Red-tailed Hawk and a Fractured Valentine

I recently got an email from an old friend of my ex-husband,

who now lives in England. He inquired about John's whereabouts.

I wrote him back with the news.

Dear Dan:  Thank you for your kind note about John. I'll pass it on to our sons, Mark, 35 and Mike, 24. I know they'll appreciate your remembrance. They've taken the loss of their father hard and they're still getting over it. They were relatively young to lose their Dad and have been rudderless since, as I've been for the past few years. John was always so big and robust, wherever he went he filled the room. It's still hard to believe a mere virus could diminish him, take him away.

John and I had a challenging relationship, as you know, and we were not living together when he died. He died alone by choice and it was a month before his body was discovered. I regret the way he died and miss him very much. He was my biggest supporter and we all wish we had been there for him. But, in the end, big and gruff, he chased everyone away in his bitterness.

As you may have gathered, I'm a writer and have worked as a reporter for many years. My work has often taken me to remote locations. John was always there for the boys and they easily went back and forth between us. He was proud of my work and in many ways made it possible for me to do it. I now live in Sacramento and work as a writer and photographer specializing in environmental issues. After Mike graduated from high school, I began to take creative writing classes -- short stories, poetry -- and I began a novel, Adrift in the Sound, published in 2012, that includes several characters modeled after John.

I worked my day job and worked on the novel nights and weekends. It's set in Seattle in 1973, its about what happened after the "Free Love 60s" ended and a new era began -- end of the Vietnam War, Watergate Scandal, Roe vs. Wade that legalized abortion, launching of the war on drugs, the Arab Oil Embargo, etc. The story is about Lizette, an addled street artist who hooks up with the Franklin Street Dogs, a ragtag tavern softball team, it's about the gritty drug scene and the pristine beauty of Orcas Island, its about John and me and the only thing that really matters. But, remember, it's fiction.

I struggled to find an ending for the story, but it eluded me. One night I had a dream, vivid and powerful. John and I were in bed on a sunny morning. We were young. In the dream, he went to take a bath and I went along to keep him company. In the dream every hurt, resentment, tension, grievance between us was resolved and in that moment only comfort, love and acceptance washed between us.

It was as if John came to me in person. It was 2 a.m. and by 6 a.m. the end of the novel was written, the story complete. I had a strong urge to call John, check in, see how he was doing, but put it off. As best the San Francisco Coroner can figure, he died the day I finished the novel. I believe the end of my story was his final gift to me, the gift of feeling his complete, untarnished love, and a gentle, resolved ending to a grating story. Sorry, but I can't go on telling. It makes me cry.

Gerald and Buff Corsi ©
California Academy of Sciences

At John's funeral, we had lots of chocolate and roses and friends from John's days in San Francisco's Haight Asbury. When it was over, I went outside and a huge red-tailed hawk swooped low and ruffled my hair then perched on a cornice of the building. You would think this an exaggeration, but I have witnesses.

The hawk was vigilant, as if guarding. It was still there after everyone left and I was alone with this magnificent bird, standing in front of an ornate and historic mausoleum. I hated to leave him there and my brother had to drag me away. We sprinkled some of John's ashes in the Panhandle at Golden Gate Park where he played baseball as a kid. I have kept the rest.

Find Adrift in the Sound here.

Excerpt: Adrift in the Sound: a novel of betrayal, madness and the power of love

Excerpt from Adrift in the Sound

Setting: Seattle, WA, 1973

“So . . . You’re here.” Einar Karlson spoke to her through the screen door on the back porch. “When did you get out?”

Lizette stood at the bottom of the backstairs and looked up at her father swaying behind the rusted mesh, saw his wariness and stiffened her own guard. She pulled a wad of damp envelopes from the metal box beside the steps. He put her mail there so she could pick it up whenever she liked, avoiding him if necessary. She sorted out the county disability checks and dropped them into her lumpy canvas bag then studied the postmark on a mildewed envelope—December 1972. “What’s the date?” she asked, without looking up.

“Come in?” he suggested. “Have some tea?”

