The Last Beothuk Read online

  “They are the Unwanted Ones, come among us, as foretold by the Mages.” She was hushed by harsh stares and the stamping of feet and was shamed into silence. But she had opened up a train of thought. A man with greying hair, who had suffered much on the trail to get there, but who was allowed to come because he was wise in the old ways and far-seeing, spoke:

  “It has been passed down from a thousand fire smokes by those who have long passed. That great tapooteeks were seen coming up out of the morning sea in summer. Flying over the green waves, carried by spreading wings which never beat, they landed on our northern shores. Strange men jumped out and roamed our shoreline. But that was a summer when the Great Spirit commanded winter to linger long. Plants did not bloom, berries died on the vine, and spawning fish stayed away from our shores. The Great Spirit, all-knowing, showed the strangers they were unwanted in our land, and after a time they left, disappearing down over the edge of the eastern sea from which they had come.”

  “If this is true, why has the Great Spirit not driven the Unwanted Ones from our shores once again?”

  “You cannot question the Great Spirit! Who knows their ways? Even the Mages fear their wisdom.”

  “The Unwanted Ones are not True Men. Their faces are covered with hair, and like rats they sleep in burrows beneath the earth.”

  “Enough about spirits and men with faces covered with hair. They have taken the fruit from our fields and meat and furs from our land without permission. Put arrows into their chests. Take back what they have stolen from us. Drive them back into the sea from which they came. The will of the Great Spirit is with us.”

  “This is true. The Unwanted Ones came up out of the sea like a huge si’kane’su. They came from a place known only to the Great Spirit, who keeps the endless sea in trust for all peoples. But this is our land. They kill our deer and trap for our warm furs without asking. And I, too, have seen the dens where they dwell. We must drive them back until they fall over the edge of the earth again.”

  The talk went on until the fire died and the night grew cold. But before the dawn heralded a sleepless night, a decision had been reached. The Beothuk would attempt to drive the Vikings from their shores.

  The Norse were a fearless breed of people, men and women who waged war as a means of conquering. On fields of battle, their yells alone were enough to paralyze their foe. Flashing swords, halberds, and heavy maces were their weapons. On open meadows of battle, even outflanked and outnumbered, they were undaunted and seldom lost a fight.

  But they feared the dark, trackless forests unknown to them and ventured there only in groups, to trap the nearby ponds and brooks or to hunt deer on the open barrens. They never entered the forest at night, and never alone. It was their only weakness. They knew nothing of guerrilla fighting. The Indians of North America invented it.

  The first night, the Beothuk killed the dog with a long arrow fluted deep into its chest. The next night it rained, and sounds were muted. Silent as the wolf, and with no dog to raise the alarm, the Beothuk crawled up over the grassy roofs, below which the Vikings snored loudly, and stuffed plaits of wet bog into the smoke holes. When they were forced out of their earthen hovels into the black night, two of them were struck down with arrows. And when the dreary dawn came, they discovered their goats were missing. The Unwanted Ones ran to the edge of the forest and roared their anger in a strange tongue. Their women screamed as loudly and kept yelling over and over: “Skraelings! Skraelings!” And for the first time, they showed signs of fear.

  All that season the Beothuk kept up their assaults. They hid low by the trails and stabbed at the legs of the Vikings as they walked by, causing great wounds. Swifter than deer, the Beothuk bounded away like shadows into the forest. They were sometimes followed with shouts of anger, for only short distances, until, finding no sign of their attackers and fearing to lose their way, the Vikings retreated. Their wounded, whom had walked in on their own feet, now had to be carried out by others. They would also need the prolonged care of others. It weakened their defences. Though they killed and harried the Vikings, never did the Beothuk molest their young or their women.

  But the Vikings were not afraid to fight. They thrived in open battle and proudly bore the scars. One day the Beothuk, triumphant after their sneaking forays and with lowered guard, were caught in the open. Four of them were fiercely slain in the skirmish by the Vikings’ swords, which nearly cleaved them in half. And a young girl in her first year of bleeding was carried away. Two of the Vikings were killed with spear and arrows, and many more had been wounded with a flurry of arrows. The ground was red with blood.

