The Forest Lover Read Free

laugh, throaty, deep, and loud. “No. Not a missionary’s wife. That’s one thing I’m sure of.”
    â€œKlee Wyck,” the auntie said. Others repeated it, grinning.
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Emily asked.
    â€œLaughing One,” Rena said. “You.”
    Emily laughed again to please them.

2: Cedar
    In the morning, with her sketch sack slung over her shoulder, she took a walk far down the beach in the mist. Breathing in sea tang, she felt like her mouth and throat were coated with brine. She looked back at the forest—more dense and tangled and full of mystery than the forested part of Beacon Hill Park at home. How could she ever paint it? No art school taught how to paint such immense, paralyzing magnificence.
    She felt about to burst. She’d walked too far to make it back to the mission house. She hurried into the forest, hid behind a cedar trunk, lifted her long skirt and petticoat, and squatted. Dede would have been appalled. Well and good. Dede fancied herself above human urges.
    Thunder cracked the sky and startled her. Rain worked its way through the canopy of boughs. The watercolors in her pad would be ruined. She went deeper into the forest for denser cover and saw a small wooden house painted with a curved symbol surrounded by figures of children frolicking. A hide hung at the entrance.
    â€œHello,” she called, but heard only the rippling of chickadees. She went in. In the middle of the packed earthen floor, a fire pit caught rain from the smoke hole. Against the back wall a cedar platform was finely chiseled in a herringbone pattern, the edge fluted vertically. Someone had taken great care. She passed her hand over the subtle texture. Only love could make of such a simple need an elegant thing.
    Wash Mary had mentioned that Indian women came to such places during their time. An aroma seemed familiar—coppery, fishy, a smell like hers but blended with cedar, moist ashes, and rain. Maybe sacred rituals known only to Nootka women were performed here. How could she act the same with them after she’d intruded in their private place?
    As soon as the rain stopped, she went back to the beach. Three small boys sidled toward her, giggling. One had scabs under his nose. None of them had shoes. There wasn’t anything that hit her so hard as a barefoot child in the cold. The smallest boy, trailing a rope of seaweed, wore only a shirt. “A-B-C-D-E,” he sang in risingnotes, looking to see if she heard. The others laughed and poked him. He dropped the seaweed and ran.
    â€œF-G,” she sang out, laughing at his brown fanny bouncing.
    A menagerie of canoes hewn from cedar logs were beached along the tide line, each one with a tall, graceful prow painted imaginatively. A sardonic wolf face in black and white and red seemed all teeth and a human eye. A proud Thunderbird with blue and yellow wings spread across the side made the whole canoe into a bird about to take flight. A green sea serpent with red eyes and a long red tongue looked about to lick up waves.
    She’d loved Indian canoes since childhood when she cheered at the tribal canoe races held every year in Victoria on the Queen’s birthday. She’d always flailed her arms and hopped with excitement at the race of the klootchmen —native women in print dresses, their ten spear-shaped paddles dipping in unison, driving the craft forward, as fierce as men. Dede had always smacked her bottom and said, “Stand still and act like a lady.”
    Now, finally, she could paint them. She made a zigzag course toward the canoes, looking for the best angle, but stopped. There was Lulu on the ground leaning against a rock. Would Lulu guess that she’d been to the hut?
    Lulu looked up and saw her. “You like our canoes?”
    Relieved, she said, “They’re beautiful. This place is beautiful.”
    Lulu nodded. “Right here, good place for looking and listening. Being real