Strong Heart

by Charlie Sheldon

  “What was he going to show you?” Sarah was leaning forward. “What did Henry David Olsen find?”

  “I’ll never know, not for sure.”

  “What?” Myra sounded disappointed.

  Tom reached for one more log. “Let’s finish this tomorrow. It’s late.”

  “How about, you carry my pack, William?” Sarah wasn’t going to call William Walleye.

  “I don’t think so. I was hoping you’d carry mine.”

  Sarah almost smiled. She scrunched closer to the fire. “Was that hard, suddenly alone with Bob-Bob that way?”

  “What do you think?”

  So their first day ended, with Myra and Sarah in one small tent, Tom and William in the other. William could hear Myra and Sarah’s voices, but then Tom started to snore. William always forgot Tom snored.

  The next day they were on the trail by nine. William was out of shape. He knew it, and he knew Myra knew it. She was worried about him, much as she tried to hide her concern. Again, they walked for 20 minutes, then stopped for five. Sarah trudged along under her pack. She had found a walking stick. After passing the Lillian River crossing they climbed 400 feet and spent the morning following the trail high above the Elwha, through thin scrubby trees perched on scarce soil. Where the trail rejoined the Elwha, four miles further, they came upon a smoking fire ring, scattered wood, and live coals. William could see the impressions from two tents. The other party had spent the night here, 10 miles in from the parking lot. Three miles further, where the interior valley widened, they stopped for the night. William was happy to stop.

  Sarah helped Myra pitch their tent. She then pulled her sketchpad from her pack and asked if she could go forward past the meadow, see what lay around the next bend.

  “Not too far,” Tom said. “We’ll eat in two hours.”

  They watched Sarah walk across the meadow and disappear up the trail.

  “Smart to let her go off?” William didn’t want to have to go hiking after Sarah. His feet hurt.

  “You’re hovering, dad.”

  They started a fire. Tom assembled food for dinner. Tiny flies swarmed. William pitched their tent. Then he joined Tom and Myra at the fire. He sat down, trying not to grunt.

  “How you doing?” Myra asked.

  “I’ll be fine. Who’s hovering now?”

  Myra faced the way Sarah had gone, then turned to Tom. “What are you guys at the port going to do with your pier?” Myra’s work for the Sol Duc Tribe meant she sometimes came to port meetings. The tribal fishermen used the port pier to tie up their boats.

  Tom shifted against his backrest. “Eye, didn’t you train your daughter to get out of the truck? This is supposed to be my vacation.”

  “You know how well I control Myra, Tom,” William said. Myra laughed.

  “Funny you should ask me that, Myra. Tuesday I realized the commissioners were hell bent for that proposal by Buckhorn International to lease the pier for their mining operation. Fletcher Lynch even had that Buckhorn woman, Victoria Oldsea, come in to our executive session, talk to us. Totally improper, in fact, illegal, but Lynch is the longest serving commissioner and the rules don’t apply to him. I got pissed. I think I’ll be fired when we get back.”

  “That pier’s critical to the tribal fleet. The Sol Duc marina’s got room, but it’s too expensive. That port pier’s the only place we have.”

  “I know that. I said that. Usually there’s a permit needed, because any in-water work requires tribal approval, but in this case the company wants the pier as is, without work. No need for any permit. Hence, no tribal approval necessary.”

  “Tom, if Buckhorn wants to do something on this peninsula, they better have their story straight. There’s all the people desperate for jobs, they’ll agree to anything. Then there’s the environmental groups. They’re religious about preventing any new mining or resource extraction work, jobs be damned. Our poor little tribe’s stuck in the middle.”

  Tom was nodding. “I agree. It gets worse every year, Myra. It’s like two different religions. The jobs-at-any-price sect, and the go-back-to-the-past sect. They’re both jihads, actually.”

  “It’s ideology-driven zealotry, Tom. Zealotry is the eighth deadly sin, if you ask me.” Myra turned over some coals with a stick. The fire flared.

