The Last Beothuk Page 11

  Leaving his cramped hiding place, Kop ran along the beach near the water’s edge and stayed bent over until he came to the wharf. His moccasin-clad feet made only a rustling sound which blended with that of the waves meeting the land. Stopping once, he watched the remains of the cod entrails sway back and forth with the tide. Small splashes broke the water surface as unseen night fishes feasted on the offal. No sound came from the sleeping strangers save for the muffled snores. Kop’s muscles had relaxed with the short sprint, and he sprung up onto the log deck in a graceful bound, landing on the balls of his feet like a lynx. He approached the table, reached up over the edge, and with both hands pulled the two shiny knives from the wood. He couldn’t believe it had been so easy. The feel of the knives in his hands fascinated him. He instinctively knew their worth. Holding them by their smooth, wooden handles, he crept in over the lungered wharf until he was once again on the land. He was now very close to where the white men slept without a guard.

  The smell of the stacked fish in the nearby enclosure beckoned to him. He paused outside it and forced himself to listen again. The night was still. The men slept on.

  Reaching the tier of stacked codfish, he almost retched at the strong smell, but his curiosity prevailed. Reaching down, he grasped two of the fish by the tails and pulled them free of their briny bed.

  Kop ran back over the wharf, both knives gripped firmly in his right hand and the white-coated cod in his left. He stopped at the wharf edge where the boat was tied. He wanted desperately to board the vessel. Looking back over his shoulder again, he listened for as long as three breaths. There were only the sounds of the forest night. He stepped aboard the boat as he had seen the others do. He was shocked that the vessel hardly moved at all under his weight. His eyes, well accustomed to the darkness, saw lying down on the boat’s deck what he knew was one of the “wings” which carried the boat over the wide sea. He pulled at the edge of it, but it was tied in many places with ropes. It was time to test the sharpness of the knives he had taken. With deft movements, he slashed the sails until he had cut away a large portion. He placed the two fish on the cloth and rolled them into a bundle for carrying. It was heavier than he had expected, but he stepped out of the boat with it on his shoulder and used one of the knives again.

  With one single draw, the painter holding the boat parted. Released from its tether, it swung away from the land. Kop was amazed by the ease with which he had cut the line.

  He pounced down to the shingled beach. In his haste and elation, he made a slight noise. He froze, looking toward the tilts. The snoring continued. No one had heard him. The tide was leaving the cove and was taking the boat with it. Kop walked away from the landwash.

  When he’d cleared the beach without any sign of detection and had gone several minutes into the shrouded forest, he stopped to inspect his good fortune. He passed the knives hand to hand, their balance and feel a pure joy to his hunter’s soul. He marvelled at their construction. He had never seen such material before. He tested them against the tree bark and peeled the rough spruce rind effortlessly. He could only imagine how easily he would be able to clean an animal with such a tool.

  Very pleased with his good fortune, he now turned his attention to the codfish. Peering at it in the darkness, he tore a strip from the thick breast of the fish and pushed a piece into his mouth. For a second he was puzzled. The unexpected taste exploded in his mouth. He retched again and again, trying to shake the putrid taste from his mouth. He pulled several small leaves from the bushes and crushed them in his hands, then stuffed them into his mouth and chewed them to a pulp before spitting them away. It took most of the foul taste with it.

  Recovering from the vile taste, he threw the fish away into the night, where it fell with a soft thud upon the ground. Walking on into the darkness and still trying to rid his mouth of the terrible taste, he suddenly realized what it was—it tasted like sea water, of that he was sure. But what manner of magic was this? How could the strangers make the fish taste like sea water with the foul-tasting white sand? And why had they covered the codfish with it? Kop had no answers for such mysteries.

  One thing was sure in his mind. If the strangers who were taking over his land were as unconcerned about their valuables as to leave them unguarded, then he looked forward to returning. Kop’s mind whirled with strange thoughts. Then, exhausted by the day’s events, he crawled under the branches of a fragrant fir tree and fell asleep.

