The Snake River (17 page)

Flare cocked it and slapped Plummer in the face. Hard.

Plummer grabbed for Flare.

A huge pair of hands clamped him by the shoulders. “Don’t!” commanded Skye. “I suggest, Captain, that you keep your person on board from this hour forward. It wouldn’t be safe to come ashore.”

“Nor safe for your men, either,” added McLoughlin.

Sima, Flare, Skye, and McLoughlin stood shoulder to shoulder on the dock, watching the great merchant ship. She readied lines and sails. When all seemed in order, an officer gave commands. A seaman was hoisted by a rope tied around his hands. Another officer took a whip and lashed the man’s bare back.

The seaman screamed. Blood washed his back. Sima imagined nearby sailors got splattered.

Sima forced back the dry heaves and trotted away. Flare caught up with him. “Barbaric,” said Sima.

When they looked back, from far up the hill, she had weighed anchor and was moving.

“What now, lad?” Flare asked quietly. Sima was coming along, but he still acted dazed.

“I want,” Sima began. “I want to go to the mission.”

Christ.

Bloody Christ.

Flare forced self-control. “And why the bloody hell not? Be hot around here for a bit anyway.” Funny, it was Skye who always worried about getting into trouble with the Royal Navy.

Sima turned full to Flare, his face stiff, full of knowing what it meant. “I want to stay the winter there. At least.”

Flare said weakly, “So why don’t we the bloody hell get going?”

Part Four

LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Chapter Sixteen

Flare made jokes to himself about delivering his son unto somebody’s God, like Abraham or some bloody patriarch he couldn’t remember. That’s the way he felt about it.

Delivering him on a fine new horse, too. Sima was very pleased about the big American horse Flare bought him from Balmat. A young horse, not yet well broke, but Sima looked forward to training it.

He seemed morose about the death of his friend. He mentioned white-man’s disease several times, words he and Palea evidently had for the eradicable prejudices of whites. The lad’s learning, Flare thought sadly.

On the way up the Willamette River to Mission Bottom, Flare also played out awful scenes in his mind. The worst was that Dr. Full had married every woman at the mission, installed them all in different bedrooms of his mansion, and Miss Jewel wore her bustle in front. That was a jokey way of saying she was very pregnant.

The route was simply up the Willamette a couple of days to what was infelicitously known as Mission Bottom. Flare was irritated with how the country had changed. Now there were two little settlements of Frenchies along the way at an area called French Prairie, men retired from the HBC. Flare knew almost every man jack of them, and was glad to see them.

He told Sima why. They all had Indian families, and wouldn’t abandon them for civilization. The wives and their offspring wouldn’t like civilization a bit. Flare didn’t mention that the civilized people wouldn’t like them.

They went straight to find Miss Jewel, and to hell with Dr. Full.

Though Full was already married, it was almost as bad as Flare dreamed.

“Meet my housemate, Billy Wells,” said Miss Jewel, indicating a gangly, embarrassed-looking boy in his mid twenties. Sima shook the fellow’s hand, so Flare had to force himself. You acted better when you were showing your son how.

Housemate? Was Miss Jewel married?

Flare watched him shake hands with Sima and make conventional noises. The fellow had the shy-smiling, I-ain’t-nothing humility of the Bible-poxed American backwoodsman. He practically scraped and bowed when he met anyone. And he was damned good-looking in a boyishly American way. Flare despised him on sight.

“He and I live most scandalously,” Miss Jewel said with an impish smile. “Come see.”

It was as small a structure as you could call a cabin. It made Flare long for an honest tipi, which would have been bigger, warmer, and more comfortable. A divider of flour sacks stitched loosely together hung down the middle. There was room for a cot on each side, and almost nothing more.

“The family I was with, the Leslies, tried to make me a servant. I told Dr. Full I wouldn’t put up with that,” Miss Jewel said. “When Billy proposed, Dr. Full thought this would be all right for a while. I think, actually, Dr. Full wanted me under the sway of a man, even a little bit.” She gave a merry smile to tell Flare how much good that would do anyhow. “Turns out to be more private than being in with a man, wife, and three children.” She winked at Billy. “Billy and I will be married, probably next summer. He’s finding it hard to wait that long, but he will.

“Billy is a carpenter,” she said proudly, “and he’s in training to be a minister of the Gospel.”

She took time to explain to Sima what engagement was, how marriage was something sanctioned by God, and the like. She was good about that, and had a way of explaining that treated Sima as an equal. She didn’t say why they were waiting six more months to marry.

“We’ve been expecting you,” she told Sima. “Let me show you where you’ll live.”

