Mattie Mitchell

by Gary Collins

  But Mattie had another way of catching them. Worcester, who had come to relish the taste of fried eel—though not as much as Mattie—had seen his guide catch them using his bare hands. He had watched in amazement as the Indian felt under rocks with his long, brown fingers for the snake-like fish. Then Mattie had calmly walked ashore with a struggling, biting eel gripped between his fingers. Mattie’s inescapable grip on the slimy fish simply fascinated Worcester. Mattie pointed his long middle finger straight out. The two adjacent fingers were bent toward the palm of his hand. When his probing finger came in contact with the eel, it wrapped around the top of its slippery body and closed like a vice, trapping it against the two fingers below. Worcester tried the grip on dead eels, but he could not nerve himself to probe under rocks for live ones.

  Whenever Mattie caught eels, Worcester would watch the Indian clean them. Throwing the eel upon the sand, Mattie would wait as the animal squirmed and twisted. The dry sand stuck to its soft, slimy underbelly slowed its movements. Grabbing a handful of sand, Mattie scrubbed what he called the skumogan from its body. Worcester figured it was where the white settlers had gotten the word “scum” from. The rough sand soon made the writhing animal easier to handle. Mattie walked to the nearest tree and cut the skin all the way around, just below the eel’s jawline. Holding the eel’s head against the trunk with his left hand, he stabbed his knife through its skull with his right, impaling the fish to the tree. The eel never bled a drop. While Worcester watched, Mattie would grip the eel’s skin between his fingers and, with one long, steady, continuous pull, relieve the writhing eel of its tough hide.

  But on this particular evening, Worcester watched in silence as Mattie fished for eels in a way he had never have thought possible. They had caught a couple of salmon that day. Mattie had kept the strings of ripe eggs from the spawning fish. He called them “the pips.”

  As Worcester looked on, Mattie tied one of the pink strings of spawn to a long line. He threw the bait into the brook and sat down on his haunches to wait. Worcester had never seen Mattie hunt or fish for anything just for the sport of it. He always did so for food. He wondered why he would he put bait into the water without a hook. Standing over Mattie’s shoulder, Worcester soon got his answer. From out of the black depths an eel appeared. It looked to be more than four feet long. Its two small pectoral fins kept its head above the rocky bottom.

  The eel’s mouth yawed open, and in a slow, almost lazy motion, as if it weren’t really hungry but would take the spawn anyway, it swallowed the bait. As it gulped and swallowed the salmon eggs, Mattie paid out the line, giving the eel slack. As the eel swallowed the bait, it kept dragging the line down its gullet along with it. The fish stopped swallowing, turned its head away with a flick of its fins, and headed back to deeper water. Mattie yanked its body around with a strong pull on the line. Standing in a half-crouch, Mattie pulled the line hand over hand.

  The startled eel twisted in protest as it was pulled along the bottom. It spun over and over like a giant worm dangling from a trout pole. In seconds, Mattie had pulled the creature up on the shore. He kept pulling the line up out of the eel’s stomach. The creature’s digestive muscles had such a tight hold on the bait that Mattie lifted the eel off the ground in his efforts.

  The salmon spawn, still intact, was half pulled and half vomited from its mouth. The eel fell back to the ground, and Mattie was quick to grip it in his firm “eel grab.” He turned to the astonished Worcester and said with a grin, “Anudder ol’ Indian trick, Preacher!”

  Worcester killed a caribou with one clean shot one early morning. The report from his heavy rifle had not died away before they both saw a long, tawny figure loping away from a pile of rocks nearby.

  “Wolf!” hissed Mattie, his eyes following the animal.

  As quickly as it had appeared, the wolf faded away again. Worcester had killed one Newfoundland wolf before. He had also killed a couple of western timber wolves on other hunts in America. But he had never seen a wolf the size of the one that had just vanished into the woods ahead of them. He wanted to go after it, but for the first time since they had been together, Mattie disagreed with him.

