A Sweetness to the Soul (16 page)

Joseph reached for the younger man’s hand and saw the same serious eyes, unflinching gaze. He guessed him to be sixteen or seventeen years old and like his father, he was slender and wore homespun pants and a faded, colored shirt. His handshake, too, barely pressed Joseph’s fingers. Joseph has often commented since on the gentleness of Indian handshakes that pay homage but are often seen by non-Indians as “weak”; the strength of a white man’s grip given too as homage, most often seen as fierce. So easily our people walk right past each other.

“You can cross,” Peter told him that day, and pointed toward the end of the grassy flat. “Upriver is a bridge over the falls. Will find Fish Man after that at The Dalles.”

“How far is it to this Dalles?” Joseph asked.

“One day’s ride,” Peter told him. “Fish Man plans short stay there. Says winter will come early.”

“Yes. That’s what he told me, too,” Joseph chuckled. “He works for me in California. When he’s not fishing.”

Peter nodded his head once, somber. “He speaks of you, then, you with the many sheep and cattle. Tomorrow we return to the reservation.” Peter nodded toward his lodge. “Tonight, you are welcome to share our fire.”

The Lahomesh pair proved to be congenial hosts. Their precise English and obvious eagerness to talk moved the evening quickly along. Peter explained how the big wagon train of eight hundred made the skid marks on the hill, how the wagons crossed the river, well above the falls. He spoke of settlers without apparent animosity. He talked of cattle, said he worked for Colonel Fulton some miles beyond and tended the sheep of someone named Chrisaman. Joseph raised an eyebrow, surprised that at a time of Indian uprisings in various places in the west, these two should work for a military man and know of livestock and sheep. It was something to remember.

Mostly, Joseph enjoyed their interest in what he had to say. If Joseph used a word Peter had not heard before, Peter would hold his hand up to stop Joseph from proceeding, consider the word, repeat it as though memorizing it and its use, and then nod to let Joseph continue. He learned
kelpie
that way and
Merino
and words about angles and grades as Joseph talked with him of the terrain.

Joseph learned from them as well. His wife, Sumxseet, had left two days before, returning to Simnasho. “White men call her Mary,” Peter said, then told Joseph about the main village of the reservation. Joseph learned Peter and George’s Indian names but could not pronounce them. “Call me Indian Peter,” he told Joseph, who also learned that some white men called his son George, “Washington.” Joseph smiled and with difficulty, attempted to explain who George Washington was in his world.

Joseph’s tongue rolled around the Sahaptin language. Slowly, he
memorized the phrase for “help me.”
Páwapaatam
. “Could save you, any way,” Peter said to him, smiling.

“I could be dead before I ever spit it out,” Joseph laughed. When Joseph took his leather sketch book from his pack and showed Peter his drawings of the ravines and rivers, of possible dams, railroad grades, how roads might be put in with a little planning and effort, Peter became very still. He looked at the sketches, held the book gingerly, touching the raised letters of the embossed title. He paused at each of Joseph’s scribblings and designs, running his hands over the thin pages. Joseph said he seemed suddenly sad.

After a time he spoke. “Our books are the rocks and trees and the voices of our ancestors,” he said. “My wife’s people have an understanding about non-Indian’s books. She is of the Spokane, and her mother’s father heard this told from someone who was meant to know.” Peter tenderly massaged the book as he spoke. “It is said that a different kind of man will come out of the sun. He will bring a different kind of book, to teach us everything. And after that, our world will fall to pieces.”

He lifted the thin paper covering a picture in the front of the sketch book. George reached across, turned the book right side up. Peter held it only a moment. Then with just the slightest flicker of emotion crossing his face, handed it back.

Peter said: “It is not so bad a thought, our world ending, if the afterworld is good, as the Eagle tells us as he moves between the dream world and our own. The black robes say this of the afterworld, too. Still,” he held Joseph’s eyes, “I am hoping you are not this man with a book to change the way the land sits, the rivers run, our world.”

