Joko (34 page)

Grateful for a moment’s rest, Johnny removed his pack and hung it on a branch that protruded from a fallen cedar.

He watched Swan, silently wondering what they would do next. He supposed Swan was more tired than himself, but the man seemed charged with energy.

Swan pushed away some broken branches that blocked his view of the river and stood for a moment, shaking his head. “If the village was taken by surprise, Johnny,” Swan cautioned, “we might be sad witnesses to something most horrible. Gather your wits, John Tilbury.” Swan looked at Jack who waited atop a boulder a few yards ahead on the path. “I wonder what Jack will make of all this?”

Johnny took a drink from his canteen and wiped away sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Maybe the Indians heard it coming,” he said, feeling somewhat annoyed with Swan’s fatalism. “We got out of its way.”

“We were up and running when the earth moved, John.

You surely remember how close it came to taking us. We heard the deluge. But the village is beyond a turn in the river, sheltered by bluffs. And the river narrows there, too.” Swan looked again at the ruined river. “We’d best be moving on, John. The village is close.”

Before Johnny, Jack, and Swan reached the village itself, they came upon ruined camps; huts that were nearly obliterated. But they saw no bodies, only debris. Further on, though, was a different and much sadder story.

Just as Swan had said, at the place where the river swelled again, it took a turn and became a wide cascade of falls. Swan had mentioned earlier that it was a beautiful place, perfect for fishing or swimming. The natives had rearranged the stones at the edge of the falls as a place for bathing and laundry. In the middle of the gorge most of the water flowed free down a cascade of falls, providing a perfect fishing spot for the Skokomis fishermen.

Now, as Swan surveyed the once familiar scene he found himself disoriented by the destruction. The stones were gone.

There were no women doing their washing or children playing among the boulders and swimming in shallow pools. A wall of ruin had scoured the place.

The village wasn’t far away. Swan feared the worst. Tired as the man was, he broke into a run. Johnny and Jack followed close on his heels.

When the three travelers reached the top of the falls overlooking the Skokomis village, the scene stunned them all to silence.

The flood had come unexpectedly, its sound stifled by the bluffs on either side of the river bend. There, it had surged forward as if trying to erase the village and the forest around it. Like a mighty boot, the river had kicked a hole through the heart of the Skokomis settlement. Johnny, Swan, and Jack just stood and gazed at the ruin. Soon they saw amid the fallen trees surviving tribesmen picking over the debris. Swan took a deep breath and walked toward what remained of the village. Johnny and Jack tagged along behind.

If there were questions about how the sasquatch might be received by the Indians, they were quickly forgotten. As they neared the ruin they heard, under the roar of the river, the wailing of the injured.

Swan put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “I hoped they might have heard it coming, but as I feared, it took them by surprise. Oh, my God, those poor people.” Swan shook his head. “The women and children would have been there, by the river.”

Suddenly a voice called out to them in English. “Damned if it ain’t the Indian judge! Come to settle the estates, Mister Swan?”

Walking quickly toward them, toting a long musket, was a large man dressed in animal skins. Johnny and Jack froze as the man approached. Swan seemed pleased to see the man and went to meet him, motioning to Johnny to join him. Jack and Johnny came down the hill, then followed Swan and the man toward a grove of trees that seemed to contain what was left of the village.

“Johnny and Jack,” yelled Swan. “This is the trapper I told you about. Trapper and woodsman extraordinaire, Jimmy Speers Randall.”

The man was enormous, perhaps six and a half feet tall.

He seemed to swallow up Swan’s small frame when he put an arm around him. “The damned quake! Murdered this village. Look at it! God damned shame to spring a thing like this on a poor fishing village like this. So, Swan, you packing out? Back to Townsend?”

Swan was nodding emphatically.

Randall cast a sharp blue eye over his shoulder and examined Johnny and Jack. “And who might yer friends be, Swan?”

Swan pointed to the ruined shacks that had been combed into a pattern resembling a long wooden fence. It may have represented as many as ten lodges, but now it was a strangely ordered woodpile covered by small trees and a pile of mud and stone. Several Skokomis women stood helplessly staring at their ruined homes.

