A Clearing in the Wild (43 page)

Then the fish stopped swimming upriver. We were left with potatoes and a few of the Woodards’ peas and the small amounts of milk that the cows and goat gave up. We divided all of it among the children.

“Perhaps when the flour arrives,” Louisa said when I commented out loud inside one of the houses that it would be nice to celebrate the addition of the house, since we hadn’t celebrated much at Christmas. We hadn’t broken bread together in any special way; in fact, we had no bread to break.

“The band played in Bethel whenever we completed a new home,” I said. “Will we not keep the same customs in our new colony?”

“This will never be our colony,” Wilhelm said, in a rare act of speaking directly to a subject I’d raised. His voice silenced even the children. He sighed then. “Please will you write another letter, Karl?”

Dictating letters seemed to be all Wilhelm did now that Willie was buried and several had gone south with the cattle. Now the weather appeared too inclement for Wilhelm to head south to Portland himself.

Karl Ruge brought out paper and lead. He was such a kindly man with his graying beard and no mustache, his cheeks reddened from the wind and rain as he helped with the building. He was of an elder’s age and could have simply stayed back with Wilhelm and the women and children, teaching, one might have said. But he chose to participate in my husband’s efforts to ease the discomforts of this place. He rolled the lead across his knuckles while he awaited Wilhelm’s dictation. He winked at Andy, who watched Karl’s hands with careful eyes.

In this latest letter sent to the Bethelites, Keil reported on how long it took us to build the house and then announced that next week he
would leave for Portland to see how the rest of the colony fared. “Take your time in coming out,” he said. “Until we find the place the Lord has called us to, I wouldn’t leave my home in Bethel.”

The Lord had called us here
. How was it that one man could change that? What about the voice
we
heard? I started to speak, but Christian anticipated and squeezed my arm as he stood behind me. I turned to look at him, and he shook his head.
Silence
, he mouthed.
Silence
. My greatest challenge.

Would it be so sinful to ask for help, maybe from people at the coast town of Bruceport, I wondered. They might have flour we could buy now. Keil wouldn’t let us, I supposed. He was the keel, the wedge in this ship.

I dreamed that night of water, of Wilhelm taking me on a small boat across the Shoalwater Bay to the Wallacut River, then upriver on the Columbia and into Portland. At least that had been his plan. I ate from the leg of a deer in my dream but didn’t swallow it. My hunger continued. Then the ship capsized in the bay, and I couldn’t reach Wilhelm; I was too frightened to throw him a rope, too frightened to help him, and so he had drowned.

I woke up with a start, my heart pounding. What kind of mind did I have, dreaming of the death of Keil? Christian patted my arm. “Water,” I said. “I dreamed of swirling water.”

I shivered and felt wet. My whole mat was wet. I looked up. No leaks. And then I knew: my water had broken. My second child pressed its way into this chaotic world.

“Get Mary,” I told Christian. “My baby comes.”

“I’m already here,” Louisa said. She’d slipped into the corner of the Giesy House that now belonged to everyone. “Let’s not bother Mary or alarm her. In case something goes wrong.”

“Something goes wrong?” I croaked.
Why bring in the ghost of suffering at such a time like this?
“I’ve been through this,” I said, firm. “Maybe I don’t even need a midwife. Christian will help me.”

“
Ach
, it’s no job for a man. He has things to do, don’t you, Chris?” She shooed her arms at him as though he was the goat. “Don’t be selfish and risk your baby,” Louisa said, patting my arm. “We women must suffer the pangs of childbirth together. Leave now, Christian.”

“I missed Andrew being born,” he said.

“Men usually do,” she said. “Well, then. If we need you, we’ll send someone.” She pushed him aside.

I wanted him to stay, to resist the push and pull of others, but he stepped away. Louisa hung a quilt for privacy, which I later appreciated when the waves rose and ebbed through my body, carrying me up and over the pain. I didn’t cry out, though, at least not that I remembered. Muffled conversations of others in the house drifted to me as did the smell of the cooking, the crying of a child. I tasted sweat on my upper lip and welcomed the wet cloth Louisa placed on my forehead as I waited for the next cry of my child’s journey into life.

Christian didn’t go far. I could hear his voice as he spoke to others, commented on the leather hinges he’d made for doors. He waited within earshot. Had I told him that Louisa made me nervous? Knowing he waited just outside the door comforted. I’d tell him that when this was over.

This infant wouldn’t come as swiftly as Andy had. The day waned as the baby pushed its way closer to arriving into the world. Then we heard shouts from the gun turrets announcing an alarm.

I struggled to sit up. Louisa helped steady my shoulders. “I’ll see what it is. You wait here.”

“Did you think I planned to take a walk?” I snapped.

I heard her say in English, “No. She is indisposed,” but then she stumbled aside, and Sarah Woodard bent through the opening of the door. I sighed relief. Even if she brought news of Indian attacks it would be good to have her here.

“What news?” I said between pants.

“No attacks,” she said. “But the first ship of the New Year arrived.”

I leaned back against Louisa. “Good. There’ll be bread, then, grain for us all.”

With full stomachs and a greater variety of food, tempers would cool. Maybe playing music would be considered acceptable. Karl Ruge could return to reading nightly to us from his books while smoking his long clay pipe. Our hungry stomachs had elbowed our souls, and many of us couldn’t listen for long. Music would soothe. Surely any hostile Indians wouldn’t mind the sound of trumpets and horns. Maybe we’d begin thanking God again as a group for all He had done. My husband would be vindicated. Flour, as he’d ordered it, well in advance of the arrival of this many people, would mean nourishment and a sign that my husband was a good leader, someone who could anticipate and provide, with God’s help. Always with God’s help.

