“The right time, the right place,” Jonah said.
“We could call to them. Let them know who we are.”
“No need.” Jonah stopped walking. On the path ahead of them stood three men, wearing clothes made of animal skins, hair wild and long, two of them holding wooden spears and the third a longbow. They heard a noise behind them. Conall glanced back, saw another two wildmen who had appeared as if from nowhere.
The blacksmith strode forward to meet them, exchanged words and pointed back at Conall and Jonah.
“Looks like we’re in their hands now,” Jonah muttered. “Hope you’re right about Tugon being behind this.”
Jonah and Conall waited. There was nothing else to do, nowhere to run, no chance of escape even if they wanted to. The men from the trading post didn’t look them in the eye. They walked off back the way they’d come, without a word.
“You take care of my boat,” the first mate yelled at them. One of the men grunted, and that was all the acknowledgment they got.
The wildmen came closer, checking them over. “This way,” one of them said.
Conall stood his ground. “We’re looking for our friend.”
“You keep your mouth shut, young Hawkins,” Jonah said.
Conall ignored him. Argent didn’t trust anyone, ever. But the time for suspicion had gone. “We know Tugon. He’s one of your people.”
One of the wildmen paused, turned to look back at Conall. “He sent for you.”
“You know him? He’s alive? We were wrecked, at sea, we thought he’d drowned.”
The man said no more, but waved them on. The wildmen broke into a lopping run, urging Conall and Jonah to do the same. “Many miles to go,” one of them said, “no time to waste. The shaman has returned. We go to war.”
Chapter Seventeen
WILDMEN
The wildmen paused at the top of a high pass. Conall looked down into the valley below, at the woods in the distance and the clearings where grass had been grazed short by rabbits, deer and sheep. Wild flowers bloomed on the edges of the woodland. The sound of birdsong filled the air. It was hard to believe this was once a frozen wilderness.
In a clearing beside a stream he saw a camp of yurts, teepees and makeshift tents made from animal skins. Children played by the water while women sat by the fires preparing food. A group of hunters armed with bows headed for the woods.
The wildmen gestured for them to walk on. “Is Tugon here?” Conall asked.
“He’s coming,” a wildman said. His accent was thick and strange, but like Tugon, he sounded as if he’d spoken English all his life.
As Conall walked into the camp, he saw people of all races and colours. These weren’t one people, that was clear, not an ancient tribe who’d lived together for centuries. They were a mix from across the world, living side-by-side. A group of children ran to join them, running alongside, shouting greetings. Conall waved and called back to them, but beside him Jonah walked gruffly, refusing to acknowledge the youngsters.
Conall chided him. “These people are friends. They came looking for us.”
“Feels like we’re prisoners,” Jonah said. “Ain’t much different to being taken by slavers.”
“We didn’t get a welcome like this at the Russian quarry and there’s no collar around my neck. No gun at my back.”
Jonah grunted. “It’s not the welcome that matters. It’s what happens afterwards.”
The first mate refused to lighten his mood, even when they were given a meal of meat and stew and flatbread baked in a mud oven. Conall devoured the food, the best he’d eaten in weeks. Months. Since the Old Broch Inn back at Lerwick. He asked for more and the women laughed, bringing extra bread and meat, offering fruit and cooked nuts. “It’s the fresh air, the walking, it makes me hungry.” Conall kept eating until he was stuffed.
One of the wildmen sat watching them. Jonah picked at his food, as if he feared it was poisoned, and glared at the man.
Conall kicked Argent’s foot. “He’s looking out for us, making sure we’re safe.” But there was no point trying to reason with Jonah. The first mate didn’t like these people. He’d never trusted Tugon, even though he’d got them out of the slave camp and across the wilderness, saved them countless times, and entrusted his own life to theirs.
Why could the two men never see eye-to-eye? Because they were so different? Or so alike? Strong, determined, self-reliant, they survived in a tough world on their own wits. But they belonged. Argent was part of a crew, and Tugon of a tribe. Each of them needed to get back to their people. It gave them meaning, a reason to survive and be strong.
