Jimmy Bluefeather: A Novel (31 page)

“We’re fine,” James said.

“You have any idea where you’re at?”

“Northwest of Lemesurier, off Dundas Bay.”

“Yep. You’ve crossed the reserve boundary now, if that means anything to you.”

“A little,” James said.

“Where’s the boundary?” Little Mac asked, looking around at the darkness.

Torp laughed. “You can’t see it, honey, like most of what the government does around here. The reserve boundary runs over the mountains far to the north, where nobody goes, then turns south and runs right through the water here in Icy Strait, where everybody goes. It’s a straight line in most places, an imaginary line that separates the imaginary rights of one kind of people from the imaginary rights of another kind of people. We cross it all the time out here. Crystal Bay National Marine Reserve. Sounds like a military outpost, don’t it, since the feds and everybody else is looking for you.”

“Have you heard anything about the Gant brothers?” James asked.

“Nope. But that don’t mean nothin’. I make myself aware of as little as possible. Wood and women is about all I know about. Old wood, young women. Your canoe looks like red cedar. Does it have a name?”

“
Óoxjaa Yaadéi
,” James said.
“Against the Wind.”

“Against the Wind? That’s a Bob Seger song. Him and the Silver Bullet Band. Takes me back to the woods and a girl named Candy who was just that sweet.” Torp threw his head back and let the music fly, and nearly fell over from excitement, or from last night’s vodka. “Damn,” he added, “that’s a good song. A good name for a canoe, too.”

If what Keb heard just then was supposed to be singing, Torp had a ways to go. The crazy Russian had lost some marbles since Keb saw him last. His son said nothing. A handsome, almost delicate boy, eleven or twelve, he appeared to have gotten his looks from his mother, and showed a fair improvement over his father. Thirty years of hard living would change that. Torp told Keb that his daughter Ruby was in Strawberry Flats with radio and TV people from Juneau. He said it with such venom that it stung Keb. Torp and Ruby had a nasty history over Alaska timber sales. Ruby’s vision of high-volume, high-profit corporate harvests had sent thousands of round logs directly to Japan, while Torp ran his own mill and fought to keep the wood—and the jobs—local.

“Have you heard any news about my mom?” James asked him.

“Afraid not. Word’s around that you hitched a ride on the
Silverbow
. You’re some kind of folk hero, Keb. Ernie Banksly said you were on
360 North
the other day.”

“Where?”

“
360 North
, the Alaskan TV show.”

“How could I be there when I was here?”

“You weren’t. It was other people who were on there talking about you, experts, you know? City people who know everything and nothing. Strawberry Flats is crawling with them, all those media types. Bartlett Cove, too. There are boats from everywhere in Bartlett Cove and Icy Strait. They say you’re like Chief Joseph, you know, the Shoshone dude that the US Cavalry chased and never caught because he ate and slept on his horse and led his people into Canada so he wouldn’t have to live on a damn reservation.”

“Nez Perce,” James said.

“What?”

“Chief Joseph was Nez Perce.”

“And they caught him,” Kid Hugh said. “They’re not going to catch us.”

“Hey, whatever.” Torp laughed. “You didn’t play poker with Quinton or Morgan, did you? They cheat like hell. You must be cold. Climb on up here and hand me a line. I’ll give you a tow and some hot food.” He barked at the boy, “Luke, grab that line.”

“YOU EVER SEEN one of these thingamajigs?” Torp put a small tracking device on the yellow cedar logs. Keb and the others watched. Keb wondered if a thingamajig was more complicated than a gadgetgizmo.

Little Mac said in an unsettling tone, “I have seen one of those.”

Torp unhooked the cables to free-float his logs, then tied the canoe off the stern of the
Terry Mae
. He may have been quick years ago, but he was slow now. Daylight was coming and Keb could see that James wanted to go. “It’s like one of them ELTs,” Torp explained, “those emergency locator transmitters they got in airplanes so they can find the plane if it goes down. It beams a signal up to a satellite. This one is programmed to find it with this.” He showed them another thingamajig that gave electronic readings when he flipped it on. “I’ll be able to leave my raft of cedar logs drifting here, and find it after I drop you off. I’ll put a standing light on it too, so no other boat hits it.”

“We need to get going,” James said.

Torp nodded. “Luke, get these people something to eat.”

The
Terry Mae
thugged and chugged but appeared to make no better speed than when it had fifty logs cabled behind it. Luke offered them no food. He took the wheel while Torp made fresh coffee. James made several trips aft to check on the canoe, and said, “We’re only making about five knots.”

