Silver Totem of Shame

by R. J. Harlick

  This was my kind of fun too: being in the great outdoors, surrounded by the majestic splendour that only nature can provide. Although I respected the gravity of the situation, I’m afraid I was viewing this trip more an adventure than a funeral.

  We passed the rotting remnants of an abandoned pier rising high above the water. Bits of greenery and small trees sprouted atop the platform, while the low tide revealed barnacles clinging to the log pilings.

  “It belongs to an old logging camp, dating back to the 1930s,” Becky shouted. “The camp used to be over there.” She pointed to the shore directly behind the pier, which appeared as densely forested as the rest of the shoreline.

  She veered the boat toward a kelp bed, where several small brown heads poked up through the glistening leaves. Though their eyes watched as we passed, they didn’t seem alarmed by our presence.

  “Seals,” she shouted. “I’ll show you some starfish.”

  She turned the boat in the direction of a rock outcropping that rose out of the sea a couple of hundred metres away.

  “We don’t have time,” Louise yelled. “We need to get to Llnagaay.”

  “No problem. We’ll get another chance later.” Becky pointed the boat’s bow at the open expanse of water.

  “Why aren’t you taking the shortcut?” Louise demanded. She pointed to the right, to a distant mountainous shore that looked impenetrable but must have a passageway through it. Becky slowed the engine so she could be heard.

  “It’s low tide, Auntie. We can’t get through, not unless you want to drag the boat.”

  “What’s my old lady’s mind coming to that I would forget the tides?” She shook her head in frustration. “What are we doing about lunch?”

  My stomach was growling, and I was glad she’d asked that question.

  “I thought we could have it at Blue Shell Village. It’ll give us enough time to ensure the tide is high enough in Burnaby Narrows to allow us to get through. I want to avoid as much open water as I can. It’s going to be rough out there with this wind.”

  “Good.” The elderly woman settled back into her seat.

  Becky revved the engine. For a second it coughed, but then it caught and off we zoomed again, heading to what I could now see was a break in the mountainous shore, where open water must lie.

  Cloë remained hidden in the folds of her rubber gear, her hands stuffed into the sleeves. When the wind finally blew the hood off my head, I kept it off. I enjoyed the feeling of it ripping through my hair, as did Eric. He was letting his mane ripple behind him like a flag.

  A flock of black and white sea birds burst from the water in front of us. They flew just far enough to get out of our way before returning to float once again on the undulating water.

  Until now the surrounding mountains had been a healthy deep forest green with the occasional patch of lighter green where I assumed logging had taken place. But looming off to the right of us was a mountain where the forest looked as if it had been eaten away by an angry brown cancer. It stretched from the water’s edge to the summit and covered the entire mountainside. Although it was tinged with the faint greenish hue of new growth, it was riddled with the deep fissures of erosion.

  Eric shouted, “Becky, it looks as if someone didn’t care much about sustainability when they clear-cut that mountain.”

  “Nope, they sure didn’t. That’s the island where the guy who was killed stole our forest.”

  “No wonder people hated him,” I said. But was it enough to kill him?

  “Yup, he and his scab loggers did a lot of damage,” Becky said. ”Even with the high levels of rainfall, it’ll be many years before trees will take hold and hundreds more before they become the mighty giants that covered these mountains when our ancestors lived here.”

  We were leaving the calmness of the bay and heading out into a vast empty sea that stretched all the way to the B.C. mainland more than a hundred kilometres away. A large wave splashed over the bow. I didn’t duck in time and got drenched. Eric, equally soaked, laughed. “Yahoo!” he shouted as we plowed through another wave. Though he vowed his hands didn’t hurt, I caught him wincing when he grabbed the railing. Ahead the water looked to be in a boil; behind us it was almost mirror calm. I gulped as a particularly large wave hovered above us, then broke over the bow in a cascade of white as the boat climbed up its height and slid down the other side. I was a fair-weather boater who preferred gentle waves. Angry seas like these made me nervous.

