Demon Spirit, Devil Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  She shook her head. “I was too fixed on what happened to you. You’d disappeared off the stern, for god’s sake.”

  “Me, too,” Ted said. “I tried to grab your life jacket, but it slipped right out of my hand. Damn, that was a horrible moment.”

  “I wish—”

  Ted waved a hand. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I checked the shark list before we left Maine,” Harvey said. “You know, just to see. They’re common out here—salmon shark, blue shark, Pacific sleeper, spiny dogfish. More, but that’s all I can remember.”

  William, who’d been standing next to Bart, joined us. “Dogfish Woman’s crest belongs to many clans. We see sharks a lot. At the Vancouver airport there’s Bill Reid’s sculpture. Raven, Eagle, Grizzly Bear and her cubs, Beaver, and Dogfish Woman are all together in a boat.”

  “That sculpture’s huge. What, twenty feet high?” Ted said. “We’ll look more closely on the way home.”

  Bart, who’d screamed “Shark,” hadn’t said a word. I spoke to his back. “Bart, tell us what you saw.”

  Bart turned, leaned back, crossed his arms. “A fin maybe thirty meters off the port side right in front of me. Big shark fin. Thought you’d want to know.”

  I nodded. “Well, yes. Do you see them out here often?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t wait for another question and turned back.

  Captain Barney swiveled in his chair. “Sharks. Yes, we see ’em a lot, though I didn’t spot this one. Mara, you look real good. That was a close call. Never happened before, like I said. I’ll send you a copy of that report you need to fill out.”

  Naturally, I understood that the University of British Columbia had regulations and forms about ship safety. “I’ll get it back to you right away.”

  “Good. You all must be hungry.”

  Suddenly, I was ravenous. “I am.”

  “Me, too,” Harvey said as she looked at Ted.

  “You bet.”

  “William, there are cheese sandwiches below,” the captain said. “Help yourselves, folks. We’ll be back at Kinuk Island in about an hour.”

  William climbed down the ladder and returned with a paper bag. Breakfast seemed like a very long time ago. Wanting to eat was a good sign.

  In between bites, Ted asked William, “So, what’s going to happen when we get back?”

  “You’ll probably want to use the hot pools, and we’ll have plenty of time. Then, we’ll walk up to the longhouse to meet with the council.”

  I ran a hand down my still-damp and sticky hair. “Soaking in hot water would be heaven right now.”

  Harvey said, “Good Lord, would it.”

  Ted, who’d just taken a bite of sandwich, mumbled, “Mmm.”

  “There are men’s and women’s bathhouses. You can leave your clothes there and use the towels.” William might’ve remembered bathing suits in the sauna because he added with a hint of a smile, “You can wrap a towel for the walk from the bathhouse down to the pools outside.”

  Harvey brought us back to more important matters. “Who will be in the longhouse? What does the council want to know?”

  William finished his sandwich and brushed crumbs off his chin. “The Haida Environment Council—HEC—oversaw the iron fertilizer plan. HEC’s head, Gene Edenshaw, will be there, and some other council members. They’re, ah, very surprised by the United Nation’s reaction to their project. The HEC says they have control over their own waters.”

  Silent, Harvey, Ted, and I glanced at each other. We were used to fielding questions from fishermen and other Mainers about things like global warming and overfishing. That was hard enough. A group of Haida most likely jaded by hundreds of years of struggle for self-governance would be a very different state of affairs. But this wasn’t the time to voice our concerns.

  Later, the three of us stood on the dock waving at the Henry George when a classy fishing boat pulled up. With hefty rods mounted on the back of the enclosed cabin, a pricey navigation unit on top, and three outboards, I guessed this was a commercial charter boat for rich anglers from the mainland. The disparity between the boat and the fisherman who emerged from the cabin was so great I had to cough to cover a laugh. A black, dog-eared baseball cap set off coarse features—large crooked nose, fleshy lips, and oversized ears. The man’s black suspenders held up overalls stained with grease, and his faded navy shirt was ripped at the elbows. He yanked open a chest and reached for a large fish tail that stuck out of the ice on top.

