A Clearing in the Wild

  My child suckled for the first time in three days.

  “Klose,” An-Gie said. She patted my arm.

  He was weak, very weak. The girl kept touching his cheek, as though to remind him of what he needed to do to live. I heard a soft wail in between, a good sign I thought, that he could protest the delay in his eating.

  Finally, both fatigued and satisfied, he calmed, his tiny fingers no longer lifting and bending like a waiting praying mantis’s, but instead resting in serenity on the smoothness of his savior’s breast.

  I wept. “Klose, klose,” I repeated over and over, hoping that good also meant “thank you.” Because of these native women, we both would live, for surely I’d have died along with Andy if he’d left this world.

  From the parlor window in December, I saw the scouts ride through the cedars, ducking beneath the feathery boughs, stirring up thin layers of snow that turned brown grasses into white. I counted the scouts. There were only seven.

  I grabbed a shawl against the cool dusk and raced outside, Andy in my arms. He’d gained weight and felt like the watermelon he’d arrived as. My eyes scanned, seeking my husband’s. I didn’t find him.

  “Where’s Christian?” I asked Adam Schuele as he tied up his mount to the hitching post. “What’s happened?” The horses’ breaths puffed into the cold air.

  “Nothing happened, Emma. All goes well, though we still do not find the perfect place for our brothers and sisters in Missouri. We come back so Christian can be with you … at your time.” He looked down. “I see we arrive too late.”

  “So he’s safe?”

  “Christian stops at the commissary to attend to your bills, and ours. John Genger goes with him to ensure the accounting.”

  I would deal with the dis-ease of those bills later. Instead, I let my rage rise. Christian might have come here first; he might have seen his son before worrying over obligations of the “mission.” Hadn’t our separation been sacrifice enough for his success?

  “What do you bring us?” Adam nodded toward the bundle in my arms.

  “A boy,” I said. “Andrew Jackson Giesy. The first new member of the Bethel Colony in the West.”

  I held Andy up for Adam and the other scouts to see, then pulled him back into the warmth of my chest. Andy cried, and I patted his back while the men stood at a distance, nodding their heads in that way that men do with newborns, that mix of hesitancy wrapped in awe, humbled that women bring forth such lusty life and that they too had a part in it.

  George Link made the only specific comment. “He has big hands. He’ll carry the Schellenbaum well.” The rest of the men mumbled agreement before they headed to the soldiers’ barracks where they would spend their nights. They walked as though they carried extra weight, though their faces had all thinned since I’d seen them.

  All the lamps were lit, and Pap, An-Gie’s daughter, held Andy while I swayed her boy in his board by moving my knees as I sang. These two were brothers fed from the same breast. I’d decided not to run after Christian; the sutler would tell him of Andrew soon enough.

  The abalone shell combs held my hair in the low knot at my neck. I’d embroidered a tiny white shell onto the otherwise plain woolen dress that I’d made while Christian was gone. I hoped Christian would like it. The wool had been expensive, but it would last a long time. I had never sewn an item from cloth made by someone I didn’t personally know. I even knew the sheep back in Missouri and carded the wool with my own hands to tug at the sticks and burrs hidden there. I spun the wool into thread and finally into fiber. I thought of that now, the memory of spinning arriving as a soothing thought for the anxious waiting of my mind.

  Like bursts of bubbles from Andrew’s lips, little worries popped up. Would Christian be happy with this son? He was a bit thinner than I would have liked. Would he be pleased to see me? Had he missed me at all?

  I stood up holding Pap’s son, went to the window, sat back down. Where was Christian? Why didn’t he come?

  Nora’s children played on the floor while she and An-Gie fixed their meals. In no time, the muck-a-muck call would come. I hoped Christian would be back here in time to walk me to the meal.

