The Lynching of Louie Sam (11 page)

I
HAVE TO TELL
F
ATHER
that the Indians are gathering, that they're thinking about attacking. I head down to the mill, but he's not where I expect to find him, oiling the driveshaft or cleaning the mill stones as he would normally be doing when the mill is idle. It's cold in the mill, and silent—except for the scream of gulls circling over our pond. Then I hear a tinkling noise outside. I open one of the shutters on the window, and there's my father, perched on the ledge beside the waterwheel—doing his business into the pond. I decide to wait until he's done to talk to him. But I'm too late. He's seen me leaning out the window.

“What in damnation do you want?!” he thunders.

I have seen my father drunk only once before, when the baby girl that was born after Annie and before Isabel died. He was sad and quiet then. He's angry now.

“Leave me alone!” he yells. “All of ye leave me the hell alone!”

I pull my head back inside so fast I knock it against the jamb. I see a liquor jug on his workbench, just like the jugs that Pete Harkness's pa brings home from Doc Barrow's Five Mile Roadhouse, and from which Pete and I stole a nip once or twice. I pull out the stopper and my eyes sting from the fumes. The jug is almost empty. I'm tempted to pour the rest of it out onto the floor, but I'm afraid of what Father will do in his present state if he finds out.

I think about telling Mam about what Joe Hampton said, but it would be wrong to worry her right now, when she's busy with the new baby. I decide to keep my fears about the Indians attacking to myself for now.

When I return to the cabin, everybody is at sixes and sevens. Annie and Isabel are squabbling because Isabel won't mind Annie and take her nap. Teddy won't stop crying, and Mam is fretting about what's gotten into Father just when she needs him the most. I daren't tell her where he is, nor what condition he's in. This being Sunday, I have a notion that I should step up in his place and read something calming from the Bible to all of them, but when I open the Good Book and start reading out loud from Deuteronomy, these are the first words I find:

So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood
from among you, when thou shalt do that which is
right in the sight of the Lord.

“What's wrong, George?” says Mam. “Keep reading.”

“I can't,” I tell her.

Because when I read those words, all I can think about is Louie Sam.

Chapter Thirteen

M
ONDAY MORNING,
T
EDDY
is running a fever. Mam is worried enough to want to take him into town to see Dr. Thompson. But Father says he won't go into town. He tells me to hitch Ulysses and Mae to the wagon and for me to take them, meaning I will miss yet another day of school—which is fine with me, given the name-calling I suffered on Friday and the heathen poem Miss Carmichael expects me to recite today.

Our wagon is really just an open cart that we use for carrying supplies. The weather is drizzling and cold. Mam settles herself on the bench and holds the baby bundled against her in a blanket. Father puts an oilskin over her head and shoulders. For a moment, I think he's going to tell me to move aside, that he will take Mam into town in my place. For a moment, I think Mam will ask him to. But neither one of them says anything. I whip the reins, not too hard, and tell Ulysses and Mae to geddup. Father stands in the rain watching us go.

Mam stays silent while we ride, but I can feel her worry. I know she's thinking about the little girl between Annie and Isabel. She called that baby Marie. She died when she was just a few days older than Teddy is now. I know she's worrying about how she's going to pay Dr. Thompson, too, because with customers seeming to spurn us and our mill all week—and with Father making visits to Doc Barrow's Roadhouse—the jar in which Father keeps his earnings has been emptier than usual.

D
R.
T
HOMPSON'S OFFICE IS
at the back of an apothecary he runs on Nooksack Avenue, across from the new hotel that went up last year. The rain has turned the street to mud that sucks at the wagon's wheels and slows Ulysses and Mae down. It seems that we will be trapped forever in this jostling cart with the misty rain coming at us sideways, but at last we're there. I take hold of Teddy while Mam climbs down from the wagon. He feels like a feather in my arms. He mewls and cries, wanting Mam. I'm relieved when I put him back into her arms. She tells me to come into the apothecary with her out of the rain, because she doesn't need two sick children on her hands.

