The Sign of the Beaver

by Elizabeth George Speare

  Matt tried to find a reason for Attean's silence. "If it hadn't been for me," he asked, "would you have gone on the deer hunt with the men?"

  Attean did not like the question. "Not take me," he admitted finally. "I not have gun."

  "You're a good shot with a bow and arrow."

  Attean scowled. "That old way," he said. "Good for children. Indian hunt now with white man's gun. Someday my grandfather buy me gun. Need many beaver skins. Beaver not so many now."

  "I know guns cost a lot," Matt said. "I'll have to wait a good while for another one myself." Attean had long since heard the story of Ben's visit.

  "White man can buy with money," Attean said. "Indian not have money. One time plenty wampum. Now wampum no good to pay for gun."

  There was bitterness in Attean's voice. Matt understood now why Attean had defended the beaver dam so fiercely. Was it true that beaver were getting scarce? Matt thought of the village they had just left, how very poor it seemed, how few possessions the Indians could boast. For the first time Matt glimpsed how it might be for them, watching their old hunting grounds taken over by white settlers and by white traders demanding more skins than the woods could provide. As they set off through the forest he tried to think of a way to lift Attean's gloom.

  "That was a mighty fine feast," he said. "And I was glad to see where you live. I'd like to go there again someday."

  Attean's scowl only deepened. "My grandmother not want you come to feast," he said finally. "My grandfather say you must. She say you not sleep in her house."

  "Oh," said Matt lamely, his own pleasure suddenly dimmed. So many things were suddenly clear to him: why he had been left alone to sleep in the empty wigwam; why Attean had hurried him away so abruptly this morning. Attean had been caught in a family argument and was annoyed about it.

  "My grandmother hate all white men," Attean said.

  When Matt could find nothing to answer, Attean went on. "White man kill my mother. She go out with two squaw to find bark for make basket. White man come through woods and shoot with gun. My mother do them no harm. We no longer at war with white men. Just same they kill for get scalp. White men get money for Indian scalp. Even scalp of children."

  Matt's indignant protest never got past his throat. He remembered that it was true, or had been a long time ago. He had heard that during the war the Massachusetts governor had offered a bounty for Indian scalps. Attean must have been a very small child.

  "My father go out on war trail," Attean said. "He go to find white man who killed my mother. He not come back."

  Matt was speechless. He had never dreamed that anything like this lay behind Attean's carefree life. He had never wondered about Attean's parents at all, only accepted without question that the boy followed his grandfather and obeyed him.

  "No wonder she hates us," he said at last. "Terrible things always happen when there's a war—on both sides. You've got to admit, Attean, that there was a reason. The Indians did the same thing to white settlers. The white women were afraid to go outside their cabins."

  "Why white men make cabins on Indian hunting grounds?"

  Matt had no answer to that. It was no use, he thought. The war with the French was over. The Indians and the English had made peace. But the hatred—would that ever be over? For all he and Attean walked through the woods together, there was a wall between them that Attean would never forget. In sudden panic he thought of his own mother. Was it right for his father to bring her to this place?

  "Does your grandfather hate us too?" he asked.

  Attean did not answer at first. Finally he said, "My grandfather say Indian must learn to live with white man."

  It was not the answer Matt had hoped for. But Saknis had said he must come to the feast. In spite of the grandmother, Saknis had made him welcome.

  "When my father comes," he said, "I want him to know your grandfather. I think they would like each other."

  Attean did not answer, and they walked on in silence. Discomforted, Matt turned his attention to the trail they were following. Presently he recognized the unmistakable carving of a little animal cut into the bark of a tree. But when he turned to Attean to boast of his recognition, he was silenced by the darkness in Attean's eyes. Instead, without speaking, he studied the signs they passed. He marked fallen trees pointing along the path, small piles of stones, and, wherever the trail seemed to vanish, he discovered on a tree the sign of the beaver. When they came out at last on a trail he knew well, he marked carefully the spot where the two trails met. Why, he thought in sudden excitement, I could actually find my way to that village. I'm sure I could. But he did not share his thought with Attean. He knew that unless Attean took him there he could never go to that village again. Saknis had only invited him to the feast out of kindness, or perhaps out of fairness for his small share in killing the bear. Would he ever be given another chance?

