The ocean reflects the light of the fire. Orange coolness licks her ankles.
She breathes, and steps further into the water. She thinks of her son. The moon shines above the man�s silhouette.
A bird flies, indistinguishable from the obsidian sky.
*
The TV screen has a bird�s-eye view. The photographer sits against the seat in the cutter�s cabin. Others in Coast Guard orange surround him. From the bow they can�t see as well as via satellite and monitors. The NBC chopper has the best shot because it is the fastest with the largest camera. On a background of today�s ocean the canoe is small; near it is the grayish outline of a whale. A spout of water shoots upward from one end like a tiny white distress flare.
The cameras zoom. One of the men in the boat stands, his yellow t-shirt significant against the rest of the scene. He throws a silver rod toward where the flair had been. A red ribbon appears in the water. There is the crack of a rifle. The whale begins to sink. There are cheers; seen, not heard. The photographer rises. One of the Coast Guard whistles watching the trailing ribbon of blood. Taking an enormous zoom lens David goes to the bow, aims, clicks off rapid shots of film at the distant canoe and fishing boat. Through the lens he can see high fives, the raising of oars over heads. Celebration. One of the paddlers is wiping tears from his cheeks with a gloved hand.
It takes several hours for the fishing troller to haul the whale back to the surface. The meat is no good, but no one will care. The hunters had not been fast enough and the whale sank to the bottom of the ocean before the traditional sewing up of its mouth. Now the fishing troller�s diesel winch has dragged the whale out of the ocean�s grasp, two of the hunters stand triumphantly atop its back like amateur surfers. As the engine pulls them all, canoe in tow, back to the shore, the men, brothers, wrestle in celebration and one goes falling off the back of the whale. He shouts and laughs at his brother and their clapping laughing family on the shore.
The tribe rejoices. The men cut off pieces of the whale and eat it. Children try bites and spit it out onto the ground in agony before washing out their mouths with Coca Cola. As night falls, two adolescent boys, still too young to join in the hunt, run out to the tip of Father and Son Rock to wave their middle fingers at all the protest boats still in the bay. Their mother�s shout for them to get back to the fire.
On one of the boats was a huge man with a movie camera and picture camera. He took a rowboat to shore. David was his name. He took video and photographs. From his rowboat he saw the boys on the peninsula and heard their mothers� screaming. He saw the boy fall and saw the body slamming against the rocks. He landed his rowboat and navigated his way across the slippery rocks to bring the gasping body back to the mothers whom continued to scream. The mothers thanked him, thanked him and yelled at the boy who was unconscious but breathing and alive. An ambulance came and took the boy and his mother. The father offered David a drink: a coffee or a beer. Yes, a beer would be fine.
He took some pictures.
I was rowing to shore to try and get some photographs, he told the father. I apologize. I don�t want to intrude. I am an artist, not a news reporter. I�m from Seattle, he said. The father nodded and believed him and said, You are welcome here, and he was. Then a boy who didn�t fall returned with a beer. The photographer thanked him, and the boy looked up at him with a slice of whale flesh on a Swiss Army pocketknife, not unlike a slice of an apple. The boy smiled and David took his picture. The boy extended his thin arm and the slice of whale to David, as an offering. David reached below his waist, took the slice and bit.
He took pictures and walked around.
The helicopters left. The news reporters left. The fire and voices grew in volume and David took less pictures.
There exist entire worlds hidden within other ones.
Tribes beyond Neah Bay came for the celebration. Northwest tribes from all over Washington State. Other tribes to support the one tribe.
Twenty-five thousand whales in the ocean.
There were circles of narrations around fires, shared stories passed down by grandparents.
David closed his camera. He listened. He ate whale.
Totem poles. Ravens. The Western Red Cedar�s impending extinction.
Twelve hundred Makah in the world.
Met the hunters. Examined the canoe. Held the rifle. Held history in his hands. Held a whale�s death and a people�s life and the death of a past life.
David looked. A man like a giant white tree, a cedar stripped of its natural bark so that it�s only a matter of time before it dies.
The whole time trying not to grimace at the spoiled taste of something that�s laid at the bottom of the ocean for hours.
Joseph Riippi A recent Pacific Northwest defector, Joseph Riippi was born and raised in Seattle but currently lives at 91st and 2nd in Manhattan. He is a staff writer at several magazines and newspapers, and the Arts & Opinions Editor at Beyond Race Magazine in New York. In 2007, he won the 2nd Annual Farmhouse Magazine Prize in Fiction.
Fiction and Poetry: Farmhouse Magazine (winner of 2007 Fiction Award)�Nano Fiction�The Common Line Project�Soultruths: Anthology of International Writing�On Tap Magazine�20 Dissidents�A Gallery of Writing (Coll. Of William and Mary)�Jump! (Coll. Of William and Mary)�The Flat Hat
Non-Fiction: Seattle Sound Magazine�Tablet Magazine (Seattle)�MoFaux Quarterly (Seattle)�Beyond Race Magazine (NYC)�On Tap Magazine (Washington DC)�Three Imaginary Girls (Seattle)
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