By the Skin of His Teeth

by Ann Walsh

  Suddenly Chief Constable Lindsay appeared at the front of the courtroom. "Enough of that now. Show some respect, you heathens." One large hand swept down and picked up the overturned chair, setting it upright, while the other hand clamped firmly on Ah Ohn's shoulder and forced the witness back into the chair. Meanwhile Sing Kee returned to his place with the other witnesses.

  The court clerk cautiously went back to his desk, but Judge Crease continued to lean across the bench, banging the gavel. "Order. There will be no more shouting. There will be order in this court. Be seated at once."

  The spectators who were still on their feet sat down again. After the clerk slid into his chair and picked up his pen, Judge Crease sat and adjusted his wig, which had slipped slightly as he had wielded the gavel.

  By now both lawyers were on their feet. Mr. Walkem strode toward the judge's bench, his black robes billowing around him, appearing even more like the large, hungry raven I had thought he resembled the day of the inquest. "My Lord, this is shameful behaviour in—"

  "I am quite aware of what is happening in my court, Mr. Walkem," Judge Crease snapped. "Return to your seat."

  "Very well, My Lord," Mr. Walkem said, doing as he was told.

  Mr. Robertson remained alone in the centre of the room, shuffling back and forth. He looked as if he were about to cry, but he inhaled deeply, turned to Ah Ohn, and said as sternly as he could, "Sir, for the last time, did you see a white man with a knife in his hand kneeling beside the body of Ah Mow?"

  "No. No knife. No kneel."

  "But you did see Mr. Tremblay, didn't you?" the lawyer asked.

  "Mr. Robertson, that is not an appropriate question at this point, as you know full well," Judge Crease said. "Please respect the—"

  "Maybe not same white man," Ah Ohn said. "Maybe different. Hard to see."

  "Are you saying that you no longer recognize the defendant as the man you saw the morning of the murder?" Mr. Robertson asked. Everyone in the courtroom could hear the desperation in his voice.

  Mr. Walkem was on his feet again, bearing down on the bench, but Judge Crease motioned him back. "Sit down, Mr. Walkem. I think we need to hear this answer no matter how inappropriate the question.

  Ah Ohn glanced briefly at Henri Tremblay before he replied. "Different white man." He pointed at the prisoner's box. "Different. He not in street with Ah Mow."

  "But that's not true!" The voice came from someone in the second to last row of the crowded courtroom. "He's not telling the truth."

  The judge thumped his gavel hard, and Pa grabbed my elbow. "Be still, son. Sit down and be quiet."

  I realized I was standing and that every pair of eyes in the courtroom was fixed on me, including the judge's stern ones, Mr. Robertson's hopeful ones, and Henri Tremblay's cold ones.

  "I can't be quiet, Pa," I whispered. "That man is lying. Someone has to tell the truth. I was there. I saw—"

  "You must sit down," my father said sternly, pulling on my arm. "This is none of your concern."

  "Young man," asked the judge, "how do you explain this outburst? Have you been called as a witness?"

  "No, My Lord."

  "Then please be seated. I will excuse your disrespect this once, due to your youth, but any further attempt on your part to interrupt the court proceedings will be dealt with harshly. Sit down and let us continue with the trial."

  "No! I mean, My Lord, I was there... Pa, leave me alone. Let me speak."

  My father held on to my arm tightly, trying to pull me back into my seat.

  "Sit down, young man," Judge Crease said firmly.

  "No," I said again loudly, and this time the judge heard me.

  "Pardon me?" he said, eyebrows rising in astonishment until they almost met the edge of his wig. "Did you say no? Did I just hear you refuse a request of mine in my own courtroom?" He scowled.

  "I have to speak," I said. "I have to tell you..."

  And then, though my mouth kept moving, nothing came out of it except a thin, whistling squeak. I gulped, wincing against the pain in my throat, and tried once more, but again there was no sound.

  My father was no longer trying to make me sit. Now he stood close beside me, nudging me none too gently, trying to get me to move past the people seated beside us.

  "My son isn't well, My Lord," he said. "He has a fever. Please allow me to take him home."

  The judge was silent for a moment, then his scowl faded and he nodded. "I understand how the excitement of these proceedings could have aggravated the boy's condition. Take him away."

