Nicholas nodded. “I agree with him. I’ve seen some of the Coast Salish baskets in the Smithsonian Institution, and all sorts of other things, too. So many people have no idea about native cultures, and the museums are one way to educate them. Not the best, I’m afraid. The artifacts always look out of place, somehow, even when they try to give them a context.”
They were walking in back of the Reserve towards the small sloughs that dotted the higher fields. Margaret was looking for nodding onions, which her grandmother liked to use to flavour meat. The bulbs themselves were pretty to look at, pink and elongated, and they tasted delicious. They were eaten fresh, but some were dried for winter, tied into bunches. Soaking the dried bulbs in water for a few minutes made them taste almost fresh in the winter soup pots. They were also looking for the pale mauve lilies which could be found under pines as soon as the snow melted. These were a favourite spring food.
(I want to hold the girl, smooth her hair, tell her that whatever happens, I’m waiting in time to trace the lines of memory caught in a basket of coiled root, fine imbrications of cherry bark and reeds. Her hands with their long fingers, the slight bones of her ankles, the cup of her throat. Thinking of her, my own throat tightens.)
“What kind of grass are we walking on?” Nicholas asked.
“Oh, this is mostly bunchgrass, the best grass for horses and cattle,” Margaret told him. “Our cattle feed most of the year on this, all the cattle in the valley do, and they make the best beef. Even the wild game in the valley tastes better than anywhere else because of the air and this forage.”
By now Grandmother Jackson had dug up many of the pretty green onion plants, their flowers still furled in the tight green sepals. She was careful not to take too many from any one place, and she shook the dirt from each loosened clump, mindful of the tiny bulblets that were too small to take; these she tucked carefully back into the soil. In a grove of pines they found lots of mariposa lilies, and Margaret explained that they ate many kinds of lilies, but this was usually the first in the spring to be ready, and its season was quite long. Many of the others were dug after they’d flowered, the blue camas and orange tiger, for instance, but these ones were a spring treat, eaten raw or else steamed if you could find enough to take home.
They came to one of the little sloughs and sat on the shore to rest. Bulrushes surrounded the slough, and Margaret pointed out a yellow-headed blackbird nest, fastened to a clump of bulrushes like a tiny basket. “Look, there’s the male, see, he’s got white patches on his wings. He’s nervous because we’re here. There must be a red-winged pair nesting around here, too, because you hear them whistling. Do you hear, just there?”
Nicholas looked at her in surprise. “How do you know this?”
“You mean, about the birds?”
“No, I mean all of it! The plants, the baskets, and yes, the birds, too. I hear the sound, of course, but it just sounds like, well, birds.” Nicholas smiled. “I guess I’ve always imagined myself to be an outdoorsman because my family has a summer camp in the Adirondacks, in upstate New York. But I couldn’t tell you what birds were there, or plants, for that matter, apart from roses. My mother loves roses and is always pointing out the best features of her moss roses and her bourbons. And I guess I know a bit about insects from fly-fishing, because you have to know what flies are active before you choose your fly to cast.”
“Well, that’s only how I know anything, really. You’ve seen that my grandmother knows about plants, and she takes me with her when I come to visit. And I ride with my father as often as I can, when I’m not helping my mother or at school, and he loves birds. Anyway, how could you live here and not notice the blackbird’s whistle and want to know what bird makes that sound? It’s one of the first signs of spring, especially at home, because a creek runs through our home ranch, and lots of blackbirds nest there. I love to lie in my bed in the morning and hear them calling back and forth to one another. Father says the spring song is all about territory, but I think it sounds joyous, like music.”
“I’d like to meet your father. Would that be possible?”
Margaret was suddenly tongue-tied. She tried to imagine this unusual young man in her family home, talking to her father. Would her father like him? And why did it matter? He was looking at her so intently that she swallowed quickly and found her voice.
“I’m sure you’d be welcome at the ranch anytime. Perhaps you’ll call on us for Sunday dinner?”
