“Where’s the mask? I haven’t seen it around.”
“Learn this song, and I’ll show you. One last thing. When your dad still spoke to his brother, he gave him permission to sing this song. But he took it back.”
“Over what?” Peter was fairly certain it was about her. His mother was beautiful, once, and much sought after. His uncle’s eyes rested on her whenever, wherever. He relished every chance to tell her how Peter was seen doing something he shouldn’t have. “What he needs is a strong man to look up to,” he said once, within earshot. She folded her arms at the door, withering her brother-in-law with quiet, until he finally left, and she broke her own rules and went for a cigarette in the bedroom her husband hadn’t slept in for days.
“He started singing at out-of-town parties. Your dad wasn’t going. And I couldn’t go. I had to work. He was supposed to check with your dad each and every time. He didn’t. If I had been there, I would have stood up and said something, paid him in public. Shamed him till he stopped.
“Your uncle claimed he was keeping our culture alive, making sure no one else laid claim to it, but he was staking out our song. Always changing his story—one day, he’d tell someone Sam gave him the song outright. Another day, he’d say your grampa made up his mind to take the song from Sam and give it to him. Or he’d say his father gave it to both his sons. Anything. He’d say anything. His sons have been up to the same bad business.”
“Mom, I don’t mind if they share a song with me.”
“Peter, you’ve got to know what’s yours.” Dave leaned forward. “Your cousins use that song to get privileges. They’ve taken status from you.”
“Okay, I get it. What else?”
“There’s a story that goes with the song. For people who know, the song kind of cues you into the story. And if you don’t know, you don’t need to know.” She straightened. “The story begins like this.
“Way back when, the men in your dad’s family were whalers. If you’d been here fifteen years ago, you could have been one, too. There’s still time. But like I was saying, your ancestors hunted whales. The man who wrote this song was the bravest one in the canoe. He would get in the water after they harpooned the whale. It was his job to sew up the whale’s mouth so it wouldn’t sink.”
Dave leaned forward. “They tied seal floats to the whale to tow it in.”
“Shh, I’m telling it. Can you imagine that, Peter? The whale’s tore up. It is big, and bleeding all over. He dove into the ice cold water and looked it straight in the face. He kept his back to the whole ocean! That’s in your blood, son.
“And he’s doing it, he’s using some innards to sew up the whale’s mouth. Along comes a seal. Playful. At least they can be. But there’s blood in the water. Makes animals aggressive. People, too.
“That seal keeps bumping the back of his head. Believe me, he’s trying to hurry up. But you can’t rush good work. Sewing is tough! Easy to lose your materials. Especially when the waves are going every which way. He’s kicking to stay afloat, trying to stay with the whale. No idea what’s beneath his feet.
“Every time he came up for a breath, the seal did, too. Darned thing wouldn’t leave him alone! But he’s almost done with his job. One part of it, anyway. They still had to get the whale to shore.”
“It could take a week, pulling day and night, if a storm came up.”
“Dave, I said, ‘shhh!’ I’m telling it. The seal noses him in the back of the head, and he turns around to poke back. And that’s when he saw them. Killer whales knifing through the water. Straight at the whale. Straight at him.
“He just about died. But what he did was, he got in the canoe, quick as could be. The seal flew through the air. Flung up, you know. He figured he’d been saved by it. Warned.”
Though he once watched hundreds of hammerheads pass over him, their shadows dappling his mask, Peter never saw a whale below water, let alone a killer whale. He had always been grateful for the latter, but right now he felt cheated. He wasn’t given the chance to test his mettle like the old ones. Or, more like, the things he was tasked to do would wear anyone down. Where were the spectacular high water marks he could brag about later? Nowhere to be seen.
“This song came to him. About his tumanos. Do you know what tumanos is?”
“Don’t act like I didn’t grow up here.” Peter stood. “I need some air.”
“Alright.” She looked down at her hands. “I could use a break, too.”
“Mind if I join you for a smoke?” Dave was already getting up.
