Authors: Lynn D'urso
Heartbroke Bay (40 page)
“Michael Severts, you are charged with the murder of your partners, Harky and Dutch. How do you plead?”
“Oh, guilty, your honor. Guilty as hell.” A small smile teases Severts’s lips, but his voice is serious. Hannah precisely and faithfully transcribes his words upon a fresh sheet.
“The prosecution may proceed.”
The
whoosh-whoosh
of raven wings beats through the stillness outside. The sound of first one, then another and another of the black birds pulses in until the noise of the dark congregation circling overhead sounds like the rapid panting of a large animal.
whoosh-whoosh
of raven wings beats through the stillness outside. The sound of first one, then another and another of the black birds pulses in until the noise of the dark congregation circling overhead sounds like the rapid panting of a large animal.
Michael stares at the sagging canvas above his head. Hans darts a glance at Negook, whose lusterless black eyes are lost in the shadows, then sucks at his lips, tasting blood. Hannah repeats her instruction.
“The prosecution shall proceed.”
Hans steeples his fingers, holding the tips to his mouth for a moment, then buries his hands in his armpits, crossing his arms on his chest. Arching his eyebrows, he sighs heavily through his nose, then asks, “So you confess? You confess to the murders?”
“I do.”
“And you’ll sign a confession?”
“I will.”
“Your honor.” There is fatigue in Hans’s voice. “Your honor, will the court instruct the stenographer to take down the prisoner’s confession?”
Hannah makes a note on the paper before her, sets it aside, then slides an unmarked sheet into place in front of Michael. Holding out the pen, she says, “Please proceed, Mr. Severts.”
Michael hunches forward, elbows on his knees, and stares at the floor, hiding his face behind locks of matted hair. After a moment he straightens, wipes at his nose with the fingers of his bound hands, then takes up the pen:
I confess to murdering my partners Harky and Dutch. I killed them in cold blood, using a shotgun while they sat down to dinner. It was premeditated murder. I planned to do it, and I done it, and I won’t argue it. I was planning to kill everyone so I could have all the gold for myself. I intended to kill Hans Nelson and his wife, Hannah, as well, then make my escape by rowing in the small skiff to Sitka or Skagway, where I would blame the killings on the local Indians and claim to have barely escaped with my life, a story which would be easily believed.I am grievously sorry I did it. They were good men. I confess and ask to be hung for my crime.
“Mr. Negook, will you sign as a witness to the prisoner’s confession?”
Negook takes the proffered pen then is motionless as he considers
.
Maybe the paper is a
Guski-kwan
trick, a way of infecting him with their craziness. He has seen many papers, knows how the whites use them to do whatever they please
,
how they give lies power by putting them in writing. He wants to say, “Horseshit,” but holds his tongue.
.
Maybe the paper is a
Guski-kwan
trick, a way of infecting him with their craziness. He has seen many papers, knows how the whites use them to do whatever they please
,
how they give lies power by putting them in writing. He wants to say, “Horseshit,” but holds his tongue.
“What is this?” asks Negook, gesturing at the written confession.
Hannah is patient. “This is Mr. Severts’s confession of murder. It requires the signature of an impartial witness to be legal.”
“This is not the business of the Tlingit people.”
“Nonetheless, Mr. Negook. we must have a witness, and there is no other. For a trial to be legal, neither a judge nor a prosecutor can act as a witness. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“And if it is fair?” asks Negook.
Hans’s voice cracks loud and angry. “Then we’ll hang him and be done!”
Negook burns Hans with a black-eyed glance, angered by Nelson’s breach of manners. Why do these people bother having a talking stick if they do not respect it? And it seems they are asking his permission to kill the dark-haired white. They never once asked permission to dig at the ground, take fish from the rivers, or seals from the ice, but now they are asking permission to kill one of their own.
“Aye,” he mutters. “Their strangeness never ends.”
Hans glares at Hannah and hisses, “Christ,” wiping one hand across the tabletop as if sweeping crumbs to the floor. “What makes you think he can write?”
At that moment a baritone rumble rolls down from the glacier, thundering in the distance like the cannons that burned Angoon. Negook’s hand darts forward, flicks twice above the paper, and the lean, sharp form of a bear’s tooth or perhaps a killer whale’s fin springs to life on the confession. The shaman points the pen at each of the whites in turn—Hans, Hannah, then Michael—while muttering an incantation of forest and water spirits to protect himself from whatever comes next, then says, “This is not the business of the Tlingit people. Kill him if you wish.”
Negook’s choice of words—the unmitigated “kill him”—shakes Hannah’s bones, and her voice is husky as she lays the gavel aside. “Does the defendant have anything to say on his own behalf?”
The smallest denial, a single side-to-side twitch of his head—“No”—then clearing his throat and straightening himself, Michael says, “No, I think not.” His voice is level, almost relieved. “There’s really nothing more to say, is there?”
EIGHTEEN
Whirlwinds of snow hiss and spin, dervishlike, across the roof of the hut, leap from the eaves, and dance away into the darkness. Ranks of waves charge out of the night to collapse upon the beach in thundering welters. Boulders the size and color of Spanish bulls glitter under opaque coats of ice. The ice grows thicker with every fusillade of spray.
A crack of candlelight appears along the door to the hut. The foot of the rough-hewn door makes a grating sound as it sweeps a perfect quadrant into the wind drift gathered in the lee of the cabin and the line of light enlarges into a trapezoid of gold.