  We met William at the end of the pier. When he’d left us a few minutes earlier, he seemed anxious to go ashore. But here he was going the other way, back to the dock.

  “Who’s that in the fancy boat?” I asked.

  “Caleb Peterson. He brings fish every week, more often when we’ve got visitors.”

  William hurried past us.

  I followed Ted and Harvey down a steep set of wooden stairs to the beach and stopped beneath the pier to tie my shoe. So I was alone when angry voices from above startled me.

  One I didn’t recognize barked, “Not sure? What’d you mean?”

  The voices faded. I guessed the pair stepped into the fancy boat’s cabin, and trotted to catch up with Ted and Harvey.

  In the bathhouse, Harvey and I shared the round wooden hot tub. From a fault line far below, geologic activity heated water that rose to the surface and continuously flowed through the tub. The same was true with the pools outside.

  I slipped under luscious one-hundred-degree F water. Suddenly, I was swirling down through grey-green frozen slush. I popped up through the surface with a gasp. When my heart slowed down a bit I said, “It’s hard to fathom I was in the frigid ocean a couple of hours ago. Doesn’t seem real.”

  Harvey tossed her head and sent spray across her side of the cozy room. The maneuver looked like something from a sexy ad for athletes.

  “Believe me, it was very, very real.”

  “I feel guilty, but it wasn’t my fault. Have to say, you seemed pretty pissed off about it, though.”

  “I don’t know, Mara. Danger seems to follow you around. Thank god, Ted was there. He saved your butt.” She slid under the water again.

  Ted had rescued me, and I was now in his debt, which didn’t feel great. That selfish thought made me cringe.

  Harvey surfaced. “Ready for an outdoor pool?”

  I’d eyed one in particular on our way over to the women’s bathhouse. “The pool lower down has a spectacular view of Kinuk Bay.”

  Barefoot and wrapped in beach-size towels, we padded down the wooden walkway. Ted had picked the same pool. Elbows on the pool’s outer edge, he floated on his belly facing seaward, his long, lean body a muted olive green beneath the chalky water. The view was indeed spectacular. Beyond the pool, a light onshore breeze roughened Haida Gwaii’s waters. Farther off, mother earth had thrust gray jagged mountains thousands of feet up and out of the sea.

  Ted rolled over to face us as we approached. “This is a special bit of heaven.”

  Since we were alone, I dropped my towel on a dry rock and stepped into the pool. Normally, of course, I don’t parade about in the nude, and I’m not particularly self-conscious about my body. With my kayaking, running, and yoga, it looked and worked just fine, thank you. But, at that moment, I could feel heat on my cheeks (the ones on my face) because it was obvious Ted was watching me. Of course, we’d seen each other’s bodies during lovemaking and joking around in the shower. But out in the open, his gaze felt different, more sensuous.

  Had to admit, though, I liked it.

  The three of us splashed around the good-sized pool for a while. The memory of my close call on the Henry George faded in the heavenly warm water. We leaned back against the side—our extended legs nearly meeting in the middle—to discuss the visit with the HEC.

  “Our mandate from the UN is clear,” Harvey said. “They want a report from unbiased marine biologists with relevant expertise. One of us should tell the council why we were chosen. If I do say so
myself, we’re the perfect team.”

  “Since you’re team leader,” I said, “you should introduce us.”

  Ted directed a little wave of water in my direction. “When the UN okayed Maine Oceanographic’s recommendation that we would go to a world-famous kayak destination, you hesitated a whole half-second, Mara.”

  “True. And when you found out about this spectacular place, you were right behind.” I rotated my ankles and sent circles of tiny waves across the pool.

  “Hey guys,” Harvey said. “I’m worried. In my book, you’re ready for something like this when you know who thinks what and why. These people are strangers. What do we say to a group of Haida leaders who must desperately need money for their people? They’ll see us as white outsiders trying to tell them what to do.”

  Ted pushed wet hair off his forehead. “No question, it’ll be tricky, Harve. But we’ve got to try to explain what we know. Why most scientists think this geo-engineering is a terrible idea. That’s part of our job.”

