A Sweetness to the Soul

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  I remember being surprised to have just heard his name for the first time, spoken with a light brogue I noticed, in that deeper, seasoned voice.

  “Jane Herbert,” I said, introducing myself, hoping my voice didn’t squeak. I felt a surprising warmth inside me as we walked, coupled with a giddy tripping of my tongue. “I’m almost thirteen,” I said brightly, walking taller, turning toward him.

  Joseph’s eyebrows furrowed briefly and the smile in his eyes drifted back as if into his thoughts and I could tell something about my age bothered him. Too late, I remembered what Sunmiet said about telling her tongue to stop saying words that got her into trouble. I’d made myself sound younger when I was only trying to be grown-up.

  “The mules are my responsibility when Papa is gone.” I tried to sound all business, older.

  He smiled. “A responsibility taken seriously,” he said. “I have some first-hand experience, remember?”

  I felt light, liked being talked to as one who was present, an adult. We walked through the stock barns, through the double doors that opened onto the pasture of velvet green. The air was still and cooling. He let me walk ahead of him, like I was a real lady. “You know Jackson and Hard Times and Puddin’ Foot.” I pointed to the grazing mules. I knotted my wet hands behind my back, smoothed my calico, then re-knotted my fingers. “Actually, Puddin’s not really for sale. He’s mine. The others are though. Even Pepperpot. And those more.” My tongue wanted to stumble. I spoke faster than normal.

  We walked slowly around the pasture clipped short by the mules. Mounds of grass hay like little loaves lined the pasture, waiting for winter. “Papa’s been slowly building the herd, thinking things will be happening in the gold fields. In farming too,” I added, carrying on an adult conversation as best I could as Joseph eased into the space beside me.

  Near the center of the grazing animals, we stopped. Joseph’s eyes scanned the field lined with lodgepole fences Papa and Luther Henderson had cut and split. Maybe fifteen mules ripped at the grass near the creek that ran through the pasture. Several lifted their heads and began walking toward us.

  “They’re well treated,” Joseph said. “Used to pampering.”

  “But they carry their weights good,” I assured him.

  He walked around Jackson as I held the animal’s mane and scratched Jackson’s nose. Puddin’ came up behind me, pushed at my pocket for a carrot. Several other animals wandered closer and sniffed at the little kelpie who lay flat-bellied on the ground, ears alert, forward, watching them until we had a cluster of mules, people, and one dog in the center. The mules expressed their usual dislike of little things and lowered their head to the kelpie. Bandit never moved, just curled his lips to release a low growl. Once I even heard the dog’s jaws snap. He bit air.

  “No, Bandit,” Joseph said.

  “Your dog’s not around mules much?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m thinking of packing myself. Again,” Joseph said, “which should give him good practice with more than just my pack animal.” He turned to me then, patting Jackson’s withers and looked across the animal’s back into my eyes. “I have set my bottom on the back of a mule, by the way. More than once,” he said, softly.

  My face turned hot and I hid it behind the mule’s large head, tugging intently at twigs that demanded to be pulled from the coarse hair of Jackson’s mane, concentrating on the sweaty animal smell, keeping my balance as the mules brushed close to me. “You ought to know a person better before you chastise him,” he continued. He moved closer, came around to stand beside me, and I could smell the scent of leather and his tobacco, could see the rough fibers of his red vest.

  There were fifteen mules in the pasture but I looked beyond Jackson and Joseph and counted them to myself, one by one, not wanting to hear the gentle mocking in the man’s words.

  “No need to be rude,” I said finally. I straightened to my full height that did not reach his shoulder. “I did apologize for what I said, didn’t I?”

  “Actually,” he said, lightly, “you didn’t.” The smirk on his face resembled a dog discovering an old bone he’d buried months before. His eyes twinkled and his smile pushed out from his mouth, making his whole face laugh at me behind his beard.

  I saw red. “If you’re interested in a purchase of my father’s stock, we can talk,” I snapped. “Otherwise, I have more important things to do than converse with some dandy who fancies himself a muleskinner.” I have no idea what his face did then for with my insult I turned my back to him and kept it there.