Her grandmother encouraged the young man to talk about his work. They learned he was twenty-two and had completed a university degree the previous year. Although he had intended to read law, as his father had, he had become interested in the anthropology course he’d taken in his second year of studies. Encouraged by Dr. Boas, he pursued a degree in this field and had assisted his mentor in preparing monographs on the Indians of the west coast for the American Museum of Natural History. But it was the monograph written by Mr. Teit that had really captured his attention, and Dr. Boas had suggested that he make the translation to partly fulfill the requirements for a further degree.
That night, over a supper of lily bulbs and more of the sweet fried trout, Margaret told her grandmother about the concert in Kamloops. She tried to describe her feelings as she listened to the unfamiliar music, which spoke to her as clearly as a well-loved person might, spoke of life’s changes and deep love of country and home with such yearning and emotion. She spoke of meeting Madame Albani at the Slavin house and of riding Thistle down the deserted morning street with its shadows and phantom carriage tracks telling a strange tale of the evening before. Her grandmother listened, saying little, wondering at this girl, beloved and yet mysterious. She had felt helpless when her own daughter had gone to live with the priest, wearing a severe black dress, but she had not felt that her daughter contained depths she was incapable of knowing. Jenny had been swept up in the tide of Christianity that had been too overwhelming at the time to resist. So much had come with it, been tied to it and lost by it. It took Mrs. Jackson some time to find a way to live her own life comfortably in the face of such alien authority. And she discovered it wasn’t the gods or spirits who had changed. They could be found still in their old haunts, in the sky and water, living in the body of an animal, asking nothing more or less than they had always expected. This other god that the priests worshipped and encouraged the Indians to worship — there was no more sign of him than of any other Great Spirit, though the priests said he was all-seeing and all-knowing and could number the hairs on a person’s head, such was the greatness of his love. Mrs. Jackson felt this was not of much use to a person and that a god as powerful as the priests said he was ought to have done something worthwhile, like curing the terrible outbreaks of smallpox or other diseases brought by the whites. In the house the priests had built for this god at Douglas Lake, you could look through the high windows during Mass and see hawks or ospreys teaching their young to fish. The shadows of clouds moved across the hills like herds of foraging cattle in the early morning light, and this was something to think on while the priest spoke dramatically in a language the Indians had never heard before.
Since the day that Margaret had arrived with the crane’s bone and asked to be told about the ceremonies of the young women, the old woman had treasured the times the girl came to her, eager to learn about plants, about baskets, about her own girlhood before the ranches had filled the valley with fences and cattle. She marvelled at the girl’s ability with horses, her boundless energy, her willingness to do any task her grandmother set out for her. A few times they participated in the women’s sweat baths, and it was comforting to sit in the small lodge with the girl beside her, waiting for the heated rocks to be brought in. On the floor, fresh fir boughs and juniper they had cut earlier in the day. Margaret had almost fainted the first time, squatting with the three other women in the intense heat, but her grandmother held her arm and helped her to breathe deeply. After, they had plunged into the creek and scrubbed themselves with branches
of fir. The old woman’s sadness at her own daughter’s early departure to the priests was soothed by her daughter’s child.
Lying in bed that night, Margaret heard Thistle stirring outside the window. The horse, tethered to a fence, whickered nervously as coyotes called to one another in the far hills. Margaret got up and looked out. There was a high three-quarter moon, and the yard was silver with its light. She felt excited, although she wasn’t sure why. Watching her horse in the starry yard, she felt an urge to go out quickly and ride in the moonlight. Making sure her grandmother was asleep, she quietly left the cabin, wearing only her light cotton nightdress. Approaching Thistle, she spoke to the horse softly, so as not to startle her. She untethered her, vaulting onto the mare’s back, and using her hand on Thistle’s neck to guide her, she directed her to the trail leading up behind the cabin to the moon-burnished hill. What was this feeling of wanting to enter the night? And how could you, in your mortal form? To disappear into blackness, the place where you stood in the dust untouched by your footsteps, hearing the coyote’s cry as a part of yourself, a thrilling cry from your heart’s own centre, wanting to share the riddle of this darkness, punctuated by stars, Oh, but with whom? Thistle was reluctant to leave the safety of the trail, and Margaret could feel her tremble when the coyotes yipped, a little nearer by now, so she turned back on the trail and returned to the yard.
