ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, the day of Mr. Bell’s funeral, my mother and father were arguing. There were no raised voices—that isn’t Mam’s way. But when she is displeased, you know it. I could tell just by looking at her when Father and I came in from milking that something was eating at her. Mam was short-tempered as she tried dishing up breakfast, hampered by the big roundness of her middle—that out of delicacy we boys were not supposed to mention.
Finally, Father told Mam to sit down and let Annie do the serving. In that, she obeyed him. But her mouth was still tight as a drum as she helped Isabel with her porridge.
“Anna, it’s the man’s funeral,” Father said out of the blue, as though picking up on a discussion he and Mam had been having earlier.
“I have no argument with you going to show Mr. Bell his due. It’s this foolish talk I can’t abide.”
I was curious about what talk she was referring to.
“You do not appreciate the seriousness of the matter,” replied Father, using his serious voice to prove the point.
“I get along just fine with the Indians,” Mam said.
“When do you ever have business with the Indians?”
“Agnes Hampton often brings me berries in exchange for a few eggs. Or one of her boys will bring me a hare, or a brace of quail.”
“That squaw was never Mrs. Hampton,” Father replied.
From the way he said it, there was a meaning behind the words that he did not intend for us children to grasp. But being more experienced in the world than my brothers and sisters, I knew what he was getting at—that the Hamptons had never been properly married. Mam was silenced for a moment by that remark, though not for long.
“It seems some folks are more easily forgiven on that account than others.”
Now she was talking about Pete’s father and Mrs. Bell, who also lived as man and wife without the benefit of a preacher.
Father came back with, “There’s sinning, and then there’s sinning.”
I wasn’t at all sure what Father meant by that, but Mam seemed to understand him just fine.
“It’s not those boys’ fault they were born half-breeds,” she said. “And just because there’s one bad Indian, that doesn’t mean you men have cause to tar all the rest of them with the same brush.”
At that, Father put his foot down.
“I’ll thank you to leave men’s business to the men. This conversation is hereby over.”
Mam’s mouth was tighter than ever.
I CAUGHT UP WITH FATHER as he was heading from our cabin down to the mill, our dog Gypsy following us and barking into the woods surrounding the path. Something had her excited. I hoped it wasn’t a bear or a cougar.
“Father?”
“What is it, George?”
“I thought you liked Mr. Hampton.”
“I liked him just fine.”
“Then why do you think he was a sinner? I mean, a worse sinner than Mr. Harkness?”
Father rubbed his chin with the flat of his hand.
“George,” he said, “you’re almost a man now. You need to understand the way things work. God in his wisdom created different types of people. That’s the way he wanted it. So when those different types of people …” He stopped himself, then started again. “When it comes to marrying and raising bairns, those types are meant to stick to their own kind. Are you following me?”
I was not, in fact, following him too well. But I was a man, or almost a man. Father had just said so. And a man has to understand these things.
“Sure I do,” I said.
“Good. Now get yourself to school and put some learning in that head of yours.”
THE SETTLERS BUILT THE one-room schoolhouse on the western edge of Nooksack a few years ago. It takes a good hour of walking for John, Will, Annie, and me to get there, following the trail that leads into town—the one that passes by Mr. Bell’s cabin. Even three days later there’s a bitter smell in the air from the fire as we go by. Every morning since it happened, John and Will had wanted to linger at the Bell place and explore. I had to bark at them to hurry along, lest we were late for school and Miss Carmichael, the schoolma’am, kept us in at recess as punishment.
Jimmy Bell wasn’t at school Wednesday morning. Neither was Pete Harkness. Miss Carmichael had to yell at us kids to pay attention. Nobody had a mind for grammar or sums. All anybody wanted to talk about was the funeral, and whether Jimmy and Pete would be there. And whether Mrs. Bell would show up. I’ve seen Annette Bell in town, and a few times when I was over at The Crossing to visit Pete. She is young—younger than Mam—and she comes from Australia, which makes her a curiosity. Folks around here come from Great Britain and Canada and various states, but she’s the only one from Australia. Everybody knows that they send convicts to Australia.
