Joko (33 page)

Jack knew where they were going, because he had seen it in Johnny’s mind. He could also see things in Swan’s mind, but less clearly, yet even those cloudy images gave Jack a picture of where they were headed.

He saw tall houses with strange patterns tracing their edges. He saw people in black walking in pairs in strange coverings, or riding in carriages, to and fro, on sandy streets.

There were boats like the one he had been on, and others manned by people with nets and wooden logs that splashed in the water and pushed them from shore to shore. There were fish and Indians, horses and fire.

The three walked the forest for at least three miles before they decided to rejoin the river. Whatever destruction lay there was, as Swan said: “No worse than this labyrinth of brambles we’ve been moving through.”

Johnny picked some sassafras and peeled the bark, rubbing it on his face. He handed it to Swan. “Here, Jack showed me. If you rub it on your skin the mosquitoes stay away.”

“Sassafras oil. Yes. The Indians use it. Sure, John. I’ll give it a try.” Swan snatched the twig from Johnny and beat the air with it.

“That’s not what I had in mind, Mr Swan,” said Johnny with a smile.

Soon they broke into the clearing and reentered the riverbed. It smelled of mud, pitch and rot. Water stood in muddy pools some distance from where the river now flowed.

Cautiously the three souls followed the riverbed. Where they stood the river took a turn, its water concentrated into one roiling body that churned uneasily in its new boundaries. To Johnny the river was now like some hostile animal. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. It seemed to have gotten larger since they last walked its banks.

Aside from the occasional tumble of trees or rockfall that diverted the stream, the three travelers found the shores almost as easy to travel as before. Even in its unruined state, the riverbed had been a tangle of impassible brush, quagmires, broken trees, and other obstacles. Swan noted with amusement that the flood probably helped clear away the old debris.

“Replaced it with new, fresher rubble,” joked Johnny as he climbed around the giant roots of a fallen spruce.

By day’s end Johnny was pleased to announce that he’d seen few animals killed in the flood. “All I saw was a coon, three squirrels and a fawn, but I wasn’t lookin’ too hard at them big piles.”

Swan smiled as he took a long drink from his canteen. “I suspect that poor deer made a big impression on you, John, yes?”

“Well, it could’ve been me. That’s what bothered me, I think.”

“That’s right,” said Swan. “The Indians would shrug it off and say that your
tomawanos
was strong. With a strong spirit, death could not take you.”

“Do you think so?”

“What’s the difference, Johnny? Here you are, aren’t you?

Explain it as you will.” Swan offered the boy his canteen. “But right now it’s dusk and we should make camp.”

Just after sunset they found a campsite and Swan cooked up a ‘fisherman’s stew’ of jerky and cornmeal. He had brought a few pounds of premixed biscuit powder containing dried snowberries he’d managed to hide from Jack. He made two hearty pancakes of dough and placed them on a flat rock near the flames. “I always try to make the best of things.”

Swan gently nestled the stew pot between two glowing logs.

“You never know which moment will be your last.”

Their camp was made behind a pile of dead logs where the river made a turn. They’d found a dry stretch of gravel and sand some thirty feet from the water’s edge. This far south of the earthquake dam, the river had acted more like a flood than the landslide they had witnessed. Swan felt that meant they’d encounter less debris the further down river they traveled.

Johnny and Swan were exhausted from the day’s efforts and were both soon asleep, warmed by the campfire and a hearty, if simple, dinner.

Long after the men were asleep, Jack’s eyes roamed the heavens. He squinted at the bright pitted face of the full moon. And there was that other thing up there, behind the bright lights, a fuzzy spiral object of soft light. Sometimes it was there and sometimes not. He promised himself that when he could find the words he would ask Johnny about these things in the sky.

The lights above Jack twinkled. Suddenly one of them seemed to zip away in a long line of sparks and was gone. “Is that how stars die? Falling to the land?” He wondered. “If they fall, then why don’t they litter the earth? Or do they?” He looked around the camp, noticing the boulders. A moment ago they had been just stones. Now they took on a magical quality like ghostly beings resting from their travels through the night sky.

As Jack thought, his mind drifted. Finally he closed his eyes and slept
.

Though several aftershocks had startled them during the day, no more earthquakes disturbed the sleep of the three travelers. The weather had grown dryer, and a gentle warm wind helped provide their first good night’s sleep in two days.

