The Lynching of Louie Sam (15 page)

I dig my fork into the pie and swallow another bite. We sit together in silence for a bit, Mam sewing, and me thinking that I never knew before there were such bad feelings between Mr. Bell and Mr. Harkness. But then, how could there not have been?

Chapter Sixteen

J
OHN IS DOING THE MILKING
Sunday morning when I come into the shed. I take Father's handsaw down from its nail. John is watching me while he milks.

“Did you ask him if you can take that?” he wants to know.

“Why don't you mind your own business, John?” I say, because the truth is I didn't ask Father. I'm hoping I can return the saw before he notices it's missing. I put it in a knapsack with the bread and cheese that Mam has given me, and set out along the track toward The Crossing with the sun barely peeking over the trees.

This is the second Sunday since Mr. Bell died. By the time I reach the remains of his cabin, the sun is high enough to send sparkles off the frosty rime that's spread over the charred timbers like white moss. It's almost pretty. I haven't had breakfast yet, so I stop and eat some of the bread and cheese. While I chew I walk the length of the ruins. Kids have started talking at school about this stretch of the track being haunted by Mr. Bell's ghost, but the place doesn't feel haunted to me. It just feels lonely. It always felt lonely, though, even when Mr. Bell was alive.

I come to the spot between what used to be his store and his kitchen—the spot where we found his body—and I wonder what it was about him that made his wife and son hate him so. But did she hate him enough to want him dead? Is that what Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Stevens were driving at? It doesn't seem possible that we have a murderer living right here in our midst. But if it's true that Louie Sam didn't kill Mr. Bell, then somebody else must have done it. I set out walking again. My mind is full of such thoughts all the way to The Crossing—about Mr. Bell hating Mr. Harkness for stealing his wife away, and Mrs. Bell hating her husband all the more for the trouble he was causing her and Mr. Harkness. I just don't know what to believe.

When I reach Mr. Moultray's store, it's closed. In the livery stable I find Jack Simpson, the man the posse sent ahead to sneak into Mr. York's farmhouse. He tells me to give him a minute and he'll get the pitch I need for the repairs from the supplies shed. I watch him feed and water the last of the horses. Jack's a friendly type with a quick smile, though he smells bad from having no mother or wife to wash his clothes or tell him to take a bath. He's close enough to my age that I feel like I can ask him a question.

“What do you make of Governor Newell saying he's going to track down the leaders of the Vigilance Committee?” I say.

“He can try,” he replies with a laugh.

“Mr. York saw your face. He knows who you are.”

“Mr. York is a good actor,” says Jack.

“What do you mean?”

“The way he was huffin' and puffin' at the posse, that was all for show. He knew we was coming for the Indian.”

“Who told him?”

“Never you mind,” says Jack.

He gives me a warning look and goes silent—which is unusual for Jack, who's a big talker by nature. I follow him out of the livery to a shed, where he opens a barrel and starts ladling gooey black pitch into a bucket for me. I've got one more question I'm itching to ask.

“What was he like?”

“Who?”

“Louie Sam. You saw him that night, didn't you? Inside the farmhouse.”

“I didn't see him. They had him in a back room.” Then he adds, not being one to miss a chance to puff himself up, “Mr. York told me about him, though.”

“What did he say?”

“That he was quiet. That he came with Sheriff Leckie and Mr. Campbell peaceable enough when they arrested him.”

“Joe Hampton says Louie Sam told his mother he didn't do it.”

Jack halts what he's doing, pitch dripping from the ladle. He gets hot under the collar.

“Who cares what Joe Hampton says?”

“But what if it's the truth? What if we got the wrong fella?”

Jack spits into the straw. “It don't matter. I would kill a Chinaman as quick as I would an Indian,” he says. “And I would kill an Indian as quick as I would a dog.”

Jack Simpson has a reputation for being likable, but at this moment I don't see why. He seems all bluster and hate to me.

“He was only fourteen,” I tell him.

Jack's face goes all dark and he stabs his finger at me.

“You Gillies ought to remember who your friends are,” he says. “Just keep your trap shut.”

He shoves the bucket of pitch at me and walks away without so much as a “so long.”

I've done it again—opened my mouth when I shouldn't have. Still, I'm sick and tired of people telling me to keep quiet.

I
HEAD DOWN THE HILL
from the livery to the ferry landing. The ferry is a scow that's tethered to a heavy rope that's been strung from one shore of the Nooksack River to the other. The river is shallow here and calm compared to where it comes rollicking down from Mount Baker to the south and east of us. Unless you have your own boat or barge, the ferry is the only way to cross if you want to travel to Ferndale or Bellingham. It costs twenty-five cents for a person to cross, and fifty cents for a horse, or any other animal with four legs instead of two.

There's nobody around when I reach the ferry. The scow is moored at the short dock, its belly pooled with water from last night's rain. In part I'm relieved not to have to face Mr. Harkness, considering the thoughts I've been having about him. But by rights I should be across the river by now inspecting telegraph poles. So I walk up the path to the house where Pete lives with his pa and Mrs. Bell and Jimmy. Mr. Bell's horse is in a small paddock. He ambles over when he sees me coming and sticks his neck out over the split rails. Maybe he recollects me from the night Pete and I rode him north. More likely he's hungry and wondering if I have something for him to eat.

