by Ray Hudson
A kind of walkway angled up to the dock from the back of the boat. It was just a couple of two-by-twelves fastened together with slats. Gangway? Or was that what you shouted to get people out of the way? Anyway, the closer I got to it, the steeper and narrower it grew, like the drawing Mrs. Sweets showed us of a staircase that goes both up and down. Under and behind it, dark pilings crusted with barnacles supported the dock like a forest of massive burned trunks. I don’t like heights and my balance has never been great, so I used my hands like an orangutan, took a deep breath and rushed up.
The dock was bigger than a basketball court. It had to be super-thick, but it hummed like it was purring.
Left or right?
Right, I said, just as a siren blasted a hole in the air. A flood of men and women in jackets and blue jeans poured out of a tall building, all corrugated tin and slick metal. I joined the crowd that flowed past more doors and steam vents until the dock abruptly changed to blacktop. Everybody seemed to go off toward other buildings. I jumped aside as a yellow forklift twirled its massive jaws toward me.
I followed the blacktop until it changed into a dirt road along a small stream. The plants growing at the edge of the river were heavy and dense. There was grass with blades as wide as iris leaves and longer than my arms when I stretched them out. There were feathery plants like undernourished ferns. I crushed a few leaves between my fingers and smelled a strong medicinal odor. There were bright-yellow buttercups on spindly stems and a tall plant with a thick stalk and leaves like elephant ears. I spied a clump of what looked like clover. Shamrocks? But when I took a handful they smelled like parsley. I settled for a few buttercups.
I figured I should return the book before getting back to the lesson with the Elder Cousin. It took some balancing, but I got down the ramp. The kitchen was still empty, fortunately. Like I said, my dad is the one good at plots, and I hadn’t invented a story to explain why I was on the boat if somebody showed up. I slipped off my backpack to get out the paperback when the light at the end of the hallway flickered. I don’t mean a light bulb. It was just a quick shadow that nagged at the corner of my eye. The hall was about fifteen feet of narrow emptiness.
I listened real hard. I walked to where there was a handrail curling down a short flight of stairs. I held on and leaned over. An engine growled complacently from somewhere below. I felt the vibrations softly rubbing the metal handrail.
Nothing, I said to myself and started to straighten up.
“Err-roof!”
My arms turned into jelly. I knew it was a dog, but it was like my arms just evaporated and I fell, twisting and hitting the handrails until the stairs met my rear, one bump of my rump at a time.
“Err-roof! Err-roof!”
I looked up from the bottom of the stairs. A white, wiry dog like a bad hairdo on legs snarled down as it delivered a ferocious spit.
I rearranged my legs.
That’s when this tall girl extended her hand.
Did I say I was short for my age?
3. Anna
I hauled the runt into the stateroom. He straightened his gray sweatshirt, adjusted his blue jeans, and unsuccessfully pushed back the mop of brownish hair that fluffed out like a cloud of chicken feathers. Typical cannery brat. I didn’t recognize him from school, so he had probably just arrived with parents who let him run wild. I shushed him when he tried to speak and shushed him again when he started to object.
“What are you doing here?”
He held out a few wilted buttercups and mumbled something about Ireland. I more or less anchored him on the bunk when he started to leave. He took a narrow piece of paper from his pocket and toyed with it. Turning it this way and that. His feet were twitching and hitting the bed frame. That’s when the crate under the bunk caught my eye. I got to my hands and knees and pulled it out. I tilted back the lid. It was filled with crumbling ancient basketry, fragments of wood that was bent—probably from bowls—stone points, and pieces of sewed bird skin and gut. This had to be it.
He leaned over the crate.
I shoved my face up into his. “Who are you?”
“Booker,” he answered, jerking back. “Booker John.”
I handed him a stone lamp. It had a circumference about the size of a cereal bowl, but shallow and flat inside. He turned it over.
“Neat,” he said, without explaining his odd name.
“There’s got to be more than old basketry and stone lamps.” I shifted some of the grass matting.
“Stone lamps?”
“You’re holding one.”
He looked at it again. The cavity of the bowl was blackened from burned oil. He handed it back and reached across my arm to lift out a shiny spear point, perfect and exquisitely carved.
“That’s sharp,” I warned.
“Looks like obsidian,” he said. “Obsidian is really volcanic glass.”
“Duh,” I said.
“Who are you?” he asked. “What are you looking for?”
“Anna Hansen,” I said, not sure I wanted to tell him what I was doing.
“Are you from here?”
What a dolt.
Then I blurted out, “It’s illegal to deal in looted artifacts.”
“Looted from where?”
“The Four Mountain Islands, I think.” I nodded at the chart pinned to the wall. “They’re famous for volcanoes and mummies.”
“I’ve heard of Irish mummies,” he blathered. “Discovered in peat bogs, but volcanoes? I don’t think so. Maybe in Iceland. Who does this junk belong to?”
I figured that if he didn’t know, he didn’t need to know.
“I don’t have time to argue,” I said. “Captain Hennig digs stuff up and sells it Outside.”
“In a yard sale?”