Lizette shrugged, continued sorting, mostly junk—art school ads and half-off sales from Christmas. She realized the holidays were over, that she’d missed them, but since her mother died, she hadn’t felt like celebrating anyway.

“It’s February 2,” he said. “I presume you know it’s 1973.”

She climbed the steps, paused on the narrow porch. The screen door swung out and her father held it open while she hesitated. The wood felt spongy under her feet, softened from years of Seattle rain and a lifetime of entrances and exits.

He took the pipe out of his mouth, cupped the bowl protectively in his hand as she passed. She noticed gray rime on the pipe’s stem, smelled the cherry tobacco on his blue plaid shirt. He smiled a pained welcome. What am I afraid of? she wondered as she moved past him into the kitchen. He’s old and weak. A pang of sorrow popped up in her chest. At least her mother would never be old like him, she thought, and a ripple of comfort passed through her. She also knew she’d never hear her mother laugh again, not that it happened all that often in this nut house. She looked around the kitchen at the sad walls, at the old cuckoo clock, oddly out of place in a house filled with sculpture, paintings and historic Indian artifacts.

The kitchen felt warm, not from cooking, Lizette realized, but from more than twenty-five years of memories that heated the surfaces – the old green Formica kitchen table and vinyl chair seats, the canisters and potholders. Recollections radiated from the cabinets and walls. Clicks and pings, sounds of her childhood, came from the house’s furnace, the heat closing in on her. She watched her father’s bony shoulders work as he ran water into the tea kettle, thought about how big he used to seem, how shriveled he looked now. His shirt hung from his clothes-hanger frame, its fullness overlapped under his cinched belt. He settled in the chair across from her, his presence too close, pressing on her diaphragm, making her pull for air. 

She crossed her arms over her chest and recalled the rumble of his voice when she was a child, sitting on his lap and resting her head against him, hearing the stories, feeling his resonance. Always stories. He told tales of the first people. The Indians who lived here before the explorers came, about Chief Seattle and his people, about the animal spirits who ruled the world. She conjured the energy of the university students who’d gathered in her family’s living room in the evenings, who’d talked earnestly about their theories and research, and she remembered how her father, the famous anthropologist, would listen to their ramblings, amused. They were finding out things he’d known and written about before many of them were born. Her mother would appear at those times like a spirit, offering plates of Swedish cookies, her blonde hair braided and coiled into a crown. Then she’d glide out the kitchen door to her art studio in the back garden.

Lizette remembered sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the couch. He’d bring little treasures out of his study—totems, the two-headed soul catcher that was carved from a bear femur, dance wands, rattles, skin drums with thunderbirds, and finally the chief’s headdress with long ermine pelts attached. He’d always offer to let someone else try on the chief’s headdress, never fitted the elaborate piece to his own head, held it out, acting like an acolyte with ancient sacraments.

Most of all Lizette had waited to see the mask of Watches Underwater. Even after centuries, the colors leapt from the carved cedar, Watcher’s unflinching eyes eternally scanned the upper world for danger, vigilant and prepared to warn the creatures in the sea below of any threats. The mask’s red puckered lips showed the legend perfectly, she thought, and pictured the beautiful woman floating on her back just below the water’s surface, watching, supping air with those voluptuous lips, watching, and she ached now to put the mask on her own face, but knew her father wouldn’t permit it. “It’s not a toy,” he’d said when she was small and tucked the artifact back into its box. She knew he’d deny her now so she let her desire fade. The tea kettle whistled. Her father went to the cupboard and pulled down two mugs.

“What kind of tea?” he asked.

“Uh . . . orange spice,” Lizette said, looking at the blue and white plate above the sink with her name written around the rim: Elizabeth Lena Karlson—April 10, 1947. Her nursery totem. Her middle name, her mother’s name, Lena, cried to her from the Delft ceramic. The plate had hung there for more than a quarter century, she thought, an artifact displayed like it had been dug from an ancient midden, a Swedish custom that announced her presence to those who ventured into her parent’s kitchen. She remembered that when she was small her father had called her “Little Liz,” sometimes “Liz Bit,” eventually transforming her name playfully to Lizette. After that everyone called her Lizette—teachers, neighbors, playmates, and the clerk at the art supply store where her mother had worked and sometimes taught painting classes in the back room.

