The Devil's Paintbox (36 page)

ow can I get to a place called Brightfish Bend?”

Ruby looked at him skeptically. “Jefferson J. Jackson's place?”

“You know him?”

“Everybody knows Jackson.” Aiden couldn't tell by her tone whether this was a good or a bad thing. “What do you want with him?”

“I came out here in his wagon train. He kept some things for me. Books.”

Ruby looked at him skeptically. “It's a long day on horseback,” she said. “Twelve or fifteen miles. Best way is by boat. I might be able to find someone or other headed up that way.” She jangled her baubled wrists in a clear demonstration of the emptiness of her palm. Aiden fished out some more coins. His twenty dollars was quickly running out in this place.

Aiden wasn't sure what he had expected Jefferson J. Jackson's trading post to look like, but it certainly wasn't this. It looked more like a small village, he thought as he walked up the boardwalk from the little dock. The main house was a big, sturdy L-shaped log building with a wide front porch facing the sound. Every pillar was beautifully carved with Indian designs. Between the pillars dangled strings of shells that clicked in the wind with gentle music. The wing at one end of
the building was clearly the store, while the rest looked like a home, though far bigger than any one family's home.

There were at least six other buildings that he could see, scattered back among the trees but all connected with boardwalks. As he walked toward the main building, he heard giggling from above and looked up to see a dozen small Indian children waving to him from a little tree house. They climbed nimbly down and swarmed around him, laughing and chattering in a combination of English and some Indian language.

The door to the main house opened and Jackson came out. Aiden was surprised to see him. Jackson's gaunt face had filled out, and his once sinewy limbs now seemed more suited to armchairs than to a saddle. He wasn't fat like a banker or any other rich man, but a different person entirely from the stringy old trapper Aiden had known on the trail.

“I didn't really expect you till tomorrow,” he said.

“Tupic got here all right, then?”

“He did. Yesterday evening.” Jackson looked him up and down, but said nothing about the fresh bruises and scrapes on his face. “He's out with the men hunting seal.” Jackson looked around the quiet compound. “Everyone else has gone down to the beach for the butchering. Tide will have them coming in soon.”

The children continued to dance around Aiden.

“Go on, all of you!” Jackson waved the children off. They scampered around but didn't leave.

“Go on, git!”

“Go on, git!” one little boy mimicked him, timing it perfectly so they shouted in unison. The children shrieked with laughter.

“You little savages!” Jackson growled and stomped in their direction. The children didn't seem particularly scared of him but scampered off toward the water. Jackson motioned Aiden toward one of the porch chairs. “Come sit while we have the sun, and the quiet.”

Aiden sank gratefully into the chair. Last night's beating was starting to ache on him, and though the water in the sound was calm today, the voyage from Seattle in the small boat had made him seasick. The chair was made of bent willow branches and was amazingly comfortable. It creaked gently as he sat down and seemed to bend around his body. The afternoon sun was low and beamed in under the roof. Jackson went inside and came out a few minutes later with mugs of coffee, a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

“Thanks,” Aiden said. They raised their glasses and drank. “Nice place. Who are all those children? Who lives here?”

“My family.”

Aiden's astonishment must have shown on his face.

“Don't be surprised,” Jackson laughed. “I been around a while, boy. Family happens.” He put his feet up on a stool, using his hands to help lift the stiff limbs. “My first wife was Shoshone, from Idaho. Back in the thirties, when I was trapping, I wintered with her people for nine years. We had six children, five that lived. Three of them live here now—with their children, twelve or thirteen, I think.”

“So those are your grandchildren?”

“Some. But the smart-mouth one—well …” Jackson gave him a proud smile. “He's direct. Bit of a surprise there. He just turned five. I have six by my third wife, Salawee. She's Yakima, from north of here. Married her in ‘51.”

“Six?”

“Four sons, two girls. The oldest one's fourteen, teaching English up north on the reservation. In between was a Mexican wife. Died birthing a son—Francis. I hardly even knew her. Pretty girl, though. Her folks died too, and Mexico all tore up on account of that war, so I brought the boy back with me and the Shoshones took him in with the rest.”

“But how did all this”—Aiden looked around the compound—”come about?”

“Remember I told you of the rendezvous, how trappers would squander a year's fortune, and you asked why didn't they just squander half and save the rest?”

“You saved the rest?”