They awoke eager to continue their trip, and they broke camp quickly after coffee and biscuits. “I was yearning for a dry cabin to warm my fevered joints and to dry our clothes,” said Swan as he buckled his packs. “But the Lord has provided us a warming breeze. I’m afraid the dampness is being retained by my journals, however.”

As they struck out, tracing the river’s shoreline as before, they were encouraged to find only an occasional log jam in their path. On one such occasion they discovered an animal trail that led downstream past the logs and some white water rapids. As they stepped nimbly past the waterfalls, the spray-soaked ground reminded Johnny of slipping over mossy logs and cracking his ribs when he and Jack first entered the Olympics. Now, despite the hike, his leg barely ached.

Johnny smiled. “You know, Mr Swan, I surely didn’t expect to be walking out of these woods a few months ago.”

Swan didn’t share Johnny’s mood, however. Though feeling rested, he’d fallen twice. Once, by the falls crossing a mossy rock, he took a bruise and a scrape on his forehead.

Later, while adjusting a handkerchief he was using to bandage his wound, he fell into a hollow full of branches, made invisible by dense vegetation. He righted himself, stumbling and cursing. “Even the Indians don’t cross the forests,” he growled, dusting pine needles off his breeches.

Despite the difficulties it didn’t take long for the three to establish a style for their travel. Jack was usually prowling ahead as pathfinder while Johnny and Swan followed as best they could.

The trail eventually led back to the river and a long sandy shore. The usually lush stands of marsh grasses had been stripped, leaving only rocks and sand. Seeing the power of the torrent, Swan wondered about the Skokomis Indian village. He’d planned to purchase or trade for a canoe there, to take the three of them to Port Townsend, but Swan admitted that the quake and subsequent flood might change their plans.

“Do you think most Indians know what a sasquatch smells like?” Johnny asked.

“Most? Can’t say for sure, John. But I doubt it. I’ve heard very little discussion from the Indians about the sasquatch over the years, and lord knows those chiefs can get very full of themselves around a campfire and their stories can go on.

I’ve rarely heard the word used, so I’m wagering many Indians don’t even know what a sasquatch is, let alone how it smells.”

“I had it in my mind they
all
knew about sasquatch.”

Johnny scratched his head.

“Hardly,” said Swan. “They like to act as though nothing surprises them. And thinking back, only Big Hat seemed to know what he was talking about, yes? Frankly, I’m of the opinion Charles and the others didn’t want to look stupid, so they played along. Experiences like that, strange encounters, haunts in the wood, are usually given spiritual significance. As such, they don’t dwell on it. Nor do they share their personal experiences with others. Spiritual matters are private, not even discussed within their families.”

Johnny saw Jack running toward them, waving. When he saw Johnny looking at him he pointed behind himself. “Men!

Men come!”

“Just relax, Jack,” said Swan, as the sasquatch arrived next to him. He patted Jack on the back. “You’ll be fine.”

Swan slipped his rifle off his shoulder and checked it.

Johnny examined Jack from head to toe, checking for anything that might draw a stranger’s attention. “Pants buckled, boots tied,” he mumbled. Finally he pulled Jack’s hat lower, hiding the eyes. “Should’a given you a bath, Jack.

You’re a bit ripe.”

Swan laughed. ”He’s fine, John. Quit fussing.”

A minute later two riders appeared, rounding the river bend. Swan recognized them as Skokomis Indians, a brave and his squaw. She had a baby tied to a board on her back.

The two waved as they came within sight. Without hesitation Swan returned the gesture and stepped forward to meet them.

“
Skokomis
, welcome, hello!” Swan called to them. “
Kla-how’ya
! How are you?”

Their full attention seemed to be on Swan. Stern-faced, they nodded, but otherwise they made no attempt to answer.

They gave Johnny and Jack no more than a cursory glance as they continued upstream.

“Trouble downriver, I’m sure,” said Swan raising an eyebrow. “They didn’t talk.”

Johnny was too delighted with Jack’s poise to notice Swan’s ominous tone. “I think Jack is catching on to our language. He didn’t seem nervous at all, Mr Swan.” Johnny smiled and patted Jack on the back.

Jack didn’t react. He looked blankly at Johnny and said:

“We walk.”

