Mink River: A Novel by Brian Doyle Page B

his fire and fury.
    Grace steps forward and knocks on Owen’s window.
    7.
    Owen’s hammer pauses in mid-blow when he hears the rap of knuckles on his shop window and he turns to see who is knocking and sees Grace and she sees the startle in his face and her belly leaps and tumbles.
    Grace. Come in.
    Sorry to bother you so early.
    Is it early then?
    I think so.
    I’ve been … busy.
    What’s that?
    Daniel’s bicycle.
    What happened to it?
    He crashed, Grace. He went off a cliff. His legs are all smashed.
    O God.
    They operated for hours. His legs are all smashed. His knees are all smashed. My little boy. His bike is all smashed. My little boy. I have to fix his bike. He’ll want his bike. My little boy. He’s all smashed.
    O God.
    Everything’s all smashed, Grace.
    The shop is broiling hot and Owen is sweating profusely and he sits down heavily on his work-stool and bows his head so Grace can’t see his face but only the roil of his hair black as the inside of a dog and the hammer huge and steel-blue in his hand.
    She doesn’t know what to say. She reaches out and puts her hand in his wet hair and he begins to weep and she reaches out her other hand and touches his rough jawline. His face is all wet with tears and sweat and her hand gets all wet. She steps forward and brings his wet face into her loose sweater below her breasts and he weeps and weeps his shoulders shaking and shuddering. Her belly roils and tumbles. She doesn’t know what to say. The shop is broiling hot. She wants to say something but doesn’t know what to say so she says nothing and he weeps and her hand sifts through his hair.
    8.
    Worried Man here telling stories to my poor grandson as he sleeps with his broken legs. I think my voice crawls into him and heals him some so I will tell him some stories of the People. We have been here from before even our stories remember, my sweet boy. We lived by the mouths of rivers. We had magic numbers. Five was the magic number for men and four was magic for women. We had brothers and sisters far to the north, into the ice. Sometimes their boats appeared here out of the mist and we would talk to them. We built big houses of cedar and often several families would live together in the same house. Some of our houses were a thousand feet long. We ate flounder, herring, smelt, seals, sea lions, whales, salmon, elk, deer, bear, and yetska roots from the marshes. In winter we wore waterproof hats and robes of woven cedar. We used cedar for diapers, canoes, masks, drums, arrows, paddles, cradles, harpoons, rakes, weirs, looms, nets, rattles, rope, bowls, horns, whistles, blankets, and baskets. When we fought we wore armor made of dried elk leather and we painted our faces red and black. We made hats woven of spruce roots. We liked to drink sea lion oil. We ate salmonberries, thimbleberries, gooseberries, bearberries, shotberries. When one of our children died we left her toys and dishes out in the rain to bleach and fade. The greatest people among us were those who gave everything away. Our names were earned by deeds or dreams. Sometimes our old people would hand over their tired names to their children and take fresh names with which to die. We told stories sometimes for ten hours at a time. We could sing for ten hours at a time for days and days. We went to the mountains to see clearly when that was necessary but we were a people of rivers and the sea. Our houses faced the river or the sea. Sometimes our best storytellers would be the mayors of the town. There were two mayors for each river. In winter we would dance and sing and pray the world back into balance. We made blankets and baskets. We made the best canoes there ever were and our infants slept in cradles shaped like canoes and our dead slept in canoes that we would hoist into asayahal , the south wind. South Wind had many adventures. He lives in a cave now. No one knows where the cave is but Cedar and I have an idea. Ice was gecla in the old language, and