The Mushroom Boy
Told by Mary Jane Weil

Kate was hunting rabbits along the little river.  She had a bow her father had given her that was small enough to move through the willows without getting caught.  Kate was thirteen and still less than five feet tall.  But she was strong enough to draw the bow back the length of the arrow.  Her father had made the bow from Pacific Yew he brought back from the mountains.  Her father didn’t like to hunt rabbits with guns because the noise upset the chickens and they wouldn’t lay eggs. 

“What you need for hunting rabbits is patience,” her father had taught her.  Today he was rebuilding a fence away from the river and Kate was on her own.  School was closed and there was a whole summer of hunting rabbits ahead of her.

“If the rabbit is running away you’ll never hit it,” her father said.  “If you just walk through the brush you’ll see plenty of rabbits but you’ll never get any.  You need to walk three steps and stand still for ten or twenty minutes.  You hunt with your eyes, not your feet.  You scan the ground around you to pick up something that looks like a rabbit or, more likely, part of a rabbit.  Rabbits are good at hiding so you really have to look.”

Kate and her father had gone out together without the bow to look for rabbits.  They had scanned the same ground.

“You tell me when you are sure there are no rabbits here,” he said.  Kate would look and look until it seemed she had inspected every leaf and every blade of grass.  Time and time again she would look at her father and shake her head.  No rabbits.  Then her father told her where to look and, sure enough, there was a rabbit there.  It was discouraging but they kept at it.  Then, suddenly one day, Kate became good at spotting rabbits.  She couldn’t say what she was doing differently or what she had learned.  Sometimes she even saw rabbits before her father saw them.

“Your eyesight’s better,” he said.  That was a week ago.  She had shot ten rabbits since then, including one this morning.  She thought she was getting better at picking places to look for rabbits.  And at standing where she wouldn’t have to move too many willow branches to get a shot.

Kate took ten slow steps up to a new clump of willows and peered in.  Her eyes began to scan along the ground, not looking intensely but with “open eyes” as her father called them.  She waited patiently for them to pick up something that might be a rabbit.  Something did catch her gaze and she looked at it calmly, allowing time to take it in without trying to jump to a conclusion.  It wasn’t part of a willow or a clump of grass.  It wasn’t part of a rabbit either.  It was part of a person.  It was an ankle.  She raised her eyes to take more in.  A boy, an Indian boy, was sitting under the willow looking at her. 

Kate stepped back and gasped.  The boy made no move to get up.  Kate aimed an arrow at him but didn’t pull the bow back.  There were no Indians living near the ranch.  What was he doing here?  She glanced right and left to see if there were any more Indians.  She didn’t see any.

“Hello Kate,” said the boy.  “You have a good bow.”  He spoke carefully with some kind of accent.

“Who are you?” demanded Kate. 

“My name is Tlapec.  I live near here.”

“No you don’t,” said Kate firmly.

“You did not see me but I was here.  My family hid here all my life, even before I was born.  Even before any white people lived here.”

“You are lying,” said Kate, increasing the tension in the bow.  “If you were hiding, how do you know English?”

“I learned it from you.  From you and your family.  In the evenings, in the summer, when everyone sat on the porch and talked, I hid below the riverbank and listened.  I remembered the sounds of the words but for a long time I didn’t know what they meant.  When you and your mother came to the willows and she read Alice in Wonderland to you, I listened.  When your father herded the cattle, I listened and I watched.  When he went home for dinner I practiced herding the cattle myself.  Every day I practiced saying what I heard.  Over time I learned what the words meant.”

“This is our land,” said Kate.

“I would like to ask your father and mother if I can stay here.” 

“I will tell them about you,” said Kate.  “And I will meet you here tomorrow at the same time.”

“Please tell them.  And I will come to the house tonight just before supper.”  The boy stood up so quickly he seemed to be standing as soon as he started.  He was eight inches shorter than Kate and looked a few years younger.  He was wearing deerskin leggings and no shirt.  He stepped out of the shade of the willow and walked away.

“Did he look hungry?” her mother asked Kate.  Kate said he didn’t.  Her mother didn’t seem to be very worried.  But she said the idea that he had been on the ranch for years was “preposterous”. 

Kate skinned the one rabbit she had shot that morning and hung it up in the cooler.  At lunchtime she told her father about the boy.

“Sounds like an interesting character,” said her father.  “I look forward to meeting him.”  People considered her father to be a pretty interesting character himself.  Her father had hunted grizzly bears and stepped into the middle of a gunfight to make it stop.  He was one of the very first people to homestead on the Little River.   

In the late afternoon Kate started helping get supper ready.  But her mother told her to go sit on the porch and wait for the boy.  They had set an extra place at the table. 

“He knows what time supper is because he’s been spying on us,” she told herself.  Kate was annoyed that she had no idea which direction Tlapec would come from.  Most visitors came down the dirt driveway from the road.  But if Tlapec lived on the ranch he could come from any direction.  And if he didn’t show up after she told her parents about him, Kate would be really annoyed.

The boy came out of the woods south of the house.  He was carrying a small basket made of willow branches.

“He’s here,” yelled Kate into the house.  Her father came out and stood on the porch, watching the boy approach.  Tlapec looked them both in the eye as he came nearer.

“Hello there, young man,” said Kate’s father in a loud voice.

