A Sweetness to the Soul (22 page)

In April, the floods began seemingly overnight. One day the snow still drifted with dirty veils of dust beside the barn. The next
day, the drifts began to sink, seeping dirty water beneath them that became fast-moving flows over frozen roads, thawing fields, rock-washed ravines. Passive pasture streams roared torrents that kept some families split: half holed up in the barn where they were when the little stream became a raging river and the other half in the house. Roads and bridges washed out and at the mouth, the Deschutes spread like a dark stain into the Columbia.

I wondered, idly, if the flooding would keep the Californian away.

T
HE
P
LANS OF
M
EN

S
o who’s the dandy with the dog, J. W.?” my father said, nodding to his card partner. He spoke loud enough for Joseph to hear despite the clatter of dishes and men’s voices in the bar.

J. W. Case, my father’s card partner, uncrossed his size tens from beneath the gaming table knocking dried mud from his boots onto the polished floor at the Umatilla House. Smoke swirled around the players and diners like flies on a day-old carcass. Joseph watched them in the back bar mirror. J. W. rubbed his eyes with his fists like an overgrown child, glanced up briefly from his cards to see Joseph staring back at him.

J. W. couldn’t have recognized the tall stranger wearing a wellcut jacket and turquoise bola who had just entered carrying a pointy-eared dog beneath one arm. For like the long-awaited spring, Joseph had just arrived.

A mule skinner’s whip coiled at his hip above Mexican leather boots that captured his pants inside.

“Don’t know him,” Joseph heard the lean man answer. “Looks like he’s been on the trail, judging by the mud. Maybe he come ’cross the river.”

“Benson’s friendly enough with him,” Joseph heard my papa say
though he didn’t know then who Papa was. He watched Papa adjust his hat with a nervous gesture typical of him. “Look at that. That barkeep just slipped some silver into his pocket,” Papa said.

“You could use some of that, hey, George,” J. W. told him, smiling. “Take the sting out of losing.”

“I win enough,” Papa said, still loud enough for Joseph to be unintentionally eavesdropping.

“Loud when you do,” J. W. razzed, “and you’re pretty quiet tonight.” He laughed his high-pitched laugh and slapped another card on the table. “Call!”

“I don’t think a man should bring his dog into an eating establishment,” Papa said, laying his cards down flat on the green felt to make his point. He adjusted his hat once again pulling it farther forward, shadowing his good eye.

“Leave it be,” J. W. said. “Stick to your hand.” He scratched at some hairs growing out from his nose. “Hey! Your cards are getting wet. See there?” Moisture from Papa’s whiskey glass seeped into the table felt turning a spot beside the cards a darker green.

Papa said: “Forget it!” He picked up his soggy cards, took one last look, probably calculating his losses, and folded his hand. “You’ve already got most of what I have,” he said and pushed his chair back from the table.

“You can’t just quit!” J. W. said. “I’m on a roll here! You owe me!”

“I’ve paid. In full,” Papa said and stood up.

In the mirror, Joseph watched the transaction, watched my papa dismiss J. W. with the palm of his hand as if grateful for a diversion, approach him.

“New policy?” he said to Benson, the barkeep. Papa’s voice held sarcasm, his eye contempt as he eased in beside Joseph, keeping him to his left where his good eye could watch him. He rested his foot on the brass rail and pushed his hat farther back onto his head. He was only a few inches shorter than Joseph. His bad eye watered and he dabbed at the marble in it.

“Nothing new,” Benson said, wiping off the lip of a whiskey bottle.
“Man just likes to drink with his friends. Happens this man’s friend is a dog.” Benson set the bottle down, moved his cloth in a circular motion over the bar polishing what was already shiny and smooth.

“Doesn’t say much about a man, can’t find anyone to eat or drink with besides a dog,” Papa said.

“Both’re well behaved,” Benson said quietly. “Don’t make anything more of this than it is, George. Just go back and finish your game with J. W.”

