Free The Cannibal Spirit by Harry Whitehead Page B

blankets,” saidOwadi. Harry sighed. He knew what that meant: some thorny exchanges ending in the extension of credit.
    â€œCome on inside,” he said. Owadi, wrapped in a dirty blanket and wearing knee-high rubber boots, stepped up to the porch, gingerly with age, but his chin high and proud.
    Inside was gloom and cobwebs. The store’s big front windows, on each side of the front door, were filthy as always: rain, dew, the grime of engines, oil, black smoke, grease from untanned hide, dust and sea salt caking them inside and out. He kept meaning to wash them, but always the thought that soon he’d be away had stopped him from bothering.
    He sat on one of the drums of engine oil that stood browned with rust in the centre of the room. He rested a boot on a broken generator head. Other parts lay scattered on the floor. He was one of the few this far up the coast who knew the workings of an engine. It was a reason George had given Harry management of the store.
    Owadi stood in the doorway and examined the room, as Harry knew was protocol for any chief when visiting and on sight of another’s riches, though Owadi visited the store nearly every other day on some mischief or another.
    Harry rustled in his coat and pulled forth his tobacco tin. He ran his thumb across the strutting Chinese burlesque on the narrow tin’s lid. He opened it, rolled a cigarette, and struck a match against the oil drum beneath him. Smoke spiralled, lilac and grey, into the rafters.
    He followed Owadi’s eyes around the room. There was a table in front of one window on which lay greasy-fingered piles of paperwork, an abacus, some broken chocolate, and two small jars of boiled sweets. There were shelves to the ceiling on the two walls to either side. Soaps and salves for cuts (though the mission kept the greater measure of medications), cans of salmon, sardine, and fruit, jars of molasses, tea, coffee, hard biscuits, drums of cooking oil, jars of salt, and phials of pepper. The people still relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering for most of their food.
    There were cotton and canvas trousers, overalls and thick woollen sweaters uncoloured or in dull green, skirts and dresses, long socks and woollen jackets in plain or plaid. There were long sailor’s canvas coats in black,oiled and waterproof, too expensive for most, silk and cotton stockings and a handful of handkerchiefs, plimsolls for the children, the rubber boots bought under-counter from the canneries’ warehousemen. Harry knew every item now, its state and price, and who might likely purchase it.
    He finished his cigarette and rolled the burning ember dead between finger and thumb. He sighed and heaved himself up from the oil drum. “Owadi, great chief,” he said at last. “What can I do for you?”
    Owadi seemed locked in indecision. Then he said, looking furtively through the open door first, “You have furs and blankets upstairs?”
    â€œI do.” As the old man well knew.
    â€œWe look.”
    Harry crossed the room and motioned Owadi over. A staircase went up along the rear wall. Beneath the stairs, an opening led into the back rooms where were the private places of his marriage, such few as there could be with the constant, prying company of the people. Harry followed the old man up the stairs into the shadows above. It seemed clear Owadi had words on his mind to speak and wished them secret.
    Up in the loft, Harry stood blinking as his eyes adjusted. Cobwebs hung thick across the single window to the front and there was little light, if just enough to see by. To his left a wall divided the attic in two. A locked door kept the produce of real value secure—tobacco, hats, ammunition, a couple of rifles.
    To his right were scattered a few boxes, cans of aging foodstuffs, and the hides and skins from trade among the people. There were hair seal, raccoon, black bear, wolf, mountain goat, elk, marten, deer, and even two land otter