A Sweetness to the Soul (32 page)

Joseph shook his head. “It’s part of their ceded lands. They can
dig roots and hunt, just not own, according to the treaty. Our claim doesn’t go to the river anyway. Stops short. That’ll be the next step. May owns what’s next to the river and the bridge that crosses it, such as it is. Built that pretty fast after the floods last year. Too fast to stand the traffic there’s bound to be.” The latter he spoke more to himself than to me.

“And you’d build this trail into some kind of road?” I asked, wanting to be sure I understood his intentions.

“Eventually. For now, I just want us to have a home, place to run cattle and settle down on soon as I sell the string and the other place at Fifteen Mile. And we get something built. Here first.” He added, “Eventually, the falls.” I didn’t pursue his addition though it was the more significant for our future.

Instead I tried to imagine what this site would look like with a house on it. Where the smokehouse, barn, and buckaroo bunkhouse would sit. What view over my doughboy or out the privy door would I see? How long would it take for the lilacs to bloom? How hot would it get in the summer? At least these questions would be answered someday. I wasn’t so sure about some others that had emerged from my marriage bed.

We rode on down to the place of joined streams, tied the horses to one of the wild rose bushes, and walked. The kelpie scoured the grass and sage for rabbits, his skinny tail beating birds from the bushes as he moved. Joseph reached for my hand and I let him lead me, feeling the warmth of his fingers coiled around mine.

We’d been married but three weeks. It was the strangest of times for me sharing intimate space with a stranger, trying to live up to the adult he seemed to see in me. Must have been strange for him too, now, looking back all these years. What does a grown man do with a mere child he has taken into his life? How does he wait until she grows into a woman? What can he do to nudge her along without first strapping her for her sass, without destroying her spirit?

Joseph neither strapped nor destroyed, a rarity among married men I believe. Joseph already knew of my strong will. He did not
know it rose partly from my confusion, not being certain of the rules. It came forth, too, from my wish for approval, my wanting to do things correctly and right, my fear of being put aside if I didn’t. That discovery took time and experience, for both of us. What he learned early the morning after our marriage was that he could not simply tell me what to do and expect it to happen as he requested.

First, he announced we would be leaving immediately on a bridal trip to New York.

“Not New York,” I said. “Not now.” I picked at the side of ham floating in maple syrup at the dining room of the Umatilla House. It was our bridal breakfast and I found I wasn’t all that hungry. “First I want to know where we’ll return to,” I told my husband of twelve hours. “That should be settled. Then I want to see where you take the pack string into Canyon City, meet the people who have known you before me. After that, we could consider New York.”

His amused smile did not escape me though he tried to hide it behind his linen napkin as he wiped his mouth and beard. I felt myself bristle but I simply waited, took a bite of johnnycake and chewed, staring calmly into his eyes. Little spider webs spread out from his blues and I noticed a sprinkling of gray in his hair. He bit on his lower lip, a habit I noticed accompanied deep concentration.

Clearing his throat, he gave me reasons we should travel back east now: before I became with child and couldn’t travel; to select furniture we might wish shipped out; to meet his family. Once he began speaking, I think he actually liked talking out loud to someone besides Bandit, exploring options this way and that. Unlike the dog, I talked back, and I could see by the look on his face that my opinions startled, often amused and always intrigued him. It was an auspicious beginning. I won the first round.

He learned I needed time: for explanation, answering questions, analyzing, so I could decide on my own. I learned I could sometimes get my way, though I didn’t know then it was less my skill at argument
and more my husband’s fondness for me that set me on the upper step. However it came, I liked the feeling.

The land claim was one example of the shifting going on in our relationship. Our visit that May morning was the third trip to the site and I approached readiness for a decision.

“We have five years to build,” Joseph said. “But we do have to begin sometime before then.”

I scowled at his sarcasm.

“Five years,” he noted. “And then it’s ours. We can add what you might want. Don’t need a cat and clay chimney. We can use stone or even some bricks. Be safer.”

“I’m not worried over the construction,” I said. “You’ll handle that well.”

“What do you need to know then, to decide?” I sensed some exasperation in his voice.

The answer wasn’t easily brought forth. I had only that day understood that I dawdled because the site was barely five miles from Mama and Papa’s. I wasn’t sure if it was too close or too far away. Part of me kept thinking I would find the right and perfect answer to every big decision if I just waited, asked better questions; another part said “decide,” make corrections later.

Which is what I did, finally.

“Let’s build it here, then,” I said, and marked the dirt with the new boots Joseph had bought me at French & Gilman’s store in town. “So I’ll have a view of the streams and the wild roses.”

A blast of air exhaled from him. “My idea exactly,” Joseph said and smiled. “And I’ve something to honor the occasion,” he added, delight in his voice. “Wait here.”

With his slight limp, he hustled back to the horses switching their tails against flies. From the pack behind his saddle he pulled out a roll of white cloth the size of a linen napkin bound up with a burgundy bow. From behind my saddle, he untied a blanket roll and carried both back to me, a smile on his face.

“Hold this,” he said, giving me the linen package. “But don’t look.” He unfurled the blanket in the shade of the roses, away from the dust of the horses. Then he sat and reached for my hand, pulling me down beside him.

“Didn’t have time to get this before we were wed,” he told me, reaching for the package. He untied the dark ribbon that bound it. “Even ‘on the frontier’ as Benito calls it, a man can find a fitting present for his wife.”

The burgundy box he handed me fit in the palm of my hand, the name, “Cosner & Sons, Jewelers,” imprinted in gold letters across the top. My fingers lingered over the letters, wanting to savor the elegance of the box, anticipating the gift inside.

