A Sweetness to the Soul
Joseph also spent hours in quiet walking, sketching, allowing me to sometimes simply stroll beside him in the silence. I watched satisfaction appear readily on his face when he saw his sketches rise to real—to barns and smokehouses and especially to the pack trails he reinforced across meandering streams, up steep switchbacks. Trails that looked like some giant had dragged his finger across steep hillsides, cleared rock and ridges with his fingernail into narrow, twisting roads. Joseph loved seeing accomplishments where some said none could be. He was always a giant in my mind.
And like an attentive husband, he noticed and remembered things to make a difference. That I liked early morning rides regardless of the weather. That it would please me to have him ask permission to join me in them, honoring my privacy and my right to choose. And no gift he ever gave me had more meaning than one received each morning while I slowly met the day. Half asleep, his arms around me, my head resting on his chest, I’d feel his lips upon my forehead, hear him whisper through my rest.
“What is it?” I asked the first time it happened.
He was quiet. I felt him swallow, then he said, “I’m prayin’ on ye, darlin’. It’s how I start me day.”
Nothing ever lifted me on my sometimes weary way as remembering his lips against my skin asking for blessings on my day.
And we nurtured each other’s dreams: mine, to have a family still; Joseph’s, to own the falls, build a home there and a bridge, open up the interior of Oregon.
In all those years, I counted myself privileged to be married to my best friend.
“I don’t understand how you hope to bring a stagecoach down the ridge,” I told him one morning as we curled under the down comforter together. Dawn eased up the hollow like a lazy dog, slow but sure to arrive through the starched white curtains over the bedroom windows. Over the years, Joseph had shown me portions of his ideas in his sketch books. Still I struggled with understanding what he planned to really do.
“Let’s get up,” he said, impulsive. He pushed the down comforter away from our faces presenting us with a blast of November air. “Ride down to the falls so I can really show you.” Thinking further he added: “Pack a lunch and we’ll picnic. Make a day of it, ride up the other side where you can really see it.”
“It’s November!” I said. “Picnic?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure? Have you lost it with your youth?” He poked my midriff, still slender, showing no signs of aging. Or of birthing.
“Oh, pooh!” I told him. “I’ll always be younger than you, old man.” I poked him back, his small paunch showing the signs of regular food cooked with loving hands.
He laughed, pushing me out of bed, the rag rug delaying the squeal I always made when my feet hit the cold floor beyond it.
“Bundle up,” he said, getting dressed. “I’ll bring up the mules.”
“O-o-o-h,” I said, “we really are going to ride up steep slopes if you’re bringing on the big guns.”
“Don’t want to take any chances on slick surfaces riding with an old woman on a skittish horse,” he assured me as he stomped into his boots. “Wear your fur boots. It’ll be warmer. And the split skirt.”
“I know, I know,” I told him. “I’m old enough to dress myself.”
I grabbed my clothes, bounced past him on tip toes into the main room to stand in front of the glowing embers of the fire. A shiver passed through me and I reached for the bellows to fan the flames. I still held them when Joseph came up behind me. He wrapped his arms around me, brushed his beard on my face. “I love you,” he said as he released me then shot out through the door, chanting, “old and aging as you are.”
I threw the bellows at him. They hit the closed door.
It was a wonderful trip! And for the first time I did truly see what he saw.
“And we’ll build a huge house here,” he said, “a hotel, two, three stories of the finest wood, with huge rooms and glass windows so people can look out onto the falls.” We were standing on the narrow strip of land that bordered the river, just beyond the crossing.
“They’ll practically step out onto the bridge,” I pointed out, “if you build so close.”
“There’ll be room,” he said, “for the road to run past the front and turn east, to cross the bridge. I’ve checked it. A big bridge, wide enough to accommodate wagons and stages and herds of cattle and sheep. That rope lava, over there will be the backdrop for the hotel.” He turned my shoulders around so I faced the row of rock posts Pastor Condon said were of the Clarno Period, unique in their thickness as they rose up from the river canyon forming a steep, flat ridge at the top. He spoke more loudly, to overcome the roar of the falls.
