Joko (29 page)

Johnny was very impressed by Swan’s quick thinking.

The sasquatch bed,
he thought,
would be Jocko’s, and his, undoing
.

Swan appeared cheerful, personable, and not at all a person with something to hide. Johnny wondered why Swan hadn’t gone into politics. Big Hat was still sniffing the air, looking around the room and scowling. Finally he said something quietly to Ta-nas -sis, the squaw. She too sniffed the air and began looking around the cabin suspiciously. She peered at the nest and lifted some branches to see underneath, then she shook her head and said something to her husband. He looked at Swan and laughed out loud.

Swan had gone over to the fireplace to begin heating some water. He took out his pipe and began filling it with tobacco from a little pouch in his shirt pocket.

“Well, since you folks were good enough to carry provisions all the way from Port Townsend, I can now indulge my evil habits, tobacco and coffee.” He looked at Charles.

“You
did
bring tobacco, I hope.”

Charles had seated himself at the reading table and was looking at Swan’s notebooks.

“Ki-noose,” he said to the squaw. She rose immediately and went to their packs and began untying them. Charles watched her for a moment before continuing. “Yes, Swan. We brought you everything you wanted.” He winked at Swan.

“You want something else, too.”

“And what would that be?”

Charles reached into a leather sack and pulled out a pint of rum, then two bottles of ‘Red Rye’ whiskey. He put the three bottles on the table.

Swan smiled broadly, but just as quickly as it had come, the smile left his face. “Oh well, Charles. I haven’t been in the company of old rye for a while. You know how to please me, for sure, but …” Swan squirmed uncomfortably. “I guess no one told you, Charles, but one of the reasons I came to this cabin was to get away from the
kil-lic’soe
,
La bottaile
.”

Swan turned to Johnny. “That’s the Jargon for bottle.”

Charles stared at Swan. “Wha’ah? No
bottaile
?”

Swan realized he had inadvertently offended his friend.

Since it was illegal everywhere to supply the Indians with liquor, Charles had risked possible arrest if he had been caught carrying it.

“Oh, my good friend, I am sorry,” implored Swan. “I know you went to considerable trouble to bring me my favorite drink. I find myself in a difficult situation, however, you see.”

Charles listened patiently as Swan groped with an explanation. He sighed and sat back. The wooden chair creaked a protest.

Johnny had been paying attention to their conversation, but with only half an ear. His real concerns were the Indians who were still puzzling about the curious smell that lingered near the nest. The squaw had said something to her husband, Clat-te-wah. He now joined Big Hat in sniffing the air.

“I’ll bet you never said anything to Charles about giving up drink,” said Johnny in a voice loud enough to distract the other Indians. He looked at Swan. “And Charles carried them all the way from Port Townsend. If Swan doesn’t want to drink

… well then, shouldn’t the bottles belong to Charles?”

Perhaps Charles was tired or he was mulling over the rules of ‘potlatch protocol’ – Swan’s term for the Indians’ rules of gift giving – but it was clear the idea of drinking was not far from Charles’ mind. He nodded agreeably.

Swan seized the moment. “John’s right, my friend. I’m getting too old for spirits, Charles. It’s not that I don’t want it.

It’s … well, you understand, don’t you? Consider them a gift to you and your friends with my gratitude.”

Swan gestured to the fireplace. “Charles, you and your friends must be,
hah-wehls
, hungry, yes? I would like very much cooking you … us … a nice ham.”

By now the other three Indians were paying close attention to Swan. When he mentioned the ham they all smiled, and when Charles uncapped the Texas ‘Red Eye’ they got even happier.

Johnny could tell from the way Swan acted he was not at all happy about the situation. Many times he had heard Swan complain about the negative effect spirits had on the Indians.

But Johnny knew that Swan, like himself, didn’t want the Indians worrying about the sasquatch either. Giving them the liquor seemed the lesser of the two evils.

Charles passed the bottle around among the Indians.

They each took a modest sip and passed it to Johnny. He took a sip and quickly handed it to Swan. The liquor exploded on his tongue and he winced and coughed. The Indians chuckled at him.

Swan held the bottle then lifted it to his nose. He observed the tears streaming down Johnny’s face and said:

“Mmmmmmm, Yes. The powers of Old Rye.” Swan sniffed the bottle a second time, sighed sadly, then passed it on to Charles. “No, I better not.”

