Love to Water My Soul (Dreamcatcher)

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  They greeted me with “Uhamasu tukapu,” and I knew that I could eat there, have my needs met.

  A trail led me to their place. Snow covered the ridges, like a white lace collar set against a blackberry-dyed dress.

  “This dress fits well,” I told her, thanks wrapped in the words.

  She grunted appreciation, looked at the stitching. “Room for you to eat more,” she said. “This thread will stretch.”

  I laughed with her, turned to meet George, their son, who spoke English and Sahaptin, the language of Peter’s people. He spoke Chinookan, too. Here, I did not need to worry over words.

  “Three languages inside one head,” Peter said with pride, nodding toward his son who is a man, his face reflecting warmth. “He helps Mrs. Sherar with the books and writes the names of workers Mr. Sherar gives her. Most have Indian names his mouth will not pronounce, and so he gives them new ones.”

  He tapped a pipe shaped like a bathing woman against his boot heel as he talked. Sumxseet frowned at him. His long fingers picked up tobacco that clumped on the floor.

  “My mother gives me a white man’s name—Peter,” he told me, tapping new tobacco in the pipe-woman’s belly. “She says it comes from their holy book and is a strong man who makes mistakes but finds a way around them through a Spirit.” He sucked in on his pipe. “The mistake part is me.” He smiled.

  “Like all of us,” his son said.

  George sat in a wooden chair oiling a long rifle on his knees. His dark hair, short like his father’s, fell forward toward his face, casting a shadow from the oil lamp sitting on a white cloth at the table’s center. The weapon was not unlike the one once shot by Shard. Real bullets, not those formed from the iron of wheels taken in raids, sat in rows on the wood table beside him. I wondered if George had made wooden plugs to fill the holes such bullets might make in him.

  “And I take ‘Lahomesh’ from a Frenchman I once worked for,” Peter continued talking about his name. “Mr. Sherar pronounces those two well. I have no problems.” He struck a match and lit the new tobacco. “But his tongue twists around many Indian names of those who build his road. But he tries, which is more than most white men trouble themselves with.”

  “ ‘Alice M.’ Pretty,” Sumxseet said, asking for information in a polite way. She had softened dried huckleberries with water heated on a wood stove, topped it with a clop of soft cream skimmed from a large glass jar of milk. She handed it to me. She had sweetened it with honey. I tasted summer when I swallowed.

  “It is the name Mrs. Sherar gives me. She does not understand my words,” I said.

  “Oh?” Sumxseet encouraged.

  “My name before is a girl who makes mistakes, hurts many people,” I added softly.

  “Oh? You do not look dangerous,” Sumxseet said.

  “There are no plugs to fill the holes I left. Leaving the name behind is not so bad a plan.”

  “Tlhxni is a good place to search from,” Peter said, stepping into my meaning. The draw on his pipe caused a soft whistle to form at his lips. “My people have fished here for as long as I can remember, taken salmon and eels and trout. In the summer, many families camp here. They bring their children from boarding school at the Warm Springs Agency.” His chin pointed west. “Years ago the children were taught only by their parents and grandparents, aunties and uncles.”

  He took another draw of the pipe, his fingers gently holding the woman carved from smooth white stone.

  “Now it takes on the name of the big man, Sherar, who will build roads and bridges, bring people here who have never touched foot along this rocky river before. But changing its name does not change what it is, what it has always been. It is not the name that makes the difference. You will find this out, Alice M, and then you will feel at home wherever you lay your head.”

  I hoped he was right.

  I waited for spring, the salmon run, and Sunmiet, hoping in her presence I would find direction.

  In June of the year called 1873, almost a full circle of seasons from the day I wandered down the Bakeoven Road to Sherar’s Falls, Mrs. Sherar took me as a surprise to the camp across the river she calls Deschutes.

  Like a wada seed in winter, I waited to unfold in Sunmiet’s presence, sure that seeing her would tell me what next to do, would open me wide. Their camp had been steadily growing during the past weeks. From the windows of the inn, I watched experienced Warm Springs and Wasco men tie ropes around their bellies, step out over the falls onto platforms, their wide hands holding huge nets they lowered to the water, then pulled as though against a greedy spirit to catch the silvery salmon.

