Free Jimmy Bluefeather: A Novel by Kim Heacox Page A

in his lap, his lower lip trapped between his teeth. For a moment Old Keb envied his dull mind, the gift of quiet that must come with it. Ruby’s Dodge one-ton rumbled up the road just then, not with Gracie driving, but Ruby herself, eaten up with urgency. She had her son Josh with her, and his two daughters with ribbons in their hair. The door opened and the little girls ran to Keb and threw their arms around him. Ruby strode over, long hair on her shoulders, eyebrows black yet the eyes themselves unchanged, marooned on the wrong side of history. How different things would have been had Keb’s kittiwake daughter greeted the rapacious Russians when they arrived in Alaska hungry for sea otterpelts. She would have seduced them, slit their throats, burned their ships, and freed their Aleut slaves. Even as a little girl she carried the biggest banner, the deepest wounds, as if she alone would right every wrong since Columbus, that arrogant Spaniard who left Europe not knowing where he was going, arrived in America not knowing where he was, and returned home not knowing where he’d been. Alone if necessary, using canny politics and the tinted prism of her pride, Ruby would reclaim the sovereignty of the Tlingit Nation. Never mind that she was only part Tlingit, her mom Bessie having been half Filipino, a real beauty. Keb shook his head. Watching her was like watching his own life reflected and distorted at the same time. Did he love her? Yes. Did he like her? Well, we like someone
because
; we love someone
although
. Keb rose to greet her. She embraced him, then moved to James. “Hello, nephew, how are you?” She made slight acknowledgment of Kid Hugh and Kevin Pallen, while Little Mac she ignored altogether. “Pops,” Ruby said, “we need to talk about the lawsuit against the feds in Crystal Bay. It’s heating up.”
    “Oh?”
    “I’ll make you dinner tonight, white king salmon. I’d like you to join us, James. You need to be made aware of this issue.”
    Need to be made aware? Old Keb’s ears hurt. Why couldn’t Ruby talk like a normal person?
    “Can I bring Little Mac?” James asked her.
    Ruby ignored the request, and patted the log. “What’s this?”
    “It’s a canoe,” James said as he picked up the adz and turned it in his hands. Little Mac moved in and put her arm around his waist.
    “Dáa x ,” Keb said quietly. Nobody heard him.
    “A canoe?” Ruby frowned. “Why not a totem pole?” Totem poles were memory columns to the Tlingit people. They were heraldry and social standing, written in wood. “I think it should be a totem pole.”
    “A totem pole tells a story,” Keb said, “a canoe makes a story.”
    “Yes but—”
    “Ruby, this is a canoe.”
    THAT NIGHT OLD Keb skipped dinner with Ruby and ate instead with Oddmund and Dag, and with Daisy, who brought her cribbage board. He drank too much red wine and dreamed crazy dreams. A raven spoke to him, a salmon too,
nóosh
, a spawned-out dead drifting sockeye with its hooked jaw, muttering Tlingit and laughing. Milo Chen appeared on a wet cannery floor, gesturing as if to fly, then pounding the boards with his swollen hands. The next thing Old Kebknew, his bedding was knotted around him and early daylight spilled through his dusty, cobwebbed windows. He heard a loud thwack, the sound of sharp metal striking wood. Another thwack. He sat up and winced as he planted his feet and willed himself to stand. His heart jackhammered. He asked himself who he was. Keb Zen Raven, Nine and a Half Toes of the Berry Patch, son of a Norwegian seine fisherman and a coho woman from Crystal Bay, sign of the north wind. That’s who I am, or used to be. Forgetting his morning pills and dietary supplements, he entered the carport barefoot, wearing only jockey shorts, and found James swinging his adz. Cedar chips flying. “Stop,” he yelled.
    James looked up, hair in his eyes. Something about him seemed older and more mature. Keb rolled his tongue to find his