From the window of his room in August Jackson’s cabin, Nicholas Byrne, also sleepless, was startled to see a horse coming down the hill, and on its back a girl dressed in starlight. He wondered if he was dreaming until the girl slid off the horse and he realized it was Margaret Stuart. She was wearing a nightdress, he could see, and he could also see the shape of her body through the thin fabric. Apart from paintings and the sculptures in the New York museums, he’d never seen a girl dressed in so little. The sight was otherworldly, the horse with its nostrils flaring, the girl, nearly naked, stroking its dark neck under those extraordinary stars. What a place this was, he thought, and returned to his bed, eager for the morning.
At the fete at Nicola Lake on Victoria Day, Margaret participated in the Ladies’ Race and came second. After the ribbons were presented, she came to her family with her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed, the rosette of blue satin pinned to her blouse. She’d loved the excitement of running in the warm May air, past the crowds of cheering spectators, her legs feeling powerful and strong as she raced for the finish line. She wished they had thought to bring a saddle horse so she could enter the Hurdles; the team that drew their buggy were broken to saddle, but they certainly weren’t jumpers.
“I feel so lucky I could even win the Cowboy Race,” she announced. In previous years, she had stood with her mother, watching everything but not willing to run or ride in the gymkhana events, always uncertain whether to enter the regular races or the Indian ones. The Quarter Mile Pony, for which the prizes were a cup for first and ten dollars for second place, or the half-mile dash, Klootchman, which rewarded the winner with ten dollars, and five for the one who came second. She wondered if she’d be challenged if she tried to enter the wrong race or simply steered to the one the organizers thought appropriate. This year, after her race, she was happy to take her sisters to greet families they knew, to picnic under a Lombardy poplar on a clean white cloth, to gather with others to watch the Nicola Polo Club, with her father on a horse brought for him from a neighbouring ranch, beat the Quilchena Club handily. The cyclists came in, one by one, from the Challenge Cup race, and the winner drank from the silver cup in great, thirsty gulps. It was a wonderful day, from the parade in the morning, which the Stuarts had watched from the porch of Tom Carrington’s store, to the drive home under stars with the horses trotting alertly along the moonlit road while bats flitted under cottonwoods and coyotes yipped beyond the shoulder of hill rising from the road.
Three days after Victoria Day, Nicholas headed to the Cottonwood Ranch with one of August’s children, who had agreed to ride halfway with him and direct him. He was becoming accustomed to the western style of riding, with a longer stirrup, the saddle with its high horn and cantle, the way one had to hold the reins in one hand and direct the horse by pressing them against the animal’s neck. It was certainly beautiful country to ride in, and he knew now why people spoke of a big sky. He’d never seen anything like it, apart from his views of the American plains from the train, and he marvelled at the way it went on forever in every direction. You could feel your head clear as you rode under it. He also understood now why one of his Columbia classmates had often spoken longingly of the open spaces of his home state, Montana. This must have been how Peter felt, riding on his home ranch near Helena, as though anything was possible under such a sky. There was no sense of constriction, of a vista cut off by mountains or buildings. He could see mountains, yes, but beyond them as well. His feeling that he was riding on the spine of the earth was part of his intense elation as he rode toward the Cottonwood Ranch, saying farewell to Davey with the ranch in sight in the distance.
