Mattie Mitchell (8 page)

He had not been too late. He was right about that. The bear
had not yet crawled into its den.

But Mattie would find out that he was wrong about that.

All was quiet, save for the swish of wind searching through
the green trees and the rustle of leaves fluttering down through
bare branches. Somewhere in the valley below him a raven
croaked a few times and then was silent. Then the wind suddenly
breezed up and it started to snow.

He checked his old Martin Henry rifle. It was loaded with one
long, brass-coated bullet. He considered pulling the hammer to
full cock. This bear would not give him much time. Still, the old
rifle had seen better days. The cock-spring had weakened over
the years and, when fully cocked, could not be depended on to
“stand cock.” He pulled the hammer to “half dog,” put an extra
bullet in the palm of his left hand, and, holding the big gun in his
right hand, settled down to wait.

The evening wore on and still the bear did not show. The
wind increased out of the northeast, the noise of its steady
brewing now a constant torment. The snow started to accumulate.
Mattie suddenly realized that he had made a big mistake in his
hurry to get here. He had forgotten to bring his snowshoes! If
this was going to be a major winter storm, the walk back to his
camp would not be any easy one. But, in his usual calm way, he
resigned himself to the task at hand.

Mattie kept looking at the entrance and the bear trail, only a
few feet from where he waited downwind. He expected the bear
to come ambling along at any moment. The falling snow was the
wet, plastering kind. He was getting cold and he wanted to stand
and warm himself. But for now he dared not move.

When the dark time was near, he decided to stand. Heavy
snow was falling. The snowflakes came tumbling out of the sky
like swarms of white moths. Mattie would leave and find a place
to spend the night and return in the morning. If he discovered the
bear had entered the den during the night, he would rouse it out
and shoot it. It was a simple enough plan.

He stepped quietly from his cover and brushed away some of
the snow from his clothing. His shoulders and knees were getting
wet. His step was soundless in the wet snow, and walking over to
the hoard of debris, he crept over it and bent over, peering down
into the cave. Like the last time he had been here, he couldn't see
much of anything.

His curiosity got the better of him. Laying down his gun and
facing the cave entrance, he wormed his long body inside. The
musky bear smell was almost overpowering. But another of his
senses warned him too late—the unmistakable feeling of sudden
warmth. The bear was inside! And following that realization,
into Mattie's view came a wide, brown, snuffling nose cradled
between a set of long and sharp, dirty-white claws.

The bear spat a deep, gruff warning from between its teeth as
it coughed Mattie's hated man-smell out of its sensitive, flaring
nostrils. The whites of its eyes rolled in disbelief at what it saw.
Mattie knew he was in deep trouble. He squirmed backwards like
a crab caught on a hot beach at low tide. His coat caught and
rolled up over his back. His hat came off.

He pushed clear of the narrow opening and thrust himself to
a standing position, gun in hand, when the bear came roaring out
of the hole and lunged at him. From waist high Mattie pointed the
gun at the black mass and pulled the trigger.

His finger stalled on the cold, unresisting steel. Mattie realized
in disbelief that the gun was not at full cock. He hauled the hammer
all the way back and heard the distinctive click as the hammer
went into “full dog.” The huge bear was directly above him.

Mattie stumbled backwards over the heap. Mid-fall, he
pointed the muzzle up at the heaving animal's chest and yanked
the trigger again. The rifle roared out its bullet. The bear's dense,
black hide muffled the report. It dropped, spread-eagled, upon
Mattie, and its clawed feet scrambled for purchase.

Its front paws were on the ground just beyond Mattie's
shoulders, but its hind feet had landed fully upon his upper
thighs. For what seemed like an eternity, the bear's undersides
mashed against his face. The stench of its hide filled his nose and
the long, stiff hair filled his mouth. He couldn't breathe. Then
there came a terrible pressure against his right thigh as the animal
scrambled once again for footing. For a second he thought he was
free . . . but then the bear fell again.

The animal's heavy, swaying hindquarters barely cleared
Mattie's head. When it collapsed again its two back claws lay
in twitching spasms on each of Mattie's shoulders. He felt a
hot liquid spray over his left shoulder and thought it was blood.
However, it smelled acrid and musky. The bear's bladder muscles
had let go.