Papa’s words were even, contained. “I got a wife to tell me what to do,” he said. “Don’t need advice from you.”

Familiar with Papa’s sour, sometimes uncompromising attitude, Benson backed off. “Look, let me introduce you. This is someone you should know.”

“Don’t know anything I’d have in common with a man who drinks with dogs,” Papa said. His good eye floated over Joseph smooth and slippery as a catfish in a murky hole.

“There’s a seat there at the window table,” Benson said hurriedly to Joseph, motioning him out of the tension.

Joseph paused, deciding about this intrusive person then tipped his hat at the barkeep. He turned to walk toward the window when the kelpie twisted its head around to look at the surly man, rolled its lips back, and breathed a low, menacing growl.

“Look at that!” Papa said. “Dog’s mean!” He turned his back to the bar, his voice even, loud. Men stopped their card playing and looked. “Hear that? Growled at me!” He reached for Joseph’s arm, to grab the dog, but Benson grabbed Papa’s arm instead.

“Leave it!” he said. “The dog’s fine.” Then softer, so few could hear it though Joseph did, he said: “Starting a scene won’t do anything ’cept spread bad talk. Which I know you don’t want. Not with the election and all.”

Someone near the back laughed out words about “some beast.” The tension lowered and Papa calmed. “Got a hound of my own I’ll bring in since you’ve decided to serve dogs,” he told Benson, brushing his arm off and turning abruptly back to J. W.’s biscuit-sized eyes.

Joseph kept silent. He didn’t know who the man was or why he’d decided to be so cantankerous toward him, and he was too tired to really care. If the man wanted a fight, he could give it. If the barkeep could avoid it, more power to him. He had enough on his mind.

Joseph ate quietly, thinking of days past, the kelpie at his feet. Much had happened since he’d last been in this bar negotiating a deal with Brayman. When winter finally broke, he left the Klamath ranch and headed to California to determine his losses. He discovered that Fish Man had gotten through, given the message to Benito, but efforts to sell off the sheep had failed before the snow fell. Without cash from the sheep sales, Benito had been unable to buy up mules before winter. They’d had severe losses with the sheep.

The cattle, fortunately, had survived well despite the weather which had not been as cruel in the Hupa Valley as here, along the Columbia.

Once he headed to Oregon, though, Joseph could see the destruction of the cold and raging floods. It had taken them nearly two weeks to bring fifty head of cattle and his small band of fifteen mules on up from California.

He reached for another biscuit. He planned to sell the cattle here, as he knew the losses from the winter would be great. He had not planned on there being so little cash available for purchases. Worse, more and more men were leaving for the gold fields perhaps with nothing to keep them in The Dalles and the promise of riches luring them east, so he wasn’t sure who was left to buy cattle. He planned to use the cash from their sale for the mules. He only briefly considered that the winter might have stolen his secured mules as well as stable men’s plans.

Brayman told him two pieces of news that could be taken as good or otherwise: Joseph now owned a ranch at Fifteen Mile Creek, not far from the Herberts, as he’d requested Brayman negotiate in his absence, and he had competition from three other stringers. J. W. Case, J. J. Cozart, and D. N. Luce, all men so busy they had no time
for names, just initials, had pack strings ready to head into gold country.

Joseph realized that with their outfitting complete, mules would be at a premium.

“Should have let me set the string for you,” A. H. told him when they met earlier in the day. “But, so be it. Just let’s get going as soon as we can.”

Now Joseph wished he’d brought more mules north rather than counting on finalizing his agreement made late last fall. As hard as the winter had been, Herbert’s mules may not have even made it. And he wasn’t at all sure that the Herberts would consider a trade. Cash he’d set for the ranch would have come in handy now. Herberts might be wanting cash too, something he’d find out the next day.

Benson brought a refill on his brew and said softly so only Joseph could hear, “J. W. is one of the stringers.” He nodded his head in the direction of the surly man’s card partner. “Set to leave in the morning. May want to talk with him about the route and all. He’s a good egg. Hard-worker. But best save your discussions for when he’s alone,” Benson added cautiously.

