Page 34 of His Perfect Bride
During the walk to the waterfront, Jackson was as nervous as if he were going courting for the very first time. But Sage wasn’t awkward like he was and put him at ease with her casual questions and conversation.
As they reached the main wharf, the bay was already busy for a Saturday morning. A few straggling fishing boats were leaving for the day, and a couple of steamers were also preparing for departure with supplies and men heading up into the mountains for one last trip before winter.
The bellow of the steam whistles, the calls of stevedores, and the squawk of seagulls seemed to greet him and remind him of how much of life he’d missed over the past months. Even the cool October air with the hint of sea and salt reminded him of how much he’d grown to appreciate this new land.
He made quick work of tracking down Tcoosma, one of the Native guides he’d used many times. The short, brown-skinned man with his silvery-black braids and dark eyes never turned down an opportunity to shuttle Jackson around, primarily because Jackson paid him well, not only with the standard Hudson’s Bay Company blankets with their red, yellow, and green bands, but also with flour, sugar, and tobacco.
Attired in his customary—albeit well-worn—breechcloth, leggings, and moccasins, Tcoosma settled into the front of his red cedar canoe in order to direct them. He wore no shirt beneath his cape, and the cold never seemed to bother him. His battered bowler was pulled low but did nothing to hide the large abalone shells that pierced his earlobes and made them sag.
Jackson assisted Sage into the spot at the center of the canoe and took up his place at the rear to help with the paddling. As they made their way out of the harbor and away from Victoria, the canoe glided swiftly through the calm water.
He was glad for his position at the back that allowed him to observe Sage. She sat quietly, taking everything in, clutching her cloak closed with one gloved hand while holding on to the side of the canoe with the other.
After the weeks of her being stuck in his house and trailing after Augusta around Victoria, the wilderness had to be different. It had been for him when he’d first arrived from London to Manitoba on the Hudson’s Bay.
As they rounded the eastern bend of the island and started north, the distant peaks on the mainland came into view. The morning sunshine glimmered off a low mist, turning the reds and oranges and yellows of the trees into flames, making his heart swell with something that felt a little like peace—a peace he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
At Sage’s intake of breath, he could tell she was awed by the beauty too. With a fashionable straw bonnet tied beneath her chin and shading her face, she looked every bit as much a lady as Augusta did. Even so, he wished he could take off the hat and have a full view of her face and expression for the duration of the voyage.
He wanted to find something to talk about with her, but he didn’t know where to start a conversation. Besides, she probably didn’t want him intruding into her enjoyment of the scenery.
With the birds having begun their migration season, he was spotting flocks of them at every turn. As the canoe passed a rocky section of the coast where at least a hundred, if not two hundred, sandpipers were roosting and foraging, he drew his paddle out of the water to slow their progress.
“Sage,” he called, “look to your left. Sandpipers.”
Tcoosma slanted a dark glare his way, as if to tell him that he was in a hurry. But Jackson focused on Sage, waiting for her reaction to the sight.
She shifted her gaze and then drew in another breath at the shoreline full of the unique birds with their long, narrow beaks and skinny legs. “There are so many,” she said after a minute, her voice tinged with awe.
“The island is a major migratory stopping point for many breeds.” Jackson had already started paddling again, and they didn’t have to go much farther before he pointed out a flock of Brant geese swimming close to shore amongst the eelgrass, their graceful black necks and heads shimmering in the sunshine.
He’d always had an interest in birdwatching, and it had only grown when he’d moved to Vancouver Island with the abundance of waterfowl, birds of prey, and songbirds. He’d once even kept a journal to record and draw the birds he spotted, but he’d become too busy and had neglected the journal over the past year or two.
Seeing the migratory birds now through Sage’s eyes made him want to renew his journal. Maybe it was more that he wanted to see life again and appreciate the small things he’d started to take for granted.
Whatever it was, the ride along the coast passed too quickly, especially with Tcoosma attempting to keep a fast and steady pace, and they reached the southern tip of Salt Spring Island within an hour. Most of the island was made up of rugged rocky coastline, but Jackson knew of a place or two more hospitable to settlers claiming land.
He inquired at the first settlement while Tcoosma and Sage remained in the canoe. Her sister wasn’t there, but the fellow and his family said that Willow and her husband had a farm farther west along the coast.
They paddled to the next area that consisted of a small pebbly beach with grassy banks rising into a woodland. An inlet with a rushing creek emptied into the narrow harbor. Other than a canoe propped against the bank, the area looked uninhabited and hilly, without any sign of land suitable for farming.
Sage was searching the shoreline eagerly, but no one was in sight.
“I shall follow the river and see if I happen upon anyone.” Jackson was already climbing onto the bank. “Wait here until I return.”
He easily found a trail that followed the river. It wound through the dense woodland before opening into a clearing that was littered with stumps but also was being cultivated to grow crops. Jackson was no farmer, but amongst the stumps he recognized some potato plants that had yet to be harvested.
On an incline above the cleared land stood a rugged log home with a lean-to. A thin line of smoke trickled out of a stove pipe in the roof made of handcrafted shingles.
A single-story barn had been built in the open area beyond the house. Like the cabin, it was made of hewn logs and solid chinking. The corral off to one side housed a cow and a couple of pigs, along with a smattering of chickens.
At a laundry line that ran from the log cabin to a nearby tree, a young woman with a turban on her head and a bundle in a sling—likely a baby—paused in hanging a man’s shirt to peer down at him.
“Elijah!” she called toward the barn. “Someone’s here!”
Jackson halted. The folks out in the remote areas were cautious with strangers, sometimes overly so. He didn’t blame them, not with so many newcomers coming and going.
It was obvious this wasn’t where Willow and her husband lived. But he wasn’t about to leave without getting more information. “I’m looking for a woman named Willow,” he called. “Any idea where I might find her?”