  Tom leaned forward, stretching. “These Buckhorn people are smart. They’re leasing the upland behind the pier. They’ve offered to build this conference center Fletcher Lynch has been promoting for years, about the first people who came here after the ice age. We’ve also been trying to get someone to use that pier for years. Buckhorn said they’d take the pier, lease the upland, and pay for the center Lynch wants. Lynch, with Buckhorn’s support, has arranged this big conference in Port Angeles late this coming September, the Human Dispersal Conference.”

  “I’ve heard about that conference.” William was surprised. He shifted his position. He was stiff. “My Russian friend, Alec Dujin, over in Petropavlovsk, and his son, Sergei, are both speakers. Alec will talk about his migration ideas, his son about genetics.” William glanced at Myra. Sergei was a tall, whip-smart geneticist, single, someone who could stand up to Myra. Few men could. He smothered a smile. When those two met, sparks would fly. “Alec plans to ride back to Seattle with me in August on the ship. We’ll go in the woods for a bit, and then he can join his son.”

  “The conference is the big kick-off for Lynch’s dream, the Human Dispersal Center, or Clovis Center, as we call it at the port,” Tom said. “I’m sure he thinks this will get him re-elected this fall, for the fifth time. ”

  “Clovis Center?”

  Tom was cleaning his glasses. “Devoted to the first people who came to North America, ‘Eye. Most archeologists think these were the Clovis people, so named because their distinct spear points were first found in Clovis, New Mexico. They’ve been found all over North America, all appearing suddenly about 12 thousand years ago. Lynch is a serious hobby archeologist. He found some Clovis spear points in Sequim a few years ago, not that far from where we are here. These were supposedly the first people to visit the New World. Across the Bering land bridge.

  “That’s in dispute,” Myra was peeling a twig.

  “I know, Myra. Almost all North American tribes have legends saying they’ve been here forever. This center and conference will be Lynch’s crowning accomplishment for the election this November. He needs an accomplishment. All he’s done for 20 years is get staff fired and try to turn our industrial land into real estate parks. The Fletcher Lynch Human Dispersal Center. That’s his dream.”

  William recalled his grandmother’s stories. Myra was staring into the fire. She’d heard the stories, too, that time he’d taken her to Haida Gwaii when she was 12.

  “We’ve always been here,” William said to Tom, remembering the legends. “Always. Our stories say so.”

  “Lynch’s big moment.” Myra was disgusted. “Why is Buckhorn spending money like this?”

  “Buckhorn wants a mineral out here on the peninsula, erbium. They need it for their labs, so they can fabricate a similar substance from abundant materials in huge quantities. Buckhorn says they will commit to Sol Duc and Port Angeles for the fabrication facility. First, though, they need to take some of this mineral, ship it to their existing facilities in Los Angeles, and test it.”

  “What does this mineral do?”

  “That’s the thing, Myra. Very hush-hush, by the way. We’ve been sworn to secrecy, but the word’s already out. Apparently erbium, mixed with other rare elements, helps precipitate out all the toxins in coal. All of ‘em. You can imagine how valuable that would be, if true. Buckhorn would make billions. Trillions.”

  “They’re trying to buy the community,” said Myra.

  Tom nodded. “They’re succeeding, too.”

  Sarah reappeared across the meadow, walking stiffly in the lengthe
ning shadows. She sat down by the fire, holding her sketchpad tightly, a strange expression on her face. She was pale.

  “Sarah?” Myra asked. “What is it?”

  Sarah shivered. She finally spoke. “The next meadow beyond, I sat on a stump. I was going to draw the river. I never heard a sound.”

  Her sketchpad was six inches by nine inches; the pages bent from being carried in her pack. She opened the pad and passed it to William.

  Sarah had drawn a bear. Huge, facing forward, standing, enormous wide head cocked, peering, curious, long forearms hanging, the bear, staring out from the page, almost seemed human. Although extraordinarily realistic, the coat was too mottled, the fur too long, and the face too wide. William showed the drawing to Tom and Myra.

  “This looks like a grizzly, sort of, but there are no grizzlies on this peninsula, so this must be a black bear,” said Tom. “You drew this? You actually saw this?”

