The Haweaters

by Vanessa Farnsworth

  “That’s an interesting observation, Father, because I myself would have thought you had more sense than to tell a lie so easily exposed.”

  Annie braces for the blow. She deserves it and she knows it. Instead, Father shouts over her head. “Ellen, I want you in here now.”

  His bellow produces the desired effect. Ellen is instantly before him, her face and body full of fluster. No doubt she was listening by the door, as she always does. That is, after all, where Annie learned the trick and it’s a good one. Annie would yet believe Father to be a far different man than he truly is had it not been for the secrets she’s heard from the shadows.

  Father takes Ellen by the elbow. “Lead Annie down to Michael’s Bay. Only don’t go the usual way. Head straight back through the bush to the Kennedy homestead. There you can pick up the Indian trail. Follow it to the fork, then back down to the regular trail. You know the way I mean.”

  Ellen’s nod is stiff. The rest of her body follows suit when Father stabs his finger in her face. “Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Be especially certain to keep clear of Mr. Boyd. When you get to the mill, instruct Lyon to put Annie on the first hooker heading to Owen Sound. Tell him I’ll make sure he’s handsomely compensated for the inconvenience.”

  Annie is set to protest, but Father cuts her short. “Not one word out of you. Thought you were a smart girl. Thought you could be trusted to keep the family’s best interests at heart. Then you go and say things to Boyd that can’t be unsaid. So be it. You’re leaving the island and you won’t be coming back until this matter is settled.”

  Annie turns to Mother, only to find her absently playing with a wisp of hair. Clearly help won’t be coming from that direction. Indeed, the only way Father can gain Mother’s attention is by repeatedly snapping his fingers in front of her disturbingly blank face. “Write Emma Harrison a note asking her to care for Annie until such time as we send for her. Could be a week. More likely a year. Depends on how this whole thing plays out.”

  At first Mother looks confused. Then she floats over to her writing desk and scribbles several lines on a sheet of paper. She’s blowing the ink dry when Ellen snatches the letter from her hand and hauls Annie to the summer kitchen. Annie allows her to do so but, once there, she yanks her hand free. “Ellen, please. You’re not really going to do as Father says, are you?”

  Ellen sets about snagging a loaf of bread and a generous chunk of meat, wrapping both in a bandana. Then she leans sideways and plucks a paring knife off a nest of peels and drops it into her pocket. “Believe you me, miss, if I had a choice I wouldn’t be doing no such thing as this. There’s ghosts in those woods. Powerful ones. Already stole the souls of the Bryan men and there’s no reason to believe they’re done yet. We’ll have to be quick or we’ll be next.”

  It’s a foolish superstition, but Annie sees value in jumping on it. “I dare say we should head directly south and parallel the normal trail instead of looping up by the Kennedy homestead. If we go that way, I’m absolutely certain we’ll avoid the ghosts in the north bush and still arrive at Mr. Lyon’s dock in plenty of time to catch the afternoon hooker.”

  Assuming Annie doesn’t succeed in losing Ellen in the cedar swamp first, which is currently plan A.

  Ellen looks like she’s considering Annie’s suggestion, only then she grabs her charge by the elbow and drags her out the door. “Know this island better than you, miss. Walked every trail until my blisters blistered. Don’t need to be told how best to get where we’re going. We were told to go north and, by golly, that’s what we’re going to do. Anything else will cost me my position.”

  Annie tries to anchor her heels in the earth, but Ellen is as strong and determined as a rutting ox. She spins around, corkscrewing Annie’s arm behind her back. “Stop fighting me, miss. The sooner we get to the bush the better. Your father made it clear he wants no eyes on us and you know the consequences of defying him. Or maybe you don’t. But now isn’t the time to be pushing him any further than you already have.”

  Ellen is speaking in a brusque whisper, which is weird and presumably gratuitous. Annie scans the horizon but spots no potential eavesdroppers, although she can’t discount Ellen worrying over otherworldly ones. She leans in close. “What do you know?”

