A Clearing in the Wild (46 page)

“Our Willapa oysters don’t offer up lovely pearls,” Sarah told me. “They’re dull in color and uneven. Not nice and round. But they’re pretty to me.” She pulled a slender strand up over her collar. “See? They’re not perfect but each is unique. Each one individual. I like that better than the perfect ones that I’ve seen that all look alike.”

Unique. Formed out of irritation
. I asked her to tell me more.

“They grow them in beds, like farmers do their wheat,” she continued. She unwound Catherina from her board and held her firmly at her shoulder, patting her back as she talked. “Only in ocean water and in the tide flats. It takes a hardy soul to be an oysterman, someone who can work in the wet and up to their knees in mud or out on the skiffs, yanking and raking up clusters of shells, and yet can wait. They have to keep guard against predators, just like farmers have to keep birds from their fields. That’s what my husband says.”

What kind of predator would harm an oyster? Their shells looked like long tongues with bumps, and if what Sarah said was right, they were impossible to get inside of without a knife or some large rock to break them open. What could harm something so hard and well defended?

“People rob oyster beds,” she said. “And there are green things in the ocean that can kill them. Things you’d never expect. They have to be tended. Everything has something wanting to destroy it.

“Only the faithful watchman can prevent it,” I said.

Sarah nodded. “In San Francisco restaurants and saloons, raw oysters sell for one dollar apiece on the half shell. Same as what an egg costs there. Gold miners think nothing of celebrating their new wealth with extravagant dinners that always include fresh raw oysters.”

Was it really just like farming? We Bethelites knew about farming. Perhaps the Willapa Colony could remain here yet. We could earn our way to repay what Wilhelm had invested in us. Our market didn’t need to live close to us; we could ship our wares. Willapa could become the world that was “mine oyster” for those who chose to stay in the place the scouts had staked out. We’d simply have to learn something new from this Edenlike place.

“Should you go alone?” Karl Ruge asked me. He wore a dark suit coat that made his white attachable collar look all the whiter. He folded back a shock of silver hair with his hands as he talked. During all the rains and time of mud, Karl had always looked tidy, and he’d done his own wash, never asking any of the women to do it for him. “Maybe you should wait until Christian comes back. This would be better, by golly?”

“I need to find out about oyster farming. A dollar apiece. Think of that.”

“For fresh ones,
ja
, shipped across the Bay and into the ocean. But most go for a penny, boiled on the streets of mining towns, or so I’m told. It is not a gold strike, Emma Giesy. This is not an easy thing you think of.”

“It’s farming. We know how to do that,” I said. “We know about planting and tending and praying over the harvest.”

“The oysters must be planted and grown,” Karl said. “That means more investment. And learning how to replant, to not overharvest. Investments in ships to send them south. One still needs to find a way to live while the oystermen wait. All that will cost money, Emma.”

“But if we were successful, we could pay off what the land has cost us and even contribute to the new colony when Wilhelm decides where that will be. We can still be a part of it but … separate.” Oyster farming would make us unique, but I knew that was a word that also meant “extraordinary,” a concept perhaps too close to “prideful” for Karl Ruge’s simple ways.

“It is still not good that you travel by yourself. Your in-laws would not approve.”

Karl was right about that. Barbara and Andreas, Christian’s parents,
had raised their eyebrows at me on more than one occasion since Christian left with Wilhelm: when I spoke up in a gathering, when I went alone to see Sarah, when I acted like myself.

“Do you have a reason to go to Bruceport?” I asked Karl.

He rubbed his white chin hair. “The post office there is where Wilhelm said for mail to come from Bethel. There and Portland. I should see if he’s sent us word of where we are to find him or if there are letters from Bethel that need answering.”

Karl hadn’t gone with Wilhelm. I was curious about that, though it was none of my affair. He’d begun teaching the children of those who had decided to wait until Keil actually found a new place rather than adjust once again for a few weeks or months and then move to the more permanent site. Maybe Karl felt useful here.

The weather turned balmy, as it usually did in April, and with men able to hunt now, the cries of hungry children no longer pushed at us. Karl instructed out under the trees, using sticks and hard red berries to teach math and the beauty of the landscape to teach English. He said it was the finest schoolhouse he’d ever taught in.

Being in the Willapa Valley may not have been luxurious, but it was familiar, and with the rain ceasing it was gloriously pleasant. Perhaps Karl, too, wanted to move only once more and would take in the bounty of this place before choosing something else.

“
Ja
, by golly. I have reason to go to Bruceport,” he said finally. “To get the mail.”

“Christian might have sent me a letter. His parents would understand my wish to go there with Sam Woodard and be unconcerned if you came too, Karl. We’ll do this together.”

