Jimmy Bluefeather: A Novel (34 page)

BOATS APPROACHED. KEB saw Ruby and Coach Nicks and other people on
the bow of the
Esker II
, and tall Paul Beals, not so tall against the glacier. More boats came near, and more after that, and still more—some government boats that Keb didn’t recognize, and others he did, many others: the
No Way
, with Oddmund and Dag and a million friends, and Corey Blaines in his apple crate of a skiff, and many other skiffs, and Mitch and Irene, of all people, on their runabout,
Harrd Tymes
, with the bumper sticker: “Norwejun Speling Champyun,” and Truman and Crazy Daisy with her cribbage board and cherry red lipstick, and Carmen Kelly with her horrorscope, and Vic and Galley Sally with her peanut butter cookies, and Trinidad Salazar with his inflatable puffin, and Myrtle the chicken wrangler who boasted that she could win one of every three games of solitaire but only after she’d been struck by lightning. It wasn’t easy being a chicken wrangler, she said. You had to wear the right expression; wear it wrong, and the chickens won’t lay eggs. And who should be on Reverend Billings’s boat but none other than Harald Halmerjan, the great H. H., and next to him the news lady, Tanya-What’s-Her-Toes, and her sidekick cameraman. Albert Bestow was there with Brad Freer on the
Call Me Fishmael
. Big Terry McNamee had Father Danes on his boat, the good father with a cross in his hand, and Helen Pasternak, who must have closed things down at the Rumor Mill Café. And there on the stern was the young carver, Keb’s friend Kevin Pallen.

“Hey, Keb,” Oddmund yelled, “you still alive?”

The boats moved in and circled the
Firn
. And more boats after that, boats from everywhere. Lots of kids. Many of James’s basketball teammates. People holding signs: “Paddle On,” “Let Him Go,” “Keb Ain’t Dead,” and Keb’s favorite: “We Are Still Here.” Keb waved. James stood next to him with his hand on Keb’s shoulder. People would say later that Keb looked timeless then. People shouted greetings:

“Good to see you, Keb.”

“You got your shoes off?”

“We brought nagoonberry pie.”

”And cornbread.”

“Hey, Keb, you rock.”

“We love you, Keb.”

“Did you really steal a plane?”

“Where you been?”

“Does the feather really do magic, like brush your teeth and do your taxes?”

“We missed you.”

“It’s good to see you, Keb.”

“Tell a story.”

And still more boats arrived, boats from Jinkaat, Haines, Juneau, Sitka, Elfin Cove, Hawk Inlet, and Excursion Inlet. Keb saw Warren Mastercarver on a Bayliner pulling a canoe, not any canoe, but a
gudiy
é, a seal hunting canoe from Yakutat designed for moving through ice-choked waters. Hunters of the Kwaaski’kwaan/K’ineixkwaan clan, House of the Owl, sons of the Coho Salmon and Brown Bear clans, they would wear white when they paddled that canoe, to blend in, fool the seals, sneak up close.

Nathan Red Otter? Is he here?

And now Keb could see other canoes tied off the sterns of large boats, people getting into them and waving, holding up adzes, young people and elders wrapped in Chilkat blankets and beating drums, representing maybe a dozen clans. “We are still here,” they chanted.

So many canoes of clever design:
jaa
k
ú
x
, made of caribou skins;
ch’iyaash
, flat-bottomed canoes for traveling upriver;
l’áa
k
w
, old worn-out canoes that needed work but still floated true. How many? How many canoes?

“Gunalchéesh,” Keb said as he waved and everybody closed in around him like so many petals of a single flower.

“Gunalchéesh,” they replied, waving. Thank you. “Gunalchéesh.”

“Nathan Red Otter?” Keb said to James. “Ask Warren if Nathan Red Otter is here?”

James did, and Warren replied that Nathan wasn’t well but was expected to get better soon, and would visit Keb then.

The
Esker II
came alongside and Anne threw out lines. Standing on the bow, Ruby put out a hand. Keb didn’t take it, but James did. She stepped nimbly over the bow rail and onto the
Firn
and embraced her father and nephew. She looked about and for the first time in sixteen years acknowledged Little Mac. Tears stood in her eyes. “You okay, Pops?”

“I’m good.”

“We have an emergency medical technician with us if you need him.”

“I’m good.”