  “Sunmiet told me it had always been called The River by her people,” Mrs. Sherar said as we rode two horses across the narrow bridge, then north. “We call it the Deschutes, of course. Sunmiet says we are notorious for always changing names of things, as though that makes them our own. I suppose she’s right. There is a power in names.”

  I remained quiet, still wondering what notorious meant, then not caring in my excitement over seeing Sunmiet.

  Sunmiet’s face lit up in smiles when Mrs. Sherar and I splashed our horses across Buck Creek to the open field beyond. Tule mats and hides covered the lodges that dotted the spring meadow like tea leaves on a table of green. She smiled wide at Mrs. Sherar as we approached, but her brown eyes opened with question when she realized who rode with her.

  Like sisters, they hugged, arms open to each other. Then Sunmiet turned to me, a wetness forming in her eyes as she reached out, held me, her arms warm around my shoulders. Her touch felt tender, filled a need.

  She and Mrs. Sherar talked and giggled like young girls, called each other by their names. Sunmiet’s eyes darted to me with questions she was too polite to ask, while my eyes watched them, listened to the English words they shared.

  “I expect another by this time next year,” Sunmiet said, patting her stomach.

  “You always did like a good time. See how you’ve made it a habit!” Mrs. Sherar said, squeezing her friend again in happiness. But I saw also sadness in those huckleberry eyes.

  “It is the only time Standing Tall carries wood in,” she laughed. “Why I take an extra day or two, not just to get close to the newest one but so its father will stay around, do ‘women’s work.’ ”

  For a time they spoke quietly, using many English words unfamiliar to me. I made out Modocs and war and warriors and scouts. Mrs. Sherar gently moved the cradle board on her knees, quiet for a time while the youngest child of Sunmiet formed bubbles in its sleep. Sunmiet worked at tying tiny beads into a design on leather spread across her lap. I ached with wanting such a friendship, someone to share myself with no matter where I lived or slept or wandered.

  In this quiet, sharing way, they passed the afternoon, good friends catching up on lives, sharing stories and a meal.

  When Mrs. Sherar rode the short distance back to the inn, I stayed, prepared at last to make connection with my past.

  In the trade language, Sunmiet told me of the battles involving the Modoc’s Captain Jack. People had died. White settlers increased in their anger. I wondered if Lives in Pain still lived.

  “One Paiute joins them,” she said, and the thought of Shard escaped, living somewhere else came to me, then faded in an instant. “I do not know his name.”

  I wondered where her knowledge came from, but without my asking she told me of the scouts of Teninos, Wascos, others of her people hired by the army. “They say they have special spirits that let them disappear while you are watching them. They come up in other places, find hiding places, reappear to help the soldiers.”

  “You believe this?” I questioned.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “It is what is said. Somehow they stay alive when others die, come back sharing more news than at root feast.”

  “And all Modocs are dead?” I asked, thinking of those who rescued me and marked me as lost.

  She shook her head. “The scouts let women and children make their way at night out
of the lava caves they fought in. Not even the soldiers heard them. But the rest they hunt down. There is no hope for them.”

  Badger, her baby, fussed. Sunmiet gave him the tail of an eel to suck on, held it while his lips moved like a fish’s against it. His tiny tongue pushed against it; his face wrinkled into cry. She nodded and set the eel tail aside. She took him from his board and placed him at her breast.

  “Standing Tall says it is sweet revenge they take for the raids the Modocs made on this place, when they took our horses and sometimes children they gave in later trade.” She looked down at the nursing child, stroked his dark hair. “I do not think their deaths will solve any future problem. Just promise more. You came to speak of wars, then?”

  I shook my head and lowered my eyes.

  “I did not expect to find you here, Asiam. Or is it Alice M?” Her eyes looked into mine, but I said nothing.