The Willapa ran full and wide, but I could see both shorelines, a comfort to me. I took deep breaths and made myself exhale so as not to get dizzy. Sam Woodard and Karl handled the oars and the sails. I could hang on tight to my son and daughter. Oystering would mean more time on water, more time
in
water, I realized. I’d need to have the children stay with their grandparents so I could help with the harvest, or maybe we’d need to move closer to the oyster beds so I could learn to open the shells or prepare them for shipping.
Closer to the water?
In Bruceport, I was told, the tide came in under the boardwalks. What could be closer than that? There’d be water everywhere, seagulls chattering to us every day, and not just Charlie appearing every now and then for scraps.

I took a deep breath. If this would be a way to bring my husband’s confidence back, then overcoming my fear of water would be worth it.
Show me the path. Show me the path
.

Long-handled rakes leaned against log sheds as we eased closer toward the bay. Low flat boats, skiffs Sam called them, piled high with oyster shells, moved across the water toward the open sea and a large ship waiting there. Near a cluster of buildings, native women bent over piles of shells, sifting and sorting, their scarves tight around their heads. They stood and stared as we slipped by. I waved. They didn’t wave back. Where the tide had gone out, beyond the buildings, I watched more native women stand in the low tidewater beside their baskets. They looked as though they walked on water, the mud slithered with a film that reflected them as they worked. Stacks of discarded oyster shells pocked the shoreline like a chain of small white mountains.

We anchored our boat, and carrying Andy, Sam splashed toward shore. I lifted my skirts and followed. I asked Sam if he could recommend an oysterman that I might talk with.

“You didn’t come to get the mail?” he said.

“That, too, but I also want to talk oysters.” I sat to put my shoes back on.

“Lots of folks do,” he said. “They’ll be nearing the end of their harvest soon. Never eat an oyster in a month that doesn’t have an
r
in it,” he advised. He scanned the wooden fronts of oystering warehouses. “I’d try that last place there, not far from the mouth. Supposed to be an American from San Francisco. He might answer your questions.”

“Joe Knight! You’re here? You’ve been here all along?”

“Not all the time,” he said sheepishly. “Now let me answer your questions. They’re middens, those discarded shells,” he told Andy, who pointed at the piles of nubby shells. “Middens are what’s left after we cull the good ones and then take out the meat to dry. The Indians do it that way mostly, drying the meat for use later. We like them fresh, of course. Earn more money that way.” He pointed with that finger in the air and winked. He lived in a small log house set with a walkway to the beach, and he had opened his arms wide to Karl Ruge when we found him. To me he tipped his hat, shook Andy’s little hand, and smiled at Catherina. It wasn’t until I heard his German-accented English and saw that finger pointing that I knew for sure who he was.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“This time? About six months.”

“You never went back to Bethel,” I said. I bounced the baby on my hip. “You left the Willapa River but never returned. People wonder where you are. You need to let your brother know you’re all right.”

“I started to,” he said. “But the two of us split after we worked on
a bridge.” His blond hair poked out from under his narrow-brimmed hat. He had a tiny mustache but no beard now at all. He still poked with his fingers when he talked. “I went to San Francisco and then came back. This was as far as I got.”

“But why didn’t you let us know? Why not return to help us?”

“
Ja
,” he said, looking down. “I wasn’t sure colonists would understand my journeying into San Francisco. Then once the weather changed and I decided to come back, I thought maybe oystering would be a good thing for me, better than chopping trees so tall you can’t see their tops without lying flat on your back. I was going to help you build through the winter. But I stopped here.” His face colored. “I’d worked in California, so I had a little money and invested in an oyster claim. Right here,” he said, waving his arm. Apparently, right at the mouth of the Willapa River lay a natural bed of oysters. “It has everything I need. Even people to show me how to do it. The Indians, mostly.”

“You had no scares of massacres?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They might have been scared at what a bad oysterman I was. The women laughed at a man gathering oysters at first, but I notice lots of white men do it. We float along in the skiffs dragging our tongs until we stumble onto something that feels right. Then we grab with those tongs and, hand over hand, pull up whatever we’ve caught onto: rocks and broken shells and mud and clusters of oysters. We sort through it until we find just what we’re looking for. The pearl, the best oysters. We dry or ship the rest for boiling, then discard the shells.”

“The pearls here are not as large or perfect, I hear,” Karl Ruge said.

Joe nodded agreement. “Perfection isn’t my aim. Never was. Living full, that’s what I wanted. I still share,” he said. He sounded defensive just a bit. “I give back. Don’t have to belong to a colony to do that.”

Karl nodded.

“The Indian women say we should put the shells back into the water,” Joe said, returning to a safer subject. “As a protected place for the young oysters to grow up in. No one else does it, though. It’s hard work but I like it.”

I wondered what he’d say when I proposed he needed a partner.