A Clearing in the Wild (35 page)

Spring arrived, and with it improved health for us all. Even the goat gained weight. I watched my husband lash a log behind a mule to pull it to a clearing. We Germans were accustomed to hard work. It was what defined us. It’s what helped carve a Bethelite’s faith. Hard work and a hope we walked on God’s path.

Now began the work in earnest. The Bethelites would be here in less than six months.

“Mama,” Andy said, and he handed me a clutch of wildflowers as white as chalk. Spring 1855, and I pitched any worrisome thoughts away. White trillium carpeting the forest floor distracted me. Pink and white orchids grew on tree trunks, or so it appeared; flowers with podlike blooms turned the meadows beside the rivers blue. Moss green as cats’ eyes lay curled around tree roots, waiting to be patted. This valley formed a tapestry, a quilt of such richness I wondered that I ever questioned my husband’s choice to come here. The air smelled fresh each morning, and the river, raging as it did carrying all that rain to the sea, kept within its banks, and I felt blessed.

I walked the tall grass meadows with Andy running now before me, still falling down sometimes but always picking himself up to carry on. The goat trotted after him like a dog. I could hear the sounds of hammering, the grunts of men raising logs to rafters. They coughed less now, the lingering illness of the winter fading. Still, each night I heard Christian’s lament about their lack of progress. “Soon we’ll have to send someone out to meet Wilhelm’s group,” he told me. “That will leave fewer of us to work the logs.”

“Maybe, with so few of us here, you could wait and hope that Michael Sr. or George will be coming with them and can lead them here.”

“
Nein
. We should have them come a different way, across the bay. We’ll need to send someone out to lead them.”

While I questioned that wisdom, I kept silent. I could do little to speed the progress except dig roots, pick berries when they were ripe, tan the hides as best I could, boil river water for drinking now that the rains had ceased, and watch after Andy. An-Gie had showed me how to find the
wapato
and a few other roots to dry. Christian called one camass and said we could cook them, which I did. And once, startling me in the woods, two Chehalis women showed me mushrooms they motioned for me to pluck from the forest floor and eat. They were white as beach sand and tasted like sponge, it seemed to me.

This Willapa Valley offered such abundance of cedar and fir and hemlock and yew, and yet we paled against the requirements to rein such bounty in. We had fewer than five huts built, and those would be roofed with tarps from the wagons of the Bethelites once they arrived. Knowing that a large wagon train would soon bring 150 people or more into this clearing pushed at the men, but they could work no harder than they already did. It fell to me to raise their spirits, to force them to look at what they’d done rather than what was left to do. “You’ve bought the land. You’ve befriended Indians. You’ve staked out boundaries. You’ve met townspeople, you’ve spent money wisely to keep us fed, you’ve sent off the scouts on time. You’ve kept your wife and son close by, and on top of that you’ve built huts. Houses,” I told Christian one dawn. I took a breath.

Christian held a chunk of biscuit out for the seagull to peck at. This new bird still wouldn’t take anything from Christian’s hand, only mine and Andy’s. He didn’t have the chip from his bill, but a hole in his webbed foot marked him as unique. We called this one Charlie too.

“And on top of that, you’ve been as faithful a man as I’ve ever known, trusting always that you were doing the Lord’s work, never
putting yourself first in anything. You are a good man, Christian Giesy, and this place will one day reflect all that you have done to take it from the wild into a welcoming place.”

He dropped the breadcrumb. “Yet the bird does not trust me.”

“What does a bird know anyway?”

He grinned. “Your passion and vision remind me of Wilhelm’s.”

“I’m nothing like our leader,” I retorted. The thought startled. I picked up the crumb and held it out. Charlie waddled over, his beak never touching my finger as he lifted the bread from me as I squatted. “Wilhelm is … visionary, I agree. But he’s also … selfish.”

Christian frowned. “That’s not a word I’d use to describe either of you.”

