Wilderness Days (3 page)

I flipped over and stared out the window, watching the rain drop in a steady patter, his voice lost in the swirl of the wind.

“You hear me, gal? I said ya stink!”

Suddenly my blanket was whipped away and the world tilted. Mr. Russell threw me over his shoulder unceremoniously and carried me, dirty blanket in hand, out of the cabin. He dropped me on the rickety front porch in the pouring rain with a resounding thump.

And then he closed the door with a bang and locked it. I lay there in my soggy blanket, stunned.

For the first time in all those long days, I felt a faint glimmer of something rush through me. A hot feeling. Hot and furious.

Anger.

The loathsome man had locked me out of the cabin in the middle of a rainstorm!

I started to pound on the door of the cabin. “Let me in!” I shouted, my voice hoarse from disuse.

I heard him guffawing on the other side of the door. “Gal, ya been rottin’ in that bed for nearly two weeks and ya smell
worse than Brandywine. Ya ain’t coming back in here until yar scrubbed up!”

Even in my dark mood I hardly thought that he should be one to complain of such things. Mr. Russell was notorious for his lack of bathing.

“You horrible man!” I pounded on the door, but all I heard was laughing.

“I see you’re finally up.”

I whirled around to see Jehu standing there, shaking his head, amusement in his eyes. I clutched my dirty blanket to me and glared.

“That, that—blasted man threw me out of the cabin!” I sputtered furiously.

Jehu squinted at me through the rain dripping from his wet hair. “Seems he did.”

Just then Mr. Swan and Keer-ukso appeared.

“Capital! You’re up, dear girl,” Mr. Swan said in a relieved voice. “We were on the verge of taking Toke’s advice and tossing you into the spring.” His smile slipped a little as he took in my ratty, tangled hair and my filthy woolen nightdress. “But really, my dear, perhaps you ought to consider a bath.”

Jehu raised his eyebrows slightly.

“Oh!” I huffed, and stormed away through the mud.

The next morning found
me sitting on the rickety cabin porch attempting to compose a letter to Papa’s solicitor. It had continued to rain during the night, and everything was damp. The ground had turned to mud, and the sky was as gray as a chimney sweep’s hat. Another perfectly dreadful day on Shoalwater Bay.

The men’s snoring had kept me up most of the night, and every shrieking animal sound startled me. Even Brandywine’s light waffling dog snores made me twitch and turn in discomfort. I had lain for hours staring at the ceiling of the cabin on my hard bunk, unease running through my blood like ice. I felt myself adrift in the world. Already motherless, I now had no father, no house to call home, and no kindly Mrs. Parker to dry my tears on her apron. I had nothing at all.

A chunk of black, chewed tobacco landed at my feet with a wet slap.

“Now that yar up,” Mr. Russell announced, one gray whisker twitching, “ya can start mending again.” He held aloft a crusty-looking shirt with a torn sleeve.

I had done the mending and some cooking around Mr. Russell’s cabin in exchange for my board, although considering the shabby conditions, it was clear that he was getting the better bargain.

“Is that all you care about? That you lost your seamstress?”

He shrugged. “Well, I reckon I missed the cooking, too. Ya don’t have much of a hang for it, but I’ve et worse.”

“I’m not your maid!” I shouted.

“That don’t shine with me.” He pointed at me sharply. “Ya work if ya want a roof over yer head.”

He flung the torn shirt at me, but I deliberately stepped back and watched it fall on the muddy ground. “Yar gonna have to wash it now, too, ya stubborn gal. And supper best be on the table tonight,” he said. Then he shambled away. “And make one of them pies,” he added over his shoulder.

I waited until he was out of sight before grabbing up the shirt and stomping into the cabin to prepare supper.

“I should make him a mud pie,” I muttered to myself, sorely tempted to do just that.

As I measured and sifted and stirred, I fumed. Mr. Russell was plainly the most disagreeable man in the entire territory. He was everything I despised in this foul, wet place. He spent every waking moment spitting his filthy tobacco. He guzzled whiskey and spoke in grunts. Not to mention, I was convinced
he was the principal reason there were so many fleas in the cabin.

