The Last Beothuk Read online

  In haste, now, he pulled another arrow from the quiver and, in the same motion, released it. Too late. He knew the shot wasn’t clean, even before the arrow feathers flew past the neck of the terrified goose. The bird screamed in pain. The arrow had glanced through the skin of its neck before falling into the water with a splash. Racing away over the water, the bird clawed for flight, its wings battering the air for altitude. Now the cove was alive with the honking geese and the whistling wings of the ducks. The evening woods resonated with their cries of alarm. The Beothuk stood in his blind. There was no need for caution now, and he loosed one more arrow at the nearest bird. The shaft caught the goose mid-belly. Still struggling for flight, the bird fell sideways into the brush, where it squawked in misery.

  Wading into the chest-high water, Kop retrieved his prey, which hadn’t drifted far. He even found the arrow that had missed. Pulling the birds by the necks, he stumbled ashore, pulling his feet up from the muddy bottom as he went. He found the crippled goose that had foundered from the air in the tall grass. It cried out in fear as the hunter approached. Grabbing the bird by its long neck, he gave it a brief, humane twist, which broke its spine and stilled it in an instant. By full dark he was back at the campsite, his welcome greeted by cries of delight from his family.

  “I heard the geese leave, Kopituk, and wondered if any of them had found your short arrows, though I never expected so many,” Tehonee cried with high peals of laughter.

  “I want yijeek of the hearts for my own,” proclaimed little Kuise, laying claim to five of the tasty treats.

  “You can have all of them if you can eat that many, my hungry Small One,” said her father, already caught up in the celebration of a successful hunt.

  Long after Kuise had eaten just two of the goose hearts and one dark liver and had been tucked under the warmth of her soft caribou-hide blankets inside the mamateek, the two adults plucked and cleaned the large birds. The outer feathers were plucked clean, and except for a few kept for arrow fletching and a few more for Kuise to use at her play, they were discarded. The film of down, however, which grew on the flesh of the birds, was a cherished possession to keep next to the skin of the sleeping child in the cold of the winter nights. The furry down was also carried with them and kept dry to aid in the starting of fire. Some of the birds had blue markings on their outer skin, stains from blueberries they had eaten.

  The two adults feasted on goose liver and hearts skivvered on peeled alder stakes and laid across the small cooking fire, laughing as they burned their fingers on the simmering organs. The long necks of the birds were spitted over small poles which were fastened horizontally over the fire and turned to cook evenly to a dark brown. The plucked bodies of the birds were secured to the drying rack and would be dried and smoked, much the same as the deer meat, and then stored in birchbark containers. Such a bounty would feed the family for days.

  The cold warning of winter came without snow or howling winds. The sun retreated into its westing much quicker and left its warm bed later every morning, making the nights longer. Then early one morning, when Kop reached for the hide flap of their lodge, it was stiff and cold to the touch. The cove was black and still, with no wind on its back. The pond was frozen over as far down its length as he could see. Squatting down to fill his arms with firewood, he shivered. Back inside where his daughter and woman still huddled beneath their robes of deer hide, he blew across the mute ashes until they glowed. With the addition of dry wood, the fire soon flared. For a moment the rising smoke circled his head as if seeking a way outside. It caused Kop to cough, waking Tehonee. The smoke straightened as it found the sooty smoke hole above. The fire burned bright and Kop chewed thoughtfully on a venison strip before speaking quietly to Tehonee.

  “I wanted to return to the treeline this morning to hunt deer. But the frost has come and the leaves will be brittle and make much noise under my feet. I will wait for the first snow to make my way quiet.”

  “Your step is always light, my hunter,” said Tehonee, only her pretty face showing above the furry hides.

  “Even abideshook, the cat which prowls at night and the stealthiest of all hunters, will have his stalk betrayed by the frozen leaves under his broad paws, my woasut.”

  “You have provided well, Kopituk. We have meat to last till the snows come.”