  “Ver’ many wolves not ’ere now. White mans hunt too many. Indian too, maybe. Dat one ’ave fat stomach. She ’ave pups inside, maybe.”

  They walked back to the pile of rocks where they had seen the wolf and found the animal’s lair. They went back to clean the caribou. Mattie left the viscera among the entrails, even though Worcester knew Mattie considered the organs a delicacy.

  That night in their camp, miles away from the kill site, they heard the long, howling cry of a wolf several times. Worcester believed the animal sounded like it had a full stomach.

  LATE ONE EVENING WHEN THEIR TIME of hunting the wild land was almost done, they wended their tired way back to Mattie’s wigwam. Mattie stopped at the edge of the natural clearing where the shelter lay still against a magnificent forest backdrop. He glanced all around when Worcester stepped out of the woods behind him to make his way across. The words “Preacher, stop,” came suddenly in a whispered hiss from the Indian’s mouth. Taken completely by surprise, Worcester stopped in his tracks and turned to see Mattie concentrating on something.

  “Someone bin ’ere! Maybe ’ere still!” he whispered.

  “What do you mean? How do you know that?” Worcester whispered back. He looked toward the shelter, half expecting two or more men to rush out of the closed doorway.

  They hadn’t seen any other human since the day they had left the coast weeks ago. He saw no movement. There was nothing. But something had alerted his Indian guide. He was about to ask what it was when Mattie spoke again, his voice low and even, his lips barely moving.

  “Dere—wood junk knocked from pile since we gone.” As he spoke his head kept turning around, his eyes hawk-like, searching.

  Worcester looked toward the small pile of firewood. He had helped gather the bits and pieces of firewood before they had left the campground. It was Mattie’s way to always have a supply of firewood on hand. This was a comforting welcome when returning to camp long after dark, tired and sometimes wet and cold. But Worcester would not have paid attention to one lone piece of firewood resting near the pile. To him it was meaningless. But to his keen-eyed guide it meant a great deal.

  Satisfied there was no one around—at least outside of his wigwam—Mattie spoke once more. “Stay ’ere, preacher.” It was a rare order from him. And with that the Indian crept silently, half bent, on a diagonal course toward the wigwam’s covered doorway. With a fluid stride he reached the doorway in seconds. Bending down to ground level, he lifted the caribou-hide doorway a few inches. Mattie peered inside, fearing the scant light allowed might startle any intruder lurking inside his wilderness home.

  He was looking for a set of feet or lower legs, figuring anyone waiting inside would be staring at the door and not the ground. For several minutes he looked all around. He could see no one. He listened intently but could hear nothing.

  Standing up, he threw back the hide and stepped inside his dwelling. Worcester arrived behind him tense and breathless, the deep concern of his guide exciting him. He stopped at the edge of the doorway, reluctant to follow Mattie inside. Mattie emerged shortly and without speaking to Worcester walked briskly to the woodpile. He appeared to be angry. Worcester had never seen him angry or the least bit upset.

  He walked to where the Indian was standing. Mattie picked up the junk of birch wood, laid it back on the pile, and again glanced all around the campsite. Small patches of well-trod earth were visible in several places around the site, the result of years of human and animal passage. On the edge of the clearing and opposite the way the two men had come was such a spot. It faced a natural lead into the trees and appeared to be a logical way for man or beast to leave the site.

  Mattie walked to the spot of bared earth and studied it. Worcester followed him but remained standing. Neither of the men spoke. Worcester had not seen the man in such a
state of deep concentration. Finally, Worcester had to speak.

  “What is it Mattie?”

  Mattie spoke in his normal voice, the tension evidently gone out of him. “Some man ’ere this day. Not long since. One hour, maybe. Not good man.”

  Worcester stared at the ground. At first he saw nothing, but then he spotted it: the clear partial footprint of a man.

  “Maybe it is our track, Mattie.”

  Mattie looked at Worcester and in a patient voice replied, “Not your track. Too wide, no ’eel. Not my track. Dis man ver’ big feet. Dis man running, leave deep track on one side of foot.”