  CHAPTER 18

  OVER AND OVER, THOUGH HE KNEW THE NUMBER only too well, Matt counted his notched sticks. He kept hoping he had made a mistake. Always they were the same. Ten sticks. That meant that August had long since gone by. He couldn't remember exactly how many days belonged to each month, but any way he reckoned it the month of September must be almost over. He only needed to look about him. The maple trees circling the clearing flamed scarlet. The birches and aspens glowed yellow, holding a sunlight of their own even on misty days. The woods had become quieter. Jays still screamed at him, and chickadees twittered softly in the trees, but the songbirds had disappeared. Twice he had heard a faraway trumpeting and had seen long straggles of wild geese like trailing smoke high in the air, moving south. In the morning, when he stepped out of the cabin, the frosty air nipped his nose. The noonday was warm as midsummer, but when he came inside at dusk he hurried to stir up the fire. There was a chilliness inside him as well that neither the sun nor the fire ever quite reached. It seemed to him that day by day the shadow of the forest moved closer to the cabin.

  Why was his family so late in coming?

  He was troubled too because the autumn weather seemed to have brought about a restlessness in Attean. There were days when the Indian boy did not come. He never offered a word of explanation. After a day or two he would simply walk into the cabin and sit down at the table. He rarely suggested that they hunt or fish together. Day after day Matt tramped the woods alone, trying to shake the doubts that walked beside him like his own shadow.

  As he walked, Matt was careful to cut blazes in the bark of trees. They gave him courage to walk farther into the forest than he had ever dared before, since he was sure of finding his way back to the cabin. He also watched for Indian signs, and sometimes he was sure he had detected one. One day, looking up, he saw on a nearby tree the sign of the turtle. Time to turn back, he told himself. He felt secure now in the territory of the beaver, but he wasn't so certain that a strange people would welcome a white trespasser.

  As he started to retrace his steps, he heard, some distance away, the sharp, high-pitched yelp of a dog. It didn't sound threatening, but neither did it sound like the happy, excited bark of a hound that had scented a rabbit. It sounded almost like the scream of a child. When it came again, it died away into a low whining, and he remembered the trapped fox.

  Attean had warned him to have nothing to do with a turtle trap. But he hesitated, and the sound came again. No matter what Attean had told him, he could not bring himself to walk away from that sound. Warily, he made his way through the brush.

  It was a dog, a scrawny Indian dog, dirt-caked and bloody. As Matt moved closer he saw, through the blood, the white streak down the side of its face, then the chewed ear and the stubby porcupine quills. Only one dog in the world looked like that. It was caught by its foreleg, just as the fox had been, and it was frantic with pain and fear. Its eyes were glazed, and white foam dripped from its open jaws. Matt felt his own muscles tense with anger. His mind was made up in an instant. It had been bad enough to leave a fox to suffer. Turtle tribe or no, he was not going to
walk away from Attean's dog. Somehow he had to get that dog out of the trap.

  But how? As he bent down, the dog snapped at him so ferociously that he jumped back. Even if it recognized him, Attean's dog had never learned to trust him. Now it was too crazed to understand that Matt meant to help. Matt set his teeth and stooped again. This time he got his hands on the steel bands of the trap and gave a tug. With a deep growl, the dog snapped at him again. Matt started, scraping his hand against the steel teeth. He leaped to his feet and stared at the red gash that ran from his knuckles to his wrist. It was no use, he realized. There was no way he could get that trap open with the dog in this maddened state. Somehow he would have to find Attean.

  He began to run through the forest, back over the way he had come, back along the trails he knew, searching his memory for the signs he remembered that led to the Indian village. Luck was with him. There was the sign of the beaver cut into a tree, and here were the fallen logs. He was never absolutely sure, but he knew he walked in the right direction, and after nearly an hour, to his great relief, he came out on the shore of the river. There was no canoe waiting, as there had been when Attean had led him there. But the river was narrow, and placid. Thank goodness he had grown up near the ocean, and his father had taken him swimming from the time he could walk. He left his moccasins hidden under a bush and plunged in. In a few moments he came out, dripping, within sight of the stockade.

