The Last Beothuk Read online

  When Kop returned to the deep woods again, all but the doe’s entrails and its head were upon his shoulders. He would have taken the head with him, but the weight was too great. He had pointed the head in the direction the deer’s spirit had wanted to go and with great difficulty had shouldered the carcass. The doe was not as fat as it should have been. Its flanks were lean, and the ribs were laddered along its sides. But it was badly needed meat. Even the fleet-footed deer were having trouble finding food. Back in the woods again, the light was all but gone.

  “I followed my own tracks back. It made my way easier. But I was heavily laden and my step was slow and . . . listen!” Kop hissed. He stopped speaking.

  The sudden silence was heavy in the lodge. A fire coal crackled. The haunches of caribou turned slowly.

  Kuise’s eyes, big and round, bore into her father’s face. Kop was as still as a dry tree trunk. His arms hung in mid-air, and his face was a mask of concentration. His head was turned askance, like a fox straining to hear above a mouse hole in deep snow. There was nothing to hear. Kuise stirred. The boughs under her rustled as she did so. Kop’s hand motion stopped her from questioning him. And then it came again! The long, drawn-out howl of a wolf. It was far away. But the night was still, clear, and frosty. Even in the midst of his telling, Kop had heard its first cry.

  “Wolves always howl after they have found food,” Kop told Kuise. “This one is a male who has found my kill. He is calling for his mate to share.”

  They listened intently. The lone wolf call came again. It was in the same place. And still no answering call was heard.

  “I have heard their howls at night many times, my ewinon,” Kuise said. “I have seen only one in the light of day. Still their howls at night frighten me.”

  “This one howls alone, Small One. Maybe he has no mate to answer him.”

  Kuise stared at her father, seeing the pain of his loss in his eyes. The wolf’s lament came again.

  “It is not the wolf that howls you must fear, Small One. It is the wolf that prowls you must be wary of.”

  17

  The long nights of winter seemed endless. But finally, the southern sun dominated. The nights grew shorter, the days were longer and warmer, and the big melt began. Geese returned to the frozen ponds. It was a time without spring. Kop and Kuise were fast running out of food again. The leg bones of the doe had been cooked over the fire, cracked open, and the rich yellow marrow inside devoured.

  The snow was deep and soft, and even wearing snow walkers was not good for travel, but they had to move from their wintering valley and find food. They would travel in the early morning, when the snow was crusted from the night’s frost and walking made easy.

  What was left of the deer was packed during the night with their meagre belongings. They left their heavy sleeping robes in the lodge. And in the morning, when the slayer of night was only a pale glow in the east, Kop opened the hide door and led Kuise away from their winter house.

  The snow pack was melting deep beneath its crusted surface. Water ran in every seam of land. Streams and brooks became torrents of icy water and had to be crossed. Winding rivers overflowing their banks straightened and became impassable barriers of rushing white water. Sea-run salmon, gaunt and hungry, were swept gloriously to sea, their journey downstream far different from the one they had made upstream. They were all but impossible to catch. In places Kop and Kuise could not get close enough to the swollen riverbanks to gather the shrivelled red squashberries. Although the fruit tasted bitter, it was still food. But now the black water engulfed the plants. It twitched and pulled at the drowned stems, causing the red berries on the branches to bend and sway, as if mocking them.

  Hunger made their journey longer and harder. To add to their misery, it rained for days and days. Walking over the rotting snow demanded energy they did not have. At night they slept fitfully under dripping boughs and covered themselves with light hides and a ragged strip of ship canvas.

  Kop had decided to return to the sea. It was the only place where he was sure to find food. They ate the last of their venison. Grouse they managed to kill were at their spring leanest, their flesh rangy and tough. Kop threw them in the fire, still feathered, and he and Kuise chewed right down to the small wing bones.

  They dug out pallid roots of cattails and ate them in boggy leads free of snow. From the streams they managed to catch a few sticklebacks and trout minnows, which they ate raw. They drank birch sap, which had started running again. It gave them energy but contained no nutrients. They would have to find food or die of starvation.

