The Devil's Making

by Seán Haldane

  Pemberton raised his eyebrows and commented in English. ‘You know what a berdash is, Gentlemen? An effeminate. A pathic. Some tribes allow them to live as women. But I think the Tyee is right: the berdash is an institution of the Prairie Indians.’ He went on to ask Wiladzap in Chinook whether McCrory had wanted a berdash for kissing, having fun, and so on.

  ‘Spose.’ Not surprisingly the Chinook for ‘I suppose so’. Wiladzap shrugged his shoulders again.

  So Wiladzap did not think the doctor desired to make kissing with Lukswaas.

  ‘Wake. McCloly wake yaka skookum.’ This meant McCrory was ‘without power’. ‘Skookum’ has by now even entered the English language in Victoria, to mean something is ‘in good condition’. Wiladzap went on to explain, using the counter-like words of Chinook skilfully, that immediately he had met McCrory he had noticed that he was without ‘skookum’, and he assumed this meant McCrory was ill in some way – that he was interested in herbs not only as a doctor but for himself. Now that McCrory was dead, Wiladzap realised that the lack of power was because the power had already gone out of McCrory, because he was about to die. Wiladzap should have noticed this from the first, but of course he was interested in talking to McCrory about medicines and the breath of life. McCrory was a very clever man who knew many things. When McCrory had asked about the berdash and about medicines to give power in love (‘kiss kiss’) Wiladzap thought another thing, that maybe McCrory was sick in that way. In any case he had not worried about McCrory being alone with Lukswaas. He added that Lukswaas also had great ‘skookum’.

  As I sat considering this puzzling remark, Pemberton asked abruptly whether Smgyiik had wanted kiss kiss with Lukswaas.

  ‘Ah-ha’, Wiladzap said calmly. And because Smgyiik could not have Lukswaas he was indeed ‘tum tum sick’. As well, Smgyiik was the bearer of a name of bad fortune.

  ‘Not least its being so unpronounceable’, Pemberton said wearily. ‘Many Indian tribes have a complicated hierarchy of names.’ He asked Wiladzap why he had chosen Smgyiik to go with the message to Victoria, about the death?

  Wiladzap said that Smgyiik spoke Chinook well and was fast on his feet.

  Pemberton leaned forward and fixed Wiladzap with his pale eyes. He explained with emphasis that Wiladzap would have to stay in the jail until it was clear who had killed McCrory. It seemed as if Wiladzap killed him because no one else was with McCrory and no one else knew where the dead man was. No one could hear a dying man call at such a distance. Why would a dying Boston in his last breath be capable of speaking in Chinook? The only witness to McCrory having said ‘King George Diaub’ was Wiladzap, an Indian, and Wiladzap could have made this up – as he had made up the idea of hearing McCrory’s call for help – in order to make the King Georges look among their own number for the murderer, not among the Tsalak. And in any case, no King Georges had been seen in the forest that day, or even, so far as was known, visited the Indian camp.

  At this point Wiladzap leaned forward slightly and said with as much emphasis as Pemberton that he did not tell lies.

  Then he allowed himself to be led off by Harding, back to his cell.

  * * *

  ‘You think the man is innocent?’ Pemberton asked me.

  ‘I don’t think he’s guilty. The evidence is all circumstantial, and he seems to be making no effort to tell a story which would be less incriminating.’

  ‘Circumstantial evidence can convict a man. Innocent until proved guilty – but in practice, as you know, it is best to prove one is not guilty. A task, I’m afraid, almost impossible for this Indian. On the evidence we can make a charge of murder. We shall have to, for I don’t think it would be wise to let him go.’

  ‘Yet he came with us willingly. He even fetched us.’

  ‘The savage mind is strange. Who knows what tortuous mental processes led to him sending the other man for the police? He might have wanted to place the murder on the other man. Perhaps that’s why Smgyiik ran away. These are not, among the Indians, what we might call affairs of the heart – although they talk all the time about their blessed ‘tum tum’. These feelings are of an animal nature, so far from our own ways of perceiving things, that it’s useless to speculate. We must go on the evidence. Circumstantial evidence can convict this man Wiladzap, and undoubtedly will.’