Swan laughed. Johnny’s upbeat mood was contagious.

“You’re right. Our Jack may indeed do well among humans.”

As Jack trotted off toward the south, Swan climbed up on the trunk of a fallen tree to see further downstream. He saw the sasquatch disappear behind some trees in the distance.

“Do you really think so?” Johnny inquired hopefully.

“Yes. Well, it’s too soon to tell, of course.” Swan said as he stepped down from the rock. He felt his pockets for his pipe. “Damn my left-handedness. Pick a pocket and stick with it, my damn wife said,” he mumbled impatiently as he searched his coat and pants. Finally he found his pipe and matches.

Swan noticed Johnny looking at him. “Well, perhaps we shouldn’t become too confident. The Indians might have taken more notice of him if they’d studied him. They did seem preoccupied. We’d best keep an eye on him.”

They walked for a while in silence, following the sasquatch who appeared in the distance every so often to guide them and to check their position. The day grew warmer, and they hailed Jack when he next appeared to rejoin them, to rest and refresh themselves with some jerky and biscuits.

They both sat on a sun-warmed rock, fanning flies with their hats. Jack had already found his lunch, a root and some young fern heads. He perched on a rock like a sentinel, scanning their surroundings for danger.

“I was wonderin’,” said Johnny. “What if a body looks at Jack and says; ‘Hey! Who the Hell is this? I never saw no Indian like him before.’”

Swan re-lit his pipe. “What would
you
say to that query, John?”

Johnny chewed his jerky thoughtfully. “I guess I’d say;

‘This here is Jack. Ahhh … well,
we
call him Jack, I can’t pronounce his
real
name. He, uh, was … uh … a slave on the ship he escaped from, and …’”

“Escaped? Where was this?” interrupted Swan, casting a critical eye at Johnny.

“Ummmmm … a place called … Dungeness … I think,” said John.

“You said a ship? What ship would that be? I know nearly all the vessels that pass this way.”

Johnny stammered for a moment and fell silent.

“And how is it that
you
and
he
are together?’ Swan continued.

Johnny was out of answers. “I guess I’m not much good at this.”

“You were on a roll there, John,” Swan laughed. “Don’t you give up now.”

“Well, what would
you
say?”

“I’d say; ‘Who’s asking?’” laughed Swan.

“That’s no answer,” argued Johnny.

“It is in Port Townsend. Especially if your name is James Gilcrest Swan!”

Swan estimated it would take another day to reach the Skokomis village. There, he said, the river widens and becomes navigable. “We’ll canoe ten miles to the Hood Canal. From there it’ll be open water to Admiralty Inlet. It’s sheltered water all the way.”

Moving south, they encountered more devastated riverbed and sometimes had to take to the forest, but usually they found it easier to climb over the debris. Despite the rank smell of the tangled heaps of mud, Johnny saw little evidence of death amid the debris, only a crushed rabbit and a wolverine, drowned with its jaws still latched to a branch in a snarling death grip.

Jack grew more confident walking out in the open. He decided it was the clothes. Looking human made him feel human, or so he thought, at least. He was finding it bothersome to constantly worry about being seen. As a human he was free, able to go anywhere he wanted. Free to travel the easy roads made by men.

Still, at the moment his day to day wasn’t so different from when he was with his kin. He was doing what sasquatch do best, traveling in a small group and forging a path through the forest.

Jack’s trek had become a training ground for adopting human ways. “Big as life,” he might have said. “Hello, mankind. Here I am. Jack the sasquatch.”

Late that afternoon, they came to a place where the river took a steep turn to the west. There the river had dammed up briefly, swelling with debris, before it reached the Skokomis village. Trees on both sides of the river had been overturned, broken or torn by the roots from the soil. The travelers found no passage there, but nearby in the forest they encountered an Indian trail that paralleled the river. Seeing the devastation, and having a swifter route to the village, Swan said they must continue so they could arrive before dark to assist the Indians.

Johnny was exhausted and wanted to stop, but he knew Swan was right. It had been at least a day since the quake. If there were survivors, they would need any help they could get. They walked for at least a mile, catching glimpses of the river every so often. Soon they reached the top of a ridge with a clear view downstream toward the village. Swan paused and surveyed the ruined scene.