The Last Beothuk Page 17

  A bottle of brown liquid was passed around to drink. When it was offered to Kop, his nostrils flared in disgust, and he would not drink. The night was one of revelry. Home from the winter hills, the Mi’kmaq were celebrating. Stories of the hunt were told before a blazing campfire, and the lean time of cold was forgotten. The setting sun drew shadows over the mountains.

  Her name was Isadore Quam’uit. When Kop asked her what her name meant, she said she didn’t know. Kop was amazed to hear her name had no meaning. Everyone in the camp called her Isa. They were sitting outside the fragmented light rim of the campfire. Night had come, soft and warm. Songbirds sang and twittered. The wobbling pitch of the hunting snipe above and the plaintive call of a pair of loons on the bay below charmed the air with melodious night sounds. A full yellow moon came stealing up over the treetops.

  Laughing voices behind them echoed across the night water. Isa was sitting beside Kop on the meadow. Her knees were drawn up, and her slim brown arms were cradled over them. Between her short moccasins and the buckskin hem of her dress, her smooth calves were washed with the silvery light of the night orb. Isa came willingly into Kop’s arms, her beating heart filled with love. Kop’s eyes held only lust. When he took her, her naked skin was soft, brown, and polished with moonlight. She was innocent to all of it. The girl cried out, and then the woman moaned.

  Kop and Isa blended their bodies for many days and more wondrous nights. Isa was doe-eyed and loving, while Kop was carnal. Then one day, the Mi’kmaq decided to journey south by the coast to pursue their way of life. Kop went north and east into the mountain valleys. He did not take Isa with him. The time of leaves falling came again. The Bear Clan trekked away from the sea and made their way through the traces beneath the rims of the flat-topped mountains. One day when the snow had come and the water was ice, Kop came striding into their camp. Across his shoulders he carried a fat doe caribou. Once again, the hunter had brought meat to the campfire of the Bear Clan. Isa, her belly swollen, walked shyly toward her lover. Kop said, “I will build a berthing lodge.” It was his only acknowledgement of Isa’s condition.

  The long time of cold was easing. Days were longer. The snow melt had begun. On a night that was warm with the promise of spring, Isa’s cries began. A woman only a few seasons older than Isa but who had endured the birth pains of two sons was with her. Kop was seated with the others of the clan outside by a communal campfire. The lodge Kop had built for himself and Isa was on the far side of the clearing. It was not far enough to mask the pains of birth. Isa’s screams went on and on. Kop tended the fire until the glow of it was hidden by the new day. And when the rising sun had cleared the lip of the mountains, Isa’s cries were muted by the wail of new life. Kop had fallen asleep by the dying fire and did not hear it.

  Isa asked Kop if he was going to smear their girl-child with the red clay. He thought for a while, remembering another infant girl whose skin had still borne the birth scent of her mother when he had stained her. From Tehonee’s belly had come the last true Beothuk. Kuise, his Small One, was pure-born and deserving of the red earth sacred and unique to the Beothuk. Kop would not anoint one of mixed blood. He told Isa no. She understood little of the Beothuk language. She asked with words and signs what he wanted the child to be called. Kop understood her meaning.

  “She is emamoosatu,” he said. Isa fumbled with the word, not pronouncing it properly.

  “Santu,” Isa stammered the last of the word, trying to get it right. And Kop, thinking it was the name she wanted, and not really caring, agreed with her.

  “We will call her Santu,” he said.

  Kop continued to spend time with the Bear Clan, feeling an obligation toward Isa, who willingly shared his sleeping mat, and now especially toward Santu, who had her father’s black eyes and was rapidly growing Kop’s bear-like mane. Kop always hunted and trapped alone. But when he came to their camp, he shared with all. Santu grew quickly. From her father she learned the Beothuk ways and to speak only some of his language. Kop was not much of a talker. And though he often entered Jimijon’s camp, he was still a loner. Santu grew up hard.

