Prophecy (11 page)

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up to examine it, admiring its shiny silhouette against the darkening sky. It was a moment of consummate beauty; Rob wanted to savor it.

He took off his belt and tied the fish to it, then lay down on the dock, gazing up into the sky. The stars were beginning to appear, brighter than he had ever seen them, and the sky had a kind of depth to it that made him feel he was gazing into eternity. But the moment was suddenly shattered. There was a resounding crash in the water, as though a huge boulder had been dropped. Rob sat bolt upright, his head spinning in the direction of the sound. Just twenty feet from him, the water had been disturbed; circles widened outward and melted into calm.

Rob’s eyes traveled to the shoreline, the only possible place from which a boulder could have been thrown. There was nothing there. Just shadows and silence. The water was smooth again. A light breeze drifted across the lake, bringing with it the smell of night in the wilderness. Dark and damp, and mysterious. Rob scanned the water’s surface and detected a tiny dark shadow moving toward him through the mist. It was a small black duck, chortling to itself as it paddled shoreward to bed down for the night. It was apparently unaware of Rob’s presence; it headed directly for the dock. Rob sat stock-still. He could see the glint of its eyes as it moved forward. But suddenly it shrieked. Its wings flapped in a spastic attempt to fly as something dragged it down. In a split second it was gone. The chop in the water that gave evidence of its brief struggle quickly faded to calm.

Rob sat immobile. Stunned. Then he saw it. Just a foot from where the duck had disappeared. A swelling in the water that indicated something large had flashed just beneath the surface. The water had become engulfed in darkness, and Rob was relying on the light of the moon as his eyes followed the reflective swells and swirls. Whatever they were, there were several of them, probably fighting over the remains of the duck. Then suddenly something rose in a spray.

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It was a fish. A salmon. Gargantuan in size. At least four feet long, with a girth as thick as a man’s body. It sailed upward into the air, its body vibrating as it crossed the circle of the moon. It crashed back into the water with a resounding smack, like the sound of a boulder being dropped from high altitude.

Then everything went silent. All traces of movement were gone.

Rob watched the water as mist gathered on its surface, and became so thick that everything was obscured. In moonlight, the lake had come to look unearthly, like a crater of steam.

He picked up the fish he had caught, rose on trembling legs, and headed slowly back to the cabin.

On a far shore of the lake, John Hawks sat alone, in darkness, gazing across at the island. Tiny spots of light showed in the windows of the cabin there. He remembered, when he was a boy, the sense of mystery attached to that island. There had been no cabin there then; the Indian children used the island as a test of their courage. When any one among them could swim back and forth to it without stopping, particularly at night, they had taken a major step toward joining the ranks of their elders.

There was said to be a spirit living on the island. An angry spirit whose face and form were uncommonly beautiful. According to legend, the spirit had been banished to the island by jealous siblings, and in its loneliness it had become demented. The sounds of dawn and dusk were attributed to this spirit; the cry of the loon, the moanlike call of the moose. The spirit was called N’ayh’an’tak’tah. Literally translated, it meant Crazy Beautiful. It was also the name of the island.

The cabin on the island was built by Morris Pitney, and thereafter the island was declared off Umits to the Indians. Many believed that that was why the Pitneys had suddenly, within two months of each other, died. Crazy Beautiful had killed them. Her methods had

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been bizarre. They had slept with their mouths open, as whites commonly did. The spirit N’ayh’an’tak’tah was a woman; her breasts were filled with poison. As they slept, she dripped her poison into their mouths.

When Hawks recalled legends such as these, he understood why the whites looked upon the Indians as children. The whites did not understand that an unbridled imagination was a gift to be cherished, given only to man. Those Indians who became absorbed into the white world lost it quickly. It took careful nurturing to maintain. The old man, M’rai, had nurtured the gift well. His imaginary visions were crystal clear, and he could describe them in such detail that it seemed as though they were real.

