The Sign of the Beaver (6 page)

He watched as Attean cut two short branches, bending them first to make sure they were green. He trimmed and sharpened them rapidly. Then he thrust a pointed end into each fish from head to tail. A small green stick was set crosswise inside the fish to hold the sides apart. He handed one stick to Matt. One on each side of the fire, the two boys squatted and held their sticks to the blaze. From time to time Attean fed the fire with dry twigs. When the flesh was crisp and brown, they ate, still silently.

Matt licked his fingers. His resentment had vanished along with his hunger. "Golly," he said, "that was the best fish I ever ate."

"Good," said Attean. Across the fire he looked at Matt, and his eyes gleamed. He was laughing again, but somehow not with scorn.

"What did you say to that fish you threw back?" Matt was still curious.

"I say to him not to tell other fish," Attean said seriously. "Not scare away."

"You actually think a fish could understand?"

Attean shrugged. "Fish know many thing," he replied.

Matt sat pondering this strange idea. "Well, it seemed to work," he said finally. "At least the other fish came along."

A wide grin spread slowly across Attean's face. It was the first time Matt had seen him smile.

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Seven sticks, each with seven notches. That meant that it was well into August. The silk tassels were glistening on the cornstalks. The hard green pumpkins nestling underneath the stalks were rounding out and taking on a coating of orange. It was time for his father to be coming. At any moment he might look out and see him walking into the clearing, bringing his mother and Sarah and the new baby. It was strange to think there was a member of the family he had never seen. Was it a boy or a girl? It would be a fine thing to have them sitting around the table again.

He hoped his mother would take over the reading lessons, which were going badly. Attean still came almost every day, though there was no longer any need for him to bring meat or fish. Matt couldn't make out why the Indian kept coming since he made it so plain he disliked the lessons. So often Attean made him feel uncomfortable and ridiculous. But he had to admit that on the days when Attean did not come the hours went by slowly.

Often Attean seemed in no hurry to leave when the morning's lesson was over. "Look see if catch rabbit," he might suggest, and together they would go out to check the snares. Or they would tramp along the creek to a good spot for fishing. Attean seemed to have plenty of time on his hands. Sometimes he would just hang around and watch Matt do the chores. He would stand at the edge of the corn patch and look on while Matt pulled up weeds.

"Squaw work," he commented once.

Matt flushed. "We think it's a man's work," he retorted.

Attean said nothing. He did not offer to help. After a time he just wandered off without saying goodbye. It must be mighty pleasant, Matt thought to himself, to just hunt and fish all day long and not have any work to do. That wasn't his father's way, and it wouldn't ever be his. The work was always waiting to be done, but if he got the corn patch cleared and the wood chopped today, he could go fishing with Attean tomorrow—if Attean invited him.

Sometimes Attean brought an old dog with him. It was about the sorriest-looking hound Matt had ever seen, with a coat of coarse brown hair, a mangy tail, and whitish patches on its face that gave it a clownish look. Its long pointed nose was misshapen with bumps and bristles. By the look of its ears, it had survived many battles. The instant it spied Matt, a ridge of hair went straight up on its back and it let out a mean growl. Attean cuffed it sharply, and after that it was quiet, but it watched the white stranger with wary eyes and kept its distance.

Matt tried not to show his own distrust. "What's his name?" he asked politely.

Attean shrugged. "No name.
Aremus—
dog."

"If he doesn't have a name, how can he come when you call?"

"Him my dog. Him come."

As though he knew what Attean had said, the scruffy tail began to weave back and forth.

"
Piz wat
" Attean said. "Good for nothing. No good for hunt. No sense. Him fight anything—bear, moose." There was no mistaking the pride in Attean's voice.

"What's wrong with his nose?"

Attean grinned. "Him fight anything. Chase
kogw—
what white man call? Needles all over."

"Oh—a porcupine. Golly, that must have hurt."

"Pull out many needle. Some very deep, not come out. Dog not feel them now."

Maybe not, Matt thought, but he doubted those quills had improved the dog's disposition. He didn't fancy this dog of Attean's.

During the lesson the dog prowled about outside the cabin and finally thumped down on the path to bite and scratch at fleas. When Attean came out, the dog leaped up, prancing and yapping as though Attean had been gone for days. Matt thought a little better of him for that. It minded him how his father's dog had made a fuss every time his father came home. That old hound must have just about wagged its tail off when his father came back from Maine. The fact was, Matt was a little jealous of Attean. A dog would be mighty fine company here in the woods, no matter how scrawny it looked.

But not this one. No matter how often the dog came with Attean, he never let Matt touch him. Nor did Matt like him any better. He was certainly no good at hunting. When the two boys walked through the woods the dog zigzagged ahead, sending squirrels racing up trees and jays chattering, and ruining any chance of a catch. Matt wondered why Attean wanted him along. Attean didn't pay him any mind except to shout at him and cuff him when he was too noisy. But for all his show of indifference, it was plain to Matt that Attean thought a sight of that dog.

Attean had not brought the dog with him the day that he led Matt a long distance into a part of the forest that Matt had never seen. Following after him, Matt began to feel uneasy. If Attean should take himself off suddenly, as he had a way of doing, Matt was not sure he could find his way back to the cabin. It occurred to him that Attean knew this, that perhaps Attean had brought him so far just to show him how helpless he really was, how all the words in a white man's book were of no use to him in the woods.

