Free Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past by Tantoo Cardinal Page B

dusk.
    One by one, the great boat’s torches sprang to life as it reached the shore, to harsh cries of, “Skraeling!”
    The camp, and especially Kannujaq himself, had been nervous and watchful. All was set, and cries of alarm spread faster than flame among the Tunit, who were soon running. Kannujaq ran alongside them, desperately hoping that the Tunit would be able to summon their courage when the time came.
    His greatest fear was that the raiders would not behave as planned. Siku and Siaq had prepared a kind of rancid-smelling tea out of theirmushrooms, assuring Kannujaq that it would be undetectable on meat saturated with it. They were wrong. Kannujaq himself had sampled some of it. No peculiar scent, but its flavour was off. His stomach had begun to lurch soon afterward.
    Maybe the raiders are less observant
, he hoped.
    They reached the hills, and could see commotion down by the beach, most likely the raiders kicking in the short Tunit walls, ripping tops off homes, stamping through cook-fires. Kannujaq gave them time, letting the reddish grey of evening come on. After the amount of time it might have taken for someone to boil up soup, he began to creep back down.
    Lucky my clothes have become sooty, like the Tunit
.
    It seemed to take forever to get down there, but at last he was at the edge of the community. Fortunately, there were large rocks about, enough for him to move among cover.
    The Shining One was easy to spot. There was that gleaming face by torchlight, the man who never seemed to stray far from his boat. As before, he was arguing with one of his own. He was frustrated by something. At last, he tore off the gleaming shell upon his head and face and cast it upon the stones of the beach.
    His giant servant watched him climb back into the boat, retrieving something near its stern. Then the Shining One stretched himself out, drinking something in hand.
    The servant shook his head and left his leader there, joining the other raiders at a fire they had constructed. For fuel, they were burning what precious few tools the Tunit had made, from driftwood, over generations.
    Yet they are eating
, Kannujaq noted. They had found the meat, but the poison would take some time to work. He needed patience, as in hunting a seal.
    It was a sudden thing when it happened. They were still laughing, but their movements were becoming syrupy, disjointed. Whenever one arose, he teetered dangerously.
    Then one of them vomited. The others laughed at this, crazily, before they did the same. The mad pitch of their laughter increased, untilthey fell—first to knees, then fully upon the ground. Many began gesturing, calling out at empty air.
    Soon the dozen of them were down, some convulsing. One lay still. Others were laughing or weeping uncontrollably.
    Kannujaq unravelled the bull-roarer in his hand. He whirled the noise-maker round and round, calling the Tunit.
    Where are they
, Kannujaq thought.
Now! Now! I can’t do it alone!
    Finally, Tunit men appeared next to him, long bear spears in hand. They stood stunned by what they saw, and Kannujaq roared at them to get moving.
    He did not watch as they stabbed the giants. His objective was the boat. He ordered several Tunit men to join him and do as he did.
    Kannujaq threw himself against the bow of the boat, and the Tunit men did likewise. Together they began to shove it backward, away from the shore, trying to get it out into the water.
    Kannujaq’s one concern was the Shining One himself. He had assumed that the man would join his fellows in feasting, but he had been wrong. Instead, the man seemed to have gone to sleep in the stern, after guzzling tea all evening.
    They didn’t get the boat out in time.
    There was a dry, rasping sound—that of a weapon being drawn—and the Shining One appeared with a bellow. Kannujaq barely fell away from the boat as a great blade bit into the gunwale nearest his face.
    But the Tunit had managed to push the vessel out.