  For the Indians, both the Mi’kmaq and the lone Beothuk who spent time in their midst, the Unwanted Ones’ encroachment had changed a way of life forever. For the Mi’kmaq it meant bending with the surge of wind that had come among them, and because they were willing to bend, they would survive. But they were treated with the same disdain the Unwanted Ones showed for the Beothuk. The wealth of their traditional land and water was denied them, for the most part. The Europeans dealt with the Mi’kmaq only at arm’s length and exploited their expertise of the wilderness. And the Mi’kmaq were bent into service. For Kop, the last true Beothuk, who would not bend, it was too late.

  Then one autumn, after the Bear Clan had done their spring trading and finished with summer wanderings on the west coast and were beginning their annual trek back to their wintering grounds, Isa started coughing.

  Kop was not with them, and young Santu carried her mother’s load. When the time for deep snows had come and the long nights of cold had settled upon the land, Kop joined the Mi’kmaq again. Now when Isa coughed, which was often, there was a yellow fluid flecked with blood in her sputum.

  There was another in the camp who shared the same symptoms. It was a woman of many years. Her breathing was laboured, shallow, and brought blood to the corners of her mouth. Her weary bones framed her gaunt features. Her fingers were claw-like. She drank only a grey broth fed to her by one of her daughters. The old woman was dying. The Bear Clan had brought consumption into their camp.

  Bending down, Kop drew the door flap open and entered the wigwam where Isa lay with closed eyes. Smoke rose slowly from the campfire inside. The smoke hole was not open wide enough, and some of the smoke remained inside. Meat and fish hung from the drying rack. The lodge was dismal and uninviting. Isa was lying on her side on a mattress of boughs. The stems of the boughs were bare in places and had lost most of their cushion. She tried to turn when Kop bent down to her, and she opened her eyes. The youth had gone from her face. Her hair was greasy and knotted and had not been combed.

  Isa reached up, and Kop took both her hands in his. A retching cough overwhelmed the young woman. She drew a hand from Kop’s to cover her mouth, and blood appeared between her fingers. A woman who had been watching came out of the shadows. She gently removed Isa’s hand from her mouth. With a piece of cloth stained with blood and crusted with mucus, she wiped fresh blood from Isa’s mouth. In doing so, she smeared blood across Isa’s brown skin. Isa returned her hand to Kop’s. It was hot and sticky with her blood. Kop knew her death spirit was waiting. It would not be a long wait.

  Isa died two days before the old woman. The Bear Clan dug two holes beneath the snow in a gravelly bank above the white frozen side of a stream whose middle flowed with black winter water. The old woman was laid down in one, and Isa was placed in the other. The bodies were buried face up without burial coverings. They began to fill in the hole with the soil they had dug out. They covered the feet first. Santu was standing by her father, watching in silence. When all that was left uncovered was the face of the only one who had ever loved her, Santu cried aloud. Kop showed no emotion. Tears filled Santu’s eyes, and she clung to her father’s hand. Her hands were warm. Full of life. Kop squeezed them back. With tears rolling down her cheeks, Santu looked up in surprise. For the first time, her father was showing her affection.

  Kop’s mind was reeling. Not with grief, but with frustration. All that he had had been taken from him by the Unwanted Ones. His parents. His beloved Tehonee and the child of their love. And now Isa had died from a mysterious illness unknown to them, as invisible as the lead ball thrown from the thunder sticks. His entire world had been destroyed by the Unwanted Ones. He saw in the hole carved out of the winter ground two more bodies. They had been wrapped in soft white bark and did not see the soil come tumbling down upon them. By
their side were their most prized possessions. And they were painted with red ochre, so they could enter the spirit world with pride.

  Kop wished he had red ochre. Even though she was not Beothuk, Isa had loved him as much as Tehonee had, and he would have anointed her with the red earth. But he had given up on the spirits, and in his pack there was no sacred red clay. The feeling passed, and Kop helped the others fill in Isa’s grave before leaving the site. When they walked away, Santu held his hand.

