Chapter Six
By Jim Farrell
“You might think that this was the end of the story” Grandpa Dick said to the four of us as we lie around his rocking chair listening to his soft southern Missouri twang as the storm raged outside that little farm house nestled amongst the tall fir trees bending before the roaring tempest.
“It may have been,” he continued. “But for what later happened that afternoon when Brother Bill and Ol’ Clyde were out in the middle of that strait named after old King George. The wind came up, and the clouds rolled in from the west, bringing with them thunder and lightning and lightning and thunder! There blew up such a gale with the rain falling sideways, all that Brother Bill and Clyde could do was to hang on to the sides of that canoe and hope for the best. Let me tell you, they had such a ride with the wind blowing them one way and the waves tossing them another. There were a couple of times that Brother Bill would have been blown out of that misfortunate vessel had Ol’ Clyde not dug his claws into the soft wood of that canoe and allowed Brother Bill to hang on to his fir”. Grandpa Dick said as he went on with the story.
“So the wind and waves tossed them fore and aft and aft and fore until both Brother Bill and Ol’ Clyde were so sick, their heads were spinning along with their insides. Ol’ Clyde looked the worse of the two, cause’ as anyone who has ever seen a cat soaked to his skin, knows that is a sad sight indeed. By now both were wondering if their idea of crossing that unknown body of water was the best idea they’ve ever had, when all of a sudden like that, canoe rose up onto a wave like no other wave they had encountered before. Along the top of this wave, they rode south toward Juan de Fuca’s Strait. This struck Brother Bill as odd until he was able to grasp the side of the canoe and looked over the side to see that they were being pushed along against the wind and waves by a pod of orcas!”
“It struck Brother Bill as strange that the orcas would push them along, until he realized that the orcas were after a school of salmon that was trying to escape the orcas and swimming along at top speed heading for the mouth of a river where the orcas couldn’t go. It didn’t take Brother Bill long to see a way to take advantage of this situation and having Ol’ Clyde hold him by the seat of his pants, and leaning way over the side of the canoe he tried to look into the eyes of what appeared to be the leader of the pod, when the cedar pants he was wearing ripped, and Clyde was left just holding a patch of cedar bark in his mouth while Brother Bill went tumbling into the sol chuck! With an undignified splash, he hit the cold water, losing his breath and taking in a mouthful of salt water.”
“Just as he was sinking into the cold sol chuck, he reached out and grabbed something black going by him and in a second he was moving so fast through that turbulent body of water, so fast that just the friction of the water moving past his skin warmed him up. It seems that he had hooked unto the dorsal fin of a young orca. All around him, he heard what sounded like clicks and beeps as the orcas communicated with each other. The young orca swam up to the leader of the pod, and as Brother Bill and the young orca came alongside the old cow, Brother Bill was finally able to look into the cow’s eyes and was able to explain his and Clyde’s predicament. Wouldn’t you know it; that maternal orca started to click and beep to the other orcas, and they all stopped and the young one, who Brother Bill decided to call Oscar, took him alongside the canoe where Ol’ Clyde reached over and grabbed Brother Bill by his shirt and dragged him aboard the still tossing vessel.”
“Well, that orca pod with Oscar and his mom pushed Brother Bill and Clyde into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and westward along the shores of the Olympic Peninsula, right up to the mouth of the Lyre River where the winds began to die down, and the seas were a little calmer. Even then it took all the strength that Brother Bill could muster paddling and a little help from Oscar to get that canoe to the shore where it crunched upon the rocky beach, where Ol’ Clyde jumped out with the rope and dragged it further up the beach above the high tide line.”
“They were so happy to be ashore that they almost forgot to thank the orca pod, who was clicking and beeping as they headed back into the Strait in search of food. But thank them they did and vowed to repay them whenever they could.”
“Now the storm was letting up and the time came for a sorrowful goodbye to Ol’ Clyde as Clyde headed southwest into the Olympic Mountains where he thought his family might be, and Brother Bill figured that he would try east and find his way back to Mother, (we always called her mother) or at the very least find me. Although Brother Bill and I never got to see Mother, (we always called her mother) for many years, we did run into each other at a logging show high up in the Cascade Mountains near Mt. Rainier when he was working for a big giant of a man and his huge blue ox.”
As the evening light started its trip into night, the storm outside that little cabin in the clearing began to abate along with the dimming light, bringing the sound of rain drops dripping off the roof as they hit the ground and a branch dislodged from some tree gently hitting the cabin’s window shutter. The wind was now a breeze, just ruffling the broken tree limbs and their needles.
The cows moved from the shelter of the barn, back into the pasture, hoping to find a break in the fence, or just eat grass. The power was still off and in all likelihood would be for some time. But by some chance the party line telephone was still working and Mom and Dad had called from Port Angeles checking up on us, and telling Grandma that there were many trees across the twenty miles of road home, and they wouldn’t be able to get back until sometime tomorrow and would she and Grandpa mind watching us for the night, which of course we didn’t mind, because Grandma made the best buttermilk pancakes for miles around, and there was of course the huge feather bed to loll us off to dream of the exploits of Grandpa Dick’s Brother Bill and his friends.