by Stan Jones
Jacob noticed the pill cup in his hand and gave it to Lucy, who dropped it into the waste can beside his bed. Then he looked at Nathan and began speaking.
“Pretty soon, word started to spread about Natchiq, because everywhere he went, he would talk about his source of intelligence and he would act different from other people. When he put up his tent, he would put down willow branches for his bed, instead of spreading his furs on the ground. And he took baths and kept himself clean, like we do now, which people never did in those days.
“And always he carried a long pole with him, and he would put it up outside his tent wherever he camped. Every seventh day, he would put a strip of sealskin on top of that pole, and he wouldn’t do any work. He would just play a drum and look like he was thinking, maybe in a trance or something.
“People laughed at him when he did that. They would say, ‘You’re just lazy, that’s why you don’t work.’ And Natchiq would say he was only doing what his father in the sky told him.
“Then they would ask, ‘What did he tell you?’ and that’s when Natchiq would start to talk against the taboos. He would tell the people they didn’t have to live in fear, and he would break all the taboos.
“Like the taboo about a young girl having to live alone when she first became a woman, he broke that taboo. He came to this camp up on the Katonak River where there were people living, and there was a young girl off in a sod house by herself. He went there and he drank from the water bucket in front of her house, and everybody thought he would die. But the next morning, he was alive like anyone, and people started to wonder about the taboo. When he got down to Chukchi, he did the same thing again. And he told the people that the old taboo about women having their babies all alone was wrong too, and pretty soon it would go away like all the other taboos.
“He kept breaking all kinds of taboos. When he came down to Chukchi, he went across to that place Tatuliq where everybody hunts beluga. Everybody was afraid to eat beluga at the same time as berries or any other food that came from the ground because of the taboo. So Natchiq, he went and picked some wild rhubarb and cooked it in his tent. While it was cooking, he went along the beach asking people for a piece of beluga blubber to eat with the rhubarb. People were so scared by this, a lot of them went in their tents and wouldn’t even talk to him. But finally someone gave him some blubber and he took it back to his tent and ate it with his rhubarb and nothing happened. Never got sick; the next day he was healthy and strong as any of them. After that, a lot of people started eating beluga with any other food, just like we do now.
“Any other taboo, he would break it whenever he could and tell people they didn’t have to be afraid. He said, ‘If we don’t believe in the taboos, then they don’t have any power over us.’”
Jacob stopped talking. Lucy queried him in Inupiaq, but he waved her off and motioned Pauline over. He spoke into her ear in Inupiaq and she responded, “Arigaa.”
Then she eased him off the bed and helped him hobble into the bathroom.
Nathan and Lucy watched this without a word.
Finally, Lucy broke the silence. “Aren’t they beautiful together? I just hope—” Apparently having thought better of whatever was to come next, she kept it to herself, and neither of them said anything more until Jacob was back on his bed.
He spoke in Inupiaq to Lucy, who turned and looked at Nathan. “He says where was he before he went to the bathroom?”
“He was talking about how Natchiq broke all the taboos.”
Lucy translated this. Jacob lifted his eyebrows and said, “Ah-ha.”
“BESIDES BREAKING the taboos, Natchiq always made prophecies, too. He said a new kind of people, white people, would come into the country and then everything would change for the Inupiat.”
“Nobody had heard of white people in those days?” Nathan asked.
“Maybe a few people had heard of white-man ships passing by the coast, or maybe when Siberian people came over to trade, maybe they talked about seeing white people, but there weren’t any around Chukchi and nobody here had ever seen any. This was right before all the whalers came into our country with their ships, I think.
“Anyway, Natchiq said everything would be different for the Eskimos when all the whites come. People would wear different clothes, eat different food. Some Eskimos would be made rich and some would be made poor.
“He predicted there would be thin pieces of birch bark that people could write on. He said boats powered by fire would ride in the sky. ‘This is what some of you will travel in someday,’ he told them, ‘a boat powered by fire.’
