Anna, Like Thunder

by Peggy Herring

  Where is the seashore? Show me the seashore so I can head north. But the wolf only continues through the forest.

  Dusk eventually arrives, and the birds frolic, then settle. I’m very tired, and the more tired I feel, the more I can’t cast away my doubt. I’ve been foolish to come this far with a creature all because the tilt of its head reminded me of a dog I once loved. I’ve trusted this beast for two days, but I still I don’t know where the ocean is.

  I stop walking.

  The wolf pauses and looks over its shoulder.

  Why can’t we stop?

  It trots ahead a few paces, then turns and tilts its head.

  All right.

  I follow. It makes no sense to give up now. I’ve trusted this wolf. Maybe it’s trying to take me to shelter for the night.

  The mosquitoes come out. Dusk crosses the threshold and becomes night. The sky is not clear. The way ahead is obscured.

  Let’s stop. Please. That’s enough.

  What I’d give now for a warm fire. I’d dry my feet. Put some boughs next to it and sleep. I’d wake up periodically to stoke it. I’d keep it going all night for the warmth and for the comfort. I can almost smell the smoke.

  No.

  I can smell the smoke.

  “Zhuchka?” I cry. “Where are we?”

  Ahead there’s a flicker. Light. A fire.

  I go forward cautiously. Whose fire is this?

  When I finally come to the edge of the trees and peer into the clearing, I see a row of about a dozen houses, whale bones gleaming around their perimeter, a wall of tall drying racks, stacks of firewood, canoes pulled up on the shore, and four totem poles facing the ocean, one, with wings stretched out, that resembles the Holy Cross. I understand. I understand, but I don’t believe it.

  It’s Tsoo-yess. I’m back at Makee’s.

  And the wolf is gone.

  I stumble toward Makee’s house. When I almost reach the threshold, a figure is silhouetted against the door. It’s a woman. She screams.

  It’s Inessa. She screams again.

  “It’s me,” I cry. “It’s only me.”

  She runs back inside, still screaming. I hear shouts—from both her and the other Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts.

  I enter the house. I’m nearly blinded by the light from the fires. Everyone’s moving. Some are clustering around Inessa, others around their children, and still others have turned to the doorway or climbed the benches, so they can see. My vision returns to normal. In people’s faces, I see shock and fear.

  And there he is. Nikolai Isaakovich.

  Disbelief fills my heart and his eyes. I run, my arms stretched out, and throw myself against him. He enfolds me in an embrace, and only then do I believe it’s him. I let my body sink into his.

  “Anya?” he says. “Where—how did you—?”

  To respond is impossible. I don’t know the words to explain what happened these past four days.

  I cling to him and remember all the times I’ve pressed up against him. None has been before so many people. There’s the brooding Kozma Ovchinnikov who’s almost smiling. There’s Makee’s wife. There’s the old woman who saw me unclothed and washed me in the pond. I feel far more exposed to her now. There’s the man with the scar on his chest; he has his arm around Inessa. On her left, the other girl is stroking Inessa’s hair and the instant she removes her hand and lays it against Inessa’s belly, I realize Inessa is pregnant, too.

  “Where are the others?” I ask.

  “Gone to the mountains to hunt,” Nikolai Isaakovich says.

  “And Makee?”

  “He took them. He’s with them.” He shifts and peers into my face. “Anya—I don’t understand. How did you get here?”

  “Kolya—I’m exhausted.” I bury my face in his shoulder and try to shut out everyone who’s watching us. I let him lead me to our sleeping mat. He lies down with me, tucks the cedar blanket around us, curls into my back, and holds me. Mercifully, he stops talking and leaves me alone.

  The next morning, I’m left alone to wander the beach. Everyone—including Nikolai Isaakovich—has eaten and gone to work. How will I explain my sudden appearance? I know what happened, but, even to me, it sounds like a fiction as dubious as any of Timofei Osipovich’s stories. Have I gone mad? Maybe. But even with Polaris, even with all the enlightened good sense in the world, I never could have found my way here on my own. That wolf was real.

