The Last Beothuk Read online

  Kop waded across the brook in the icy water to the south-facing side with Kuise’s body in his arms. He placed the last true trace of his breed in a shallow hole he had dug with sharp rocks and his hands. Kuise’s feet and legs were now laced with the otter fur. From her knees up to her chin she was draped with the soft middle bark of the birch tree. He had no red clay to anoint her with. If he survived, he would return later, exhume her body, and carry out the sacred ceremony.

  He gently covered her face with layers of green boughs, assuring the scent of the forest spirit would stay with her in her afterlife. He crossed the brook again and again, bringing the clean slate rocks to finish Kuise’s burial mound. When he was finished, it was twilight, and an evening breeze had come from out of the dark forest. The tide was receding, and aided by the offshore wind, it was pulling the ice pack away from the beach.

  Kop headed north.

  18

  They stole into his camp in the dark, just after he had closed his eyes in sleep, when a tired man sleeps the soundest. They crept up to his bed of hastily gathered boughs and poked at him with their spears without cutting him. Kop opened his eyes and stared at them. They stepped back in alarm, clearly afraid of him. They kept taunting and poking him at arm’s length. Kop showed no fear, only disdain. And though they were many and he was alone, it made them all the more afraid of him. They motioned him upright and kept poking him with their spear points and pushed at him until his back was to a tree, where they tied him. Even then they kept their distance from him, as if still not trusting him. They yelled and spat at him, but Kop bore it all in silence, his eyes stabbing hatred at them. His shoulder ached and burned and had started bleeding again.

  He knew who they were. Their skin without the red ochre was almost the same colour as his own. Many of them were dressed in deerskins. But some of them wore the garb of the Unwanted Ones. Still tied, he was escorted away, well guarded. Kop was weak from exhaustion, hunger, and his wounds.

  He had followed the shoreline for days. He ate the salty belted kelp, which had been torn from the bottom and brought to shore by the ice floes. The ice had shifted from shore but still ranged in plain sight. Pans of ice dripping meltwater were everywhere. His diet consisted of shellfish and water. He saw no one, but at the mouth of a brook one day he saw a boat tied to shore. Tracks led into the woods. Without hesitation, Kop walked to the bow of the boat, untied the rope securing it, and pushed it off. The current from the brook carried the boat away. It bumped loudly against an ice pan, wheeled off with wind and tide, and floated out to sea.

  At another brook on another day, he found a net slung across a deep pool just up from its sea mouth. Kop waded out in the cold water. He found several sea trout and one large salmon. He took all the fish and slashed at the net, which drifted only as far the nearest rocks, where the swirling tide tore it into a useless tangle. For days after, he found nothing to eat. He had wandered inland, starving again, when the Mi’kmaq found him.

  After walking from darkness till dawn and prodding Kop, they entered a campsite. Kop, who had smelled the camp long before they reached it, saw the two structures built there were similar to his own summer meoticks. As they broke through the woods below the campground, several others rushed forward in greeting. Some of them were women, and seeing the Beothuk in their midst, one of them cried out in fear.

  “Why have you brought the osa’yani into our camp? He will call on his evil spirits from the Great Red Pond! We have no defence against such evil!”

  The hysterical woman was chastised into silence by one of Kop’s captors. She cried out again and fled across the compound to one of the wigwams and stood outside the door.

  A man appeared from one of the wigwams, taller than the others and wearing buckskins shiny with use. He looked sharp-eyed, and in his hand he held the long gun of the Unwanted Ones. The tall Mi’kmaq stepped forward until he was face to face to Kop. The others stopped their chatter and noise as he approached. He looked defiant and unafraid. Kop kept his eyes on the musket in the man’s hand.

  “Why have you brought the red man to my camp with his hands bound tight?” His voice was loud and demanding.

  One of Kop’s captor’s spoke, a short, squat man with an air of self-importance.

  “The red man was hunting in the deep valley far west of the waters which feed the Great Red Pond. He has strayed far west of his boundaries.” The man was shouting needlessly, a sure sign that he was afraid of the Beothuk.

