Gabriella

by Earl Murray

  I’ll never know the answers to the many questions I have. I hope for Ella’s sake that her real mother rushes to her and holds her for a long time.

  FORT VANCOUVER

  Gabriella’s Journal

  18 DECEMBER 1846, 1ST ENTRY

  We crossed the river in Dr. McLoughlin’s canoe and put in to shore about six miles above the mouth of the Multnomah River, which is really the Willamette below the falls. The canoe is beautifully crafted white cedar and painted with the symbols of bears and seahawks and ravens.

  The day was open and bright, with a slight breeze off the ocean. All forms of waterfowl darkened the skies, including white and gray geese, and ducks of every color and description. Numerous shore birds darted and flew along the water’s edge, adding their sharp calls to the already deafening din.

  We were met by Hudson’s Bay representatives and taken by coach across a level plain and through a log town that housed the Hudson’s Bay employees and their families. I again saw Independence, Missouri, except that the people were French-Canadian. The children ran yelling and playing and their mothers worried far less about their antics than did the women of the emigrant wagon trains.

  We passed a number of apple and cherry orchards as well as vegetable gardens at rest for the winter. Lumber wagons sat everywhere and Owen told me that timber was fast becoming the most important product of the region.

  At the edge of the plain, where it rises gently through grasslands to a level terrace, sat a large stockade containing a great many warehouses and shops, including lodging facilities for the officers and their wives, as well as guests arriving at the fort. The surrounding area provides for numerous farms and small cattle ranches, with possibility for a great amount of development. I can see why the Hudson’s Bay Company is distraught at the turn of events.

  The smell of fresh bread was strong as we were escorted to the center of the fort and into a large white house with a piazza covered with grapevines.

  Chief Factor James Douglas greeted us coolly. He had agreed to see us only out of respect for Dr. McLoughlin, but declined to be of help in the matter of Edward’s renegade notions until Owen made it clear to him that should there be further trouble, and possible casualties, he could be held accountable.

  “Let me make this perfectly clear, Mr. Quincannon,” he said. “I have never authorized or condoned the actions of anyone against the treaty signed by Great Britain and the United States. I might not approve of the agreement but will nevertheless abide by its contents.”

  “Has Sir Edward ever approached you regarding backing for his scheme to push the American emigrants out of Oregon?” Owen asked.

  “That is Hudson’s Bay Company business, and as such, is privileged information.”

  “We were told by Dr. McLoughlin that you would be of help in the matter,” Owen said. “It appears you could care less about maintaining peace with Oregon.”

  “I’ve heard no complaints, sir, by other than yourself,” Mr. Douglas said.

  “You no doubt will,” Owen said. “By then it will be too late.”

  Owen said that we would be leaving, as no cooperation was forthcoming, and that the matter of Edward would be left to the Oregon authorities to handle as they wished.

  “Oh, very well,” Mr. Douglas said then. “Sir Edward Garr has been here on numerous occasions but I have given him no satisfaction. He happened to be in my office, once again trying to get me to change my mind, when Dr. McLoughlin’s letter arrived by messenger. Since it pertained to him and his character, I shared its contents with him. He left immediately. You might ask me where he went, but I won’t be able to tell you. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have any idea?” Owen said.

  “No. But in further reference to the letter, Sir Reginald Dodge was notified of your arrival. Would you accept his participation in this meeting?”

  “We welcome his participation,” Owen said.

  My uncle was escorted into the room and took up a position in front of Mr. Douglas’s desk. He looked at me with great displeasure. His opinion was that I had become a traitor to the British cause, and in some ways, he was right. But his main animosity stemmed from my association with Owen.

  “What do you have to offer here?” Mr. Douglas asked him.

  “I can clear up some issues on the matter of Sir Edward Garr, if you would please, sir.”

  “Very well. Proceed.”

  “Sir Edward deserves every consideration in this matter, sir, and had I the power to do so, I would throw this man, Mr. Quincannon, in chains.”

