Mattie Mitchell (16 page)

Scarcely allowing breath, Mattie waited. It didn't take long.
The man resumed whatever he was doing and Mattie angled
closer. The fire was a big one. It was just as Mattie figured it
would be. The thief hunched over as near to it as he dared, and
the human form danced in the firelight before Mattie's eyes.

The man was counting money. Mattie could see the piece of
meat he had stolen from his camp. The rogue stopped fondling
the bills and reached for it. Mattie noticed the man had unusually
big feet for his stature.

Once again, Mattie Mitchell felt the terrible urge to kill the
man who had stolen from him. He would get his revenge and
he knew how. He would cut the man's throat with his deadly
knife. Pulling the long Bowie from its leather sheath, he stepped
silently toward the man.

The bearded thief reached from his crouched position for
another piece of the stolen meat laying by the fire. It wasn't yet
hot enough for his liking, but his ravenous appetite would not
wait any longer. He selected the biggest piece and leaned back,
still in a squatting position, when he was savagely grabbed from
behind.

So sudden was the attack that he saw and heard nothing
before his breathing was abruptly stopped by a tremendous
pressure against his trachea. His head was yanked backwards by
the hair so violently that his throat—above the pressure hold that
threatened to strangle him—stretched as tightly as new leather
on an old drum.

His startled, gagging yell was reduced to a thin, frightened
whine. He tried to swallow. His nostrils flared for oxygen. The
piece of meat fell from his limp fingers. His knees collapsed
underneath him and his lower body sank to the ground in a
shocked, trembling bundle of fear. Only his stretched neck and
tilted head stayed in place by the force of Mattie Mitchell's
powerful arms. The Indian's ferocious grip on the tangled hair
on the back of the man's neck caused a burning, tearing pain that
made his eyes water and forced an agonized gasp to escape from
his clenched jaws.

At first he thought he had been attacked by one of his feared
night demons. Then the great crushing pressure was released from
his gagging throat. His hair was wrenched more tightly, pulling
his head back even farther. His hairy throat stretched farther still,
and to Mattie his red, sweat-glazed Adam's apple looked like the
bulging breast of a drumming grouse in mating season.

In that same terrible instant, a large brown hand wielding a
huge knife appeared in front of his bulging eyes. The razor-sharp
swedge of the weapon glinted in the firelight. He tried to turn his
neck and his head was thrust farther back. His attacker's knife
edge pressed against his unshaven throat.

In absolute terror, the thief realized the knife was on the left
side of his throat and lodged against his pulsating carotid artery.
There was more to add to his terror. The knife edge was slanted
upward so that, if the tearing hold on his scalp was released or
if he tried to pull away from the burning pain, he would cut his
own throat. In that same fearful moment he knew without seeing
who had him in his deadly grip. Through clenched rotten teeth he
whined a stammered plea.

“M-Mattie. W-what are you doing 'ere?”

The knife edge burned against his stretched skin. He suddenly
felt a wet, sticky substance trickle along his skin.

“N-no, Mattie. Don't, p-please don't kill me! I-I'll give you
half the money.”

“I take all the money. Den maybe I open your blood vein like
caribou!” Mattie's voice rumbled in the night air.

A fire coal suddenly popped. The thief jumped as though he
had been shot. The knife pressed harder against his skin.

“Oh my God, Mattie, don't cut me no more! I didn't know
'twas your camp. Take the money and let me go.”

“You not only thief, you liar, too. Ever'one know my valley.
Maybe I dry shave you before I cut you!”

And with that the burning knife tilted back and travelled up
over his skin. His coarse black neck hairs fell free as it went.
The scrape of the terrible knife edge was a burst of sound in the
man's head. Hot urine soaked through the crotch of his pants
and ran down his shaking left leg. The knife finished its upward
stroke and slowly dragged back down against the grain, over the
exposed raw flesh, until it rested once more against the throbbing
blood vein.

“You knows I w-wouldn' steal from you Mattie! 'Twas the
'Merican I took the money from. I'd never take anything of
yours, Mattie.” The thief finished in a desperate plea for mercy.

“You steal poke from the preacher. You steal from me. You
ver'
amassit
—foolish—man. Wot about my smoked deer meat
warmin' by your fire?”

Mattie tore the man's head back farther. Now the thief's
upturned eyes were looking up at the angry Indian's lean face. It
frightened him all the more.

“You c-can't do it, Mattie! I knows you don't kill people,” he
cried through rotten teeth.

Mattie lowered his face closer to the begging thief and in a
voice that hissed loathing said, “No man steal from me before.”

The stench emanating from the sweating, unwashed thief
reached Mattie's sensitive nose. He turned his head and breathed
deeply from the night air. The clean draft of oxygen calmed him.
Looking down at the cowardly man between his legs, all thoughts
of killing left him.

Somewhere, during his walk through the dark forest, he had
felt a shred of grudging respect for the thief who had made his
way into the mountains and stolen from him. Now all trace of
respect vanished and he released the smelly man from his hold.
Bending over the scattered bills, he began stuffing them into his
pack.

