Klee Wyck - Emily Carr [18]
There we were—D’Sonoqua, the cats and I—the woman who only a few moments ago had forced herself to come behind the houses in trembling fear of the “wild woman of the woods”—wild in the sense that forest creatures are wild—shy, untouchable.
THE BLOUSE
The sound of waves came in at the open door; the smell of the sea and of the sun-warmed earth came in too. It was expected that very soon death would enter. A row of women sat outside the hut—they were waiting to mourn and howl when death came.
The huddle of bones and withered skin on the mattress inside the hut knew death was coming. Although the woman was childless and had no husband, she knew that the women of her tribe would make sorrow-noise for her when death came.
The eyes of the dying woman were glassy and half closed. I knelt beside her and put my hand over her cold bony one. My blouse touched her and she opened her eyes wide. Turning her hand, she feebly clutched the silk of my sleeve.
“Is there something that you want, Mary?”
“Good,” she whispered, still clutching the sleeve.
I thought that she was dead, holding my sleeve in a death grip. One of the women came in and tried to free me. Mary’s eyes opened and she spoke in Indian.
“Mary wants your blouse,” said the stooping woman to me.
“Wants my blouse?”
“Uh huh—wants for grave.”
“To be buried in?”
“No, for grave-house.”
I understood. Mary had not many things now but she had been important once. They would build a little wooden room with a show window in it over her grave. Here they would display her few poor possessions, the few hoarded trifles of her strong days. My blouse would be an addition.
The dying woman’s eyes were on my face.
I scrambled out of the blouse and into my jacket. I laid the blouse across Mary. She died with her hands upon it.
THE STARE
Millie’s stare was the biggest thing in the hut. It dimmed for a moment as we stood in its way—but in us it had no interest. The moment we moved from its path it tightened again —this tense, living stare glowing in the sunken eyes of a sick Indian child.
All the life that remained in the emaciated, shrivelled little creature was concentrated in that stare. It burned a path for itself right across the sea to the horizon, burning with longing focused upon the return of her father’s whaling-boat.
The missionary bent over the child.
“Millie!”
Millie’s eyes lifted grudgingly, then hastened back to their watching.
Turning to the old crone who took the place of a mother who was dead and cared for the little girl, the missionary asked, “How is she, Granny?”
“I t’ink ’spose boat no come quick, Milly die plitty soon now.”
“Is there no word of the boats?”
“No, maybe all Injun-man dead. Whale fishin’ heap, heap bad for make die.”
They brought the child food. She struggled to force down enough to keep the life in her till her father came. Squatted on her mat on the earth floor, her chin resting on the sharp knees and circled by her sticks of arms, she sat from dawn till dark, watching. When light was gone the stare fought its way, helped by Millie’s ears, listening, listening out into black night.
IT WAS IN the early morning that the whaling-boats came home. When the mist lifted, Millie saw eight specks out on the horizon. Taut, motionless, uttering no word, she watched them grow.
“The boats are coming!” The cry rang through the village. Women left their bannock-baking, their basket-weaving and hurried to the shore. The old crone who tended Millie hobbled to the beach with the rest.
“The boats are coming!” Old men warming their stiff bodies in the sun shaded dull eyes with their hands to look far out to sea, groaning for joy that their sons were safe.
“The boats are coming!” Quick ears of children heard the cry in the school-house and, squeezing from their desks without leave, pattered down to the shore. The missionary followed. It was the event of the year, this return of the whaling-boats.
Millie’s father was the first to land. His eyes searched among