  When they arrived at the coast, the sight that met their eyes was not a good one. For as far as they could see, the ocean was an unbroken sea of ice. It had arrived early. Ice had crowded in every tickle and grounded in every cove. So wide was the great white plain that the might of the rollers at its outer edge was not felt upon its inner edge. There was no sundering of ice against the rocks, only the daily ebb and flood of the tide to jar the imprisoned ice pack. Not one open lead of water could be seen. Open water among the ice would mean birds and seals. They watched ducks come soaring in and, finding no water, fly away again and pitch down in some open lead far away from shore.

  At ebb tide, father and daughter dipped their hands into the icy water and plucked snails and mussels from the rocks until their hands were numb. The shoreline up as far as the tidewater could reach was free of snow, and Kop and his daughter walked it with ease. Above the shoreline, among the tangled tress bent by the wind, the snow, greying and dirty with winter debris, was still deep and too soft to walk upon. Wherever possible, Kop and Kuise walked the landwash. Their steps were weak and staggered. Kuise’s step was pitiful. Gone was her bounding spring. She leaned on a staff of driftwood she had found. She drank water at every stream they crossed. Kuise had developed the act of constantly swallowing, and her belly was swelling.

  It was the sound of gunfire—not the tantalizing aroma of roasting meat—which drew them, slightly above the gravelly cove, beside a brook where the Unwanted Ones were hunched over a bright campfire. There were two men above the fire, upon which the full carcass of an otter was roasting. One of them was examining the otter pelt, which was springtime ragged and lacked its usual lustre. The other was tending to the fire and the meat. There were two guns at the ready near them. The smell of the meat wafted to the two Beothuk, and Kop’s craving for food nearly betrayed him. He held himself in hiding and motioned for Kuise to take cover with him. He looked at his daughter. Her face was thin and haggard. Her leggings were ripped, her tunic was torn, and one of her moccasins revealed bleeding toes. Looking at his young daughter now, Kop seemed to realize for the first time how dire their situation was. The glint had gone from her eyes. She was trembling head to toe. Kop had never heard Kuise complain about anything, and now she was silently starving to death.

  Kop, too, was weak from hunger. They were both wet and cold. But he was sweating now, after he made a decision. Both father and daughter were crouched on snow among the trees. The two men on the beach had no idea they were being watched.

  The one tending the fire plucked a piece from the otter’s hot flesh. The meat was hot and sticky, not yet cooked, and the man handled it quickly between his fingers before pushing it between his bearded lips. The other man growled at him.

  Kuise, who was now seated on the snow and too weak to stand, tapped her father’s knee and pointed to the snow around them. Kop tore his eyes from the scene below and saw several tiny grey moths emerging from the snow. His face relaxed and his fierce eyes softened at seeing his daughter’s face, in the time of her deepest despair, yet still cognizant of her world. Her simple gesture only reinforced Kop’s decision. The moths stumbled on the snow, straining for their first flight. One of them rose into the air.

  Sunlight poured through the trees. The time of warmth and plenty was coming, but it would not arrive fast enough
to help Kuise. Kop stood and helped her up. He picked up his long spear in one hand, his bow and quiver of arrows in the other, and with his spear hand on the handle of the knife at his side, he stepped into full view of the Unwanted Ones. And at his stern command, Kuise followed him.

  For several heartbeats the men on the beach didn’t notice the silent Beothuk in their midst. Then they saw them. The one crouched near the fire scrambled sideways like a crab for his gun. In his haste he knocked the otter carcass into the smouldering ashes. The other stood up tall, his gun already in hand.

  It was then Kop dropped first his spear and then his bow and arrows. They clattered on the beach as they fell. He pulled the knife of steel from its sheath and let that drop, too. The blade clinked on the stones. Kuise stood by her father’s side, shivering in fear, and they stepped away from the weapons.

