Joko (44 page)
Authors: Karl Kofoed
Jack looked back at Swan and offered a toothy grin, but in the next instant he began wandering into merchandise.
Johnny finished stacking the pots, quickly apologized to the merchant, then hurried to catch up with Swan and Jack, who had moved to the far side of the store.
Swan shook his head when Johnny arrived. “Well, at least he isn’t picking the stuff up.”
“No, sir,” said Johnny, looking back at the angry merchant. “That’s my job.”
They decided to make their stay as brief as possible.
Johnny picked out four pairs of pants and four shirts. A girl his age was selling the shirts, and Johnny found himself momentarily numbed by her perfume and crinolines. It had been a long time since he’d talked to a girl. Swan wanted to get the shopping over with, herding the boys through the store to a shoe salesman. Quickly they selected a pair of brown Brogan boots and some socks for Jack in the largest available size.
“That should do fine, Mr Swan.” Johnny looked back at the girl. There was no doubt that she’d never noticed him, at least the way he noticed her. But it didn’t matter. Through the haze of smoke that hung in the air her golden hair still beckoned.
“You could use a new hat,” said Swan. “The one you’re wearing will only attract flies. Don’t you think so?”
Johnny frowned. “I like my hat. Jack definitely needs one, though. That ratty old thing he wears is beginning to get ripe for sure.”
They finished their shopping, moving toward the open side exit of the store. “I’ll surely pay you back one day soon, Mr Swan,” said Johnny. “Aunt Gert has money.”
Swan had no time to respond before he found himself sprawled on the floor, wincing with pain. Over him stood the grizzled dungareed form of Pugil Bolk, smiling.
“Swannee,” Pugil mocked. “What‘re ya doin’ down there in the mud?”
As Swan staggered to his feet Johnny could see that he had been hurt.
Jack reached down and helped Swan up while Johnny stood fast, glaring at Pugil, full of rage. Bolk looked at him and the smile left his face. “You gotta problem, boy?” he growled.
Johnny moved toward Pugil, but Swan put out his hand.
“No, Johnny!” He turned to Jack, still holding his arm, and said: “Thanks, Jack.”
Pugil looked around and noticed that people were staring at him. “Hope I see ya agin, Swanee. You, too, buddy boy.”
Then he stalked away.
“I never saw him coming,” Johnny muttered in frustration.
“I could kill that b–”
“Forget it, Johnny,” said Swan. “It isn’t worth the trouble to mess with his kind.”
“But he’s going to hurt you again. You know that,” Johnny retorted.
“I don’t know that at all. I suspect he’s just evening the score.”
“For what?” asked Johnny.
“For defending an Indian. To some people that’s cause to kill a man.” Swan rubbed his shoulder as the feeling returned.
Johnny shook his head. “I just don’t understand.”
“That’s what I like about you, Johnny.”
The res t of the day was less eventful. They walked the length of the docks looking at the sights, eventually ending up at the Point Wilson lighthouse north of town. They took a different route back to the Bash house, past weathered cedar shacks that bordered the statelier parts of town. Behind one, a woman hanging wash sang sweetly. Jack looked at her, obviously fascinated with the sound, and started walking in that direction.
Johnny grabbed his arm. “You can’t just walk on people’s property. Best to stay on the road.” His fingers touched Jack’s wrist and their link was established.
The world of men was confusing Jack more than he’d ever dreamed it would. The store, so full of men and their…? What were those things? All he knew was that Swan was carrying some of those things and he was wearing things called
‘Brogan boots’ on his feet that didn’t hurt as badly as the shoes he’d been wearing in public. He already had blisters on the tops and sides of both feet.
Why the big man pushed Swan was another thing he failed to understand. The man called Pugil was clearly a danger that might return. Why the man was permitted to hurt his kind was certainly confusing. But what perplexed Jack most was why the hostile human should target an older, weaker man. Jack concluded Pugil must be afraid.
Now he was hearing a woman who sounded like a bird.
