by Seán Haldane
About three miles out of town we passed on the left a group of houses with a wooded cliff behind them but freshly dug gardens in front, looking down over the road towards the Plains. Then there was a newly built church of grey painted wood in a natural rockery of boulders, with cedars and oaks and a graveyard already containing several headstones.
We began to skirt around the grandly named Mount Douglas, originally Cedar Hill, on our left. We were now in a dense forest mainly of firs whose trunks were bare for the first forty feet or so, going up straight as masts to their gently swaying tops over a hundred feet above. There was a dense undergrowth of ferns and bushes. The air was suddenly cool and clammy. The sound of the horses’ hooves scraping on rocks and pounding on the earth was muffled. There was no birdsong, not even the caw of a raven. One or two small colourless birds crept silently up and down the fir trunks. The shafts of sunlight were narrow and pale, like swords plunged down through the tree tops into the undergrowth. It reminded me of Salisbury Cathedral in its Gothic perpendicular lines, but there was no sense of God.
We crossed, on ramshackle bridges of cedar trunks laid over with planks, a number of ravines with streams gurgling steeply down among rocks and ferns. The road dipped into an extension of Cedar Plains where the ground was swampy, then rose into dense forest again, gloomy and sunless with boulders and crags covered with moss. We picked carefully across a washout. Then Parry, just in front of me, reined in his horse abruptly. An Indian, more squat and heavily muscled than the first but identically dressed, was standing in the middle of the road. From behind our cavalcade the first Indian came running, panting and exhausted, his face shining with sweat, and called something up to Parry. I caught the word ‘kiutan’ – horse. Parry ordered us to dismount, then did so himself.
We had been in the saddle an hour and a half. I stood in the dust, swaying slightly. The two Indians were talking in their own language – the usual clicks of the tongue, swishes, and glottal stops. The messenger gestured that we were to tie up the horses, and pointed to a track through the forest. Parry reached for a moment into the large pocket of his tunic where he kept his revolver, but must have decided not to bring it out. He began tying up his horse to one of the narrower firs. Harding and I did the same.
The messenger led the way down the track, dry and dusty, with a thin carpet of fir needles, winding downhill among ferns. We had to climb over dead mossy trunks in tangles of laurel-like bushes with tiny white flowers. The track descended abruptly to a stream which ran across it on a bed of stones, with occasional boulders. The Indian stopped, looking downstream. He made no gesture, but the three of us turned our heads in the direction of his gaze.
A man was sprawled on his back over a large boulder, his boots in the stream. Above the boots his trousers of checked grey and brown were crumpled, the braces dangling in the water. From the knees up he was naked, white, and bloody. The hand nearest us was in the water. The head was pillowed on the boulder, the face looking straight up at the dark treetops, with blood around the mouth, clotted and darkening in a strong carrot red beard. The stream gurgled gently.
Parry spoke. ‘I know that man. McCrory. The doctor. The alienist.’ He pronounced ‘alienist’ as if French. He stepped along the stream bank. Harding and I followed. We formed a triangle about the dead man, perching on rocks with the water gently swirling around our boots.
The blood was drying in dark streaks, but was fresh and bright red near the wounds. The most obvious one was at the crotch. The member had been cut off at the root, leaving a bloody hole. The belly had been slashed across but shallowly, not ripped open. There was an obvious stab mark just under the ribs, and one between collarbone and neck, where the wound had been somewhat widened as if the knife had been worked back and forth. There was something wrong with the thick carroty hair. It looked like a bloody wig which had been pushed out of place. A gash followed the hairline above the forehead and the ears which were beginning to turn blue-black. The arms and shoulders had also been slashed or …
Parry said, ‘Notice, boys. Those are bite marks.’ He squatted down and peered at the arm nearest him. ‘Almost torn out a chunk of flesh’.
I crouched down at the man’s right side. There were indeed the marks of teeth, a blue-black ellipse in the pallid skin of the shoulder.
‘Indian work’, Parry said, standing up again. ‘He’s nearly scalped. The medicine men run amok and sink their teeth into living flesh. I’ve never heard of it done on a white man though.’
I remained crouching, looking dumbly into the water at the dead man’s hand.
‘Look here, Sir’, I said, standing upright very quickly.