Kid Hugh and Steve curled up in the corner, sleep-starved. The accommodations were dirty at best. Grit and grime everywhere, old bits of food, patches of mold, diesel fumes rising from below. The coffee tasked like tar. Keb screwed his face into a squint.

“It’s better with sugar in it,” Torp said.

“We’re not going to make it,” James said after awhile. They all looked at him. All but Little Mac, who was digging in her duffel and daypack with great concern. “We have to turn around and make for Lemesurier or Dundas. Crystal Bay is too far. There’s no good landfall between here and there; the seas will be too rough off Carolus to launch the canoe with tides like this. Daylight will be here in another hour.”

Continents moved and species evolved in the time it took Torp to respond. Keb glared at him, inasmuch as a man with one good eye can glare. Torp finally yelled to Luke to bring the
Terry Mae
about. “Where to then?” he asked, his eyes cold and flat. “Lemesurier Island or Dundas Bay?”

“Dundas,” the old man said.

“Áx’ awé
k
oowdzitèe,” James added. “He was born there.”

THE OLD CANNERY made a strong temptation but was too far away on the west shore of Dundas Bay. It had collapsed long ago and was little more than rusted iron and rotting timbers, where it once stood on legs as stout as a bear’s. Little Mac had been there a few years back, to see where her great-grandfather Milo worked the slime line and delivered little Keb when he was born. But now with daylight coming, she showed no interest in returning. Like James and Kid Hugh, she wanted to get ashore fast. Keb could see that a cloud of worry had come over her.

“Sorry not to be more help,” Torp said as Keb and his companions climbed down into the canoe, off the east shore of Dundas Bay. Keb offered his thanks. Torp flashed a smile and said, “You know, I could turn you in and get myself on TV.”

James and Kid Hugh glared at him.

“Hey, just kidding. You guys need to lighten up.”

With that, they paddled away as the
Terry Mae
turned south. Torp had cost them time, poisoned them with bad coffee, told crude jokes, given them no food, and eaten the last of their jambalaya.

Never trust a Russian.

In the charcoal light of dawn they glided their canoe onto a large tide flat that tapered up to a cobble beach. Steve was first ashore. To their left, an abandoned fox farm stood back from a large meadow. Straight ahead, across fifty feet of tide flat and up the beach, a fringe of alder fronted a forest of spruce and hemlock, good cover. They had to move quickly and hide the canoe. James said rangers could be camped on Feldspar Peak with spotting scopes, a good place to view the entrance to both Crystal Bay and its little cousin to the west, Dundas Bay. Aircraft would be up soon. Men with search-pattern eyes talking by radio. What
to do? No kelp beds in sight. No cleft or cave in a nearby cliff. No high profile piece of shore where they could gain closer access to cover. The canoe was too heavy to pull across the tide flat and into the forest.

“Sink it,” Keb said, “ka-si-yee
k
.”

The tide was slack low. By the time it was that low again, in twelve or thirteen hours, nightfall would be on their side. All day long the canoe would be under water.

“All right,” James said. “We’ll sink it. Good thinking, Gramps.”

Good thinking? Has my grandson ever said that to me? Have I ever said it to him?

They carried their gear across the tide flat and into the forest, making many trips. Each time they returned they hefted down heavy rocks and loaded them into the canoe. Keb’s heart jackhammered. He hurt everywhere. “Gramps, give me that rock. Go up into the forest and stay there, okay? We’ll get this done.”

“Put the canoe . . . on its . . . left side,” Keb said, breathless, “with the keel facing . . . seaward so it’s easy to re-float. Wedge the . . . the rocks under the seats and into the . . . into the thwarts so—”

“Okay, Gramps. I got it. Now go. Hurry, go.”

“Tired, ka-ya-saa
k
 . . . no more wind in me.”

“Yes, Gramps.”

“I dream in Tlingit now. Norwegian too. Viking dreams.”

“Yes, Gramps, that’s good.”

“There’s a problem . . . with . . . Little Mac. Something’s wrong in her . . . her pack. You need to—”

“Okay, I know, Gramps. I’ll talk to her. Now go.”

Old Keb grabbed a final load and was making his way across the tide flat when he seized up and fell hard.
Something’s wrong
. The world was cattywampus, everything upright was on its side and everything level was running up and down. And the pain, oh God, beyond anything from before, a terrible tightening in his chest, his lungs clawing for air. He lay there for—how long? Paralyzed. Mud on his face. Legs and arms twitching.
Bessie? Oyyee
 . . . 
I miss you
. So much music, light, and love. Time had no passage and somehow he was above himself, floating without pain or the ability to speak, watching as the others ran to him and lifted him and carried him up the beach into the forest. Bless their hearts. They carried him so gently. He was no sack of potatoes, but precious cargo as they lowered him onto a bed of moss under an ancient
seet
, a Sitka spruce large enough to make a canoe. Little Mac put his head in her lap and stroked his white hair with tears in her eyes, a loveliness about her. The same loveliness Ruby and Gracie had long ago in another life, almost.