The store manager had framed some of Lizette’s paintings and hung them behind the work table where the clerks made picture frames. A couple of them sold, and her mother took her for ice cream, told her she’d put the sale money in Lizette’s college account at the bank, that she was going to the Pratt Art Institute in Chicago or the Sorbonne in Paris and she’d grow up to be a famous artist, if she studied and developed her own technique, if—her mother added in an acid tone—she’d stop copying others. Lizette had asked for a double scoop of pistachio and felt she’d somehow done something good and wrong at the same time. Her mother ordered plain vanilla and they sat on wire chairs at a small table, silent, licking their cones.

“Pfeffernüsse?”

She snatched herself back and watched her father reach for a blue tin on top of the refrigerator. He popped the lid and took out a handful of cookies, dropped them on a plate. Lizette picked up a cookie, pecked at the edge, set it down, scattered powdered sugar on the table.

“Where will you stay?” Einar said, sitting down and reaching a veiny hand toward her. Lizette did not reach back. She sensed he wanted to say something, but instead of speaking to her truthfully, she watched him shift away, felt his dodge. “Have you made plans?”

Lizette doubted his interest. “I’ll be on Orcas Island, at Marian’s,” she said flatly. “She has the ranch now, since her father died.”

She looked up and saw his stunned expression. He didn’t know Hal Cutler had died, she thought, and realized how isolated he’d become in the years since her mother died, his life narrowed to an occasional faculty meeting, TV at night, maybe an ambitious teaching assistant between the sheets once in a great while.

“He’s been gone over a year, I think. You know the cabin by the water, below the main house?” He nodded. “That’s where I stay. Marian said it’s mine as long as I want.”

“That old shepherd’s shack?” She heard the judgment in his voice, winced. He tried again. “Good spot. Not the best light, though. Kind of rough. No running water or electricity. But, I guess it’s better than hanging around downtown.”

“It’ll do.” She felt the disapproval in his voice, almost added that it was none of his business what she did, decided to avoid an argument, studied her ragged fingernails, switched tempo.

“What happened this time?” Einar tried to keep his face blank, voice flat. “How long did they keep you?”

* * * 

Set in the Pacific Northwest during a time of great tumult in America, Adrift in the Sound is the story of Lizette's journey through this troubled era, it's about madness, betrayal and the redeeming power of love. Adrift in the Sound was a Mercer Street's Books finalist for best novel in 2011, rated 5-stars by Amazon readers.

Order online in paper or e-reader formats. Available to international readers in English where online Amazon service is offered. For a limited time in the U.S., get the Kindle Edition free when you buy the new print edition of this book. Learn more about Kindlematchbook.

A Story -- The Fortune Teller's Bad Rap

On a blustery November morning in 1972, Seattle street artist Lizette Karlson ducks into Madame Lora's fortune-telling studio. Lizette doesn't care about the future or the hungers of the old fake. She only wants to get warm, sit down on something besides the sidewalk. This scene is backstory to the novel Adrift in the Sound. 

A bell tinkled as Lizette stepped out of the Seattle rain and into the old fortune teller’s shop. It smelled of last night's onions and simmering mildew. A white angora cat, curled in a velvet swivel chair looked up, watched the newcomer with bored blue eyes, watched her stamp water from her boots, squinted in disapproval as the intruder softly shut the door.

“Ah. Lovely Lizette!” Madame Lora said and set her teacup on the table she used to read palms and tell fortunes. “Haven’t seen you around lately. You here for a reading or a handout?”

Lizette watched the old woman go to the shop's bookshelves and finger the dusty spines of guides to the occult. She stood silent while Madame straightened boxes of Ouija boards and Tarot cards. The shop was a basement apartment on the edge of the public market. The main room had a sweaty picture window that looked onto the sidewalk and across Lake Union where ferries plied Puget Sound.