  It was two weeks later before the Beothuk returned to continue their attacks. From the cover of the trees they watched the Vikings load their boats. A tall, wild-haired woman screaming, “Skraeling!” came out from one of the shelters and dragged the bound Beothuk maiden behind her. She hurried toward the waiting boats. The captive girl had been beaten. Her clothing was torn, she looked dishevelled and terrified, and she was bleeding. Knowing she was to be carried aboard the dreaded winged boats, the girl screamed piteously and kicked at her captor. One of the men near her smote the girl a long-handed blow on the head with a gnarled stick. She slumped to the ground.

  Her attacker grabbed her by her hands and dragged her behind him to the beach. He was followed by the white woman, who was looking nervously behind her. The man waded waist deep in the water, still dragging the unconscious Beothuk girl. The icy water appeared to rouse her, and she tried to stagger to her feet. Her head was bleeding. Crying and pleading for help from the ones she knew were watching from the woods, the maiden was dragged over the side of the boat. Under a rain of blows, she was silenced again. The men pushed the boats from the shore with long poles, and the vessels’ wings were hauled aloft. The wings caught and held the wind, and the boats carried the Unwanted Ones away from the land. Once, from a distance, the despairing cry of the captive maiden, who had all of her birthing years ahead of her, came to the shore. And the Skraelings, emerging from the forest, made their way toward the deserted grassy mounds.

  11

  Tehonee shivered at the memory of the legend handed down by her people. She knew Kop had heard the story as often as she had. But until this season on the coast, he had paid it little heed. Now he had been gone a long time. She wondered if his search would be rewarded. She had a bad feeling in her stomach. Tehonee knew that, although they came in different, bigger boats carried on many wings, they were still the Unwanted Ones. And their numbers were far greater.

  Her bad feelings were further steeped by her musings about the legends handed down. With Kopituk gone, her only comfort was her daughter, Kuise. She looked all around. Kuise was nowhere to be seen. She called her name, thinking the child had gone into the woods to relieve herself. There was no response. Then with a sinking feeling, she remembered Kuise had asked to go back to the ravaged campsite. She had told her no, she was never to return there alone. Tehonee broke into a run, knowing as only mothers do where Kuise was. She had disobeyed her mother’s direct command and had returned to the campsite. Tehonee knew why. Kuise had spied a carved toy in the bushes at the campsite and wanted to take it. Her father, unsure if its owner was dead—and if so, then the toy should be buried with the body—had told her no.

  Angry at her daughter’s disobedience, Tehonee quickened her step. She saw Kuise seated outside the deserted mamateek, playing with the toy she had returned for. Tehonee’s anger melted. She would not tell Kop about this. She was about to call her daughter, but then she saw them. Four of the Unwanted Ones were drawing a longboat upon the beach below where her daughter was sitting. She was further astonished to see the one with the red hair among them, so well described by Kop. Kop was wrong. They had returned! With a cry of desperation, she ran toward her daughter.

  “Run into the forest, Kuise! Run! Run like the wind and don’t look back!”

  Kuise wa
s alarmed as much by her mother’s sudden appearance as by her cry of warning. She sprinted for the trees, taking the toy with her, and was quickly out of sight.

  At Tehonee’s cry, the men looked up in surprise. They had not expected the site to be occupied again. Guns appeared in their hands. Tehonee saw them and remembered Kop’s words: When they raised the long staffs to their shoulders, thunder and fire spewed out and Buka fell dead. The guns were drawn to their shoulders. Tehonee ran to them, ripped open her bodice, and exposed her breasts.

  “I am woman!” she shouted.

  She was still shouting when the first shot tore into her naked breast. She looked down at her chest in disbelief. It was as if she had just been speared, but she had seen no spear thrown. Only a flash of fire, accompanied by the sudden thunder-like slap. Unbearable pain filled her chest. It was followed by a wave of extreme nausea and a weakness so intense her eyes were closing. Directly in her view, and bursting in fury out of the forest, was what she thought was an apparition. She forced her eyes wide open. It was Kopituk running toward her. His long, black hair was flowing behind him. His lean, red face, though clenched in fury, was wondrous to look upon. His bow jumped in his hand, and his great cry of defiance was beautiful to hear. Her great hunter had returned, as he had said he would. All would be well. Then the second shot entered her breast, just below the first one. Tehonee’s vision of Kop faded, and with her eyes still open, she crumpled to the ground.

