The Darkening Archipelago (15 page)

“This is hard, I know. I just want to honour what it was your father was fighting for.” And I want to make amends for letting him down, thought Cole, tightening his hand around Grace's small but strong fingers.

She looked up. “So do I,” she said, wiping a tear with the knuckles of her free hand. “So do I. Let's talk with a few folks. I think we need to talk with Cassandra — I
know
we can trust her — about what Dad was up to. Maybe he told her more than he told me. And I think we should talk with Darren. I know he seems kind of simple sometimes, but Dad really loved him. They worked together for so long that if anybody knew what Dad was doing it would be him.”

Cole let go of Grace's hand and looked at her. “You're very brave,” he said.

She smiled. “I don't think so. But I love and honour my father, and I want to ensure that whatever he was working on before he died is kept alive somehow.”

“Grace, I can't help but wonder about something,” Cole said.

“What is it?”

“Well, your father leaving his will somewhere that you could find it. Don't you think that's, well, odd? I mean, the timing…?”

Grace drew in a sharp breath. “I've been thinking about that too,” she said. “Dad never told me that he made up a will. He did say once that he should, given all the flying he was doing, going down to Victoria for meetings. He figured he might die in a plane wreck, and said he wanted to make sure this place and his boat went to family and friends. But he never discussed it with me. I don't know why he would have got it out. Though as you can see,” she said, looking around the office with its stacks of papers and open file drawers, “Dad wasn't exactly the most organized person in the world. Maybe he just came across it and had meant to file it soon. Or take it with him when he went to Port McNeill to put in a safety deposit box.”

“Doesn't really sound like Archie,” said Cole, looking around. “Shoebox, maybe. Safety deposit box, not so much.” Cole paused and looked at the sheath of papers. “Have you looked at it yet?”

“I'm not ready,” she said. Then she thought of something. “Will you do something for me, Cole?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Your mentioning a safety deposit box makes me think of something. Dad, like a lot of the older men in our community, had a treasure box. I guess it seems kind of funny to a white person, like maybe it's a hope chest, but it's a very old tradition with our people. Before the potlatch was outlawed, our chiefs and elders would keep a lot of their ceremonial pieces in these boxes. Important possessions would be put in the boxes for safekeeping. The boxes were ornate, beautifully painted.

“Anyway, Dad had such a box. It had been his father's, and his father's before him. I don't think Dad had anything of real value in it anymore. A few years back, when our people were repatriating our sacred potlatch masks, Archie gave what few authentic possessions he had to the U'mista Museum in Alert Bay for display. It was just a drum and a mask, but they had been kept hidden from the Indian agents and were very important to the people of Port Lostcoast. Dad used his box mostly as an extension of his filing cabinet. Cole, I wonder if you'd go through it and see if there is anything in there that might be of help to us?”

“Grace, I'd — are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure.”

“You don't want to do it?”

Again she pushed tears from her cheeks. “I don't think I can. Not now. But there might be something important in there.”

They sat listening to the sounds of the house for a few minutes. Cole watched Grace Ravenwing. She was beautiful and epitomized her name with the way she moved and spoke and acted.

“Of course I'll do it,” Cole said finally.

“The box is there under the table, behind all the files,” she said, pointing.

“I'll go through it later and let you know what I find.”

She stood up. “Maybe we should join the others. We've got a big fish stew on the stove.” Cole stood too and stepped toward her. She walked into him and he put his arms around her. She smelled of the wind that had blown across them all day, and of saltwater spray. She placed her face against his chest and he held her close. He felt her body move as she cried, and she wrapped her arms around his back. They stood that way a moment until another gang of children raced into the office, and then she pulled away, wiping the tears that tracked her face.

“Let's eat,” she said cheerfully, and herded the children toward the kitchen.

Cole stood in the empty office and looked out the huge windows to the unfinished deck, then down at the treasure box that had survived one of the worst periods in the history of the North Salish. Beyond it all he saw the lights of the village tucked around the harbour, the final glow of the day being absorbed by the pan-flat sea.

They ate at the long table in Archie's dining room while the children sat at a low table and watched Finding Nemo. Fresh clams, salmon from the previous season, and halibut with a thick, savoury broth was ladled into bowls and eaten with bread. They drank water and tea. When they finished, Cole helped clear the table with Grace's sisters Myrna and Rose, and her sister-in-law, Betty. All three of her siblings lived on Vancouver Island now, and rarely came back to Parish Island except for seasonal celebrations. The women laughed together in the kitchen as Cole dried the dishes and looked out the window. When the kitchen detritus was cleared away, he went to the office and sat alone for a few minutes in the darkness. Then he switched on the desk lamp and maneuvered the treasure box out from under the long table. It was two feet long and nearly as tall, and it was painted with the intricate artwork of the North Salish. A raven adorned the lid, painted black against a red and white background, where a supernatural halibut man stood on one side, and a salmon giving birth to a man graced the other. Cole touched the box with his fingers and, after a moment, opened it. It smelled of earth, and Cole realized that Archie's grandfather must have buried the box and its contents to hide it.

Indeed the box seemed to be full of simple possessions: the title to the
Inlet Dancer
, the title to the Bluff House, some other documents about the status of the Ravenwing family. Cole found documents pertaining to Archie's father's attendance at the residential school in Alert Bay, and then found a certificate of attendance for Archie, too. Cole shook his head at that dark period of time in Canadian history.

There were photos of Archie's wife and children. There was a Hudson's Bay blanket wrapped around a framed photo from Archie's wedding day. Cole studied the man in the picture and felt tears welling inside of him. Archie had been so proud. And then, under the blanket, he found a cd. It had a yellow Post-it note attached to it, and Cole recognized his own handwriting. “For when you are down,” the note said.

