Love to Water My Soul (Dreamcatcher)

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “Sarah Winnemucca came to interpret. For the army. And for a night we were hopeful she would say what words they needed to hear. But they did not. And in a morning so cold we no longer felt our feet, she came to tell us all that we would leave this Rattlesnake Creek and march to Yakima, to a fort near that reservation.”

  “Mr. Parrish came with her, then with White Lily. The women begged her to help,” Lukwsh said. “Her face streaked with tears, but she could do nothing.” Lukwsh’s hands stopped working, her eyes tangled in the past, all energy went into remembering. “Wren became sicker.”

  “I asked for the letter from Father Parrish, and he said he would write it. I asked Wuzzie to go with them for the healing Wren needed.”

  “Her skin, so pale and cold. We could not warm her up,” Lukwsh said, rubbing her hands together even now to gather warmth. “We asked for Wuzzie to pray for her. Wuzzie leaned over, sang the songs even though she could not hear them. He gave her the army coat some soldiers handed from the supply building, but it failed her. Wren died.”

  She began to cry, her voice a wail, and I wondered if this remembering had value.

  “She cannot tell the stories now. She remembered them all, each small item told many times to make the story real. She cannot make our hearts light up with her gentle touch. No kind hands to winnow and weave tule dogs, set children to laughing.” Lukwsh made no effort to wipe the tears that fell down her face and washed her neck with grief. “Wuzzie too was like a motherless cow,” she said to Shard.

  He nodded agreement.

  “Bawling and swinging around, knocking people and things down by hopping and jumping. Maybe because Wren arrived by those hands,” Lukwsh continued, looking at her own.

  “Maybe Wuzzie understood that everything slipped away,” Shard said.

  “Wuzzie became foolish in grief, and my heart split open, then filled with ice when I felt Wren’s spirit go. The stillness of a clear river bottom came across her face. I had already lost you, Asiam, and Stink Bug, and then Wren.”

  “I did not fight the soldiers,” Shard said, his voice slicing the still air like a new spear. “I could have lost no more if I had! We did what they asked, gave what they wanted so we could save our lives. And we lost those too.”

  “Wuzzie became wild with chanting.” Lukwsh’s eyes glistened as she talked. “Singing and tearing at the chests of soldiers who guarded us and were as cold as we were.”

  “But they had coats,” Shard reminded her, “and boots.”

  “Yes. All the soldiers had coats and boots and ate three meals. We could smell the beef. And we saw smoke coming from the commander’s quarters. They had a warm place.”

  Shard spoke more quickly, as though wanting to get it over with now. “Then we know what Yakima is, a prison away from our root places and grass places and lakes of our past. Wuzzie harped again at the soldiers with this news, threatened them with spells and powers. The soldiers were bothered by this small person cackling like a magpie in their ears, shaking sticks at them, pulling spiders from his chest, warning them of bad dreams and death to their kind. Wuzzie tried to arrange for Wren’s body, but they sent him away.

  “Then as if it were not bad enough that we must walk five hundred miles in leg irons like mules pushing waist-high snow over mountains, some soldiers came into the barracks late. They entered where Wuzzie stayed along with the stink of men who had not bathed, who oozed fear from our skin.”

  “It was the night after Wren died.” Lukwsh took over the story. “The snow drifted deep outside, a blizzard. We were all like frozen lakes, but still two came to teach Wuzzie a lesson while he slept.”

  “They sneaked in,” Shard said, and I sensed they had spoken this story in their minds a hundred times. “Snow blew through the door behind them. They ripped the thin blanket from Wuzzie. He howled, and they laughed and tore the clothes off him. They hit on his head with their fat fists, like little boys playing. We shouted for them to stop. Some were slow to come out of fitful sleep. The soldiers laughed. Finally our noises were enough to make them stop.

  “But what they saw in their lamplight when they held back their fists was not a beaten man. And all of us saw too that Wuzzie was not a beaten man. Not a man at all.

