Dream Of Echoes

by Karen C. Webb

  Chapter 25

  The next day I got lucky and scared up a deer. It was bedded down under some bushes and it hopped out right in from of me, giving me a perfect shot with the old musket. I tied the rope around its neck and drug it home, happy to know we had plenty of food again.

  “See, I told you, John Baker,” Kate said when I arrived with it. “You’re a good provider and you learn quickly.”

  I grabbed her with one arm and pulled her to me for a kiss, reveling in her praise. She made me feel more of a man than I ever had in my life. She helped me skin the deer and we hung it in the shed, cutting off a couple huge steaks for dinner. There were still a couple of the Camas bulbs left and we roasted them in the coals also.

  The following morning, I set about tanning the deer hide, using the brains as I did before. I was really hoping for a nice buckskin shirt this time. I could just envision it, me wandering through the woods, wearing a buckskin shirt with fringe hanging off the arms, carrying the musket and wearing my moccasins. I’ll be a regular old mountain man. I had even let my beard grow out for a short time, but Kate didn’t like it and who was I to argue with a woman with a straight razor in her hand.

  I started a small fire under my smoking rack and cut off more strips of the deer. I was getting pretty good at making jerky, and at least it was something to eat if we ran out of food. I could see Kate as I worked, doing laundry down by the creek. She was squatting down with her dress fanned out around her, her small hands red from the cold water. She must have felt my stare because she looked up and gave me a huge smile. It was cold and cloudy out there, but I swear her smile brightened the day.

  When she turned back to her task, I leaned one arm on my smoking rack as I looked around at what we had here. The small, cozy little cabin built into the hillside, with its chimney made of rock and its stone floor. Kate kept that one room so clean, even the stones of the floor were spotless and shiny from her scrubbing. It was a hard life, but as I stood there looking around me, I could imagine myself spending the rest of my life in this place, living off the land with an amazing woman by my side. I felt euphoric as I looked at what we had here, a sense of bliss at seeing our hard work provide for our simple needs. I thought about the life I’d left behind and the girls I’d known. Certainly none of the ones I’d known would have ever made it out here. Up to this point I had really only been intent on survival, living one day at a time, but as I stood there I contemplated the future and what we should do. I discussed it with Kate that evening as we had dinner by the fire.

  “What do you see in our future? Do we stay here and live off the land or what?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, John, and I think it would be nice to continue on to the Willamette valley in the spring. There’s plenty of good farm land for the taking, I’m told. That is, if you’re willing?”

  I scratched the stubble on my chin as I considered it. Give up my mountain man status to be a farmer? “Well I guess I could still hunt and traipse through the woods, and be a farmer.”

  “It’ll be wonderful, John Baker, you’ll see. It’s supposed to be the Garden of Eden.”

  I had a good laugh and watched her face redden. “I have seen it, little one. Who told you it’s the Garden of Eden?”

  “The newspapers in the States. They run a new column every week, urging people to go west and settle the new land.”

  “Hmmph,” I snorted. “It’s definitely a wonderful valley with a great climate and rich farmland, but I haven’t seen Adam and Eve running around wearing fig leaves.”

  “So, can we go in the spring, John? I would like to see my parent’s dream realized.”

  “Sure, little one. I would love to be a farmer with you in the Willamette. Maybe we can even make a trip over to the Pacific.”

  Her eyes got really wide and sparkled as she said, “really John? I’ve never seen an ocean before.”

  “Then you shall see it, madam,” I said royally as I made a sweeping bow and kissed her hand while she giggled.