Margaret was helping her mother with the dinner preparations. Her father had been curious about Nicholas Byrne, having heard about him from other ranchers and from August, who had come over for advice on a horse a day or two after the Stuarts had returned from Kamloops. August’s impression had been favourable, and he’d told William that the young man had tried to buy a pair of Mrs. Jackson’s moccasins to wear because he said they made his feet feel as though they’d come home. She had smiled and refused his money, saying he was welcome to the shoes as long as he wore them with respect. William had tried to question Margaret about Nicholas, but she only blushed and said he’d see for himself. That told him something he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, though seeing her at the Slavin house on the night of the concert in Kamloops told him something was developing he wasn’t quite prepared for. He was so accustomed to her company, so convinced of her good sense and judgment, that he hadn’t much thought of her as young or old, just Margaret. But seeing her in that rose dress with the little string of pearls around her throat, he realized that she’d become a lovely young woman. One day a child on a pony, long braids flying behind her, the next, well, this beauty. And if he noticed, he felt certain others would as well.
When Nicholas Byrne came riding down the dirt lane into the ranch yard, announced by the dogs, Margaret was waiting on the porch; she had seen the puffs of dust from the horse’s hooves on the dry lane before she saw anything else. William came out of the barn, introduced himself, and led Nicholas’s horse away to be unsaddled and turned out in a corral. And then Margaret greeted the young man and offered him a seat on the porch, but he told her he’d rather see the ranch buildings, if that was possible.
“I’ll just introduce you to my mother and ask if she needs me for anything before dinner.”
The kitchen was at the back of the house, and Margaret wondered what Nicholas’s impression was as she led him through the front room — no parlour here, just a comfortable room with big armchairs and lots of books on pine shelves made from trees on their own land, trees that William had cut and planed for the house he had built in the fourth year of his marriage. A table with a chess set on top, anticipating the next move, against a wall under a low window looking out on the garden. A hearth of stones selected from the Nicola River. A battered violin case on the floor, a needlepoint frame with the beginnings of a sampler. Some of Grandmother Jackson’s baskets on shelves, one on the hearth holding kindling. She wondered if his home in New York was anything like the Slavin house in Kamloops, which was now her idea of how people in cities and towns must live. The kitchen was fragrant with roasting meat and a pie made from the last of the dried apples. Cream from the Jersey cow had been whipped and sweetened and sat waiting on the deep windowsill. Jenny Stuart wiped her hands on her apron and stepped forward to shake Nicholas’s outstretched hand and welcome him to the ranch.
“It’s very nice of you to let me come for dinner,” he responded. “Your mother has been so good to me, too, a
nd your brother, taking pity on me when they saw my tent and offering me a bed, making meals for me. I hadn’t expected to be treated so well, being a stranger to you all.”
“Strangers are welcome here,” Jenny replied in her low voice. “We just don’t have the opportunity to meet many or to give them dinner.” She smiled at Nicholas and turned to the work table, where she was chopping the first scallions from the garden to brighten the mashed potatoes and turnips.
Margaret and Nicholas went out to the barn, where William was watering the Bonny Prince and putting fresh straw in his box stall. The stallion came to the half-door of his stall and allowed them to pat his neck and admire him. Then they walked up the spacious middle aisle of the barn, William explaining about the bawling cow in one stall, a lame horse in another. Nicholas’s horse loudly rattled his bucket of oats. The smell of dry hay was sweet, and the midday sunlight shone in shafts through the open door and windows, illuminating the dust motes that hung in the air like gilded insects. Barn swallows were building their nests on the high beams, flying in from the creek with pellets of mud, plucking straw from the unused stalls. One flew back and forth from the coyote skull over the harness room door, tucking mud and straw into the fractured cheek. The two men and the girl walked out into the yard, a few horses in the home corrals watching with mild curiosity, Daisy coming to the fence when she saw Margaret with the men. Nicholas asked about the growing season, the weather, the beef market. “We take our cattle to Kamloops now, it used to be Fort Hope, over the Coquihalla Pass, and that was a journey, I tell you, having done it myself the first year I had cattle to ship. But soon there’ll be a rail line all the way to Nicola Lake from Spences Bridge, they hope to extend it as far as Coutlee by this summer, Nicola itself by next spring. We’ll be able to ship the cattle much more efficiently, not so much weight loss and loss of condition as there is now.” When the dinner bell rang, the two men were talking easily together, and Margaret ran ahead to wash and to make sure the table was ready.
Sisters of Grass Page 10