning, and Jojo had not returned.
She could contain herself no longer. She turned to Sarah and gently woke her.
“Sarah, I have to see what is happening to Jacob. You must remain here and wait for Jojo. When he comes, tell him I am moving closer to the Haida. Tell him I will stay close to the river.”
Sarah understood and nodded.
Emmy smeared mud on her face and hands, pulled her sealskin tightly around her body, cinched the belt on her breeches, and moved downstream.
She walked carefully, and by early light, after a one-hour trek along a deer path that bordered the river, she found the camp.
All the men were still asleep under the canoes they had moved fifty yards up from the river in preparation to portage past the stretch of river that bordered the fort.
Jacob was off to the side, tied to a tree, just as Jojo had described.
The sight of her boy, alive after three months, overwhelmed Emmy, and she began to weep silently. Then she shook herself and regained her composure, watching for a few more minutes.
No one was stirring. They might not awaken for a few more hours, she reasoned. If she could get Jacob before they moved inland and carry him back upstream, they could meet up with Jojo when he returned. If she waited, they might move away into an area where she was certain the soldiers would not follow. Then she would lose Jacob again. Perhaps forever.
She waited five more minutes. No sign of Jojo. The warriors still were not stirring.
She decided.
Holding her breath and fighting the urge to run directly to her son, Emmy moved in measured steps, knowing that one foot caught on the underbrush might awaken the sleeping captors.
She became dizzy and forced herself to stop; take a deep, quiet breath; and let the pounding in her chest subside. With Jacob so close to her, the deliberateness of this caution, with each agonizing, careful step, was punishingly cruel, she thought to herself.
And then, when she got close enough to make out his features, she saw he was gagged, uncovered, soaking wet, and slumped over. And for a painful, sinking moment, pushing her hopes down toward the abyss of despair, she saw that Jacob wasn’t moving, and she thought she had failed—that her little boy was dead.
But then he sighed and her heart began pounding again.
With contained, focused, and agile movement, Emmy untied him. He was barely conscious.
She kept the gag in his mouth, pulled him up, and threw his small body over her shoulder, noting to herself that he had lost weight since he had been taken.
She turned and started to move away from the camp, quickly, so that she almost walked directly into two long stakes jutting out at the river’s edge. In the early dawn light breaking through the trees, she saw that the poles had heads on them: Marté and Cull.
She shuddered and moved upstream.
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Anah had slept fitfully, despite drinking heavily that night. He was not accustomed to whiskey and had always preferred to watch others lose their composure when they drank it. He could take advantage then.
But on this night, he had felt anxious and was still angry that Marté had not come to him with information that would have given him an advantage over Ksi Amawaal. He had gold from the sale of his slaves, enough to buy two cannons from the French, who did not accept slaves as currency anymore. They would sell him the weapons willingly because they hated the Brits and knew how much trouble Anah was likely to cause them.
Anah had enough for purchase of a good quantity of powder and canistered grape shot as well, which would devastate any attackers should anyone be foolish enough to fight him.
In a wild stupor from the liquor that night, he had lurched over to the wolverine boy and saw that he was starting to wake up from the drugs that Klixuatan had administered. He was regaining his strength.
Anah hollered over to Klixuatan to give the boy another dose, and after the old shaman did so, Anah slipped on the skinned-face mask of Jacob’s father.
When the drug achieved its hallucinatory effect, Anah would dance and control him again, countering the curse from Isaac’s father.
But the whiskey and fatigue of the day swept over Anah, and he passed out drunk, still wearing the grisly face of Isaac.
That night he dreamed of his elusive friend, Death. It saw him wearing the powerful mask and stopped. It stopped for him and was turning for him finally, waiting. They would be allies after all.
Anah was the first to waken that morning, and as he stood unsteadily to urinate by the stream, he looked over to where the little wolverine was tethered.
He had escaped!
And then he heard sounds from the west and saw four long boats of red-coated soldiers moving upriver. The boy had escaped and had taken his power with him.
Hollering an alarm over to Klixuatan, Anah looked to the ground to see where the little wolverine had gone. Despite the rain-soaked ground, he could make out deep, small footprints moving away from the tethers and down toward the beach.
He followed. He would need the boy.
Behind him, Anah heard Klixuatan groggily waking the other men and the hollering of the soldiers in the oncoming boats. They had seen the encampment.
Anah moved down to the river and followed the tracks upstream until he came to a long stretch of beach. He saw Jacob draped over the shoulder of what looked like a small man carefully wending his way over the wide, rock-covered beach.
Was it Death, carrying away his power?
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Emmy had moved as quickly as she could along the low riverbank, avoiding catching herself on exposed tree roots or twisting her ankles on the large rocks polished round by the river. She had traversed a half mile when she heard hollering from downriver, several rounds of rifle shots, and then more hollering.
When she turned, in the distance she saw red-coated soldiers coming ashore, firing into the woods. And then in the foreground, only fifty yards away, she saw someone walking unsteadily over the smooth stones, following her.
He had a knife drawn.
She lay Jacob down and stepped in front of him to protect him. She would fight the man.
But the man moved directly to Jacob and swung at her with his knife.
Emmy ducked, but the blade sliced through her parka, cutting into her left shoulder, and she lost her balance and fell.
Pushing herself back up, she heard herself scream, “Get away from him!”
But the man ignored her and stooped d
own toward her son. As the figure pulled Jacob up and onto his shoulder, he turned and faced her.
It was Isaac!
But then Emmy realized it wasn’t her husband. The facial mask of Isaac on the man had been pulled tightly back, and she recognized the blond beard and the smooth, straight, silky hair . . . but peering through the eye slits were two evil, hard, obsidian black coals burning straight from hell. This was the specter, the one that had followed her in nightmares for months, the monster that had destroyed her family and changed her life forever.
The man raised his knife to Jacob’s throat as a warning to Emmy. Then he turned and started to walk away.
Following them, she shouted, “Put him down!”
The man kept walking, ignoring her.
As he increased his pace, she shouted again, “Put him down, you bastard!”
He stopped and turned. He stared at her defiantly, and as the lower part of the mask flapped away in the morning wind, Emmy could see him grinning triumphantly.
It was a grisly sneer that sent a furious chill deep down into her core and immediately reawakened the encompassing wretched and miserable despair she had suffered at this man’s hands.
A cold, calm clarity settled onto her that was right and just and perfect for this moment. From less than ten feet away, Emmy drew out the pepperbox. She pulled the trigger and put a bullet squarely through the smiling haunt-mask of Isaac and into the forehead of the savage.
Chapter Forty-One
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Sarah
Jojo had found Jacob’s keepsakes, recovered from Klixuatan’s purse, which the savage had used to hex her brother and had given them to Sarah.
Presciently, Sarah had carried several things on the trip that both she and Jacob had shared, like the arrow head they had pried from the remains of a fossilized skull bone of some large animal, found in the plowed ground of their parents’ farm; and several items that only he would know, little treasures she took out of his trouser pockets and his bureau from home after the attack: a polished burr, a brass button, a blue-brown steely marble, a spent ticket from their trip to Victoria, several pieces of rounded sand-buffed colored glass.
