West of Here (13 page)

Soon after the inception of Jamestown, Lord Jim brought the Shaker religion to his people, and they took to it, whole congregations of them signing the cross over and over, stomping loudly counterclockwise in a circle, shaking their rattles and ringing their bells, and trembling like oil on a hot skillet as they received their songs. Almost universally, the whites condemned them for these blasphemies, though Adam, having no misgivings with the Shaker church, was unique among his fellow agents. To Adam’s way of thinking, anything that inspired temperance in the natives was not to be discouraged.

Perhaps of all the Indians Adam had encountered in his ten years
of service, from Neah Bay to Puyallup, Lord Jim possessed the finest command of English and also the healthiest sense of irony. It was Lord Jim who, in the year of the census, dubbed young Adam “Potato Counter,” though in recent years, the old man had taken to calling him
cayci,
meaning “busy one.” It was also Adam’s impression that Lord Jim was, at times, in love with the sound of his own voice. And though the old man was still weak with fever as he sat across from Adam in his straight-backed chair amid the waning light of early evening, his voice was still strong.

“My heart cries for the Siwash,” he said. “They know just like we know,
cayci,
about the futility of resistance. The Great Father has taken our shamans, taken our right to fish.”

Out the window, a wall of fog was creeping in steadily along the shoreline. The old man gazed at it as if he could see right through it. “The old ways are gone,” he observed. “And for this reason, we embrace change. Because we want a future,
cayci,
and we want to build this future ourselves. That is why we purchased this land on our own, so it could not be taken from us. That is why we plant potatoes and wheat. That is why you will find not one drop of whiskey in our midst, even as our brothers the Siwash are drowning in it. And
that
is why I brought the Shaker religion to Jamestown,
cayci.
Because my people need something to believe in besides the Great White Father. Because the Great White Father will not cure what ails my people, he
cannot
cure what ails us. He speaks volumes but doesn’t keep his word. He still does not honor the treaty that bears my father’s signature, the treaty to which your own father was a witness. And I realize this is no fault of yours,
cayci.
You’ve been a friend to the Klallam, even in the long shadow of your father. And whatever I thought of your father, still, I am sorry for your loss. And I wish his shadow had died with him. And like you defy your father, even in death, we defy the Great White Father. But we do not defy him with violence; we defy him with acceptance. We are impoverished,
cayci,
but we are sovereign. Maybe not as Indians, but as a people.”

“That’s why I’m here, Jim.”

“Because the whites have heard our grievances at last?”

“Because of a boy.”

“And what boy is this?”

“He lives among the Siwash at Hollywood Beach.”

“Yes. I know of the boy. The spirit chaser, the Storm King. I’ve heard it said that he can produce thunder and lightning out of the air.”

“You heard wrong. He’s just a boy.”

“I’ve heard differently. I’ve heard he walks in two worlds.”

“He walks alone in the world of his own head,” said Adam. “That’s all. But he’s a fine boy. Smart. Strong. I want him to come live here. In Jamestown, with you, or whoever you see fit.”

“On whose authority does he come to live here?”

“His mother’s.”

“And where is she? What ails the mother that she can’t care for the boy?”

“The boy is wild. He needs structure, or trouble will find him.”

THERE CAME A
persistent rumble from above, but inside the big rumble were many little rumbles made of many different voices. There were thirty-one cracks of light, and one knot-shaped hole that danced with candle flame near the center. In the front, there was a great yawning mouth of light that opened with a groan and closed with a crash, swallowing the shadows within. The shadows had voices but no reflections, had footfalls but no faces. Sometimes when the shadows passed through the cracks of light, and the footfalls were heavy, a squiggle of light wavered in the mud puddle near the boy’s feet. The ground was squishy beneath his heels, and the wooden piles were blistered and sticky to the touch. The air was heavy with the smell of creosote. When the piano started playing, the rumbling only increased in intensity, and the wood planks issued sighs and creaking complaints from all about the flickering knothole. The reflections were invisible, as if they did not exist, but Thomas knew they were there, somewhere behind the implacable surface.

