I Heard The Owl Call My Name

by Margaret Craven

  When the huge grave was dug and ready, forty boxes were placed in it, and all the broken bones and bits of ancient grave posts and carvings. The men who had done the work buried also the clothes they had worn. Then on a sunny, clear morning, Mark held a brief service and the grave was covered. When it was over, he saw relief in the eyes of the old, and again T. P. spoke for them.

  ‘At last a man has come to us who has seen to it that our dead can rest in peace.’

  When he returned along the little path to the village, Mark stopped at the house of Peter, the carver, and sat a moment on the steps to chat.

  ‘When spring comes, grass will grow over the huge new grave,’ Peter said. ‘The air will be sweet smelling again from the wild flowers, and the old people will walk there often.’

  ‘Why will they go there, Peter?’ Mark asked slowly. ‘To be sure that at last our dead are safe from the hamatsa.’

  ‘I do not know the myth of the hamatsa.’

  ‘The myth is a story. There is no harm in the myth, and I will tell it to you.

  ‘A young man was ready to dance and he did not know what dance to do. He stood up in his red cedar bark dress, and he threw off his blankets, and he walked up a mountain until he came to a lake and saw a loon. The loon said, “I know why you have come and I will help you,” and he led him to a house from which smoke came and told him to enter. The doorkeeper let him in and asked him to sit, and the second man, who was the cannibal man, asked why he had come, and the young man answered, “Because I want to be as you are ‘ ‘And then?’ Mark asked.

  ‘And then the cannibal man went behind a screen and came out with a body, and he gobbled up one, and he gobbled up two, and he gobbled up four, because that is the ceremonial number, and a lady followed him around and put the bones in a basket. Then he danced four times around the house and disappeared up a pole, and he put into the young man the whistle which makes the cannibal cry, and he tied hemlock branches to his wrists and ankles to protect him, and the young man did the dance as he had been shown, and returned to his village.

  ‘And one night his people decided to give a dance. They lighted a pitch pole and sent four of the villagers to bring water, but none came back. They heard the hamatsa cry and recognized the young man, and they knew he had been bewitched by the cannibal man and had eaten the four people.

  ‘They sang their songs and piled food boxes to the ceremonial house roof and the roof opened, and they heard a skull roll down its side, and were afraid.

  ‘The next night his people tried to get the young man into the house to tame him, and he came four times on four nights, and they thought he was safely cured because he had fallen in love with a maiden. On the last night they knew he was not cured, so they killed him with magic,. and he returned to the wood and was not seen again. And this is the myth which the old men tell and it is harmless.’

  ‘And the dance was based on the myth?’

  ‘Yes. In the winter ceremonials, the hamatsa dance was the last and it took four nights. The young man who did it disappeared from the village and he lived beyond the old burial ground in a little cedar house hidden in the deep woods. I know, because when I was a young boy, my father’s house was the last in the vil­lage, and I was the one who took him food.

  ‘My friend, you cannot imagine what it was like —the tribe waiting on the first night of the dance, and the hamatsa coming at last, crying in the woods. In my father’s day if anyone laughed, if he made a mistake in the dances, he was killed. In my father’s day when the hamatsa entered on the second night of the dance carry­ing a real body taken from the old burial ground, the women were afraid, and they said, “Is the body from my family’s tree? Is it One of ours?” When I was a boy the hamatsa carried no body because the government forbade it, and he only pretended to bite people, hold­ing a piece of seal liver in his mouth. As a boy I saw the scars on the arms of the old men, and I heard the tales.’

  Then Peter was silent, and Mark left him and walked along down the path through the woods.

  How had it been in the old days when the magic, and supernatural spirits, and the cannibal man who lived at the north end of the world had dominated life here in this village? How had it been when the hamatsa had come in the night through the great trees, crying his soft and terrible call? He would never know. No man would ever know. But Mark had seen the light of the old, old ways reflected on the faces like the glow from a dying campfire, and he knew that it was the hamatsa who had been freed at last from his holy madness, and was at peace in the deep woods.

  16

  FALL CAME GENTLY WITH THE SECOND BLOOMING of the dog­wood. No wind blew, the clouds hung low over the village, and the rains were soft. When Mark and Jim came home from patrol, Keetah was always waiting on the black sands, and Gordon’s uncle also.

  Had Caleb written? And how did it go with Gordon? Did he miss his village?

  ‘Caleb has written and it does not go well. Gordon can’t eat. He can’t sleep. He is losing weight,’ and in the evening in the cedar houses along the path the old ones spoke the same words, softly and with hope. ‘He will come back to us as Jim came back. He is still an Indian.’

  Then Caleb’s letters brightened. Gordon was study­ing hard and well. He planned to do two years’ work in one. In the little cedar houses along the path, the old nodded their heads. ‘And by the end of the year, he will be cured of his madness and he will return to his people.’

  Slowly, as the needles fell, the waters of the inlet grew less dear, and on the river floated the first green leaves of the alders. When the nights cooled, the little berry bush burned crimson under the great, dark cedar, and on one deep green island side, a single cottonwood turned gold.

