Overcoming Bears

Overcoming Bears

Willow Alber

Copyright belongs to Willow Alber 2013 ©

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Published by Mackay Books

144 Bothwell Park Road

R D 2

Waiuku 2682

New Zealand

heathermackay@xtra.co.nz

Covers: Bove Island in the Tagish Lake, Yukon Territory

Source flickr.com/photos/14963903@N06/2634474873/ 2008

Dedicated to my mysterious great-grandfather, Charles Christopherson, about whom I know so little I had to give him a story.

***

Chapter 1

PAUL

It began with a vibration. An old coyote, grizzled and winter-thin, tensed as the rocky spur beneath his feet trembled to the heartbeat of the train below. Although turbulent clouds covered the moon, his keen eyes saw in a flash of lightning, a small lump of snow detach from the slope ahead and roll away into the darkness. For a few seconds, there was stillness. Then the mountainside began to move.

On the train, east-bound from Seattle, the weary engineer and his brakeman fought for hours to keep the wheels gripping the icy tracks as the northerly gale continued to buffet the carriages. The driver knew the constant throb of the locomotive could set the scene for a slip, the snow underpinned this time of year with gradually melting ice. But he had to keep his shuddering engine running at maximum steam to maintain traction.

Although the howl of the wind drowned all but the monotonous beat, pain stabbed the driver’s ears. The abrupt change in air pressure meant one thing only. He scanned the ridge above. The side of the summit was falling, preceded by waves of dense black cloud.

The fight to save his train had been lost long before tons of snow knocked her sideways. It was 11 p.m. on the twelfth day of April in the year 1916.

The man surfaced slowly, anxiety-ridden from some tortured dream of distressing near-recollections involving other people, a trial of immeasurable hurts. He lay on a bedstead of peeled poles in a wooden pit house smelling of tallow candles and damp clothes. On a set of rough shelves opposite the bed he could see a stack of red plates, an iron skillet and two coiled grass baskets filled with something unidentifiable. Recognizing nothing, aching all over, he got to his feet.

Standing straddle-legged for a moment as the hurts connected unendurably, he was finally able to move to the doorway in the circular wooden wall. An outside fire had collapsed into a pile of grey ash and winking coals. The hut against which doorpost he stood leaning was central to a sizeable village surrounded by pines. The other huts each had a coil of smoke above its roof and children played nearby. Nothing made any sense.

It felt like an early spring morning, the air clear and newly-made. Where was this? What was going on? He was unable to concentrate. Fear of the unknown washed him in sweat. His incomprehensible sounds drew a human presence from behind the hut.

The individual spoke. Ah, awake at last. Do not be afraid. You are safe here. I am Sam.

His English was spoken slowly and clearly.

The man saw before him an Indian, tall and broad across cheek and shoulder.

He covered his fear with truculence. Where is ‘here’? he croaked.

You are at a fishing village of the Colville people. We live here on the western side of our reservation where the spring salmon run. It is good you are alive. We found you in the train under a slide of rock and snow, missed when your people dug out many others. And maybe you would be dead if the men of my family were not looking carefully for useful things. The air, he very bad in your car, but still you were breathing. That was two days ago. It seemed you were not meant to die, so we brought you home with us. He continued quietly, But we do not hold you against your wishes. What is your name?

The man looked down at himself, solid, something familiar in a sea of disorientation. He rubbed his large hand across the nape of his neck, over his head and down the side of his face. He felt short curly hair, neatly-trimmed beard. He tried to gather his thoughts but no name came to mind.

I do not know, he replied, his voice deep with anguish. Can that be possible?

Come. Maybe you look around and remember.

A light snow covered the ground, a brighter whiteness on the pine-covered mountains rising to the pure blue sky in the west. Downhill of the rough houses a river moved sluggishly past, still frozen in places. The few people he could see had skin like leather, dessicated from years in the weather. Four men sat in the village’s centre, one or another speaking occasionally to the group in short bursts while they occupied themselves cleaning their rifles. They glanced up as Sam led the stranger past them, then directed their attention back to their work and conversation.

He sensed his insignificance in such a high and wild landscape. Here was the world he knew, and yet it made known nothing of import to him. His perception fragmented, he turned to his hawk-nosed companion.

No, he said. Nothing.

We walk. Sam helped the man along the river bank away from the stares of other people. They sat down on a large exposed rock. You have a name, worried family somewhere. Try to remember. This is 1916. You rode in a train from west to east. What for?

The man looked blank. How can I know why when I do not even know who I am?

In his peculiar fugue state he felt unready to just wander off, to be alone. Clutching at his only touchstone with reality, and hoping it would keep him safe, he made a rapid decision.

