Free The Lynching of Louie Sam by Elizabeth Stewart Page B

open my eyes to make him go away and feel my heart racing. John comes into the room.
    â€œTell me what happened,” he says.
    â€œWe’re not supposed to talk about it,” I reply.
    â€œSays who?”
    â€œSays Mr. Moultray.”
    â€œDid you get Louie Sam?”
    â€œI can’t say.”
    â€œYou did get him, didn’t you? Where is he now? Did they bring him to the jail in Nooksack?”
    I look at him. Can he really be that dumb?
    â€œHe’s not in any jail,” I say.
    John studies me for a minute, and then he understands.
    â€œSo you lynched him.”
    I know the word, but I haven’t heard anyone use it in connection with Louie Sam. All the talk I’ve heard has been about justice and vigilance. Lynched . It’s a rash word, harsher somehow than hanged . But it’s what happened.
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    John watches my face again, and his own face changes. Some of the eagerness goes out of his expression.
    â€œDid he put up a fight?”
    â€œNo … Yes, but only at the end.”
    â€œWell, did he say anything in his own defense?”
    â€œHe hardly said anything. He was too scared.”
    â€œHah! The coward.”
    â€œHe wasn’t a coward,” I tell him. Then I add, because it seems like something that’s important to know, “He was just a kid.”
    â€œHow old a kid?”
    â€œThirteen. Fourteen at most.”
    This takes John aback. Then he says, “A murderer’s a murderer.”
    I don’t have a reply to that. I say, “Let me sleep.”

Chapter Eleven

    I WAKE UP AT NOON , edgy with the trembles of a bad dream. And then I remember it wasn’t a dream. All of us are worn out, between Father and me riding all night and the baby getting born. At noon we sit around the table eating cheese and bread, staying quiet so as not to wake Mam and the baby. None of us has much to say, anyway.
    In the afternoon, Tom Breckenridge’s father brings grain to be milled, but he doesn’t stay much longer than it takes for Father and me to grind the single sack of wheat he’s brought with him. I open the sluice gate to let the water rush in from the wheel and drive the runner stone, while Father empties the wheat into the hopper. Then I hurry down to the meal floor to collect the flour in the sack as it comes down the chute. From upstairs, I can hear Mr. Breckenridge repeating to Father what Mr. Moultray told us at The Crossing about keeping quiet—as though he thinks Father needs reminding. I wonder if the real purpose of Mr. Breckenridge’s visit is to deliver that message.
    F RIDAY MORNING OUTSIDE the school, while we’re waiting for Miss Carmichael to ring the bell, Pete refuses to speak to me, except to tell me that we Gillies are Indian lovers because Father spoke up in favor of letting Louie Sam stand trial. John and I deny it hotly, but Tom Breckenridge says it’s true—he heard the same thing from his pa. I think it’s curious how Mr. Breckenridge told Tom what happened, after making a special trip to our place to warn Father to keep quiet. Tom says that as Mr. Bell’s closest neighbors, it could just as easily have been them that Louie Sam attacked. Tom counts himself lucky that he and his family are still alive.
    â€œMy pa says the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” Tom proclaims to the whole schoolyard. “We won’t be safe until every last one of them is wiped out.”
    Pretty soon, it seems that Pete and Tom have got the whole school agreeing with them about us being Indian lovers. Adding to our reputation is the fact that it was Agnes rather than a proper settler’s wife who helped bring my baby brother into the world. I try to explain to Pete and Tom that Agnes was closest at hand to our cabin, and that John didn’t know what else to do but fetch her, with Father and me gone and Mam crying out that the baby was coming and coming fast. But