The Forest Lover Read Online Free Page B

don’t you go now?”
    Emily uttered a coarse, quick laugh. “There’s always that pesky living to be made.”
    â€œThen why not go west to that Indian village again?”
    â€œHitats’uu? Too hard to get to. It’s on the west coast of Vancouver Island. That means either a six-hour or an overnight ferry to Victoria, an obligatory visit to my sisters there, another day and a half on a steamer up the island’s west coast, and that only runs once a week, in fair weather.”
    â€œThat didn’t stop you before. What’s the real reason?”
    â€œThe inevitable argument with my skin-and-blisters.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œWith my sisters. About disgracing the family by ‘socializing with primitives.’ ” She snickered. “That made me want to go there all the more.”
    â€œThat’s a dumb reason. You ought to go because you love it.”
    â€œHow do you know I love it?”
    â€œBecause of your drawings, silly. And your face when you looked at them.”
    â€œLove can take many forms. Even self-denial. Hitats’uu is terribly isolated. I waltzed in not even thinking about what effect I might have. The girl, Lulu, was inordinately curious about Victoria. I don’t want to speed up change.”
    â€œOne person? Aren’t you overestimating?”
    Emily shrugged, letting her gaze roam over the ship. “Look at the line of that prow. All swooped up in a luscious white arc.”
    â€œYou see everything in terms of line and color, don’t you? It’s an obsession, looking at everything and everyone as possible paintings. Isn’t life bigger than that?”
    â€œIt is big. Take those grain sacks and Chinese fishermen wearing those coolie hats. Strong repeated shapes. Good accents.”
    â€œBut they’re not people to you. They’re shapes in a scene.”
    â€œWhat I painted at Hitats’uu was more than shapes.”
    She gazed across Burrard Inlet to North Vancouver and the Squamish Reserve hugging the shore—so close to Vancouver that the wholecity would have an influence, not just one lone visitor. Maybe the Squamish living there had coffin trees too. Maybe it was a place that could feed her back again, as Lulu had said.
    At the east end of the wharf they took a path past waterfront shacks. Down a grassy incline lay a narrow muskeg filled with skunk cabbage, moss, and lady fern. Beyond that, partly hidden by trees, a cove sheltered a tent and campsite, a beached skiff and a larger boat at anchor—funny-looking, stubby, with a tall, faded red pilot’s cabin much too large in proportion to the hull, a sleepy animal’s eye painted near the prow, and a crazy crooked stovepipe topped by a tin coolie hat. And on the cabin roof, a small French flag.
    â€œNow that’s a boat with spunk.”
    Jessica cocked her head. “What about him?”
    A short, broad-shouldered, bearded man wearing a slouch hat stepped out from the shadow of trees, crossed a rivulet, and dropped a load of branches by the fire pit.
    â€œFits the scene, doesn’t he?” Emily picked some lady fern.
    They walked part way down the incline and the man looked up.
    Jessica nudged her. “Say something.”
    â€œDo you own that boat?” Emily called out and fanned the fern toward it.
    â€œ Non, mademoiselle. She owns me.”
    â€œWe like it,” Jessica chimed in.
    He guffawed. “Suit yourself.”
    Emily murmured to Jessica, “Those driftwood drying racks would make interesting shadows if it were sunny.” The camp looked fairly permanent. “How long will you be camping here?”
    â€œDepends.”
    â€œOn what? The weather?”
    â€œDepends on when I sell all my furs.” He moved a bundle of pelts from the skiff to the tent.
    â€œWe want to draw this.” Jessica held both arms out.
    The man gesticulated broadly, exaggerating her movement. “This