Raven Stole the Moon (3 page)

It must have been minutes. Jenna heard other people in the room. Someone coming and going. Christine waving someone away. Telling them, shush up. Go away. Stroking. Because it really is painful. It really is. It’s a wound like any other. A broken arm gets a cast. A cut gets some stitches. A soul gets tears.

Jenna sat up on the bed. Christine was still there, looking at her. She glanced at her watch. To be forgiven. How can a clam not look at her watch? It was nice of her to stay this long.

“Are you going to be all right? We have to get back to the Island.”

Jenna sniffed. Wiped her nose.

“I’m sorry, Christine. You were right. It is hard this time of year.”

“Oh, Jenna. But Peter wants to go. I should go. Are you going to be all right? I could take a cab. I could stay with you. Maybe I should stay.”

“No, no. I’m fine, really. You’ve been too kind. I’m so embarrassed. I really am. The mints. Don’t leave without my getting the mints.”

Jenna staggered to her feet. She felt around for her purse and looked inside. Her wallet had no cash. There was another wallet. It was Robert’s. He never likes to carry his wallet because it bulges his suit. She pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.

“Give me five boxes.”

Christine looked at Jenna and smiled.

“That really is generous of you, Jenna. You are a very good soul, really.”

Christine counted five boxes of mints out of a larger cardboard box. She took the money, kissed Jenna’s cheek, and left.

Jenna sat in the room. She put the wallet back in her purse. There were keys in the purse, too. Car keys. A moment’s hesitation. She looked in the wallet and saw the parking stub for the garage. She stood up and left the bedroom.

The party was still going full bore, even though it was approaching midnight. Jenna paused for a moment, with her makeup-smeared face and her red eyes, clutching five boxes of Campfire Girl mints to her breast. Robert was still talking to colleagues. Still drinking. Jenna breathed deeply. A good-bye breath.

And like that, Jenna left.

D
R.
D
AVID
L
IVINGSTONE LOOKED MORE LIKE A CRAZY MAN
than a shaman. He stood on the dock, his hair tied tightly in a ponytail that sprouted from the top of his head, his eyes closed, his palms outstretched in a kind of prayer. He was wearing nothing but paisley boxer shorts and running shoes. Around his neck hung a small chamois bundle on a braided leather rope. Before him lay his shaman garb, spread out on the unrolled pieces of burlap that had held it. Ferguson shivered for David; it wasn’t exactly warm out. But David didn’t seem to notice the temperature. His lips moved as he spoke silent words to himself, and after a few minutes of standing in this fashion, David opened his eyes and looked down at his costume.

“You from up here, Ferguson?” he asked, bending down and picking up a deerskin skirt fringed with ivory beads.

Ferguson nodded. “Wrangell.”

David tied the skirt around his waist and then pulled a kind of poncho, also of deerskin, over his head. Both the skirt and the poncho were decorated with figures painted in red and black.

“Can I ask you a question?” Ferguson asked.

“Sure.”

“Do you do this a lot? You know, work for companies like this.”

David chuckled softly. “A fair amount, I guess. I don’t usually exorcise spirits, though.”

“Really? What do you usually do?”

“Mostly I work for fishing companies. I predict where the fish will be that season. Or I’ll bless a fleet of boats. One time I was hired by a logging company to apologize to the spirits for them because they had killed hundreds of owls while they were clear-cutting.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. What’s sad is that they were just doing it as a public relations move. They didn’t care what I did. I could have recited ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ in Tlingit and it wouldn’t have made a difference to them.”

“Ah,” Ferguson murmured, shaking his head solemnly.

“Just wondering,” he continued. He had to ask. “
Did
you recite ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ in Tlingit?”

David smiled.

“It doesn’t translate. They don’t have lambs in Alaska so there’s no word for them. But you know what I mean.”

“Oh, sure, I know what you mean.”

Ferguson knew. He knew that David meant that there is often a discrepancy between what is contracted and what is expected. But David hadn’t answered the real question: Which had he delivered? It was an important distinction to Ferguson. For, even though Ferguson may not have believed all the Indian stuff, his investors did, and Ferguson had an obligation to come through with what they asked for. They weren’t paying five thousand dollars for some nursery-rhyme mumbo jumbo.

David tied a necklace of bear claws around his neck. He placed a strange kind of crown on his head, made from goat horns held together by leather straps.

“What do you know about the history of this town, Ferguson?”

At last, Ferguson thought, a question about the town. Those he could handle.