Mattie twisted away from the weight of the beat's hindquarters
and got on his knees. He pulled the long, empty casing out of the
gun. Realizing he had lost the bullet he had been holding, he
fumbled in his pants pocket for the only one he had left. Then he
realized the bear was not moving. It was dead.

The wind howled down the hills. Mattie staggered back
and sat on the pile of refuse the bear had gathered to cover its
den. A shudder of fear washed over him. It was the first time he
had experienced such a feeling. He had played a part in many
dangerous situations in the wilderness, but none of them had
brought him as close to dying as this one. It suddenly came to
him that his stumbling over the pile had saved his life. The mess
of sticks and earth had broken the bear's first terrible lunge.

And as suddenly as the fearful feeling had come, it left him
and he was his old practical, thinking self again. Then he felt a
trickle of blood running down his right leg. The bear had torn
what felt like several long, deep gashes into the upper muscle of
his thigh. He felt a burning sensation that quickly graduated to a
painful throb. Mattie took a careful look at the bear to make sure
it was dead. Its hairy black hide was turning white with snow.

Mattie was wet and cold. He had a bad wound that needed
attention and no shelter from the night blizzard that was upon
him. And then he thought of the warm, dry bear den.

The bear was a very large male, or what Mattie called “The
Dog.” There would be no other bears coming close to its den.
And so, with the common sense and simple at-hand solutions that
were his trademark, Mattie Mitchell slowly squirmed his way
into the hole in the rocks that the bear had so quickly vacated.

Once inside the initial opening he discovered the place was
fairly large, or at least what he could see of it in the murky
darkness. He reached all around and above his head and judged
the cave to be several feet wide and close to five feet high, and
while he would not be able to stand, he could sit up comfortably.

His first need was a fire. His leg caused him a great deal of
pain after the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. He crawled back
to the opening and began tearing at the debris. It was surprisingly
easy.

Digging through it, he found plenty of seasoned wood. There
were dozens of pieces of birch bark, the best of fire starters. This
place had obviously been occupied by bears for a long time. The
pile of wood and earth was much deeper than it had appeared.
Despite the high wind and falling snow, it only took him a few
minutes to get a fire started at the cave entrance, and before long
the flames flickered inside, serving to warm and cheer him up.

The tear in his pant leg was small and would be easily mended,
but his leg would need much attention. By the scant light of the
fire he inspected the wound. He was surprised to see that his skin
had been punctured in only two places. One of the cuts was much
deeper and longer than the other.

Ignoring the searing pain that was increasing by the minute,
he made his way back to the opening. By the light of the fire,
he broke off several branches of the young fir trees the bear had
hauled near to its dwelling place. Back inside, he cut the branches
into manageable pieces. He was pleased to see the tree had many
small myrrh bladders on it. Holding them over his wounds, he
drained the sticky contents of a few of the bladders directly into
both of the cuts. He winced a bit when the cold myrrh contacted
his open wounds, but he smeared the sticky substance all over
them anyway.

Peeling several strips from the tree branches, he wound their
white, silky-smooth inner bark—with the smooth side against
his wounds—around his leg, covering the cuts completely. He
tucked the strip ends, one beneath the other, without using a knot.
He wished he had more myrrh, but for now it would have to do.

Looking around his shelter, he could see that it was not as
spacious as he had at first assumed, but it would suit his purpose
just fine. It was amazingly clean. He was fairly warm. He had
gotten used to the bear smell. A nest of grass and bark at the end
farthest from the opening was where the bear had prepared its
bed. It took up most of the entire back end of the cave. Mattie had
not gotten a good look at the animal, but he knew for certain this
was no ordinary bear.

That night, and for two more nights, Mattie Mitchell stayed
near the dead bear's lair. For two of those days it snowed without
letting up. He managed to gut and skin the bear, and when he laid
the rich black hide out on the snow, he looked at it in disbelief.
He lay down beside it and discovered it was much taller than he.

Mattie nursed his wound and feasted. He ate the heart and
liver and kidneys of the bear first. He cut prime strips from high
on its back bone and roasted them over his fire.

