Crooked River

by Shelley Pearsall

  “So, you visited Indian John here?”

  “Yessir, maybe so. But I don't recollect it real clear,” he said, coughing harder.

  “Did you take anything from him?”

  “Nossir. Nothing.”

  “But if you visited here once, wouldn't it have been possible for you to take the feather from him then?” Mr. Kelley's voice rose. “And later say that you had found it near the body of your—”

  Before the witness could answer, Augustus Root jumped up and hollered in his crackling old voice, “Stop this blasphemy, Your Honor!”

  “Answer the question,” the judge said tiredly.

  The trapper set his shifting eyes on Mr. Kelley. “I already told you that the feather was in the snow. I ain't never seen it before or since, and I surely didn't take it from no savage's head.”

  Everyone was lying. It was nothing but lies.

  “No more questions.” Mr. Kelley finished, and my heart ached.

  The judge pushed back his chair and stood up. Mr. Root's side of the case was over, he said, and after the noonday recess, Mr. Kelley would have his turn to call his witnesses. Some in the crowd hooted and laughed at the news.

  “How many witnesses do you intend to call, Mr. Kelley?” the judge said.

  “Just two, Your Honor,” he answered. “Only two.”

  And the crowd hooted and laughed some more.

  After folks left to eat their noonday meals, Mrs. Evans came over to talk to Laura and me. Settling herself on the edge of one of our beds, she rattled on and on about the evidence. “Ain't that lawyer Root something,” she said in her never-ending voice. “That savage ain't got a prayer in the world, does he? Not with that tomahawk and that feather they found from his very own head.”

  I couldn't imagine how Peter Kelley would convince the jury otherwise. Not if they were all like Mrs. Evans, who only believed what was right there in front of her, what she could see with her own two eyes.

  When the court resumed in the afternoon and Peter Kelley took his place at the front of the cabin, you could have heard the trees growing, it was so still. I think everyone was waiting to see who he would call to speak for his side and what evidence he would show. But I believe the crowd was downright startled when he stood up and called on Reverend Doan. What did he have to do with a murder trial?

  Me and Laura watched as the small, frail man made his way to the front of our cabin, holding tightly to folks’ shoulders as he passed. Reverend Doan had preached the sermon at Ma's funeral, and the cold March wind had turned his lips almost blue, I remembered.

  “Good afternoon, Reverend Doan,” Mr. Kelley said in a respectful voice after the minister was seated with the help of the sheriff. “You are a man of the cloth, correct?”

  “I am.” The minister nodded solemnly.

  Peter Kelley held up the same plain hatchet he had shown earlier and asked the minister if blacksmith Nichols had made it for him.

  “He did.” Reverend Doan nodded again. “Yes.”

  Some in the crowd mumbled that Reverend Doan was a half-witted old fool who wouldn't remember his own name if it was shown to him. Mr. Kelley didn't even give them a glance. He just studied a piece of paper in his hands until the room grew quiet again.

  “I have only a few other questions for you, Reverend Doan,” the lawyer continued after a long pause. “Even though I know you are a religious man, I was wondering whether or not you are inclined to gamble from time to time?”

  “Gamble?” Reverend Doan answered, in a surprised voice. “Certainly not.”

  Some folks in the crowd snorted at the foolish question. They began to shuffle and move their feet impatiently, as if they figured Mr. Kelley was just pulling wool. Why in heaven's name was he asking such peculiar things? I wondered. What did gambling have to do with Indian John and the trial?

  “Do you play cards?”

  “No,” Reverend Doan answered. “I do not.”

  Peter Kelley walked slowly across the room, gazing at the wood beams above his head. “But if one of your congregation members were to find a deck of cards in your coat—just imagine for a moment they did,” he rambled on. “Would they be right, because of those cards they found, to accuse you of being a gambler?”

  The reverend straightened his shoulders and thrust his old chin in the air. “Certainly not. I'm not a gambler and I don't play cards.”

  “But if they only believe exactly what the evidence shows, what is right in front of their eyes …” Mr. Kelley gave the jury a sideways look. Then if they found the deck of cards in your possession, wouldn't they think you were a—”

  And suddenly I saw exactly what Peter Kelley was doing.

  Augustus Root must have realized it, too, because he leaped out of his chair like a beech sprout on fire and hollered at the judge, “Stop this theatrical exhibition right this minute, Your Honor. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Indian's trial. Nothing what-so-ever.”

  Augustus Root's little foot stomped furiously on the floor, and I grinned behind my hand. Laura ducked her head down and covered her mouth with her handkerchief, as if she was hiding a smile, too.

  “Mr. Kelley,” the judge said sternly. “Do you have any more questions for the minister that are pertinent to this case?” The way he pronounced the word “pertinent” made it sound as if it bristled with thorns.

  Mr. Kelley shook his head.

  The judge turned to Mr. Root. “You?”

  “Absolutely none.” Mr. Root glared.

  The judge waved his arm. “The reverend is dismissed. You've made your point about the evidence, Mr. Kelley; proceed quickly with your last witness.”