  Chapter 26

  I still didn’t get my buckskin shirt. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but the hide was just not coming out as soft as it should. I made a belt instead, drawing it tight around my waist with thin strips of rawhide poked through each end. It wasn’t much of a belt, but my pants were damn near sliding off my hips with the weight I’d lost. I also made a sheath for the Bowie knife with a flap that tied it around my new belt and a rawhide string through the bottom end, to tie it around my leg. At least now I wouldn’t have to strap it to my leg, it had been either constantly slipping down or cutting off the circulation in my leg. With the remainder of the hide, I made a sheath for the small knife that fit just inside the top of my moccasin. We spent many nights working by the firelight. Kate mended the holes we’d worn in our clothes while I worked at the sheaths. It was a quiet, relaxing time that we spent together in front of the fire and I began looking forward to it after a hard day of labor. I practiced drawing both knives from the sheaths every day, pulling each one out and throwing it, all in one fluid motion. I got better and better until I could even stand with my back to the log, pull the knife and throw it as I spun around.

  We still danced at night if we weren’t working on other projects. I sang to her while we danced around the room. She preferred the oldies. She called them my future songs—which was ironic—most of them came from before I was born. I grew up with my mom singing to herself as she worked around the house and I guess a lot of the lyrics stuck with me. Kate had become quite the dancer and she would often spin away from me while I sang or hummed a tune. The pale blue dress billowed out around her as she twirled around the room, appearing as if she were floating. She seemed almost ethereal to me as she floated around the small space, her long blond hair cascading down her back, a small, secret smile on her face and those ice-blue eyes twinkling with joy. It was our own private Utopia, our refuge from the world. They were good times, in that small, one room cabin, and ones I knew I would never forget.

  As January faded into February, we began running low on meat again and I set off on the hunt. The camas bulbs and flour were long gone. We had only a few potatoes and still a decent supply of tea and coffee. The weather was mostly cold and wet and miserable and I don’t know where the game went in the winter, but they sure were scarce. I hunted every day; I tried my fish trap again and again, finally catching one small trout, which was enough for us to split for dinner. We rationed the rest of the deer, making it into soups and stews to stretch it further. We still had the jerky I’d made and if I didn’t get meat soon, we’d be down to nothing else. One thing I was sure of, no matter where we were next winter, I planned on having a good supply of food set aside.

  It started snowing one day while I fished. Big, soft flakes falling gently through the trees around me. I stopped what I was doing, holding my fish trap in the water’s edge while I looked around. The silence was so absolute, it almost seemed as if I could hear the flakes falling. Big white flakes drifted lazily down between the trees, turning bare limbs white as they landed. It really looked just like a postcard as I watched the ground and trees slowly turning white.

  I finally turned back to my trap, where I had been about to stake it into the mud, and damn if a trout hadn’t swam into it while I had been daydreaming. I quickly pulled it onto the bank and stabbed the fish with the big knife, killing it instantly.

  I got to my feet quickly when I heard a low growl behind me. I spun around, Bowie knife still in my hand. I stood face to face with a grey wolf. It was about thirty yards away in the unbroken snow and I looked behind it and then over my shoulder for the rest of the pack, but there was nothing. I wondered if this was the wolf whose pack I’d killed. When I looked back at it, the wolf whined and licked her lips as she stared at my fish. I bent down slowly and picked up the fish, never taking my eyes off her. I continued scanning the area too, in case she was here as a decoy while other wolves snuck around behind me. She whined again as she stared at the fish,
but she wouldn’t come any closer. I felt bad for her, she was skinny and hungry. I finally tossed the fish toward her and she leaped back as if I’d shot at her. I took my trap back to the river and, after I’d replaced it in the water, I looked back up just in time to see her grab the fish in her mouth and high-tail it out of there. Poor thing, I shook my head as I reset my trap. I bet she’s the one that ran off when her pack attacked me.

  I did catch two small trout that day, but Kate would only cook one. “We’ll have the other one tomorrow,” she said firmly. We had already been down to one meal a day, now we had even been cutting that down. I looked down at myself when she wasn’t looking. I had lost so much weight, my ribs were starting to show.