As Charles took another swig all seemed right with the world, but out of the corner of his eye Johnny couldn’t help noticing Big Hat who was still puzzling over the nest.

Suddenly Big Hat looked at Charles and said: “Sasquatch!”

Johnny and Swan froze, but Swan was the portrait of aplomb. He looked over at Big Hat and said: “What’s that you said?”

“Sasquatch,” repeated the Indian. “I remember smell. It is a sasquatch.”

The other Indians looked surprised at first, then they all laughed.

Johnny hadn’t breathed since Big Hat made his proclamation. It had cut through him like a knife.

It’s over
, he thought.
I knew it!

Swan’s apparent calm reassured him. “Well, gentlemen, do I hear a general agreement on the ham?”

The Indians didn’t react. Their curiosity aroused, they focused their attention on Big Hat who was now standing before them, obviously agitated. He looked at Swan.

“Sasquatch. I smelled him once, long ago, when I was
tenas,
a little boy.” The Indian got up and walked over to Swan, but Swan seemed to pay little attention. He busied himself with the dinner implements.

There was silence in the cabin. Johnny found that he could bear it no longer. “I don’t get it. What’s a sasquatch?”

“Men of forest,” answered Charles. “Only real.”

Swan laughed. He stood up straight with a groan as though his back hurt. “What’s this you’re talking about, Big Hat?” he asked, twisting his back into line.

Johnny realized Swan was posturing to feign a casual attitude, but he knew it was false. The question was, did the Indians know? Trying to act as casual as possible himself, he walked over to the door and opened it. A cold blast of damp air filled the room. “Have to visit the latrine.” He stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

He realized immediately that he’d forgotten his jacket, and shivered. He stared out among the trees but saw no sign of Jocko. He figured that he’d better head off to the latrine anyway to complete the illusion.

When he got to the latrine he stood staring into the woods. He called out to Jocko as loudly as he dared but got no response.

Out in the woods, perhaps a thousand yards from where Johnny stood, lay a pair of blue overalls and a plaid shirt. A mile beyond, Jocko stood in the shadow of a tall spruce. He wondered if he had put enough distance between himself and the Indians.

His instincts told him to continue running, but he couldn’t.

By now he understood the human’s plan. He was learning human ways to become human, but the strangers frightened him. Now the plan seemed impossible. How would he ever conquer the reaction to flee when humans approached?

Jocko looked at the furry backs of his hands, then down at his hairy body. The wind suddenly caught him full in the face and he found himself wishing for the warmth of the cabin. He had never had the option to get warm before, except when he snuggled close to his mother.

Where was she?

Jocko sat down behind a large rock and folded his arms around himself. His mind grappled with thoughts of two families from two worlds. He tried to picture his mother lying near him in a sweet grove of cedar. The memory warmed him, but it was fleeting. Somehow no picture of her actually came to mind. She was too far out of reach.

Tormented by his confusion, Jocko curled into a ball, and in the mysterious recesses of his consciousness, old instincts surfaced. They cloaked him, warmed him, and lulled him to sleep, the safe secure sleep of the unseen
.

Johnny stood near the latrine. Without his coat the damp forest pulled the heat from his body rapidly. The sasquatch was nowhere around. He could feel the emptiness. As he walked the rocky path back to the cabin, he slipped and fell on his injured knee. A flash of pain proved his leg was not yet healed. Johnny sat for a moment in the damp pine needles and gritted his teeth as the pain slowly subsided. He almost wished he had screamed. At least then his pain would have some purpose. His scream might send a message to the sasquatch, but he’d lost that opportunity. He sat there sulking and holding his knee.

Johnny wondered why Jocko hadn’t at least stayed nearby. “How come you run off so?” he said under his breath.

“I thought you were gettin’ used to us humans.” He wondered how the sasquatch would ever acclimate to man if this was his usual reaction to all strangers. He thought of the hours that he and Swan had spent with the mountain-boy, then he recalled a moment, perhaps a month before, when Jocko had watched Johnny shave with Swan’s razor, an act he found fascinating. Jocko caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror Johnny was using. The sasquatch reacted as though stung by a bee.