What did Conall have? Faro. They were a team and they had defended each other, fought for each other, all their lives. The Hawkins brothers, against the world. But where was his brother now?
Conall lay back on a deerskin rug on the grass. It was a warm afternoon and the sun on his face, and the food in his belly made him sleepy.
“Keep your wits about you, young Hawkins,” Jonah said. The first mate was sitting up, clutching his cane in one hand, in case he needed to defend himself.
There was no sense in arguing, because Argent wouldn’t listen. Conall ignored him, put his head back and slipped into a deep sleep.
≈≈≈≈
Tugon’s people arrived while Conall was sleeping. He woke to the sound of more tents being put up, more fires made, more children yelling and running. Three hundred men, women and children had arrived, Jonah told him, bringing animals and noise. “Don’t know how you sleep so sound,” Argent said. “They make enough noise to wake the dead.”
“Where’s Tugon?”
“In one of the tents.” Jonah gestured across the clearing. “With the leaders, I reckon, in talks. Wildman business. There’s something in the air.” Jonah looked around, as if he feared someone might be listening. “Stay sharp. Don’t know what their plans are, or where we fit in. But we may have to run.”
And go where? Conall left the question unspoken. He wouldn’t argue with the first mate, but if Argent chose to leave, Conall wouldn’t follow. He wanted to find the Hudsons, the crew, his brother. But there was a better chance by staying with these people. And there was something about the way they lived, natural and carefree, that appealed to him. He’d stay, to see and learn more. Whatever Jonah said, it wasn’t the time to run.
He watched the tents going up, the frames built of timber from the forests. He offered to help a group of wildmen, hoping to learn how it was done. Two hours later he was still busy, part of a team of men and women setting up the camp. He was soon in the flow of it, learning how to balance the frame, how to tie the stakes, how to move the animal skins into position.
Jonah refused to help. He stayed where the wildmen had put him, but no one guarded him now. He was a free man, could leave if he wanted. Did he even know?
It was late into the evening before the leaders of the tribe emerged from their tents, their talks finally finished. Groups of men gathered their hunting weapons and bags of supplies. They said farewells to women and children and set off, scattering in different directions.
“Taking word to the tribes,” one of the wildmen told him as Conall watched them go. The man pointed across the clearing to where Tugon talked with a group of children. “Our shaman has returned,” he said. “We feared he was dead. Maybe he was. But he returned. He lives again.”
“He wasn’t dead. He was far away. Unable to get home. Taken by slavers, I don’t know how.”
“Now they will pay,” the man said. “A heavy price.”
Tugon saw Conall, raised an arm in greeting and strode over to him. The wildman threw his arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight.
Conall struggled out of the fierce embrace. “I’m glad you got ashore, I feared you’d drowned.”
“So close to home? That would be bad,” Tugon said. “You’ve met my people. What do you think now? Are we savages?”
Conall shook his head. They were far from that.
“And Jonah?
Does he still say we’re cruel and heartless?”
“He doesn’t change his mind much, once it’s set on something.”
“Then we must prove him wrong,” Tugon said.
“By starting a war?”
“There are things you don’t understand,” Tugon said. “Sit with me, you and Jonah. It’s time we talked.”
All those weeks, crossing Russia, sailing from Murmansk, the time in Kirkenes and on board The Angela, Tugon had told then nothing of his home, or his life, who he was or how he came to be a slave. Now at last, as the flames flickered on the fire, as they sat in the clearing with the sounds of the tribe around them, the smell of cooking and cut pine and animal leather, he opened up, and began to talk.
