Joko (36 page)

Johnny was aghast. “Life?”

Their year in the cabin had taught Johnny that Swan liked nothing better than a good joke. He began to think Swan was having some fun at his expense. “What do you take me for? A fool?”

Swan smiled at Johnny. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t be telling you this. I know these things sound preposterous. New ideas always do. But speaking of preposterous; are you ignoring the fact that we’re on a first name basis with a sasquatch?” Swan tipped his head in the direction of Jack and grinned.

“You know, I was thinking about Port Townsend, sort of running things over in my mind.” He picked up Jack’s notebook and pencil and slipped them carefully into the sleeping sasquatch’s pack, then he put a hand in his coat pocket and pulled out his diary. He noticed Johnny watching him. “Oh, well, I’ve a few thoughts I want to jot down.” Swan cut a new point on his pencil with a pocketknife. “But, as I was saying, I’ve been imagining the worst thing someone might ask us about Jack. I mean, say, he gets to acting up.” His shoulders shook as he chuckled softly. “Or, say somebody sees his furry body and asks about it.”

“Yeah,” answered Johnny. “I’ve wondered about that myself.”

Swan grinned. “What if we say; ‘This is Jack. He’s from Sumatra where the people are hairy as apes.’”

“You wouldn’t say
that
!”

Swan held out his pipe. “Well, what if I had me a dose of Old Rye and
did
say something like that. Just for instance?”

“Well,” said Johnny, “I don’t think you’d really do that. But what’s your point?”

Swan laughed. “Okay, suppose we tell them Jack’s from Sumatra and they don’t believe us; sayin’ something like …

‘Hell, I’ve been to Sumatra and folks there-abouts don’t look like him!’” He looked at Johnny and winked. “Well, John, I’ll look him square in the eye and say: ‘Okay, you got me. He’s a sasquatch!’” Swan roared with laughter.

Johnny stared at the man, unsmiling.

When he saw that Johnny wasn’t amused, Swan composed himself. “The point I’m so poorly making, John, is that no one would believe us if we told the truth. Just as you scoffed at the idea of men flying to Mars. I might get run out of town for playing them for fools, but they’d never believe Jack’s a sasquatch; especially one wearing pants.”

Johnny thought about it, then shook his head. “Costerson would believe you. He’s the only one who would, I guess. But if he’s around …”

Swan scowled. “Costerson is long gone by now. What’s to keep him prowling around if he thinks you two are drowned at sea?”

Johnny frowned. “I don’t know. I think I haven’t seen the last of him.”

“Well, John,” Swan said with a sigh. “I doubt that you will.

But now I want to make some notes. Then we should get to sleep. We’ve some rowing to do tomorrow.”

Johnny nodded as his eyes returned to the heavens. Like a great black velvet canopy, night’s wonder loomed above him. Mars twinkled on the horizon like a tantalizing red fairy.

He wondered what it looked like through a telescope.

“Someday, we’ll have the answers to all our questions,” said Johnny.

“I sincerely doubt that, as well,” said Swan.

Dawn found the three travelers breakfasted and well on their way to Seal Rock, a jut of land that acted as a gathering point for seals and great flocks of seabirds. Swan and Johnny dug their paddles deeper into the water after Swan noticed thick clouds gathered overhead, but the fair weather held and the air was warm . The water was very smooth and seemed to offer no resistance to the canoe as it knifed the glassy surface, brushing aside an occasional floating patch of kelp and its crustacean passengers.

Jack sat quietly in his favored position; braced solid, holding the sides of the canoe with his feet around the packs, and watching the water.

Sitting behind the sasquatch might have been an unpleasant experience for Swan had the three not taken the time to wash in the pool near the campsite before they broke camp. The Indian trick of spreading sandy mud all over oneself like soap, then rinsing it off, made Johnny feel less offensive and had worked well to reduce Jack’s distinctive odor.

The clouds evaporated into clear sky far to the east where the great dome of Mount Baker loomed. From then on the mountain was a constant companion on their travels. Swan often gazed at it, studying its implacable white cone. In the evening it was the last thing to catch the setting sun, a great vermillion mass with a cap of pink cloud, and in the morning its blue grey shadow loomed like a ‘great dark warrior marching from the East’, as Swan’s friend Swell had described the mountain.

