Edge of Nowhere

by John Smelcer

  Praise for the British edition of Edge of Nowhere

  “. . . a stark and profound tale…. A powerful novella that grips you tight and doesn’t let go.” —The Bookseller

  “A great story; a nail‐biting tale of triumph.” —The Bookbag

  “A hard‐edged adventure story.” —The Guardian

  “A book ready to challenge the supposed superiority of Robinson Crusoe in the adventure genre, boasting considerably more psychological edge and an equally thrilling storyline.” —Radiowaves

  “A tale of triumph over adversity, a boy’s determination to survive and a father who never gives up hope. A powerful and exciting novel.” —The Harbour Bookstore

  National Literary Trust’s 2010 National Young Reader’s Recommended Booklist Selected Book, Young Teen Fiction Award (UK)

  Short‐listed for the 2011 Hull Award for Children’s Literature (UK)

  Books by John Smelcer

  Fiction

  Lone Wolves

  The Trap

  The Great Death

  Alaskan: Stories from the Great Land

  Native Studies

  The Raven and the Totem

  A Cycle of Myths

  In the Shadows of Mountains

  Trickster

  The Day That Cries Forever

  Durable Breath

  Native American Classics

  We are the Land, We are the Sea

  Poetry

  The Indian Prophet

  Songs from an Outcast

  Riversong

  Without Reservation

  Beautiful Words

  Tracks

  Raven Speaks

  Changing Seasons

  Edge of

  Nowhere

  John Smelcer

  Leapfrog Press

  Fredonia, New York

  Edge of Nowhere © 2014 by John Smelcer

  All rights reserved under International and

  Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a data base or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Published in 2014 in the United States by

  Leapfrog Press LLC

  PO Box 505

  Fredonia, NY 14063

  www.leapfrogpress.com

  First published in 2010 by Andersen Press Limited

  London UK

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed in the United States by

  Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

  St. Paul, Minnesota 55114

  www.cbsd.com

  Print ISBN: 978-1-935248-57-6

  E-ISBN: 978-1-935248-58-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Information is available from the Library of Congress.

  for Zara, who never once disappointed me

  Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank his editor, Bard Young, as well as Rod Clark, Sue Romanczuk, David Collins, Elizabeth Maude, Eloise King, Jack Vernon, Lisa Graziano, Dan Johnson, and Katy Kortie. A belated thanks go to John Updike and Frank McCourt for their helpful editorial advice.

  Alutiiq words are from the author’s The Alutiiq Noun Dictionary, for which the Dalai Lama provided a foreword. Myths retold in this novel are from the author’s The Raven and the Totem and A Cycle of Myths.

  Contents

  One – All’inguq

  Two – Atel’ek

  Three – Pinga’an

  Four – Staaman

  Five – Talliman

  Six – Urwinlen

  Seven – Maquungwin

  Eight – Inglulen

  Nine – Qulnguan

  Ten – Qulen

  Eleven – Qula All’inguq

  Twelve – Qula Atel’ek

  Thirteen – Qula Pinga’an

  Fourteen – Qula Staaman

  Fifteen – Qula Talliman

  Sixteen – Qula Arwinlen

  Seventeen – Qula Maquungwin

  Eighteen – Qula Inglulen

  References

  Pronunciation Glossary

  The Author

  Discussion Questions & Activities

  EVERY SUMMER, AWAKENED BY some imperceptible signal, a shining multitude of salmon leave the churning depths of the Pacific and return to Alaska to spawn and die. And in their own annual ritual, fishing vessels launch out of safe harbors to meet the migrating schools, which swarm homeward through cold waters, using stars, the moon, and nearly forgotten scents to guide them home, as they have done unerringly since the beginning of time. Just as storms and rough seas imperil the fleets, danger lurks for the salmon at every stage of their journey. All life at sea is precarious. Nothing rests easily. The massive schools must avoid salmon sharks, pods of killer whales, and long, ensnaring nets. And when the dogged salmon reach the mouths of freshwater rivers and streams, waiting impatiently for the incoming tide to boost their one-way race upriver to die, terrible dangers still confront them. Even when the tide has launched them into the familiar flowing waters of their birth, they can only hope to escape the teeth and claws of ever-hungry bears, the talons of vigilant eagles, and the flailing lines of hopeful fishermen. Vigilance, hunger, perseverance—the driving forces in all nature, from salmon to fishermen.

  One – All’inguq

  A long time ago, in a small village nestled along the banks of a river where it emptied into the sea, three brothers hunted and killed squirrels for the fun of it. They hung the tiny furs to dry and collected the bushy tails. They had killed so many squirrels that each day they had to go farther and farther away from the village to find more.

