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Salt Spring Island Murders
Salt Spring Island Murders
Salt Spring Island Murders
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Salt Spring Island Murders

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Salt Spring Island lies close to the City of Victoria on Vancouver Island. Prior to 1870 no less than five murders occurred on this island. Only one murder resulted in a criminal accusation. The others were dealt with pre-emptorily by the authorities as committed by Indians, providing great difficulty in determining which Native committed the crime. Solely in the case of William Robinson, a colored land owner whose roots stemmed into the soouther United States, was a person charged: an Indian named Tshuanahusset. He was tried and hung.
The documentation available have become the basis for a novel.
The last of the murders resulted in the widow making contact with Pouge Monbeton to determine who murdered her husband, Kwasi.
Pouge's trek into the society of the time stumbles on a series of interesting facts which assist in determining the motive and the perpetrators of these crimes. This includes evidence which indicate that Tshuanahusset was innocent. The difference in the bullet shot from a Browning muzzle loading rifle from a Browning breech load rifle also assist in the determination.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherLionel Lizee
Release dateOct 10, 2013
ISBN9780988167445
Salt Spring Island Murders
Author

Lionel Lizee

Born in Saskatchewan of French Canadian parents, Lionel became first a school teacher, then a lawyer, a college instructor, and, a financial advisor. Always interested in the power of words, he discovered his ancestry, but without any understanding of what brought them to where he was. An active imagination helped to fill in the blanks left between birth, marriage and death from the elements in motion in their lives. Canadian historical novels garnered his interest and devotion.

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    Book preview

    Salt Spring Island Murders - Lionel Lizee

    Salt Spring Murders

    a novel

    by

    Lionel Lizee

    Published by Lionel Lizee at Smashwords

    copyright 2013 Lionel Lizee

    ISBN 978-0-9881674-4-5

    lionlizee.com

    gtl10n@wordpress.com

    The Dedication

    I dedicate this book to those good folk who came to this island complete with the hope of equality, friendship, and community. Faced with the prejudices in vogue at the time, they exhibited the strength and temerity to assist in the refurbishment of our values, enhancing our lives in a myriad of ways. When I looked at the material provided by one website, I knew that between the documents provided there was a great deal of truth missing. When I began writing, I realized that the characters had their own composition in mind - it was almost as if they were using my mind to tell their story.

    Disclaimer

    The bare truth of the events depicted in this book are set out on the website noted below. The documents are there to read, decipher, and contemplate. What is written here is based on those documents with a gross dose of imagination added. No person should take umbrage at the family names and the machinations created here. This is a book of fiction based on some elements of the past. The characters in this book do not represent in any fashion the ancestors of any present day living persons. Some characters are historically significant, but again, whether their involvement as described here occurred is a matter of my conjecture. What is meant by this work is to describe with a good plot the kind of things that could have occurred, and the reasons for it. It is meant to make the past enjoyable and pleasant reading.

    Particular Appreciation

    There are many sources of inspiration, and many individuals who have assisted in the development of this novel. In particular I would single out Barbara Floyd who has expended considerable energy to edit and suggest improvements to the work, and, Wayne Barre who read it as a novel. And my wife, Claire Lacasse, who made room in our joint lives for me to spend countless hours tapping away at the keyboard. As well this novel is based upon the information shared in one website:

    License

    This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

    www.lionlizee.com gtlion@wordpress.com

    Table of Contents

    Chapter One Kwasi and Mandisa Mezahab

    Chapter Two Pougé Monbéton Arrives

    Chapter Three Pougé talks to Henry Sampson

    Chapter Four John Norton

    Chapter Five Sue Tas

    Chapter Six - Mr. Marcher

    Chapter Seven Constable Henry Sampson

    Chapter Eight Henry Lineker

    Chapter Nine The Bittancourt Brothers

    Chapter Ten Murders Unscrambled

    Epilogue

    Salt Spring Island Murders

    Chapter One Kwasi and Mandisa Mezahab

    The somber cast of morning light leaves no shadows to disclose the presence of sun created contrasts. The stillness of the morning dew dampened into drops on all the foliage. A photograph of stilled time with the scent of pine forest freshness emanating ephemerally from beneath every leaf. Here and there slithers veiled ghosts of fog slipping and moving almost unnoticeably among the high tree branches. From far off the echo of a raven’s caw reverberates through the woods from the direction of Maxwell’s Mountain. The harshness of the caw pierces the scene with a cold reality of a knife stabbed into soft flesh.

    Her breath rasping in her throat as she rushes through the gauntlet, a path meandering somewhere amongst the overgrowth of grasses, thistles, and young trees. The hem of her long faded grey skirt swipes the dew from the edge grasses to slash at her ankles periodically. With the haste with which she progresses towards the edge of their field, with one hand pushing the edge of her skirt up and out in front of her while the other brushes aside the foliage of the upstarts, the fears of her life return with aggravated intensity.

    Kwasi, Kwasi, she keeps repeating under her breath, calling out her husband’s name, almost in a form of prayer. Kwasi, Kwasi where are you? Why you didn’t come home last night. Rebecca and Moses missed your subtle kiss on their cheeks as they slept. Kwasi, Kwasi what has happened.