In the clear, cold dawn of the fourth day, he made his way
back to his camp. It was a laborious trip for him, due as much to
travelling over the deep snow without snowshoes as to his injured
thigh. But just as night slid down from the hills, Mattie Mitchell
walked into his wigwam with dark on his shoulder.

It took him two more trips with his komatik to get the bear
carcass and the heavy hide home. The torn flesh in his thigh
healed perfectly, but the scars from the biggest bear he had ever
hunted remained with him for the rest of his life.

MATTIE TOLD THE STORY OF HIS GREATEST
bear hunt to
enthusiastic children in his village many times. But the story was
never told with so much passion as it was by another man, many
years after the old woodsman had died.

This man sat in a creaking rocking chair in the warmth of
his kitchen. Sitting across from him, his young son listened
spellbound. The boy strained to hear every last word. When the
father had finished the story, he looked into the blue eyes of his
only son and suddenly realized something.

When Mattie Mitchell had told that story so long ago, the
white boy had sneaked up behind the fence, unbeknownst to his
stern mother, and, with his ear close to the rotting pickets, had
heard every word the hunter had said.

What he had just realized as he looked at the intent face of his
son was, on that evening so long ago, he did not have to strain to
hear Mattie's story. Mattie had talked loudly that evening. It was
just not something the Indian did. Mattie Mitchell had known the
white boy was listening and had spoken loud enough for him to
hear.

The man, whose yellow hair was now grey, reached out and,
placing his hand on the boy's shoulder, said, “I hope you will
always see the true colour of a man, my son. Time for bed now.”

And then the boy ran across the floor, his yellow hair bouncing.
Turning at the foot of the stairs, he said, “Good night, Pop,” and
the man in the suddenly silent rocking chair said, “Good night,
Matthew.”

MATTIE WAS A MAN OF MANY TALES
. He especially loved
telling his wilderness stories to children, white or native. They
were always a willing audience who never interrupted. He seldom
told his stories to the elders of his own people, and never to the
adult white people.

There was one story, though, which he told to no one but
the Mi'kmaq children. Whenever he told it, he always told it in
the only language in which it had been told to him, the ancient
Mi'kmaq. He always started the tale by telling the youngsters
how and where he had heard the story.

He was only a boy then, he said, and the only child his
parents ever had. His father was still alive but very sick. When
the children learned that Mattie had been a boy himself when
he had first heard the tale, they gathered around his feet. They
seemed to be listening with their eyes, which stared at the hunter
without blinking, as if by doing so they would miss something.

“My father ver' sick man. He cough ver' much,” he said.
“Ol' ones come with ver' much medicine for 'im. Dey sit long
time in wigwam. Dey tell many yarns. But dis yarn dey tell
only in nighttime 'round campfire. Dey never tell to white man.
White man never believe dis story.” Mattie looked all around as
if checking to see if there were any white adults present before
continuing.

It was a story about a Beothuk hunter and warrior. Bukashaman
was a young Beothuk Indian from the “Red Pond.” The Mi'kmaq
called him Buka.

Buka had lain with a very pretty woman of his own tribe. She
was called Tehobosheen or Tehonee. The couple had a girl child
they named Kuisduit. Tehonee called their daughter Kuise, but
Buka always called his pretty daughter Small One. She never
lived long enough to be called anything else. Both little Kuise
and her mother, Tehonee, were killed on a beach by the white
man's guns. Their cruel deaths changed Buka from a peaceful
hunter to a fierce, vengeful warrior.

Mattie remembered where he had heard the tale first. It was on
the sandy shores deep in the bay the white men called Halls Bay.
The wigwam they lived in had only recently been built above the
beach at the edge of the forest. His father had moved with his
family as far away from the few white settlers as he could get
when the sickness came. It was the white man's disease, he said.

It was summertime, the time of gathering riches from the blue
sea. His father planned to move farther inland when the leaves
turned. He did not make it, Mattie said, but died in a bout of
coughing a few days later.