He wouldn’t know a good manner if it ran up the leg of his disgusting buckskin trousers and bit him. And to think that I had once considered him a good-hearted man! I had been fooled by his small kindnesses to me, such as the time the bar of lavender soap mysteriously appeared among my belongings shortly after Mr. Russell had returned from Astoria. But I saw the truth now: he was just a mean, selfish, ignorant man who cared for no one but himself. After all, what kind of man throws a young lady into the rain in little more than a woolen nightgown? What kind of a man—

“Are you trying to kill that dough?” a voice asked mildly. “I’ll shoot it if you want me to put it out of its misery.”

It was Jehu. He took two long-legged strides over to the table and eyed my handiwork. I had been so consumed by my anger toward Mr. Russell that the piecrust I had been fashioning had been rolled flat as a pocket-handkerchief.

“Blasted Mr. Russell,” I muttered, gathering up the beaten dough and patting it back into a ball.

Jehu dragged up a chair and watched me.

“Do you know that I have a bruise from where he dropped me on the porch?” I exploded.

Jehu’s mouth turned up in a small grin. “Really? Where?”

“You’re just as bad as him! There is not a single decent gentleman in the whole of this wretched territory!” I seethed, flattening the dough again with the rolling pin, as if the act alone
would smooth out all the wrinkles in my life. “I hate this place. I don’t even know why I’m here. I’ll never be dry again, not to mention I’ll never get a moment’s sleep from all the snoring, and—”

“I haven’t seen my father since he laid open my cheek with that horse harness,” Jehu said quietly.

My hands went still.

He rubbed the thick, angry scar on his cheek. “That was, well, nearly ten years ago now. Don’t really know for sure if he’s even alive.”

His eyes met mine across the emptiness of the cabin, and I felt myself bite back tears.

Oh, Papa
.

Just then the door banged open. It was Keer-ukso.

“This is not a barn!” I shouted, my grief turning to fury in a rush.

The two men exchanged a look, and Keer-ukso closed the door carefully, then sat down on a bench near Jehu. Keer-ukso meant crooked nose in Chinook. As was the Chinook custom, he had changed his name after some of his family had died in the summer outbreak. The Chinook believe that the ghosts of the dead can’t haunt you if you change your name. Still, in my mind he would always be the name I first knew him by and which suited him so well, Handsome Jim.

For, you see, he was truly the most handsome young man I had ever been acquainted with in my entire life. He had long, thick black hair, lovely eyes, and a muscled body. He was also a
kind, sweet friend who always managed to make me laugh. Well, usually he did. For I found nothing amusing about him reaching into the bowl of berries I had set aside for the pie. I slapped his hand away.

Jehu rolled his eyes.

“Mr. Russell say you cook pie, Boston Jane,” Keer-ukso said, looking affronted.

“Oh, did he?” I asked in a tight voice.

“Jane’s a little frustrated with Mr. Russell right now,” Jehu explained helpfully.

“Frustrated!” I huffed. “Frustrated is living in a cabin where fleas are permanent residents! Frustrated is being surrounded by filthy, snoring strangers! Frustrated is being stuck in this infernal wilderness where it never stops raining. Believe me, I am frustrated by a great many things, but Mr. Russell is not one of them.”

“So if you’re not frustrated, what are you?” Jehu asked, reaching for a berry.

I grabbed the overworked, gray lump of dough and flung it in the men’s general direction. It struck Jehu’s chest with a thump before landing on Keer-ukso.

“Is this pie?” Keer-ukso asked, an astonished look on his face.

“Yes! It’s the blasted pie,” I shouted, and stomped to the door of the cabin. “And for your information, Mr. Scudder, I’m not frustrated with Mr. Russell.” I paused for effect. “I’m furious!”

And with that I slammed the cabin door, and practically ran down the path alongside the slender stream that led to the
Chinook village, my blood racing. I passed by Father Joseph’s small chapel and saw him raise a hand in greeting, but I didn’t stop. I kept walking fast, my heart pounding, and it wasn’t until I saw the large wooden buildings rising from the trees that I felt my heart slow down to a reasonable thump.

Chief Toke’s village consisted of several large cedar lodges. The lodges were quite comfortable dwellings, and much more spacious, not to mention cleaner, than the pioneer cabins. As I entered the village, I saw the Chinooks going about their daily routines. They were a copper-skinned people, with thick black hair. Some of them, like Sootie, had slanted foreheads from having been placed in a cradleboard as a baby. A slanted forehead was a mark of distinction.