They were putting Sima in with Alan Wineson, the blacksmith, and his family. The cabin was a little bigger than Miss Jewel and Billy’s, and was split into bedrooms for the couple and for the children, who would now include Sima.

She showed them the schoolroom as well, just one room. Sima would be her fourth student, Miss Jewel said, and they were all teenage boys. Sima was ahead of the other three.

“The prodigal son returns, I see,” came the voice. Dr. Full-of-Himself.

Full made them coffee. It was weak, but he gave Sima long sweetening to please the boy. Full made himself ingratiating, with an edge of mockery for Flare’s benefit. Flare wondered if Sima saw that.

Oh, the man was high on himself. Surely he’d feared Sima wouldn’t come. Now he would be full of bribes. Flare had to tell himself some of them would even be good for the boy. Sima would get all the instruction and attention he wanted. And then some. Fattening the goose for the slaughter.

Well, there wasn’t going to be any slaughter.

After a while Full made his excuses, and said goodbye to Flare. “I hope you’ll come back for services on Sunday,” said Full. “I’m going to invite Sima to tell the story of his miracle.”

Miracle, after all, was it? The man was unconvinced until he saw how convenient the idea of miracle was.

“I’ll be there,” said Flare.

“And where will your wanderings take you next?” said Full, smiling hugely at the thought of getting rid of Flare.

“They will bring me near the influence of the prophets of heresy,” said Flare. “I mean to stay the winter at French Prairie, where me friends are. Perhaps I’ll be undone by one or two of your heretical sermons.”

Full looked downright mean. Flare wondered if Sima saw the look and understood. “Attending our church will give you something more for your next confession, as I understand it,” said Full with a phony smile.

Flare supposed killing was forgivable if you did it to save your son.

Miss Jewel covered for Dr. Full by gushing with pleasure at Flare’s staying. She and Sima walked him to his horses.

Flare had to ask. “And why is it you and Billy are waiting so long to marry? I’d have ye bedded tomorrow.”

She blushed. Flare had never seen her do that before. It was as becoming as everything else she did.

“He has asked another for her hand,” Miss Jewel replied. “Before I arrived last fall, he wrote back to the States to ask a Boston woman who wants to come here as a teacher to marry him. He’s barely met her.” She fussed with a button. Flare wished she’d let him fuss with her buttons.

“Things are changed now, of course,” she went on. “But I insist that he set things right. In a couple of weeks we’ll send letters down to Vancouver for the winter express. He’ll write her, withdrawing his offer. When she responds, we’ll be married.”

“And living like that,” said Flare with a smile. “The flesh is weak, Miss Jewel.”

She smiled broadly. “All flesh is, Mr. O’Flaherty. Which gives us an opportunity to rise above temptation.”

And she touched his arm and pecked his cheek.

Bloody woman.

“I never promised to rise above it,” he whispered close in her ear, and she laughed gaily.

Flare offered Sima a hand.

They smiled and shook and said nothing.

Flare wanted to embrace him. Instead he rode toward French Prairie, away from his son.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” said Hazel Jick.

Sima had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t like the look on her face. She was a fat woman, old enough to be a grandmother, with iron-gray hair tied back in a bun, and a big frown. She looked mean.

She ordered him to get his clothes off.
All
of them, she said with a scowl.

It was the day before Sima was supposed to speak in church. He had to get scrubbed, they said, because the Leslie family was lending him some nice clothes for his talk, and he couldn’t get into them “like that.” He didn’t know what “like that” meant. He guessed it was one of those white-man expressions that meant something like, “You’re an Indian and there’s no helping it.”

Today Mrs. Jick was going to “do something about it.” Sima was worried. He stood naked in Mrs. Jick’s cabin, shivering.

She poured water from the kettle on the fire into the big tub. She snatched Sima’s clothes—everything, shirt, breechcloth, blanket, moccasins—and threw them right into the flames.

Sima dashed for the moccasins. Since he uttered not a sound, she didn’t catch him until he had them out. Then she snatched them away, pushed Sima back, and threw them back onto the fire.

Sima grabbed them again, scorching his fingers.

“Lice,” Mrs. Jick said harshly, sticking out a demanding hand.

“All right,” Siam said meekly. He took his knife, cut his grandmother’s beadwork off, and gave the moccasins to Mrs. Jick. She stuck them straight into the coals.

She put one finger into the water in the tub, looked at Sima sternly, and ordered, “In.”

He stepped straight in and straight back out, whimpering softly.

“It’s hot,” Mrs. Jick said, “but no hotter than you need.”

In two more minutes, after two more efforts, he was in. Then she poured more hot water in. Sima wondered if he was going to cook into soup.

She dunked his head backward, “to get all your filthy hair in the water,” she said. “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” she repeated sternly.

