Mattie Mitchell

by Gary Collins

  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 gu
ts 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.

  Very pleased with his find, he didn’t consider stealing them wrong. The knives had been left unguarded. He had simply taken them. He would fully expect the same done to him, if he were foolish enough to leave such valuables unattended.

  Buka now turned his attention to the pungent codfish. Peering at it in the darkness, he tore a strip from its thick breast and pushed a piece of it into his mouth. For a second he was puzzled, then revolted, as an unexpected taste exploded in his mouth. Spewing the fish out of his mouth, he retched again and again, trying to rid his mouth of the putrid taste. Reaching to the ground he pulled several leaves from the bushes. He crushed them in his hands, stuffed the leaves into his mouth, and chewed them into a pulp before spitting the entire contents away, sluicing most of the foul-tasting fish with it. He flung the fish away into the night, where it fell with a soft thud among the bushes.

  What manner of creatures were these men with the white skin, who would catch so many of the sweet-tasting bobusowet only to spoil them all with their cruel-tasting sand? Several times he hawked the salty bile out of his throat, and still the bittersweet salt residue remained, assailing his sensitive taste buds.

  Only when he had recovered from the shock of the experience, and had rinsed and cleansed his mouth several times by drinking from a small stream, did he recognize the taste that had invaded his mouth. It was the taste of sea water, only many times greater. But why the strangers had used it on the fish, or where it had come from, mystified him.

  Leaving the wooded shoreline behind and climbing the slope in the darkness, he was soon away from the coast and the threat of being discovered. He crawled underneath the overhanging branches of a huge she-spruce and, squirming around a few times, soon fashioned a rough bed for himself on the hard ground. He spat the last of the tainted fish taste out of his mouth, surprised that the sensation still remained. And without a thought to any further comfort, and smiling at the feel of the new knives he had taken, he lay down upon the earth and went instantly to sleep.

  SILENCE GREETED MATTIE WHEN he finished his tale. The children stared at him in wonder, their mouths agape. They all wanted to hear more about Buka the Red Indian warrior. But Mattie told them, “You mus’ listen ver’ many times to one story. When you kin tell it same way to someone else, den you ready to ’ear more ’bout Buka the true Red Indian.”

  “Mattie came down out of the hills

  bringing dark on his shoulder.”

  ILLUSTRATION BY CLINT COLLINS

  CHAPTER 7

  ELWOOD WORCESTER WAS BORN IN Massillon, Ohio, on May 16, 1862. As a young man working in a dingy, cramped railway office after the death of his father left his family in poverty, he had what for him was a life-changing experience. One day his dark office was suddenly filled with a brilliant unnatural light. From somewhere beyond the steady, surreal gleam of light, a strong but very clear, soft voice said, “Be faithful to me and I will be faithful to you.”

  After that he became an ordained Episcopalian minister. He was the founder of the Emmanuel Movement of America, whose philosophy attributed physical, mental, and nervous problems as well as psychotherapy with the spiritual well-being of the human mind. Worcester founded the Boston Society for Psychic Research. His activities played a major role in helping with research for the dreaded disease tuberculosis.

  But Worcester was something more. He was an avid sportsman. He went to great lengths and took advantage of every opportunity to experience the wonders of hunting and fishing all over North America. He regarded it as “one of my choice blessings that these pleasures have never palled on me.” The preacher would think nothing of walking the great distance along a terrible trail to Irondequoit Bay, in Lake Ontario, just to fish for a few yellow perch, several black bass, or even sunfish.

  Having heard about the wonders of northern Canada and the largely unexplored regions of that vast country, he decided to go there. Worcester obtained rail passage to Quebec, where he arranged for four native Indians, who spoke no English and knew only a few words of the French language, to take him into the interior.

  They left Lac-Saint-Jean, headwaters of the mighty Saguenay River, and made their laborious way north by canoe into the lonely, uninhabited wilderness of Quebec. Weeks later and several hundred miles away from any human habitation, Worcester had finally experienced enough of the north wilds. Blaming the whole unpleasant ordeal on his “four ignorant Indian guides,” he returned to the modern world vowing never to use Indians as guides again. Then he met Mattie Mitchell.

  ANOTHER OF WORCESTER’S PASSIONS was reading, w
hen he could find the time. He especially loved browsing through historical accounts about Canada, partly because of its self-proclaimed status as a sportsman’s paradise, and partly due to his recent disappointing foray into that north land.

  What he found one day, while reading a historical work in the city of Philadelphia, was a riveting account of another northern country—Newfoundland. He relished the writings of John and Sebastian Cabot. The descriptions the two men had given about their “discovery” of the island of Newfoundland fascinated him. The Cabots had found scores of fishes “great and small.” Vast shoals of cod were taken from the virgin blue sea as easily as dipping them up with a simple basket. Silvery salmon and gleaming trout they scooped from the shallow rivers. They salted down barrels of the protein-rich fish.

  Foraging upon the unspoiled land, Cabot’s men with their long-barrelled muskets brought back the carcasses of tender caribou and excited tales of “numberless fleet footed Deeres.” Their flesh too was salted for transport across the ocean. Animal skins for a fur-hungry England were stowed aboard their ships. All of these trophies, which were taken back to England, served as mere samples of what this “New World” had to offer to the explorers.

  But of all the amazing events the Cabots had recounted, one of them stuck in Worcester’s mind above all of the rest. The man the English called John Cabot—whose birth name, Giovanni Caboto, was Italian, and whose only known signature appears as Zuan Chabotto—gave to Henry VII, the Tudor king of England, three wondrous pearls. The three pearls had been taken from the shells of freshwater mollusks pulled from just one of the countless rivers of that far-off “New Founde Land.”