A Clearing in the Wild

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “I am just a woman,” I said. “But I’m a dry woman lying beneath a roof. And I’m a woman willing to share her bed with a stubborn husband.”

  “And I with a stubborn wife.”

  We celebrated Christmas with a goose Hans brought down, whose feathers I stuffed into a dried elk’s bladder that I softened with the animal’s own fat. No Belsnickel brought gifts by as he did at Bethel, but I had enough sinew thread left to sew the elk bladder into the perfect pillow for Christian’s head. I took my precious needles from the chatelaine that hung around my neck. Christian winked as I did.

  A couple of the men had whittled toys for Andy, which he played with now, the wooden horse in one hand chasing after the wooden goat of almost the same size in another. I did not expect nor did I receive any tangible gift from my husband. That we were all together with food in our stomachs and aware of the Lord’s presence in His provision was present enough. That and our own Christmas service reading from the Bible. Christian ended the day saying we must make more time for prayer and worship. Our lack of such, he said, explained why our efforts moved so slowly and with such turmoil.

  The Knight brothers surprised, saying that if they left now they could return to Bethel in time to help bring the larger group out. Joe wanted to go by ship to San Francisco.

  “But we need help here,” Christian said.

  “You’ll do little till spring. Then in summer, maybe you could hire the Indians,” Joe replied.

  I thought, It must’ve been hard for boys Jonathan’s age to be isolated for so long.

  “Indeed,” Christian grunted. “And if I say no?”

  The brothers looked at each other.

  “Maybe we’d leave anyway,” Joe said.

  That night, I knew Christian lay awake, his Bible open in his hands. In the morning he gave his consent to the Knights, who headed back after the first of the year, the tide taking them out to sea.

  Through January the men hunted together, once bringing home a bear whose hide became a welcome blanket on the coldest nights. We had meat we smoked inside a branch-covered lean-to. The smell of meat made my mouth water sometimes, even in the night. Stews were frequent, and all of us regained some strength. We read together, finding Scriptures our leader had never preached on, wondering if we had the right to say what we thought the words meant. We were not learned, after all; we merely lived and hoped our lives reflected what we loved.

  One day when I went into the woods to graze the goat, I startled several Indian women gathering cedar root and bark. I motioned to ask what they’d do with their bounty, and one of them made a pounding motion against the bark, then pointed to her cape. I could pound it into a mat to cover the floor or perhaps make a cape for Andy, even for the men. This might be the last winter when we were so wet because we lacked the proper clothing.

  I nudged Christian into making a trip to Woodard’s Landing.

  “We’re not asking them for anything,” I said. “We’re just being good neighbors to visit.” He finally agreed, and we spent the day in each other’s company, talking and singing. Sarah had an angel’s voice, and her singing taught me new English words. I considered her my friend and overlooked her clucking tongue when I told her of my leaving Christian for a time and living in the woods alone.

  “The Indians …,” she said. “You took a terrible risk.”

  “Either way,” I said, “if I hadn’t gone, I’m not sure we’d all still be alive. The men needed rest.”

  “You are overly dramatic, Emma,” Christian said, overhearing us.

  “You were all sick. I made a way for us to have a roof over our heads.”

  “No, Liebchen. That was God’s work, not yours.”

  How I hated it when he defined anything good I did as something brought about by intervention. Did I offer nothing? Did I not at least act in concert with God, sometimes? Or was that route only possible through the works of men?

  At times, there were slight breaks in the rain, or it drizzled more than poured. After the men began to feel better, on those still days with the weather offering fog rather than rain, they’d work in the woods, bringing out the logs they needed and stacking them. When it drizzled, they’d work on the structures, Christian still bent on having three dozen houses roofed and ready by the time the larger group arrived.

  I still didn’t see how we could accomplish this. The Bethelites might not understand the primitiveness of this place. What had the Knights and Michael Sr. and John Genger and George and John Stauffer said to them by now? Would they be enthusiastic? What would they say about a place where horses bogged down in mud and people used the river if they wanted to truly go somewhere? Would the promised richness of the soil and the bounty in the woods be enough to overcome the challenges?

