The Lynching of Louie Sam (4 page)

We reached a big old log that was sticking up out of the swamp at an angle and climbed up on it. On the other side of it, we could see sunken footprints where Louie Sam had made a long jump off the log into the bog. From there the bush got thicker and the trail petered out. The men decided that there was no point continuing. If Louie Sam was going to be caught, it was up to the sheriff to do it.

W
E RETURNED TO
M
R.
B
ELL'S
burned-out cabin. The ruins were cooler now. It was easier to pick through the remains, but there was nothing much left. It seemed Mr. Bell didn't own much to speak of, even before the fire turned it all to ash. Nothing but the five hundred dollars in gold he had in that strong box.

“I'll keep it in the safe at my store until it's decided what's to be done with it,” volunteered Mr. Moultray.

“What about the body?” asked Father.

“May as well bring him back to my place,” said Mr. Moultray. “He'll keep in my shed until he's buried. His horse can stay in my stable until somebody decides who gets him.”

Father remarked, “I suppose somebody needs to tell Mrs. Bell what happened.”

The men all fell silent at that. Nobody was stepping up to volunteer for that particular detail. The situation was complicated, what with Mrs. Bell having up and left Mr. Bell a year ago to go live with Pete's pa.

Father remembered something about Mr. Osterman.

“Your wife Maggie is Dave Harkness's sister, isn't she?”

“That she is,” he replied.

Mr. Moultray saw what Father was driving at and finished his thought.

“That's practically family,” he said to Mr. Osterman. “It's only fitting that you should be the one to tell Mrs. Bell.” He added by way of lessening the weight of the duty, “I don't reckon she'll be too sorrowful.”

There was another long silence. From the way Father glanced at John and me, I got the feeling that more would have been said on the matter if we boys had not been present.

Chapter Four

I
T TURNED OUT THAT
S
HERIFF
L
ECKIE
and Robert Breckenridge didn't make it to Canada on Sunday afternoon. They got stopped by the discovery of a new witness—who turned out to be none other than Pete Harkness. Outside the schoolhouse at lunchtime on Monday, I got the full story from Pete.

“I was coming back from Lynden—”

“What were you doing way over there?” I asked him. Lynden is a good five miles west of Nooksack.

“I was running an errand for my pa. Stop interrupting!”

Pete likes to hear himself talk. He may not be the smartest boy in school, but I know from my little sister Annie that all the girls in the classroom—from the first grade on up—think he's handsome with his blue eyes and wavy hair. He's tall and broad-shouldered, and has a way of believing that his good looks mean he's always right.

“So I was heading along the road from Lynden back home to The Crossing,” he continued, “when I saw Louie Sam coming toward me, walking in the other direction. Let me tell you, the look on that Indian's face struck me with terror—so dark was it and filled with evil. There was murder in his eyes.”

“Did you see the rifle that he used to kill Mr. Bell?”

“Damn right, I did! Of course, I didn't know at the time that he used it to murder Mr. Bell.”

Tom Breckenridge came over and joined us.

“Pete saw Louie Sam yesterday,” I told him, “walking along the Lynden road.”

“If I'd seen him,” Tom replied, “he wouldn't be walking no more.”

He spit in the dirt. Tom is Pete's age, but small and wiry like his father. And—like his father—Tom is full of tough talk trying to make up for his size. Ignoring his bluster, I turned my attention back to Pete.

“So what happened next?”

“When I got to The Crossing, Uncle Bill was there, telling Pa that Mr. Bell was dead,” Pete said.

“How did Mrs. Bell take the news?” I asked.

“Why should I care?” proclaimed Pete.

I should have known better than to ask. Pete has no fondness for his more-or-less stepmother, Mrs. Bell, nor for her son Jimmy, who's living under Pete's roof now like they're supposed to be brothers.

“Anyway,” he went on, “when I told Pa about seeing the evil look on that redskin, he said that I had to tell Sheriff Leckie what I saw right away. He even let me saddle up Star. I headed for the sheriff's office in Nooksack at a gallop, and got there just in time—because the sheriff and your pa,” he said, nodding to Tom, “were just about to set off north in search of Louie Sam.”

“And the whole time, Louie Sam was heading west, on the Lynden road!”

“Exactly. If it hadn't been for me coming across him like that, they would have headed off on a wild goose chase to end all. As it was, Louie Sam managed to hide himself among a bunch of Nooksack in a camp they got near Lynden.”

“So his
tillicums
took him in,” I remarked.

That's more Chinook lingo:
tillicum
means friend.

“Sheriff Leckie tried to talk their chief into handing him over, but the chief said they hadn't seen him.”

“Lying Indians!” declared Tom.

“Is there another kind?” replied Pete. “The sheriff said the chief had twenty or more braves with him, so there was nothing he could do but wait and hope that Louie Sam might make a break for it. Finally, he reckoned there was no point in waiting any longer. That Indian could have slipped away into the forest any time he wanted.”

“Heading for his people north of the border,” I ventured to guess.

“That's what the sheriff thinks,” said Pete. “He and Tom's pa headed up the trail for Canada this morning.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” said Tom.