  He was speechless.

  I was disappointed.

  We spent the next half hour or so with him walking behind me and the kelpie behind him. I named the animals, gave him their ages, delineated their lineages, declared their temperaments, and kept my steam well under the lid, or so I thought.

  It seemed to me he enjoyed baiting me. When he got his tongue back, I noticed that even his questions about the mules had teasing in them. Could he buy them for less than the going rate of $250 since he knew they were hard to handle around snakes? Would my father want me to just take them off his hands so he wouldn’t have to hire someone to look after them? I did not appreciate his game and wondered if all grownups preferred to mock and criticize.

  I suppose he was struggling with my youth as I was struggling with his age.

  He made a few attempts to engage me in light conversation about myself and our family, which I resisted. Once, he even reached out to pull a twig caught in my braid and the interruption stopped me mid-sentence. His touch was gentle. My heart throbbed more quickly against my ribcage. I looked away and thought of Sunmiet and Standing Tall’s touch, how inviting it could be, how easily it could change.

  We returned wordless to the house.

  Inside, Joseph treated Mama with great deference, I thought, complimented her on her fine stock, as though she had anything to do with it, and then offered her the deposit. “Please tell your husband I’ll be back in three to four weeks and make my final selection. I’ll want to secure them for service in the spring. Can you winter them?” he asked.

  Mama looked uncertain. “We’d of course like payment when you select them. As for wintering—”

  “Of course we can,” I interrupted. “Didn’t you see the stacks of hay?”

  He nodded his agreement to Mama as though I had not even spoken. She raised an eyebrow at me, took his thanks for her hospitality, and dropped to a graceful curtsy when he bowed ever so slightly at the waist to her before he left.

  He tipped his hat to me, smiled, then headed out, followed by that same strange disappointment I had sent after him before. His kelpie trotted behind his horse and pack animal to the sounds of our penned hound barking frantically. Turning to go back into the house, I remember being glad that he was going and confused by feeling sad that he had gone.

  Joseph headed south, grateful that Fish Man had been wrong about the early, hard winter. This time he approached the ridge above the Deschutes in late afternoon so he could see fully Fish Man’s lure.

  Here stood cousins of the rocks of the Columbia. These rope lava rocks guarded the twisting turquoise water closely, more confined, as they lined the raging water that swirled and turned beneath the skimpy bridge, plunging to the lava rocks below.

  He took his sketch book out and still sitting on his big gelding, made some drawings, wanting to remember, wanting to imprint the possibilities from this place.

  As he rode down the ridge, in and out of the ravines, Joseph approached the falls. Water rushed faster than a wind storm and almost as noisily roared and twisted past him. He was stilled by the place, silenced by its desolate look yet intrigued by the vast starkness.

  A few fishing platforms still jutted out from the rocks looking fragile and forlorn. No one stood on them to fish. Most had been put up, the long poles stashed in the rocks until spring. The hemp ropes that wrapped around boulders to hold the remaining platforms in place looked wet and frayed. Joseph wondered about the
courage of the men who stood on the clapboards leaning out over the raging water to swoop their nets into the foam for fish. They’d done it for generations that way, dangerously conquering the big Chinook, competing with the rushing water.

  He rode beside the river for a distance and approached the bridge he’d crossed with Peter. He eyed it carefully, glad he hadn’t really seen it all that well before. It would not withstand a flood, he thought. But then, it would take a raging torrent to reach it laid there forty feet above the river’s surface.

  The wind came up, carrying with it a new coldness drifting from the mountains which by late afternoon had hid themselves behind angry dark clouds. Joseph urged the gelding across the bridge, rode up the ravine where he’d met Peter LaHomesh and his son, George. Joseph made his camp on the same flattened grass. A cluster of juniper trees provided shelter from the wind, but Joseph said he was lonesome for the good company of the Indians.