  All around the Erin Elizabeth the shadow-blackened sea dipped and rose in the cold rain, the canyons between waves narrowing and widening beneath dark clouds swirling on a grey, thundering horizon. Among the great swells the fishing boat looked tiny and lost. On the pitching deck, Seth Evanoff clung to the railing, trying to steady himself and to keep from falling overboard. At sixteen, he had not yet developed his father’s sea legs. His feet gave out beneath him when a rogue wave swashed across the deck, dashing a large, plastic tub against the starboard side. He watched in awe as a gust snatched the empty tub and hurled it tumbling into the tumultuous, sloshing sea.

  Everywhere, fierce, wind-riven whitecaps were sliding across the bay, which was surrounded by rocky shores and steep, treeless mountains. Many still had snow on their cloud-tangled peaks, despite the warmth of an early Alaskan summer. The slashing wind carried the sound of waves breaking on the nearby shores scudding across the bay. Behind each foam-tumbling crest, endless waves piled up in the distance, mounting and rolling.

  A net full of waggling salmon swung wildly above an open hold as the intrepid, forty-two-foot vessel bucked on the jostling waves and lurched sideways from the weight of the laden net. Screeching seagulls hovered above the whitecaps slapping to the port and starboard. At the bow of the blue-and-white boat, a golden retriever, his paws finding little traction on the slippery deck, barked at the noisy birds, sea spray blasting him each time the slicing bow plunged headfirst into the swells and white-tipped waves.

  At the stern of the heaving craft
, a man was deftly working the control levers to the boom winch, trying to guide the hoisted net into position, while a lean, old man with iron-grey hair hunkered on the deck beside the hold, trying to steady the swaying net by himself. His gnarled fingers clutched the net strings. His feet were planted far apart, his knees bent firmly against the jostling motion.

  All three fishermen wore yellow raincoats, the bright rubber made slick by rain and sea. The fronts of the slickers were stained with fish blood.

  Uncertain what to do, Seth tried to regain his balance as he stood beside the wiry old man. The teenager was considerably overweight, obese even, and, unlike the old man, unsteady against the boat’s roll. It had been a long time since lunch, and Seth was starving. With a free hand, he pulled a candy bar and two packets of slender meat sticks called Slim Jims from a damp raincoat pocket and was deciding which one to open first, when the man working the levers shouted at him.

  ‘Seth!’ the man yelled above the din of the torrent, the squawking seagulls, and the cranking winch motor. ‘Put that away! You’re always eating junk food. You’ll ruin your supper! Make yourself useful! Help Lucky with the net!’

  ‘Yes, Dad!’ yelled the teenager, quickly stuffing the snacks back into his pocket and pulling down his baseball cap, which was almost blown away by the gales whipping the surface of the sea into a fury, singing through the tight wires, ripping the foam to lace.

  The bulging net, still slowly angling above the gaping square mouth of the half-filled hold, swayed with the boat’s rocking.

  ‘Grab on, Seth!’ his father shouted again. ‘Muscle! Use your muscles! Pull!’

  When the boy was unable to help the deckhand steady the treacherously swinging net, his frustrated father ran over, took hold of it roughly, and, together with the old man, manhandled it above the hold.

  ‘Can’t you do anything right? Hold it like this,’ his father snarled before returning to the controls to release the catch.

  When the bottom of the net was finally opened, spilling its contents into the hold, some salmon missed the opening and flapped wildly about the deck. It was Seth’s job to catch them one at a time and toss them in with the rest of the fish.

  Jack Evanoff, Seth’s father, had been a commercial fisherman all his life. His own father had been a fisherman. He had worked hard for years to save enough money to buy the boat, and he saw his hold full of fish as a means to pay his bills, including the mortgage and heating oil, the loan for the boat, diesel for the engine, and the salary of his old deckhand who earned a small percentage of the catch. In addition he had to save for the future because winters were long, and some seasons were leaner than others. Not only were salmon returns unpredictable from year to year, but the market price fluctuated from summer to summer, from species to species. King salmon, also called Chinook, always demanded a good price.

  Sometimes, so many pink salmon swarmed into the bays that the price would bottom out, glutting the market—nature’s perfect example of the law of supply and demand. In those years, beaches near the outlets of rivers and streams were littered for miles in both directions with decaying salmon, the stench insufferable. Even the bears and eagles lost interest after a certain point. Only crabs would eat the dead salmon once high tides had washed the rot-soft corpses back into the sea. At some point during such years of terrible abundance, you couldn’t even give the fish away.

  While Seth struggled to collect the slimy salmon, Lucky, the old deckhand, worked with the assured skill that comes from a lifetime of doing something until it becomes second nature. The biting wind blew his long, thin hair across his grey-whiskered face. Neither man spoke. Each knew exactly what had to be done and how to do it, putting away the heavy, empty net with the attentiveness of an artist or surgeon, being careful that the net should not tangle, knowing that a tangled net would mean loss of time and money. The old deckhand’s fingers were strong and sunburned. One hand was missing part of a finger from an accident long ago, and his broken nose was a constant reminder of another accident.

  Life at sea was dangerous.

  People had always called the old man Lucky, which wasn’t his real name. No one knew the name his parents gave him.