“What about my garden?” I said. “Where will that be? There isn’t even any soil here, just rock.” I was thinking of what I would leave behind, the rich black soil that gave up fresh vegetables and good seeds for the drying gourds each year.
“Beside the ledge,” he said. “We’ll bring in earth, loads of it, enough for a garden and an orchard. And over there,” he pointed to the base of the Tygh Ridge, moving his finger and my eyes up to the top of the steep and dipping ravines dotted with sagebrush and junipers, “we’ll build up the pack trail. Bring it all the way down to the bridge. Improve the crossing then build a real road up the other side. Cut through that lava and open up the way to Bake Oven and Canyon City. Rocks and sagebrush roots as a base so the road’ll withstand the rain and snow. People will know it’s safe to go this way and take less time.” His enthusiasm grew with each shared detail.
“Who will build it all? It’ll take dozens of men, just for the buildings. And the roads … How do you propose to pay for these grand ideas,” I said, popping holes in his dreams. I’d become more familiar with our finances over the years and found that Joseph was never restricted by ordinary resources such as cash.
“There’ll be a way,” he said. He walked closer to the roaring falls, stepped off distances from the base of the ridge to the river. “Room for a barn here, this side. For stock changes. One over there, too, for cattle, blacksmith.” He was off on his own. “May sold it to Hemingway. Hemingway to O’Brien. Every time I think we’re close to buying, someone else slips in.”
I heard the frustration in his words but more, his absolute commitment that someday this land would be ours.
I persisted. “It will take thousands of dollars. And years. Look how long it’s taken just to build up the pack trail,” I reminded him. “Now you want to widen that to bring down stages and freighters, too?”
“More people use it,” he told me. “Just like I said.”
“And how will we build? Get everything down here. Who? Let alone the road—”
“There’ll be a way,” he said, reassuring. “I’ve seen it happen time and again: set your course and amazing things happen. To quote my old friend, Frederic: ‘Plan, then mit faith, do.’ ”
I wanted to share in Joseph’s enthusiasm. Still, the unpredictability of it alarmed me. For a brief moment I remembered Luther up to bat and wondered if marrying him—and predictability—would have really been so bad.
“And where will we live in the meantime, while you’re building and building?”
“At our Inn,” he said to my surprised face. “Small one to begin with, but room enough to serve stageriders and sleep them overnight.” Joseph stared at the choke cherry trail we’d just ridden down. “Put it there for now, close to where the stream comes into the Deschutes.” He talked as if we already owned it. “Have seven or eight rooms. Enough to board and bed until we build the hotel.”
A hotel! I thought. “You’d better plan to build some privies and keep people for quite awhile,” I said only half in jest. “After coming down that road you propose, people’ll be stopping off at the outhouse for sure; then do some building of their own.”
“They will?” Joseph asked.
“Building courage to go up the other side.”
He laughed. “Look,” he said, pulling me to him, w
rapping me against his bulky coat. “Trust me in this. It’ll be a good place for us. With the bridge and the roads, we’ll give to the future, not just take from it. And the change, maybe it’ll be good for us.” He held me still. “Here, there’ll be room enough for all our children,” he said softly. “And for that garden. Even for the fancy parlor you always wanted. Big enough to dance in. Right here,” he said, marking the space with his heel. “In fact …” He moved away from me.
I knew he was up to something. He wore a delighted look on his face pink with the cold. He took my mittened fingers, bowed low, and said: “Is your dance card all filled?”
“I believe it has your name on it,” I said and curtsied in my boots. He lifted my hand, bowed ever so slightly, and we danced while he sang.
Have you ever heard tell
of sweet Betsy from Pike,
who crossed the wide prairie
with her lover Ike.
With two yoke of oxen and
one spotted hog,
a tall Shanghai rooster
and an old yellow dog.
