Joseph sat patiently, gloved hands gently holding the leather reins. He leaned onto the pommel of the saddle, standing in the stirrups for a moment to stretch his legs and still have an eagle’s view of the basin. The big roan gelding he rode snorted and stomped his foot impatiently, still full of energy despite the long day’s ride through brushy, thick-scrub country. The single pack mule stood head drooped, behind.
Below him, Joseph noted a cleared area not far from the river and knew that would be Philamon’s work. “Let’s go,” he said to the kelpie who had ingratiated himself by being forever present. At the last minute, Joseph had decided to take the dog along. Together, they started down, the gelding stirring up rolls of white lava dust like snow as they walk-slid down the hill.
A young man, nearly ten years younger than Joseph, Philamon had made significant progress in two years. Joseph was pleased that the money he’d sent had not been squandered. A completed two-story house sat at the edge of a huge stand of Ponderosa Pine. Several acres had been cleared and it appeared the timber put to good use as a large barn, corrals, and several out buildings were also complete. Some long-horned cattle tore at grass in a fenced area beyond. Chickens scratched in the garden Joseph rode past, promising a variety of vegetables. Joseph noted with approval that Philamon had ingeniously dug ditches to drain water from a small stream, irrigating the large garden and the cluster of fruit trees planted not far from the house. Even in the August heat with the grasses all around brown from lack of rain, Philamon had created a refuge of green.
Joseph inhaled the strong scent of pine and staying on his horse, listened for Philamon’s dogs to start barking his arrival. “Up,” he said to the kelpie and the dog leapt into his arms as though shot from his Sharps.
Philamon stepped like a shadow from behind the house at the sound of his dogs. He held a plains rifle loosely but ominously in his muscled arms. “Won’t hurt you,” he said in a voice surprisingly deep for someone so slender.
“The kelpie can hold his own,” Joseph said watching the dog’s lips curl back, hearing him clamp his jaws.
Philamon called to the dogs before they bit at the heels of the big roan Joseph rode. They barked louder as they discovered the kelpie, then came to the man who called them.
“Ye’ve done well, Philamon,” Joseph said, removing his leather hat and wiping the dampness from his forehead with the back of his forearm. His Irish accent always seemed to accompany introductory comments.
Philamon squinted. “Who are you, then?” he asked cautiously, adjusting his wire glasses. His hazel eyes quickly took in the size of the man, his expensive leather boots, his chaparejos, his whip coiled on the saddle. He spied the Sharps in the scabbard, an expertly rolled bedroll behind the cannel, a well-stocked pack animal. Philamon stepped closer, eyeing Joseph’s bearded face. Looking past the beard to the soft eyes of his landlord a spark of recognition hit him. “Joe?” He asked.
“Aye, ’tis me,” Joseph answered.
Philamon’s face formed a hesitant smile. “Well knock me flatter than a wallow! What are you doing here?” Then, as if remembering his manners, “No matter. I’ve just set the Arbuckle coffee on to brew. Down, Brutus! Cassius!” he called to the hounds sniffing at Joseph’s boots as he stepped down, still holding the kelpie.
Joseph shifted the dog and the men shook hands. And while each seemed pleased to see that the other had kept their agreements, Joseph sensed a caution from Philamon.
The kelpie pranced behind the men as they walked toward the corral, the larger dogs kept at bay by the smaller dog’s snapping jaw. Philamon described the process of planting the fruit trees as they walked.
At the corral, they stripped the gelding of his saddle and bridle and brushed him till he cooled. Joseph hung the blacksnake coiled at his hip and carried the Sharps into the house with him while Philamon pulled the pack box from the mule.
“So,” Philamon said clearing his throat, probing, “have you found that California doesn’t suit you?” He poured coffee into the porcelain cup he handed to Joseph, some into his own chipped ironstone cup.
“California’s chirk,” Joseph answered, his glance resting on Philamon’s stack of books on the floor.