  The audience leaned forward.

  “My last witness,” Peter Kelley said stubbornly, “is the Indian known as Indian John.”

  i am taken

  to the talking chair and

  my hand is placed on

  the white man's spirit book.

  the white man

  speaks loudly

  and holds my other hand

  in the air,

  but he does not

  offer any tobacco

  to the spirits

  in the book.

  i tell

  the white chief

  and his twelve strangers,

  my name is Amik.

  my people are Ojibbeways,

  and my father is Chief Ajijaak.

  my words are not

  the songs of a bird,

  i tell them.

  my words

  are the truth.

  When they brought Indian John to the front of the room, he was followed by a man I had never seen before. A fur cap sat on the man's head like an odd-looking crown, and a long piece of silver dangled from his ear. Peter Kelley said the stranger's name was John Bigson and he would put Indian John's words into English.

  Around me, people whispered that the interpreter was a half-breed savage, part Ottawa, and no one should believe a word either Indian said. Strange to say, Peter Kelley never mentioned that he understood Indian John's words himself. So I figured he didn't want the crowd to know he did.

  While Indian John was being sworn in by the sheriff, Augustus Root raised an objection with the judge. He said that he didn't think Indians believed in the existence of God, so how could they be sworn to tell the truth on a Bible?

  Peter Kelley answered sharply that Indians believed in their God as strongly as we believed in ours. I guess the judge must have taken Peter Kelley's side because he told Augustus Root that it was the truth that mattered, not the book. And if a Bible wasn't used, what book would Mr. Root suggest?

  That made Mr. Root close his mouth fast and go back to his seat.

  After Indian John answered the sheriff's questions, he was tied to the witness chair. I studied my checked apron. Tracing the pale edges of the apron squares with my finger, I tried not to look toward the front of the room. Someone had wiped the stripes from Indian John's face, perhaps it was Peter Kelley, and I was p
leased to see that. But I didn't care to gawk and stare with the rest of the crowd.

  After the sheriff finished, Peter Kelley walked to the front. From where I sat, I could see his shoulders rise up and then back down as he took a deep breath before he started.

  “You have heard that the man who stands accused is called by the Indian name Amik.” Peter Kelley waved his arm in the direction of Indian John. “His father is Chief Ajijaak. Amik has a wife and two children and travels with a small band of Ojibbeways— or Chippewas, as you call them.”

  I noticed that Peter Kelley's voice was full of nerves as he spoke. “It must be an awful hard thing to stand up there with his friend,” I whispered to Laura.

  “Amik has been accused of murdering the trapper George Gibbs in March of this year,” the lawyer continued. “He has been held captive since the end of April inside this cabin, cruelly chained in the loft above our heads.”

  The crowd grumbled about the word “cruelly.” I could see my Pa shaking his head at some of the other men sitting near the front.

  Peter Kelley pushed on. “But, as you will hear, this Indian has never once harmed or murdered a white man. He is not guilty of breaking even the window glass of a white man's house. With his own words, he will describe for the jury what happened three months ago, in the month of March….”

  And in a murmuring low voice, Indian John began to speak.

  i tell

  the white chief

  and his twelve strangers

  how Ten Claws, Se Mo, and i

  set our traps

  on the Old River of Many Fish

  in the third moon—

  the moon of crust on snow.

  i tell them

  the cold and bitter water

  made our six hands slow,

  but

  we worked

  and dreamed

  of the soft fur pelts

  that beaver and raccoon

  would give to us

  as they had

  many times before.

  i tell

  the white chief

  and his twelve strangers—

  in two days’ time

  we returned to

  the Old River of Many Fish

  to check our traps.

  we walked forward and back,

  forward and back,

  looking,

  and

  we swept our hands

  through the cold melting water,

  searching,

  and

  we hunted for our snares

  beneath the young trees.

  but

  all of our traps

  were

  gone.

  It was a curious feeling to hear the interpreter changing Indian John's words into English, and to be told that the murmuring sounds that didn't seem to have any meaning at all were talking about ordinary sorts of things like catching beaver and raccoon for pelts.

  Peter Kelley told the interpreter to ask Indian John what happened to the traps he set on the Old River of Many Fish. “Where do you think those traps went?” he told the man to say.

  After the interpreter spoke, Indian John's eyes moved slowly across the crowd in a way that made everyone uncomfortable. If you have ever seen the way hunters study the woods, sweeping their eyes across every tree branch and inch of ground—that's the way Indian John looked at the crowded room.

