A deep, primal instinct inside me warned, if you hope to survive, don’t let him smell your fear.
I smiled. “What makes you think you can stop me?”
Disconcerted, he pondered. The pressure of his fingers became almost gentle. Then, once more, the pressure increased.
“I’ll nail the door shut. One night in the shed will make you see the light. In the morning, after you’ve had a change of heart, I’ll free you. One whole night inside this shed, and you’ll learn. Even you can learn—”
I imagined baby spiders emerging from their nests and felt my skin crawl. An inner terror gripped me. If I failed to contact Jake tonight, at daybreak he would leave without me. Trembling, I asserted, “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t keep me here. This woodshed is a rotted heap. I could take it down with my big toe—”
Christopher sighed and made a sudden motion. An open jar with brads and tacks hit the floor. In his clenched palm, a nail. He seized my forearm, with his thumb badly bruising the tender flesh of my inner bicep. With all of his weight he pressed down on me, pinning my hand to the stump. He transferred the nail from his right hand to his left. In his right fist, the hatchet.
He lifted it up.
And laughed.
The hatchet twisted, and then fell with dull smack.
There was a crack from the blunt end of the hatchet.
Next time, I’ll opt for spiders.
You can consult a medical diagram. Or, examine your own hand’s palm pressed flat against a flat surface. When the fingers are flexed, at the carpal, the metacarpal, the columns of bone underneath the skin, form a “W.” At the base of the W, tender cartilage is wired together by live nerve endings.
Hearing a long, terrifying scream . . . which I realized was my own . . . I opened my eyes. There was no need for me to look down to see what had happened. I had felt it. That was enough.
Besides, the shed was like pitch.
I suppose it was the pain that caused Christopher’s profile to glow like the gold crown ’round the head of the baby Jesus. His expression: beatific. The next instance, a look of pure terror.
Before, to intimidate him, I had scolded him like a child. That’s how he seemed to me now—a frightened school boy, who’d lost a shiny penny through a hole in the pocket. Or, peed himself.
Chris dropped the hatchet and with a mangled cry, fled without bothering to fix the latch or shut the shed door.
The situation: ludicrous.
The pain: beyond comprehension.
I lifted up my right arm. The nail that had penetrated the center of my right palm pulled out of the stump, easily. When I spread out my fingers to examine the wound, my hand leaked clear fluid.
With the fingernails of my left hand, I pried.
You might think this a neat operation. It was not. Finally, the nail fell away. The injury, on top of the burnt blister, flowered. With my left hand I felt around the half-drained whiskey bottle. I poured until the icy liquid over-filled my right palm and lifted the bottle to my lips.
After that, nothing.
Protohistoric nail uncovered in the early 1990s, along with many other tools and artifacts, at the Sequim bypass site on U.S. Highway 101, a seasonal S’Klallam village over 2,800 yers old. Photo courtesy of theJamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
Mary Ann Lambert standing next to her scrapbooks, Blyn, WA, ca. 1955. Photo courtesyof the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
The Only Safety is in Marriage
By Mary Ann Lambert
It was either marriage or molestation from the riffraff of that wicked little town of Kaw-tie, then rife with drunken sailors and soldiers from every clime on earth. The raping of Indian women was a common occurrence of the day.
“Watch your step” became the slogan for Indian women and white women alike.
Just before Annie and Charlie were married, an Indian man was seen running toward the house of local police officer Louie Stevens. He nearly fell in the open doorway of his house, crying, “Come quick. A drunken white man is molesting my wife.”
Without waiting for the police officer to follow, the Indian dashed off toward Point Hudson, where he found his wife in a bad way.
Louie Stevens reached in to turn the flap of the tent open. The frightened Indian, thinking the drunken white man had returned to repeat his offense, fired a gun. Louie Stevens fell to the ground, shot through the head—
Part 5
Return to Dungeness
Annie Jacob Lambert, mother of Mary Ann Lambert, in a field near Dungeness, Washington. Photo courtesy of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
35
Daisy
c. 1890
No sound.
