The Lynching of Louie Sam (20 page)

Then her glance falls on Teddy, and her smile disappears.

A
GNES TAKES OVER
, and we let her. First she makes Will understand between Chinook and her little bit of English to fill a pot of water at the creek and to start it boiling on the stove. From her beaded bag she takes a bundle of dried herbs and hands them to Annie, who looks confused.

“
Ee'-na stick.
Tea,” Agnes says. “For
waum sick.
”

I know that “
stick
” serves general purpose for “wood” in Chinook jargon, and as I look closer at the dried bundle I see that it's leaves from a willow tree. I can guess what
“waum sick”
means.

“She wants you to make willow tea to bring down Teddy's fever,” I tell Annie.

Agnes goes to Mam and reaches for the baby. You can see that Mam doesn't want to give him up, but she knows Agnes is his only hope. Agnes gently takes him into her arms. Smiling and cooing at Teddy in her own Sumas tongue, she unfolds the blanket and takes a good look at him. We're all watching her close, just as we did with Dr. Thompson not half an hour ago. It's hard to read what she's thinking. At last she asks,
“Ik-tah muck'-a-muck? To-toosh?”
I'm shocked by her immodesty as she puts her hand over one of her bosoms, in case we don't understand. “Milk?” she says in English.

“He never seems hungry,” replies Mam. “More often than not, he refuses. When he does nurse, he throws the milk back up.”

Agnes looks puzzled. She puts her fingers to her mouth, like she's putting food there.

“Weght?”
she says. Then, in English, “More food?”

John pipes up, “She wants to know if he's been eating anything else besides milk.”

Mam starts to shake her head. Then she remembers, “The medicine.”

John fetches the bottle of Dr. Thompson's medicine from the shelf beside the stove. Agnes passes the baby back to Mam and pulls out the cork stopper to take a whiff of what's inside. Her nose wrinkles. Then her look is pure disgust.

“Baby
páht-lum
!” she says.

None of us knows what she means.

“What's
páht-lum
?” I ask.

Agnes does a crazy dance, making her eyes roll. I can't believe it. Mam is aghast.

“Are you saying my baby is
drunk
?”

Agnes nods. She speaks the next word slowly and carefully, like she's trying to teach it to us. “Laud-um.” She repeats, “Laud-um.”

I'm at a loss. It's no Chinook word I've ever heard of. But Mam understands.

“Laudanum,” she says. “You mean there's laudanum in the medicine.”

Agnes nods her head, expecting Mam to get her drift, but she doesn't.

“Of course there's laudanum in it,” says Mam. “It's medicine.”

Agnes seems upset by our confusion. She prattles off something in Sumas lingo. We stare at her, then we look to each other. It's one thing for Dr. Thompson's medicine not to be doing Teddy any good, but is she saying it's making him drunk?

“What's wrong with laudanum?” I ask.

Agnes tilts her head and rests it on her hands, held together. She closes her eyes.

“Baby
moo'-sum.
Make sleep.”

I can see the truth dawning on Mam's face.

“The medicine's been making him too sleepy! That's why he isn't interested in feeding. That's why he won't gain weight.”

Agnes gives three nods of her head, relieved that at last we slow-pokes have caught on. Holding it like poison, Mam takes the bottle from Agnes and thrusts it at John.

“Pour it down the privy!” she declares.

She holds Teddy to her like he'll be safe as long as he's in her arms.

Chapter Twenty-Three

W
HEN
F
ATHER GETS BACK
and hears what's happened, he sends Agnes home with a twenty-pound sack of our best flour, which he has John carry for her. Before she leaves, she makes Mam understand that she's to let the baby suck on cloth that's been soaked in willow tea as much as he's willing. All of us know that little Teddy is not out of the woods, but now at least we have hope for him.

Father has bought plaster of Paris from Dr. Thompson. He gets Annie to cut up some old gunnysacks into strips, and he tells Will to bring him an old sock from Mam's sewing basket—one that already has holes in the toe. He cuts the toe open and slips the tube that results over my broken forearm. While he mixes the plaster with water, he tells me to sit at the table and has me hold my arm bent halfway at the elbow, with my palm upward. He dips the strips of burlap into the plaster mixture and begins winding them around the sock.

“How do you know this is right?” I ask him.

“I've not been a farmer all my life without learning how to set a broken bone,” he replies, pretending to be offended. He's almost jovial, so lightened is his mood by our hope for the baby.

He takes another strip and dips it, squeezing it between his thumb and fingers until there's just the right amount of plaster on it. He winds it around my arm from where the last piece left off. Just when I'm thinking that I can't remember the last time I sat in such companionable silence with my Father, he says, “About that saw.”

I bow my head.

“Why did you not ask me if you could borrow it?”

There's nothing for it but to speak the truth.

“I was afraid.”

“Afraid I'd say no?”

“Afraid … because I thought you didn't want me to go work for Mr. Osterman.”

He nods, and applies another strip of plastered burlap.

“I'll buy you a new one,” I say.

“You spent everything you had on the doctor's bill.”

“I'll earn more.”

“Not from Mr. Osterman.”

I want to tell him what I've learned about the telegraph man and the part it seems he played in Mr. Bell's murder, but the children and Mam are about.

“No, sir. Not from him.”

After a long moment, he says, “Let's call it even, shall we? The doctor's bill for the saw.”

I catch his gaze. He's looking at me man to man. That makes me feel good, better than I have felt in all these last two weeks. I keep my voice low.

“Father, do you know what the Sumas are saying about Mr. Osterman?”

