She knows how to make people comfortable, as well as uncomfortable. It’s something like what I do with animals.
They settled into chairs, perched on the edges of their seats rather than relaxed because sharp points on the carved mahogany chair-backs punished any lapse from Victorian decorum. And the prickly horsehair stuffing of the seat cushions would discourage guests from lingering beyond their welcome. Victorians knew how to make people uncomfortable. It was another form of social magic.
The old woman breathed in the steam of her tea, sighed, and sipped. “Très bien. And very fresh and strong. I thank you. Do you know of a place to buy this closer than Boston?”
Small talk, the rituals. Dennis shook his head. “My brother mails it up from New York.”
“And your brother, he is well? I remember him from years ago. The rest of your family?”
“They are well. My father has trouble with his arthritis, and his doctor is always after him to stop smoking.”
“Oui. My doctor, also.” She paused, setting her cup and saucer on the low walnut oval of the coffee table between them. “I bring a guest-gift.”
She reached inside her parka and brought out a parcel wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, hand-sized, and unwrapped it with shaking fingers. Parkinson’s? Or just general age? He should have noticed earlier, not filled her cup so full . . . .
And then the object inside the rustling paper caught his eyes and held them. A bear. A carved bear posed standing upright, yellow-brown with age and fine shallow cracks, looked like bone or wood. Old, very old, Naskeag work halfway between realistic and abstraction, but almost alive with bear-ness. He expected it to move on her hand.
“Mammoth ivory,” she said, her words half-heard. “Found by our People long ago, oui, carved by our People long ago. I think he wants to come to you.” She reached across the table, and Dennis found the bear warm in his hands.
Warm as if it was alive. Dennis forced out the words he had to say, much as he wanted to bite them back. “Aunt Jean, this is precious. It belongs in a museum. You shouldn’t give outsiders a treasure of your people.” But he wanted it. His fingers caressed the smooth warm ivory.
“Bear belongs here. Bear should have come to your family years ago. Your family is not ‘outsiders’ to the Naskeag People. You have lived among us for generations, lived on land our People gave to you to guard. Your great-grandmother was a Naskeag, Annie Morningstar. Bear is coming to his own home, not going away from us.”
Annie Morningstar. She’s ‘Morgenstern’ in the family Bible, if I remember right. Was that just translating from the English, or deliberate camouflage?
The old woman caught Alice with her glance. “Pay attention, child. Bear is important, oui. Carlsson is Bear Clan, part of this land, part of our People. Bear Clan is why Carlssons live on Spirit Point. You need to know these things.”
Dennis stared at the Bear figure in his hand, felt the weight of it, ran his fingertips across the smooth surface brown with age and handling. He could feel the ancient fingers that had carved this form with razor-edged flakes of stone. He could feel the warmth of hands holding this thing, down through the centuries, feel the pulse beating in them. Ivory. Ivory had such a living feel to its preciousness. No wonder men coveted it like amber and jade and pearls, soft friendly warm surfaces that welcomed the hand. Not cold and hard and impersonal like diamonds.
“What do you feel?”
Dennis shook himself, a shiver from his butt up to his shoulders. “It feels . . . real.”
He caught a disgusted shrug out of the corner of his eye, the girl, muttering to herself. “Of course it feels real, numbnuts. You’re holding it in your hand.”
The old woman shook her head, sadness twisting her mouth. “Do not be more offensive than you have to be, Alice Haskell. He feels something that would never touch you. He feels Bear in his own blood. That carving could not speak to you or me. I am Turtle, you are Beaver. Vraiment, I draw into myself for safety, while you build and change your world to fit your needs. Our bloods hear different voices. He feels Bear touching his warrior heart. All Carlssons are Bear.”
Dennis blinked. “I am Bear? I’m a member of a Naskeag clan? One great-grandmother, an eighth Naskeag blood at most, and you’d call me part of your tribe?”
The old woman smiled. “Tribe is not the same as race. White people make that mistake. Read history, the fur trade and the long hunters. White people joined tribes, many white people, many different tribes. We welcomed them for their strong spirits, but tribes were never allowed to join white people. Oui, you are Bear. That means you can be Naskeag if you want to be. Even Doctor Tranh could choose to be Naskeag. Eagle speaks to her, a strong spirit, a fierce warrior just like Bear.”