When the world was cooler, he told them, when the arctic was ice the year round, the old ways flourished and men bent the world to their will. They burnt fuel, ripped down trees, polluted the earth and seas. It was in those days the tribes of the wildmen had formed. They came from every land, from all races and creeds, brought by the thirst for a different life, without possessions and technologies, without money or metal, coal and oil. They were hounded, treated as madmen, but then the world fell to ruin. The methane under the oceans boiled. The climate overheated, the arctic melted. As riots and war ripped nations apart, Tugon’s ancestors fled to the islands of Svalbard seeking a new home. As the world burned, more came, answering the call: a different way of life, close to nature, in tune with the trees and plants, the animals and weather, with the earth itself.
The Norwegians and Russians who had dug for coal on Spitsbergen and fished and endured cold winters fled south to the old world. Their scattered settlements withered and died when the old ways collapsed, and the island belonged to the wildmen. The tribes vowed to keep it pure and clean, untainted by the pollution and corruption of the old world.
“A sacred vow,” Tugon said, his face solemn, one hand on his chest. “One that every boy in the tribe must swear, before he becomes a man. Every girl, before she becomes a woman.”
At first, he told them, the tribes lived off fishing and hunting seals. But as the weather warmed, grass grew and shrubs, even trees. Animals arrived, brought in by the Sami who fled from Siberia. And the wildmen welcomed the Sami, willing to share the land.
But then settlers came, from Scandinavia and Germany, Britain, Russia and America, building houses and ports, bringing the old ways with them, their old religions and their will to conquer nature. And the slavers came, stealing people, putting them to work mining coal, drilling for oil, cutting down the trees for timber.
Tugon’s voice shook with anger, his eyes on fire, and Conall thought of what the blacksmith had said, and was glad the wildman counted them as a friend, not an enemy.
“They needed more slaves, always more, to work in the mines and on the farms and the forests. More and more people were stolen,” Tugon said.
Where did the slavers come from? No one knew. Alaska or Russia, or Greenland. Maybe all those places and more. But they acted as one, organised and determined, controlled by hierarchies. And these men brought machines and guns.
Years before, when he was a young man, Tugon had led the tribes into battle with the accursed slavers, hoping to rescue their missing people. But they came up against the guns. They had none themselves and the war was lost. Many more of his people were enslaved, Tugon among them.
“They knew if I was on Svalbard, my people would find me and free me. So they took me away, across the sea. But with your help, I’m home.”
Tugon paused, took a long drink of water from a carved wooden mug.
“I was washed ashore. I looked for you both, couldn’t find you. But I met my tribesmen and they knew me. They took me to where the great white boat lies on a beach. They told me how two men had driven her onto the shore and tied her there, then sailed away.”
“Watching us the whole time,” Jonah muttered. “They could have helped.”
Tugon ignored him. “I thought of my friends, and their quest for the white ship. And I asked my people to search for you.”
He paused. Conall saw Jonah’s face set in a deep frown, and he knew what the first mate was thinking.
Tugon must have sensed it too. “My people didn’t take your ship, or your friends. It was slavers. They took your crew north, to work in the mines.”
“And my brother? Any word?”
Tugon shook his head. “They were taken, that’s all we know.”
Conall thought of the slave camp where the three of them had toiled. He remembered the men who died in the night from starvation and exhaustion and disease. The men who fell during the day, when their legs would carry them no more, and the beatings they took from the slavers. “We have to help them,” he said. “We have to do something.”
“They’ve taken hundreds of my people,” Tugon said. “Thousands. Of course we will do something. Now that we can. Because we’re not one people. There are many tribes, many leaders. But only one shaman.” Tugon pointed to himself. “Now they will unite, and we will fight.”
“But they’ve got guns,” Jonah said. “Just as before, you said it yourself. What good is a spear or a bow and arrow?”
“What use is a gun, in the dark?” Tugon took a knife from his belt, the steel sharp and glinting in the firelight, the blade ten inches long. He turned it in his hands. “We will strike in the night.”
“That’s a plan,” Jonah said. “Pity it never gets dark in this part of the world.”
“Seasons change,” Tugon said. “The dark will come. An hour is enough.”
“So we wait?” Jonah said.