  “Those closest cried loudly, wanted to blame our troubles on Wuzzie, now, who pretended to be what he was not. People are always looking for someone else to blame for where they are. No one knew what should happen to one who deceived. Wuzzie became foolish in talking after that. He screamed and jumped about, his body—her body—exposed now for the woman she was. They grabbed at her and laughed, and she kicked and scratched. When they had her pinned tightly with their arms, she lost all strength, curled into a ball. Someone wrapped a blanket around her and carried her to the women’s tents, but there was much distress with this plan, too, until Lukwsh said Wuzzie could be with her, as family. They laid the ball of blanket on the floor and left.”

  “Did Wuzzie speak?”

  “She never speaks,” Lukwsh said. “I never heard her speak again. In the morning, we put her on a wagon with one or two old ones that I walked beside. Until my foot froze, then I rode too some, until Yakima, and the black and pain must be cut off. Maybe looking after her was good for me. Took me from thinking too much on my own pain. I didn’t think of Wren so much. Wuzzie kept me from watching babies be born and die, left in the snow.” She lifted her hands as if to say, “Who knows?”

  “She did not eat,” Lukwsh said. “She wished to die, I think. We lost both Wren and Wuzzie, but one made it to Vancouver, silent as a dead person. And then they took her somewhere else when we got there, for her mind sickness, maybe. I never saw her again.”

  “She has spoken,” I told them. They both looked at me with surprise. “Only a word or two. She offered a gift of tules she made into a dog. Like Wren’s. She asked for help.”

  “She said these things to you?” Lukwsh asked in a voice of wonder.

  “She spoke my Indian name, Thocmetone, and walked in from my past.”

  Dr. Adams greeted my new husband. We met Arlita and shared our stories of Wuzzie while sitting in Dr. Adams’s office. Shard had not seen her yet, and I had told him he would not recognize the woman with the long hair, the bushy eyebrows that lay like fuzzy insects meeting above her nose.

  “So you think it might be the shame of it, of having pretended to be what she wasn’t, that’s what resulted in this mutism?” Arlita asked.

  “Maybe not being able to save Wren,” I added.

  “It seems like such a drastic response,” Arlita said. “I mean, to remain silent for years because of something you can do nothing more about.”

  “Such a tragic event as a young woman’s death associated with the disclosure could have added to the trauma,” Dr. Adams said. “And who knows what happened to her, by the soldiers. We know she created a remarkable inner world to have lived so successfully as a man those years. Not sure how that was accomplished even.”

  “She stayed alone,” Shard said. “Wore clothing of skin and is so small that her size could not be used to judge. She joined from another band, long years ago, almost before anyone noticed or remembers. Suddenly appeared, able to heal wounds, interpret dreams, was accepted for what he had to give. She was accepted.”

  “Suppose so. Could have happened that way. And with the chaos of the internment, the cold, the futility of it all, watching one’s personal power slip away. Suppose it would be like going under the spell of another. Could cause someone to crack easily enough. Question now is what to do about it. Do we have her see you, Mr. Johnson, someone else from her past? Or talk about what we know? Or what?”

  “A white man without answers,” Shard said, “rare.” He smiled and Dr. Adams grunted back, but they had a sharing of minds.

  “What do you think, Mrs. Crick—ah, Johnson?”

  “Alice,” I said. “This is what I wish for. To greet her, see if she recognizes Shard, let her see that life went on, talk to her of Lukwsh.” I took
a deep breath, deliberately did not look at Shard’s face. “And one more thing. Ask if she will come back with us when we return.”

  “Do you think that’s wise?” Arlita said.

  “When did you choose this fork in the road?” Shard asked, turning to look at me, a new dimension in this match he had not counted on.

  “Lukwsh asked it, but I like the plan. She says together, with Wuzzie’s legs and Lukwsh’s words, they might make a whole person living in that house. And they could. Wuzzie did best when surrounded by tule reeds and the work of her hands—that’s when she spoke. Might let her know she has a place to be, is wanted. That seems the strongest healing herb. And for a time, Lukwsh can speak for her.”