  Kop had already broken into the long stride of the homeward-bound hunter when the first cries erupted out of the wilderness ahead of him. It was high-pitched and pleading. It came again, and he recognized the words as well as the voice.

  Run into the forest, Kuise! Run! Run like the wind and don’t look behind!

  It was Tehonee’s cry for her daughter to flee from some terrible danger. Kop bolted forward, as fleet as a deer. Then came the same crack he had heard from the men carrying the staffs outside the mamateeks at the cove of death. It was followed by another anguished cry from Tehonee.

  I am woman!

  Her cries were silenced by a shot and were replaced by calls and laughter shouted in a foreign tongue. They shot into the forest in the direction of the fleeing Kuise. Kop sprang out of the forest like an enraged animal. From his throat thundered a cry to put Buka’s hunting cry to shame. Two men were standing near a boat whose bows were barely touching the beach, and two more were standing over the still body of Tehonee. She was lying on her back, and her deerskin tunic was bloody. Kuise was nowhere to be seen. Surely they had not killed an innocent child.

  The men standing above Tehonee stared in surprise at the fury racing toward them. One of them had turned to face him, when a short arrow fletched with hawk feathers entered his throat. He dropped the long-barrelled musket and fell to his knees, clutching at the arrow. Blood poured from between his clawing fingers, and he gagged before he fell down next to Tehonee.

  The man next to him was the red-haired man with the blotchy red skin. He was fumbling to load his empty gun, which was still smoking in his hands, when Kop’s second arrow, shot on the run, penetrated his right side all the way to his hip bone. The man screamed in pain and fear, dropped the gun, and limped toward the boat. The arrow protruding from his ripped clothing oozed blood. Two shots rang out from the men standing by the boat. Kop fell to his knees beside Tehonee. His sudden drop to see to his wife saved his life as the lead balls whizzed over his head. He saw in an instant she was dead. It angered him beyond all reason, and he jumped to his feet again, his cry of revenge more terrible than before. At a shout from the red-haired man scrambling to board the boat, the men stopped reloading their weapons and pushed the boat into deeper water.

  They dragged the wounded man over the gunnel. Grabbing for the oars and pulling hard, they shot away from the beach. Kop was running along the water’s edge when he let loose another arrow, which thunked into the hull of the boat, just below the red-haired man. Waist deep in water, he stopped and drew his bowstring to his chin. He let it go. Another cry came from the red-haired man. Kop’s arrow had cut through his cheek, but it was only a flesh wound and had not killed him. Kop regretted not using his long arrow. He had aimed for the throat, and a long arrow would have found its mark.

  Realizing they were out of range of the Beothuk’s arrows, the men in the boat stopped to return fire with their own weapons. They were reaching for their guns when a roar from their wounded companion started them rowing again, and they pulled away with haste. Kop found a long arrow. Aiming carefully, he let loose. It soared high, straight and true, but fell short of the moving boat. Kop screamed his anger and grief after the Unwanted Ones.

  “Killers of women and small ones! Cowards! Eaters of maggots! Vermin!” And then, what was for him the vilest of insults, he bellowed after them, “Your brother, who you have left behind, will never enter the spirit world!”

  Weakened by his frantic run through the forest, the fighting, and the shock of seeing his woman dead before him, Kop staggered. He half ran, half crawled ashore, creating great splashes of water around him. Maybe he was wrong! It had all happened so fast. Tehonee was not dead, just wounded.

  Still grasping the bow, he ran in a headlong fumble up the beach and into the clearing to fall down across the body of his beloved Tehonee. Pulling her into his arms, shaking her, and staring into her open eyes, he shouted her name over and over again. Tehonee was still warm, but she was dead. Tears poured from his eyes. His throat muscles constricted. He gasped for air and laid Tehonee’s body down, with her beautiful face looking up at him. Her clothing was open. Her firm, round breasts were naked and stained with blood. She had bared her breasts to show the Unwanted Ones she was woman, but in vain. They had killed her anyway. From deep in his soul, a pitiful cry poured out of Kop. It was the sound of despair, of a beast broken and defeated.