  “Sure,” Harvey said. “It’s how we do it. Must be with the utmost respect. Speaking of respect, let’s try to signal one another if we want to add to a discussion someone else is leading. That way, we won’t speak over each other.”

  We dressed in the bathhouse and followed William along a path that cut back into the rainforest. It was late afternoon, with sunset hours away, but moments after the tree canopy closed above us, we walked through muted light. During the quarter-mile trek, we didn’t say a word. Silence and gloom set the stage for the serious business ahead.

  Bits of bright red appeared through the trees even before we saw the longhouse. The tree canopy opened up again to reveal the short side of a long, narrow building that stood proud in the middle of a large clearing. Blinking, I stepped into the light and stared at the structure before me. On each side of the wooden structure’s front door, an enormous black and red eagle greeted visitors. Hanging in a graceful arc, the eagles’ beaks met above the middle of the diminutive entryway.

  I touched William’s arm. “We probably should know something about longhouses before we go in. Is there time?”

  He looked toward the sun. “We still have at least fifteen minutes.”

  In what sounded like the practiced voice of a Watchman, William educated us. “Scientists say my people have been here for at least three thousand years. We say these islands were underwater at the time before people. Then the supernaturals stood on the first rock to emerge. My ancestors came later, from the sea.”

  William gestured toward the forest. “Year ‘round, the Haida lived along the coast in this gentle rainforest. Food—salmon, shellfish, elk, and deer—was always abundant. And the towering cedar trees gave them wood for houses, canoes, and many other things. In this abundance, my ancestors lived in permanent settlements. Each longhouse was fifteen to forty-five meters long, about six to twenty meters wide, and each housed many families. Lined up side-by-side, houses in the village faced the water. The fronts were painted, and many also had colorful totem poles carved with families’ crests.”

  I did a quick calculation. A hundred-fifty-foot long, sixty-odd-foot wide structure could house a lot of people.

  “I don’t see windows,” Harvey said. “On the front, anyway.”

  “In a traditional longhouse, there was only one hole in the roof to let out smoke from the central fire pit. Windows lose heat. We had no glass or anything like that.”

  I tried to imagine inhabited longhouses. “What was it like inside? I mean, when people lived there?”

  William squinted at the structure like he could see into the past. “One big, long room with a sunken square fire pit in the middle. Families slept in bunk beds along the sidewalls. At the far end, stout totem poles colored red, black, turquoise, and white stood guard. Each held up one end of a tree-size cedar roof pole running the length of the building.” He returned to the present. “Let’s go in.”

  Single file, we followed William. The front door was only five feet tall, so we all ducked before we passed through the opening. Tallest, Ted had to hold onto the doorframe and bend way down.

  We stopped just beyond the door opening to let our eyes adjust. This was a clearly a modern longhouse, with a row of large vertical windows cut into the building’s sidewalls. Sunlight that reflected off the cedar interior gave the room a warm glow. In place of the traditional fire pit, a sunken central square about twenty-five feet on a side was lit from above by several large skylights. A series of three steps ran along the full length of all four sides, the top step level with the floor. These appeared to double as benches and stairs down to an empty square I assumed symbolized the fire pit.

  In addition to our little party, there were several people in the room. Opposite us—in the middle of the top bench—three people sat, backs straight, in a perfect row. Unlike any Haida I’d met so far, they did not smile in greeting. What looked like two women stood on opposite sides of the long room. Near the sidewalls and in shadow, they were hard to see. Bart was beside one of them.

  William called out our introduction. “These are the United Nation visitors. They look forward to speaking with the Environment Council.”

  The three council members stood—a man and two women. Only then did I fully take in the red and black painting that decorated the whole back wall behind them. It depicted the front of a cartoon longhouse with black sidewalls and peaked roof. Swirls of color showed eyes, claws, and wings. A broad-faced head with a mocking, toothy grin hung below the peaked roof. Lined up, the council members stood directly below that chilling welcome.

  7

  The man stood between the women, and spoke first. His cadence was unhurried, his voice rich and deep. “I’m Gene Edenshaw. Welcome to Haida Gwaii and Kinuk longhouse.”

