The Devil's Making (8 page)

Wiladzap sent the other Indian back to camp, though he seemed to protest vigorously. Wiladzap and Lukswaas were told to sit on the cart at the tail, their backs to the corpse. They had to hang on tightly as the cortege set off towards Victoria and the cart lurched along the path. Wiladzap looked thoughtful. Lukswaas was almost as sullen as the whores when I had rousted them out of their shanties near Cormorant Street – a world away from Cormorant Point.

5

As we came into Victoria, the distant blue hills between us and the Pacific were sharp against a lurid orange sunset. People on the sidewalks stopped to stare at us.

At the court house, the corpse was slid onto a wide board and carried in, itself as stiff as a board now. Wiladzap was installed in a relatively secluded cell, at the end of the row. The other prisoners yelled out that they didn't want no drunken Indian murderer with them. The jailer, Seeds, roared at them to shut up and stood observing Wiladzap, as if taking stock of a new possession.

Wiladzap squatted on the cell floor, hunched in his blanket, his back against the wall, and closed his eyes.

Lukswaas was brought to make a deposition. Augustus Pemberton had been sent for, and was waiting for us in the room which we used as an officers' dining room and for interrogations. He gestured to Lukswaas to sit down at one end of the table. Her eyes were wide open in fear and she seemed almost to have stopped breathing. I had to go round behind her to show her the chair. She just stood and looked at it. I realised she did not know what to do. ‘Perhaps we should put aside our good manners and show this lady how to sit down, Sir', I said to Pemberton, who instantly understood and made a deliberate show of pulling out a chair at the other end of the table, sitting down on it, and pulling himself towards the table. I pulled out a chair for Luskwaas, and she sat down on it rather clumsily as I pushed it forward. My face was just above her hair, which smelled sweetly of cedar smoke.

Parry and I sat at each side of the table. I looked at Lukswaas again, noticing for the first time a strange ornament which had slipped out from under the blanket around her shoulders, a shiny black stone shaped like a flat paddle or fishtail, hanging from a leather thong around her neck. I got out my notebook and pencil again.

Pemberton lit up his pipe. He was conducting this examination as Stipendiary Magistrate. His face is that of a dashing Irishman past his prime: resolute yet worn. He has strong eyes and a prominent nose, but his cheeks sag a little and he is going bald. Not an unkind man, but he began to question Lukswaas in a cool detached way.

‘Mesika nem?' (‘Your name'.)

‘Lukswaas…' There followed a series of other names, which I could not transcribe.

‘Mesika Tyee klootchman?' (‘You Tyee's woman')

‘Ah-ha.'

Pemberton asked where the Indians were from? What were they doing at Cormorant Point?

In a quiet but strong, rather deep voice, Lukswaas explained in Chinook, more hesitant than Wiladzap's but not lost for words, that it had taken them fifteen days to come South from Tsalaks and they had been at Cormorant Point for twenty days. She replied to questions about McCrory, explaining that the ‘Doctah' had come to Cormorant Point with a yellow man, then three times on his own. He talked about the ‘breath of life' with Wiladzap. She said Wiladzap is Tyee but also ‘mestin man'. He knows how to suck and blow the breath of life. McCrory also wanted herbs for medicine. She and Wiladzap went with McCrory into the forest to show him where plants grew. She gave McCrory dried plants. He gave her money – eight silver dollars in all.

Pemberton asked if she had fun (‘hee hee') or kisses (‘bebe') with McCrory.

‘Wake!' She looked down her nose as haughtily, I thought, as an English lady would when asked such an impudent question.

But Pemberton pursued the point, asking if Wiladzap was jealous – ‘tum tum sick'.

‘Wake!' But she said Wiladzap would surely now be ‘tum tum sick' – meaning literally ‘sick at heart' – in the big house of the King George men.

What was the name of the Indian who had told the story that Lukswaas had been kissing with McCrory?

‘Smgyiik'. (My approximate transcription).

Why would he tell such a story?

‘Smgyiik tum tum sick.'

Did Smgyiik want to have fun, kiss, with Lukswaas?

‘Ah-ha.' Then she added, ‘Nika halo tikegh Smgyiik'. (‘I not like Smgyiik').

Who killed McCrory?

Luskwaas said she did not know, but it was not a ‘Siwash' – not an Indian, ‘Siwash' being the Chinook pronunciation of ‘Savage'.