“It has always spoken to us,” the Makah chief had said. “It reminds us of the white man’s coming like the wind and seeing only yellow gold, not the land and not the people who have always called this place their home.”

As he listened to Swan’s stories, Johnny watched the mountain, but to him it was only a symbol of how far he was from home. He had never seen Mount Baker before, and it amazed him. Every time he looked, it appeared different in some way, but it always seemed very far away. It was so huge that Johnny couldn’t imagine having never seen or heard of it before.

A storm was moving in from the northwest. The horizon darkened behind them, making the eastern light seem even brighter. “Weather’s so damned unpredictable around here,”

Swan said uneasily. “We’d better keep a lookout for places to land if we get a blow.”

Johnny glanced over his shoulder and sized up the looming blue-grey clouds. “No sign of rain yet,” he replied. But as the words passed his lips, fat raindrops began hitting his hat. The rain came, not from behind but from the north.

Instinctively Swan shifted his paddle to bring them closer to the shore, but there were no sheltered coves, only unrelenting cliffs of rough rock and forest.

“Tuck into it, Johnny,” Swan shouted. “We’ve got a ways to go before we can land, it seems.”

Johnny was already paddling harder and beginning to worry. Jack seemed largely unconcerned, and he surveyed the waves and the sky serenely even as tiny chunks of hail bounced off his hat.

Wrapped in clothes, the sasquatch felt like he was clad in an extra skin, keeping him warmer and protecting him from the elements. Being less hairy than his kin, Jack had always had more scratches and injuries. Now he understood why people wore clothes.

To Jack, seeing himself as protected from the elements, the gale was great fun, but his mind was focused on the peculiar sounds emanating from the water. He could hear them through his body, very softly; long melodic calls like those of great birds, but strangely hollow and echoing.

It annoyed Jack that he had to guess what was making these sounds. He searched the open water for signs of life, but all he could see were white-capped waves.

The wind hit them hard from the north, pushing them farther away from shore.

“Tuck into it, John,” repeated Swan breathlessly.

Johnny’s tight shoulders already ached from two hours of steady paddling. Twinges of pain shot up his neck as he resisted the cold and tried to concentrate on keeping them headed where Swan wanted them to go. Within minutes waves began to form, and before long they found themselves paddling uphill, hoping they wouldn’t be upended or roll over on the inevitable downhill of each wave.

There was nothing Jack could do but hold on firmly to the sides of the dugout. The sharp calls from the deep were nearer, judging from the vibrations he felt resonating against the hull.

They reminded him of warning calls. Were they warnings from the sea?

Jack wondered how a storm might threaten animals in the safety of the deep sea. Unlike birds, who were vulnerable to storms, these creatures couldn’t get wetter from the rain. And the wind could not touch them. Why would they issue calls of danger? The more Jack pondered the mystery the deeper it became.

A heavy hail began to fall, splashing loudly into the white-capped waves that buffeted the dugout. Johnny and Swan shouted to each other as they paddled frantically toward shore. Swan was an expert oarsman, but not in a Haida canoe. He had told Johnny he’d seen the flimsy looking boats stay righted in frightening seas. Still, he doubted his skills and decided they’d be better off trying to land.

The wind calmed slightly as they neared the rocky shore.

As they rounded the point they could see a cove with a narrow stretch of beach. Swan pointed to it and they both rowed feverishly toward it. They entered the cove just as something white caught Johnny’s eye. A long white plume of cloud had lifted from the water, perhaps a quarter mile from shore.

Swan saw it too. “Waterspout!” he yelled. “Stay sharp, John!”

Jack was watching it too. While the two men worked to get the canoe ashore, he was the model of cooperation, sitting as immobile as a statue.

When the wooden hull scraped stones Swan and Johnny immediately bolted into surf and began pulling the boat up.

Jack leapt out after them to help. Johnny looked back at the waterspout, moving away from them. All of them paused a moment to watch it, then they dragged the boat as quickly as possible a safe distance up the beach. The rain hit hard in fat round droplets. Swan turned the canoe over on top of the bags, and then he and Johnny bolted after Jack into the woods.

Finally the three of them stood huddled together, sheltered by tall pines, as they watched the storm ravage the Hood Canal. The waterspout was gone, but in its place sheets of rain laced with hail turned the air and water white.