I listened.
To nothing.
I existed, but I did not exist.
My soul hovered above my body.
Little by little, my spirit returned. It entered through my toes and moved upward until it filled my whole body. Folded over the stump, in the lap of the warm, wise wood, I discovered peace.
Inside the palm of the universe. I was a mote in space. But part of something larger.
How much time had passed? At any time my master, brother, friend, lover, my god, might return.
Using the stump, I managed to lift myself up onto my elbows. I tried out my feet and somehow managed to stand. My only desire: to escape the shed.
The night air cooled my burning cheeks. Half of the moon was sheared off by the clouds that hurried by. I thought about running. Since I was unable, I quietly reentered the house and prepare my departure.
The moment of my greatest peril had passed. Or so I thought.
I entered through the kitchen door. Soiled dishes were stacked up on the table next to the ice-cold stove. In the parlor, and upstairs, all was chilly and silent. The Reverend’s overcoat, and Chris’ cloak, absent from the hooks in the entry. No doubt they were scouring the waterfront dives for a waft of Edith’s whereabouts.
I climbed the stairs. In a porcelain bowl on her nightstand I bathed my injured hand. The pain made me nauseous and wobbly. I scrubbed the red-purple puncture wound with caustic soap, determined not to cry out though no one was inside the house. After, I wrapped it up in a strip of a linen pillow cover.
I didn’t bother to look for my satchel. Nothing in that chamber belonged to me; I had no possessions, except the mustard yellow cloak—a gift from a soul-sister who had fled. I pulled the house keys from my apron pocket, slipped off the apron, and laid it carefully on the seat of the umbrella tree in the front hall. Then I walked out the front door, pulling the cloak around me tightly, as I locked the door and slipped the skeleton key through the mail slot.
I will not describe my descent to the waterfront or my stumbling retreat through the empty streets of the sad city. What if I couldn’t find Jake? What if he had already departed? How would I get home? Despite the throbbing in my hand, or perhaps guided by it, I made my way to Point Hudson.
At the top of the dunes, I halted. Was that Jake Cook’s tent, rippling in the breeze. Beyond that, the dugout canoe that would carry me home to Dungeness. Real, or a mirage? Excited, I began to run. The rush of the wind met the swell of the Sound as the heel of my boot snagged on as greasy beach log.
Automatically, I put out my wounded right hand to break my fall. The pain took my breath away. It was as if grit and salt had been injected directly into my wound. I didn’t pass out. But I can’t remember if I cried out or not.
Climbing up onto the log, I pressed my left thumb hard against the wound to staunch the fresh flow of blood that oozed from it. An icy rain began to fall. As the freezing droplets slid down my spine, they pricked at every nerve. I felt light-headed. If I lost consciousness? Salvation was near at hand, yet somehow out of reach.
“Can I help you, miss?”
The ex-officer, about forty-five or fifty, might have been handsome. He reached out. “Are you hurt? You poor hand. Let me see it.”
At one time a fellow of exceptional strength, now his physiq
ue was wiry, undernourished. His greasy hair fell down his stringy neck. A disease in the red left eye made it weep. He had an incomplete beard that started on his upper lip and disappeared into the collar of his degraded uniform.
Suddenly I remembered. Was this not the same fellow who had pocketed an untaxed tin of opium? And nearly tossed Christopher in jail? Was ex-officer Smyth a fellow I could trust?
I had no one else.
I opened up my right fist.
Ex-officer Smyth drew back. “Shall I take you to the marine hospital? Never mind. If you try to walk, you’ll faint. I’ll go for a doctor—”
“No! It doesn’t hurt—well, not much. Besides, I haven’t a cent.”
If Smyth called a doctor, I’d end up back in the Mathieson parlor. Add to that, I might need the coins in Carl’s purse, tucked into my pocket, to survive.
Smyth winced. “No money?”
“No,” I lied.
He peered at me, hard. His injured eye oozed blood and pus. He sensed that I was not telling the truth. I sensed that he badly needed a drink.