“Hello Mr. Catlow,” said Tlapec.  “How do you do?  I brought a present for Mrs. Catlow.”  He came up to the porch and shook hands with Kate’s father.  “Hello again, Kate,” he said. 

“Hello,” she said.  Kate thought he might have learned his manners by watching the family and their guests.  But she had a sudden fear that he had lied to her earlier.  That he was an Indian accustomed to civilization and he was up to some mischief. 

“Kate says you have been living on the ranch.  Is that true?” asked Mr. Catlow.

“Yes, sir.  All my life.”

“And why do you suddenly decide to reveal yourself to us now?”  At this question Tlapec’s demeanor changed from cheerful to serious and even sad.  But he still looked Kate’s father in the eye. 

“My family has all died.  I want to join your family.”  Kate saw her father’s jaw drop a notch.

“That’s a tall order, son.  We are not a Masonic Lodge, you know.  We are not looking for new members.”  Kate doubted that Tlapec knew what a Masonic Lodge was.  He looked solemn but not surprised.

“Why don’t you come in for supper and get acquainted, though?  We are glad to have a guest and Mrs. Catlow set a place for you.” 

As they walked through the log house to the kitchen Kate saw Tlapec’s eyes darting around the walls and the furniture.  “He’s never been inside a house before,” she thought.

Tlapec greeted her mother and held out the basket.

“Oh,” she said, “these are such lovely mushrooms.  Where did you find them?”

“In the forest,” he said and pointed toward Paulina Peak.  Kate’s mother said she would save them for dinner the next day. 

The family and Tlapec sat at the table in the dining room that was open to the kitchen.  Tlapec looked carefully at everything around him before he moved.  He watched the family for clues on what to do.  It occurred to Kate that he had never sat in a chair before but he had seen it done.  He seemed to wonder why the others cut their meat with a knife when Kate’s mother had already cut his for him.  But he used his fork the way the others did. 

“I am sorry you have lost your family,” said Kate’s father.  “How long ago did that happen?”  Tlapec slowed his chewing and held his fork in the air.

“My mother died three days ago.  She was the last except me.” 

“Oh, how sad,” said Kate’s mother.  She winced and looked as though she were about to cry.  “I’m so sorry.  How did she die?” 

“She could not stay warm.”  He held his fork in the air for a while before he started to eat again.  Kate decided he wasn’t accustomed to talking while eating.  Her parents said nothing more until everyone had finished their plates.  Kate and her mother exchanged the dinner plates for bowls with pears they had canned the previous fall.  Tlapec picked up his fork again.

“Tlapec, we use a spoon for the pears,” said Kate’s mother.  When supper was over, the boy looked exhausted.

“Can you show me where you live?” asked Kate’s father.  “There’s still plenty of light.”  Tlapec looked nervous about this request but he said yes.

“I’ll make up a bed on the porch for you,” said Kate’s mother.  “Lots of our guests like to sleep there when it is warm.  You can hear the river.”  Tlapec and Kate’s father set out together toward the south end of the ranch.

Kate and her mother lay blankets and sheets down on the porch off the kitchen where the sun wouldn’t strike first thing in the morning.  Kate wondered why Tlapec didn’t sleep in the house like most guests.  Her mother said it was because they didn’t know him that well yet.  When Tlapec got back her mother explained about sleeping between the sheets and patted her hand on the lower sheet.  Tlapec climbed into bed with his clothes and moccasins on.  Kate was surprised her mother didn’t say anything about it and only wished him good night.  Tlapec looked a little nervous but mostly he looked tired.

“I would never have believed there were Indians living on the ranch,” said Mr. Catlow in a quiet voice when the family gathered in the front room.  “But the boy showed me where he lived with his mother.  It’s on a neck of land it takes a roundabout walk to get to.  You have to be right on top of the wickiup to see it isn’t just another willow.  He showed me where he says he buried his mother.  It certainly looks like grave to me but I’m not going to go digging the lady up to make sure.”

“So what do you think we should we do with him?” asked Kate’s mother.

“By rights we ought to send him up to Warm Springs,” said Mr. Catlow.  “But I think maybe we should give him a try here.  The only people he’s ever known were his own family.  He says he doesn’t even know what tribe he is.  The Indians at Warm Springs might be just as strange to him as we are.  At least he knows this land.”

“And he could help you on the ranch,” said Mrs. Catlow.  Kate knew her parents could not have any more children.  They never suggested they would have preferred a son in her stead.  But with a boy working on the ranch, her father would not be so tired.  He could have more cattle and sheep to bring in more money.

“He knows how to herd cattle,” Kate volunteered.

“Where did he learn that?” her father asked.

“From watching you,” she said.  He laughed.

“Can he come hunting rabbits and fishing with me?” Kate asked.  Her father said it was up to her mother and her mother said it might be alright after Tlapec settled in and did some work for her father.

 “The poor boy,” Kate’s mother said.  “He’s lost his mother and this is a big change for him.  How is he going to sit in a chair all day when school starts in the fall?”

“He’s going to have to go to school wherever he goes,” said Mr. Catlow.  “He says his mother told him our ways would be different and he was simply going to have to change, no matter how difficult it was.  Kate can get him started on reading and arithmetic.”

When she pulled up the covers that night and turned to go to sleep, Kate didn’t think about hunting rabbits.  She thought about all she would teach Tlapec.  By the time school started in September the teacher would be astounded at how much he already knew.