The Lynching of Louie Sam (16 page)

T
HE FIRST TELEGRAPH POLE
I come to is a thirty-footer just a few paces from the water. The telegraph cable stretches up from where it was laid across the riverbed. The underwater part of the wire is coated in rubber, but where it meets the glass insulator at the top of the pole that's there to support it, the wire is bare copper. This pole is out in the open, so there's not much brush around it to speak of. Truth be told, I'm not altogether clear on what I'm supposed to be looking for. The wire looks to my eye like it's sitting well on the insulator, and the pole looks free from damage from birds or bugs. So I walk on.

In seconds, the telegraph wire carries messages that used to take days or weeks to get through by stagecoach or train. The line runs pole to pole over mountains and over gorges. It took hundreds of men years and years to string the wire, through some of the wildest country you are ever likely to find. But I have a nice flat trail to follow—though the forest is thick and wild on either side.

The next pole is a hundred feet along the trail. The line looks good on this one, too, from what I can see from the ground, but the ground is swampy here and brambles have been taking full advantage of that fact, sending long sprouting branches up. I take out the handsaw and cut off a few. Then I think I may as well clear out the whole bush. It has thorns that catch at my hands and jacket. It takes me a good while before I'm finished. Once I have the brush cleared away from the pole, I can see a soft spot in the wood, so I find a suitable length of branch in the woods and use it to layer on some pitch.

I tuck the handsaw in my belt and walk on from pole to pole, hacking away brush where needed. Once or twice I have to shimmy up the pole a little ways to apply some pitch. I collect several sticks of various lengths for this purpose.

By late morning the sky has clouded up. There could be more rain. I'm heading to my twenty-third pole when I see coming toward me a family of Indians. This makes me nervous, me being the only white person in who knows how many miles. There's no way of telling whether these Indians are friendly or not, and I'm wishing I'd brought more than a handsaw with me. A hatchet would have been a comfort, or a rifle. But we only have the one rifle, which is for Father's use—although I'm allowed to use it for shooting rabbits and the like.

I keep one eye on the telegraph line, and one on the Indians. As we draw closer to each other, I see that it's just two women and a bunch of kids, so I relax a bit. But they're staring at me, which makes me uncomfortable. One of them is not much older than Abigail Stevens. She says something to the older one, her mam I presume, in their gibberish, and they both start laughing. From the way they keep staring, they can only be laughing at me. Now the kids start in giggling. I had not intended to talk to them, but now I can't help myself.

“What's so funny?” I say.

We're all stopped in the middle of the trail. One of the little kids, a boy about Isabel's size, starts prancing around, holding his hands up to the side of his head like the devil's horns. I figure it's some kind of heathen dance. Whatever it is he's doing, the Indians think he's pure hilarity, because now they're clutching their middles they're laughing so hard. That just makes the boy dance harder. He's loving the attention his antics are getting from the women.

But it seems his big sister, a girl of Annie's age, isn't amused by him. She grabs him hard by both arms and tries to make him stop, just the way Annie likes to boss Isabel. The boy's face crumples and he builds into an ear-splitting wail. Now the mother is in the middle of it, pulling the two kids apart, scolding her daughter, comforting the boy. I don't need to understand their language to get the gist of what she's saying. I know what
my
mam would be saying.

Nobody's laughing as they walk on. The mother, the girl, and the little boy are all cross-tempered. But the other woman, the young one, turns back.

“Man,”
she says, meaning me. She points to her head, and then to mine.
“Mowitsh.”

I feel my hair, and discover that I've got twigs stuck on either side of my head from clearing brush. So that's what the boy was making fun of. I nod, to let her know I understand. She smiles back, shy-like, then she catches up to the rest of them.

“Thank you!” I call after her.

She turns back and smiles again.

T
HERE'S A POLE EVERY
two hundred feet or so along the trail, roughly twenty-five to a mile. By my fiftieth pole, I've covered about two miles. It's well past noon when I stop for a break. I sit on a stump, damp though it is on my behind, and take out the bread and cheese Mam sent with me. The day isn't warm, but the work has given me a thirst. I wish I had some water, but there's no stream nearby. As much as I'm tired and could stand to rest a little longer, I'm mindful that I want to make a good impression on Mr. Osterman, this being my first day on the job. I put what remains of my food in the knapsack for later, tuck the saw in my belt, pick up my pitch bucket and sticks, and keep moving.

When I get past the fiftieth pole, I see I have a problem with the fifty-first. Something has knocked the telegraph wire off of the glass insulator. It's hanging down in a big loop between poles fifty and fifty-two, ten feet off the ground. How am I meant to climb the pole way up to the top to put the wire back in place? I need a ladder, but there's none for miles around. I see, though, how a nearby cedar tree is growing at an angle toward the pole. If I climb the tree and use my longest pitch stick, maybe I can reach the wire and lift it back onto the insulator.

I'm jumping to pull myself up onto the bottom branch of the cedar when suddenly it's like I hear Mam speaking to me. “Be careful, George,” she's saying. I remember the handsaw I have stuck through my belt. I take it out and lay it safely on the ground beside the knapsack and the pitch bucket. Then I start climbing with my longest pitch stick tucked under my arm. The main branches of the cedar are nice and wide, but there are lots of little branches that block my way. I think about climbing down for the handsaw. But I reach a branch that is roughly on the same level as the dangling line and fight my way through the cedar leaves until I find an open patch.

I'm in luck—the telegraph wire is in view, just a few feet out from the branch. When I stretch my arm I can just touch the wire with my pitch stick. But all I'm doing is making it swing away from me. I need to hook it somehow, so I climb farther up to the height of the insulator so I can catch the wire from underneath and put it back where it belongs.

