THE CARPET, WALLS and kitchen tile were a light dull brown, punctuated by dark laminate bookshelves crammed with baskets and carvings. An autobody repair shop calendar, out of date by more than a decade, was pinned to the wall.
The old man held up the invitation. “Coming up quick. That’s a pretty tight turnaround.” What was the man’s name? Frank, she thought. And he was. Most people would keep their mouth shut until you were long gone and others were sitting where you had been.
Maybe that’s why they came here first. Maggie insisted on delivering some invitations in person. She and Roberta divided the list into visits and stamps before Claudia arrived with the invitations. She didn’t get to hear them map the tribe’s hierarchy, their loyalties laid bare. Instead, she stuffed envelopes, shaky, dipping a sponge in water to wet the glue.
Roberta shrugged. “No one has anything planned that weekend—and the Devils don’t have a game—so.”
Printed on the best paper Claudia could find, the invites sucked all the ink from her cartridge, twice. Returning to P.A. for supplies had depleted her, controlling the car’s working parts and lights and beeping noises almost beyond the energy she could marshal. She collapsed onto the couch with her feet up when she got back, dragging herself to her task hours later, her printer soon zipping along, layering colors, the mask emerging, over and over.
Maggie was happy when she first saw the invites, but maybe Claudia should have ordered something professional from a print shop. Makahs pay attention to things like that. Frank ran his fingers over the photo. No embossing here. Claudia felt like someone should say something to him, but supplying the paper did not buy her the right to speak. Since they got here, Roberta had been the only one talking.
“We’ve been prepping for years. Can you make it?”
All three women held their breath. It was just as well. The air stank of a long solitude. From the walls, Frank’s face beamed next to a woman’s, their white hair tufted into powdery clouds.
He rubbed his hands together. “Who’s running the mic?”
“Dave,” croaked Maggie.
“Ah.” His expression pulled into itself. “That’s good.” Claudia surmised he thought he would emcee, run things his way. Propriety depended on perspective. Any family slighted—by the order of introductions, the lineup of dances on the floor, or the value of gifts—would criticize. Everyone else fell in line depending on blood, politics and business. Maybe Dave would run the floor right. Or maybe he’d finish what he started decades ago and run this family into the ground.
“We are so glad you’ll be there to represent your family.” Roberta smiled.
These pilgrimages to power centers across the reservation would take weeks. Across the street, a woman cut her lawn, circled by a muscular black dog that played with the mower, closing in on its leading edge and bounding away. In a frenzy of barks, the dog peeled off to lope alongside a passing car, biting the tires. The house next door had grass to its eaves, tufting around its trove of rusted boats and cars. The rest of the block was uncluttered, if weatherbeaten.
Stroking the frayed armrest of her chair, Claudia glanced out the window at the blustery length of Wa atch Beach, picturing what she had almost done, their child a silent partner to her free fall, a hummingbird stilled in a cocoon gone cold, gone the precise temperature of the ocean, gone. This baby needed another protector, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Peter. He might want to correct the flaws of his parents badly enough to become a father. He would have a claim. This child belonged with these people.
She needed to decide before she started showing. At the rate she’d been tearing into bread late at night, shoving doughy handfuls into her mouth with one thought—baby needs carbs—she would pop soon.
“Claudia.” Roberta’s voice was sharp.
“Oh, sorry. You were saying?”
Frank snorted. “I knew I was boring! Finally, an honest woman!”
Everyone laughed. Maggie looked embarrassed. You and me both, Claudia thought. “I’m so sorry!” She flapped her hands like a seal.
Roberta asked after some distant cousin, and they were off again, sharing stories about the fortitude of Makah canoe families at last year’s gathering of tribes. Coffee cans brimmed with eagle feathers around the room. Claudia paced to the nearest spray of plumes and traced the wavy edge of the tallest one from the metal lip to its tip.
“You like those, huh?” Everyone was looking at her. “I was quite a hiker when I was young. I walked every ridge of our U and A, from Ozette to the Pysht.”
She picked up a small cedar canoe atop a bookcase full of baskets. A lightning serpent wound along its side to emerge with oblong eyes and bared teeth as the prow.
“My son’s a carver. He’s working on the full size version for Tribal Journeys. That’s just the model. Showed me his vision.”
“Come sit. You’re making me nervous.” Roberta held out a cracker. “Worse than my girls, getting into everything!”
“She’s alright. Besides, I got an appointment.”
“We’ll get out of your hair.” Roberta rose to help Maggie. “Thank you.”
“No hurry! Thank you for this Indian tea.” He patted a plastic bag of spiny green leaves. “The wife always hoped it would soothe my bellyaching.”
The corduroy chair creaked and rocked in his absence. He shambled over and reached past Claudia to pluck a downy feather from the can.
“Come by anytime.” He pressed the quill into her fingers. She embraced him before she could stop herself.
On the way to their next stop, Roberta’s eyes rested on Claudia in the rearview mirror, questioning, assessing. Tsoo-Yess Prairie rippled by. Makahs used to set fire to rare swaths of flat land to keep back trees and encourage cranberries and elk to return, season after season. What were her mother’s last words? Moments of seeming devastation are your greatest opportunity, she’d said. When all’s been laid to waste, pick any direction and start walking.