  Ellen clamps her lips shut and vigorously shakes her head.

  “Don’t give me that, Ellen. You know more than you’re saying and if you want me to follow you without a fuss, you need to give me a good reason to do that or I’ll run all the way to Mr. Boyd and tell him everything I know and not a whit of it will be about last night.”

  Ellen turns pale. She screws up her face, then she screws up her resolve. She slips her hand into her pocket and pulls out a key. Annie blinks, then makes a grab for it. “Who does it belong to? Surely not you.”

  Ellen swings the key behind her back. “I didn’t steal it, miss, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Annie that she had. “But you got it from somewhere, silly goose, and you are going to tell me where.”

  Ellen again clamps her lips shut and looks around with worry on her face. Annie knows what the servant is thinking: That they really shouldn’t be standing out in the open like this. But if Ellen wants Annie to follow her into the bush, she’ll have answer her question and the hired girl knows it. The silly goose bursts. “Mr. Amer gave it to me before going to Bryan’s place last night. Showed it to me once many years ago and said it opens a chest stowed beneath the floorboards at his former place of employment in Owen Sound. Told me that if ever he foresaw a circumstance he wasn’t like to survive he’d give me the key and I was to keep it safe until everything cooled down. Then I was to deliver it to the missus.”

  Annie mulls Ellen’s confession. Without a doubt, Father should’ve also told her that under no circumstances was she to show that key to his daughter or tell her what it opens. “Did Father say what’s in the chest?”

  “Not my place to know such things, miss.”

  It’s probably not Annie’s place either, but there’s not a hint of a chance that will be stopping her. As she starts working out the details of her new and improved plan, Ellen grabs her arm. Annie allows herself to be towed through the back fields, but as soon as they step onto the path that will take them to the Kennedy homestead, Annie latches onto a branch, making it impossible for Ellen to drag her forward.

  “I dare say, Ellen, aren’t you curious where Laban has hidden himself?”

  That gets her. Ellen releases Annie’s arm and together they listen for any sound that might give away her brother’s whereabouts. They hear nothing. Well, they hear chirping and buzzing and a suspicious snap, snap, snapping that turns out to be twigs being crushed under a cow’s hooves, but they don’t hear a single human sound.

  In truth, Annie doesn’t much care where Laban is. She just wants to linger near the spot where she stood so many times spying on Charlie as he fired his revolver at anything that moved and quite a few things that didn’t. She had dreamed of their future here on the edge of this path – the future that her father’s actions ensured she will never get the chance to pursue – and was surprised on two occasions by Doc Francis, who came upon her on one of his many treks across the island. Neither time did he comment or give her presence away. He just tipped his hat and continued along the trail, his lips flapping and his arms flailing. Such a strange man. What’s even stranger is that he should come to mind now.

  Ellen reclaims Annie’s arm and presumably her ever-loving senses. “Not really our concern where Laban’s at right now, miss. Best stick to the fate that’s been handed us and let others do the same.”

  That’s Ellen for you, always a servant at the behest of her master, unlike Annie, who’s growing increasingly irritated. “Have you ever noticed that a whole lot of things that seem desperately important are not our concern?”

  “Notice only what I’m told to
notice, miss.”

  That’s not true. “Really, Ellen? Because I think you notice a whole lot more than that. I’m absolutely certain, for instance, that you noticed where Father hid his revolver last night.”

  Ellen maintains a steady stride. “Got no clue what’d make you say such a thing as that, miss.”

  Neither does Annie, but a quaver in Ellen’s voice tells her she’s right. “I’m even willing to wager a week’s pay that it’s hidden in the sack of flour underneath the kitchen table.”

  Ellen whips around. “How could you possibly know that?”

  Annie didn’t, but she surely does now. She shrugs and lowers her voice. “Because, Ellen, that’s where Father hid his revolver the last time something like this happened.”

  Ellen furrows her brow. “This has happened before?”

