Feather for Hoonah Joe

by Marianne Schlegelmilch

  On the drive back to Hyde Park he made his decision. Tomorrow he would return to Alaska. He needed to think. Then he would decide what to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Déjà vu?

  Two days after boarding the ferry in Bellingham, Joe Michael again shuffled along the deck of the Malaspina, this time more lost and more deflated than ever before. Gone were the fancy new rimless glasses that Sal had chosen for him. In their place was the comfortable black-rimmed pair that he had worn for more years than he had been married to the second love of his life. Gone, too, was the thin gold band he had worn on the ring finger of his left hand since the two of them had vowed to be together until death.

  Perhaps he had been a fool to think that he could find love again, especially now that he was in his 70s. Or maybe it had been wishful thinking that had prompted him to think that a woman as feisty and adventurous as Sal Kindle had walked into his life devoid of any hidden truths about her past.

  Whatever the case, even though his heart had not let go of the love he felt for her, his mind had told him that he must try, and so he had shed the ring and the glasses as the two most powerful reminders that he and Sal had ever walked hand in hand through life. Instead, he wandered the decks of the ferry just as he had done after losing his first wife to the horrible house fire that had taken his entire family.

  He had left Rhinebeck without trying to see her again. What would have been the point? She obviously either didn’t know him or was playing some kind of game with his heart, and she had “people” looking out for her—lots and lots of people. Whatever the case, it had all left him confused and so he had run away, just as he had done after losing his first wife, only this time, he couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason why.

  If he and Sal were meant to be together again, he reasoned, she would find him or he would find her or they would find each other. Whatever the case, suddenly he had been thrust into some kind of survival mode and unable to do any more than retreat into the safety of his own self, and that was a familiar place even though littered with the shallow graves that held his memories of Vietnam.

  A humpback whale breached so close to the ferry that the huge vessel leaned slightly in the water under the weight of passengers trying to get a glimpse should it surface again. He pushed open the door to the main entryway that held the purser’s office and the stairways to the upper and lower decks. Then he made his way across the width of the ferry and pushed open the door to the deck on the other side.

  No one was there. He looked heavenward, silently asking for the whale to breach again so as to keep the passengers away from him on the other side.

  He stared down into the clear green water. Several jellyfish bobbed just below the surface, their tentacles seeming to reach over ten—maybe twenty—feet in length, straight downward into the water. He gripped the deck rail, as if to steel himself from the impulse to join them. Then he slowly made his way back to his stateroom and had dinner brought to his room.

  When the ferry stopped in Sitka the next day, he would stay there for a few days, visit the memorial to his family, and maybe take a walk through Totem Park. He knew a couple of carvers there. Carvers were good storytellers. They respected tradition and all the deep meanings of life. He might ask if he could carve for a while himself. That would require special conditions, but maybe he could carve like he had done when he was a younger man. Carving had always brought him peace.

  He again felt the feather against the fingers he had shoved inside his pocket. It gave him comfort and a sense that rightness would prevail.

  After hanging his jacket over the end of a chair, he readied for bed and slept soundly.

  Tomorrow Sitka might bring him the answers, perhaps solace. It had been so once before, and perhaps it would be so now.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Roots

  The next day in Sitka, Joe found the son of his friend, John, beginning a new pole outside the carving pavilion in Totem Park.

  “You are John’s son,” he said when he arrived.

  A slight nod in response told him that he was right.

  Joe sat down on a log bench and watched as John’s son began to carve. Within the hour, John himself arrived and sat next to Joe on the bench. The two men remained silent as John’s son began to carve, with John often getting up to supervise some fine point about the carving.

  By day’s end, the first two feet of the totem had been roughed out, having met the approval of the elder carver, who told his son they would continue tomorrow.

  For the next several days, Joe Michael returned to Totem Park to watch John and his son work. On the fourth day, John got up as usual, but this time took the carving tools from his son and handed them to Joe, directing him to carve the place five feet from the designated bottom of the currently side-lying pole, in a place that would be directly in line with the top of Joe’s shoulders once the pole was erected.

  Joe Michael began his work, carving a feather in the shape of a crescent moon against the backdrop of the sun. For an entire day he carved, before returning the tools to John, who nodded in quiet understanding.

  “You will return for the Potlatch next year,” he told him. “And you will help to burn the end of the pole and help us erect it.”

  Joe Michael nodded and embraced his friend before turning and walking away.

  He would return next year and he would keep living so that he could. His friend, John, had found a way to make sure that he would.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A Good Cessna 206

  The flight back to Juneau was fast and a respite of sorts for the tired and worn Joe Michael. He had made so many friends on the ferry system over the years, that privacy would have been impossible during this time when he simply needed time to think, so he bought a plane ticket back to Hoonah.

  Several times he caught himself reminiscing about flying his own Piper Super Cub wherever he wanted to go. He had spent countless hours flying over Alaska, having outfitted the plane with a prop that would let him fly “low and slow” as he liked to call it. He missed flying, but his heart condition had put an end to that particular activity and so now he flew on a commercial junket, still feeling the surge of adrenaline that had always made him love to fly.