It’s hard to picture Mrs. Bell being in love with old Mr. Bell. Pete’s father, on the other hand, is tall and strong and broad-shouldered from pulling the cable ferry that spans the Nooksack River—the sort of man that some women, Mam is willing to grant, find handsome. It seems the Harkness men are lucky that way.
Miss Carmichael told the senior class to take out our slates and do the algebra she’d written on the blackboard. Over the squeaking of chalk, I heard Abigail Stevens whisper to Kitty Pratt, “Mrs. Bell only married Mr. Bell for his money.”
Abigail is sixteen and—I supposed—knows about such things. I remembered the five hundred dollars in gold coin that Sheriff Leckie found in Mr. Bell’s cabin, and thought that maybe she was right.
AT NOON, MISS CARMICHAEL—who suffers from nervous headaches—told us not to come back to school after the dinner break. I started on my way home with John, Will, and Annie, but it wasn’t long before a different destination came to mind. The funeral was due to get started at one o’clock. All the men of the Nooksack Valley would be there, and I intended to be there, too. I told John to walk on home with the younger kids. But being stubborn by nature, John was not about to be left behind. So Will wound up walking Annie home, while John and I headed over to the Hauser place.
“Why is the funeral happening at the Hausers’?” I pondered as we walked. “Why not at church?”
Nooksack has two churches to choose from, the Presbyterian and the Methodist. We Gillies are Presbyterians, being Scots.
“Don’t you know that old man Bell was godless?” replied John.
“Is that what Jimmy told you?”
“Jimmy says he was a downright heathen. Worse than an Indian, because he should know better.”
“Is that why Jimmy and his mam left him?”
“I don’t know why they left,” said John.
“It’s like there were two different Mr. Bells,” I mused. “Some folks say he was a nice old man, generous to a fault. Others say he was strange in the head. It’s sad his own son doesn’t care that he’s dead.”
John had no comment on that.
THE HAUSERS’ FARM IS on the opposite side of Nooksack from our place—south of town instead of north. It’s just a stone’s throw from The Crossing, where Bill Moultray has his store and Dave Harkness has his ferry. When John and I got there, the long track leading up to the cabin was clogged with wagons. Dozens of horses were tethered to bushes and to the split-rail fence surrounding a small corral. Still more were inside the corral, poking their noses through the fence to snatch mouthfuls of clover. I recognized Star, the Harknesses’ gelding. Up closer to the cabin, John and I came across Mae, tied by her reins to a cedar sapling. When John spoke her name, she raised her head and gave us a funny look, like she was wondering what in heck we were doing there. Then she went back to cropping grass.
Several men were standing outside on the veranda, smoking and talking quietly. Among them were Bill Osterman, the telegraph man who’d led our search through the swamp, and Tom Breckenridge’s father, who had gone up north with Sheriff Leckie. Dave Harkness was with them, too. Mr. Osterman’s face was grim.
“Are we going to allow the Canadians to interfere in our business?” he was saying. “Does a murdering Indian deserve a trial, same as a civilized man?”
“He most certainly does not!” declared Mr. Breckenridge.
Bert Hopkins, a shorty in specs who runs the new Nooksack Hotel, spoke up.
“What can we do about it? The Canadians have got him in custody by now.”
“We got a jail right here in town that would hold him just fine,” said Mr. Harkness.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” agreed Mr. Osterman.
At that moment, my friend Pete came outside.
“Pa, Uncle Bill,” he said, Mr. Osterman being married to his auntie, “they’re ready to start.”
The men exchanged more grim looks, and filed into the cabin.
“Pete!” I called.
He turned, frowning at the sight of John and me as we reached the veranda.
“This is no place for kids,” he said.
That made my blood boil. Sometimes Pete acts like such a big bug, just because he’s got a year’s head start on me.
“We’re the ones who found the body,” John shot back. “We got a right to be here.”