“We have your medicine.”

“I’m good.”

“Pops, Gracie’s in the hospital. She’s really sick. She needs a new kidney.”

Keb felt his mouth go dry.
Kidney? Do we have one of those, or two?

“If she doesn’t get one soon, she’ll die. She’s asking about you. She wants to see you. You, too, James.”

“I want to see her,” James said.

“Kidney,” Keb said, “from where?”

“Well . . .” Ruby lowered her head and seemed to compose herself, then raised her eyes to her father, “from me, Pops.”

“You? You would do that for her?”

“She’s my sister.”

Anne caught her breath.

As more boats circled up, people joined hands and reached out boat-to-boat over open water, thirty, sixty, one hundred, two hundred people, joining hands. Where they couldn’t reach hand-to-hand they threw lines and held tight and pulled until every boat was near and connected, and nobody was alone. And still more boats came, and more after that, throwing lines, joining hands, pulling, waving.

“Tell a story, Keb.”

“Please, Keb.”

The glacier calved no ice and held still, as if to listen. Ruby squeezed her father’s hand. “I think it’s time for a story, Pops. You okay with that?”

The old man looked at James and said, “Let it go.”

Everybody watched as James pulled the necklace off his bare chest, untied the raven feather, held it over the water, and placed it among pieces of floating ice, the children of the glacier.

Uncle Austin used to say the Tlingit sang and danced and dreamed the world into creation. Not long ago, everything was how it ought to be, and could be again, when mighty canoes arrived six abreast at a potlatch, the paddles dipping ever so gently. As they approached, the chiefs, dressed in their wooden helmets and blankets, stood in the sterns to speak about their families. Listening on shore, the host would emerge by hopping out of his house sideways to imitate the motions of an eagle before perching on a high rock and moving his head side to side, his feet bare beneath caribou skin trousers, a white eagle tail feather in each hand.

Keb took a deep breath. All eyes were on him. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel old. He was young, with everything before him. Mountains, forests, rivers, and the sea. The ongoing creation of the world. Was any part of it—any single moment—ever without wisdom, guardianship, and grace? And always the glaciers, great carvers in their own right, shapers of the land, not as many as before, but . . .

We are still here.

To tell a story was no small thing; you had to have both permission and authority.

And so Keb nodded to his ancestors, and acknowledged the elders around
him, and sons and daughters of elders, their clans and houses. He couldn’t remember some names, so asked that they announce themselves, which they did, with thanks. Paul Beals assigned one of his rangers to afix a small, portable microphone to Keb, and set two speakers atop the
Firn
. All while other elders paid their respects and gave more thanks.

“Gunalchéesh.”

“Go ahead and talk for as long as you’d like, Keb,” Paul said. “These are your people. This is your place.”

Keb filled his lungs and began, first in Tlingit, then English. “This is not my story . . .” More boats drifted in, engines off, people listening. “It comes from the long ago time, the ice time. It’s a story my Uncle Austin used to tell me, and his uncle told him, and his uncle’s uncle told him. ‘Two hunters were coming home from over the glacier, the glacier that made this bay. . . .’”

KEB FINISHED, BUT his voice still filled Anne’s heart. A couple hours passed as others told stories, visited, shared food, and took photos. Soon, more than one hundred boats headed south, again in single file, at thirteen knots. Here and there they doubled up or ran three abreast as people visited boat-to-boat, and laughed, and told more stories. Anne had only one word for it: Magic.

Chief Ranger Gary Hoffman, the task force incident commander from Washington, confiscated her rifle and flare gun, and piloted the
Firn
back to Bartlett Cove. He had nothing to say. It was obvious how he felt: this entire fiasco was her fault, all these non-permitted motorized vessels in the bay, the mayhem and recklessness, the paperwork for weeks, maybe months, explanations on top of excuses on top of apologies. Paul rode with them and told Anne he understood, he truly did; he’d do everything he could to give her a break. His evaluation of her would make interesting reading. Ron gave her a sympathetic nod. Maybe she’d get work in a marine lab somewhere, cleaning petri dishes in Patagonia, testing test tubes in Texas, mopping floors in Florida. Maybe she’d winter in Alaska, teach Stuart how to make good coffee, or better bad coffee.