Johnny had touched him and called to him. He knew that woman was ‘singing’. He never really saw the woman sing.
He didn’t resist Johnny, but he continued to stare after the sound as they continued to the Bash house. Singing.
Something more to think about.
“It’s fascinating to watch Jack’s reactions to things,” said Swan. “He seems to like music.”
“I don’t know if he likes it or not,” said Johnny. “There’s no doubt that he’s drawn to it; curious about it. I’ve wondered about that myself. Music seems to mean something different to Jack than it does to us, but I can’t say what.”
“I’ll bet he’d enjoy an opera. That would give him something to think about.”
“It sure would. Didn’t you say Miss Lillie Langtry is in town?”
“Indeed. Singing tonight at our new hall. Perhaps Henry can get tickets.”
“That would be real fine, Mr Swan,” said Johnny.
“Get culture while you’re in town, Johnny. You don’t hear a songbird like her too often. Not around here. But, as you see, that’s changing.” Swan rubbed his sore shoulder and looked at Johnny. “It’s pretty wild where you come from, up the Fraser River, is it not?”
“I suppose. But the Gold Rush brought folks to town. Lots of them passing through, but some come back busted, settling in Yale. Things are changing. We might have our own opera, one day.”
Jack, walking alongside the two men, whistled softly. The tune imitated the woman’s song.
“Do you think he would be okay at a concert?” asked Swan. “He’s never been in an audience.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“All right.” Swan reached over and touched Jack’s arm.
“What do you say, Jack?” Swan smiled engagingly. “You like singing, don’t you?”
Jack seemed slightly surprised for a moment, then he stroked his chin as if considering Swan’s query. “Singing …” he said. “Woman singing. Big fish singing under canoe.”
Johnny and Swan looked at each other.
“What?” they both said. Swan touched Jack’s forearm and began explaining opera. Swan rambled a bit, uncertain if Jack comprehended.
“I know words. Swan teach words in book.” Jack looked at Swan’s hand on his shoulder. “Johnny touch. You speak.”
Johnny stopped walking. His jaw went slack and he stared at Jack for a minute. “I … Why didn’t …? How long have you been able to talk?”
“How long,” replied the sasquatch, again putting his finger to his chin as Swan often did.
Swan scowled. “How long? Time doesn’t matter to him, Johnny.”
Jack looked at Swan for a moment, then deliberately reached out and took the man’s hand in his. “Swan talk to Jack,” implored the sasquatch. “Jack talk to Swan.”
Swan was speechless. He looked at Jack, mouth open as if to respond, but nothing came out.
“Swan show Jack to talk more,” Jack said, releasing the man’s hand.
Johnny looked down and shook his head. “All this time …”
Little more was said during their walk to the Bash house.
Johnny struggled to remember all the questions he had wanted to ask the sasquatch. Curiously nothing immediately sprang to mind. When they reached the steps of the Bash house, Swan looked at his companions and smiled. “So Jack speaks.”
Jack smiled. “Jack speaks.”
Part XI
Johnny and Swan
tak Jack
on ship to Yale
Swan was quiet for a long time. Without explanation he disappeared to the upper porch overlooking the valley; the place he spent afternoons writing in his journals. Johnny and Jack sat on a bench in the backyard watching Maybelle hang white sheets over a carousel clothesline. Maybelle was humming softly. Her tune blended perfectly with the motions of her work.
All Jack’s life he had seen the wonders of human skills only from a distance. Getting too close to man had its dangers. His kin had felt the bite of the animal traps, a bite worse than a grizzly. Why would something bite that does not eat?
Jack remembered freeing his sister’s arm from a human’s beaver trap. What promised to be a simple ford of a stream became screaming and blood as the metal jaws ripped into her arm. As she struggled, it tore more deeply into her arm.
He managed to free her. But it was too late for Kaa. That was her last day. Kaa sleeps in the earth.