He frowned at the thought, nose wrinkling as if the concept of a Naskeag Doctor Tranh carried a physical stink, devaluing his own welcome into the tribe. There goes the neighborhood.
Aunt Jean shot him a sidelong look. “Eagle and Bear are not enemies. They can make alliance.”
Alliance with her? We’d tear each other to shreds. She makes life harder for people.
And then he remembered her flying across the snow. She cares about the animals. She was dead wrong, going by a rulebook rather than results, but she cares. Even when she slapped me, it was because I said she didn’t care.
He shivered again, shaking off the spell cast by that ivory Bear. He forced himself to put it down on the coffee table and retrieved his teacup. Social rituals. He searched for words, remembering what he knew of the way native peoples regarded gifts.
“Thank you. You called Bear a ‘guest gift,’ but you have brought many gifts. Any one of them would leave me in your debt—this priceless carving, a welcome to your People, honor. That one word, ‘honor,’ that carries a lifetime of weight in itself. I wonder what I can give that wouldn’t shame me in comparison.”
She nodded and then shook her head. “Ah, what our Pacific cousins call the potlatch. Non, I am not placing obligation on you. As I said, Bear belongs in your house. Your family has been Naskeag for generations. And you have already proven honor, paying flesh and blood and bone. I only recognize what already exists. Any burden would be what Bear and honor tell you to do, words that only you can hear, words that no one else may question. I am here to help, not tell you what to do.”
He sat and sipped his tea, hot and pungent, social conventions again, a legal time-out while he studied the old woman. Feints within feints within feints, ingrained in her nature, she was manipulating him. He just didn’t see how. He ran through the words she’d said, sure that each word carried enough baggage, enough impedimenta in the Roman army sense, to sink the granite of Ghost Point into the Gulf of Maine. This wrinkled brown “aunt” wasn’t offering him hot gingersnaps.
“You said that Naskeags gave Ghost Point, Spirit Point, to my family to ‘guard.’ Why are we Bear? What are we guarding?”
“Ghost Point, Spirit Point, the government will not change the maps.” Aunt Jean took a sip of tea as if she also wanted that gap for thinking. “Spirit is a better word, oui, just as ‘Holy Ghost’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ carry different thoughts.” She crossed herself, reminding Dennis that many Naskeags were Catholics. A devout witch?
“But neither ‘ghost’ nor ‘spirit’ mean the same thing as the Naskeag word. English does not have the right word. French does not have the right word.”
She sat for a moment, lips tight, thinking. “The Naskeag word, oui, it carries the flavor of a world apart, not some essence or remainder of a life that follows rules you understand. The spirit world is something different. It is not dead people, it is not God. Call it ‘World-that-might-have-been.’ Many worlds, some like ours, some not. Nokomis is there, Manitou are there—Raven and Bear and Eagle and the one our Southwest cousins call Coyote, The Trickster I will not name in our tongue. They live there, and many others. Many of them bad. They are real.”
The girl, Alice, sat on the edge of her chair, leaning forward, Dennis c
ould almost see her ears perked like a cat at a mouse hole. Hormones might be turning her brain to mush, but she knew this was important. And she was watching Dennis rather than Aunt Jean, looking for his reaction. Witch in training.
“Spirit Point is a place, one of many places, where the spirit worlds rub up against the world we know. You know this. You live there. Vraiment, strange things happen.”
The old woman paused for another sip of tea, more thoughts. She glanced at Alice, making sure the girl was paying attention, proving that this lecture served an audience of two.
“Our Southwest cousins, they know of such places in their own lands. Spirits rise out of holes in the ground. The kiva, the place of sacred ritual, they make such holes, the sippapu. Places for the spirits to pass between worlds, places to draw the spirits. The Aztec, the Maya, they go to sacred caves to talk with the spirits, to give gifts to the spirits. They throw sacrifices into sacred wells.