  The hunting party returns near midday with a commotion. The Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts rush to meet them and cry out in excitement and real pleasure. The hunters have brought back two reindeer that have been butchered into haunches and shoulders, barrels of ribs still attached to the backbone, legs with black stony hooves that look like elegant boot heels, and two heads with their antlers splayed like the crown of an oak tree.

  Timofei Osipovich gapes when he sees me. But his shock flits away in an instant. He smiles and calls out, “Madame Bulygina! What a delightful surprise! It’s a good thing I brought dinner.” He raises his hands, which are caked with dried blood. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  Makee doesn’t see me right away. He’s dealing with the meat. He points and gives instructions. One set of ribs is carried into his house. A man kneels beside one set of antlers and begins to saw it apart.

  Finished, Makee turns toward his house. Before he reaches the door, I run up to face him.

  “Anna? What are you doing here?”

  “I came back last night.” I’ve said nothing false, but I already feel as guilty as if I had.

  “Who brought you?”

  “No one.” I redden. “Makee—I want to stay. Please let me.”

  Until now, I’ve never seen him lost for words. “Give me a few minutes,” he says finally. “We shall talk.”

  I pace along the length of the village while I wait, back and forth, the totem poles on one side, and the line of houses on the other. Timofei Osipovich slides into step beside me. “Congratulations!” he cries heartily.

  “For what?”

  “You’ve succeeded in surprising everyone.”

  “That was not my intent.” I start to walk faster, but he matches my pace.

  “They say it’s only seven versts to heaven, but the path is all forest. Have you arrived in your heaven?”

  “They also say that a fool’s tongue runs before his feet,” I reply, and he laughs. “You haven’t moved into your hut, I see.”

  “We’re waiting for our furniture to arrive from Petersburg. You must know what that’s like. It could take a while.”

  A boy comes from the doorway of Makee’s house. His feet slap the earth. He stops before me and says, “šuuk. da·sa·idic a.”55

  “What misfortune,” says Timofei Osipovich, “Your toyon is calling.”

  “He’s not my toyon.” His laugh follows me and the boy inside.

  Makee’s on the bench, holding his metal cheetoolth on his lap. He’s washed and put on fresh clothing. I approach, slowed by the weight of a hundred thoughts of what’s going to happen to me now.

  “I am surprised to see you,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to find my husband.”

  “You knew he was here?”

  “Not exactly. I only knew he was somewhere to the north.”

  I tell him most of the truth. What the promyshlenniki told me about the trade. How I ran away, hid in the forest, found Polaris, pointed myself in the right direction, followed streams—and how I stumbled upon Tsoo-yess by chance.

  I say nothing about the wolf.

  A silence stretches out between us. He shifts his hands on the cheetoolth, and it glints in the firelight.

  “Makee—please—we’re expecting a child.” I redden.

  His eyes flicker for an instant. Then, he purses his lips thoughtfully, and gives a short nod. “A child! I wish you and the commander great happiness.”

  “Could I stay?” My voice comes out small and helpless, like I’m a little girl again.

  “Th
e Quileutes will be looking for you. They must be worried.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to think about the baby now,” I say softly. “Try to understand.”

  “A child is such happy news,” he says. “And happy news is hard to reconcile with what the toyons are saying.” He sighs deeply and says, “I will talk with them. But they won’t be pleased with me. I keep telling them the situation will improve. They don’t believe me anymore.”

  “I’m very sorry, Makee. I promised you, and now all I’ve done is make more trouble.”

  He sighs and sets aside the cheetoolth. “For the child’s sake, I’ll try. But the disruption your people are causing is nearly insupportable now. Order must be restored.”

  After everyone’s back from work—my husband was near the rocks all day with some men harpooning octopus that they’ll use for bait tomorrow—we share the evening meal: there’s reindeer, naturally, that was roasted in a pit near the beach. I saw the smoke spiralling gently upward and bending over the forest, and smelled the cooking meat. The bones are splintered and I suck out the marrow. We eat berries with it—the same orange berries I was picking when I escaped.

