Boston Jane (16 page)

But he would like this one, I was sure.

My pie was resting on a shelf under a piece of cloth. It looked perfect to my eye—but then again, so had the coffee and look what had happened there. Sudden anxiety flooded me. I took a deep breath and lifted up the pie, starting across the dirt
floor. Without any warning my foot caught on something and I stumbled. The pie rocked in my hands.

Brandywine looked up sleepily from the floor.

“Blasted dog!” I hissed.

Father Joseph raised one bushy caterpillar eyebrow at my curse. I blushed but held my head high and carried the pie to the table. I put it down with a flourish.

“That looks wonderful, my dear,” Mr. Swan said hesitantly. He turned to Mr. Russell and said, in a hearty voice that sounded forced, “Doesn’t it look wonderful, Mr. Russell?”

Mr. Russell grunted, eyeing the pie skeptically.

I cut a slice for Mr. Russell and put it on his plate.

“Go on. She’s been working at it all day,” Jehu said.

Mr. Russell took a careful bite. Salmonberry filling smeared his whiskers. He chewed thoughtfully and gulped.

“Well?” I demanded.

The moment seemed to stretch out forever.

Mr. Russell didn’t say a word. He just dug his fork into his pie and finished it in four neat bites. Then he leaned back, patted his belly, and belched.

Jehu roared with laughter.

“I guess he likes it, Jane!”

Mr. Russell grinned at me, and I didn’t even mind the salmonberries in his teeth. “Yar good at pie, gal.”

All the men clapped, and I flushed with pleasure. It was almost as satisfying as winning top marks for embroidery at Miss Hepplewhite’s!

Father Joseph’s eyes closed in delight as he took a bite. “
Délicieux!
”

“You should open a boardinghouse, my dear,” Mr. Swan said, biting heartily into his slice. “You’d do a brisk business with all the hungry men out here.”

“Just hire someone else to make the coffee,” Jehu suggested with a wink.

When I went to bed that night, the aroma of pie filled the cabin. I fell asleep thinking of all the pies I would make William.

“My dearest Jane,” William would say, smiling at me fondly, “makes the most delicious pies in all the world.”

I was awakened by a small, soft sound. The sound of a fork scraping a tin plate.

The walls of the cabin were golden with dancing firelight, and the men’s snores rose in a comforting way. It was an altogether cozy picture, which left me completely unprepared for the vision in front of me.

A strange woman was sitting at the sawbuck table, eating a piece of my pie, her back to me. Her hair hung in wet clumps down her back.

I wanted to call out, but I was too frightened to speak. Had she just wandered in while we were sleeping? But I thought Mr. Swan had said there weren’t any other pioneer women here on Shoalwater Bay.

I quietly slipped out of the bunk. The woman didn’t look up.

She just kept eating the pie.

I walked closer to the table. Water pooled at her feet, and
the smell of saltwater steamed off her back.

“Excuse me,” I said.

She paused and turned slowly, deliberately.

I stumbled back in horror.

Mary’s face was white, her eyes black and filled with reproach.

She got up and walked through the door, disappearing into the inky night.

The balmy winds of
June warmed my spirits. It rained less, and there was a feeling of hope in the air. Shoalwater Bay was an entirely different place when the sun came out, and on beautiful days I could almost understand Mr. Swan’s fascination for this raw country, the way the mountains rose high and seemed to go on forever and ever, the blue sky arched behind them like a bonnet.

I counted the days that Yelloh had been gone, mended clothes, and tried out Mary’s receipts on the men with varying success. Father Joseph built a small chapel at the edge of Toke’s village, between the lodges and the stream where the Indians went to fetch their water. He was forever encouraging the men to attend his masses, and I considered myself lucky that I was not Catholic.

Mr. Swan took me on long rambles, pointing out local flowers and teaching me bits of the Jargon. It reminded me of going with Papa on his rounds when I was a small girl. My hand itched to write him, but I was determined to hold fast.

I walked on the beach and collected shells. Sometimes I thought I saw Mary there, her dark gaze fixed on the horizon, staring out at the wide bay as if searching for something.

But when I called her name, she disappeared.

“I’m leaving,” Jehu said, slinging his pack on his shoulder.