  “Pray tell, what for?” Mr. Douglas asked.

  “He means nothing but trouble for the Crown, sir. Treaty or not, he is here to do mischief.”

  “My dear uncle,” I said, “he’s led settlers into the valley, nothing else. Unless you can be more specific.”

  Sir Reginald turned to me. “As you are, I would hope, a loyal British subject, and my niece as well,” he said, “it causes me no slight concern to see you involved with Mr. Quincannon.”

  “If you have an issue with me,” Owen said, “speak to me directly.”

  Uncle Reginald squared his shoulders. “Very well, I shall. And directly to the point. I cannot understand why you would consort with my late brother’s wife and now my niece as well.”

  “What are you talking about?” Owen asked.

  “Sir Edward made the matter clear to me,” he said. “While traveling across the plains, my brother entered his tent and discovered you in bed with Avis. Whereupon you arose from under the covers, grabbed your pistol, and shot him dead. I have every intention of demanding justice in my deceased brother’s behalf.”

  “Wait, Uncle, you should know the truth,” I interrupted. “First of all, it was Edward, not Mr. Quincannon, who was in bed with Avis. Secondly, I entered the tent, not Uncle Walter. I was tempted to shoot Edward myself, but Walter came in and after killing Avis, left and shot himself. That is exactly how it happened.”

  Uncle Reginald’s eyes grew large and he became even more enraged.

  “Why would you say such a thing about my brother, your own flesh and blood?”

  “My intention is not to defame him, but to bring Edward’s part in this clearly to the forefront,” I said. “I am sorry for whatever discomfort that may cause.”

  Mr. Douglas seemed unaffected. The matter was not of significant concern to him and he urged us either to conclude the meeting or to take our discussion outside his office.

  “Have you no respect for the indignities suffered by loyal British subjects?” Uncle Reginald asked him. “Or did your concern over such matters cease with the resignation of Oregon to American interests?”

  Mr. Douglas rose from his seat. “You will be very careful with your speech and manners in here, Sir Reginald,” he said. “Am I perfectly clear?”

  Uncle Reginald bowed. “My apologies to the Chief Factor. Of course all British matters are of grave concern to you. I should not have implied differently. I would have hoped, though, that you would have taken Sir Edward’s side in this issue.”

  “Where is Sir Edward that he doesn’t speak in his own behalf?” Mr. Douglas asked.

  “That I cannot say,” Uncle Reginald said.

  “Then I can find no reason for you to argue with your niece,” he said. “If she was there and you weren’t, why would you doubt her?”

  “Perhaps she feels the need to cover for Mr. Quincannon.”

  Owen started to speak, but I held his arm and stepped in front of him.

  “You may be flesh of my flesh, Uncle Reginald,” I said, “but you have no cause to bear insult against either myself or Mr. Quincannon. If you take such stock in Sir Edward’s lies, perhaps you should consider your own inability to desire true satisfaction in this matter.”

  “True satisfaction in this matter, my dear niece, would be to face Mr. Quincannon in a duel.”

  “Are you that eager to die?” I asked.

  “Sir Edward said he was of poor quality
as either a hunter or a gentleman,” Uncle Reginald said.

  “Sir Edward is afraid to face him,” I said.

  Uncle Reginald laughed. “I find that very difficult to believe.”

  “Then I will ask the same question as the Chief Factor,” I said. “Why isn’t Sir Edward here for this discussion?”

  Uncle Reginald glared at me and then at Owen. He turned on his heels and left the room.

  “I know very little about this matter,” Mr. Douglas said, “and I don’t care to know any more. As for the whereabouts of Miss Lucy James, Dr. McLoughlin is correct. She’s among the Chinook Indians, caring for the dying. One of my assistants will give you directions to the village.”

  Owen thanked the Chief Factor for his help and we prepared to leave right away. As we readied ourselves to board the coach, Uncle Reginald approached me and said, “Is it true? Were you the one who walked in on Avis while she was bedding someone else?”