Parry tried picking his way around the dead man’s feet, but he splashed in the water. ‘God almighty’, he said, looking down. His bulldog face, normally flushed and choleric, blanched suddenly. He had seen what I thought I had seen: the dead man’s hand was clutching his severed member.
‘It’s the Devil’s making,’ Parry muttered.
‘Clothes down here, Sir’, said Harding from a few yards downstream.
Glad to turn away from the corpse, I followed Parry to look at where a charcoal grey frock coat was flung on a rock near the bank. A shirt, waistcoat, and an elegant dove-grey hat were on the bank nearby, and beside them a small closed basket, exquisitely woven from strips of bark, dyed or painted with red and black geometrical patterns. I turned instinctively to look at the Indian who was standing perfectly still, legs planted apart on two rocks, looking straight at me. I held up the articles one by one. Frock coat, shirt and waistcoat were covered in blood, and each had rents in the front left sides below the shoulder and at the waist. ‘Just these two rents’, I said. ‘I presume he was stabbed, then stripped and mutilated after he fell. Look, there’s dirt on the back of the coat, although when it was thrown over here it landed front down.’
‘It would not have sufficed to kill him’, said Parry – the veteran of Inkerman. ‘Nor would any other single blow. The one beneath the ribs would miss the heart and the one at the shoulder missed the artery, otherwise there would be more blood there. It probably took all the blows to do it, and even then it would take a while, bleeding to death.’
I searched the coat pockets. There was a clean handkerchief and a wallet which contained American bills, silver dollars, and a few sovereigns, but no personal papers. There was also a large clasp knife which I opened. It was clean. I crouched down and unfastened the toggle of the basket. There was a herbal smell. Plants and roots, in neat bundles tied with bark twine. ‘I dare say I can have these identified by the pharmacist’, I said.
‘We’ll take it all into town on the cart. It should be coming up behind’, Parry said. He looked around at the forest. ‘There won’t be any tracks or footprints. Too dry, now we’re down from the mountain. But we should take a look.’
For half an hour we sifted our way up and down the stream banks, and along the track in both directions. The only thing I found of interest was some fresh wood chippings on the path, near the stream, which looked as if they had been whittled off a stick. I looked for the stick but could not find it. I called Parry. ‘It looks as if someone was whittling a stick while waiting.’
‘Could have been the doctor himself’, Parry said. ‘Or an Indian. They’re always whittling and carving. This is Indian work, clear as day.’ He turned to face the Indian messenger, who was now squatting on his haunches in the track, staring at the ground. ‘Mesika iskum nesika mesika Tyee’ (‘You take us your Chief’), he ordered. ‘Harding, you stay here. Hobbes, you come with me.’
The Indian jumped to his feet and led the way. I followed Parry’s broad back up the path. We reached the road, the horses, and the second Indian standing beneath a tree.
‘It’s almost a mile’, Parry remarked, untying his horse. ‘I’d heard there was a band at Cormorant Point. Down from the North. Trading, they say. Most likely stealing.’ He scowled at the Indian.
We mounted, and this time the messenger walked b
riskly ahead of us. The firs became thinner, interspersed with huge arbutus, their blood red under-bark exposed where sheets of pale skin were peeling off, growing from rocks exposed to sunlight. I saw the sea ahead, glistening between the tree trunks, and smelled wood smoke.
* * *
We came out into a clearing which faced onto the sea from a bluff, which on the left became a rocky point. Tents and awnings made from densely woven matting, red but with black designs of beaks and eyes, had been slung on ropes from trees at the edge of the clearing, their lower edges tied to bushes or weighed down by stones. Other ropes held rows of split salmon hung up from poles to dry over smoky fires burning in circular hearths made from rocks. To one side was a pile of stacked cedar boxes. Some Indians were in the open, sitting on the ground, their legs spread out in front of them, men and women working at baskets, piles of cedar strips on the ground beside them. When they saw us coming they stood up and formed a straggling line. Others came crawling out of the tents and joined them. There were about ten men and twenty women, and a few children who ran to their mothers’ arms to be picked up. No one said a word. The robins around the clearing sang loudly.