  It carried far enough to reach Kuise, who had run into the forest as ordered, but who had come back and was now peering out. For the first time in her life, she saw her father’s tears. Kuise’s own cry of misery came as loud and unstoppable as waves rushing upon a rocky beach. She threw the branches of her hiding place aside and ran to her mother, falling down by her side. The child sobbed uncontrollably, pressing her cheek against her mother’s.

  Kopituk carried Tehonee’s body from the clearing and placed it under the trees while Kuise looked on. He grabbed the guns by the barrel, one at a time, and with all of his strength, backed by anger and frustration, he rapped them against the trunk of a tree until their long barrels were bent and the wooden stocks were shattered and useless.

  Then Kop began a gruesome task. He did so methodically and without haste. On his haunches, he stripped the dead man of his clothing until he was naked. The man’s skin was white and pasty. He stank so badly of sweat and filth, Kop retched before he continued. He turned the naked man until his head was facing the forest, where he knew his spirit did not want to go.

  Kuise, still on her knees and sobbing beside her dead mother, watched her father. Halfway between the white man’s chin and shoulder, Kop cut the man’s neck all the way around, right to the spine. Blood poured out. Bending the head back with one hand, he made two vicious chops with his knife to the man’s vertebrae before the spine broke, completely severing the head from the body. The dead man’s face and head were covered with brown, matted hair unused to water. He had died with his eyes closed. Kop cut the eyelids, making sure the eyes would be forever open. Turning the man face down, he cut deep between his spread legs until blood and his ruptured bowels poured out on the ground. The smell was nauseating and fouled the air all around. Taking the severed head, he pushed it face first into the cavity. Unable to take the smell any longer, Kop stood and kicked the hated man’s head as far as he could into the man’s own putrid innards. He had taken his revenge on one of his wife’s killers. But his revenge would not be complete until the head of the man with the red hair was displaye
d on a stake.

  Kop carried the body of his beloved Tehonee first in his arms, and as she stiffened, on his back for two days. Behind him trudged the dazed Kuise, her small shoulders heavy with burden. It had taken the best part of the day for Kopituk to console the child. He allowed her a time of grieving, but in the end, he had to pull his anguished daughter away from Tehonee’s stiffening form. It was then Kop saw the small round hole in the waist of Kuise’s dress and knew it for what it was. They had tried to kill his child along with her mother!

  Kop’s face was a mask of pain, sorrow, and above all, hate. He had never known such hatred. He could only speak to Kuise with garbled instructions as they went along.

  If the killers had fled through the forest, he would find them no matter how well they tried to hide their trace. But the killers had fled over the water, where no trace was ever left behind. No matter. When he found others of his kind, he would leave Kuise in their care. Then he would return and soothe his soul with the sweet purge of revenge.

  Far away from the place where she had been brutally murdered, Kop laboriously carried the body of the only woman he had ever loved. He reached the place he sought and lowered her body down. The place Kop had chosen to bury his woman had been an intuitive choice. It was a secreted valley, well up from the coast, where a clear brook meandered through grit and soil. Where the water continued out of the dark forest into the bay, its mouth was a mere step wide and easily overlooked as a waterway of any significance. Long ago, Kop had discovered it while searching for eels. The brook’s arrival into the bay belied its course, for beyond its merging with the sea and away from the saltwater shrubs, its narrow, rocky indraft widened into a shallow stream flowing merrily from a long pond nestled among the wooded hills. Where the brook left the pond there was a natural, flat meadow of lush grasses. It had been created by countless spring floods bringing deposits of nutrients. Tall aspens and stately white birches rustled in the wind. They were backed by a sloping ridge of pine and fir. It was a place of grandeur and solitude. More than that, it was the place where Kopituk and Tehonee had consummated their first act of love. Kop remembered the place well. He had bedded Tehonee many times in many different places after that. On warm beaches by the sounding sea on moonlit nights; on sweet-smelling grasses by the side of a lapping lake in full daylight; and beneath robes of fur blankets they had explored the ways of one flesh and shared their young love.