Tsoo-Yess River appeared, flat and gray, its mouth hooked like a salmon’s. She rolled down the window to hear its rushing gurgles and with them, slow murmurs, riffles of conversation swelling into a cocktail party. She never disclosed rivertalk to anyone, least of all Andrew, who chose riverbanks for campsites on the regular, before they only said “I love you” to get off the phone. Would he be surprised to learn how devastated she was? How she’d tried twice.
She picked at a shiny red stain the size of a dime on the seat next to her. Melted crayon, by the looks of it. She slid a nail around its edges and lifted until she heard the velour tear. She switched to fiddling with her wedding ring, which cinched her swollen finger.
“Where are we going?” Maggie fidgeted in the front seat.
“We’re going to pay a visit.” Roberta patted her shoulder.
Claudia rubbed her open hand on the velour. Her sweaty palm left a dark damp trail on the fabric. She was running hot these days.
“What’s the big occasion?” Maggie jiggled her leg.
Roberta flexed her hands on the wheel. “We are dropping off an invitation.”
“Whose party?”
Roberta’s eyes sought Claudia in the rearview. “Peter’s.”
“When’s he coming home? I miss him.” Maggie played with the plastic bag in her lap. “Sometimes I think I’ll die before he gets here.”
Roberta glared at the road, forehead wrinkled like a walnut, and eased her car onto a gravel shoulder. To their right, a long beach held back the gray water, unbroken but for a smattering of sea stacks offshore. Up ahead on their left, a freshly painted home advertised its front yard as a 24 H MONITORED parking lot. Just beyond, two hikers with towering backpacks tried to thumb a ride down the road to the Shi Shi Beach trailhead.
Roberta checked her watch. “You know, auntie, I forgot. I have to pick up my girls. Maybe we ought to do this another day.”
“Oh, sure, sure.” Maggie pinched her pants and rubbed the fabric between her fingers. The small scratch of sound filled the car. This was her child’s grandmother. Maggie deserved to know, even if she wouldn’t remember.
Roberta made a U-turn and rolled back through the prairie. Wind flattened the grass. They plunged into the forest and back out onto the bridge. Wa atch River dimpled beneath a sudden rain.
“You know, one time this land was covered in water.” Maggie swept condensation from the window with her sleeve. “Cape Flattery was an island. Can you imagine that?”
“It’s not hard to picture.” Roberta cleared her throat. “Scary, though.”
“The water left. Four days later, it came back. Swallowed this whole place. The only ones who survived had canoes. Lots of them died, too. The water went out again. Their canoes came down in the trees. Others drifted north and started a new village.”
James Swan recorded a version of this flood story in his diary. Quileutes say that long ago—but not so long—their people saw the horizon blot out the sun. They tied their canoes together and anchored them to trees. Some lines broke. The wave swept canoes to the other side of the peninsula. Survivors founded the Chimakum tribe in and around what is now Port Townsend. Similarities between the otherwise linguistically isolated Quileutes and Chimakums bore out the story. Chief Si’ahl, Seattle’s namesake, led a raid to wipe out the Chimakum, hardly the pacifist that whites made him out to be.
Others told of people climbing mountains when the rivers turned salty and the rains began. To no end. Drowned. They told of sea beasts stranded by the receding waters. Of a mighty battle between Thunderbird and Whale—or was it Kwa-Ti? Of Thunderbird’s rage. Of Whale’s demise.
“Where’d you hear that story, Maggie?”
Maggie turned toward the back seat. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Claudia.” She blushed. “Your friend.”
“I don’t think so.”
Roberta stroked Maggie’s hair. “You’re just worn out, sweetheart. Putting on a big event is stressful.”
They passed under the alders and headed up Diaht Hill. Maggie kept looking at Claudia in the side view mirror, suspicious, probing. Roberta cast apologetic glances over her shoulder. Claudia shrugged and winked like it didn’t hurt. Maggie forgot Peter was back. Best not to feel wounded.
I am carrying your future inside of me, she thought. We are family, bound by blood.
Ostensibly she was in Neah Bay to research a book, but what she wanted to know was how belonging somewhere—really and truly belonging somewhere—formed people and their worldview. Being here only served to remind her of how orphaned she felt. How very much alone, until now.
Could she take root here? There were a lot of Mexicans married to Makahs, multicultural Latinos whose families believed in being Makah, and it was that common faith—and selective claim—that sustained the song system, which joined them as a tribe in thought as well as blood. Peter’s family was a link that would remain broken until an event of epic proportions resurrected itself from the times when those things were believed possible. With this potlatch, Maggie was reaching for eternity.
What could the city offer this baby by way of a future, and not just the gratification of material needs? Urban dynasts redistributed wealth in small, tax deductible increments exchanged for the recognition of donor lists. While Claudia wanted to believe the Makahs were better, somehow, it was just difference, and everything good had its downsides. As compromised as her ambition could be, upward mobility was only available in a society as voracious and forgetful as mainstream America. Makahs were anchored by oral history but also burdened by gossip, and if there was one thing she wanted, it was to forget.
So maybe it was the scale of the potlatch, and not its principles, that distinguished Makahs. You could give it all away, but collective memory was long enough for bounty to come back to you and yours long after this generation was gone. It wasn’t a group of people warming up a big hall in a small town on the far edge of a continent. It was a place in time, flowing backward and forward, without end.