“How long ago did this happen?” asked Swan.

“I came in late yesterday,” said Randall, “with a load of furs. The village was like you see. They’re still trying to figure out who is missing.” Having provided quick information to Swan, Randall turned his attention back to the ‘boys’ and cocked his head with curiosity. “Eh?”

“Johnny and Jack, meet my good friend, trapper …”

“Trapper Jimmy Randall, I think you said,” interrupted Johnny. “I’m Johnny Tilbury and this is Jack. He’s from Sumatra.” Johnny said as casually as possible.

The trapper gave Jack another once over. “Hmmmm,

Sumatra? Isn’t that in the South Pacific? Interesting, I dare say. Out Java or Borneo way, huh? Haven’t been to sea much, myself. Hate it. If I ever got shanghaied I’d jump ship like you boys.”

As they neared the ruined Skokomis village, everything was in disarray – people trying to make sense of their ruined lives while trying to assist the living; campfires burned and pots of water boiled as women hung strips of pink cloth, bandages, on the branches of fallen trees to dry.

Johnny scowled and tapped Swan on the shoulder. “I said nothing about jumping ship!”

“How’d you get here, and to the cabin? You
were
at the cabin, I guess? Am I right, Swan?” asked Jimmy

Swan smiled. “How the Hell did you guess that, Jimmy?

You are amazing, I swear to the Almighty!”

Jimmy looked back at Johnny and winked merrily. “You can trust the Randall name, son. I won’t tell a soul about ya.

Ain’t that the truth, ol’ Swanny?”

“It is that, sir,” said Swan loudly.

Johnny bit his lip and vowed to keep his mouth shut. He wondered what other surprise questions the mountain man might have in store, but the trapper never said another word.

No one did. They came upon a horrible scene. The villagers had lined up their dead in the middle of a muddy clearing.

The four stopped and stood watching helplessly as body after body was wrapped in blankets and laid in rows like cordwood.

Some of the corpses were small and some large, others were so distorted and bloodied that Johnny averted his eyes. Not far away from where they walked more ruined lodges blended with boulders, mud, and toppled trees. He could see people digging into the debris to help survivors.

Three muddied and scratched braves approached them, speaking in their tongue to Swan and the trapper. One of the men seemed to know Swan but didn’t greet him. He expression spoke of a broken body and spirit.

Swan explained that the man had lost his family. “They were swept from his lodge.”

The Indian seemed to understand Swan’s translation. He looked at Johnny with tears welling in his eyes and pointed to the river. “
I-yer-m a-ha
,” he muttered over and over.

“I don’t understand it either,” said the trapper, putting a hand on the Indian’s shoulder and shaking his head. He looked at the spot that had captured Johnny’s attention.

“There are people in those piles of wood, Swanny. They need help digging out.
All
the help they can get. Awww Swanny,” he moaned. “At least a hundred are missing. Some are trapped where those men are digging.”

Swan turned to the boys. “We have to help. We have no choice, John.”

Johnny put an arm over Jack’s shoulder and explained the situation to Jack. He chose his words carefully while he concentrated, picturing the trapped Indians in his mind.

“People are buried in that mess over there, Jack,” he whispered. “We have to help dig them out.” He touched Jack’s forehead with his own. “This is it, my furry friend. Time to join the human race.”

To his surprise there was an echo, a voice that seemed to come from inside himself, but it was Jack. “Jack help. Help the Indians. Jack want help Indians.”

The next several hours were a blur of activity as everyone pitched in and tried to dismantle the ruin that nature had made of the village. Before long the three strangers could see that the debris mound they were digging into was only a small group of lodges that had been brushed aside by the flow. The rest of the settlement, which had received the full force of the flood, no longer existed. It was erased; swept downstream in the torrent. Johnny and Swan heard every detail of the destruction from the trapper as they worked. All the while, beneath the debris, the pitiful wails of a child could be heard.

It seemed to take hours, but eventually their hard work revealed a little Skokomis girl pinned under a formidable log, next to the crushed bodies of her parents. The log was across her chest and the girl could fill her lungs only partially with air, and her left arm seemed stuck in the same dirt that entombed her parents.

