Heart of the Wilderness

by Janette Oke

  “But why?” sobbed Kendra. “He was caught and he was bleeding and—”

  The arms lifted her up onto his lap, where he cradled her against his chest.

  “No one can ever interfere with someone else’s trap,” he explained.

  “But the beaver was caught—by its foot. It was crying and—” The small girl was sobbing too much to go on.

  “I know. I know,” her grandfather tried to soothe her. “But Nonie couldn’t let him out. He was already hurt too bad to be—to be set free anyway, and when whoever owned the trap came to get his animal, he would have been very angry with Nonie. He—he needs the money from the pelt. He—”

  But Kendra sat bolt upright and pushed away from him. The word pelt had caught her attention. She had watched her grandfather many times as he had worked with pelts, cleaning them, stretching them, sorting them according to worth. Never once had Kendra thought of the piles of warm, thick furs as animals. Never once had she seen the traps on the walls of the cabin as instruments of horror. Never once had she dreamed that her loving grandfather was capable of causing suffering—to anything.

  Now her eyes opened wide as she began to put the words, the images together. Her green eyes grew larger, her sobbing stopped. She stared at him as the truth began to sink in to her childish mind, and then she pushed back from him, her eyes wide with terror and anger, her voice choked with the intensity of discovery.

  “I hate you!” she cried, springing from him. She stood in front of him, her green eyes flashing, her small body trembling. “I hate you!” she screamed at him again. “You hurt our brother animals. I hate you.”

  With a look of pain, anger, and defiance, Kendra lifted her arms heavenward and screamed out the strange and eerie cry, “Aiyee! Aiyee!”

  It came from the depths of her troubled spirit—just as it had from Nonie’s.

  “Aiyee,” she wailed again and ran from her grandfather, across the wooden porch, through the door to the cabin, past a startled Nonie, and threw herself upon her moss and pine-bough bunk bed in the corner of the room.

  “I think we need to talk.”

  They had finished the supper that Nonie had left for them before she returned to the village. It had been a silent meal. He had tried to coax conversation from her a time or two, but she had been unresponsive. Now she sat sullenly before him, picking at her food with her fork.

  She raised her eyes and nodded. Already she knew that the pain deep within her needed attention. She didn’t want to be angry with Papa Mac. It made her hurt all over.

  He pushed back his chair from the table and held out his arms. “Come here,” he invited.

  She went to him, prepared for another good cry in his arms.

  When he had soothed her and the sobs had stopped, the tears had been wiped away, he began to talk.

  “Trapping is not—not nice for the animals. I know that. But— but people need the furs—the pelts—to make things. Like coats and moccasins. Oh yes, the moccasins that you like to wear, they came from animals, too.

  “Animals get killed. We don’t like that. But they do get killed. Some of them by man, some of them by other animals. Some of them get old and hungry and can’t hunt anymore—and they die. It’s not nice—but it’s the way it is.

  “Traps can be—can be terribly mean things. Like the trap that caught the beaver. Good trappers know how to set the traps so that the animal doesn’t suffer as much. But they always suffer some. I admit that. And I don’t like it either. But I need the money from the pelts. That is how I live.”

  Kendra did not stir. He wondered if she was listening. He wondered if she was still hurt. Still angry with him.

  “I am always sorry about the animal. About the fact that I take their life in order to make a living—to have pelts to sell so that people can have warm clothes for our harsh winters. But I try—I try hard not to make the animals suffer very much.”

  Kendra sat in silence, thinking seriously about what he had said.

  “I wish—I wish that I could tell you I won’t trap anymore. But I can’t. And I don’t want to lie to you. So I won’t tell you that it doesn’t hurt the animals. I know it does. But trapping—trapping is a way of life. If we raised animals—cows or sheep or even chickens—for our use—our food and our clothing, they would have to die too. Traps are perhaps a more cruel way to die, but if one is a good trapper the animals can be spared suffering. I’m sorry, Kendra, but that’s the way it is.”

