by Seán Haldane
Could it be that my dear old father had been right? Did all humans have a conscience after all? Then I thought of Beaumont, ‘that Devil George’, and I could see no signs of conscience. I doubted if McCrory had had a conscience either. There was a paradox: Beaumont was in a way the most ‘tame’ of the lot of us. And I suddenly realised that McCrory was tame too: his life was spent and his money earned in taming the wild, forbidden impulses of others. Suddenly I loved all four of us, sitting on the porch at Orchard Farm, for our innocent wildness – the wildness that had led Wiladzap to pursue Aemilia to the ends of his known earth, that was leading Aemilia to throw over the civilisation her family so fussily cultivated, that had led Luskwaas and me impulsively into each others’ arms.
Does conscience go with wildness, not tameness?
* * *
Wiladzap was eager to leave, partly because of an innate restlessness, partly, Aemilia confided in me, because the band were fretting at having stayed so long in a place where they could no longer trade. Wiladzap’s release had been accompanied by much less public attention than his arrest. The fact that McCrory had been slain by a Marine officer in a fit of ‘melancholia’, a code-word for anything from dementia to alcoholic frenzy, was rather shameful. It was as if popular indignation was an end in itself: if it could not be provoked, as it so easily could against Indians because of an underlying terror, then the murder was less interesting.
The Tsimshian knew nothing about this, but they did feel they were still unwelcome. Wiladzap decided that rather than return home at once they would go South into Puget Sound, in Washington Territory, where years ago bands of Tsimshian had traded. Now the prosperous towns of Port Townsend and Tacoma might provide a chance for them to recoup their losses, sell their otter skins at a good price, and go home with a profit in hand. The band would come to Cormorant Point for a few days on their way back North. The parting now would not be so complete or so painful.
On the morning of the day the Tsimshian left, there were two simple ceremonies. First Pemberton, with Mrs Pemberton, came to the Farm and conducted a brief marriage of Wiladzap and Aemilia, to legitimize their union with their son William in English eyes. Then he married me and Lukswaas. This was clearly to the relief of Mrs Pemberton, who wept.
Then at Cormorant Point, now a bare clearing with a small fire burning in the centre, there was a brief ceremony in which the adoption of Aemilia as a Raven was confirmed, and in which Lukswaas, in a speech which seemed to me quite fiery, like that of an orator, gifted her names to Aemilia. Lukswaas was dressed like an Englishwoman, although she had followed Aemilia’s example of wearing Tsimshian earrings and bracelets. She seemed almost delicate, she was so fine in feature and movement, but she had an authority as she spoke which I had never seen in a woman.
Aemilia had dressed as a Tsimshian, in a magnificent chilcat blanket Wiladzap had given her, its blue, black and silver designs so fresh that they shone, with bare legs and moccasins, and her hair in braids. With her pale skin she looked like a visiting Goddess.
Little William was dressed in a chilcat and leggings, made at the last minute by one of the women. He was clearly nervous, but made up for this by holding himself very erect, like his father. He had said goodbye to the Joneses at the farm, and shed a tear or two – but he would see them again, and his fear was obviously mixed with excitement and pride.
Wiladzap and I had exchanged gifts: an otter-fur coat and a first-class Bowie knife for me; a pistol and ammunition and a pair of riding boots for Wiladzap. Aemilia was taking various personal items, and Lukswaas was retaining some of hers.
The Pembertons had also come to the Cormorant Point ceremony. There were general farewells, accompanied by hand clasps and embraces. Aemilia had tears in her eyes, although perhaps of joy more than sadness. Wan cried deeply at leaving Lukswaas. I shook hands with Waaks and the gloomy Tsamti, and embraced Wiladzap like a brother. We looked long into each other’s eyes and I saw such an unexpected sadness in Wiladzap’s that I almost cried. Lukswaas showed no signs of grief, but she had become, after her speech, lustreless and stony-faced.