There beside the river, to the tune of “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” we danced. While the mules stomped impatiently at their tethers, my fur boots catching on the rough rocks, we danced. Cold air settled down around us like the wispiness of a dream, and we danced. Bandit watched us warily. Joseph limped just a little. I stretched on tiptoes to place my hands on his wide shoulders and he lifted me, swung me gently about, setting me down facing the falls.
“Here’s where we’ll come to then,” he said, his arms tight around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest and his dream. “And God willing, we’ll build it all, Janie. We’ll build it all, together.”
CLEANSING
Steam rose off Sunmiet’s bare back like the mist over a high Cascade Lake in early morning. Wet, and black as obsidian, her hair cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall at night. My nose tickled from the heat, became more sensitive to the piercing cedar smell. I watched as she bent over the rocks, her face lit by the firelight, her hair a veil on either side of her face. The other women and children had sweated earlier and left. It was just the two of us still in her family’s sweat lodge.
When Standing Tall started the fire, the rocks were almost perfectly round and nearly white. They burned red now, with dark centers that seemed to flicker with life. Sunmiet lifted another rock from the flames with the long-handled rake, slipped the hot rock onto the deer shoulder-bone strapped to the end of the stick, and gingerly carried it to the lodge. “Step into the river,” she said. “Cool your body. Drink some water. Then return.”
Snowmelt from the mountain made the Deschutes River even colder than ice but I did as instructed. It was the fourth time that night I had looked at the moon, felt the cool air tingle my hot skin, braced myself for the cold after bearing the heat. The excitement of the new experience did not decrease my reluctance to face the water. I overcame it, plunged in, and sucked my breath as the water shocked my pores closed, covered my head with the tingling of a thousand fingers, filled every part of my body. Submerged, I lasted only a second or two before I shot from the water, gasping for air.
With goose bumps for companions, I walked rapidly the short distance from the river to the small rounded lodge covered with mud and hides and blankets, lifted the hide door and on hands and knees, crawled into the welcoming heat inside.
“So sweet it smells,” I said, squeezing water from my hair, dribbling it on the hot rocks. The immediate, steamy warmth of the lodge felt wonderful. I could not see Sunmiet in the darkness, just felt her there. As my eyes adjusted, the glow from the rock pit near the door gave enough light to see her face, a ripple of shadow over serenity.
“Rose water,” she said. Onto the rocks she splashed water from a tin cup. “It has special meaning for us and smells good too.” The water sizzled against the hot stones like water in the spider at the hearth but with a sweet fragrance. “The cedar branches symbolize strength and purity and healing.”
The hot, black quiet drained all cares from my body, made me restful as I had never been. Time traveled over us without leaving tracks.
When my breathing seemed labored, Sunmiet’s voice came from a great distance to remind me to go outside, inhale the fresh air, slip again into the water, drink to cool my parched throat, and then return. “We have already added ten rocks,” she said. “You are doing well for the first time, enduring much heat, taking in much cleansing. Do not harm yourself by trying to remain too long.”
“I’m all right. What about you?”
“A little more time.” She sat quietly, her silence urged me to remain.
“Standing Tall worries me,” she said into the dark. “He is angry at the changes in his life. He blames others but hurts himself. I am afraid for him. And for my children and myself.”
I didn’t know what to say so, like a listening friend, said nothing.
“Sometimes, I hear the elders who have gone before,” Sunmiet told me. “I see them, too, in the faces in the rocks. They speak to me of what to do.” She was silent. “They are friends. And old kásas. Go out now or you will bring yourself damage. This is a healing place, but we can let it harm.”
I crawled out through the opening, my knees taking on the impression of the cedar twigs and branches on the ground. I gasped in the cool air, aware that my lungs seemed fuller, more expanded. The fir tree offered balance. I waited, caught my breath, felt the rough bark against my skin, the dizziness in my head.