  Kendra sat quietly in his arms, pondering what he had said. The beaver with its dangling paw and plaintive cries still disturbed her. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out the sight—the memory. Then she stirred and turned to face her grandfather, her arms stealing about his neck.

  “I don’t hate you, Papa Mac,” she said, her words trailing off in sobs.

  He rocked her back and forth, holding her close, wishing that he could shield her from the ugliness of the trapline. Wanting to shield her from the ugliness of life. But he could only hold her and weep, his tears mingling with the blond hair that rested against his cheek.

  Chapter Eight

  Acceptance

  Kendra’s sixth and seventh summers varied little from the previous ones. She and Nonie worked together as a team gathering leaves and tender shoots, roots and berries in their baskets. Kendra’s sharp eyes were often the first to spot the wild produce, and her keen nose the first to smell the pungent odors that led them in the right direction.

  Oscar, big for his breed, had grown to full size and with Kendra’s patient training had become a dog that quickly obeyed her commands. Kendra’s grandfather, Papa Mac, teased that Oscar ate better than anyone else in the cabin. It was true that Kendra fussed over him and fed him accordingly. The dog was also strong and sturdy, his chest broad, his legs sinewy. Papa Mac, voicing pride in the dog, declared that he would make an outstanding lead dog for a sled team.

  The words were not lost on Kendra. In her mind was the picture of the team she hoped to one day have as her own.

  She managed to find it in her heart to hope for a good winter’s catch on her Papa Mac’s traplines, though she still inwardly cringed at the thought of the instruments of death. But she never could run her hands over the softness of the pelts with pleasure as she had done as a small child. She could not see them now without thinking of the animals that they had once been, roaming free and wild in the mountainous forests.

  But more and more Kendra was understanding the words her grandfather had spoken—the truth of the laws of nature. Life was hard. Life was violent. The strong took from the weak. Indeed, took of the weak. Kendra had witnessed a wolf pack bringing down a moose. She had seen a lioness dragging a new kill back to her den of cubs. She had watched the bears sweeping salmon from the stream. “The weak will feed the strong,” her Papa Mac had explained simply, and though Kendra had at first hated it, had fought against it, she gradually learned to accept it.

  Nonie did not lift her arms and cry her chilling lament of “Aiyee” over the kills of nature. She reserved her plaintive cry for the acts of men. Kendra wondered about it and wished to ask the elderly Indian woman, but something held her back. Kendra did not feel free to question Nonie. She did feel she could ask her grandfather.

  “Papa Mac,” she said one night as they sat on their porch watching the sun dip behind the outline of distant mountains, “why does Nonie say ‘Aiyee’ like she does?”

  “That is her people’s way of expressing grief,” he answered her.

  Even then his memory went back to the younger Kendra who had troubled him deeply by echoing Nonie’s cry.

  “She did it for the beaver—but she didn’t do it for the moose,” puzzled Kendra.

  He sat for a moment in silence, not that he didn’t know the answer, but because he wasn’t sure how to explain it to the young girl.

  “Nonie—and her people—accept the ways of nature. That is normal . . . and right.” He hesitated. “But Nonie—and her people—fear that—that their
gods—nature—might be angry with man for taking for himself. Oh, they know that animals are here for man to use. They hunt. They fish. They must or they would never survive. But when an animal dies—on behalf of man—then Nonie—and many others—feel that they must mourn that animal so that the spirits—whatever they are and wherever they are—realize that they did not take pleasure in the death of their animal brother. If they don’t mourn sufficiently, they are afraid that the spirits might decide to take their lives.”

  “Is that right?” asked Kendra, her eyes large in her childish face.

  “That’s the story I was told,” said Papa Mac.

  “But it is right? Do the spirits really do that?”