That seemed so long ago. Now he watched Maybelle’s rhythmic motions as she hung out washing. The turning wooden frame reminded Jack of wheels: the railroad and its paths of steel that went over land, over mountains, through valleys, forever. Roads traveled by wheeled monsters of smoke, noise, and fire pulling cages on wheels full of the scent of man. He remembered his train ride to Vancouver.
The cage. The smell of animals.
Once Jack spent a whole afternoon watching a freight train being loaded in a small settlement in some distant mountain pass. And once he had seen a face looking out at him from a passing train. The memory of the face, like Johnny’s. So long ago.
Finally Johnny remembered one question he’d been wanting to ask Jack.
“How did you come to be next to the railroad tracks where we found you?” he asked. “Did you fall off that bluff? Where was your family? Where would sasquatch go?”
“Railroad,” said the sasquatch. “Jack cage in railroad.”
Mrs Watson finished hanging the laundry and turned to face the boys. “What are you two talking about?”
Johnny froze. Seeing his apparent embarrassment,
Maybelle frowned. “Is this conversation for
my
benefit? Are you two takin’ me for a fool?”
“No, ma’am!” Johnny implored. “We were just talking.”
“What’s this about a railroad?” she said. “What fall from a bluff? You said your friend was from Borneo or some such place!”
“Well we aren’t too sure where he’s from,” said Johnny, trying his best to be sincere. “But we don’t know where because Jack can’t say.”
“Can’t say?” squawked Maybelle. “He seems to be sayin’, just fine!”
“We were on a train …” Johnny struggled to make the ends of their conversation fit together. If only Johnny knew what Maybelle had heard.
“So you were on some train in Borneo,” said Maybelle, putting her basket down.
“No, ma’am,” said Johnny. “I work on a train up in British Columbia. I’m going to take Jack back home with me, ’cause he’s got nobody, no home around here.”
Johnny felt he had lied effectively, but Maybelle eyeballed him and said: “Jack saw you on the train up in British Columbia?”
“No. Jack saw the train somewhere around here.”
Maybelle crossed her arms and gave Johnny a doubtful look. “There
ain’t
a railroad around here, son.”
“I know,” said Johnny.
Maybelle looked at Jack. “You’re quiet.”
“Quiet,” said Jack.
She picked up the laundry basket. “I get the feeling that you’re up to some mischief. I can’t say what kind of mischief, but I think it’s not gonna hurt anyone but you. Walk softly, boys.”
Johnny listened without comment.
“I had kin with … railroad stories … too,” she said quietly.
“Ever hear of the Freedom Railroad, Johnny?”
“I heard of the Underground Railroad,” said Johnny, “but I never heard of the Freedom Railroad.”
“Well, it meant freedom so we called it that,” she said.
“Mind your tongues, boys,” she said and walked back to the house.
Johnny watched her go, then he turned to Jack. “Maybe our old way of talking was better … except it meant touching all the time.”
Later that afternoon Johnny had a long talk with Swan. After hearing the details of the conversation with Maybelle, Swan considered telling Henry and Maybelle the true story. He considered that it might make life less complicated if more sympathetic people were involved.
I wonder what Henry would say
, mused Swan, looking at Jack.
Jack was beginning to understand what the humans were saying, but even when the conversation was about him and being conducted in Jack’s presence, the humans rarely talked directly to him. It was this frustration that forced Jack to use the human tongue.
Again, Jack was the lone wolf. He remembered the baying call of his clan whenever he was around. That noise.
‘Aaaaoooooo’. It meant wolf without clan, a desperate and dangerous predator. Jack had heard it all his life
.
Johnny, Jack, and Swan sat side by side in ornate metal chairs on a filagreed upstairs porch, watching flaming pink and orange clouds behind the Olympic mountains. Port Townsend’s gaslights were lit and the spring night was unusually warm. A bell sounded in the kitchen indicating that supper was being served.
Maybelle had roasted a large goose and, taking a tip from Johnny that Jack enjoyed nothing more than a nice fat sweet potato, she had cooked up plenty and made sure that some of them were a little raw.
