PETER PRACTICED HIS step hops outside the community hall. Scallop shells clacked and quaked around his ankles. He wiggled his cedar topknot to make sure the mask would stay put. His hand barely reached its crown. Soft trickles of sweat traced a line between his shoulder blades. He fought the urge to scratch beneath the wool blanket tied around his neck.
Otherwise shirtless, he was barefoot in jeans rolled to the knee. He flapped his elbows to let cold air beneath the blanket. Watching the other dances, he’d tried not to be obvious while scanning the crowd for Claudia. She had the good sense to seat herself in the back. Elders filled the front rows. Cedar boughs crowned the doors and windows. Drums dangled from hooks on the walls.
He spread his toes on the cool concrete and lifted his heels, listening. They would save the big giveaway for last, but everything was prepped in bright piles behind the giant curtain lent to his family for the potlatch. He was amazed at how his mother calculated just how much would be needed. He’d added coloring books, crayons, matchbox cars and a few action figures to keep things lively. He had been waiting behind the curtain, but the creak and shift of folding chairs, the echoes off the rafters and the occasional cry of a baby had become too much, and a swift draft beckoned him outside, where kids swirled over the jungle gym, shouting and jumping into damp mulch.
His breath doubled back on him inside the wild man mask. He hadn’t been able to eat, though Roberta pulled together enough meat and seafood for the feast, calling in favors his mom didn’t know about. He’d made the trips to P.A., their lists in his pocket, and filled the cart until it took a grunt to get rolling. Paid, too, but you can’t just pick up one hundred pounds of elk.
The first thing they did after the dinner song was feed people. The spread filled the long lines of plastic tables that had to be broken down before the dancing began. There was elk meatloaf, breaded and fried halibut, baked beans, a shredded carrot salad, bowls of artichoke hearts, soft rolls, and best of all, baked salmon, copper oil soaking into mashed potatoes. He passed platters of grilled mussels and crab legs.
It took him an hour to make the rounds, wearing the cedar hat his mom made. The brim forced him to stand straight. All the while, folks filled up on coffee or stepped out front, texting or taking calls, swigging from bottles of water. He saw one kid eating a jar of blackberry jam, quietly, off by himself, looking around to see if anyone would stop him as he scooped fingers of purple jelly into his mouth, and Peter thought, go ahead, buddy, that’s about as good as it gets.
It was hard to say how he felt as the old men clapped his back and the aunties patted his face with wrinkled hands. He thanked them one at a time for being there to remember things the right way. Looking back on their lives, he recalled stories no less riddled than his own, but here they were with their families, showing up to do the work. They would keep Makah culture alive.
The other people at Claudia’s table milled around, filing off to the bathroom, talking to their friends, passing babies back and forth.
“Brought you this.” He threaded a cedar rose through the buttonhole of her jacket. “We have a gift. For all you’ve done. Don’t leave till the end.”
“Of course not.” A smile warmed her tired eyes. “You look wonderful.”
He forgot himself. Her shoulder dipped away from his hand. The women around them glanced at each other. He stood back. There would never be a good time with her. “I have to go up front.”
Peter made his way behind the curtain to double check his back pockets for the envelopes of cash they would press into the hands of those who stayed to watch him dance. He had been withdrawing the daily limit from the Mini-Mart’s ATM for the last week, looking around to make sure pill-heads weren’t casing him. After months of no money coming in, his bank account looked like it belonged to someone in his twenties, which lit in him that familiar panic that plagued his household as a child, anxiety he quieted by working, always working. If he wanted to be his own man, he had to keep moving.
He took the deal. His Indian name wasn’t part of the trade. That was his to fold away with his very own wool blanket to protect him at night.
Inside, Dave told people—again—not to take pictures or recordings of the dancers. “And remember—don’t post anything online. Once those pictures leave the village, they could end up on postcards or sold as art or whatever, so that’s why we’re particular. Thanks for being respectful of the families.” Dave was doing a good job running the floor, as far as Peter could tell.
His mother waited in the doorway, and he did hug her, and he did not hold back, despite the mask. Her heart hopped against his ribs, a wild bird in its last winter. Once he’d done what she wanted, he could leave, and that freed him to love her the only way he knew how, which meant no questions asked.
“Proud of you.” She patted his back with both hands. “My boy.”
Back on the mic, Dave thanked everyone. “You are here to witness a great day for this family.”
The drums began. It was just like they’d practiced, except his mind was blank. His body took over—the best thing it knew how to do—and now he was rounding the curtain, entering the floor by the drum circle, his stepping rhythmic, crouched down low, arms out, the mask heavy on his neck.
Randall and Beans and Dave drummed and sang in a circle with Roberta, his mother to one side, singing and keeping time with a feathered wing, showing him the steps—slow lift of the foot with a quick step down, and that’s what he did. Through the mask, he saw his people watching, together guarding his claim to this place, and with it, their own. Slow lift with a quick step down, slow lift with a quick step down.
He nodded to all four directions, bearing the weight of the wild man’s face. His feet turned like leaves caught in an eddy that circled the floor counterclockwise, the scallop shells rattling high and sharp.
Before, he went through the motions of learning this stuff, keeping his distance to placate his mom without putting himself out there, but now, his feet moved with his heart and his heart beat with the drums, and he felt his spirit rise, knowing Makahs had danced this way since men dressed in bear skins and stood barefoot on the beach, brandishing a harpoon because they’d earned the right. They conquered fear. So would he, moving in concert with a whole line of men who kept going when it seemed impossible.
His shoulders were on fire. He kept his arms up. Slow lift with a quick step down. Sweat rinsed his back and chest and arms.
There were men all around him, not a one of them his father. Peter wished his dad were here, wished he had been around to teach him, wished he hadn’t left it to Dave to sober up and face death on the level. Taking care of the hard work—that was something Peter had in common with his mom, and maybe they got it from her ancestors, who lived from one day to the next, just like the chiefs. It was the dignity brought to daily life that mattered, not what they did.
Twin streams fell to either side of his nose, dropping onto his chest. He was glad of the mask. The song shifted, sliding into a tight, quick beat, and now he squatted with his back to the crowd, propping his elbows to flare the blanket and show the mother of pearl buttons on its back, twisting and tipping his head over one arm so the mask seemed to float above a large body. He coiled inside this illusion, holding his breath until he spiraled up out of his crouch, hands flung wide, knees rising and falling, rising and falling, rising and falling, full stop.
Arms spread like wings, he pivoted for the families lined up with kids in laps, their elders nodding in time with slow claps. Cedar hair framed his eyes. All he could see was brown. He reeled back and charged forward, thumping the floor with his steps. Again. Again.
The drums glided into another tempo. Time to leave the way he came in, shining for the eyes of his tribe, passing the drummers who looked ready to die, dancing for his mother who was singing and crying because he’d done it. They’d done it. And now it was done.