“There’s serious talk going on inside,” Pete told us.
“If you can hear it, I can hear it,” I said.
“And me,” John was quick to add.
“I’m not wasting my time arguing with you two,” Pete replied, and went into the cabin.
John and I went right in after him.
THE CABIN WAS SO PACKED with men that it was easy for John and me not to be noticed by Father, who was on the other side of the room. Mrs. Bell was not there, but her son Jimmy was. A wooden box containing Mr. Bell was propped up on chairs at one end of the room. Jimmy stood near the casket, wearing a sullen expression, like he didn’t want to be there. John and I listened while several of the men said nice things about Mr. Bell. Bill Moultray gave a speech first, then Mr. Breckenridge spoke, and Mr. Hauser, but neither Jimmy nor Mr. Harkness had anything to say about the dead man.
When Mr. Osterman got up to speak, he took a different tone. He didn’t talk about what a good man Mr. Bell was. He talked about what an outrage it was the way Mr. Bell died. He talked about how, in the absence of the U.S. Army, it fell to the men of the Nooksack Valley to protect their wives and children from what had happened to Mr. Bell. An example had to be made, he said.
“This is the new frontier. Like the great frontiersmen before us, we must defend what’s ours. It’s up to us to see that civilized justice is done.”
“Hear, hear!” shouted Mr. Harkness.
The room suddenly got loud, with everybody nodding his head and agreeing with his neighbor that what Mr. Osterman said was dead to right. The Indians had to know who was in charge. A proposal was made by Mr. Osterman that the men present should form the Nooksack Vigilance Committee—just as other frontier towns had done to uphold law and order. Mr. Harkness declared that the first order of business of the Nooksack Vigilance Committee was to make sure that Louie Sam paid for what he did to Mr. Bell. A plan took shape to set out that very day north to Canada to make sure justice was served against the renegade Indian—for nobody present was in a mood for assuming the Canadians would do what was right, what was needed.
For the first time, Father spoke up.
“According to Mr. Breckenridge,” he said, “Sheriff Leckie and the Canadian justice of the peace have gone to Sumas to make the arrest. We should wait until the sheriff comes back. See what he has to say about the situation.”
“Maybe that’s how things are done where you come from, Mr. Gillies,” replied Mr. Osterman, “but we need surer justice!”
“And swifter!” It was Dave Harkness talking now. Pete was at his elbow, puffed up—trying to look like as big a man as his pa. “Why wait? That Indian needs his neck stretched.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Mr. Stevens, Abigail’s father. “They got procedures across the border. We could find ourselves in an international incident if we act out of turn.”
“It was one of us that was killed,” called out Mr. Harkness. “It should be us that settles it!”
Everybody was talking and shouting at once now, smelling blood.
“But what if he’s holed up with the Sumas?” said Mr. Hopkins. “There’s hundreds of them. You think they’re going to just let us waltz in and take one of their own away?”
“Then we’ll show them we got the numbers to stand up to them!” shouted Mr. Harkness.
“We should dress up like warriors!” Mr. Breckenridge called out. “Give those savages a taste of their own medicine!”
There was mayhem now, everybody talking so loud as to wake up even poor Mr. Bell. Mr. Osterman got up on Mrs. Hauser’s table and held up his hands to quiet them down.
“Spread the word to those who aren’t here. We meet at The Crossing at nightfall.”
“Wait!” It was Father speaking. Suddenly, all eyes were on him. “I’d like to hear what Mr. Moultray has to say about this expedition.”
Everyone turned to Bill Moultray, the richest man among them and the one who holds the most weight. His brow was furrowed, like he was giving serious consideration to what was being proposed.
“Well, Bill?” said Mr. Osterman. “What do you say?”
You could hear a pin drop as the men waited for his blessing.
“I say,” he pronounced at last, “that this is the time for every man to stand up and do what’s right.”
And so it was agreed. The Nooksack Vigilance Committee would set out that night in disguise and under the cover of darkness to find Louie Sam, and avenge the death of James Bell.