“What’s for lunch, Loretta? I’m starving.”
I’d made bread yesterday, and we had some cold meat and hard cheddar cheese. I open a can of peaches and set out some raisin cookies I’d baked. As Teddy, Bean-Trap and I gather around the table, it seems hard to believe the summer’s almost over. We’ve been in Weasel City for three months already; we moved from Fort Nelson in June, 1942.
We’d journeyed forty miles up the Muskwa River to Weasel City, a real joke considering it’s anything but a city! A few trappers’ cabins are scattered along Kledo Creek where it flows into the Muskwa River, and we have a small a fur-trading post, but that’s it.
Now that I’m fourteen, I’m responsible for doing the cooking, the laundry, and trying to keep our old one-room log cabin clean. Bean-Trap told me that this cabin was once the home of two trappers, Henry Courvosier and Bert Sheffield, who staged the Great Fort Nelson Fur Robbery on July 12, 1936. They tied up the traders and stole twenty-nine bales of fur valued at thirty-two thousand dollars! I suppose we should feel privileged to live in such a historic house!
Besides doing all the housework, I’m teaching Teddy, who’s almost six now, how to read and write.
“Loretta’s showing me how to count,” Teddy volunteers, between mouthfuls of bread.
Bean-Trap lifts one eyebrow. “You know how to count, boy! I taught you how, a long time ago.” He picks up a worn deck of cards and starts shuffling it at the table, then flips the cards so fast they become a blur.
“Six of hearts! Seven of diamonds! Ace of spades!” Teddy sings out in time to his lightning-fast hand.
“Gimme a straight flush, boy!”
“Five cards, same suit! Five, six, seven, eight, nine!” Teddy chimes.
“Full House!”
“Three of a kind, one pair.” “Gimme one!”
“King, king, king, eight, eight!”
My head spins.
He throws down an eight of hearts and a two of spades, and booms, “Two from eight!”
“Six!”
“Eight plus two!”
Bean-Trap rocks back triumphantly on the two hind legs of his chair. “See, he’s a smart little fella, Loretta,” he says proudly. “He can run numbers backwards and forwards. So, what were you trying to teach him?”
I smile weakly. “One plus one....”
“Oh, he’s way past that. Tell you what, though. I think he’s ready to learn multiplying. Teach him that. And his goes-in-to’s.”
“Dividing?” I ask.
“Yeah, dividing. He’s gonna be my banker some day, and you can be my manager. I’m going to need people I can trust with my money. Now, how about reading? He knows numbers when he sees them, but he don’t know his letters. Gotta learn letters. We have any books around here?” He twists around on his chair and pulls out some magazines from the orange-crate. “Oops, guess these are too old for him.”
“What?” Teddy leans forward, as curious as ever. Bean-Trap whisks the magazines from his sight, but not before I see a picture of a woman in a bathing suit.
Bean-Trap laughs. “Old Henry must have left these here. See what else you can find.”
“There’s a Bible,” I say hesitantly.
“A Bible? Good! Should be lots of words in there he can learn. Start him off with something interesting, like the whale story. He’ll like that!”
“The whale?” Teddy asks, eyes wide.
“Yeah, you see, there’s this old guy named Jonah. God asks Jonah to go to the city and tell everyone who lives there to shape up because they’re a bad bunch. Jonah, he don’t see why it’s his job to be God’s messenger, so he runs off to sea instead.”
Teddy’s eyes are fixed on Bean-Trap, who gets up and paces the cabin floor to continue the tale, using wild expressions and hand signals.
“Then this fierce storm comes up, like an Alaskan coast williwaw. The wind’s blowing and the sea’s crashing, waves high as houses, fistfuls of rain’s tossing down, and that boat’s bouncing around like a flea on a dog’s back.” Bean-Trap’s arms are waving frantically as he imitates sailors stumbling about on the ship’s rolling deck. I laugh as Teddy joins in, another wobbly sailor.
“Finally, the sailors figure there must be a reason for this; maybe God’s mad at someone on board. The captain makes everyone on the ship ‘fess up. Jonah admits he’s on the lam, running from God because he’s disobeyed orders. When the sailors hear this, they throw him overboard to protect themselves.
“Quick as a snap, he’s gobbled up by a big whale swimming behind the ship, waiting for some tasty morsel to drop off the deck.”
“He fell off the deck and got ate by a whale?”
“Yesiree-bob! And you know what happened then?”
“No, what?” Teddy asks eagerly.
Bean-Trap comes back to the table and squats down next to Teddy. “You’ll hafta learn to read to find out! Loretta, where’s that old Bible? Find the Book of Jonah. I think you’ve got yourself an A-l student.”
Bean-Trap stands looking very satisfied with himself, stomach thrust out, picking his teeth with an ivory toothpick that suddenly resembles a sliver of whale’s tooth.
“Come on, Teddy. Help me with the dishes, then we’ll start our reading lesson,” I say.
Teddy jumps up excitedly to gather the plates and cups. Bean-Trap winks at me and I smile back. Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf.
“Gotta go to work,” Bean-Trap says.
