Bone River

by Chance, Megan

  “A hired hand?”

  “Much more than that.”

  Daniel raised a questioning brow, and I found myself saying, reluctantly, “Papa and I found him at our door one night. His whole family had been taken by smallpox a few months before, and he was very sick with fever. He had no one else, and there was no doctor for miles, so we took him in. When he got well, he taught us the ways of his people—salmon fishing and smelting and things like that, and he was very good at trading, which was helpful to my father. After a while, we couldn’t do without him, and he was devoted to us both. When Papa died, Lord Tom stayed with me.”

  Daniel nodded. I expected him to say something like, “But he’s a savage,” or to protest that I kept an Indian so close, but he seemed to accept it without question. For a few moments there was nothing but the sound of shoveling, the clatter of oyster shells falling to the pile. Then Daniel said, “He doesn’t like you with that mummy. He spent the whole morning frowning at the barn.”

  I was startled that he’d noticed it. “Tom’s like all his people. They’re afraid of dead bodies.”

  “Why?”

  “Because spirits are tricksters. They lure the living to the land of the dead.”

  “Does he think she’s Indian?”

  “I don’t know what he thinks except that her spirit is powerful and dangerous and will bring nothing but bad luck. No matter that she’s probably a century dead at least, and her spirit’s already passed over.”

  Daniel glanced up from the oysters, his eyes the only color in a face washed pale by the cold. Again I thought of how like his father’s they were. He frowned. “What?”

  “The Chinook believe the spirit passes after five years, and then it can’t come back. At least, that’s what all the stories say,” I explained. “So I don’t know why he’s so disturbed about this one.”

  “So what do you mean to do with her?”

  “Study, describe, answer what questions I can. Then Junius wants me to send her to Spencer Baird at the Smithsonian.”

  Daniel tossed another handful of oysters. “What will this Baird give you for her? How much does one make on the dead?”

  I didn’t like the way he’d worded it; his contempt of me was in every syllable. “I don’t know. But I’m certain Junius has some idea.”

  Just then, Lord Tom brought the last shovelful, and he and Junius came aboard, their boots dripping water as they tried not to slip on the piles of oysters. I lowered the basket of broken shells over the side to keep in the cold water until we returned from Bruceport, and then focused on sorting what was left, glad for the chance to ignore Junius’s son for a bit. His questions had been a bit too sharp—it was hard not to think that Junius was right about him. But I told myself that wasn’t fair. I hardly knew him, and he had reason to dislike us both. I couldn’t blame him for showing it.

  We were well under way by the time the sorting was done. I tucked my gloved hands into my armpits to try to warm them. It was useless; they were too far gone, and I was looking forward to a visit to Dunn’s saloon once we’d sold the oysters, the warmth of many bodies, no matter how stinking the air.

  Once we got closer to Bruceport, the wildlife gave way to bateaus, canoes, a roughly built clinker or two, and other plungers darting everywhere, their sails plumped with breeze as they made their way to Bruceport or Oysterville across the bay or any one of the tiny towns that had sprung up on these shores in the last twenty years, all of them dedicated to the oysters that were our own personal gold rush. Thank God San Francisco loved them so well.

  Bruceport sat at the curve of the bay, fronted by mudflats and behind a raft of driftwood, huddled at the base of a forested hill that provided wood for the sawmill the men of the shipwrecked Bruce had started when they’d founded this place. There were no wharves—you couldn’t build one long enough to reach past the flats when the tide was out—the schooners from San Francisco just anchored out in the shallows and waited for the oystermen to bring them their cargo. And now that we were here, I realized it might be hours before there would be a visit to Dunn’s. The bay was full of plungers just like ours, all sidling up to the schooner whose keel was settled deep in the mud. Despite our hurry, we would be one of the last to sell, and there was no guarantee we would even empty the boat. If the schooner filled before they got to us, there would be none of our oysters on it.