We dismounted. The Indians watched as we tied our horses to a tree. Parry was taking his time. Perhaps he was surprised, as I was, at the number of Indians, the well organised look of the camp, and their completely un-European clothing. All were bareheaded in the sun, the women long-haired with braids, the men’s hair cut shorter. Although one or two men were wearing only deerskin trousers and loose tunics of woven fibre, most had red fibre blankets wrapped around them like cloaks. Some of the women had bare legs. Others wore leggings like the men. The Indians’ skin was more coppery than the usual. Their heads had not been distorted by binding.
Two people appeared from behind a tent on one side, a man with a woman walking slightly behind him. They advanced unhurriedly. Both were quite tall, and were dressed strikingly in blankets of cream coloured cloth, with the usual geometrical patterns but in light blue and black, with long fringes of cream coloured tassels. The man was wearing deerskin leggings, the woman a sort of kilt, also of deerskin and with a fringe of tassels and zigzag patterns of tiny shells sewn onto it. Although the man was imposing, with a long nose and penetrating black eyes, a long moustache and thick but short cut hair, I could not help staring at the woman. She was young and beautiful, with light coppery skin, high cheekbones, and a narrow nose which she looked down rather haughtily, her eyes as black as the man’s and more slanted, narrowing sharply. ‘Arrow eyes’, I found myself thinking. Her hair was not quite black, having a reddish burnished tint. It was parted in the centre into two braids which hung just behind her shoulders. She was wearing oval ear-rings of mother-of-pearl – abalone shell. My eyes were drawn lower down, to the kilt below her blanket, and her legs, naked, slim and brown, her feet in moccasins which were decorated, like the kilt, with stitched tiny shells.
They walked along in front of the others and paused near the centre of the line, the man a step in front of the woman. He was older than she, perhaps about thirty. His air was one of alertness and intelligence. But he was somewhat frightening: his mouth was so firm it looked ruthless, his eyes, which now darted to and fro between Parry and me, almost too penetrating. I glanced back at the woman. She was looking at me steadily, with a certain softness in her eyes. I felt a sudden melting feeling around my heart, and stiffened. She instantly looked downward.
The messenger joined the other Indians and squatted down to one side. ‘You’d better take notes’, Parry said. I took out my notebook and pencil. Parry, who was fluent in Chinook, although he shouted rather than spoke it, asked in a bellow, who was the Tyee here?
The obvious Tyee pointed to his chest.
Who were they? What band?
‘Tsalaks’. (Not a Chinook word). ‘Chack chack’, he added (‘Eagle’). ‘Tsimshian’. (Indian people, up the coast some hundreds of miles North).
‘Tsimshian! Fort Simpson!’ Parry bellowed, referring to the HBC headquarters ‘up island.’
‘Wake’ (‘No’).
‘Mektakatla?’ (The name of the mission settlement).
‘Wake.’
‘Kah?’ Parry asked impatiently. (‘Where?’)
‘Tsalaks.’
‘Mesika nem?’ (‘Your name?’)
‘Wiladzap.’ The Tyee tapped his chest again.
Parry asked who had found the body.
Again the Tyee tapped his chest.
Parry shouted that the messenger had said there was a dead Boston (American). Did the Tyee know that the dead man was a Boston?
‘McCloly’, the Tyee said in a good imitation of the dead man’s name, given that no Indian can pronounce ‘R’. Then in a low but strong voice, he explained in fluent Chinook that McCrory had visited the camp four times. Once with a yellow man, a servant. After that alone. He discussed Indian medicine. He bought herbs. He also discussed the wind. Here Parry and I must have looked puzzled, because Wiladzap paused and said ‘swensk’, in I presume his own language. Then he explained that this meant the breath or spirit.
Parry asked if the Tyee was also a ‘mestin’ – a medicine man.
‘Ah-ha’ (‘Yes’).
Who had found the body?
The Tyee, Wiladzap, pointed to himself and explained carefully. McCrory had visited them in the morning, stayed for a time, then left. After a while Wiladzap heard McCrory calling for help. He ran through the forest. Again he heard the call for help. He found the body. McCrory was not quite dead, but dying. Wiladzap could do nothing, but he splashed a little water on McCrory’s face. McCrory spoke in a small voice. He spoke words to Wiladzap. Then he died. Wiladzap left him there, came back to the camp, and sent a messenger to the King George men (the English – us.)
What words? Parry demanded. What words did McCrory say?
‘King George Diaub’. Again, after a pause. ‘King George Diaub.’
