Shaman Pass (16 page)

Nathan was silent for a time, digesting his grandfather’s story. Fascinating enough, and probably with elements of truth. But what did it have to do with Victor Solomon’s murder?

“What family was Natchiq from?” he asked. “Are his relatives still around today?”

Lucy translated this, and Jacob squinted a no, then spoke in Inupiaq.

“Like I say before, he come from up on the Isignaq River, and nobody lives at that place now. If he’s connected to any family around here, I never heard about it. Maybe his people moved into some of the villages upriver and got new names from the
naluaqmiut
and they don’t even know they’re related to him. Or maybe his line died out if he died on the trail. His story is all broken up and now nobody knows who he was.”

“I think someone knows,” Nathan said. Jacob looked at him sharply and he realized the old man had understood at least the gist of what he had said.

“Who?” his grandfather said in English.

“Did you ever hear Whyborn Sivula talk about Natchiq or Saganiq?”

Lucy translated, but Jacob seemed to figure it out before she finished and spoke rapidly in Inupiaq to her.

“He says he never heard anything like that, and why do you think Whyborn would know who Natchiq was?” Lucy translated.

“Tell him I’m going to talk to Whyborn and find out the rest of the story, and then I’ll come back and tell it to him.”

Jacob smiled and lifted his eyebrows and said,
“Arigaa.”
Then he laid his head against the pillows and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ACTIVE PARKED THE SUBURBAN on Fifth Street in front of House 419, the number he had gotten from Dispatch and written in his notebook. The house was small and old, the paint on the T1-11 weathered to a pale rose that might have once been red. The structure roosted three feet in the air on wooden posts set into the ground. It was a common construction technique in Chukchi, employed to prevent buildings from thawing the permafrost below and being swallowed by it.

The posts seemed to have worked pretty well in the case of House 419, except at the northwest corner. There, the house had a pronounced sag.

Whyborn Sivula and his son, Franklin, the lookout from the whaling camp, were at work on the low corner as Active came up. They had a big jackscrew under a beam and Franklin was cranking as Whyborn sighted along the floor line to see if the corner was coming up to level. A few pieces of scrap lumber were stacked on a snowdrift nearby.

Active rolled down his window and watched for a couple of minutes as the corner lifted slowly off the post, the house timbers groaning. The two Sivulas ignored him, along with the wind ripping in from the west. He waited a couple minutes more.

“Mr. Sivula. Could you tell me about Natchiq?”

Active watched for Sivula’s reaction, but there was none. The whaler bent down, picked up a section of two-by-six from the scrap pile, and slid it into the gap between the corner and the post. There was still some space left, but not enough for another slab of wood. “Franklin, you could jack it up a little more, then put in one more piece, ah?”

Franklin looked to be in his late thirties. He was squat and muscular, with a square face, heavy features, and short, bristling black hair. He frowned at the corner, sighted down the floor line and turned to Whyborn. “It’s good now. Might be too high if I jack it up any more.”

“It’s OK if it’s a little high,” Whyborn said. “When summer come, that post will sink again and our house will be level. Then it’ll sink some more and we’ll jack it up some more next winter.”

“
Arii
, this permafrost.” Franklin grinned and resumed cranking the jack with a big monkey wrench.

Whyborn turned and finally acknowledged Active’s presence. “Only
natchiq
I know is seal, Trooper Active.
Natchiq,
that’s what us Eskimos call seal.”

Active realized now why the word had seemed familiar when he read it in Father Hanlon’s journal. “I know that, but this Natchiq is Uncle Frosty, Mr. Sivula.”

Sivula turned sharp black eyes on Active and studied him for a moment. “You know about Natchiq?”

“I know he was killed by Saganiq long ago and somehow that led to Victor Solomon’s death. And I think you know the connection.”

Sivula looked west into the wind and studied the snow-covered ice of Chukchi Bay. Finally, he said, “You come in, have some tea, maybe we’ll talk.”

Active climbed down from the Suburban and followed him into the house, to sit at a little table in the kitchen while Sivula heated water on an electric range. When the kettle whistled, Sivula brought two cups with teabags to the table and poured in steaming water. He dipped two spoons of sugar into his own cup and pushed the bowl toward Active, who shook his head and took a sip of tea.

“Victor Solomon is my friend since we’re boys,” Sivula began. “So I’m sorry he’s kill.”

Active nodded. “Can you tell me who did it?”

“Don’t know,” Sivula said.

“I thought Victor was your friend.”

“Maybe I know who took Uncle Frosty from the museum. But I never think that’s who kill Victor.”

“Doesn’t it have to be the same person?”

