The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland Read Free Book Online Page B

vertical crack split his torso.
    â€œWho’s that? ”
    â€œThe old Ancestor. Chief Mathias raised it. Even after they die, ancestors keep to helping Squamish.”
    Sophie lifted her chin as though she’d made it herself, and nodded over the fence to two short humps of earth side by side. “My first babies,” she said. “Trina and Lucy. Twins.”
    The number of her pregnancies sprang into reality. Sophie must have had the twins when she was only a girl herself.
    â€œWhy aren’t they in here?”
    Sophie chewed on the pad of her thumb. “Not baptized. Died too quick.”
    Emily felt herself drawn into Sophie’s pooled eyes.
    â€œNow I show you Maisie.” Sophie brightened, as though . . . as though what? Maisie meant more? The babies outside the fence weren’t as important? Or was she trying to ward off pity? Sophie turned slowly, lifting her skirt away from the thorny berry bush.
    Emily turned too, and saw that the Ancestor figure and the large cross faced each other across the fence, one artful and expressive, the other plain and flat. She could not detect any difference in theveneration Sophie showed for both of them. Emily read some inscriptions. Mary Chepxim 1893–1897. Matthew Chepxim 1896–1902, drowned in river. Jack Henry, loved, 1881–1889. Marcus Thom 1901 only.
    â€œSo many are children. How could that be?”
    Sophie moved only her eyes, giving Emily a scornful look. “You don’t know much. No.”
    Emily bristled for an instant, about to retort. She felt Sophie wanting her to understand. Smallpox. Measles. Influenza. Were they always more deadly for Indian children? Apparently birth was never a guarantee of life. It was true. She didn’t know much.
    Sophie stopped at a gray humpbacked stone bearing the words, In Loving Memory Maisie Frank 1903–1905.
    Those were white man’s words. Had she gone to a cemetery in Vancouver to learn them?
    â€œShe came too soon after Annie Marie. Good sisters but one died. It’s good to grow up with a sister. Share things. That makes good sisters.”
    â€œDo you have sisters, Sophie?”
    â€œNo. Only brothers. In Squamish. You?”
    â€œYes. Four. Not much sharing, though.”
    Sophie squinted at her curiously, as though what Emily said were impossible. “Too bad.”
    Maybe it wasn’t bewilderment in Sophie’s look, but judgment.
    She watched Sophie stroke the curve of the headstone lovingly. She’d probably done it hundreds of times, and was as devoted to those graves as she was to her living children.
    â€œThat’s a fine marker, Sophie.”
    â€œThe grave man made it cheap for me. He said maybe I will bring him more dead babies by and by so he made it cheap.”
    â€œNo!”
    Sophie tipped her head to the side as if to say, Who’s to know?
    Emily checked to see if Annie Marie heard. What effect did Sophie’s coming here have on her children? At least it would let them know how much their mother continued to love each one. Annie Marie sat in the weeds a ways off, absorbed by twisting grasses together to make a basket. Her round face tipped down like a copper moon and the sunlight shimmered some strands of auburn hair.Her legs stuck out akimbo from under her print skirt spread like a fan. Maybe someday Sophie would let her paint Annie Marie, but for now, it was the Ancestor she wanted.
    Sophie’s eyes were drawn upward to the trees. She touched Tommy on the shoulder, glanced at Emily, and slowly tilted her head back. Emily looked up in time to see an eagle soar over the graveyard in a big arc, gain height, and swoop down to land with utter precision on a high jagged branch.
    â€œTremendous. The power of his wings,” Emily said.
    â€œIt mean something when you see one.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDifferent things to different people.” She turned from Emily and smiled lovingly at Tommy. “You