Bone River (21 page)

When I did, she was waiting.

Running again, running toward the Querquelin, which sparkled in the sun. Panic and fear, and then hands grabbing, my fingers prying at my throat, trying to get loose, and before my eyes my hands changed, growing wrinkled and gnarled and freckled, joints swollen, the hands of a crone, withering. Shrinking, wrinkling like an apple in the sun, and horror and disbelief took my
panic, but not my fear. My hands, saying I was an old woman with no strength and no passion and nothing done. And then, I heard a voice, hers, whispering,
Who are you? What do you want from the world? Why haven’t you taken it?

I started at a hand on my shoulder, a gentle shake. “Leonie, wake up. It’s morning.”

I blinked, disoriented, still caught in the dream, and rolled over to see Junius looking down at me, a lit candle in his hands, and I remembered where I was and who I was. I heard Daniel moving about beyond.

“We’ve got to get going before it gets too late,” Junius said. “And there’s still the ceiling to draw.”

I nodded and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I tried to look at my hands, but they were only pale shadows in the dark. I flexed them, joints a little stiff from cold, but still strong, still my own.

Junius handed me a piece of dried salmon and said, “I’ll pack things up. Boy, will you hold a light for Lea so she can see to draw?”

Pack things up.
The bones included, I knew, and again I felt that distaste and pushed it away. That was not who I was. This uneasiness was not who I was. I put on my boots, chewing on the salmon, and rose, pulling my notebook and pencil from my pocket, going to where Daniel stood waiting, a lit candle in his hand.

“Good morning,” he said, as I stood beside him. “Sleep well?”

I thought of the dream, the words that were an echo of the ones he’d said to me in the barn—
”What do
you
want?”
—and I looked away, back to the ceiling, at the figures wavering in the faint light. “Could you hold the candle closer, please?”

He obliged, and I took the pencil and began to draw, and there was safety in that—once I was drawing I forgot the dream. I concentrated so intently it felt almost as if I were the original
artist, as if it were me dipping my finger in paint, drawing the story again as quickly as I could, meaning to keep up with the teller.

And then Daniel said, “You do that so well. Have you ever given any thought to studying art?”

He was looking over my shoulder as I drew, standing so close I felt the press of him into the space between us. I stepped away and shook my head. “No, of course not.”

“Why not? You’ve the faculty.”

Junius said, “It would be a waste of a good scientific mind.”

I went warm at my husband’s praise, and turned back to put the finishing touches on the drawing.

“I think you’ve the talent to draw more than relics and bones,” Daniel insisted.

I sharpened the antler, rubbed my finger against the paper to soften the bear’s back. “What else would I want to draw?”

“Apples, perhaps,” Daniel said, his voice very low, meant for me alone, and it had laughter in it.

And though I knew it was only that charm of his again, I could not help smiling at his tease. But I was glad when I finished the drawing and shut my notebook, and Daniel lowered the candle and stepped away.

T
HE WAY BACK
was long and hard. The three of us had not been enough to fully break a path, and the only evidence we’d been through once before were broken branches, brambles sliced away by Junius’s knife. Otherwise it was just as difficult to tramp through. It was not made easier by the bulk of the skeletons—not heavy but unwieldy, the bags Daniel and Junius carried were constantly snagging on branches that tore and whipped and vines that tangled and dragged. And it was raining again, too—the crossing would be miserable.

When we finally reached the beach, it was already after noon. The bay was shrouded in fog and a misty rain. There was an inch of water in the bottom of the plunger, most of which I bailed out while Junius readied the boat for the crossing and complained about the weather. There was little wind, and the mist was deceptive—it made one as wet as a downpour, just more slowly.

None of us spoke much on the crossing; what words we did say were strangely amplified in the fog, and we were too busy keeping watch—it was impossible to see past the bow of the sloop. Junius was concentrating not only on seeing us across
without grounding on a shoal but also on keeping sails taut in a bare wind. “We’d go faster rowing,” he complained.