  We all sat quietly in Dr. Adams’s office, the clock ticking while he considered.

  “At least I need to see her again,” I said, standing. It was a promise I had made. “She meant it for evil by sending me away, but God turned it for good. I’ll tell her that much, at least, then let her make her choice for the rest.”

  “Are you sure this view is worth this ocean voyage?” I asked my husband. We had left the sandy beach below Yaquina Bay. The train from Salem took us west across flat fields of flax and hops, grasses and grains, through dusky coastal mountains covered with forests so dense the day seemed dark but for the spatter of sunlight filtering through the tree tops. My old feeling of tightness in closed spaces crept across my chest.

  At Newport, I saw the ocean like a vast sky over the desert wearing the color of pale tears.

  “This is not the sight I want for you,” Shard said as I stared.

  “But this is beautiful.” My words a whisper. “So like the rhythm of the drums, so like water rushing through a falls. And nothing to stand between us and this water.”

  “Just the docks and ships.” Shard laughed. “We will go to a high place to see this ocean, and you will remember then Dog Mountain, the one you tried to climb before you fell.”

  “I do not need to be reminded of the fall,” I said.

  We walked planks built out onto the bay and boarded a small boat with six other passengers and bobbed a short distance to a ship heading south.

  “We could have climbed one of the hills there.” I pointed to the shrub- and tree-covered ridges rising up behind the little town of gray buildings spackled with seagull waste and sand.

  “What we will see together for the first time is more amazing than any other. It is said that the rocks offshore are the color of the stems of rosy everlastings and lie at angles as though they’ve been driven up from underneath. The ridges are flat above them, with open spaces you would never know were there, protected from wind by firs and pines. Then you can walk almost straight out toward the ocean and look a hundred feet below. The shoreline rises so straight up from waves that throw themselves against the rocks that we must be careful when we look over not to get dizzy and lose our balance.”

  “I am already dizzy. And with a headache. And my stomach would turn itself inside out. I am not sure it is a good plan that we bob on this ocean on a piece of wood.”

  He laughed. “The captain will not be happy hearing you call his ship a piece of wood. We go to Empire City and then take a buggy to Cape Gregory, above Coos Bay. Then you will see the ocean as it is meant to be.”

  The sea breezes were strong on board ship, and we stepped below deck. Shard took the offered blanket from the steward, and we chose a seat where we could still see the thick foliage of the shoreline, watch white clouds amble like chubby children across the sky.

  “Do you think she will come with us when we get back?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know. She did not take much notice in me. She did not remember me.”

  “Oh, but her eyes flickered in recognition. And when you said ‘Lukwsh,’ I thought she turned to you with her whole body.”

  “You’ve a better sense then,” he said. “She sat like a stone to me, just as she did when the soldiers took her out, only not rolled into a ball. She looked like an old woman instead of a hairless man.” He tucked the blanket around my legs, put his arm around me. “Why not try to sleep? Let this large lake be your lullaby.”

  I dozed. And in my sleep I dreamed of a small child climbing, climbing to the top, then soaring from a rimrock ridge. She flew like a swan, graceful, long, thin neck that arced bare without feathers, like the baldness of a man. She flew above a circle of antelope that became a burst of flowers of yellows and reds and purple shooting stars. A baby cried, and the flowers opened wider in a spray of tiny wada seeds that filled the air. One small seed drifted above the others, swirled around and dove as clean as the cut of an obsidian knife right toward me, falling faster to my soul. I woke with a start, breathing hard, my mouth dry.

  “What’s wrong?” Shard asked. He leaned over me.

  “Just a dream,” I said, collecting myself. “About climbing and seeds and flowers. Foolishness.”

  “Dreams are mixed up.” He sat back and pulled me into his chest.

  “And a baby,” I told him, looking at my flat stomach for the first time in a different way.

