McKean 02 The Neah Virus

by Thomas Hopp

  The woman was dressed more strikingly than anyone in the room. Her shoulders were wrapped in a red, black, and mother-of-pearl button blanket, and on her head was a headdress of soft doeskin with a raised tiara-like front covered in geometric patterns of small, light and dark seashells. Her lustrous black hair hung in braids on each side. Her long dress of pale doeskin was ornamented with small, olive-shaped shells hung in pairs on short leather strands, tapping together in a chorus of clacking sounds as she moved. On her feet were doeskin moccasin boots adorned with colored feathers that fluttered with each step.

  Ginny Musselshell noticed me looking and leaned across the table. “Tleena’s kids are going to dance in honor of Alma Kingfisher’s ninety-sixth birthday.”

  The boom of a single loud drumbeat silenced every conversation. In the corner where Tleena had finally gathered the children, five men sat around a three-foot-wide painted tom-tom. They wore headbands of woven cedar bark, jeans and black felt vests with totem animal designs appliqued in red. Some wore single eagle feathers in their black hair. Having gotten everyone’s attention with their first loud impact, they settled into a moderately-paced rhythm using leather tipped beater sticks.

  At the first sound of the drum, Tleena began arranging the children into a line, one after another, in the open floor space at the center of the room, around which the elders’ tables were arranged. When the children were organized to her satisfaction, she nodded to the drummers. They intensified their beat and raised their voices in a chant, “Wo-ee-ello-ee-ello! Wo-ee-ello-ee-ello!”

  The children began a slow dance step, moving their bodies up and down by bending their knees and pantomiming a stroke of their paddles timed to the cadence of the drummers’ chant, urged along by their attentive headmistress, who stood at the rear of their line. They raised their paddles in unison and pulled a slow right-handed stroke in the imaginary water beside their imaginary canoe, took a step, and then pulled a similar stoke on their left. As they moved forward in unison in their rhythmic knee-bending motion, they gave the impression of a canoe crew paddling across a rolling ocean. Advancing across the open floor space, they beamed with pride at their achievement. The elders smiled back. A sense of communion hung thick in the air between the new generation and the old. I, too, was swayed by the rhythm of the drum and lulled by the gentle melody. I felt privileged to witness something timeless, a moment that echoed across generations of Makah tradition.

  Tleena held a paddle as well. She joined in as the last person in the canoe line, smiling proudly at the approval her children got from the elders. As she dipped her paddle into the invisible water and moved to the music, it was clear she had danced this dance many times and now carried out each ritualized motion with a fine and subtle style. I noticed she was most agreeably shaped. Her curves were outlined momentarily under the doeskin each time she bent her knees in the paddle motion. Enchanted by the beauty of her movements and the cadence of the drums, I felt afloat on a placid ocean with Tleena and her crew.

  The canoe line paralleled our table. As Tleena moved past me, I saw that she was extremely beautiful - mild facial features, honey-colored skin, gentle amber-brown eyes and a delicate jaw line that made her look smallish in the mouth and correspondingly cute.

  She held her paddle in hands that were fine-boned and delicate, and as she swung it back and forth in time to her step I noticed the lack of a wedding band on her left hand. I wondered if Makah culture was so different from mainstream America that she would wear some other token of marriage. As she followed the line of children in the canoe’s slow circuit of the floor space, I saw on the back of her red blanket a black Raven design outlined in pearly buttons.

  Eventually, the canoe passed the last table and the drummers hit three loud beats and stopped. Tleena ushered the children up to the front of the room to take a bow and the elders applauded heartily. McKean, Curtis, and I joined in the applause until Tleena guided the children to some small tables on one side of the room for a salmon lunch of their own.

  Alma Kingfisher spoke up from the head of our table. “Why haven’t you fellows eaten your sea spinach?” She looked from McKean to Curtis to me, and then lifted her fork and took up some of the green paste I had assumed was regular spinach, never having heard of sea spinach. She ate the bite, savoring its taste with an approving smile, and then gestured to us that we should try ours. McKean and Curtis each took forkfuls of the dark and unappealing green mush and raised it to their mouths. Never a fan of spinach, I forked up a small bit, held it under my nose and sniffed at it. The seaweedy, sulfurous, and muttony aroma that rose from it killed my enthusiasm. But Curtis and McKean politely tried theirs. Alma Kingfisher watched them expectantly. “Well?” she asked after a moment.