  He really didn’t like flying on commercial flights. All the rules and restrictions stifled him and made him feel like a nameless entity among so many other nameless entities in the sky. There weren’t any options for flying out of Hoonah on a private plane. Lots of people had them, but no one that he felt he could ask to take him on a flight all the way to New York.

  He could probably ask Ben Edwards to help him out if this thing in Rhinebeck was going to require any more trips back and forth. But Ben was about to become a father again, so even though he knew full well that Ben would bend over backwards to help him, it was an option that he just would not pursue—if, that is, if he were to go back there again. Strange, how thoughts of Rhinebeck and Sal kept popping into his brain when he had tried so hard to shut out thoughts of the path their life had taken.

  Maybe recertifying his status as a pilot could be an option. He could buy a new plane. He’d seen one for sale in Juneau right before he left. Maybe he’d look into it. Maybe he was being foolish. No doctor was going to sign off on a flight physical for an elderly man with a heart condition. He took a deep breath and let out an audible sigh.

  “Yes, I’m okay,” he told the passenger sitting next to him. “I was just thinking hard.”

  It had to be some kind of serendipity then, when he saw a red and white Cessna 206 sitting in front of Beachmoppers when he walked over in the morning after having arrived in Hoonah the night before.

  The morning was sunny, showing promise of being one of those rare days when no rain fell in Hoonah. The plane shone in the sun, looking like it had been waxed to a high polish.

  Every part was polished to perfection, including the high-speed propeller, which was obviously new. A set of matching
floats sat in the yard telling him that someone was definitely in the process of getting the aircraft ready for use.

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she Joe?” Doug Williams said as he joined Joe Michael in the yard.

  “Yes. A beauty,” Joe Michael answered. “It’s no Super Cub, but it’s still a beauty.”

  “I couldn’t have asked for a better deal,” Doug said, answering Joe Michael’s silent question about who the plane belonged to.

  “Is it the one from Juneau?” Joe Michael asked, recognizing the color as being the same as the one he had seen.

  “It is. How did you know about it?” Doug answered.

  “Saw it there recently,” Joe answered, “on my way south.”

  “We’ve been worried about you, Joe,” Doug said. “Mara’s been frantic. Luckily the shop’s been busy, so the time’s gone by quickly.”

  “Didn’t mean to make you worry,” Joe answered.

  “Where’s Sal?” Doug asked.

  “Rhinebeck. Rhinebeck, New York,” Joe answered.

  “Joe!” Mara exclaimed, rushing to greet him. “We’ve been worried sick.”

  “Didn’t mean to make you worry,” Joe repeated. “But I see you managed to keep busy picking out a Cessna.”

  Joe Michael ran his hand along the fuselage as he walked absently around the plane.

  “Where’s Sal?” Mara said, following him.

  “Like I told Doug, Rhinebeck. Sal’s in Rhinebeck, New York.”

  “When’s she coming back?” Mara asked.

  Joe kept examining the plane and didn’t answer.

  “She’s all right, isn’t she? Joe? Is Sal all right? She is coming back, isn’t she?”

  Joe turned around and looked directly into her eyes.

  “Got any water on for tea?” he asked. “Some hot tea would be real nice.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Unarmed Robbery

  Both Doug and Mara sat transfixed as Joe Michael described his visit to Rhinebeck.

  “This explains a lot,” Mara said. “No wonder Sal’s been so distracted.”

  “You said she had a bump on her head,” Doug said. “Could that explain her behavior on that last night?”

  Joe Michael got up and carried his cup to the sink. Then he walked over and put a gentle hand on Mara’s shoulder before walking out the door.

  “He acts like he’s giving up,” Mara said. “It’s like the life has been sucked out of him.”

  “He’s been through a lot, for sure,” Doug answered, “but Sal is his life and we just can’t let him give up on her no matter how helpless he feels.”

  For the rest of the day, the two busied themselves with bringing new stock into Beachmoppers. Tomorrow a cruise ship was due in, so they needed to be ready.

  It was the second hot, sunny day in a row and everyone in Hoonah, it seemed, was in a great mood. Gardens were being cultivated, houses were being painted, people were walking everywhere, and fishing was in full swing.

  “I saw Elzianne and her entourage walking by yesterday,” Mara called to Doug, as she stepped outside to check on Thor.

  The dog bounded up to her, jumping up to lick her face. Laughing at his exuberance, she pushed him down and reached for the blue bowl to get him some fresh water. Thor jumped up again. Even he felt playful in the summer sun, but Mara pushed him down and told him to sit/stay for emphasis.

  Where was the bowl? Had he knocked it under a bush or something? She hoped he hadn’t broken it.

  She stopped to admire the petunias that were trailing beautifully from the five-gallon bucket she had planted them in, and then stooped to pull up some chickweed that had taken too strong of a hold and needed to go. She shifted the park bench a few inches to level it, reached under a few bushes, but still no sign of the bowl.

  “Doug! Have you seen Thor’s bowl?”

  When he didn’t answer, she went inside to ask him again, but he wasn’t there, so she looked around the sink area and saw that the bowl was not there either.

  Just then Della came in.

  “Della, have you seen Thor’s bowl?”