  He was greeted by a frenzied barking of dogs. They burst through the stockade and rushed toward him, halting only a few feet away, menacing him so furiously that he dared not take another step. Behind them came a group of girls who quieted the dogs with shrill cries and blows.

  "I have come for Attean," Matt said, when he could make himself heard.

  The girls stared at him. Tired, wet, and ashamed of showing his fear of the dogs, Matt could not summon up any politeness or dignity. "Attean," he repeated impatiently.

  One girl, bolder than the others, answered him, flaunting her knowledge of the white man's language. "Attean not here," she told him.

  "Then Saknis."

  "Saknis not here. All gone hunt."

  Desperately Matt seized his only remaining chance. "Attean's grandmother," he demanded. "I must see her."

  The girls looked at each other uneasily. Matt pulled back his shoulders and tried to put into his voice the stern authority that belonged to Saknis. "It is important," he said. "Please show me where to find her."

  Amazingly, his blustering had an effect. After some whispering, the girls moved back out of his way.

  "Come," the leading girl ordered, and he followed her through the gate.

  He was not surprised that she led him straight to the most substantial cabin in the clearing. He had recognized on the night of the feast that Saknis was a chief. Now facing him in the doorway was a figure even more impressive than the old man. She was an aging woman, gaunt and wrinkled, but still handsome. Her black braids were edged with white. She stood erect, her lips set in a forbidding line, her eyes brilliant, with no hint of welcome. Could he make her understand? Matt wondered in confusion.

  "I'm sorry, ma'am," he began. "I know you don't want me to come here. I need help. Attean's dog is caught in a trap, a steel trap. I tried to open it, but the dog won't let me near it."

  The woman stared at him. He could not tell whether she had understood a word. He started to speak again, when the deerskin curtain was pushed aside and a second figure stood in the doorway. It was a girl, with long black braids hanging over her shoulders. She was dressed in blue, with broad bands of red and white beading. Strange, Matt thought, how much alike they looked, the old woman and the girl, standing side by side so straight and proud.

  "Me Marie, sister of Attean," the girl said in a soft, low voice. "Grandmother not understand. I tell what you say."

  Matt repeated what he had said and then waited impatiently while she spoke to her grandmother. The woman listened. Finally her grim lips parted in a single scornful phrase.

  "Aremus piz wat" she said. Good-for-nothing dog.

  Matt's awe vanished in anger. "Tell her maybe it is good for nothing," he ordered the girl. "Attean is fond of it. And it's hurt, hurt bad. We've got to get it out of that trap."

  There was distress in the girl's eyes as she turned again to her grandmother. He could see that she was pleading, and that in spite of herself the old woman was relenting. After a few short words, the girl went into the cabin and came back in a moment holding in her hand a large chunk of meat, a small blanket folded over her arm.

  "Me go with you," she said. "Dog know me."

  In his relief, Matt forgot the torn hand he had been holding behind him. Instantly the old woman moved forward and snatched at it. Her eyes questioned him.

  "It's nothing," he said hastily. "I almost got the trap open."

  She gave his arm a tug, commanding him to follow her.

  "There isn't time," he protested.

  She silenced him with a string of words of which he understood only the scornful piz wat.

  "She say dog not go away," the girl explained. "Better you come. Trap maybe make poison."

  Having no choice, Matt followed them into the cabin. He saw now that the woman's straight posture had been a matter of pride. She was really very lame, and stooped as she walked ahead of him. While she busied herself over the fire, he sat obediently on a low platform and looked about him. He was astonished that the little room, strange, and so unlike his mother's kitchen, seemed beautiful. It was very clean. The walls were lined with birchbark and hung with woven mats and baskets of intricate design. The air was sweet with fresh grasses spread on the earth floor.