  Eric, knowing my fear, motioned for me to take the empty seat behind him. Holding on to his arm for support, I managed to change seats without falling, despite the bucking of the boat.

  “You’ll be okay now,” Eric shouted. “Just hang on to me.”

  I gripped his shoulders with probably a little more force than he intended. I glanced back at Cloë and Louise to see how they were faring. Eric’s sister had completely withdrawn into her coat. With her head bent down under her hood, she seemed to be praying. I worried over the effect this pounding could be having on her injured head. Unfortunately, the only solution was to turn back, and I doubted she would agree to that.

  On the other hand, the smile stretching across Louise’s face said she was enjoying this as much as Eric. So was Becky. I put it down to the Haida seafaring blood flowing through their veins. As the boat climbed up another wave and crashed through to the other side, I prayed Becky was as good at seafaring as her ancestors.

  I noticed with alarm that the shore was falling farther and farther behind us, while the waves seemed to me to tower higher and higher above us. Eric would probably call them your standard ocean waves. I became quite scared as the boat became almost vertical, then slipped back before righting itself and surfing down the other side of the wave. To make matters more unnerving, there wasn’t a hint of land, not even a tiny island or a boat in the raging, empty sea in front of us. Where in the world was Becky taking us?

  After what seemed like an eternity, Becky steered the boat back toward the shore. The waves now ran behind us. Rather than climbing them, we were lifted almost gently and then settled back down into a trough. I relaxed … a bit. We were angling along the coastline at a distance I realized was far enough away for the boat not to get caught up in the backwash of the waves crashing against the shore, a most unfriendly shore I might add. The precipitous mountainside plunged into the sea, leaving a tangle of rocks strewn along the waterline. The trees were so closely packed, the incline so steep, that I doubted anyone or anything other than squirrels could travel through it. Not a shore on which to run into trouble.

  At last we rounded a rocky point and moved into the calmer waters of a lagoon. Ahead lay a steep, grey-stone beach edged with massive lengths of driftwood. A cottage built in the Haida style was nestled at the top of a grassy knoll.

  “Blue Shell Village,” said Louise. “One of our ancient villages. It was the home of the Blue Shell Ravens.

  Becky stopped the Zodiac just short of the beach. She jumped out into the shallow water and held the bow while the rest of us, with Eric’s help, struggled to maintain our dignity as we lumbered over the side and into the water. After removing a box containing our lunch, Becky tied the boat to a solid length of driftwood and let it float out into deeper water.

  “We can eat our lunch here, and then do a bit of exploring.”

  “Becky, we can’t spare the time. We must get to Llnagaay,” Louise insisted.

  “I know, Auntie, but it’s still another three hours before the tide will be high enough for Burnaby Narrows to be passable.” Becky checked her watch. “It’s about a two-hour distance from here. I figure we have a good forty-five minutes, so I thought our friends would appreciate seeing an ancient village.”

  “But child, they will be seeing Llnagaay.”

  “I know, but there isn’t much left to see. At least this village still has some standing poles.”

  “Whatever you say,” Louise said, not bothering to hide the resignation in her voice. Clearly she wasn�
��t happy with the delay.

  “Is there a pressing need for you to be there?” I asked, remembering the earlier phone call.

  For a moment she seemed startled by the question, but then she smiled. “Just call it an old woman’s impatience. It’s been many years since I’ve visited my ancestral home. I’m anxious to see it.”

  Fifty

  It Exists

  Since making the decision to tell the story of shame, he’d been racking his brains to come up with a crest for the worst villain in the story, the bastard who’d dared to betray his own clan by leading the rival Blue Shell chief and the Iron Men to where Old Chief’s treasure was hidden. Problem was, he didn’t know who the traitor was. He just knew it was a member of the clan. Nanaay had refused to tell him the name, no matter how much he’d bugged her. He figured it was one of those secrets the Matriarchs passed down from generation to generation. Auntie would know, but she wouldn’t tell either. Too bad he couldn’t use a real-life model. He knew just the person. The owner of the silver trinket he’d found beside the kid’s body.