“Figured by now you’d be wearing a California collar,” Philamon joked awkwardly, referring to the popular name for a hangman’s noose. “Or aren’t you playing cards these days?” Then added quickly, “Not that you didn’t always win fairly.” He paused before saying, “Some would question your good luck.”
“Still playing,” Joseph said, “but with less enthusiasm.”
“No wedding ring, either,” Philamon said. “Should be settled with a growing pack of kids ’stead of just a contrary dog to follow you about.” He cleared his throat again and swung a leg over one of several store-bought chairs surrounding the pine table. Sitting, his arms rested on the back of the chair. Joseph felt he was keeping a distance.
“No wedding ring,” Joseph said. For just a moment he thought of his brothers and sisters, all married. “But the dog never talks back.”
A Seth Thomas clock ticked quietly in the silence.
“Ye’ve done good work here, Philamon,” Joseph said gently leaning into the table, his forearms resting. He was aware that something troubled Philamon. “I’ve not come to take it away.”
Philamon exhaled loudly. He tipped his cup for a drink, sat holding both hands around it as if for warmth. “Didn’t think it was so obvious,” he said. “I find I like it here, more than I thought I would.” He coughed then said, “Hard work, but accomplishments, too. And time to read at night. Think. Even write some with no one to answer to but myself.” Philamon stood up, grabbed a section of flour sack he used as a pot holder, and picked up the coffee pot. He refilled his own cup through the speckled spout and turned to fill Joseph’s.
“So if you’re not here to farm,” he said, “what are you doing so far from home?”
“Bringing you more books,” Joseph said. I’ve brought The Virginians which should keep you occupied on a cold winter’s night. And a copy of Mill’s essay “On Liberty.” Timely, even if it is three years old.” Then aware that he wasn’t being totally truthful he added, “Not sure why I’m here. Maybe check on market rumors,” he finished lamely. He moved to the pack box and began unloading staples and the books.
“Might check out the Powder River country. Hear they’re looking for corn freights to supply the mines. Have you heard anything?” Joseph asked.
Philamon sat back down, this time with his feet under the table. “Most of the talk is about the war and if it’ll come here. People getting their dander up. Think we were still back in Illinois or New York or Virginia ’stead of out here, making our own country.” He reached in his vest pocket for his pouch of tobacco and rolled a cigarette. “Just get the Indians settled and we’ve a war among our own to deal with.” He struck a flint, lit the paper, and inhaled, coughing. “I hear the Canyon City country in the Strawberry Mountains is the real strike. First one was in ’59. They’re finding more each year.”
“Might be something there, then,” Joseph said, scratching at his beard.
“Course the Powder River has good promise. But why would you want it, to get back into packing at all, I mean?”
Joseph shrugged. “Not sure I do,” he said and took a sip from his cup. “Just not sure what I want to do.”
Joseph spent three days with Philamon. They spoke more of books and wars and dogs with Bandit winning Philamon’s heart by his cattle-herding abilities and the kelpie’s ability to hold its own with the hounds. Then Joseph headed east along the Applegate trail toward Christmas Lake. From the desert lake, Joseph and the kelpie followed an old wagon trail. Vegetation was sparse. Still, he was impressed by a massive granite outcropping that seemed to rise more than a mile up out of the desert, especially as it meant an extra four days of riding to go around it.
When he reached the deep canyons of the Snake River, he headed north toward the Powder River country. No
t far from Ft. Boise, he picked up the Northern Immigrant Road and was surprised by the number of wagons he encountered. Prospectors, some; mostly settlers, making their way to the Columbia River and Dalles City, gateway to the Eden they’d all been promised.
He wondered where they would all end up, what dreams they carried with them. He spoke with some: farmers from Indiana; a woman photographer from the Dakota Territory; an investor working for a bank back east. Despite the hardships they all spoke of, there was a hopefulness in their spirit that brought smiles to their faces as they talked of what they’d shared and planned for. It was as though they were rehearsing for the times they’d tell their children and grandchildren of what they’d endured, the fears they’d conquered traveling across the plains, seeking a new and different life.