  I calmed my unease about the arrival of the others by remembering that the more experienced colonists had been through this all before. Helena Giesy, Christian’s sister, would likely say this was an easier creation of a colony than when they moved to Missouri, conquering hardwood trees and plowing meadows. Missouri was a wilderness of sorts in the 1840s, and there were Indian scares there, too, with Andrew Jackson’s Removal Act forcing the natives onto reservations far from their home lands.

  I’d arrived in my parents’ home well after those early years. I didn’t know the trials they might have lived through. Maybe all new adventures had missteps and trials and, as Christian said, I was merely being dramatic.

  Spring arrived, and with it improved health for us all. Even the goat gained weight. I watched my husband lash a log behind a mule to pull it to a clearing. We Germans were accustomed to hard work. It was what defined us. It’s what helped carve a Bethelite’s faith. Hard work and a hope we walked on God’s path.

  Now began the work in earnest. The Bethelites would be here in less than six months.

  23

  Virtue and Vice

  “Mama,” Andy said, and he handed me a clutch of wildflowers as white as chalk. Spring 1855, and I pitched any worrisome thoughts away. White trillium carpeting the forest floor distracted me. Pink and white orchids grew on tree trunks, or so it appeared; flowers with podlike blooms turned the meadows beside the rivers blue. Moss green as cats’ eyes lay curled around tree roots, waiting to be patted. This valley formed a tapestry, a quilt of such richness I wondered that I ever questioned my husband’s choice to come here. The air smelled fresh each morning, and the river, raging as it did carrying all that rain to the sea, kept within its banks, and I felt blessed.

  I walked the tall grass meadows with Andy running now before me, still falling down sometimes but always picking himself up to carry on. The goat trotted after him like a dog. I could hear the sounds of hammering, the grunts of men raising logs to rafters. They coughed less now, the lingering illness of the winter fading. Still, each night I heard Christian’s lament about their lack of progress. “Soon we’ll have to send someone out to meet Wilhelm’s group,” he told me. “That will leave fewer of us to work the logs.”

  “Maybe, with so few of us here, you could wait and hope that Michael Sr. or George will be coming with them and can lead them here.”

  “Nein. We should have them come a different way, across the bay. We’ll need to send someone out to lead them.”

  While I questioned that wisdom, I kept silent. I could do little to speed the progress except dig roots, pick berries when they were ripe, tan the hides as best I could, boil river water for drinking now that the rains had ceased, and watch after Andy. An-Gie had showed me how to find the wapato and a few other roots to dry. Christian called one camass and said we could cook them, which I did. And once, startling me in the woods, two Chehalis women showed me mushrooms they motioned for me to pluck from the forest floor and eat. They were white as beach sand and tasted like sponge, it seemed to me.

  This Willapa Valley offered such abundance of cedar and fir and hemlock and yew, and yet we paled against the requirements to rein such bounty in. We had fewer than five huts built, and th
ose would be roofed with tarps from the wagons of the Bethelites once they arrived. Knowing that a large wagon train would soon bring 150 people or more into this clearing pushed at the men, but they could work no harder than they already did. It fell to me to raise their spirits, to force them to look at what they’d done rather than what was left to do. “You’ve bought the land. You’ve befriended Indians. You’ve staked out boundaries. You’ve met townspeople, you’ve spent money wisely to keep us fed, you’ve sent off the scouts on time. You’ve kept your wife and son close by, and on top of that you’ve built huts. Houses,” I told Christian one dawn. I took a breath.

  Christian held a chunk of biscuit out for the seagull to peck at. This new bird still wouldn’t take anything from Christian’s hand, only mine and Andy’s. He didn’t have the chip from his bill, but a hole in his webbed foot marked him as unique. We called this one Charlie too.