Suddenly the piano rode out on a gaping beam of light, only to be muffled an instant later with a crash. There came three heavy footfalls
down the back steps, and a dark form descended. At the bottom of the steps, the dark form crouched and concealed a wooden box beneath the foot of the steps. There followed a whistle, a cough, the acrid stink of tobacco.

A moment passed in silence. The dark form broke wind, cleared its throat, and issued another whistle. Finally, it ascended the steps and was swallowed once more by the musical light.

Soon there came footsteps in the slushy snow, and the light of a lantern approaching, and voices talking low, drawing closer. Indian voices.

Suddenly there were upside-down faces, two of them floating hollow-eyed and ghoulish, melting like candlewax in the pale quivering lamplight.

“I see only six.”

The one holding the lantern bent nearer to the box, and the ghostly light caught Thomas crouching between the piles.

“Hey!”

Thomas made a break for the alley side, but one of the men caught firm hold of his ankle, and the boy slipped and fell, and he felt the cool sting of the mirror as it sliced open his palm. The light whirled around as though the world were turned on end and shaken, and an avalanche of shadows descended on Thomas as he scrambled madly to break free of the hand. The back door crashed again and harried boot clomps skipped the second step and rounded the corner at a trot, accompanied by a confusion of voices.

“There!” said one voice.

A rough hand wrested Thomas about the collar.

“Got him!”

Thomas bit into a line of fat knuckles. There came a terrible scream, and the grip relented, and the boy kicked his leg free and scurried out from beneath the Belvedere. Clutching his broken mirror in his bloody grip, he began to run.

He fled the alley as fast as his feet would take him and rounded the corner. He slipped on the slushy path as he leapt for the boardwalk, and his chin struck the wooden edge with such force that his vision
went inky and his ears set to ringing. A rough hand grabbed him by the collar and swung him around. The mirror slipped from Thomas’s grasp, careened off the boardwalk, and landed in the mud near his feet.

Thomas recognized the Indian by his dark, pitted face. He’d seen his grandfather keeping company with the dark man in recent months. He was Makah, not Klallam. His breath was rank with fruit. He was called Stone Face.

“Gotcha!” he said.

A white man soon appeared over the Indian’s shoulder. He was the Belvedere Man, the one with the mustache. “What have you got here?”

Stone Face laughed. But in a chilling flash he turned serious and shook Thomas violently by the collar. The white reached in and tried to wrest control of Thomas’s collar. “Gimme that,” he said.

But Stone Face swung around and leered at the white. “Stay back!” he shouted, trailing a long strand of saliva. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You damn well better,” said the white.

“Go!” said Stone Face. And he wheeled around and slapped Thomas across the face with the back of his hand, and only then did the white turn away and walk back down the alley.

Stone Face forced Thomas into the alleyway. He slammed the boy up against a wall and shook him fiercely. Thomas did not cry out.

“What do you think you’re doing under there, huh? Who said you could be there?”

When Thomas did not answer, Stone Face doubled him over with a punch to the stomach. He straightened the boy up and leaned in so close that Thomas could not bear to open his eyes.

“I asked you a question, boy!”

But Thomas issued no reply. There were tears streaking down his face. His nose was running. His mouth was trembling as he struggled to gather his breath.

This time Stone Face spoke in Salish. “What business have you got under there?” And when the boy failed to respond yet again, Stone Face slapped him. “Talk, boy!” He grabbed a fistful of the boy’s hair
and shook his head violently.
“Nex’ t’cuct!”
He glowered at the boy, waiting for some reaction. But the boy only winced. Finally, the situation became clear, and Stone Face relinquished his grip. He smiled and pinched the fat of Thomas’s cheek. “Ha!
Nac!
” He pushed Thomas to the ground. “Couldn’t talk if you wanted to,” said Stone Face.

