Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes (26 page)

“That’s right.”

Edmonds nodded triumphantly. “Classic West Coast weather pattern. And that’s why it’s going to rain on Thursday—a big blow, if my calculations are accurate.”

“Because of the wind,” Kate confirmed.

“Because of the ocean.”

“I thought it was the mountains,” Joseph said.

“Oh, yes, them too,” said the weatherman and returned his gaze to the elevation chart without further explanation.

Kate glanced at Joseph and saw an equally amused if only slightly less confused expression on his face. She wasn’t ready for her husband to smile just yet and sidled up to Edmonds, close enough for both men to notice.

“So, mountains can affect the weather,” she said. “They can actually make it rain?”

“Well, in some instances higher elevations can draw higher rainfalls. In fact, I’ve read about a volcano in the Sandwich Islands that receives ten times the rainfall on its western slope compared to the eastern. The west side draws all the moisture from the clouds.”

“Fascinating,” Kate said. She was about to rest a hand on his shoulder when a question occurred to her that seemed more vital than her husband’s temporary discomfort. “Mr. Edmonds, do you have any devices in your collection that can make it rain?”

Edmonds looked up from his writing. “Has the mayor put you up to this? He’s convinced I know the secret for coaxing water from blue sky. I made the mistake of mentioning a theory I’d heard of sending certain chemicals aloft via helium-filled balloons to seed the clouds with moisture. He’s been rather persistent.”

“He is at that,” Kate said. “But I was thinking more along the lines of an earthbound device, a rainmaker of sorts.”

Edmonds smiled. “Mrs. Wylde, I believe you may have confused science with fiction. Measuring I can do, but I can no more make it rain than I could turn day to night.”

“Something from another culture, perhaps? Not so much scientific as religious?”

“Are you referring to mysticism?”

Kate nodded.

“I’m sorry, I don’t subscribe to such things. I realize there are wonders in this world that man has yet to fully comprehend, but to assign them magical powers as a way to explain their existence seems rather shortsighted to me.”

*   *   *

Mr. Edmonds spent the rest of the morning going over every Northwest chart and map Joseph could dig up for him. He was thrilled to have so many available. When Kate produced a diary detailing nearly twenty years of local weather as recorded by a longtime resident, Edmonds actually giggled with delight.

The store was unusually busy for a Monday morning, although not so much in sales. Most visitors seemed content to wander the aisles searching for items they never seemed to find. It wasn’t until Joseph overheard one of the patrons mention a midnight delivery that he understood the influx of lookie-loos.

“I guess the mayor shared his secret with a few more folks,” Joseph said to Kate the next time she reappeared from the storeroom. “They’re looking for a show.”

Kate shook her head. “Nothing to see here.”

“No luck?”

“The information just isn’t there. We couldn’t find a single reference to a storm totem or anything remotely close to such a thing.”

“What about the white raven?”

Kate shook her head. “There’s the sketch you did and a few others that share similar carving styles, but that’s it. The kids went through every book, some more than once.”

Joseph had suspected their search might not bear fruit. He remembered most of what had gone into his own writings and doubted the published books would include anything better. They were mostly full of speculation and outright lies anyway.

“What about a ceremony?”

Kate nodded. “There were a few references to so-called rain dances, but not from any northern tribes. I would imagine there’s little need to summon what falls freely from the sky on most days.”

“Except when it doesn’t,” Joseph said.

“Yes, and didn’t the mayor say the rain stopped
after
this thing was brought to town? Maybe the fellow who sold it to him got it wrong. It’s not a rainmaker.”

“It’s a rain
taker,
” Joseph finished. “That would certainly add a twist to things.”

“Indeed. But who’s to say? Hopefully Billy will have some insight.”

*   *   *

“To be honest, my friend, I’m stumped.”

William Axtell, known in some circles as Billy Red Fish due to an incident involving a cracker barrel full of sockeye salmon, had spent the better part of an hour silently studying the storm totem from top to bottom. Joseph had always known him to be thorough and let him take his time.

Joseph put a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “I was hoping for something more.”