“And he said there would be boats that could go up the river without anybody poling or without people and dogs on the banks pulling them up by ropes.
“A lot of people didn’t believe him. ‘That will never happen,’ they said. ‘You’re going crazy, that’s why you talk like this.’
“But Natchiq just said it was what his source of intelligence told him, and he kept doing whatever he wanted. Another thing he predicted was that the newcomers, the whites, would find something of great value to them up by where the Walker River runs into the Isignaq. A big city would grow up there, that was what he said, with lights that stretched to the mountains on both sides of the Isignaq.
“Later on, after Natchiq was gone and his predictions started coming true, like about all the white people coming into the country and the boats that could run by their own power, some of the Eskimos that still remembered him started to think he wasn’t crazy after all. They thought maybe he could be right about the whites finding something they want at Walker River, too. So they moved up there and started Walker Village, thinking they would get rich when the whites finally made their strike. Maybe they still think that, ah?”
Jacob looked Nathan’s way as Lucy translated this. Nathan gave the nod that seemed to be called for, and Jacob continued.
“Ah-hah. But the rest of what Natchiq said about Walker was not so good. He said that after it became a big city, there would be two winters together and no summer in between, with snow up to the treetops. Then, when breakup came, the flood would reach all the way to the shoulders of the mountains and a great big whale would surface on the river, right where Walker used to be. Then there would be a day that was split in half.”
“What did he mean by that?” Nathan asked. “The end of the world?”
“He never explained it. When people would ask him, he would just look sad and not say anything. Maybe he was sad because his father in the sky didn’t explain it to him, or maybe he did know what was coming next, but it was too sad to tell.”
There was another break as the aide returned with Jacob’s teacup, refilled. Then he continued.
“Of course when people started to listen to Natchiq about the taboos, the angatquqs got worried. They said, ‘Don’t believe anything Natchiq says—he’s crazy.’
“But Natchiq answered that he was more powerful than the angatquqs, because their power came from the earth but his power came from his father above.
“At that time there were lots of angatquqs around Chukchi and the biggest one was Saganiq. He and the other angatquqs tried to find some way to kill Natchiq. In those days, angatquqs could do what they call—”
Lucy interrupted the proceedings with an apologetic look at Nathan. “I don’t know how to translate what he’s saying—it’s a new word to me. I have to talk to Pauline.”
She turned to her grandmother, still perched on the foot of the bed and now sipping from Jacob’s teacup. Inupiaq flew back and forth between Jacob and the two women for a few moments, and then Pauline said, “He mean soul travel.”
Lucy nodded in recognition, smiling. Then she continued the translation.
“Those old angatquqs could do soul travel. Their spirits would leave their bodies and fly around, sometimes they would even run into each other and have big fights on these trips. At least, that’s what people thought, in those days.
“So Saganiq decided to use soul travel
to find Natchiq’s soul and kill him. He went out flying and pretty soon he came to Natchiq. Natchiq was sitting on his chair and all around him was this bright glow. Saganiq tried to attack his soul, but the glow just got brighter and then Natchiq’s chair started to rise upward. Saganiq tried to attack again, but the glow got even brighter and Natchiq’s chair rose even more. Pretty soon, the glow was so bright that Saganiq couldn’t even look at it, and he knew he couldn’t kill Natchiq that way.
“When Saganiq come back to his body, there was Natchiq waiting, and he said, ‘The one of the earth has tricked you. He is weak, not strong. Only my father in the sky is strong.’
“But Saganiq wouldn’t give up. Him and two other angatquqs, they put a spell on some food to poison it and they gave it to Natchiq. But when Natchiq ate it, nothing happened. He just laughed and said, ‘Even the poison you make doesn’t hurt me. I eat it up. I could swallow you up if I wanted to.’