As she waited for Madame to take her seat at the table, Lizette studied the framed sketch she’d done of her last year, a close likeness, but she looked for ways to improve it. She saw the lines were lazy, indifferent in their strokes, speaking more about her feelings for the subject, she realized, than her ability as an artist.

She thought about her mother painting in her sunlit studio, her father pouring over manuscripts and artifacts in his study as he prepared lecture notes for his anthropology classes, thought about crying and then feelings of the oppressive silences between them welled up in her chest. She shook her head and dispelled the shadows.

Like a lot of the street kids, she’d slept on Madame’s floor from time to time. She'd only crawled into her creaky double bed once, holding her breath as the silly old woman exhaled garlic and the curdled smell of old age. She’d allowed Madame to rub on her belly and touch her thighs with shriveled, claw-like hands because she'd been so cold and didn't want to face the streets that night. Everybody knew, if you didn't ask too often, the phony gypsy was usually good for a few bucks, if you could stand the pawing.

Madame stopped fussing, wrapped her purple satin robe around her jiggly middle and re-settled her turban. Lizette laid a ten-dollar bill on the table. Madame eyed the money and sat, gazed into the crystal ball before her, then picked up what looked like a salt shaker, tilted it back and forth, lifted Lizette’s limp hand, quickly wiped peppermint oil on her outstretched fingers. Madame took a slurp of tea, before gazing deeply into Lizette’s palm.



by Nancy Diaz

 “Coffee,” Madame said, matter-of-factly, taking a swig of tea and looking up.

Lizette nodded as the old woman dropped her hand, waited for more, felt Madame's silence harden. “That’s it?” Lizette waited to understand what Madame saw, waited for a better explanation, a ten dollar answer. 

Madame crinkled her eyes as if to smile, then repeated: “Coffee.”

“With cream?” Lizette said, annoyed, and shifted sideways in the chair.

Madame Lora snorted, shook her head, leaned toward Lizette. “Not to drink, dummy . . . To work!” She pulled back, smoothed her robe across her lap. “Up the street." She waved her arm in the air, flapping her hand toward the wall. "They need help, a counter girl. One of the coffee shop owners told me that the other day. At the Downtown Rotary Club meeting. I've been in Rotary for years, always work their Christmas parties. Last week, the Vietnamese ambassador spoke, talked about the Communists and the war ending. Very interesting. ”

“I came for you to throw the I Ching, not get a lecture on the Vietnam War. I could get that on the street. I want to know what’s going to happen.”

“Happen? . . . What always happens! What do you think?” 

“But, I . . . " Lizette began to protest, looked in the direction her money had gone.

“Oh. I’ll throw the I Ching. The palm reading’s free. A bargain. I give extra to my best customers.” She winked. “You’re lucky today. I see things.” She pulled a bottle from under the table, splashed amber liquid into her dainty cup, took a pull.

Lizette brushed wispy hair from her forehead, squinted into the room’s dimness to understand. She fixed her stare on the paisley design in Madame Lora’s turban, became entranced, felt the silence, settled into it, picked up the rhythmic tick of a clock, waited.

Finally, Madame rapped three times on the table, retrieving Lizette’s attention. She tossed three Chinese coins, did it five more times. “Your present hexagram shows you are a seasoned traveler who knows that a special kind of decorum is called for when venturing far from home.” 

“I grew up by Greenlake, not far from here,” Lizette said impatiently. "I've been here twenty five years now. I'm not going anywhere."

Madame shushed her, slipped back into her fortune teller’s voice. “You must maintain a yielding nature, so your hosts open doors for you. But inwardly, you know it’s sometimes impossible to discern the true intentions of strangers. I see a large group, mostly men. You'll know when they’re secretly hostile or opportunistic.”

“I know all about men,” Lizette said, crossing her arms over her chest and twisting in the chair. “That’s the problem. I need to figure out where to go. I don't have a regular place to stay right now.”