“Come back,” Little Mac was saying. “Don’t die, Keb. Please don’t die.”

Am I dying? Dei
x
at goo
g
anáa
. . . . 
I’m going to die
.

He saw Kid Hugh reach over and touch James, a gesture he would have thought beyond him. James knelt and put the raven feather on Keb’s chest. He held his hand. “We’re here, Gramps. We’re all here.”

But many are there. I have to go
. How strange to feel nothing and feel all things at once, to feel aglow, radiant, free, so present at the moment of absence, a time of loss.
Their loss. Of me?
Was he breathing?
Am I breathing?
Floating higher, he could see himself attached to the Old Keb below. Attached by hundreds of thin strings, some broken, others breaking, many yet to break. Strings made of memories? Regrets? He didn’t know. Strings made of all the important events in his life—stories, promises, prayers. “He’s still breathing,” he heard Little Mac say.

No more pain. This was better than the morphine the army gave him.

Uncle Austin appeared in some vague way and said, “If this is your land, tell me your stories.”

And Keb was descending now.
No. Yes. No
. Pulling him back into himself as more strings reattached. Such pain. Great Raven. He saw himself move, heard himself moan as he slipped back into what he had been, a calcified old man. No words.
Oyyee
 . . . 
such a mighty hurt
. He felt very small, pinned to the ground by the knowledge of it all. He opened his eyes and took a sharp intake of sea and sky. Little Mac was crying. James held his hand, fiercely. “Gramps, it’s okay, we’re here.”

HOW MUCH TIME? He couldn’t say. Spokes of light fell through the
seet
. The earth smelled rich, moist. Whatever vitality Old Keb had before was gone, though something else was there, something beyond defining. He was a bag of bones, more husk than human, his mouth open, finding no words. Part of him heard
Yéil
make its liquid call, as though Raven were dropping a pebble into a pool. How much time? Part of him heard the gentle birth and death of clouds. Another part heard Little Mac tell James and Kid Hugh about—what? About a thingamajig in her daypack like the one Torp had on the
Terry Mae
. She had seen it days before and thought nothing of it, until now. Until she saw Torp’s. How had it gotten there, in her pack? “I didn’t put it there,” she said. “If Tommy put it there before we left Jinkaat, then he’d know where we’ve been all this time, wouldn’t he? He’d be tracking us. He’d know where we are.”

James and Kid Hugh looked at her, their eyes holding stones.

“Turn it off,” James said.

“I did.”

Raven called, insistent now. It called from the tops of the trees. Kid Hugh said to James, “You stay here with Little Mac and Keb. I’ll go check the beach.”

“Take Steve,” James said. “Check the meadow and the old fox farm too, from a distance. Stay in the forest, for good cover.”

Kid Hugh nodded and was gone.

LITTLE MAC MADE soup over their small stove. James brought a bowlful to Old Keb who sat with some effort against the great tree. “You need help with this, Gramps?”

An hour ago, yes, but not now. Things were beginning to work again. Keb got the soup down one spoonful at a time. “The canoe,” he said. “Where’s the canoe?”

“It’s fine, Gramps. It’s okay. Just rest now.” James sat next to him, the rifle by his side as he sharpened a hunting knife.

“You’ve changed,” Keb said to him.

James looked up.

“Your eyes,” Keb said. “They’re older.”

They shone as the forest settled in around them. When James spoke, his words didn’t hit Keb as much as their tone. He set the knife aside and pulled out a small rounded rock, egg-shaped, salt and pepper in composition. “Granite,” he said, “from George Island. Little Mac gave it to me after Pierre gave it to her.” A keepsake. Geology is more than the study of rocks, Pierre had said. It’s the study of time. Keb had listened as best he could. James said the rock was made of crystals. “See? Some are black and some are white and others are orange-ish and silver. It used to be molten, this rock. It used to be magma deep in the earth. But it never burst out like lava in a volcano. That’s what Pierre said. It cooled deep down, slowly, so slowly that the minerals had time to move through the magma and find each other before it hardened. They made crystals, see?” He turned the rock in his hands. “The minerals made crystals and the crystals made the rock hard.”