Adrift in the Sound (9 page)

ELEVEN

IN THE MORNING
, Lizette and Abaya went to the garden. Abaya bent over a raised bed, the dirt boxed in by rough logs, and plucked weeds, tender in this early season. She worked her knobby fingers along the rows of green radish leaves, pulled up a big one, knocked off the dirt, offered it to Lizette. “Easter egg,” she said and moved on with her weeding.

Lizette took the pink and white root, wiped it on her jacket, put it in her mouth and crunched, feeling the sweet, hot taste explode on her tongue.

“When will these be ready for market?”

“By Easter, if it warms up and don’t rain so much,” Abaya said, looking at the dark clouds rolling overhead. “Easter comes late this year, that’s better. Vegetables have more time to get big.” She pulled another radish, studied it. “They’re like painted eggs.” She laughed. “Good for kids. The colors mix them up. They think candy, but no.”

“Poland says you’re almost ready for the potlatch,” Lizette said, watching her weed.

“Not yet. The store house’s filled up, but there’s still a lot to do.”

“How many people are coming?”

“Hard to say.” Abaya stood and stretched her back. “At first only a few people said they’d come. That was a couple of years ago, when Poland first put the word out. Now, I don’t know. The tribal office in Bellingham tells me hundreds. Maybe some people will come by canoe from Queen Charlotte Islands in B.C. And, I hear some cousins in Alaska might show up.”

“Wow.” Lizette looked around at the garden and small cottage. “Where’re you going to put them? They can’t all stay here.”

“No, not here. Our pasture goes down to the water in the back. If you follow around the shore you come to the state park. There’s camping there. I already talked to the park people. They’re going to set aside space. Poland’s getting those outhouses they move around.”

“Porta Johnnies?”

Abaya shrugged. “He had to get a permit from the county. Made a road around the meadow for the truck to deliver ’em. See, over there.” She waved her arm in the direction of the open, grassy field. “He made a big fire ring there and he’s building a sweat lodge, too.”

At the end of the garden, Lizette saw the berry trellises and walked to them, lifted the leaves with the back of her hand, careful of the thorns, looked to see if any raspberries were ripe, but knew it was too early. The vines were blooming and, even in the chill, a few bees darted in and out collecting pollen.

“Let’s go see the storehouse,” Abaya said, an edge of excitement in her voice. She walked out of the garden, closed the gate behind them. The white barn beyond the house had once been used to milk cows. Sliding the door back, they entered the darkness. When Lizette’s eyes adjusted, she saw hundreds of cardboard boxes stacked in all the milking stalls, more along the back wall and in the hayloft.

“Amazing!” Lizette spun around in the old dairy barn, taking in all the corners. “What’s in all these boxes?”

“Blankets, baskets, medicine bags, straw dolls for children, flutes, drums, spirit charms.”

“Poland said you have lavender.”

“Yeah.” Abaya drew her lips into a pucker and smiled modestly around the edges. “You bet. Lots. For the ladies. The boxes have little flowers on top and purple ribbons. Inside is soap and cream. Pretty. My cousin’s daughter is getting married while everyone is here. They’re going to spend the wedding night over at the Moran Hotel. I’m giving the bridesmaids the lavender boxes, and some other special ladies. The minister’s coming from Bellingham.”

“What’s in the tool room?”

“Tools,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What else you’d expect? Gold? My old husband still needs to work around this falling-down place. He’s a lazy bones, driving all over the island, getting in everybody’s business like an old woman. I warn him, but he don’t listen.”

“But,” she said, shifting back to an excited tone. “The good stuff’s in the house. We got totems and scrimshaw, paintings, special baskets. Drums. Masks. Button robes and Chilikat blankets. Some things are very old. We’ll only show them, not give them away. Poland will bring out his copper shield. It’s very old, from his father and his grandfather and before that way back. You break off small pieces and give em to the big guys, the ones with lots of sons. That’s Poland’s job.”

Walking around, looking at the stacks of boxes, Abaya seemed almost girlish. “This gathering is to honor my sons,” she said, sounding fragile. “I had four sons. Now they’re all gone. Dead or lost.”

Lizette kept quiet about Raven, honored her promise again not to say she’d seen him or tell anyone that he’d gone to Wounded Knee and not mention the trouble he and Dennis Banks and the rest of the American Indian Movement were having with the FBI. She watched Raven’s tiny mother, her big earrings bobbing, wipe her hands on her apron, pace and embrace the depth of her loss. Lizette could barely stand to watch her.

“The spirits have taken all of them and this potlatch will honor that,” Abaya said, walking softly, her feet barely disturbing the floor’s fine dust. “Sometimes in the night, I hear them laughing outside my bedroom window, like when they were kids. Then I hear a thud and know they’re fighting. Then they laugh again and I go back to sleep.” She turned and walked out of the barn. Lizette waited behind, gave Abaya space in her rarely expressed grief, pulled the heavy door shut and walked to the house.

While they prepared breakfast, Abaya pointed to the things she wanted Lizette to do. Lizette, understood the gestures, grabbed plates and glasses, pulled spoons and knives from a battered drawer. Sliced potatoes, salted the water. Turning on the burner—whiff of propane. Splash of oil, dash of garlic powder. Abaya waved her meat fork here and there, like a symphony conductor with a baton. Fat salmon steaks sizzled in the skillet, potatoes fried on the back burner. When it was ready, Poland appeared like magic. Lizette ate everything on her plate, got up to clean the last of the potatoes from the skillet, going into the refrigerator for ketchup, which she guessed the old people didn’t use much judging from the crust around the lid. She reached into her bag and took a pill from the bottle Dr. Finch had given her, washed it down with a big bite of fried potato.