  “A good hunter never stops hunting. The mamchet behind the dam in the small stream which empties into the cove will be swimming in circles trying to keep his pool from freezing. If I can get close enough just before dark, when his guard is down, maybe my arrow will find one of them. Its fatty meat will add to our cache and its rich fur will make boots and hats for Small One.”

  “Kuise and I have watched the mamchet, too,” said Tehonee. “He is a lazy one who spends all of his time eating and not storing the green willows and aspens outside his lodge, for the time of the long cold. Now he swims to keep the waters around him ice-free. He has waited too long. He will not win. Your arrow will save him from starving, Kopituk.”

  “It is our own bellies I am considering, and not the suffering of a lazy mamchet.”

  “Yes, my hunter.”

  “The frost will have driven the bitterness out of the red berries, loved as much by the cackling partridge as by us.” It was Kop’s way of telling Tehonee today would be a good day to gather the berries.

  “The place where they grow best has already been found. Today, while you hunt the mamchet, who does not prepare for winter, Kuise and I will gather the red berries.” Tehonee rose from the sleeping robe she shared with her husband. Turning to the sleeping child, she fondly tucked the fur blanket under Kuise’s chin.

  Standing beside Kop for a moment, Tehonee opened the door flap and looked outside. She asked him a question she had wanted to ask for days.

  “Where are the others, Kopituk? They should have met us here in the winter mamateeks a full moon ago. I know you have been walking to the high knoll in the time before dark. Searching and waiting for them.”

  Kop shifted his shoulders before answering. She knew it was a gesture he made when he did not want to talk about something.

  Kop had been asking himself the same question. Unknown to Tehonee—or so he believed—he had been walking up through the heavy forest to the knoll, which provided a view to the east, for days now. It was from the east several others of their clan, who were their friends, should have arrived long ago, as they always did after the time for gathering food by the great salt water had passed.

  Kop and his family had spent the summer miles away from here on the windswept coast. It was the way of his people. They feasted upon seabirds and their eggs, silvery fishes that glanced in small streams, and others which flashed and rolled upon the beaches, succulent shellfish and boneless fish with many small arms, which tried to hide in the water behind cloudy black veils, to the delight of Kuise. More fish than they could eat or carry. It was the time of plenty for all.

  When the leaves had begun falling, they had made their way inland toward the caribou herds, spawning salmon, and shelter in the forest from the storms which would come.

  “Maybe their feet have been slowed by the weight of their hunting by the sea,” said Kop.

  “The summer hunt did not slow our feet, my hunter.” Tehonee was looking out at the two empty mamateeks, which stood still and quiet across the frozen meadow, their skin doors closed, no heat or smoke rising from the smoke holes.

  Kop did not comment. Like his woman, for days he had expected the others to arrive. The joyous shouts of welcome from the forest never came. The two shelters which should hold two other families remained silent.

  “There were children with them, Kopituk. One of them a boy younger than Kuise, and your friend Buka’s older daughter, Yaseek, who was so named because she was first-born. She is Kuise’s friend. How long before you will go and look for them, my hunter?”

 
“When I have killed your lazy mamchet I will go as far as the tall pine pollard at the end of the valley, through which the rocky brook flows. From that dead tree on the high hill there I can see far. If they are on their way, I will find their trace.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “If I don’t find their spoor, then they are not coming.”

  “Do you think the rumours are true, Kopituk?”

  “I don’t know if they are true or not, woman!” Though Kop’s voice sounded angry, he was speaking more from frustration than anger. He spoke again, softer this time. “Rumours are never true.”

  “You and I have heard the sounds of the Unwanted Ones, Kopituk. The thunder sounds without rain or clouds are not rumours. The elders have told us of strange boats on the sea. They have seen strange men, too. There are tales of our people carried away in these strange boats many times, and they have never returned. Each season when we return from the coast, more and more of our people are missing. But you will not heed the stories. Have you seen them? The Unwanted Ones, I mean. You ranged the coast for days, alone, after we heard the first distant thunderclaps from a clear blue sky. Did you see the Unwanted Ones?”

  Kop squirmed again, and he turned from Tehonee to stare at the mamateeks.

