West of Here by Jonathan Evison Page B

presented it to the boy, who immediately brought it to his nose upon receiving it.
    “Have the Shakers come for you yet?” George wanted to know. “If not, they will come soon. From Jamestown. They’ll want to put you to work, and that may be a good thing; you could do worse. They think the spirits are evil, but they have only given them new names. Don’t go with them. Wait until your time has come. Wait until the day you become a man. Only then can you decide what to do.”
    George disappeared into the cabin again and shortly reemerged clutching a length of leather dangling what looked like a bone filed to a point. Presenting it to the boy, who was intently smelling his sourdough as he turned it round and round in his hands, it occurred to Indian George that sometimes the spirits worked in mysterious ways.
    “Maybe one day you’ll meet the shark that’s missing this tooth. Or maybe it’ll be another. The shark is the truth.”
    The boy hardly seemed to notice when George strung the necklace on him.
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    NEAR DUSK, ETHAN set out from the little bluff to scavenge windfall from along the edge of the wood line. It was cooling down again, and the trees no longer dropped snow pats in the meadow. Ethan passed once more the spatter of blood left by the doe that morning, and he felt a pang of hunger. The heat of the blood had left small craters in the snow.
    It took Ethan less than fifty yards of scavenging along the wooded fringes to fill his arms. Just as he was about to circle back to the bluff, something caught his eye in the meadow to the south, a dark figure sprawled in the snow, about halfway to the head of the canyon. He set his load down where he stood, and set off to examine the figure.
    The doe was still breathing after all those hours. The breath bubbling from her nostril had tunneled a hole in the snow. Dark blood had coagulated around the ragged edges of the entry wound, where the shot had shattered her shoulder, exposing the bone.
    She’d lost a lot of blood. It spread out around her in the snow in the shape of a bell. Ethan could not gauge the extent of her suffering, nor did he wish to. The look in her eye was weak and placid.
    He went for his rifle.
    When he returned, he put the barrel to her temple and could not help but look into her eye once more, and when he did the trigger seemed to resist his pull.
    He dragged the carcass all the way back to the cabin, leaving a bloody swathe in the snow as he progressed. He returned for his wood, tended the fire, and dressed the doe according to some vague notions. He found the hide to be tougher than he anticipated. The work was messy, and Ethan discovered that the job did not entice his appetite, and he wondered at his own vitality. But later, forcing himself to eat, he found that the fresh meat put his stomach at ease, and not long after dark he was heavy with sleep.

potato counter
     
    DECEMBER 1889
     
    Hoko knew that Adam would have questions because he always had questions; it was not only his job to ask questions but his line of defense, too. In his days with the census, his inquisitive nature had earned him the name Potato Counter among the Klallam, for he had counted everything under the sun, every chicken, horse, and potato, it seemed.
    Hoko watched him, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his forehead as he strode down the beach toward her with the heavy determined steps of a white man, as though the ground were not there to accommodate his steps but only to slow his progress. When he drew near, she could see the cruelty in his blue eyes without looking up, she could see his set jaw, and his straight upper lip, and feel the rock hard stubbornness of his will and know that it was etched in the lines of his stubbled face. Hoko also knew, however, that something soft in him still remained, where she herself had hardened. She knew that Adam would not sit by the fire, he would stand, because he always stood.
    “Where is the boy?” he said.
    “Around,”