The branch is wide enough for me to stand up on. Once I'm standing, I slide my boots along the surface toward the wire, grabbing at other branches to keep my balance. The branch is getting thinner, but it's still holding my weight all right. Finally, I reckon I am close enough. I reach my pitch stick under the wire and give it a good tap to make it swing toward me. The first time, it's still outside my reach. But the second time I've got it. I reach out and grab the wire.

The wire burns into the palm of my hand like the vibrating sting of a giant bee. The shock of it pulses up my arm. I'm so surprised I don't even think about the sensible thing to do, which would be to let go of the wire. I stand there like a fool holding on. I'm feeling light-headed. I'm losing my footing. Everything is going black. The last thing I remember is I'm falling through the branches, being scratched and bumped. I do not remember hitting the ground.

W
HEN
I
WAKE UP
, my first thought is how quiet it is. I wonder why there's no sound of my brothers and sisters chattering to each other, or of Mam at the stove fixing breakfast. Slowly it comes to me where I am, and what happened.

I'm lying on my back under pole number fifty-one. Judging by the gloom collecting among the trees along the trail, it's late in the afternoon. My throat is parched. I look at my right hand, the one I used to grab the wire. It's burned and blistered. But it's my left arm that's throbbing with pain. It's pinned under my back at a peculiar angle. Propping myself on my right elbow, I try to sit up—but the pain from my other arm shoots up into my neck and makes me cry out. I lie on my back, thinking what to do. It's so still you could hear a twig snap from a mile away, but I don't even hear that.

“Hello?” I call, hoping that by some miracle somebody might be near enough to help me—maybe that Indian family I met earlier, making their way home from wherever they had been. Those women would know what to do for my arm, how to make a splint for it and wrap it tight. “Hello!?”

But there's no one. I look up at the telegraph wire, just visible in the growing darkness, still hanging in a loop the way I found it.
So that's what electricity
feels like
, I think to myself—a detail Mr. Osterman neglected to tell me. I think:
If I had pulled the line
down with me and broken it, the telegraph messages
couldn't get through and at least he would know
something was wrong.
But the telegraph line is fine. I'm the one that is broken.

I know I can't stay here. The forest is quiet now, but cougars hunt by night, and wolves and bears are always on the prowl. I take a few deep breaths and push myself up so that I'm sitting. The pain from my left arm shoots up and down my body, but I tell myself that if I just hold still it will steady—and it does a little. I take a few more deep breaths, and I push myself up to my feet. I think I'm going to pass out from the pain. Somehow my foggy brain wills my feet to move, one in front of the other, up the trail the way I came—toward The Crossing. I have two whole miles to go and I have to get there before the Harknesses shut down the ferry for the night.

Every step sends a new tremor through me until even my teeth ache. I discover that if I use my burned right hand to hold my left elbow tight against my body while I walk, the pain subsides a little. After a while I cheer up, which is strange. Truth be told, I feel a bit the way I felt when Pete Harkness and I helped ourselves to his pa's jug of Doc Barrow's liquor. Light-headed in a pleasant way. A little silly.

I start slowing my pace. I tell myself to stop worrying so much about getting to The Crossing. All I really want to do is sleep. I feel like I practically
am
sleeping, though I'm walking, too. I start thinking that it wouldn't matter if I lay down right here and closed my eyes, just for a little while. Then I stumble on a tree root, and the pain from my arm and shoulder rips through me—waking me. I know I have to keep walking, before the sleepiness overtakes me again.

Suddenly, I'm aware of something moving through the woods beside the trail, following alongside me. Whatever it is, it's light-footed—flitting between the trees like no more than a shadow. The funny thing is, I don't feel afraid. Whatever it is, I don't think it means me harm. Maybe this is what the preachers mean about walking with God. But then I see that whoever it is, he's human, not animal—not God. He's small—a kid, like me.

“Who's there?” I say. He doesn't answer. I lose sight of him when a clump of bushes comes between us and I panic a little, because seeing him makes me feel less lonesome. I'm relieved he's still there when we reach the other side of the bushes, his legs keeping pace with mine.

“Who are you?” Still no answer. “Show yourself!” And then, ahead of me, he steps out of the woods. He's facing me on the trail, blocking my way. I stop walking. The light is so dim now that I can't make out his features. But I know who he is. I know him from his broad face and his defiant look, the way he holds his chin up and throws his shoulders back.

“Are you a ghost?” I say.

He still won't answer. He's just standing there, like a statue. I step closer. I see his eyes now, dark coals burning into me. But there's light in them, too, like he's just heard a good joke. His face is soft and full, like a little kid's face. Like the dancing boy's face. Why isn't he angry? He should be angry!

“I'm sorry,” I tell him. “I'm sorry I didn't speak up—about the suspenders. I'm sorry for leaving you there in that clearing, all alone.” Now I'm choking up. I'm crying. “I'm sorry for your mam!”

At last he speaks.

“George Gillies,” he says, “what the hell are you babbling about?”

I'm confused. I look again. A moment ago I could have sworn it was Louie Sam standing there, but instead it's Pete Harkness.

“I've been waiting for you for hours,” he says. He holds up a lantern as he steps closer, showing alarm at the sight of me. “George? What happened to you?”

I'm about ready to pass out.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

They seem the only words I'm capable of just now.

Chapter Eighteen

P
ETE HALF CARRIES, HALF DRAGS
me the rest of the way along the trail to the river, lighting our way with the lantern. The breeze has picked up. By the time we reach the ferry, wind is pushing the clouds away from the moon, which is full and bright. Pete helps me into the scow. I'm shivering, so he finds some old gunnysacks to lie on top of me to keep me warm. He pushes off from the shore. That's when I remember,