“It was an old fishing village settled by the Russians. Mikoff Bay, it was called. Back around the turn of the century it was a bustling town with a cannery, a good deep bay but also very protected, which was good for boats. They could ride out storms here. But then the Depression hit, and then the War. They scrapped the cannery machinery to build bombs, and that was the end of the town.”

“Very good.”

“And now, this group I work for is turning it into a big, lavish fishing resort. And for good luck, they’re changing the name. They’re calling it ‘Thunder Bay.’ ”

“Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think? But, Ferguson, you’ve forgotten one thing. Perhaps the most important thing of all.”

“What’s that?”

“The Russians, the British, the Americans—none of them settled anything that wasn’t already settled.”

David looked seriously at Fergie, who nodded slowly.

“This bay was first settled by the Tlingit. The Russians usually built their forts next to Tlingit villages because it made trade easier.”

“I see.”

“Then, of course, disease being what it is, most of the Indians died, leaving only the so-called settlers.”

“Right.”

“Which is why, I’m sure, your investors are afraid that the soul of some dead Indian is going to rise up and murder their guests.”

“I’m sure.”

“So,” he said, breathing deeply, “let’s get to work.”

He reached down and picked up the last item on the burlap. It was an intriguing rattle, fashioned from the skull of a small mammal that was suspended by a leather thong between two points of a deer antler. The whole contraption looked like a slingshot, with beaded leather straps hanging from the skull to form the actual rattling mechanism. Giving the rattle a shake, David turned toward the town and led the way up the dock.

The town was built on the side of a mountain that rose directly out of the water. As a result, the streets were stepped back and buildings seemed to rest on top of each other. At the base of the town was a vast, wooden boardwalk that stretched the length of the shore. Jutting out from the boardwalk were numerous docks; the seaplane and boat were secured to the longest.

Even in its heyday the town wasn’t very big, so it made the perfect conversion into a resort. The cannery, the largest building in the town, was gutted and turned into a community house, with a cafeteria and common area. The old General Store sold fishing gear and souvenirs. The houses were converted into guest cabins. And even though construction crews had been working nearly round the clock for several months, nobody had actually lived in the town since 1948.

Fergie caught up to David and gestured to the view of the waterfront.

“Beautiful town, though. Got a lot of charm.”

“Sure.”

Fergie couldn’t tell what David thought of the whole resort idea. He had the feeling that he disapproved. He sensed that David was only in this for the money. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. That’s all everyone else was in it for.

“What do you know about Raven, Ferguson?”

Fergie shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Raven is the patron saint of the Tlingit. He’s responsible for bringing the sun and the moon and water and almost everything else, to the earth. Do you want to know about this stuff?”

“Sure. I’d love to hear about it.”

“Raven was born out of anguish. But I have to go back a step to tell it properly . . .”

I
N THE BEGINNING,
there was a mighty chief who was very strong and proud and well respected by all the people of his clan. He had a beautiful wife whom he loved very much, but he was a jealous man and didn’t trust his wife to be faithful to him. He was constantly afraid that one of the strong young men of the village would seduce her and steal her from him. To protect against this, when the chief went away to hunt seal, he locked his wife in a box and hung the box from the rafters of his house so nobody could reach her.

One day, the chief caught his wife and one of his nephews exchanging glances. The chief became enraged and immediately took a knife with sawlike teeth and cut off his nephew’s head. Not satisfied that he was safe from betrayal, the chief killed the rest of his nephews as well.

When the chief’s sister found out that the chief had murdered all ten of her sons, she was stricken with grief. Her husband had died the previous year while hunting, and now she had no family to take care of her in her old age. The chief’s sister was so devastated that she went into the woods to kill herself.

As she walked through the woods, looking for a place to take her own life, she ran across a kind old man. The old man asked her why she was so distraught. She told him her story.

The old man nodded as the chief’s sister told him of her brother’s treachery and cruelty. It was not right, he agreed. The chief had shown no respect for life.

“Go to the beach at low tide and find a round pebble,” the old man told the woman. “Heat this pebble in a fire until it is very hot, and then swallow it. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you.”

The sister did what the old man said, and after she had swallowed the pebble, she became pregnant. She built a shelter in the woods by the beach and lived there. In time, she gave birth to a son who grew into a beautiful child. This was Raven.