  The tall one said in an even, sure voice, “This man has not strayed anywhere. He walks a sure trail, and even now, bound and alone, he shows no fear.” The speaker shifted his steely eyes to Kop’s ear, his blood-soaked shoulder, and his gaunt features before he continued. “He is hunter. He is also wounded.”

  His eyes looked around at the men who had brought Kop into his camp, as if demanding to know who had attacked the Beothuk. One of them was about to speak when Kop said in a clear voice, “They are not the ones who wounded me. It was the death sticks of the Unwanted Ones, one of which you carry in your hand.”

  The tall one gave Kop a startled look, and the others gasped. The captive had spoken to them in their own language! The tall one shifted on his feet and cradled the gun in the crook of his arm. No one said anything. Silence prevailed. It was broken by the woman who had been chastised, shouting across the clearing.

  “He is the one! He chopped off the head of the red-bearded one! The whites are searching for him.”

  Without turning around, the tall one held up his hand and the woman fell silent again.

  “Is it as she says?” He looked steadily into Kop’s eyes.

  “It is as she says,” said Kop.

  “You know our tongue.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I was prisoner of your kind.”

  “You are Kopituk. The one who slept in our winter house and escaped when spring came.”

  “I am Kop. I was not your slave.”

  “You were worth two muskets to the white trappers then—dead! Now you are worth five muskets to the white chiefs—alive.”

  “My spirit is already dead. Will they give you two muskets or five?”

  The tall Mi’kmaq seemed to be looking into Kop’s very soul, so intense was his stare. Kop stared back.

  “Release him!” the tall one barked.

  “Release the red devil in our camp?” This from the short man, who stood well behind Kop.

  “There are devils in all camps. I see no red on him. Release him!”

  It was true. Kop’s skin had lost its red taint. The short man behind him moved with an exaggerated step. Reaching out with his knife drawn, he was about to cut Kop’s fetters when the tall one shouted at him again.

  “Untie him! Is your lodge so hung with leather you can waste it by a useless cut?”

  The man sheathed his knife. Extending his hand toward Kop, he untied him. Kop immediately drew his arms forward. The man behind him sprang back in alarm. Grimacing with pain, Kop flexed his arms up over his body. They had been tied behind him for hours, and his muscles were sore and tense. Those around him stood ready to fight. The tall one, who still stood unafraid in front of the Beothuk, had not moved. Now he stepped aside and said for all to hear, “There is meat for the hunter at my campfire.”

  Kop stayed with the small band of Mi’kmaq. His association with them was tenuous. Some of them hated him. A few grew to accept him. Their Mi’kmaq chief, who told Kop he was called Jimijon by the whites, was one of the latter. They had all heard the tale of the young Beothuk who had been kidnapped by a band of Mi’kmaq and who had been kept captive for a full winter before he escaped. Kop told Jimijon he could have escaped at any time that winter so long ago. But because he was of value to them, the Mi’kmaq had taken good care of him and Kop ate well.

  Kop’s sharp mind had picked up their language. He was ai
ded in this, he told Jimijon, by a young boy who was fascinated by the Beothuk in their midst. By learning the new tongue, Kop soon discovered he was to be traded for guns to the white trappers in the spring. When the days warmed and the Mi’kmaq band was making ready to leave their winter house for the coast, Kop had simply left their camp one night. He ran away over the snow crust, walked down a stream, stepped out on a rocky ledge, and disappeared in the forest without a trace.

  “You were alone. Your death spirit was near when my people found you,” said Jimijon.

  Kop knew it was the Mi’kmaq way to get answers without asking questions. He looked all around. They were seated on the ground beside a campfire outside Jimijon’s lodge. The day was warm with a light breeze sighing through the greening trees, where birds twittered. The Mi’kmaq had little food to spare. The winter had been a long and hard one for them, too. Game was scarce. Some of them begrudged the food and care the Beothuk was given, but under strict orders from Jimijon, he was nursed back to health. His shoulder wound was seen to by one of the Mi’kmaq women. She was old and wise in the way of wounds, and though she was afraid of him, she tended his wound. With food and rest, he recovered quickly. His shoulder still gave him pain with certain movements, and he would forever have a notch in his ear.