  “Swimming the river. I saw it. Then it climbed out, stood there. Looking at me. I drew it. Then it dropped to all fours, went straight up the slope past the little meadow. It stopped three times, looking back at me.”

  “This drawing,” Myra said. “I can smell him. Hear him.”

  “Not a sound. It was almost as if it wanted me to follow. Right up there.” Sarah pointed to the slope that rose beyond the meadow where they sat. If there had been a bear up there, they should have seen something.

  “They always look big when you see one face to face,” Tom was holding the drawing close, glasses off. “Sometimes black bears are light brown or even albino. It just stood there?”

  “The next meadow.”

  “Myra? ‘Eye? You see anything?”

  “I didn’t see a bear, Tom,” William said. “Sarah saw the bear.”

  “Weren’t you terrified?” Tom asked. He kept peering at the drawing. “What you drew, that’s the biggest black bear I’ve ever seen. You got some of the details wrong but I can see how you would, facing something like that.”

  “What, you don’t believe me? Think I made it up? He was close to me. Close. I was able to finish before he moved. I can show you where he was. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  “Why? You said he went up the ridge. There’d be nothing to see.”

  “You mean, there was nothing to see.” In her anger at Tom, Sarah had regained her color.

  William looked at the steep slope, now in shadow. Then he looked at the river. The river here was narrow and fast.

  “Let’s have dinner,” Tom said.

  After they ate dinner, washed up, and gathered wood, they settled down by the fire. Myra had taken Sarah’s sketchpad and she examined the drawing for a long time before returning the pad to Sarah. Something was troubling Myra. William could see it in the set of her face. Sarah hugged her knees.

  “OK, Tom,” said Myra. “We’ve had dinner. Now finish your story from last night.”

  William was sitting on the ground against a section of stump. The fire crackled. Beyond them the meadow flickered in the firelight.

  Tom moved over and settled by Sarah. “Sarah, I’ve been coming in this country a long, long time; seen dozens of bears, dozens. Your second day, you get closer to one of those animals than I ever have. I’m jealous.”

  “You don’t believe me. None of you do.”

  “None of us like to be shown up.” Sarah sat, arms over her knees, stiff. “Okay, Sarah, have it your way.” Tom made himself a new cup of tea. “Logging made a living but it was tough work. Bob-Bob, like some others, filed a mining claim way up the Elwha in the early 1930s, but was unable to work the claim when the 1937 depression hit and he got behind on his house payments. He would have lost the house except he was able to sign over the mining claim to the bank to cover missing payments. His banker was the then very young Fletcher Lynch Senior. When Senior died in 1980 his son, Fletcher Junior, inherited his estate, which included that mining claim.”

  “That claim must be in the middle of the park, if it’s in the Elwha watershed,” Myra said. “When the park was created in 1938, all mining claims were wiped out. Weren’t they?”

  Tom shook his head. “Mining claims in force at the time a national park is created are grandfathered, or were in 1938 when Olympic National Park was established. This is something few people know, even today. Bob-Bob’s claim, which Lynch Senior refused to sell back to him when he had some money, is still a valid claim.” Tom paused. “Even today.”

  “Let me guess.” Myra shook her head. “That’s the claim Buckhorn now has for this erbium, right? Lynch sold the claim to Buckhorn. Now Lynch gets his Clovis Center. Hell.”

  “I don’t care about mining. Here.” Sarah opened her sketchpad. She handed it to Myra. Myra began to laugh. She passed the pad to Tom. Tom raised the pad so William could see it.

  Sarah had drawn William’s face. He remembered when she’d been drawing the previous night. She’d caught his huge domed forehead, wayward eye, the wild black hair, and the chin that could drive spikes, as his ex-wife used to say. Sarah had drawn him in the middle of saying something.

  Myra was beaming. “You really caught his mug. First bears, and now portraits? How long have you been drawing?”

  “They put me in an art class in school, but the teacher wouldn’t let me draw the way I wanted to. So I stopped. In school, anyway. What’s the second reason you’re dragging us up here?”

