Lynching - Annick Press

Copyright Annick Press 2012
Father comes out from the space he and Mam
share behind the curtain, pulling up his suspenders.
“Is he hungry?”
“I fed him not a half hour ago!”
She puts the baby into Father’s arms. Teddy wails
all the louder, thrashing his little arms. Father tries
to calm him, but he hasn’t Mam’s touch. Mam settles
herself in the rocker and begins opening her blouse—
all modesty gone! I turn my back away. But in another
moment, the baby has stopped crying. I hear the
snuffling sound of him sucking.
“You’d think he’d never been offered the breast
before,” says Father.
“Aye,” says Mam. I can hear the smile in her voice.
“He’s making up for lost time.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mam reminds me it is Tuesday morning, and there’s
school. Despite my broken arm and despite the upset
in our house, she insists that John, Will, Annie, and
I will not miss another day of learning. She gets no
argument from me. I have my own reasons for making
the trek into Nooksack, but they have naught to do
with Miss Carmichael making me recite the sonnets
of Mr. Shakespeare for the umpteenth time. I have
not forgotten that at the moment I laid eyes on Father
outside the Nooksack Hotel yesterday morning, I was
on my way to see Mr. Clark, the detective sent by the
Dominion Government to investigate the hanging of
Louie Sam. I make a vow to myself that I will find
him this morning to tell him what I know.
But I’m afraid of how Mr. Osterman might
get back at Father and me if I tell Mr. Clark what
happened that night, knowing as I now do what
a villain Mr. Osterman is. He tricked the men of
Nooksack into executing an innocent boy. I wish
I’d listened to my niggling feeling the night Louie
210 211