“Don’t compare us,” I said. My voice shook. I wondered where this trembling came from.

“I only meant that both of you use words that change the minds of people, take them from lowly places onto hilltops where they can see farther than they did before. I see compassion in both of you, too.
Ja
, I know how you feel about Wilhelm.” He’d raised his hand to silence my open mouth to protest. “But sometimes when we see only another’s faults, we ignore the other side of those flaws. He’s driven, yes, but also passionate. He acts boldly when needed, though you’d say arrogant. He’s a leader, and sometimes that makes a man single-minded. But that’s you, too, Emma.” My face felt hot with such words. “You must be careful you don’t define our leader with such a narrow view that you become more like those negative qualities you claim he has and ignore the strengths on the opposite sides that each of you share. Virtue and vice, they live together.”

I blinked, at least a dozen times. Charlie pecked at my wrist, wanting more food, but I had none in my hand. Food for thought is what Christian gave me, and I found it hard to swallow.

Andy and I often went out with the men, me serving food to them with some hope that it sped their days. It also gave me opportunity to walk what would someday be fields of grain. I imagined our fields with wheat bending in the breeze. I squeezed my eyes shut to picture our house built one day. I visualized my son growing up to work beside his father. Imagining what might be gave me respite.

The colors in this landscape took my breath away. All the fresh green of moss and trees, the still wet, black vines, the reddish bark of cedars, a rushing river, browned by the tumbling banks of mud that tried to define it, a sky a staggering blue, all acted as an admiring audience for the promise of the meadow’s performance.
Lavish
, I thought.
This is lavish
. Certainly a God who could create such as this would not protest displays of beauty on a person or a place. I wondered if my mother had come to that conclusion and that was why she kept the strand of pearls about her neck.

For some reason an old sermon of our leader’s came to mind, in which he spoke of the prodigal son. He said the word
prodigal
had more than one meaning, and one of its meanings was “lavish, abundant.” That wayward son’s father lavished him with good things, so surely wishing to have abundance was scriptural, wasn’t it? Surely wanting abundance couldn’t be prideful. Why would God have created all that lush growth and glorious land if not for us to experience the fullness of it all?
What good is creation if one doesn’t find awe and joy in it?

I thought back to Bethel. Filigrees and fluff had been permitted on our houses. Elim, Wilhelm and Louisa’s home, stood recognized from the other homes with its size, its many chimneys, and wide porches framed with gingerbread cutouts. Perhaps lavishness was permitted in places other than on an individual person.

I loosened the tie on my worn wrapper, let the warm breeze flow through to dry the perspiration on my skin. I heard the men shout to one another and direct the mules, who jerked against the straps as they hauled another log out of the woods. Perhaps we could be ready for those coming behind us, ready not with physical things like houses but ready to receive them into an abundant place. Maybe Christian was right about my ability to express myself. I could use words to help them see the bounty here, to trust that this was a place chosen for us. Perhaps this bountiful place would be enough to meet all the needs of these people. A house to live in wasn’t nearly as critical as land that could raise grain.

Christian’s parents would bring the grist stones, coming by ship around the Horn; they’d make it possible for us to have flour before the year was out. Wheat of our own grinding, if we got some planted. I needed to honor all that we scouts had done surviving in the Oregon Territory for two winters, keeping always focused on meeting the needs of the colony. Well, almost always.

Andy raced ahead of me, running without falling for his longest time yet. He’d grown. I counted his months. Nineteen. I thought back to the time I carried him. Under other circumstances, another brother or sister would be good for him. But here, with such work to do, it would be better to wait until we were settled into our own hut. I thought to the last time I’d had my monthly flow. It had come back with the good food of the hunters. But I had not known it now for three months.
Three months
. This was already May.

I looked down at my abdomen, ran my hands around it in a warm circle of affection. It was already too late to wait: if I counted right, this baby would arrive in … December. The wettest, coldest, and dreariest month, but also the most prodigal time.