I'm remembering the times I used to come here to see Pete on a summer day, how Mrs. Harkness—Pete's real mother—would give us hotcakes left over from breakfast, with jam. Then we'd go fish in the river, or set snares for rabbits in the woods. We could spend hours at one adventure or another. The house doesn't look much different from when Mrs. Harkness lived here. It doesn't look like a den of iniquity. There's smoke coming from the chimney, so I know folks are up and about inside. I walk up and knock on the door. Nothing happens, so I knock harder.

Jimmy Bell opens the door. His eyes still show signs of bruising, traces of the beating he took from John a week ago.

“What do you want?” he says, not at all pleased to see me standing there. I suppose that one Gillies is as bad as another to him.

“I need to get across the river,” I reply. “I'm repairing poles for Mr. Osterman.”

As proof, I hold up my bucket of pitch.

“Pa!” he yells into the house.

I'm thinking, isn't that interesting, that he calls Mr. Harkness his pa?

“What is it?” comes a holler from inside.

“George Gillies says he needs to get across the river!”

In another second, the door swings wider. But it isn't Mr. Harkness who's standing beside Jimmy. It's Pete. He looks me up and down like I'm some kind of trash that's landed on his stoop.

“What do you need to cross the river for, George? There some Indians over there you want to go pow-wow with?”

There he goes again, calling me an Indian lover. When did Pete develop this mean streak?

“For your information,” I tell him, “I've got work to do over there for your uncle.”

“You got twenty-five cents?” he asks.

“Mr. Osterman says I don't have to pay,” I reply.

Mr. Harkness arrives at the door just as I'm telling Pete this. He's pulling up his suspenders and his dark hair is wild, like he just got out of bed. He seems even taller framed by a door meant for normal-sized people.

“He does, does he?” says Mr. Harkness. Between his size and his growl, he makes me think of a big black bear. To be honest, Mr. Harkness has always frightened me a little.

“He says he's repairing telegraph poles,” Jimmy pipes up.

Mr. Harkness looks at my bucket of pitch, then he looks at me. He lets out a hard laugh. “You take him,” he says to Pete. Then, to me, “Go wait down by the ferry.”

He slams the door in my face.

I WAIT A GOOD QUARTER
of an hour at the ferry before Pete comes sauntering down the path. He tells me to climb into the scow, while he unties the moorings. My boots are sitting in two inches of water in the bottom of the ferry. I look at the river. Even though it's pretty shallow here, the water's cold and the current is fast-moving. I wonder where Mr. Hampton drowned, whether it was near to this shore or the other, or in the middle. It's a famous story around here. The ferry was just a canoe then. It was late spring and the water was high. Mr. Hampton set out to fetch a traveler from the other side when a log struck the canoe and split it in half. They say his family was watching from the shore when he was thrown into the raging current. I wonder if Joe watched his pa drown.

“Have you done this before?” I ask.

“'Course I have,” Pete snaps.

He jumps into the scow and hands me a pail.

“Start bailing,” he says, picking up the long pole he'll use to push us across.

“That's your job,” I tell him.

“My job is to push your lazy butt across this river,” he says. “Anyway, you're riding for free, so don't act like I'm your hired hand or something.”

Pete sinks the pole into the water and gives a shove, throwing his whole body into it. As the scow shifts away from the dock, I can feel the current pushing at the boat, trying to send it downstream. The water at my feet is sloshing around. I fill the pail and start bailing over the side.

“How much is Uncle Bill paying you?” Pete asks.

“A dollar and half a day.”

“What?!” I'm pleased by his jealousy. “Why the hell would he hire you, anyway? I'd do it for a dollar, and I'm his kin.”

“Guess he figures he can rely on me,” I say.

“Are you trying to say I'm not reliable?”

“Pete, if you want to know why he hired me instead of you, go ask him yourself.”

That shuts him up. We're nearing the middle of the river now. The scow is straining against the cable. It's taking all of Pete's muscle power to keep it moving forward. If he hadn't been acting so high and mighty lately, I'd go and help him.

“I see Mrs. Bell has claimed that horse for herself,” I say.

“That's none of your business.”

“I just wonder what Mr. Bell would think about that.”

“Mr. Bell ain't in a condition to do much thinking.”

“Did she get the gold, too?”

“What gold?”

“Five hundred dollars of it. Mr. Moultray found it in Mr. Bell's cabin, after it burned.”

“I don't know anything about that.”

“If Mrs. Bell stood to get the gold as well as the horse, doesn't it seem like she would have liked to have seen Mr. Bell dead?”

“What foolishness are you talking now? You think she got that Indian to go commit murder for her?”

But I can see that Pete's thinking it over, that the idea that his more-or-less stepmother was involved has never dawned on him before this moment.

I say, “You tell me. You're the one who saw Louie Sam that day.”

“Damn right, I did!” he barks.

“Aren't you going to tell me how he had murder in his eyes?”

That makes him so angry, he stops poling.

“I know what I saw!” he cries.

For a moment I think I've gone too far—that he might dump me over the side of the scow into the river. But there's confusion in his face as well as anger.

“Cool off,” I tell him. “You're awful touchy about it.”

“Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you,” says Pete, pushing the pole again—refusing to so much as look at me.

As we reach the shore, Pete tries to slow the scow down, but we're coming in too fast. We plough into the dock with a jolt, gouging the boards.

“Your pa won't like that,” I say.

I climb out of the scow and tell Pete—who's still not talking to me—to watch for my return in the afternoon. I head on down the telegraph trail without looking back, happy that for once I've had the last word.

Chapter Seventeen