The Devil's Making (18 page)

‘You don't need to believe everything you hear,' I said soothingly, seriously worried that the news of what had happened to the magic organ of the Doctor might unhinge Mrs Larose. ‘He was stabbed to death.'

‘And what are you going to do about it?' she said shrilly. ‘I'll tell you, Mr Hobbes, hanging is too good for that devil. If I could get my hands on him, I'd crucify him!'

With this outburst, she seemed spent. She looked at me numbly.

I only had one more question: ‘What were you doing last Wednesday afternoon?'

‘You mean when he was kilt? I was here. Where else?'

‘Was anyone with you?'

‘I dare say the boy was, and the kitchen slut, though they're in and out. As you can see, the summer season has not yet come.'

I thanked the Irish Rose for her patience, and after begging a sample of the alienist's tea, which she gave me in a small paper bag, I took my leave.

12

MCCRORY CLEAN RECORD HERE BUT LEFT SEPTEMBER 1868 BEFORE SUIT FOR ALIENATION OF AFFECTIONS BY JOHN REYNOLDS HUSBAND OF PATIENT ELIZABETH REYNOLDS CAME TO TRIAL STOP SIGNED KNOWLES SAN FRANCISCO POLICE.

So McCrory had been an alienist in more ways than one … I wrote a memorandum to Inspector Wilson, the man who was in charge of police paper work, to ask him to set the long procedure in motion of sending to San Francisco for any pre-trial documents in connection with the alienation of affections case. Meanwhile the question nagged at me. Who had been the alienist's mistress? Or, more crudely, with whom did he use the lambskins? With how many women? A jealous husband might be capable, I supposed, of murder and even of mutilation. But this brought me, sadly, back to Wiladzap. It was known and freely admitted that McCrory had gone into the forest with Lukswaas. Why look further? Still – I forced myself to consider the case in the most sordid of terms – no white man would bother to use a contraceptic agent with a squaw, no more than with a prostitute. Or did they protect against syphillis, with which Indians were supposed to be riddled? I did not know. Embarrassed at my own ignorance, I made a note to consult a medical man about this. Unfortunately there was nothing about contraceptics in the
Medical Physiology
I had taken from McCrory's.

I had been sitting in a small room I used as an office. I decided I should visit Wiladzap, who had not spoken for some days. As I arrived at the cells, Seeds greeted me with, ‘Here you are. He's been askin' for you. Only says one thing, though he says it in different ways: ‘Hop', ‘Hob', ‘Hops', even ‘Cop' – ha, ha.'

Wiladzap was sitting on the bed, wrapped in his chilcat, looking at the wall of his cage.

‘Let's bring him into the yard,' I said. ‘He'll need some fresh air. I'll talk to him there.'

‘He won't come,' said Seeds. ‘Least not with the others, and I ain't goin' to ast him by hisself. First exercise time he was gonna come out of the cell – must of thought I was lettin' him lose or somp'n. Then when he saw what was up he went straight back in.'

‘Does he eat?'

‘Nope. Only drinks water. I dunno how he does it. Five days, it makes. He'll be dead before we get him to the rope.'

‘I hope not,' I said, then realised that was not quite what I meant.

Wiladzap had clambered rather slowly off the bed. He stood facing me. ‘Hops,' he said.

‘Klahowya. Chahko copa nika.' (‘Hello. Come with me.')

Seeds opened the cage door. This was a safe procedure since the door to the whole row had been locked behind me, and the door out to the exercise yard was directly from the cell block, just beside Wiladzap's cage.

Wiladzap stepped out unsurely, and looked around him, up the row, at the other prisoners who were whiling away their time as always playing cards. Perhaps they knew he had not been eating. He seemed to have lost his value as a source of amusement or contempt, and they ignored him. Seeds opened the door to the yard. This was a stone paved box, thirty feet or so square, within two windowless walls of the courthouse and two outside walls twelve feet high and set with spikes.

I ushered Wiladzap out in front of me. Seeds remained in the doorway, unabashedly watching and ready to listen.

Wiladzap walked into the centre of the yard, rolled his head back, and looked straight upward into the sky which, since it was noon of a clear day, was dazzling. He began rolling his eyes around as if to exercise them. His face had become thinner and paler, giving it a dusty look. He lowered his head after a while and looked at me.

