Emmy watched Marté and Cull far up ahead. Jojo turned to her.
“That is what I think we should do,” he said. “Let Marté think we are camping downstream and then move ahead in the dark.”
He looked up into the sky.
“No moon tonight. That is good, but we will need to be careful.”
They pulled ashore and started as if to make camp.
Five hours later, quietly, carefully still-paddling against a slowly moving current, Jojo, Emmy, and Sarah passed the sleeping killers and moved upstream.
Within five more hours, they could see campfires and massive long houses.
They had entered Three Spirits.
Chapter Thirty-Five
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Anah and Jacob
Jacob tried to move, but when he did, the ropes that cinched his hands and feet together behind his back just got tighter, hurting him more.
He did not know where he was, and the cold ground seemed to move under him, undulating so that he felt like he would fall from the floor into the sky above.
As he opened his eyes, he saw objects lying next to him. They were familiar, but he did not know why. Was that his eagle’s beak? His ball of string? He heard barking and curse words and a coarse rattle.
Then his father came to him. He saw his shadow go by, and he held his breath. He wanted to call out for Isaac, but Isaac’s shadow just stayed there, behind him, shouting, out of reach.
And then his father was gone.
And when Jacob opened his eyes again, the things he had seen next to his face were gone too.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Anticipating that Jacob would resist traveling, Klixuatan had again drugged the boy. Even then, perhaps because of a tenacious determination to remain in control, Jacob had resisted the drowsy submission that occurred with most captives when given the concoction. Instead, the drug made him delirious and combative.
Anah had Klixuatan bind the boy but would not let him increase the dose because he had seen other captives stop breathing when so treated. As he was, powerful as a little defiant wolverine, Jacob was too valuable as a possible source of power to waste.
So they kept him tightly bound again. And after the shaman and his woman tied Jacob’s feet and then his hands behind his back, Anah came to him with something to counter the boy’s own magic.
They spread out the contents that Jacob had in his pockets the night they had captured him. They had intentionally allowed him to keep these objects, watching for when he became dependent on them as grounding memories— and when they knew the boy was going to them to find reassurance, they stole them away.
Then, when they knew he was in the murky depths of his drugged delirium, they laid the objects out again next to his face.
Next, they brought out the spirit to break him, if they could.
Anah had skinned and tanned the face and scalp of Isaac and wore it now as a mask. Standing behind the boy, he gestured for Klixuatan to keep the boy turned away. And then he began gesturing with big, bold, sweeping movements—a caricature of what Anah presumed would have been those of the boy’s father.
The cool leather of the bearded mask and hair formed to his face easily, and as soon as he put it on, Anah felt powerful. He knew that some of the magic of the white tyee was here for him now.
He sang and bellowed out white tyee words: “Hey!” “Me!” “You!” “Me-you!” “Mine” “Bastard” “Keep” “Me” “Powder” for several minutes and then stopped, hovering over the boy.
Then he backed out of the shelter.
Klixuatan watched Jacob that night. He told Anah that Jacob lay motionless but with a rapid pulse that told the shaman they had found the way to control him.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
They traveled in four small Kwakiutl canoes carrying their slaves south along the inland coast to the mouth of the river that would bring them east toward the Tsimshian. Except for Jacob, who remained bound, drugged, and hidden, each canoe held two warriors and two captives, all paddling so they moved swiftly.
On the second day upriver, they passed the totems of Ksi Amawaal’s summer camp, and by the fourth day, they saw signs of Three Spirits where the Tsimshian stayed during the winter.
The camp was filled with people, and Anah knew that most were not Tsimshian. Many were drunk. The trading would be easy, he thought. And he wanted to see this Ksi Amawaal and how he got his way.
Chapter Thirty-Six
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Pickett
The British have not yet dispositioned their forces, but my sources tell me that their move is imminent. Per your orders, we are now moved and are ensconcing into the best and highest ground available.
—1858 Report by Captain George E. Pickett to General William S. Harney, Commander U.S. Army, Oregon Territory
They would attempt to take this easy beach, he had decided. It presented a gentle slope with hard-packed sand. The Brit marines would run up it quickly once landed, so he had to commandeer the highest perch above and, from that promontory, would lob an artillery barrage to impede their progress.
Gossip and spies had told him the Brits were indeed preparing for a takeover, ostensibly to protect the rights of the twenty English subjects who lived on the island, but everyone knew that was a Douglas ruse. He wanted San Juan Island for its strategic value, as did the U.S. Government.
But the Brits would not get it without a stubborn fight from Captain George Pickett.
Although he was not to provoke an attack nor fire the first shot, Pickett had his orders. General Harney had dispatched Pickett to hold the island at all costs, even if it meant war between the two nations.
The cold