  “What spirits?” Papa Mac’s words were abrupt. Then his tone softened. “Look, Kendra. I don’t mind Nonie telling you her little tales about the loon or the mountain lion—but I don’t like her filling your mind with all that stuff about spirits and taboos and evil omens. That’s all nonsense, Kendra. Indian myth. The earth is not our mother. The beaver is not our brother. Animals don’t have spirits that prowl about at night looking for revenge. These are all just—stories—like the ones I read to you at bedtime. Just stories. I don’t want you to think of Nonie’s tales as anything but—tales. That’s her way of life—and at times I think she really believes all that nonsense—but we don’t, Kendra. We know better.”

  Kendra felt a strange stirring somewhere deep inside. She had believed Nonie’s stories. She had let them become a part of her. Now Papa Mac was saying that there was no truth in them. But she wanted them to be true. She wanted to feel akin to nature. To have that sense of being a part of something so much bigger than herself.

  She wished with all her heart that she could turn to her grandfather and say stoutly, “You are wrong. They are not just stories. There are spirits. Good spirits and bad spirits—just like Nonie says. I know. I can—can feel—something.”

  But Kendra did not say the words. Looking into the intense, dark eyes of her grandfather, she did not dare to say the words. Papa Mac knew about such things. Papa Mac did not believe. Papa Mac might be angry with her if she believed.

  She swallowed away the lump in her throat, but deep within herself she felt a sudden pain—an empty spot where something had lived before. What had it been? Belief? Hope? Kendra did not know. She just knew that now it was gone—slain by the words of the grandfather she loved. But what would she ever find to fill its place?

  The long summer evenings were a joy to Kendra, for it was then that her grandfather told her to get out the books and they would read and study together.

  Kendra loved the books. She loved the words on the pages. It was a marvel to her when she first learned to read and discovered for herself that she now had the key to unlock the mysteries of those pages.

  The lessons in sums were not as popular with Kendra. All of the numbers made little sense to her. Then her grandfather began to use more realistic equations. “If you had three weasel pelts, four lynx, two wolves, and three beavers, how much flour, salt, and coffee could you purchase?”

  On the wall in her grandfather’s cabin was an updated list of the worth of a pelt. He changed and posted it as frequently as the prices fluctuated. Kendra always ran to the list and figured out the worth of the furs, then scrambled back to the table to his last journal entry on the prices of the kitchen supplies at the local store. It made the problems fun to solve, and Kendra always felt proud when her grandfather praised her work.

  But the simple problems in arithmetic also did something else for Kendra, though neither her grandfather nor she were aware at the time what was happening. But something was being born within her—the desire to have her own trapline. To add up those pennies and dollars from the furs to her own account. It seemed to the young girl that with all the furs she watched her grandfather pile carefully in the sturdy shed behind the cabin, her grandfather must be getting terribly wealthy in his trade. Someday, she decided silently as she worked the sums, someday she would be counting out pelts of her own.

  “Mother Earth mourns,” said Nonie, and Kendra lifted her head and looked about. What did Nonie mean? But Kendra did not ask. Over the years they had spent together, Kendra had learned from Nonie many of the ways of the Indians—and one of those ways was to wait in silence for an elder to speak further.

  “I saw black crow—blackest crow ever. But sad. His eyes were dark. His feathers no longer glistened in sun.”

  The words that at one time would have filled Kendra with a delicious chill failed to stir her. Papa Mac had said that Nonie’s tales were untrue. Just Indian myth. They no longer had the power to move her.

  “He speaks,” went on Nonie. “He speaks of Mother Earth. She mourns in sorrow. Soon we too will mourn. All will mourn.”

  Kendra turned her back and lifted her chin. Nonie’s story was a bit silly. Just as Papa Mac had said, it was just a foolish omen. Something that the elderly lady was making up to try to frighten her.

  “We pick—for Mother Earth,” went on Nonie. “Berries of all kind. We scatter them by the first moon in the moon ripples of the lake water. Maybe Mother Earth will forgive.”