“Under your old house, under the ruins, a cellar. Under the cellar, a cave. Few caves in granite, oui, a strange thing, different. This is what you guard. This is a doorway to the spirit world. Spirits who do not belong here can feel Bear waiting on this side of the door. They stay where they belong. Spirits are mostly trouble. Our People have felt less trouble since Bear started living on that land. This is good.”
Dennis remembered tales told of a wine-cellar down there under the charred beams and rubble, a locked door, fine vintages from France, cases of single-malt Scotch dating back to the years of Prohibition and rum-runners in the bay, tales told at the Four Corners after the regulars had a good load down the hatch. That didn’t mean he believed this other tale.
“Why us? Why are all Carlssons members of Bear Clan?”
The old woman’s eyes turned dark, as if one of the kerosene lamps had just flickered out. "You may not wish to talk about this, non. Many warriors do not. Your father would not speak about his war, nor would your grandfather. Bad things happen in war, things men would rather not see again, and talking brings your memories to life.”
Things men would rather not see again. The mortars rained out of the hot ’Nam sky, Crump! Crump! Crump! . . . Dennis shivered as the room turned dark around him and he smelled the paddy mud again.
She nodded, seeing that in his face. “The things you did in war, could other men do that? There is a word in your old language, berserkr. Bear shirts. Men frenzied in battle, mighty warriors who could not be hurt. This is in your blood, this is in the blood of your father and grandfather and forefathers back before the Vikings.
“You do not change into Bear like a warrior of legend, not that, but you can draw on Bear’s strength, his speed, his cunning. All men of your blood are mighty warriors, warriors even the spirits fear. Your women also, though they rarely find the need.
“My people saw this, learned this, when they met your people long ago. That is why you guard that cave.”
She glanced down at his foot, at his plastic foot hidden inside a boot. “Most legends tell lies along with truth. You do not change into Bear, non. And you can be hurt. All power comes at a cost. If you are hurt in battle, in your warrior rage, you will not heal well. That is why the doctors could not save your foot.”
Dennis sagged back in his chair, heedless of those carved mahogany points of Victorian protocol. Images played across his closed eyes. She knew. Someone else knew, and cared. Things he couldn’t even talk about in the vets’ group . . . .
He opened his eyes. Aunt Jean nodded to him, to his thoughts, her eyes sad.
She cocked her head to one side, thinking, and then moved away from old pain. “We have not seen The Swimmer of Dark Waters for centuries. It may come from a spirit world, lost and hurt and afraid. Remember this thing.”
XI
Rick Bouchard poked at a windrow of half-frozen olive-green bladderwrack at the high tide line and tried to make it tell him something. The pile of seaweed pled the Fifth Amendment instead, making him suspicious. He squatted back on his heels and tried to figure out what was wrong with this picture. Tracking ghosts again.
Or spirits, he thought, spirits from the vasty deep.
He flexed his fingers, trying to stir up some warmth inside his gloves. The temperature had dropped maybe twenty degrees since yesterday, another blast of Canadian winter straight down from James Bay. At least the wind had died back to a light breeze with the high settling in, and the seas had died with it. He wouldn’t want to try working the tide-line otherwise. That became a killing zone in bad weather, kill you and suck your body out to sea if it didn’t flash-freeze the corpse in a case of ice.
Killing zone. This tracking job kept giving him images like that—prickly feelings on the back of his neck, the sense of connections just beyond his sight, things creeping up behind him. He felt like he was back in ’Nam, dammit, playing spook. Maybe he should chalk it up to Aunt Jean poking her nose into things. She brought that whole atmosphere back, spooks adding up facts but only giving him half the picture. Or less. She knew something, something that could put his ass in a sling, and she wasn’t telling.
Helicopters thumped the air, full-blown SAR operation up and down the shore now that the weather showed calm for a few hours. Rick didn’t mind them, but he could see that the noise set Carlsson on edge.
Different guys had different triggers. For Rick, it was the smoke from grassfires. Woodsmoke didn’t do it, or foul smoldering garbage in a backyard oil-drum incinerator, or greasy black clouds from diesel engines, but dead grass burning, dry ferns, cornfield stubble, last year’s palm fronds for Ash Wednesday—any stuff that smelled like burning thatch. He’d survived two days of hell in that burnt-out village, shivering under a charred mat while Charlie prowled the muddy alleys, jabbing bayonets into anything that looked suspicious, hunting, hunting . . . .