‘Do you have any questions, Superintendent?' Pemberton asked Parry.

‘Nothing to add. Of course she's lying.'

‘You think so?' Pemberton stared down the table at the woman, his eyes a pale icy blue. She stared back at him, calmly now, her eyes, in absolute contrast, almost black, with the pupils indistinguishable from the iris.

Pemberton turned to me. ‘Any questions for her, Hobbes?'

‘Might I ask her the names and functions of the plants?'

‘You mean in case they are some sort of drug or opiate?'

‘That was my thought, Sir. Does she know their purposes and what McCrory wanted them for?'

I asked my questions. Lukswaas gave a list of six names in Tsimshian – difficult to transcribe. She said three of these plants helped give sleep to people who found it difficult. One plant was a cure for anger. Another two were to help in making a man strong in kissing, as she put it. McCrory had been very happy to have these.

I wished I had not asked the questions.

‘That's enough, I think', Pemberton said. ‘Ask the clerk to write up the deposition from your notes and get her to sign it with the usual thumb print. Make sure the clerk has an outside witness. I want this done properly. But don't send her away yet. First I'll look at the victim, then I'll interview the other prisoner.' He stood up and said ‘Mahse' (‘Thank you') to Luskwaas.

I went to Lukswaas and escorted her from the room. The clerk had been called and in another room she had to sit down again at a smaller table with him and with Harding.

*   *   *

The corpse was under its grey blanket on a table in another room. I pulled the blanket off, down to the waist, as gently as I could.

‘Go ahead, Hobbes, take it off completely. We're not squeamish', Pemberton said.

I took the blanket off and dropped it without folding it on a chair near the wall.

The corpse had turned a dark smoky grey, the streaks of blood almost black. The belly was swollen. A nauseating smell wafted up. Even Parry was looking a little green.

‘My goodness', Pemberton said, as if mildly surprised. He strolled around the corpse, pausing every now and then to look closely. The hand with the severed member in it – now grey and wizened, like a dried slug – was sticking out in rigor mortis.

‘Might I verify something?' I asked.

‘Of course.' Pemberton stood aside as I went to the corpse's head. I could not avoid looking at the eyes. They had gone misty though, and were not frightening. I gritted my teeth and reached down to touch the blood-clotted beard. It felt something like my own would feel, but one finger touched through to the flesh which was like cold wax. I tried to pull the mouth wide open but of course the muscles of the jaw were locked. I had to be satisfied with leaning down and looking into the foul half-open mouth, past the yellow teeth exposed by drawn back lips, to the blue-black tongue. I explained myself to Pemberton:

‘I wondered why there had been so much blood from the mouth and in the beard. There was no sign of a wound. Nor can I see any sign now – not the slightest gash.'

‘What do you mean? At any rate we'll have an autopsy.'

‘Perhaps this idea is macabre', I said, ‘but the blood from the mouth must have come from somewhere. Yet, as the Superintendent describes the effect of these knife blows, the lungs were not punctured so as to cause an effusion of blood through the throat. If the blow near the collarbone penetrated the lung it would have bled through the wound. I believe the man's member, now in his hand, was stuck in his mouth – pointing outwards, bleeding. He then pulled it out.'

‘Good God', said Parry. ‘If so, it confirms the savagery of the act.'

‘It may mean', I said, ‘that although the murderer left him for dead – horribly mutilated and, as it were, sacrificed – he was still alive. He pulled the thing out of his mouth at least.'

‘And yelled for help', Parry said sarcastically. ‘And the Tyee heard him almost a mile away.'

‘He would have been too weak', Pemberton interjected.

‘Of course', I said. ‘But alive for a while. He might have been discovered in such a state.'

‘I see what you mean', Pemberton said. ‘The Superintendent has briefed me on what the Tyee said.' He paused, looking at the corpse. ‘One thing you may not know, Hobbes', he said gently, ‘is that it's a known practice for the Indian medicine man, in a cannibalistic frenzy, to tear out chunks of flesh with his teeth.'

‘I've read about that', I said. ‘But if so, then this is a singularly unsuccessful effort: the bites did not detach the flesh.'

‘Touché.' Pemberton smiled. ‘Enough of speculation.' He turned away from the corpse.

As the others left the room, I picked up the blanket and re-arranged it over McCrory.