  He was running his hands over the log to see if it would speak to him when his brother’s boat landed on the beach with a screech of scraping stones. Bro wanted him to come to Scav’s place for a booze-up. He was sorely tempted, but time had almost run out. He could feel in his bones that they’d be coming soon. Bro got pretty upset when he turned him down, so he figured Bro wanted to talk. He made tea and the two of them sat on a piece of driftwood in the sun.

  But Bro didn’t say anything; just sat staring out to sea with his face looking as if it were going to crack. He figured it had to do with the pole raising, but when he brought it up, his brother told him it was better he didn’t know.

  Finally, just as the sun was about to sink behind the ridge, his brother started talking, but it wasn’t what he was expecting.

  “Two Finger, has the Geek ever asked you about the Greenstone treasure?”

  “Only once. But since I know nothing, I had nothing to tell him.”

  “He wouldn’t leave me alone,” Bro said. “I guess he thought I should know something, since the Chief Greenstone name was by rights mine.”

  Two Finger eyed his brother thoughtfully. “What do you know?”

  “Hell, if I knew where it was, do you think I’d be sitting here hanging out in Scav’s shack. Nope, I’d be raising my own pole and declaring myself Chief Greenstone.”

  “Auntie told you something, didn’t she?”

  His brother wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, though it was too cold for sweating, and threw some stones into the water before answering. “Yeah, she did. Not much, but enough to tell me the treasure’s for real.”

  “Did she say what it was?”

  “Nope, just that if I ever became Chief Greenstone, I’d find out.”

  “Did she say where it’s hidden?”

  “Nope. Just said it’s where the Matriarch hid it after the shame,” Bro said.

  “So it’s gotta be around here somewheres, eh?”

  “I guess. But, hell, I’ve searched this place all over and haven’t found a thing other than some old bones and a kid’s rattle.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Two Finger sheepishly admitted. “Do you think Auntie’s gonna tell Fat Momma?”

  “Tradition says she has to. But once that damn woman finds out, it won’t stay hidden for long. She’ll be showing it off to everyone.”

  “Or selling it. I thought you were bad with money, but I’ve seen money go through her fingers like it was oolichan oil.”

  “I remember Auntie saying its location was marked on a special talisman.”

  “Did she say what it was?” Two Finger asked.

  “Nope. But she said it had gotten lost. But she wasn’t worried. She figured Salaana would return it, when it was needed.”

  Fifty-One

  Out of the wind, the heavy rubber gear was hot. I struggled out of it, as did the others, and left it draped over a massive timber that looked as if it had drifted onto the beach when the Haida called this shore home. The five of us sat in a line along the log watching the tide creep ever closer us as we ate our lunch. From the calmness of the bay, the open water didn’t appear so angry. But noticing the number of white caps, I could tell it was going to be another white-knuckle ride when we headed back out.

  “Becky, is there ever any boat traffic out there?” I asked.

  “Barges and Alaskan cruise liners make up most of the traffic on Hecate Strait, but they travel closer to the mainland, too far away to be seen from here. There isn’t much local traffic with only four people living down here. It’s mostly tourist traffic from a handful of outdoor adventure companies, like the one I work for, and the odd sailboat that dares to venture this far from the mainland. But it’s early in the season, so I doubt we’ll see any other boats. In the summer, kayakers come here too, but they stick to the internal waterways. The only time a kayak travels along this shore is when the open sea is a dead calm.”

  “Calm? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “It happens, but only when the wind drops.” Her eyes twinkled. “I guess that’s the way you’d like it, eh? Like a mill pond.”

  I laughed. “My favourite kind of water.”

  “Once we’re beyond this stretch of coast, we’ll be back into calmer waters. Can you hang on until then?”