  ‘Hear hear’, Parry interrupted. ‘I’ve never seen such a devilish deed, and the devil who did it will be hanged.’

  ‘Indeed, Superintendent. You must forgive my musings to Constable Hobbes who is, after all, a legal man. We shall keep the Indian in jail and charge him within a day or so. There will no doubt be an unholy hubbub in town tomorrow. Our friend McCrory may have been a somewhat dubious character, with credentials which the other medical men in town don’t find impressive, but he was an American. We can’t let an Indian go unpunished for murdering an American in an English Colony.’

  ‘To hell with him being a Yankee’, Parry burst in. ‘Forgive me, Sir. I mean, it’s as a foully butchered man that I see him, whose murderer must pay the price – and be seen by the others to pay.’

  ‘I agree’, Pemberton said blandly. ‘But the crime is not fully proved, even if we must lay a charge. Mr Hobbes here has a mandate, as it were, to occupy himself with criminal detection. He must make a very thorough investigation of this case. Remember, we don’t want to be as rash as the Americans so notoriously are. You know how Sitting Bull, when he was defeated by the Americans, came for refuge into the North West territories with a few hundred braves, armed to the teeth, and was disarmed by Sergeant Dickens, son of our great novelist, with only a few men, on the promise that the Great White Mother would look after them. We want, as the Canadians say, much as we may dislike their aspirations to take over this Colony, ‘peace, order and good government’ – not frontier wars like the Americans in their selfish pursuit of happiness. We must be seen to have left no stone unturned and to have treated these peculiar people from further North in British Columbia with the dignity of British subjects. Yes they have savage minds, but we have to live with them. Look how we went wrong in Ireland, in the past, in treating the Gaelic Irish, with their own civilisation, as savages. But we have been making progress, Gentlemen, I am an Irishman who is proud to be British also, and proud to be here administering British law.’

  Neither of us could say anything to this unexpected peroration. Parry turned to me and said, ‘You did well today, my lad, and I trust you to use your brains – which I must say are better trained than mine – to work the case out as far as you can.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir. I must say I thought you handled the situation at the Indian camp most courageously’, I said. I meant it.

  ‘I imagine this berdash business may be a red herring’, Pemberton remarked. ‘As I said, it’s characteristic of the Indians of the Plains such as the Pawnees and the Sioux. The word ‘berdash’ was brought here, I regret to say, by HBC men and French Canadian traders, who were looking for such services. A clever implication, though, on the Tyee’s part. You might check, Hobbes, if there is any evidence of McCrory having been a pathic. Search his house, follow his route out to Cormorant Point, ask the people along the Cedar Hill road whether they saw him and who may have been with him. Send an electric telegraph to Fort Simpson to find if they have any knowledge of this Wiladzap.

  ‘I hereby appoint you Acting Sergeant. It will give you more authority. You’re new in the police but you’ve been doing well, you’re a university man, and you deserve some commendation for your cool behaviour today. You can question whomever you wish, and do what you think necessary, within reason, and with the Superintendent’s permission. You may start by taking care of the young lady, Wiladzap’s wife. We can’t keep her here. She can find her own way home, no doubt, but she had best not walk out Fort Street alone at night. Escort her out to Spring Ridge, then let her go. Ask her more questions if you wish, but do not press her. The Superintendent will inform her that she must stay near at hand. I doubt if the Tsimshian will return No
rth without their Tyee – although they’ll have to eventually, when things come to an issue. Which reminds me, Superintendent, you must alert Esquimalt about this man Smgyiik heading North in his canoe. It’s not worth their pursuing him: there are a hundred islands where he could hide and lie up for a while. But they have a ship or two up the coast, and if they call in anywhere to receive messages, they should be warned. Hobbes, when you send your telegraph to the trading posts, tell them to keep their eyes open for this Smgyiik and to arrest him if they have the capability. And see if there is anyone in Victoria who can interpret Tsimshian. Chinook is hardly a fit language for evidence in a complex case like this. I think I’ve heard that coastal Tsimshian is different from that in the Interior. If no one knows it, ask Fort Simpson to send somebody – but that will take weeks.’