  The clock ticked steadily, and I decided to give him five more minutes, and if he hadn’t arrived, I’d find him even though my interrupting him at the commissary would annoy. I went into my room, patted fresh-scented water onto my neck and throat. It had been nearly two months since I’d seen him. Did I have new wrinkles? I returned, lifted Pap’s baby again, and sat back down. I unlaced Pap’s child from his board. Soft moss served as both a pillow for his head and ballast beneath his knees, and as a diaper to keep him dry. I held this chubby child on my knees. Across from me, Andrew continued to suckle at Pap’s breast.

  I heard footsteps, and when Christian stepped onto the porch, night had already fallen. He wore an expression of dismay, almost irritation, as he eased through the door, head ducked to miss the top of the opening. He stomped muddy snow from his boots and caught my eyes. He moved to the child on my knees, bent down and smiled, a gesture that turned to confusion. “This is our boy? The sutler tells me he arrives ready to play music.”

  The German words fell across me like music, words I could understand after so much time in the darkness, so much time as though I were deaf. “Pap tends our child,” I told him and nodded toward the girl breast-feeding. “She feeds our son, Andrew Jackson.”

  Christian startled, then took his eyes from the baby I swayed on my knees. He rested his eyes on the baby Pap fed. His cheeks burned red. Because of the cold, I thought. He cleared his throat and turned, offering his profile to the girl and our son. “I’ll let her finish,” he said, coughing, “while you tell me why you let another feed our son.”

  “Ho-ey-ho-ey,” I said, and Pap exchanged my baby for her own. A tiny drop of milk still lingered on Andrew’s pink lip as I held him, slender arms akimbo like a spider’s. He smelled of fresh milk. “I had no choice,” I said. “I … couldn’t make the milk he needed.” I kissed his tiny mouth of the last drop of white.

  Christian looked confused. “He comes too soon,” he announced then. He stood, hands straight at his side. “You did something to make him arrive before he was ready.” He stiffened his back as straight as a rifle, and I could almost see his finger shaking at me as though I were a wayward schoolgirl, though he held his hands into stiff fists.

  “He arrived healthy, a chubby baby,” I said. “He came when I expected him to. October 19. It was when I couldn’t feed him that he wizened. Pap saved him.”

  “You fell, the doctor tells me.”

  I showed him my palms, the tiny pebbles now blue dots beneath my skin. “Yes, but I caught myself when I fell—”

  “And injured our son.”

  “No, he—”

  “Ach,” he said, pushing his hand against the air, both silencing and dismissing me. “I had such hopes for you, Emma. But now you see the consequence of not behaving as a young wife should.”

  “Christian, please.”

  But he’d already stomped out the door.

  Why was he so upset? Why didn’t he give me time to explain?

  I’d decided to go after him when Christian returned with the gut doctor. It seemed like hours but wasn’t. Nora still stood patting my back; An-Gie now served stew to Simmons and Marie. Pap held her son, wrapping him back into his baby board.

  “We go to eat now,” Christian said. “Come.”

  I handed Andy back to Pap. I didn’t look to my husband to see if I had permission for such an act. It was my duty to tend to my child, and I’d done it without him and still would. How dare he judge me while he was off with his precious mission that had once included me and now did not.

  I shivered as we walked to the meal together, the silence murky and heavy as mud. Weeks of missing him and this is what returned? I tried to keep up with him, but I faltered, my slipper stuck in the snow-crusted mud. A cry escaped my lips. The sound slowed Christian. He turned. “Ach, Liebchen,
how does this happen always to you?” He held his hand to mine and pulled me to him. He motioned for Nora and the gut doctor to continue on.

  “My slipper stuck,” I defended when the others disappeared inside the mess hall. But Christian shook his head.

  “What trouble you bring upon yourself and others too, it appears.”

  “I behaved as any wife left behind with total strangers would have,” I defended. “I made myself useful to Nora and her husband. I tended to their children to help pay my way.”

  “Indeed. But not completely, or so the sutler’s account tells me.”

  “Oh,” I said. Perhaps this is why he was so angry.

  “Ja, oh. That’s something else we must discuss.”