“Now Saganiq was really mad and he said, ‘I think something might block the passage if you tried.’ And he pulled out his kikituq, this amulet of a snowy owl that he always carried in his clothes, and he waved it in Natchiq’s face. Natchiq just laughed again and said, ‘I could swallow that, too.’ He tried to take it, but Saganiq put it back in his clothes and he walked away.
“Not long after that, Natchiq was out hunting one day, and he caught a baby snowy owl that got lost from its parents. He brought it back, made a cage for it out of willow branches, and he kept it that way. He tamed that owl and he named it Saganiq and whenever anybody would come around, he would show them that tame owl named Saganiq sitting in its cage. Until finally one day, Natchiq killed that owl and ate it, to show people that Saganiq and the old-time angatquqs didn’t have any power anymore.”
Nathan shivered, and interrupted despite himself. “He ate Saganiq’s kikituq?”
“Ah-hah, Natchiq cooked it and ate it and everybody thought he would die for sure that time. But he didn’t die, he stayed as strong as ever. And after that hardly anybody would listen to Saganiq or the other angatquqs. The people didn’t worry so much about taboos, either. Our people finally started to have a happier life. They did it themselves, even without the whites and their Christianity.
“Well, the angatquqs didn’t have their power anymore, and Natchiq started to think it was time to go north, to tell the people up there what his father in the sky said about the taboos and the angatquqs and what would come in the future. So one day when it was just starting to be spring, like now, Natchiq told the people he was going to what we call Barrow now, where there was also lots of angatquqs, then maybe Canada. Him and his wife, they took off up the trail and they never came back.”
“What became of them?” Nathan asked.
“I guess nobody ever found out for sure, or at least I never heard. Some people thought Natchiq made it through the mountains to Barrow, and then went to Canada. Some people thought Saganiq’s kikituq flew up there and killed Natchiq’s soul somewhere in the mountains, but maybe his wife made it back to Chukchi, only she was so weak by then she died, too. This was right about the time the naluaqmiut missionaries started to come in, and they told people not to talk about anything to do with angatquqs if they wanted to go to heaven. So everything after that kind of got lost from not being talked about, even though lots of people had memories of what happened with Natchiq before the missionaries came.”
Nathan was silent for a time, digesting his grandfather’s story. Fascinating enough, and probably with elements of truth. But what did it have to do with Victor Solomon’s murder?
“What family was Natchiq from?” he asked. “Are his relatives still around today?”
Lucy translated this, and Jacob squinted a no, then spoke in Inupiaq.
“Like I say before, he come from up on the Isignaq River, and nobody lives at that place now. If he’s connected to any family around here, I never heard about it. Maybe his people moved into some of the villages upriver and got new names from the naluaqmiut and they don’t even know they’re related to him. Or maybe his line died out if he died on the trail. His story is all broken up and now nobody knows who he was.”
“I think someone knows,” Nathan said. Jacob looked at him sharply and he realized the old man had understood at least the gist of what he had said.
“Who?” his grandfather said in English.
“Did you ever hear Whyborn Sivula talk about Natchiq or Saganiq?”
Lucy translated, but Jacob seemed to figure it out before she finished and spoke rapidly in Inupiaq to her.
“He says he never heard anything like that, and why do you think Whyborn would know who Natchiq was?” Lucy translated.
“Tell him I’m going to talk to Whyborn and find out the rest of the story, and then I’ll come back and tell it to him.”
Jacob smiled and lifted his eyebrows and said, “Arigaa.” Then he laid his head against the pillows and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ACTIVE PARKED THE SUBURBAN on Fifth Street in front of House 419, the number he had gotten from Dispatch and written in his notebook. The house was small and old, the paint on the T1-11 weathered to a pale rose that might have once been red. The structure roosted three feet in the air on wooden posts set into the ground. It was a common construction technique in Chukchi, employed to prevent buildings from thawing the permafrost below and being swallowed by it.
The posts seemed to have worked pretty well in the case of House 419, except at the northwest corner. There, the house had a pronounced sag.