  No one had ever asked.

  After tossing the last flapping fish into the near-full hold, Seth watched as his father and Lucky struggled to close the hatch.

  ‘The wind is getting too strong!’ Jack shouted to Lucky as they leaned face-to-face, bearing down with all their weight to latch the square lid. ‘It’s getting too dangerous out here!’

  Lucky nodded in agreement.

  ‘Let’s go home, Jack!’ he replied, rain blowing off at an angle from his crooked nose. The howling wind swept his words over the side of the boat, drowning them in the sea.

  After everything was secured, the three-man crew met in the pilot house, their yellow slickers dripping puddles on the floor. The fur-soaked dog curled up on the floor beside them, put his head between his paws and sighed heavily.

  ‘The weather is pretty rough,’ said Captain Jack, placing his baseball cap on a wall-hook. ‘But I’m worried it’s going to get worse. We need to make for port now, while we still can. We’ve got to get these fish to the cannery.’

  Leaning so close to the window that his nose almost touched the glass, Lucky squinted, trying to see through the rolling sheets of water that tirelessly pounded against the glass, trying to smash into the dry cabin. He had been on seas like this many times in his life, and he knew how bad it could get if the wind were to grow much stronger.

  ‘You’re right, Jack,’ he offered, scratching his scraggly beard. ‘Let’s stay in the lee of the islands. It’ll be safer there. The islands will offer some protection.’

  They were all aware of the danger of storms on open water.

  Alaska is surrounded on three sides by water: the Gulf of Alaska, part of the vast Pacific to the south; the dangerous Bering and Chukchi seas, which separate Alaska from Siberia; and the frigid Arctic Ocean to the north, the frozen home of polar bears and seals. Alaska has more coastline than the rest of America combined. Thousands of islands—some big, some small—line its southern coast. The Aleutian Islands, with their fifty-seven volcanoes, span over twelve hundred miles westward toward Asia. The Inside Passage bordering British Columbia is lined with over a thousand islands. Prince William Sound, over a hundred miles across, is speckled with hundreds of islands. In the summer, deer and bear swim from island to island foraging for food. It was in these pristine waters that the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef, spilling almost eleven million gallons of crude oil and killing an estimated quarter million seabirds and some three thousand sea otters and harbor seals—the world’s worst environmental disaster at the time.

  From years of experience, Jack knew that even the most ferocious winds during the day sometimes die down in the evening. There’s some truth to the nautical expression, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.’ He knew that if they waited awhile, the sea might calm a little. Sometimes a little is enough. Besides, he was hungry. He and his crew had been working hard since lunch, almost nine hours earlier, and he chose to face a drive home through the stormy night on a full stomach.

  Jack glanced at his watch and then at his son who was standing beside him, only a couple of inches shorter.

  ‘Looks like it’s supper time,’ he said. ‘What do you say we make for a cove and have something to eat?’

  Seth nodded enthusiastically.

  Like most teenage boys, he was always hungry.

  Before long, the boat had anchored in a small bay, sheltered somewhat from the tempest, though it still rocked a good deal. Generally, boats would anchor in such safe harbors to outlast bad weather. But storms in the Sound can sometimes last for days, putting at risk a catch like the one brimming in the hold of the boat. The fish can spoil if not delivered in time, a total waste of effort and fuel—a risk most captain
s are not willing to take. Commercial fishermen are gamblers, sometimes betting lives in how they play their stake.

  While Jack cooked supper in the galley, Seth and Lucky sat waiting at the rectangular kitchen table, which, like most things on the boat, was bolted down for safety. Everything on board was rigged for rough seas. The cupboards and drawers were latched to keep them from opening and spilling their contents when the boat tossed and heaved on waves and swells. The stove top had special fixtures rigged to hold pots or pans in place. Even the pictures on the bulkhead—which included a map of Prince William Sound drawn by Seth when he was 12 and still interested in such things—were fastened with screws.

  A framed photograph of Seth with his mother and father was fixed on the wall above the table. His mother’s fairness was highlighted by his father’s darker skin and black hair. Everyone in the picture looked happy. His parents had their arms around each other, with Seth standing between them smiling and holding Tucker, who was then a squirming puppy. That was two years ago. His mother had died in a car accident about a year after the picture was taken.

  It was winter.

  Seth’s parents were coming home from a Fisherman’s Association banquet in town when two deer leaped onto the road. His father slammed on the brakes and turned sharply to miss them. So sure-footed at sea, his father lost control on the icy land, and the truck spun wildly, jumped a steep bank, and crashed into a tree. His mother was thrown through the windshield and died instantly. His father suffered only a mild concussion, a couple of minor cuts, and a bruised rib.

  Seth blamed his father for the accident, which soon became a wedge between them, sharp as a splitting maul.

  Truth be told, Jack blamed himself. He thought of his wife all the time, even while working the levers to pull in the long, heavy net full of shiny, waggling salmon.