The Floor of Heaven (22 page)

George had met a few Tagish Indians when he’d been up in the Yukon lake country last summer. They were mighty good hunters and fishermen, and George was inclined to respect people who led that kind of self-sufficient life. In his experience, the Stick country (as the interior was known) Tagish were not as fierce or, for that matter, as arrogant as the coastal Tlingits he’d met in Sitka and Juneau.

Tlingits, of course, were warriors; George gave ’em that. Back at the turn of the century, they’d fought hand to hand against the Russians, and until the Russians had brought in artillery, they’d had them on the run. Even today George felt that a lot of the young braves were still looking for a fight. That was, after all, one of the reasons the War Department had dispatched him and his company of marines up to Sitka; the thinking was that a show of force was needed to keep the Tlingits in line.

Still, the Tlingits and the Tagish got on fine with each other; it was pretty common for them to marry up. At the same time, both tribes seemed to have it in for the Chilkoots, which George could understand. A Chilkoot clan had a camp near Dyea and they were always poking around his tent; once he’d had to stand out front with his rifle cocked to show ’em he meant business. Not that he was too worried about the Chilkoots going on the warpath. They were making too much money packing white men over the pass to want to chase them away. They were smart, all right. Like all the tribes, the Chilkoots couldn’t be bothered to waste their days looking for gold. Indians just didn’t see how a hunk of rock could be worth anything. But more than most of the tribes, the Chilkoots had the savvy to realize that they didn’t need to take a gamble and waste their days looking for gold. There was a guaranteed bonanza to be made off all the white men foolish enough to believe they’d strike it rich. He recalled the strident way the Chinook packers had bargained with him last spring, and, although he’d wound up getting a fair price, the heated give-and-take left a sour taste in his mouth. So all in all, George reckoned it made some sense that if old Healy was going to smoke the peace pipe with some tribe, it’d be the Tagish.

George watched as Healy sorted through the furs the two Indians had to offer, separating them into piles of marten, fox, muskrat, and beaver. Next Healy carefully inspected every pelt, running his fingers through each one to gauge the thickness of the fur and holding every skin up to the light to see if it was diseased. When he was satisfied, the bargaining began. It was in Chinook, but George had no trouble understanding. And by the time the give-and-take was concluded, both sides felt they had done well. Healy gave Skookum Jim $125; Tagish Charley received $100, and the only reason for the difference, as far as George could guess, was that Healy felt he could get away with paying less to Charley, but not to big Jim.

Once they put the money in their pockets, though, the mood of the two Indians turned somber. They stood facing Healy awkwardly, as if wanting to say something but unable to find the words. Finally, Jim spoke.

We were thinking about spending the summer working as packers, the big Indian began. Lot of money in taking prospectors over the Chilkoot.

Healy nodded. George noticed that Healy’s demeanor had suddenly changed, too. He seemed wary.

The two Indians weren’t helping things along. They just stood there as if they had forgotten how to speak. Once again, it was Jim who at last spoke up.

The Chilkoots, he said, spitting the name out with an unmistakable venom. We set up camp, he went on, the Chilkoots will try to run us off. There’s just two of us, he added rather helplessly, but there’s a whole clan of Chilkoots in these parts.

Don’t seem like a fair fight, does it, Carmack? Healy asked. Now that he knew what’d been on the two Indians’ minds, he was no longer on guard. In fact, their predicament set his temper boiling.

Can’t say it does, George agreed.

The odds so rankled the old Indian fighter’s sense of justice that Healy made an impetuous suggestion. Why don’t you two make camp with Carmack right by my post? Those Chinooks give you any trouble, Carmack and me’ll help you set things right.

So it was settled. Jim and Charley found a bit of level ground facing the inlet, and before long George had helped them erect a spruce-bough lean-to. Now when Healy sat on his porch he’d grumble that he might as well be in Denver, Dyea was getting so crowded. But George didn’t mind at all. After last winter’s crushing isolation, with only his disappointments to keep him company, it was a real pleasure to be able to sit around a fire at night making conversation, even if it was mostly in Chinook.