  Kendra wanted to argue. They needed the berries for themselves. They needed to clean and dry them in the warm summer sun so they would have them to sweeten their porridge on the long, cold winter mornings. The berry bushes had not yielded as well as in other years. They had to fight with the birds and the animals for their possession. To pick them and scatter them on the moon ripples of the lake was ridiculous.

  But Kendra did not argue. Nonie spoke with such confidence. What would happen if they did not appease Mother Earth? Would she turn on them with thunder and lightning? Would the skies pour down balls of icy hail that would destroy their already shriveling garden plants? Kendra wished to deny the words that Nonie was speaking, but in her heart she felt a tingling of fear. What if? What if Nonie was right and her grandfather was wrong? What then? Could they really afford to challenge Nonie’s strange gods?

  When Kendra had filled her basket with the luscious wild fruit, she silently passed it to Nonie. She wouldn’t take part in the little ritual herself, but if Nonie had the power to protect them from the anger of the gods, then Kendra would not interfere.

  “Would you like to go with me?”

  George turned to his young granddaughter, who was watching him load the canoe in preparation for a trip to the post. It had been some time since Kendra had made the trip. She seemed to prefer to stay at home with Nonie, roaming the nearby woods and meadows, gathering her berries and herbs, studying the wildlife that teemed around them.

  But today her eyes held wistfulness. Was she getting bored with her life in the woods? Was she longing for a bit of excitement? Civilization?

  At his question, Kendra’s eyes seemed to deepen in their green intensity, but no other change took place in her countenance.

  “Choosh,” said George under his breath, “she’s been isolated in the wild too long. Now she doesn’t even let her feelings show.”

  He lifted his head to study his granddaughter and asked again, “Would you like to?”

  She nodded mutely. She longed to go. Something within her was stirring. She knew not what. Maybe it was just a silent longing to spend extra time with her grandfather.

  “Go tell Nonie. She won’t need to stay. Get your things. We may get caught in the rain, so you’d better take an extra coat.”

  Kendra ran to do his bidding, and in spite of herself a smile played about her lips.

  “You’d better tether Oscar,” her grandfather said when she returned, breathless and carrying a small bundle under her arm.

  Kendra hated to tie her dog. All the sled dogs were tied about the clearing, but Oscar did not like to be tethered. Kendra lifted her eyes to her grandfather and pleaded silently.

  “What if he runs off?” he asked in answer to her unasked petition.

  “He won’t,” she dared to promise.

  She turned to Oscar a
nd pointed to the porch where he often lay in the sun. “Stay,” she said firmly.

  Oscar crossed to the porch and lay down, but a whine of protest lifted his sides and seemed to be reflected in the shadowing of his eyes.

  “Stay,” Kendra said again as she stepped from the bank into the loaded canoe.

  It was wonderful to feel the gentle rock and sway of the canoe as they glided over the swift flowing water. Up and around the sharp bend they went, and Kendra could picture again the sight of the beaver fighting for its life against the trap that held it. Though the picture still made her feel sick inside, she pushed it firmly from her. It was a way of life. Acceptable. Ugly—and painful—but acceptable.

  She let her glance fall to the pile of carefully wrapped pelts. The returning canoe would bear flour and salt and coffee and yard goods and all the other supplies they so desperately needed for survival. Kendra sighed deeply and reached out a hand to let it trail in the cool stream.

  They passed by the Indian village, and Kendra nodded greetings to the children who played about the bank. She recognized a few of them by name. Nonie had provided the information on the few trips they had made together to the little settlement. But George did not like Kendra to spend much of her time with the other children. He feared that if she learned more of their ways, she would have even greater difficulty when she had to go back to the city for her education.

  George had been putting off sending Kendra out. He knew that it had to be done. He knew that he had waited longer than he should have. But she was doing well. She could read almost anything he handed her—with understanding. And she was quicker at working out sums than many of the adults he knew. Still, she did need to go out. Back to the city. She needed to learn about her own culture. Her own people. She needed to learn the social graces that would identify her as civilized. He knew that. But it was so hard to let her go. To think of the long days without her about the cabin.