A flutter next to my right shoulder.
Feathery fingers.
An Indian girl, eleven or so, perhaps younger. Her thick hair in braids, her face smeary. She wore a black silk Chinese jacket, with elaborate scarlet-and-gold trim. Fancy, but not warm. She had no shoes.
Timidly she stroked my arm. By the light of a small campfire the black satin lining of Edith’s cloak shimmered. Mesmerized, the girl fingered a brass button.
I asked Smyth, “Is she yours?”
The ex-officer nodded.
“What’s your daughter’s name?”
The girl replied, “Daisy.”
Smyth sneered, and said, “She ain’t my daughter.”
It took me a minute to comprehend his crime. Was it possible that her parents had agreed to this arrangement? No, not possible. If she were older—a sad marriage contract—but not this.
Daisy beseeched me with round eyes. My pity turned to rage. What courage. Despite the abuse she had suffered, she had not lost her capacity to respond to the pain of a stranger. My hand throbbed. For one instant I recognized my mother Annie at the same age, equally vulnerable, just as brave.
“Git,” Smyth commanded.
The little girl did not move.
He raised up his fist. He pulled back and aimed. Then, comically, like the blackguard in a melodrama, he stumbled back.
Daisy, a mere shadow on wing, condensed into darkness.
The tent flap fell.
Smyth repeated, “No money, not even a penny? A working girl like you?” Inconsequentially he added, “You think you’re better than me?”
Was I? Daisy, a child, felt my pain long minutes before I noticed hers. If I refused to help her now, how much better or worse was I than this scoundrel Smyth, so eager to get by that he inflicted suffering on others without really noticing or caring?
“Here,” I said.
With the fingers of my left hand, I pulled. The fish emitted flinty moon sparks.
Smyth folded the earrings into the pocket of his greatcoat, much better than Daisy’s. One or two waterfront pubs might still be open, to sop up the loose change of folks who had lost everything.
Smyth set off, shoulder against the wind. His brute form became one with the hunkering dunes.
Using my injured right hand to grip the wool, I managed to undo the mustard cloak. I checked the pocket for Carl’s little purse. If I had not distracted Smyth with the silver fish, in not very long he would have found it and pilfered it.
I fell to my knees and squatted next to the flap.
“Hullo?” I whispered. “Daisy?”
No answer.
“Do you want to go home?”
Silence. Then the tent fluttered.
“Yes.” She sniffed.
I laid down the bundled-up cloak in front of the tent flap.
“Go. Now.”
I stood up.
The stars swirled.
I had lost everything: The Aia’nl, the earrings, Edith’s cloak, and Carl’s purse. For the sake of a little girl. In exchange, I had acquired a mite of her courage.
Down the beach, half a mile, I discovered Jake Cook’s tent. I lifted the flap. Stretched out, Jake’s lean figure, still wearing his boots. Next to him, a youth. No doubt, the second puller. If Jake trusted him, so did I.
In the narrow place between the sleeping boy and the rippling canvas, I eased in. I propped up my throbbing right hand on top of his muscular shoulder. I pressed my muddy tear-streaked cheek into the small of his back.
My little brother Charley.
He smelled clean, woodsy, and peaceful.
Feverish, I slept.
36
Dead Man’s Point
c. 1890
The whirling ghosts streamed, uplifted, and vanished, leaving in the air a rotten odor, a fetid stench that pricked my forehead. I craved cold clear water to remove the bile from my throat. When I tried to move, my stiff shoulders ached. In the center of my bandaged hand, a red-and-black dot.
What wilderness was this?
Help, I thought, help.
Charley, crawling into the tent, grinned. He shimmied up to me. And smirked shyly.
A music box inside my head tinkled:
Rub a dub dub.
Three men in a tub.
How do you think they got there?
The lyrics belted out by a straw-headed lass. In her lap, a mini-version of the same, wiggling and giggling to her vibration. Bouncing, laughing, plucking away at her heartstrings.