  “I was as frugal as I could be,” I told him. “I even learned to find cedar bark that can be woven into hats that repel the rain. I let An-Gie introduce me to this landscape. I learned some Indian words that might be useful one day. I dealt with being alone where no one spoke my language, and you dare say I bring trouble on myself?” I crossed my arms. I would have tapped my foot in outrage except that the slipper would sink back into mud.

  He picked me up to carry me over the mud then, his motion swift and sure. His arms wrapped warm and welcoming around me. He set me down at the steps, then held my slipper, wiping the mud off with the palm of his big hand.

  “I took care of it,” I continued my defense. “I found Pap to feed our son, told her what I desperately needed. Even without knowing her language. I did what I had to do, left here alone. I did it, and I’ll not let you make me feel less for having done it.”

  I saw the clench of his jaw relax, though his next words were spoken with annoyance. “Ach, ja, I am the Dummkopf,” he said, “spending long days trying to find our new home while you are here … spending.” He pushed the slipper back onto my foot.

  “I needed things,” I said.

  “Hair combs. Fine wool. A silver spoon?”

  “He is our first child. All firstborn sons need something special to announce their arrival. He didn’t even have his father here to hold him to the stars and introduce him to God.” I lowered my eyes. “I’ll find a way to pay for it,” I said, though the how of that was far from certain.

  He pulled me to him then, snuggling the cape close to my neck. Tingles of connection quivered through me to my knees. “You’re cold,” he said, quiet. “We should go in to the meal.”

  “I’m sorry for the purchases. Was John Genger terribly angry with me?”

  “More with me, that I left no good instructions for you.” He sighed then. “But I am angry more at myself. I carried that into our argument earlier. That was a mistake. You did well to keep Andrew healthy and alive, and I am grateful to have a son. Ach,” he said. “We scouts, we spend good time and money and don’t even find what will work, and then I come home and argue with my wife. An unloved married woman I do not want you to be.”

  I could see the upturn of his lips in the moonlight.

  “Then let’s stay here in Steilacoom,” I said. “Let’s see if we can buy up land here in this good place.” I faced him, my hands on his chest. “Our grain could be shipped out by sea from here, and the weather, it isn’t so cold. See?” I lifted my ungloved hands up as though to catch snowflakes, though none fell.

  He shook his head. “We will talk of this later, Liebchen. For now, let me tell you of my sorrow that you were left alone to decide what was best for our child. This is not the way a man should treat his wife. I hoped to get back in time. This was my goal.”

  “I know. Adam told me. But Andy really did arrive at the right time.”

  “Everyone says November,” he repeated, and I could hear an argument rising that could never be solved. I decided not to add to the fuel of that fire, one better put out. “It will not happen again,” Christian continued. “Our next child and the next after that will be born with me at your side.”

  I should have said then that making such plans simply challenges the devil to interfere, but I wanted to hear those comforting words. With them, Christian lifted my chin and kissed me, stealing my breath and repairing my broken heart all in one act of forgiveness and love.

  We spent three more months at the fort resisting the rains. A happier time in marriage I’d never had. Christian did explore land sites near Steilacoom. He walked to Olympia and looked at maps with coastlines and dots of towns, but few marks of trails and no roads to speak of. He returned, usually within a few days, telling me tales of what he saw and what he heard. The other scouts too fanned out, returning with crestfallen eyes, drenched to the bone from the rain.

  Christian watched our son grow and came to accept Pap’s presence in our days and her son, whom she called Nch’I-Wana for the name of the big river, the Columbia, where he’d been born. My husband was a loving father. He watched how Nch’I eased into sleep inside his board, then asked how he might make one. An-Gie giggled when she understood. “No men do,” she said, but she showed him, and he cut the board while we women cut the hide that would wrap around Andy, gathered moss to serve as a pillow and to place behind his knees. I stitched tiny squares to make a covering for the boughs that arched out over his head to keep the sun from shining in come spring; to keep the rain out when we went outside. He rode on my back, looking out at the world while my hands were free to help Nora with the laundry or to sew, remaking my overland dress into a shirt and skirt for my son.