Lukswaas and I and the Pembertons stood on the bluff overlooking the beach, as the men, some totally naked, others wearing leggings, held the canoe, already heavily loaded with chests, baskets and other gear, parallel to the shore in the shallow water. The women and children and finally Aemilia and Wiladzap climbed in. Once in the canoe, Wiladzap stripped off his chilcat, and some of the women, who would also paddle, stripped to the waist. Many of them had used sticks from the last fire to smear black patches on their faces. The canoe itself had a weather-beaten mask painted on planks on both sides of its high prow. It was a barbarous sight – such as Captain Cook had seen over a hundred years before when the first white men had come to the Northwest.
The last three men pushed the bow outwards, entering the water up to their thighs, then climbed in over the gunwale and took their paddles. There were now ten paddles on each side. A man’s voice rang out in a chant and the paddles swept down in unison. The canoe shot forward with amazing speed, and leaving a wake as straight as an arrow headed East to the other side of the long curve of Margaret Bay, eventually to turn South around Ten Mile Point and across the Straits of Juan de Fuca into Puget Sound.
It was not the way among the Tsimshian to wave or call goodbye. Lukswaas and I and the Pembertons stood silently until the canoe disappeared around a rocky point.
* * *
Aemilia had said Lukswaas and I could spend the next weeks at Orchard Farm, at the very least until she and Wiladzap returned on their way North. She had even suggested that if the Quattrinis did not wish to return to the farm, as seemed likely, I might wish to lease it, and work it with Lukswaas and the help of the Joneses if they wanted to stay on in their little house.
I felt happy to be alone with Lukswaas. We had come to the Tsimshian camp in the Pembertons’ buggy, and now since the sun had become unpleasantly hot we were content to take our time walking back through the cool forest. I was teaching Lukswaas English, so our conversation consisted of such remarks as: ‘That is a cedar, a good tree for making planks for houses,’ or ‘This path is stony’. And Lukswaas repeating them clearly. But we liked this. Lukswaas became more cheerful. We came out of the forest into the little fertile valley where I was beginning to feel at home, and walked down the road to the farmhouse. For now it was all ours. We made a simple meal, then watched the sunset from the back porch. It was unusually clear and pink, so that the distant blue hills turned an unreal green before darkness fell. The air was so clear that it became rapidly cold.
We decided to sleep inside. We had already re-arranged the rooms upstairs: we would use Aemilia’s as our bedroom, but with the younger girls’ double bed moved in. The room was under the eaves and had slanting ceilings. A double window faced out front over the roof of the porch. The wallpaper was old fashioned and striped. Lukswaas had liked this room best from the beginning. She was pleased to be going to sleep in it, and in a bed with fresh sheets and counterpane. We had already made sure that the straw mattress was suitably hard, for Lukswaas would have been unable to sleep if it had been soft.
We went to bed and lay side by side on our backs, with a candle burning on the bedside table, watching the flickering light on the ceiling. We had never so far lain down together and not made love. But Lukswaas seemed abstracted as never before and although she snuggled into me closely it was not an embrace. I was exhausted, emotionally as much as physically. Eventually the candle guttered and went out. Lukswaas was breathing quietly. I fell asleep.
I woke because Lukswaas had moved abruptly. She was sitting up in the bed beside me, completely still, as if listening for something. The room was very dark, and there was only a faint dark blue light through the white curtains, which were hanging motionless although the window was open. The air was cold. None of this was unusual except for something in the way Lukswaas was sitting. I had never seen her rigid like this.
‘Lukswaas,’ I
said quietly.
She said nothing, so I sat up beside her and put my arm around her naked body.
‘Cold,’ I said.
Then she spoke to me in Chinook, saying she was afraid, she was certain that something terrible was happening. What was happening outside? She asked wildly.
I got out of bed, went over to the window and pulled the curtains aside to look out. There was no moon, but the night was extremely clear with thousands of stars, glittering and hard. There was not a breath of wind. I described this to Lukswaas and went back to bed.