F
ERGUSON AND THE DOCTOR
reached the community house and went inside. Fergie hoped David would be impressed. The community house was a huge room with a thirty-foot soaring loft ceiling. The interior had been completely refinished with Douglas fir, giving off a rich, warm color and a delicious scent. In the middle of the room was a huge, circular fire pit, above which was a large exhaust fan. This had been designed specifically for cooking: a spit bisected the pit for any big game, and the perimeter was lined with metal rods to hold grills for fish. Long wooden tables ran the length of the room to give people the true feeling of community living.

“Very nice,” David said, looking around.

Ferguson was pleased. With those two words, David had finally validated the entire resort.

“We pulled out all the stops on the community house,” Ferguson said. “We really wanted people to
want
to come to this room and be with other people.”

“As it should be,” David answered. “The communal house was the centerpiece of Tlingit village life. What we call society today is really a joke. Everyone in their own rooms with everything they need—telephones, television, pizza delivered and fed to them. There’s no need for socializing anymore. How can it be called society if nobody knows how to socialize?”

David walked over to the fire pit.

“Is this usable now?”

“Sure.”

“I’d like to build a fire, if that’s okay. We should make a food sacrifice to the dead.”

Ferguson pointed to a cord of wood piled up against one of the walls. That was his idea. Keep the firewood indoors. It would keep the wood dry, which was important. But also, it would give a cozy feeling to the room—guests would know there was always plenty of wood for the fire here.

“The Tlingit don’t believe in a heaven up in the sky,” David explained. “We believe that when you die, your soul takes a trip. It goes to the other side of the island or around the bend or across the water, to the Land of Dead Souls.

“And because the dead are nearby, they are subjected to the same conditions as the living. If the village is suffering from a bad hunting or fishing year, the dead do not eat well either. So it’s important to give some of your food to the dead at every meal. But the dead can’t come and eat off your plate. So, we throw food into the fire before we begin to eat. The fire burns the food and the dead can eat. Remember, Ferguson, the way to a dead person’s heart is through his stomach. Feed the dead and they won’t haunt you.”

Ferguson liked that idea. It would be a great little tradition at Thunder Bay. A food sacrifice before every meal. Like killing two birds with one stone: keep the dead people happy and entertain the guests at the same time. People really would be impressed by what Fergie knew about the Tlingit. He helped David carry wood over for the fire.

R
AVEN’S MOTHER PLACED
a stone under his tongue, which made him invulnerable. She also bathed Raven in the lagoon twice a day to make him grow quickly.

When Raven had grown enough to run through the woods and swim in the ocean, his mother made him a bow and many arrows, which he used to hunt birds, rabbits, foxes, and wolves. Raven always showed the proper respect for the animals he hunted, as his mother had taught him.

Raven’s mother made blankets from the skins of the animals Raven killed. Raven was a clever hunter, and fast, so his collection of blankets grew and grew. One afternoon, the boy shot and killed a large white bird. He put the bird skin on and immediately developed a burning desire to fly.

The mighty chief heard word in the village of his sister and her son, the expert hunter. He sent one of his slaves to invite this boy, his nephew, to visit him. Raven’s mother warned Raven not to go.

She told him of the terrible deeds her brother had committed. Despite his mother’s warnings, Raven declared he would visit his uncle, and he told his mother not to worry.

When Raven arrived at his uncle’s house, the uncle tried to kill him using the same sawlike knife he had used to kill Raven’s brothers. But when the chief tried to cut Raven’s throat, the teeth broke off the saw and Raven was unhurt.

Then the chief asked Raven to help him spread his canoe. When Raven climbed under the canoe, the chief knocked it over on him, trapping Raven underneath. The chief thought Raven could not get out and would drown as the tide came in, but Raven easily broke the canoe in half and returned to the house, dropping the two pieces at his uncle’s feet.

The uncle told Raven that he should help him catch a squid to eat. Raven secretly hid a small canoe under his blanket. When they went out to sea to look for the squid, the uncle knocked Raven into the water and paddled away, leaving Raven to drown. But Raven got in his little canoe and quickly returned to his uncle’s house before his uncle could.

Raven waited on the roof of his uncle’s house. Soon, his uncle arrived and went into his house, believing that Raven was finally dead. Raven locked the door from the outside and called upon the waters to rise and drown his evil uncle.

The waters rose and Raven flew high into the air on his white wings. He flew so high that his beak stuck in the sky, and he remained there for ten days. After the waters subsided, Raven let go and fell back to earth. All the people of the village, including Raven’s mother, who was in the woods, had been carried away by the water, never to be seen again. Raven was sad that the flood, while avenging his brothers, had brought him misfortune as well.