The sweat was cleansing even if it did nothing to increase my chance to have a child. None of the specialists’ suggestions had worked though we’d visit any new one we heard of. It was almost the new decade and we still waited for a child of our own. We had not yet made the trip to the herb doctor and Joseph had finally, reluctantly, only to honor my judgment, agreed to the sweat.
Once more, I plunged into the creek, noting the thin ice lining the water’s edge like lace. Shivering, I rejoined Sunmiet in the lodge.
“It is a time to pray,” Sunmiet said. Hunched over, I could feel the willow sidewalls, the low, arched ceiling, sense the branches that kept the heat from escaping. My nose burned with the dry heat; my hair felt heavy on my shoulders, smooth and wet beneath me as I sat on my own long strands.
Sunmiet sang a song in a language I did not recognize. She spoke a prayer out loud in words I did. Her prayer spoke of thanksgiving, then asked for strength for me, to heal my heart of sadness, to help me forgive so I could make room for new life to be planted in me, “if such is to be.” It was a prayer not unlike what I prayed for myself each day except for the forgiveness part.
“What’s forgiving my mother got to do with it,” I said when she ended, tossed rose water on the rocks. The lodge was as dark as the inside of a cow’s stomach.
“You were forgiven,” Sunmiet said. “Though it is your not forgiving her that will matter.”
“She still blames me! What do I have to forgive? And what difference does it make anyway?” I felt disoriented in the dark. A rock suddenly glowed brighter in the corner so I could see shadows on Sunmiet’s face.
“The ruler-teachers say we are all forgiven, for wrongs we never even tell ourselves, by Someone who cared and died for us. He is as the liquid of the water, they said. And the Creator as ice, and his spirit as the steam. They are all children of one family, each with its place in forgiveness. If you do not give up your suitcase of anger toward yourself and your mother, you will not have room for the good things the Creator has planned for your life. Your vision will be clouded by steam and you will miss the Creator’s other forms.”
“Do you think we pray to the same God?” I asked her, diverting her.
“The Creator made the world,” she said. “Gave us all we have. Roots and berries, land animals and fish, each other. We have done nothing to deserve them, we must care for them, only. It is what keeps them in our lives. Is that not like your God?”
“God created everything, yes,” I said. “And g
ave us people, each other. And more.”
“The power to heal,” she said, and I could almost sense her single headnod of finality. “The ruler-teachers say healing is from the Son. Do you believe that?” she asked.
My skin felt tight as though stretched in one large thin piece across the bones of my body. My thoughts were light. I wondered if I would hear music as Sunmiet said some did. A rock shifted in the pit, glowed brighter, settled next to another, taking strength from the flame beside it, like friends, bonding. I felt a strength I hadn’t before, clarity.
“I wish that believing would answer my prayer,” I said. “I wish the memory of my brothers and sisters, yáiyas and nanas, would not cut so deep. I wish my mother would give up Ella. I wish I could bargain so God will give me a child.” I took a deep breath. The scent of cedar pinched my nose.
Sunmiet did not fill the space with her words, allowing the hot darkness to open up more than the pores of my skin.
“But do I believe he can heal?” I asked, repeating her question into the darkness. More time to consider, more water sprinkled on the rock pit, more time to remember, to attend to my breathing, to pray. “Yes,” I told her. “I believe in him. And I believe he can heal me if I let him.”
“Then it will be so,” Sunmiet said with sureness. “You will be healed whether you are chosen to bear a child or not when you forgive and accept his gift for yourself.”
How ironic, I thought, Sunmiet bringing light to my beliefs, the religion of my parents. Joseph would be surprised to see my faith grow stronger with the sweat, not more distant, giving me a future and a hope.
I had envisioned living an interesting life with Joseph Sherar, and so it was. We had our differences but shared more preferences. Like the cattle and sheep we raised and his willingness to let me become a greater part of the work considered “men’s” by most standards of the day. I think that was a difficult shift for him, his always treating me with such deference. He wanted to take care of me, I knew that. But he also loved me enough to let me be myself.