  The kelpie whined once when the wind howled through the tree branches knocking off some of the hard blue berries. “Tree is loaded,” Joseph said as he pulled the little dog into his bedroll. The kelpie wiggled his way to Joseph’s neck and wrapped himself around the man’s head and both soon fell asleep. Only later did Joseph remember Fish Man’s comment that trees laden with juniper berries were another sign of an early, hard winter.

  A cold rain greeted the two bedroll partners in the morning. They broke camp quickly, Joseph ducking his head into the collar of his slicker to thwart the wind-swept rain, pulling on his hat that dripped rain off its rim. “Let’s go, Bandit,” he said swinging up onto the gelding and reaching for the mule’s lead. Heavy rain drops pattered on the saddle, spotting the leather of the pommel before the kelpie leapt, landed, and lay panting across the saddle horn. They began the long climb out.

  Joseph had thought he would use the time to think about his future more, consider how he’d make arrangements. A small, fiery girl even entered his thoughts, he claims. But at the top of the ridge, his attention turned to the steady change in the rain.

  Snow. A light snow at first that seemed to melt as it touched the sage-patched earth of the ravines but stuck as it covered the tall grasses of the rolling hills. “Fish Man wins,” Joseph told the kelpie, “sure and it’s good I did not bet on his prognosticating.” The kelpie squirmed at the man’s voice and pushed closer into the warmth seeping from Joseph’s heavy slicker. Joseph wondered how deep the snow might get and how far he could make before nightfall.

  By mid-morning, the trail became a white thread through dusted sagebrush and sparser grass. Joseph knew that if he kept to the breaks, he could actually follow the river south. It was new country to him as he had entered the region from the west, from the Canyon City area. Now, he headed as straight south for California as he could.

  Shrouded in heavy clouds, he couldn’t see the mountains most of the day. In between snow squalls, he could make out the breaks where the banks ran off to the river. The terrain promised more trees and some washes where the wind stilled. He saw no deer tracks. He looked for distant smoke, signs of other travelers or inhabitants, saw none. A rabbit crossed his trail. In one of the quieter ravines, snow still falling, Joseph and the kelpie made a dry camp draping an oiled skin from the low branch of the juniper. After offering a handful of grain to the horse and the mule pawing in the snow, he and the dog munched on dried venison and bread. Joseph kept for himself the warm cup of coffee brewed on the intermittent flames of the fire.

  “It’s only a light snowfall,” Joseph said to assure himself that continuing, not turning back, was the best choice. He ruffled the dog’s smooth fur. The kelpie buried his pointy nose in Joseph’s pocket where he was rewarded with a biscuit before both went to sleep not knowing what surprises awaited them in the morning.

  My own efforts at dealing with the first winter storm of the season took away any thoughts I might have had of the tall, sometimes rude stranger. Papa was expected back the day after the snow began to fall. Mama discussed her worries out loud, about whether he’d start out in this weather, or wait. Either way, she seemed distressed by his judgment.

  “All this politics,” she said. “Think a man would be happy to be home with his family.” She placed the polished globe back on the lantern, setting it carefully on the wall shelf and moved on to the next. “Wants to be in the legislature or running the territory though I can’t imagine what for. Yes. Well. It’s time we did some work to get our minds off that man,” she said.

  She motioned for me to bring her clean linen from the pile. “Course tonight he’s probably in some plush house at the gaming tables or drinking store tea while I make do here.” She clucked her tongue in disgust. “Men mostly think about themselves,” she said, taking the rag from my hand. She surprised me then by saying something that seemed directed to me. “Remember that about men. It’ll make your marriage less a disappointment.” She gently smoothed back Baby George’s hair as she stepped past him, her wide skirts brushing against him as he sat chewing on a wooden toy on the floor. Her smile was gentle and warm for him, his eyes following her every move.

  “When will I marry, Mama?” I asked, surprised that she had mentioned such a personal subject and wanting to keep our conversation going.

  She turned to me, eyes narrowed, and looked me fully in the face, as though she hadn’t realized until that moment that I was really with her in the room. I saw her jaw set, not unlike Pepperpot’s just before he squeals in protest, and I wondered if I’d stepped too far into the space she kept around her meant to keep me out.