“And I wished, just for a moment,” he told me as we rode together some years later, “that I had someone besides the kelpie who might want to hear my story. Or better, someone to create a story with.”
“Well, you were almost thirty,” I teased, “and had so little to show for your years.” He swatted his hat at me.
“Nothing about the Powder River country promised any hope of finding either listener or partner,” he remembered. “But neither did the ranch in California.”
In the morning, he had rubbed his chilled hands over his fire and speaking with the kelpie, considered the coldness of the sunrise. “Can actually see me breath!” he said. On its belly, the dog eased out of Joseph’s bed roll, stretched its short legs, and perked its pointy ears toward his master. “Little too cool for my blood this time of year,” he said. When he heard the call of the greater Canada geese and saw above him more than one hundred in formation and it being only September, he was reminded of Fish Man’s words. “Looks like it ’twill be an early winter,” he said as much to himself as the kelpie.
And having seen enough of high, cold country that turned his thoughts to making memories and relationships he did not have, he turned west, thinking to surprise Fish Man on his way back to California. He’d find the river of the falls, the Deschutes, and perhaps the two could net a fish or two and return together to the Hupa Valley, well before snow fell in the mountains.
Fish Man was a man of vision, after all, though Joseph wondered if he truly could foretell the future or its weather.
CONNECTIONS
Be careful, Nana,” Standing Tall said, reaching out to restrain Sunmiet, holding her arm so his fingers pinched into her flesh.
Sunmiet said: “Oh, hayah! This is not my first time.”
“The fish make the stand slippery,” he warned, treating her as one who did not know anything. “It has turned cold quickly, with frost now. And the wind blows. It could lift a small feather like you, drop you like the eagle drops the remains of his prey into the water.” He held her elbow with an owning grip, walked her away from the platform’s edge. I trailed after them like a listening shadow. “The rope should be around you, even just to look,” Standing Tall chided.
“I am not just small prey,” Sunmiet snapped. She pulled against him without success. “My father asked me to bring him the ropes and nets.”
“We have been fortunate this year,” Standing Tall continued, preaching a bit about the summer’s success. “All will return to their families. I would not want your father’s daughter to be the spoiler on the last days of the salmon run.” His one eye drooped and he squinted at her with the other in the way he had of making his point. Her look seemed to wither him at least and he released her elbow. He said: “Nana, you be careful.”
“I am not your sister!” She stood a safe distance from his reach. “So do not treat me as one.” She stepped gingerly over the coiled ropes that she had readied for transport back to her father’s lodge. We were in no danger.
“I will treat you as one I care for,” he called to her back, “even if you resist.” I could hear true caring for her in his voice.
She spoke to me as we dragged the nets and ropes toward her father’s teepee: “I wish we could return to the times when we laughed and played together, instead of stirring the air with our anger.”
Since her father had set the time for their marriage—the next summer—after another year at the boarding school, Standing Tall had changed. He had begun teaching Sunmiet when she did not care to be taught, treating her like a small child. “I am neither fragile or a child and sometimes I just want to be away from him as he makes me feel both.”
She thought to tell him something, yelled over her shoulder: “It saddens my heart that you see me only as one to be taken care of!” We heard him say something and she whirled to face him. “I have arrived through fourteen summers without your guidance. I can enter this season without your words of wisdom, too.” Her hands hugged hips, elbows out. Her teeth held each other to keep from having her tongue say anything more.
“Your father has given me the right to look after you,” Standing Tall said, catching us. He touched her gently on the shoulder. “But I will only do it if it pleases you. I do not want a wife who wishes she was somewhere else.”
“Then see me as I am,” Sunmiet said. Calmer, she added, “For I am my father’s daughter, strong. And my mother’s daughter, wise. Not one of your little sisters.”
The roar of the falls filled the silence as the two stared at each other like dogs with raised hair. I fidgeted, feeling an intruder.
Standing Tall spoke finally. “I will look again at you,” he said quietly.