Then she began to scrub.

Hazel Jick saved grain sacks for when she had to scrub one—they were coarsely woven, and scraped.

You couldn’t scrub these Indians too hard. You needed to take off one layer of skin, was what you needed to do.

Lordamercy.

You needed lye soap, too. Hazel made plenty of it. That was one of her jobs. Was, even before her husband died.

Dr. Full came in. He was a good man. Understood that the Injuns needed a firm hand. He stood in that peculiar way of his, like he was always posing for someone to draw a picture of him. He was a lordawful self-satisfied man.

“The first step in making you acceptable in the sight of God is to get you clean,” Dr. Full said to Sima.

Ought to have said to rid him not only of the lordawful dirt but also the vermin. If Hazel needed proof that they lived in darkness, the lice would have been it.

“It hurts, Dr. Full,” Sima said faintly. He was ashamed, as well he should have been.

Hazel scrubbed hard. This one was squeamish, like all of them, but it would do him no good.

“Getting the body clean is a sign,” Dr. Full said to the boy. Maybe talking would distract him, Hazel thought, and that was all the better.

“A sign of the willingness to scourge the lower nature,” Dr. Full continued. Hazel would scourge his filthy body. She doubted Dr. Full could do as well for his filthy soul.

“Put in one way, the task of the human being who would come unto the Lord is to scourge himself of his lower nature.”

Maybe, thought Hazel, but the good doctor didn’t add that lower was maybe the only nature Injuns had.

“I’ll do my best, sir,” said the boy. Dr. Full had taught him to be polite, anyway.

Lordamighty, look at them toes. She held them apart for Dr. Full to see. Webbed together, like the boy was a duck. She looked at the doctor significantly and finally dropped the foot.

What was the point? If that wasn’t the mark of the beast, she didn’t know what would be. And that was with him being half white.

Hazel wondered about this mission to the savages, but it was only her job to do what her Savior told her to do, not to question His ways.

Anyone could see, though, that some critters was higher and some was lower, and an Injun was not one of your highest animals. Forgive me, Lord Jesus, Hazel thought. I know You called me and Carl on this mission. It’s not up to me to question the Lord’s marching orders, I just march.

But why did God take Carl away then? And leave me alone in this cussed wilderness?

Lordamighty, there wasn’t no answer to some questions the wicked human mind could think up. Hazel told herself she’d best leave the figuring to the Good Book, or at least to the preachers.

Dear Jesus, the kid was about to cry. She told him to get out. He jumped like he’d sat on a cactus.

Well, if they didn’t want to be scrubbed hard, why did they let themselves get so filthy? Vermin living in their hair—disgusting!

She made him lie on the table on his back, spread his hair out, and looked for more lice. She thought she’d killed about all of them. She brushed his hair hard to get the tangles and the little carcasses out. The boy acted like he wanted to holler every stroke.

She gave room to Dr. Full. He always wanted to watch this part closely.

She checked Sima’s crotch hair carefully. That was the most revolting, lice in their crotches. She brushed the hair out good. As far as she was concerned, no Injun would ever be clean enough to marry a white woman.

Then she slapped Sima on the bottom and told him to put the new clothes on. They were nice clothes for ever-day, once belonging to Mrs. Jick’s son and considerably repaired by Mrs. Jick, but the savage wouldn’t appreciate that.

Hazel would repeat the entire business next week, and the week after—you had to.

She grinned to herself. The savage wouldn’t appreciate that, either.

She hefted the tub of water to take it outside and dump it.

Dr. Full took advantage of Mrs. Jick’s leaving to make his point. “Sima, we have scourged your body of its dirt. It was painful. I have an important question for you. Don’t answer today—think about it. Are you willing to scourge your soul of its lower nature?”

The boy was big-eyed, clearly distraught. “I don’t know, Dr. Full,” he said, and hurried out of the cabin.

So, in his mind, Dr. Full addressed the boy’s earthly father. Now, Mr. O’Flaherty, the question hangs in the balance. Will your son be of things earthly or heavenly? Will he become like you? Or like me?

The question was serious, of course. A soul hung in the balance. But it also amused Dr. Full.—He knew the answer.

Sima sat beside the pulpit in a frock coat. Flare could hardly believe it. Coat, white shirt, trousers, neck ornament, boots, the lot. All the lad had kept was his body. On the other hand, his hair was still to his shoulder blades, and free-flowing. He was an impressive figure of a lad—slender, lithe, handsome.

Dr. Full was right. Sima would make one hell of an example. He made the Reverend David Leslie, sitting beside him behind the pulpit, look rotund and ridiculous.

Full introduced him only briefly, saying, “The youth’s story will speak for itself.”