  Now the land belonged first to the wild fowl. Coming up the inlet, Mark would stop the engine of the little boat to hear the loud calling of the first immense flocks of snow geese on their way from Siberia to the Sacra­mento Valley. He knew the white fronts that came from Bristol Bay; and watched for the white markings on the dark necks of the Canada geese. He knew the black brants that fed late on the eel grass of Izemberg Bay, passing high over the village like a long whisper, like a sigh, on their way to Baja California.

  Here every bird and fish knew its course. Every tree had its own place upon this earth. Only man had lost his way. Then, when the geese had passed, and the bear and the little hibernating animals had hidden them­selves for their long sleep, the white trunks of the alders stood stripped and stark across the river, and man be­gan to emerge, to prove again his capacity for endu­rance and faithfulness. It was in loneliness the Indians had lived through all the centuries, and it was in lone­liness Mark came to know them best.

  He relied on Jim as he had never relied on anyone, yet their friendship was forged in the long hours on the boat in which neither spoke an unnecessary word. And always there was the trip in the little open boat up the cold river, and the vicarage waiting with the warm food on the back of the stove that Marta had placed there, the clothes Keetah had washed and ironed, the wood old Peter had cut and stacked, the piece of fish or game set aside from each and every hunt. And there were the Indians who dropped by in the evening to offer help or ask it, and the children who entered without knock­ing to stand, motionless, watching him from their big, soft eyes, smiling shyly.

  Thus fall flowed past the village like the river, and again Mark stood in the small hushed church on Christmas Eve with the candlelight glowing on the golden eagle, watching the lights go out, and his people coming down the path through the trees. When he opened the door to meet them, he saw that Gordon had come home to his village.

  He saw Gordon with a surge of pride and a twinge of anguish. Gone was the shy and eager boy in the fisherman’s trousers and jacket, the dark hair a little long on the neck. How much he had changed and how fast —a handsome young man in his city suit, his white shirt and tie, and on his face the discipline that marked the size of his battle.

  When he came up the steps with Keetah, M
ark held out his hand and said, ‘Welcome home, Gordon. And how does it go with you?’ and Gordon answered gravely, ‘It goes well, Mark. Thank you,’ and he shook hands as does the white man.

  Now the wind of unease was again in the village —even here in the church. When T. P., Gordon’s grand­father, came to the rail and held up his hands for the bread from the paten, Mark saw that the fine old man could not keep them from trembling.

  Each day Mark and Jim set out early to take Christ­mas to the hand-logger and his family, to Calamity Bill, and the remote camps, and to the other villages. Each time they returned, the village was full of mutterings:

  ‘Gordon does not even look like an Indian. Have you not noticed?’

  ‘He does not dip his fish into the gleena. He speaks down to us. He is critical of ways he has known all his life.’

  ‘That is natural. One must expect it. He will finish his year at school and return to stay. He will return as Jim came back to us, and he will let his hair grow and put on his old clothes, and he will be one of us, and free.’

  One evening there was a knock at the vicarage and when Mark answered the door, Gordon’s grandfather and uncle waited in the dark. He asked them to come in and to be seated. When they had done so, it was the grandfather who spoke.

  ‘We are having a family dinner for Gordon. Since we know that on the night it is to be held you will be on patrol, we have come to tell you of our plans for him.’

  ‘I can tell you some of the plans, T. P. I have seen the change in him as you have seen it, and I have tried to stand in your shoes. When he returns in the summer you will give a great potlatch and at it you will give him the ceremonial rites of your family, and the dances that have come down in it.’

  ‘Yes, that is part of it. When the rains have ceased, the men of the family will build his house, and when he and Keetah are married, we will give them a fine wedding with the canoes moving up and down the river bringing the guests, and all the houses of the vil­lage filled, and a great wedding feast.’

  And the uncle said quickly, And next year I shall remain in the village during the fishing. Gordon will be in charge of the gill-netter. When the run is good, he will make as much as four thousand dollars in the season. No young man in the village will have so fine a future.’

  The old man leaned forward.

  ‘Mark, will you urge him to agree?’

  ‘No, I will not. This is something he must decide. I am sure he knows it now, because he is avoiding me. If he comes back to stay, I shall be proud of him. If he decides to remain outside, although it breaks your hearts, in the end you will be proud of him also.’

  Mark and Jim were at another village on the night the dinner was given for Gordon. Neither mentioned it, nor forgot it. In his mind Mark could see them, the old and middle-aged of the family clan, gathered in T. P.’s old cedar house beneath the dark trees, and he could see T. P. making his appeal in the ancient Kwák­wala, the others listening, waiting for Gordon’s answer.

  A gale delayed their return. When at last they came up the river in the grey rain, the village was still. Not an Indian was visible. When they entered the vicarage, no child came to welcome them. They knew now Gordon’s answer.

  He came after dark. With him was Keetah.

  ‘You have decided?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Yes. I asked time to consider, and for two days and nights I have thought of nothing else. But that is not why I have come. I have come to ask if you will take me to Alert Bay in the morning where I can get the plane?’

  ‘Of course. You know I will.’