Rick shuddered at the memory and drew a deep breath of the cold briny reek of seaweed. Spring brush-fire season was always so much fun.
Carlsson shouldn’t live alone. That’s half his problem. I’ve got Bev, I’ve got the kids, I’ve got more nieces and nephews and cousins than I can count. When I have a problem, there’s always family I can turn to. His closest family is in New York. He’s got nothing but a bunch of critters on permanent disability pensions for a support group.
Rick pulled himself back to the here-and-now. “Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club ain’t pleased with you, Denny me lad. Your favorite Marine lieutenant has gone AWOL. He never reported back from his little sortie into black ops. And you took a shot at that fuckwit before he disappeared.” He glanced across at Carlsson, walking below the tide line, down where the cobble beach still showed clear of ice.
That was safer for a foot that didn’t give him feedback on the surface underneath him. That seemed to be the worst part of Carlsson’s old wound, or at least the part that showed the most on the outside. No problem on a level floor or a sidewalk, but he couldn’t feel treacherous footing before it bit him. And working ankles are damned useful equipment on bad ground.
Carlsson shrugged. “Sorry ’bout that. The Navy can go shit in its brass hat, for all I care. That captain’s commission as an officer and a gentleman doesn’t reach across the bay.”
“You got a bad attitude, soldier. Next thing, you’ll be telling me Congress can make him a gentleman, but they can’t give him brains. The Old Man’s just worried about his troops, a character trait you should find attractive in an officer.”
There was something . . . off . . . about the kelp stem woven through the wrack, he decided. Kelp was tough stuff, but winter storms worked the water deep enough to break it loose from its holdfast or chafe a stem through against a rock. Nothing wrong with finding kelp along the shore.
“Didn’t shoot at him. You know me, you know Dad’s old M-1. If I’d shot at him, he’d be dead.”
Rick nodded. “I know that. I think I got that idea across to big chief at whiteskin camp. Big chief believe faithful Injun scout before he believe shit-for-brains shave-tail. That, and big chief read you
r résumé. I mentioned that the Army would have added ‘Medal of Honor’ to all that shiny stuff if an officer or senior NCO had survived the day.”
“Hey, I never fragged anyone. Just thought about it.”
“Didn’t say you had. But the brass doesn’t like to hand out the Big One on the word of anyone below E-7. Unwritten rules. Word is, it takes three enlisted to equal one commission. Seems I remember you had two PFCs still with you by the end of the day. Anyway, our naval brass-hat served in ’Nam, commanding river rats. He can read between the lines.”
The kelp should be more tangled, that was it. Tossed and rolled and eddied and finally abandoned by the last receding wave, the stem should weave through the mass of rockweed and bladderwort. This looked . . . arranged.
Now was that the Marine covering his tracks, or . . . the whatsit? The Swimmer of Dark Waters? Aunt Jean had found the same story in the tracks, the blood. Even that brat niece of hers had felt the same touch of something out of its proper place. What I tell you three times is true.
“Aunt Jean likes you, on the other hand, so that’s a plus. I’d say she outranks a captain any day and twice on Fridays. Even a navy captain. Probably up there somewhere around the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Maybe Secretary of Defense.”
“Not President?”
“Nah. Too much attention. She likes to work behind the scenes.”
Just words to keep the air busy between them. Rick hoped he’d have someone cutting fire-break beside him that liked to chatter, come the next brush fire and the line in his job description that said “backwoods firefighter, when and as needed.” Chatter served as a reminder that you stood here, not back there.
He glanced out to sea again, over the glassy swells at the searching helicopters. “You should send a thank-you card to those flyboys, you know. Sea Knight crew said they were sure they spotted the looie out near Slipper Island, after he’d left your place. Time was right, place was right, camo Zodiac, poking around. Then they lost sight of him in a squall, forced to head back to base. Add their word to my tale of the tracks, and big whiteskin chief lets you off the hook. But they want their boy back. Big chief wants to chew that dipshit Marine a new asshole. Can’t do that if they can’t find him.”
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