Joseph thanked him but he knew he wouldn’t be talking with anyone right then. He had all the information he needed about the trail, first hand. The rerouting because of the swollen rivers and the washed out roads had put him and his men and cattle and mules into a maze of ravines and ridges.

He had been within a day’s ride of The Dalles when he and Benito and his men moved the cattle down Buck Hollow. He looked forward to crossing on the narrow bridge, sure that so high above the water, it would have survived. He was close enough to allow himself to think of a featherbed following a seven-course meal.

Instead, he’d faced surprise and disappointment. The little creek in Buck Hollow was swollen three times its normal size. It swirled with juniper branches, grasses and roots, waterlogged snakes and foam. Crossing it took an extra day, with ropes and horses and cattle getting in each others’ way and growing more agitated by the minute.

And when in the morning they moved the cattle toward the bridge that he and Peter Lahomesh had stepped carefully across, Joseph found himself fighting away tears of frustration. For ahead he could see that the bridge he needed to cross the Deschutes was gone.

He was angry with himself that he had not listened to Philamon about taking the roads through the reservation, up the western side of the Deschutes. He had remembered the bridge and believed he could save time by taking it. He’d also looked forward to seeing the falls again, the terrain that led to it.

But not that day. There’d been no choice: he faced the falls and blood-red rocks that lined the gorge without the presence of the bridge.

The men blew their noses on their patterned kerchiefs, rubbed their hands with goose grease to soften the calluses, cinched their saddles extra tight as though it were the horses’ fault, and turned the cattle back to cross, again, swollen Buck Hollow creek. A light rain fell.

Animals died this time. And when they headed north and reached the Columbia, they were again thwarted by the unruliness of rivers and streams. For where the Deschutes disgorged itself into the Columbia, a massive river twice the normal width churned angrily with dark red mud. Islands like thin green paint strokes sliced the rolling brown and blue. Tree roots, limbs, remains of bloated cattle, and sagebrush bobbed like wood chips in water, swirling, going under. No Indian offered canoes for passage, a sure sign that whoever was on this side was meant to stay. “We cannot cross, yes?” Benito asked him.

“We will cross, yes,” Joseph said. “In a few hours or days maybe.” He lifted his hat and ran his hands through his sweat-stained hair. “We’ll see how much it drops.”

They had waited nearly a week before risking the crossing. All the time, they suspected others were ahead of them, loading and preparing for transport into the gold fields. What made it worse for Joseph’s men was knowing that this would be the same route the
pack string would now have to take to Canyon City since the bridge at the falls—Joseph’s idea for a shortcut—had been taken by the flood.

Joseph shook his head to brush away the agonizing thoughts. He wiped his beard on the linen napkin hanging from his stiff collar. Tonight, his first evening back in The Dalles, he simply wanted a warm bed and no more effort.

The kelpie perked up, swatted his skinny tail against the floor in friendly greeting, giving Joseph advance warning of Benito coming into the saloon behind him. “All is finish,” Benito said as he sat down. “French Louie, he make arrangements. For cattle for night. And mules. You sleep soon?”

Before Joseph could answer, the kelpie skittered forward from under the table and growled. Joseph looked up to see the man with the bad eye approach his table, his sour disposition still in tow.

Papa stopped, looked at Benito sitting at the table and he said something he would not have thought to say I’m sure without rye whiskey in his blood. “Greaser,” he said. He spoke it softly, Joseph remembered, almost like a hiss. He spit his next insult directly at Benito. “The Umatilla House really does serve dogs.”

His nose red, he moved quickly past their table.

Bandit barked. Joseph’s chair tipped in the speed of his rising, his temper tested by the insult and flared by days of drain. The room froze into silence. Benito grabbed at Joseph from across the table. “No,” he said. “The man, he is not worth it.”