  Not to Annie’s knowledge, but her dogged snooping has taught her that the flour sack is where Ellen stashes any item she’s pilfered before transferring it to a more permanent hiding place at the edge of the front field or up a tree. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when Father staggered into the kitchen last night covered in blood, Ellen offered whatever assistance she could, including hiding a weapon she knew would be trouble.

  Ellen is waiting for a response.

  Annie stands tall. “Is that really what’s important right now, silly goose?”

  Of course it is, but when Ellen thinks on it she solemnly shakes her head, just as Annie knew she would. “You can’t tell no one about the pistol, miss.”

  Annie readily agrees. She won’t tell no one. She’ll tell everyone, starting with the Justice of the Peace in Manitowaning. It’ll be the first of several letters she’s going to write, all of them anonymous and all of them providing information that can be used to convict Father of killing Charlie. Annie has no real choice. Mr. Boyd may bluster, but he won’t go against her father in a court of law. He’ll consider it – all of Father’s cronies will – but ultimately every last one of them will remain loyal. Because Father is right. A plausible story and the backing of powerful friends is all he needs to sweep this whole affair under the carpet. Annie knows that even if Mother doesn’t. Someone has to do something to ensure that Charlie isn’t forgotten in all this, even if it is only the girl he never got the chance to properly love.

  Annie sets her mind, then she sets her jaw. “Let’s get a move on. The last hooker leaves the dock late afternoon, so we’ll have to pick up our pace if we’re to have any hope of making it in time.”

  Annie tromps along the trail towards the Kennedy homestead. On her dumbest day, she could find her way without Ellen’s assistance and Father knows it. The only reason he ordered Ellen to accompany her was so he’d have a witness to his habitually disobedient daughter getting on that boat.

  Annie’s rage grows with every step. When she spots a sturdy stick lying on the ground next to the path, she puts it to service as a walking stick. And she thinks about Charlie. She’d seen a different side of him on the day of the sugaring bee. One she liked. One that maybe, one day, she could love. Then yesterday, in the clearing, she made Charlie notice her, not as a girl, but as the woman she will one day be, she’s certain of it. Then Father went and ruined it all with no thought to anyone’s interests but his own. Well, to blazes with him.

  Annie spins around, her walking stick raised high. She brings it down with all her might on Ellen’s skull. The silly goose staggers backwards, then hits the ground on her hands and knees. She scrambles back up only to have Annie wallop her again, this time with a blow to the ribs. Ellen reaches for her pocket, but Annie remembers the knife and deals another blow. There’s a loud snap like that of a stick breaking in two, only the sound hasn’t come from a stick, it’s come from Ellen’s arm. Ellen hits the ground and rolls onto her back. Stunned and blinking back tears, she turns to Annie. “Why have you done this terrible thing, miss?”

  Annie reaches down and fishes the knife from Ellen’s pocket. Then she grabs the key. “Because I know in my heart that out there somewhere there are people who don’t spend absolutely every waking moment behaving like beasts.”

  Ellen gazes at her, uncomprehending. “Where do you imagine that might be, miss?”

  “You know, Ellen, I’m not really sure, but I need to find that place before Father finds me. I’m sure you can understand why.”

  Annie hurls her walking stick into the bush, then sprints up the trail towards the Kennedy homestead. When the trail forks, she takes the path heading away from Michael’s Bay. The way she’s got it figured is if she can steer clear of Father’s spies, she’s got a half decent chance of making it on to a fishing boat that will take her to civilization. Once there, she’ll start writing the letters she hopes will find their way to people who can tell the difference between right and wrong. It may not work. A thousand things could go wrong, but at least she will have tried. She owes that much to Charlie and to the dreams she had for their future together that now will never come true.

  EPILOGUE

  AND SO THINGS WENT

  On October 12, 1877, George and Laban Amer were convicted of murdering William and Charles Bryan. It would take close to a year for the Amers’ legal team to exhaust all appeals and when they finally did, both men were sentenced to hang.

  That didn’t happen.

