Waltzing In Ragtime

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Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

BOOK: Waltzing In Ragtime
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For Susannah
my teacher in things courageous
The beauty of the world, which is soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.
 
— Virginia Woolf
JULY 24, 1900
 
It was the first time in Matthew Hart’s life that Joe Fish looked old to him. Full-blooded too, his coppery leather skin drawn tight over high cheekbones. His steps were unsteady, his once-keen eyes squinting, lost and afraid as he stepped from the train. Matthew smiled, pulling his wide-brimmed Stetson from his head.
“Hello, Grandfather.”
As the train roared off from the Fresno station, they embraced for only a little shorter time than if their women were about. Then they took in each other at close reach — the spare, stooped mixed-blood Cherokee and the rangy, blond Anglo towering over him. Their eyes were their only kinship link, both clear and blue as the distant mountain sky.
“You want to sit?” Matthew asked.
“Without moving? Yes.”
Matthew Hart took his elder’s arm and led him to a wooden bench in the shade. Joseph Fish had taught him to stare down vipers, stalk the elk and the grizzly. It was still hard for Matthew to understand his grandfather’s aversion to trains. But he respected it. One of the two horses waiting nudged the old man’s back. He stood, rubbed each behind the ears.
“Yours?”
“No. They belong to Thomas Parker, the man who hired me. He’s chief forester, the trailmaster.”
“He trusts you with fine animals.”
“He heard who our visitor is to be,” Matthew contended. “That you went to school at New Echota and learned the written language from Sequoyah himself. He’s honored.”
“In your letter — why did you spell this tree given Sequoyah’s name without the
y
?”
“There are no
y
’s in Latin.”
“Latin?”
“Yes. The naming of the trees? The botanical tradition is to make them look Latin.”
He watched his grandfather measure the explanation, hooding his eyes so Matthew could read neither acceptance nor anger from them. He’d seen that look many times before.
Matthew Hart leaned his long arms against his knees and ran the worn rim of his hat between his fingers. “Mr. Parker will ask you many questions. You might regret the honor of his invitation.”
The etched face eased into a smile. “If so, I’ll complain of my ancient bones and retreat. It’s the privilege of the old.”
Matthew reached into his saddlebag for the canteen and offered it. “From the stream running through the grove of giants,” he said. His companion swallowed a long draft.
“Cold, clear,” he approved, then pointed with his chin at the distant ridge. “I wish to travel the road you’re making, see these trees named for my teacher. But your grandmother remains jealous of her rivals. She sends this, so you remember. Foolish woman.”
He pulled out a brown folder from the canvas bag at his side and placed it in Matthew’s hands. Matthew opened it slowly, then lifted the cloudy paper to stare at the image of the woman and child the photographer had captured in sepia tones. The child’s tiny, placid face was surrounded by a white lace cap. Her gown drifted past the woman’s knees. He almost didn’t recognize the
woman. The sharp despair that had marked her features for many years was gone. She looked soft. Her face was content, glowing, happy. Or was it the photographer’s trick?
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
“The one has made the other so.”
Matthew Hart turned to the afternoon sky. His grandfather’s attention remained on the photograph. “I wish the child were not asleep,” Joe Fish said. “I wish you could see her long limbs, her probing eyes. But the photographer said the image would not be clear unless she slept.”
“She’s so small.”
“But strong, Matthew.”
Matthew felt the raw wound open. No more. Please. He replaced the tissue paper and closed the folder, tucking it into his vest. He pulled his hat low over his eyes and took up the horses’ reins.
“The trail’s hard,” he told his grandfather.
The old man smiled. “As long as it is not along iron rails.”
 
 
As the elevation drew them over narrowing roads, then trails, Matthew avoided the sound of the workmen’s shovels. They wound around the wider trailblazing. He did not want to meet any of his fellow workers, not even Mr. Parker. He would share this moment in the giants’ grove only with his grandfather.
It was dusk when they arrived. The mist was settling around the manzanita shrubs, swirling the fragrance of the western azalea blossoms throughout the forest. The July air became cooler, heavy. The haze grew so nebulous Matthew lost his bearing. He dismounted. Joseph Fish followed. Then the silvery leaves of the Chinquapin brushed his face. The guardian of the giants’ grove told him they had arrived.
He still felt like a blind man, leading his grandfather to the center of the stand without seeing anything but the soft glow of red bark around them. Then a whisper sounded from high in
the towering branches of the sequoias. It swept out the dense mist in a single, steady breeze, leaving diamond webs of dew in its wake. Both men dropped their horses’ reins. Neither spoke for a long time. Finally, Joseph Fish turned a slow, complete circle.
“I promised your grandmother I would draw this place. But I think I will return home and wait for a vision,” he said.
Matthew watched his grandfather step toward the ancient trunk of a burned tree. His arm disappeared in the depth of the trunk’s scar.
“This one. It heals itself,” he marveled.
“Yes.” Matthew smiled. “High above, it’s sprouted green.”
“Stay among them,” the old man counseled, his fingers glancing the incongruent shock of silver in his young grandson’s unruly mane. “They will tell you their secrets.”
From just beyond the grove of giants, voices welled, Farrell’s above the rest. “Now, wasn’t I telling you Matty’d get them in before dark — by the smell of the place if he had to?”
Matthew tried not to resent the roadworkers’ invasion. The trailmaster Mr. Parker presented himself to Joseph Fish, pumping his hand as the other men gathered around.
“Matty, you missed the hauling of Teddy’s tub,” Farrell chided.
“What?”
Mr. Parker stepped between Matthew and the Irishman. “Rumor has it Vice President Roosevelt might be making a visit, so the powers that be think the big cabin should be outfitted better.”
Farrell grinned. “Government has to show him that this hallowed wilderness we’re protecting has all the new century’s amenities.”
“So we have to break our backs hauling a bathtub when we’re behind schedule with the road!” The worker punctuated his comment by spitting tobacco juice through his teeth.
“Hey, Mr. Parker, leastways we can offer the presidential suite to Matt and his grandpa here for a try out!”
The trailmaster smiled at the roadworker’s suggestion. “That does seem entirely appropriate. I hope you’ll accept the accommodation, sir.”
Matthew Hart sighed, scraping the ground with his boot heel. He’d trusted his learned boss not to do this. Now Joseph Fish was to be put on display, a cigar store Indian. To his surprise, his grandfather smiled.
“My kin and I accept with thanks,” he said.
 