  “And on top of that, you’ve been as faithful a man as I’ve ever known, trusting always that you were doing the Lord’s work, never putting yourself first in anything. You are a good man, Christian Giesy, and this place will one day reflect all that you have done to take it from the wild into a welcoming place.”

  He dropped the breadcrumb. “Yet the bird does not trust me.”

  “What does a bird know anyway?”

  He grinned. “Your passion and vision remind me of Wilhelm’s.”

  “I’m nothing like our leader,” I retorted. The thought startled. I picked up the crumb and held it out. Charlie waddled over, his beak never touching my finger as he lifted the bread from me as I squatted. “Wilhelm is … visionary, I agree. But he’s also … selfish.”

  Christian frowned. “That’s not a word I’d use to describe either of you.”

  “Don’t compare us,” I said. My voice shook. I wondered where this trembling came from.

  “I only meant that both of you use words that change the minds of people, take them from lowly places onto hilltops where they can see farther than they did before. I see compassion in both of you, too. Ja, I know how you feel about Wilhelm.” He’d raised his hand to silence my open mouth to protest. “But sometimes when we see only another’s faults, we ignore the other side of those flaws. He’s driven, yes, but also passionate. He acts boldly when needed, though you’d say arrogant. He’s a leader, and sometimes that makes a man single-minded. But that’s you, too, Emma.” My face felt hot with such words. “You must be careful you don’t define our leader with such a narrow view that you become more like those negative qualities you claim he has and ignore the strengths on the opposite sides that each of you share. Virtue and vice, they live together.”

  I blinked, at least a dozen times. Charlie pecked at my wrist, wanting more food, but I had none in my hand. Food for thought is what Christian gave me, and I found it hard to swallow.

  Andy and I often went out with the men, me serving food to them with some hope that it sped their days. It also gave me opportunity to walk what would someday be fields of grain. I imagined our fields with wheat bending in the breeze. I squeezed my eyes shut to picture our house built one day. I visualized my son growing up to work beside his father. Imagining what might be gave me respite.

  The colors in this landscape took my breath away. All the fresh green of moss and trees, the still wet, black vines, the reddish bark of cedars, a rushing river, browned by the tumbling banks of mud that tried to define it, a sky a staggering blue, all acted as an admiring audience for the promise of the meadow’s performance. Lavish, I thought. This is lavish. Certainly a God who could create such as this would not protest displays of beauty on a person or a place. I wondered if my mother had come to that conclusion and that was why she kept the strand of pearls about her neck.

  For some reason an old sermon of our leader’s came to mind, in which he spoke of the prodigal son. He said the word prodigal had more than one meaning, and one of its meanings was “lavish, abundant.” That wayward son’s father lavished him with good things, so surely wishing to have abundance was scriptural, wasn’t it? Surely wanting abundance couldn’t be prideful. Why would God have created all that lush growth and glorious land if not for us to experience the fullness of it all? What good is creation if one doesn’t find awe and joy in it?

  I thought back to Bethel. Filigrees and fluff had been permitted on our houses. Elim, Wilhelm and Louisa’s home, stood recognized from the other homes with its size, its many chimneys, and wide porches framed with gingerbread cutouts. Perhaps lavishness was permitted in places other than on an individual person.

  I loosened the tie on my worn wrapper, let the warm breeze flow through to dry the perspiration on my skin. I heard the men shout to one another and direct the mules, who jerked against the straps as they hauled another log out of the woods. Perhaps we could be ready for those coming behind us, ready not with physical things like houses but ready to receive them into an abundant place. Maybe Christian was right about my ability to express myself. I could use words to help them see the bounty here, to trust that this was a place chosen for us. Perhaps this bountiful place would be enough to meet all the needs of these people. A house to live in wasn’t nearly as critical as land that could raise grain.

  Christian’s parents would bring the grist stones, coming by ship around the Horn; they’d make it possible for us to have flour before the year was out. Wheat of our own grinding, if we got some planted. I needed to honor all that we scouts had done surviving in the Oregon Territory for two winters, keeping always focused on meeting the needs of the colony. Well, almost always.