  Early the next morning, the red-haired man was the first to exit the tilts. His bladder was bursting. He hurried to the edge of the woods and urinated. When the door squeaked behind him, seagulls on the wharf squawked in fright and flew away. He looked at the birds and was turning to button his breeks before he realized the boat wasn’t tied to the wharf. His cries of alarm brought the others running. The one whose face was bare ran out over the wharf. His pounding feet made the lungers bend. Reaching the wharf edge, he saw the painter knot still tied to the grump. It had not come untied. The standing part of the painter had been cut. One of the others shouted to him that their knives were gone. The men shouted, and with loaded muskets, they scoured the shoreline. They found no tracks other than their own, and they didn’t enter the woods to look there. They found the boat farther out the bay. It had been broached on the rocks, most of its sail had been cut away, and it was half filled with water.

  13

  When kop returned to camp that morning, Kuise was already awake and waiting. He ignored the concern in his daughter’s eyes and told her to break camp. They were leaving. They prepared a new campsite not far away and still with easy access to the shore. They cooked over a small, smokeless fire. And that evening, with the new moon cradled in the arms of the old one and rising slowly above the treetops, young Kuise could bear her terrible burden no more:

  “I went back to the deserted mamateek for the toy I saw there, my ewinon. While my mother was preparing the sleeping robes over the soft fir boughs and wasn’t looking. The toy was the head of the hawk which hunts the sparrow and was carved from the antler of a buck. I was sitting on the grass playing with it when I heard my mother’s scream. It was only then I saw the Unwanted Ones getting out of the tapooteek.”

  Kuise’s thin frame convulsed with shame and guilt. With her hands covering her face, she sobbed uncontrollably. Tears ran down her smooth, brown cheeks in visible streaks.

  “She was looking for me. And because I disobeyed her, she was murdered.” Without looking up at her father, she braced for the blow that would come.

  “Silence!” her father roared, his voice as sharp as an alder whip. Kuise cowered and shifted her hands from her face to her head to ward off her father’s fury. She knew the punishment for disobedience was severe and was almost always meted out with blows to the head and back.

  Kop walked toward his daughter. His countenance was fierce to look upon.

  Kuise was the one thing keeping him from returning to avenge Tehonee’s death. Kop had also read the sign after Tehonee’s death. He had seen Tehonee’s running step following Kuise’s, and he knew why she went running back. He had waited for her to tell him about that day, knowing she would. Trembling with fury, he advanced toward his daughter until he stood beside her. Kuise sensed more than saw his presence and looked up. Her hands were still clasped over her small head. She looked up at her father, suddenly unafraid. Tears seeped out of her eyes as she waited for the punishment which would free her soul.

  But Kop saw that the wide brown eyes and the rounded cheeks crowded with tears were Tehonee’s. Kuise stared up at her father, her face drawn with grief and guilt. She waited, unafraid now, without blinking.

  Then, with an indrawn breath, Kop fell down on his knees beside his daughter, and in a rare display of his love, he embraced the only remaining trace of his beloved Tehonee. It was then, while holding his daughter close, he saw that she had mended the holes in her clothes. The stitching was as though i
t had been done by Tehonee’s own hand.

  They moved their camp twice more in as many evenings, expecting the whites to come searching. The sail he had stolen made building a camp easy, providing a leak-proof cover. Each night he watched the whites, and though they worked with furtive glances cast into the forest, and kept muskets close at hand, they did not pursue him into the woods. For the first three nights they kept fires blazing at the wharf end, where they had retied their boat. Kop was tempted to further harass them but decided not to. Nothing but the head of the man with the red hair would satiate him. The man was crippled by the arrow shot from Kop’s bow, but he received no sympathy from the others. He was still expected to work. He did so slowly and in obvious pain and appeared to be nervous when the others were not around. He was clearly afraid of the forest. An opportunity to attack him at night was unlikely. Kop would have to attack in the daylight.

  There was only one place the redhead was ever alone for a short time every day. It was when he left the others and went just beyond the edge of the woods to move his bowels. He did so around the same time each day, without fail, just before dusk, taking his musket with him. It was as if the man decided to go at dusk to avoid going out alone in the dark. Kop also noticed that it always took him a long time to relieve himself. None of the others seemed to miss him.

