West of Here (16 page)

For the next three days the weather did not break, and the hard frost did not come, but the curative powers of fresh meat upon the party’s morale were considerable. By the time Cunningham devoured his second venison steak, his fever had disappeared and his teeth had ceased clattering altogether. His strength and humor returned with each mouthful.

The second afternoon Reese bagged a small black bear whose misfortune it was to amble into camp and set the tethered dogs to barking. Haywood was moved to comment in his journal upon the docility of the beast, who did not so much as raise her hackles as the dogs snarled and yipped and Reese scrambled for his rifle.

19 January 1890
Indeed, the beasts are veritably giving themselves up to meet our appetites. That this bountiful place should provide such sustenance at this elevation (the altimeter reads 1,450 feet, though surely we must be higher), and at this late season (even the bears needn’t slumber their winters away for lack of food), may be further testimony that paradise awaits us over the divide.

There was laughter all evening as the fatty bear meat popped and crackled in the skillet, and the remains of the whiskey was passed around the circle. They savored the very last of the spirit in ceremonious conjunction with the liver, which melted on their tongues. It was
decided in the spirit of competition that each man should design and construct for his load his own means of overland portage.

Masticating slowly, his shaggy brow furrowed, Mather conceived of a travois made of alder, which amounted to a wheelbarrow on runners. Cunningham, meanwhile, striking various thoughtful comportments of his own, conceived of a sledge with bowed vine maple runners. Reese and Haywood settled on towropes, reasoning identically that anything more elaborate would simply prove cumbersome and unwieldy over the rough terrain. Not content to wait for morning in executing his design, Runnells, basking in the glow of the fire and the whiskey, began constructing a nondescript contrivance somewhere between a toboggan and a sled that he named the
Buggy,
upon which it was generally agreed all classification was lost.

The weather finally broke, and morning brought the hard frost they’d been awaiting. The party was collectively healthy, rested, and optimistic, even Mather. But nowhere was this upswing more evident than in Cunningham, five pounds heavier and immeasurably stronger, who had shaken his misgivings about the expedition and constructed his maple sledge with a certain whistling relish.

Mather constructed his travois with the slight alteration that he was forced to build the stanchions and deck of fir, having burned most of the cedar readily available to them. Though Runnells effected a few painstaking refinements in the frame of the
Buggy,
these alterations were invisible to the others, and he spent a good deal more time admiring his ugly duckling, convinced that he alone would subdue the elements with the marvel of his conception. Haywood watched the others work with the keen interest of a knowing father.

Before they even set out, the clouds returned in earnest dragging sheets of wet snow. Within an hour of breaking camp, the snow defeated all but the mule. The
Buggy
was a shambles. Mather’s travois wilted. Even the towropes proved ineffective against the drag of slushy snow. Cunningham’s sledge had weathered the trail best, though its maple runners had straightened out somewhat and were forever mired beneath the crust. Finally, all vehicles were abandoned in favor of the time-honored mode of backpacking.

The river had lightened their loads considerably, but they steadily gained elevation as the day unfolded, carving switchbacks through the timber for hours upon end. The oil clothing was useless against the wet snow, prompting Mather to abandon his altogether rather than endure the weight of it. The going was brutal, though Dolly suffered the worst of it, wincing frequently beneath her load as the skin of her ankles was rubbed raw by the snow.

Even well rested and nourished, the men were out of steam long before the daylight ran out. They ate the last of the doe and a good deal of the bear and slept hard that night. Mather dreamed, not a dream, but a slow heavy pulse, like a heartbeat from the center of the earth.

JANUARY
1890

When Ethan and Jacob reached the head of the canyon and emerged in the snow-blanketed meadow below the bluff, the grandeur of the scene was lost on neither man. The valley was a bowl of glorious white, and beyond the foothills the rugged snowcapped peaks of the divide loomed in dramatic relief, crisp against a backdrop of deep blue sky. And right in the middle of it all, Ethan was overjoyed to see his little cabin transformed. Not only did it boast a cedar shake roof but sturdy steps and a porch and, wonder of wonders, a river rock chimney belching black smoke into the whitewashed valley. Ethan could not have been prouder of these improvements had he made them himself.

When the men were halfway across the snowy meadow, Indian George emerged on the stoop waving. And waving back, Ethan grinned ear to ear, but even as he grinned, the thought of George’s pillaged cabin was heavy upon his mind.

George was eager to relay his recent adventures, but before he could even begin, Ethan informed him of the chaos that vandals had visited upon his cabin, and George nodded gravely, the lines of his forehead gathering. He took flight without a word, a rifle that Ethan didn’t recognize slung at his hip.

Ethan turned and walked right past the warm glow of the cabin to the edge of the bluff with Jacob in tow. The two men peered down into the narrow chasm. A silent moment passed as they watched the river roar through the chute.

“We’ll transform this place, Jake, for a hundred miles in every direction. Our dam will be a force of nature.” Ethan unpocketed his pipe and tobacco and packed a bowl and puffed, relishing the endless
possibilities of progress. “A glittering city will take shape along that strait, Jake, you wait and see.”

And standing there on the lip of the gorge with a stiff wind rocketing past his ears, his arm draped over the shoulder of the man whom he hoped would soon be his brother-in-law, Ethan envisioned a glorious future for Port Bonita, twenty, thirty, a hundred years and beyond.

