by Don Berry
Cock Hat stood up straight at the sound of Kilchis' voice and pointed to Estacuga.
"Cockshaten bought the shining clothes from Estacuga, with other things. He paid two blankets."
"What other things?" Kilchis said.
"A coat, pants, and an iron kettle for cooking," Cockshaten said.
"Where did these things come from?" the tyee asked.
"From the cabin of the Bostons that Estacuga burned."
Kilchis lowered his head for a moment, like a bull about to charge. Then he said, "Those things will be returned to the Bostons, for they were stolen things."
"Will Estacuga return my blanket?" Cock Hat said.
"No. You will pay the blankets as money to the Bostons for buying things that were stolen from them. That is my word, that is just."
"That is just," Cock Hat said reluctantly, in formal agreement. He obviously didn't like it, but there was no appeal from Kilchis' judgement.
I had not caught all of this, despite the fact that Kilchis was speaking the Jargon for our benefit. Vaughn had been explaining in English.
"No," Sam said suddenly. "No, he don't get off that easy, the murderer. He was there. He done it. I know he did."
"Sam, please," I begged him. "Don't be crazy, don't make trouble."
"ASK HIM!"
"All right, Sam, all right. Cock Hat, were you with Estacuga?"
"No."
"Make him prove it. Make him prove it."
"Sam, he can't prove he wasn't some place."
"Make him prove where he was."
I asked.
Cock Hat thought for a long time, counting days on his Engers, asking people in the crowd. Finally he bright. ened. "Cockshaten was at the Nestucca River. There was a whale ashore, and Cocshaten went to trade for oil. He took blankets and salmon."
"That is right," Kilchis nodded. "There was a whale ashore there."
"Wait a minute," I said. "Wait—" Then I began to count on my fingers. "The day we laid the keel—it would be two days before that . . ."
"What are you figurin' Ben?" Vaughn asked.
"Cock Hat is right," I said finally. "Three days before we laid the keel he came to my place with blankets and salmon and wanted to trade for a knife. He said he was going to the Nestucca because there was a whale ashore there. He couldn? have been with Estacuga."
"Yes," Cock Hat said. "Yes. I wanted a knife from you. You said you would buy a knife from me, if I had one."
Another of the Indians offered the information that I Cockshaten had brought back whale oil from Nestucca, so there was no question.
Vaughn wiped his forehead. "All right, it's settled."
Sam looked at me. "You can't be sure. It was a long time ago."
"No, I'm sure, Sam. Honest to god. It was three days before we laid the keel, and the murder would've been the day after. There ain't no doubt at all, I'm sure of it. He was fifty miles away."
Sam's eyes were so strange I couldn't meet them for long. He stared at me, and he stared at Cock Hat. Suddenly he turned and charged off toward his place without saying another word.
Joe Champion clasped his hands on top of his head and surveyed the sky. The Indians relaxed and started talking to each other again, and I could suddenly hear the annoying yipping of the dogs. I felt weak and shaky, I felt like a man who has just slipped off a cliff and caught himself in time, there was a tingling thrill of falling in my toes.
"We're going to have to talk to Sam or something," Vaughn said worriedly.
"Sufficient to the day the trouble thereof," I said. "Or something like that. Let's get this trial over."
* * *
We convicted Estacuga, and just at the moment Joe Champion was saying "Guilty, I guess," Vaughn had a stroke of absolute genius. He jumped up excitedly. and had to calm himself, before he could speak.
"The victim will have to be sentenced and punished by regular law,'? he said. "We could do the trial all right, but we have to have regular law for the rest of it."
"What are you gettin' at, Vaughn?"
"Listen, Ben, the nearest regular Territorial District with law and all that kind of stuff is in the Valley, ain't that right? The Yam Hill district? They got a sheriff and all."
"Ha! Them Yam Hill boys need law worse'n most. They're a rough bunch."
"No, listen, what I'm sayin' is, the Bay here sort of belongs to the Yam Hill District as far as legal goes. We got to turn the victim over to the District Court in there. we should've done that in the first place, but I didn't think of it."