It was a bright day, and the light made his black hair shine like a raven’s wing.

“What?” I asked, startled. I was sitting on the rickety porch darning a particularly grim pair of socks that I rather suspected belonged to Champ.

He looked into the countryside, scanning the trees. “The
Lady Luck
’s all fitted up, and the captain’s got himself some Indians cutting down timber on a claim up the bay. I have to load the timber up on the ship. Don’t know how long it will take.”

He stared at me as if he wanted to say something. It seemed so abrupt, his leaving like this.

“Well, good-bye, then,” I said finally, swallowing hard.

“Jane,” Jehu said. His blue eyes pierced mine. “If you need anything, anything at all, send word.”

I looked down awkwardly. “If you happen to come across William, will you tell him I am here?”

His mouth seemed to tighten, but he nodded. And then he went away.

That evening at supper Mr. Swan announced that he, too, was leaving.

“Not leaving,” he amended. “Moving.”

“Moving? But where?” I asked.

He smiled in his jolly way and said, “Inland from the bay. I have fitted up an old Chinook lodge on a river up a ways.”

“May I come, too?” I asked quickly, casting a sidelong glance at Mr. Russell.

Mr. Russell grunted.

The mountain man and I had struck an uneasy peace, but I was still uncomfortable living in a place where strange men came and went as they pleased. Mr. Russell let any passing pioneer stay at the cabin, and it was most disconcerting to wake up to a new set of unshaven faces each morning at breakfast. At least with Mr. Swan, I reasoned, I would only be living with one man instead of a whole gang. It was hardly a proper situation, but I was finding that one must lower one’s good standards when on the frontier. If I was lucky, the fleas would remain behind in Mr. Russell’s cabin.

“Of course, my dear,” Mr. Swan said. “I’ll take you round tomorrow.”

We took Mr. Swan’s canoe to the old Chinook lodge. It was one of several abandoned dwellings situated near the river.

The place was utterly desolate.

“Where are all the Indians?” I asked, looking around nervously.

Mr. Swan shrugged. “No one lives here. They think the place is haunted.”

“Haunted?” I asked, and shivered despite myself. I thought of Mary. Really, a haunted Chinook lodge was the very last thing I needed.

“The Chinooks believe that their dead ones haunt the house where they died, and apparently a number of Indians died here. That one’s ours,” he said, pointing to a lodge with a chimney. “I built the chimney myself.”

The lodge smelled stale and unused, but it was large, twice as large as Mr. Russell’s cabin. Mr. Swan had divided the lodge into two areas and fitted up the sleeping portion with bunks. There were no ghosts in residence as far as I could tell. A thought occurred to me. Perhaps William and I could live here until we had a house of our own!

I recalled Miss Hepplewhite’s words:

A well-ordered home is a miniature of heaven
.

It was going to take a lot of work to make this lodge a miniature of heaven, I thought with some dismay.

But I did my best. I swept and aired out the lodge. I knocked down cobwebs and scrubbed the bunks with hot water to kill any vermin living in them. Mr. Swan transported my trunk to the lodge, and I spread a tablecloth on a table and arranged flowers in the crystal vase, which had miraculously survived the journey. I fitted two bunks with sheets and blankets, fashioned pillows out of linen and rags, and placed embroidered cushions on the hard chairs. Because the floors were hard-packed dirt, every footstep sent dust flying.

I recalled how clean and tidy the inside of Chief Toke’s lodge was and the woven mats on the floors. Those mats would certainly keep the dust down. However, I was not looking forward to trading with Suis. Her success with my corset had not
improved her demeanor at all. Whenever I went down to the stream to fetch water, I would invariably encounter her and other women. She’d say something I couldn’t understand and everyone would laugh. It felt just like being back on Arch Street with Sally Biddle and Cora Fletcher. Not to mention, she was continually bringing me various useless handmade objects, expecting me to trade them for my last few precious belongings. When I would ignore her the way I used to ignore Sally Biddle, she would go storming off in a rage.

After a particularly windy day when every opening of the door stirred a cloud of dust, I relented and set off for Suis’s lodge.

“Boston Jane,” Suis said appraisingly.

“I need mats for the ground,” I told her.

