The Cannibal Spirit by Harry Whitehead

Well, he’d learned to soak up the people’s taciturnity. But it showed he wouldn’t ever be a real part of their world. If he could have fled this very night, he might well have done it, and none would ever know where he had gone. But the storm made such a deed impossible. Anyhow, it would mean he’d have to go far away, since Halliday could put the word all up and down the coast that he was a wanted man. Then he’d have every damned government boat scouring for him.
    Once they were away, Charley would effectively be guardian over him for Halliday. Not that Charley would be doing it deliberately. He was certain Charley had no loyalty to Halliday, beyond the pay he’d receive. Harry was bound up for now in the fate of the Hunt family. What that might mean should George fail to be found, or refuse to return, Harry did not know. For now, though, there was nothing more to be done. All he could do was try to find George, and lay it all out before him.
    So he pressed the tobacco dead in his fingers, and returned to bed. His wife snored softly, and with the storm still battering at the wooden building, he lay on his side and watched the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders, until she sighed and her hand came up and held tight to his shoulder, and he drifted at last into sleep.
    Harry stood on his porch in his shabby long johns, yawning and surveying the world. The dawn came clear with a light wind out of the west. The air was fresh, the usual smells of the village washed for once away. A dogbarked, half-hearted. Some cocks crowed. A few of the people were up and around, down on the beach.
    He sipped coffee. In the back, his wife prepared a breakfast of stewed salmonberries, mackerel, and rice, a staple for Harry after his many years in the Orient. He threw out the dregs from his cup, hawked as loud as any Chinaman, and spat a great black gobbet down onto the beach. He felt calm, resolute even. He had his role to play, and he’d perform it effectively. One thing leading to another.
    He saw Charley coming toward him. “Yoh,” Harry called.
    Charley trudged his way up the shingle to the store. “I make food for trip,” he said, stepping onto the porch. “Dry salmon. Berry, enough some box. Grease from eulachon.” He cackled. “You learn like grease on boat many day, huh? You have coffee, sugar, thing, right?”
    â€œI’ll bring rice and coffee and the like, and I’ll have some things to trade as we go.”
    â€œWe make business together. Half profit me.”
    â€œAlways a nose for the fast penny, eh, Charley?”
    â€œRaven.”
    â€œI reckon it better to look like we’re trading than for all to know our real business.”
    â€œEk.” Charley nodded.
    â€œLet’s eat. But where are we headed after?”
    â€œTalk at sea. Ear everywhere. Give old George time think, not other bastard follow behind, not story go Hal’day ear too.”
    Harry shrugged. There was no one within four hundred yards except his wife, and she in the back cooking, but he knew the futility of argument.
    Several of the people came to watch them at the jetty as they made ready to leave. Harry’s wife was there, and George’s, and Charley’s missus sitting farther up the beach, shaking her head and pontificating raucously, until her husband threw hard words at her, and some of the Indians already drunk jeered him.
    Halliday came down the jetty, earnest and rigid against the muttering of the people round him. “You’re well today, Harry?” he said.
    â€œWell as might be.”
    â€œHave you a strategy as to where you’ll be headed?” Halliday looked to Charley. The old cripple took no visible notice as he stacked blanket bales on the deck of the Hesperus .
    â€œWe’ve some thoughts,” said Harry slowly, “but none are firm. We’ll get to sea and make our plans then.”
    â€œTaking some trading goods with