  “I’ll just hang on to my husband.”

  His attention elsewhere, Eric started at the word husband. “What? You talking about me?”

  Becky and I broke into giggles.

  He frowned, which only made us giggle more. Choosing to ignore us, he glanced at his watch and said, “We don’t have much time. Why don’t we go explore that village.”

  Becky stood up. “Auntie, you coming?”

  “No, child, I’ll only slow you down. But don’t take long.” Louise was well settled on the log and was using another as a back support. “I’ll sit here and enjoy the peace. I always find an ancient village so in harmony with Mother Earth. All the tensions of past lives, the clan rivalries, and the sickness have long since been calmed. Whenever I walk on the ground our ancestors walked on, I like to think their spirits are watching over us.”

  She was right. There did seem to be an otherworldly calmness as the four of us headed up a narrow path through wavering grass toward the cottage. Two small deer, their black-tipped ears and soft brown coats barely discernible in the high grass, served to emphasize the peace. One raised his head to watch our progress, then returned to his feast, unfazed by our intrusion.

  We passed the cottage. Although it had weathered to the silvery sheen of old cedar, the relative newness of the wood suggested it had been built long after the village was abandoned. On the porch stood a waist-high carving of a bird that could be a raven.

  “Does someone live here?” I asked.

  “Only in the summer. This is the watchman’s house. Each month, from June until September, two people from our community live here and watch over the site to make sure no one damages it. It gives them the chance to get away from all the modern conveniences and immerse themselves in Haida ways. We call them watchmen, after the watchmen that sit on top of totem poles.”

  “Not completely electricity-free,” I said, pointing to a solar panel strung up on a tree next to the cottage.

  Becky laughed. “You know how it is. You’ve got to keep your iPod charged.”

  Her warm brown eyes sparkled. Her shimmering black hair rippled in the breeze. She really was quite a pretty young woman. I hoped she didn’t linger too long on the memory of Allistair before moving on to another young man. I’d noticed several giving her an approving eye at the potlatch.

  We reached the top of a rise and were beginning our descent along a grassy pathway lined with white shells when I heard what sounded like a motor. Though I could see the grey stones of a beach at the bottom of the slope, a line of trees blocked the view of the water.

  Eric walked down and moved some br
anches aside. “It’s a dinghy with two people in it. They’re headed to a cabin cruiser moored farther out.”

  “I doubt they’re tourists, so they’re probably from the islands,” Becky said.

  When we joined Eric on the beach, I saw a long, sleek yacht about fifty metres out. The Zodiac was stopping next to a ladder hooked over the transom. Two people, cloaked in rain jackets with the hoods up, climbed up onto the boat. Cloë, who’d been straggling behind, came up beside me. “Where’d they come from?”

  “Judging by the tightness of the pants on the smaller one, I suspect it’s Sherry, with Ernest.”

  “What in the world would they be doing here?”

  “She’s got some crazy idea about going after the guy who killed François. Apparently Ernest thinks it’s Johnnie, too, and says he knows where to find him.”

  The dense forest behind us suddenly seemed more threatening. “It’s not here, is it?”

  Eric waved his arms and called out to them. Either they didn’t hear him or they chose to ignore him, for the yacht’s engine started up. Within minutes the boat was moving away.

  “Where would he stay?” Becky asked. “There’s nothing here but ruins.”

  “There is the empty cottage.”

  “Yeah, right. I forgot.” Both of us glanced at the roof of the cottage rising above the grass at the top of the hill.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “Johnnie can’t be here, or Ernest wouldn’t be leaving.”

  “Yeah, right. Ern was probably showing her his ancestral village.”

  “Is it possible Johnnie could be hiding out somewhere around here?”

  “I suppose. If you wanted to disappear, this part of Haida Gwaii would be the place to do it. But like I said, I don’t see Johnnie cutting those ropes. Look, we’d better go see the poles. Auntie’s going to be hopping mad if we aren’t back soon.”