The Claim (14 page)

How had I allowed myself to get into this mess? I wondered. I had played right into Sally’s hands.

But, as I was soon to learn, she was not done with me yet.

*    *    *

The next meeting of the sewing circle was being held at Mrs. Woodley’s cabin. And it was with some trepidation that I headed down the walkway the next afternoon, carrying a plate of newly baked tarts.

After careful consideration I had decided that the best course of action would be to arrive early and explain the situation to as many of the ladies who were present as I could. That way, I reasoned, I could relay my experience with Sally in Philadelphia and hopefully get some sympathy, or at least understanding. After all, they were my friends, and Sally had only just arrived.

When I got to the Woodleys’ cabin, I knocked on the door, but no one answered. Clearly I was too early. I sat down on the porch and waited, nibbling on a tart. After what seemed an eternity, I started to wonder if perhaps I had gotten the day wrong.

Willard came ambling down the walkway and saw me sitting on his porch.

“Can I have one?” he asked immediately, spying the tarts.

“You may as well,” I said. “They were for the sewing circle, but there’s no sense in them going to waste.”

“Whadya mean?” he asked. “Ma’s over at Mrs. Staroselsky’s right now.”

“She is?”

He nodded, and I snatched the plate back. “Sorry, it looks as if I shall need these after all.”

I rushed down the walkway to the Staroselskys’, a feeling of relief coursing through me. But when I arrived at the cabin, I froze, hearing the rush of laughter and feminine conversation behind the door. One voice stood out from all the others.

“ … the same trouble back in Philadelphia,” Sally was saying, her voice high.

Was she talking about me? I knocked on the door.

“Oh, hello, Jane,” Mrs. Staroselsky murmured, looking a little pained.

The other ladies abruptly ceased their conversation when I stepped into the room.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, breathing hard. “I thought it was being held at Mrs. Woodley’s cabin.”

“But I do recall telling you it was being held here, Jane,” Sally said.

“I’m sure I would have remembered you telling me.” I said, my voice sounding too high and loud to my ears.

The ladies stared at me.

“I brought some tarts,” I said lamely.

“Uh, thank you, Jane,” Mrs. Staroselsky said, and put them on the table next to a plate of molasses cookies.

I took a seat and glanced around the circle. As I looked from face to face, no one would meet my eye. Mrs. Frink alone met my gaze, but even she looked uncomfortable.

“So,” I said with forced enthusiasm. “What did I miss?”

“We were discussing the Fourth of July celebration,” Mrs. Staroselsky said.

“Wonderful! I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and I believe I’ve come up with some good ideas,” I said. “Now, last year, as I may have mentioned, we held it in the clearing by Mr. Russell’s cabin to accommodate the large crowd. People came from miles around. But I was thinking that perhaps this year we could have
it right on Front Street. It would be beautiful, especially in the evening.”

There was deafening silence.

“Well,” Sally began.

All the other ladies looked at her.

“I think it would make more sense to have it at the hotel,” she continued. “And make it be a ball, with official invitations, to keep the riffraff away.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Mrs. Woodley gushed. “That way we can control the whiskey.”

“Finally, an opportunity to wear my ball gown!” Mrs. Hosmer declared.

“But—but
everyone
looks forward to the Fourth of July here on Shoalwater Bay,” I stammered.

Sally said, “All the men, you mean. This year is going to be different.”

There was a long pause.

I swallowed hard. “Well, if that’s what everyone wants.”

“Would you care for a cookie, Jane?” Sally offered me the plate of molasses cookies. “Mrs. Hosmer made them. They’re quite
delicious
,” she said.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Hosmer said loudly.

“I’ll take another, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Woodley said.

“I’d love the receipt,” Mrs. Staroselsky said.

Not one person had touched my tarts.

“Speaking of food, last year we had everyone bring something to the party, and there was far too much whiskey in the end,” I said with a forced laugh. “Perhaps we could draw up a
menu. Spaark has been coming up with some very good receipts lately.”

Another long pause.

“Oh, well, we already have a menu,” Sally said.

“What do you mean you already have a menu?” I asked.

Mrs. Staroselsky looked uncomfortable. “Jane, Sally is heading up the Fourth of July celebration committee.”

“Sally?” I asked.

