by Thomas Hopp
“Father!” Tleena rushed to his side and tried to lift his limp body. The old man gasped and sputtered, frothing at the mouth. He stared toward the serpent with a terrified expression and unseeing eyes reminiscent of Leon Curtis in his hospital bed. “Hoo!” he cried in a ghostly, vacant voice. “Hoo! Hoo-oo-ooh!”
“Father!” Tleena cried. “Come back! Come back!” She turned and waved the drummers to her. “He’s lost in the spirit world!”
Andy Archawat stood and took a tentative step toward her.
“No! - Sit!” Jerry Tibbut commanded him. Archawat dutifully sat and took up his beater stick and rejoined the others, who hadn’t slackened their drumbeat, although each wore a look of concern for the old man.
As the father-daughter drama played out just beyond the light of the fire, I couldn’t keep their faces in focus. They seemed to vanish into darkness among the dancing effigies. I felt paralyzed and, now, neglected by them. Deathlike numbness began in my hands and feet and crept into my arms and legs. I got a panicky notion that my heart had stopped beating in my chest. Numbness spread into my torso as the relentless drumbeat droned on. And then a new horror riveted my attention. The serpent had taken on full three-dimensional form. It writhed on the wall with its scaly sides heaving, and powerful snorts of vapor bursting from the nostrils of its twin heads. Four unblinking, cold, reptilian eyes fixated on me. Two blood-red harpoon-like tongues darted out of the monster’s mouths. Coming completely free of the wall, the beast slithered to the floor and approached me in a sidewinder-like crawl. As Tleena tended her father and the drummers kept to their task, no one seemed to notice the monster but me. I tried to call for help, but managed only a choked gurgle. The serpent slithered to my couch and threw a python-like coil over my waist. Waves of shock rolled through me, but my muscles still failed to respond. The coils constricted around my midsection and stopped my breathing.
Hissing, the serpent reared its right head and sank its fangs into my belly. I wanted to shriek in agony, but I could not. Its pointed tongue stabbed into my flesh, injecting venom that felt like a hot iron lance piercing my guts. An instant later the left head bit my neck and thrust its tongue deep into my throat, injecting more searing-hot venom. The last of my strength drained. My vision clouded. But then the serpent released me. It slithered to McKean, entwined his body and bit his belly and throat as it had mine. McKean convulsed and then settled with an expiring gasp. As the beast moved to deliver the same fatal bites to Sean, the last flicker of consciousness left me. I fell into a black haze, from which I didn’t expect to return.
* * * * * * * * * *
But I did return. The shrill call of a seabird outside brought me around.
I opened my eyes. The interior of the longhouse was dim and silent. The serpent was back in its place on the wall. The drummers were gone. Gordon and Tleena Steel were gone. Someone had covered me with a thick bearskin blanket. The embers had rendered low, but still warmed me. The roof boards of the longhouse were illuminated by a soft morning glow through the chimney opening. I dozed momentarily, but reawakened when something softly touched my cheek. I opened my eyes and found that Tleena had come and settled on the floor beside me. She was lightly brushing my face with her eagle-feather fan.
“Did you rest well?” she asked.
“I did.” After a moment of sorting through memories, I said, “I thought I died.”
She smiled. “Father says you did. You all died. But his songs and his soul catcher stole you away from Pukwubis. And brought you back to the world of the living.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Why not? It worked, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. It did.” I sat up slowly, with uncertain muscle control. I looked myself over. My clothes were dry but rumpled. My arms, legs, body - every part of me - was whole and in possession of its proper function. Neither the Neah virus nor the bizarre events of the healing ceremony had left a permanent trace on me. For a moment, I reveled in the simple joy of being alive.
Across the fire pit, Sean McKean had joined his father on his couch. They lay under a shared bearskin cover, facing each other with their foreheads touching. The sight of them restored to health and sleeping snugly choked me with emotion. “I could use a little fresh air,” I said.