Jimmy the trapper was first in the hole and first to apply his considerable strength toward lifting the log. He ground his teeth audibly and his back creaked under the strain, but the tree wouldn’t budge. Two braves dove into the hole to assist the trapper, but even with their strength added to the trapper’s, the log refused to budge.

Johnny knew they needed Jack’s strength, but he feared bringing attention to the sasquatch. As he looked at the little girl he knew they had to try to save her, no matter the cost. “I think Jack can do it.”

Everyone looked at him. “What are you saying, boy? What can you do?” asked the trapper, wiping muddy sweat from his brow.

“Let us try. Jack is strong. Very strong. Come on, Jack.”

Johnny and the sasquatch insinuated themselves next to the trapper. Jack looked at the girl sadly. Her forehead was covered with blood from a deep laceration. Her teeth chattered from the hours of being buried in the cold mud.

The trapper looked up at Swan dubiously. “I don’t know, Judge.

She’s …”

Swan shrugged his shoulders. “What have we got to lose, Jimmy? Let them try.”

“All right,” said Jimmy, “let’s see what you and your Sumatran friend can do.”

Swan watched helplessly as he threw branches and boulders clear of the site.

“On the count of three,” said Johnny. “We all lift up on that limb. Jack. You get underneath. Okay, one … two…”

It was not an easy lift even for Jack, but he was able to put his entire body into it. Nothing happened at first. Then the tree began to rise. None of them, not even Jack, had the sense that they were actually helping with the lift.

Nevertheless it rose.

Jack would long remember the moment.

As he had moved down the ruined river with the two humans, he knew what lay ahead. A village. A nest of humans who hunted, fished, and had a long history of avoiding his people. Now he was in this fearsome place and all he could feel was sorrow and bewilderment. Nature had overwhelmed the humans so that Jack was no longer out of place. On the contrary, he now found himself the center of attention, staring into the helpless brown eyes of a small child. She needed his help.

With sasquatch and human muscle applied beneath it, and three braves above pushing with all their might, the log trembled and the girl screamed in pain. Moments later, the huge tree trunk began to rise. When it finally lifted free of the girl’s leg, a woman who had been standing by climbed into the hole next to Jack and pulled the girl to safety.

Johnny looked up at Swan, who was bent over, peering down at him. The man smiled, then rolled his eyes, but said nothing as Johnny followed the woman out of the hole with Jack close behind. The trapper found it hard to lift his bulky frame out of the pit. The slick mud gave way as he dug his boots into it. He reached up, feeling around with his hands for something to help pull himself free. Without hesitation Jack grabbed Jimmy’s hand and lifted him in one swift move out of the hole. Then Jack turned and followed after Johnny and Swan.

Swan saw the look of amazement on Jimmy’s face but thought it best to say nothing. Strangely, the trapper never said a word about Jack’s lifting him out of the hole. Thinking about it later, Johnny decided that the trapper’s ego couldn’t support the idea that a midget like Jack from Sumatra could lift a body his size. But there was no question that Jack had earned his place alongside the humans.

At the end of the day the grateful Skokomis fed the white men a meal of corn meal and dried salmon. It was then they learned that the tribe’s Chief, a man called Cateweh, had also been swept away in the flood. His son, a brave called Charley, was inconsolable. He said nothing, nor did he eat.

He sat crosslegged with his back to the campfire and stared into the distance. Johnny suspected he didn’t want people to see his tears. In a lodge off in the distance the wails of women continued unabated.

As night set in, the Indians became demoralized and decided to stop searching for survivors. Swan took issue with them and urged them to continue their search. “People can’t stay buried until morning and survive,” he implored.

The Skokomis argued that malevolent spirits, the

memalos tilicum
, or spirits of the dead who owned the night, m ight be angry if they did so. They told Swan they didn’t want to show any disrespect to the spirit of their newly departed Chief Cateweh. But Swan didn’t relent. He insisted that bad spirits couldn’t harm them and good spirits would approve of saving lives. That argument, from a man whose medicine they respected, brought a response from the chief’s son, Charley. He rose and said simply that he agreed with Swan.

Then he picked up a pole and walked off into the night.