’twas enough to make a fish stare!
Already a skilled paddler at twelve, Charley had been sent along with Jake Cook to fetch me.
With my uninjured left hand, I reached up to spin a silver fish. The gesture was automatic, a nervous habit. Instead of their cool craftsmanship, I was confronted with the unpleasant memory of Smyth’s slippery fingers on my neck. Lost. Annie had ordered me to stick to the fish. In that task, as in everything, I had failed.
Suddenly I realized how completely I had botched Carl’s scheme to better me. I had nothing. I had become nothing.
I’d have to start again. But how?
Charley handed me a jar of creek water swirling with pine needles. With two fingers, he gestured, “Drink it slow.” How he made it known without speaking, I can’t say.
In a way it’s not all that surprising. In general, words are overrated. Words distort the truth, bend belief, mock justice, and massacre the weak. Without words, there’d be no language barrier. As John Slocum said, “Shake the hand of every man, woman and child that you meet for tomorrow we may die.” The prophet was a man of few words. Charley, my deaf brother, had mastered the skill of reading the current underneath the surface and communicating his grasp and empathy without words. Over time, Charley, though four years my junior, would pass on this wisdom to me through his example.
He unwrapped my bandage and smeared on a greasy ointment made from a mash of feverfew and lady ferns and other leaves and twigs. With a clean strip of fabric—a cuff button proved that not very long ago it had been a sleeve—he bound the wound. After a while he folded up his knees, put down his head, and went to sleep.
The hours rattled by. A steady rain played on top of our tent. A wet wind shivered the canvas. When I awoke, Jake Cook was kneeling beside me with a tin cup of hot broth, still steaming. It smelled like duck.
“Loon,” he clarified. “You don’t look so good.”
“Better than you,” I replied.
Jake was not amused. He took off his slouch hat, folded up the rain inside it, and shook it off outside the tent. He looked older, harder. Broad nose, shiny bridge pulled to one side, as if it had broken, more than once. Pursed mouth. The braid, salt and pepper, grizzled like the fur of a mean old dog. The quiet atmosphere around him like a drum stretched too tight. A hollow man.
Three years ago on Union Wharf I had turned from him without so much as a goodbye. That day, wavi
ng him away, I was a child. Now, an adult, I could sense the hostility on both sides. A confrontation moldered, I felt sure. The thick air inside the too-small tent was barely breathable. Not a great place for friends, and no place for enemies.
I inquired, “Where are we?”
“Dead Man’s Point.”
That explained the fetid stench that pervaded everything.
The What Cheer had anchored here. Captain Thompson and most of his crew perished here from the smallpox their vessel carried. The survivors buried their captain’s body in a grassy wedge. Ever after, Rocky Point would be known as Dead Man’s Point.
Weirdly, his grave now serves as a place of pilgrimage. Indians and whites, drawn to this evil place for no other purpose, mark the spot with round pebbles, gigantic pine cones, shells, and the rusty slabs of iron associated with the smallpox virus.
Jake explained: “We put in to wait for the tide to come up. You got worse, so we stayed.”
He knelt. Folding in his elbows to conserve space, from his pocket he removed a piece of yellow cedar to whittle. “What happened to your hand?”
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce once said: “It doesn’t require very many words to tell the truth.” Which is why a detailed answer often draws attention to the lie. “I fell down and punctured my palm on an up-turned nail.”
Was I trying to protect Christopher? If so, why? His brotherly attempt to redeem my Christian soul had nearly cost me my life. I pitied him. What’s more, I could see no reason to relive the scene. After all, what could Jake possibly say to ease the pain and make sense of what had happened to me?
I changed the subject. “You came to fetch me. Why? Is someone ill?”
“Your grandmother. She’s better now. I’ll drop you off at the point. You can visit her first, and walk home after.”
I nodded.
At Dungeness, the first visit goes to the oldest member of the family. We offer our elders the respect they deserve. That’s just what we do. It felt right to be returning to a place where rules served a purpose.
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