  McKean swirled the goo on his tongue and then swallowed twice. He said diplomatically, “An intriguing taste.” Alma and the other elders watched amusedly as he set his fork down and didn’t take another bite.

  Beside him, Leon Curtis had unobtrusively lifted his napkin and spit his mouthful into it. Alma grinned and asked, “Something wrong, Leon?”

  “I’m not too hungry right now.” He crumpled the napkin and set it on his plate.

  Alma turned to me next. “How about you, Mr. Morton?”

  I still held the forkful of sea spinach in front of my mouth. Compelled by the stares of Alma and the others I took a small nibble. The paste sat offensively on my tongue - a sticky, seaweedy, vaguely nauseating mass of slime. Even though I had taken very little from the fork, the glob of goo seemed much too big to swallow.

  “Well?” Alma asked again.

  I forced myself to swallow and the sticky mess slid down my throat in a queasy, slithering way that made me feel seasick. I swallowed a second and third time, my eyes dimming as I force the offensive glop down. Everyone at the table awaited my response. “That’s uhh - ” I gulped again, searching for a word. “Different.”

  Alma laughed delightedly. “Yes, it sure is. You want some more?”

  I waved a negative hand gesture. “No, thanks.”

  “Going to finish what you’ve got?” She looked from one to the other of us with a perverse pleasure in her eye.

  McKean was game enough to take up his fork again and try another small bite. He rolled it on his tongue like a connoisseur savoring a sip of an unusual but intriguing wine. Curtis, however, shook his head no. Alma grinned at me expectantly.

  Deciding to end the matter gallantly, I took a deep breath, picked up my fork and swept up the entire remaining mass. I poked it into my mouth and immediately gulped it, relieved that it slid down my throat with less negative reaction than before.

  Tleena came to the table to wish Alma Kingfisher happy birthday and then she and Curtis exchanged familiar greetings. She turned to McKean and put out her hand. “I’m Tleena Steel, and you must be the famous Dr. McKean.”

  “Steel?” he inquired as they shook hands. “Any relation to Gordon Steel?”

  “He’s my father,” she said, causing me a moment of astonishment that this native beauty could share any relationship with the haggard old man. “I’ve heard so much about you from Leon,” she went on. “He says you’re going to solve the mystery of the grave.” Her large dark eyes glowed with an intelligent light.

  “I’ll do my best,” McKean replied.

  She looked down the table at me and asked, “And, who’s this?”

  McKean said, “Tleena Steel, meet Fin Morton.” She came around the table and held out her hand, which I gladly took, searching for words to complement her dance and her beauty. However, she quickly let go of my hand and drew back a pace. She looked down the front of me and her expression changed to shock and amusement.

  “What?” I asked reflexively.

  “Your - ” she stammered, pointing down at my lap. “You need to, um, adjust your blanket.”

  I looked down and saw that I had unconsciously let my left hand release its grasp on the blanket, exposing my pale-skinned lap and white skivvy briefs. I q
uickly gathered the edges of the blanket. I grinned sheepishly with the heat of a deep blush warming my cheeks. I said lamely, “Sorry.”

  She smiled at me sympathetically. “You’ve had a tough day, haven’t you Mr. Morton? But at least you ate all your sea spinach.” She pointed at the trace of green goo that remained on my plate.

  “What is that stuff, anyway?” I asked, hoping to change the subject while I pulled the blanket tighter around me.

  “A recipe my father has been experimenting with. Something from old times. Would you like some more?”

  Mesmerized by the smile that lit her face, I was as pliant as clay. “Sure,” I murmured. “I’d love to have some more.”

  She hurried away to the kitchen and reappeared carrying an oblong wooden bowl carved in the shape of a whale. It had a human face on one end and human feet on the other with soles up to give the impression of a whale’s tail. In the hollow of the bowl was a formidable mass of sea spinach. She set the bowl down in front of me and used a wooden spoon carved like an otter to plop another green gob on my plate.

