Dana Stabenow - Dead in the Water

"Two of the men?" Olga displayed only polite interest.

"This kelet must have been very evil indeed. But then they usually are."

"I see." Kate wound a weaver around a spoke. The grass was dry and difficult to work. "She says the other men who came with the thunderbird and the kayak got away."

"In that story, usually the men trick the kelet and they all get away. And usually the story says the men are women."

"Sasha and the storyknife say men this time," Kate said cheerfully. She dabbled her fingers in the bowl of water and dampened the weaver. "The last time I was here, didn't you tell me that if you keep picking the rye grass in the same place that the grass gets better?"

"Yes."

Kate paused, wrestling with her weaver. "Did you pick grass in the same spot when you lived on Anua?"

"Yes."

The stitch snugged up against the spoke as if Kate had been weaving all her life, and she viewed it with satisfaction. "And were you picking grass in that same spot in March this year?"

"Whatever would we be doing on Anua in March?"

Olga wondered, her expression one of gentle surprise.

"The time to pick the grass is in June and July."

"I don't know," Kate admitted. "I haven't figured that out yet."

"Mmm." Olga rose and took the basket from Kate's hands. "You're improving. You should take this with you this time. You can practice on the boat. More tea?"

"Why, yes. Thank you."

They worked together on their baskets. Sasha came in and without speaking settled into a seat next to her mother, plucking a half-made basket from the debris on the table that had a sort of Greek key pattern worked around its base. Her dark hair, carefully trimmed by an inexpert, loving hand, flopped in her face. The tip of her tongue stuck out of one corner of her mouth. She was intent, absorbed, her misshapen fingers as deft at weaving baskets as they were in telling stories in the sand.

Olga broke the silence first. "Have you heard the story of how the first basket was made?"

"I don't think I have," Kate said, bending over her basket again. "I'd like to."

Olga selected another weaver, and when she spoke again her voice had fallen into that singsong kind of near chant that Kate had found so mesmerizing before. It was obvious where Sasha got her talent for telling tales.

"The Sun married the Woman Who Kept the Tides,"

Olga began.

"The Sun's new wife cut the rye grass.

"She cured the grass.

"She split it on her thumbnail.

"She split it into spokes and weavers.

"She made a basket.

"She made it around her husband's thumb.

"When it was finished she took it off his thumb.

"She blew in it.

"It got big.

"She made a rope out of roots.

"She tied the rope to the basket.

"She tied their children to the rope.

"The Sun let the basket go.

"Their children floated down to the world.

"The world was an island.

"It was our island.

"That is how the people came home.

"That's all."

Kate, bent over her basket, inhaled the top of a slender frond of split grass and sneezed violently. "Sorry. So which island did the people come to, Auntie?"

"Anua, of course." Olga laughed, a rich, merry laugh.

Sasha laughed, too, less richly, less merrily. "On every island, in every village, it is the same. The legend may be different, but the old ones tell the children it was their island the children of the Sun and the Woman Who Kept the Tides came to. Their island is always the first island, and it is from their island that all Aleuts come."

Kate grinned. "I have heard that story before, Auntie.

Only it was the children of the Daughter of Calm Waters and Agudar, the Moon, Master Spirit and Keeper of the Game, and the way my grandmother told it, the people floated down to Atka."

Olga laughed again, and again Sasha echoed the sound. "You see? Every island tries to be the best."

She held up her basket. "In weaving. In story-telling. In everything."

Maybe even in guile, Kate thought.

She took her leave soon afterward, carrying with her the few rounds she had woven into a gnawed-looking little base, a small sheaf of spokes and weavers, and the certainty that if the need arose, she wouldn't have a witness to the events that took place on Anua Island the previous March.

She had all of the story now, though, or all of the most important parts. She could have pushed for a more definite description, but she didn't have to, and she wouldn't, and Olga knew she wouldn't. There was a bond between them, a link in a chain that went back a thousand generations. At one level of that chain there was race, white against brown. On another level was the ingrained, innate, inherent respect every Aleut has for their elders. The elders were the wise ones, the teachers, for many generations all the law and history there was among the people. With all Olga's authority of eighty winters, Kate couldn't, she simply could not interrogate her. She was too young, Olga was too old, she knew too little, Olga too much.

On a third level, and perhaps the strongest level of all, they shared the unspoken but very real determination to see that Sasha took no harm. She would not be uprooted from everything that was familiar to her to be hammered away at by some Anglos anxious to bring people she didn't know to justice for killing other people she didn't know, Anglos who would be both impatient of and repulsed by her disability.

No. She would remain instead on the beach of her birth, wielding her storyknife in the gray sand, telling stories to a rapt, enchanted audience of Unalaska girls for generations to come.

The thought pleased Kate, and she quickened her pace over the Bridge to the Other Side. She hoped young Andy hadn't managed to stir up any trouble in her absence. That boy needed a keeper.

KATES feet hit the deck with a satisfying thump. Crossing over had not been such an ordeal this time, as it was still light out and this time the Avilda, bless her heart, was only the second boat out from the dock. Whistling, she opened the door to the galley. The whistle died on her lips.

The whole crew was there. Harry Gault, standing, had his arms crossed across his chest and a glower on his face, but as that was his natural expression Kate ignored it. Ned looked as if he might take a bite out of the next person to walk too close to him, but that, too, was natural. Seth, as usual, looked tranquil, even a little bored. Andy was wide-eyed and apprehensive and looked every one of his nineteen years.

The Coast Guard was there, too, in the persons of two officers, crisp and official in blue uniforms, clipboards held at shoulder arms. One was short and stocky and white-haired, the other was short and skinny with brown hair that curled out from beneath his cap in an undisciplined mass. Her cap, Kate realized. When the door opened they turned.

"Hi," she said, shutting the door behind her. "Don't mind me, I'm just the other deckhand."

She leaned up against the wall next to the door and shoved her hands in her pockets. She knew immediately what was going on. It was a snap safety inspection.

What with federal cutbacks they didn't happen all that often anymore, but neither were they unknown, the proof positive standing four feet away from her. She was only sorry that engine maintenance didn't come within the Coasties' purview. She settled back and prepared to enjoy herself.

"Your mast light is out, your fire extinguishers needed servicing six months ago, your Epirb hasn't been tested in seven months, you've forgotten the last time you assembled the crew for an emergency drill, and you can't find your ship's log to jog your memory," the older Coastie said. "Pretty sloppy seamanship, Captain Gault. It's going to cost you."