The Devil's Making (22 page)

It did not seem to be the custom to talk while eating. I did not look closely at Lukswaas. I liked this picnic but was embarrassed by it. As we finished eating, the other woman, who had stayed nearby without herself eating, went and fetched a carved wooden bowl with water for me. I drank some and gave it back to her, saying ‘Mahse' in thanks. She then gave it to Lukswaas who drank.

I broke the silence by making a gesture toward the other woman and saying, ‘Nem?'

Lukswaas smiled. ‘Wan,' she said. On hearing her name, Wan smiled too.

Then Lukswaas asked me, in her Chinook which was adequate but more hesitating than Wiladzap's, how long Wiladzap would stay in ‘plison' – a word she must have picked up at the courthouse.

I said Wiladzap would be free from prison once it was found who had killed the doctor.

Lukswaas said that Wiladzap had not done it.

I asked who did? Did a Tsalak do it?

‘Wake,' she said emphatically.

Did a siwash (an Indian of any kind) do it?

‘Wake.'

I asked her with difficulty, in Chinook which was not suited for anything but the description of material things, how she knew an Indian had not done it.

She frowned but began to explain slowly. She had not seen the body, she said, but she had been told about it by Waaks. She had been told the body had been bitten. An Indian would not do that unless he was a medicine man who was ‘halayeet.' This was a word in her own language, which she tentatively explained as ‘asleep but not asleep.' I supposed this meant ‘in a trance.' Or, Lukswaas continued, unless he was a chief who wanted to impress – make fear in – his enemies. But there were no medicine men in ‘halayeet' now. And no chief would expect to make fear in his enemies by biting or even killing the Boston doctor.

But Wiladzap was a medicine man, I interjected, as well as a chief.

Not now, Lukswaas explained. Medicine men were only medicine men at certain times, when healing a patient, or in winter at a spirit dance.

I remarked that Wiladzap had said in his questioning by Pemberton: ‘I am a man and not a man.'

She nodded her head vigorously. ‘Ah-ha.'

This had taken a long time to get clear. We were still sitting side by side. Wan was squatting opposite us as if waiting for orders, her bare thighs visible up to her bark fibre kilt.

I told Lukswaas as best I could that I was the man who had to find who had killed the doctor.

‘Nika kumtuks,' she said. (‘I know.') Then she looked at me intently. At close range her eyes were very clear, the dark brown iris distinct from the pupil. She said she could see that Hops' heart was sick. (Or his mind was disturbed – whatever of the many things meant by ‘tum tum sick.') Hops would find who had killed the doctor if he stood in the same place as that man. She repeated this and elaborated, faltering in Chinook but at length. It was like when a hunter clothed himself in the skin of a bear, moved like a bear, growled and scratched like a bear. If Hops stood in the same place as that man, as if he were putting on that man's skin, he would see and feel the same things as that man. He would know why that man killed the doctor.

I took a moment to think about this. So far in my investigation I had been collecting information, in a hurry and under pressure. I must slow down and think more – get into each suspect's skin. Into his
mens rea.
I came out of my reverie and found Lukswaas was still looking at me, her face pink in reflected firelight although every feature was visible in the growing dusk.

‘Mahse,' I said to thank her for her help, and found I was smiling at her. She smiled back. ‘Chad,' I said, pointing at my chest, ‘Nika Chad.' I am Chad. ‘
Chad
Hobbes.'

‘Tsad,' she said seriously. Then she corrected herself, showing again that she had a good ear: ‘Chad.' Then she said, ‘Nem toketie,' meaning it was a nice name.

It was like putting one foot into water, then being tugged farther in. I could not face whatever feeling this aroused. I looked around, as if for help. Then I remembered my hallucination of ‘Thank you' again.

‘Thank you', I said, looking straight into her eyes.

‘Thank you', she said back, as if repeating the words in a language lesson.

‘You know those words,' I said in English.

She looked at me questioningly.

‘You said “Thank you” to me the other night – over there'. I gestured with my head towards the forest. ‘Mahsi', I said in Chinook, a little impatiently.

‘Ah-ha! Thank you! Mahsi!' She went on in Chinook to say she had heard traders, King Georges and Bostons, say ‘Thank you' and she knew it was ‘Mahsi'. Her coppery cheeks became slightly pink. She was blushing.

