Joko (35 page)

Part X

From sad indian village

Jack go port townsend

in dugout with

SWAN and jonny

It had taken a while for the sasquatch to acquire a feel for the dugout.

Jack sat facing forward in the middle of the canoe among the packs and baggage. His keen sense of balance, and Johnny’s admonitions before they embarked, had him clutching the sides of the canoe in a death grip. For the first few miles Jack scarcely moved for fear of tipping them over.

There was nothing for him to do but think.

Jack remembered his extraordinary night among the humans Swan called the Skokomis. While the whole time his body had urged him to flee, another part of him felt strangely at home. Still, he couldn’t help wondering why the people had accepted him so readily at their fire.

There was little conversation between the two men because they were concentrating on their paddling skills, which were rusty in Swan and virtually nonexistent in Johnny. Swan sat in the rear steering position and paddled on the left, while at the front Johnny paddled to the right. Jack sat between them with the packs. After pushing off, they stayed close to shore while Swan gave Johnny paddling instructions. After a while Johnny mastered the ‘J-stroke’, as Swan called it. Soon the smoke from the Indian campfires disappeared around a bend. Swan looked back and shook his head.

“How do they do it?” he mused.

“Do what?” asked Johnny.

“Live the way they do. These people never cease to amaze me.” Swan turned his attention back to the smooth waters of the Hood Canal. “I have never decided whether they benefit or suffer from living with the wilderness.”

Long, rolling, easy swells lazily lifted and lowered the dugout as it cut through the cold water. Some distance away to their right, a seal broke the surface, snorted a quick gulp of air, and disappeared.

“Did you see that?” said Johnny.

“Twenty miles to Seal Rock, Johnny,” Swan replied.

“You’ll see all the seal you want by the time we get there.”

“Do they bite?”

Swan laughed. “If you mean are they going to pull you over the side and eat you? I don’t think so. But I wouldn’t try to take a fish out of their mouth or wrestle with a bull in heat.”

He chuckled. “These Indians are lucky to have these resources so closely at hand. These waters are a rich larder.

Unlike the plains Indians , the Haida, Skokomis, Nootkah, all of them are expert sealers and whalers. They’re as handy at riding canoes as the Apache are with their ponies.”

He thought for a minute as he paddled with long sure stokes. “I know the local Indians pretty well, but the ones I am eager to meet are the Haida, way north of Vancouver Island.

This canoe you’re sitting in is likely a Haida dugout. They are feared warriors and the best wood carvers in the region. They sell or trade these dugouts to other Indians. Once I saw a redwood canoe big as a ship, eighty feet long. God, must have held a hundred braves. And the handiness of their work equals the best engineers back east. They can build one of these a month and defy you to find imperfections in the work.

Mind you, all of this is done by eye with only an ax. I’ve seen such work done by the Makah at Neah Bay. Amazing”

“What would they do with a canoe that big?” asked

Johnny.

“Whaling, carry trade like oysters or furs. Taking the clan off to a big Potlatch with a ton of blankets. Or fetching a raiding party off to war. Look at the workmanship of this canoe. Nothing fancy, just good solid craftsmanship. Boards all the same thickness. Perfectly shaped. Notice how it runs steady straight ahead when you stop paddling.” Swan held his paddle out of the water to demonstrate his point.

Johnny kept up his rowing, and the canoe immediately took a turn to the left.

“Hey, stop paddling!” yelled Swan.

Johnny apologized. His mind was still back with the Skokomis. He had never been to an Indian village before, and he had found the experience both fascinating and frightening.

Because of his inexperience he hadn’t been able to discern the village from the mayhem brought by the earthquake and flood.

“I’m sorry, Mr Swan. I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about those Indians.”

“The Skokomis?” asked Swan.

“Yes. After the quake and all those dead, why were they so kind to us strangers and all? I heard a lot of them hate us whites.”

Swan looked back at Johnny. “Some of them do. They often get treated like idiots and savages, but I don’t treat them that way. Neither do the trappers. And neither do people of true quality. I observed Governor Stevens, governor of these territories, treat them with the respect due any gentlemen. But the locals know where their bread is buttered, one might say, and they love the things they get in trade. Many of them have been made very prosperous through trade with the whites.”