  I hesitated, thinking there were limits beyond which I wouldn’t go to get Tleena’s approval. The rank mudflat aroma from the new glob made my stomach turn. “What’s in it?” I asked, stalling as I took up a forkful and dubiously eyed the congealed, greasy mass.

  “Let’s see,” said Tleena. “There’s seaweed - “

  I screwed up the courage to take another mouthful as she continued, ” - two kinds of leaves and a root - “

  In my mouth, the stuff seemed to take on a life of its own, coating my tongue until I almost gagged. My senses rebelled at the oily consistency and sulfurous aroma.

  ” - and vitamin W,” she concluded.

  “Vitamin W,” McKean repeated. “Never heard of it. What is it?”

  “My father calls it vitamin W,” Tleena said with a laugh. “But it’s really whale oil.”

  Whale!

  I stopped in mid-swallow, but only managed to choke myself. With the wind cut off to my lungs, I doubled over and clutched at my throat. Everyone around the table reacted in alarm as I gagged, unable to inhale or exhale. I began to think only the Heimlich maneuver could save me - but I finally managed to swallow the mass and haul in a ragged breath.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Tleena said, thumping an open palm on my back. “Are you alright?”

  My breathing returned to normal. I pointed at the remainder of the sea spinach on my plate. “If this has whale oil in it, I don’t think I should eat it.”

  Gasps and murmurs around the room made me realize such a statement was not to be made lightly at a Makah dining table. “That is,” I said with my breathing still spasmodic and my mind rushing, “I just don’t believe in killing them, that’s all.”

  That made things worse. A cold silence fell over the table. Realizing I had offended everyone present, I looked imploringly at Tleena. A scornful word from her would make my isolation complete. Instead, she managed a forbearing smile. “Oh, no you don’t!” she said in the tone of a schoolteacher managing a petulant child. “You’re not getting off that easily.” She grabbed up the carved spoon, dug it deeply into the whale bowl and splatted a huge glob of the concoction on my plate. “Now eat!”

  Hard pressed by scowls and dubious expressions on all sides, I realized Tleena had offered me the only path to redemption. I picked up my fork and shoveled a big gob into my mouth and quickly gulped it down. The sight of me chastened by Tleena triggered uproarious laughter around the table. Seeing how Tleena’s good graces had given me a path back to social acceptability, I swept up the last forkfuls of the sea spinach from my plate and bolted them down. As I did so, the tension around the table abated.

  “Not so bad after all?” Tleena asked, patting my shoulder.

  “Not so bad,” I allowed. An unexpected thrill started where her hand touched me and coursed throughout my entire frame. While I pondered her powerful effect on me, she glanced across the room at the fidgeting brood of children. “I’d better get back to my kids.”

  “Which children are yours?” I asked, thinking this interesting woman had just declared herself married and a mother.

  She looked at me for a long moment and then laughed. “Why, all of them, of course. I’m a teacher at Neah Bay Elementary School.” She watched my face for a moment. Another warm flush spread over my cheeks.

  “I’d better get going,” she said, flashing a smile and then hurrying off to the children’s tables. I watched her organize her brood into a double-file line for the walk back to school. My heart rate slowed from the gallop it had reached when she was near.

  “Here you go,” said a voice behind me.

  Arnie Musselshell stood there, his arms heaped with my clothes, which were now washed, dried, and neatly folded. Even my jogging shoes had been dried and cleaned up.

  I thanked him and hurried to the men’s room clutching the bundle of laundry under one arm and clasping the blanket tightly closed with the other hand. I got dressed quickly and came out and handed the blanket to the old man. I looked around for Tleena and the children but they were gone. McKean and Curtis were in the foyer, putting on their coats and rain gear.

  “There you are, Fin!” said McKean. “Our bone sample is duly approved, not without some dissenting opinion, of course. This would be a good time to fetch your Mustang and hightail for Seattle.”

  I trailed Curtis and McKean out to the street feeling a little queasy from too many helpings of sea spinach. As we walked along the wet asphalt toward the Spanish fort, I asked if they’d had much trouble convincing Alma Kingfisher and the elders to let the bone sample go to Seattle.