No less a blessing, George was soon busy, working and making money. When a group of prospectors came around looking to hire the two Indians to help carry their supplies to Lake Lindeman, Jim, without even speaking to George about it, announced that there were three men in this outfit. So George became the only white man to work as a packer going over the Chilkoot.

The morning of their first job, George was full of dread. He remembered his one climb over the trail, and how he’d wound up crawling on his hands and knees like a dazed and wounded animal. That morning’s ascent proved to be no less of a battle. But whenever it felt as if he were about to stumble, Jim would somehow understand and he’d be there to steady George with one of his big hands. In this fashion, George was able to make it to the summit on his own two legs.

As the summer passed and there were more trips up the trail, George grew stronger and cannier. He learned how to balance his pack while scampering over slick rocks, how to keep his footing in a soup of melting snow. It was beyond his powers to handle the climb with the ease that Jim and even Charley (who, after all, was no more than a runt) demonstrated, but George grew pleased with himself. He felt he could do a packer’s job. And for once he was able to save some money; the going rate was $10 per hundred pounds that summer. There was also another benefit from all the busy summer’s labor: He’d been too occupied to let his mind wander to thoughts of Becky. As the weeks passed, George came to realize that he couldn’t even remember the color of her eyes or the sound of her voice, let alone why he’d made such a fuss. Now if her name happened to stray into his thoughts, he’d dismiss it with a quick laugh, and chide himself for having been such a foolish, lovesick boy. She, too, had become part of a buried past.

SEVENTEEN

ut come the tail end of August, when the wind blew down from the mountains with a sharper, icy slap and the lakes turned dark under the looming afternoon sky, the careful world George had constructed fell apart. Jim announced that with winter nearing, Charley and he’d be returning to their village in the lake country. They planned to buy some supplies from Healy, and then tomorrow they’d head back over the pass.

Sensible as Jim’s plan was, George had never considered their return to the Tagish village as even a possibility. It’d never occurred to him that the two Indians would be leaving Dyea. He didn’t know what to say. All at once he felt as if he were suffering from a mortal wound, and in a way he was. He knew he couldn’t bear to spend another Alaskan winter on his own. For a moment, he wished he’d died on his way up the Chilkoot. That would’ve been easier, and a lot less painful than what he knew was in store for him.

Why don’t you come with us? Jim suddenly asked. “Hiyu skookum illahee. Hiyu clean, all same sky,” he urged.

“Indian country strong, plenty clean like the sky,” George agreed.

And with those words it was settled.

IN THE course of the long journey to the Tagish village, George began to fret about his decision. He didn’t speak Tagish, and it’d been hard enough to learn Chinook. He worried that he’d be unable to talk to anyone and that this would make things not much different than being holed up on his own in a room in Juneau. Only now, he’d be smack in the middle of a bunch of wild Indians who’d probably be thinking about how to make off with the sizable sum of money he’d been able to save and had tucked into his rucksack. All the way over the pass and then as the trio canoed down the swift streams that linked Lake Lindeman to Lake Bennett, new concerns took shape in his mind each day. He began to realize that he didn’t know what to expect. By the time the three men approached the village, paddling north into the ice-still waters of Nares Lake, George had come around to thinking he’d made a mistake.

On the way up this short, narrow channel, his misgivings spreading like the ripples created by each firm stroke of their paddles dipping into the water, George heard what sounded like cannon fire. It was off in the distance, and he was reminded of the fusillade that’d been shot off on parade days in Sitka.

For a crazy moment all he could think of was that the U.S. Marines had decided to attack Canada. After all, the precise boundaries between American Alaska and the Dominion of Canada were, it was well known, a matter of dispute. Canada had requested a jointly financed survey, but the United States had rejected the plan; the folks in Washington didn’t see any reason to spend money to establish boundary lines for such a remote and sparsely settled wilderness. As it was, it was generally agreed that the summit of the Chilkoot Trail was the demarcation between the United States’ Alaska Territory and the Canadian Yukon. But George suspected that it wouldn’t be long before this vague line, based on a loose interpretation of the 1825 treaty between Russia and Britain defining the borders of their colonial possessions, would become the subject of a diplomatic shouting match. Perhaps, he imagined, tempers between the Canadians and the Americans had gotten so riled that the marines had now been called in.