Once we were past the mouth of the bay, whatever light breeze there’d been died, blowing itself out on the narrow finger of land separating the Shoalwater from the ocean. I listened to the creak of the lines and the timbers of the boat, the slap of the water, the caw of the gulls, but for the most part it felt as if we were alone, only the three of us in a world cocooned by fog, with nothing beyond, nothing to know or see or hear. I strained to see, serving as much a watchman as I could. But my thoughts were lost in the memory of my dream, the withering of my hands, myself shrinking to nothing, aging and fading, the desperate questions:
Who are you? What do you want from the world? Why haven’t you taken it?

It was nearly dark when we reached the mouth of the Querquelin. The fog had lifted enough by then to see that the tide was out, turning Shoalwater Bay into a series of channels cut into the mud, but Junius knew these channels as well as I did, and soon we were dragging the plunger ashore. The downstairs windows of the house glowed, welcoming and warm, and I was relieved that Lord Tom was there, that we would not be arriving to a dark, cold house.

But as we neared it, I realized that Lord Tom was not the only one there. I heard voices from inside, arguing, and as we approached the porch, a shadow detached itself from the darkness.

Junius stopped short, putting out his hand to keep me behind him. “Who is it? Who’s there?”

“William,” said a voice, deep and pleasant, pronouncing the name
Willy-am
, and Junius relaxed, dropping his hand back to his side.

“Willy? What the hell are you doing here?” He stepped forward while the shadow stepped down from the porch and was
illuminated by the light reflected from the windows. Short, with dark skin and black hair. Bibi’s grandson.

Willy nodded a hello to me and said to Junius, “She insisted I bring her out today. Said she had to speak to you right away.”

“Bibi’s here?” I asked.
Again?

From inside the house the arguing grew louder. I couldn’t distinguish the words, mostly in jargon, I thought, though too indistinct and quick for me to understand. But now I could hear that it was Bibi’s voice, and Lord Tom’s as well. My hand went involuntarily to the bracelet.

“What did she want that wouldn’t wait?” Junius asked.

“Don’t know,” Willy answered. “But Tom in there don’t like it. The two of them have been fighting since we got here.”

“What about?”

“Dreams, I think.” Willy made a sound of derision. “Or something. Who the hell knows with those two?”

“Well, we’d best find out.” Junius strode to the stairs, pausing only long enough to introduce Daniel to Willy, and then we went inside.

The moment the door opened, Bibi and Lord Tom stopped short, gestures frozen in midair, blazing eyes.

Junius said, “What’s all this about?”

Lord Tom’s glance came to me. “It is nothing.
Pelton dleams
.”

The dreams of a lunatic.

Bibi barely came to Lord Tom’s shoulder, but she was threatening enough when she launched angrily into some protestation—and then I realized it wasn’t jargon she was speaking but pure Chinook. She spoke so quickly I made out only a few words, and then only because I knew some from transcribing the stories.
Visions. Spirit. Danger.
The same things she’d said to me only a few weeks ago. The two of them had been arguing about her warnings, about the bracelet. About me.

“
Kwan, chitsh
.” Willy spoke sharply to his grandmother, and Bibi’s lips clamped shut in obedience. She glared at Lord Tom,
and then she looked at me. I saw the way her gaze fell to my wrist, to the charm peeking from the sleeve of my coat. A satisfied look softened her face.

To Junius, she said, “I have come to tell you something,
Boston-man
, not to fight with your
wake skookum latate.
”

Imbecile.
Lord Tom’s expression tightened, but he said nothing.

Junius said, “Very well. So tell me.”

“
Mahsh mamook canim.
”

She wanted to sell the canoe. I was so surprised I could only stare at her—both because she wanted to sell it now, after her adamant refusal to do so before, and because she wanted to badly enough to come out here. It was odd, and I didn’t understand it. But then I felt such an overwhelming relief I didn’t care about her reasons. The canoe
and
the skeletons bought me time. Junius would no longer insist on sending the mummy to Baird right away.