“We’ll be on a boat in two days,” said Swan as he rose to go downstairs. “The less we say, the less attention we’ll draw to Jack. Meanwhile, we can take heart that the odds are with us. He’s a foreigner in a town frequented by foreigners. This place is full of lost souls, and most of them, like me, wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Jack looked best in a hat. The small bowler actually made him look dapper, Johnny observed as they finished dressing for the concert. Henry had loaned Johnny a white shirt, a green satin vest, and a dark jacket and pants. Clothes from Henry’s younger years provided Johnny with more than enough attire, while Jack’s heavier frame fitted Henry’s discards from more recent years. They were adm irably dressed for the opera.
By 7:30 they were on Admiral Street in sight of the theater. It glowed brightly with extra gaslights. “More people than I’ve seen in one place for a while,” Swan said, excitement twinkling in his eyes.
“Yup,” replied Henry. “Miss Langtry is quite the attraction.”
From the moment he caught sight of the theater Jack’s heart was filled with foreboding. He found himself elbowing his way among humans, smelling countless unfamiliar aromas.
Johnny walked close beside Jack, gripping his sleeve, while Swan and Henry walked ahead laughing about recipes for roast skunk.
“How many men can taste the difference between owl and hawk?” said Swan.
The crowd swept the four into the foyer of the theater, already filled to capacity. Top hats, cigar smoke, and the din of a hundred voices dazzled human and sasquatch alike.
Henry had somehow secured seats near the stage;
“Where Miss Langtry is said to prefer to stand,” he told Swan as they moved toward their seats.
Swan glanced around, smiling and nodding. Already seated were the town aldermen, a group from the women’s auxiliary, the mayor and his family. “Auspicious company indeed … ladies … your honor,” said Swan, taking off his bowler.
The mayor eyed Jack doubtfully. “Do I know you boys?” he asked, grabbing Jack’s arm.
Jack pulled away and eyed the man but Johnny pushed Jack toward his seat. At that moment a roar sprang from the audience as the house lights dimmed and footlights suddenly brightened before them. They had barely gotten Jack settled into his seat when a man, dressed in a dark green suit and gold vest, walked to center stage.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of Port Townsend, please be seated. Miss Lillie Langtry, fresh from her two week stay in San Francisco and Portland …”
Jack sat between Johnny and Swan, looking up at the man on stage. Around him a sea of faces looked eager and attentive. Before Jack could absorb this, an orchestra began playing Home on the Range. After a few moments, more lights came on as a thick asbestos wall lifted, revealing an intricately folded curtain of crimson and gold.
The man shouted. “With no further ado … I give you, Jersey Lillllll, the Great … Miss Lillie Langtry!”
Cheers and more applause followed as the curtain lifted, revealing a woman dressed in a pink ruffled dress and carrying a parasol. She stood demurely, her face nearly hidden in the shadow of a large plumed pink hat.
Jack looked around as the applause and the music swelled and seemed to fill the theater. Above their heads blue smoke curled in the shafts of light that illuminated the stage and the woman.
The beautiful Jersey Lil, lovelier than anyone Johnny had ever imagined, was flanked by a small orchestra on her right and a group of four men on her left.
Johnny looked at Swan, Henry and then at Jack. He found it amusing that there was no difference in their expressions.
Everyone was wide eyed with mouths agape.
Lillie lifted her head and revealed her face to the audience.
He felt the sasquatch jump as all the humans began to cheer more loudly. But soon only the sound of violins, piano and banjos filled the hall.
Johnny recognized the music. He had had heard the song many times. Its title came to his mind as the woman began singing: “I Dreamed I Dwelt in Marble Halls”.
Johnny mused that her voice was unlike anything Jack had ever heard, but that was true of nearly everyone in the theater. A traveling reporter and music critic from the London Times who was touring the northwest augmented the local reviews the next day. He had followed Miss Langtry for the last three weeks and reported that her voice: “broke everyone’s heart in Port Townsend.”