“Go? My child, any journey is ruled by the twin houses of mystery and discovery,” Madame said, puckering her painted lips like a sea anemone. “Each day is launched on a fresh canvas. Though travel is often a great teacher – and a great equalizer – there’s a definite art to living on the road.”

“Art?” Lizette felt confused. “I'm in the street, you know that.”

“The last time you were here you said you were a housekeeper.” 

“I am. That too. But, look, I’m trying to be an artist,” Lizette said. “Like my mother. She was a real artist, except . . .”

“Except what? I don’t shrink heads, just read cards. I don't have time for a sob story.”

“OK, but if you can’t tell me what’s next, give my money back.”

“What’s your problem?" Madame pouted. “You still owe me from the last time.” 

“You’re not making sense,” Lizette said. 

“Like you would know,” Madame snapped. "Look at you!"

by Kate Campbell

  
As they sat glaring at each other across the velvet, the sky opened and poured ice and rain. Lizette got up to watch the downpour, needles of rain striking the pavement and bouncing. People hustled past. She could faintly hear the fish monger singing snatches of Italian opera. She turned to Madame, nodded for the reading to continue.

Looking at Lizette, wrapped in a collection of scarves that barely covered the grimy thermal underwear she wore, Madam fell out of character. “Don’t be an oddball. Get some clothes. You can’t run around half naked in your underwear, especially in this weather. I have pants and a shirt in the back. You can have them for a few coins. Cheaper than Salvation Army.” She got up and went into the back.

Lizette took off her boots and untied the scarves on her legs and arms, folded each one neatly, put them in her canvas bag. As she stood there, stuffing scarves, she thought about the trip Madame foretold, and didn't notice a man holding an umbrella watching her through the picture window. Lizette felt a flash of anger when she realized the gawker was surveying her circumstances.She rolled her bottoms down first, mooned the window. Then she turned and faced the glass, lifted her top over head.

A few more people gathered in front of the window and peered into the shop. Lizette pulled the scarves from her bag and waved them overhead, snapped them to release wrinkles and fluttered them in circles, dipping and lunging like a Swedish gymnast. Gossamer pink, lime green, sky blue, Chinese red, burnt orange. She floated the scarves over head and twirled naked around the tiny shop. The crowd grew.

Madame came in from the back, clothes draped over her arm, and saw the faces at the window, went to the drape and pulled viciously until they swept shut. Lizette saw her fury and sat down.

“A time of trouble is indicated for you,” Madame said, imperious, all business now. “I wasn't going to tell you, but the second changing line is the worst. It shows a bird whose nest has burned up and a small child abandoned. Something bad is going to happen.” Lizette gulped and gripped the chair seat to keep from shaking.

“I’m ready for the shirt and pants,” Lizette said, dully, as if addressing a maid.

Madame Lora handed her a blue and white flannel shirt and a pair of jeans across the table. Lizette put them on, pushed up the sleeves and hoisted the loose pants, puffed out her belly to hold them up, then sat and laced up her hiking boots.

“Go up the street.” Madame stared into the orb’s milky center. She saw Lizette's future, saw the calamity, and it made her eyes water, a tear rolled down the side of her wrinkled nose. Face stiff, voice flat, she directed: “Ask for a job and your journey will begin.”
 

by Kate Campbell

Lizette gathered the straps of her canvas bag and stood. Madame came from behind the table, arms open. Crushed to Madame’s lumpy breasts, Lizette bent down and kissed the old gypsy’s forehead, on the spot where she imagined her third eye.

 Madame whispered, "Be careful, Sweet Pea." The bell above the door tinkled as Lizette stepped into the chasm that was her future.

Adrift in the Sound, is the story of Lizette's journey. 

Everything We Need to Know

The earth is our first teacher.

Everything we need to know

about how to live in this world comes from the
teachings of the earth.

Vi Hilbert, Upper Skagit elder, 2003


Adrift in the Sound: A tale of living
and loving  

Moment of Truth in the Garden

It's time to tell you the truth, not that I haven't been honest all along. It's that some things haven't been fully talked about -- subjects have been changed, details omitted, opportunities to step away have been taken. People have stopped asking me: "So, how's the book selling." My usual answer is "OK. You know how it is with first books. It takes time to build audience." My exit lines.