  With this flurry of commands, Pemberton took his leave.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later I was walking up Fort Street with Lukswaas. She had apparently been offered food and drink but had refused them. Parry had told her, in front of me, that she was free to go back to the Indian camp but no further, and that I would show her to the road back. She had said nothing. I had avoided meeting her eye. I was so unreasonably nervous, in fact, that I was not hungry, although I had not eaten since noon.

  It was ten o’clock. There is no public street lighting yet in Victoria, and the streets are only dimly lit by the lamps outside private buildings. I stepped slightly ahead, keeping close to Lukswaas on the outside of the sidewalk, as with any lady. She stayed just behind my right elbow. Her walk, like all her movements, was graceful. She had not a clue about crossing roads. At each cross street I held out my arm in front of her while we paused to let the occasional cart or man on horseback past.

  There were people about, although every few yards we passed the door of a tavern, out of which came the usual noises of drunken singing or shouting. We passed a couple of young men who wished us good night politely. A few other men moved aside to let us pass, because of my uniform no doubt. Most people know me at least by sight. We passed a group of Indians in HBC blankets sitting on some steps from road to sidewalk, handing around a flagon of liquor. Lukswaas turned her head slightly, as if curious. Inevitably, since we were running the gauntlet of so many taverns, there was one unpleasant incident, which would have been worse if Luskwaas had been alone: no woman, white or Indian, walked alone at night, and few will do so even by day. A group of men lounging outside a tavern were slow in moving aside to let us past. I instinctively reached out and took hold of her elbow through the rough cloth of her chilcat blanket, to guide her. ‘Christ’, one man said, ‘There goes the English copper, off to hump a squaw.’

  ‘Shut up, you’, I said, feeling a surprising viciousness. There was a roar of laughter. The man, whoever he was, had stepped back, and there was room to get through, but the laughter continued and a voice behind us said, ‘Shut up, you’, in a mincing English accent. I burned with anger. I let go of Lukswaas’s arm and kept going, almost marching up the street, then slowed as I realised she was having to hurry to keep up.

  We proceeded up Fort Street, to the end of the board sidewalk. Ahead were a few lights from widely scattered houses. A half moon, just risen in front of us over the dark line of Spring Ridge, gave just enough light to see by as my eyes adapted to the dark. It was one of those totally clear nights which are becoming more frequent as Spring advances, and the air was becoming consequently chilly. Every single star, it seemed, was visible. I had intended to say goodbye to Lukswaas at this point. She would be safe enough, surely, almost invisible in the dark, and treading quietly. No doubt, being an Indian, she could see and hear like a wild animal in the dark – or so I thought. But why assume that? I had begun the kind of internal argument I knew well. Part of me thought – or even knew that I would walk with this young woman every yard of the way back to Cormorant Point. Another part told me not to be ridiculous. She did not need my protection, and what is more she must hate it. My first part reasoned that after all it was only about five miles. I would be back ‘home’ at the court house by two o’clock at the latest. The second part argued that I was already tired out, and if it became cloudy I might become lost on the way back. The first part rejoined that the night would stay clear. And so on. Finally the first part won: I did not give a damn what Lukswaas or anyone else expected, I was a gentleman and I would escort her home, and that was that.

  Meanwhile we kept on walking. We passed the large prosperous houses of local worthies – bankers, speculators in real estate – and the smaller house of Pemberton, with a light in its window. He would have ridden home just ahead of us. A dog barked from behind a fence, but not for long. We walked along Spring Ridge for half an hour or so, then onto Cedar Hill road, where I had ridden among the oaks and the singing robins early that afternoon. Lukswaas showed no signs of lagging. I could not see much of her, she was merely a silent figure walking beside me, about an arm’s length away. I tried to imagine what she must feel, walking with the man who arrested her husband, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Useless speculation. Why not ask her? I felt the utter impossibility of speech. Could we converse as if at a ball? Remark on the moonlight? No. I concentrated on walking, and the night, and my awareness of this graceful, strange woman walking along beside me, with her faint smell of wood-smoke and cedar, occasionally stumbling slightly, as I did, on unseen irregularities in the packed earth of the road. There were no night sounds – no nightingales, bleating lambs, owls. Would there be in England at this time of year? I never spoke of England now – it was too far.

  ‘England’, I said, out loud.