  Andy raced ahead of me, running without falling for his longest time yet. He’d grown. I counted his months. Nineteen. I thought back to the time I carried him. Under other circumstances, another brother or sister would be good for him. But here, with such work to do, it would be better to wait until we were settled into our own hut. I thought to the last time I’d had my monthly flow. It had come back with the good food of the hunters. But I had not known it now for three months. Three months. This was already May.

  I looked down at my abdomen, ran my hands around it in a warm circle of affection. It was already too late to wait: if I counted right, this baby would arrive in … December. The wettest, coldest, and dreariest month, but also the most prodigal time.

  Mules can be a trouble at times, but they are more reliable than a horse. We scouts had moved ourselves and were back living in lean-tos to be closer to the work sites while the men labored at their tasks. I assured Christian that the exercise of plowing would be good for the baby I carried, since I could do little to help them in the woods.

  After a time of cleaning his ear with his finger, his newest sign of being in thought, he consented, saying we’d repay the Woodards for the use of their mule by giving them wheat. We couldn’t spare any of our animals; they were needed for dragging logs.

  “It would be better to plant oats,” Sarah told me. “Wheat doesn’t grow well here. We usually order flour in.”

  “They grew wheat near Steilacoom,” I remembered.

  “Even in a short distance the climate affects what grows.”

  “We have wheat seed,” I said. “No oats.”

  She shrugged.

  I didn’t share the conversation with Christian. But we borrowed the Woodards’ plow and mule, and I began the work, pulling the heavy straps over my shoulder, gripping the plow handles while wearing my leather gloves. The Woodards’ mule had plowed fields before. I could tell he didn’t like it.

  A mule being asked to do what he doesn’t like consumes one’s energy completely, allowing little time to think of anything deeper than how far the wheat field furrows sink. I longed for that distraction as I watched the men begin to question once again their ability to complete their labors in time. Plowing fields kept my mind from disappointing thinking.

  I’d seen the men plow fields back in Bethel. And I knew it would take me long hours of being jerked by the single-bottom plow when it might strike a rock or it would pitch over
and fall, and I’d have to hoist the handles and blade up, hoping the mule would stand firm. We put blinders on him to avoid distractions from birds swooping overhead or any other skittering thing that might shake an animal’s confidence and make it bolt. A dried leaf could do it; a bear would surely cause a stir. Both the mule and I did best when kept from distractions.

  I’d tethered Andy with a long vine of cedar root I braided into a sturdy rope so he wouldn’t go wandering off too far from the edge of the field I worked on. The rope was another gift of the landscape brought to my attention by the Chehalis women I saw now and then. Maybe when they’d seen my makeshift cedar cape, they’d decided I had potential and shared bits of their experience with me.

  Andy explored the ground for ants and salamanders and other insects with names I didn’t know. He particularly liked the slugs, the slimy finger-length creatures the color of the scorched flour I used to treat Andy’s diaper rash. Their little antenna broke the monotony of their bodies, and Andy loved to touch them. Slugs and his wooden toy horse and goat, Charlie and the live goat kept him company. He even napped in the shade of the tree he was tethered to. At least we’d never found a snake here; only spiders kept us on our toes.

  I’d pounded cedar bark with a rock into a kind of mat. He lay on that now as I worked. I found that the best time, his napping time, when I didn’t carry this nudging worry over him in the back of my mind. The river flowed close, and while it no longer crested near the banks, it was still wide and hungry and would easily consume an adventurous child. I wondered if my mother had worried like that when I was little and Bethel was being built. I planned to write her when the others arrived, bringing precious paper with them. What paper we had we’d used up, so I couldn’t even make the notes I wanted, to remind myself of how I felt with all we did here. I’d have to be like the Indians and memorize the tales. At least that’s what An-Gie said they did, and thus she’d found little need to read or write.