Jimmy Bluefeather: A Novel (27 page)

“Ice has crystals, too,” Pierre said, speaking through Little Mac. “Crystal Bay takes its name from the great glacier that carved it and shaped it. A glacier is made of ice, right? Well, glacial ice is a kind of rock. It has crystals.”

“How can ice be a rock?” James asked.

Little Mac listened to Pierre; she had to get this right. She spoke to Keb and James, “He said ice has many of the same properties of a rock.”

“But it’s not a rock,” James insisted.

“James, listen. Rocks are made of crystals, or at least some rocks are, okay? Glacial ice is also made of crystals. It begins with snow that changes under pressure and becomes dense and forms crystals.”

“And that makes it a rock?”

“Yes, in a way.”

James asked, “How can ice carve rock?”

Pierre spoke rapidly and Little Mac listened, her face furrowed in concentration. After a moment she said, “Ice is too soft to carve rock. But what the ice does, what the glacier does, I mean, is it picks up rocks as it moves along and embeds them in its flank, okay? Now the glacier has a sharp tool, doesn’t it? It has the rocks embedded in it. As it moves along, it grinds those embedded rocks against the bedrock, and slowly reshapes the land, over a zillion years. It pulverizes rock against rock. That’s how glaciers sculpt, see?” Little Mac’s eyes were shining. “Pierre says it’s like an axe. The ice isn’t the blade of the axe; it’s the handle. The rocks it carries embedded in the glacier, that’s the blade, a million little blades cutting into the bedrock, grinding it down as the glacier moves. That’s how your bay was born, Keb. That’s how ice shaped Crystal Bay.”

Keb understood. He looked at James and could see he understood, too. This was good stuff, Keb thought, another kind of learning, one he could enjoy. Maybe it was too early to die.

BY MIDMORNING, CAPTAIN Rene had eased the
Etude
out of Graves Harbor and into the Gulf of Alaska, southbound. A large swell lifted her but otherwise let her run true. Keb visited the pilothouse, though Rene called it the “wheelhouse,” which seemed odd to Old Keb, since it had no wheel. No compass either. Only a vast bank of computer screens with colorful numbers, graphs, and maps. Rene seemed to steer by little buttons, levers, and dials, nothing more. Push this, go here. Push that, go there. But who really ran things on the yacht? Near as Old Keb could tell, Jacques and Pierre told Rene where to go, but Rene chose the running speeds, times, and anchorages, and doubled as a mechanic while Monique stood by in tight pants and gave him what he needed: hammer, socket, Excedrin, kiss, screwdriver, screw. The yacht must have cost a hundred bazillion dollars. Kid Hugh said more like twenty million. He’d seen similar big-shot boats during the summer he’d spent in Sitka. That’s what he called them, “big-shot boats.” Granite countertops; Jacuzzi baths; teak tables, counters and
trim; showers with twin heads; pool table; piano; and four sofas so deep and soft they swallowed you whole. Eight sleeping cabins in all, three aft, five forward. The
Etude
was a floating five-star hotel. The whole place gave Keb the creeps. He sat up on deck where he could watch the round earth roll. Kid Hugh liked it up there too, and Steve, curled against Keb’s leg. James and Little Mac had their own cabin and made good use of it.

By early afternoon the
Etude
had rounded Cape Spencer before a pale, rinsed-out sun. A gray sky threw its dour expression into the sea and the sea threw it back. Half a dozen trollers worked Cross Sound, bringing in the last big salmon run of summer. George Island was still there. And the canoe? As they pulled into Granite Cove, Kid Hugh glassed the sea cave at the base of the cliff but offered no confirmation to Old Keb. They had to be careful; give no hint of their plans, only a casual desire to get off the
Etude
and back on the island.

Jacques and Pierre must have assumed that Old Keb and his party, once back on the island, had no way off. They offered to run them into the little town of Elfin Cove. James countered—too harshly, Keb thought—that they’d be fine left on the island where friends would come and get them in a day or two. That’s how it is in Alaska. Friends come and get you. This prompted a big discussion between the two Frenchmen who wanted to make another trip ashore to collect rocks.

Angola announced lunchtime.

They ate on deck as a troller pulled into the cove and dropped anchor a couple hundred yards away. James and Kid Hugh exchanged furtive glances, plotting with their eyes. The net was tightening. How to get off the
Etude
, get their canoe, and get away? The cliff appeared daunting from this angle, an Acapulco Loco Dive and more. How drunk would a guy have to be before it looked like a good idea? Maybe Kid Hugh could use the
Etude
’s skiff to retrieve the canoe, under cover of darkness, while James got the tents and totes that were still on the island, back in the woods.