  ‘Then I will go now and tell my grandfather I want to remain outside, that I want to go to the university. I want to be the first of my people to enter a profession. When I left here it was like taking a knife and cutting a piece out of myself, but to tell my grandfather I do not wish to come back to stay — this is to take a knife and cut through the flesh and bone of my own people.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Mark, I cannot come home again. I have changed too much. It is my mind that has changed. I can never come home again.’

  ‘Some day you will be able to live in both worlds. And I will tell you something, Gordon, as I told your grandfather. You will represent your people in the out­side world, and they will be proud of you. And even if you cannot return, you will find that the work you do, the kind of man you are, all that is deepest and best in you will be based on what you have learned here. And one more thing. Tell me — what of Keetah?’

  ‘She will go with me. I can’t leave her. She will go with me. She does not promise to stay, but she will try.’

  Early the next morning before dawn the four went down the river to the float. When they left on the larger boat, Gordon remained on the aft deck in the cold rain, looking up at the mountains and the steep green sides of the inlet. Keetah said goodbye to nothing. She made coffee and carried the mugs into the cabin for Mark and Jim. Not once did she look directly at either.

  When they reached Alert Bay, there was only time to catch the seaplane and for a hasty handshake. When Mark and Jim returned to the boat to start home, it was Jim who spoke first.

  ‘Keetah will come back. She knows it now.’

  ‘Gordon will do well, and in the end he will be able to live in both worlds,’ Mark said. ‘But if Keetah is not strong enough to return by choice and not by failure, she will never again be able to live in either.’

  PART FOUR

  Come wolf, come swimmer

  17

  ONE AFTERNOON IN JANUARY the weather turned very cold, and on the river in any little protected spot where the current was not so swift, ice began to form. For two days all the able men of the tribe broke ice in a desperate attempt to keep the river free that the boats might move, but on the third night Mark, who had taken his turn, awoke to the sound of the canoes being dragged up on the bank, and he arose and made a huge pot of coffee to take to them.

  The next morning the children were walking glee­fully across the river on the firm ice, and by afternoon the men were walking across also to drag back any wood that would burn, because now the village was ice-bound and no boat could go for oil, or propane.

  To keep fed, to keep warm, to keep alive. No woman said, ‘I am sorry. I have only enough fuel for my own family,’ and no man said, ‘It is true that I have shot a deer. I am freezing what I do not need now. I cannot share with you friend.’

  Then huge wet flakes fell in place of the dry snow and ice began to break in the river, and Mark and Jim reached the float by canoe, and went by boat to the float store to bring back food and forty-five gallon drums of oil and one hundred pound tanks of propane.

  Men of the tribe met them at the float to help load the canoes, the snow still falling heavily, the mountains and the sides of the inlet ghostly white in the night. And it seemed to Mark that the river was life itself, flowing by the village with all its wonder and its agony.

  When the cold rain replaced the snow, there was ill­ness in the village. Twice the hospital ship reached the float, and Jim and Mark brought the doctor by canoe to the village. The kitchen of the vicarage became a clinic, and the doctor trudged down the wet soggy paths visit­ing those too old or too sick to come to him. And twice an elder was wrapped in blankets, and carried in the bottom of a canoe in a heavy rain to the hospital boat and on to Alert Bay. But nobody died.

  In February the clamming at Gilford began, and for the first time in six weeks Mark reached the other vil­lages of his patrol. In the log book he wrote ‘full gale’ again and again, hiding out the storms in some little cove on the leeward side of an island. And when he reached the small villages, the little portable altar was set up in the schoolhouse or a private dwelling, a hymn or two sung with someone playing the accordion or the banjo. It was always the same. It was not fine sermons they sought now in the long cruel winter. It was com­munion.

  Mark and Jim spent five days in the other vil­lages and on the way home, when they went through Whale Pass and could
see the white Kingcome Moun­tains, they passed the A-frame on Calamity’s float, and, as he always did, Mark looked to see if smoke was com­ing from Calamity’s little shack. None was.

  ‘He’s probably away,’ Jim said. ‘All the big camps are still closed because of the snow. Nothing but a skeleton crew left anywhere. I expect some logging boat stopped and took him out.’

  ‘Pull up alongside, Jim. I’d better check.’

  How many times he had stopped to hide out a gale or to chat, and always Calamity had taken out the carved walrus tusk which was the cribbage board, and always he had said, ‘Just one game, Mark, while I put on a mite of supper.’

  But this time when he knocked at the door, no rough voice answered him, and he opened the door and step­ped in. There was the table with its ancient oilcloth cover, and the coffee pot, doubtless half full of grounds, waiting for Calamity to toss in a handful of coffee and boil it up again. There was the broken easy chair, and on the cot in the corner lay Calamity.

  Mark pulled the chair close to the cot and sat down, and he reached over and touched the shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter, old-timer? Did you get hit by a widow-maker?’

  ‘I knew you’d come, lad. I been waiting. I went up­side to check the snow and damned if I didn’t slip off the cliff and wake up with the tide lickin’ at my boots. Had to drag myself to the shack.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Four days; maybe. All I need is some food within reach and the stove going, and I’d take it kindly if you’d move the cot so I can put in a stick now and then.’