Peggy Herring - Anna, Like Thunder

The next strip of bark that Holpokit pulls down, he gives to me.

Separating the layers isn’t easy. I chip off little bits looking for the right spot. The tool he gives me seems too blunt for the job, but it hurts the tips of my fingers if I try to do without it. When I finally find the right place, the pieces easily pull apart.

When all the cuts have been made and all the strips separated, the Quileutes fold the swathes over and over into small bundles. Each one is tied with a strand of the outer bark.

Though I carried nothing up to this grove, I have a full basket to carry down. Everyone does. Holpokit helps me position the loaded basket. When we get back, we put the bundles into vats of cold salt water, pressing them down to ensure they’re immersed. By then, I’m starved and ready to eat just about anything.

My husband comes home when night falls. His return is just in time—the sky grew heavy in the late afternoon, and I expect it to rain throughout the night. By the door, he jokes with carpenter Kurmachev and the American, while Holpokit hovers shyly behind them, watching. He acts like he wants them to notice him, though they pay no attention to him whatsoever.

Kurmachev slips away from the group and slumps down by the fire.

“Where did you go?” I ask.

“We were hunting—for reindeer,” says Kurmachev.

“Were you successful?”

“No,” he says. “It was too hard.”

“Hard? How so?”

“We only had bow and arrow—no muskets. And the arrowheads are wooden! They’re sharp but there’s nothing to them! They’re so light! We had to chase the reindeer first into a kind of channel the koliuzhi cut into the forest. When they were in the channel, then we could get a shot at them.” He shakes his head. “That was clever—having the channel—but the bow and arrow are so impractical. That’s the old way—and the old way is so backward.”

“Perhaps hunters were more cunning back then,” I say.

For old Kurmachev, the shift from carpenter to hunter has been awkward. He’d be much better at making bowls or boxes or handles for tools than he is at waiting in the cold and rain on the slim chance that his arrow reaches its target.

“Perhaps you should show the koliuzhi what you do. All this wood—” I say encouragingly.

“They have some good wood,” he says. “I saw it in another house. It looks like they’re drying it. I’m sure they intend to make something with it.”

“You should try to get a piece.”

His eyes slide sideways and back again. He fumbles in his pocket. “Look.”

He shows me a lump of wood and, in the dim light, it takes a minute, but I soon realize what it is.

“It’s a doll!” I laugh. “Did you make it?”

“A few days ago,” he says. He’s etched a little face on her, two dots for eyes and a crooked smile. Her belly is round and as big as her head. “I found the wood on the beach, and I used one of their tools. Just a piece of stone, but with a really sharp edge. I was slow.” He turns the doll over, examining it. “But the wood is good. It’s softer than birch, and I don’t think it’ll break easily.”

He holds the doll to his nose. “It has a happy smell, this wood here. It’s not like the smell of birch.” He passes the doll to me.

Cold and wet, my husband and John Williams join us by the fire. I see dried blood from the hunt on the American’s hands.

“What’s that?” my husband says.

“Ivan Kurmachev made it,” I say, as I show him. He takes it from me and rubs his thumb along its smooth back.

“Now you’ve got to make the others,” I say.

“What others?”

“The rest of the family.”

“Ah, I hope I’ll get around to that. I’m slow without my own tools.”

“You should make a bowl instead,” says my husband. He hands the doll back to me. “The koliuzhi would be impressed if you made them a bowl. All they have are trays. Trays and these baskets.”

He’s talking about the woven bowls. We use them every day. I didn’t think the Quileutes had any problems with them.

“If you make a really good one, then maybe you won’t have to go hunting anymore,” he continues.

“I need a much bigger piece of wood for a bowl,” Kurmachev says sadly. Then, “You can keep it,” to me.

“Keep it?”

“The doll.”

“No.” I try to pass it back.

“Then you don’t want it?”

“No! It’s not that! It’s just—don’t you want to finish it?”

He scrutinizes it. “It’s finished. In any case, I’ll make another.”

I turn the little doll over in my hands. “I hope you do make another,” I say. I tie it onto the end of my sash like I’m a peasant woman with a coin or a key.

As I had predicted, it rained throughout the night, pounding on the roof like the devil at the door. Morning brings no relief. The storm isn’t finished with us yet. People fidget under their bedclothes, and talk in low voices, delaying the start of the day. Only a few push themselves out of bed to brave the cold air. They stir the fire and throw more wood onto it.

I close my eyes. Nausea washes over me. I pull the blanket up to my chin. My husband makes a weak effort to pull the cover back to his side, but when I won’t relent, he rises and leaves the house. I seize the blanket and pull it up over my head wishing the day were over.

After a long time and a short time, I sense movement and when I peer out from under the blanket, a thick forest of legs encircles me.

“ aba i ό aksh,” [47] Her face is so pale. says one woman.

“Tsixá a, dáki !” [48] Well, of course! replies another.

I wish they’d go away and leave me alone.

What could be making me so ill? I can barely rise again today. The smoke, the cold, the women—everything makes me nauseous. The tonics the women have given me are doing no good.

Maybe I’m dying. Maybe I’m—

I let the blanket fall back over my face. It can’t be. Can it? How could it? And yet—why shouldn’t I be pregnant? I’m already eighteen and a married woman—young married women have babies. It happens all the time.

I inch the blanket down my face and slowly look up. I scan the circle of faces, half of them upside down from my perspective on the floor, on my back. The women convey a strange mix of concern and delight, confirming my conclusion.

Nikolai Isaakovich and I had spoken often about starting a family. Back in Novo-Arkhangelsk, and in our cozy quarters on the brig, we’d have idle conversations about the son who’d distinguish himself in the Imperial Navy, about the daughter who’d have a natural talent for mathematics. I’d only ever seen it as a possibility—distant and not pressing. The absence of my monthlies had been a blessing, and the way time had unevenly stretched and compressed meant I’d lost track of how many I’d missed. Beneath the blanket, my fingers lace together over my belly. Have I become more stout? Impossible to believe a child is only a layer of skin away from my touch.