    Mandisa knows where he should be. In their field of potato or oats or at the edge where she knew he always sat on a humongous root of the tallest tree they had ever seen. She scanned the field of corn, potatoes, oats and vegetables. Glancing at the root place, she didn’t see him. Her heart beat against her breast like an axe striking the trunk of a tree.

    A wild, hollow scream tears through the boreal forest, unheard by none but the God Almighty. Her lips, strained to the widest possible extreme, do not allow the formation of her thoughts into words. Her shoulders are agitating violently against her slender frame, shaking her violently. Her eyes, withe with terror, captured the lump of her husband, down-faced into the forest floor, just in front of his favorite resting place, the large root of the tall tree. Obsessed with the anguish fulminating within her, she gazes at his every wrinkle of cloth, the back of his head of black curly hair. She screams again, and listens to the sound of her voice crashing its way through the tall treed forest away from her. The off-white shirt is stretched over the curvature of his back blatantly illuminating a large blackened stain.

    Her eyes glaze over as she steels herself into the reality of the sight of her husband and her face squeezes out beads of sweat. She slowly speaks to him as if his ear were next to her lips. Like the way they did when they were in bed together.

    What you doin’ there, man. You been gettin’ cold out here. You should’a been home hours ago.

    She shakes herself free from the trance-like state she was in, flattening the folds of her long skirt in front of her. Shouldering she whispers to herself, Kwasi, I knew we should not have come here. We should have stayed in California or Alabama. That is where we knew ourselves. Where we knew how folks live. There is something about this Island that told me not to stay. Not to come. Now, I am alone. With two children.

    She glances in the direction from which she came, then turns almost directly opposite towards the lands south of St. Mary’s lake. Then she turns in the direction of the Vesuvius boat landing. William Robinson , how I wish you were still alive. You were always ready to help. She raised her sights to the blue patch of sky that was above her, as if he were there. What is to be done, William Robinson? Which way to run? she is asking herself. To my children, or, for help? What help can I have, now? Kwasi is gone.

    She paused as her body turned away from her own house, her eyelids shut tight in prayer, squeezing out the remnants of the tears that had earlier flowed. Poor William, killed one week before you was to leave to rejoin your wife and babies in the south. No one knows the sorrow you have been. We was to buy your land. Now you is where we is all going to be. Tell me which way to run.

    She slowly, painfully, carefully lowers herself to sit on the outcropping of the root upon which she had so often shared with Kwasi. As if he was sitting beside her, and, perhaps in her mind he was, she spoke quietly to him.

    Now, Kwasi, you’re with William. He’ll show you round heaven. I told you time and time again, we had no business leaving our place in the south. We colored folk should never have come to this - this -, she sought the word she did not know, Place. We have come a long way from slavery to freedom. And to this place. We are still slaves. Slaves to no one. But slaves to everyone. Rebecca, at school, here in this place, she sits with the colored children. Only few white children in that school. Like us, at church, almost every Sunday. We sit with the colored people on the left side at the back. They talk that we should have our own colored service, in our own church, like. We is free, Kwasi. We come here to be free. Ain’t no slavery here. No sirree. We are free to be with ourselves just like we were in Virginia and Alabama. Done our work for the Massa, then we are free to be with ourselves. Oh, yes Kwasi we is free. We owned our own land. Here.

    She looked over her shoulder annoyingly as if he were sitting beside her.

    Here we have been for over five years. Now it is 1869. How many times have we found a cow, a goat, a pig and how many chickens we got lost. No use complaining. It is always the natives done it. Never knew an Indian to kill and leave it. Indians believe their god said to eat what they kill, and, kill what they can eat. Indians kill to eat. We find the carcasses untouched. Ain’t no Indian killed them animals.

    Swallowing her desire to cry, she continues to talk to herself.

    So now, what do I do with you? Do I move you, or leave you the way you is? Do I go tell our children first then find the Constable?

    She looks up, waiting for a response before rising slowly into the mosaic of sun crossed leaves and branches. Comatose, she walks towards St. Mary Lake. She knows Constable Sampson does not live there, but Amstead Buckner does. She smirks to herself. ‘Amstead looks like a white man, speaks like a white man, dresses like a white man, likes to be with white people. But with his sallow colored looks, they all say he is colored. He was some of the first group of colored folk to take up land on Salt Spring Island. 1859 I heard them say. He came over with William Robinson.’

    William Robinson, she says aloud, her hand covering her lips as the tears flow in blinding torrents down her velvet brown cheeks. He was murdered, too. Not much more than a year ago. Kwasi, what do you think of that? You and he must be in the same place in heaven now - a place reserved for the murdered.