Off the entrance to Bartlett Cove, the
Esker II
came alongside the
Firn
, escorting Keb, Ruby, James, and Little Mac back to Jinkaat. Keb waved and Anne waved back, knowing she might never see him again, knowing too what it was to be privileged, a witness to what can happen. Not until Keb was out of sight did she reach for her journal.

To have a father like this

a daughter could believe

not in greatness or fate

for that it’s too late

but simple things

steady things

a strength

in surrender

a wooden boat

a photograph

of you

in flowers and cotton

To die we must forget

but also be forgotten.

WHEN JAMES WHEELED Keb into her room, she was sleeping.

But where?
Where is she?

Keb was too low in his wheelchair. He couldn’t find her. There were too many gadgetgizmos and thingamajigs and plastic tubes and shiny metal rails all around her bed. Too many metal rings and things and soft beeping sounds and nurses moving in and out, friendly in their blue shirts, blue pants, and blue eyes. When Keb finally did find her, her size alarmed him. She was too small, too frail. Her color wasn’t right. He reached for her—the only thing he knew how to do—and put his hand on hers. She had never been frail before. Never this small. She had always been feisty and fit.

She was sleeping now. Yes, sleeping. That’s good. Everything will be okay.

Robert and Lorraine were there. They announced that they were going out to get Chinese take-out: kung pung shrimp, ping pong pork, hong kong fish, king kong beef, something like that. Keb didn’t care. Actually, he did care. Egg rolls would be nice. He liked egg rolls and soy sauce. And “death by chocolate” and “killer vaniller” ice cream. “Get some of that too, if you can, for me and little Christopher.”

Christopher was not so little anymore. He played a good game of checkers. In their last game alone he had triple-jumped Keb twice. Lorraine said he would play chess one day, be a champion. Robert’s new job at Coca-Cola had him working seventy hours a week, projecting sales, selling projections, something like that. Lorraine said they missed California.

James and Little Mac decided to go with Robert and Lorraine. They had spent all day in the hospital in Ruby and Gracie’s rooms, and wanted a break. “Will you be okay here alone, Gramps?”

The old man nodded. He wheeled himself to the window and watched traffic on the big freeway. The window was cracked open. He drank the cool air. He could hear the sour, persistent drone of a siren, and closer, the music of boys playing basketball on a concrete court next to the hospital. They moved like gazelles, like the basketball artists in Jinkaat. Then what? Did he wheel back to Ruby’s bed and fall asleep? Yes, he must have, with his head against her bed. When he awoke, golden light was spilling into the room. Keb looked up. His daughter was awake.

“Pops,” she said weakly.

“Ruby.”

She reached over and touched his arm, her hand not talonlike as before, just a hand. “What are you doing here?”

“Seeing you.”

“You don’t like Seattle.”

Keb said nothing. On the
Etude
, off George Island, Angola had asked him whose life he was going to save. Oyyee . . . 
how do you answer a question like that?

“I’m like you now,” Ruby said. “I have only one kidney.”

Keb rubbed her arm.

“How’s Gracie?” Ruby asked.

“She’s good.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“Not yet.”

“You came to see me first?” Ruby turned her face away. When she turned back she looked as though she wanted to say something beyond reach. “Is James here?”

“He went with the others to get dinner. He goes by Jimmy now.”

“Jimmy?”

A nurse breezed in and out.

Ruby said with some effort, “You know, Pops, you and I could sneak out of here and go eat dinner in the hospital cafeteria. Green Jell-O. Purple potato salad.”

They shared a laugh.

“I get to see Christopher again tonight,” Keb said. He loved the magical boy who was missing a chromosome or had one chromosome too many, something like that; the boy who smiled as deeply as a smile could go. In Keb’s mind, he, Keb, would always be old and Christopher young. Maybe it’s not what we have that makes us who we are, it’s what we’re missing. A chromosome, a kidney, a sister, a feather, a bay.

“You’re in a wheelchair,” Ruby said.

“For a while, until my legs get better.”

“Your legs?” Ruby attempted to shift in her bed.

Keb watched her wince. He wished he could do something for her. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” she lied.

Another nurse came in and adjusted her pillows to make her more comfortable.

Ruby closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The others returned with dinner, along with Günter and Josh. Keb let go of Ruby’s hand to eat his egg rolls. They all watched
Wheel of Fortune
and
Jeopardy
.