JANUARY
1890

The clams were thin and watery this season, and Hoko knew the boy would not eat them, but she dug them out anyway. Ediz Hook was pitted with them at low tide; littlenecks squirted all about her. She worked with her sleeves rolled up past her scars, nearly to the elbow, and it was comforting to sink her wrists into the coarse sand and feel the suck of the water as it rushed in to fill the breach. After two-dozen littlenecks and a handful of butter clams, Hoko paused where she squatted, and looked over the bay at the little town, smoking and churning, expanding before her very eyes. For weeks they’d been felling trees on the bluff above the town, and little cabins were popping up among the smoldering slash piles; it was as though the town were lowering its shoulder and pushing its way into the wilderness. And yet the bigger the town grew, the less room it afforded her people. As she walked down the spit toward Hollywood Beach, it looked to Hoko as though the town were trying to crowd the Klallam out altogether, push them right off the edge of the land into the strait. Their ragged little camp was besieged by progress, hemmed in, just as the town had once been hemmed in by the wilderness. But the Klallam were no longer lowering their shoulders and pushing back at their opposition.

At Hollywood Beach, Hoko came upon Abe Charles sitting in his canoe, mending a net with the expert precision of a woman. He was still dressed like a white but not as much as usual. He was hatless. His rifle was nowhere to be seen.

“I thought you took the whites into the mountains,” said Hoko.

Abe did not look up from his work. “Something visited me up there. The spirits turned me back.”

“Spirits,” she said flatly. “And where are these spirits now?”

Abe shrugged.

“How is it that these spirits will guide one man down a mountain but lead a whole people to ruin?”

Abe remained intent on his labors, feeding out net with his right hand. “That sounds like the white God you’re talking about.”

“What good are the spirits to us? The only spirit I see is whiskey.”

Abe glanced up at her, his fingers continuing their work.

Hoko pulled her sleeves down over her scars.

“The spirits may speak,” he said. “But they don’t always listen.”

Gazing out over the strait, a scowl took shape on her face. “Indian talk,” she said.

Abe focused once more on the net. “You’ve grown hard.”

Hoko did not deny it.

“Hard, like your father.”

“My father is not hard. My father is weak. You don’t know my father.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I did once. Just as I knew you once.” He draped a length of net over the side and untangled a corner. “Did you find the Storm King?”

“I found my son. There is no Storm King. His name is a lie. The spirits are a lie. My boy is called Thomas, and he is just a boy.” Hoko hefted her bucket.

“That could be,” observed Abe, finessing a hard little knot with busy fingers. Then, as though the two subjects were synonymous, he hastened to add, “Those clams will be watery. I’ve got venison.”

But Hoko was not interested in venison. She walked off down the beach toward her weak fire and her quiet sullen ways. As Abe watched her go, an old hunger stirred in his belly, and he felt the familiar ache of wanting in his jaw. If only life were so easy to untangle as a net.

JANUARY
1890

Eva’s little house had become so stuffy and constricting in the days following Minerva’s arrival that it may have been a tomb. Confined to her bed upon strict orders from the Chinaman, she found herself restless and ill at ease, and she actually rather missed the feverish state of semiconsciousness that had previously gripped her. Ethan and Jacob were no longer content to stick to neutral corners, nor willing to harbor the slightest misgiving toward one another, but hovered forever about Eva in tandem, beaming like a pair of vaudevillians, as they tirelessly delivered chicken broth and biscuits to her bedside, hectoring her to consume them
if not for herself, then for the baby.
Still worse, her neighbors landed upon her tiny cottage with an endless procession of bread loaves and pewter-molded desserts, stamping their feet on the porch upon entering, disrobing in the foyer, and proceeding directly to Eva’s bedside, whereupon they began poking and prodding at Minerva, stroking the downy soft spot atop her crown and cooing nonsense in her ear, commenting time and again on her father’s likeness, until the weight of the child began to feel like a stone altar on Eva’s chest. But what troubled her most was the suffocating effect of her own smallness. In the face of such blessings, she loathed herself for her ingratitude, loathed herself for loathing the baby, for refusing to call it by name, for wanting to rebuke its whimpering solicitations, for wanting to pinch its fat, tender arms when it nibbled too hard on her nipples, for wanting to cast her neighbors back into the cold with their tidings, and for wanting her brother and her lover to resume their hostilities. This last wish was futile, for in the dreadful interminable hours of suspense that marked Eva’s infirmity, the two men had forged an alliance that grew stronger with each soiled
diaper. Minerva, by her very appearance, had sealed the two men’s fortunes together.