The Sign of the Beaver (7 page)

He had no doubt he could shoot with a bow. In fact he had made them years ago back in Quincy. He and his friends had played at Indians, stalking each other through the woods and whooping out from behind trees. They had even practiced half-earnestly at shooting at a target. How could he have known that someday he would have need of such a skill?

He cut a straight branch, notched it at either end, and stretched tight a bit of string his father had left. Arrows he whittled out of slender twigs. But something was definitely wrong. His arrows wobbled off in odd directions or flopped on the ground a few feet away. He was chagrined when next morning Attean came walking out of the woods and surprised him at his practice.

Attean looked at the bow. "Not good wood," he said at once. "I get better."

He was very exacting about the wood he chose. He searched along the edge of the clearing, testing saplings, bending slender branches, discarding one after another, till he found a dead branch of ash about the thickness of his three fingers. He cut a rod almost his own height and handed it to Matt.

"Take off bark," he directed, and squatted down to watch while Matt scraped the branch clean. Then, taking it in his hands again, he marked off several inches in the center where Matt's hand would grip the bow. "Cut off wood here," he said, running his hand from center to ends. "Make small like this." He held up one slim finger.

Matt set to work too hastily. "Slow," Attean warned him. "Knife take off wood too fast. Indian use stone."

Under the Indian's critical eye, Matt shaved down the branch, paring off the thinnest possible shavings. The slow work took all his patience. Twice he considered the task finished, but Attean, running his hand along the curve of the bow, was not satisfied till it was smooth as an animal bone.

"Need fat now," he said. "Bear fat best."

"Will this do?" Matt asked, bringing out a bowl of fish stew he had left cooling on the table. Carefully, with a bit of bark, Attean skimmed off the drops of oil that had risen to the surface. He rubbed the oil from one end of the bow to the other till the bare wood glistened. Matt's frayed bit of string he cast aside. Instead he set about making a bowstring as he had made the snare, of long strands of spruce root. This took most of the morning as he patiently twisted the strands together, rolling them against his thigh to make them even and smooth.

Finally he tied one end to a notch in the bow and began slowly to bend the wood. The bow seemed to Matt to be as stiff as iron. It seemed impossible that it would bend, but slowly it yielded, till the string slipped over the notch at the other end. The bow was finished.

"It's a beauty," Matt told him, filled with admiration at their joint handiwork.

Attean gave a grunt of satisfaction. "Shoot pretty good," he said. "One day make better. Indian take long time, leave wood many days till ready."

Before he left, Attean cut off four slender shoots of birch wood. "Best for arrow," he explained, marking off with his hands a length of about two feet. He left Matt to do the whittling for himself.

Matt was delighted with the bow, but shooting it was another matter. It was not in the least like the flimsy thing he had first created. It took all his strength to draw back the string. When he released his arrow, it flew with astonishing power off somewhere into the underbrush, anywhere but where he had aimed it. As fast as he could make new arrows he lost them. But he was determined. He pegged a target of birchbark against a tree and shot at it grimly, his arrows coming closer and closer with every day's practice. The heel of his hand was blistered from the stinging snap of the string. Attean did not offer him any further advice, but when the root string began to fray, he brought with him one day a fine bowstring of twisted animal sinew, which would last for a long time. Using the new string, Matt could frequently nick the edge of his target. Soon, he promised himself, the squirrels would have more respect than to frisk about so boldly over his head.

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Indian signs. Sometimes he could not be sure whether a branch had broken in the wind or whether an animal had scratched a queer-shaped mark on a tree trunk. Once or twice he was certain he had discovered the sign of the beaver. It was a game he played with himself. That it was not a game to Attean he was still to learn. They were following a narrow trail one morning, this time to the east, when Attean halted abruptly.

"Hsst!" he warned.

Off in the brush Matt heard a low, rasping breathing and a frantic scratching in the leaves. The noise stopped the moment they stood still. Moving warily, the boys came upon a fox crouched low on the ground. It did not run, but lay snarling at them, and as he came nearer, Matt saw that its foreleg was caught fast. With a long stick Attean pushed aside the leaves and Matt caught the glint of metal.

"White man's trap," said Attean.

"How do you know?" Matt demanded.

"Indians not use iron trap. Iron trap bad."

"You mean a white man set this trap?" Matt thought of Ben.

"No. Some white man pay for bad Indian to hunt for him. White man not know how to hide trap so good." Attean showed Matt how cleverly the trap had been hidden, the leaves and earth mounded up like an animal burrow with two half-eaten fish heads concealed inside.

The fox watched them, its teeth bared. The angry eyes made Matt uncomfortable. "We're in luck to find it first," he said, to cover his uneasiness.

Attean shook his head. "Not beaver hunting ground," he said. "Turtle clan hunt here." He pointed to a nearby tree. On the bark Matt could just make out a crude scar that had a shape somewhat like a turtle. He was indignant.

"We found it," he said. "You mean you're just going to leave it here because of a mark on a tree?"

"Beaver people not take animal on turtle land," Attean repeated.

"We can't just let it suffer," Matt protested. "Suppose no one comes here for days ?"

"Then fox get away."

"How can he get away?"

"Bite off foot."

Indeed, Matt could see now that the creature had already gnawed its own flesh down to the bone. "Leg mend soon," Attean added, noting Matt's troubled face. "Fox have three leg beside."

