The Last Beothuk

by Gary Collins

  But in their winter house, that same season, when Tehonee’s time of bleeding had not come and her soft brown belly swelled with life, she had told Kop the life within her had been conceived in the place of their first loving. And Kop, who knew nothing of the mysterious ways of women, believed her. It came to him now, as he laid his burden down, that here in this place, where he and Tehonee had lavished in love and merged their seed into blessed life, he would, in death, lay down the mother of that life. He glanced at Kuise, who was struggling to get the pack from her shoulders.

  The walk had eased her sorrow some. She staggered as the weight of the load left her thin shoulders. The child was exhausted. Keeping up with her father had taxed her growing limbs. Her father had not spoken to her during the trek. Kuise wondered if he knew that it was she who was the cause of her mother’s death. Her burden numbed her with guilt.

  Kop cut fine inner bark from the white birch trees surrounding the campsite. He stained Tehonee’s body and all of her belongings with red ochre, and she was prepared for burial. She was wrapped with the birchbark, and it was also anointed with the sacred stain. The purging was done, and Tehonee’s body was laid down in the crypt beneath the moving trees. It was the second time in the space of one moon Kop was doing the burial ceremony, this one in silence. He flushed the smoke from the smouldering herbs all around Tehonee’s gravesite, purifying it and preparing her for her sacred afterlife.

  Kop and Kuise talked little. Kop allowed his daughter to help cover her mother’s body with clean stones from the stream and to take part in the ceremony. She placed her mother’s personal objects beside her in the grave: the thong Tehonee wore around her neck, braided with the fine neck hair of a deer fawn, and interlaced with tiny seashells; a small leather pouch of soft rabbit fur filled with goose down, which Tehonee had carried for her menses; and a birchbark basket wonderfully embroidered with bright feathers and a string of black kelp, filled with bone awls and needles and leather and spruce root thread for sewing. Kuise placed the latter by her mother’s right hand, ready for her to use in the spirit world.

  When Kop, on his knees above the grave, began a low, deliberate chanting which called the spirits to come all around, Kuise shivered and was afraid. Her father gave her no comfort. He shed no tears. His face was like stone. Even the songbirds had quieted while Kop delivered his dirge to the four winds. He rose to his feet and motioned with his hand for Kuise to rise also, when the cries began on the pond. Both father and daughter turned toward the sound. It was the mournful cry of the male loon calling as the light faded. As they listened, the bird called once more, long and sorrowing. Then, distinct on the still air, came the pattering sound of the bird leaving the water. The hunter of fish cleared the trees. Then, emitting a magnificent requiem from its fluttering throat, the bird that mated for life flew away. Its cry faded away on the evening air. But no mate flew behind it.

  12

  The next morning, with the sun not even one hand above the glow of the eastern sky, Kop and Kuise abandoned their camp and turned west into the bay splayed with islands, into which the great mother of all rivers poured. Here he would surely find some of his own people. Kuise would be welcome to stay with them, and Kop would return to avenge his wife’s killing.

  Kop and Kuise foraged for food in the bottom of coves, where their tidal pools had been drained by the ebb tides. Snails stuck to boulders, clams dug out of the sand, and mussels in blue beds provided for them. Kuise played with the small, eel-like tansies in her hands and gingerly carried crab to the waiting fire, where they were placed on hot rocks above their cooking fire and held with a stick until their struggles ceased. In the bottom of many muddy coves were squid by the thousands. Beached and stranded on the shore by the receding tide, the squid were dead or dying and easily gathered. Their skins, pulsating in death throes, were a constant change of colour: iridescent green, blue, red, and finally a pallid white. Their boneless flesh was tasty, filling, and easy to cook over an open fire. Their thin white flesh, once cleaned, and spread on rocks, dried in the hot sun and hardened to a tough jerky. Squid were used extensively and chewed for energy while on the trail.

  Kop caught eels with his hands in the streams entering the bay. For this he used the finger grip well practised by his people, from which few eels ever escaped. Eels were prized as much for their elongated skins as they were for their tasty, oily flesh. The tough skins, well cured, had many uses, including for sewing and mending. But now Kop discarded the eel skins. He was neither a mender of rags nor a sewer of clothing. He was a hunter. Kop had taken to eating most of his food raw, and he cooked food more for Kuise than for himself. He was becoming bitter, and not finding more of his kind only angered him more.

  On the outer edge of one point of land known to Kop, where a forest fire had burned to the water’s edge a few years earlier, they feasted on blueberries. The bushes were so heavily laden with the sweet fruit, their branches bulged downwards. There were fields of berries stretching in a blue cast through the white skeletons of trees downed and those still standing. Father and daughter ate until their stool was skittered and blue before moving on.

  Kop expected to find a Beothuk encampment over every point of land and by the side of each stream mouth. In many places he found where his people had been. Mamateeks and meoticks badly in need of repair had not been repaired this season. Rock weirs built in the brooks by the Beothuk, their rock walls overturned by winter ice and spring floods, had not been corrected. No canoe for fishing, or tapooteek used to gather eggs from the offshore islands, were ever seen. On they went into the bay much loved by the Beothuk. Trees were resplendent with autumn colour. Leaves were falling. The nights were colder. The air had that harvest smell loved by all hunters. Schools of spawn-filled salmon waited at the end of this arm of water.