  “It was me,” I said. “And that someone else was Edward Garr. I am sorry about the outcome but I don’t believe that Uncle Walter could bear to live with the dishonor.”

  “But Sir Edward is an honorable man. Why would he lie about such a thing?”

  “Uncle Reginald, you must admit that Sir Edward is not an honorable man. Otherwise, why would he be causing problems regarding the Oregon issue, in a matter that is already settled?”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t feel that the Crown acted in the best interest of its subjects here in this new territory,” he said.

  “That is a moot point,” I said. “The Crown made the decision and all British subjects are to abide by the law. Am I wrong?”

  Under different circumstances, Uncle Reginald and I might have got along famously. But he had a deep disdain for anything American and he now saw me as the enemy.

  “From my correspondence with my dear brother, Walter, I had always thought of you as an upstanding young woman who would make a good and dutiful wife. Perhaps you’ve changed.”

  “Perhaps it was never that way,” I suggested.

  “I would advise you not to look for Lucy James,” he said. “You would be far better off leaving the territory immediately. I believe a ship comes into harbor in less than a week. Shall I book passage?”

  “If you will excuse me, Uncle Reginald,” I said, “I have pressing matters. If you wish to return to England yourself, that is your business. But, please, leave my business to me.”

  Gabriella’s Journal

  18 DECEMBER 1846, 2ND ENTRY

  Owen and I paddled together. He might argue that I wasn’t of any help, though. He has been trying his best to teach me the ways of the canoe and I haven’t been learning all that fast. Or perhaps my mind was on Lucy James, who had given me birth. I must admit, I was having second thoughts about meeting her.

  The day was open and the skies again filled with fowl coming and going from the river and its tributaries. We made our way past a family of sea otters frolicking in the water. They rolled onto their backs with their feet in the air and ate various forms of marine life they had pulled up from the bottom. I might have reached out and touched one of them.

  We rowed still farther towards the village and began to see a number of graveyards. Huge piles of bones littered the hillsides and burial canoes lay resting on the rock islands that jutted up from the river.

  “You don’t have to go on,” I said.

  “What will I do? I didn’t bring a fishing pole,” Owen said. “Where you go, I go.”

  I thought about his statement for a moment. “Are you talking about just today, or every day?”

  He cleared his throat and continued paddling. A short distance further, we heard the rush of a waterfall. Just ahead lay the mouth of a stream. The water around the canoe teemed with a late run of salmon. They were two and three feet long, pink-sided, swimming their way en masse up towards the distant falls. I could touch them easily and often reached into the current just to feel their slippery bodies.

  We paddled upstream to a set of rapids, then began our ascent on foot up a hill along a well-used trail. The rush of pounding water grew louder and we could see the lower falls through an opening in the evergreens.

  Owen stopped me and gave me a kiss. I blinked with surprise when he displayed a blue sapphire stone he had fashioned onto a makeshift wooden ring with pine pitch.

  “You asked me back there if I always wanted to be with you,” he said. “I truly do and I want you to marry me.”

  The water rushing past in the stream sounded nearly as loud as the pounding of my heart.

  “What do you say?” he said anxiously.

  “Yes,” I told him. “Definitely, yes.”

  He slipped the ring on my finger and kissed me long and hard. Then he took the ring back off.

  “I don’t think it’s too good of a ring,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to lose the stone.”

  “How about if I just keep it in my pocket?” I asked.

  We climbed ahead and soon reached a large opening in the trees. The falls were a series of drop-offs eight to ten feet in height that ran to a major fall of over twenty feet. The water was alive with salmon, forging their way through the water and jumping each of the falls, their tails pounding the water.

  At the main falls stood a number of near-naked Indians with pierced noses and ears, and bowl-shaped haircuts. Their ornaments were seashells and finger bones. I don’t know whether Owen didn’t know about it or had simply forgotten to tell me, but the frontal lobes of their heads had been flattened.