It was perfect. If we did not do the hanging ourselves, as far as the Indians were concerned it would be the Yam Hillers who were responsible for it. We'd satisfied justice by having a trial and condemning him, but we a wouldn't have to take the blame for the hanging if it were done in the Yam Hill District. It was the way their minds worked, and it got us out clean.
"Vaughn, Jesus, man, you're a legal genius."
"I am, I am!" He was so excited he was almost hopping.
Kilchis asked what was going on and we explained it to him, how it was Boston law, etc., etc. All he said was that the Boston law took an awfully long time to take care of things, but if that was what was necessary it was all right.
So. It had worked out after all, in spite of our forebodings. We would be left to work in peace. A couple days' delay at most and we could get back to her. Three of the jurymen and I would escort Estacuga into Lafayette, where there was a regular Territorial Sheriff.
The whole crowd broke up, and there was no complaining from anybody. Kilchis was dissatisfied that it had taken so long to conclude the obvious but it was still over and done with by noon.
I hung around the Ship, looking at the framing, and it seemed a month since I'd touched her. Missing one morning's work was enough to do that to me. I was running my hand down one of the bevels, feeling the smooth change of angle and counting in my mind how easy the planking would go over a bevel as beautiful as that.
Cock Hat came up beside me and touched me on the shoulder.
"Mahsie," he said. "Hiyu, hiyu mahsie."
"Hell, nothin' to thank me for, Cock Hat."
"You not speak—he kill me, the little man."
"Hell," I said jokingly. "It didn't cost me nothin'." A man's life is a man's life, after all." It embarrassed me a little to be thanked for simply telling the truth. What else did he expect?
"Mahsie," he repeated, smiling. "Nesika kahkawa tillicums. We are the same people." It was a damn nice thing to say, and made me a little proud.
He left then, and I looked back at the incredible complex beauty of the framing members with the hot midday sun pouring down and molding them with gold and deep purple shadows.
2
I loafed around her the rest of the day, not doing too much, smoothing out a joint here and there, checking that the treenails were tight and flush in the futtocks. The trial had left me empty and restless. I suppose it was the sudden succession of terrible apprehension about Sam and the equally strong relief that Vaughn had found us a way out. I was really ashamed of what Sam had tried to do, and I suppose he was, too. He was really out of himself, there. 'When he realized he had actually tried to get an innocent man hanged he would be so humiliated with shame and guilt he would probably be in a terrible state about it for a week. I felt sorry for him. It's an awful thing to lose control over yourself; awful afterwards, when you can think about it.
The next morning the three jurymen and Estacuga and myself set off for the Yam Hill District. I was happy to see that Estacuga had given Kilchis the knife after the trial, as I would not have cared to escort a wild Indian with a knife through the broken country of the Coast Range.
This was the first time I had been Outside since I came down to the Bay, and I was pleasantly surprised.
The numbers of people that had come through in the last couple of years had left a very respectable trail. It was an entirely different history from my first trip, my nine days of confusion and misdirection. B
y starting at first light we had crossed the spine of the range and were nearing Lafayette by late evening, around eight o'clock.'
Estacuga had said nothing during the entire voyage. He was about as miserable as it is possible for a man to be. Whenever we stopped to breathe a little, or to take a bite to eat, Estacuga covered himself over with his blanket, face and all, and lay still as a corpse. When the time came to go again, he got up without protest and went on. He acted as though he were already dead, or perhaps his wounds hurt so much he was incapable of anything else. In any case his lack of apparent emotion was a blessing for us. I don't know what we would have done had he screamed and cried and tried to get away. And I can tell you that if I were going to my hanging, I would scream and cry and try to get away.
By the time it was full dark we were in the house of the sheriff, one James Quick. Mr. Quick was a regular Territorial Sheriff, that is to say he had been sent in there by the Provisional government. He was not one of the Yam Hill boys. These fellows in Yam Hill were probably all fine boys, but they were the scum of the earth. The district was a kind of dump heap for every individual who was not able to get along anywhere else. I remember in Oregon City when a drunk got mean or vicious we used to say, "There's a boy for Yam Hill," and if it kept up he usually ended there. I have always been afraid of toughs like that, because you never know what they're going to do next, if you don't understand their kind of mind.
