The Lynching of Louie Sam (26 page)

“Down at the mill with Father.”

Mam starts running down the path to the mill. I tie off Mae and Ulysses to a tree and follow Mam, lickety-split. At the end of the path I find Mam stopped, staring at the wall of the mill, now a wall of flame—the roaring heat warping the air around it. Gypsy is at Mam's side, whimpering in between barks. Mam cries out, “How could they do such a thing?”

I look at the angry blaze and know in my heart that Mam is right—this is what Dr. Thompson meant when he talked about punishment. Through the smoke, I make out John and Will by the pond, scooping up buckets of water.

“Go back to the house, Mam,” I tell her. “Take Gyp. Keep the children safe.”

In a flash Mam sees what I'm driving at, that if they hate us so much they could set the mill on fire, they could do the same to our home. She calls to Gyp and hurries back up the path, while I run to the pond and grab a bucket to help John and Will haul water.

“When did it start?” I call to the boys over the din of fire and crashing timbers.

“'Bout half an hour ago!” shouts John. “Gyp was barking and wouldn't stop. I came outside and smelled the smoke.”

I turn to the mill with my full bucket and see Will handing off a pail to Father, who throws water at the east wall, the one containing the waterwheel. My heart takes a leap to see Joe Hampton at his side—I'm thinking that maybe with all of these hands we have a chance at saving something. I hand my water off to Joe, who pivots and splashes it onto a spur of orange and yellow that's making its way toward the wheel, which so far has been spared. He shirks off the blanket he's wearing as a poncho and tosses it to me.

“Get it wet!” he yells.

I leave the water buckets to John and Will and throw the blanket into the pond, finding enough strength in my left hand that between it and my good right one I can pull its sodden weight back out of the water. I carry it back to Joe, who grabs it and starts beating back the flames with it. I pick up my bucket and fetch more water. Father has three of us bringing him buckets now and is able to pick up the pace of dousing near the waterwheel while Joe works his way around to the south wall, where the flames are so fierce. So far the fire hasn't reached the creek-side north wall. If we can stop it from spreading any further, we'll keep the wheel from burning.

John and I are at the pond, side by side, filling our buckets when a gunshot cracks the air. We both look in the direction of our cabin where it came from, both with new fears. I glance over to Father and Joe, still working. Neither of them heard it. They're too close to the roar of the fire.

“You stay,” I tell John.

I set down my bucketful of water so he can carry two, and I run up the path to our house. Mam is standing outside, holding Father's rifle. So that's where the shot came from. She calls to me, “There's two of them!”

I look to where I can hear Gyp barking, in the bushes along the track that leads to the house, and I see two points of light bobbing between the trees. Lanterns. Gypsy is out there, barking fiercely. I take the rifle from Mam and tell her to get back inside and lock the door. With only one good arm, I can't load the rifle—there's naught I can do but use it for show. But it's better than facing whoever's out there bare-handed.

There's a yelp from Gyp, and then she's silent. I don't see the lights from the lanterns any longer. I listen for the snap of a twig, but all is still. Mae gives a nervous whinny from where she and Ulysses are tied along the track. In the moonlight I can see her nodding and shaking her head. I step softly over to the wagon and use it for cover as I scan into the woods for movement, but there's none that I can see. I'm worried about Gyp, that she's gone so quiet. What have they done to her?

“Get off our land!” I yell. “I've got a gun!”

There's a choked off laugh, coming from the right of me—not far into the bush. It sounds like a kid!

“I can hear you!” I call. “I know you're there!”

A voice comes back at me, a voice I recognize as belonging to Tom Breckenridge.

“And what the hell are you going to do about it with one arm broke!” he shouts, taunting me.

“I know that's you, Tom!” I say.

Now I can see his lantern light through the trees, and I can hear the swish of undergrowth as he comes my way. There's a second light behind him, bobbing toward me.

“Who's with you?” I call.

But in another second I can see for myself. It's Pete Harkness.

“Unless you're planning on throwing that rifle at us, you may as well put it away, George,” says Tom with a grin. “We know you can't shoot straight.”

Tom looks over to Pete to see if he appreciates his joke. Pete gives a laugh. I lower the gun. I couldn't shoot them, even if it was loaded.

“Did you set the fire?” I say.

“What fire?” says Tom, still with that grin on his face.

“I'm telling the sheriff it was you!”

“Go ahead,” says Pete, “if you think the sheriff's ever going to listen to you again after all the lies you've been telling him about folks.”

“It's a shame about your mill,” Tom says. “I hope nothing else bad happens to you.” He turns to Pete. “C'mon,” he says. “There's a bad smell around here, like dirty Indians.”

“Or dirty Indian lovers.”

“Same thing.”

Tom and Pete step out of the bush and amble away toward the trail, like they're out for an evening stroll.

“Pete!” I call. Tom keeps walking, but Pete turns back to me. “What did you do to Gypsy?”

In the light from his lantern, I can see him lose his cocky look. For a second I see the old Pete, my friend. He knew Gyp from when she was a pup. When we were boys, we used to take our dogs with us when we went hunting for rabbits and the like.

“It weren't me,” he says. For a second he seems broken up, then in a flash he gets angry. “You were there that night, George,” he tells me. “It was your idea to follow them. You were part of it. Don't make like you wasn't.”

I stare at him wishing with all my might that I could find some reason why he's wrong, why he had more to do with the lynching than I did, why he's guilty of taking a boy's life and I'm innocent. But he speaks the truth. I've got blood on my hands, same as him. The only difference between us is that I'm sorry for what happened. What use is that to Louie Sam?

