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whispered, “Salmon is familiar. It goes down.” She gave me a final pat and flapped off to crow at someone else.
    Ida slid in beside me next. She bounced on the bench, making my already queasy stomach worse.
    “Sisters,” she hissed through missing front teeth. “We’ll be real sisters now. Mom said you can move into my room. Girls aren’t supposed to live alone. Besides, Henry’s old enough to take a bride. Dad and Grandpa said he can live in your room, and you can share mine.You can have the top bunk if you want, and I’ll let you use my crayons.”
    I didn’t hate Ida yet, but I could see it coming.
    After the feast came the story. Uncle Jeremiah told it standing tall in his black-and-red robe of power in front of the carved panels of Whale and Raven. He sprinkled oil on the fire to make it burn brighter. The guests settled in silence.
    “Our whale hunt began beautifully,” he said. “We saw spouts to the northwest, but as we drew near, the whales dove and disappeared. Before, when we met our brothers on the open sea, they raised up their heads to greet us. In time, one would swim alongside our canoe and offer his life for us. But this time, the whales ran from us without even a raised head in greeting.
    “Had we offended them? Had we come to hunt with greed in our hearts? Disrespect in our minds? We prayed and searched, traveling farther from home.
    “The morning of the second day, we found a whale alone, a singer, a humpback. He had many notches along his tail from battles with killer whales. This old one greeted us in the traditional way. His body rose beside the canoe, and we saw scars. Deep gashes ran from the blowhole down to the tail. Some scars were old, but one was so fresh it bled. They were as deep and jagged as the scars a bear leaves on the bark of a tree.
    “My brother stood with his harpoon ready. As he lunged to strike, my son, Henry, shouted for him to stop, a direct challenge, a break in our silence.”
    There was a stir among the listeners. The old whalers from Neah Bay and Vancouver Island leaned their heads together and spoke with sharp urgency. They had the power to cast Henry out from the society of whalers.
    But the younger men and those from families that did not rank high enough to hunt whales looked at my cousin with admiration. I saw whispers pass among them and nods of satisfaction. If Uncle Jeremiah noticed the divided response, he gave no sign. He went on with the story.
    “The old whale lifted his head one last time and dove. My brother saw the dive coming. He leapt from the boat to the whale, ready to drive the harpoon deep and end our whale’s suffering. I did not see him strike.
    “The whale pushed our canoe over with his tail and disappeared. We struggled to right our boat, to collect our paddles. Henry dove for his uncle in the dark water. My brother and the whale vanished, with no sound, bubble, or spout.
    “We were alone on an empty sea. As we turned our canoe for home, my brother’s harpoon floated up from the depths, snapped in two pieces.
    “We paddled with heavy hearts, not guessing the sorrows ahead. That evening, we saw a ship. In the distance, we thought it was a steam-powered trader. Nearer, we took it for an ironclad navy vessel with a bow-mounted cannon.
    “Then the truth became clear. It was a battleship making war on the whales. The cannon held a harpoon. Dead whales were pumped full of air, chained up, and dragged along behind, only to be eaten away by sharks. Twenty whales were pouring out their blood, and still they steamed after more. The waste! The dishonor! We wanted to curse their white greed, but these sailors had faces like ours. They flew the red sun of Japan. Hours later, we passed more battleship whalers, one from America, one from Russia. We saw more dead whales in one day than this village has seen in three generations.”
    Uncle Jeremiah stepped back, his tale finished. Anger rose in the room like the tide.
    “Thieves!” a man