  Kop watched from a distance. He could have shot an arrow into his throat, but he wanted to be close enough to look into the man’s eyes as he died. The redhead’s daily routine was his weakness. Kop knew how and where he would avenge Tehonee’s death. And that same evening, the sky told him when he would do it.

  Scudding dark clouds came up over the lip of the sea from the north. For a time the smaller islands in the distance loomed large above the sea. The air was suddenly dense, still, and sharp with cold. The first of the autumn storms was close. Rain pelted the roof of his camp the next morning. Before he left, Kop told Kuise she could have a bigger fire. No one would see any smoke this day. Kop also knew the storm was only flexing its muscles for what was to come. Wrapped in a robe of deer hide that reached below his knees, Kop stepped out into the pouring rain and left camp. His head was bare. Trees leaned and bent as he brushed past.

  Nothing moved outside the grey tilts. The trees swayed and the wind howled. Smoke rising from the hovels’ smoke holes was sucked away by the wind. Waves rolled endlessly onto the landwash and rattled back to sea.

  Huddled among the sodden trees, the Beothuk waited, ignoring the raging elements around him. Kop knew it was time for the redhead to appear. And when he did not show himself, Kop thought the man had exited the tilt to “use” sometime before the storm and he had missed him. Still, he waited. Then the door of the tilt opened, and his nemesis appeared in the doorway. The wind slammed the door shut behind him. Kop didn’t hear the door close above the roaring wind. The man’s head was covered against the storm. With a musket in his left hand, he advanced toward the treeline where the Beothuk waited.

  Tangles of dark red hair, plastered with rain, dangled outside the man’s head covering and reached all the way to his thick, short neck. His face was drawn against the storm and his mouth gaped open, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth. He was terrified of the woods, and it showed. He glanced all around and saw nothing. His breathing came in gasps, and he was shaking in fear. But Kop was not afraid. His time of revenge was at hand.

  The redhead unbuttoned and dropped his pants with his right hand. He crouched down, still holding the musket in his left. His ass showed white in the shadows. With disgust, Kop noticed the man’s ass was covered in red sores like his face. He looked away.

  The man was suffering. He used the long gun in his left hand for purchase as well as for balance, pulling on it until it shook. His stomach muscles contracted, but his bowels were not ready. He groaned, seeking relief. It was the last sound he would ever make.

  A hand clutched his chin, and with a vicious pull, his head was snapped back. Long, brown fingers, strong as stone, pinched his nostrils shut and closed his airways. Another hand closed over the fingers of the hand holding the gun. It broke two of the redhead’s fingers, and the gun fell to the ground. Unable to open his mouth and desperately struggling for air, the man stared up in terror at the face looking down at him. Though he had never seen the Beothuk man whose woman he had killed and whose daughter he had tried to kill, he must have known it was him. Paralyzed beyond fear, he felt a sudden pressure, cold and sharp, against his throat.

  “For my woasut!” Kop hissed against the man’s ear. “And for Kuise!” He drew his knife against the man’s throat. It was then the redhead’s bowels released, and Kop let the man fall backwards into his own waste.

  It had all taken but a few moments. Satisfied with his work, Kop stood. The evening had closed in. The land was grey with rain and shrouded in dense fog. Kop peered out from the copse, unmindful of the storm. No alarm had come from the tilts. Spears of light stabbed through cracks in the tilt seams. The doors did not open, and no night fire was kept burning outside. Brazenly, Kop skirted the outside edge of the campsite until he was below the wharf. He sprang up and listened. There were only the storm sounds, louder here with the hiss of water and the crash of waves upon the shore. The boat was loaded deep in the water and stank of too many salted fish. It chafed at its moorings, tied with two lines, fore and aft. Kop cut both of them. The wind was blowing hard in the cove, and waves slapped at the vessel’s sides. Her lines severed, she was quickly swept away, carried by wind and wave, and made for the jagged rocks farther in the cove. The noise of her foundering could be mistaken for wave action. No one was listening.