“Come on, then,” said Tleena. “I’ll go out with you.” She fetched my shoes, which had been set near the fire to dry, and helped me put them on. She slipped on a heavy sable-collared coat and then helped me stand on shaky legs and put my coat on. She took my arm to steady me and we left McKean and the boy sleeping. In the dim but growing light within the longhouse, I could see that a tremendous work of rendering was still in progress. Every possible type of container from modern cauldrons to ancient bentwood boxes were filled with blubber, meat, or oil. Jerry Tibbut was stoking one of the two main fires with crackling cordwood. He smiled and nodded as we passed. Overhead, wooden racks that hung from the ceiling were draped heavily with strips of meat curing in the fire smoke. It was clear the longhouse occupants were letting no part of the whale go to waste.
We went out through the raven-mouth entrance into a dawn that was calm and free of the brutally cold wind of the night before. Gone too were the ragged clouds and rain. The sky was clear, although a thin ocean mist moved past us in soft white billows. The surface of Spirit Cove was as calm as it ever could be. The raging surf that had almost drowned me had settled down to a gentle wash of small waves. The tide was out and the low surf-line fifty yards away sounded a lulling rush, punctuated occasionally by the spill of a wave and the murmur of its outwash.
Arm in arm, Tleena and I strolled past the line of driftwood longs and onto the beach. The whalers were at their butchering duty again, and more Makahs had joined them. A sporadic procession of visitors came and went, each getting his or her share of the whale. Much of the animal had been cut away but more remained and the men with flensing knives worked steadfastly. The front part of the whale had been reduced to a gigantic skeleton, picked over now by a congregation of gulls, crows, and ravens. The ocean had swept away all traces of blood.
As Tleena and I walked past the busy scene I said, “It’s a shame they had to kill a whale, even though it saved our lives.”
She looked at me oddly. “Didn’t anyone tell you they didn’t hunt this whale?”
“But how, then - ?”
“It was struck yesterday by an Alaskan oil tanker bound for Anacortes. Look at the tail where they haven’t butchered it yet. Those big gashes down to the bone are from the tanker’s propeller. The deepest slice broke its tail. Our whalers were paddling on the straight and saw it happen. The tanker just kept on its way without even slowing. But our guys went out to the whale. The poor thing was in agony. It was thrashing. Without the use of its tail it could hardly get its blowhole up to take a breath. So they set a harpoon into it and killed it with a .50 caliber rifle. It died instantly, instead of bleeding to death or drowning. Now it’s food for our people.”
“Incredible,” I murmured. “Tragic for the whale, but lucky for Peyton and Sean and me.”
“It isn’t the first whale we’ve salvaged, you know. Oil tankers and warships and pleasure boats and fishing boats hit whales all the time. That’s how my father perfected his medicine. He got blubber and meat from other whales that died this way. At least those whales gave themselves for a better purpose. They weren’t just victims of modern society.”
Among the visitors on the beach were Arnie and Ginny Musselshell, bundled up against the cool air. They greeted us with smiles as they came away from the whale with their shares. Each carried a pair of one-gallon white plastic buckets overtopped with blubber and meat.
“Everybody’s coming out here today,” Ginny said. “We’re all smuggling it home to load our fridges and freezers. There’s enough to last for years.”
“We have to do it in secret,” Arnie added, “because the Coast Guard would be duty-bound to confiscate it if they knew. They have to enforce the MMPA even if the
y don’t want to.” Then he grinned. “We’ll even let them eat some, like we’ve done before. Once we’ve got it safely stashed at home, that is.”
“That’s why the Coast Guardsmen didn’t get sick!” I said.
“You’ve got that right,” Arnie smiled. “Most of them have tried some whale.”
“We’ve got to go,” said Ginny. “These tubs are heavy and it’s a long walk up to the car.”
After goodbyes, they joined other Makahs coming and going on the trail up the bluff.
“Come, Fin,” Tleena said, pulling on my elbow. “I’ve got something to show you.” She led me along the beach until the hubbub around the whale was behind us. Near the mouth of the cove, an immense driftwood log rested against the rampart of other logs and stumps that lined the shore. She sat down on the narrow end of the whitened giant, which was more than a hundred feet long and terminated at its far end with a tangle of roots rising twenty feet above the black shingle stones of the beach. She patted the log and I sat next to her, humbled by the grandeur of our surroundings and all the more aware of the great beauty of the woman beside me.