  “When the death stick speaks, the death spirit listens,” said Kop, his eyes fixed upon the gun which never left Jimijon’s hand.

  Jimijon saw the hatred for the gun in Kop’s eyes. He ran his hand along the length of the smooth barrel of the flintlock, his fingers stopping on the gun’s action. He motioned across the campground, where the old woman who had tended Kop’s wound was rubbing a mixture of ashes and urine over a black bear hide hung from a drying rack.

  “We are the Bear Clan. The dog bear ventured out of his den too soon. Its spirit knew we were hungry. No arrow could reach it. In my hands the white man’s gun roared like thunder, and the bear gave his life for ours—and yours.”

  “My Small One, who died when the death stick spoke, loved the tender flesh of the gwashuewet cub,” said Kop.

  “Bear cub meat is good.” Jimijon nodded his head and waited. He sensed the time had come when the Beothuk was going to reveal what had happened to him. He was right. The Beothuk and the Mi’kmaq conversed in their own languages, which were similar, and by using sign language unique to their kind.

  When Kop had finished telling the Mi’kmaq chief about the shooting of his wife and daughter, Jimijon said, “The man with the fiery hair was a cruel one. He is mourned by no one. The whites went back for his gun. They left his bloody head on the beach. Still they hunt you. Your head on a pole would be great token for the whites. Some wish all Beothuk were dead. Others, who say there are few Beothuk left, are trying to save you. We have seen no one but you. Maybe you are the last Beothuk.”

  “On the trail of my people I see only the footprints of the Unwanted Ones,” said Kop. “Our mamateeks are as empty as our weirs. They control all the waters which run into the Great Sea. Our traplines are not respected. They steal from us without sharing with us. Still they fear us. The Mi’kmaq have aided them. This I have seen. You wear their skins and carry their death sticks.”

  “It is so,” Jimijon said evenly. “We trade skins for food and hunting tools. We survive. For long time past my people trapped west and left you to trap east. Change comes. The whites are many, and you are few.”

  “When you paddled over the western sea to our land you call Ktaqamk, we too were many. Though you did not see us, we were here. We are True Born, and you too are intruders on our land.”

  “This too is so,” said the Mi’kmaq chief, his voice as matter-of-fact and stoic as before. He used the gun as a staff to get to his feet, and when he stood looking down at Kop, he said, “We leave for the coast with the new dawn to trade our winter furs.” It was his way of saying farewell.

  “I will stay and search for my people,” replied Kop.

  Jimijon nodded, already knowing, and said, “There is always meat at my campfire for the true hunter.”

  “Next time the hunter will bring meat,” said Kop.

  The next morning, with the rose of dawn streaking across the eastern sky, the Mi’kmaq broke camp and left for the coast. And Kop was alone again.

  19

  He heard them coming long before he saw them. He was downstream, more than a day’s walk from the mouth of the great river which flows out of the heart of the Island of Newfoundland. This river valley, where he knew the Unwanted Ones frequented, was not where he wanted to be. It was also the long-trodden ways of his ancestors. And if any of his people were left, it was likely here he would find them. So far he had found nothing but old tracks.

  The time of new life had come. Leafed trees were full and gently swaying. Bushes bloomed. Birds were nesting, and the forest was fragrant. He had followed a tributary which merged with the flow of the great river beneath a huge cut bank of gravelly soil, at a point where the river bent to the southwest before entering the bay. He was standing on the very tip of the bend, drinking water at the tributary’s confluence with the river and the distant bay, when he heard them.

  The Unwanted Ones were coming down the river.

  He heard the knock and scrape of their oars against the gunnels of their heavy boats. Their travel was loud, and their voices were louder. Kop climbed up into the shadowed forest crowded with tall timber and waited for them. Below him, eddies swirled and tucked back under the riverbanks. The lower tips of bushes bent with the pull of the water, their trunks submerged in the water. Driftwood floated by. A slight breeze meandered through the valley. It stirred the low sedges, but so subtle was the wind, the sound of it could have been the river’s song.