Sivula tilted his head and studied Active. The house was silent, except for a sudden groan from the timbers as Franklin jacked up the sagging corner. “I don’t think so. But like I tell you in my camp at Cape Goodwin, it’s old-time Eskimo business, done now anyway.”

Active shook his head. “Not till whoever killed Victor is caught and punished.”

“This man I know, he’s old like me, maybe not around too much longer. Maybe if I tell you story, then you’ll know you don’t need to put him in jail? You’re Eskimo too, ah?”

“I’ll listen,” Active said.

Sivula shrugged and looked into his teacup. “If I never tell his story, then maybe you don’t find him.”

“Some of the old people in town will know about Natchiq and Saganiq.” Active stood up and zipped his parka. “My grandfather Jacob Active told me some of it and there must be someone who knows the rest. I’ll—”

“You’ll find him, ah?” The black eyes measured Active from the depths of the mahogany face.

“Me or some other trooper. We’ll do whatever it takes.”

Sivula looked into himself for a long time. “Then maybe I could tell you something,” he said finally. “See what you think.”

He drank from his cup and looked at Active, who sat down and pulled out a notebook and pen.

“Maybe better if you never write. Just listen.”

Active nodded and put the notebook back in his pocket.

“Me and Victor Solomon, we’re both born here, same age. We play together as boys,
pukuk
so much them old
aanas
always yell at us, try hit us with their walking sticks.” Sivula’s cheeks creased and he chuckled at the memory. “We’re good boys, but you know we’re full of . . . ”

As Sivula groped for the word, Active realized he didn’t know it, either. “Full of life,” he suggested.

Sivula lifted his eyebrows and grinned. “Ah-hah, that right. Life. We’re good boys, but we’re full of life. When we get bigger, we hunt and fish together as young men, but not so much after Victor’s family is killed in that fire. Seem like he’s mad all the time, always want to be alone.”

Active noticed for the first time the quality of Sivula’s voice. It was low and rich, almost hypnotic.

“Anyways, there’s always stories around town, how Victor’s grandfather, Saganiq, was big-time shaman early days ago. But Victor will never talk about it. Couple times when I try ask him, he just tell me some things it’s better not to talk about.”

Sivula paused, as Active had learned was the custom with Inupiat storytellers, particularly old ones. It was also customary not to interrupt, to let the story unfold as it would, but he decided to take a chance. “Did you ever ask Victor’s father about it?”

Sivula shook his head. “He’s already almost old man when Victor’s born, die when Victor and me are still pretty little.”

Active nodded and sipped at his tea.

“So when I’m pretty grown up, I go in army, learn to be diesel mechanic. After that, I live in Nome long time, I’m traveling mechanic for Alaska Rural Power Co-op. You know about that?”

Active nodded.

“Ah-hah,” Sivula said. “This one time, they send me to Caribou Creek to help put in new generator at their power plant up there. You ever go to Caribou Creek, Trooper Active?”

Active shook his head. “But I’ve seen pictures. It’s east of here, in the Brooks Range?”

Sivula lifted his eyebrows. “Ah-hah. Funny place for Eskimos, all right, way up in the mountains like that. No seal, no
muktuk
, not so much fish.” He shook his head. “They get lots of caribou maybe. But me, I’m a saltwater Eskimo.”

“I guess it’s what they’re used to,” Active said.

“I guess.” Sivula shrugged. “Anyways, I’m up there at Caribou Creek couple weeks maybe. Caribou Creek have this power-plant operator that I work with on this new generator they’re getting. One day, somebody tell me he’s from Chukchi family so I ask him about it and he say, yes, his father’s from Chukchi, move up to Caribou Creek before he’s born, marry woman from there.”

Sivula paused again. Active ventured another interruption. “When was this?”

Sivula frowned in concentration. “He never say when his father move to Caribou Creek.” He shrugged. “Way back, I guess.”

“No, I meant you. When was it that you went to Caribou Creek and met this man?”

“Ah, when I go? Maybe twenty-five years ago, all right. Maybe thirty.”

“What was his name, anyway?”

Sivula stared into his teacup. “That was long time ago. I think I can’t remember his name anymore.”

Active let the silence ride for a while, hoping Sivula would rethink the lie, then decided to let it go. “Did he say why his father moved up there?”

Sivula pondered for a moment, then shook his head. “He never tell me, no.”

Active nodded and Sivula picked up the story again.

“When job’s over, generator’s all running OK, he ask me to go hunting with him, up in Shaman Pass.” Sivula raised his hands, as if to draw a map in the air, then paused and looked at Active. “Or maybe it was that other big pass up there, Howard Pass, where we went,” he said, looking away. “Hard to remember now that I’m old.”

Active sipped his tea and waited out this second lie.