  We stood on the cliff overlooking the ocean a day after arriving in Empire City. What Shard had shared was true. The surf pounded on angled rocks and sprayed and surged in a way I could not imagine without seeing. Sea gulls squawked and dipped in the currents; massive egrets set their wings and drifted across the sky. And the view swept farther than I had ever seen, into another world, another time. I sat smaller in the presence of so much water and might, and yet fuller.

  “How does the ride in the piece of wood feel now? Was it worth it?”

  I squeezed my husband. “It is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.” I shivered.

  He turned me by the shoulder, then took my hand to lead me along a trail away from the ocean. We entered a dense stand of firs. We bent low, twisted around following a footpath to the clearing we had been promised. Only the distant surf touched the quiet. The sun glittered through the tops of the surrounding timber. He unfolded a blanket we brought with us, sat down, crossed his legs, and motioned me beside him.

  “We won’t stay long,” he said. “The weather changes quickly. I don’t wish to compete with a squall.”

  “I think I know what will make Wuzzie come back with us,” I said, burrowing against him like a puppy seeking pets. “It came to me in a dream. First, our baby can never have too many moo’a, and—”

  “Our baby? This is something you already know?” His voice had bubbles behind it. They worked their way to the surface of his smile.

  “I already know. It is not sea sickness I carry with me to this dry ground. And second,” I continued, “we will tell her she is needed to be there at a beginning again. To help as she did with her own child, Wren.”

  He sat silent, considered what I said. A flock of egrets cleared the spiky fir tops, flew over us, and dipped so low I could hear the beat of the wind against their wings.

  “Are you so certain of our baby that you are sure of Wuzzie’s too?”

  “I am sure. Wuzzie gave up what was her own. To Lukwsh. Now Lukwsh gives back, but Wuzzie is needed, too. It’s what makes the circle complete.”

  His hands crossed over my breast, lay protectively over me, his mind deep in thought.

  “This may not surprise you then, either, you know so many things,” he said after a time, pulling back to sit beside me. His coat pocket gave up a small package which he handed me, then he leaned on one elbow to watch me open it. “It is for you to wear around your neck. A reminder of who controls the circle that is our present, past, and future.”

  “And that is not me?” I said, smiling.

  He laughed.

  My fingers clumsily worked at the small clasp until it opened. Shard took out his gift: a tiny gold cross to hang on the gold necklace that was my mother’s. He hooked it onto the chain I wore around my neck.

  “Like yours,” I said.

  “There is another.”

  From the bottom of
the box his wide fingers removed a slender ring he slipped onto my finger. It too was gold and not much wider than a willow thread. But a weave not unlike one of Lukwsh’s willow baskets made its way around the edge.

  “There,” he said as I admired the gifts, the sounds of the surf to our backs. “A circle for your finger. From beginning to end, it means you are in my heart, everlasting. Where you belong, where you are loved.”

  I rested my hand on my stomach. The dappled light through the trees picked up the thin design of the ring. Shard picked up my hand, held it, laced his fingers into mine.

  “I think of that time when I climbed and Wuzzie found me,” I told him, my voice thick with tears, remembering that someone cared for me, found value in my life.

  “It led you here,” he said. I burrowed closer to his chest.

  “I climbed up high before I fell. And climbed again.”

  After a time Shard smiled, then spoke out loud my thoughts: “So, now you see what your wishing to climb higher leads to.”

  “All I need,” I told him, resting in the warmth of his presence, the promise of our future. “Enough love to water my soul forever.”

  EPILOGUE

  ASIAM

  SEVEN YEARS LATER

  Hope,” I whispered. “Come here. Sh-h-h.”

  “Can’t you keep your children quiet, woman?” Shard asked. His voice laughed.

  “My children? I was not alone when they happened along. And you must whisper.”

  But he waved me quiet and moved out of sight, ducking beneath the sagebrush. It was late in the month of May, and Home Creek rushed behind us, gurgling full of snowmelt from Steen’s Mountain.