  The strangers’ guns were the same weapons which Kuise had witnessed spilling fiery death into her mother’s breast. It seemed like just yesterday. Her legs grew weak, and she grabbed her father’s hand for support. Kop took her cold and trembling hand in his, and raising his left hand to his head, he stepped forward. It was then Kop realized he wasn’t holding a green bough—the sign of peace—as he had intended. But surely he would not need a peace bough, now that they could plainly see he was unarmed. He dropped his left arm to his side, his hand open, palm outward and empty.

  The two Unwanted Ones had crossed the river mouth, which was kept free from sea ice by its spring torrent, just after dawn that morning. They had walked south on the landwash searching for whatever they could find. The sea all around them was choked with ice. They could neither fish nor hunt on the sea. Their larders were nearly bare. They had spotted the otter fishing in the river mouth. It had climbed out on a rock near the shore and was chewing on its catch when they killed it.

  Now they were startled by what stood before them. Two Beothuk Indians, with long, matted black hair, dressed in tattered hides. One was smaller than the other. Still, they were Indian. They watched the taller one drop his weapons on the beach and step away from them. They heard the rattle of the weapons falling and saw that his hands were empty. Then the tall one, speaking loudly in his savage tongue, stepped toward them. The smaller of the two was shouting in the same guttural language, and now both extended hands cupped like beggars.

  It went against Kop’s very soul to stand without weapons before the Unwanted Ones. He had good reason to hate them all. Without his hunting tools, he felt naked. When he dropped his hand to his side, he stopped walking toward the two hunters. Kuise, still holding her father’s right hand, stopped beside him. Kop squeezed her hand and spoke in a voice that was loud and clear, as was fitting when a hunter entered another’s camp.

  “I am hunter without food. Small One is a young be’nam, and her belly is long empty. Though my woman is winum by your hands, I come in peace. It is the way of all hunters to share aschautch. You have killed a young edru. Its hide is worthless, but its flesh is fat and tender.”

  The two astonished white men stood with guns pointed at the Beothuk. They had heard terrible tales of the Beothuk, of attacks followed by beheadings and constant thievery. Neither of them had actually seen a Beothuk before, but they were terrified of them. Now two of the Indians were standing before them, yelling in the unintelligible language of the savages, first the tall one and now the other.

  When Kop finished talking, he motioned to Kuise to speak as he had instructed her.

  “I am Kuise, girl child of Kopituk the great hunter. It is right for a hunter, weak from the chase, to be offered the first meat cut.”

  Kuise fought to control her voice. Kop had told her that to show fear to the Unwanted Ones would be a sign of weakness. She held both hands cupped together, her small palms trembling. It was the universal sign of someone asking for food. Kuise was about to speak again when the guns exploded like thunder. Her legs crumpled under her, and without a sound she slumped to the ground. Her small frame twitched once, then once again, and was still.

  Kop could not believe what was happening. He had come in peace, seeking food, but had been served death. Instinctively, he whipped around, quick as a cat, and lunged for his weapons. He had almost reached them, his fingers closing on his spear, when something stabbed him in the shoulder like a hot, blunt spear point. The impact spun him around, and he saw smoke rising from the long guns. A sickening wave of nausea overtook him. His skin felt clammy. He felt faint and was going down. Through eyes glazed with pain, his head dizzy, Kop saw Kuise lying on the beach, unmoving. He was surprised to see red ochre oozing from her small chest.

  The cry of a seagull woke Kop from unconsciousness. The sun was warm on his face. His first thought was, The time of warmth has come at last. He had to force his eyes open. Kuise was lying next to him. A lone seagull was pecking at her toes through the hole in her moccasin. Then Kop moved. A cry of pain escaped him. The seagull flew away, and Kop vomited a thin bile out of his mouth and fainted. When he opened his eyes again, the gull was back. Kop pushed himself to his elbows. The gull ran down to the slope of the beach, jumped into the air, and landed on one of the clumpers of ice which crowded the cove. Reaching for Kuise, pain surged through his shoulder. It brought the nausea back, and he fought the fainting sensation. This time he stayed awake. Blood was crusted high on his right shoulder and had soaked through his shirt. His right ear felt jagged, sticky. Wincing in pain, he raised his hand to it. The lobe of his ear was missing, and his hand came away bloody.