  "No," I said again as forcefully as I could. "You must listen to me. I was there. I saw both of them, Mr. Tremblay and—"

  "Excuse us, please, thank you." Although my voice was softer than a newborn kitten's mewling, my father was taking no chances on my being heard. He talked loudly as he pushed me along. "Excuse us, the lad's ill. He doesn't know what he's saying."

  "I do know what I'm saying." No one heard me. My voice had completely gone and not even a kitten's squeak emerged from my mouth. I dug my heels into the floor and tried to stand my ground, but my father was stronger and heavier than I. In spite of my efforts to remain where I was, he succeeded in steering me past the last person on the bench and into the aisle.

  "Shall I help you remove your son from the courtroom, Mr. MacIntosh?" Chief Constable Lindsay looked as if he would be eager to help Pa, that he would enjoy a chance to shove me out the door.

  "Nae, thank you, Constable. We'll leave quietly, won't we, son?"

  I shook my head and opened my mouth again, but Pa was right. I had no choice but to leave quietly, for I could say nothing that anyone could hear.

  The chief constable swung open the door and ushered us out. "Some youngsters should learn to keep their opinions to themselves. There's no need to make more trouble for poor Mr. Tremblay. As I said before, Mr. MacIntosh, a trip to the woodshed for your headstrong boy would teach him to keep his mouth shut."

  "But—" I said again, or tried to say.

  "Thank you for your advice, Constable," my father said. "Although I nae believe in beating a child, be assured I shall speak severely to Ted."

  The chief constable seemed disappointed as he shut the door behind us. I had a strong suspicion he wouldn't mind giving me that whipping himself.

  Sixteen

  Neither Pa nor I said anything on the way home. I was silent because I still couldn't speak. Pa said nothing because he was angry at me. We walked past the group of Chinese men, and I saw Peter's anxious face. When Peter tried to talk to me, my father said, "Not now. The lad is sick."

  After we arrived at our house, my mother looked at us questioningly. But all Pa said was: "He's ill. Put him to bed and keep him here. I'm going back to the trial." Then he turned and left.

  My mother ushered me into bed and, against my feeble protests, fed me the rest of the cough medicine and closed my bedroom door firmly. "Stay there," she said.

  I protested again, but not too much. I didn't feel well. My head throbbed and my throat pained me so greatly I could barely swallow. I lay down and fell asleep.

  As I slept, I dreamed. Once I thought Henri Tremblay stood by my bedside, telling me to get up and fight like a man. "No," I told him, "I'm not a man, not yet." I screamed, or tried to.

  Suddenly Ma was beside me, a damp towel in her hands. She sat on the edge of the bed and bathed my face, talking to me gently. "There's no one here, son. No one but me and your father. Rest and try not to think about..."

  She didn't say what I shouldn't think about, but it didn't matter. I fell asleep again, and the dreams continued.

  Jenny. Peter. Ah Mow, the blood streaming from his chest. Judge Crease leaning over my bed, pounding his gavel on my forehead. Jenny again. Then Henri Tremblay once more, this time stabbing a knife into my throat over and over, telling me, "You will say nothing. You know nothing."

  Then Jenny again, sitting beside me, crying. Peter once more, pulling on my arm, urging me to get up and race with him. Again,
Jenny, this time holding a cold cloth to my forehead, whispering to me, followed by Chief Constable Lindsay, a leather strap in his hand, ordering me to come with him to the woodshed. Then Sing Kee, holding my head and gently urging me to take a sip of medicine. Then Jenny sitting beside me, whispering, "You're a glaikit boy to take so ill. Please get well."

  There had been so many people in my bedroom that I was surprised when I opened my eyes and saw only my mother and father. "Where is everyone?" I asked.

  "Oh, Ted, you can speak."

  "Of course I can speak, Ma," I croaked, my voice as husky as a raven's.

  "I'm glad to hear your voice, son," my father said. He seemed tired, as if he hadn't had much sleep, but he smiled when he spoke again. "Very glad."

  "I don't understand."

  "You haven't said a word for three days, not to me or even to your mother, though once you screamed."

  "Three days?" I said. "What do you mean? We left the trial this morning and came home and then—"

  "We put you to bed and you've been here ever since, the fever raging through you. Your mother has scarcely left your side."