  “She’s persistent,” Tom said.

  “Relentless, Tom. Your granddaughter is relentless.” William began to laugh. His laugh boomed.

  Tom rose, went over to his tent, and reached inside. He pulled out the tube he had brought and carefully unthreaded the plastic top. From the tube, he pulled something wrapped in soft cloth, gently tied. He laid it across his knees and unknotted the ties, then carefully unrolled the cloth. He stopped just before the final turn.

  “That day Bob-Bob died I saw Bob-Bob’s hat down in the hole by the fallen tree he’d been cutting, next to some big stones that had been pulled free by the roots. I thought, why would Bob-Bob leave his hat there? I lifted the hat and discovered something lying beneath it, beneath the leaves. This.”

  He pulled away the cloth. The object was almost three feet in length, like a long shoehorn, two inches wide, an inch thick. One end was slightly wider, ending in a carved figure three inches across. The last inch of the other end, on the side opposite the carved figure, and bent 90 degrees, held a small post half an inch long pointing inward. It was a carved socket, made to hold something. The piece was pale yet discolored. William could see it was bone.

  Sarah reached and Tom handed her the piece. Sarah cradled it in her hands, turning it over. Then she passed it to William. It felt cold, smooth. Mostly, it felt old. The carved figure was an animal, defined with incised lines, lines as perfect and smooth as those Sarah had drawn when sketching the bear. The piece felt perfectly balanced. There were carvings along both sides of the shaft, dots in a pattern, lines.

  “Was this what he wanted to show you? Is this what great-great-great-great grandpa Henry David Olsen found?”

  “We’ll never know, Sarah, will we? Did Henry David find this and give it to Bob-Bob? Did Bob-Bob find it under the stones beneath that tree, or find it somewhere else and place it with his hat in the hole while he cut wood? Was this what Bob-Bob was going to show me?”

  William noticed a deep nick near the carved end. The nick appeared recent.

  Myra took the object and peered at the carving. “It’s a raven. See the bill and the crown of the head? And aren’t those wings?”

  “I didn’t bury this with Bob-Bob,” Tom said. “I brought it back out with me. I stored it in my garage where it was mostly forgotten. Then Lynch started with his Clovis Center scheme, talking about the artifacts he had found and how old they were. At one commission meeting he had a professor in from the university to talk about dating artifacts, and it occurre
d to me to try to date this.” Tom glanced at Myra, who had been silently listening, stone-faced, staring at the nick. “I took a nick from the piece after the professor gave his presentation. I kept meaning to have it dated.”

  “Jesus, Tom.” Myra was angry. “This is an artifact. This could be 100 years old or 100 times that. Removing it and taking it home, that’s illegal. Cutting a piece out, that’s unforgivable. You’ve had a good relationship with the tribes. How could you do this? Hell, we just learned yesterday you’ve got native blood yourself.”

  Sarah was startled by Myra’s anger. William was not. He knew what Myra was feeling. It was an invasion and a betrayal when people removed artifacts from ancestral sacred lands.

  “Myra, you’re right,” Tom said. “I was only 21 when I brought this piece out. I knew nothing from nothing. I didn’t know as I do today how sensitive this subject is. How could I? I was fishing, then fixing engines in a maintenance shop. It was only later, after hearing those speakers Lynch brought before the commission, that I saw the problem.”

  “How old is this?” Sarah asked. “How can you tell?”

  Myra turned to Sarah. “You can measure the radioactive decay of carbon in formerly living things. It takes 50 thousand years for the radioactivity to completely decay. Depending on how much is gone, you can determine the age within a few hundred years. You need to be sure your samples are not contaminated by other materials.” Myra glared at Tom, then continued. “Unfortunately, to do carbon dating, you need to destroy a lot of material, hence the need for a terrible gouge in this piece.”

  Sarah wrinkled her brow, sly. “Contaminated? You mean, like adding water to a piss test for drugs?” When Sarah saw their expressions she grinned. It was the first time William had ever seen her really smile. “What is this thing, anyway?”