  “Well, if you’re hoping for joyful cavorting or even courtship, don’t,” she said. “Rare’s the woman these days who marries a man she knows, let alone likes, though neither’s any guarantee for happiness.” She sighed and turned away, dismissing me for a cleaning duty. “I’m sure your father will find some man been given the mitten by another and bring him home for you. Maybe that Henderson boy, now he’s almost a man.” She plucked lint from her wide skirt, brushed it, and sighed. “Your father looks after you even if he lets the rest of his family go to please himself.” She reached for a second globe then and began to polish. The scent of kerosene grew stronger. “Remembers your day of birth every year, forgets mine.” She sighed. “But that’s the point of marriage. To provide for your children, not necessarily your mate. You’ll learn that soon enough I suspect.”

  I wanted to disagree with her about Papa’s only thinking of himself, but it was the first time we’d had a conversation about what my future held, so disloyally, I thought of me instead. “Luther doesn’t interest me,” I said. “He’s just a boy.”

  “Do you think you’ll have a choice?” she said, surprised. “Boy or no, if that’s what’s planned for you, it’s what you’ll do. It’s the way it is for girls. Women too.”

  “When I get married,” I said, believing it was my turn to talk, “I want to live in a big house, with lots of rooms and a parlor that gets used for happy times. One big enough for dancing.” I swirled around the polished floors, dust rag in my hand, waving it at an imaginary man asking for my hand to dance. “People will come to visit and spend the night even,” I said, slightly giddy from my swirling. “And we’ll have parties, gatherings, the way you and Papa used to.”

  Mama grunted. “Sounds like a hotel,” she said. “You’ll have pipe smoke and tobacco juice to contend with that’s for sure. And men believing they’re the biggest toads in the puddle.” She rubbed the globe harder, holding it up to the hazy light to check for smudges. “And tubs of laundry every week. Your knuckles will rub raw.” She replaced the globe and looked over her own knuckles before she gathered up another globe. “As for partying,” she sighed, “people in mourning don’t. Wouldn’t be proper.”

  “And I’d like a big family,” I said wistfully, overlooking her reference to loss, “with lots of children.” I was totally absorbed by the joy of my future. “Maybe four or five. Like you, Mama.” I picked up Baby George’s toy and rolled it to him from across
the room before I even thought of what I’d just said, what unspeakable I’d spoken of following her mention of mourning.

  As if in slow motion, I saw the shards of glass burst into the air and fall like crystals around Baby George who in seconds sat like an island in a sea of broken glass. He looked more startled than damaged and then seeing Mama’s face—a grotesque mask of wrinkled pain—he began to cry.

  I heard Mama moan and sob at the same time I heard the crash. My brother’s crying moved Mama, and she threw her cleaning rags at me as she swished to pick him up, cuddle him, brush the shards of glass from his dark curls, and hold him while he howled, still more frightened than pained.

  She glared at me as she faced me, as though her accident were my fault. “See what you’ve done to your brother, distracting me?” She pressed his face to her breast and his howling increased.

  “But I didn’t!” I said, feeling the burning of tears behind my nose. “I didn’t do it!”

  “You did!” she said. “You’re the cause of it all!”

  Her accusation made no sense as I did not hear the real charge. “You dropped it,” I said, persisting in being right. “I didn’t touch it. And he’s not hurt anyway, Mama. Look.”

  Her outrage grew. “Don’t sass me,” she warned. Like a strong storm rolling across the hills she drove toward me, Baby George in arms. “Or I’ll give you something to sass about.” She raised her arm as though she might strike, something she had never done. Instead, she hesitated then pushed by, still holding Baby George. Mama shouted: “Do something right! Clean up the glass!” then rushed through the bedroom door and slammed it, keeping her baby safely in, me securely out.

  I heard her talking softly to him in the bedroom as I knelt to pick up the shards. When a sliver pierced my finger dripping dots of red on the cleaning rag I held, I swallowed my sobs knowing I’d be my only comforter. I sat whimpering, wishing my tongue did not bring pain, sorry and angry at the same time, feeling unjustly accused, secretly believing Mama was right.