“No, we get ready.” Tugon carried on twisting the knife. Conall stared at the blade, transfixed, watching the firelight dance on the steel. He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. He didn’t notice someone, standing there, watching him.
“We will free your crew,” Tugon said. “But you must make a promise that binds you and them.”
“What promise would that be?” Jonah spat into the fire.
“Respect our laws,” Tugon said. “We know what you seek. You search for it.” He pointed the blade at Jonah. “And your captain seeks it. Your brother.” He turned the blade towards Conall, who looked away. “Anyone who touches the treasure of Spitsbergen will die. It is sacred. You must promise. If we free your friends, obey our laws. It’s our land. The treasure belongs to the land. Without it, the island has no future.”
Jonah sat, turned to stone, unwilling to speak.
Conall glanced from Argent to Tugon and back again. “I promise.”
“Your word binds all,” Tugon said.
“He can’t speak for everyone, only himself. He’s just a boy,” Jonah said. “A crewman, he doesn’t speak for the captain. Or the officers.”
“His word binds all.”
Jonah fidgeted, his hands writhing.
“His brother also,” Tugon said.
Conall glanced at Jonah. He had the map. Would he give it up? “You know where this treasure is?”
“Buried deep. We guard the site, so none can approach.”
Behind them, Conall heard a woman’s voice, barely above a whisper. “None. Not even you, Conall Hawkins. Is it really you?” The woman stood behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders. He turned his head to look. She was forty or so, her hair long and dark but her eyes were blue. A piercing blue. “Conall, it’s me.”
He stood up, heart hammering in his chest. Was it a trick? He’d been so young. But it must be her.
She wrapped her arms around him, buried her face into his hair and sobbed. “Dad,” he whispered in her ear. “Is he here? Is he alive?”
She sobbed even louder, once, twice, then pulled her face away so she could look him in the eye. “No,” she said, tears pouring down her cheeks. “The treasure. It was the treasure that took him.”
Chapter Eighteen
REUNION
Conall sat with his mother on the edge of the encampment, on the log of a fallen tree. Angela
Hawkins had wild hair, long and unbrushed, with a far-off look in her eyes. Was this the woman from his memories, the one who held him, who read to him? He could picture her back then, holding his hand, so tall, confident, in control. But here she was, not just thin but gaunt, shorter than him, as if time had shrivelled her. And she looked half wild, wearing the animal skins of Tugon’s people. The Oduma, she insisted on calling them, the communal name for all the wild tribes of Spitsbergen.
Conall gazed across a wood of hazel trees. The tents of the tribesmen formed a circle, and within it children played while women prepared food, and old men slept in the shade. In the distance deer nibbled a patch of new growth.
The question had hovered too long between them. Conall had to know about his father. The question burned in his thoughts. “What happened to him?”
She frowned, looked away. “He went searching for the treasure, that’s all you need to know.” She fidgeted as she spoke, never quite catching his eye. “He never came back.”
“You’re sure?”
The muscles around her mouth twitched as if fighting the words. “If he was alive, he would have come for me. He promised.”
She was holding something back, he was sure of it. She must know more. “What is it, this treasure?”
“I won’t speak of it, don’t ask, it’s not allowed. It’s sacred, belongs to the Oduma.”
“Did they…? Was it the wildmen?”
“They’re not savages. You don’t know them, you don’t understand,” she said, her voice angry.
Why did she defend them? “I have to know. What happened?”
“No good comes of this treasure,” she said, “never will. It was buried and hidden for a reason. When the world is ready, the legends say, the treasure will be returned to its rightful people.”
“Whose legends are these? The wildmen?”
“The Oduma. They have a name, so use it.”
She wouldn’t tell more, not now. But there were other hard questions to come. Conall paused, looked at her. He had to ask. Until he knew the truth, there would always be something unspoken, hanging between them. “Why did you leave us? You never came back. We waited. Tell me, I need to know. What happened?”
In The Wreckage: A Tale of Two Brothers Page 15