P
ETE'S ACCOUNT OF SEEING
Louie Sam clinched it. If anybody had had doubts about that Indian's guilt before, it was impossible to deny it now. The way everybody had it figured, Louie Sam must have come across Mr. Bell's cabin shortly after his falling out with Mr. Osterman and decided to help himself to the supplies within. Given the temper on that Indian, it's no stretch to imagine that the slightest complaint on the matter from Mr. Bell would have sent him on the rampage. So he waited until Mr. Bell's back was turned and he let him have it. But, on the other hand, people said Mr. Bell would share a meal with anybody passing by, so why would he have denied a few cans of beans to an Indian who was holding a rifle? Why would he have risked his life for that? I voiced all of this to Pete.

“You think too much,” was his reply. “Louie Sam killed Mr. Bell. That's all you got to know.”

“How's Jimmy?” I asked.

“How should I know?” Pete snapped.

“It's his pa that's dead,” I said.

Jimmy Bell is my brother John's age and I don't know him well, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him—especially since it mustn't be easy for him, with his mother taking him away from his father to go live with the Harknesses.

“Jimmy hated his pa,” replied Pete.

“Why?”

“Why do you ask so many stupid questions, George Gillies?”

With that, Pete went off to join a ball game a few of the boys had started up in the field behind the school. My brother John was one of those boys, and so was Jimmy Bell. Jimmy was a quiet type, plump and big for his age—not really one to stand out at sports or in school. I watched him take his turn stepping up to bat, swinging, missing an easy ball—cursing. If he was sad about his pa it didn't show. So maybe Pete was right. Maybe he
did
hate his father—or at least had no warm feelings for him. But then I thought, maybe Jimmy was feeling more angry than sad about what happened. I guessed that I might feel that way, too, if it was my father who had been murdered in cold blood.

M
R.
B
RECKENRIDGE CAME BACK
from Canada that very afternoon. We heard this news from our neighbor, Mr. Pratt, who came to our mill late in the day. He heard it from Mr. Hopkins who works at the new hotel in town—who had been at The Crossing when Mr. Breckenridge arrived at Bill Moultray's store with the tale of his journey. News travels up and down the valley so fast, it's almost like the telegraph line.

“The sheriff and Bob Breckenridge went to see the Canadian justice of the peace in Sumas, a Mr. Campbell,” said Mr. Pratt, who's a natural storyteller and plays the fiddle when there's a dance in town. Like Father, he's a Scot by birth. “The justice listened to all the evidence Sheriff Leckie presented and agreed that Louie Sam was the likely culprit. It turns out that Justice Campbell's the one who put Louie Sam's old man in jail for murder, so it came as no surprise to him that the son had followed in his father's footsteps.”

“What's he planning to do about it?” asked Father as he poured a sack of Mr. Pratt's wheat into the hopper, getting ready to grind it.

“He issued a warrant for Louie Sam's arrest. But, the way Bob tells it, the sheriff didn't altogether trust this Campbell fellow. The Canadians have different ways, different laws. So the sheriff talked Campbell into letting him ride with him to take Louie Sam into custody, to make sure justice is served. Bob and the sheriff parted ways at that point, and Bob came back here to spread the word.”

“And this Justice Campbell expects the Sumas to hand Louie Sam over just like that? Because he has a warrant?” Father's eyebrow was cocked, meaning he thought this was a daft notion.

“Aye, that's the question, Peter,” replied Mr. Pratt, with his own knowing look. “That's the question.”

Before leaving, Mr. Pratt also told us that plans had been made for Mr. Bell's funeral. Those who were interested in paying their respects were to meet at the Hausers' cabin on Wednesday. Judging by the mood in the valley, Mr. Pratt expected to see every man in the district there, ready to show the local Indians by force of numbers that they would not let the murder of a white man go unnoticed, or unpunished.

Chapter Five

O
N
W
EDNESDAY MORNING
, the day of Mr. Bell's funeral, my mother and father were arguing. There were no raised voices—that isn't Mam's way. But when she is displeased, you know it. I could tell just by looking at her when Father and I came in from milking that something was eating at her. Mam was short-tempered as she tried dishing up breakfast, hampered by the big roundness of her middle—that out of delicacy we boys were not supposed to mention.

Finally, Father told Mam to sit down and let Annie do the serving. In that, she obeyed him. But her mouth was still tight as a drum as she helped Isabel with her porridge.

“Anna, it's the man's funeral,” Father said out of the blue, as though picking up on a discussion he and Mam had been having earlier.

“I have no argument with you going to show Mr. Bell his due. It's this foolish talk I can't abide.”

I was curious about what talk she was referring to.

“You do not appreciate the seriousness of the matter,” replied Father, using his serious voice to prove the point.

“I get along just fine with the Indians,” Mam said.

“When do you ever have business with the Indians?”

“Agnes Hampton often brings me berries in exchange for a few eggs. Or one of her boys will bring me a hare, or a brace of quail.”

“That squaw was never Mrs. Hampton,” Father replied.

From the way he said it, there was a meaning behind the words that he did not intend for us children to grasp. But being more experienced in the world than my brothers and sisters, I knew what he was getting at—that the Hamptons had never been properly married. Mam was silenced for a moment by that remark, though not for long.

“It seems some folks are more easily forgiven on that account than others.”

Now she was talking about Pete's father and Mrs. Bell, who also lived as man and wife without the benefit of a preacher.