A King George is any Englishman, as opposed to a Boston. But ‘Diaub’ is ‘Devil’.
Parry asked, How did the Tyee hear a call for help? The dead man was found almost a mile from this camp.
‘Tum tum hool hool wawa chack chack’. (Literally: ‘The heart of the mouse speaks to the eagle.’)
Parry either lost his temper or pretended to. He bellowed that it was not a King George who had killed the Boston McCrory, it was certainly an Indian, a ‘siwash’. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his long-barreled pistol, held it up for the Indians to see, then put it back into his pocket. He explained in his jerky but accurate Chinook that the Great Queen Victoria, who had given her name to the King George city, was mother of all the King Georges and all Bostons in this land. And they would make sure to find the Indian or Indians who had done this killing.
Wiladzap shrugged his shoulders.
Parry shouted: ‘Mesika opitsah?’ (‘You have a knife?’)
Wiladzap shrugged again. He reached under his blanket into the waist of his leggings and brought out a hunting knife in a sheath. He held it forward politely, handle first. I took it. It was a Bowie knife. Everyone in America has one. I do. I gave it to Parry who took it, pushed it back into his sheath and dropped it into his pocket.
Parry now followed standard procedure for dealing with Indians, and reached into his other pocket, pulled out his change purse, and took out a sovereign. He held it up and the sun caught it with a flash. He announced that this was the face of the great Queen Victoria. Her men must know who had killed the Boston, McCrory.
The Indians were motionless and quiet. Even children, clinging to their mothers’ legs or in their arms, were silent.
Another sovereign. Another, and another.
Suddenly the messenger took a step forward and pointed with his whole hand, not just a finger, at the Tyee. ‘Wiladzap sick tum tum Lukswaas mamook hee hee tikegh bebe bebe doctah. Doctah dollah dollah Lukswaas potlatch.’ (‘Wiladzap sick at heart, Lukswaas have fun, love, kiss doctor. Doctor give Lukswaas dollars.’)
; ‘Wake!’ The woman beside Wiladzap spoke out in a voice that was quite loud, but choked. Her eyes were open as if horrified.
‘Wake’, Wiladzap said calmly. He explained that the doctor bought herbs from Lukswaas, he searched for plants with her, but he certainly did not love or kiss her. He paid dollars to her for plants.
Wiladzap turned to the woman, Lukswaas, and spoke in their own language – I suppose there is a specific Tsimshian language. She reached under her blanket and brought out a small purse made of woven fibres, holding it out in front of her. She was wearing several ornately engraved silver bracelets on her slim coppery arm. I put my notebook in my pocket, stepped forward, and took the purse, noticing that her hand was trembling. I opened the purse and poured its contents into my left hand.
‘Eight silver dollars’, I announced to Parry.
‘We’ll arrest the Tyee’, he said, ‘and bring in the informer and the squaw for questioning.’
Suddenly the informer dashed across in front of us and ran towards the sea. The line of Indians broke, some men running after him. But Wiladzap called out sharply, and they stopped. Parry yanked out his revolver and pointed it at Wiladzap. ‘Follow the man’ he bellowed, but I was already sprinting across the clearing, while clumsily stuffing the purse and silver dollars into my pockets. I dodged around the nearest Indian, leapt over a fire, and ran to the edge of the bluff, where the Indian had now disappeared. I looked down. He was already on the beach some fifty feet below, pulling a small canoe down the sand to the water.
‘Stop!’ I yelled ridiculously. I dashed to pick my way down a steep path through bushes. He must have leapt down it like a goat. By the time I had reached the shingle at the back of the beach, the man was already embarked, paddling vigorously, pointing the canoe out to the sea, to the North. I ran into the water, my boots splashing, then stopped. He was thirty yards away and paddling much faster than I could ever swim. Drawn up on the shingle was a dugout canoe, not less than forty feet long, of weather-blackened cedar, with high stern and prow on which boards had been placed, painted with red and black designs. I ran around it, stumbling on rocks. On the other side was a second small canoe, with two paddles in it. I looked out at the water sparkling in the sun, and the man paddling furiously Northwards. No question of catching up. Nor did I want to leave Parry alone for long, revolver or not. Even these Indians from far away would have guns, at least shot-guns for duck-shooting, and possibly rifles. I took a final look at the paddling Indian. He would pass behind an island after another mile or so and be lost.