  “You know something, Kopituk! You have seen something! I know you did. You are not telling me all you saw by the salt water, where the small fishes offer themselves upon the beaches!” Tehonee swung around till she faced Kop full-on, challenging him to deny her accusation.

  Kop turned his head away. Tehonee grabbed both his arms and looked directly up at him, saying nothing. It was a bold move for a woman to make to a hunter. Kop finally returned her stare. Her eyes were beseeching.

  Finally, Kop relented. His breath burst from his lips, as if he were relieved to finally share the secret he had kept inside for months. “Yes, Tehonee. I did see something, something which I do not understand. It has worried me because I do not know exactly what it was I saw. I did not tell you because of that and because there was no need to worry you, too.”

  “We share in all things, Kopituk, man to woman. Woman to man. It is our way. Even the worries we share together. When the worry of one is shared by two, already it becomes weakened.”

  “You remember the day when we heard the thunder come out of a cloudless sky?”

  Tehonee nodded.

  “I walked toward the big noise as far as the cliff above the deep cove, where the others were camped on the level grass above the beach.”

  Kop shifted again, not wanting to continue.

  “I remember the day well. We were frightened by the thunder sound without clouds. You were gone long and brought night on your shoulder when you returned,” said Tehonee.

  Kop nodded, and then he finally told Tehonee what he had seen last summer.

  4

  All three families had journeyed down the same river valley to the sea. It was a wonderful time for them. The days on the coast were much looked forward to, as much for the pure enjoyment of visiting with many others of their clan, who came from different routes, as it was for the full bellies the great salt sea always provided.

  They set up temporary meoticks—smaller lodges—near the mouths of rivers and above sandy beaches, where in late spring great schools of fish were washed upon the shore, free for the gathering. And among the frenzied spawning multitude of small fishes they scooped bigger fish, their bellies filled and their flesh sweet and fat. They threw addled eggs from the nests of seagulls to compel the birds to lay eggs again. All through that summer of plenty by the bounding sea, the Beothuk feasted and lived in freedom.

  Then one day, Kop left when the sun was only a promise in the sky. He and his family had journeyed farther along the coast from the others to be closer to the place of the sacred red soil. Inland and along by a deep river valley, Kop walked alone for two full days. At night he slept under the shelter of overhanging boughs. Then he was directly below a steep red bluff long exposed to the elements. Here the red soil he wanted was presented in talus streaks, as well as in the drifts which had avalanched down the ridge years past. Kop spat on his hand and rubbed the soft soil between his hands, making sure it was the right consistency. His palms quickly turned red. He smiled with satisfaction. Kop gathered the soil in silence and placed in it a leather bag which he carried for that purpose only. He filled the bag to the mouth, tied it off, and left the valley and headed back to the coast.

  He would share the sacred dye with the other families. The sun, red as a burning ember, emerged out of the great calm sea into a cloudless sky as he stepped along, filled with life and energy. To his right, the rote of the waves hissed and thundered upon the shore, retreating with a soft rumble of pebbles in a froth of white. And on his left was the mysterious green forest, where tall pine pollards, majestic and white, fluted above all the other tress.

  The sun had lost its look of fire and was no more than two hands above the horizon on the second day when Kop heard the first explosion. Instinctively he looked toward the sky. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen. No black, threatening storm clouds hurling lightning earthward. Kop was puzzled. The sound came once again. Then all was quiet. Quieter than it was before. The seabirds had stopped squawking, and the forest birds had ceased their singing. Kop was suddenly afraid without knowing why, and he shivered from head to toe. His step became heavy, and though he continued on his way, he crouched among the bushes as he went. Ahead of him was a long, wooded point, and beyond that a wide, deep cove edged by a curved beach many arrow shots long. It was here he hoped to meet the rest of his people. Without sky-lining his body, he reached the top of the point. The landwash, far below, was stripped of growth by the waves.