“I love this end of the cove,” she said. “Look at the other side.”
Across Spirit Cove, jagged sea stacks were silhouetted against a bright morning horizon of pastel oranges and purples. On one stack directly opposite us, the snag of a twisted Sitka spruce was lit with the orange light of the rising sun. A bald eagle perched on a gnarled branch. Finely feathered with a dark brown body and white head and tail, it cocked its head to observe us.
“That’s his favorite perch,” Tleena murmured. “I see him there all the time. He comes here to fish and watch the odd things people do.”
We sat silently for a while. I pulled my coat collar together to keep warm and let my mind play over the astonishing events that brought me to this time and place. I was ecstatic to be alive, after facing death at the hands of the Neah virus, Dag Bukwatch, and the ocean. Waves of joy washed over me. And sharing this glorious morning with Tleena Steel made my rapture complete.
A big brown-and-white spotted dog wandered up and eyed us as if hoping for a handout. Seeing no such favor coming, it lay down on the cobbles near Tleena’s feet and rolled onto its side. She gave it a pat on its flank. “Hi there, Harry,” she said. The dog wagged its tail lazily, flopping it on the cobbles as if the effort tested its willpower.
“What a mellow looking mongrel,” I remarked.
“Don’t let Father hear you call him a mongrel,” Tleena replied. “He’s as close to a purebred as we’ve got.”
“Purebred what?”
“Wool dog. Father is trying to recreate the breed.”
“Wool dog,” I repeated. “He does have a pretty thick coat.”
“Before Europeans came,” said Tleena, “Makahs got their wool for blankets and clothing from wool dogs. We plucked it off them when they shed their winter coats. We kept the brown and white separate so we could weave it into patterns. They were a special breed. Never barked at anything. Most dogs stink when they get wet, but not wool dogs. They smelled good, wet or dry. When Europeans brought their smelly, barking dogs, they bred with our dogs until our breed was lost. Father’s been trying to back-breed some of the local dogs until he gets a wool dog again. I think he’s close. Harry smells pretty good and he never seems to want to bark at anything.”
I took a sniff in the dog’s direction but didn’t catch much, other than the fresh smell of the sea air.
Tleena pointed in the direction of the whale carcass. “Look at Andy,” she said with a fond smile. Archawat’s tall figure was easy to pick out among the people gathered at the whale. He had climbed onto the whale’s tail to give instructions to the men with the flensing knives. Tleena sighed proudly. “He cast the harpoon that caught the whale, so he has the honor of dividing it among our people.”
Watching Andy work, I sighed resignedly. “I can see why you’re proud of your man.”
“My man?” She turned to me with a mystified expression. “You mean Andy?” Then her face lit with realization. She slipped off the log, looked me closely in the face, and then broke into a grin. “Fin Morton!” she exclaimed. “Are you jealous of cousin Andy?”
“Jealous?” I sputtered. “Cousin?”
She easily read my expression and came to an understanding of things not said. She smiled and murmured, “What a fool you are, Phineus Morton.” She grasped the collars of my coat, pulled me gently toward her and placed a small modest kiss on my lips. In response, I threw my arms around her and drew her to me tightly. I kissed her long and hard on the mouth, and she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back.
After a time I released her and she stepped back, fussing with my collar and smiling into my face. I wanted to confess the depth of my affection for her. But a shout from down the beach interrupted. Andy Archawat was running toward us as fast as he could with his long hair streaming behind him in the wind. As he approached, even Harry got up to see what was the matter. Andy’s face showed such concern that I thought he was about to confront me over the liberties I’d taken with Tleena. Instead, he slowed and pointed behind himself.
“Theron Johnson just came down the hill,” he puffed. “He says Eugene and some of the others plan to ambush you guys when you leave here. They’ve all got guns and they’re gonna kill you and bury your bodies where nobody will ever find them.”