  “They have made a reservation by the lakes,” she said. “The army brought in food and blankets, though Wuzzie brought in better. He led two good antelope hunts. The people are fat, though not happy with the fences drawn on paper by the agents around their wada seeds and water.”

  “You know of Lukwsh and Wren? They are well?” I asked, too fearful to ask about another.

  Sunmiet shook her head once in agreement. “I thought one day Lukwsh would send word of a blanket wrapping between you and a special one.”

  She must have seen the pain the mention of this memory brought because she did not continue, breathed quietly. Her long eyelashes fluttered, nervous.

  I had planned words to say to Sunmiet, to explain. That I had left on my own, had decided to reach out as Sarah did to enter two worlds; that I had a task, too, to find my people, the ones who first left me behind. But her mention of the stronger state of the people since my leaving and of what I once longed for took my words away.

  My heart was heaviest because she had not spoken Shard’s name. Her choice confirmed his death for me, for her people never spoke the names of those who died until the mourning time had passed.

  “You have been there. Know about Wren … and others,” I said after moments of silence.

  “Only what I hear,” she said and shrugged her shoulders.

  Her older children came in, then, and sat on the mats. Badger finished eating, and she rewrapped him, tucked the blanket tight around his chubby arms, made sure the black moss pillow had an opening to rest his head. She laced the strings with one hand and hummed a lullaby as the baby fought not to close his eyes, gave in.

  “They are well?” I asked.

  She set the board down on a stack of hides and reached for her beadwork, a hummingbird half finished, her fingers always busy. She pushed a red bead onto her needle and held it with her calloused finger.

  “Much change comes to the lakes. It is said there will be a war there to punish raiders. Or perhaps they will band together with the Snakes and resist the soldiers. Or maybe go quietly to the reservation. Either way, it will not be well for a band with so few warriors.”

  So few warriors. Her words confirmed my fears.

  I had planned to show her my gold necklace, to tell her that I had something now that linked me to my past and did she know a way to use it in my search. But the talk of wars and what might happen to my people—the people—and the cloud around my leaving made me itch to go.

  It was where I thought my journey from the lakes would take me, joining Sunmiet’s band. I believed that here I’d blend, could forget about my shame but still belong with what had become familiar. But Standing Tall entered and said through his silence and his eyes what I already knew: this would be no place to leave my shame. I was still different, should go.

  “You will come tomorrow,” Sunmiet said.

  Standing Tall grunted, scooted Ann and Ikauxau from their places, folded his long legs before him. Sunmiet rose.

  “We should have many fish to make ready for the drying racks,” she said. She set her beadwork aside to serve her husband wind-dried salmon, broke off another piece she handed to her oldest son. “If Standing Tall does his part,” she added and smiled.

  “Mrs. Sherar has tasks for me. Men come to form a new bridge, and I am asked to help with cooking. Travelers come, too. There are animals to tend …”

  “Hands will always find worthy tasks,” she told me. She held my fingers gently as she spoke, turned the palm over, and I wished so much for her to tell me what to do, where to go, where my life belonged.

  “It does not exist in one place or in other people,” she said. “What you look for is not found out here.” Her arm arched wide to indicate her lodge, the land surrounding, the people of my future and my past. “But here,” she said, fingertips tapping her heart. “And only you will know it by its name.”

  I felt her strength and a warmth flow into my fingers, into my soul. She spoke next of more than hands when she offered encouragement for my journey, all that anyone can really give another.

  “You must travel on your own, trust the trail and your Spirit. They will take you and your hands where you belong.”

  I started to share my deepest fears with her, ask specifically of Shard, when I heard the cry rising from outside, my intentions interrupted.

  “Sturgeon!” the voice shouted with happiness. “Sturgeon!”

  And like others in the tule-covered lodges, we tumbled out to verify the news.

  “A sturgeon! At the falls. Bring your backs and hands, and we will have a feast!” the boy shouted, sent by his elders to gather hands in strength.