Rene made no offers, so James asked that they be taken to shore.

“Later,” Rene said.

Green-eyed Monique had her own reasons for getting back to George Island. According to Angola, she and Rene had fishing friends flying up from Sitka in a floatplane. “They should arrive anytime,” Angola said to Old Keb, as he gathered up the empty plates and made his way down to the galley.

Without a word, Rene moved to the davit, swung it to port, and lowered the skiff. Monique boarded it from the aft swim step, and with one pull started the outboard. Jacques and Pierre got in, and she ran them to shore. Further ignoring his guests, Rene went into the wheelhouse and got on the marine VHF radio.

Keb didn’t like it. He struggled to his feet and followed Angola down to the galley. The black man was washing dishes when Keb stood beside him, grabbed a plate, and began to rinse. Uncle Austin used to say that at the moment of self-absorption, when nothing seems more important than your own affairs, that’s when you go help somebody else. Remove yourself from the middle. “That’s okay,” Angola said to Keb. “I don’t need any help.”

“But I do.”

Angola stared at him.

“You said I could tell you anything.”

“Absolutely.”

For the next ten minutes Keb set his tongue loose about his childhood with Uncle Austin, his dreams to get back to Crystal Bay, his time to die, a complicated story. He talked about the canoe, and James and Little Mac and their journey too, his shed burned to the ground, and his daughter Gracie, sick with something bad, and his other daughter Ruby, sick in her own way, poisoned by power. He spoke about Great Raven while Angola listened, his face pure and uncomplicated.

Keb was telling more about the canoe when James, Kid Hugh, and Little Mac entered the galley. The look on James’s face was one Keb had never seen. Standing in his own surprise, James said, “Gramps, what are you doing?”

THEN THEY HEARD the plane.

The sun wobbled a degree as Keb went topside and stood on deck with the others, his hand a visor at his forehead. Monique came ripping by in the skiff, heading out to where the plane touched down at the entrance to the cove. She waved vigorously. Whatever this rendezvous was about, Keb and his companions were in the middle of it, trapped. Jacques and Pierre might stay on the island for hours, rockhounding.

Angola was still in the galley.

From the wheelhouse, Rene worked the engines to gently swing the yacht on its anchor for the approaching plane. Monique returned, tied off the skiff, and jumped aboard the
Etude
. From the stern she operated a hand crank that extended the swim step three times its normal width. As the plane approached, the pilot killed the engine, worked the float rudders, turned to starboard, and glided up to the float. Out he jumped and in one swift motion whipped a line around a cleat.

The plane was a beauty, a white and blue Cessna 207 with a turbo-charged engine.

“I don’t like this,” Kid Hugh said. He pointed out that the extended swim step allowed the plane to tie off without the wing hitting the yacht. Monique motioned the passengers out to hugs and greetings of warm exultation. Five visitors in all, four men and a woman, the woman so deeply tanned she looked sautéed. Monique greeted her in French, as if she were a sorority sister. Aside from a glance or two, the five newcomers ignored Keb and his companions. Rene and Monique didn’t bother with introductions. The four men were two older guys and two younger, all American. The older ones had the dress and posture of golf course regulars who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Keb
had seen their kind before. The younger two had the cut and swagger of construction workers who built big homes, caught big fish, and walked through life as damaged goods, courtesy of their parents. They pulled out photos of yesterday’s sportfishing escapade to show Rene and Monique. “Meatheads,” Kid Hugh muttered, the rage restrained in his throat. Guys who fished the sea as if every day were derby day. He said it didn’t require much imagination to complete the photos: sportsmen with horse-toothed grins, big bellies over their belts as they held the salmon, those wondrous fish shaped by the sea, caught by these bozos who’d probably paid a guide and talked boastfully. If left to their own devices as hunter-gatherers, they would be dead in a week. What always struck Keb about a photo of a fat man holding a fish was the beauty and intelligence of the fish.

Rene and Monique ushered the fivesome down the steps to the passageway and into the spacious lounge, next to the galley.

“We have to get out of here,” James said.

“Tonight,” Kid Hugh said.