Yet he did not think this would happen. For some reason he could not explain to himself, he trusted Attean. He didn't really like him. When the Indian got that disdainful look in his eyes, Matt hated him. But somehow, as they had sat side by side, day after day, doing the lessons that neither of them wanted to do, something had changed. Perhaps it had been
Robinson Crusoe,
or the tramping through the woods together. They didn't like each other, but they were no longer enemies.

When they came upon a row of short tree stumps, birch and aspen cut off close to the ground, Matt's heart gave a leap. Were there settlers nearby? Or Indians? There was no proper clearing. Then he noticed that whoever had cut the trees had left jagged points on each one. No axe would cut a tree in that way. He could see marks where the trees had been dragged along the ground.

In a few steps the boys came out on the bank of an unfamiliar creek. There Matt saw what had happened to those trees. They had been piled in a mound right over the water, from one bank to the other. Water trickled through them in tiny cascades. Behind the piled-up branches, a small pond stretched smooth and still.

"It's a beaver dam!" he exclaimed. "The first one I've ever seen."

"
Qwa bit
" said Attean. "Have red tail. There beaver wigwam." He pointed to a heap of branches at one side, some of them new with green leaves still clinging. Matt stepped closer to look. Instantly there was the crack of a rifle. A ring of water rippled the surface of the pond. Near its edge a black head appeared for just a flash and vanished again in a splutter of bubbles.

Attean laughed at the way Matt had started. "Beaver make big noise with tail," he explained.

"I thought someone had shot a gun," Matt said. "I wish I had my rifle now."

Attean scowled. "Not shoot," he warned. "Not white man, not Indian. Young beaver not ready."

He pointed to a tree nearby. "Sign of beaver," he said. "Belong to family."

Carved on the bark, Matt could make out the crude figure of an animal that could, with some imagination, be a beaver.

"Sign show beaver house belong to people of beaver," Attean explained. "By and by, when young beaver all grown, people of beaver hunt here. No one hunt but people of beaver."

"You mean, just from that mark on the tree, another hunter would not shoot here?"

"That our way," Attean said gravely. "All Indian understand."

Would a white man understand? Matt wondered. He thought of Ben with his stolen rifle. It wasn't likely Ben would respect an Indian sign. But he must remember to warn his father.

When it seemed the beaver did not intend to show itself again, the two boys climbed back up the bank. At the row of stumps, Attean halted and signaled for Matt to go ahead.

"Show way to cabin," he ordered.

All Matt's suspicions came rushing back. Did Attean intend to sneak off behind his back and leave him to find his own way home?

"Is this some kind of trick?" he demanded hotly.

Attean looked stern. "Not trick," he said. "Matt need learn."

To Matt's relief, he took the lead again. After a short distance he stopped and pointed to a broken stick leaning in the direction of the creek. A little farther on there was a small stone set against a larger one. Not far away a tuft of dried grass dangled from a branch of a small tree.

"Indian make sign," Attean said. "Always make sign to tell way. Matt must same. Not get lost in forest."

Now Matt remembered how Attean had paused every so often, sometimes to break off a branch that hung in their path, once to nudge aside a stone with the toe of his moccasin. He had done these things so quickly that Matt had paid no mind. He saw now that Attean had carefully been leaving markers.

"Of course," he exclaimed. "But my father always made blazes on the trees with his knife."

Attean nodded. "That white man's way. Indian maybe not want to show where he go. Not want hunters to find beaver house."

So these were secret signs. Nothing anyone following them would notice. It would take sharp eyes to find them, even if you knew they were there.

"Matt do same," Attean repeated. "Always make sign to show way back."

Matt was ashamed of his suspicions. Attean had only meant to help him. If only he didn't have to be so superior about it.

He plodded along behind Attean, trying to spot the signs before Attean could point them out. All at once, as a thought struck him, he almost laughed out loud. He remembered Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. He and Attean had sure enough turned that story right round about. Whenever they went a few steps from the cabin, it was the brown savage who strode ahead, leading the way, knowing just what to do and doing it quickly and skillfully. And Matt, a puny sort of Robinson Crusoe, tagged along behind, grateful for the smallest sign that he could do anything right.

It wasn't that he wanted to be a master. And the idea of Attean's being anyone's slave was not to be thought of. He just wished he could make Attean think a little better of him. He wanted Attean to look at him without that gleam of amusement in his eyes. He wished that it were possible for him to win Attean's respect.

As though Attean sensed that Matt was disgruntled, he stopped, whipped out his knife, and neatly sliced off two shining gobs of dried sap from a nearby spruce. He grinned and held out one of them like a peace offering. "Chaw," he ordered. He popped the other piece into his mouth and began to chew with evident pleasure.

Gingerly, Matt copied him. The gob fell to pieces between his teeth, filling his mouth with a bitter juice. He wanted to spit it out in disgust, but Attean was plainly enjoying the stuff, so he stubbornly forced his jaws to keep moving. In a moment the bits came together in a rubbery gum, and the first bitterness gave way to a fresh piney taste. To his surprise, it was very good. The two boys tramped on, chewing companionably. Once more, Matt acknowledged to himself, Attean had taught him another secret of the forest.

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He was envious of the bow Attean often carried behind his shoulder, and of the blunt arrows he tucked into his belt. Only the day before, Matt had watched him swing it suddenly into position and bring down a flying duck. Attean had picked up the dead bird carefully and carried it away with him. No doubt the Indians would find some use for every scrap of bone and feather. Matt knew by now that Attean never shot anything just for the fun of it. With a bow and a little practice, Matt thought now, he might get a duck for himself. It would be a fine change from his usual fish.