  Back above the beach, Kop entered the woods near the redhead’s body. Before long, the butt of the white man’s musket was driven into the ground, and impaled upon its bayonet was the man’s head. His eyes were wide open and facing the forest he feared. And without looking back, Kop disappeared into the forest.

  The storm raged all night and part of the next day. It finally spent itself in the time of deep sleep on the second night, and when the dawn broke, Kop and Kuise left for the long river valley which would lead them to their winter house. The air cooled in the wake of the hurricane and leaves changed their colour and came fluttering down. The days seemed fleeting, and the nights were long and cold. For Kop and Kuise, it was now a valley of despair. This past season on the coast had not only changed their lives forever—their way of life, since before ancient memory, and foretold by the Mages, was in jeopardy. Kop saw the signs of his people on the point of every wooded bend and in the bottom of every cove on the riverbanks. But it was a dead spoor, bereft of all life, as cold as the ring of ash from once-welcome campfires he found beneath the burnt-out frames of mamateeks. It was as if his people had vanished forever from this valley.

  14

  Kopituk had been born where the wide river exited the Great Red Pond, halfway out a long spit of land with scattered trees, on a day when it rained hard. His mother brought him from the woods, where she had birthed him alone, and entered the comfort of a mamateek. Her pushaman, man-child, was naked and screaming. His cries went unnoticed. His mother splashed him with cold water and with her soft hands cleansed him of her birth smell. The boy cried louder.

  His indignities were not over. On bended knees, his mother offered the child in her arms to his father, who stood tall above her, waiting. The father smeared red ochre on him, from his hair to his toes. Then he handed the child, who was shivering, crying, and the colour of blood, back to his mother before he left the mamateek. It was taboo for the father to witness a child’s first drink of life. His mother bared the fullness of her breasts and guided her son to her swollen breasts. His mouth filled with its first warm nutrition, and with the comforting beat of a gentle heart against his own, the boy ceased his frantic cry and drank.

  The damp nights and the dry days of autumn came. One day the boy was seated on the beach at the water’s edge, clad only
in a deerskin breechcloth. His mother was cleaning silvery ouananiche by his side. Behind her, a drying rack above a smoky fire awaited the fish. Waves washed upon the beach and over the boy’s feet. The waves carried the stem of a dead plant, which had been dislodged from the lake’s bottom, and it stopped between his feet. The boy, who as yet had no name, reached for it. The stalk was as thick as his wrist and as long as his arm, and he tried to drag it out of the water. His mother saw his struggles and picked up the stalk and placed it in his lap. It was what the Beothuk called kop, or beaver root. It still had a few sodden green leaves, and its pulpy stalk oozed a red stain. After a few minutes, the boy tired of playing with the lifeless plant.

  Later that evening, when her husband returned from hunting, he brought with him two geese and one black duck. His wife showed him the beaver root and told him the water spirit had brought it to their son upon the blue waves, and he had accepted it. It was a sign for the parents, and the boy was given the name Kopituk, and as he grew older he came to be called Kop by all, except his mother, who called him by his full name.

  Kopituk grew into a strong boy, swift of limb and possessing a keen eye. He swam in the shallows before he could walk. With only five seasons behind him, his arm was strong enough to draw the bow and launch the short arrows to hunt snowshoe hares. He delighted in jumping into the water and chasing fish caught in the weirs to the shallows, where they could be killed. From his father he learned these were not games but deadly skills which must be forever honed in order to provide and live. They led a nomadic way of life and, with the changing seasons, followed the animals to plain and lair, river and sea. They were hunter-gatherers. Kop learned, and before he had seen eight winters, he had killed his first doe. As he grew, he developed another trait. He often disappeared into the woods and sometimes did not return for days. Finally, when he did return, he always brought game to share. Kop was not only a fearless hunter; he was becoming a loner. His family grew to expect this and seldom searched for him, but one time Kop went missing for an entire winter. His people searched for days without success. When Kop came back to the Red Pond village early the next spring, it was empty, and Kop, the loner, went back into the valleys.