But how? How to get the canoe? Three days ago Kid Hugh and Quinton, Marge’s son, had anchored it out of sight in a small sea cave at the base of a cliff several hundred yards away. Could Kid Hugh swim to it from the yacht? Keb didn’t think so. It wasn’t the distance that would defeat him, it was the cold water. They stayed topside, talking. Voltaire the cat walked the rail with his ears up, as if eavesdropping. Steve snarled and sent him scurrying below.

Kid Hugh said, “The Cessna pilot is looking at us funny.”

Keb focused his one good eye. Sure enough, the pilot stood forward on the plane float with his head in the engine, doing repairs, partly obscured by the cowling that was hinged back. It was easy to see his head pop out now and then to look their way, his manner more distracted by things around him than focused on a problem at hand.

“He’s onto us,” Kid Hugh said. “He knows who we are. We might have to take him out.”

Take him out? Keb wondered.
Out to where?

DARKNESS CAME RELUCTANTLY. At twilight Jacques and Pierre, still on George Island collecting rocks, called by radio for a ride back to the yacht. Monique bounded topside to hop into the skiff, and ran into James, who offered to do her a favor and run the boat to shore himself to pick up the Frenchmen. That would give Monique more time with her friends down below. She smelled of cigarettes, garlic, and wine.

“No,” she said to James.

Just then Angola emerged. “Jambalaya’s on,” he announced. “There’s plenty for everyone.” He spoke in French to Monique, and added, “Go on down and eat. I’ll go get Jacques and Pierre. I could use the air.”

Monique weighed the offer with her serpent eyes. Somebody laughed from down below. A flood of French phrases sailed up the passageway. More laughter. The pilot had gone below half an hour ago, followed minutes later by Little Mac, who had listened from out of view to hear what he might say about the old man and the canoe. He had said nothing, so far. Maybe he was just a shifty guy who looked at them suspiciously but in truth suspected nothing. Keb had stayed topside to welcome the darkness, and now coughed, sitting in his cold, aching bones. Little Mac wrapped him in a blanket. They listened to Monique speak French with Angola, and watched her point to the skiff, perhaps to tell him something about the outboard.

More laughter from below.

Monique headed down.

“Time to move fast,” Angola said. He told Kid Hugh to take the small inflatable and get the canoe. Angola and James would take the skiff to get Jacques and Pierre. Angola would bring the Frenchmen back and leave James on shore to get the tents. Kid Hugh would pick up James in the canoe, pulling the inflatable behind, and return to the
Etude
to get Keb, Little Mac, and Steve. So many instructions. Keb’s head was spinning. He reached for the raven feather on his chest and found no feather, no chest either, not like it used to be, barrel-full, when his arms were like fulcrums, swinging the adz.

He had to lie down.

Remember Barney What’s-His-Name? He had had big arms, too. Barney the electrician who fell off a rafter and landed on his head and became a halfwit. Went from 220 to 110 just like that. He got in the army, though, a true patriot. When his sergeant ordered him to paint a jeep and Barney asked how much of the jeep he should paint and the sergeant said the whole damn jeep, you idiot, that’s what Barney did, he painted the
whole damn jeep
, the idiot. Seats, tires, steering wheel, headlights, gearshift, windows, dash, everything. He painted everything and never got promoted. Went to ’Nam just in time to get shot and killed. It didn’t seem much different these days, kids going off to fight in places with names only the politicians could pronounce. Why does an old man remember the dying of the young? The returning of the wounded? Why the rocks . . . why remember sleeping on the rocks to avoid sleeping in the mud? Some men look only at their feet after that, one after another, taking them home.

SOMETIME LATER, LITTLE Mac shook Old Keb by the shoulder and told him she had to go below to get her guitar and daypack, and Keb’s belongings. They’d be leaving soon. Angola and the Frenchmen had returned, but not James and Hugh. Soon, hopefully.

Lying there half-frozen, Keb raised himself. Had he fallen asleep? Right on the deck? It was dark, but the yacht was brightly lit. Little Mac told him to stay, but he followed her down the stairs, hands shaky on the rail. Twice he nearly fell. In the passageway he saw her pressed against the wall, listening to the lounge chatter. She was in a place that allowed her to see Angola in the galley, and for him to see her. Could the others see her? Keb didn’t think so. It felt like espionage. He heard men and women talking, drinking, eating. He smelled Angola’s jambalaya, a rich aroma that made his legs weak. The lights of the lounge threw bold shadows against the rose-painted bulkheads and teak trim. Little Mac turned to see Keb behind her. She motioned him to stay still, stay quiet. Somebody was playing her guitar. Keb heard Rene say, “They were here when we got here, on the island, three days ago.”