  People started to murmur that perhaps he was casting evil spirits with his eyes. “Stop him from staring at us like that,” one man hollered out. But then Indian John's eyes paused, and he raised his hand and pointed straight at someone in the crowd. I gasped. He was pointing at the miserable trapper called Granger.

  the trapper

  who is in front of me,

  and the one who is dead,

  hunted where they had no right

  to hunt,

  i say.

  they

  followed our trail,

  took up our traps,

  stole the animals,

  and placed their traps

  on the Old River of Many Fish,

  the river

  that was

  left to us by our ancestors

  many strings of lives

  ago.

  i tell the white chief

  and his twelve strangers—

  we were angry,

  angry

  as the serpents

  that thrash in the earth

  below us.

  but still

  i did not raise up my hatchet

  against

  the white men.

  i tell them

  it was Ten Claws

  who was too much mad,

  who crept out in the darkness

  of night

  and took his

  tomahawk with him.

  it was Ten Claws

  who would not listen.

  i tell them

  i am a friend of Ten Claws,

  and i am a friend

  of the gichi-mookomaanag,

  and i would not raise up

  my hatchet

  against one

  or the other.

  i did not kill

  the white man.

  “That savage's nothin’ but an outright liar!”

  A big, pork-faced woman stood up and hollered so suddenly, I nearly jumped out of my skin. The judge had to pound his gavel for quiet, and he ordered the sheriff to take the woman out of the cabin. It took two men to pull her out by her elbows, shouting and hollering the whole time.

  Once the room grew quiet again, Peter Kelley asked the interpreter to repeat what he said. I looked over at the jury men.

  I couldn't tell what they thought of Indian John's story by the expression on their faces. Vinegar Bigger was cleaning his fingernails with a penknife, and the Hoadley brothers were slouched so far down in their chairs, they looked half asleep. Only Mr. Hawley seemed to be watching the proceedings with a careful eye. Did he believe what Indian John was saying? I wondered.

  After the interpreter finished, some people in the crowd coughed loudly and shifted in their seats. An uneasy feeling had entered the cabin. It made me think of when Pa and the men played a game of cards—how the room would become suddenly tense and warm, and someone would get up to throw open a window or two.

  In the front of the room, Peter Kelley folded the papers in his hand. “That was all I wanted the jury to hear, Your Honor,” he said in a firm voice. “I wanted them to listen to Amik's own account of the events and consider carefully what he said.”

  Mr. Kelley's final, determined words seemed to stay in the air even after he sat down. I was real proud of him.

  The judge nodded at Augustus Root.

  With his hands clasped behind his back, Mr. Root took his time walking toward the witness chair, and he gazed rudely at Indian John for a few minutes. As if he was an exhibition that had come to town.

  Sweeping his arm toward the jury, he said in a stinging voice to Indian John, “You expect the good hardworking gentlemen of this jury to believe you are a friend of the white man? A friend?” his voice mocked. “Yesterday you painted your face with the stripes of a savage, today you sit before us wearing the ornaments of a savage, speaking the language of a savage.”

  I could feel a lump rising fast in my throat, and I tried to brush away the angry tears that were filling up my eyes. My Pa put the stripes on Indian John's face. My own Pa.

  But dreadful Mr. Root kept on.

  “You expect the jury to believe that two white trappers trespassed on your river—what was it called?” Mr. Root looked at the paper in his hand. “Ah yes, the Old River of Many Fish.” He grinned at the crowd. “You say the two trappers came to this river of yours, stole your worthless traps, took what you had caught, and that gave you the absolute right to put a tomahawk into the skull of one of them, am I right?”

  Shaking sobs had begun to fill my whole chest, so I could hardly take a full breath.

&nbs
p; In the front, Peter Kelley jumped up to object to the questions. “The defendant testified he did not kill the trapper, Your Honor,” he hollered at the judge.

  “Quite right.” Mr. Root waved his papers in the air. “You're correct, Mr. Kelley. The savage testified that he sat in his tent all night in peace toward the white man while his Indian friend killed the trapper with a tomahawk.”

  I could hold back the tears no longer. As some of the men clapped and stomped their approval for Mr. Root, Laura whispered that if I couldn't keep hold of myself, I had best take Mercy and get outside before someone noticed me. Clinging to Mercy's little hand, I fled from the cabin.

  Outside, it had stopped raining for a time. The pale green-leafed trees dripped water like wet wash on a line, and the gray clouds scudded across the sky. I took a deep, shuddering gulp of air, trying to forget the scene inside.

  “You want to throw sticks?” I said to Mercy. “We'll go into the woods and throw sticks, how about that?”

  For an hour or more, we hurled sticks at the trees. More often than not, Mercy's would fall only a few steps in front of her own feet, but mine would land hard and angry-sounding against the trees. Mercy laughed at the sight, and that made me feel some better.

  By and by, Laura came out to find us. Standing on a dry patch of ground, she said the lawyers were giving their final speeches to conclude the trial and Peter Kelley had spoken real well. She told me she heard a few folks whispering that he had given a daring speech for as young as he was.

  I wiped my hands on my apron. “Daring?”

  “He told the jury that there were good Indians and bad Indians, the same as white people or any other people,” Laura repeated. “And he said that the men in the jury were sworn to give Indian John as fair and full a trial as any white man. He told the men that no human life, not even an Indian's, ought ever to be taken away unless the accused was guilty of the crime. And the evidence proved without one shred of doubt that Indian John was as innocent as any one of them.”

  “You think the jury will believe him?” I asked, wanting to believe they surely would.