“Oh, my God,” I moaned. “We’re trapped!”
“Maybe not,” Archawat replied. “We’ve got the canoe.”
Minutes later we stood in front of the longhouse with Peyton McKean and Gordon Steel, the former wearing his field coat and hat, and the latter in a black bearskin cape with his bare legs and feet marking him as the cold-impervious Northwest native. Sean raced to and fro on the beach chasing waves and throwing stones, heedless of our danger. In contrast to his happy peregrinations, our discussions turned somber when old Steel explained that he had fed us most of his new batch of sea spinach.
“Our mission could still end in failure,” said McKean. “I had hoped to get enough material to solve the chemical composition of the active principle. But we’ll need a large sample to have any hope of getting an answer before we run out of material.”
“I can make more,” said old Steel, “but it will take a couple hours.”
“Eugene and his henchmen may not give us that much time.”
“Oh, he’ll keep his distance all right. Last time he and Dag Bukwatch came snooping around here, asking if I could make some of their kind of drugs, I told them if they ever came down the bluff trail again I’d put a curse on them!”
“Gordon Steel!” The sharp call of a feminine voice turned our heads. Two women came toward us on the trail from the bluff, carrying a white five-gallon paint bucket with a lid on it between them.
“Denise Bukwatch,” Tleena murmured uneasily. I recognized one of the pair as the woman we’d seen smoking on the porch of the trailer house. She and the other woman approached us and set down their burden. Puffing from exertion, Bukwatch took two cigarettes from a pack and they both lit up, inhaling deeply.
“Eugene’s coming,” Denise rasped between puffs. “Eugene and Donald and Bryan and Jason. They’re all armed to the teeth!”
“Coming here?” old Steel asked as if the statement surprised him. “When?”
“As soon as they work up the courage with booze and meth.” She took another drag. “Your curse has them scared but it won’t stop them for long. They’ve gone crazy with Dag’s idea of getting rid of all the babalthuds.”
“What makes you come to warn us?” McKean asked. “You might be placing yourselves in danger as well.”
“I’ve got this.” She patted the butt of a pistol that she had thrust into the top of her blue jeans. “Besides, I’ve had enough of their bullcrap. I don’t want to see a lot of people die, no matter who they are.” She gestured at the bucket. “So we brought a peace offering. It’s the sea spinach Dag and Eugene stole from the elder ce
nter.”
“Incredible!” McKean exclaimed. “You are an angel of mercy!”
“Hah!” Bukwatch responded with a haggish rasp. “That’ll be the day. Now I gotta go before they miss me.” She and her companion turned and walked back along the path to the bluff, trailing thick puffs of cigarette smoke behind them.
Andy Archawat went into the longhouse and emerged with an armload of wooden paddles. “I’ll get the crew to pull the canoe down to the water,” he said. “You guys get ready to go.” He hurried onto the beach, calling to the men working on the whale.
McKean said to old Steel, “I wish I had time to learn exactly how you cook the recipe. I was in no condition last night.”
Steel flashed his whiskery, gap-toothed grin. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t show nobody how to make nothing, especially not a babalthud. But this time I’ll make an exception because you’re a medicine man like me. Come on. All the ingredients are right here.” He led us to the side of the building that faced the bluff. On a wide soggy slope where the stream trickled down, large horsetail rushes grew in profusion. “This is ba’akhbupt klupach.” He bent and pulled a stalk up from the muck with a section of root attached, dipped it in the stream to clean it, and then carried it to the bucket. Opening the lid, he tossed the root in on top of the sea spinach. “You have to skin the root before you cook it,” he explained.
“Next,” he said, wading across the little stream barefoot and heedless of the chilly water, “you’ll need some klochtap. Here it is.” He bent and plucked up some brown, dried vines that had grown on the sandy bank. “What you don’t smoke,” he said with a hoarse laugh, “you put in the recipe.” He came back across the stream and added the vine to the bucket. “Remember, yellow flowers. Pink flowers and you’re dead.”