 

A friend on Facebook said tonight a royalty check had come from her publisher, just in time, as usual. The truth is I'm the publisher of my book, Adrift in the Sound, which came out about a year and a half ago in e-reader and print formats. My last royalty check from Amazon was for $11.

IndiBound Store Locator

Adrift in the Sound, which I worked on for 5 years, is now ranked about 850 out of Amazon's 7 million or so books, not an awful ranking this long after publication, but it's nothing to brag about. I'm not counting on a royalty check anytime soon that will pay the mortgage. I'll be lucky to get a royalty check that buys a loaf of bread and some bologna.

 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I made choices. I knew what I was doing and I've learned a ton about publishing and the book business. I've earned back the cost of producing Adrift and then some. But, let's face it. my book was on the Amazon best seller list for about 8 hours -- topped out at about #27 in historical fiction, #35 in literary fiction before plunging to the basement like an elevator with the cables cut.
 

My friend's Facebook message got me to wondering about the status of Adrift. It has been a while since I checked the ranking and found I've forgotten how to access my Amazon sales data. I settled instead for scrolling through the book's reviews and realized there are reviews I've never seen. Yes, the truth is I've been feeling bad about my lack of literary success and haven't been too eager to give my Amazon site close examination. 

 

 But, tonight my feelings of disappointment changed. I want to share this Amazon review. It really cheered me up. This reviewer, I honestly don't know him, got so much about what I was trying to do artistically with Adrift -- got the art and imagery, got the humor, felt sad in the right places, saw my main character the way I'd hoped.No matter what, if I can connect with even one reader on this level, I'm happy, and that's the truth.

 

 5.0 out of 5 stars

The best story I've read for a long time

July 24, 2013

By

Pete Barber (Lake Lure, NC) - See all my reviews

 

This review is from: Adrift in the Sound (Paperback)

Lizette is a gifted abstract painter with severe personality issues--perhaps bi-polar--although I don't believe this was stated. Pressured to achieve as a child, when her artist mother committed suicide something snapped inside Lizette. Estranged from her father, she drifts into bad company, and makes unwise life-choices. The story follows Lizette as she struggles with mental illness and searches for meaning in her life. Although set in the Seventies, no attachment with that era is required to connect with this story.

I read because I love to lose myself in another world and experience life vicariously through someone else's eyes. Also, as an aspiring writer, I read to learn. For me, reading Adrift in the Sound was tantamount to attending a fiction writing master class.

Tactile scene settings sucked me into a story as multi-layered as one of Lizette's beautifully described oil paintings. Ms. Campbell colors her scenes with fine details, often transforming the settings into another character to add emotion. For example, after an argument with her father, Lizette turns her back on him and the house and takes the path in the rain toward the small cabin her mother used as her artist's studio. Lizette perceives the cabin like this: "Two big windows stared into the tangled garden, watching the house through rain-streaked eyes." Or her view of the car ferry that will take her to Orcas Island in the Puget Sound, where much of the story unfolds: "The wide-bodied boat nudged the dock, bounced against the pylons, settled into its berth like a lumbering beast nestling into a safe burrow." Or the way the ocean appears to her: "The afternoon sun scattered silver sequins across the water." I confess I have a ton more highlights on my Kindle; so many I had to stop myself. Unable to choose which to use in the review, I simply chose the first three--they're all exceptional.

Lizette's world is populated by a cast of complex, multi-faceted characters. Many are unpleasant. All were real to me. A brutal sexual assault early in the story permanently scars Lizette and scarred this reader along with her. It happened because she takes crazy chances and trusts the wrong people. But don't see her as a weakling. On a number of occasions she does significant harm to those whom she perceives as a threat. Although, as I watched Lizette become a danger to others, I was never quite sure of her intentions. That's a measure of how off-balance the author kept me, and how hard I was rooting for Lizette.