“Aye.”

“Do you believe it?”

He takes his time answering.

“Nobody has proof,” he says. “At least, no white man. Without proof, he'll go on as he is.”

I think about this as Father continues to apply plaster to my arm. What proof
is
there? I try to remember every detail of the morning we found the body. I recall that Mr. Osterman looked shocked enough by the sight of the bloody hole in the back of Mr. Bell's head, but that could have been play-acting. I remember he tried to talk me into taking Annie home, telling me that he would wait for the sheriff to arrive. When I refused, he told me to go wait with Annie by the track. How long did Annie and I wait? A quarter of an hour? A half? Time enough for Mr. Osterman to arrange things around the cabin for his own purposes. And he was the one who suggested we follow that trail into the swamp, where we found the broken branches and the tinned food and the suspenders. Did he plant them there, and lead us to them?

When I went to Mr. Osterman asking to do the job he was thinking about hiring Louie Sam to do, it was like he'd forgotten that job ever existed. Not only that, but he sent me to repair the other end of the line—the opposite end from the one that supposedly needed fixing. So … did the poles near Mr. Bell's cabin never really need fixing? Did he draw Louie Sam to Nooksack with the promise of work, when his real purpose was to make it look like
he
was the one who killed the old man? Did Mr. Osterman let all of us believe that Louie Sam killed Mr. Bell—nay,
lead
us to believe it—to keep suspicion away from himself?

These are the thoughts that fill my head. By the time Father has finished with my arm, I am resolved that Bill Osterman must face justice.

M
AM SENDS ME TO
bed early, and I sleep like a log. I wake up before dawn to the sound of Teddy crying. It's a good sound. The cast on my arm is heavy and still a little damp, but the constant pain has simmered down to a dull ache. Pulling on my trousers with one hand, I go out from the bedroom to find Mam walking the floor with Teddy bundled in her arms. He's shrieking and frantic. Mam looks worn out. I wonder when she last had a full night's sleep.

“How is he?” I ask.

“His fever's gone down,” she says.

Father comes out from the space he and Mam share behind the curtain, pulling up his suspenders.

“Is he hungry?”

“I fed him not a half hour ago!”

She puts the baby into Father's arms. Teddy wails all the louder, thrashing his little arms. Father tries to calm him, but he hasn't Mam's touch. Mam settles herself in the rocker and begins opening her blouse—all modesty gone! I turn my back away. But in another moment, the baby has stopped crying. I hear the snuffling sound of him sucking.

“You'd think he'd never been offered the breast before,” says Father.

“Aye,” says Mam. I can hear the smile in her voice. “He's making up for lost time.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

M
AM REMINDS ME IT IS
Tuesday morning, and there's school. Despite my broken arm and despite the upset in our house, she insists that John, Will, Annie, and I will not miss another day of learning. She gets no argument from me. I have my own reasons for making the trek into Nooksack, but they have naught to do with Miss Carmichael making me recite the sonnets of Mr. Shakespeare for the umpteenth time. I have not forgotten that at the moment I laid eyes on Father outside the Nooksack Hotel yesterday morning, I was on my way to see Mr. Clark, the detective sent by the Dominion Government to investigate the hanging of Louie Sam. I make a vow to myself that I will find him this morning to tell him what I know.

But I'm afraid of how Mr. Osterman might get back at Father and me if I tell Mr. Clark what happened that night, knowing as I now do what a villain Mr. Osterman is. He tricked the men of Nooksack into executing an innocent boy. I wish I'd listened to my niggling feeling the night Louie Sam died. I wish I'd spoken up about the suspenders. Maybe some of those men would have listened. But all I can do for Louie Sam is speak up now.

A
S WE WALK PAST
Mr. Bell's burnt-out place on our way to the schoolhouse in town, Will says we should hurry up or Mr. Bell's ghost will grab hold of us by the ankles and pull us into the swamp to drown us.

“Stop talking nonsense,” says John.

“It's true!” claims Will. “Arthur Breckenridge says Tom was walking Mary Hecht home past here after the dance at Moultray's on Friday night, when all of a sudden she starts getting pulled into the swamp and he has to save her.”

“More likely Tom and Mary got caught smooching in the bushes and had to make up a story,” replies John.

“You boys mind your tongues around Annie,” says I, mindful of preserving my sister's innocence.

“I know what smooching is!” Annie declares, all miffed.

John gets a smirk.

“Then maybe you should tell George what smooching is, Annie. Abigail Stevens would thank you for it.”

If I had a good arm and a hand that wasn't burnt, I'd wallop John so hard he wouldn't know what hit him. But I don't, so instead I hook his left leg with my right foot and send him sprawling into the muddy track. He springs to his feet again.

“Damn you, George,” he cusses, causing Annie to cover up her ears. “If you weren't crippled, I'd settle this right here and now.”

“Shut your gob, John,” says I. “I have no time for such childishness.”

John spews damnation at me for calling him a child. I quicken my pace and walk ahead on my own with John still yelling at me. I have no patience this morning. I'm thinking about exactly what I'm going to say to Mr. Clark when I find him. I know what he wants—the names of those who led the Nooksack Vigilance Committee up the Whatcom Trail to Canada. I have no hesitation naming Mr. Osterman, sure as I am now that he set this whole tragedy in motion. I have my suspicions about Dave Harkness being in on it, too. But what about Mr. Moultray and Mr. Breckenridge and Mr. Hopkins? Weren't they misled by Mr. Osterman, just as much as the rest of us were?