  Gene quickly took our measure. He had a bronzed and open face, keen chocolate eyes, and his brown hair, beard, and mustache were just beginning to go to gray. He wore a wide black headband decorated with a row of red beads in the middle and his eyes smiled easily. I liked him right away.

  “After we talk,” Gene said, “please join us for salmon dinner. And since the weather promises to be stormy tonight, please accept our invitation to sleep here.” He scanned the room and grinned. “As you can see, we have lots of room. Now, please come sit with us.”

  We made our way to the set of steps on their left and settled ourselves on the top, floor-level one. Since the steps weren’t constructed for six-footers, Ted leaned back on his hands so his knees weren’t up to his ears.

  The younger of the two women had tipped her head as we marched across the room to find a comfortable place to sit. Rich black hair pulled tight into a ponytail framed her broad face. Laugh lines creased dark brown eyes. She wore a kind of scarf across broad shoulders that was fastened mid-waist, black in background, and had hundreds of tiny red and white buttons along the border. It depicted two owl-like creatures that grinned at us from either side of her significant chest.

  “I’m Jennie Davidson, and I also welcome you to our village.” She spoke with a lilted upswing.

  The other woman had yet to say anything, so we waited. Considerably older than Jennie, she looked at us with penetrating black eyes over thin glasses perched on the end of her nose. Her white hair fell down her chest in two long braids secured at the bottom with beaded red bands. She twirled one band between two long, bony fingers with the precision of a watchmaker. Heavily lined, lean, and bronzed by the sun and years, hers was a face that might give outsiders reasons to pause.

  She gave us a quick nod and said in a deep, manly voice. “I am Charlotte Webber.” Charlotte pressed her lips together and said no more.

  I glanced around the room. William had his back against a wall, close enough to hear the conversation. Sunlit, one of the mystery women stood beside him. Her shoulder touched his arm. With ebony hair to her shoulders, smooth skin the color of custard, and a pert nose, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Still in shadow, the girl on the other side crossed her arms and ap
peared to be fixed on the couple. Next to her, Bart already looked bored.

  Harvey stood and began with a few words about the purpose of our visit and introduced each of us. “As you know, the United Nations selected us as a team to review the iron fertilization project. I’m Dr. Harvina Allison, team leader and a marine chemist.” She touched my shoulder. “This is Dr. Mara Tusconi, a marine phytoplankton expert. Dr. Ted McKnight has worked on iron fertilization projects elsewhere. Like you, we are only interested in the health of this spectacular marine ecosystem. We want to work with you and learn why you took on this project. We’ll try to address your questions as clearly as we can. Perhaps we should start there?”

  Jennie jumped to her feet and crossed her arms. “First question is why does the UN think it has jurisdiction over us? The Haida Nation holds title and rights to X̱aayda gwaay.”

  Harvey answered, “Canada has signed two international treaties designed to prevent marine pollution. In two thousand eight, your country’s Parliament voted that ocean iron fertilization should only be allowed for legitimate scientific research. The United Nations considers your fertilization a violation of international law.”

  Edenshaw took his turn. “But doesn’t the ocean belong to everyone and no one?”

  I stood. “It’s a good question. After the first earth summit, UN governments developed plans for global sustainability in the twenty-first century. This included protection of the earth’s oceans. As you well know, humans have taken terrible tolls on the world’s seas. Since the ocean and organisms in it know no boundary, UN laws rely on both individual and collective action to protect the marine environment.”

  Frowning, Jennie vigorously shook her head. “All we’ve done is add fertilizer to make the tiny algae grow. Farmers have added fertilizer to plants since the beginning of agriculture. What’s the harm in that?”

  Ted hadn’t spoken yet. He leaned forward. “Another really good question, but let’s back up at bit. As in agriculture, the elements nitrogen and phosphorous stimulate algae to grow when added to seawater. But, in some places, like Haida Gwaii, nitrogen and phosphorous don’t do the trick. Iron appears to sometimes, and we’re not sure why.”