The Devil's Making (55 page)

‘As to what happened at Dungeness Spit. This is, as the name suggests, a long curving peninsula of sand and shingle, covered with only a few low bushes, which juts out Northward into the Sound. It is the obvious stopping place for any Indians arriving from the North, wishing to camp for the night and then move on without contact with local Indians. However in this case the Tsimshian party, which arrived an hour or two before sunset, was spotted by some Clallam who recognized them as Tsimshian by the size and shape of their canoe, and the designs on its prow. And here is the nub of the story: some fifteen years ago, as precisely as I can ascertain, a party of Tsimshian passing through these parts abducted two Clallam women and brought them North from where they have never, needless to say, returned. Now for the Clallam, all Tsimshian are the same, though I understand they occupy some two hundred miles of coast and consist of many different tribes. So at the sight of these travellers, the Clallam began instantly plotting revenge. Messengers were sent out to the villages where relations of the abducted women lived. By midnight a war party of twenty five young men was gathered at Tsiskat, the Clallam village at the base of the spit. This presented, in fact, a long awaited opportunity for them to prove their valor, although not everyone would call a night attack on a party of sleeping people an act of valor.

‘The day had been very clear and at this time of year, on the Straits and in the entrance to the sound, such a day is usually followed by heavy fog. Sure enough this had come rolling in and covered the spit, so that a man could not see much farther than the end of his arm, but the Clallam knew the spit well, having dug clams there all their lives. They were armed with the guns they use for hunting – long barrelled rifles for the most part – and knives. They set out in canoes and paddled up the West or outer side of the spit, landing quietly at a point somewhat below where the Tsimshian had camped on the Eastern or inner side. At this point they seem to have lost their nerve. Some urged turning back, for fear of punishment by the U.S. government (through its agent, myself, whom they hold in some fear). Then someone suggested they build a small fire and blacken their faces with the charred wood. In the excitement of this, they got their resolution back again. They re-embarked in their canoes and paddled silently up to a point just opposite the Tsimshian camp. They waited on the shore while two scouts made their way across the narrow spit to survey the camp. It was a makeshift affair of mats spread from stakes and logs, under which the entire party was lying. There was a large fire which gave some light through the fog. The scouts could see that there were many more women than men, which was encouraging. One woman got up to replenish the fire, searching around for driftwood, and almost stumbled into one of the scouts as he lay on the ground. This unnerved him, and when she had lain down again, he was so impatient for his comrades to come up from behind and attack that he fired his gun at the sleeping Tsimshian.

‘The Tsimshian of course jumped up and seized their own weapons, but in the light of their own fire and looking out into the night and the fog they must have been at a great disadvantage. Almost at once the entire Clallam party was up at the level of the scouts and they poured bullets into the Tsimshian until all were dead. In the old days, the Clallam would have taken women and children as slaves, but since slavery is now illegal, they had already decided to spare no one. Such are the workings of the savage mind! To replace one crime by another even worse!

‘They then rushed in and decapitated the men. Since there were only ten heads to go round among twenty five Clallam, they began to yell at each other and quarrel over them, some indulging in an indecent tug of war for their possession. In this rage they went around the other bodies, mutilating them, and cutting off ears and fingers where there were rings. Then someone discovered that a body he found and was about to decapitate was that of one of his companions. This Clallam had been killed apparently by a pistol shot, which makes a different wound from a rifle. There was a terrific quarrel. These men who had massacred thirty five men, women and children were heartbroken and furious at the death of one of their own. They came to blows, the scout who had fired the first shots being blamed for his recklessness. Then in another of those sudden losses of nerve which afflict them, they decided to embark for home, leaving their trophies, by which I mean the heads, on the beach although carrying off a fair amount of trinkets and silver jewellery, along with the body of their fallen companion.

‘The next day the matter came to my attention and since the elders of the Clallam, those named after your English Dukes and Earls, live in great fear of the U.S. Government, all twenty four of the remaining offenders were swiftly handed over to me. I have put them to work on the Snohomish Reservation, secured with ball and chain, cutting trees and pulling out stumps from dawn to dusk, which I assure you is back-breaking work. But I regret to tell you that I will have to release them after some months. U.S. law is not fussy about one Indian killing another. These are viewed as domestic altercations, and left alone. The life of an Indian is not viewed in the same way as that of an American. I do not know if the same view is held in British Columbia.

‘So there the matter rests, and an ugly story it is. I hope you find this account satisfactory.

Yours truly, William King, U.S. Indian Agent, Port Angeles, W.T.

‘P.S. the bodies of the Tsimshian were terribly cut up, and I had the Clallam bury them at once. It was remarked to me that one woman looked pale for an Indian. But then the Northern Indians are lighter skinned anyway, so I did not give the matter any attention. No doubt this was the woman you mention, who had married the Tyee, God help her. But rest assured, in the state of things, you would not have wanted to retrieve the body.'

Begbie put down the letter with a sigh. The three of us remained looking into the flames, listening to the gusts of the November storm outside ripping the last leaves from the trees around the house and bringing in squalls of rain from the West. After a while, Lukswaas took my hand and placed it against her belly where I could feel the kicking of our child, impatient, so I imagined, to be born.

AFTERWORD

Many of the characters of this story, apart from the obvious ones like Charles Darwin and John Humphrey Noyes, are in the historical record: Judge Begbie, Augustus Pemberton, Captain Delacombe, Lieutenant Epstein, William King the Indian agent, and even Chief Freezy. Begbie and Pemberton have streets named after them in Victoria.

Aemilia's remark about animals not experiencing repentance or remorse comes from a critique of Darwin by his friend Frances Power Cobbe.

The various sexual therapies practised by McCrory – even the ‘electric testicules' – are well documented in 19th century North America and Europe.

British Columbia joined Canada in 1872, on the promise of a railway from the East to the Pacific coast, which was eventually built, and a causeway to Victoria, which was not. Amor de Cosmos became Premier of the new province, was so corrupt that he fell into disgrace, and died insane and almost forgotten. Judge Begbie soldiered on, adapting to Canada, and died peacefully in his beloved Victoria, but his dream of justice for the Indians was not realized. By the end of the century the Tsimshian and other coastal tribes, their populations halved by epidemics, were reduced to poverty and working in salmon canneries.

An account of the massacre of the Tsimshian on Dungeness Spit in 1869 can be found in Edward Curtis,
The North American Indian,
Volume ix, 1913. Curtis's informant was Naehum, the scout who fired the first shot, ‘now an old man and a devotee of the Shaker religion. After this confession he fell into a violent fit of “shaking”, prayed volubly, and asked God for pardon, all the while ringing a bell and weeping copiously.'

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS
.

An imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group.

THE DEVIL'S MAKING
. Copyright © 2013 by Seán Haldane. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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First published in Canada by Stone Flower Press and distributed in Europe by Rún Press.

First U.S. Edition: May 2015

eISBN 9781466878129

First eBook edition: March 2015