Johnny had seen Jocko’s reaction and touched him, asking what was wrong. Suddenly he could feel Jocko’s anxiety and confusion. Johnny knew it was seeing his reflection that troubled the sasquatch. He remembered seeing a sadness sweep across Jocko’s face, and he remembered the feelings he got from Jocko. Apparently Jocko had never noticed the mirrors in Gert’s house or the small one in Swan’s cabin. Suddenly seeing his own image in the mirror revealed something horrible to the sasquatch, and their link at that moment gave Johnny his first view of Jocko’s family.

He could see their ape-like countenances through Jocko’s memory, as if through Jocko’s eyes; a huge hulking figure with a face that seemed somehow beastly yet personable.

This was Jocko’s mother. She had pendulous breasts that seemed to originate higher on her chest than those of humans. She was covered, head to foot, with long brown hair.

Lumbering along behind her were two smaller females, and walking independently of the others was a male sasquatch.

These, Johnny knew, were Jocko’s two sisters and brother.

When he severed his link with Jocko the image had vanished from his mind, but the memory remained. Johnny had now seen the mountain apes for himself and suddenly realized, as Jocko did, that Jocko didn’t resemble his kin. He remembered standing before the small mirror looking at Jocko and knowing they had both learned something astonishing. Despite his facial hair, his wide neck and sloping forehead, Jocko looked human.

Johnny got up and dusted off the dirt and pine needles from his pants. The wind was beginning to blow harder, but the thought of going back into the cabin with all the strange Indians asking questions did not appeal to him at all. Another gust of icy wind sent him scurrying despite his apprehension.

As he approached the cabin, the door opened and the four Indians came out, arguing with Swan.

“Please, Charles,” Swan implored his friend, “I assure you that the place isn’t haunted. I don’t know what Big Hat smelled. Believe me, there’s no sasquatch here. Please stay at least the night.”

Swan’s arms fell limply to his sides in disappointment as the Indians ignored his pleas and continued down the path.

They barely noticed Johnny.

“What happened?” Johnny asked.

Swan shook his head. Swan’s friend Charles came out of the cabin, still packing the three bottles deeply in a sack. He stopped and faced Swan.

“I don’t know, Swan. The others say we must go.” He shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “We’ll camp by the river, three days. Maybe hunt.
Qui-tle mo-wich
.”

Swan turned to Johnny. “
Mo-wich
means ‘deer’ in Chinook.”

Charles walked back to Swan and held out his hand.

“Thanks for the whiskey.”

Swan smiled and took the Indian’s hand. “And I thank you for bringing the supplies. But aren’t you even going to stay for the
ham
?”

Charles shrugged again. “Me? Yes. Them? No,” he said.

“She says sasquatch bad luck. Bad skookum.” Charles laughed, then he adjusted his pack and trotted down the path to join the others.

Johnny and Swan watched for a moment as their four visitors disappeared into the shadows, then they went inside.

Johnny walked over to the fireplace and started rubbing heat into his numb fingers. He shivered. “Sorry they left like that, Mr Swan. I didn’t mean to act unneighborly toward your friends, but I was worried about Jocko.”

Swan smiled. “That’s okay, Johnny. I think we’d said all that we had to say.”

“Well, what was it that drove them off?” asked Johnny.

Swan started to laugh. “They think a sasquatch lives here.

Big Hat said he smelled one.”

Johnny looked at him wide-eyed and began laughing.

Their laughter grew and overtook them until tears flowed down their cheeks.

As it turned out, Charles did come back for dinner. Apparently the thought of a nice hot ham dinner overcame his fear of any tribal superstitions. Besides, he knew Swan’s reputation as an excellent cook and had been looking forward to it. When Charles arrived, Swan welcomed him openly and expressed regret that the other three Makahs were driven off.

The Indian smiled. “They fear what they do not know.” He looked around the room at all the foliage. “I think your botany maybe scared them, too.”

Swan laughed. “Afraid of a few plants?”

Charles scowled and said he didn’t believe in the sasquatch, but most of his people did.

“Why don’t you believe it?” asked Swan.

Charles shrugged. “Hmmm … never saw one.” He made himself comfortable at the small table and cast an expectant eye at the stew pot Johnny was holding. He sniffed the air.