  Junius swore beneath his breath as he let the sail go slack to take our place in line, and I looked away, not wanting to catch his eye, feeling guilty. I saw Adam Leach’s boat at the ship now, loading oysters into the bushel baskets the men aboard lowered over the side. Quickly I looked about, calculating our chances. The schooner would take close to two thousand baskets, and each of the plungers in the bay held the same four hundred ours did. We would be lucky to unload half ours.

  “Wake kloshe,” Lord Tom said quietly.

  Junius said tersely, “Not good indeed.”

  “What’s wrong?” Daniel asked.

  “We’re too late,” I told him. “The boat will be full by the time they get to us.”

  But it wasn’t bad luck, I told myself, refusing to look at Lord Tom. There had been a reason for our tardiness, though it didn’t make me feel any better to know it, given that the reason was me.

  The loading always went quickly; it was only a few hours before it was our turn, and it went just as badly as I’d expected. We’d unloaded less than half the plunger before the men called down that they were full. We’d given them less than two hundred baskets. They threw down a little bag with gold pieces inside—a bit more than three hundred dollars, which wasn’t bad unless you considered that we’d been expecting more than six.

  Junius emptied the bag out into his hand, and then he held out a fourth to Daniel. “Here’s your share, boy.”

  Daniel stared at Junius’s hand. “How much is that?”

  “Eighty dollars. It’s your—”

  “No, how much in all?”

  “Over three hundred dollars.”

  “For two hundred baskets of oysters?” Daniel sounded incredulous. “They paid that much?”

  Junius gave him a grim smile. “Don’t you know how much oysters are selling for in your own hometown?”

  “I know they’re for rich men, and too expensive for me. I’ve never even tried one.”

  “Well, that’ll change,” Junius said. He poured the rest of the gold back into the bag and tucked it into his pocket before he glanced regretfully at the schooner. “It should have been more. We’ll get here earlier next time.”

  Lord Tom said, “It will be like this next time too, sikhs, unless the spirit quiets.”

  Junius rolled his eyes. “Well, maybe we’ll be lucky and the mummy will be on its way to Baird by the time the next schooner’s in. So who’s for a drink? I could use one myself. And something to eat.”

  We beached the plunger and covered the remaining oysters with a wet tarp, and then we all went ashore. Oysterville was the biggest town on the Shoalwater, but Bruceport was next with its two hotels, two stores, and a school. There were about twenty families’ worth of houses, and a score of saloons that catered to oystermen and sawmill workers. The streets were packed mud, and watering troughs made of rough-hewn wood and filled with rainwater were here and there, though there were few horses to take advantage of them. A boat was more useful in these parts. A few pigs wandered about, poking at trash piles or the unsavory things hidden in potholes, shooed away by a housewife hanging her laundry or dumping a chamber pot into a cesspool.

  Dunn’s saloon perched just on the other side of the driftwood raft that separated town from beach, and therefore was often the first to see the gold coins of the oystermen when they came ashore again after selling to the schooner. It was a ramshackle place, gray and weathered, with moss growing on its steeply pitched roof, and it always looked about two minutes away from collapsing in on itself. But it had been there as long as I could remember. Groups of men squatted on the dirt outside, playing mont
e or the Chinook game la-hull, with its disks of wood colored black or plain. It was a favorite among both the Indians and the oystermen who had been here from the earliest days. Lord Tom and I had spent many evenings playing it, but it bored Junius.

  Inside was a roughly planed floor smoothed by years of footsteps, scattered with muddy sawdust and some tables and chairs. The saloon was as full as I’d predicted it would be, gold pieces changing hands so quickly they flashed in the dim light. As usual, I was the only woman there.

  Junius brought a bottle of whiskey to the table and three glasses. He poured the liquor and shoved one each to Lord Tom and Daniel before he swallowed his own in one gulp. “I’ve ordered chowder,” he said.

  “Your wife doesn’t get a drink?” Daniel looked at me. “You work as hard as they do. Seems you should get the same reward.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I don’t want it.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  Junius said, “I don’t like it.”

  I looked up quickly and said, “I...drink affects me...too much.”