  Standing Tall outdistanced each of us with his long legs and had already tied the rope around his middle by the time we reached the river’s edge. A long line of men and boys braced themselves for the effort at bringing in the huge fish larger than a yearling so rarely seen this far from Nch’i-Wana. A wide Indian, a Hupa called Fish Man, had walked down close to the falls, ropes tied to him but still his feet were firm to move across the rocks slippery with spray. From this closer view he shouted directions, and nets were tossed, looking more like children’s string figures extended into rivulets of runoff than the heavy cordage meant to snatch a large fish from the river.

  Shared effort landed the fish that required fifteen men to pull it up the steep bank. Someone brought a gun to shoot it, to take away its suffering out of water, and a cheer rose up that sounded much like a song and prayer of great appreciation for what the Creator had provided.

  “Now the work begins,” Sunmiet told me. “To dig a pit that large will take some time in this rock place. But yum-yum! When that fish is buried and cooked, we will have a feast not equaled for some time. You go,” she told me, her hands motioning me away. “Tell Huckleberry Eyes and her husband and all who stop there to plan on eating fish without bones this night.”

  And so I had a reason to disappear, not talk further of my future, to take uncertainty and old sorrows with me while I gathered others for the feast to follow.

  On the day the men laid the beams across the river forming the new bridge, Mrs. Sherar shot the kitchen, Sung-li left, and a new direction through someone named Ella came into my life.

  I had a part in it. I was not just an end result created by another.

  Through my words, Mrs. Sherar learned that Sung-li refused to steam the plates as required. We kept busy at the inn with many men earning honest sweat working on the bridge, at noon breaking to eat large bowls of potatoes, slabs of ham and beef, wiping up their gravy with thick brown bread, holding their sides in honorable burps. So many men worked—some from the reservation came to help—that long boards across sawhorses were set outside to form tables beside the river. Mrs. Sherar and I raced in and out putting food on the table. Sunmiet and her daughter Ann helped serve. A chubby woman named Bubbles, who wore a whining voice and a proud marriage to Standing Tall’s brother, poured hot coffee into cups. An old kasa took cold lemonade from a side pool at the river, grumbled at the dogs lying too close at their feet. No one sat except the men, who laughed and joked
and relived the morning with their words.

  After their meal, they returned to lay the second bridge beam. We women cleared the plates, whisked them to the hot kitchen where Sung-li reigned.

  Sung-li was not happy. He scowled or whistled but did not speak as we brought in plates and empty platters. I noticed he dipped the dishes into soapy water but did not rinse them as required by Mrs. Sherar.

  To help him, I heated water myself, struggled with the heavy iron pot on top the wood-burning stove. But when he saw my plan, he grabbed the hot pot with the edges of his apron, took it outside, and splashed it against the rock wall, steam rolling back to each of us from the red rocks.

  “My kitchen!” he shouted at me, stomped back into the room, slammed the pot on the table smashing several tea-leaf dishes with his anger.

  My feet stepped back. My eyes watched him leave soap and scum on plates he stacked. He tossed me a towel, told me to wipe. I shook my head and then ran from the room as he advanced, a cleaver quickly lifted to his gripping hand from the butcher’s block set in the middle of the room.

  Outside, I decided to warn Mrs. Sherar.

  “Sung-li not steam,” I told her in a hurried voice. She struggled to make the connection, but when she grasped my meaning, she set her mouth in a line as straight as my dark marking.

  “He knows how I feel about that. People will be sick for heaven’s sake! Well,” she said, determined. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

  I obeyed for a moment. But remembering Sung-li’s eyes, the grasp he had on the cleaver, I ran for Mr. Sherar, who left his bridge and walked with me rapidly with only my words: “Sung-li! Mrs. Sherar!”

  Mr. Sherar took strides requiring three or four of mine. He made me wait outside the kitchen, but in seconds I heard Mrs. Sherar shout her husband’s name, saw a cleaver’s edge slam through the dining room door, then heard a gun blast followed by the shattering of plates and pots and pans between the crack of splintered wood. The scent of burnt powder stuffed my head, and I heard my heart pound loudly as I slowly opened the kitchen door, expecting to see death.