If I am allowed, I would like to stay for a while.

A few days later the salmon run began in earnest and there was no one with time enough to deny him or wonder. The long days were filled with hard work. The fish were netted and speared or, more often, caught in weirs to supply a cannery.

Although salmon eggs and some fresh catch were eaten, most of the fish kept for personal use they smoked or sun dried.

The people named him Paul, after the Biblical character Saul who suffered a collapse on the road to Damascus and reawakened a new man. As the weeks went by his immediate future within the community was discussed at length by the elders, but the final decision was left to Sam, who liked the man. Increasingly aware of the unease he was causing and with a sense of unidentifiable unfinished business, Paul tried unsuccessfully to call up his past. What he did remember was the pain suggested by his waking dream.

He mapped out to himself the logical steps to take to regain his former life. Find the nearest large settlement. Investigate dates in relation to rail accidents. Ask about destinations, passenger lists, newspaper articles, queries from relatives. But both his slow recovery and his state of mind conspired to delay the examination into his identity.

In midsummer, an expedition into the villagers’ traditional hunting grounds began, something, Sam explained, they had been doing annually for thousands of years. Paul was outfitted with knife, matches, compass, rifle, a supply of ammunition. He pushed aside the difficulties he would have to face sometime in the future.

Each evening, while the women put up lodges constructed of simple framework and woven reed mats, the men gutted and skinned the day’s kill and hung the butchered carcasses over smoky fires. Catching the horses the next morning they moved on, following the deer, elk and bighorn sheep. Other people were seldom encountered.

There was brief mention of a war somewhere, but it was another world. The mountains soared and the high, fertile valleys of the plateau calmed his unspecified longing.

In a blaze of autumn colour, Sam’s family came down, below the river falls to settle in for the winter. Here the horses were released to forage for themselves until needed again. Ducks were snared and the eggs gathered. Berry season was followed by the salmon run, and then one morning the ground was covered in deep snow, the sky a grey threat of more. No real pressure was put on Paul to move on.

Winter was mild, temperatures just below freezing at noon and little rain. Most of the time the people stayed inside around the stove, the women weaving intricate baskets, the men mending snowshoes and telling stories about that immortal trickster Coyote. When people had to go outside they would return stamping the melting snow off their boots, beating their hands together to warm them.

Enforced idleness and the inability to refer to an internal filing system gave Paul too much restless time. A sense of emptiness, of displacement, unknowingness crept in. To distract himself he whittled, and found to his surprise that his deceptively clumsy-looking hands almost of their own volition turned out intricately-carved beasts.

He watched the men making snowshoes, bending sturdy hot-water-treated saplings into elongated paddle shapes, cross-bracing, binding, lacing and webbing, and learned to use them, strapping them on to venture out on a brisk clear day and make his way a mile upstream to the scarred wooden building of the trader’s store.

There amidst the dusty shelves and grime-layered windows he was able to sit in an old Windsor chair and while away some of his time with Lester Milne, the half-breed storekeeper. Dullness marked Lester’s daily life, so he was fascinated with Paul’s story.

A coupla months this snow will be gone, he often reminded Paul. Then we find out who you are, eh? Someone must remember a big fella like you.

I will definitely have to make some kind of move, Paul said one day, over the roar of emptiness in his head. I cannot stay here forever. I must belong somewhere.

Chapter 2

When the mid-April winds blasted away the last of the snow and the sturgeon fishing season was in full swing, Sam and his family discussed plans for the summer hunt.

What will you do when we go?

Paul closed his eyes and tried to see something familiar, but glimpsed only shadowy emotion. Dreams of loss and fear of abandonment against which he had no defense still invaded his nights. He opened his eyes, glanced briefly around the hut. His eyes met those of Sam’s daughter, Mariah, where she knelt, modestly clothed to her ankles, to light the fire, and were held by her for a second before she looked away. His turmoil subsided.

How crazy, he thought. She is a rather plain-faced young woman, although her long black hair and well-formed body are beautiful. I am too old for her. I should go. Yet I want to get to know her better. Perhaps it is possible to make a new life for myself. The shadowy dream that haunts me indicates there is something to avoid in the past. Perhaps best out of it. I could easily love Mariah. The dark colour of her skin does not matter to me, nor my pale colour to her. Let us wait and see what develops.

And so for another summer he procrastinated, set aside his imprecise grief and urgency for identity. Again he went into the mountains with the members of Sam’s village.