The seal they’d seen earlier reappeared, this time nearer the boat. It slipped along through the glassy green surface effortlessly, as though being towed by an invisible line. Rolling over, it eyed the three strangers for a moment, then it lifted its whiskers out of the water, coughed loudly, and with a flip of its tail it vanished again into the deep.

Swan watched a piece of kelp swirl in the bubbly whirlpool left by the seal. Then he started paddling again. “What do you say, Johnny. Would
you
like to explore the northern territories too?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind, I guess,” answered Johnny.

“But I heard some of the northern tribes are cannibals.”

Swan scowled. “If you mean that they use people for food, that’s not true. Some tribes have certain rituals where people get bit. But they only bite you on special occasions.” Swan laughed.

“Yeah, when visitors come?”

Swan laughed so explosively that it startled Jack. His lurch caused the dugout to rock precariously.

“Easy, now, Jack,” said Johnny. “No sudden moves, remember?”

Beneath him, Jack could sense the water slipping past the smooth hull of the boat, and beyond that was the seal they had seen and a school of chirping fish that the seal was pursuing. From farther away came other sounds like the voices he had heard through the hull of the great steamship that had brought him and Johnny to this forest.

But the steel ship with its engines thrumming a constant din had been an intrusion on his senses. The canoe slipped neatly through the water, and its resonating wooden hull made the sounds of the deep inescapable.

On the ship, Jack had been a captive, alone and frightened. Here, with friends in a place he could feel and understand, Jack was more at home and able to relax and feel the sea as a friendly place. A peaceful place free of intruders. A water forest.

With hands clasped firmly to the sides of the boat, Jack’s body was positioned to take maximum advantage of the boat’s resonance. As he got used to it he began to hear more and more sounds from the sea. While the two men talked the sasquatch had been experiencing something new and incredible.

As Jack listened to the sounds, his eyes watched for signs of what he heard. But, except for the seal and a few jumping fish, the owners of those strange voices remained a mystery
.

As they moved into deeper water, the wind had picked up and so did the waves. Swan steered the canoe closer to shore, perhaps fifty to a hundred feet out. Deep enough to avoid rocks but close enough to swim the distance if they had to.

The shoreline had remained the same since they left the village. Above them great stands of pines loomed atop steep ledges of weathered grey rock. Every so often they passed a stretch of stony beach. Swan said there were many such places that would provide shelter at nightfall.

After five hours of paddling they had covered more than half the distance to Seal Rock. Swan knew the route fairly well. He had taken it twice before, once with Swell, his Makah brother, and once with a group of trappers on a trading mission to the Skokomis.

As Swan had predicted, they came upon a beach where he had camped with the trappers, in a small cove sheltered from the wind. Swan suggested they stop for some food and rest. Johnny was grateful for the suggestion, since the rolling swells and hours of paddling had him exhausted and seasick.

The landing was more awkward than Swan would have liked. As they touched shore the canoe was nearly upended by a wave. Jack nimbly grabbed a pack and jumped out of the canoe as another wave smacked the side of the boat, splashing water over the two cursing humans. The next wave sent them sprawling onto the wet stones. Johnny and Swan scrambled to avoid the next wave. It hit the canoe and rolled it over, spilling their packs into the surf.

Jack wasn’t sure what he could do to help, so he watched from a safe distance up the beach as th e two men worked frantically to gather their canoe and its dampened cargo. He looked up and down the beach. Seeing no one, he turned his attention to the forest.

Soon Johnny and Swan had secured the canoe well above the water line. Swan lifted some heavy stones and put them in the canoe, securing it with a long rope to a fallen fir, half buried in the sand and gravel. “That ought to do it,” he announced, wiping the sandy hands on his trousers.

Johnny reached down and picked up a whitened shell and shook the wet sand out of it. He turned it over and over, admiring its shape. He looked up when Swan called to him from near the woods. “Where’s Jack?”

Johnny looked around but could see no evidence of Jack.

He shrugged as he walked toward Swan. “Off chasing after some roots, I reckon.”