Whyborn Sivula and his son, Franklin, the lookout from the whaling camp, were at work on the low corner as Active came up. They had a big jackscrew under a beam and Franklin was cranking as Whyborn sighted along the floor line to see if the corner was coming up to level. A few pieces of scrap lumber were stacked on a snowdrift nearby.
Active rolled down his window and watched for a couple of minutes as the corner lifted slowly off the post, the house timbers groaning. The two Sivulas ignored him, along with the wind ripping in from the west. He waited a couple minutes more.
“Mr. Sivula. Could you tell me about Natchiq?”
Active watched for Sivula’s reaction, but there was none. The whaler bent down, picked up a section of two-by-six from the scrap pile, and slid it into the gap between the corner and the post. There was still some space left, but not enough for another slab of wood. “Franklin, you could jack it up a little more, then put in one more piece, ah?”
Franklin looked to be in his late thirties. He was squat and muscular, with a square face, heavy features, and short, bristling black hair. He frowned at the corner, sighted down the floor line and turned to Whyborn. “It’s good now. Might be too high if I jack it up any more.”
“It’s OK if it’s a little high,” Whyborn said. “When summer come, that post will sink again and our house will be level. Then it’ll sink some more and we’ll jack it up some more next winter.”
“Arii, this permafrost.” Franklin grinned and resumed cranking the jack with a big monkey wrench.
Whyborn turned and finally acknowledged Active’s presence. “Only natchiq I know is seal, Trooper Active. Natchiq, that’s what us Eskimos call seal.”
Active realized now why the word had seemed familiar when he read it in Father Hanlon’s journal. “I know that, but this Natchiq is Uncle Frosty, Mr. Sivula.”
Sivula turned sharp black eyes on Active and studied him for a moment. “You know about Natchiq?”
“I know he was killed by Saganiq long ago and somehow that led to Victor Solomon’s death. And I think you know the connection.”
Sivula looked west into the wind and studied the snow-covered ice of Chukchi Bay. Finally, he said, “You come in, have some tea, maybe we’ll talk.”
Active climbed down from the Suburban and followed him into the house, to sit at a little table in the kitchen while Sivula heated water on an electric range. When the kettle whistled, Sivula brought two cups with teabags to the table and pou
red in steaming water. He dipped two spoons of sugar into his own cup and pushed the bowl toward Active, who shook his head and took a sip of tea.
“Victor Solomon is my friend since we’re boys,” Sivula began. “So I’m sorry he’s kill.”
Active nodded. “Can you tell me who did it?”
“Don’t know,” Sivula said.
“I thought Victor was your friend.”
“Maybe I know who took Uncle Frosty from the museum. But I never think that’s who kill Victor.”
“Doesn’t it have to be the same person?”
Sivula tilted his head and studied Active. The house was silent, except for a sudden groan from the timbers as Franklin jacked up the sagging corner. “I don’t think so. But like I tell you in my camp at Cape Goodwin, it’s old-time Eskimo business, done now anyway.”
Active shook his head. “Not till whoever killed Victor is caught and punished.”
“This man I know, he’s old like me, maybe not around too much longer. Maybe if I tell you story, then you’ll know you don’t need to put him in jail? You’re Eskimo too, ah?”
“I’ll listen,” Active said.
Sivula shrugged and looked into his teacup. “If I never tell his story, then maybe you don’t find him.”
“Some of the old people in town will know about Natchiq and Saganiq.” Active stood up and zipped his parka. “My grandfather Jacob Active told me some of it and there must be someone who knows the rest. I’ll—”
“You’ll find him, ah?” The black eyes measured Active from the depths of the mahogany face.
“Me or some other trooper. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
Sivula looked into himself for a long time. “Then maybe I could tell you something,” he said finally. “See what you think.”
He drank from his cup and looked at Active, who sat down and pulled out a notebook and pen.
“Maybe better if you never write. Just listen.”
Active nodded and put the notebook back in his pocket.