Love to Water My Soul (Dreamcatcher) Read online

  I did believe and knew what I must do.

  “I will be back,” I told Wuzzie the next morning. “But I must make a journey to find out. It will not keep me there. And I leave Someone with you when I go.”

  Wuzzie acted as if she did not hear me, but she changed the posture of her hands from palms up to gracefully resting one on the other in her lap. I heard her whisper quietly, “Help me.”

  “I will. It is a promise that I make. And going now is one way I can keep it. But Wuzzie, you are not alone here. I have asked the most powerful Spirit to keep you safe, even in the night. He will set you free, Wuzzie, if you let him.”

  She turned her head to me, sighed, did not move her hands.

  “And Arlita knows where I am. She can find me if something happens. But this I must do next.” I brushed her hand, even stroked the side of her face, two touches which she did not resist.

  The train rattled its way north, steaming and spitting through the lush fields and tall timber. In East Portland, I boarded the ferry across the Columbia, remembering a time when Thomas Crickett waited here to pick up visiting dignitaries, talked with steamship captains while their crews unloaded passengers and round-top trunks. The day turned brisk, the wind causing me to hold tight my poke to keep it tied beneath my chin.

  A cab on the other side was familiar with the road to Vancouver Barracks and took me there after a brief argument about why a lady would be traveling unaccompanied.

  “I have reasons,” I told him, “and I can pay,” a phrase that caused him to tip his hat to me and help me on board. He slapped the reins on his horse’s back and started down the street.

  He chattered, commented on the scenery as he drove, then: “Took President Hays to this place, I did. Was in ’81. He and his wife inspected the barracks. Met with the generals, and Reverend Wilbur from Fort Simcoe came. Even that upstart Sarah Winnemucca. Had the gall to talk to the President, make him cry even, she did, raving on about the poor state of her people she was teachin’ here.”

  “She had a school?”

  “She did. Taught them Bannock kids, the Princess did, afore she left south. Started a school there I’ve heard.”

  I did not know what I expected to find at the Vancouver Barracks, but not an empty guardhouse.

  “All the prisoners of that war have gone, ma’am,” the lieutenant in charge told me. “Most transported to Fort Hall in Idaho some years ago. Others to the Walker River Reservation in Nevada. Last one left about four years back. All that’s here are some upstarts of our own, just waiting trial. I’ve heard, though, that some of the Indians got allotments near the old Malheur Reservation. I doubt many from here would have gone there, Bannocks and Paiutes not exactly being on speaking terms, now are they, ma’am?”

  “I would see the records of who was here and where they might have gone.”

  “Well, I know you would, but I don’t think I’ve authorization for that, ma’am. At least not where they went. But the list of prisoners, that’s available. And then there’s another whole list at Fort Simcoe.” He turned to search the glass case that held a ledger book of names. “Most of those folks went in leg irons to Oregon. Who knows from there.”

  I watched the soldier scan the glass case, being helpful, and for just an instant I imagined him as my brother might have been, serving in the army, maybe with this bright young lieutenant. I wondered about my father seeking his new beginnings, and if there still might be some way to find them, learn their names. I shook my head. There was no sense to dwell on that search. My gold necklace offered the best answer, telling me I would find them in another time and place.

  But here, now, was a search I could complete, find out why Wuzzie arrived at the asylum and who else might be alive to claim the memory of that time and free her from her prison.

  My eyes scanned the tiny names written in an army clerk’s fine straight hand. Single words mostly, sometimes with a chosen second name, mostly Indian, sometimes carrying Christian tones or familiar names given by a white. Bannock Joe, Paddy Cap, D. E. Johnson. No S. Johnson was listed. There were other names, some vaguely remembered, people who came and went, who belonged to the wider band of people and spent more time in Nevada and the East.

  Then I saw them, the names to make my heart soar: Lukwsh and Wuzzie. I permitted myself only a moment of regret that I did not come here sooner.

  “This is your list? All of them?”

  “Think so, ma’am. Might have missed some, but this should cover it.”