Joseph has said since he thought it was the missionaries and perhaps the Bible the Spokane story spoke of. But I wonder if Peter didn’t see in Joseph’s sketches that it was the land itself that mattered most to Peter’s people and so it was the surveyors and engineers who would so profoundly modify their world.

In the morning, a dense fog blanketed the canyon. Chilly and damp, Joseph helped Peter and George break camp at daylight. The
men rounded the end of the grassy field dropping quickly to the flat rocks that led to the river where they crossed Buck Creek close to the mouth. The rocks were slick from the fog and the way treacherous. Joseph could hear the falls now, roaring and churning, but he could not see it. He could barely see his hand in front of him. He kept his eyes on Peter whose red-checked shirt sleeves beneath his vest drifted in and out of the muslin mist shrouding the river. George brought up the rear.

With relief, Joseph heard Peter’s horses thud-thud on the waterlogged timber of the bridge. He soon felt the log beneath his own horse who shied uneasily at the roaring water surging beneath them. The log creaked as they walked, single-file, across.

Peter circled his horses on the far side, waiting.

“We go to the reservation,” Peter said moving his hand south as Joseph’s pack mule pulled eagerly on the rope. “You will go that way, to The Dalles. Be above this in a little while,” he told Joseph. “The trail moves up the Tygh’s ridge. On top, you will find sun and trees and look down on this river. Today, it is a long white snake of cloud. But by noon, you will see the river’s blue and the white falls, if you wish to return.”

“Not likely,” Joseph told him. “And Fish Man will have a difficult time convincing me this foggy place is worth leaving California for every year.”

Peter laughed. “Who knows what takes a man from California. Everything looks better with the sun, anyway. You will see when you reach the top.”

Joseph shook Peter’s hand, gently, with the fingertips. He did the same with George, then headed north not imagining he would ever encounter these men again.

The fog lifted while Joseph was only part way out of the canyon and because it did, our lives were changed.

Joseph watched the white haze worm its way away from the rock walls and form a cocoon over the water. The stark and magnificent strength of the canyon walls then stood exposed; the sun shone and Joseph saw the gorge in its fullness. He caught his breath at its
immenseness, the flat rocks cut by the twisting river, the deep pools of dark water swirling around rock caverns below the breaking fog. Like my first sight of the canyon, Joseph found the view stunning.

He spied the single log bridge he’d crossed not ten minutes before. It stretched between two rock ledges where the falls roared through a narrow cut below it. “It’s the place to build a bridge, all right. Solid foundation.” He petted the kelpie absently. “It would need to be wider, for a wagon or two.”

He laughed out loud then. “Listen to me,” he said. “Where’d a wagon be going in this isolated place?” He chuckled at his foolishness. “I see bridges and roads everywhere.” He scratched the kelpie’s neck. “Still, this place is an invitation,” he said, “moving into me like a prayer as I sit.” He shook himself of a prickly, light feeling, the kind experienced under the awesome influence of a measureless land. “Let’s head north,” he said finally, “see what else this vast country has to teach us.” He spurred the roan up the trail.

At the top of the ridge, Joseph rested a moment, stepping off his horse. Here again sprang tall grasses. He could see the mountain now, shining in the sun that was surprisingly hot on his face for September. He checked the pack ropes, tightened his saddle, inhaled air pungent with grasses and sage. He patted the roan’s neck and called the kelpie who came bounding through the bunch grass. But he couldn’t get the majesty of the canyon from his mind. Finally, feeling the heat of the morning, he told the kelpie: “Let’s ride along the edge of the firs. A bit off the trail but surely cooler.”

His mind still settled on the canyon, so he didn’t at first see the cloud of dust in the timber. When he did, he pulled his brass eyeglass from the pack. Through it, he saw a corral, five or six mules, and a skinny boy chasing them. “What on earth is he doing?” Joseph said out loud to the kelpie who perked his pointy ears toward the voice, not knowing his master was speaking of me.