The shop has a whole wall of shelves filled with bottles and jars of various sizes, containing all sorts of powders and liquids. Mrs. Thompson is behind the counter, weighing something that looks like dried ragweed on a scale. She's older than Mam and on the ample side. Well fed, as Father would say.

“Good morning,” she says, without taking her eyes off the scale. When she finally looks up at Mam, she sees in her face that something is seriously wrong. She comes around to our side of the counter and takes the baby from her. Peeking under the blanket, she coos to him.

“What a fine boy you have, Mrs. Gillies,” she says. But you can tell that she's just trying to make Mam feel that everything is going to be all right—when, in fact, she thinks that Mam has good reason to be concerned. “Bring the baby and sit by the stove, dear. Dr. Thompson is with a patient. He shouldn't be very much longer.”

Mam thanks Mrs. Thompson and does as she says. There are two chairs, but I don't feel right about sitting in the other one, dripping wet as I am and muddy from the splatter kicked up by the wagon's wheels. Besides which, it's too hot beside the stove, and I don't like the medicine smell that fills the room. Anyway, all the time we were traveling from our farm, I was forming an intention of my own. “I'm going to see to Mae and Ulysses,” I say.

“Don't be standing out in the rain,” Mam warns me.

I go outside and check briefly that Mae and Ulysses are hitched firmly to the post so that I won't have told Mam an out-and-out lie, then I keep walking across the street to the new hotel.

The Nooksack Hotel is as fancy as it comes in these parts, three stories tall with a spiral staircase winding upward from the lobby to the rooms. Mr. Hopkins, the manager, is behind a long raised counter. He peers at me funny through his eyeglasses when I walk in. I nod to him like I'm here on important business, which I am. I'm headed to a small office off the other side of the sitting area—the telegraph office.

Since Father doesn't want to hear about the Sumas Indians coming together just across the border, I have decided it's my duty as a citizen of Whatcom County to tell somebody in authority about what Joe Hampton told me. Mr. Moultray would be my first choice, but he is located another two miles away at The Crossing. Mr. Osterman is closer at hand, here in town. The door is closed, but through the glass panel I can see him at his desk with his back to me, and I can hear him tap-tapping away at his machine.

The telegraph works by sending little bursts of electricity down a wire strung from pole to pole to Ferndale, then Bellingham Bay, and from there all the way to California and beyond. The electricity is made inside a battery—a glass jar filled with copper and zinc and water that somehow starts a current. Then the operator uses a key to transmit the bursts of electricity in a code of dots and dashes. The code stands for the alphabet. For instance, in Morse code, the letter A is one dot followed by one dash, the letter B is one dash and three dots, and so on. I don't know them all, though. At the receiving end, there's another telegraph operator who understands the code and copies down the message that's being sent, letter by letter.

I know all this because Miss Carmichael once invited Mr. Osterman to the school to tell us about his job. It seemed to me to be about the best job a fellow could have, sitting at a fine desk all day sending and receiving important messages. It's a job that earns respect, not the least because it's modern and scientific.

When Mr. Osterman stops tapping at the little black key and sits back in his chair, I knock on the door. I guess I've startled him, because he jumps a bit. But when he sees who it is, he waves me inside. He seems in a hurry though, like he doesn't have time to talk to me.

“What can I do for you, George?” he says.

He straightens the papers on his desk while he talks. He keeps his office neat and tidy, like his trimmed moustache and his freshly laundered clothes.

“There's something you need to know, Mr. Osterman.”

“Oh? What might that be?”

“Joe Hampton says the Sumas are getting together. They're thinking about getting even, about attacking, because of—” I remember in the nick of time Mr. Moultray telling us not to speak about what happened.
“Because,”
I say, knowing he'll catch my drift.