The men wore the same style of clothes as the pioneers, although some of the older men wore blankets. In addition to wearing calico dresses, the women sometimes wore skirts constructed of strips of twisted cedar bark.

Some of the Chinooks shouted my name in greeting.

“Boston Jane!”

Although I was from Philadelphia, the Chinooks referred to the Americans as
Boston tillicums
or
Boston people
, as the first American ships to arrive on the bay were from Boston.

I discovered Sootie finally behind one of the lodges with two boys, ensconced in a game. The little girl had often turned to me for comfort in the weeks following her mother’s death, but now I found that our roles were reversed. From the grin on Sootie’s face, it was clear to see she was holding her own with the two lads, who, I should say, looked particularly annoyed.

One of the boys stood up and walked away in disgust. He was followed a moment later by the other boy, who had a rather dejected expression on his face.

“You won, Sootie?” I asked.

A bright smile wreathed her face. “Boston Jane!”

“What did you win?” I crouched down next to her, surveying the small pile of treasures.

Sootie held up pretty smooth stones, glass beads, and a glossy black feather. I admired them dutifully and couldn’t help but notice that her face had the same satisfied look that her mother’s had had when she’d made a good trade. The Chinooks were great traders, and wealth was a sign of status. The
tyee
, or chief, was generally the wealthiest person.

She displayed a piece of purple velvet that she had also won. “Will you make me a new dress for dolly?” Sootie asked, tugging at the blue calico fabric of my dress. “Like your Boston dress?”

I nodded. “I believe I can do that.”

Sootie pointed to my collar with a critical eye. “With that, too.”

“Very well.”

“And this,” she added, touching the scallop of lace at my wrist.

I laughed. “You should be a fashion editor for
Godey’s Lady’s Book.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“That is a lady who thinks about dresses all day!”

“Oh yes!” she said happily.

I stood up, extending my hand. “Shall we go back to your lodge and get started on this new wardrobe?”

She gathered her treasures into her skirt, then she put her small, trusting hand in mine, and together we walked to her lodge.

The cedar lodge was quite large, and we entered it by slipping through an opening near the ground. Firepits lined the center of the lodge, and cedar planks that could be shifted to allow smoke to escape served as the roof. The Chinooks often laid salmon on a grid of poles beneath the ceiling in order to smoke the fish—a very clever idea in my opinion.

Huge bunklike structures, platforms really, were built along the interior walls, and it was upon these that families lived. Rush mats lined the floors, which proved very handy in keeping the dust down. I had adopted the Chinook method of using mats in the cabin, and though the dust was less of a problem, the men still helpfully tromped in huge bootfuls of caked mud. It was fair to say that Chief Toke’s tidy lodge was a vast improvement on Mr. Russell’s cabin.

It was nearly suppertime, and there were men gathered around the fire roasting salmon. The sight of men preparing supper for their families still surprised me after all these months, although it was quite usual for the Chinooks.

I was startled to see Mr. Russell conferring with Chief Toke on a platform at the other end of the lodge. The kindly chief very much reminded me of a judge in Philadelphia who had been friends with Papa.

“Thought you were supposed to be fixing supper, gal,” Mr. Russell said loudly.

I opened my mouth to say I had no intention of fixing supper for such a disagreeable man when Sootie piped up in a clear voice.

“Boston Jane is making a dress for my dolly.”

“Well, hurry it up,” Mr. Russell said. “I want supper ready before sundown.”

Sootie took a protective step in front of me and marched right up to Mr. Russell, utterly fearless, and waved the piece of velvet in his face. “You make supper,” Sootie said with a firm little shake of her head.

Mr. Russell looked taken aback.

I stifled a laugh, and Chief Toke’s dark eyes filled with mirth at his brave little daughter, so very like his late wife.

Mr. Russell shook his head in a bewildered way and then looked at me wryly. “Well, you heard her, gal. Go on and make this little girl a dress. I reckon I’ll be fixing supper.”

Sootie shot me a triumphant smile.

“I reckon you will, Mr. Russell,” I said, and smiled right back at my small defender.