I almost laugh. ‘Work,’ that’s a good one. His nickname is “Bean-Trap” because he traps other men’s “beans,” which is what they call money around here. We found out the hard way that his ‘work’ can get us all into a lot of trouble. We’re in Weasel City right now is because he is “fading from the scene” for a while.
After Bean-Trap leaves I sit down with Teddy at our oilcloth-covered board table. I lay out two pieces of blank paper, and the dusty mouse-chewed Bible left behind by Henry or Bert. When I open the Bible, a smell like old socks wafts out. “Whew! Henry must have kept this stuck in an old boot!” I laugh. Teddy laughs too, and we settle in to our studies.
“Okay, this is the alphabet.” I have written the twenty-six symbols, in capitals and small letters, across the top of a page. “And here’s how they sound....”
An hour later, Teddy can write JONAH and WHALE, and recognize these words in the Bible. I am amazed we’re making such fast progress!
About supper time, a knock sounds at the door. I stiffen, uncertain as to who it might be. Maybe it’s someone angry with Bean-Trap, someone who’s lost his summer’s gold and is coming to raid the house! I warn Teddy to stay back. With a pounding heart, I walk to the door and peep through a crack between the door and the frame. It’s Millie!
I open the door and beckon her inside. She enters, smiling shyly, accompanied by her youngest son, Harold, who clings onto her skirt and hides behind her legs. She holds out a cloth-covered tray. I lift back the cloth and there are a dozen cinnamon buns, their raisin, walnut and brown sugar centres oozing sweetness and a heavenly smell.
I flash her a broad, thankful smile, and offer her a chair. Harold is eyeing a leftover dish of peaches. “You can have them,” I say, and give him a spoon.
Millie notices the letters that Teddy has printed in squiggly lines on his paper. She points at them and looks questioningly at me. I nod. She points to the letters and then to herself. She wants me to teach her too! But how can I teach her to read when she speaks only a few words of English and I can’t speak Sikanni? Then I get an idea: the trading post manager, Mr. Benton, can speak both languages. I’ll ask him to write out a dozen words in each language, and we can start from there.
“I’m going to be a real teacher, Teddy!” I say, nodding at Millie, “and you won’t be the only kid in school anymore!”
Millie and Pete have six kids, ranging in age from one to sixteen. None has learned to read or write, although Pete and the older boys can speak some English. Their two girls are one and three; this little guy is two.
The older boys are always working with their Dad out on the trapline, or chopping wood, or hunting. Teddy sometimes plays with Ernie and Pat, the eight- and ten-year-old boys, but Bean-Trap has instructed us to never stray far from the cabin, so Teddy can’t go hunting or fishing with them. He doesn’t want us to become too friendly with the neighbours, but because Pete doesn’t gamble, we can at least associate with his family safely.
Bean-Trap’s customers aren’t usually Native people; not only because they don’t have as much money as the others, but because the police, the priest, the Indian Agent, and the traders would all raise the roof if they thought Bean-Trap was encouraging them to become customers. No one seems to care what other miners or trappers do-they can drink moonshine, gamble, or shoot each other for all anyone cares. And sometimes they do.
After Millie leaves, I decide to prepare the next lessons for my two new students. An hour later, a sharp crack resounds against the cabin wall. I jump from my chair, and Teddy and I hide in a shadowed corner. We wait and wait, but the sound doesn’t repeat itself, not that I could hear it above my thundering heartbeat.
“Do you think someone’s after us, Loretta?” Teddy asks. His voice quavers and his eyes open wide in fright.
“I don’t think so. It was likely a stray pellet-kids out shooting at squirrels or birds.”
“It’s nearly dark!” Teddy whispers, fear mounting in his voice.
“We’ll check it out in the morning when the sun’s up, when Bean-Trap is home,” I say, trying to reassure him. “We’ll look for marks on the log wall. If we find something, we’ll tell him. He’ll make sure it won’t happen again.”
“I’m scared, Loretta. What if people start to hate us here, like in Eagle when they set fire....”
“Sshhh. Come on, get ready for bed. I’ll climb in with you, and tell you a story. Sometimes stories make all the difference. How about ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”
“No, it’s too scary. I feel sorry for the wolf. Wolves don’t act like that! Read me some more about that beaver, Sajo.”
I pick up my well-worn copy of Grey Owl’s story of the two beaver kittens and begin to read.
“Chapter two, ‘Gitchie Mee-Gwon, the Big Feather. Up the broad, swift current of the Yellow Birch river, in the days before the eyes of a white man had ever looked on its cool, clear waters, there paddled one early September morning a lone Indian in a birch-bark canoe.’”
By the time I get to the end of the chapter, to where Negik, the otter-the bitter and deadly enemy of all the Beaver People-is on the warpath and the beavers, their water gone, will now be fighting for their lives, Teddy is asleep, his head slumped against my arm.
I carefully untangle myself, and walk toward the stove to stoke it up. Just then I hear another “crack!” against the outside wall. I dive onto my bed and pull the feather quilt over my head. I try to think about anything but who might want to throw things at the house. I think of good times: picking berries with Millie, and hot summer days spent down by the creek with Teddy, and I think about birthdays....