  He was right. There, up from the beach, on the green sward was a mamateek and the smaller summer meoticks of his friends. Buka’s meotick was one of them. He would know Buka’s handiwork anywhere. There was no smoke rising from them, but two cook fires in front of the shelters were smouldering and in need of more wood. Why were the fires left unattended?

  Kop was about to rise up and shout a greeting, when the quiet of the cove was sundered by another explosion. He froze in absolute fear. It was the same thunder-like sound he had heard twice before. Appearing from the point of land to his right, as if it had emerged from out of the cliffs themselves, over the ocean’s surface came a huge floating apparition. Smoke was rising from a short black object protruding from its top side. Kop shivered in fear at the sight of it. What was it? His intelligence told him it was a kind of boat. It was many times longer and bigger than the biggest tapooteek Kop had ever seen. Growing out of the huge boat were two trees, perfectly straight and without natural branches. Tied to and hanging from both greyish-white trees was an array of lines the like of which was beyond Kop’s understanding.

  What Kopituk was seeing, and which was foreign to him, was a ship, a schooner-rigged sailing ship. The ship’s cannon fired again. Smoke emitted from its hollow maw, and once again the sounds reverberated around the cove and up the cliffs, where the frightened Beothuk watched in awe. Men on the deck of the ship yelled and shouted as if the shot was one of victory. Kop heard a woman scream. He instinctively looked toward the large mamateek. One of the men by the shelter bent low and shouted angrily into the mamateek’s opening, gesturing with a long stick in his hand as he did so. The high-pitched sound of fear inside was silenced. Kop suddenly realized he could see not one of his friends. Whoever was inside were captives, but for how long had they been held prisoners inside their own lodge? And were they all, even the mighty Buka, also held captive by the Unwanted Ones?

  The crash of the cannon died, and as if on cue, men emerged from the woods near the shelter as well as from the mamateek itself, two of whom stood by the mamateek opening as if they were on guard. The two men each held long, staff-like objects which looked like weapons that glinted when they moved. Kop was astonishe
d by what he was seeing. A boat was drawn up over the beach just out of sight below the Beothuk camp. He had not noticed the boat before. As he watched from his place of hiding, the ship made ready to lower her sails. From her deck, men scrambled about and great shouts erupted from them—none of which the watching Beothuk understood. Men dressed in strange robes, from unruly heads to long boots, hauled on ropes and shouted as if possessed. And the sails attached to the poles came clattering down. More shouting was heard, and from one side of the ship’s bow came a huge claw-like object. It fell into the water with a loud splash. It was followed by a clanking, rumbling sound out the hawse-hole, which further unnerved Kop. The chain stopped its run and straightened out in front of the ship. And as sudden as a floating tree on a swollen river was snagged by one of its own branches, so was the ship brought to heel by its iron hawser.

  Four men went scurrying down the beach, climbed aboard a smaller boat, and promptly sat down on the thwarts. They all carried the iron staffs with them. Four long oars appeared in their hands, and the boat was pulled toward the waiting ship. The two men standing near the lodge flap had not moved.

  Kop, numb with fear but determined to learn what was happening, crept closer to the beach. The boat returned, crowded with men. They jumped out of the boat and hauled it onto the beach directly below the mamateeks. The campfire outside the lodges was starving for fuel. Kop was close enough now to see large fish pierced on the spit above the simmering ashes and others on rocks placed beside the campfire. Smaller fishes had already been roasted to a golden brown. Kop could smell their savoury flesh. Men from the boat walked briskly up the beach and stopped in front of the two men who guarded the Beothuk camp. All except one of them carried the long black sticks in their hands. The one who did not was shorter than the others but powerfully built and had an authoritative air about him. He spoke in a growl to the two guards, who answered in the same harsh tongue. As if doubting their reply, their chief—Kop was sure he was their chief—turned his head to look all around the cove. His stare seemed to pierce the bushes where Kop was lying. Further shocked by that staring face, Kop buried his head in the ground and for a heartbeat he thought he was discovered. When he looked up again, the man’s back was to him again, but Kop’s stomach churned in turmoil at the face he had seen.