  Timofei Osipovich blusters through the whole meal. He tells stories about the hunt that make it sound as though he tracked, cornered, killed, and slaughtered both animals by himself. The Aleuts don’t contradict him, and, as usual, Ovchinnikov only laughs. My husband sits so close to me I can feel him chewing. He says little.

  Then Timofei Osipovich says, “Well, speedily a tale is spun but with much less speed a deed is done! Congratulations are in order. I ought to have said something earlier, but I wanted to wait until we were all together. To the glory of offspring!” He raises an imaginary goblet.

  Ovchinnikov nods and cries, “To your health and happiness.”

  I look across the house. Inessa and the other girl are watching. Inessa’s belly is big enough that it must be uncomfortable for her to get down and up from the floor. I smile at her, and she gives me a little smile before turning and saying something to the other girl. After that, they both focus on their meals. There’s no sign of the man with the scar on his chest, but I’m certain now he’s become Inessa’s husband.

  Well before the sun rises, my husband is stirred from sleep to go fishing. The octopus bait awaits.

  “Why so early?” I whisper sleepily.

  “We have to get out to the halibut banks before dawn,” he says.

  “Who’s we?”

  “The koliuzhi. Ovchinnikov is coming, too, but not Timofei Osipovich.”

  “They’ll be heartbroken without one another,” I murmur and stretch, and he laughs. “I wish you were staying instead of him.”

  “I can tell them I won’t go.”

  “No!” I cry, fully awake, thinking of Makee.

  He laughs softly. “I’ll be back early. Don’t worry.”

  “Kolya—before you leave—would you find Polaris and wish her good morning from me?”

  “I will.” He kisses me.

  Two men start digging up the earth. We’re a long way from the houses, in a huge meadow. The grass is as dry as tinder, and it ripples when a breeze catches it. But the breezes are slight today. It’s the hottest it’s been since we arrived on this coast. I’m sweating after our long walk, most of which was uphill. Women, children, and men all carried something: long-handled tools, large baskets for carrying water, and a meal. And it’s because of that meal I know we’ll be here awhile.

  Timofei Osipovich and the Aleuts are here, too.

  The meadow is warm and smells of the dried grass and the freshly turned earth. Copper-coloured butterflies with gold flecks on their wings flit about. Small black flies cluster around us. I brush them away as best as I can, but each one is replaced by another three.

  Many of the people hover and talk while the two men dig. They overturn the dark earth in clumps, and in one, there’s a startlingly pink earthworm that squirms until it finds its way back to the cool underground.

  “What are they doing?” I ask Timofei Osipovich.

  “They’re going to burn the field.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t know? Even old serfs like me know,” he scoffs. “It’s ancient practice.”

  “So, what’s it supposed to do?”

  “It makes the soil richer. The ash goes into the dirt. Whatever is growing here will grow stronger next year because of it.”

  “Won’t they burn down the forest?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you think it makes sense. It works. People figured it out a long time ago. Long before your Tsar started preaching about the Enlightenment, and stopped listening to the people.”

  He sounds like my mother when my parents would disagree.

  The men who are digging create a narrow ditch as long as a koliuzhi house. Then they start to curve the ends of the trench inward. Two men join them, starting a parallel ditch some distance away. They eventually curve the ends of their trench inward as well, until the two meet and form a large circle.

  The Aleuts and a couple of Kwih-dihch-chuh-aht men are sent away for water. The baskets bounce on their backs until they disappear into the woods.

  The women clear away dead grass. We comb with our fingers like we’re brushing hair and make a pile. When our heap grows tall, the youngest children stomp it down. They throw themselves into their task, rolling, laughing, and pushing one another. A girl shrieks when she uncovers a snake. It slithers away, children chasing it until they lose sight of it.