“I’m sorry, Joseph. I’ve not seen anything like it.”

Billy had seen a lot. At the age of fourteen, he’d run away from a reservation in the Yakima Valley, ultimately ending up in Portland, where he found work at a short-lived cannery. A chance encounter with a desperate captain led to a job aboard a merchant vessel making regular runs up and down the coast from San Diego to Vancouver. An unmatched ability to pick up any of the dozen or so Native languages spoken along the coastal route soon made him the ship’s unofficial Indian liaison. His discovery that the locals had jewelry to trade, much of it featuring large orange crystals, made him very popular with the crew.

In the summer of 1885, at the age of twenty-four, Billy returned to Portland hoping to track down the family he’d left behind. He found his way to Joseph, who helped him navigate the government’s impenetrable record-keeping system until they located a sister transplanted to a reservation in Kansas. Billy made several attempts to contact her, finally receiving a terse, single-line telegram that read in full:
FAMILY IS ALL DEAD
.

Billy remained in Portland, helping Joseph and Kate at the bookstore before taking a position at the Columbia Indian Affairs Board as a translator and tribal liaison. Local efforts to improve relations with the Native community kept him busy, but he made it clear that he would always be available should his friends need assistance. This was the first time Joseph had asked.

Billy put a hand on the face of the bear, running his fingers across the bridge of the nose and inside the creature’s open mouth.

“The beasts are like that of Haida and Tlingit, but the lines are Salish—but not the color.”

“What color?” said Maddie.

“Exactly,” said Billy. “Where is the color? There is no black, no red, no green … very unusual. I would expect to see all three if this was from the Northern Island.”

“Maybe it faded,” Kick said.

Billy looked closely at the color remaining on the human figure. He scratched at it briefly, then stepped back and looked directly at Joseph.

“We are meant to believe that.”

Joseph nodded. “Who carved it?”

Billy shrugged.

Joseph laughed out loud. “That’s it? You don’t have any idea, not even a guess?”

“A guess is not the truth.”

“I’ll settle for a half-truth, then.”

Billy returned his gaze to the totem. “The use of stone is unusual, but not unprecedented. There is a story I’ve heard, not along the great river, but farther north, beyond the Northern Island, that speaks of a tribe that worked in stone, and not just for jewelry.”

“Stone like this?” Joseph said touching the pole. “Firestone?”

“Stone that breathes, they called it. I do not know why. That tribe is gone, disappeared long ago. The stone is all that is left—small pieces, carvings, figures, other trinkets. I have seen a few pieces, not much, and certainly nothing this big.”

“And the tribe just disappeared?”

“I met a man once who claimed to be a descendant of the stone makers. He turned out to be an Irishman of ill repute, so I am inclined to doubt his assertion.”

Joseph had heard the register close up and the front door lock moments earlier, so he wasn’t surprised when Kate slipped the key into his vest pocket after entering the storeroom without detection.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” she asked.

If Billy was surprised by Kate’s silent appearance he didn’t show it. Joseph was impressed.

“Billy thinks it might have been carved by a mysterious lost tribe.”

“Oh, the mayor will like that,” Kate said.

“Will he?” Billy said. “I understand he’s hoping to make it rain.”

“A downpour would suit him just fine.”

“Then perhaps he should have this removed from the city limits.”

Joseph shook his head. “It’s keeping the rain away, isn’t it?”

Billy nodded. “You asked for a guess earlier, and my best as to its function would be just that. It calls to the sun, not the clouds.”

“Do you believe that?” Kate asked. “That it’s magically sucking all the moisture out of the air?”

Billy shrugged. “It is just a guess.”

Kate sighed. “Well, the mayor definitely won’t like that.”

“How do we stop it?” Joseph asked.

“Good question,” Billy said.

Joseph hesitated for a moment before suggesting, “You have no idea.”

“None,” Billy said. “My solution would be to ship it east to the badlands. No one will notice if it is not raining in the desert.”

*   *   *

It was obvious to Maddie what needed to be done, but she waited until her parents and Billy had left the storeroom before turning to Kick.