  Anne Amer immediately set about campaigning to have her husband’s and son’s murder convictions quashed. She wrote letters. She got up petitions. She gained the support of every powerful man on Manitoulin Island as well as in Collingwood, Owen Sound, and Sault. Ste. Marie. Politicians signed on, as did doctors, lawyers, and merchants of all stripes. Anne argued, citing no proof, that her husband had been too poor to afford a proper defence, the jury had pre-judged the trial, the prosecution’s witnesses had been seeking vengeance for her husband’s unscrupulous business dealings and/or his illegal land speculation, and potential defence witnesses had refused to testify for fear of retribution. By far her most compelling argument was that eight-year-old Arthur Bryan had lied on the stand about having witnessed the murders.

  The Governor General of Canada agreed and on August 12, 1878, he commuted George and Laban Amers’ death sentences to ten years in the Kingston Penitentiary. Neither man would serve out his term. Soon after Laban Amer entered the penitentiary, his health deteriorated to the point where he was not expected to survive and, just three years into his sentence, he was released to his mother on compassionate grounds. Returning to the homestead, he slowly regained his health and would run the family’s farm operations until 1883 when, after many years of staunch support by too many notable men to ignore, his father received a full pardon.

  Upon his release, George Amer quickly resumed his old ways, leveraging the law to gain whatever advantage he could over any man foolish enough to do business with him. He extended credit to anyone wishing to purchase a cow or a plough or a wagon and then repossessed the item along with anything else he could lay his hands on when the borrower could not pay the exorbitant interest. Over the coming decades, Amer would obtain legal title to several properties this way. Meanwhile, the ownership of the lots that formed the family homestead shifted between him, his son, and Oswald Hinds several times over the decades due to legal manoeuvring designed to keep those lots under George Amer’s control.

  By 1886, just three years out of prison, George Amer became clerk of Tehkummah Township. Two years later, he gave up all pretence of farming and took up residence in Manitowaning. Although his occupation would officially be listed as carriage maker, he continued to acquire, lease, and sell land on the island until his death in 1908 at the age of seventy-six. Laban Amer remained in his father’s shadow for most of his life. He would be appointed the Tehkummah postmaster in 1885, holding that position until his father took over the job in 1888. Following George Amer’s death, Laban would become an Assiginack Town Councillor in 1913 and would remain so until his death in 1917 at t
he age of fifty-nine. He is buried alongside his father in Hilly Grove Cemetery in Assiginack Township.

  On the morning following the murders, Annie Amer was removed from the family home for reasons that remain unclear. We do not know what, if anything, she witnessed that night. Annie next pops up in the public record four years following the murders when she marries neighbouring farmer and dedicated lacrosse player Alex Brinkman at the age of eighteen. A decade later, when George Amer decamps to Manitowaning, he and his wife take up residence next door to the Brinkmans. Although Annie and Alex Brinkman would have two children, both died before reaching adulthood.

  After a flurry of activity to gain the release of her husband and son, Anne Amer fades from the historical record. It is unclear where she was living during the time George and Laban were incarcerated, but there’s no suggestion that the lots in Tehkummah were leased to anyone else. Presumably Anne Amer continued to operate the farm, likely with the assistance of Oswald Hinds, until first her son and then her husband returned. A sumptuous picnic hosted on the farm just prior to Amer’s release from prison in 1883 attests to it flourishing in his absence. I could find no record of Anne Amer’s death and she isn’t buried in the family plot alongside her husband, son, and daughter, so a mystery remains as to what became of her.

  More is known about Eleanor Bryan, an enigmatic figure who alone witnessed the murders of her husband and son. It’s an unfortunate sign of the times – and the legal standing of women in the Victorian age – that her firsthand account of what happened that night goes unrecorded. She does not testify at the murder trial or at the coroner’s inquest that preceded it and there is no witness deposition in her name. The best insight we have into what she heard and saw that night comes from the testimony of her youngest son Arthur, who was not a direct witness to the murders but testified as though he was. Arthur no doubt gives the account his mother would have given had she been in a position to tell her own story.