“Anyway,” Sivula said finally, “this guy have a Native allotment on a little creek up there. He got an old sod hut and a wall tent he leave up all the time, like any camp before everybody start making cabins. Except I see there’s
inuksuk
on little hill behind the camp. You know about
inuksuk?
”

“A little bit. They were trail markers, scarecrows?”

Sivula lifted his eyebrows. “Ah-hah. Them old-time Eskimos always build them, but nobody do it today. Sometimes they build whole line of
inuksuks
for when they catch caribous. Them caribous think they’re real men, get scared and run into lake or wherever them Eskimos chase ’em. Or sometimes, they build ’em on the trail, show which way to go. Have hole in the head, you look through, that’s way to go. Or sometimes, they got nothing to do in camp, they just build them for fun. You see, Trooper Active?”

Active nodded.

“Ah-hah,” Sivula said. “Well, this guy got an
inuksuk
at his camp, all right. I never see
inuksuk
since I’m little, so I jokes. I ask him, does it send him a telegram when it see caribous in the pass? He just grin little bit, say his father—”

Sivula paused, listening. Active heard the outer door to the
kunnichuk
slam, then the inner door open to admit Franklin. “I think that corner is good now, Dad. It’s couple inches high, like you say.”

Sivula’s son went out again, and the old man pointed across the room to the corner in question. “Our house never sag till two, maybe three years ago. Then that one post start sinking, after all this time. You think that global warming they talk about is melting our permafrost?”

Active shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Sivula picked up his cup, noticed it was empty except for the tea bag, and poured in some more water. “What I’m saying before?”

Active backtracked to before Franklin had come in. “About the man’s father and the
inuksuk
.”

“Ah-hah, that right,” Sivula said. “He say his family put it in when they first make their camp, and then we don’t talk about it anymore. Next day, we hunt along one of them rivers that run into the pass from the side. He seem kinda slow to me, always look at the country real careful, but I think that’s just his way. Anyway, the hunting is pretty good, we get seven caribous. He keep four, I bring three back to Chukchi with me on the plane.”

Sivula smiled at the thought and stopped talking. Active wondered if that was the story, in its entirety. He often failed to get the point of Inupiat stories, he had discovered. Sometimes, he thought this was because he was dense, or because the cultural gap opened by his years in Anchorage was too wide to be closed. Other times, he thought maybe Inupiat stories just had no point in the white sense of the word. Maybe they were just stories and this one was over. But Sivula shook his head and looked serious again and picked up the thread.

“So we load the caribous on our sleds and tie ’em down and we’re ready to go back to his camp, but then I notice he’s walk back to a cliff along the river. This is springtime, pretty warm, long days, and this cliff get lots of sun, so it’s mostly thawed out. He start pulling rocks out and pretty soon I see he’s making another
inuksuk,
right there in that little valley.”

Active sipped at his tea, wishing there were some polite way to say to Whyborn Sivula, “Cut to the chase.” But he knew it was impossible. Old men told their stories at their own pace everywhere, he supposed. Certainly, old Inupiat men did so.

“So I ask him about it. He look at me real serious, and then he tell me, he think his grandfather’s body is up there in the pass somewhere and he always try to find it when he’s hunting or trapping there. After he go up and down one of the side creeks, he always build
inuksuk,
so he’ll know he already searched it. I guess that’s why he look that little valley over so good when we’re in it.”

Sivula paused and sipped some tea. He noticed that Active’s cup was empty, and picked up the kettle with a questioning look. Active covered the cup with a hand. Sivula set the kettle down again.

“Anyway, I ask him what he mean about his grandfather, he just say it don’t matter and I know he don’t want to tell me.”

Sivula paused again and Active, interested to the point of impatience now, even rudeness, said, “And you think—”

Sivula held up his hand. “After that he’s real quiet, all the time we’re back at the camp, cut up them caribous, eat dinner. After dinner, he smoke his pipe for a while, then he just start talking without me saying anything. He say his grandfather is old-time Eskimo prophet name Natchiq. Natchiq try to fight the
angatquqs,
so this big-time
angatquq
name Saganiq kill him up there and hide his body somewhere, that’s what this guy’s father tell him. So his father and him, they always look for Natchiq’s body when they’re up in the pass. That’s why his family build that camp up there. They think they’ll find old Natchiq somewhere around there, maybe see if he’s really kill by Saganiq, then they’ll put his body out on the tundra the old-time way.”

Sivula looked at Active. “You ever can’t decide what to say next, Trooper Active?”

“Sure, sometimes,” Active said, puzzled. “I think it happens to everybody.”

“Ah-hah,” Sivula said. “Well, that’s what happen to me when this man say he think Saganiq kill his grandfather. He stop to smoke his pipe and I try think if I should tell him that Saganiq’s grandson is my friend Victor Solomon in Chukchi.”