The Lynching of Louie Sam (19 page)

F
ATHER HAS SEEN ME, TOO
. There's no avoiding what's to come. He leaves Dr. Thompson waiting on the boardwalk across the street and strides through the mud over to me, his face a fury, his voice booming.

“George, where the hell have you been? Your mam's worried sick.”

“I spent the night at the Harknesses',” I say.

“What happened to your arm?”

“It's broken. I had a fall.” The tears I've been holding back burst forth. I'm crying like a little kid, snot running from my nose. “I lost your saw. I'm sorry!”

“My saw?” Father's staring at me, puzzled, trying to make sense of what I'm saying. He looks tired and worn, like this is the last straw. He opens my right hand in his and examines the burn on my palm. “How did this happen?”

“It got burned by the electricity in the wire.”

“What were you doing touching the wire? Did Mam not tell ye to be careful?”

“I didn't know!” I say. Suddenly, I'm in a confessing mood. “I only got seventy-five cents,” I say, wiping the snot on my sleeve. “Half of what I'm owed. Mr. Osterman says not to come back.”

Father's jaw sets. “Does he now?” He looks up toward the telegraph office. “Wait here,” he tells me, and heads into the hotel.

But I follow him inside. I get to the telegraph office door in time to see Father pulling Mr. Osterman up out of his swivel chair by his jacket.

“Give the boy what he's owed, you no-account bastard!” he thunders.

Mr. Osterman is younger and stronger than Father, but Father is fierce. I'd be lying if I said I'm not pleased to see Mr. Osterman cowering, but I'm surprised that Father is so worked up about my wages.

“Easy,” says Mr. Osterman.

“You sent a young boy out to tend the line without so much as a speck of training! Were you hoping he'd get killed? Is that it? Another boy dead?”

Mr. Hopkins pushes past me into the office.

“Break it up! You want that detective to hear?”

Mr. Hopkins is a shrimp. Father could take him easily, but he doesn't put up a fight. The rage has gone out of him. He gives Mr. Osterman a hateful look.

“Somebody ought to stand up to you,” he says.

“Don't try putting yourself above the rest of us, Gillies,” says Osterman. “We were all there. We were all agreed.”

Mr. Hopkins speaks up. “We did what was necessary.”

I want to shout out that he's wrong, that Louie Sam didn't murder Mr. Bell—that the real murderer is standing right here before us. But my courage fails me.

“The choice is simple,” says Bill Osterman. “Stand together or fall separately.”

Father seems to shrink a little at that. He turns and sees me in the doorway. There's that same look in his eyes I saw that night, when he told me to be quiet about the suspenders. I couldn't put a name to it then, but now I can. It's shame. My father is ashamed. As much as I sometimes fear his temper, to see him belittled so is more frightening. I need him to be strong. I need him to be right—the way he was right about us having a better life in America than the one we left behind in Great Britain. The way he was right that he'd be free to be his own man, and we boys after him.

Osterman digs in his pants for more coins, the rest of my pay. He opens my jacket pocket and drops them inside.

“Take it,” he says, “and get out. The pair of you.”

Mr. Hopkins goes back to his desk without another word to us. Father and I leave the telegraph office like kicked dogs. When we're outside of the hotel, I tell him, “Not everyone is with Mr. Osterman. Abigail Stevens says her pa thinks you were right.”

“Right about what?”

“About letting the Canadian law deal with Louie Sam.”

“You're not to talk about that.”

“How can we not talk about it?”

“Quiet, George.”

It's only when we start across the street that I see Mae hitched to our wagon. The fact that it's just Mae and not Ulysses, too, can mean only one thing: Father was in a hurry to get to town. Dr. Thompson is seated on the wagon bench, holding his medical bag on his lap. He's cross at being kept waiting.

“I thought you said this was an emergency,” he says.

“My apologies, Doctor,” replies Father.

“Is it Teddy?” I ask him.

“Aye.”

He offers nothing more, but I know that it's serious if he's come to fetch Dr. Thompson. Father climbs up beside the doctor and takes Mae's reins, while I prop myself up in the flatbed at the back.

“It appears you have another patient,” Father remarks.

Dr. Thompson half turns his bulk around to get a look at me, the largeness of his belly making it awkward for him to do so.

“I'm all right,” I say. Then, “I have your money.”

“What money might that be?”

“What we owe you for the medicine.”

I feel for the coins in my jacket pocket. The burn on my hand means I'm only able to grasp them with my fingertips. They keep slipping away. Father snaps the reins across Mae's hindquarters and she starts off, making the wagon lurch and jarring my sore arm. Without meaning to, I let out a cry.

“Broken, I warrant,” pronounces Dr. Thompson. “Stop the wagon. I'll need plaster of Paris from the store.”

“The bairn needs you more,” says Father. “He's burning up.”

So Teddy's fever has returned. Mam must be mad with worry. Father whips the reins, working Mae up to a fast trot, making the wagon pitch and jiggle—sending pain shooting through my arm with every hoofbeat. But I tell myself it's penance for my cowardly ways, for the shame that Father and I have brought upon ourselves. I send a silent prayer to God promising that if only he'll spare Teddy, I'll go talk to Carrot Top Clark, and I'll tell him what evil Bill Osterman has brought upon us all.

M
AE HAS WORKED UP
a lather by the time we head up the track to our cabin. Gyp comes barking to meet us, but otherwise the house is silent as Father pulls Mae to a halt in the yard. There's no crying of a sick baby to be heard. None of us says anything about it, but I'll wager we're all in fear that Teddy has stopped taking breaths with which to cry. Will comes outside at the sound of the wagon.

“John ran off!” he says, eager to deliver his news. “He's gone to fetch Agnes, though Mam told him not to, because the doctor is coming.”