Sarah looked down, then wiped my sweaty forehead. Rain dripped from her cape, and steam rose up from the moist wool already warming within the close heat of the house. “Your family arrives,” she said. “They say they are Giesys, and they bring grist stones.”

“Christian’s parents.” We’d have more to feed, but we’d also have more support for Christian. They’d see the possibilities here. They’d want to remain where Christian and the scouts had done so much to prepare for their coming. And there’d be flour. Food. Our hunger filled at last.

“We’ll have a big meal,” I panted. “With bread and cakes maybe. And the band will play.”

Sarah’s eyes went to Louisa’s. She leaned into Louisa and whispered something. Louisa shook her head, no. “What is it?” I asked. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“No,” Louisa said. “You don’t need to know.”

“Here we share good news and bad,” I panted.

Sarah nodded. “The ship brought only one small bag of flour. Sam and I will ration what we can and share what we have with you.”

“One bag of flour? Didn’t they understand the order?”

“Maybe a mix-up, my husband tells me. It happens,” Sarah said.

“Or maybe your husband did not order as much as needed, thinking you would have grain here to grind,” Louisa said.

“He would have done what he thought was right,” I defended. The pain began its rise. I gasped.

“Nothing good comes of this place,” Louisa announced. “But we will help with this baby. Then you’ll travel better to a new place, one my husband picks that will be good for all of us.”

“One small bag,” I cried, then gripped Sarah’s hand as Catherina, my daughter, arrived without further fuss into the promised land of the Willapa Valley.

The first months of 1856 were marked by the cold, icy winds and incessant rains, but with small signs that we were still blessed, still under the shelter of our Father. I found myself clinging more often to the words of faith that Karl Ruge dispensed in nightly prayers for us all. Wilhelm remained distant, aloof; my husband acted faded and fatigued. I hoped that my leaning on faith wasn’t temporary, that perhaps I had learned how to trust even in the midst of disaster. The Israelite tents pitched before they crossed into the Promised Land were reminders of where our shelter truly came from. I waited each day to hear Karl Ruge’s gentle teaching, his encouraging words of “
Ja
, by golly, that’s right!” that followed a positive comment or small success.

The goat kept my babies alive as Andy drank goat milk and ate the lumps of cheese we made, dripping the rich milk through Mary’s petticoat, the cloth as close to muslin as we could find. The other colonists allowed our baby and other young children to drink the milk first, but when Mary’s baby, Elizabeth, arrived in February, we rationed ourselves even more to ensure that Mary had enough to eat to make milk for her baby. When she offered to nurse Catherina, too, I whispered gratitude and remembered how An-Gie had found help for Andy. My daughter would have the blessing of a friend.

Wilhelm had yet to head south. He stayed and continued his insistence about Indian troubles, so we could not bring in game. I missed the cows and mules. We could have sent men and cattle into the prairies, where they would have had plenty of grass to consume, but Wilhelm didn’t trust that the men watching them would be safe. While I rocked my infant to sleep, I imagined the rich prairies south, where one day Christian and I had hoped to build our home. I remembered walking that prairie, sitting in the quiet of the trees, listening to rain
patter onto the needles that carpeted the ground. The silence would be broken only by the cry of a pileated woodpecker or a deer stepping on a fallen branch as it made its way past.

At night, I dreamed of food that I just couldn’t swallow.

Potatoes baked in the coals soon lost their flavor. The same meal we’d had for weeks lacked both savor and salt. We caught very few fish now.

Barbara, my mother-in-law, busied herself with her grandchildren. She rocked them, and though she was skinny as a bedpost, she never mentioned how hungry she must have been. I hoped she noticed that I never complained about food, either, except in my sleep.

At least my mother-in-law had brought a trunk with our name on it, and at last I had a fresh change of clothes, a dress with a plain petticoat. Tenderly lifting items from the trunk served as a distraction from the ache in my stomach. I could grab a handful at the waistband of my petticoat, I’d lost so much weight. My old under slip with the ruffles had been stripped long ago into bandages for wounds and washed over and over to manage my monthly flow. My mother had made a baby’s quilt and a small dress that might have been used for a christening, if we had such things. We would dedicate the baby to the Lord in time, maybe when we had a church or Wilhelm felt the occasion was right. Karl Ruge, who remained a Lutheran, spoke of christenings, and I thought the idea of it a lovely thing and wished we’d do it as a colony. When this time of want had passed, I’d talk to Christian about it, if he’d hear me. More and more he spent time staring, having little to say, carrying the weight of this starvation into a dark solitude.

Starvation
. It was the first time I’d thought the word. Even thinking it made me feel disloyal to my husband.

I smelled each item I pulled from the trunk, imagining my mother’s hands on each one, my father’s eyes looking over them as she wrapped the child’s gown in precious paper I’d use to write to them to tell them
of Catherina. Inhaling deeply took away the dizziness I assumed came with the hunger. One last quilt made of red and black squares lay folded at the bottom of the chest. I lifted it out and something dropped on the ground beside my foot. My mother’s pearl necklace.

Why had she sent it? Was she telling me that a luxury was acceptable, or that as one matured, one no longer needed such things?

“What’s that?” Louisa asked. The woman was like the mist, appearing quiet and cold.

“Something my mother sent me.” I folded it back into the quilt, liking the feel of the smooth round stones, perfectly strung. I’d look at it later.

“Your mother,” Louisa said.

“
Ja?
” I prepared to defend.

“She found a way to be … noticed without taking away from anyone else.”

A compliment?
“We all need to be noticed,” I said, stuffing the quilt into the corner of the trunk.

“
Ja
,” she said, looking at her husband who slept, his head bobbed forward onto his chest, his arm wrapped around Aurora, who slept seated beside him. “There you and me, we agree.”