Joko (41 page)

Johnny noticed this. “Go ahead, Jack, dig in. You know how to use a fork. Remember at the cabin? We showed you how.”

Jack picked up the fork and managed, with some apparent skill, to get a piece of the pie onto his fork, but it never made it to his mouth. Instead it landed back on his plate with a splat. Maybelle, now seated next to Jack, touched his arm lightly. “You go ahead and use your fingers, Jack. No need to be polite. Pie is sure enough finger food.”

It was obvious that when she touched him Jack understand Maybelle’s words. He picked up the pie and took an enormous bite. A big blueberry stained smile beamed from his face when the taste hit him.

“Besides,” continued Mrs Watson, “I guess they don’t have forks where he comes from.”

Swan smiled. “I dare say you are probably right about that, Maybelle.”

Both Johnny and Swan had noticed Jack’s characteristic sasquatch odor was becoming noticeable. Neither had mentioned it but neither wanted Jack to draw unwelcome attention.

“Mrs Watson,” said Swan, “would it be possible for three filthy travelers to get cleaned up?” Johnny knew Swan was trying to distract the woman.

It began to rain. Heavy droplets splashed the bay window, obscuring Johnny’s view of the rose garden. Swan walked to the window. “It’s fixin’ to blow a bit,” he said. “I better check the covers on those packs. Stay where you are boys and enjoy the pie.” With Mrs Watson’s help the man fetched his coat and went out onto the porch and into the rain.

Obeying Swan’s decree, Johnny and Jack stayed while Mrs Watson began closing windows about the house. Her pleasant voice called to them from the upstairs hallway, echoing through the house; “You’all can clean up in the shack behind the house, boys. Mister Bash had a stove put in last fall to heat water for laundry and such. There’s buckets out there to heat water. Swan can show you to the well. I’ll be bringin’ some towels out there shortly.”

“Thanking you, ma’am,” said Johnny in a voice loud enough for Mrs Watson to hear.

Working quickly to avoid getting too wet from the rain, Swan wrestled with the canvas that covered the mule. A familiar voice called to him from behind. “Well, there’s a lovely couple!”

Swan recognized Henry Bash’s gravelly voice and turned.

“Well, it gets a bit lonely in the woods, Henry,” he said with a laugh.

Henry let out a loud raucous roar. “Outrageous, Swan, as always. Don’t tell me. You ran out of coffee and had to rejoin the living, did you not?”

Swan nodded and grinned. “You know me well enough,

Henry. I brought you some visitors I ran into during my travels, two boys. They’re headed north as soon as I can arrange passage. Trouble is, Henry, you gave away my quarters to a stranger and now I’ve nowhere to put them.”

Bash laughed as he began helping Swan cinch the ties on the canvas. “No need to stand in the rain, is there?” He squinted up at the dark clouds.

The rain intensified, forcing the men to finish their work quickly and make a dash for the porch. Mrs Watson was there when they arrived with two towels .

“Land sakes, Mr Bash. When will you listen to my advice?

I told you to take an umbrella to work. My arthritis is never wrong about the weather.”

“You’re right as always, Maybelle,” said Henry with a wink to Swan.

“How did the writing go?” asked Henry as they stepped into the parlor.

Mrs Watson shut the door behind them. “Some pie, Mr Henry?” she asked, walking toward the kitchen.

“Some of the coffee you’ve no doubt provided my tenant will do nicely, thank you!” croaked Henry. He coughed as he removed his topcoat. Then Henry Bash took a long cigar from an inside coat pocket and pointed it toward the dining room where Johnny and Jack waited. “Shall we …?”

When the men entered the dining room Henry Bash’s eyes immediately rested on the sasquatch who remained seated at the table. Johnny stood politely next to him, trying to look casual. As the man approached he suddenly became conscious of Jack’s musky odor.

Jack had learned that the best way to begin any relationship with humans is to do nothing. Eventually the hairless beings would broadcast their expectations. He stared silently as Swan and Henry Bash entered the room. The stranger called Henry was dressed in a black three -piece suit, a long brown topcoat, and a bowler hat. Jack had never seen any human dressed this way. He assumed it was significant. He assumed the man was significant. His gaunt frame and mane-like chin whiskers framed his neck strangely.

Jack’s eye was attracted to an apparent gash in the man’s neck. He watched closely as Henry removed his topcoat and hung it in a closet. When the man faced Jack again he could see that it wasn’t blood. But it might be a bloody bandage.