  I dreamed of the lone wolf that night. I was standing in the river, catching fish with my bare hands and when I looked up, the wolf was standing on the river bank, waiting expectantly. As I threw a fish to the wolf, I could see a bridge off in the distance with cars crossing it. I knew I was back in my own time in the dream, but where was Kate? I had a sense that she wasn’t there with me and I tore myself free from the dream, sitting bolt upright in the bed, instantly awake.

  “You alright?” Kate mumbled sleepily.

  “I’m fine, just a dream,” I whispered and, laying back down, I tucked her small hand into mine and held it tight for the rest of the night.

  Chapter 27

  I continually hunted and fished every day and came home empty handed. I traipsed for miles through the wilderness, growing ever hungrier as I walked.

  We were now down to a meal every other day and not a big one at that. I had never known hunger before in my life. Not real hunger, where there’s a constant ache in your stomach as you search for food. The constant walking and hunting only served to increase the hunger pains. I even kept an eye out for that lone wolf. I figured she’d make a meal if it came down to it, but she had disappeared as well. I finally caught a decent size salmon in my trap one day and I smoked most of it, to make it last as long as possible. Still, we only had a meal every other day, and not a big one at that, and I continued hunting and fishing from morning until evening. I didn’t have proper winter clothing and my hands turned red and hurt from the cold, but I stayed on the move through the woods. It felt warmer if I kept moving. Most of the snow had melted with a couple of warm days, but it was still cold and gray and miserable as I wandered for miles along the river without a proper coat or gloves.

  I still practiced some with my knife throwing, but as long as I wasn’t distracted, I was hitting the mark every time. The practice now was more to keep the edge I had with it and maybe even to score a meal, like I had when I pinned the rabbit to the log.

  I was digging around in the shed one day, going through Jeremiah’s tools, and sneaking a piece of deer jerky, truth be told, when I came across another tall tin can like the one on the shelf in our kitchen. There was no light in that shed and I had never seen what was underneath the shelf. When I pried the lid off, I was delighted to see more flour. Not a full can, but anything was helpful. I pulled down one of the long strips of jerky where they hung from the rafters and, carrying the jerky and the tin of flour, I went inside. Kate began shaking her head at me when she saw the meat, but she brightened considerably when I showed her the flour.

  “But we ate yesterday,” she said as she eyed the meat hungrily.

  “Yeah, and now we eat today,” I told her firmly. “You make us two small biscuits while I make some jerky soup.”

  “Okay John, you talked me into it.” She licked her lips as she said it and I knew her mouth was watering, the same as mine. I put a pot of water over the fire and cut the deer jerky into small pieces, watching hungrily as each piece dropped in. We had put a meal together in a short time and sat down at the small table to share it. I can’t say that deer jerky soup is a delicious meal, but at least the hunger pains had eased up for a while. And Kate’s hot biscuit straight from the pan was absolutely fabulous.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon fishing, feeling much better after even that small meal, but still to no avail. There was a layer of ice along the sides of the river and snow still on the ground in the shade. I didn’t accomplish anything more than freezing my ass off out there all afternoon.

  Our meals consisted of jerky soup and biscuits as long as the flour held out, which wasn’t more than a week. After that, we were down to just my jerky soup, and watching as it dwindled away. It was almost the end of February now; I knew warmer springtime temperatures were just around the corner, but we still had to get by until then.

  Finally, before we ran out of jerky too, I suggested to Kate that we make our way toward the Willamette. “Maybe the hunting will be better if we head west and we might have more luck fishing the Columbia.”

  “Perhaps,” she answered thoughtfully, staring around at the cabin as if she hated to leave it.

  “I don’t want to leave this place either,” I said as I took her chin in my hand and turned her face up to look at me. “But we don’t want to sit here and starve to death.”

  “No…Okay. I’ll begin packing.”

  “First thing tomorrow, then?”

  “Yes, John Baker. First thing.” She seemed to go right back to her happy-go-lucky self as she went about the cabin, gathering what we would need for the journey, humming a tune to herself.