  While Andrew slept, Christian taught me more English words, and I shared what I knew of the Chinook and Chehalis words Nora and An-Gie and Pap often used. Eventually, I could talk to Nora of places and people. It was she who told me Captain Maloney had merely wished to offer me safety when he’d walked me home after Christian left. My face burned with the memory. Nora and I also talked of something that truly mattered: her offer those months ago to feed my child even at the risk of not having enough for her own, and my wish to thank her for that gift of willingness she gave. She practiced the Diamond Rule, wanting my life to be better than her own.

  Rain fell steadily with rarely a break those first months of 1854. The paths between the houses and the mess hall ran like streams despite the wagonloads of woodchips, brought from the mill in Lower Steilacoom, that the soldiers put on them. This land was made of mud. Rain and mud. And trees, trees so large that four men holding hands could not reach around the trunks. Sometimes my eyes traveled one hundred feet up the trunk before I saw branches spreading out.

  Sometimes, while Christian traveled to the surrounding towns and while Andrew slept, I’d make my way into the stand of trees, grand fir and Sitka spruce and red cedar. I learned their names. Beneath them, I found the ground soft, but not as muddy as along the meadow trails. I could hear the rain drip on leaves, push through needles, falling soft as teardrops on the forest floor. I’d find a place to sit beneath tree-falls, what Christian said the men called the large trunks pushed over by winds or age against another, or caught up in tangled branches, sometimes crisscrossing narrow trails like sticks set to build a giant fire. I found respite in the cluster of these trees, in knowing I had a warm, dry place to return to. I prayed that Christian would find his mission here, close to Steilacoom.

  A couple of the scouts went south into Oregon Territory seeking sites, but in early spring they returned, and at a meeting I was allowed to attend, they shared their news. Christian told them he’d talked to men from the Pacific coastlands who knew of a place with wide river bottoms rich for planting. Nearby, timber waited to be harvested for buildings. The logs offered pilings for shipment to San Francisco, and with the Bethel Colony bringing grist stones, there’d be water for a mill.

  “Isolation, too,” he told them.

  “When do we go then, to see this land?” Hans asked.

  “April. When the rain stops and the trails are not so bogged down in mud and the fallen trees are more easily crossed.”

  “We take axes then,” John said.

  Christian nodded. “And saws. Ropes. Those are our too
ls.”

  “When I look at these trees,” Michael Sr. said, “I wonder how many days it will take us to cut one down or try to split it.”

  “When we find the right place,” Christian said, “all will fall into place.”

  “We’ve looked at lots of land,” Adam Knight said. I heard annoyance in his voice.

  “We must all agree on the place,” Christian said. “So far, each of us finds some fault with what we see.”

  “These coastlands you hear about, are they like Ezra Meeker’s lands?”

  “More isolated,” Christian said. “Unlike Steilacoom.” He looked at me. “We must not let the demands of the world encroach upon us. Here things are too easily purchased, life made too simple so we forget what we’re about.”

  “Are you sure enough of the coastal site’s potential that we could send men back now?” Adam Schuele said. “We’ve seen the terrain. Those south have too. Could we return to help prepare the rest? We’ll be three, four months getting back. That would make it July when we arrive in Missouri.”

  “It’s too late for them to come out this year, and the longer you stay, the more houses we can build. If you go back in August, there will be time to prepare the Bethel Colony for departure next spring.”

  “We could agree to meet here, then, in Steilacoom, and send word for you to come and get us.” This from Joe Knight. I liked this plan. Perhaps I could remain here, too, until the larger colony arrived.

  “You think you’d be one to go back?” his brother said with just a hint of teasing.

  “No,” Christian said, his words cutting off any jesting. “We must find the place together and all feel it is worthy before any return to Bethel. That way we’ll know that God has chosen the site, not any of us.”