  Daniel said, “Well, I guess an old man with a young and pretty wife can’t want her enjoying herself too well, can he?”

  Junius said, “You’re on thin ice, boy.”

  Daniel took a sip. “So how did you two meet, anyway? Let me guess—you were drinking whiskey and this old man actually looked good to you—enough so that you could ignore that he already had a wife.”

  His tone was light, conversational, but the words were blistering, and I didn’t know which I felt more—anger or guilt.

  Junius rose. “That’s enough, boy. This is none of your business.”

  “Oh, I’d say it was,” Daniel said, unfazed. His eyes glittered in the dimness of the bar. “Given the circumstances.”

  I looked at my husband. “Sit down, June.”

  “I won’t have him insulting you. He’s reduced twenty years of marriage to a crude joke.”

  “Twenty years?” Daniel choked on his drink. “You’ve been with him twenty years?” He looked at me. “You must have been a child.”

  I swallowed my dislike and my offense. I reminded myself that he was my stepson, that I deserved at least some measure of his anger and disdain, that Junius did. As calmly as I could, I said, “I was hardly a child. I was seventeen.”

  Daniel said, “Seventeen?” He laughed as if he couldn’t believe it. “No wonder.”

  “It wasn’t like that, boy,” Junius said tightly.

  “Really?” Daniel raised a dark brow. “It never occurred to you what a good swap it was? A tired wife and a boy for a pretty girl?”

  It seemed so dirty and sordid when he said it. The heat came once more into my face. I opened my mouth to protest.

  Lord Tom reached across the table before I could say anything, clapping his big hand onto Daniel’s, holding him still. “Enough, tenas kahmooks. You know nothing.”

  Daniel looked taken aback. I saw anger sweep his expression, and then it faded, and he gave a short, tight nod. Lord Tom lifted his hand and sat back again.

  The bartender called Junius’s name, and he and Lord Tom went to get the chowder, leaving me alone with Daniel, where I did not want to be. When they were gone, he turned to me and asked, “What was it he called me?”

  “Puppy,” I said, too angry myself to soften it.

  To my surprise, he only nodded and reached for his whiskey. “The Indian’s like a father to you, isn’t he?”

  Warily, I said, “Yes.”

  “How lucky you are. Two fathers, when some of us don’t even get the one. Why, when you add your husband in, it’s almost like three, isn’t it?”

  “Lord Tom is right,” I snapped. “You don’t know anything.”

  His gaze was as sharp as I felt mine to be. “I have eyes, you know. I can see what’s in front of my face.”

  His glance angled up, to behind me. Junius was back, and Lord Tom, carrying bowls of chowder that spilled over the sides onto their fingers. Junius leaned over me, setting the bowls down, pulling bent spoons from his pocket. “Eat up,” he said, taking his seat as Lord Tom put down the others. “There’s a dance tonight. I’d just as soon go home, but I guess you want to go.” He looked at me.

  There was always a dance after the schooner came in, and I could never decide if I loved them or hated them. I liked being among people after the isolation of home. I liked to laugh, and there was always plenty of that here. I liked to dance—a little too well, perhaps. But the women of town would be there too, and I was much less comfortable with them. I preferred the company of men—it was what I was used to. Papa had been my only friend throughout my childhood—I hadn’t needed others, and we moved so often I’d never learned the habit of making friends. And I soon learned that my strange education, my passion for relics and study, meant I could not be what other women expected of me. Perhaps if I’d had children...but I hadn’t. But tonight it seemed preferable to going home, to being locked in silence and resentment, and it was late enough that I wouldn’t get a chance to study the mummy anyway. So I said, “Yes. Please.”

  Junius nodded shortly. “Well, you’re lucky to escape the hard work today, boy, but it won’t always be this way.”

  “I’d rather the work,” Daniel said stonily, and I did not miss the implication, that work was better than socializing with us.

  Junius laughed and bent over his bowl. “I’ll remember you said that when you’re complaining about the cold and wet.”

  “How nice to know that there are some things you can remember,” Daniel said.