“Open it,” he said, his excitement more evident than my own.

A tiny hook and latch kept the box closed and I opened it, a gasp escaping my mouth as I peered inside.

“Do you like it?” Joseph said, eagerly. “When we go to New York, I’ll get another for you. A gold one, but I hope this one’s good for now.” He leaned closer to me, seeing my view. A certain anxiety came through his voice and I realized he wasn’t certain of what his young bride might like. “Go ahead. Take it out. Here, I’ll put it on you.” He reached for the silver chain.

“Wait,” I said holding his hand back. “I just want to look at it first, hold it.”

After a few seconds of pleasure, I reached inside and lifted from the box the most exquisite silver oval I had ever seen. Not much larger than Joseph’s thumb, the oval hung from a silver chain that draped like silky liquid between my fingers.

“Open it,” he urged.

I lifted the oval cover with my thumbnail and peered at a clock face surrounded by a dozen tiny diamonds. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, feelings caught in my throat. “I’ve never had anything like it. So delicate and perfect.”

His voice was thick with emotion. “I wanted perfection for you.
And a watch. So you’ll know I think of you with each minute of the day. And will, all the minutes of my life.”

A great stillness filled the space between us. Even the kelpie sensed the moment and walked back quietly, not bothering us, lying with a soft “plump” at my feet.

“It’s more …” I said, wiping my eyes with my fingers, not making much sense. “Thank you. I’ve never …” I fingered the pendant. Something was coming to me from a far away place. “It wasn’t just a ‘deal’ then, like Mama said?” I asked him.

Joseph looked startled, having forgotten our discussion in the parlor. Then, “No deal,” he said firmly. “You must never think that.” He was thoughtful. “I loved you for longer than I knew. Perhaps from the moment I first saw you take on the snakes.” He smiled, folded my fingers over the watch, and held both of my hands, looking at me. “I didn’t recognize it, Jane. Not until I almost lost the chance to recognize anything, and then I had no way of knowing you might want me, too. There’s been no deal, no arrangement. I wanted you for my wife. It is my greatest luxury in life that you might want me, too.”

I didn’t tell him that I was a girl meant only for baubles, if my mama was right. For this moment, I would bask in the lavishness of his love. And perhaps as a woman, be worthy later of the luxury he offered.

“You can put a photograph in the frame,” he said, moving his eyes from mine. He pointed out the tiny silver frame across from the watch face. “Maybe of me. Or my dog,” he joked, “who seems to have transferred his loyalty quite readily.” Bandit wagged his tail, knew we spoke of him. “Now may I put it on you?” he asked, eager. I nodded and lifted my knotted hair at the bow from my neck while he moved behind me to catch the clasp. The watch hung perfectly over the tiny tucks of the burgundy store-bought dress I wore. It rose and fell with my breathing, resting at the crest of my emerging breasts.

Joseph pulled me back into his chest, his arms sweeping around me, holding me close. I felt his chin resting gently on my head as he rocked me, smelled the perfume of the laundry’s soap from his shirt. His breath was a sigh. “I love you,” he said, his voice a deep whisper. “And only hope someday you’ll feel the same.”

Looking down, I found the watch and rested it on his forearm. I lifted open the face cover again, to look at the dark hands, read the tiny diamonds that marked the hours. He had loved me for a long time, he’d said. And would with each passing minute. He’d placed no conditions as yet, nothing I needed to do to earn it except just be me. The feeling was foreign.

As if my heart had room for more, Joseph coughed nervously, moved me slightly to retrieve his sketch book from his red vest pocket. “Something I wrote while I was recuperating,” he told me. He took a deep breath and I knew he was sharing himself, heart and soul. “It’s about you,” he added hoarsely. Then he read the words that still tick away in my heart.

He turned the watch over to show me the engraving in tiny script on the back. “To Time Standing Still: All my love, JHS to JAS 1863.” The words marked the moment I truly fell in love.

I couldn’t have been more excited about the trip if it had been to someplace exotic like New York. Canyon City was the second largest town east of the Cascade mountains in the new Oregon State. Bigger and better gold strikes marked the news that came from there with each returning pack string and now people moved there, having discovered land ripe for sheep raising and for cattle and families too. Joseph said along with the gold, the Homestead Act would bring thousands into the area and if he planned things well, their hunger for land and riches could feed our dream at the falls.

“Our dream” he called it though it still seemed more his than mine. While I could be sassy about some things, I found myself holding back, not challenging him yet about things I didn’t understand.

It was the trip that interested me that June. We would be gone for several weeks, spending nights on the trail under one of Joseph’s San Francisco tents, seeing country I had never seen before. I imagined the hustle and bustle of the packers, listening to Benito and his wide wife, Anna, exchanging opinions in Spanish, watching Joseph work with his men, master the mules and the elements as we traveled the two hundred miles.

It would be my first trip away from the familiar setting of my childhood. Along the way, I would meet people who would only know me as I was beginning to see myself and as I was now introduced: Mrs. Joseph Sherar. At the end we’d meet the Turners, and I would come face to face with Francis—“the saint,” as I had taken to thinking of her since Joseph never spoke of her in less than heavenly terms.

While in Canyon City, Joseph planned to finalize the sale of his string and his “good luck” route to Robert Heppner. My Joseph had never had a loss in all his trips, had kept every agreement for the miners. While other men told of Indian raids, lost animals, and troubled hands, Joseph’s stories spoke truthfully of good fortune. “People
think everything I touch turns to gold,” he said as we rode past the Meeker grave markers. “They don’t know how much gold I’ve already buried.”