As the door is muscled outward, a long shadow springs across the doorway of light drawn upon the snow. The shadow diverges into two parts and a pair of huddled figures step out. The figures, one much smaller than the other, lean together into the wind, rolling a barrel before them. A third shadow follows, a short coil of rope dangling from its hand.
The rope is frayed and broken, with coarse strands of sisal bristling along its length. The diameter of the line is no greater than the joint of a thumb, and its bearer worries that its strength has been compromised by months of exposure to salt and sun. Michael shrugs. It is all that is left of the cutter’s rigging. It must suffice for the job.
The trio wends its way through a field of stumps. Blowing snow moves in layers, swirling about their feet, sniffing rudely under flapping rag tails of coats stiff with grime. At the edge of the field they stop beneath a spruce tree that bows and nods in the tempest.
Michael bends an
S
-shaped bight into the standing part of the line, holding it as he takes round turn after round turn with the running part, then with cold, fumbling fingers tucks back the end to form a loop. His is a sailor’s skill with knots; when he tests his work, the hangman’s noose slips and tightens easily.
S
-shaped bight into the standing part of the line, holding it as he takes round turn after round turn with the running part, then with cold, fumbling fingers tucks back the end to form a loop. His is a sailor’s skill with knots; when he tests his work, the hangman’s noose slips and tightens easily.
When he speaks, his voice is weak. “I reckon to do this proper, we’d need something higher than that barrel. It would be better if there was more drop. Quicker, you know.” His voice trembles. “This way . . .” He swallows the rest.
Hannah struggles to tip the barrel upright beneath the branches. Hans steps back and watches. Rocking the barrel on the bulge of its shape, she grunts with a surge of effort that upends the cask, then pushes back her hood. Her face is fine-boned and drawn. Her eyes—large in her skull, the skin pulled tight by starvation—are the color of the sky, becoming pearl gray as dawn advances.
A raven appears out of the forest, its wing beats like a sword cutting the air. Lifting and dodging, it swoops overhead on a rising gust of wind. The Irishman follows the arc of its passing with his eyes, staring as if he might see through the wall of the storm into a world less frightful than the one he is about to leave.
“Michael?” Hannah’s voice is soft. He turns from his contemplation of the raven and hesitates before stepping, rope in hand, over to the barrel beneath the trees. His movements are slow and weak.
Rolling the coils of line with the fingertips of one hand, the noose swinging lightly in the other, he readies a loop for a toss. The first throw rises too sharply, tangling in the branches of the tree for a moment before unwinding to the ground. Michael sighs, coils the line again, and eyes a lower, thinner branch. The second toss is good.
The wind rises, shaking the tree, but the noose seems to hang without moving. Blowing snow stings their upturned faces. Hannah’s nose and cheeks are fiercely red. The first waxy white patches of frostbite are beginning to appear on Michael’s hands, which grow lumpish with cold as he struggles to knot the end of the line around the tree. The rope is stiff and reluctant in the bitter air. As he shows her how to take up the slack, tears rolling from Hannah’s eyes freeze into lusterless pearls.
Severts tests the barrel for balance, pushing against the rim. Turning his back to Hannah, he places his hands behind him; she lashes and ties. Grunting as he tries to climb aboard the barrel, he falls back, too weak and stiff to rise without aid. Hannah steps forward, takes his arm, and looks to Hans. “Please.”
Nelson looks away, trying to cover a looming failure of heart with bluster. “I wanted this done from the start. Now you can just do it yourself.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Nelson,” says Michael. He tries again. With Hannah’s help, he makes it onto the barrel, teetering and kneeling for balance.
“There’s something else, Hans,” says Michael. And for a moment Hannah is afraid he means to confess their affair. Lowering his head for Hannah to remove his hat, he eyes the noose before saying, “That bear of Dutch’s? I killed it. The carcass is in one of the ice caves along the edge of the glacier. It stank something awful, but it might still be edible, being frozen and all. We’re past being choosy now, aren’t we?”
Hannah fumbles the noose over his head, then pulls the knot tight beside his ear. Standing on tiptoe, she reaches up with his hat, places it on his head, and pulls it down to his ears. “It’s so cold,” she says, choking. “You must take care.”
Michael’s eyes are infinitely sad as he attempts a rueful smile. His lips tremble. “Jesus, I’m scared,” he whispers. “God help me, I’m so scared.”
He struggles to stand. Once aloft, he shivers in tenuous equilibrium, legs bent at the knees, his hands struggling like small animals against their bindings. The barrel tips an inch under his weight and he jerks into a deeper crouch, eyes wide, mouth twisting in panic.
Placing both hands on the rim of the barrel, Hannah cries out, “Good-bye, Michael!” and shoves with all her strength. The snow beneath the barrel crunches as it drops from beneath his boots. Hannah watches in horror as the inadequate limb sags beneath his weight, leaving him to choke and struggle. His toes scrawl an arabesque of death on the icy ground.
“Hans, help me!” screams Hannah, grabbing at Michael’s legs. She tries to scream again, but the words knot and clamp in her throat. Her voice fades and dies to a rasping howl. Nelson turns to run, stumbles, and trips on a stump. When he looks back, he sees his wife kneeling before the strangling man, her arms tight about his waist, face buried to his belly, adding her own weight to the rope. Severts’s face is turned upward at an unreal angle, his eyes wide and staring, in a tableau of a saint searching heavenward for ascension, a supplicant at his feet.
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