Lizette's affinity for the native Indians who live on Orcas and form her support group provides more wonderful characters whose lifestyle grounds the story in history and in nature. I have no connection with Native Indians or their customs, but I found their lives and beliefs and plain commonsense added to the palette of an already colorful story.

The novel is a deep, slow burn, and not without humor. One particular scene involving a large snake and an unpleasant junkie had me laughing so loud I woke my wife (I read at night). A larger-than-life character--self-described poet, Toulouse--is described in the eyes of Lizette's friend, Marian thusly: "Toulouse moved off with a flourish, tipping a goodbye from the rim of his foolish hat. Marian watched him go, his self-importance shoved up his ass like a mop handle."

Complex, troubled, and gifted, Lizette connects with the natural world on such a deep level that she pulled me along until I stood beside her marveling at the natural beauty of an ocean wave, or the fearsome power of the killer whales as they hunt in the Sound, or the subtle simplicity of an old Indian woman dancing in a mask of feathers and bear skin. She broke my heart as we watched a seal taken by a predator, or a pet dog injured. I know, as she does, it's natural. You can't interfere, you can't help--but still, you share the stab of her guilt.

With more "Oh, didn't see that coming" moments than I had any right to expect, Adrift in The Sound is the best book I've read in a long time. Check it out. You won't regret it.

This review was originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. I may have received a free review copy.

 

I haven't thanked Pete Barber for this review, for lifting my spirits, for getting what I was aiming at artistically. He won't be unthanked for long and that's the god's truth.

 

Honestly, thanks for visiting the Word Garden. It means a lot to me.

Adrift in the Sound Available from Amazon

How Killer Whales Were Made

Haida Orca
Todd Jason Baker
From Adrift in the Sound

“The whole world is not like Sebastopol,” my college professor Alvin Hunter said as he prepared to school us in the particulars of cultural and physical anthropology. In the darkened auditorium of Santa Rosa Junior College in the 1970s, Hunter proceeded to show us the variety of ways we are human and how we came to be. He opened our eyes to a world of mysteries and magic.

Today, I smile to think of Hunter’s claim about Sebastopol. He meant, I think, that the world is not like small-town California. But, his perhaps intentional irony is that the place name he cited—Sebastopol—is a historical vestige of Russian colonization in America at Ft. Ross, now a state park on the Sonoma County coast. The former supply village is west of the charming town where I went to college, not far from the Russian River. Today Sebastopol is known for wine grapes and organic farms, but once served other purposes.

In 1812, the area was unsettled and became an supply point for the outpost of the fur-trading Russian-American Company, based in Alaska, after the area was claimed for the Czar. Perhaps Dr. Hunter's joke is that the world is indeed like tiny Sebastopol--foreign and familiar at the same time, an amalgam of the larger world.

This knowledge explains, in part, my delight in finding Dartmouth anthropologist Sergei Kan’s new book, A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska. This 288-page photo book from the University of Oklahoma Press offers for the first time more than 100 images taken by amateur photographer Soboleff of Tlingit village life at the turn-of-the-century. The images, archived in the Alaska State Library, capture the everyday lives of Russian and American settlers who lived among the tribal people.

What's of interest to me is Soboleff's documenting the intertwining of these diverse cultures in coastal Killisnoo and Angoon. He photographed the community around him as an insider and also as a journalist. The images are unposed and natural, unlike the photography of his contemporaries. His photographs include the names of his Tlingit subjects, not just labels like "old woman," "boy" or "Indian." He knew and respected his subjects.

I did considerable research into Coastal Salish tribes for my novel, Adrift in the Sound, which includes Native American characters and incorporates traditional tales, from the Tlingit, Lummi and Haida nations. The melding of contemporary culture with historic traditions of Native Americans, which is depicted in Soboleff's images, has been fascinating to me since college days, and is an underlying theme in my book. I remain fascinated with ways culture shifts and is absorbed to create  new and larger societies.