She clung to me and we pulled down together under the bedclothes to get warm again. I held Lukswaas from behind – spooning as the girls at the Windsor Rooms had called it – and since I often embraced Lukswaas this way I would have been ready to do so now, but she remained still, although her skin became warmer, and unusually tense. She said again that something terrible was happening, and she began to cry. I held her gently and stroked her hair, but after a while could no longer do so, she was sobbing so violently, with loud cries as if her heart was breaking. Then she calmed down, I held her again, and although she still felt warm to the touch, she began to shiver, moaning that we would never see the others again. When I tried to reassure her she would not listen. I drifted off to sleep, then woke again. Lukswaas had stopped trembling and was lying still in my arms but I knew she was awake. Although I slept on and off, I knew she had not, and as the room began to lighten, the walls and furniture revealed in a dull grey light, she said to me once more that we would never see the others again.
In the morning Lukswaas slept, waking at noon in a sort of daze. She then became so distraught that I sent Mr Jones into town with an apologetic request that Pemberton telegraph to Port Townsend to ask if there was any news of the Tsalaks’ arrival in Puget Sound. Lukswaas and I waited for the rest of the day and went to bed with a feeling, which I now shared through infection, of oppression and terror.
Pemberton’s reply did not come until the following afternoon, when it was brought by messenger.
‘Dear Chad: I cannot express in words how sad I am to have to enclose this copy of the reply by electric telegraph to my enquiries to Washington Territory. Warmest regards to you both – Augustus P.’
The telegraph read:
IN RESPONSE TO YOUR QUERY PARTY OF TSIMSHIAN TEN MEN TWENTY FIVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN MASSACRED AT DUNGENESS SPIT NIGHT BEFORE LAST STOP NO SURVIVORS STOP TWENTY FOUR CLALLAM INDIANS NOW AT SNOHOMISH RESERVATION UNDER ARREST STOP SIGNED WILLIAM KING US AGENT PORT ANGELES
EPILOGUE
‘Dear Mr Hobbes:
I thank you for your most interesting letter. I am indeed preparing a work on Expression, a subject which has preoccupied me, on and off, for thirty years but will have to wait a little longer before I can treat of it in a book, since I am much occupied with my Descent of Man which I hope will see the light within a year or two. I did indeed, in 1867, prepare a set of printed Queries, of which I enclose a copy with some manuscript emendations. I have so far received some twenty five replies from missionaries and other observers, and I should be pleased to receive one from you with regard to the Indians of the British Columbia coast. I must urge you, however, under no circumstances to rely on memory, in compiling your notes, for it is notoriously fallible. Trust only observations. Indeed, the observations in your letter, of the Expression of sadness and horror by the Tsimshian, had all the vividness of having been penned, as I suppose, very shortly after you had made them.
My aim is, in comparing the Expression of Emotion in man and in animals, to provide a rational explanation of how various Expressions, now rendered innate, might have originally been acquired as habits. Expressions may be in fact subject to the laws of Evolution. But before I can formulate the principles which suggest themselves to me after thirty years of observations of Expressions in man, in animals at the zoo, and even in my own children (whose emotional Expressions I have endeavoured to record through photographs), I wish to collect as many trustworthy observations from other sources as possible. In this I should be glad of your help.
Thank you for your kind remarks. I am sorry to have missed British Columbia on the Voyage of the Beagle, which did not proceed farther North than the Galapagos. In those days your coast was nothing more than a wilderness inhabited by the cannibals whom Cook had described.
I envy you the opportunity to make the most interesting observations of all, namely of the differences between civilised and savage man which are, as I put it in the Voyage, no less than those between the tame and the wild animal. Yet, as your observations so clearly show, in states of deep emotion, the differences are less than we might suppose.
Yours truly, Charles Darwin.’
Mr Justice Begbie and I picked our way carefully along the rocky shore of the Goldstream, every now and then stopping for a long while, observing, and saying nothing. The rain had stopped earlier in the day, but drops still fell in showers from the drooping branches of the tall fir trees every time a gust of the raw November wind shook them, and big yellow leaves would float down through the air from the cottonwoods interspersed with the firs along the riverbank, to become strewn on the surface of the water, some of them sticking to the backs of the salmon as they broke the surface. The river was about fifty feet wide and only two or three feet deep, gravel bottomed, and scattered with rocks and boulders on which some of the dying salmon became stranded, flapping weakly as the shrieking seagulls tore with their beaks into the flesh, starting always by pecking out the eyes. The corpses of salmon were littered along the rocks and along the banks, skin gashed and ripped to expose half eaten flesh, the eye hollows mere rings of bone. Cawing crows feasted alongside the gulls. Every so often along the river were rapids where the water ran shallowly and where the salmon cut their bellies wriggling upstream, so that the water behind them carried dissipating streaks of blood. In the deeper pools the females circled over their ‘redds’ – scooped out hollows in the gravel on which they laid spawn clusters of eggs, while the males circled around them, quivering and ejaculating clouds of white milt.