  “And you cannot tell me where they’ve gone, each one?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Like to. But policy is I can’t without an order.” He lifted his palms up in the helpless gesture of a child.

  I imagined what their lives had been like here in this foreign place: rainy, wet, no familiar roots, no lakes or marshes or cackling geese to tell them they were not abandoned. The picture troubled me. I could not shake it even as I stepped inside the cab and headed back toward the river.

  I crossed back to East Portland, spent a restless night, and in the morning took the train along the Columbia to The Dalles. The next morning, I drank hot tea in the Umatilla House before boarding the ferry which took me once again to Washington State.

  The stage ride to Fort Simcoe began the next day and ended with an army officer less friendly, not even willing to let me look at names of former prisoners. He carried the same message about the releases: “Not authorized to tell you where they’ve gone, individually. But as a group, I’d try Warm Springs. Land grab there back in ’82, ’83 or so. Lots of locals taking over unused reservation ground. So those mortal enemies, the Sahaptin-speakers and the Paiutes, agreed to share some space to keep the whites out, maybe even wives!” He laughed, didn’t notice my scowl. “Must be working some. Haven’t heard of any new Indian wars. Almost had our own up here making those Paiutes learn to live with Yakimas. They speak a kind of Sahaptin, too, you know. Never had much time for those seed eaters. Had to put ’em to work digging canals. That kept ’em out of trouble. That and Father Wilbur. Never needed the army to show force as long as Father Wilbur skulked about.”

  He grinned at this remembrance, coughed uncomfortably when I did not smile nor share his views. He escorted me to the waiting cab.

  I was not daunted, was encouraged, in fact, by my discovery at least of Lukwsh’s and Wuzzie’s names. And I had a plan and knew that hope exists when one can see just one more step along the trail.

  “En, a Latin prefix meaning ‘to be at one with’ as in ‘encourage.’ Isn’t that a fine word, Alice?” my husband had said after one of his long days at the asylum. “So small and yet it carries so much force, such power. To-be-at-one-with courage. Sounds so strong, so sure, next to such a little word. What are some other words? Let’s see.” He strutted around the room, poking air with his pipe. “En-lighten would mean being-at-one-with the light.”

  “En-circle. To-be-at-one-with a circle,” I told him.

  “Yes! You’ve got it. Completely surrounded, at one with a circle. Totally whole.”

  “Like walking a path that has no beginning or end.”

  “Like that, yes. I do so love the way words come together,” Thomas had said, pleased with the joinings.

  I felt at one with the circle that had been my past, I decided, as my head bounced against the leather pillow of the afternoon stage heading south out of The Dalles. At one with the path I walked with my Spirit. I did not know what lay before me on this trail, but I was encouraged. I could face both the future and the past.

  THE TWENTIETH KNOT

  A GATHERING

  Last Sunday afternoon ‘Skookum John’ and Mrs. ‘Skookum John,’ excursionists from the Warm Springs reservation, accompanied by half a dozen braves and the usual number of dogs and cayuse ponies, arrived in our city, armed with a permit from the Indian agent to remain absent from the reservation until September 1st. They were waited upon by a number of citizens, each with a frown on his face and anger in his eye.—Grant County New
s, Canyon City, Oregon, 1891

  Such a joy to see you, Alice!” Mother Sherar said as I squeezed myself out of Pretty Dick Barter’s stage to stand before the inn. The midday sun burned high above us, alone in a brilliant blue sky, casting an unusual warmth for this late September day. Mother Sherar held me at arm’s length, looking me over, delight in her face, her eyes like black marble, searching.

  “You survived the ride down Tygh Ridge! I always think that alone is worthy of a celebration, not to mention its bringing you home.”

  Dick tossed down soft bags from the top, carefully lowered my Tonkin cane rod while he sparred with Mrs. Sherar. “Don’t you be complainin’ about my driving. I’ve been on that road with you, and I wouldn’t share that experience with any brave man, let alone an innocent woman!”

