Just a Corpse at Twilight

Chapter 23

"Look what I made in therapy, folks," Lorraine said.

Lorraine had kayaked over from Bar Island and brought her war pipe, an artifact she had made herself, copied from a museum piece on view in Jameson's town hall.

Lorraine believed in using local materials to evoke local power. The pipe's stem was "moose wood," a type ofwillow, hollowed out with a stone awl dating back to a Penobscot village that preceded Jameson. She had found it on the beach. The pipe's bowl was birch she had cut herself. The raccoon-skin thong wrapped round the stem was part of a worn-out Seminole sandal, bought at an Indian road stall in the Florida Everglades. Five long feathers shed by Jameson Bay eagles, later dyed blood red with the juice of cranberries, had been found on the shore by Lorraine and Aki.

Bad George set the kitchen table in the pagoda. Flash baked biscuits and passed them out. Ishmael created a study in apple slices and grapefruit. Bad George had fried bacon dripping on paper napkins and an omelette puffing up on the stove.

They ate first, while the war pipe, a sinister presence in spite of their tribal banter, dangled from fishing thread attached to the kitchen lamp by de Gier.

Lorraine had brought tobacco too, Drum, in a plastic bag.

"Made in Holland," de Gier said, reading the plastic bag's print.

There was no shortage of omens.

"Beth?" Ishmael said into the CB radio's microphone. "Would you and Aki join us for coffee? I'll be picking you up at the dock at the Point."

Beth, being boss, got to untie the war pipe from the kitchen lamp. Lorraine stuffed the pipe's bowl with Drum shag tobacco. Aki lit the match.

The warriors puffed on the war pipe in turns.

"We condemn the accused?" Beth asked when the pipe passed back to her.

Bad George raised his hand. "For trying to kill Krip here by not picking him up when he was sucked east by the ocean in Little Max's dory."

"Humph," said the congregation.

"For sinking the Kathy Three by cutting her free and tapping her rotten bottom with a hammer."

"Humph."

"For willful destruction of Ishmael's Tailorcraft and of his collection of What."

"Humph."

"But that's okay," Ishmael said. "I'm going to do this new depth thing in the cannery now, with the colors. I still have those cans of yellow and orange paint and those sheets of old plywood. What I'm trying to achieve is some experiments with depth. You see…"

The group applied peer pressure by staring.

"I'll just humph on the Tailorcraft," Ishmael said. "Okay?"

"Killing loons?" Flash asked. "Mallards? That dolphin? Bears?"

"Humph."

Beth raised her hand. "For not taking the lady from the Macho Bandido to the hospital."

The group reflected.

"You think the lady might have been saved?" Bad George asked.

Beth had overheard Billy Boy talking to Hairy Harry in her diner, saying that he thought "she'd looked dead enough for burial."

"Humph."

"Humph what?" Beth asked.

Grijpstra thought that there didn't have to be action. Not on this side, he thought. Smoking the war pipe and humphing along might just do it.

"Do what?" Lorraine asked.

"Activate Shaman Otium Cum Dignitate."

"Out ofoffice with honor," former exchange-student-in-Viareggio-Italy Lorraine translated.

"They're more dangerous that way," Grijpstra said. "You know how it goes. Doesn't he have a pretty name? So we're all agreed now?"

"Yes," Beth said.

Why Beth was boss was explained differently by different parties later. Bad George and Flash Famsworth attributed Beth's power to her great weight. Ishmael mentioned Beth's spirit: Beth had inspired him to start the collection of What, to help cleanse his spirit after his release from Eastern Maine Mental. Beth was in charge of laundry at Maine Mental at the time. As she wore a white coat, some inmates thought Beth was with the psychiatric department. Beth, after hearing Ishmael out, had pronounced him normal.

"Can you imagine that?" Ishmael asked. "Me? Normal, to fly free? I tell you that was helpful."

Aki said Beth was lovable, and Lorraine said Beth was decent. Grijpstra said Beth was great. De Gier revealed a New Guinea dream he'd had during earlier training, after participating in Papuan rites. "Earth," the dream voice said, "will be saved by Big Woman."

"That's it?" Flash asked, checking the tribe's fcces.

That was it.