From further down the stream, behind us, came the heavy splashing sound of some Songhees, in dungarees and floppy hats, standing in the water at the edge and gaffing the largest salmon, the Chum, some of them up to four feet long. Most of the salmon were smaller Chinook, two to three feet long. All were emaciated from their long struggle back from the sea, into the Saanich Inlet and up the Goldstream to spawn and die. Here and there in a deep pool under a cottonwood or fir, a pair of Coho, smaller and darker than the others, circled around each other. Chum, Chinook, and Coho had different life spans, but all ended here.
The dark green gigantic firs dripped, the yellow cottonwood leaves drifted down and strewed themselves on the living and the dead, and the thousands of salmon struggled first and later circled in their slow dance, shuddering first in ecstasy and later in death. All silently. Only the gulls and crows cried raucously as they plunged their beaks into dying or dead eyes and flesh. The river flowing over the stones and boulders made a low, constant, gurgling.
Rather than pick our way back along the shore, Begbie and I pushed through bushes to a path which led parallel to the river. As we walked down it we could have been in any part of the forest, and the gurgling of the river faded, although we could still hear the gulls and the crows. ‘I’ve seen a hundred people out here from town on a Sunday afternoon,’ Begbie remarked, ‘and none of them ever makes a sound when they are by the river. All keep silence, as if visiting a holy place – which in a way it is.’
I could think of nothing to reply. We both fell silent again. Begbie was still a dandy, even in his wet-weather riding gear. His boots were elegant, and he wore a sort of highwayman’s cloak with toggles of silver braid, and a top hat.
After a while he said: ‘I find the whole story sad. Then that final blow for you in the hour of your triumph. I’m sorry I was in the Interior. But I dare say I could have done nothing Pemberton didn’t do. And if I’d tried to
help I should have been accused of being an interfering Indian-lover. But, as you’ve found out for yourself, there are Indians and Indians, just as there are English and English. In fact English were all Indians once – so I often think. The Britons whom Caesar discovered even covered themselves with war paint! And the Druids who were their medicine-men would burn human sacrifices alive in wicker cages hanging from oak trees – which is worse than many things the Indians have done. Civilisation is, as they say, skin deep.’
‘Yes. I had a letter from Charles Darwin the other day in which he reminded me of that.’
‘Really? You’re in correspondence with him?’
‘I wrote to him six months ago with some observations about the expression of various emotions among the Tsimshian. He replied very generously. I can show you his letter, if you have time to pass by my house for tea. Or might I ask you to supper?’
‘Why not? That’s very kind of you. I want very much to meet your wife. But since it gets dark so early and the roads are muddy, you may have to put me up for the night. Excuse my pioneer ways, inviting myself.’
‘Of course. I had thought of it but was shy of asking. We don’t live in grand style, though I can provide a couple of bottles of claret with supper.’
‘My boy, I’ve spent many a night with no roof over my head at all, and at times the accommodation they provide for me in the Interior is a shack such as a man would be ashamed to erect even on the Upper Harbour in Victoria. I’d like you to show me that letter, the terrible one, from King, the Indian agent.’
‘I liked the man – Mr King – behind that dreadful letter,’ I said. ‘I also liked Epstein, the American Lieutenant, and I preferred his band of freeborn soldiers, ambling behind him, to our mechanical Beaumont. I had feared all Americans, except the obvious rogues, were Perfectionists – like McCrory – trying to create the best of all possible worlds and not seeing how they are doomed to fail. Epstein, and Mr King, are realists.’