  Kop half rolled, half pushed his body until he was leaning over his daughter. He cradled her small body to his own. Tears welled in his eyes. Kuise had died with the same small hole in the centre of her chest as had her mother. There was a much bigger hole in the child’s back where the ball had exited. Her blood was cold on his fingers. Sick with physical pain and mental torment, the Beothuk felt a primordial wail of misery erupt from his throat. It rolled upwards and over the treetops. It resounded across the cove and out over the great white plain, and its echo went on and on. The seagull flew away and did not return.

  Dusk came, and Kop was on his feet, dazed with pain. His right shoulder burned but bled only when he tried to move his arm. His ear was numb but wasn’t bleeding anymore. His body was burning up, and he craved water. Tearing himself away from his dead daughter, he staggered to the brook running out of a budding aspen copse at the end of the cove. Lying prone, he drank till he was full. Beneath a bank in the brook, thick black mud dripping with meltwater caught his eye. Crawling to it, he drew the laces from his tunic and saw the extent of his shoulder wound. Twisting his neck to better see the wound caused him more pain. Cupping water in his hand from the brook, he splashed it over the wound again and again. The cold water gave him some relief, and the cleansing showed the laceration to be smaller than it had first appeared. Kop’s reflexes, the slope of the beach, and the white men’s hurry had saved him. The shot had fired up the beach, intended for the centre of his chest, when he turned suddenly, and it had pierced his earlobe, entered his right shoulder, glanced upwards off the bone, and exited his body, leaving a thin red furrow at the very top of his neck. The shocking blow to his shoulder bone had knocked him out, and the two hunters had thought he was dead.

  He squeezed most of the moisture from a handful of fibrous black mud. Mixing it with the pale green leaves of gowithy, he mashed it together and packed it against the wound. Then he laced his tunic tight. Stuffing his mouth full of the leaves, he chewed them to a pulp and swallowed the juices. Feeling a measure of relief, he got to his feet and walked back to the beach. The fire was out. Even in his dazed condition, Kop could plainly see by the deep prints in the beach that his attackers had fled north.

  In their haste to get away, the whites had abandoned the otter carcass. It had settled in the grey ashes, and though burnt in places, it was still good food. Kop was feverish from hunger. Crouching over the dead ashes, he pulled the otter free a
nd brushed some of the ashes off. It was still warm, and beneath the burnt skin, the flesh was pink and succulent. Kop ate ravenously for only a short time and was surprised when his stomach felt suddenly full. He was still very weak. He dropped the carcass and staggered to his feet, turning to the more immediate task at hand.

  Two days later, Kop had finished eating most of the otter carcass. The pelt, though of poor quality, was still of use to him, and it still had its liner of yellow fat as well as tasty pieces of meat stuck to it. The whites had skinned the animal poorly. Kop was feeling stronger in body, but his spirit had been broken. He went about the work he had to do in a careless daze. He used more mud on his wound and added the pulp of inner aspen bark and the ground-up stickiness of budding dogwood to the ingredients. Later, he cleaned the wound again. Squeezing myrrh from the bladders of fir trees, he covered his wounds with the clear glue.

  His shoulder and upper arm were covered with a purplish hue and were very sore, but Kop ignored the pain.

  All of his hunting tools had been stolen. His knife sheath hung empty from his waist. Kop would miss the knife most of all. He needed one now. He wanted to cover Kuise’s feet in the soft otter fur. One end of the beach had a rock outcropping of slate. He soon found a piece that looked right. Using a harder stone, he had to smite the slate rock several times before he managed to cleave the pieces he was looking for. They were as sharp as his stolen knife but would not keep their sharpness the same. He placed one piece in his knife sheath, two in his pack, and with one in his hand he walked toward his daughter’s body.