“Outside. Stateside. The lower ’48. Where you’re from.”
Time was running out.
I held up a hard piece of hide, maybe a fragment of a parka made from bird skins. I’d never seen one except in photographs. I returned it to the box next to fragments of stiff cordage, finely braided from thin leather, some round and some square. The more I saw, the madder I got.
“Sinew,” I said when he picked up one of the braided strands.
“From what?”
“Maybe whale or caribou muscle. Maybe gut.”
I have to give him credit: he didn’t flinch, but instead he studied it more carefully. I decided to give him a break. “All this has been taken from burial caves further out in the Chain,” I said, leaning back and looking at him, “on one of the Islands of Four Mountains. Hennig broke a boat-load of Alaska laws getting it.”
“Alaska?”
I took the cordage back and put it in the crate.
“What happened to Ireland?”
He studied me like I was some kind of specimen.
“You’re an Eskimo?”
He knew he’d made a serious mistake even before I said, “I’m Unanga. I’m not Eskimo, cannery-boy, Inuit or Iñupiaq. I’m Unanga. When did you get here anyway?”
“Oo-nung-uh?” he repeated.
“Close enough. You’ve heard of Aleuts?” Dumb cannery brat.
He nodded, or maybe he just twitched.
“Unanga is our own name.”
I lifted a small piece of wood from the crate. On one side was a graceful incised curve with a faint reddish color. I wondered if it was part of a mask.
He was quiet and just staring at me.
Then he said, with something like triumph, “You’re one of those disappearing peoples! I read about you in school.”
A couple of choice words let him know I wasn’t about to disappear anytime soon.
He shut up for a second, and then he asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Something,” I said. “I don’t know. Something valuable.”
He reached into the crate just as Hennig’s voice boomed from the galley.
“TORGEY! SANDERS!”
I slammed down the lid just as the kid jerked hi
s hand out. I shoved the crate under the bed and snapped off the light.
“TORGEY!”
The ship hammered like a drum under a cascade of boots as Hennig launched himself down the stairs.
I flattened myself against the wall as the door cracked open.
“They’re here, Captain! The bird people!” Torgey’s squeaky crackle froze everything.
“Damn it!” Hennig growled and pulled the door shut.
The kid got to his feet from where he had dropped to the floor. I don’t know, maybe he was going to pretend to be a rug. I listened until I heard Hennig climb the stairs before I pulled out the crate again. I selected the sturdiest fragment of grass weaving I could find and carefully folded it into my pocket, being careful to not put it in the one that had my own pathetic start of a basket. It wasn’t much, but maybe with the spear point it was enough for Jennifer to call the cops.
When I stepped out of the room, I could hear the birders grumbling up above. They were not happy campers.
“We’ll be two nights,” Hennig bellowed from somewhere. “And sleeping on deck will add to the experience.”
I knew that was a joke, but it produced a universal groan.
The kid followed me up the stairs. There were about a dozen birders packing the galley and flowing into the hall.
“We’ve got one stateroom with bunk beds,” Hennig said. “And another with a single.”
I wedged myself behind the birders as I inched into the galley. There was no way out except to go through the crowd. A couple frowned when I bumped into their massive cameras and dangling lens cases, but their indignation was focused on the captain. They had obviously been expecting a bit more from a vessel pompously named the King Eider.
The kid apologized to everybody he squeezed past. I kept my head and body turned away from the captain and Torgey, who chirped in with, “And Sanders’s bunk. We got that, too.” I slithered past the last birder and out the door onto the deck. Now if Hennig saw me, he wouldn’t know where I had come from. I could tell him about Sanders, although I suspected Torgey already had.
“And mine,” Hennig added. “Hell, you can use mine, too.”
I heard the kid apologize again. Enough of that, I said to myself. He’s on his own.
I was almost at the gangplank when Mrs. Skagit started down. She flushed as livid as her red bandana when she saw me. I guess I looked guilty. Her piggy eyes almost exploded.
“THIEF!” she screamed, and I plunged back into the crowd of birders, knocking Booker aside.
A berserk kid hurling through them convinced a few that this was a convenient time to abandon ship.
“Stop her, Hennig! She’s got the spear point!”
Not only berserk, but armed.
That sent the rest of them toward the ramp. Except for one big guy who hauled me up by the armpits.
“She’s here!” He probably had the best of intentions.
“You can let her go,” Hennig said. He was dripping sweat right beside me. I stopped struggling.
“If you’re sure she’ll be all right.”
Hennig placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“She’s my niece,” he lied, his voice dripping sympathy. “I’m afraid she’s gone off her meds.”
I think the guy was happy enough to escape.
“She’ll be fine,” Mrs. Skagit assured him as she and Torgey blocked the doorway.
4. Booker
The what’s-it girl who wasn’t an Eskimo went limp against the wall.
I had ducked under the table after she barreled back into the room. Ireland or Alaska, I had no business being here. I took out the bookmark.
“You slimy spoiled thief.”
A woman with a voice like a gravel truck was between me and Anna. This sounded too good to miss. I put the bookmark away.