Swan and Henry agreed that hearing Lillie Langtry reminded them of lost loves, distant places and the romance of youth. For Johnny, the real Lillie Langtry surpassed his expectations. Her femininity overwhelmed him. Johnny had seen the most desirable female he could imagine, standing before him and singing with the voice of an angel. He left the theater mesmerized, but the cool night and long walk back to the Bas h house listening to Swan’s romantic memoirs sobered him right up.
Jack had seemed to have no unusual reaction to the performance. As far as Johnny could tell he had been one with the audience, absorbed in Lillie just as they had all been.
Only when Lillie asked the audience to join her in singing
Danny Boy
and
Oh Susannah
had Jack seemed unsure of what to do, but Johnny had been right there next to him for moral support.
Johnny did recall that near the end of the performance Jack had drawn one knee up under his chin and his eyes were closed. He had whispered to Swan that Jack was being
‘invisible’.
A late spring snow lay on the ground when Johnny awoke the next day. He noticed that Jack was not in his cot by the window where he normally slept. Johnny turned over and yawned. When he opened his eyes Jack was looming over him.
“What is it, Jack?” he said, trying to focus into Jack’s large brown eyes.
The sasquatch walked over to the opened balcony door. A cold breeze swept into the room.
“Close the door, Jack. It’s freezing in here!”
Jack motioned for Johnny to join him. A minute later he had pulled on his breeches and was standing next to Jack.
“This better be good,” he said, shivering.
Jack pointed across the street. There, walking slowly along the road and staring at the Bash house, were Earl and Pugil Bolk. When the two men noticed the boys looking at them they continued down the road and were gone.
“I wonder what to make of that?” Johnny put a hand on Jack’s arm and smiled. “Thanks, Jack. I think we ought to mention this to Swan.” Johnny closed the door to the balcony.
“It’s freezing in here, Jack … I guess it doesn’t bother you … eh?”
Jack sat down on the floor and frowned. “Men hurt Swan.”
“That’s right,” answered Johnny.
Swan was still asleep in the next bedroom. Other than the two boys, only Maybelle was up. Jack could hear her humming in the kitchen. Johnny grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself.
He touched Jack’s shoulder again and asked how long the men had been watching the house, but the sasquatch, still unfamiliar with the concept of measuring time, had no idea how to answer him.
“Have they been there since the sun came up?” Johnny asked, still touching Jack’s shoulder.
“Men walk road … more,” Jack answered after some deliberation.
Jack’s words made little sense to him but in his mind Johnny could picture the Bolks walking past the house several times. “I see. They’re definitely up to something.”
An hour later saw the entire household gathered for breakfast in the kitchen. Swan sat across from Henry at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, and Henry was seated in his usual chair nearest the stove reading the Port Townsend Sentinel.
“Sure is cold this morning.” Henry looked up as Johnny and Jack came into the room. “I do hope no one left a window open.”
“It was Jack,” said Johnny. “He was watching the Bolks from our balcony.”
“What’s that you say?” said Swan. “The Bolks?”
“Jack woke me up,” said Johnny. “They were stalking the house all morning.”
Henry shook his head and looked back at the newspaper.
He opened it to the second page and pointed to a small block of newsprint. “I’m not surprised. Charges were filed against Pugil Bolk for unruly behavior in the municipality. Thaddeus’ conscience got the better of him, perhaps.”
“Nothing about beating a chief’s son?” asked Johnny.
“Well,” said Henry, looking at the text again. “It says that Pugil was charged. Doesn’t mention the Indian.”
“Pugil is guilty,” offered Swan.
“But it doesn’t say that,” argued Johnny.
Henry smiled and put down the newspaper. “I see what you’re saying, Tilbury, but whether the notice is sympathetic to the Indian or not, Pugil thinks it is.” He sighed deeply. “I think this is a good time for you to be leaving town again, Swan. I’ve seen Pugil in action before. We can’t stop him from carrying out some vengeful act if he wants to. He might get hung one day for his dark nature. In fact I feel sure he will.