“What if we got it wet,” he said, beating her to the punch.

“Yes, because of the lines,” she said. “They flow around the figures, in and out of the shapes, encircling the entire pole, but they aren’t just lines, they’re channels—channels where water could flow.”

Kick stared at his sister. “I just want to get it wet.”

“Look here,” Maddie said, pointing to a line that wrapped around the sea bear. “See how it has a curved lip on the front of the line? Water will stay in that channel, I’m sure of it. In fact, I bet there’s a reservoir on top where the water flows down from.”

Kick was on the ladder before Maddie had finished her sentence. He climbed to the top and then leaned over the totem pole.

“There’s a well on top the bird’s head, like a small bowl, and there’s a hole in the bottom of it.”

“That’s it. If we pour a small amount of water in there, I’m sure it’ll run through the entire channel system carved into the stone.”

Kick slid down the ladder and hit the ground with a thump next to his sister.

“And then what?”

Maddie thought about it for a moment. She, like her mother, was more in line with the weather expert’s thinking that science always trumped magic, eventually. That said, she really liked the idea of making it rain.

“I don’t know,” she said, finally. “Maybe it’ll rain.”

Kick didn’t wait for further instructions. He grabbed a small pail in the corner of the storeroom and exited through the back door. Ten seconds later he returned with a bucketful of floodwater drawn from the submerged alley. He was on the ladder before Maddie could slow him down.

“Just a little,” she said. “Don’t pour the whole bucket.”

“Okay.”

Kick reached the top of the ladder and began to lean out over the totem pole. He lost his grip and slipped slightly, spilling some of the water.

“Hey!” Maddie shrieked as water splashed over her shoulder.

“Sorry,” Kick said before steadying himself. Once again he leaned over the pole, this time tilting the bucket directly above the bird’s head. The water poured into the small bowl but didn’t fill it up immediately, despite what appeared to be a rather shallow well. Kick kept pouring, but the water simply disappeared down the hole in the base of the well.

“Kick, don’t use all of it.”

“I know, just enough to fill it up,” Kick said. And with that the bucket was empty. Kick watched the last of the water swirl around the small indentation and then drain away. “Oh, I guess I used all of it.”

Maddie sighed.

Kick climbed down the ladder and stood next to his sister, who had eyes only for the totem.

“Anything?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think I can hear watering dripping, but…” Maddie slid to the right and then pointed at the beaver. “There!”

A thin line of water could be seen racing around the beaver. It followed a line around the head, circled the stomach, and then crisscrossed the tail, filling numerous lines, before disappearing into the pole.

“Over here,” Kick said, pointing to another line of water racing around a series of rings that wrapped completely around the pole. “And there, too.”

And there were more. Channels all over the storm totem were filling with moving water. Soon every line on the pole seemed to hold liquid—all of it moving.

“Where’s it going?” Maddie asked.

Kick walked around the pole, studying the humanlike figure at its base. He expected to see water spilling from the base, but there was none. Upon closer inspection, he found something even more remarkable.

“Maddie,” he said, kneeling down next to the base of the pole. “I think the water is flowing up.”

“That’s impossible,” Maddie said, bending to get a better look.

Kick was right. The water flowing around the legs of the stubby figure was definitely flowing up. In fact, lines all over the totem seemed to be carrying water up, not down. Maddie stared at a stream of water flowing at a forty-five-degree angle over the curve of the killer whale’s back.

“Something is pumping the water,” she said.

Kick leaned closer to the pole. “I hear something. Sounds like breathing.”

“That’s it! There must be a steam engine inside that’s pushing the water around the pole.”

Kick stood up, never taking his eyes off the storm totem. “But doesn’t a steam engine need heat?”

Maddie frowned. “It could be the water. As it flows from the top, it could be pushing water at the bottom back up.”

“Maybe,” Kick said. He stared at the pole for a moment longer, then went to the back door and peered out into the alley. “It’s not raining. Not even a cloud.”

Maddie wasn’t surprised, but neither was she disappointed. The lack of precipitation didn’t diminish the remarkable find that she and Kick had just made.