  When they arrived at its wide mouth days later, weary with travel and forlorn with loss, they heard much shouting and excited commotion ahead of them. At first Kop picked up the pace, eager to meet friends. But all too quickly he signalled Kuise to the ground while he stole ahead once more to investigate.

  Peering out from the trees, he looked in disbelief at the scene before him. Far out the bay, and with lines from their bows holding them there, were not one but two ships. The sails that had brought them here were furled. Their poles were naked and tangled with lines. Near the shore and in Kop’s view were many smaller boats. In one of them, men were hauling a net filled with glistening salmon in over its canted gunnels. More salmon than Kop had ever seen caught at one time. The men shouted and called to each other in a language he could not understand. Many of the salmon were as long as Kop’s arm. Those were instantly killed by a blow from a wooden mallet in the hands of the Unwanted Ones. Other, smaller salmon were untangled from the net and thrown carelessly into the bottom of the boat. The boat gunnels ran red with blood and shiny scales.

  Gulls wheeled all around the boats, screeching for scraps of food. The trees above Kop’s head rustled and sighed, shedding their leaves, as low bushes all around shivered and bent lazily in the breeze. Small birds sang and called. A raven, perched on a tree, croaked and clucked as it watched the activity in the bay. A searching crow flying by spotted Kop in hiding and suddenly veered from its intended course. He crouched to the ground, fearing the Unwanted Ones had noticed the sudden change in the bird’s flight.

  But the fishermen took no notice. They were bent on the slaughter of salmon they were pulling from the sea without end. They were landing so many fish, Kop feared the sea would be emptied. The men gathering the salmon were the Unwanted Ones, but two of them were different. Their skin was the colour of Kop’s, without the red paint. One of them wore buckskin. The other was dressed like the Unwanted Ones. They were the only ones among the group whose faces were hairless. The others were bearded. Kop’s pulse raced as he stared, searching for the man with the red beard, but he was not among them. The two who appeared to be Indian did not wor
k at the fishing but acted as guides, pointing to different places in the cove. Kop had seen them before, but farther inland, past the edge of the Beothuks’ traditional hunting and trapping grounds. They were known to be another race of Indian who had travelled here over the great salt sea to the west and were called Mi’kmaq. The white men were obviously making great use of the two. Under their direction, they pulled the nets aboard and headed farther into the mouth of the river.

  All around the shore were the signs of his people having fished for generations. Kop had fished here many times with his own family. Even Kuise knew the coves and runs in the river where the weirs had been built by Beothuk hands. She, too, had played her role in that fishery: running and splashing down the shallow runs, she had crowded the frightened salmon into the waiting traps, where the adults waited with their spears in hand. Now there was no fresh sign of any of his kind. Hungry, and confused by all he had witnessed, Kop made his way back to where Kuise was waiting for him. When she asked when they could go and visit the others, he merely growled in reply and ordered her to follow him. He led her away from the river and up through the forest, where majestic pine trees grew on the side of a hill. There he made camp for the night, and he and his daughter chewed tough strips of squid for their meal.

  Kop watched the foreigners fish the estuary for salmon for three more days. Their greed knew no bounds. The next day, he decided to seek out their night camp. He told Kuise she was to remain in camp and that he would return before the rising sun.

  “You must not disobey, Small One. There is much danger all around us. Keep hidden,” Kop told her firmly.

  “I will not disobey my ewinon. I will remain here and say many se’kos for your safe return,” Kuise answered, her head bowed. She wanted to tell her father her mother had been slain because she hadn’t stayed at the camp, but she was afraid. Disobedience from one as young as Kuise meant severe punishment. She also wished she could hug him, as she had her mother. She had seldom been hugged by her father. When she raised her head again, Kop had already gone and she was alone.

  Kop stared out at the strange men from the copse of dense woods. He found their camp easily. Thick smoke was rising above the trees from several fires rising in a sheltered cove. They had built log structures there, the seams chinched tight with yellow moss.

  Most of the men had ugly hair on their faces, and he could smell them from his hiding place. Their heads were covered with shapeless garments that hung below their ears and partially hid their hair. This tangled mess that grew to their shoulders was of different colours and not at all like the True Men. Most of the strangers’ hair was the colour of dead grass, while some was almost white. Still more had dark hair, but none were totally black. Then he saw him. The one with the red hair. Kop’s stomach quivered in anger. His jaw muscles tensed and he clenched his teeth. It took all of his resolve to stay in hiding while his heart pumped for revenge. But with so many against him, he was the one who would be killed, and with his death, Kuise’s young life would never age.

  He stared at the redhead the most. The red blotches on his face looked like sores. With satisfaction, Kop saw that the man was limping badly, and across his cheek he bore the deep, burning scar from his arrow. Many of the others also grew hair which covered their faces, but none of them resembled the ochre colour of the man with the red beard.