“You ungrateful, ill-mannered brat,” she resumed, “You pile of—”
“Err-roof! Err-roof!”
My head slammed into the underside of the table as that doggy hairball snarled in complete delight.
“Err-roof!”
I sprinted out as Anna slipped under the woman’s arms in time for us to collide with one of the laws of physics. Like a couple of clowns. A creepy guy hauled me backward, but that gorilla woman started pummeling Anna who thrashed with every appendage available.
“Got it!” the woman said and held up a piece of glass. She tossed it to the captain as Anna took a swing at her. The woman ducked and scooped her up like she was a sack of carrots. Anna kicked, but the woman held her tight until she just sort of collapsed. The guy called Torgey grabbed me, as the captain barked out an order. We were hustled back down the ladder, pushed past the room we’d been in, and shoved into another. I heard the lock click behind us. I stood there in the dark.
Well, it wasn’t entirely dark. There was daylight dribbling down through a high round window. Anna went to a wall and turned on a light.
Bunk beds. A desk. A shelf with a few books. The floor was covered with a thin carpet. I reached into my pocket for a Kleenex and brought out something else.
“Anna?”
She ignored me.
“Anna Hansen, look,” I said. I extended a finely braided cord. A small leather pouch dangled from the end. It was larger than a tea bag and smaller than a deck of cards. The cord seemed remarkably supple considering how stiff the other leather in the box had been. It was long enough to slip over my head.
“I forgot I had this. I jerked it out of the crate when you slammed down the lid,” I said. “You almost crushed my fingers. You want it?”
I had crammed the little pouch into my pocket during our escape. Well, I guess we hadn’t really escaped. Speaking of which, it was high time I got home. I lowered the pouch onto her hand. The leather was dark and soft. There was fine stitching at the sides. A faded reddish-brown triangle had been sewed onto the center. She turned it over. She removed a minute ivory peg that secured the flap. She tilted it over her palm, and a carved animal rolled out.
“A fox,” she said.
“Or a collie,” I suggested.
“A fox,” she repeated. “Ivory.”
It was not snow white but heavier in color, like cream. Its two alert ears pointed upward. The back legs were tucked under and the wide tail curved to one side. The carver had created black pinpoints for the eyes and a black button at the end of the snout. Tiny circles were on its back. Was it asleep or just waking up?
“May I?” I asked.
The moment she placed it in my hand, I felt the carving radiate a weight greater than its size. An unfamiliar boldness flowed out from it and into me like an incoming tide.
“Do you want help?” I couldn’t believe I had asked that. I blinked rapidly and handed it back.
She looked at the carving. “You do whatever you want.”
“Fine,” I said. “Forget it. I’m expected home.”
She slipped it into the pouch.
“What I’d really like to do,” she said, “is return it. Whatever that means.”
“It means,” I said, “the obvious. You find somebody from that place and hand it over.”
“Nobody has lived on the Islands of Four Mountains for at least two hundred years.”
“Where’d they go?”
She looked me in the eyes and said, “Where most of my ancestors went.”
5. Anna
Face it. I didn’t really know what to say. The Amirkaanchi had found what I was after. A little bit late, as a matter of fact. But he had found it. And what had I really meant about returning it? More than just getting it to Jennifer and the cops? I hung the pouch around my neck and tucked it under my sweatshirt. I looked around the room that must have been prepared for two of the birders. A bookshelf held mostly birding manuals, along with one or two novels of the thick variety. I removed a tall, thin volume, bound in brown leather. Even the cover seemed heavy when I opened it and read the inscription—“To Rev. Father Shaiashnikoff, With Compliments of the Author, W. H.
Dall, 1880.”
I sat down.
“The title’s as long as the book!” Booker said when he looked over my shoulder.
On the
Remains of Later Pre-Historic Man
Obtained from
Caves in the Catherina Archipelago, Alaska Territory,
and Especially from the
Caves of the Aleutian Islands
by
W. H. Dall
1878
I angled a page of brownish photographs toward him. “That’s like the obsidian point you found in the box. And here’s a seal.”
“No fox,” he said as I flipped to another set of photos.
“But this,” and I touched a photo of a folded container at the top of the page, “is like the one you found. Only mine’s a lot smaller.”
“Yours?”
“Listen,” I said, ignoring what he had asked. It was mine, or in any case it was a lot more mine than it was Hennig’s. Anyway, I turned to the text. “The most celebrated of these burial caves was situated of the island of Kaga’mil, one of the group known as the Islands of Four Mountains, or Four Craters.”
I turned the page.
“With regard to the age of these mummies—”
“Mummies!” he said. “Cool!”
I tilted a page toward him. A startled corpse gaped over one shoulder while its body balanced in a crouched position. I continued reading.
“With regard to the age of these mummies . . .” There was a really dense paragraph full of names and dates, and then this sentence: “The earliest date therefore which we can assign to these remains would be 1756, making the oldest of them about one hundred and twenty years old.”
“Let me see the title page again,” he said. “Wow!” He made a quick estimate. “They’d be about 250 years old now.”
I ignored him—although I was impressed. “On the island of Kagámil lived a distinguished toyon—”