  "Three days?" I repeated. "But how—"

  "Hush, don't try to talk," Ma said. She was sitting on the bed beside me, pressing a damp cloth against my forehead.

  I pushed her hand away. "Three days? That can't be possible."

  "It is," Pa said. "You've been very ill."

  "Dr. Bell has been to see you," my mother said. "Sing Kee, too. I think it was his medicine, not the doctor's, that finally broke your fever." She handed me a glass of water. "Take only small sips. You must drink as much as you can, but slowly, for nothing but a few drops of water has passed your lips in all this time. Sip slowly, then lie down again."

  "But the trial! I have to go back."

  "The trial is over," Pa said.

  "Over? The hanging, too?"

  My parents looked at each other. "There's no need to think of that right now," my father said.

  "Don't worry about it," my mother urged. "Lie back down and rest."

  "I must know! Ma? Pa? Tell me! Has it happened?"

  "Ted, try not to—" Ma began.

  "It isn't important," Pa broke in.

  "Tell me! Please."

  Again my parents exchanged glances. Then my mother stood. "He won't rest until he knows. You'd best tell him, Ian. I'll go and make some broth. Perhaps he can take a bit of nourishment." She left the room.

  "Pa? Tell me the truth. Is Mr. Tremblay dead? Has he been executed?"

  "There was no hanging, Ted, nor will there be one. The jury found Tremblay not guilty. He's a free man."

  "Not guilty! That's impossible."

  "Aye, that's more or less what Judge Crease thought. He told the jury he didn't agree with its decision."

  "So why didn't he make the jury change the verdict?"

  "A judge can't do that. A jury's decision is final. Not even a judge can alter it. However, Judge Crease told Tremblay that he had escaped punishment by the skin of his teeth."

  "By the skin of his teeth?"

  "Aye. But your mother is right. Now isn't the time for you to worry about that. When you're well enough, you can read everything that happened, for the newspaper has been full of nothing else. Now lie back down and rest."

  I did as he said, and once more I slept.

  My mother woke me, how much later I didn't know. She propped my head up with pillows, then sat beside me. "Open your mouth. I've made a fresh broth. You must eat."

  "I can feed myself," I said, struggling to push away the spoon.

  Ma paid no attention. She thrust a spoonful of soup at me, and I obediently opened my mouth. My throat didn't hurt when I swallowed, and I suddenly realized I was very hungry.

  "Please, Ma, give it to me."

  She shook her head and spooned out more. I felt like a small child again, or a baby bird, opening my mouth, swallowing, opening it again. But I was too hungry to object. I just wanted to eat.

  The bowl was nearly empty, when there was a noise outside the bedroom door and Jenny burst in, followed by my father. "She wouldn't wait until we could make the lad respectable," he said. "I told her he would want to be tidied before he saw her, but she wouldn't listen."

  "Ted! Oh, you glaikit boy. How could you get so ill? I've been here every day, and you couldn't sit up or speak and I thought you were dying. You've made me worry so much that..." Then she burst into tears.

  "He'll recover, Miss Jenny," my father said. "Don't cry."

  My mother stood and put down the bowl of soup and the spoon. She was crying, too. "Yes, he's better, Jenny."

  "Jenny," I said, "you're here!"

  "Did I not say I've been here every day?" Although there were still tears streaming down her cheeks, she smiled. "Did you nae hear a word I said?"

  "I thought I was dreaming."

  "Oh, aye, you were dreaming," Jenny said. "You tossed and turned and the sweat poured from your brow and you were so hot I like to have burned my fingers when I touched your face."

  "I'm sorry I was sick," I said, embarrassed. "But I'm well now. Why are you crying?"

  "Because I'm so happy you are well at last," she said. "For you to get sick, that was nae the right thing to do, not just after you kissed me. It wasn't a...a gentlemanly way to behave at all. It was very unmannerly of you. I shall never let you kiss me again if you get ill every time I do so."

  "Uh...Jenny..." I tried to stop her from saying anything else, but it was no use.

  Ma moved closer to my bed, and I could tell that both she and Pa were listening carefully. Pa was grinning, but Ma didn't seem pleased.

  "Jenny..." I tried again, but Jenny went right on talking.