  Chapter 28

  It wasn’t exactly first thing when we got started on our way, Kate kept looking around the cabin, sure that we’d forgotten some important item and I was waiting for the sun to get high enough in the sky to warm things up a little. It was almost March, but still wet and chilly and windy.

  Kate was excited to be going back to the Oregon Trail and she was looking forward to seeing the Willamette valley, her ‘Garden of Eden.’

  We stood together, her small hand in mine as we looked back at the small cabin that had given us shelter and good times. I remembered, as we stood there, how I had laughed with her and enjoyed myself more than ever in my life. We had loved and laughed and danced together in this small space, cut off from the rest of the world out here in the wilderness. It had been a sanctuary, a secluded refuge, a hideout from the rest of the world. It was hard to think about leaving and rejoining society. I knew neither of us wanted to. If we only had proper food supplies, we could stay here forever. Together. Safe and happy and warm in our love.

  “Thank you, little cabin,” I said, “for the good times.”

  Kate squeezed my hand and, as we turned to leave, we heard a lone wolf howl, far off across the hills.

  We carried the deer jerky with us and we chewed on small pieces as we walked. It kept the hunger pains at bay enough to make it manageable. We walked quietly for the most part, keeping an eye out for any game we might scare up. We didn’t see any our first day out and we made more of our jerky soup when we camped for the night. It was still cold and the ground was wet. We huddled together in our blankets that first night, only moving to throw more wood on our fire.

  By daylight, I was missing our snug little cabin with the warm fireplace and soft down bed. I was stiff and cold and wet and miserable when I crawled out of the blankets to build up the fire. I sat there unhappily, watching the small flame grow at a creeping pace, one orange tendril licking at the wet wood, while my hands turned red and stiff from the cold. Finally, the flames crawled a little higher and I could feel a bit of heat from them.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have left yet,” Kate mumbled from the blankets, covering her head with them as she shivered.

  “Freeze or starve, I don’t like either choice,” I answered in a grumpy tone.

  We warmed up and dried out as the sun came up and my fire grew higher. Kate kept the blankets wrapped around her as she sat by the fire. I heated her a cup of hot water over the fire and she sipped it as she sat there. Then I shaved more of the jerky into the water heating on the fire and we enjoyed a lovely buffet of mostly hot water.

  “It will be warmer in the Willamette,” I told her as we stared int
o the flames. “We’ve just got to keep moving.”

  We got on our way again and came onto the mouth of the river where it joined with the Columbia. It was a truly amazing sight, looking out over such a great river. The brown hills were so tall here, the Columbia passed through a bit of a canyon between them. The water was a sparkling blue as the early spring sun shone onto it.

  We took a noon break and I tried out my fish net, which I had taken off the frame for traveling. It didn’t work as well, but after a couple hours, I did catch a trout and Kate built up the fire while I cleaned and gutted it. It made more of a meal than we had had lately and our spirits were much higher the rest of the day.

  Our moccasins made walking much more comfortable; the soles had hardened enough til we didn’t feel the rocks through the bottoms. Yet, it was still hard going. Even though I was leaner and tougher now, walking for miles and miles on very little food will sure take it out of you.

  We had no more luck with fishing or hunting and we were resigned to our evening meal of very little jerky and plenty of hot water. I didn’t say anything to Kate, but I was still pretty worried about finding enough food to get us as far as the Willamette. I knew we needed to eat more food to walk all day on the trail or we would quickly become too weak to keep going. Kate, as always, seemed completely unconcerned. “The lord will provide,” was always her answer.

  We made more of our jerky soup as we sat by the fire the following morning. I was really only shaving off enough pieces of jerky to flavor our soup. It wasn’t anything that could really be considered a meal. It had rained some overnight and everything we had was wet. Even the wood was wet and each piece hissed when I threw it on the fire. The wet wood made enough smoke to signal a rescue plane, had there been such a thing. We sat there, cold and wet and hungry, choking on the smoke from our fire, but the need to warm up and dry out overcoming our need to move further away from the thick, white smoke.