  The winter passed slowly. Spring warmth came, and before the strength went out of the snow, the Bear Clan left again for St. George’s Bay on Newfoundland’s west coast to barter their furs. Kop journeyed with them. As was his wont, he did not enter the mercantile store where Jimijon traded but sat watching from the trees nearby. The spring sun was warm, and he swatted at flies that had found him. Soon Jimijon came out of the ramshackle trading post and found Kop.

  “We are going away from this place.” Kop, who knew Jimijon well, knew he didn’t mean that he was leaving to fish by the coastal waters.

  “Where?” he asked, accepting the small sack of brown sugar Jimijon offered him. The bag of sugar, one bag of strong tea leaves, and two blankets, one of which moths had found, was his trade for the full winter’s catch of pine marten. Kop eyed the supplies and said nothing.

  “Across the Great Water to the land of our ancestors.”

  Kop looked up in surprise. “In the ships of the Unwanted Ones?”

  “No. We will paddle in our own sea canoes, as we have always done.”

  “The hardest paddle is out to the mighty current stronger than the great river. It will carry you to the small island near the big land, which goes forever west.”

  “You know of this tide and the endless land beyond?” It was Jimijon’s turn to be surprised.

  Kop merely nodded. “My people, too, paddled to and fro over that same ebautho. Looking from the high mountains, they could see the distant land. With only two hands of sun left, they watched small birds that don’t land on water or fly at night fly out over the sea. And sometimes before a storm, the storm spirits loomed over the land high enough above the sea for all to see. When the south wind had brought all of its warmth to us and stopped blowing, they paddled out to the great current. Even the whale’s spirit watched them. Rising beside them at night, its big eye glinting with moonlight showed them the way.”

  “It is so,” said Jimijon. The Mi’kmaq knew the crossing well.

  “When will you leave?”

  “As your people did, when the south winds have quieted.”

  “All of you?”

  “No. Only some of us. In three boats.”

  “Take Santu with you.”

  “You will still search?”

  “I will search till I die.”

  ‘There is a place my people call Miawpukek. It is miles from the open sea, at the end of a long saltwater lake surrounded by mountains. There are rivers filled with fat trout and salmon. Caribou roam the barrens, and the whites do not go there. My people are finding refuge from the whites there. Maybe there is a Beothuk with them. A woman.” Jimijon ended with a grin.

  “Maybe it is so.”

  “The whites have bred with our women. Not all of them were willing. Some of our young bucks have lain with white women, too. All of them were willing. Maybe there is already Beothuk blood among your Unwanted Ones!”

  Kop stared at Jimijon long and considered such a thing before he answered.

  “Maybe this, too, is so,” he said. His voice was low, as if he did not want to think of such a thing.

  “You carry the blood of two races in your veins,” Kop said after he informed Santu he wanted her to leave with the Bear Clan.

  “My blood is my own.” Santu spoke harshly, but her head was bowed.

  Kop wasn’t expecting such wisdom from her and wasn’t sure how to continue. But he tried.

  “This is so. But you alone carry the woman spirit of Tehonee and Kuise and Isa. Though your blood is yours, it flows with the spirit of others. My spirit, which you carry, is like the sun, which is already down in the west. Only its glow remains. Soon that light, too, is a memory. The spirit of Isa, she who gave you life, is like the promise of a glowing dawn within you. The Mi’kmaq are many. Their spirit will go on. And they will care for you. I am alone, the last of my breed. My spirit will die searching. And for you I choose a different life.”

  Kop faced the distant hills, already knowing where he would go.

  “I do not want to leave. But I will go,” Santu answered with a determination she did not feel. She reached for her father’s hand. Kop took it in hers and squeezed. The night had come. Stars glittered, and the moon path was already showing on the bay.

  “If I return, where will I find you?” she asked quietly.

  Kop looked at the moonlight on the water, at the skies filled with starshine, at the dark forest behind him.

  “You will find me where I have always been.”

  When Santu was roused from her sleep the next morning by the clamour of a breaking camp, she hurried outside the lodge. There was no wind. The skies were clear and bright. And Kop was gone.

