Bone River (5 page)

I nodded a greeting back to him. “What brings you out here today?”

Michael rubbed his chin. “I was going out to fix the bateau, and she showed up just as I was leaving and asked to come. Said she wanted to see you.”

Bibi stared up at me. “
Klahowya, klooshman.
” She was older than Lord Tom by only a few years, but it was enough that she bore the sloped forehead that used to denote high caste among the Chinook, a deliberate deformity that had fallen out of fashion by the time Tom was born. It broadened the plane of her face and made her skull look as if it came to a rounded point at the top of her head, rather like a sugarloaf. Her gray streaked hair was plaited in a single long braid, and she wore a blanket around her shoulders that draped to her thighs—white banded in red. She glanced to Lord Tom, and narrowed her eyes as if she’d smelled something rotten, and then she snapped something in Chinook—not the jargon we all understood, but the language that few knew and fewer spoke. Beside me, Lord Tom stiffened.

Warily, I said, “
Klahowya,
Bibi. I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you about the canoe.”

She said, “No
huyhuy.
”

I frowned. “I know you don’t want to trade it, but—”

“I have
wawa,
” she said simply.

A message
. How puzzling. I couldn’t think who would have entrusted Bibi with a message for me. But I nodded and said, “Why don’t we all go on to the house then? There’s coffee on.”

I turned to lead them, but Bibi grabbed my arm hard, stopping me. “No.
Nesika wawa
.”

Only we talk.

Lord Tom made a face. “What has such a
pelton
woman to say?
Cultus wawa. Mamook hehe.
”

A crazy woman. Jokes and nonsense.

Bibi’s fingers tightened on my arm.

I said, “It’s all right. Lord Tom, why don’t you take Michael up to the house and get him some coffee?”

Lord Tom hesitated, but then he motioned for the other man to follow, and the two of them started up the crushed oyster-shell path to the house. When they had gone a short distance, I pulled my arm from Bibi’s hold and said, “What message, Bibi?”

She said, “I have a
dleam.
”

I had been curious, but now I realized Lord Tom had been right. This was just more of the nonsense we’d all come to expect from Bibi. “A dream? Was the Duke in it? Did he tell you it was about time to trade his things? You could use a new pair of boots, I think.”

“About you.” She leaned forward, her dark eyes huge and strange in the broad flatness of her face. “
Mika mesachie mitlite.
In my
dleam
, I see this.”

You are in danger.

The hair on the back of my neck raised. Again I felt that strange sense of someone watching. Uncomfortably I glanced toward the cut in the river. “I’m in the middle of something, Bibi. Go get some coffee and I’ll—”

“It is about the
memalose kopa chuck
.”

The dead in the river.

I froze. “The
what
?”

She nodded with obvious satisfaction. “Now you listen,
nah
? The
tomawanos
calls for you. What she wants, I do not know, but it is you she wants.”

“Wait,” I said. “Say that again. What do you mean? What
memalose kopa chuck
?”

“
No klap
?” she asked in surprise. “You will.”

“Yes, I found a body in the river. Well, not a body, really, but...but...how do you know this? How do you know about her? I only found her yesterday.”

“I have a
dleam
,” she said simply.

“Bibi, who told you about the mummy?”

She said again, “My
dleam
.”

Said as if it were the only answer to give, regardless of how impossible it was. I sighed in frustration.

She said, “She says to tell you he will come soon.
Kloshe nanitch.
”

Keep watch. Be careful.
Again, I felt that shiver. I forced it away. “He? Who’s he? What nonsense is this?”

“
Wake hehe, ipsoot klooshman.
”

This is serious, sly wife.
Her favorite nickname for me.

“It
is
serious. Which is why I wish you wouldn’t say anything about the mummy, Bibi. Please. I don’t want the word to get out. I want some time to study her, and—” I stopped. She wasn’t listening. Instead, she was digging around in the pocket of her skirt. “Did you hear me, Bibi? Please. Keep it secret.
Ipsoot.
”

She pulled something from her pocket, holding it out to me. “You take this.”

