The Deserter by Paul Almond

Author:Paul Almond [Almond, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McArthur & Company Publishing Limited
Published: 2010-11-09T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Thomas kept moving as fast as he could along the trail upriver toward the Micmac encampment. He made sure to stop every so often and listen. Doubts still plagued him. Were the trader and his friends gathering at this very moment to set out after him? He wished that it were not so late in the season: he could well do with a screen of leaves. With his heavy bags, he pushed himself hard. He’d be safe once he got to the band.

Or would he? Would they be of the same mind as before? Had Fury altered their perception? Adverse sentiments spread easily in one’s absence, especially among a tight little group. And he’d only been with them two days.

All at once he tripped and his bags went flying. Damn! He lay, winded. What had possessed him to be so careless, messing up once again? As he picked himself up, he glanced over to see a line stretched across the trail. Aha! A signal. A sapling had sprung up, clacking against a trunk, making a racket. Good, he thought, no one will surprise my Micmacs.

He started to gather up his things when he saw a form sprinting down the trail, bow and arrow at the ready. Thomas waved cheerfully.

The Micmac stopped, lifted his bow, arrow fixed to the bowstring.

“Wait!” Thomas shouted. “It’s me, Thomas.” In Micmac he called, “Friend.”

The man lowered his bow slightly.

Thomas rose, and spread out his arms. Was this a member of the band? He didn’t recognize him. But he felt sure the man would remember him.

“Last year...” What was Micmac for that? He went on in their language, “me come, live at brook.”

A slight recognition flashed across the usually stoic face.“Epchilàsi!”

Welcome, Thomas knew, and smiled. He nodded. “Thank you,” he said in Micmac as the man came forward and, in spite of Thomas’s protestations, shouldered two packs.

“How is everyone? Lots of fish?” Thomas asked, in what little Micmac he had picked up.

“Gdúlg.” Good, Thomas remembered, and they set off together up the trail. He noticed that the snow, all but melted in Paspébiac, could still be seen here melting; the ground he had fallen on was damp, and the trail moist beneath his feet. On the back of his pack, Thomas had hung two saucepans and a large kettle for Little Birch, with a smaller one for himself. But when should he give it to her? Would it be appropriate, or against Mic-mac etiquette? Indians were decidedly strong in their protocols. He wished he’d stayed longer on his earlier visit to learn more. Maybe just give it to her family, he decided.

Coming into camp, he had the strange feeling of, well, arriving at a familiar and welcome site. Everything was nicely worn in. On a kind of rack made of sticks held up by horizontal poles twenty feet off the ground,

waterproof baskets of meat sat, drying.

Clever, he thought, animals that climbed trees could not reach them. Smoke drifted up from a couple of the oblong huts; he suspected haunches of game were being smoked for the long winter ahead.

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