WHEN FATHER GETS BACK and hears what’s happened, he sends Agnes home with a twenty-pound sack of our best flour, which he has John carry for her. Before she leaves, she makes Mam understand that she’s to let the baby suck on cloth that’s been soaked in willow tea as much as he’s willing. All of us know that little Teddy is not out of the woods, but now at least we have hope for him.
Father has bought plaster of Paris from Dr. Thompson. He gets Annie to cut up some old gunnysacks into strips, and he tells Will to bring him an old sock from Mam’s sewing basket—one that already has holes in the toe. He cuts the toe open and slips the tube that results over my broken forearm. While he mixes the plaster with water, he tells me to sit at the table and has me hold my arm bent halfway at the elbow, with my palm upward. He dips the strips of burlap into the plaster mixture and begins winding them around the sock.
“How do you know this is right?” I ask him.
“I’ve not been a farmer all my life without learning how to set a broken bone,” he replies, pretending to be offended. He’s almost jovial, so lightened is his mood by our hope for the baby.
He takes another strip and dips it, squeezing it between his thumb and fingers until there’s just the right amount of plaster on it. He winds it around my arm from where the last piece left off. Just when I’m thinking that I can’t remember the last time I sat in such companionable silence with my Father, he says, “About that saw.”
I bow my head.
“Why did you not ask me if you could borrow it?”
There’s nothing for it but to speak the truth.
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid I’d say no?”
“Afraid … because I thought you didn’t want me to go work for Mr. Osterman.”
He nods, and applies another strip of plastered burlap.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” I say.
“You spent everything you had on the doctor’s bill.”
“I’ll earn more.”
“Not from Mr. Osterman.”
I want to tell him what I’ve learned about the telegraph man and the part it seems he played in Mr. Bell’s murder, but the children and Mam are about.
“No, sir. Not from him.”
After a long moment, he says, “Let’s call it even, shall we? The doctor’s bill for the saw.”
I catch his gaze. He’s looking at me man to man. That makes me feel good, better than I have felt in all these last two weeks. I keep my voice low.
“Father, do you know what the Sumas are saying about Mr. Osterman?”
“Aye.”
“Do you believe it?”
He takes his time answering.
“Nobody has proof,” he says. “At least, no white man. Without proof, he’ll go on as he is.”
I think about this as Father continues to apply plaster to my arm. What proof is there? I try to remember every detail of the morning we found the body. I recall that Mr. Osterman looked shocked enough by the sight of the bloody hole in the back of Mr. Bell’s head, but that could have been play-acting. I remember he tried to talk me into taking Annie home, telling me that he would wait for the sheriff to arrive. When I refused, he told me to go wait with Annie by the track. How long did Annie and I wait? A quarter of an hour? A half? Time enough for Mr. Osterman to arrange things around the cabin for his own purposes. And he was the one who suggested we follow that trail into the swamp, where we found the broken branches and the tinned food and the suspenders. Did he plant them there, and lead us to them?
When I went to Mr. Osterman asking to do the job he was thinking about hiring Louie Sam to do, it was like he’d forgotten that job ever existed. Not only that, but he sent me to repair the other end of the line—the opposite end from the one that supposedly needed fixing. So … did the poles near Mr. Bell’s cabin never really need fixing? Did he draw Louie Sam to Nooksack with the promise of work, when his real purpose was to make it look like he was the one who killed the old man? Did Mr. Osterman let all of us believe that Louie Sam killed Mr. Bell—nay, lead us to believe it—to keep suspicion away from himself?
These are the thoughts that fill my head. By the time Father has finished with my arm, I am resolved that Bill Osterman must face justice.
MAM SENDS ME TO bed early, and I sleep like a log. I wake up before dawn to the sound of Teddy crying. It’s a good sound. The cast on my arm is heavy and still a little damp, but the constant pain has simmered down to a dull ache. Pulling on my trousers with one hand, I go out from the bedroom to find Mam walking the floor with Teddy bundled in her arms. He’s shrieking and frantic. Mam looks worn out. I wonder when she last had a full night’s sleep.
“How is he?” I ask.
“His fever’s gone down,” she says.
Father comes out from the space he and Mam share behind the curtain, pulling up his suspenders.
“Is he hungry?”
“I fed him not a half hour ago!”
She puts the baby into Father’s arms. Teddy wails all the louder, thrashing his little arms. Father tries to calm him, but he hasn’t Mam’s touch. Mam settles herself in the rocker and begins opening her blouse—all modesty gone! I turn my back away. But in another moment, the baby has stopped crying. I hear the snuffling sound of him sucking.
“You’d think he’d never been offered the breast before,” says Father.
“Aye,” says Mam. I can hear the smile in her voice. “He’s making up for lost time.”