Jack had never seen a bow tie. He found the striped red curl of cloth compelling, set off as it was by the crescent of the man’s grey beard, his otherwise shaven face and bald head.

Remembering Johnny’s injuries and Swan’s bandages he wondered if the human was wounded and hiding his pain. But the man seemed even happy. Jack concluded that his neck wasn’t bandaged.

As the man approached the dining table Jack’s eyes lifted from the bow tie to see Henry’s kind blue eyes staring into his. It caught him off guard and he couldn’t resist jumping slightly.

To be seen, eye to eye, by man. A strange man. Even a friendly one …

When Swan introduced the boys to Henry Bash, he smiled broadly and shook Johnny’s hand while patting Jack on the shoulder.

“Johnny and Jack,” he said. “I see you’ve had some of Mrs Watson’s berry pie. That’s good, best in Port Townsend!

Mrs Watson’s almost as good a cook as Swan.”

“Yes, sir!” said Johnny. “Mrs Watson is a fine cook.”

Johnny had hoped to keep Henry’s scrutiny away from Jack with his compliments, but Henry and Jack were already studying each other at close range. Seeming to sense Jack’s uneasiness, Henry walked around to the other side of the table. He picked up the pot of coffee, poured himself a cup and sat down. Swan took the chair next to him and accepted the coffee pot when Henry handed it to him.

Johnny remained standing.

“We were just talking to Mrs Watson about getting cleaned up. She mentioned that you had a shed?” Johnny looked at Swan. “I fear we’ll get our road dust all over your house.”

Swan nodded and smiled. “You see what a polite boy

John Tilbury is?”

“Sit down and relax, Johnny,” said Bash. “Don’t mind the dust. This house has seen its share. A trifle more won’t hurt.”

Rain splashed the dining room window, obscuring the view outside. As the two men talked, Johnny and Jack watched the water sheet down the stained glass.

“Went to your office but it was closed,” Swan said.

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. Hours ago.”

Henry Bash nodded. “Spent the afternoon aboard the steamer Celeste. Inventory mix-up. How can you lose two thousand oranges?”

Their banter went on for a while. Finally Swan related his finding Johnny and Jack in the forest. His story followed the facts with regard to Johnny, but he stuck to the ‘Borneo or Sumatra’ story when he talked about Jack. Bash listened with great interest and studied Jack’s features closely while Johnny and Swan tried their best to remain casual.

All Johnny could think about was Jack’s smell and whether Jack would explode from the room at any moment.

“Shanghaied. Despicable practice, slavery,” he said passionately. “How fortunate you two boys were to have found Swan. The Lord must have been watching over you that day, don’t you agree? By providential decree, you found Port Townsend’s most ardent helper of lost souls.”

Johnny nodded and smiled.

Swan wasn’t smiling.

Henry looked back at Jack. “You’re a quiet one. Nothing to say?”

Silence fell upon the room.

“Earthquake!” said Swan, suddenly. “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? We saw a Nootkah village destroyed by a flood. The horror is still etched in my mind. Tell me, Henry. Did it, the earthquake, shake our town?”

“We felt it,” said Henry. He looked toward the kitchen and raised his voice so Mrs Watson could hear.

“How much of that fine china did we lose, Maybelle, in that quake?” he bellowed.

His outburst startled Jack and he almost left his seat, but Johnny patted his knee, indicating everything was all right.

“Sorry Jack. Didn’t mean to startle you,” said Henry.

Mrs Watson shouted back from the kitchen. “A dozen plates, Mr Henry. The fine white ones too! It’s a damn shame!”

A new pot of coffee sat on the table as Swan related their harrowing run from the flood after the earthquake. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Jack,” said Johnny. “That earthquake would have had us for sure.” Johnny patted Jack’s arm.

Swan described the devastation they witnessed in the Indian village.

“Those poor people,” Henry said sadly. “They probably never knew what hit them.”

Swan nodded. “Well, Henry, since you gave away my lodgings, have you any suggestions as to where we might spend the night?”

Johnny looked out the window. It had stopped raining and the sun had broken through the dense clouds, lighting the white mountains in the distance. He remembered his many months in the wild forest, with only Jack for company. He remembered the nest where Jack had healed him. He remembered Christmas with Swan. When Henry opened a window a whiff of Jack brought him back to the room. As before, the matters at hand ruled the mind.