  “Oh paw!” she said to him, waving her arm good-naturedly in dismissal, and then to me, “You’ve become quite the lady. Still that baby face. Never thought I’d see you in puffs and pleats. And in purple! The rage, they tell me, and it looks so good with that dusty blond hair of yours, thick as yellow jackets on a persimmon. Kind of perks up those pale cheeks, that purple does. Well, listen to me prattle on. Come, come, let John here take that bag. That’s what a chore boy’s for, isn’t it, John?”

  She did not wait for him to answer, but hurried in her quick-quick steps toward the inn. She told two other passengers who had exited the stage before me to remove their shoes and put on a pair of moccasins left at the door.

  She took my arm in tow, then turned back, eyes searching. “Did you bring Benny? Don’t see him. Always room for another dog.”

  “He stays in Salem. At the asylum. My week is full of travels. I think he would resist the cage.”

  “Might howl the way Spirit used to,” she laughed. “Wait till you see the size that one’s gotten. Sure keeps the mice down. So glad you decided to let him stay with us after Thomas’s death. He’ll be as delighted as Joseph when he comes back from that road of his. You’ll brighten up his day, sure, such a nice surprise.”

  In my old room I felt myself a guest, hung my jacket on the hook, paused for a moment before the mirror. A younger face than what I felt stared back, not like that of a woman who had experienced slightly more than thirty years. My eyes had a tiredness to them but reflected hope as well. Few wrinkles lined my face. I placed my tongue behind my teeth and made my cheeks and eyes and mouth relax. My hair, the color of wet desert sand, was piled high, held in place by ivory combs, the widow’s peak a perfect name at this time of my life, a kooma yagapu. My fingers traced the marking, touched the knots of my memory draped beneath my pleated blouse. I sighed, hopeful I could face my future tied up with my past.

  A soft cry and pressure against my skirt announced Spirit. “You remember me!” The cat eased his way back and forth against my leg, tail up and twisting. He allowed me to lift him, sink my face in his aging fur that smelled of juniper and sage. He nibbled at my chin, a view caught in the mirror that both delighted me and gave me warmth.

  Mother Sherar busied herself with passengers’ comfort, shooed me out the door. Freed of duty, I walked through the rock wall gate, past the silent dinner bell, to the ladder that reached to the garden ledge high in the rimrocks. I held my long skirts up as I climbed, one handed, my fingers sure on the rungs, always pleased to be above a place. There I sat among the sweet grapevines recently harvested. The arbor flourished. They had made few changes from the way I cared for it. Mother Sherar told me they had plans to build a huge hotel, three stories high. This rock ledge would be the garden entered from the third floor, across a little bridge. Fanciful thinking, to know so far ahead how something will turn out, trust yourself enough to build a garden years before the hotel.

  And yet I wondered if I have not known this time would come for me, known it since the day I listened to my Spirit Lord and leaped into the Silvies River to rescue Wren. Since then, since the day Wuzzie first found me challenging, my feet had walked a strange trail that, like Mr. Sherar’s toll bridge across the Deschutes, was always lined with hope, even if I did not always recognize the railings.

  River sounds washed over me. The water of a hundred streams plunged to the basalt rocks below the falls before me. Empty fishing scaffoldings jutted over the white water while rivulets of river poured beneath them like sparkling braids, making their way back to the main stream. Above, on the talus slopes, I saw men work on the twisting road that still reminded me of a lazy snake in need of constant tending. I hugged my knees, wondered if what I hoped to find in searching would give me help for healing Wuzzie or be a salve for her wounded healer.

  “It has been a long time,” Peter said when I knocked on his door in the waning afternoon. He was fresh from the road crew, his hands a lather of strong-smelling soap, his dark hair now dusted with gray. “We have wondered how you make your way. Have you eaten?”

  “I am well,” I told him, nodded to Sumxseet, who smiled at me then returned to pressing dough at her table. “It will please me to join you for fry bread and some of Sumxseet’s huckleberry jam. I brought you fresh grape jam and butter that Mother Sherar sent.”

  Sumxseet smiled, took the gifts. “Good.”

  “I always feel better when I am near water,” I said, walking to the window, peering out through the rippled glass that looked out over the Deschutes. “Almost all my years have given me some time near rivers and lakes. Not yet the ocean. My husband and I planned to go this year.” I paused. “But plans change.”