 Russian-Americans posing in Tlingit canoe

Tlingit Tale: How Killer Whales Were Made

Excerpt from Adrift in the Sound. as told by Lummi elder Poland, a life-long friend of main character, Lizette Karlson. The ranch dog, Tucker, has been badly injured in a confrontation with a killer whale that beached itself to grab a seal off the sand. The attack on Orcas Island has left Lizette shaken and Poland takes her to the barn to calm her while visiting new born lambs. They sit and he tells her this story:

“My cousin married a Tlingit woman,” he said. “Lives up north with her, got three kids, all girls. Grown up, married now. My cousin, see, he said his wife tells a story about how, in a time before killer whales, there was a hunter and totem carver named Natsilane. See?”

Lizette nodded, but didn’t see, felt blinded by grief after the orca attack on Tucker, and sniffled at the thought of the innocent pup’s rowdy ways, always clowning, she thought, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She feared he’d die from his wounds and clutched the lamb she was holding to her chest.

“So, he got a wife on Duke Island.” Poland cleared his throat, got her attention, relaunched. “A chief’s daughter. Beautiful. Big chest.” Poland put down the lamb he was feeding and bobbled his hands in front of him. Lizette giggled.

“So,” Poland continued, “he lived with her people. And, at first the village people didn’t like him, but they saw he was a good hunter and he shared his kills with them. His wife’s brothers didn’t like being shown up by an outsider.

“They decided to get even, teach him a lesson. On the day of the big seal hunt they paddled near rocks, and Natsilane climbed out of the canoe and plunged his spear into a big bull seal that bellowed into the wind.” Poland suddenly trumpeted like a seal, startling Lizette and the lambs, making her burst into tears again. Poland hugged her, stroked her hair.

“Sorry,” he said. “I got excited. So, his spear point broke off in the seal.” Poland showed how it snapped with his fists, scaring the lamb cradled between his arms again. “The sea lion charged into the water. But that wasn’t the worst part. The brothers were paddling away as fast as they could, leaving Natsilane stuck on the rocks.”

Speaking softly now in the half light of the barn, Poland said, “What they did broke his heart.” He reached over Lizette and tucked the blanket tighter around her legs. “He pulled his cape over himself and slept on the rocks, but woke up when he heard his name whispered on the wind. He saw a sea lion a ways off that looked like a man and followed him into the water, down beneath the waves and into the Seal Chief’s house.”

“Where was Watches Underwater?” Lizette asked and snuggled tighter against Poland, letting the lamb suckle her fingers. “Couldn’t she help?”

“I told you. It’s a Tlingit story, not Lummi.” He cleared his throat. “No one’s watching in this story. Now, when they got to the great house down below, the chief asked Natsilane if he could help his injured son. Natsilane pulled his spear point out and sewed up the wound. The seal son healed and, later, the chief granted Natsilane the power to create life. The sea lions formed a raft with their backs and took Natsilane home.”

Lizette shifted the lamb on her lap. “Then what happened?”

“Well, the boy carved a fish out of spruce, the first killer whale. It was big and beautiful and no one had ever seen anything like it. When he put it in the water, it came to life and swam out to sea, sleek and black with a white saddle. It came back whenever Natsilane called.”

“This is a long story,” Lizette said, yawning.

“No, it’s a good story,” Poland said, putting down his lamb and standing up. “I told it to your father once. He wrote it down. It was the first orca and Natsilane taught it to hunt and help the people. It brought schools of fish to the families and they feasted every day.”

“Then what happened?” Lizette asked

“Happened?” Poland looked disappointed that she didn’t get the point of the story.

“Nothing happened. Now orcas live in the water and help the people. I’m telling you this so you understand the orca’s job and don’t get scared. Seals eat the fish, orcas eat the seals. We eat everything. Sometimes we work together, sometimes not. They’re hunters just like us, just like dogs. Just like Natsilane, that pup will learn and become a hunter.”

“My father used to tell me stories when I was little,” Lizette said. “But, his stories were shorter.” Poland pursed his lips, suggesting he didn’t approve of abridgement, and took the sleeping lamb from her.

 Tlingit woman in her Killisnoo home

Here's a modern story of a young killer whale http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwGT19G-JlE&feature=player_detailpage

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