“Jack and I were going to get cleaned up before you arrived,” he said. “We’d like very much to get presentable.”

Swan entered the cedar bathhouse fifteen minutes after the boys. He found Johnny wrapped in a towel scrubbing Jack’s back while the sasquatch lolled happily in a large steaming tin tub. “He’s going to need another trim,” said Johnny, pointing his own unshaven chin toward Jack’s mane.

“No time like the present,” said Swan. “You’ll be pleased, no doubt, to know that Henry Bash told me of a place near his Customs office down by the docks. It’s a top floor apartment that’s vacant at the moment. But tonight Henry has kindly invited us to stay here.”

Jack sensed a change in Johnny the moment they entered Port Townsend. They were worried about him. The two humans would be happy to be back with other men.

It made no difference to Jack. All that mattered was Johnny, his only link to his world – the world that seemed so far away. So much had happened to him. So much was new.

Now, seated in a large tin tub full of soapy lukewarm water, he wondered if he’d ever understand, much less follow, the strange habits of men.

Swan was explaining something to Johnny. With Johnny’s hands scrubbing his furry back Jack got vague impressions of their conversation. He envisioned a street full of gravel and shells, of wooden docks and buildings near places where big ships were moored.

Swan looked down at the wet sasquatch. “He’ll need a shave, too, here and there, before we take him shopping. Thank God for this bath.” Swan sniffed the air. “Jack is probably nervous.

Does he stink more when he’s nervous?”

Johnny looked up at Swan and smiled. “Like a skunk? I don’t think so. You’re the one who’s nervous, I’d say. Jack is doin’ fine.”

Swan frowned and turned away. “We’ll need more hot water,” he said, putting more fuel in the stove. Swan fetched a bucket and walked toward the door. “You’re right, John. I am ill at ease. Who knows what might happen? We all have reason to be nervous. But everything we do helps. Now that he’s washed I smell the difference.” He put the bucket down and picked up a bottle of lilac water from a cabinet near the stove. He poured a splash of it into Jack’s bathwater.

Jack coughed and splashed the water away when the smell hit him. “Stink … flower,” said Jack, scowling at Swan.

“What?” said Swan. “That’s expensive toilet water, I’ll have you know.”

Johnny laughed and tried to explain to Jack that the cologne would mask his scent. Jack replied by splashing a good portion of his bath water onto the cabin floor.

Jack didn’t understand what Swan had said. The smell of a billion dead flowers had blasted his senses. He wanted to flee the cabin. But he forced himself to be calm and endure the overwhelming smell.

There was a growing ache in his mind that grew in size with each step he took deeper into human territory. But it wasn’t fear. Somewhere, so very far away, his family roamed free. Somewhere.

Johnny was scrubbing him, worrying about his smell. He knew that as Johnny touched him. Jack trusted Johnny’s inner thoughts. Perhaps to Johnny he did smell bad. But all he could smell was humanity.

Swan told Johnny that Henry was summoned to the docks.

“This purchases time to groom and buff our sasquatch for the city.” He looked into a faded mirror on the wall. “I dare say we all needed baths.”

A hard rain beat a steady rhythm on the shed’s thick cedar shingles. It was a soothing sound that helped Johnny relax as he attended to Jack. “You know, Swan,” he mused, looking at Jack’s feet, “I never really noticed but Jack has hairy feet. Hairy and large.”

Swan let out a burst of laughter. “Now that you mention it

… I can’t say I’m too surprised. Fact is I never really noticed.”

“Well, that’s just it,” answered Johnny. “Neither have I.”

“Is there some problem with Jack’s feet I’m not noticing?”

“When’s the last time you saw a person with hairy feet?

Should we shave his feet too?”

“Hmmmmm. Good point,” said Swan after a moment’s thought. “Tomorrow Jack keeps his socks on.”

Johnny noticed Jack’s mud soaked shoes in the corner.

“He’s nearly worn out the shoes you gave him. “He’ll need shoes.”

“He’ll need big ones,” said Swan.

That night after Mrs Watson’s dinner Johnny slept gratefully under a goose down comforter in a real bed.

Jack struggled to adjust to sleeping in his first human bed.

Henry and Swan had set up a large cot in the room where Johnny slept. It was almost impossible to ignore the scent of humanity and goose feathers. He had the pervasive feeling of being smothered in sand. He longed for the scent of dry ferns and pine needles or a cool pitch scented breeze.