Pete looks like he wants to say something more, but instead he just shrugs and follows Tom off down the track. I watch them go. There's no point in pretending there's something I can do about them. There's no point at all.

Chapter Thirty-Two

F
OR THE REST OF THAT NIGHT
I helped Father, Joe, and my brothers save what we could of the mill. The waterwheel wasn't too badly damaged, though the driveshaft was burned. Father thought about replacing it, but then he thought about how much business the mill was likely to see, given how the mood in the valley had swung against us. So the mill sits there as we left it that night, the east and creek-side walls mostly still standing, but the insides charred and in ruins.

At first light I went looking for Gypsy. I found her lying on her side behind a moss-covered log, the fur around her neck sticky with dried blood. Her throat had been cut by Tom Breckenridge. I knew we should count ourselves lucky that it was only the dog that died that night, and not one of the family, but I cried anyway—for Gypsy, for Louie Sam, and for the wrong I was part of and knew then I would never be able to put right, not with the whole Nooksack Valley bent on whitewashing the business of who really murdered James Bell.

For the next few months we heard rumblings about the Canadian government trying to find out who led the lynch mob, but Governor Newell stopped being governor in July, and the new governor, Mr. Squire, didn't take the same interest. Joe Hampton told me that most of Louie Sam's people, the Sumas, moved away from Sumas Prairie up the Fraser Valley while they waited for justice—because they felt safer farther away from the International Border.

After a while, people around Nooksack acted like they'd forgotten all about Mr. Bell and Louie Sam—mostly because neither was a subject for polite conversation, or any other kind of conversation, for that matter. Bill Moultray, Robert Breckenridge, Bert Hopkins, Dave Harkness, and Bill Osterman have gone on with their lives like nothing bad happened at all. So my guess is that the Sumas will be waiting for quite a while before they get the justice they expect for Louie Sam.

Late in the spring, Dave Harkness married Mrs. Bell, making an honest woman out of her—more or less. Mr. Moultray held a dance above the livery stable to celebrate the occasion. I hear that Kitty's father, Mr. Pratt, played his fiddle. We Gillies were not invited, not that I wanted to set foot near a Harkness ever again after what happened, nor near their kin Bill Osterman. Abigail stayed home that evening, too, even though she loves to dance. When she found out what Pete and Tom did to our mill and to Gypsy, she would have nothing to do with them. I'm happy to say that at least Abigail is still my friend. Well, more than my friend. I guess you would call us sweethearts.

Agnes has gone back to live with the Nooksack. As for Joe, he talks about clearing the land around their shack and becoming a farmer. Then in the next breath he says he thinks he'll cross the border into Canada and go live in the wilderness, trapping and hunting like his mother's people have done for centuries. If he leaves, we'll miss him. We Gillies will never forget how he came to help put out the fire.

Once in a while, if I'm walking through the woods alone, I wonder if Louie Sam's spirit might come to me again. Joe says he could come as a raven or as a coyote, you never know. I've thought a lot about what I'd say to him this time if I had the chance. I'd tell him that I thought he was brave the way he held his chin up that night with all those grown men shouting at him and calling him names. I'd tell him that I'm sorry that I believed so quickly the lie that Bill Osterman made up about him. And I'd tell him that I pray for him to God, and to all the spirits of this valley.

Afterword

T
HIS BOOK IS A WORK
of fiction, but the key people and events are based on fact. On the evening of February 27, 1884, teenagers George Gillies and Pete Harkness secretly followed the Nooksack lynch mob as they traveled north into Canada with the aim of seizing Louie Sam for the murder of Nooksack resident James Bell, four days earlier. The mob, disguised in “war paint” and costumes, was led by William Osterman, William Moultray, Robert Breckenridge, and Bert Hopkins. Near the International Border between the Washington Territory and British Columbia, the lynch mob encountered Whatcom County Sheriff Stuart Leckie on his return from Canada, where that day he had witnessed Canadian Justice of the Peace William Campbell handcuff fourteen-year-old Louie Sam and leave him in custody overnight at the farmhouse of Thomas York, whom Campbell had deputized as a constable. The lynch mob sent one of their number ahead to Mr. York's farmhouse to pose as a traveler in need of a bed for the night. Mrs. Phoebe Campbell—Mr. York's daughter and the wife of Justice Campbell—later recounted that Mr. York believed that this infiltrator unlocked the farmhouse door after the household had retired for the night, thereby allowing the mob easy access to Louie Sam.

George and Pete were in Mr. York's yard when the mob entered his house and hauled Louie Sam, still handcuffed, outside. And they were present when, on the ride back south to Nooksack, the mob stopped just short of the border and put a noose around Louie Sam's neck. Eyewitness accounts report that when Louie Sam recognized William Moultray through his disguise, he spoke his only words of the night, recorded variously as: “Bill Moultray, I get you” and “I know you Bill Moultray, and when I get out of this I will get you.” His identity exposed, Moultray slapped the flank of the pony that was carrying Louie Sam, causing the pony to bolt—and Louie Sam to hang.

It was never proven that William Osterman, the Nooksack telegraph operator, murdered James Bell. However, the historical record shows that immediately following Louie Sam's death the
Nation presented evidence to the Canadian authorities that he was guilty, based on Louie Sam's account of his visit to Nooksack to seek work from Osterman on the morning of James Bell's murder. The
were convinced that William Osterman lured Louie Sam to Nooksack as a scapegoat for the murder he planned to commit.