Jack started gathering ferns and dry wood for a shelter while Swan and Johnny got a fire going. At one point Swan nudged Johnny and pointed to Jack. “He’s in step all the way, yes?”

Johnny nodded. “He seems to know what to do, all right. I suspect the wet clothes are hanging heavy on him.” Johnny walked over to Jack. The sasquatch turned and met his eyes.

It had been a long time since Johnny had ‘linked’ with the Jack. While in the company of the Indians, Johnny had avoided it except when necessary. He and Swan agreed that Jack would have to start relying on the same methods of communications as humans. But now he felt it might be time for some direct communication. Jack squatted near the growing fire to warm himself. Unlike Johnny who had managed to get only his pants wet upon landing on this shore, Jack had gotten soaked to the skin. Now he sat close to the fire shivering.

“How do you like your clothes, Jack?” asked Johnny, putting a hand on Jack’s bare wrist.

Johnny suddenly felt colder. A shiver ran through his body as Jack’s eyes met his own.

“Jack a man,” said the sasquatch, looking down at his damp coat and pants. “Clothes make man.”

Swan laughed. “We have an aristocrat amongst us, John.

Indeed, Jack. Clothes do make the man.”

Johnny frowned at Swan. Linked as he was with Jack, he sensed that the sasquatch felt cold, unusually so. The clothing that had kept him dry was now keeping him wet, and his body was having difficulty warming up.

“Take off the clothes for a while so they can dry,” said Johnny. “Hang them on a branch near the fire.”

Jack hesitated for a moment before wrestling out of his clothes. Soon he was seated again between Swan and

Johnny, naked but for his cap.

“Good,” said the sasquatch, folding his arms around his legs and placing his chin on his knees.

Swan and Johnny looked at the furry legs between them, and then at each other.

“To tell the truth,” said Swan, “my trousers could use some drying, too.”

Johnny looked down at his wet pants. The chill he’d felt bonding with Jack had lingered, but the reason was physical, not mental. He was cold and wet. A few minutes later three pairs of pants hung near the fire. Also lined up being warmed by the fire were three sets of naked knees.

When he left his aunt’s house, Johnny’s fee for his help with the sasquatch had been paid, and his aunt had put it in trust for him. If he died, she would get the money. Johnny was sure that by now she was in possession of the money and hopefully over any grieving she might have had for the loss of her nephew. That was the part Johnny couldn’t bear wondering about. How had Gert taken the news that he was lost at sea? Had she believed it? Had she staged a burial?

Had she contacted Wakely’s store, where Johnny roomed when he stayed in Lytton, and told them to ship his few belongings to her? Or would have Ned been charged with that task? And what of Barnum and Costerson?

Ever since he had left the steamship, every time he thought of Gert Johnny would end up feeling depressed and guilty. He knew that all of this would have to be reckoned with, sooner or later, but for the moment the agony of uncertainty was often too much for him.

On the few occasions he had discussed these things with Swan, the man always helped him see things more clearly.

Swan said he thought Johnny had nothing to fear from Barnum or Costerson. “Once you had disappeared into the sea the deal was done, and the money was Gert’s,” were Swan’s exact words. Swan also said that he thought Johnny’s aunt would, “probably endure her temporary loss in good order.”

While they warm ed their cold legs by the fire, Swan speculated that Barnum’s cloak of secrecy over the ‘Jocko Deal’ meant agreements had been made by handshake, not signatures on paper. Gert had gotten cash. Therefore, no paper trail could be used legally against Johnny or his aunt, in or out of court. “Simply put, John,” he said. “No contract, no fault.”

In Swan’s opinion, the cash Barnum had fronted was a gamble. His dealer in the game was Costerson. “After you went overboard,” said Swan, “Costerson had no choice but to stay and search for a body. The ship may have lingered for a while or he might have disembarked to search. But from what you told me, the man wasn’t alerted until they found out it was you and the sasquatch that had gone overboard.”

Swan stretched out cold fingers to warm near the flames.

His pipe was clenched in his teeth as he spoke. “Then, after nothing turned up, no bodies, no Jack, Costerson would, no doubt, cable Barnum and perhaps travel to Sarasota for a reckoning.”