The Yam Hill boys always had ten times as much trouble with the Indians as anyone else, and it is my belief that they provoked this trouble with their violent ways and a never ceasing hatred of the Indian. It was the Kalapuya people around there, and I had always found them very inoffensive. Nevertheless, there was so much hostility that a bunch of the Territorial Militia was permanently barracked there to take care of emergencies.
With this high feeling against the Indians in the District, our arrival with the prisoner caused a great deal of excitement. The news went around the country like a brush fire. Between our arrival and midnight there were seven or eight of the boys there at the Sheriff s house. As I have said, Mr. Quick was an honorable man and not one of the Yam Hill boys.
"Well, boys," he said, "we'1l lock him up good. You just give me the papers and`she's as good as done."
"What papers?" I said.
"The commitment papers."
"Wel1—we got no papers. We just got him."
"You said you had a court down there at the Bay," Quick said. "Did.n't they give you no commitment papers?"
"Well-to tell you the truth, it was a kind of informal sort of court, Mr. Quick."
"Who's your justice of the peace down there?"
"I was. Anyway, I was the judge. We drew straws. We don't have any statute down there or anything?
Quick frowned. "You know, this ain't regular, Mr. Thaler. I mean, I'm just a sheriff, I can't accept to arrest a man without no papers to commit him."
One of the Yam Hill boys, named Wallace I believe, grunted like a bear. He was a big, heavy man with a beard, and very surly.
"Papers, papers," he muttered belligerently. "God damn, Quick, you're the pickiest man I ever see. Hang the sonofabitch and have done with it."
"Law's law, Wallace." Quick said, sighing. "I got to have papers."
"Well I say hang the sonofabitoh and have done with it," Wallace mumbled. "Jesus, papers. Goddam school marm you are, Quick."
"You tend to your business, Wallace, and I'll tend to mine. You been in my lookup more'n any man in the District, but you ain't any smarter for it."
"Hell, you ain't s'posed to get smart in a lookup! That's what they got schools for!" Wallace roared at his own wit. "Don't you even know that? That's what they got schools for, is to get smart. You ain't s'posed to get smart in a lockup!"
"Well, Sheriff, what do we do?" I asked him.
"All I can tell you is I got to have commitment papers. You'd ought to have them signed by the foreman of your jury and your judge and the arresting officer and all. And witnessed. Particular, I don't want any trouble on account yours wasn't a regular court or anything?
"Now wait a minute," Wallace said heavily. "You ain't going to let this bastard go loose, are you? It ain't ever' day a man gets a chance to hang a Siwash, not legal anyways."
"I suppose I could go back and get some papers. I don't really know what to do."
"Goddam shame to let, a dirty murderin' bastard like that go loose," Wallace grumbled.
"Wallace, you shut your trap or I'll lock you up with him."
Wallace roared again. "That ain't such a bad idee," he said. "That way we'd know for sure the sonofabitch wouldn't come out alive!"
"Well, Mr. Thaler," Quick said to me. "I think you'd better get me them papers. That way there won't be any trouble with the government. I hate like hell to make you go back, but it's my job I'm thinking about. I don't want any more trouble than I got, on account of irregularity or anything."
"I b'lieve you're goin' to let that boy loose," Wallace muttered. "That ain't justice. You call that justice? Hey, Quick?"
"Never saw you worryin' so much about justice, Wallace," Quick said impatiently.
"Oh, hell, I ain't worryin' or anything. But I tell you, I sure do like to see them dance around, them red bastards. Hey, you!" He hollered at Estacuga. He pretended to have a rope around his neck and bugged out his eyes and stuck out his tongue and made strangling noises.
When Estacuga turned away without saying anything.
Wallace broke up in roars of laughter and slapped his thighs.
"Listen, boys, what do y' say we take him out and string him up now? Right quick. We do it quick, how do y' like that?"
"Shut up, Wallace!"