“I always helped Cora organize her Midsummer Gala,” Sally said.

“I see,” I whispered.

The air in the cabin seemed to close in on me, and I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes. I knew in that moment that everyone in the sewing circle would believe anything about me that Sally wanted them to.

“Excuse me, but I forgot that I have some important matters that require my attention back at the hotel,” I said, my throat thick.

“Jane, wait,” Mrs. Frink said, rising to her feet.

But I just turned and fled, tears spilling down my face.

Sally had certainly made good on her promise. She had ruined my life.

  I couldn’t bear to eat supper at the hotel and have to stare at Sally’s gloating face, so I made my excuses and went over to Mr. Russell’s cabin.

When I arrived, I found Mr. Russell sitting on his front porch cutting his toenails with a sharp knife. Mr. Swan sat next to him, writing in his diary.

“Hello, gentlemen,” I said.

“Gal,” the bewhiskered, buckskin-clad mountain man said, looking up from his grimy bare foot.

“Oh, hello, my dear,” Mr. Swan said.

“Why don’t we go inside, and I’ll make us some coffee?” I suggested.

I fell into my old role, boiling coffee and serving it in tin cups on the rough sawbuck table I knew so well.

We sat in front of the crackling fire, and I couldn’t help but remember my very first night on the bay when I had slept in front of this same fire—aching with cold and loneliness. Now that I was at my lowest, it seemed that this filthy cabin with its odd, gruff owner was the only welcoming place on the bay for me.

“So, has business been good for you lately, Mr. Russell?” I asked, eyeing the rough wooden shelves where he stored the supplies he sold to the pioneers. They looked very full and rather dusty.

He grunted, which I took to mean
no.

The arrival of Star’s Dry Goods on Shoalwater Bay in early spring had been a tremendous blow to Mr. Russell’s small trading business. Star’s was a vast improvement on Mr. Russell’s simple offerings of salt pork, flour, coffee, and whiskey. In addition Mr. Russell had a disagreeable habit of spitting tobacco at a person’s feet, a quality that was unlikely to woo the ladies.

Mr. Swan turned to Mr. Russell, a nostalgic look on his face. “Do you remember, Russell, when you couldn’t keep those shelves full for all the men coming and going? I fear those days are long gone.”

“Times are changing, and not for the better, if you ask me,” Mr. Russell said.

“They certainly are, old friend,” Mr. Swan agreed.

Times were changing, I thought. At this rate, Shoalwater Bay would soon barely resemble the place I had come to love.

“Why the long face, gal?” Mr. Russell asked.

All the pent-up emotion rushed over me, and I began to cry.

“Gal?” Mr. Russell said.

“My dear?” Mr. Swan said, looking at Mr. Russell in alarm.

“It’s Sally. She’s made all the other ladies think I’m a terrible person!” I said, hiccupping.

“Does this have something to do with you, ahem, throwing a pie at Mrs. Hosmer?” Mr. Swan queried. “Really, dear girl, pies are meant to be eaten.”

“See!” I wailed. “What am I going to do?”

Mr. Russell stared at me for a long moment. “You mean to tell me that you’ve survived out here all this time and you’re letting a pesky girl get the best of you?”

When he put it that way, it didn’t sound quite so bad.

A voice interrupted the quiet night.

“Obediah!”

Mr. Russell grabbed up his rifle quick as could be and stalked across to the door.

“Obediah!” the voice called again, and this time I recognized it.

The door was flung open, and Cocumb stood there, tears streaming down her face.

“What’s the matter, Cocumb?” I asked.

“It’s M’Carty,” Cocumb said brokenly. “I think he’s dead!”

It wasn’t until some
time later, after I had calmed Cocumb down with a cup of tea laced with a liberal dose of whiskey, that we heard the entire story.

M’Carty had taken his boat and gone over to Astoria as planned. However, he had scarcely been gone a day when, Cocumb said, she knew something was wrong.

It had been that still, quiet part of the afternoon when she heard the mournful cry of the owl. Everyone knows that owls do not come out during the day, but there it was—the biggest, strangest owl she had ever seen, sitting on a tree under which she and M’Carty had spent many happy moments.

An owl with eyes the exact shade of M’Carty’s.