  Junius’s face went hard. We finished the rest of the meal in silence.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE ENTIRE TOWN seemed to be on the muddy streets tonight, despite the darkening clouds that had moved in with twilight, promising rain. Even the children rushed to the dance, dashing to and fro about the street, shouting and chasing each other, their boots, pants, and skirts muddy, their faces alight with excitement, so it made me smile to see them while at the same time I could not keep at bay my sadness that none of them were mine. My melancholy was always stronger here in town, and with it came the realization that Daniel’s presence would raise questions I did not want to answer. I wished now I hadn’t agreed to come.

  As we made our way up the street, dodging potholes and wallows, I heard the music coming from the open door and windows of McBride’s Hotel. It was already full by the time we got there, people spilling onto the porch and out the back door, the windows lining the south side all open to cold and wet air growing colder and wetter with encroaching night. There were no streetlamps, but the oil lamps in the windows cast their light onto the mud all around. Through the windows, I saw whirling and dodging, men and women red-faced from dancing. I heard music and talk and laughter, the clop of heavy soled oyster boots on a dusty wood floor.

  Lord Tom stayed outside on the porch where there were some other Indians. It wasn’t that they were unwelcome inside, at least not overtly, but as the night progressed and the whiskey flowed, it was safer for them to stay out of the way. By then, of course, they’d be drunk themselves, and just as easily provoked as white men, and Tom was no different when it came to that. He rarely drank at home, but tonight we’d have to carry him to the boat.

  There were few strangers here, so even if the place hadn’t been almost too full to move, we would have been slowed by greetings. With introductions it was worse, but at least Daniel was polite and charming, and Junius managed a smile or two as he introduced his son. I saw the way the women noted and admired Daniel, and he had a ready smile for them—I was reminded again how handsome he was and how easy he was with it. It was vaguely disconcerting to see him smiling and flirtatious; there was no hint of the sharp and angry young man I’d known the last hours.

  I heard the expressions of surprise, “A son? Why, Russell, I didn’t know you had a son. And such a fine looking man too!” And I saw the way they looked at me, those quick, puzzled glances as they tried to work it out
in their minds. I felt their unspoken questions: What son is this? Did Leonie know about him? Where did he come from? We were so isolated here, we all felt we knew everything about everyone, but the truth was that most people here were single men moving wherever there was money to be made, and secrets were the coin of the realm. I wondered that people were so surprised to find that Junius had kept them as well.

  In the common room there was a large table with bottles of whiskey and a keg of beer, and other women had brought cakes and pies. I felt a moment’s guilt—as I always did—for not thinking to bring anything, but these women hadn’t been culling oysters that morning, either. One more thing we didn’t have in common. I saw them now at the other end of the room, a group of wives talking and laughing, and I knew I should join them.

  But then the Jansen brothers began to fiddle a lively polka, and my foot was tapping before I knew it, and I was closing my eyes and swaying with the rhythm. I wanted to give in to it, to give in to the woman who was not Leonie Russell, ethnologist, but someone else, a woman only, who didn’t think of relics and study but only of swirling and stomping and tossing her hair and laughing for the sheer pleasure of doing so.

  But that was a Leonie that both my father and Junius had discouraged, so I harnessed her when I saw my husband cross the room toward me. He said, “A dance, sweetheart?” and I smiled and nodded as he took me into his arms. When I danced with Junius, it was easier to remember restraint; he made sure of it with the subtle press of his hands, with every look. With other men, without Junius’s constant watch, I often forgot and let the other Leonie loose, something Junius hated.

  I thought suddenly of the saloon, of Daniel’s words: An old man with a young and pretty wife can’t want her enjoying herself too well, can he?

  No, I dared not let her loose tonight, not with Junius’s son watching and judging. I did not want to give him more ammunition with which to wound his father.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Junius teased when it was over. He pulled me to the side tables, where he grabbed a cup of beer. I followed his glance across the room, to where we’d left his son. I watched Daniel tip his hat to Eliza Brookner, who cocked her head and gave him a pretty smile.