  Worcester looked again at the man spoor, trying to figure the Indian’s reasoning. Mattie was right about one thing. The boot that had made this print would not fit him. Mattie had big feet, but the track was clearly bigger than Mattie’s. Worcester looked at his own boots. It wasn’t his boot print, either. There was a much deeper print along one side of the track.

  Worcester was still puzzled. “How do you know the time he was here and why do you think he was a bad man? Maybe he was just passing through the campsite.”

  Just as patiently as before, Mattie spoke as if he were teaching his own son the lore of the woods. “Dis man’s weight push small twig into soft groun’ without break. Twig not yet swing back. Why good man run from camp?” Mattie shook his head before continuing. “No, I’m sure. Bad man. Good man stop fer tea, we talk trapline way. This man go quick, knock over wood junk. Ver’ stupid man.”

  Worcester knew he had much to learn about the ways of the wild, but he also knew that he had just learned a valuable lesson today. When the signs that were there for him to see with his own eyes had been pointed out to him, he felt inadequate. He had been educated at Columbia University where he received a bachelors degree with the highest of honours. He had excelled at his studies at the University of Leipzig in Germany. But here, in the wilderness where a man had only his wits to get him by, right now he didn’t feel like he was a good student.

  Back inside the camp, Worcester walked to his bunk and was reaching down for his duffle bag to get his last pair of clean stockings when he noticed his bag was missing.

  “Mattie, my duffle is gone! You were right, someone has been here.”

  Both men looked around for the bag. Mattie was turning to go outside when Worcester called to him. “Wait, Mattie. I did not leave my sleeping robe there in a pile.”

  In the dingy light of the wigwam, he hadn’t noticed it until now. Mattie turned and watched Worcester pull his heavy sleeping blanket away from the floor beside his bunk where it had been thrown in a lump. Underneath the dark blanket gaped the opened mouth of his duffle, its contents spilled and strewn about. Whoever had been here had rifled through Worcester’s things and then covered them with his sleeping robe. Mattie’s scant belongings were all intact and in place.

  Worcester paled. He had left money in a leather pouch in the bottom of his duffle bag. It was nowhere to be seen among the rest of his ransacked belongings.

  “My money has been stolen!” he exclaimed in a hoarse, disbelieving cry.

  He searched the ground frantically for his money. When he stood from his crawling search, he realized he was alone. Outside again, he found the Indian standing over the lone footprint as before.

  “Have you found anything, Mattie?”

  But Mattie Mitchell had not been searching for anything. He turned to the man who had become his friend. His dark eyes were angry and fierce to look upon.

  “We find nudding. Man come fer money. He leave running with money. When dark come, I get your money back.”

  And with that, the angry Mi’kmaq walked back inside the wigwam and began building a campfire for their supper. Reaching up to cut a chunk of meat from a haunch of caribou that hung from the slanted ceiling, he noticed the thief had also helped himself to almost half of their meat supply. It only added to Mattie’s determination to find the man. And when he did find him, he would pay dearly for stealing from Mattie Mitchell.

  Worcester told Mattie his purse had contained $550. It was money to pay his passage back to the States, to pay for provisions, and to pay Mattie for his guiding services. Mattie had never owned that much money in his life and doubted if he had ever seen so much money at one time. But for him it was more than that. His ire would have been the same if the stolen money had amounted to only a few dollars.

  He would have gladly shared the piece of venison with any man. It was the way of the trail. For a man to enter another trapper’s camp and take just a little food to help him to his own camp was acceptable. Such a man would leave a sign indicating he had done so. He would never touch or take any personal items belonging to another trapper. The man who had been in their camp had not come by chance. He had come to steal from the American, and while he was here he had decided to help himself to a sizable amount of their food.