 
Joseph Fish ran his fingers over the waist high, claw-footed bathtub with, what was it? Longing? Matthew tried to hide the displeasure in his voice.
“You want me to fetch water?”
His grandfather looked up and smiled, brushing off the dust from his clothes. “No. Of course not. I’ve been living with women too long. They wash all the time.”
Matthew had planned to camp tentless in the grove, beneath the giants. He was restless as his grandfather slept peacefully in the feather bed. He rose before dawn and hiked away from the camp, away from the log cabins they were building for the tourists who would someday come in ever-increasing numbers to view his trees. He shifted his rifle from the crook of his arm to his shoulder and plowed through the dense underbrush. He would find a place for himself, deep in the back country, come winter. Away from them all.
He struggled to understand his own anger. The crew had treated his grandfather respectfully. Many had been railroaders and lumbermen, and often spoke with casual disdain for the Indians, Mexicans, and Chinese they’d worked beside. But the night before they’d listened as Mr. Parker asked his grandfather about the Georgia hills and the Eastern Cherokee, of the linguist Sequoyah. Of the nation greed had destroyed. His grandfather told of his journey west to the gold fields, the wild land speculation. Joe Fish and his grandmother had lived through it all.
A rustle in the open meadow made Matthew pause. He crept closer. At the base of a lone sugar pine stood a five-pointed elk, head up, alert. Slowly, wishing his grandfather was beside him, Matthew took his rifle from his shoulder. He aimed, held his breath, and felled the buck with one shot.
The animal was still by the time Matthew reached its side. He cut out the heart carefully and wrapped it in his deerskin pouch. He’d share it with the teacher who had showed him how to thank an animal’s spirit for the gift of its life. He disemboweled the elk quickly, leaving the innards to the scavengers as a share in his good fortune. Then he hoisted the carcass over his shoulders and made his way toward the camp. The roadworkers would breakfast on fresh meat. In this way he’d thank them for honoring his grandfather.
Sweat formed on his brow from the effort of carrying his burden. Matthew stopped, released the carcass, then pushed his hat until it hung from its ties against his back. He was wiping the sweat with his sleeve when the sound came. A rip, a buckling. A mad sound. Matthew was knocked off his feet by the shaking ground.
He scrambled to his knees. Earthquake. Matthew had trusted these mountains to keep the ground steady under his feet. He should have known better. He stuffed his fist into his mouth and bit hard. Then he heard his name being called from the camp. He got to his feet, and ran.
A sea of arms, hands, relieved faces stopped him. The trailmaster took his shoulder.
“Matt! Thank all that’s holy you’re an early riser!”
“Earthquake —”
“No, not an earthquake, son! A limb fell from one of these beauties, fell from a good two hundred feet! Wait until you see what it did to — where’s your grandfather?”
“I left him sleeping.” Matthew watched the jubilant faces around him change. He twisted out of Mr. Parker’s grip and rushed toward the cabin. The limb of the sequoia had smashed through the roof east to west. Some of his co-workers wandered
aimlessly about. Others stared at the giant red limb embedded six feet in the mossy ground.
“Help me,” he demanded. “Help me find my grandfather.”
But there was nothing in what remained of the cabin, only fragments, splintered and thrown up like debris after a flood. Matthew narrowed his eyes and listened.
“He’s under there.”
Mr. Parker’s hand took his shoulder. “Then we’ll take care of him, son. You’d best go to my quarters and —”
“No, we have to hurry.”
“There’s no need for that now, Matty,” came Farrell’s voice as the Irishman removed his hat, reached for him.
Matthew shoved the wild, abandoned scream down his throat. “My grandfather’s alive,” he said quietly. “Not crushed. His air’s all gone and now he’s … drowning.” He was confused by the words even as they left his lips.
The trailmaster turned to his team. “Let’s get this limb up, boys, double quick,” he commanded.
Something was depressed in the ground, even farther than the sequioa’s limb.
“I’m damned,” the burly mule driver declared. “Teddy’s tub.”
Matthew leapt into the trench, reached into the tub’s still water, water Joseph Fish had hauled himself for his bath that morning. He hauled his kinsman over the side, pounded his back. Matthew felt the power of his grandmother’s healing hands ride through his fingers.
Finally, he yelled. “Don’t you die on me, old man! Not here, not now! Go die at home in my grandmother’s arms where you belong!”

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