“Whose pajamas you wearing?” Abaya asked as they washed dishes together, Lizette drying as fast as she could, but not keeping up. “You look like a bum.”

“Marian’s father’s. My stuff was all dirty. I’d been on the streets for a while, hanging out.”

“Where do you sleep on the streets?”

“Wherever. On pallets, if I can find them. It keeps you off the ground when it rains. I put plastic down and then newspapers, layer them on, roll up. I take the papers from the free boxes on street corners when nobody’s looking. It works pretty good, especially if you find a guy with a dog.” Abaya rolled her eyes and Lizette laughed. “Dogs are always warm, the guys not so much.”

Abaya snorted and scrubbed the skillet. Lizette wrapped the dishtowel around her slender fingers to dry inside a glass, noticing orange paint on the heel of her hand from last night.

“You stay here tonight. In Raven’s room. Help me pick and sell at the market tomorrow. We can buy you some clothes, Scarecrow,” she said, throwing Lizette a disapproving sideways glance.

In the dark, the next morning, Lizette helped the couple load boxes of winter vegetables—carrots, chard, potatoes, broccoli—for the farmer’s market. They fussed at each other, elbowed over the tailgate, one putting in a box, the other turning it a different direction. They put in a long folding table, a bundle of paper bags, a produce scale. Abaya slipped the cash box under the front seat. Poland ran back to the barn for the beach umbrella.

They pulled into the parking lot beside city hall and joined the flurry of people setting up in the early morning mist. People came by and clapped Poland on the back, others hugged Abaya, asked what they were selling, said they hoped the rain held off. The smell of coffee and cinnamon filled the air. Lizette took five dollars from the money box under the truck seat and bought coffee and a fat, frosted cinnamon roll for Abaya, who fluttered her hands, waving it away. “Goo kills you.” Lizette took a big bite and warm frosting dripped on her chin. Abaya tsk-tsked in disapproval.

Sunlight peeked between rain clouds and plumped the market’s colors. Lizette sat on a log licking her fingers and drinking coffee, watching the scene come to life. By nine o’clock the parking lot was full of shoppers. Lizette bagged produce as fast as Abaya passed it to her, hardly looking up. By noon it was over and the vendors began cleaning up, laughing, loading, counting cash.

“You need pants,” Abaya said, taking her by the elbow. “Let’s see what that stinky hippie girl has for your long legs.”

Folded clothes were piled on a table at the clothing stall. The hippie woman chatted with a cluster of friends. A couple of rolling racks stood unevenly in the dirt behind them, garments hung in a jumble of color.

“We need pants,” Abaya said, interrupting the conversation, commanding attention. “You got any to fit this girl?”

Looking Lizette up and down, the woman dug down in a stack, pulled out a pair of blue jeans, handed them over.

“These might work.”

Lizette took the jeans, looked uncertain.

“Wanna try?” she said. “Go behind the screen by the van.”

Lizette sat on the van’s bumper and slipped out of the thermal underwear, dirtier now from the garden and the farmers’ market. She pulled on the jeans, which fit fine, but were frayed around the bottom, like stupid Greg’s, she thought.
Probably belonged to a shorter person.
She balled up the thermals, stuffed them into her bag and came out from behind the screen.

“You need a top to go with that?” the woman asked her.

“What?” Abaya huffed to the woman, before Lizette had a chance to answer. “You think you’re Seattle Nordstrom’s? We don’t got money for tops. Where’d you get that skunk oil you got on?” She put the flat of her hand to her nose so the woman would see.

“It’s patchouli, helps balance energy,” the woman said impatiently

“Maybe I should buy some of that stink and use it to scare deer away from my garden. I call that balance.”

The woman pulled at her chin hairs and looked down her nose at Abaya, moved her rough hands over the stacks of tops, arranged by size and color, scowled and said nothing.

“Maybe these shirts,” Abaya said, pulling out a red turtleneck, then a yellow blouse, a brown sweater. “But, only if it’s three for one price.”

She handed the woman two dollars and took the folded tops in her arms. She pulled a ten dollar bill out of her apron pocket, sniffed at the woman, waved the money briefly to show the woman she’d beaten her in the deal, gave it to Lizette.

“You worked good today,” Abaya said to Lizette. “I owe you at least twenty.” She looked the hippie woman up and down disapprovingly, turned and walked away.

“And, you don’t go out in public stinking, like some people!” She headed back to the stall where Poland was packing up.

Lizette hurried after Abaya, grabbed her arm and made her stop. “You didn’t need to talk to her like that. I don’t need the money. I took five from the cash box before we started.”

“I know. I saw you. You think I don’t see?” Abaya grumped. “Next time, ask! But you worked. That’s honest. You work, you get paid,” she said. “You want to work next week?”

“I’ll help, if you want. Sure.”

“OK. Now we have to go home and unload. Get ready for next week.”

They pulled onto Main Street, rain splattering the windshield, people hurrying to their cars. Wind whipped the town’s one dangling traffic light, which Poland ignored when it turned red.

“Criminal man,” Abaya muttered under her breath as they blew through the intersection. A pickup screeched its brakes to keep from hitting them, the driver laying on the horn.

“Jailbird wife,” Poland said, grinning, stepping on the accelerator, shifting the empty boxes in the truck bed.

After they unloaded and closed up the barn, Poland said he had to go to the ranch. Lizette hugged Abaya, who reminded her about working the market next week, then she climbed into the cab. When they pulled into the Cutler Ranch, they saw strange cars parked next to the house. Lizette noticed Rocket’s 88 and the open barn door, guessing he was inside.

“Looks like Rocket’s here,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “That’s his Oldsmobile. Greg said he might come up. And, Marian said a bunch of other people are coming from Seattle. She said they could crash in the hay loft.”