Tom and Silent Owl set out, carrying as few provisions as possible to save space for the heavy camera equipment. Tom felt naked traveling without a chart. Silent Owl packed a rifle, knife, and axe each, as well as beaver skins to sleep in and a stack of iron tools that they could trade with if they met any Mi’kmaq.
“The white men did bring some useful things over with them,” he said.
Tom added oatmeal and smoked fish. Silent Owl smiled but made no comment. Spring Thaw was insistent that they take no spirits with them. “It’s poison.” Tom though was tired of being told what to do and hid a flask of whisky inside an oatmeal sack.
They set off in the early morning, paddling across Bras d’Or, past the basking islands where rocks lay on the shores, sleek and mottled like sealskin. The wind frisked and creased the deep blue waters. The meadows were a lush green with darker swathes of forest behind. Both water and land reminded Tom of the Hebrides but these colors were more vivid, like a child’s painting. A blue heron flew over them. It too was bigger and brighter than its sober-suited British cousin. Silent Owl pointed to it and grinned. He must see it as a good omen for our journey, thought Tom. How he wished that his camera could reproduce those colors. His life had for too long been shaded in drab tones. It was time for some bright pigments.
Tom had no more time for thinking. Both the paddling and the portage were exhausting. His body had never been so tested before. As his muscles hardened he felt a kind of peace in contemplating his own insignificance. He was only one speck of life among the teeming forms of nature. Silent Owl was well named. His footfall was like an owl’s muffled flight. His hunting skills kept them supplied with hare, squirrel, and waterfowl. They feasted on salmon and oysters. He spoke little but his body was eloquent as he slipped through the woods, as much part of the natural world as the raccoon or the deer. Like them he stopped often to cock his head or sniff the air. One time, he waited near a clearing and showed Tom how some of the leaves on the bushes were glistening. He bent closer and grinned at Tom. “A buck has just gone through.”
Tom could understand that his companion could recognize the animal through the scent of its urine but surely not its sex too?
“How do you know it’s not a doe?”
“Surely you know that the buck makes water in a high spray and the doe only on the ground.”
Using spear or bow and arrow for hunting he kept the rifles for defence against strangers. His patience was endless. Another time, crouching for hours behind a large birch he mimicked the mating cry of a female turkey and eventually lured three males into his snares. He untied them and examined the birds before letting the largest two fly away.
“Why did you only keep the smallest?” Tom asked.
Silent Owl looked at him with pity. “The strongest ones will father more chicks and keep his kind alive for later hunters.”
When they approached farms near Cheticamp at the western point of Lake Ainslee village, Tom was cautious. He knew that this was an area where the farms belonged to French-speaking Arcadians, a people he wasn’t familiar with. The first time he told Silent Owl to wait at the edge of the settlement in case the local people set their dogs on him. Tom soon found though that he was welcomed. It would be much the same whether the settlers spoke English, Gaelic, or French. A child would spot them first and follow at a distance before skittering closer to peer at the equipment on the back of the horse.
“What’ve you got there, mister?”
“Never seen a magic box before? One that takes pictures?” Tom would reply.
Then the boy would rush ahead, shouting to everyone he could see and banging on doors. The adults appeared, excited too but more restrained. The men strolled over, nodding in a knowledgeable way as if it was a new plough they were examining. The women rounded up their wriggling offspring to wipe their faces and smooth down their hair. Meanwhile, Silent Owl was largely ignored as he unpacked the equipment, except for a few sidelong glances. This is how a pedlar would have been greeted in the old days, Tom thought, as someone exotic, a little suspect but welcomed for his trinkets and ribbons.
One day though they had a different reception. They met a farmer and his small son well before they reached the village.
“What do you want?” the man asked, in a voice with a hint of an Irish accent as he stared at Silent Owl. Tom pointed out the camera while the boy tugged at his father’s sleeve. “Look at the Indian. Will he dress up in war paint?”
Silent Owl scowled, making the child hide behind his father’s legs. Afterward he disappeared, leaving Tom to prepare the camera on his own. It took some time to shepherd the large family into position in front of their cabin. Tom hoped that Silent Owl hadn’t gone for good.
Then a startling figure strode toward them out of the woods. His long hair was oiled and smoothed over his shoulders. Red, ochre and black stripes splashed his cheeks, forehead and body. Everyone turned to gape just as Tom was taking his photograph. He tossed back the curtain from his shoulders, furious that he would have to start all over again. Now the children were clamouring to appear with Silent Owl. Once those pictures were finished their mother straightened their collars for the family group photograph. Afterward Tom moved into the darkness of a barn to develop his pictures while Silent Owl stood outside, leaning on the door frame with his bronzed arms folded. His muscles squeezed the dark tattoo of his namesake bird so that it flapped its outstretched wings across his glistening bare chest. The small boy who had first greeted them now sidled up. Groping in his trouser pocket he brought out a tarnished mirror and held it up to Silent Owl’s face. He recoiled in horror, covering his eyes and then peeping between his fingers before jumping back again. The child screamed with laughter. One of the men heard and came over, holding out a pocket watch. Silent Owl listened to it ticking with his mouth agape, turned it over and bit it. Scratching his head he held it out at arm’s length, head cocked, before returning it. A crowd was gathered now to watch him. He started to dance in a circle, leaping and spinning in the air while he roared out a song. By the time Tom had developed the pictures, Silent Owl had collected a fistful of coins thrown at him by his audience.
When they returned to the woods that evening Tom said, “Well, we both earned good money there.”
He watched his companion closely to see how he would react. Did he feel humiliated by his treatment? Silent Owl stared at Tom before roaring with laughter.
“The white faces are easier to trick than the turkey cocks,” he said.
“You would do that again? It would be even better with a headdress.”
Silent Owl’s face stiffened. “Only a chief can wear one and I would never be chosen.”
He turned his attention to the trout they were grilling. After eating they were ready to curl up in the beaver skins for the night. Tom rolled up his jacket to make a pillow and felt the hard edge of the forgotten flask. They should celebrate. He gulped some whisky down and handed the flask to Silent Owl. He coughed after the first swallow, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and then drank steadily, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Tom settled down, feeling his head swaying. It was so long since he had taken any spirits. Silent Owl started crooning in a falsetto voice. The singing soon turned to snoring. Tom smiled and fell asleep.