His father's cough had been strangely silent during this story's
telling, Mattie said. The old man who told the tale stood in their
wigwam and with much shadowed gesticulations told the tale
that had been heard and told again and again, passed on beside
countless campfires. He began by describing in great detail what
happened when Buka saw his very first white man.

FROM THE CORNER OF THE DENSE WOODS
, Buka stared at
the strange men. Most of them had ugly hair on their faces and
from here he could smell their terrible odour. Their heads were
covered with a black, shapeless garment that hung over their ears
and partially covered their hair. This tangled mess that grew to
their shoulders and covered some of their faces was of different
colours and not at all like the red men.

One stranger's hair was the colour of dead grass, while
another's was almost the deep red of the ochre that Buka wore on
his skin. He stared at this one the longest, wondering where he
had found the precious dye, and why he would shade his unruly
hair with it. The redheaded man also had blotches of the red mud
on his otherwise white face, as if he had run out of the dye before
he could completely cover his face, which, unlike the other men,
was hairless.

Their huge
tapoteek
were drawn close to the rough shore and
were fastened with long, braided strands the likes of which he
had never seen. The boats themselves were not made of bark,
but of wood. This he could determine from his vantage point.
The newcomers were full of mystery and carried themselves
with an arrogant and carefree demeanour. They were living on
the Beothuk land without permission and yet posted no guard,
nor, from what Buka could see, showed any concern for their
surroundings.

One man stood apart from the others. He was beardless and
carried himself differently. His eyes scanned the woods in a
searching stare and, once, his gaze fell across the low clump of
trees where the red man lay hidden. But the white man didn't see
anything and soon returned to the noisy group. Buka stared long
and hard at this tall, lean man and decided that he must be their
chief.

The red hunter crept closer to a better vantage point. Holding
still and motionless, he watched and waited. Presently, one of
the heavily clothed men emerged from the nearby log structure.
The solid wood opening that he stepped through squealed at his
appearance and complained even louder when he closed the door
behind him. This man was almost as tall as the observant one
and, although he wore a long, grey, grizzled beard, he resembled
the other clean-shaven one in his long stride and commanding
attitude.

At a rough command from this man, one of the other men
walked briskly to the shoreline and stepped lively out over a
short, log-built wharf where the big boat bobbed on its painter.
Leaning against the rope, he pulled the vessel closer to the crude
dock and jumped aboard. Buka was amazed to see the boat barely
move at such an indignity, a motion that would have sunk and
probably destroyed his own
tapoteek
.

The white man bent below the gunnels of the boat and soon
stood erect again, holding a large fish in each hand. He threw
both fish onto the deck of the wharf. Again and again he repeated
the work, now using a long handle with a sharp, curved end,
pronging the fish in their white stomachs. He sometimes flung
two and three at once upon the narrow log surface. As the hunter
watched, his mouth watered for the delicious codfish that lay on
the wharf before him. Never had he seen so many
bobusowet
at
one time.

Soon the boat was emptied and the fisherman joined the
others on the shore. Now the work of cleaning the catch began
in earnest. There was a short, rectangular table set up, made of
small, round logs. Onto this the fat fish were placed one by one.
Using a long, shiny knife, one of the men eviscerated the large
bobusowet
. He pulled the twin white livers from the dead fish
and threw them into a puncheon nearby. The stench of the livers
fermenting in the huge barrel stirred anew with each addition.

Another, shorter man, his face hidden by a tangle of dried,
grass-coloured hair, seized the gutted cod and placed his left
hand on the open breast of the fish, his right hand holding its head
below the sharpened edge of the table. With one of his thumbs
and one of his fingers poked into the eye sockets of the fish,
he gave a quick, violent push, one hand against the other, and
removed the head before throwing it back in the water. Here the
raucous seagulls swooped and dipped and fought over the offal,
their cries filling the narrow cove.

The tall, clean-faced man was next to grasp the fish. Using a
shorter, slightly curved knife, he removed the long backbone in
three clean sweeps of his blade. The red man's curiosity knew no
bounds. More than anything, the Beothuk was fascinated with
the knives and their unbelievable sharpness. He leaned so far out
of his hiding place to better see the wondrous knives that, if the
strangers had been watching, he would have been seen.