‘Wiladzap iskum shantie,' he said. (‘Wiladzap get song.') He then uttered a short chant of words in his own language, still looking at me. He said, in Chinook again, that I must take the song to his people at the camp. They would understand it.

I asked whether the song would make any trouble.

‘Wake.' (‘No.')

I pulled out my notebook and pencil. Wiladzap nodded his head. Then he repeated his chant very slowly, phrase by phrase – or perhaps it was verse by verse. There were in effect four phrases, beginning something like, in my attempt at transliteration: ‘Dinarhnawraw handehabewaw angurhkurhl tramawhee…' I took it down patiently.

Wiladzap moved round to look at what I had written. Then he smiled. ‘Shantie,' he said, pointing a finger at it. I could not help being pleased, and thinking how strange it was that the Chinook word for song, ‘shantie,' went back through the ‘shanty' of English sailors, to the French ‘chanter' to the Latin ‘cantare.' I also smiled. Then, to my surprise, Wiladzap translated the song into Chinook, which I also wrote down. Transmitted across the simplified, almost infantile medium of Chinook, it meant something like: ‘The spirit of the house of bees is punishing my body. I am stung by them but they make honey. The bear cares little for the stings of the bees when his muzzle is sticky. The bear in summer must often sleep a long way from his den.'

I asked for no further explanation, in case this would be an insult. I repeated my earlier question about the song not leading to trouble.

Wiladzap shook his head vigorously. ‘Tsalak mitlite alki,' he said (‘Tsalak stay a while.') Then he would say no more. He stood in the sun and began stretching his arms. He looked almost happy.

On impulse, I asked whether he would like to eat and drink.

Wiladzap said yes.

Pleased, I turned to ask Seeds to provide whatever food Wiladzap wanted.

I stood for a while watching Wiladzap doing nothing except stretching his arms and occasionally throwing his head back to look into the sky and roll his eyes. I explained to Wiladzap that it was time for him to go back to his cell, and he complied without a word. He did not look at me again, although I said goodbye.

As I left the cell block I ran into Superintendent Parry, strangely agitated.

‘Look who's here,' Parry said.

Sitting in a row on the bench along the vestibule wall, with two big baskets at their feet, were three Indians. At first glance they looked ordinary, in the usual HBC blankets, of the dullest colour, which was grey, and bare legged except for moccasins. The middle one was Lukswaas, the others a man and woman whom I vaguely recognised from the camp, the man because he was unusually thick set and well muscled, and the woman because she was young, small and quite pretty. All looked at me seriously.

Parry, who was not without heart, muttered, ‘Don't know whether to laugh or cry.' He probably realised, as I did, that the blankets were a disguise, for safety. ‘They brought food,' he said. ‘Must be dried salmon, by the smell. Mamook nanitsh!' he barked (‘Make see!').

All three Indians got up. The man stood still while Lukswaas and the other woman opened the baskets, which had been smeared with dirt and dust, presumably to disguise their distinctive designs. I became absorbed in watching Lukswaas bending forward over her basket. She is so fine in her movements. Wisps of her thick hair fell forward from her braids. I noticed her earrings again, of abalone, pure mother of pearl. Everything about her fascinated me. Silly ass, I told myself, as my heart melted. Parry and I moved forward to inspect the contents of the basket: a mass of damp grass, which Lukswaas's nimble fingers folded apart as dexterously as if it had been a cloth, to reveal little bundles of green and white shoots about six inches long. I asked in Chinook what they were.

She replied softly that they came from a tall plant that grew in the water and had a brown head.

‘Reeds?' I said to Parry.

‘Cat tail rushes, probably. I've heard that Indians eat them.'

We turned our attention to the other basket, which was packed with sides of small salmon, smoked hard and brown and emitting a pungent but agreeable smell.

‘All right,' Parry said. ‘We'll send the baskets down. Seeds can dish out the food regularly. That is, if the Indian is eating.'

‘He just said he was ready to,' I said, wondering at the coincidence.

‘She can't see him,' Parry said, as if anticipating a question from me. ‘The Commissioner and I discussed it. It would be too great a risk to permit visits, because of the “voice of the people,” as that rabble-rouser De Cosmos is always calling it. Maybe after the Indian is sentenced.'

‘That won't be for a while,' I said.