And then, mere hours ago, Mr. Dodd had seen M’Carty’s empty boat drifting along the channel that led into Shoalwater Bay.

That was when Cocumb knew her husband was dead, and that the owl was his guardian spirit, or
tomanawos
, come to tell her of his tragic end.

“I know he’s dead!” Cocumb insisted, her voice shaking.

After that she gave in to grief and wept inconsolably.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Mr. Russell looked at me and sighed heavily. “We look for ’im, gal.”

A search party was organized for first light. All the men of Shoalwater Bay, pioneer and Indian, gathered down at the water. I joined the search as well, and we rowed up and down the bay, looking for any sign of M’Carty.

“Do you think he’s dead?” I asked Jehu as we drifted along the shore, eyes scanning.

Jehu pulled the oars strongly, the hair at his neck damp with sweat. “Doesn’t make sense for his boat to turn up and not him,” Jehu said with the logic of a man who’d spent half his life at sea.

We searched along the bay until the tide went out, but we did not find M’Carty.

Later that night Red Charley was stumbling drunkenly along the beach when he saw a lump. Thinking it was scavenge washed ashore, he went to investigate.

And discovered M’Carty’s body.

  Although M’Carty was not Chinook, he had married one of Chief Toke’s daughters and was much loved by the tribe. Cocumb requested that he be buried in the Chinook style.

On the day of the funeral, a large canoe was brought out. M’Carty had made this canoe with his own hands to impress Chief Toke when he was wooing Cocumb. Now Toke was burying his son-in-law in it. The long canoe, carved from a single
cedar tree, was decorated with snail shells. It was one of the most beautiful canoes I had ever seen, and it was to be M’Carty’s final resting place.

Keer-ukso and several of the men of the village had helped prepare the canoe. First it was scrubbed clean, and then holes were cut in the bottom to discourage anyone from stealing it. Unscrupulous pioneer men had been known to take the funeral canoes, unceremoniously dumping out the bodies.

It was a dismal gray day, the sun hidden away, as if the bay, too, mourned the passing of M’Carty. The tribe, as well as some of the original residents of the bay—including Mr. Russell, Mr. Swan, Jehu, Father Joseph, and I—were invited to the funeral ceremony. All were silent as preparations were made, and none mentioned M’Carty’s name.

Grief-stricken, Cocumb refused to change her name as was the custom. This was done so that the
memelose
of the dead person would not come back and haunt you.

“I want him to haunt me!” she cried wildly, her face white. “I want him back!”

M’Carty’s body, wrapped in blankets, was set in the canoe. Then, as was customary, some of his favorite possessions were placed in the canoe with his body—a basket from Cocumb, an elaborately carved knife from Mr. Russell, and a doll from Katy. Woven mats were arranged over his body, and finally a smaller canoe was placed over it, upside down. The canoe was placed on a platform that had been built high off the ground in the woods. This was the Chinook graveyard.

Chief Toke led the tribe in a death song, one that would be
sung at sunrise and sunset each day for a month. I stood next to Mr. Swan, holding Katy’s small hand, watching as Cocumb sang her grief, tears streaming down her cheeks. Cocumb’s weeping rose on the dark air, twining its way around my heart. Katy’s eyes were red from crying, as were Sootie’s. No doubt the funeral brought back memories of her own mother’s recent death. We three girls had all recently lost a parent.

By the time we started back for the hotel, it had grown dark.

Cocumb, exhausted by the entire ordeal, was steered back to her father’s lodge. I was going to mind Katy for a few days in order to allow Cocumb to grieve.

Katy walked silently beside me.

“Katy,” I said. “My father died, too.”

“He did?” she asked, eyes widening.

I nodded. “Last year. He was very sick.”

Katy considered this. “Were you sad?”

“I was very sad. More sad than I can ever say.” I swallowed. “I still am.”

“I’m sad, too, Boston Jane,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. And then she flung her arms around my legs and started crying in earnest.

I bent down and hugged her tight. “I know,
nika tenas klootchman
. I know.”

  Back at the hotel I tucked Katy into bed in my room. She was so worn-out from crying that she dropped off to sleep immediately.

I went over to my trunk and opened it and lifted out the
letter from Papa that I kept among my most cherished possessions. Just looking at his familiar handwriting gave me a pang.