    Amstead, she thinks to herself, is the bridge between the colored folk and the white folk on this island. He is a mixture of the two. Whispers say that his mother was white and his father was colored. He was raised as a ‘massa’ in the big house with the good food and shoes and with his own slave. ‘Imagine that, a colored folk with a colored slave. His massa wasn’t his father. He was a bastard, a piece of mud pie! He had brothers and sisters. They was all white and pure. He was mud in the whipped cream. His world came apart when his mother died. I don’t remember how old he was then. I paid no attention to it. His white father separated him from his other white sons, disowned him, like, and he did not want to take up with his colored dad. Maybe ‘cause he didn’t know who he was. No one would say. He was put off the property. But he was freeborn. Why would he live with slaves? she asked herself. Like us he must have come through California and up to here.

    She wipes her eyes and cheeks. Her soul canvasses its universe. Without deciding in a definite articulate way she stumbles through along the path towards a low level house which comes into her view. She stops, staring at the house. Her feelings, her ambiguous feelings about Amstead, cripple her movement. She chokes. She recalls the numerous times which Amstead had walked past their place on his way to the church which lay between their place and the ferry landing on Vesuvius Bay. He always seemed to avoid speaking to them, to her and to Kwasi. If he dared to glance at their property and saw them in their yard he touched the rim of his bowler hat and hastened his step. Otherwise, they would see him scurrying past. Never did he accept to stop for tea after the service. Offering him a tea as he passed on his way back to his place was always responded to with Ah jess completed tea with the Maxwells, or, the Beggs, or the Pembertons. Thank you for your courtesy. Touched the brim of his bowler hat and on he went.

    -}{-

    The log house with the chinks of white clay pressed between the logs had a low pitched roof with little overhang. The warmth of the ascending sun belted down almost directly through the two foot square window brightened the table inside. Like pale ghosts floating from place to another, one could almost discern the features of Mandisa, Rebecca and Moses Mezahab. The silence was interrupted with a deep, uncontrolled inhalation, or, the sobbing lament of one of the three.

    Upon returning to the house, she had aroused the sleeping children from their straw mattresses on the floor in the back corner of front room of the house. Through the tears, the shuddering shoulders, the superimposed scenes of her morning, she had struggled with her own grief to recount her early morning discovery. Their sleepy faces had blanched with incomprehension; their eyes blinking with the belief that what was being told was part of a bad dream. For her, their lack of immediate comprehension left her feeling abandoned, aborted. The feeling that moving forward would be a lonely task, that their lack of maturity would place a heavy burthen on her shoulders. They were not understanding the message they were receiving from their mother. As they donned their clothes and shuffled about the house in a trance-like state, they were shocked to see their mother erupt into convulsions of tears and miming the unanswerable questions, the truth of their mother’s sorrow invaded their beings. They, all of them, broke into wails of pain, disbelief, sorrow and the ultimate nullity of a tomorrow.

    In bits and starts, one or the other would revisit the previous day, searching for some clue, some hint, some thought that they should have known of the horror that awaited their husband and father, such that it all could have been avoided. The review of the past began, over and over again. She sought to determine the perpetrator of the crime against her love, the man who had convinced her that they should come to Canada, a land of liberty and peace; rule of law.

    From this vantage point, the uncertainty of life, for them, had begun over a year ago. Mandisa had never been comfortable when Kwasi shared with her an arrangement that he and William Robinson had entered into.

    Kwasi and William Robinson had a deep, long lasting relationship. They would spend hours in each other’s company, working in the field, walking through the woods, sitting on stumps each smoking a corn cobb pipe. What they shared left little not to share.

    Long before he had informed his Sunday school class that the following Sunday would be his last, Kwasi had known. There was never any doubt that his heart yearned for his family. When he, William Robinson, had left them in Virginia, Mary Elizabeth had assured him that once settled she would join him. His children were young when he left, the elthest son, Jeremy was six, the youngest, his princess, Penelope, was coming on to two years old and the middle child, Harold, was approaching five. Now, almost ten years later he knew he would never be reunited with them on this Island.

    When the arrangement had been concluded, Mandisa did not know. It had been a secret which had grown between them, William Robinson and Kwasi Mezahab. Kwasi would purchase William’s land. They had, between them, written a ‘deed’ of transfer of his title and pre-emptive rights. They had written it, copying words they did not know or understand, with a price and a confirmation of the ownership in Kwasi, the Purchaser. A confusion William always said, The way these Colonists noted ownership of land. So precious was their ‘deed’ that Kwasi always held the paper in his hip pocket. There was no safer place. Every evening, just before lying down beside his love, he surreptitiously slid it under the ‘mattress’. Every morning as he rose, he replaced the ‘deed’ in his pants’ hip pocket. As he worked the field, he would pass the back of his hand over his back pocket to satisfy himself that it was still in his possession. Mandisa knew. She knew even before Kwasi admitted it to her. She did not like it.

    The decision to return to his wife and children in Virginia had not been an easy one. He had dithered about it for several months, and, had finally shared the information with his friend, and, eventually made the arrangement with Kwasi for him to take over his land and improvements. It made sense, William’s land was situated a few miles to the north of theirs, where the mail boat landed in Vesuvius Bay. Kwasi was exuberant with the thought of the future that belonged to him and to his family. He intended to cut windows into the walls and eventually add two rooms to the house. This place, this Salt Spring Island, had, for him, been the promised land. William Robinson, tall and lanky, had

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