She had Dolly haul out a large pile of woven mats.

“What you have for trade?” Suis asked.

I had brought along a linen sheet as well as several pretty buttons. They were the only buttons I had managed to salvage from Burton the cow’s rampage.

She took the buttons and sheet and eyed me suspiciously. Finally, she pointed to my head, tapping the bonnet.

“You want my bonnet, too?”

Suis nodded. The woman was out to get her hands on everything I owned.

“All right,” I said, untying it and handing it to her. My hair tumbled down around my shoulders.

A group of nearby men paused in the game they were playing and stopped to stare at my hair. Suddenly Suis looked furious.
She grabbed my hands, and began to pull off the gloves, finger by finger. They weren’t in very good condition, but still, they were the only pair of gloves I had left.

“What are you doing?” I said. “You can’t have my gloves!”

“Gloves or no mats!” she hissed, her eyes flashing—just like Sally Biddle’s.

I threw off my gloves, grabbed up the mats, and marched away, her triumphant laughter echoing behind me.

While I cleaned, Mr. Swan spent his days showing off the beautiful chimney. Indians from miles around came to admire it.

“Many
memelose tillicums
,” Handsome Jim said, looking around the lodge, a worried expression on his face.

“
Boston tillicums
are not worried by
memelose tillicums
,” Mr. Swan said.

Handsome Jim raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Why not make fire pit in center of lodge?” he asked.

“Too smoky,” Mr. Swan explained. “See, the chimney takes the smoke out of the lodge. This is how
Boston tillicums
make warm lodges.”

Handsome Jim looked concerned. “But you need smoke for salmon.”

Mr. Swan smiled expansively. “Ah, well, meat is kept outside in a smokehouse, built especially for that purpose. This also cuts down on the insects.”

The Indians didn’t look convinced and shook their heads, nosing around the chimney.

After one of these many visits, Mr. Swan came in for supper. I had prepared biscuits and gravy from one of Mary’s receipts.

It had been a long, exhausting week. I had laid down the new mats, sewn simple curtains out of an old petticoat, and painted some pictures for the walls. It had taken me the better part of the afternoon to figure out how to rig up the curtains. It was a far cry from Walnut Street, but I was pleased with the results. No doubt Mr. Swan would compliment me on my skill and taste.

“That smells wonderful,” Mr. Swan declared, pulling up a chair.

I smiled hopefully.

Instead of noticing my improvements, he started eating and chattering.

“Toke showed me the most interesting plant today,” Mr. Swan said, taking out his notebook to show me his sketch.

I stared at him with dismay.

“It is apparently peculiar to the region, and Toke says it is very therapeutic for stomach complaints. Now, it looks rather similar to—”

“Mr. Swan!” I interrupted.

He seemed startled.

“Don’t you like what I did?”

He blinked at me owlishly. He looked down at his plate.

“Oh yes, this is very tasty, my dear.”

“Not the food!” I said in a frustrated voice. “The curtains!”

“The curtains?”

“Yes—the curtains!” I opened my arms wide. “And the bunks!
And the flowers! And the pictures! And everything! It took me
all
week! Not to mention I traded away my last pair of gloves in order to keep the blasted dust down!”

He peered around the lodge as if for the first time. “Of course, of course. Capital job, dear girl.”

I felt tears prick at my eyes.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said gently. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at these sorts of things.”

I shook my head wordlessly. I had tried so hard. William was always so good at noticing. And then a horrible thought occurred to me. What if William had changed since coming out here? What if he had become like all the other men on the frontier?

Mr. Swan sighed, and we ate our supper in silence.

Despite Handsome Jim’s dire warnings of
memelose tillicums
, I saw no ghosts. Nor did I see Mary. Perhaps I had left her back at Mr. Russell’s lodge. But while we did not have ghosts, we quickly discovered that we had something just as worrisome.

A leaky roof.

“Oh dear,” Mr. Swan said, peering up. “That does look bad.”

It had been raining for the past several days, and I had spread the few pots and pans we had under the leaks, but the roof was clearly caving in. A sliver of gray sky was visible through the planks.

Mr. Swan scratched his head and said in a hesitant voice, “I suppose I ought to do something about it before it really starts raining.”