So there was my explanation.

The sun had gone down and the sky above was a royal blue, with a pink glow through the forest from the West. The fires in the clearing were flaring a brighter red. Most of the Indians had gone down to the edge of the bluff where they were sitting talking and looking out over the water at the blue hills of San Juan Island, behind which a cold-looking moon, almost full, had just risen. I leapt to my feet without looking at Lukswaas and said I must go. ‘Waaks? Tsamti?' I said to Wan.

The woman got up and went to fetch them. I hoped it was the proper etiquette to say goodbye politely to the two men. I watched Wan reach the seated Indians, then women get up and come across the clearing. Suddenly I felt there was no time. Prey to another of the impulses which had seized me that day, I turned to Lukswaas who had risen to her feet beside me. I said – or heard my own voice say, choked with feeling – that I wanted to talk to her again. Could she come to the place where she had hurt her foot?

She said nothing. The two men arrived, and I held out my hand. ‘Goodbye,' I said in English.

First Waaks, then Tsamti shook my hand, or rather pumped it, and imitated ‘Koodpie.' Then they all said ‘Klahowya.'

I walked to where my horse was, and untied the reins. I mounted and rode slowly up the path into the darkening woods, not looking back. At the first gully I stopped and let the horse drink – something I should have done earlier – and patted her neck. Then I proceeded up the path. The trees were black but the path was clearly visible in reflected moonlight. I recognised the place. I rode a few hundred feet further, then dismounted and tied up the horse again. I walked back down the path, found the rock against which Lukswaas had been sitting that afternoon, and sat down on it, holding my knees in my hands and putting my forehead on them.

The forest grew blacker and the moon rose higher, appearing through the treetops. Every trunk and branch was picked out in black and silver. There were no night birds, no insects. Only occasionally there would be the scurry of a small animal.

I had often considered myself a clear thinker. At least, I thought a lot. But now I could not think. ‘Damn her,' I cursed under my breath. She seemed to have taken away my mind. When I had said I wanted to talk to her again I had at that moment meant it. But what did I want to say? The truth was, I was completely tormented by a few intense memories of looking at her, touching her, and holding her. I could think of nothing else.

A long time passed. I stood up to stretch myself and looked down the path. It was too sharply defined in the moonlight for any mirages, or for any tree or bush to look like her. Either she would come or she would not. It was still warm in the woods but they were empty of even midges or mosquitoes. I stood rooted to the spot. It was of course possible, or even likely, that she would not come at all. But I knew I would wait stubbornly.

She appeared, walking silently up the path, carrying a bundle under one arm. She reached me. I opened my mouth to say something, an instinctive apology, but she held one finger to her mouth. She looked into the forest downhill from the path. Then she stepped forward over a clump of ferns and began picking her way around a rock. I followed, though not as silently. She plunged into the forest through a tangle of ferns, fallen logs, and bushes, then pushed through a clump of low bushes. I followed on her heels. As we came out of the bushes there was a bare patch of mossy ground with a large boulder behind. Lukswaas set down her bundle and bent to untie it. A mat and two bark fibre blankets. Then she unpinned her chilcat and set it on the ground. She was naked except for the stone around her neck. She took it off quickly and dropped it on her blanket. She plunged down onto the blanket she had spread, and pulled the other over her. She glanced at me, then unexpectedly she turned over on her side, curled up with her back to me.

I had been standing like an idiot, not even knowing how to take my clothes off, telling myself I should not, knowing I would. Now I did, dropping my heavy tunic and my shirt to the ground, stooping to take off my boots, then taking off my trousers and drawers. My body was white in the moonlight – like an ithyphallic statue. I knelt down, lifted the top blanket and slid in behind Lukswaas. I embraced her, rather as I had on the horse. I took her breasts in my hands, sank my face in her hair and nuzzled as I had wanted to earlier. We rocked gently together for a long while until suddenly she pressed back and down on me, a channel seemed to open, she rolled over on her front with a cry and rolling over with her I found that I had become no more than a coupling animal – one that moaned without words or mind but at the end called Lukswaas' name.