Joseph stared a bit longer, then corrected himself with a soft whisper of amazement. “No, what on earth is
she
doing, Bandit? That skinny boy is a girl!”

T
HE
P
ORCUPINE
D
ANCE

F
or some time I wondered what Joseph truly saw that day: a smudged face, pencil-lead straight body, skinny legs; defeat or defiance. The moment changed our lives although we did not look on it as such until much later.

“Sure, and it’ll be better without the stench,” the man said.

I jumped, startled by the accent and his seasoned voice. I had noticed a rider from a distance, but in my effort and irritation, I thought he’d done the gentlemanly thing and moved on, given a girl some privacy and peace while she watched her reptile pile burn. I guess he didn’t like being outside the fire.

I glanced at the smoke drifting away like a bad dream into the cloudless sky and turned to him when he spoke.

“Did I seek the opinion of an old man?” I said. I wanted my words to rip that smirky smile from his bearded face.

He sat up straighter on his horse. “Sassy little thing, aren’t you?” His eyes held humor.

I ignored it. “I don’t like being bothered, especially by some dandy carrying a slicker and a lunch who probably never dropped his bottom on the back of mule.” They were good insults, picked up from a quick survey of his saddle roll, unstained hat, good leather
boots, and the coil of the horse-hair McCartys all attesting to a man who knew how to handle stock but liked his comforts, too.

“Whoa now, sister!” he said. He swung his leg over the saddle horn, tipped his hat back, and leaned on the crook of his leg. He was a big man, long-legged straight up to his chest. The accent was gone when he spoke next. “Didn’t mean to insult you.”

I stepped back as his funny-looking dog trotted up beside me and sat down. “What’d you do to your dog’s ears to make them stand so straight? Tie them up?”

He let that fall.

“Just wanted to help,” he said.

“So does an undertaker but nobody likes to see him coming.”

His words had been gentle, like he meant kindness but with frustration dripping along my cheeks, in my face, I didn’t care. I could tell by his look that he was wounded, not certain how to respond to me. I noticed I liked the feeling I found in his confusion.

The scent of the kerosene penetrated my senses. I wiped my hands on my skirt hiked up between my legs and stuffed into my belt like pants, and stood, hands on hips, not sure what to do next. I’d worked all morning at this, was hot and tired and didn’t really feel like defending my actions to some mail-order cowboy old enough to be my father, judging by some of the flecks of white in his beard, some crows feet near his eyes.

The leather of his fancy saddle creaked. He was moving.

In a moment, he stood quietly beside the gelding and rubbed his thumb smooth on the leather of the reins before he spoke. “Let me try this again,” he said politely. He removed his hat, took a deep breath, his blue eyes looking directly into mine. “You did a good job on the snakes. I’m not sure I would have thought of such an ingenious method of eliminating them. Or had the courage to strike the flint.” His horse stomped impatiently in the dust behind him. “And I’m sure you know this, but the mules are probably frightened now, by the smell. Which is why they won’t go in the corral.”

His little dog scurried back to him as he spoke and he squatted
down to pet him, looking up at me. “Maybe my horse can calm your stock.” He spoke without rushing and stood back up, towering over me like a badger over a mouse. “Any objections to my pulling up beside that tree beyond, see if your mules will come to him?”

“Go ahead,” I said, wishing I had a bell mare to lure them so I wouldn’t be relying on this stranger. My spitting-mad was just beginning to lose steam.

“Can you call them? By name?” he asked.

“Course. Think I’m stupid?”

He spoke calmly, carefully. “I think you’ve worked very hard without much to show for it.” He untied his mule from the gelding, and walked with them both slowly toward a fir tree far removed from the corral. He dropped the weight and tether to hold the horse, tied the mule to the tree. “I’ve known those kinds of days,” he said back over his shoulder, “Always wondered if I’d accept the help I was annoyed about not having.”