"I don't like it," Matt insisted. He wondered why he minded so much. He had long ago got used to clubbing the small animals caught in his own snares. There was something about this fox that was different. Those defiant eyes showed no trace of fear. He was struck by the bravery that could inflict such pain on itself to gain freedom. Reluctantly he followed Attean back to the trail, leaving the miserable animal behind.

"It's a cruel way to trap an animal," he muttered. "Worse than our snares."

"
Ebe
" Attean agreed. "My grandfather not allow beaver people to buy iron trap. Some Indian hunt like white man now. One time many moose and beaver. Plenty for all Indians and for white man too. But white man not hunt to eat, only for skin. Him pay Indian to get skin. So Indian use white man's trap."

Matt could not find an answer. Tramping beside Attean he was confused and angry as well. He couldn't understand the Indian code that left an animal to suffer just because of a mark on a tree. And he was fed up with Attean's scorn for white men. It was ridiculous to think that he and Attean could ever really be friends. Sometimes he wished he could never see Attean again.

Even at the same moment, he realized that this was really not true. Even though Attean annoyed him, Matt was constantly goaded to keep trying to win this strange boy's respect. He would lie awake in the night, staring up at the chinks of starlight in the cabin roof, and make up stories in which he himself, not Attean, was the hero. Sometimes he imagined how Attean would be in some terrible danger, and he, Matt, would be brave and calm and come swiftly to the rescue. He would kill a bear unaided, or a panther, or fend off a rattlesnake about to strike. Or he would learn about an enemy band of Indians sneaking through the forest to attack the place where Attean was sleeping, and he would run through the woods and give the alarm in time.

In the morning he laughed at himself for this childish daydreaming. There was little chance he would ever be a hero, and little chance too that Attean would ever need his help. Matt knew that the Indian boy came day after day only because his grandfather sent him. For some reason the old man had taken pity on this helpless white boy, and at the same time he had shrewdly grasped at the chance for his grandson to learn to read. If he suspected that Attean had become the teacher instead, he would doubtless put a stop to the visits altogether.

Matt knew he ought to feel grateful for Attean's teaching. Every day Attean taught him some new thing—a plant like an onion that he could drop into his cooking pot to make his stew more tasty—a weed with a small orange flower and a milky juice in its stem that took away the sting of insect bites or poison ivy—a plant with brownish flowers and roots bearing a string of nutlike bulbs that thickened his stew and made it more nourishing. He had pointed out plants that Matt must never eat, no matter how hungry he might be. He had even shown Matt how to improvise a rain cape in a sudden rain by quickly punching a hole through the center of a wide strip of birchbark and making a cone of bark for his head.

The only thing that Matt could teach him, Attean was set against learning. For Attean the white man's signs on paper were
piz wat—
good for nothing.

Nevertheless, Matt noticed that in spite of himself Attean had learned something from the white boy. He was speaking the English tongue with greater ease. Perhaps he was not aware himself how differently he spoke. He picked up new words readily. Sometimes he used them with that odd humor that Matt was beginning to recognize. Matt knew that Attean was mocking when some of his own favorite expressions came solemnly out of the Indian's mouth.

"Reckon so," Attean would say. "Rain come soon, by golly." Sometimes he even took a fancy to a word out of
Robinson Crusoe.
He especially liked the sound of
verily.

In return, Matt liked to try out Indian words. They were not hard to understand but impossible to get his tongue around. He didn't think he could ever quite get them right, but he could see that though it amused Attean when he tried, it also pleased him.

"
Cha kwa—
this morning," Matt might say, "I chased a
kogw
out of the corn patch." He wouldn't add that he had wasted an arrow and watched the porcupine waddle off unharmed.

Perhaps, after all, those lessons hadn't been entirely wasted.

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skipped more than half of it, choosing only the pages where there was plenty of action. Now he was sorry it had not lasted longer. Attean also seemed disappointed.

"Too bad," he commented, copying one of Matt's frequent remarks. "I tell story to brothers. Every night I tell more story. They like."

Delighted, Matt tried to picture the Indians sitting around the campfire at night listening to Attean tell the story of Robinson Crusoe. He would give a good deal to hear Attean's version of it. Now suddenly he had an inspiration.

"If they want more stories, I have lots of them," he exclaimed.

He took his father's Bible from the shelf. Why hadn't he thought of this before? Why, there was Samson! David and Goliath! Joseph and his coat of many colors!

"They're even better than
Robinson Crusoe
" he promised.

It really was true. The ancient Bible stories were filled with adventure. And they were told straight out in simple language that didn't need skipping.

He began with the story of Noah. How God warned Noah that a great flood was coming. How Noah built the ark and took inside his family and two of every kind of animal. How they all lived in the ark safely while it rained for forty days and forty nights. How Noah sent a dove out three times, and when it came back the third time with a twig of olive in its beak, Noah knew that the flood was over. Here Matt looked up to see a grin on Attean's face.

"Beaver people tell story like that," he said. "Very old story. You want me tell?"

Matt waited curiously.

"Very long time," Attean began, scowling as he tried to translate from his own tongue, "before animal, was great rain. Water came over all the land. One Indian go to very high hill, climb very high tree. Rain many days. Water come up to feet of Indian, but no more. Gluskabe bring three ducks to Indian. One day he let one duck go. It fly away and not come back. Other day he let other duck go. It not come back. Then last duck come back with mud in mouth. Indian know water go down. When water all gone, he come down from tree. He make grass. Make bird and animal. Make man and beaver. Man and beaver make all other Indians.

"Golly," said Matt. "It's almost like the Bible story. Where did the Indians get it?"