  As the two men ate their evening meal, their minds were on nothing else but the thief. Worcester agonized about the loss of such a large sum of money, but he could see that Mattie had an overwhelming sense of a great injustice that had been perpetrated against him. It was if something sacred had been taken from him, and it wasn’t the meat or the money. He couldn’t get past knowing that someone had actually come to this remote valley, had watched them, waited until they left the camp, and then had entered his camp to steal from them.

  Dusk came down from the hills and brought with it the dark of night. Small, flickering strands of firelight mingled with the moving man-shadows inside the camp. Outside, the long autumn night had come. Nothing Worcester could say would deter his guide from this venture. He would leave in the darkness. Mattie assured him that he would return by the “grey dawn time” with his money.

  “Take my rifle, Mattie,” Worcester offered.

  He had seen Mattie cast admiring glances over the expensive hunting weapon. Mattie owned an old, well-used, 1871 model Martin Henry rifle, a very heavy, self-cocking, lever action, breech-loading weapon that produced a frightening roar that was matched only by its shoulder-punching recoil.

  “Long gun slow me down in dark time. I have good knife.”

  Mattie placed his right hand on the hilt of the big knife strapped to his side. Worcester knew it was a Bowie knife, which had been given to Mattie by another satisfied American sportsman several years ago.

  The nearly foot-long blade was a formidable tool and could become a fearsome weapon at close quarters, especially at night. Designed by Colonel James Bowie in 1830 and forged by James Black, the swedge, or top edge of the knife, was curved away from its deadly point and gleamed with sharpness. Jim Bowie was killed in 1836 at the battle of San Antonio, Texas. The bloody knife in his hand that carried his name had been unable to save him.

  CHAPTER 11

  PULLING THE STRAPS OF HIS PACK—he went nowhere without it—tight against his shoulders, Mattie stepped out into the chilly night. Worcester followed him through the narrow doorway and caught the barest glimpse of the tall figure crossing the campground as he entered the trace beyond the thief’s boot print.

  “Have a care, Mattie. God go with you,” he said into the night. But he got no answer and stepped back into the warmth of the wigwam, the skin door rustling as it closed behind him.

  Standing in the forest gloom only a few steps away from the campground, Mattie waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Campfire light weakened a man’s eyesight, but few men could resist staring into the age-old warmth. Knowing his eyes would restore themselves to his keen night vision, he waited and thought about the thief. He knew who it was, but he had not told the preacher man. He heard Worcester give him his blessing.

  Maybe he is a priest after all, he thought.

  Mattie hated people who stole things and could always tell them at first meeting. They seldom looked a man in the face when talking, but rather averted their eyes, as if fearing others could see into their evil minds. When they stood among a crowd, they frequently cast furtive glances around them, a
s if anticipating their own nefarious intentions were being planned back upon them. They always boasted of their wilderness feats when in their cups, seated in their musky beer dives, where Mattie was not welcomed nor cared to enter. But when they were in the country, and when night came, they hid inside their hastily built log shanties and opened their doors only a crack to piss out into the long, dark night they so dreaded and feared.

  Mattie always avoided their company. Such men carried their bravado well when strutting through the small communities, feeling secure among their own by day and where lamplight glinted from every well-built home at night. They talked down to Mattie at their rare meetings with him, berating the Indian’s knowledge at every given opportunity and boasting about their own exploits. Mattie never answered them and only rarely spoke of his wilderness abilities. But away from the security of the villages and deep in the unmarked forested hills, they feared the big woodsman and crossed his trail only by accident: they feared the mystique of the man; they envied his hunting and fishing prowess; they longed to know the secrets of his trapping skills; they feared his ghost-like manner of easy walking. They feared him because they did not know and could not even begin to understand his way.

  Thinking about the thief left a burning hatred in Mattie’s gut. He wondered if he would kill him when he found him. Away from the campground, he made his way through the dark forest. There was no moon or starlight to help guide his feet along. If he was right about the identity of the thief, he knew the man would not travel far in the dark. However, if the man had run from their camp an hour or so before dark, he could be three or more miles away by now.