  ‘Englan’, she said, in a good imitation.

  I said in Chinook that I came from England, the land of the great mother Victoria – and so on. But this was official talk. She said nothing. We kept walking. I told her how on summer nights the nightingale sings from the woods. She asked, how did it sing? I made an attempt to imitate it with whistles. Then I told her about corn crakes, making their sounds from the fields at dusk. I imitated that too. She laughed, and tried to make the same sound – a rasping croak. Then we were abruptly silent. We had embarrassed ourselves and each other. ‘There is nothing to laugh about’, I tried saying in Chinook. ‘This is a terrible day’. When I got through this, she said with what sounded like anger, that Wiladzap was alone in the King George House and he must be very tum tum sick. Then she fell silent. We walked on. Was she crying, silently? I could not see, so perhaps I imagined this. But I began to feel almost happy. It was as if we two, one man and one woman, were walking along under the stars in a bubble of our own. I had never taken a walk in the dark with a woman – other than with my mother or a maid when I was a child. But I felt strangely at ease.

  The few houses along Cedar Hill were in darkness. We passed the little church on the left. After another half hour or so we entered the thick forest, where the moonlight was muted and patchy and boulders loomed up at us from each side of the narrowing track. A few times when she stumbled I took her arm to help her along. Once she grabbed my arm. Each time we let go at once.

  The dirt road became even more bumpy and irregular. This had been less noticeable on horseback. There were occasional bridges across gullies, where we trod especially carefully since there were no railings. We had to walk in single file – Indian file! – with Luskwaas now in front. I could see her hair shining from time to time in the moonlight, but otherwise she was like an undulating shadow, heading on it seemed more confidently than when we were side by side.

  We turned right at the fork to Cormorant Point. As the path led through the cedar swamp I could smell the fragrance of the trees – like Lukswaas herself. In Latin they are Arbor Vitae, the tree of life: they resist decay. Eventually we passed the turn off to where the corpse had been found. I could smell the dung left by the tethered horses, and managed to avoid some I could vaguely see. After this faded I became aware of the cedar smell again, of dank smells from the forest, and of Lukswaas in front of
me – wood-smoke and, as my nostrils became more finely tuned, a slight animal smell of her chilcat – goat’s wool. We turned toward Cormorant Point at another fork in the path, her pace not slackening – I had to almost scramble after her – as we continued down hill. Suddenly I smelled the sea – like smelling the English Channel from the downs of Dorset, not too far from home. Then fresh wood smoke – a strong smell. I no longer had Lukswaas to myself. Moonlight broke through the thinning trees. I strained my eyes ahead for the lights of camp fires and I saw them – and felt sad. Lukswaas held out a hand to slow me down, and stopped, turning to face me. She said ‘Klahowya’. Goodbye.

  ‘Klahowya’, I said.

  ‘Thank you’. She turned and ran fast down the path to the clearing, calling out. I heard calls in reply. She disappeared. I stood there stunned. Had she really said ‘Thank you’? This could not have happened. I felt a tingle down my spine. It must have been a voice in my head. A hallucination. I shook myself, like a dog out of water, as if waking from a dream. I turned and began my long walk in the dark. I found I was feeling ill – heart sick – ‘tum tum sick’.

  6

  I only had a few hours to sleep and I kept waking in a state – of ecstasy. My first thought was Lukswaas. ‘I’m in love with her’, I realised each time with a shock. At least that must be what I am feeling. Even on my heart-sick way back, stumbling along the path through the forest, although the moon was now higher and shafts of its light through the trees helped me on my way, I was living our walk together backwards. Here is where she said ‘Thank-you’ – or did she? Here is where she took my arm. Here we talked of English nightingales and she imitated my imitation of the call of the corncrake. Finally, here we walked up Fort Street almost like a shy couple on our first outing together. A couple. But she is coupled – literally – with Wiladzap. My God! I have to stop this thinking. My task is to find evidence so that we can charge Wiladzap – or let him go. But we won’t let him go. On that despairing thought, my body aching from that ten mile walk, I dropped into sleep again. And when I awoke to get up I found myself ravenous for breakfast and concentrated on the case of Wildzap – not on Lukswaas. After all I am well practiced at putting things out of my mind.