  The boat came in sight around the bend, and the handlers turned it in to the eddy below the point where Kop was hiding. There were four men with oars and a fifth who sat in the stern, a steering stick cradled under his left arm. They were rough-looking men who had journeyed far. In the centre of the boat sat a sixth person, covered with a shawl, who held no oar. Kop couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The one in the stern stood, stick in hand, and shouted a command. The oarsmen shipped their oars over the side. The stickman pushed hard over. The boat veered into the back eddy. With the current against its stern, it turned until its bow slowed and was pointed upstream below the bank, directly below the watching Beothuk.

  The figure that sat alone in the centre of the boat shrugged its shoulders. The shawl dropped, and the face stared up with a longing expression into the woods, as if knowing Kop was watching. It wasn’t a man, but a Beothuk woman! Kop almost moved from concealment, so great was his surprise and overwhelming joy at seeing one of his own kind. But past experience with the Unwanted Ones prevailed, and he remained hidden. He stared at the woman. The loosened shawl revealed long, black tresses surrounding a face with soft brown skin. She had once been beautiful to look upon. Her eyes, looking up, betrayed her beauty. They were sad and filled with despair. She was thin and haggard. The shawl she wore was draped over narrow shoulders. Her eyes had witnessed a supreme tragedy. Presently, she lowered her head and picked up the hem of the shawl with both hands. Her hands were bound. The woman kept her eyes focused on the forest, as if expecting some ancient spirit to come by and whisk her away from the clutches of her captors.

  Kop suddenly realized he had seen the woman before. She had been much younger then. Memories of feasting and merriment on the shores of the Big Red Pond on a night filled with moonlight came to him. It was the same woman. He was sure of it, though he wasn’t sure of her name. But what was a Beothuk woman doing floating down the great river in the Unwanted Ones’ clumsy boat? Her bonds gave him the answer. The Beothuk woman was a captive.

  The men ate food from a dirty pack and tossed the Beothuk woman the scraps, which fell in her lap. After they had eaten, a shout from the stickman roused them, and they dipped their oars again.
The boat turned into the current, gained way, and went slipping by the shoreline. And moving through the forest, Kop followed its passage.

  The boat was edging out into the current and would soon outpace him. Kop could not resist. He called out loudly, in the Beothuk tongue, his voice ringing out over the estuary, “Are you Shanawdithit?”

  When his cry rang out, the men in the boat stopped their rowing in mid-stroke and scrambled for their muskets. Their oars fell in the slack of the thole-pins and dragged sluggishly in the brown water. They pointed their muskets upwards. The stickman let go, and the boat swung broadside to the current. The men saw no one.

  The woman stood to her feet in astonishment at hearing her own language come from the woods. Her eyes filled with tears, and in a voice choked with emotion she shouted back, “Yes, I am Shanawdithit! Who is calling me from the forest that I love?”

  “I am Kop, mate of Tehonee and father of Kuise, who were slain by the death sticks of the Unwanted Ones! Where can I find the others, and why are you drifting bound and alone down the great river?”

  “The others are no more! They have gone winum. All winum, I think. I have heard of you. The Unwanted Ones will give many of their fire sticks for you. I have run before. I am good swimmer. This they know. Now they have tied me.”

  The boat shifted with the current. Shanawdithit tilted to keep her balance, and the men cursed at the voice issuing from the woods. They shouted to each other and pointed their guns. They were expecting to see a flurry of arrows fluted at them any minute.

  Kop was standing with arrow nocked and bow drawn. He knew he could easily kill two of them before the current could take them out of range. But the lone Beothuk wanted something more than killing. He wanted to converse with the last of his breed. He shouted again, “Not all winum! Not Nonosbawsut, the tall one, fearless and mightiest of warriors!”

  “Nonosbawsut, the tall one, was killed long since by the Unwanted Ones on the ice of the Great Red Pond. He was defending Demasduit, his mate, who was taken. Demasduit is gone winum.”