  “It’s a sign of stature among their people,” he told me, “so as to distinguish them from their slaves.”

  The men stood out over the falls on wooden scaffolds, wielding huge nets fashioned from wood and grass that had been secured to long poles. The ascending salmon often couldn’t make the initial jump over the tallest fall, and in dropping backwards, were caught in the nets.

  Women dressed in thatched cedar skirts and heavy moss blouses took the catch from the men, then skinned and gutted the fish. The banks were lined with drying salmon.

  Younger male Indians stood elbow-to-elbow below the main falls and used spears and poles with hooks to snag fish and pull them to the bank.

  Owen picked out whom he thought to be the leader, and having guessed correctly, made sign to him as best he could that we were friends of the White-headed Eagle and were looking for a white woman who helped with the sick.

  The leader appointed one of the fishermen to lead us into the village. We could hear crying and wailing well before we got there and realized that had we not been escorted, we wouldn’t have been allowed to enter and would probably have been killed.

  Their lodges were dome-shaped and made of grass and bark. Unlike the Plains tribes, there were no hide shields on display and no scalp poles in the center of the village.

  Three canoes were arranged side by side. Inside each was a corpse wrapped in blankets and arrayed with painted clothing, along with baskets of food and the deceased’s own personal belongings. In one canoe I counted four bodies and Owen said he believed whomever had died was taking his slaves across with him, to see to his wishes in the Other Side Camp.

  Villagers sat beating sticks against hollow logs while singing. Others screamed and tore at their hair, or cut it off, while slicing themselves with knives.

  Our escort brought us to a lodge where three women sat outside fixing a meal. The woman in the center saw me and slowly rose to her feet.

  She wore the same clothing as the Indian women, but was lighter-complected. She saw me and smiled. I felt as though I was looking into a mirror. But for her shorter hair, she could have been me aged a few years.

  Tears formed in her eyes and she began to tremble.

  “Gabriella?” she whispered. “Are you Gabriella Hall?”

  I felt overjoyed and weak-kneed at the same time.

  “Yes, I am,” I confirmed. “Are you Lucy James?”

  She nodded and opened her arms to me. I hugged her, fe
eling a completion to the mystery of the emptiness in my life, yet at the same time, I felt as if I was betraying the mother who had raised and loved me as her very own.

  “I understand your feelings,” Lucy said. “It must be hard for you.”

  “Having two mothers is not an everyday thing,” I admitted.

  “Please, spend some time with me,” she said, “and at least get to know me.”

  We sat and talked, sharing bowls of dried salmon and roots. She told us that the sickness afflicting the tribe was measles, and that the virus had nearly run its course. She had been caring for various tribes for a number of years.

  “I came to Fort Vancouver with my husband, who died in a hunting accident,” Lucy said. “I decided to stay and complete what I believe to be my life’s work.”

  She looked away, tears forming in her eyes, and said that she had felt guilty all of her life for having given me to the parents who raised me.

  “I almost ran away with you in my arms,” she said. “But I worried that they would send someone to find me. Where would I go? I was young and alone and had no means by which to travel.”

  She explained that my father had offered her substantial money and comfort any number of times before my birth, but that she had turned it down. One afternoon, as her mother lay dying, she decided she had nothing to lose.

  “I sent a letter accepting the offer, and crossed the Irish Sea within, the week,” she said. “I almost backed away, but when I saw Mrs. Hall and the hope in her eyes, I knew that the Good Lord wouldn’t damn me for going through with it.”

  I told her that I was glad she had finally accepted the arrangement and that she had written to say she wanted to meet me.

  “I would have learned of your letter four years ago, had they told me about it,” I said.

  “I wondered if they had ever told you, or ever would,” she said. “It’s a crying shame that society has to be so difficult.” She looked at Owen and said, “You don’t look to me like a British lord.”