JUNE
2006

Though the strait was still a vaporous wall of white beyond Ediz Hook, the fog had broken inland but for few wisps and tatters, and the sun angled in weakly from the southeast, illuminating the Red Lion Inn, where a UPS truck was idling out front and an old fellow with a walker and a blue windbreaker was inching his way across the parking lot toward the stairs to Hollywood Beach. At Front Street, Curtis felt a little pang as he passed Anime House. He didn’t bother checking the alley to see if the box was still there, where he’d abandoned it three days prior. Curtis had attempted to sell his comics to Anime House in an effort to finance an eighth of weed. The whole thing turned out to be a colossal hassle. He’d hauled the cumbersome white box all the way to school on the bus. It wouldn’t fit in his locker, so he had to empty the box of its contents, stacking the entire Marvel Universe individually, vertically, and in reverse alphabetical order, from
X-Men
to
Avengers,
in his locker, amid a corridor bustling with morning traffic — the squeaky shoes, the jostling, the stray knee in the back. Now and again, he paused in his duties long enough to consider an issue.

Here was John Proudstar as Thunderbird — he of the long black tresses and blood red headband, pictured boldly on the cover of
X-Men
#95, the very issue in which Thunderbird dies in the exploding plane of Count Nefaria. Here was Chris Bachalo’s
X-Men
#193 cover, awash in golden hues. The issue in which another Indian hero, the Apache Warpath — looking suspiciously like Thunderbird sans headband — comes to avenge his brother’s death. Only now could Curtis see they were just making fun of Indians. The ubiquitous feathers and tomahawks, the bright red skin, all that spiritual garbage. As much as Curtis despised them all, the truth was that up until a few
short years ago, he had loved them, too:
Exiles, Alpha Flight, X-Men.
Curtis had liked the idea of outcasts banding together. He had liked the idea of turning misfortune into strength. He had liked the idea that the imperfections of history could be repaired. He loved the heroes for being bigger than life, loved them for saying the things people never said, taking the actions people never took, but ultimately, he identified with them for their superhuman weakness more than their strength. For in their weakness, he recognized himself.

Curtis couldn’t throw the stupid box away after he’d unpacked the comics, because he still needed it to haul them downtown, so he’d been forced to drag the empty thing with him to lit and consumer studies (both of which he was nearly failing), where, try as he might to keep the box tucked under his desk, it invariably stuck out into the aisle, arousing curiosity from every angle. He bailed on driver’s ed third period. He’d never have a car anyway, so what was the point? He stole away down the empty hallway to his locker, reorganized the Marvel Universe, shouldered the box, and walked it in the spitting rain all the way to Lincoln and Front.

He could not deny a certain nostalgia upon entering the shop, with its glass cases smelling of Windex, its store-length rows of countless titles scrupulously organized in their wooden bins. He could do without the Warcraft posters and the game rentals, but otherwise it was the same: everywhere color and the competing odors of dust and newness.

Flipping through Curtis’s collection, the counter guy, a dude about forty, could not disguise a certain nostalgia of his own. “Ha!
Rom Spaceknight
— a comic based on an action figure nobody bought. No way, you gotta be kidding me,
Luke Cage, Hero for Hire
? Hmph. Look at that afro. Micronauts —
another
comic based on an action figure nobody bought. Boy, kid, you’ve got some real turkeys in here.”

Curtis could have done without all the commentary. He just wanted forty bucks. Maybe fifty, so he could buy a pack of smokes, some Doritos, and an Excalibur down at Circle K.

“Twenty bucks for these,” the counter dude said, peering over the rim of his reading glasses, clutching a stack that included most of
the
Fantastic Four
s,
X-Men,
some
Daredevil
s, and the crown jewel of his collection, Marvel Two-in-One annual #1 (featuring the Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing and the hopelessly gay and outdated Liberty Legion).

“That’s it?”

“Look, I just don’t move a lot of this seventies stuff, kid.
Luke Cage, Hero for Hire
?
Rom Spaceknight
? Sorry, but I couldn’t give that stuff away.”

As it turned out, neither could Curtis. He tried to give the rest of the box to the guy for free, so he wouldn’t have to lug the thing back to school. No dice. Begrudgingly, he salvaged all the Native American crap and left the rest in the alley by the Dumpster.

The day had only gotten worse for Curtis after abandoning the comics. Still twenty bucks shy of that elusive eighth, he’d returned to school, stashed what was left of the Marvel universe in his locker, and proceeded to Coleman’s office to deal with the stupid job shadow bullshit he was getting roped into in order to pass Gerke’s class.

“What about shadowing one of the elders?” Coleman had said. “Or somebody from the Tribal Council? Or the Jamestown Heritage Museum? They might even have an internship for you down there.”

Coleman wasn’t even Indian. He’d just married an Indian so long ago that he’d managed to convince himself he was Indian by association. The ponytail, the politics, the ugly sweaters. On his desk, a leather stitched pencil cup with beads and tassels.

“Why not keep it local?” Coleman persisted.

“It is local,” Curtis observed impassively from behind a curtain of black bangs.

Coleman frowned his guidance counselor frown.

They’d never let him forget it — Coleman, the elders, the guy from the fry bread stand at Sunday market. They were always ennobling the tribe, clinging to the past with a grip so tenuous it was almost silly — potlatches, totems, canoes. Please. Like he was going to carve a totem or ferry people around in a canoe? Why couldn’t his people just adapt? And what were they trying to sell him, anyway? Curtis was no dummy. He’d done his research. He’d read the history books. He
knew that being a Klallam back in the day wasn’t all communing with nature and dancing with spirits. He knew about the slave trade. He knew about the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the Dungeness Massacre. He knew about the violence and hatred the Klallam had visited on the Tsimshians as well as the whites, how they’d burned them and decapitated them. Funny, but you never heard the elders singing that tune. They were always trying to get you to succeed, to do the tribe proud,
give back
to the community. Give what? For what? The stupid casino?