After a while I rolled back on my side to take my weight off her. She rolled back with me and we lay still close. I was in a daze. My mind wandered back to my few experiences of touching women. Sally of course, but I had recoiled from that. Kissing village girls behind hedges, feeling their bosoms through their dresses, being told to stop and dutifully stopping. Kissing, and the whole agonising question of when to kiss, whether to kiss an eligible girl before becoming engaged … Yet I had not kissed Lukswaas at all. We had not even caressed each other very much. This made me want to do it now. Despairingly I thought of that evil curate's saying that he had to ‘get rid of it.' I had got rid of nothing. I had gained a new desire. I put out of my mind something else the curate had said, about squaws being impossible to resist. Lukswaas was impossible to resist at this moment. Or more truthfully, since she was doing nothing, I could not resist what I wanted to do. I pulled her toward me so that we were face to face and began touching her all over. I moved my face to hers and brushed her lips with mine – I did not feel like doing more. I caressed her hair, her back, her legs. She began doing the same to me. I had some vague idea of spreading her legs apart with my hands and plunging masterfully into her, the way I had always supposed men did with women, but my main impulse was tenderness, and instead she ended up rolling over and astride me, then crouching down so that her hair was against my nose and mouth, smelling of woodsmoke. Again I was overwhelmed and lost my mind. At last I came back to the smell of woodsmoke, her body warmly clasped to mine, the forest huge and dark around and above us.

Lukswaas wriggled apart from me. ‘Nika klatawa,' she said quietly. (‘I go.') She sat up and gathered her blanket, wrapping it and pinning it around her breasts. Then she put on the black stone which shone for an instant in the moonlight.

‘Ikta yahka?' I asked. (‘What that?')

She said it was for her to see herself in, in the light of the day.

A mirror. I knew the Indians had mirrors from the whites. If Lukswaas could have a knife and cook with iron pots and pans, she could surely have a looking glass. Her mirror-stone must be special. I reached out and took it in my hand for a moment, then gave it a kiss and let it go again. Then Lukswaas took it off and without a word reached out and put it over my head.

‘Wake' – No, I said, beginning to take it off.

‘Wake! Nika potlatch mesika.' (‘No, I give you.')

There was only one thing I could give her back: the signet ring from my little finger, a gift from my mother. I pulled it off and held it out to her. I stifled a crazy impulse to put it on her wedding ring finger, then pressed it into the palm of her hand. She held it up and looked at it for a moment. Then she reached for one of the cords from her bundle, threaded the ring, and tied it deftly around her neck. Then she wrapped her chilcat over it to hide it. I reached for my shirt, then the rest of my clothes, and got dressed while she rolled up the blankets and tied them into a bundle again. She glanced at me, then set off through the bushes back to the path. I followed her.

At the path she turned and moved against me so that I could hold her. I kissed one of her ears and felt like crying. Then she pulled away and said, ‘Kansih?' This meant both ‘when' and ‘can see.'

I managed to reply that we could see each other after three nights, at this place.

She turned and walked off down the path. I watched her until she disappeared, then walked along to where my horse, good old thing, was standing patiently, gigantic in the moonlight. In a daze, I mounted and set off, up the path to the road, then along it.

But as I rode I was invaded by all the doubts and horrors which had been, as if miraculously, put aside. You fool! I almost screamed to myself. She's somebody's wife! She's a slut! A squaw! I dug my heels into the horse and it bolted forward. Then where the road crossed a stream in a culvert, I reined in, dismounted, and ran down the bank to the silvery rippling water. I stripped all my clothes off, crouched in the stream, and washed myself frantically all over with the icy water. My member was streaked with some dark feminine secretion which I washed off in disgust. I picked up a handful of fine gravel, even, and rubbed myself with it. She was an Indian, promiscuous, filthy. She would have the fire-sickness!

Then I stood shivering by the edge of the stream, shaking the drops of water from my body, and came to my senses, only to lose them again in the opposite direction: I swore at myself for having seduced a married woman, for inviting her to meet me in the dark in the forest, for using the authority of my uniform and the power I had over her – and her imprisoned husband! – to intimidate her into giving herself. Then I clutched the stone mirror hanging around my neck and raised it to my lips murmuring her name.