“It’s your porch.” Peter stepped outside and tapped a cigarette from the pack. He heard his mother shuffle to the bathroom and turn on the faucet as soon as she closed the door, a sure sign she was crying. He wanted to get away.
Dave’s lighter rasped. “My back is aching. You ever had a hurt back? Never leaves you alone. Just like a woman, always telling ya you should be doing something different.”
Peter eyed his neighbor. Cagey old codger. Together, they puffed and watched wind move through the branches of cedars along the horizon.
“Peter, I done things I’m not proud of, things I would change if I could. But you can’t go back. We can only move forward, and that’s what I want to help you and your mother do, move forward. Honor the past, of course, but keep it moving. It’s too easy to get stuck in time.” He nodded toward their home. “You see where that gets you. Addicted to the pain. I been there, going back to pain like it keeps giving. All it does is take.”
Peter listened for Claudia’s car. He was in no mood for lectures.
“You two done yet?” His mother pounded the door from inside. “The day is getting away from us.”
From the edge of the coffee table, Peter kept an eye on the street. His mom clapped her cupped palms crossways in tempos that quickened and slowed in strange places. In bone game, the main speed was ‘let it rip.’ Dave picked up the beat right away, the soft head of his drumstick finding a worn spot on the face of his drum. Peter waited, listening.
“They sang this in the canoe. We’ll do it again. I’ll sing.” Her arms swayed back and forth over her knees. “Tumanos wo hey a hey hey, tumanos wo hey ahey o ahey o.” Her voice sunk low, ascending as she repeated those words, the melody shifting beneath her like water.
It had been decades since he heard someone sing the Makah way—husky, open-throated, so unlike the strident, piercing Plains Indian powwow songs. Makah songs boomed like the ocean in a cave, waves that crescendoed and subsided, echoing in his chest.
“Hear that drum?” She clapped when Dave’s steady dundun switched to dun-dun-dun. “Time to change your steps. Back in the day, they used to sing it through five times. We’ll do two or three because the dance is so hard. You’ll be down real low.”
He would have to dance. In front of everybody. Of course.
Peter found a rhythm with his mother. They got small things done in near proximity to each other, their gradual circumnavigations forming slow constellations in their home, where he promised himself he’d never live again—a trailer, yes, a doublewide. When their eyes met, it was with the agreement that they would not argue, their loose layer of friendliness like loam over hardpan.
He stopped waiting for Claudia to visit, went instead to check on her, and more often than not, found her in bed, where they ended up staying. She was listless, said she didn’t feel like drinking, no matter what he brought over, so he made his way through the whiskey he gave her. She hadn’t been saying much, but he told himself he was tired of talking. It was nice to find a reprieve.
But her silences were worrisome, if his life experience was any indicator. Women pipe down when they’re planning something unpleasant for their partners. Which he was, he supposed. He was her partner, at least in putting on this potlatch. That was not nothing. They could build on that. The best cure for the blues was something to do.
He reached down to clasp the arch of Claudia’s foot, startled at his own smell, theirs together, a rich musk tinged
sweet by rutting. “Let’s take a shower.”
Peter held her hand down the hall, held it when he reached in to start the hot water, held on while she stepped into the shower, their knees bumping against each other as they shifted beneath the spray. The water wrapped them in warmth, holding them together, glistening.
“Why haven’t you come over? Mom’s been telling stories. I thought you would like it.”
“I need time to myself. Christmas knocked me off guard.”
He ran his thumbs over her eyelashes, cheekbones, lips. It felt like he’d never been this close to anyone, but that wasn’t enough. She was closed to him, a black box. “Why are you here, Claudia?”
“I fucked up. I’m trying to make things right.”
“We all feel that way.”
She kissed him, water filling their mouths wherever they parted, his soapy fingers slipping down her back and around her thighs, working the suds over her, into her, back and forth, her hands clenching his shoulders, body curling toward him, breath loud in his ear.