  My eye spied a wolf spider on the window, one who lived without a web.

  “We are sad to learn that death visits you again, so young,” Sumxseet said. Flour had settled itself on her cheek. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. She looked frail; her legs were thin like young trees, and she wore moccasins over long black stockings that disappeared beneath her often-washed dress. They were elders now, these two.

  “Perhaps it is better it comes when I am still strong.”

  “Perhaps,” Sumxseet answered. “Our son George and his Carrie? They have lost four girls. Born and then died. Only their boy lives. But the mother is young and still has courage enough to try again.”

  I nodded, politely exchanging information about others, how the road work progressed, Peter’s growing herd of cows and horses, their work together with his son. Sumxseet dropped the dough into the hot oil. We watched the bread rise quickly into crisp, then sat to eat it, pulling delicately with our front teeth, dipping chunks in fresh beef stew with vegetables they had rescued from the rabbits in their garden.

  “I am here to help someone,” I told them finally, knowing they would be too polite to ask. “A woman who I used to know at the lakes near Steen’s Mountain. She is Kahkwa Pelton, though I believe she carries seeds to become well.”

  Sumxseet grunted as we cleared the table together. “A foolish, feeble-minded woman would have no place here if she once stayed at Steen’s.”

  “She has no history here or with the Wascos that I know of. But she is old now and lives inside a spell that I would help her out of. I am looking for some people who were with her at Vancouver Barracks, some names I know. To see if they came to Warm Springs the years I lived mostly in Salem. Or have gone on to Walker River or farther south. Maybe back to Malheur.”

  In my telling it, I saw the futility in the search, even with names, even with likenesses, even with artifacts such as letters. The possibilities of where they might have gone and the time passed too long for me to hope to ever find them now, a second family gathered up and lost. I resisted the thought to scold myself for my delay in searching. “Some of those Paiutes came here,” Peter said, sinking into a chair of stretched hides, his meal complete. “They crossed the big river in leg irons, dragging heavy balls of iron. After the war. At The Dalles, the agent had the blacksmith cut them off, ordered wagons so the men and women and children could ride. Both coming and going, those people were herded. Like cattle.” He shook his head. “Most went on to Nevada country, some to Burns. Thi
rty or so came to Warm Springs, to the south end, as far from the agency as possible.” He searched for his tobacco pouch, patted his shirt pocket to find it. “But they make hay there. One repaired the sawmill. Some worked the sewing machines and taught at the school. Most are near Seekseequa Creek. They married and live around.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I know a few.”

  I took a deep breath, came to sit beside him on a small leather stool. I hugged my knees and felt tiny as a child. “Probably they are not the ones I look for.”

  “It will not hurt to speak their names.”

  I swallowed. “One is Wren, a woman my age. Thin, kind, always smiling. She had small scars on her face from falling often as a child. She is probably married now, an old mother with children.” I made myself sound lighter than I felt.

  “With a fry-bread stomach,” he said, laughed, then grew serious. “That one is not familiar.” He lit his clay-lined ivory-woman pipe. His eyes moved to Sumxseet for confirmation, and she nodded. “Is there another?”

  “Lukwsh,” I said in a whisper. “She is a special one, named for the root. She lived once at Simnasho or Warm Springs. Her mother or a kasa came from the southwest, her father from here. She stayed here. She is a tall woman who makes fine knives and who married a Paiute man who died and left her the children of his first wife, and his mother, Grey Doe.”

  “This is the woman who is acting foolishly now?” Sumxseet asked. “I can see why.”

  “No, that one’s name is Wuzzie.” Sumxseet’s insights into families caused my face to smile. “I know where she stays.”

  “The one named Lukwsh seems familiar. She was a friend of Sunmiet?” Sumxseet said.

  “Yes! Is she here?”

  “I do not think so, only that once Sunmiet rode to the Malheur Lakes to see her, an old friend. I have heard nothing since that time. But they do not fish as we do, those Paiutes, and there is bad blood between them and Sahaptin-speakers, so people from that desert lake place do not come here much.”