“the One Who Would Come”

“the One Who Would Come” is Kuntaw’s imagined future companion, whose anticipated arrival gives shape to his life after Beatrix’s death. The figure is at once a place-holder for intimacy and a promise Kuntaw makes himself: that he can recover strength and renew his connection to Mi’kmaw ways of knowing the forest.

After Beatrix’s Death

Kuntaw had lost Tonny, Malaan, Beatrix, and, as he understood it, himself. He tried to contain the pain by dismissing his years with Beatrix as wasted and rejecting her as an overeducated white woman in an Indian body. Yet beneath this defensive judgment remained the possibility of beginning again. He imagined going north, to the half-wild forest, and living according to an older way of life.

A Place Kept for Two

Before Beatrix became ill, Kuntaw had killed a moose and made himself a proper Mi’kmaw jacket. He had retained his greased mkisn rather than adopting white men’s shoes, and still had a beaver cloak and deer-hide leggings. After Beatrix’s death, he planned to build a camp as though there would be two people in it, although he would have no client. He would set aside clothing and bed robes for the other person, cook for two, and lay out a dish for the One Who Would Come. He would leave out white men’s metal pots, which he believed would spoil the camp’s magic.

The Expected Arrival

Kuntaw had once believed Beatrix was the one who would come, and thought she had believed the same of him. Now he imagined a stranger’s appearance beginning indistinctly, like shadows cast by moving leaves, and becoming gradually more solid. The decisive moment would come when the newcomer accepted the spare clothes and stood before him as firm and real as a tree. Kuntaw mended his bows and made new arrows while waiting, imagining that they would hunt together as close companions.

Meaning and Uncertainty

The figure remains an expectation, not an arrival confirmed by the narrative. Kuntaw invests it with the hope of sharing a new friend’s magic power and becoming strong again, “a Mi’kmaw man again.” The camp’s provisions make that hope practical and repeated: a second place is kept at meals, and a second life is anticipated in the clothing and shelter. At the same time, Kuntaw recognizes that the forest itself has been transformed in white men’s eyes into material for houses and ships. His imagined companion therefore represents not only a hoped-for bond after bereavement, but also his desire to know trees as his people once did.