  "First you won't race with me, then you hold my hand and kiss me, then you get ill, and even though I brought you shortbreads and sat by your bedside every day, not once did you say my name. Not once."

  "Jenny," I said. "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. I say it now."

  "Oh," she said, sitting on the bed beside me, reaching out and taking my hand. "Oh, Ted."

  My father coughed, and she quickly pulled her hand back.

  "You mustn't stay long, Miss Jenny," my mother said. "Ted is still weak, and he needs to take more nourishment. Then he must rest."

  "I shall not tire him, Mrs. MacIntosh. But, oh, to see him sitting up and speaking when I thought I should never see him again except as a cold corpse laid out in his best suit for his funeral. He would have been shaved, of course. Not all scratchy looking as he is now."

  "Corpse?" I said. "Was I really that ill?"

  "Yes, you were, and I shall never forgive you for it," Jenny said seriously.

  "You were here?" I asked. "It wasn't a dream?"

  "Nae, it was not. I was here every day, sometimes two or three times a day." She reached out to take my hand again, but this time it was my mother who coughed a warning, and Jenny folded her hands demurely and put them in her lap.

  "Now that you've reassured yourself that Ted is mending, it's time you returned to Barkerville, Jenny," Ma said firmly. "You may come back tomorrow, or as soon as Ted is on his feet once more. The bedroom is not a suitable place for you to visit him."

  "Or to do your courting," my father said equally firmly.

  "I'm sorry," Jenny said, but she made no move to leave. She smiled at me again, and I realized there wasn't a trace of the bootblack moustache left on her face.

  "Please, Ma, let her stay a while longer. I feel much stronger."

  "No, not today," my mother said.

  "Pa?"

  "Your mother knows what's best for you, son."

  "Very well, I shall go," Jenny said. "But I'll come back."

  "Yes," Ma said. "I've no doubt you will."

  "He'll want to know all about the trial," Pa said. "Perhaps you can come tomorrow, Miss Jenny, and read to him from the paper, if he's still too weak to read for himself."

  "Oh, what matters all of that?" Jenny said. "He's well again. That's what matters."r />
  "It's over, Jenny," I said. I was thinking of Ah Mow's death, of the angry Chinese men in Sing Kee's shop, of Henri Tremblay smirking from the prisoner's box, of Ah Ohn saying, Maybe different white man. "It's over."

  But Jenny wasn't thinking about any of that.

  "Over?" She seemed surprised. Even though Ma and Pa glared at her, she took my hand in hers, held it for a long moment, and smiled at me. "Oh, you glaikit boy, it is nae over. It's only just beginning."

  Afterword

  Ah Mow was killed in November 1870, and my information about that murder and the testimony at the inquest and trial comes from newspaper reports and court records. Because the real defendant was found not guilty, and also because I needed a villain in this story, I chose not to use the historical person involved but to invent the fictitious Henri Tremblay instead. Many witnesses did substantially change their testimony between the inquest and the trial. I have suggested they were threatened and made to do so, but there is no historical evidence to support that theory. However, prejudice against the Chinese was so strong at the time that I suspect the all-white jury wouldn't have found a fellow white man guilty no matter what evidence was presented. The judge made public his disapproval of the verdict when he stated that, in his opinion, the defendant had escaped punishment "by the skin of his teeth."

  Theodore Percival MacIntosh, better known as Ted, is also fictional, as are his family, Bridget, Jenny, and Peter. Ted appears first in Moses, Me and Murder: A Story of the Cariboo Gold Rush (Pacific Educational Press, 1988) and continues his adventures in The Doctor's Apprentice (Beach Holme Publishing, 1998).

  ANN WALSH is the author of Your Time, My Time, Shabash!, and The Ghost of Soda Creek (a Canadian Library Association's Notable Selection). She is also the creator of the Barkerville historical mystery series, whose first two novels are Moses, Me and Murder and The Doctor's Apprentice (nominated for the Sheila Egoff Award for Children's Literature). As an editor, she has published two anthologies of children's stories, Winds Through Time and Beginnings. All her books have received the Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice Award, and she has also earned nominations for the Silver Birch and Geoffrey Bilson Awards. She lives in Williams Lake, British Columbia.