"No, listen, Quick," Wallace said, gasping for breath.
"We do it quick, how about that?"
One of the other Yam Hill boys spoke up for the first time. "No, you know, Wally's right. Be a goddam shame to let this boy go loose on account of some papers."
I stood up. "Listen, I'll get the papers. I can get back here in a couple of days. All right? Mr. Quick, you can keep Estacuga till then, can't you?"
"Esgacuga, what the hell's that?" Wallace said.
"That's his name."
"Hell, they ain't got names, the sonsabitches. They's all Mr. Siwash to me. Hey, Mr. Siwash!" He went through his little strangling act again. He was the most easily amused man I éver saw, Wallace was.
"A11 right,'? Quick said. "I lock him up until you get back."
"Hey, wait a minute. What it somethin' happens to this here guy? I mean, what if he busts a leg or something? What if he can't even write them papers? Listen guy, c'n you write?"
"Good enough for that. Or if I can't, Vaughn can."
"I'm just worried something happen to you is all," Wallace said happily. "I mean, then they let this bastard loose, or something?
"I'l1 leave first thing in the morning and then be back day after tomorrow," I said.
"All right," Quick said. "But one o' your boys best stay here, so's I ain't got the responsibility of ho1din' him without papers."
None of the three men with me was very enthusiastic about staying in Yam Hill any longer than he had to. If this was civilization, we much preferred the Bay. But finally Peter Morgan agreed to wait here until I could get back with the papers. Quick put Estacuga in his "lockup,"which was just a sort of woodshed attached to his house. The Yam Hill boys went on home, grumbling about what a shame it would be to let him go loose after all that trouble. The rest of us rolled up in blankets lent us by the Sheriff, and in the early morning I set off again for the Bay.
We set a good two-forty pace and reached Vaughn's before dark. Vaughn pointed out that if I'd said Morgan or one of the others had been foreman of the jury I could have saved the whole trip and made out the papers right there. But ]oe Champion had been foreman, and it had never even occurred to me to say anything different.
Vaughn being good with words, he made out the papers in a couple-of hours, and I signed
for judge. Vaughn himself signed "Joe Champion," because, as he said, it saved a lot of trouble. It depressed me, since it made all my trouble seem for nothing. Since Joe's signature was illegal anyway, anybody could have done it. Vaughn said the signature wasn't illegal, just the ‘X.' Joe couldn't write, so somebody else would have had to write the signature. It didn't seem so serious to forge just the ‘X.'
In any case the effort was not wasted as I didn't make the return trip after all. Peter Morgan came trudging in about midnight, looking pale and scared.
"Don't bother goin' back, Ben," he said. "They came and gott him this morning about an hour after you left."
"Who?"
"That big bastard with the beard and about a dozen others."
"What did—"
"What the hell do you think? Strung him up high and short. They got a good laugh out of it, I guess."
Vaughn cleared his throat and looked down at the floor for a moment. "Well," he said hesitantly, "Anyway, there wasn't any doubt he was guilty or anything. I mean, it ain't like—"
"I didn't see it, even," Morgan said. "They ran me out same time they got Estacuga out of the lockup."
"What'd Quick do?"
"Hell, I don't know," Morgan said. "I tell you plain, Ben, when that bunch said ‘Frog,' I jumped. I don't want no trouble with that kind. Sam'll tell you about it, he prob'ly saw it."
"Sam? Little Sam? What are you talking—"
Morgan looked up in surprise. "Didn't you pass him on the trail?"
"No, hell-"
"Yeah, well Sam pulled in about fifteen minutes after you'd left. I figured you'd of met him on the trail."
"Vaughn," I said, "did Sam say anythin' to you about going Outside?"
Vaughn shook his head. "Not a damn word. I ain't seen him since the trial."
"He looked real tired, Sam did," Morgan said. "He must of walked all night."
EIGHT
1
We went back to work the next morning. Sam had not returned, and the way he had been lately none of us was willing to wait; he might not get back until tomorrow or the next day. We couldn't tell what was in his mind, and nobody could stand the idea of another day without work.