Too good to last. He knew that. He knew it when he toweled her hair, knew it when he pulled her close in bed, knew it when the first light of day silvered their bodies. She had a husband, a whole life. And what do I have, Peter thought. If I died right now, I would leave so little behind, even less than my dad did. Just this body, and a mother with not much time to grieve.
A dream sprang from the depths of his slumber, winding and curling around the swirl of his thoughts until, one by one, they succumbed.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE CARPET, WALLS and kitchen tile were a light dull brown, punctuated by dark laminate bookshelves crammed with baskets and carvings. An autobody repair shop calendar, out of date by more than a decade, was pinned to the wall.
The old man held up the invitation. “Coming up quick. That’s a pretty tight turnaround.” What was the man’s name? Frank, she thought. And he was. Most people would keep their mouth shut until you were long gone and others were sitting where you had been.
Maybe that’s why they came here first. Maggie insisted on delivering some invitations in person. She and Roberta divided the list into visits and stamps before Claudia arrived with the invitations. She didn’t get to hear them map the tribe’s hierarchy, their loyalties laid bare. Instead, she stuffed envelopes, shaky, dipping a sponge in water to wet the glue.
Roberta shrugged. “No one has anything planned that weekend—and the Devils don’t have a game—so.”
Printed on the best paper Claudia could find, the invites sucked all the ink from her cartridge, twice. Returning to P.A. for supplies had depleted her, controlling the car’s working parts and lights and beeping noises almost beyond the energy she could marshal. She collapsed onto the couch with her feet up when she got back, dragging herself to her task hours later, her printer soon zipping along, layering colors, the mask emerging, over and over.
Maggie was happy when she first saw the invites, but maybe Claudia should have ordered something professional from a print shop. Makahs pay attention to things like that. Frank ran his fingers over the photo. No embossing here. Claudia felt like someone should say something to him, but supplying the paper did not buy her the right to speak. Since they got here, Roberta had been the only one talking.
“We’ve been prepping for years. Can you make it?”
All three women held their breath. It was just as well. The air stank of a long solitude. From the walls, Frank’s face beamed next to a woman’s, their white hair tufted into powdery clouds.
He rubbed his hands together. “Who’s running the mic?”
“Dave,” croaked Maggie.
“Ah.” His expression pulled into itself. “That’s good.” Claudia surmised he thought he would emcee, run things his way. Propriety depended on perspective. Any family slighted—by the order of introductions, the lineup of dances on the floor, or the value of gifts—would criticize. Everyone else fell in line depending on blood, politics and business. Maybe Dave would run the floor right. Or maybe he’d finish what he started decades ago and run this family into the ground.
“We are so glad you’ll be there to represent your family.” Roberta smiled.
These pilgrimages to power centers across the reservation would take weeks. Across the street, a woman cut her lawn, circled by a muscular black dog that played with the mower, closing in on its leading edge and bounding away. In a frenzy of barks, the dog peeled off to lope alongside a passing car, biting the tires. The house next door had grass to its eaves, tufting around its trove of rusted boats and cars. The rest of the block was uncluttered, if weatherbeaten.
Stroking the frayed armrest of her chair, Claudia glanced out the window at the blustery length of Wa atch Beach, picturing what she had almost done, their child a silent partner to her free fall, a hummingbird stilled in a cocoon gone cold, gone the precise temperature of the ocean, gone. This baby needed another protector, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Peter. He might want to correct the flaws of his parents badly enough to become a father. He would have a claim. This child belonged with these people.
She needed to decide before she started showing. At the rate she’d been tearing into bread late at night, shoving doughy handfuls into her mouth with one thought—baby needs carbs—she would pop soon.
“Claudia.” Roberta’s voice was sharp.
“Oh, sorry. You were saying?”
Frank snorted. “I knew I was boring! Finally, an honest woman!”
Everyone laughed. Maggie looked embarrassed. You and me both, Claudia thought. “I’m so sorry!” She flapped her hands like a seal.