  While they’re picking dry grass from their hair and clothing, and throwing it at one another, the water bearers return.

  Then I smell smoke. An older man with a hide breechclout rises from a crouch. He’s just lit the heap of dry grass. The children cluster around the tiny flames and tease one another. How did the old man manage to light a fire? Did he bring an ember?

  Does he have a tinderbox?

  Smoke billows toward my face. I back away, and circle around until I come to the other side. The flames are spreading rapidly toward me, but the smoke flies in the opposite direction. People poke the fire with sticks, not stirring it up, but containing it. They stay one step ahead of the fire’s leading edge. Whenever a wayward flame extends like a tongue beyond the outside of the trench, it’s doused with water. The burning edges sizzle and black smoke rises.

  The flames are cleverly shepherded into a circle that burns in on itself.

  Everyone’s drawn to the fire. It’s easy to come close because it’s so contained. Right at my feet, a fern catches and flares, as copper as the butterflies’ wings, and it remains copper-coloured while everything around it turns black and grey. What strange alchemy. It should have fallen as ash. But it continues to hold its feathery shape, glowing like it’s being forged at the blacksmith’s.

  I haven’t seen a calendar in many months. It’s not spring. But I know.

  “Timofei Osipovich!” I call.

  It’s my mother’s fiery fern. I’m certain of it.

  “It shows itself only one day a year,” she’d told me. “The one who finds it will become rich.”

  I hadn’t believed her. There were many ways to become rich and none of them involved finding a fern in a forest. But she’d told me to stop thinking of wealth so narrowly. “These days, that’s what they’ll tell you, but the old, old peasants, they know better. And they all say the fiery fern promises prosperity in wisdom and grace.”

  Everything about the koliuzhi’s place has surprised and confounded me. I was told this land was barren and desolate and sometimes it is, but mostly it’s not. I was also told the people are brutal and unforgiving—perhaps some are but I’ve seen generosity that I’ll never be able to repay. Our Enlightenment has given us knowledge and harmony, but perhaps it’s just a raindrop falling into an ocean. Why shouldn’t the fiery fern show itself here?

  “Timofei Osipovich!” I cry again. I look around, tryi
ng to locate him.

  Smoke envelopes me. Ash fills my throat. I cough and choke. The smoke billows up again, a grey wall, and all I can see through it is the glow of the fiery fern. I must not lose sight of it. This thought sticks with me as I tumble through the smoke and into the fire.

  Light. Smoke. Crackling. A jerk on my arm so strong it could tear me apart. I’m thrown like an old sack. I roll and roll and roll and roll. Then I stop.

  “Madame Bulygina!” Timofei Osipovich bends over me. He leans so close his hair brushes my face and each strand feels like he’s plunged a knife into my cheek. “Are you all right?”

  Pain radiates everywhere in my body. My knee. My elbow. My belly is being torn out. Shadows surround me.

  Timofei Osipovich grits his teeth and shouts, “Say something!”

  Then he disappears. Everything goes black.

  * * *

  55Come. He wants to see you now.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  An old woman with a face like wrinkled velvet gently pulls my lower lip open. She hums a song I’ve never heard. With a mussel shell ladle, she dribbles liquid into my mouth. I’m dying of thirst, but what she feeds me burns my throat. I cry out, and make no sound. Only a hiss of air escapes.

  It’s silent here, wherever I am. It smells of smoke and cedar. I can’t recall coming here. The old woman’s face swims into focus. It’s so large it fills my field of vision. Her eyes are like bright stars that pierce the velvet.

  “Help me,” I try to say, but nothing comes out. The old woman watches me. I try to sit up, but the mere thought exhausts me. I reach for her, but my arm won’t move.

  “What happened?” I want to say but my throat is as dry as sand and my words are nothing more than puffs of air.

  Despite this, the old woman answers. “You fell into the fire—or perhaps the children pushed you. Do you remember? They were playing and they may have knocked you down by accident. Now rest. Everything will be just fine.”