Swan stood next to the fallen tree where the canoe was tied. “This is the campsite I stayed at last year,” he said.

“About a hundred yards back into the woods is a spring and a pool where we can wash.” Swan looked at Johnny cheerfully.

“What say, John? A little grub?”

Standing on the firm ground made Johnny feel a lot better, and he felt his appetite return at the mention of food. “I guess so.”

Swan noticed Johnny’s pale complexion. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to those swells. They’ll be with us all the way. Or worse if a storm blows up.” He patted Johnny’s back. “Don’t worry, John. You’ll get used to it soon enough.

And I might add, you might even get to enjoy it.”

“I doubt that,” said Johnny.

Something made him look up. He laughed. “Behind you, Mr Swan.”

Atop the huge roots of the fallen fir tree crouched Jack, peering down at them as he quietly munched on a fiddlehead fern.

“Sneakiest critter I ever knew, that Jack!” laughed Swan.

The evening sky cleared and the s tars seemed so bright as to be just out of reach. Swan had built a shelter, nestled between two huge driftwood logs, and Jack filled it with soft ferns and dried grass. At the foot of the makeshift enclosure, Swan built a large fire. All of them were ravenous, but Swan’s cornmeal cakes laced with bacon and jerky took care of that in short order. By the time night fully set in, Johnny and Swan were well fed and drinking coffee while Jack practiced his pencilwork in the notebook Swan had given him.

Sitting side by side as the cool night loomed, Swan and Johnny stared silently at the fire, Swan poking it every so often with a long branch. The wind had died, and only the sound of an occasional snap from the fire broke the serenity of the night. The water was like glass, reflecting the stars.

The fire seemed to fascinate Jack. Johnny watched the sasquatch stare deep into the coals and wondered what he made of it. The flickering orange light made Jack’s eyes look deep and mysterious. Jack began to blink and soon, lulled by the warmth of the fire, he curled up and fell asleep.

Johnny wasn’t sleepy. He turned his attention to the stars that hung low to the horizon. The Milky Way arched overhead, easily visible. Swan was looking at it too.

“That band of stars across the sky. That’s the Milky Way, isn’t it, Mr Swan?”

“That’s what they call it,” answered Swan, picking his teeth with a twig.

“Well, what is it? Clouds?”

Swan looked at Johnny, then back at the sky. “Clouds of stars. Stars and gas, deep in outer space, from what I read. I really don’t know what it’s made of. They say it’s a big system of stars. Our sun is inside it. It’s called a galaxy. There are lots of other galaxies up there. I read you can see dim spiral shapes among the stars, when you look at them through a powerful telescope. Only one, Andromeda, is close enough to see with the naked eye. I haven’t seen it, but I bet Jack’s keen eyes can see it easily.”

Swan reached out with his stick and pushed a log deeper into the coals, sending a shower of sparks into the air. They seemed to mingle with the stars. Johnny watched the fireworks thoughtfully.

“I always wondered, Mr Swan, how far away are those stars?”

Swan shook his head. “You’re asking some hard questions, John,” he said with a smile. “That I can’t say. Not all the same distance. Maybe trillions of miles?”

Johnny spat into the fire. “Nawwwww! That can’t be right.”

Swan laughed. “I fear it can, John. The Universe is bigger than any of us can imagine. Astronomers out there are asking the same questions you are, and engineers are taking to the sky in balloons. I suspect they’ll have us flying to the stars one day.”

“That’s impossible!” protested Johnny.

“I can’t say, John.” Swan lit his pipe with a flaming twig from the fire. “Seems to me that when people put their minds to something they usually find a way to do it. Look at the Continental Railroad. They said it would never happen. They said iron ships wouldn’t stay afloat.”

“Building a railroad is one thing, but going to the stars?” interrupted Johnny. “I can’t believe that could
ever
happen.”

“Guess we’ll have to stick around and find out, eh?” Swan said, squinting at a twinkling red light on the horizon he knew to be the planet Mars. He sucked on his pipe thoughtfully.

Johnny was watching the distant red light, too. He noticed how it hung low as though it was separate from other stars.

“You know,” said Swan, “some astronomers claim they have seen evidence of life on Mars.”