Roberta asked after some distant cousin, and they were off again, sharing stories about the fortitude of Makah canoe families at last year’s gathering of tribes. Coffee cans brimmed with eagle feathers around the room. Claudia paced to the nearest spray of plumes and traced the wavy edge of the tallest one from the metal lip to its tip.
“You like those, huh?” Everyone was looking at her. “I was quite a hiker when I was young. I walked every ridge of our U and A, from Ozette to the Pysht.”
She picked up a small cedar canoe atop a bookcase full of baskets. A lightning serpent wound along its side to emerge with oblong eyes and bared teeth as the prow.
“My son’s a carver. He’s working on the full size version for Tribal Journeys. That’s just the model. Showed me his vision.”
“Come sit. You’re making me nervous.” Roberta held out a cracker. “Worse than my girls, getting into everything!”
“She’s alright. Besides, I got an appointment.”
“We’ll get out of your hair.” Roberta rose to help Maggie. “Thank you.”
“No hurry! Thank you for this Indian tea.” He patted a plastic bag of spiny green leaves. “The wife always hoped it would soothe my bellyaching.”
The corduroy chair creaked and rocked in his absence. He shambled over and reached past Claudia to pluck a downy feather from the can.
“Come by anytime.” He pressed the quill into her fingers. She embraced him before she could stop herself.
On the way to their next stop, Roberta’s eyes rested on Claudia in the rearview mirror, questioning, assessing. Tsoo-Yess Prairie rippled by. Makahs used to set fire to rare swaths of flat land to keep back trees and encourage cranberries and elk to return, season after season. What were her mother’s last words? Moments of seeming devastation are your greatest opportunity, she’d said. When all’s been laid to waste, pick any direction and start walking.
Tsoo-Yess River appeared, flat and gray, its mouth hooked like a salmon’s. She rolled down the window to hear its rushing gurgles and with them, slow murmurs, riffles of conversation swelling into a cocktail party. She never disclosed rivertalk to anyone, least of all Andrew, who chose riverbanks for campsites on the regular, before they only said “I love you” to get off the phone. Would he be surprised to learn how devastated she was? How she’d tried twice.
She picked at a shiny red stain th
e size of a dime on the seat next to her. Melted crayon, by the looks of it. She slid a nail around its edges and lifted until she heard the velour tear. She switched to fiddling with her wedding ring, which cinched her swollen finger.
“Where are we going?” Maggie fidgeted in the front seat.
“We’re going to pay a visit.” Roberta patted her shoulder.
Claudia rubbed her open hand on the velour. Her sweaty palm left a dark damp trail on the fabric. She was running hot these days.
“What’s the big occasion?” Maggie jiggled her leg.
Roberta flexed her hands on the wheel. “We are dropping off an invitation.”
“Whose party?”
Roberta’s eyes sought Claudia in the rearview. “Peter’s.”
“When’s he coming home? I miss him.” Maggie played with the plastic bag in her lap. “Sometimes I think I’ll die before he gets here.”
Roberta glared at the road, forehead wrinkled like a walnut, and eased her car onto a gravel shoulder. To their right, a long beach held back the gray water, unbroken but for a smattering of sea stacks offshore. Up ahead on their left, a freshly painted home advertised its front yard as a 24 H MONITORED parking lot. Just beyond, two hikers with towering backpacks tried to thumb a ride down the road to the Shi Shi Beach trailhead.
Roberta checked her watch. “You know, auntie, I forgot. I have to pick up my girls. Maybe we ought to do this another day.”
“Oh, sure, sure.” Maggie pinched her pants and rubbed the fabric between her fingers. The small scratch of sound filled the car. This was her child’s grandmother. Maggie deserved to know, even if she wouldn’t remember.
Roberta made a U-turn and rolled back through the prairie. Wind flattened the grass. They plunged into the forest and back out onto the bridge. Wa atch River dimpled beneath a sudden rain.
“You know, one time this land was covered in water.” Maggie swept condensation from the window with her sleeve. “Cape Flattery was an island. Can you imagine that?”
“It’s not hard to picture.” Roberta cleared her throat. “Scary, though.”
Subduction Page 19