Junius looked stunned. “You want...you’re ready to sell the canoe?”

She nodded.

He said, “Why, Bibi? What makes you want to sell now?”

She shrugged, but her little eyes gleamed. “I am
lamai
.
Wake siah memalose.
Time for it to go.”

“You’re not dying,
chiksh
,” Willy said.

“Not today, no.
By-by
. But this thing I do not need.”

As relieved as I was, I knew to be wary. Bibi was too canny and had always been. I tried to tamp down my excitement, to not hope. I said, “Very well. We’ll take it off your hands. Five blankets—”

“Two hundred dollars,” she said.

Two hundred dollars. It was a lot of money. Whatever reason Bibi had for getting rid of the canoe, she was not going to give us a bargain on it. She would expect me to haggle, and I had to fight the urge just to agree to her terms. I was afraid to push her too
far, to lose the canoe. I glanced at Junius, who gave me a quick nod. I turned back to Bibi. “Is it good, Bibi? No holes? No
poolie
? Not
cultus
?

She shrugged. “You want it, you take it. Two hundred.”

“You’ve waited too long,” I told her, bargaining. “We have other things to send.
Elip kloshe
.”
Better things.

She grinned at me, brown teeth that reminded me suddenly and forcibly of those on the mummy. Small and square, stained with tobacco and coffee. She looked beyond me to Daniel and said, “What will you give me for canoe,
Boston-man tenas
?”

Daniel looked startled. I said, “He doesn’t want the canoe, Bibi. He’s not a collector.”

Bibi raised her brows. “No? What does he want?”

“I’ll give you one hundred dollars for the canoe,” I went on patiently. “And three blankets. And I’ll throw in a plug of tobacco.”

She didn’t take her gaze from Daniel. “
Kumtux yaka mika mamook ticky
?”

Does she know what you want?

Daniel frowned and gave me a questioning look.

But before I could say anything, Lord Tom spoke to Bibi rapidly and sharply. She shrugged. To me, she said, “Two hundred for canoe.”

I had no real idea why Bibi wanted suddenly to sell us the canoe, nor what she wanted from Daniel. But I didn’t want her to change her mind. “Two hundred then. Junius, get her the voucher. That’s all I’m offering, Bibi. A voucher or nothing.”

She gave me a satisfied nod, though she’d derided the US government promissory notes Baird sent us for trade as worthless before, and I couldn’t disagree. There was no guarantee when she would be paid, or even if she would. So her acceptance now only made me more suspicious. But I had what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to ruin it with questions. Junius reached into the inside of his coat and took out a small leather bag, opening the
drawstring, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He went to the table, laying it out flat, uncapping the ink, and dipping the pen to write in the amount. Willy watched silently. Lord Tom went to sit stiffly in the rocker. Daniel stood there looking confused, and Bibi was watching him, an unsettling little smile on her face. When Junius finished filling in the paper and handed it to her, I was so relieved it was all I could do not to grin.

“We’ll pick up the canoe tomorrow,” he told her.

I said, “Will you stay? Have some supper? It’s getting late.”

Bibi shook her head. She folded the paper and shoved it into her bodice, and then said to Willy, “We go now.
Hyak.
”

He sighed. “Thanks anyway, Leonie. I’d better take her back.”

The two of them went to the door. As Bibi passed me, she grabbed my wrist, jerking out my arm as if to make certain the bracelet was no illusion. She glanced over her shoulder at Lord Tom, who frowned, and then both she and Willy were out the door.

“She sold us the canoe.” Junius’s voice was wondering.

“Now we can keep the mummy,” I said.

Junius looked at me thoughtfully. “For now. Assuming the canoe’s in decent shape. But we’re still sending it off eventually, Lea. When your study is done.”