‘We still can't take the risk. Halo nanitsh Wiladzap!' Parry shouted at the Indians (‘No see Wiladzap!'). He added, more kindly but still in a shout, that maybe one day they could.

Without a word, in a mute accepting way, they turned to go, leaving their baskets. They had not even dared, it seemed, to make sure they would be delivered.

‘Nesika iskum muckamuck Wiladzap,' I said (We take food Wiladzap).

The Indians paused to listen. ‘Mahse,' Lukswaas said (‘Thanks' – from the French ‘Merci'). Then they left.

I thought of calling them back and giving them Wiladzap's ‘Song,' but it did not seem right. I had been asked to deliver it to the whole Indian band. So I let these three go. I did not mention the song as such to Parry, but said, ‘The chief gave me a message, verbally, that I should give to the Indians at Cormorant Point, about them having to stay there.'

‘That's all?'

‘Yes. But of course it was said in Indian language – about the bees staying in their hive. I thought I'd ride out and give it to them. At the same time there's someone I want to question out Cedar Hill Road.'

‘You're on a wild goose chase, lad,' said Parry. ‘Our goose is a tame one now, and we've got him in a coop.'

13

I wanted to leave the Indians time to walk back to Cormorant Point. I planned to arrive there in the late afternoon. First I would conduct two interviews.

I walked over to Quattrini's warehouse near the wharves. Quattrini imported vegetables from California during the winter, and exported them from the Saanich farms to various points South during the summer. I had to sit and wait in the front office for a while, as he was hunted down from somewhere in the warehouse or on the quay. Eventually he arrived, a very different figure from the gentleman in his Sunday best at Orchard Farm, now dressed in a checked shirt and dungarees, wearing a straw hat and smoking a cigar shaped like a long black twig.

‘What can I do for you, son?' Before I could get up, Quattrini had sat down on a chair beside me, slapping me on the knee with a big hand, whose back was covered with curly black hair.

‘Can we have a private talk?' I glanced at the office clerk.

‘Run along, kid. Take a break.'

The clerk scurried out of the room. Quattrini had lifted his hand from my knee, but was still sitting very close, so that I was enveloped in cigar smoke. ‘Smoke?' Quattrini asked, reaching into his pocket.

‘No thanks. I don't want to take much of your time…'

‘Take as much as you want,' Quattrini interrupted, his manner indicating that his time was very valuable indeed. ‘I'm easy.'

‘I'm questioning everyone who knew Dr McCrory,' I began.

‘That dude? I hardly knew him. Just social-like, out at the orchard.' Quattrini's voice softened and his eyes grew moist.

‘Just on Sundays?'

‘Yup. Wouldn't have gone outa my way to see him any other day. But I was willin' enough to talk to him at the farm. You know, for a dear friend's sake…' Quattrini winked.

‘You mean Mrs Somerville?'

‘Bella. Finest woman that ever walked the earth, bar one – my wife Philomena, God bless her.'

‘Passed away?' I ventured.

‘Passed away,' Quattrini echoed. ‘Yup. I'm a lonely man. My kids are grown up. One o' my girls married a Nigger, Jeroboam, guy who hauls freight, but the Niggers don't do too well these days, so I got him haulin' for me now. Boy, that heathen keeps
her
busy raisin' picaninnies, so I don't see much of her. Two of my boys are in Frisco learnin' the business with my brothers. Another, the kid, is helpin' around here. But I need a bit of company all right. And of course mosta the women in this town are you know what – we call 'em in Italian “putanas”. Hell, you know Italian. Or else they're stuck up and hoity-toity. But when I first saw Bella I knew she was for me. She's been attached to that dead husband of hers for nigh on ten years. But not stuck up at all. She's a lady, of course. An English guy like you maybe knows lots of them. Not Franco Quattrini! But she's friendly. And what a looker!' Quattrini's eyes moistened again.

‘And Dr McCrory?'

Quattrini scowled. ‘A ladies' man. But you know what, I wonder if a guy like that really likes women. He likes himself! Me, I don't mind myself, but I don't pretend to be somethin' I ain't.' He caught my eye. ‘Except on Sundays I dress up and act dignified. Why not? I can afford it. Not from this business here, though. I can tell you, if I hadn't of kept some business in Frisco I'd be broke. This place is goin' downhill so fast nothin'll save it except annexation – fast.'