After the confrontation at the roadblock, Romona had taken Hawks to the old man’s encampment, where she treated his wounds with valerian root and peat moss. It had taken the sting from the flesh, but not from the spirit. In the hours that elapsed. Hawks had sat in silence, staring into the fire at the old man’s encampment while M’rai spun tales of the creatures of the forest. He spoke of K’hrah’nitah, his secret lagoon, where the tadpoles grew so large that they could be eaten like fish. Where the inchworms spanned half the length of a man’s hand.

The old man urged them both to come to the pond and see, but they refused. They would not trespass into the sacred lagoon. They would not disappoint him by failing to see the things he saw.

After M’rai retired, Hawks and Romona sat without speaking, their eyes fixed on the glowing coals of the fire. When she whispered his name, Hawks had risen and walked alone into the forest.

As he sat now at the shore of the lake, he replayed the events of the roadblock in his mind, trying to slow it down from the blur in which it had happened. He wondered if he’d known when it began that he was prepared to give his life. He wondered if others who had died fighting for what they believed in had had that knowledge.

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John Hawks did not envision himself as ever growing old. Not that he would remain young. There was simply a void in his imagination, as though the future did not exist.

From the darkened foliage behind him, Hawks heard the sound of movement. But he instinctively knew there was nothing to fear. The crickets continued to chirp, indicating there was no menace afoot. Their chorus at night meant that there was good will in the air. When there was bad feeling-if a man walked in anger or a predator stalked-the crickets fell silent.

“John … ?”

It was Romona. She emerged gracefully, like a moving shadow, and slipped down beside him. In the darkness he could sense the whole of her. Her scent was like leather and pine. Though their bodies were not touching, it felt to him as though they were. His skin responded to the proximity with a vague, tingling sensation on the side where she was close. He turned and could see only her eyes. They shone like an animal’s as she gazed out at the island that seemed to float suspended in the mist.

“Do you suppose they’ll sleep with their mouth’s open?” she whispered. Hawks smiled. They sat for a time in silence, both staring out at the lake.

“Your pride will kill you, John,” she said softly. “You learned it from the white man. It doesn’t serve you.”

Hawks turned to her, his mood hardening with the insult.

“I learned pride from the Indians,” he said.

“There is a difference between dignity and pride.”

“Is there?”

She nodded. When she spoke, her tone was soft and caring. “Dignity comes from knowing what you cannot accomplish. Pride is the opposite.” Hawks turned away.

“You’ve been going to the dictionaries again,” he said.

“Yes.”

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She moved closer to him, hoping he would turn to her. But he did not.

“We don’t need you to die for us, John,” she said. “We need you to live for us. We need you to heal our wounds, not deepen them. I was wrong in saying I would fight beside you. I didn’t know that you meant to die.”

“I didn’t mean to die,” he responded quietly. “I was willing to die.”

“You’re angry at me because I didn’t let you?”

As her words sunk in, Hawks remembered what it was like to be with Romona. She had a wisdom that penetrated his facade. In response to her question, he could only shake his head. “I don’t know,” he finally whispered.

“If you died today, it would have been the death of a willful child. If you are intent on dying to help your people, don’t die before you’ve helped them.”

Hawks watched small waves lap up against the shore. The body of a crawfish glistened in the moonlight as it picked through shining pebbles just beneath tfee surface.

“I have little to give except my life.”

‘There is much you don’t know. Much that is happening in this forest that you don’t know.”

“The katahnas, you mean?”

“You know of them?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know of the stillbirths?”

Hawks gazed at her in confusion. “No.”

“Our bodies are going bad. And our minds are going bad. Our insides are as sour as the milk in N’ayh’an’tak’tah’s breasts.” She leveled her eyes with his, and spoke with quiet intensity. “Our women are giving birth to badly formed children. In this ‘year there have been eight. Six were born dead. Two were put to death.” She paused, feeling revulsion at the image that flashed through her mind. “These babies are … unfinished. They look much like animals.”