  “Answer: no,” McKean responded. “Most elders are ambivalent and only Gordon Steel is firmly opposed. While he speaks with authority on some matters of tradition, he doesn’t have veto power in an issue like this.”

  “Oh, my God!” Curtis suddenly cried.

  Chapter 4

  McKean and I followed Curtis’s gaze.

  The bulldozer was in motion again on the muddy lot. Pete Whitehall steered it in erratic turns with the engine racing and then nearly killing, and then racing again. Huge puffs of black smoke belched from the exhaust stacks. Pete grappled wildly with the controls, sitting in the unnaturally stiff posture we had seen before. We ran toward the scene as Pete plowed into the stumps at the back of the lot and the huge blade scattered them like cordwood, even though each weighed tons. Pete tugged hard on a steering lever and the machine veered toward the house next door - a small bungalow with a mossy peaked roof and pale blue siding. The blade edged in at the rear but the bulldozer turned slightly, only tearing off a long strip of siding while the house shook like it was in an earthquake.

  As Pete steered his juggernaut toward the front of the lot, a young Makah woman burst out the front door with a baby in her arms, hysterically urging a small boy to follow while she pulled a toddling girl along with one hand. As she hurried away down the street, people emerged from other houses and came to her aid. A potbellied man in a white T-shirt picked up the boy and carried him. A middle aged woman grabbed up the toddling girl and ran with the mother to the porch of a house three doors down, where they turned to see what Whitehall would do next. As we raced toward the scene, the canoe men emerged from another house and came on at a dead run.

  McKean and Curtis slowed as we neared the lot, but I accelerated - my Mustang was parked too close for comfort. The canoe crew ran onto the lot and began waving and shouting at Pete, who ignored them and kept on his crazy, zigzag course. As I reached my Mustang, Pete yanked a control lever hard and the machine jerked onto a new path, coming straight for me. His mouth contorted into a snarl and a demonic light glittered in his red-rimmed eyes.

  Curtis and McKean both shouted and waved me away from my car as the bulldozer ran up and over a pallet of stacked two-by-fours, crushing them to matchsticks. Now there was nothing between it and the Mustang. I reached into a pants pocket for the keys - and discovered they weren’t the
re. They had either been removed or fallen out in the wash. The bulldozer neared the street. McKean, Curtis and the canoe men retreated out of the way. But I stood my ground, determined that Pete, no matter how insane, would not take my car from me. I searched my other pants pockets and found them empty.

  Pete veered over a pallet of fiberboard sheets and reduced them to wood chips. While McKean and Curtis shouted more warnings, I patted a side pocket of my windbreaker and felt a lump. Someone had put everything back in one place after the wash was done. I fished around and felt my wallet, two pens, some pocket change, and at last - my keys! I yanked them out just as Pete bumped across the street gutter and the bulldozer came up onto the pavement. I opened the door and jumped behind the wheel. I plunged the key into the slot and cranked the ignition. Just for an instant, my eyes locked on Pete’s mad face. He leered at me over the top of the blade, his eyes afire with animal rage and ringed by ghoulishly purple sockets. His cheeks were ashen and his teeth gnashed like a mad dog’s.

  The engine fired quickly and its roar mingled with the rumble of the bulldozer’s engine and the clank of its caterpillar treads on the asphalt. I jammed the floor shift into reverse, gunned the engine and dumped the clutch. The bulldozer’s blade was five feet from the driver’s-side door when the Mustang’s rear tires spun and gravel clattered on her undercarriage. The tires skittered on the yielding ground but began pulling the Mustang back in a bucking, fishtailing movement. As the blade closed to within a foot, my view became one huge metal scoop. The car gained backward momentum and I thought I could escape the blade - but I was wrong. The rear of the Mustang was out of danger but a corner of the scoop caught my left front fender and the Mustang lurched ninety degrees sideways. The force of the impact jarred my foot off the accelerator pedal and the engine killed. I found myself halted parallel to the still-charging bulldozer and facing Neah Bay. Outside my mud-spattered driver’s-side window, the caterpillar treads churned past, inches from my face.