Late on a day like, but unlike, other days in the mountain camp, he came upon Mariah sitting on a hummock between village and river, braiding her hair. Mariah was tall, like her father, but where Sam was heavy, she was lean, lithe, with her dark hair usually tied back loosely with a piece of string. She had prominent cheekbones and a beautiful smile. At those occasional times when she spoke to him he was impressed with her lightness of being and ease of conversation. Her English was so respectable it was obviously learned at the reservation school.

Mariah smiled as she recognized him.

I do not intend to interrupt you, he said, wondering exactly what he did intend.

She looked at him silently. He thought about a follow-up statement. His approach certainly needed work. He should have come up with a more effective line, but spontaneity had its limits. And finding the girl attractive disadvantaged a man from the start. How to stop looking silly? He wiped the grin from his face and frowned, but that didn’t work. He had never felt less like frowning so he couldn’t maintain any kind of severity. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Surely this was not the first time he had approached a woman? Or maybe every time was a first time. He sure felt nervous. Tongue-tied, he looked down, saw her feet were bare. And noticing, she rescued him.

I do not wear shoes when I am near the water. Sometimes there are fish and I must go into the river to cast the net. Or wash the clothes.

I feel sure that I grew up near water too; I wish I could remember where, he mused.

She looked at him intently. Would it help if you fished with me one day? If it felt familiar you might remember more.

Thank you, he said. I will leave you to your privacy now. I was just on my way to check my snares. I will see you later when we eat.

I think I am finished for the day. I will walk along with you, unless you want to be alone.

All right. Was she just friendly, or was there a change in her attitude toward him? His tension increased.

The snares were empty, the pine trees vibrated with silence. They paused at the edge of a cathedral-like clearing. Mariah walked into the centre.

I wonder about God, she said, and why he should prefer us to worship under a roof when the world He created is so beautiful. Do you know why?

He joined her in the clearing. As he did so, a late beam of sun finding its way between the trees settled on Mariah, anointing her with its radiance. He, already sensing the beauty within, saw the beauty without. Deep inside, trembling emotion warred with an inexplicable sadness that filled him with confusion. He said nothing.

She grinned and broke the spell. I will tell you why. It is not God who prefers it, but the white man. I learned at school that white people do not like to look upon something over which they have no control, she said mischievously. That is why they are always found hiding under a strong roof. The Indian knows that all is magic, and accepts it.

She took his arm and led him out of the circle, directing their feet back toward the camp, bringing him out of his introspection. Surely it is harder for our prayers to fly to God if they must find an open door or window first! Slanting another quick grin at him, she hastened off toward the cooking fire.

In the days that came after, Paul’s mind was often filled with images of Mariah. He watched her drying fruits, nuts and herbs against the winter ahead. He imagined significance in the words she spoke to him. Her presence and the sound of her voice filled him with simple joy, joy that glittered within him like a jewel, joy he knew could become love, but complicated by his unconscious past out of which had appeared a determination to guard himself against the possibility of emotional pain. He pictured an encounter, an embrace, other actions that filled him with a nervous response, made it difficult to acknowledge her without embarrassment when they met in the normal course of a day. These eroticisms came to him whenever he was idle, so he kept himself as busy as possible.

In quiet times he carved. His intricate little animal shapes were quickly snatched up by the children of the village. The entwined lovers he fashioned were kept hidden.

The following summer the family, reduced in male members by those who found excitement at the thought of war, returned again to the mountains. The sun was becoming fiercer each day and the cool of the thinner air was welcome.

Paul, shy and uncertain, had not pursued his private moment of the previous summer with Mariah. Hoping for chance and courage to arrive at the same time he somehow justified to himself the delay in the search for his lost years.

As they travelled, he took inventory. Although he was alive, and recognized in himself knowledge of languages unrelated to either English or the language of the Colville tribe, it effected no awareness. In every other way he was completely recovered and should have left the reservation long since to begin the search. But there was Mariah, and the fact that somewhere a war was happening. This seemed an easy place to wait it out. Remembering the feelings of loss engendered by his waking dream, he knew himself afraid, of what he didn’t know, but it was enough. He couldn’t face fear right now. Later he would rework his plan.

One day impulse struck and he asked Mariah to ride alongside him so they could talk. And she came.

I remember quite a lot from last year, he said. We are not far from your family’s main camp, are we?

Our second home, she replied, if you don’t mind living in a bird’s nest with a roof. I must show you my own secret retreat sometime.

Paul was intrigued. She was at one with her pony, her long black hair braided half-way down its length and pushed behind her strong shoulders.

Why secret? Is there some mystery involved?

Oh, no, she said. "It’s just a place where I can talk to myself and be the real Mariah, instead of the one other people expect.