Of all things, Mr. Osterman smiles.

“Does he now?” he says, acting like there's nothing in the world to be concerned about.

“Joe says their
tillicums
are coming from all up and down the Fraser River. He says …” I stop myself from speaking the forbidden name. “He says the boy told his mother that he was innocent.”

This last piece of information makes Mr. Osterman's smile vanish. His brow furrows. His hands stop tidying the papers on his desk.

“He was lying, of course,” I add quickly, mindful of the poor reputation we Gillies have acquired of late, and wanting to show him that I am on the right side of things.

“Who else have you told this to?” he asks.

“Nobody, sir.”

“See that you keep it that way. The last thing we need is a lot of scare talk.”

“But, sir, they intend to kill one of us. Joe ought to know. He's kin to Louie Sam—” I spoke the name! “The boy,” I say in a hurry, correcting myself, “he was some kind of cousin to Joe.”

Mr. Osterman gets up from his chair and steps toward me, looking me in the eye.

“Listen to me carefully, George. I know you want what's best for your neighbors and for your family. I know you want to keep them safe.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So don't go around spreading that dead Indian's lies about what happened. It just confuses people. Makes the Sumas think they got a case, when they got none. Tell your pa not to start spreading stories, either.”

“But the attack—”

“They won't attack. I happen to know that the Canadian authorities are at that Sumas gathering at this very moment, talking them out of it.” He nods toward the telegraph key. “Nothing happens around here that I don't know about. Now you get on to school, or wherever you're supposed to be.”

He turns his back to me and sits down at his desk. I know he wants me out of there, but there's another reason I've come to see him. I've been thinking that maybe there's a way I can earn a little money to help pay Dr. Thompson.

“Mr. Osterman?”

“What is it?”

“Are you still looking for help?”

He turns around in his chair.

“Help with what?” he says.

He's irritated, and it rattles me.

“Help repairing the telegraph line.”

“What are you talking about, George?”

“Like you were going to hire Louie Sam for.”

My voice cracks as I say his name. I did it again! Mr. Osterman's brow darkens like a gathering storm. I feel like a fool. I feel like running out of here before Mr. Osterman's temper explodes in my direction. But the strange thing is, all of a sudden Mr. Osterman stops being mad. He's friendly and nice.

“Thanks for the offer, George, but when I took a good look at the line that day, I realized we can get by until the summer. That's why there wasn't any work for …” He doesn't say the boy's name.

“But … you said you turned him away because you didn't like the look of him.”

At that, his temper flares. He raises his voice. “Don't tell me what I said!”

I feel myself go red. I'm standing there like a fool, not knowing what to say. Then he calms down a little and tells me, “I was mistaken about needing to hire that boy. I only regret that poor Mr. Bell paid the price. Go on now,” he says. “Git!”

I head back through the hotel lobby and go outside, keeping my eyes to the ground, burning with embarrassment. Pride goeth before a fall. I went into the telegraph office all puffed up with my big news, and I'm coming out feeling like an idiot. Why did I think that anything Joe Hampton had to say was worth passing on to somebody like Mr. Osterman? Why did I ever bring up repairing the line? But I could have sworn that Mr. Osterman told Sheriff Leckie that he sent Louie Sam away because he was ill-tempered. I don't remember him saying anything about him changing his mind and deciding there was no work for him, after all. I must have heard it all wrong.

It's raining harder now. Outside the hotel, there's a small man in a long canvas coat tying off a horse at the hitching post, his face hidden under a wide-brimmed hat. I turn my eyes away so that if it's somebody else important, he won't see me here. That's when I get a good look at the horse. It's Mr. Bell's gelding, the one that Pete and I rode up to Canada. Now I can't help myself from looking to see the man who's riding him. Only it isn't a man. It's Mrs. Bell—Annette—Pete's more-or-less stepmother. I guess somebody decided the horse should go to her. She looks me straight in the eye and smiles.