Sunmiet smiled a wary smile at him. I saw her shoulders sink as though relieved they had taken a step to cross a bridge of irritation that seemed to follow them like the swallows to the mud. “Good,” Sunmiet said, quick to honor his respect. “We will make a new start.”
“But you must still stay off the springboard,” Standing Tall added, ruining it all: “It is no place for a small girl.”
“Oh, hayah!” Sunmiet stomped purposefully toward the camp leaving him with his eyes full of confusion.
“Let us walk,” Sunmiet told me. “I must find a way to bend my thoughts.”
“I shouldn’t leave sight of the babies,” I said, glancing at the row of cradleboards leaning in the shade of the long house lodge. “Even the platform is almost too far away. Kása will have my hide skinned off in a minute if I went out of sight.” It had taken me awhile to make my way past the clucking kása. Her stares at me from a distance let me know my presence was often not appreciated. When Sunmiet’s mother had suggested I look after the babies while the women cleaned fish, cut and dried the salmon, Kása had initially resisted.
“She cannot be trusted to look after so many children,” she said in the click-click language. When Sunmiet translated her opinion to me I felt as though she had struck me on the face. Hadn’t she nodded her approval that first day? I must have misunderstood.
Sunmiet and Morning Dove had spoken for me in the circle of the women. It had been agreed that I would watch the little ones in the cradleboards. Young married women would take turns being responsible for the more active ones.
The arrangement had succeeded. My tricks to soothe the babies worked and I was diligent, rarely left their sides, never let the sun beat on their faces. When I removed them from their boards to clean their bottoms or let them play, I was careful, lacing the leather, placing a blanket over the empty board to protect it, keep it safe from the spirits the people believed in. I didn’t understand their spirits, but I would do nothing to upset Kása. Placing the babies back inside their boards, I swaddled them tightly as they liked, made sure the moss pillow protected their necks and their chubby backs, laced the rawhide with one hand while I gentled them to sleep on my knees. I always tied the rawhide so the brace would protect them should they slip and fall face forward. I kept a cool cloth over the wild rose brace to ward off the flies and the heat and the bright sun from their eyes.
Once I had even startled a toddler turning blue from something she had eaten. Remembering Rachel, in seconds I’d pulled the baby from her board, dru
mmed on her back and a chunk of chewed venison had shot like a spit ball to the ground. I’d savored the murmuring of approval I’d heard for my quick wisdom, looked for Kása’s nod and thought I’d found it.
Caring for these little ones was something I could do. I was grateful to feel useful with children again. I touched the dreamcatcher hanging from the brace of Toto as we talked. It moved gracefully back and forth to keep the baby busy.
Sunmiet took notice of the activity in the circle of the lodges, the dogs, the racks of salmon drying, women working, cutting. Babies in their cradleboards leaned against the shady side of the skin lodges. “Yes,” she said. “You must stay here. I will walk alone, away from the anger that this man so easily gives me. Still,” she said thinking, “your company would please me. The weeks have gone well and as the camp is breaking, there are fewer chores. Maybe Bubbles would watch them.”
I was willing to take a chance. “Stay here,” I said.
Bubbles lounged in the shade of a juniper not far from the camp. Her round body had expanded like an elk bladder through the summer and I knew she’d be reluctant to move to the cradleboards without incentive.
“Kása put dried choke cherries into the jellied black moss,” I told her. “I watched her do it. It will be sweet. I will give you some of my share when it comes out of the fire pit. In return for a few minutes of your time, watching babies.”
Bubbles grunted, negotiated. “All of your share?” she said.
I pretended hesitation. The black moss was actually too sweet for my taste so it was easy to give it up. I didn’t want to sound too eager. “Well, I like the choke cherries …” I said.
“I will watch,” Bubbles said, interested now, “if I have all of it.”
“Well …”
“I can be persuaded,” she said lazily and grunted as she stood, brushing fry bread crumbs from the folds across her jelly-belly, “for all of it.”
I nodded once in agreement. Negotiations completed, she walked with heavy legs, so slowly for one so young, and settled her bulk like a mass of jellied moss next to where the children sat alert in their boards.