  Without speaking, the woman tended him, washing his hand with clean warm water. From a painted gourd she scooped a pungent-smelling paste and spread it over the wound, then bound his hand with a length of clean blue cotton.

  "Thank you," Matt said when she had finished. "It feels better."

  She dismissed him with a grunting imitation of Saknis's "Good." The girl, who had been watching, moved swiftly to the door. As Matt rose to follow her, the grandmother held out to him a slab of corn bread. He had not realized how hungry he was, and he accepted it gratefully.

  The girl took the lead, brushing aside the curious children and the still-suspicious dogs. At the river's edge she untied a small canoe, and Matt stepped into it, thankful that his half-dried clothes would not have to be drenched again. Once on the forest trail, she set the pace, and he did not find it easy to keep up with her swift, silent stride. She was so like Attean, though lighter and more graceful.

  After a time, Matt ventured to break the silence. "You speak good English," he said.

  "Attean tell me about you," she answered. "You tell him good story."

  "Attean didn't tell me he had a sister."

  The girl laughed. "Attean think squaw girl not good for much," she said. "Attean only like to hunt."

  "I have a sister too," he told her. "She's coming soon."

  "What she name?"

  "Sarah. She's younger than you. But Marie isn't an Indian name, is it?" Matt asked.

  "Is Christian name. Me baptized by father."

  Attean had never mentioned a priest either, but Matt knew that the French Jesuits had lived with the Indians here in Maine long before the English settlers came.

  "When my sister comes, will you come with Attean to see her?" he asked.

  "It might be so," she answered politely. She sounded as though it never would be.

  At last they heard the yelping just ahead of them and they both began to run. Even in his terror, the dog recognized the girl, and greeted her with a frantic beating of his tail. He gulped at the meat she held out to him. But he still would not let either of them touch the trap. The girl had come prepared for this, and she unfolded the blanket she had carried, threw it over the dog's head, and gathered the folds behind him. With surprising strength, she held the struggling bundle tightly in her arms while Matt took the trap in both hands an
d slowly forced the jaws open. In a moment the dog was free, escaping the blanket, bounding away from them on three legs, the fourth paw dangling at an odd angle.

  "I'm afraid it's broken," Matt said. He was still breathing hard from that last run and from the effort of tugging those steel jaws apart.

  "Attean mend," the girl said, folding up the blanket as calmly as though she were simply tidying up a cabin.

  The dog hobbled slowly after them along the trail, lying down now and then to lick at the bleeding paw. They made slow progress, and now that the worry was over Matt was aware how tired he was. It seemed as though he had been walking back and forth over that trail all day, and the way to the village seemed endless. He was thankful when, halfway to the river, he saw Attean approaching swiftly along the trail.

  "My grandmother send me," he explained. "You get dog out?"

  "I couldn't do it alone," Matt admitted.

  Attean stood watching as the dog came limping toward him. "Dog very stupid," he said. "No good for hunt. No good for smell turtle smell. What for I take back such foolish dog?"

  His harsh words did not fool Matt for a moment. Nor did they fool the dog. The scruffy tail thumped joyfully against the earth. The brown eyes looked up at the Indian boy with adoration. Attean reached into his pouch and brought out a strip of dried meat. Then he bent and very gently took the broken paw into his hands.

  CHAPTER 19

  "GRANDMOTHER SAY YOU COME TO VILLAGE TODAY," Attean announced two days later.

  "That's kind of her," Matt answered. "But my hand is just about healed. It doesn't need any more medicine."

  "Not for medicine."

  Matt waited uncertainly.

  "My grandmother very surprise white boy go long way for Indian dog," Attean explained. "She say you welcome."

  So once again Matt crossed the river into the Indian stockade. This time, though the dogs barked at him and children stared and giggled, he did not feel so much like a stranger. Saknis held out a hand of welcome. Attean's grandmother did not exactly smile, but her thin lips were less grim. Behind her, Attean's sister smiled but did not speak. The old woman dipped a clamshell ladle into a kettle and filled three bowls with a stew of fish and corn, then drew back while Attean and Saknis and Matt ate their meal in silence. Neither she nor Marie ate till the men were finished.