“I did.” Jackson gave him a sly smile and poured them both another drink. “And with the wagon train money, and the logger bounties, I did all right. About ten years ago I found this place and saw some possibility. Didn't know what would come of Seattle then—it's only been a city since ‘51— but I figured this land here, with the harbor, timber, might do all right. If nothing else, it was pretty, and you could live well enough off the land, if you like fish. Salawee's people owned it, such as owning is with them, but with Indians getting put on reservations, we worked it out for me to buy it. Then a few years ago when things got bad on the plains, I brought my Shoshones, those who wanted, out here from Idaho.”

“How do you all live?”

“Some fish, hunt seal, raise chickens and goats. Some work as loggers. The girls do weaving, make baskets, and the men build these chairs.” He slapped the arms proudly. “Sell for twenty dollars in San Francisco. Francis, the Mexican one,
turned out smart with trade and such. He married a Yakima girl and they have two babies.”

Aiden gave up trying to count up Jackson's progeny.

“So you see, I got a good life here now.” Jackson gave him a long, hard look. “I don't need any trouble,” he said with clear meaning. The sun was dropping and the sky turning the plummy blue of winter dusk. Aiden saw four small boats approaching and heard the welcoming shouts of the women and children drifting up through the trees.

“What did Tupic tell you?”

“I told him tell me nothing. But I got a message a couple weeks back that some Indians were in the jail saying they knew me—that's trouble enough.”

“You know they killed Silent Wolf?”

“I get the newspaper. Didn't figure it all out as to who it was until after Tupic showed up here, though.”

A door opened in one of the other buildings and two young women, eighteen or twenty years old, came out carrying infants. They waved to Jackson and hurried down the hill toward the shore to join the others.

“So you know why they came,” Aiden pressed. “For the vaccine?”

“Stupid idea.”

“Clever Crow died of the smallpox.”

Jackson rubbed his gnarled hand over his face. “That's a damn shame.”

“Your family, have they all been vaccinated?” Aiden asked quietly.

“That ain't gonna work on me.” Jackson shook his head. “Wherever you think you're going with that—guilty feeling
or moral right, or what have you—ain't no use. I have sympathetic feelings for others’ plights, I do.” He looked out over the village. “But I know the clear fact is—Indians are doomed one way or another.” He took another drink. “There was warfare here ten years ago. Puget Sound War, they call it now. Indians lost. Result was they all got bound to reservations. But this is my private-owned land, and with my Indians being half-breeds and family as they are, it works in the law all right. These ones here I can see to. But there's plenty folks around still don't like it.”

Aiden nodded. “I understand.”

Jackson got up, pushing hard on the arms of his chair.

“I ain't done much in the world but make this place and look out for my own.” He coughed and spat. “I never looked for fixing all the world.”

butter-colored cat leaped up out of nowhere and butted imperiously at Jackson's hand. “You and Tupic are welcome to stay the night,” he said, scratching the cat's ears. “There'll be a feasting supper, I imagine, with the seal. I don't like seal meat myself, but it's healthful in the midwinter.”

“Thank you,” Aiden said. “But I was planning to travel on tonight; the moon is bright enough if the clouds stay off. I was hoping to buy a horse from you.”

“With what?”

“I have cash, a hundred seventy dollars. Mr. Powhee holds it for me and will see that you get it.”

“A hundred seventy dollars—Ah—you're fighting, then?” Jackson nodded. “You must be all right if you won that much.” He grinned. “I can't imagine the no-damage part would be easy for you, though.”

“You know about the fights?”

Of course.”

“Well, Napoleon Gilivrey doesn't, so I'd be grateful if you didn't mention it to him the next time you see him. That's the only way I got Mr. Powhee to let me go for a week. I threatened to tell Mr. Gilivrey about the fights.”

Jackson let out a big laugh and picked up the languid cat.

“Boy, for as smart as you are sometimes, you also astound. God almighty, ain't nothing Napoleon Gilivrey don't
know about what goes on in his camps. He knows every man's shoe size and which tree he pisses on! If Powhee thinks Gilivrey don't know about the fights, it's because Gilivrey wants him to think it.”

“Why?”

“Well, first of all, if the fights weren't a secret, the men could pay off their debts with the winnings. Gilivrey would rather have the loggers bound to him and cutting trees. You know how far he goes to get men these days—dragging some skinny-ass boy halfway across the continent.” Jackson raised his glass to Aiden and tipped up the last sip of whiskey.

“Second, it keeps Powhee and the other bosses happy with extra bonus money that don't come from Gilivrey's own pocket, plus it gives him leverage over them if he should ever need it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Gilivrey got the fights started in the first place!” Jackson added. “Loggers borrow against their wages to bet and dig their debt bigger. Gilivrey is happy to just keep adding days to their tally.”