It was Blue Rodeo's
Lost Together
, one of Cole's favourite albums. It was released during Cole's first year at the University of Toronto. He had seen the band play at the El Mocambo on Spadina and bought the album afterward. He knew the words to every song on the cd. He had sent it to Archie two years ago after spending time with the man, his family, and colleagues devising a strategy to stop fish farming in the Broughton.

Cole switched on Archie's computer. He slipped the cd into the player and sat back in Archie's chair. The music started and Cole closed his eyes. The first track had been the tune that had inspired the gift. It was called “Fools Like You.” The song amped up, and Cole found himself drumming on the desk, eyes closed.

I just don't understand
This world of mine
I must be out of touch
Or out of my mind
And will the profits of destruction
Forever make your eyes blind
Do you bow to the corporations
‘Cause they pay their bills on time

God bless Elijah
With the feather in his hand
Stop stealing the Indian land
Stop stealing the Indian land
Stop stealing the Indian land

When he opened his eyes, the track was over and he turned off the computer, closed the box, and pushed it back under the table. He stood and, rubbing his eyes, found Grace in the other room and told her he was going for a walk. He put on his leather coat and stepped out into the evening air.

He made his way down the hill to the harbour and stood on the pier, looking at the sea. He could smell the ocean. The air was still, in stark contrast to the hard biting wind of the afternoon. The sky above was clear, and a broad smear of stars roofed the heavens. The temperature had dropped, and Cole could see his breath as he looked out over the sea, toward the mouth of Knight Inlet. Where are you, Archie Ravenwing? he thought. Where have you gone?

He walked back to the dirt road that ran along the harbour and found himself in front of the town's pub. He hadn't had a drink in two days — none of Archie Ravenwing's children drank very much, so he had restrained himself around them. But as he stood in front of the pub, his body yearned for a shot of Irish whiskey and a pint. Then he recalled that Darren First Moon had told him that some of the local townsfolk would raise a glass in Archie's honour tonight, and that was all the excuse Cole Blackwater needed. He stepped through the salt-blasted door and into the warmth of the bar.

He let his eyes adjust to the lights of the room. The Strait was just one large space with scuffed, rough-hewn board floors, a plywood bar along the wall opposite the door, and a dozen mismatched tables arranged on both sides of the bar. The long, raw rafters were festooned with fishing gear: nets, tackle, and floats of all shapes and colours. The lighting in the room came from brass lamps that hung from nautical rigging strung between the pillars. The room was loud, warm, and welcoming. Cole immediately felt at home.

He had begun his precautionary scan of the room when he heard his name ring out. “Hey, Cole,” came a voice from a set of tables to the right of the bar. “Good to see you!” It was Darren First Moon, his large, powerful arm waving from a group of men who sat together drinking pints of golden ale. Darren pushed himself to his feet and made his way shakily toward Cole. Cole grinned, watching the big man approach him, his face round and happy like a child's. “Good to see you, brother,” Darren said, simultaneously shaking Cole's hand in his huge paw and pounding him on the back, jarring Cole's left shoulder and producing a loud slap against the leather of his jacket. “Come on, let me pour you a pint.” Cole let himself be led by Darren First Moon to the table of revellers. “Everybody, this is Cole Blackwater,” Darren said loudly. “He was a good friend of Archie's. He's a kick-ass, take-no-prisoners environmentalist,” he said, slurring a little. “And he was working with Archie to shut down the salmon farms.”

Cole managed to grin at the faces looking up at him, and became aware that others in the room had become more subdued. He felt eyes on his back and realized that, apart from the large group of Archie's friends sitting to the right of the bar, a quieter group of white men sat at a table to the left, not a part of the merrymaking in Archie's honour.

“Good to see you all,” Cole managed to say before Darren First Moon found an empty glass, poured draft into it, and handed it to him. “To Archie!” he called out, and the group of twenty or so drinkers sang out together, “To Archie!” Their glasses raised overhead, clinking and sloshing beer onto the tables and the floor. Cole managed to turn a little to his left as he drank, and from the corner of his eye could see five or six men sitting together at a table on the far side of the room, watching him from beneath ball caps.

A chair was found for Cole, and he sat down and listened as the men told stories about Archie. It seemed a general consensus that Archie was a pillar of the community, but also a bit of a prick, something that didn't surprise Cole Blackwater. “Old Ravenwing could burrow under a man's skin like a teredo worm burrowing into a log,” said one man, taking a big slug of beer. “We loved him, and we hated him at the same time,” said another.

Cole watched it all, finishing two glasses of draft before rising to make his way to the bar, empty jugs in hand, in search of refills. He stepped to the bar and rested his arms on the plywood counter, painted and sealed with a heavy coat of varathane, but worn and scuffed over the years by many arms and full pint glasses. The bartender was a large man, heavy in the middle, who wore his hair back in a ponytail, and who filled the pitchers without being asked. “And a Jameson, neat,” said Cole, digging into his pockets for money. He fished a few bills from his pocket, along with half a dozen elastics, a tube of lip balm, a broken pencil, a small collection of paper clips, and a shocking assemblage of multi-coloured lint. The bartender gave him his whiskey and took his money. Cole stuffed the rest of the debris back into place.

“Sounds like you're some kind of white knight,” said a voice to Blackwater's left. Cole had seen the man rise from the group on the far side of the bar. Cole watched him settle in next to him without making eye contact. Cole could see that he wore a bc Wildlife Federation baseball cap stained with sweat and grease, and a red-checkered shirt tucked into a belt with a large silver buckle.

Cole ignored him, but watched him from the corner of his eye. Tonight, he reminded himself, was a celebration of Archie's life. He wasn't in the mood to mix it up.