  “It was there yesterday,” Della said. “I remember that because I put fresh water in it for Thor.”

  “Well it’s gone now,” Mara said.

  “Maybe someone took it,” Della said.

  Mara gave her a look.

  “Della!”

  Della brushed past her, unconcerned.

  “There’s probably something else we can put his water in,” she said.

  “Okay, Della. Just keep your eyes open for it, okay. I kind of liked that bowl. Maybe it’ll turn up.”

  Mara found an old dog dish and put fresh water out for Thor. Then she went in to fix herself some lunch, flipping on the TV as she did. It was then that she saw the “breaking news” headline flash across the screen.

  PRICELESS JAPANESE EDO PERIOD PORCELAIN FLOWER BOWL FOUND ON REMOTE ALASKA ISLAND.

  There on the screen, stood Elzianne LaMonte holding Thor’s water bowl. She turned up the sound just in time to hear Elzianne speak.

  “The New York Cultural Museum is pleased to announce the acquisition of this rare Edo Period flower bowl, where it was discovered near remote Hoonah, Alaska. Fortunately, members of our expedition were able to recover it from its precarious location at the feet of one of the area’s wild dogs. Unlike the typical green glaze used on porcelains of this period, this bowl is one of only two known to exist in the color of robin’s egg blue and its value is presumed to be priceless. It will be place on indefinite display at the museum beginning next week.”

  Mara muted the sound. Unbelievable! Not only had Elzianne obviously stolen the bowl, but she was brazen enough to go on national TV to not only distort the truth, but to brag about it.

  “There’s no way you’re going to be able to prove it was your bowl,” Doug told her later.

  “Well, it was my bowl,” Mara sputtered.

  “You got hundreds of dollars for a lawyer to try to prove it?” he asked.

  Mara nodded and walked away. The fact was that even though Brad had left her comfortably well off, neither of them had the kind of money it would take to go up against Elzi LaMonte and her high-priced New York legal team.

  “I can’t even prove she was here that day,” she told Doug later. “Della says she saw her here, but she didn’t see her take the bowl.”

  “The woman is as evil as Sal said she is,” Doug answered. “She’s a special kind of evil.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Photographic Proof

  “We have proof that the bowl is ours,” a law student named Dennis, who was working at Beachmoppers for the summer, commented when Mara told everyone what she had seen on TV.

  “The bowl is listed right here along with a picture in our catalog of every piece of recovered debris. We also have the date it was recovered, pictures of the recovery, and the date it was brought to Hoonah,” Dennis added. “Sal thought it was excessive—you know, all the documentation—but one of the archeology majors and I decided that it was easy enough to do, especially in this age of digital cameras. You never know—that was our thinking. Looks like our detail work might have paid off this time.”

  “But, still, how can we prove it was our bowl? They said there are two,” Mara asked.

  Dennis cocked his head and looked perplexed.

  “I’m sorry,” Mara said. “I just don’t trust that woman and her high-powered attorneys.”

  “If I remember correctly, the bowl has a unique dip in the glaze on one side,” Dennis said. “It caught my attention because it told me it must be handmade.”

  “Hmm,” Mara answered.

  “I remember taking extra photos of it because I liked the color. I thought it was unusual for its color. I don’t know, there was something about it that made me notice it more than a lot of the stuff we’ve been pulling in. To tell you the truth, I was kind of surprised when you decided to use it for a dog dish.”

  Mara blushed. After sifting thr
ough so much debris, she had seen the bowl as just another artifact among thousands and thousands of others.

  “I guess Thor was thirsty and I needed something for the water that day,” she said simply. “Sal had no use for it and it was just too pretty to throw away.”

  “I’ll look for the photos tonight,” Dennis said. “I haven’t gotten them all cataloged yet, so it might take me a day or two to go through them. I have over twenty thousand photos of tsunami debris already. I even had to take them off my hard drive to free up some space. It’s because I shoot in RAW.”

  “RAW?” Mara asked.

  “Raw format,” Dennis answered. “It’s the most perfect. It has the highest resolution. It captures everything. If I find it, and I will find it, we’ll have all the proof we need that the bowl was ours.”

  Mara smiled at Dennis. What a great idea Doug had come up with in hiring the college students for Beachmoppers. At first Sal had wanted to hire locals, but when no one seemed interested, Doug had posted flyers on an Alaska tourism website with a worldwide distribution, that also posted other summer jobs for college students.

  “It’s about the adventure,” Doug had told Mara. “And those are just the type of workers we want. Not everyone wants to work in the hospitality industry. I think we’ll find our workers easily enough.”

  Doug had been right. Applications for jobs at Beachmoppers had far exceeded available openings even though Sal was paying slightly less than the major hotel and cruise lines were offering. He had been careful in interviewing them, too, choosing those most focused on the sciences and who displayed more than the usual attention to detail.

  Dennis had almost not made the cut. His long ponytail, carefully manicured nails, and the double ear piercings on each ear had made Doug cringe. No guy wears that many hoops on his body, he had speculated, and if he does, he’s probably too narcissistic to pay attention to all the clutter he was going to have to sift through for this job.