Mattie Mitchell (9 page)

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

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, when
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.”

This revelation, so boldly recorded by these European
adventurers hundreds of years ago, played upon the good
reverend's mind. He was awakened in the middle of one winter's
night by a dream about pearls. He sat upright in his warm
featherbed, and there and then decided to plan a trip north to
Newfoundland the very next spring. As an added bonus, this big
island was the only place left in the world where one could fly-fish Atlantic salmon freely.

Tales of caribou with antler points by the dozens, huge,
shiny black bears unequalled anywhere could be hunted there.
Worcester couldn't wait for the winter to pass. This time, though,
he would not allow Indians to guide him, if there were any on that
island in the sea.

Worcester arrived on Newfoundland's coal-burning ferry boat
in early June and decided he would need a sturdy schooner for
his coastal explorations of the river mouths. In the rugged outport
town of Port aux Basques, where the ferry docked, he was told
there wasn't a schooner for sale. However, one of the fishermen
knew of a “right smart scunner fer sale in Bay of Islands,” a deep
fjord farther north along the island's west coast.

It took him several days of walking and hitching boat rides
with the friendly fishermen before he arrived in the Bay of
Islands. Worcester was enchanted by the rawness of the place. It
seemed like the entrance to every cove gave a more spectacular
vista than the one before it: massive fjords, their many valleys
and gorges filled with the lush green of virgin forests; waterfalls
that fell from great heights, with silvery mists marking their fall
below the treed skyline; high, flat-topped mountains came down
to the sea edge; green canyons twisting around the mountain
bases beckoned a man into their realms.

And all of it largely unexplored.

The young, ruddy-faced fisherman back in Port aux Basques
who had told him about the schooner had not lied. The vessel was
still available. Its owner was now unable to fish for a living.

Frank was a man in his mid-fifties, but his weathered face
made him look much older. The man frequently coughed, and
walked with a knotty wooden cane. Both men walked out over a
large wharf to which the schooner was securely tied fore and aft
with heavy manila lines.

A bright, hand-painted board with the name
Danny Boy
was
attached to the vessel's stern below her low taffrail. The tide
was out, and Worcester knew the schooner was his as soon as he
looked down on her neat, spotless single deck, with small double
doors in her forecastle swung wide to allow the warm sun into
the dark cabin.

Without climbing aboard, although the schooner's owner had
invited him to do just that, Worcester wanted to know the asking
price. The man leaned heavily on the cane cut by his own hand,
started to speak, and went into a spasm of coughing. He quickly
recovered, spat a grey ball of phlegm down into the harbour
water, and answered this way:

“I cut every stick out of the hills behind ye. Me boy was still
in school then, but he helped with what he could, I will give him
dat. Danny, his name is, but we all the time calls him Danny
B'y. So we called the scunner after our b'y.” His voice seemed to
weaken a bit at the mention of his son. Then he continued.

“Mucked the logs and crooked timbers fer her frame on me
back and hand slide alike, in its turn. Chopped the timbers meself,
I did, and nailed every plank from garbit to gunnel, rammed her
tight as a drum wit' oakum I spun wid me own two hands. 'Er
decks are poured with heavy pitch too, dey is—not that cheap,
runny tar that sticks to a man's rubbers on hot days and always
laiks.”

Here Frank turned away and coughed again before continuing.
Worcester was fascinated with the man's language. His rapid
conversation was aided with arm and hand gestures just as
quick. He pointed toward the forested hills, the long blue bay,
the harbour, or the newly painted schooner as his talk warranted.

Frank's chest-heaving cough produced another pearl-grey
issue that he again spat over the wharf edge. Worcester thought
he noticed flecks of blood mixed with the sputum as the man
cleared his throat and continued his conversation as though he
had not stopped.

“I wuz askin' $1,900 fer 'er, sir, but she was just launched
fer dis year's fishin' and she'll laik a wee bit at first. 'Twill tek a
few days fer 'er seams to plim up. She'll laik nar drop after dat.
So I'm askin' $1,850, to 'low fer dat inconvenience every spring
to the man wot buys 'er. I won't change me mind on that price,
though, sir. Dat's me final one. An' I feels right sure I won't be
gyppin' a man wit' it.”

Worcester smiled at the man's honesty—when he finally
figured out what he had said. When Frank explained what “plim”
meant, he willingly agreed to the price.

“Cash on the barrelhead,” cautioned the wily old fisherman.
When Worcester asked if there were any papers to sign, he
replied, “A man's 'and on it is good nuff fer me, sir.” Spitting into
his right palm, he offered it to the American, who very reluctantly
shook it—remembering the spitting—sealing the deal.

Worcester was now the proud owner of a handcrafted, thirty-nine-foot, seaworthy schooner. She was supposed to be forty feet
long, Frank told him, but, “Da stem piece I cut 'ad a bit too much
rake to it fer me likin', so I shartened 'er keel a bit.”

Worcester decided not to ask what it all meant. Counting out
the American bills, he told a beaming Frank he loved the boat just
as she was and that he would move his gear aboard the
Danny
Boy
immediately.

While Frank counted out the most money he had ever held in
his hand—after being assured the odd-looking bills were not only
good but worth more than the island's currency, something he did
not understand—Worcester asked him where he could obtain the
services of a good local guide. He wanted someone who not only
knew about hunting but also someone who knew the rivers well.
Worcester never brought up his intention to search for freshwater
clams.

Frank looked up from his money and replied without
hesitation. “Mattie Mitchell is the man fer you, sir. He is an Injun
man but as good as ar white man, better dan some of da ones I
knows about.”

Remembering his experience with the Quebec Indians,
Worcester replied, “There must be a few white hunters and
trappers around these parts that could show me around this
country. I will need such a man for a few weeks and I will pay
him, of course.”

“Dere are some as you say, sir, right smart hunters and good
at trappin', too, fer dat matter. But Mattie is still your man, sir.”
And again gesticulating with his skinny arms, he went on. “I does
some huntin' and a bit of trappin' too in the fall time. Dat's after
me voyage of fish 'as been made and shipped away, ya know. An'
I knows the hills pretty good meself.” Here Frank threw his arms
wide, indicating the surrounding green mountains.

“But Mattie, sir, is a long cut above me er anyone else dat I
knows of in dat regard. Dis man knows the country like the back
of 'is own 'and an' farther away dan dat. You won't find no one
close to 'e's equals anywhere on dis coast, er any other one on dis
island, sir. I knows him well, sir. Jes' dis marnin' he paddled along
be me wharf in dat old canoe of 'is, on his way out the bay. Won't
be gone more dan two days, I figure. Didn't have no gear aboard
dat I could see. Don't talk much, Mattie don't—not like me, eh?”
Here Frank smiled, showing strong, tobacco-stained teeth.

For the next two days, Worcester explored the village. He met
almost all of the friendly men, a few of the women, and several of
the children who followed the 'Merican man around.