What was in her palm was a bracelet, and nothing fine. A few strings of twine—and store bought at that—knotted through five charms, all made of abalone shell, their iridescence flashing rainbows, each etched with some figure, a few lines. A worthless, ugly thing.

“She wants you to wear it.” When I made no move to take it, Bibi shoved it at me again. “You must wear it.”

“I’m not much for finery—”

“Take it.”

There was no point in arguing. The sooner I took it, the sooner I could be back to the river. I plucked it from her hand. “Thank you.”

She looked at me for a moment, as if she were trying to read something in my face, and then she turned away with a nod, seemingly satisfied, and trudged down the path toward the canoe without another word.

She didn’t look back, and I dropped the bracelet into my coat pocket, feeling unsettled, not knowing what to think. She was a strange old woman, and I was glad she was going. She stood by the canoe now, waiting, and I knew she wouldn’t budge until Michael returned to take her back to town, so I strode quickly to the house, hurrying up the stairs. Michael and Lord Tom were standing in the kitchen, each with a cup of coffee, and I called out, “She’s waiting to go back, Michael, so you’d best hurry. You know she’ll stand there in the cold all day.”

“What did she want?”

“She had a dream she wanted to tell me about,” I said.

“Siwash mumbo jumbo?”

“Something like.” I grimaced. “I’m sorry you had to come out all this way for it.”

I left quickly then, before he could engage me in a conversation I didn’t want, and I hurried back to the hole, and my digging, and I forgot Bibi’s dream and the bracelet and my uneasiness, burying it in mindless drudgery. I didn’t even see them leave.

When Junius returned late that afternoon, it was with two men in tow—Adam Leach, who owned the whacks next to ours, and Sydney Dawes, another oysterman. He brought them up to the edge of the hole and said, “Hello, sweetheart.”

“Building a dam, Leonie?” Adam Leach asked.

I glanced up. “Do I look like a beaver to you?”

“Well yeah, right now, you kind of do.” He laughed, and Sydney Dawes laughed too.

Junius said, “They came out to see the mummy.”

I pushed up the brim of my hat and leaned on the shovel handle. I was relieved for a moment—Junius was telling people,
and that at least explained why Bibi had known—but then I was annoyed. “I didn’t know that you meant to tell the world.”

Sydney said, “Ah, Russell, looks like you made her mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I said, though I was. “You boys go on and take a look at her since you came all the way out, but I wish you wouldn’t go around telling everyone you see. It’s bad enough that Bibi was out here casting her spells, I don’t need any other pretend mystics wasting my time.”

Junius frowned. “Bibi was here?”

Adam said, “Where are you keeping this thing, anyway? Let’s go see it. I want to get back before it’s too dark.”

“In the barn,” Junius said, waving them off, and as the two men made their way there, he said to me, “Why was Bibi here? Did you talk to her about the canoe?”

“She wouldn’t listen. She wanted to tell me about some dream she had.” I glared after the two men. “Really, June, did you have to tell everyone? If Baird finds out—”

“How’s he going to find out?” he asked. “Who’s going to tell him? All these men care about are oysters. They’ll take a look at her and go home and forget about it.”

“Hey, Russell, we ain’t got all day!” Sydney Dawes called out.

I glanced toward them, thinking of how they’d be looking at her as if she were some curiosity in Barnum’s museum, how they would stare and prod and touch and laugh, their crude jokes. The thought troubled me and brought back the uneasiness I’d felt at Bibi’s visit. “Junius, don’t...don’t let them touch her. Please.”

“We won’t harm a hair,” he promised, and went off after them.

I watched him walk off to join them and I turned back to the hole. But I couldn’t lose myself in the work. I wanted to be with the mummy, not in this wet and muddy hole. It seemed pointless, such a waste of time. So far, my instincts had proved right. I’d found nothing, and there looked to be nothing to find. Why continue?

I took up the shovel and pick and went back to the house, leaving them on the porch as I went inside. Lord Tom was sitting in his customary chair by the organ.

He said, “What did that
pelton
woman tell you today?”

“She’d had a dream. The mummy’s
tomawanos
wants me. Junius has told everyone about her, it seems.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice. “Now he’s out there like some lyceum showman. Too bad there’s nothing to unwrap or he could charge admission.”