*   *   *

Luskwaas was no longer in the large room. I hoped that at least Seeds would offer her coffee or tea and somewhere to rest. Now Harding brought in Wiladzap.

He seemed to have changed already, from being in the cell only an hour. He appeared chastened, puzzled, not at all fierce. He sat down carefully, glancing around as if to note exactly what the rest of us were doing, but the chair did not seem foreign to him. He looked at Pemberton, but his eyes seemed out of focus.

Pemberton began by asking how many Indians knew Wiladzap as their Tyee.

Wiladzap explained that he was the Tyee of the people who were with him now. At Tsalak, where they came from, another man is a greater chief, his uncle, the brother of his mother. He, Wiladzap, is two men. He is an ordinary man, a warrior. He is also a spirit dancer – a ‘tanse-wind', or dance breath, a ‘tamanawis' or shaman.

Do the Tsalak people trade with the HBC at Fort Simpson?

Wiladzap's reply was lengthy and difficult, Chinook not being up to complicated matters. Eventually he managed to explain that he is amassing money so that eventually he will bear a great name. This name is ‘Legech'. Whoever wins the name will have to do it honour, and give many potlatches. Among Tsimshian, women win names through accumulating material goods, men through accumulating money. Until last year, Tsalak people had traded up the rivers with the Interior Tsimshian, in the mountains. For example, Wiladzap's blanket is a ‘chilcat', woven with the hair of mountain goats, traded in exchange for sea otter furs. Now the HBC trades up the rivers and there is no more trade for Indians.

‘I believe the Bay has recently claimed a monopoly of river trading', Pemberton remarked.

Wiladzap explained that the Tsalaks do not trade with the HBC or the missionaries. In the past they had traded further South – with the Kwagiutl and the Salish. Now they are in Victoria to trade with the King Georges. Sea otter furs, baskets, and carvings of stone and wood.

Pemberton asked Wiladzap where he had obtained his knife. Parry laid this on the table as an exhibit.

Wiladzap said the Tsalak all have knives like these, bought from coastal traders who also sell guns and axes, in exchange for furs.

Then Pemberton pursued the same line of questioning as Parry had at the camp, and received the same answers, including ‘The heart of the mouse speaks to the eagle.'

Pemberton observed blandly in Chinook that the eagle attacks and devours the mouse.

Wiladzap said that he had heard McCrory's voice inside his head.

‘Ask your question', Pemberton said, turning to me, ‘about the mouth.'

After a pause to gather my thoughts I asked whether, when Wiladzap had found the dead man, there was a thing in his mouth.

Wiladzap's eyes glittered with more focus, though as with Lukswaas it was not possible to distinguish the pupils, as he looked at me. ‘Itah kop amah', he said. (‘Thing in hand.'). Then ‘Kulakula'. This meant ‘Bird'.

‘Kulakula?'

‘Tsoowuts', Wiladzap said, in his own language presumably. He pointed to his lap.

‘He means the member, I suppose', Pemberton said with a half smile.

I said to Wiladzap that since there was nothing in McCrory's mouth, he must have been able to talk.

Wiladzap said that although McCrory was almost dead he had said ‘King George Diaub.' Nothing else.

Asked what this meant, he shrugged his shoulders and repeated separately ‘King George' and ‘Diaub'.

Pemberton began to ask about the basket of herbs. Did that belong to Lukswaas?

‘Ah-ha.' Wikadzap explained that Lukswaas had been collecting herbs with McCrory in the forest that morning, shortly before he had been killed, and that they had come back to the camp, then she had given him the basket to take the herbs away in, asking him to bring it back when he returned next time.

This revelation, made without any apparent sense of its possible implications, caused, I thought, a sort of shudder around the table. My own heart sank.

Lukswaas spent time alone with McCrory? Pemberton asked. And when Wiladzap said ‘Ah-ha' rather mechanically, Pemberton asked quickly:

‘Tyee tum tum sick?' Was the Tyee not jealous of Luskwaas being in the forest alone with the doctor?

‘Wake.' Then Wiladzap added that Lukswaas was safe with McCrory. McCrory had asked whether there was a ‘berdash' among the Tsalak. Wiladzap said now, vehemently, that there may be ‘berdash', as the traders said, among the Interior peoples, but there were none on the Coast.