  Their boats were drawn close to the rocky shore and fastened to the land with long, braided strands the likes of which Kop had never seen before. The boats themselves were not made of bark but of wood. The newcomers were full of mystery. They used tools strange to the watching Beothuk and carried themselves with an arrogant and careless demeanour. They were occupying Beothuk land without permission and yet posted no guard, nor for the most part showed any concern for their thieving acts. They acted as if they owned the land. Countless fish drying in the sun were laid across every available boulder and rock. Drying racks topped with boughs built above the ground bulged with fish curing in the sun. Blackflies crawled all over them and swarmed and buzzed above them.

  Only one among them was beardless and carried himself differently. His eyes scanned the woods, and once his gaze fell across the low clump of trees where the red man lay hidden. But he saw nothing and returned to the group. Kop stared long at this tall, lean white man and decided that he would be the one to watch most carefully.

  He crept closer, to a better vantage point. Holding himself motionless, he watched and waited. He, too, had listened all his life to the legends told down through the long years of the ancient Unwanted Ones. He was in full control of his emotions now, and remembering the old tales, he knew what he was going to do. He knew the guerrilla way. He would make the legend come alive again.

  Presently, one of the heavy-clothed men emerged from the log structure. The solid wood opening he stepped through squealed with his appearance, and then he closed the door behind him. This man was almost as tall as the observant one, and though he wore a long, grizzly beard, he resembled the other beardless one, especially in his confident demeanour. At a rough command from this man, one of the others walked to the shoreline and out over a short, lungered bridge, where the boat bobbed on its mooring. Leaning back against the rope, he pulled the vessel close to the rocks and jumped aboard. The hunter was amazed to see the boat had barely moved.

  Bending below the gunnels of the boat, the white man stood again, holding a large fish in each hand. He threw them onto the wharf. Again and again he repeated the work, now using a long-handled staff with a pointed, curved end. He pronged the fish onto the log surface, sometimes two and three at a time. As the hunter watched, his mouth watered for the delicious bobusowet which lay before him. Never before had he seen so many of the tasty white fish at one time.

  After the boat was emptied, the fisherman joined the others on the shore. Now the work of cleaning the cod began in earnest. There was a small, rectangular table made of round logs, and onto this the slippery fish were placed one by one. Using a long, shiny knife, one of the white men eviscerated the cod and pulled the pinkish twin livers from the fish, then threw them into a puncheon nearby. The smell of the fermenting livers in the barrel was stirred anew with each addition.

  A shorter man, his face hidden by a nest of dirty hair, seized the gutted cod and placed his left hand on the open breast of the fish. He placed his right hand on the head of the fish, and with two fingers poked into the eye sockets, he gave a violent wrench, one hand against the other, and the cod’s head was removed against the sharpened edge of the table and thrown back into the water. Here the raucous seagulls swooped and dipped and fought over the discarded offal, their cries filling the cove as they feasted.

  The tall, clean-faced man now grasped the fish and, using a shorter, slightly curved knife, removed the long backbone in three clean sweeps of his blade. Kop looked on. More than anything else he was seeing, the Beothuk was fascinated with the knives and their unbelievable sharpness.

  For more than an hour he watched these strange men clean the huge catch of fish. When they’d finished and had thrown all the entrails into the sea at their feet, the bottom was covered with offal. They removed the fish from large wooden vats glistening with sea water. As Kop watched, the men carried layers of the split cod into a nearby lean-to with a slanted roof and three walls. From his position he could see inside the crude structure, for it was hard by the trees and close to his hiding place. Placing the fish on the brush-covered floor, one of the men brought forth buckets of a white, sandy substance from a smaller barrel inside, which he proceeded to toss over the spread cod. Their rough voices came to Kop, some of them high-pitched and others deep and growly, not at all resembling the language of the True People.

  Why would these men in heavy clothes do such a thing? To carelessly catch and clean more cod than he had ever seen in one place, more than they could eat, only to cover them with coarse white sand? The cod his people managed to get were hung ov
er the smoke fires and cured to a golden brown. Looking at the gulls screaming and feeding on the guts of the fish, his mouth watered for all the sweet-tasting cod hearts the white men had discarded. They were a sure delicacy among his people and were best eaten raw, fresh out of the fish. Kop suddenly thought of Kuise. She loved the fresh hearts. Unlike her father, it was the only thing Kuise would eat raw.

  Once the fresh fish was cleaned and stored, the white men began another task. They gathered all of the drying fish in their arms and carried it aboard the boat. There were so many dried fish, it took many armloads before the rocks and drying racks were bare.

  When they were finished, they strode away from their fish-cleaning place and left their shiny knives behind, 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.

  The night came creeping in from the grey sea and over the still bay, until the land across the quiet cove was black with only a faint glow left on the water. Waves sighed and chuckled around the rocks. The stars appeared, and still the red man waited. The noises inside the log dwellings where the strangers had gone finally quieted. A small light was dimmed until it gave no useful light at all, and heavy snores followed it out through the chinks of the tilts.