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Hawks could see the pain in her eyes. He shook his head, unable to fathom it.

“We’re dying,” she said. Her voice was trembling now. “Our people are dying in here.” “Who knows about this?” “No one. Just me. The women are ashamed to tell.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?”

“I was afraid.”

Hawks rose and looked toward the island. He could see shadows moving in the windows of the small cabin, and he could hear music wafting out across the water. While he stood here listening to the death knell of his people, they were listening to music. His jaw clenched with anger.

“The people in town are angry at us,” Romona said. “They say we’ve killed their people. I was afraid to go and tell them what I know.”

Hawks looked down at her. “Who did kill then-people?”

“No Indians killed their people.”

“Who did?”

“No one knows.”

Romona looked up at him, her eyes vulnerable and helpless. “Who can we trust, John?”

Hawks’s fists clenched at his sides. At a time when they most needed to defy the white world, they found themselves dependent on them. With their health failing, there was nowhere else to turn.

“What about the government people?” Romona asked.

Hawks’s mouth turned into a sneer. “The last people to trust are government people.”

“He looked like a good man. I could see he was a good man.”

“We need a doctor. Not a politician.”

“Then come with me to town,” she urged.

Hawks looked down at her. “Dr. Pope?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t do us any good.”

Hawks knew Winston Pope well. He was the only

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local practitioner of medicine, and he was on the payroll of the lumber company. His main service was to provide emergency care for the lumberjacks, and to treat their families. Once a year he made an obligatory tour of the Indian villages to give them inoculations, but he did it with resentment, as if he were inoculating so many head of cattle for hoof-and-mouth disease. Now that the Indians were in head-to-head combat with the lumber company, it was unlikely that Dr. Pope would have any sympathy for them.

“How many pregnant women in the village?” Hawks asked.

“Just two right now.”

“We’ll take them to Portland.”

“They won’t go.”

“You’ll have to convince them.”

“They’re ashamed …”

“A white doctor won’t come eighty miles from Portland to examine two pregnant Indian women!”

The crickets suddenly went quiet. Romona, too, recoiled at the harshness in Hawks’s voice.

“I’ll do what I can,” she whispered. Then she rose to go.

“Mona.”

She paused, looking back at him. He walked slowly toward her, his face coming into the moonlight. It was etched with anguish.

“Don’t go away now.”

“There’s nothing more to say.”

“I know,” he whispered.

She looked at him with uncertainty, and he lowered his head, not knowing how to express himself.

“You know what my grandfather says, John? About words?”

He shook his head.

“That man invented them to hide his feelings.”

When Hawks looked up at her, his eyes were misted.

“I’m glad you can still be frightened, John,” she whispered. “I was afraid the human part of you was gone.”

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From the darkness that surrounded them, the crickets slowly resumed their chorus.

“I’m telling you, Mag. It was a world’s record. It was more than a world’s record. I’ve never heard of a salmon that big!”

Rob paced the main room of the cabin as Maggie stood in the kitchen, cooking the small salmon that he had caught. He was agitated and bewildered, filled with disbelief that he had actually seen what he saw.

“It was at least four feet long!” he exclaimed.

“Well,” Maggie replied, as she sprinkled salt on the sizzling salmon steaks, “this was the land of Paul Bunyan, wasn’t it? And his giant ox, Babe?”

“Was that Maine?”

“Sure was.”

“I’ll tell you, there might have been something to it. Maybe Paul Bunyan did exist.”

She laughed, somehow enjoying his bewilderment. It was refreshing to see him so puzzled. It brought out the child in him.

“That fish was a giant. I mean a freak. And it looked like there was more than one of them.”

“Maybe you’ll go home with a trophy.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I always believe fishermen.”

“You think I don’t know what I saw?”

“It got away, didn’t it?”

“Maggie.” He moved into the kitchen and gestured for her to look at him. “I’m a sane man. More than sane. I’m a scientific man.”

“You’re a brilliant man,” she cooed.

“You’re not taking me seriously.”