The thief lay where he had fallen and said nothing as he
stared at the Indian. When the last of the American money had
disappeared inside his pack, Mattie grabbed the haunch of brown
venison and stepped toward the cowering man again.

“You say you not steal from me. Whose deer meat dis?”

The thief saw the flash of anger appear in Mattie's eyes again
and found he couldn't speak. He shrank back on his skinny elbows
like a beaten pup, his wet crotch plainly visible. He looked down
sheepishly.

“You scared the piss out of me, Mattie,” he whimpered.

“Smells like more dan dat scared from you,” said Mattie, his
voice dripping with his utter disgust for the man.

Stepping back to the fire's edge, he hurriedly gathered up
each piece of meat, even the piece the thief had tried to eat. He
placed them all inside his pack, pulled the leather thongs tight,
and swung the bag up on his shoulders. Relieved that Mattie
wasn't going to kill him, the man found his voice again.

“Save me some meat, Mattie, please! I've run out of grub and
'tis two days back to the coast fer sure. I'll starve!” he cried.

“Good. You starve. Save me from cutting you next time I see
you.” The intent in Mattie's voice was clear.

Turning his back on him, Mattie Mitchell strode away
from the firelight and vanished into the night forest. He walked
carefully back the way he had come until he found the tree he
had climbed to spot the campfire. He crawled under the tangled
canopy and, with his head on his pack, curled into a fetal position
and went to sleep.

THE EASTERN SKY OF MATTIE
'
S GREY
dawn time was smeared
with red and pink when he stepped through the door of his
wigwam. Kneeling before a small fire Worcester had started in
the firepit, Mattie first drew the stolen meat from his pack. Then
he upended the bag and watched Worcester's astonished grin as
every single bill of his stolen money fluttered to the dirt floor.

Worcester was ashamed to look at his friend. At first he
had thought that Mattie himself had taken his money. The big
feet, the tall shadow, and Mattie's knowledge of the money had
corrupted his better judgment of the man. Worcester could not
bring himself to hurt his friend by telling him of his doubt. He
wondered for a moment if Mattie would ever forgive him in such
a case and somehow knew that he would indeed. But Worcester
knew he would never forgive himself. After this day, whenever
he looked into the Indian's dark, honest eyes, he was ashamed he
had once thought of him as a thief.

Worcester returned to his home in the States before the
winter winds came to Newfoundland's shores. He had moored
his schooner in a sheltered cove in Bay of Islands before leaving.
He returned to his house one day and found his wife in a bit of
a quandary. She had received a heavy and roughly constructed
wooden box from the north, she said, with his name on it. She
had to pay $26 to get it from the postal express. What could it be?

Worcester assured his wife that he hadn't ordered anything
from the north, nor was he expecting anything from anywhere
else. Upon observing the box, which the postal people had
deposited on his front stoop, he read the box was indeed from the
northern nation of Newfoundland. Inside he found thirteen tins of
canned lobster. The tins were at least a quart in size and weighed,
in his estimation, ten pounds each.

Worcester proceeded to open the cans. He found the metal
very strong and he had to use his hunting knife to cut through the
lid. With a big plate ready on his kitchen table, he prepared for
an succulent meal of northern lobster. When he finally pried the
lid open, he saw, much to his chagrin, a piece of red flannel. He
recognized it immediately as one of Mattie Mitchell's shirts.

Puzzled, he emptied the can over the porcelain plate and was
amazed to hear a rattling sound come from a small cloth bag
that had dropped out. Inside the bag were sixty glistening pearls!
Worcester couldn't believe it. As he searched the rest of the cans,
he discovered that Mattie Mitchell had cleverly disguised and
shipped to his friend hundreds of pearls that he had laboriously
obtained from the cold waters of Newfoundland's western rivers.

MATTIE MITCHELL
'
S KNOWLEDGE OF THE
wild country where
he spent almost all of his time was, and still is, the stuff of legend.
The northwest part of Newfoundland with its windswept barrens
and unusual flat-topped and very high mountains, its heavily
forested ridges and deep valleys, and raging rivers that twist
through sheer gorges only to plunge suddenly out over vast tracts
of open, flat verges, was home to this “chil' of the wilderness.”
Hunting and trapping, his favourite way to make a living for his
wife, Mary Anne Webb, and himself, always took him away to
the hills.

Mattie trapped all the way around the magnificent fjord the
French had named Bonne Bay. He followed the fur-bearing
animals as far as the upper reaches of the Humber River and
beyond. He was especially adept at trapping the elusive pine
marten, or, as he called it, marten cat. The mammal's rich,
lustrous fur always fetched top dollar.

He found the best prices for his furs with the furriers and
chandlers who had settled along the shores of Bay St. George.
Mattie made his way for many springs over the crusted snow, with
his winter's cache of pelts secured to a sled of his own making,
down out of the mountains and dark green valleys with the lush,
cured furs. The acquired first-hand wisdom of forest life and his
intimate knowledge of a largely unknown and very difficult land
would serve him in good stead among his own people. As well,
they spread his renown beyond his beloved shores to lands that
he would never see.