For more than two hours he watched these strange men with
the pale skin clean the huge catch of fish. When they had finished
and had thrown all the entrails into the sea at their feet, they
removed the fish, glistening with sea water, from the great round,
wooden, water-filled vat.

As he watched, the men carried layers of the split cod into
a three-walled lean-to nearby. From his position he could see
inside this crude structure, which was close to his hiding place.
Placing the fish on the lungered floor, one of the men brought
forth, from a small barrel inside, buckets of a white, granular
substance which he proceeded to fling over the bodies of the
spread cod without cease until they were completely covered.

Their rough voices came to him easily, some of them high-pitched and squeaky and others deep and growly. Not at all like
the language of the true people.

Why would men in heavy, smelly clothes do such a thing?
To catch and carefully clean more cod than he had ever seen in
one place, only to cover them with a coarse white sand? The cod
his people managed to catch they hung over the smoke fires and
cured to a delicious taste that always gave them energy and full
bellies. Looking at the gulls screaming and feeding on the guts of
the fish, Buka's mouth watered for all the sweet-tasting hearts the
white men had so carelessly discarded. They were a delicacy and
were best eaten raw, fresh out of the still-wriggling fish.

To further amaze the Indian, the noisy men strode away from
their fish-cleaning place and left their shiny knives stuck in the
wooden table. He couldn't believe that such treasures would
be left unguarded. His own knife never left his side and he was
always conscious of it. His very survival depended on it.

The night crept in over the grey sea in ever-deepening
shadows on the still bay, until the land across the quite cove was
black, with only a faint glow from the dying day left on the water.
Soon, that last vestige of the light that had been, was gone and
the cove was filled with night. Small, sighing waves touched and
whispered around the rocks.

The stars appeared as if by magic, until the sky was filled
with their wonder, and still Buka waited. The noise inside the log
dwelling finally quieted. Countless moths and mosquitoes flew
toward a small light inside, which had dimmed until it gave no
useful light at all. Heavy snores followed out through the chinks
of the poorly built shack where the invaders slept.

Leaving his cramped hiding place, he ran silently along the
beach near the water's edge. He stayed crouched over in a quiet
jog until he arrived at the foul-smelling wharf. Stopping and
listening, he watched the effervescent remains of the cod entrails
swaying back and forth with the silent tide. Small splashes broke
the water surface as hidden night fishes closed in on the offal. His
muscles had relaxed with the short sprint along the beach, and
now he sprang up onto the surface of the log wharf in as graceful
and fluid a motion as that of a lynx.

Bent over, he remained motionless, waiting for signs of
discovery. There were none, only the small lops against the rickety
pier beneath his feet and a few muffled snores in the distance.
Two steps more and still bent over, he was beside the small table.
Pieces of cod guts hung over the edge and dark blotches of blood
stained its surface. It smelled terrible.

He reached up over the table's edge and with both hands
pulled the two shiny knives from the sodden, musty wood. He
couldn't believe it had been so easy. The feel of the knives in his
hand fascinated him. He instinctively knew their worth. Holding
them by their smooth, wooden handles, he crept in over the shaky,
lungered wharf until he was once again on the land and closer to
the sleeping strangers.

The smell of the stacked fish in the small shelter drew him.
He paused and forced himself to listen once again. The night was
still. The sleeping white men inside the big log mamateek were
oblivious to their stealthy night visitor.

Reaching the tier of stacked
bobusowet
, he almost retched at
the strong smell. But his curiosity prevailed and, reaching down,
Buka grabbed one of the fish by the tail and pulled it free from
its salty bed.

Back along the shingled beach, he ran, both knives in his
right hand and the white-coated cod dripping in his left. When
he had cleared the beach and had gone for several minutes more
into the shrouded forest, he stopped to inspect his good fortune.

The knives he tossed from hand to hand, their balance and
the feel of them a pure joy to his hunter's soul. He tested them
against the tree bark, peeling the rough spruce bark effortlessly.
He could only imagine the ease with which he could clean an
animal with such a tool, although the curved knife puzzled him.
Maybe it was only used to cut the big bone from the
bobusowet
,
a practice he had never seen before.