Father is not pleased, but I'm thinking that there can't be any harm in fetching Agnes. She's the one who brought Teddy into the world, after all. With some effort, Dr. Thompson shifts his weight around in the wagon seat to get two feet on the ground.

“Where's the patient?” he asks.

Inside the cabin, Mam has got Teddy in a tub of water on the table, trying to bring his fever down. When she sees me walk in behind Dr. Thompson and Father, her eyes light up and for a brief second the furrows of worry leave her face. Then she's angry.

“I'll deal with you later,” she says.

She lifts the baby out of the water and wraps him in a blanket. Anybody can see how skinny and still he is, how uninterested in being alive.

“Good God, woman,” says Dr. Thompson. “Have you been starving this child?”

“When I try to nurse him, he falls asleep after a thimble full,” Mam tells him. “I've tried cow's milk. He doesn't want that, either. But I give him his medicine, three times a day just like you said to do.”

“Let me have a look, then.”

Mam lays the baby gently on the table and steps aside so that Dr. Thompson can get a look at him. The doctor sets his bag on a chair and takes from it his wooden listening tube. He tells Mam, “Unswaddle the infant, please.”

Mam lifts the blanket away and Dr. Thompson puts the tip of the tube to Teddy's tiny chest and the earpiece to his own ear. He listens for what seems a long, long time, with all of us—Father and Mam, Will, Annie, Isabel, and me—watching him frown and purse his lips. Teddy fusses a little, not liking the listening tube. At last Dr. Thompson pulls back from the baby. For a second, he won't look at Mam. When he does, we can all see in his face that there's no hope. Mam buckles a little. She grabs hold of a chair back to steady herself. Father steps over to her, and takes her elbow in his hand.

“His lungs are very weak,” says Dr. Thompson. “For whatever reason, this baby has failed to thrive. I'm sorry. There is nothing to be done for him.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

M
AM DOESN'T CRY, BUT
I know inside she wants to. She bundles little Teddy up in the blanket and holds him tight against her, able to speak but half a thought.

“But the medicine …”

“I'm sorry,” says Dr. Thompson. “You've left it too late. Perhaps if you had brought him to me sooner.”

I hate the way he's making Mam feel that what's wrong with Teddy is all her fault. I can't help myself. I have to speak up.

“We brought him but two weeks ago,” I say. “Don't you remember? You said the medicine would make him better, but he just kept getting sicker.”

“Silence,” says Father, but not in an angry way. I'm thinking he may agree with me.

“Medicine is not a precise science,” huffs the doctor. “Naturally, I hoped the baby would improve, but I don't claim to work miracles. Now,” he says, turning to Father, “if you will be so kind as to transport me back into town, I have other patients to see.”

“What about George's arm?” says Father.

Dr. Thompson looks over at me like I'm fly speck for questioning him.

“Save your money and put a splint on it yourself. That will do as well as a plaster cast,” he says.

He's talking like we Gillies are paupers. That makes me even madder.

“Will,” I say. “Reach into my pocket. You'll find six bits in there.” Will fishes into my pocket and brings out the six coins. “Those are for you,” I say to the doctor.

Will hands Dr. Thompson the money. He jingles the coins in his palm, like he's trying to see if they're real. He gives me a false smile and says, “Thank you, son.” Then, to Father, “I'll be sure to tell Mrs. Thompson that your account is settled.” He nods his head at Mam. “Good day, Mrs. Gillies. I wish I had been able to give you better news.”

M
AM SITS IN THE
rocking chair once Father and Dr. Thompson are gone, cuddling Teddy and singing to him softly.

Across the room, Annie asks me, “Is Teddy going to die, George?”

“That's up to God's will,” I say, loud enough so Mam can hear. “The best thing we can do is look after ourselves so Mam can look after him.”

“Does your arm hurt much?”

“Yes. Is there any breakfast left?”

I feel guilty for thinking of my stomach at a time like this, but I haven't eaten since last night and I am ravenous. Mam calls from the rocker,

“Fix George some bread and jam, Annie.”

“Yes, Mam.”

“We'll see to your arm once you've eaten, George.”

Little Isabel has had enough of being good. She holds out her skirt and begins twirling around the room.

“Annie, let's dance,” she says.

“Not now!”

Annie is busy slicing bread for me, using her bossy tone to warn Isabel that she has more important duties to perform than playing with her. Isabel keeps dancing, twirling faster and making herself dizzy. She knocks a chair, but keeps on going. “Isabel, stop!” says Annie.

“But I want to dance!”

You can see it's only a matter of time before she bumps her head and starts crying. Ordinarily Mam would be telling Isabel to mind Annie, but Mam is only gazing at her from the rocker, shiny-eyed.

“Isabel!”

Annie is cross at not being obeyed. She grabs hold of Isabel by the arm to stop her. I can see that Isabel is winding up to a howl of protest. I'm not usually one to get mixed up with child-minding—that's women's work—but I find myself saying, “I'll dance with her.”

Isabel lights up. Annie retreats to the cutting board, where she spreads jam on bread for me. I hold out the uninjured fingers of my right hand. Isabel reaches up with her tiny hand and grasps them. Together we begin swaying in a waltz around the room. I'm careful to keep the sling holding my broken arm close to my side.

“You're a good dancer, George,” says Isabel.

Looking down at her plump face framed by curls, I dip my head to her in a little bow.

“Thank you kindly, Miss. So are you.”

Mam's watching us from the rocker, smiling. I hold up Isabel's hand with mine to allow her to pirouette. That's what Mam calls it when she spins. Will brings an armful of wood in from outside and carries it to the stove, looking at me like I've lost my mind, but I don't care. It's at that moment that John comes in, followed by Agnes. Agnes laughs at the sight of Isabel and me.

“To'ke-tie!”
she says.