Peggy Herring: Anna, Like Thunder

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, “Šu uk. da·sa· idic a .” [55] Come. He wants to see you now.

“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.

“The 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.”