Mattie Mitchell

by Gary Collins

  Some of the winter snows had fallen among the boulders, but several feet of them remained visible. This furrow had taken more than its share of drifting snow. It took a while before he found the den opening, so carefully was it hidden. The bear had walked around the site many times before it had finally left the area. Its tracks were everywhere. The smell gave its den site away. It was a heady, musky odour like no other. It wasn’t a sharp, tangy, eye-burning scent like castor, or the throat-sticking gland smell from the stag caribou that could sometimes be confused for another animal. This was a strong smell that a man would never forget as being “bear smell.”

  To get out of its winter home, the bear had pushed aside a mix of boughs and sticks, clumps of moss, and straggly yellow grasses, all of which it had pulled over the opening just before last winter’s big snowfall. The “doorway” was big enough for Mattie to squeeze through on his belly, but the debris the bear had piled up in front of the den allowed very little light in, and Mattie wriggled back out without getting a good look inside.

  Standing up, he studied the way he had come while following the bear’s tracks. He would not be returning to his camp the same way.

  Walking down over the rock avalanche, he stopped and looked around. He would come back in late autumn to hunt the bear. He knew that if he came back here again and there was little or no snow at all, the place would look much different. Turning his head slowly, he took in every detail of the place. And then he walked back to his wigwam.

  In the early days of the next trapping season, Mattie set out for the bear den. The sky looked like a storm was brewing. He hoped he had timed it right. The going was much harder than it had been in the spring. He walked in a straight line as much as the terrain allowed. Twice he had to veer away from his course to get around small ponds that had not frozen solidly enough for safe travel. By late evening he reached the talus slope below the cave where the bear had sheltered from the freezing cold of the winter past.

  Mattie wondered if his long walk had been in vain. Maybe the bear had not returned here this year. If it had, it would be days before the animal decided to enter the den. But a heavy snowstorm this time of year would decide for the bear, and the sky looked ready to snow. Mattie had seen the big bears foraging for food even in mid-January. However, when a big snow came and made food hard to find, even this early in the season, they always “denned up.”

  Mattie was prepared to wait. He wanted to catch the bear near its den. During his walk he had crushed the green needles of the white spruce into his hands and smeared their pungent scent all over his clothing several times. It was his proven method of approaching game undetected.

  He would have to be extremely wary. Black bears had poor eyesight, but their sense of hearing and their incredible sense of smell more than compensated for that. They could detect and identify the wind-borne scent of food miles away. They especially hated the smell of humans, and when they sensed it they made every effort to avoid its source.

  The full carcass of an adult black bear would keep Mattie in fat for frying and tallow for light, and proved a ready supply of delicious meat for most of the winter. The animal’s fur, which would now be at its prime, was another bonus. For now, though, Mattie wanted bear meat. He loved the taste of it.

  Mattie knew the bear would disappear inside its den for the winter after the first big snow. He knew of white trappers who shot the bears, males and nursing females alike, while they slept inside their caves. But Mattie Mitchell always called it the coward’s way of hunting, and he was no coward.

  He decided not to climb the scree slope. To do so quietly would be difficult, and if the bear was in the area, an unusual sound would alert it and make it that much more vigilant. Mattie knew no one had been here since he had left several months ago. He hoped the bear was feeling safe and, with a full belly, lethargic.

  Downwind and off to the side of the talus was a thick copse which he hoped would conceal him on his way up to the ledge. When he approached it he found it did indeed provide some cover. This was a much easier way up over the ridge.

  But the bear had thought so, too. Twisting its way through the gnarled brush and tangled trees was its well-used trail. It wasn’t easy going for a man of Mattie’s height. The bear, walking on all fours, had fashioned a trail fairly close to the ground. Besides, Mattie considered, he would surely leave his man scent, no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. He decided to abandon this course of action.

  It was hard, slow going, but he stealthily made his way up through the ravine, parallel to the bear lead. The low scrub spruce and thorny bushes struggled for growth beneath short, twisted, naked yellow birches. Here in the relative shelter of the cliff there was no more than a skim of snow.

  The floor of the steep ravine was strewn with rocks of all sizes, with only a sparse layer of wet, clinging soil. This was a snarly, tangled place to get through quietly, but he finally reached the edge of the boulder train above, where no trees grew.

  At first he thought he had been mistaken as he peered carefully out of his cover. When he had been here last there had been at least seven feet of snow on the ground. The place looked different now, as he knew it would. But then he smelled the heady bear odour, and with his nose directing him, he saw the den’s opening.

  The hole between the tumbled grey boulders looked bigger than it had in the winter. The bear had dragged a pile of debris and spread it all around the entry. Birch trees the thickness of Mattie’s forearm had been broken and chewed off and dragged to the site. Green fir saplings, as well as fir boughs torn from low-hanging trees, last year’s dried boughs with brown needles clinging to them weakly, clumps of yellow-green moss and fallen leaves, mud, and a few rocks littered the area. All was in readiness for the bear to crawl inside, pull the debris over the opening, and rest up for the coming winter.

  This was a cleverly chosen place for the animal to hibernate. The small space between the opening and the gathered refuse was angled toward the den. The beast would merely have to reach out, and with one easy pull, the debris would tumble toward the “doorway.” The falling snow would not only disguise its winter resting place, but seal the bear from the outside world for months.

  All of this Mattie could see from his hidden vantage point. He had seen many such places before, but he had never witnessed such a large pile or such large items comprising such a collection before. This was no ordinary bear! He was sure of it.

  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 bigg
est 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.”

  CHAPTER 6

  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.