Lord Tom grunted. “Bibi said more than this.”

“Yes,” I said. “More nonsense.”

Lord Tom said, “The
memelose
are tricky,
okustee
.”

“And this one’s been dead a long time. Her spirit’s long since passed over, even according to your Chinook legends. It’s not coming back. How can it hurt me?”

Lord Tom looked unconvinced. “
Kloshe nanitch, okustee
. That is all I’m saying.”

Kloshe nanitch. Be careful, listen, watch.
He’d said such words to me a hundred times. There was nothing unusual in them, and the fact that Bibi had said them to me just this morning meant nothing either. “So you think Bibi’s right?”

He shook his head. “That one? No.”

“Then there’s nothing to fear, is there?” I went to the stairs. “I’m going to wash up. I’m filthy.”

When I came downstairs again, it was to find only Junius sitting at the table, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“They headed on back,” Junius said. “You want to tell me why the hell Bibi felt the need to come all the way out here to tell you about a dream?”

I shrugged. “She wanted to give me a bracelet to wear.”

“A bracelet?”

“A charm, I think. Against the
skookum tomawanos
or something. It’s just a bit of twine from Garrett’s, with some abalone shell.”

Junius laughed. “Yeah. That’ll be some powerful magic. What
tomawanos
is she talking about?”

“The mummy’s, of course,” I said. “I wish you hadn’t told her about it, but—”

“I didn’t tell her.”

I frowned. “You didn’t?”

“I wasn’t anywhere near Bruceport. I saw Dawes and Leach out on the whacks.”

“Then how did she know?”

“No idea. I’m sure she heard it from somewhere. How else?”

How else indeed?
In my dleam
, she’d said. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

“Johnson said we should start our own museum and charge a fee to see her,” Junius said.

“Absolutely not,” I snapped.

“I was joking, Lea. But people will want to see her. You might as well get used to it. She’ll be a curiosity for at least a while.”

“As long as they don’t touch her,” I said. I saw Junius’s quick frown, but I was relieved when he said nothing.

As the night wore on, it grew harder to banish Bibi’s dream or her warnings. I felt strangely haunted. I tried not to give in to the terrible urge to go to the barn, to check on the mummy, to look at her, to touch her. Time was my enemy, but surely not so much as I felt, that if I did not go out there
right now
I would somehow be letting the answers slip away. It was foolish, and I knew it. Speed was not my friend when it came to research. I must be slow and steady and complete. I was good at detail, and I was good at it because I didn’t hurry, because my father’s teaching had been thorough and strict, drawings sometimes done ten times or more before they satisfied him, measurements refigured, words rejected and recrafted. So this need for hurry was strange and new. I fought it—I could not afford to make mistakes, not with her. I sat and wrote down everything I meant to do, step by
step. To measure her and draw her, to explore and list every mark upon her skin. Slowly, as a true scientist would, as my father had taught me to be.

But I couldn’t focus. What I wanted tonight was a story, to hear Lord Tom tell me something new, but Junius was here to criticize and I didn’t want that either. So I went to bed. The warmth from the stove and our bodies had risen, but it hadn’t completely banished the cold, and I shivered as I undressed and put on my nightgown and went to the bureau to brush and braid my hair.

I stopped short. There, next to my hairbrush, was the bracelet Bibi had given me, the abalone glimmering in the faint light. I frowned. How had it got there? I had left it in my coat pocket. I hadn’t taken it out.

I heard Junius’s footsteps on the stairs, and then the bedroom opened and he came inside. Before he could say anything, I said, “That bracelet, June, the one I told you Bibi gave me? Did you take it out of my pocket?”

“Bracelet? No. Why would I?”

I stared at the bracelet, confused and disturbed. I picked it up and let it fall into the carved horn bowl—my father’s—alongside loose buttons and a brooch, the only other piece of jewelry I owned. And then I turned determinedly away. It was late, and I was tired, and I reassured myself: it was easy to forget something so small, an action so thoughtlessly taken. It was nothing more than that.