  Epilogue

  My name in my own tongue is Kopituk, from the beaver root, out of which my father squeezed the red juice onto my brown skin, while the life vine from my mother’s belly still dangled from mine. I am also called Kop. My heart is wrapped in stone till I learn how it beats.

  From the time before time, we were here. And you were not. Yet when you came here you “discovered” our Island. Passed down to us from a thousand campfires and carried over a thousand trails by our Mages are the stories of others like you, who came here from out of the sea where the sun awakens. Their ships were also carried by wings. And when the wind spirits forsook them and the sea was calm, they made their way with long oars protruding from the ship sides. They, too, discovered us and settled on the northernmost reaches of our Island without asking permission. They were a fierce tribe of marauders who lived in earthen mounds like bears and strayed only short distances from them. We harried them without cease. And after a time, they left and did not return.

  Now you, fiercest of all marauders, have come from over the same sea in numbers far greater than the others. In every mouth of every river, where fish in plenty for all come home from the sea to multiply, you kill until the current is red with their blood. From the Great Sea you scoop fishes as plentiful as stars. And beyond the rim of our salty shore you take furs far more than you can ever wear. You kill more meat than you can ever eat. The maggots grow fat with the waste. The raven is too bloated to fly. And still you are not satisfied.

  This and much more my people determined from the veils of trees through which we peered. Futile attempts to placate us, and not to ask permission for the harvest you claimed as your own, ended in betrayal and death by your hand. Always by the sea, rich with life and on the banks of our rivers of wealth, you did dwell. Your presence brought death and poverty to my race. I rebelled. Against my parents. Against the elders. I was young, virile, and invincible.

  I retreated into the vast interior of the greatest of islands, where you had not the courage to venture. With me went my willing mate. Her spirit name was Tehobosheen, which means morning star and one who warms. I called her Tehonee, which means warm star. She was as lovely to look upon as an autumn sunset. She was as full of life as a fast-flowing stream. Her eyes were as limpid as a starry winter sky, and her smile, warm as spring sunlight on melting snow, was only for me. We fumbled through sweet nights of ecstatic revelations. Upon soft cushions of green moss and in clear pools of revealing water, we sought and found mutual pleasure. Before the long, cold nights had come and without knowing we were searching, we had discovered love. And in the spring, when the sun brought new life to the land, the longing of our lovemaking brought forth our own new life
. We gave her her own spirit name, Kuisduit, for the sun and the flowers which grow by the lake. We called her Small One, or Kuise.

  I led my small family back to the shores of plenty, by the Great Sea, following the way of my ancestors. I hid by the side of our trails disturbed by your booted feet. Your hated scent and your loud clamour raced ahead of you. I was as silent as the lone star which dogs the moon. My scent was of the earth. You did not see or hear me. But I saw you. And I witnessed your vile deeds.

  To the coasts of plenty, I am denied. There you shoot at me with your death sticks which roar like baradirsick.

  I no longer burnish my skin with the sacred red dye, fearing recognition. Now I blend with the others of a similar race. I am alone in a crowd.

  We take trinkets you have left unguarded, and you call us thieves. You have stolen our greatest possession—our way of life, our land and all of its riches—yet they call you great discoverers and merchants of fortune. You kill because we are different, and you are lauded as great hunters. We kill in defence and are called murderers. You take without asking all there is to take.

  From me you have stolen the very reason for life: my parents, my mate, my child. All have fallen, to rise no more, before the noise of your guns. Many of my friends, too, have died when your guns spoke. And my new lover was taken from me by the foul spore issued out of your breath. And still you keep on taking what is not yours to take.

  For the others who share my skin colour—the Mi’kmaq, around whose campfire I found peace and with whom I have walked—you also have changed a way of life. You treat them little better than your dogs. But they are like a tall pine which bends to the might of the storm. And because they bend, they will survive. My people are like the rock in the gale, which only time can change. You would not give us that time. And when you could not bend us, you broke us.