Listening with some attention, he realized that the noise kept growing larger, moving closer and closer. He was certain: It was coming straight at him. He looked across the channel, toward a field of tall grass, and then in a moment he saw the source of the approaching thunder. It was a herd of galloping caribou, perhaps one thousand or, for all he could tell, as many as two thousand of the animals, big and strong with their glistening winter fur, their pointed antlers held high, their hooves pounding the hard earth in a fierce rhythm as they charged forward in a single wave. The three men stopped paddling and stared with respect. It was wondrous: a spectacle of power, majesty, and beauty. George was awed. And as he watched the wild herd race across the plain, George decided that no matter what was in store for him, it was not a mistake to have made the journey.

THE TAGISH village was about fifty miles from where they’d spotted the migrating herd. It was nestled along the steep brown banks of a channel that circled around two lakes, the gunmetal-gray water stretching flat and clear to the horizon like a mirror reflecting a high, moody sky. Jim’s people were a small clan, no more than twenty families, running to about seventy or eighty Indians in all. On a wide, grassy terrace sat two large, rough-planked community houses, and beyond them about a dozen small log cabins were strung out in a loping semicircle.

Jim led George into one of the big houses and introduced him to his mother. She was a chief’s daughter, Jim explained, and therefore she was in charge of this lodge. George wondered how this was possible. The woman was frail and wizened; he doubted she possessed the faculties to care for herself. As soon as the old squaw spoke, however, George found he had to reconsider his smug thoughts. He couldn’t understand the words, but her voice was strong and confident. The years had taken their toll, yet she still had a leader’s authority. He looked at her with a sudden, newfound respect. In fact, she reminded him of his sister, Rose. Like Rose, she didn’t hesitate or seem uncertain in her pronouncements. She knew her heart and, he felt, spoke it clearly. In time, he’d come to understand that all the Tagish squaws possessed this trait. In this tribe, the women made the decisions while the men did the hunting, and that division of labor suited George just fine.

At first George was treated with an elaborate courtesy, and he wondered if the Indians were simply being polite or if there was something ironic in their attitude. Of course, he was the only white man many of them had ever spoken to; he couldn’t blame them if they felt as uncomfortable as he did. And if they were enjoying a joke at his expense, laughing when, for example, he insisted on spitting out the coarse hairs on the caribou tongue that they considered a great delicacy, well, how often had he heard white men guffawing at an Injun’s peculiar ways?

After he’d spent weeks in the village, however, the barriers began to recede. When he went hunting with the braves, they were excited by his skill with a rifle. They all wanted to learn how to shoot like a white man, and George was only too pleased to try to teach them. For his part, George was impressed that when a moose or a caribou was killed, the hunter didn’t claim his prey. The carcass belonged to the entire village, everyone joining in for a communal feast, and the women working together to dry and smoke the surplus. For George, who had been on his own for so long, fending for himself ever since he was eleven and his father had died, the opportunity to be part of a community was unexpected. He hadn’t been treated this way for a very long time. It felt like he was being given back something that’d been taken from him years ago.

One morning, he was asked to join the moose hunt; he was by far the best shot in the village. Throughout the fall, the braves had on occasion seen a huge moose loping through the evergreen forest. But it’d proved too shrewd. As soon as an Indian approached, it ran, vanishing into the woods before a shot could be fired. Now a hunting party was setting out to track this great moose.

On the second day, they spotted it. George had never seen an animal like it before. Its rack of antlers spread nearly as wide as Tagish Charley was tall, and it stood as if planted, staring back at them in defiance, full of calm, an animal aware of its formidable power. Slowly, carefully, the hunting party inched forward. The great moose waited until they got within shooting range; then it bolted.

It was astonishingly fast. The animal took the hunting party on quite a chase. For more than a week, it led them through dense forests, up steep, rocky hills, and down into deep valleys. It seemed to be playing with them, and enjoying the taunting game. But the Indians refused to give up; an animal this size could feed the entire village for a month, and its skin would make many garments.