The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

by Gene Wolfe

  When I reached the other side, the rest of the tribe was beginning to come up. In a few minutes Nashhwonk was surrounded. A blow from a spiked club opened a cut on his forehead, but his shaggy brows seemed to keep the blood out of his eyes effectively; and as well as I could judge, he was unhurt otherwise.

  Furthermore, it was soon apparent that we could not continue to shoot clubs at him long. Those that fell on the flattened track of the Great Sleigh could be picked up—if they were not too close to Nashhwonk—and shot again; but every so often a club missed him completely and went sailing off to be lost in the deep snow. As the clubs ran out, and Nashhwonk tired, the circle around him grew tighter; and those whose clubs were all exhausted slung their bows behind them and drew their knives—short, broad blades of rhyolite hilted by binding the tangs with leather. When Nashhwonk’s back was turned, they darted in to stab at his legs; but before any of them had drawn blood, he was able to catch one of the boldest with a swing of his chair. The unlucky man went flying, sliding half a dozen meters when he hit. Nashhwonk was on him in a moment, driving the chair down to impale him on the points of the legs; he rolled frantically and almost got clear, but one spear-tipped leg pinned his left thigh to the ice. Nashhwonk jerked the chair up to finish him then; but as he did, Longknife with a great leap landed on his shoulders and drove his dagger into his neck.

  There was a fountain of blood—as if Nashhwonk were filled only with this rushing redness—that pulsed to the beating of his heart. He dropped the chair and tore at Longknife with his hands; but Longknife stabbed him through one wrist, and by that time his Achilles tendon had been cut, and he fell like a great tree. When I and some others had pulled Longknife, gasping, from his grip, he was dead.

  We bound the wound of the man whose leg had been pierced; and before the blood had stopped, others had begun butchering Nashhwonk. The great, savage-eyed head was to be left behind, with the hands, the feet, and the entrails. The liver and the heart (with its case of fat) were special prizes, quick-frozen in snow and preserved for Longknife. At his orders, about half the men went into the wood to cut saplings to make a sledge for the meat.

  Work on this went so quickly that it was finished almost before the butchering. The pliant young trees were bound with thongs, and one end of two of the largest drawn up so that they could be used for runners. From inside his fur parka, Longknife drew a big triangular piece of very thin leather made by sewing the skins of many small animals together. A sapling was stepped forward of the center of the sledge for use as a mast; and two more saplings, lashed together at the butt ends, made the yard. I told Longknife that I had thought we would have to pull the sledge by hand.

  “We will have to help it along in the bad spots,” he said, “but still this will save a lot of work. We have a good wind: it will be at our backs when we go down this trough the Great Sleigh left—then blow crosswise as we go back to camp. A crosswind is the best of all.”

  One of the other men said: “If the wind were not good we would not have come this way, Cutthroat. Good hunters hunt up the wind or across it—that way you can sail back if there is much meat, and they can’t smell you coming.”

  “Yes,” Longknife said, “but after we crossed Nashhwonk’s track we had to go where he led.”

  When the sledge was loaded, we put the injured man on top of the now-frozen meat, then piled on ourselves, holding on wherever there was room. Longknife stood at the back with his feet braced against what remained of Nashhwonk’s legs and controlled the sheets and the long, trailing tiller pole. For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder what the Great Sleigh had been like, and I asked a man who crouched near where I sat.

  “Don’t you know?” he said. “You came from there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You dress as they did, and we found you shortly after it had gone.”

  “I don’t remember it. It left so wide a track—was it broader than it was long?”

  “No. Much longer than wide. Like a log.”

  “And there were men on it?”

  “Many men and women, all dressed like you. It was not flat like this. There was a big hut on it, and small huts on the big one. And it went without a sail, with nothing to pull it when it was time for it to go. It was as if the world stood on edge, only for it, and it slid down.”

  “I see,” I said, although I did not really see at all. Sailing along with the wind behind us as we were, there was not much relative air movement to chill us; but the inactivity of sitting on the sledge made me much colder than I had been while hunting Nashhwonk.

  I asked if the Great Sleigh had moved this fast, and the man beside me shook his head. “Not much faster than a good walk. We followed it for a long way, but the people of it would not allow us to climb up; so in the end we had to go back. That was when we found you.”

  Tonight, around the fire, I continued to think about the Great Sleigh and the killing of Nashhwonk. I imagined that the people of the tribe thought well of me—because I can run faster and jump farther than any of them, and it was my club that brought down the Lenizee doe, and I who cut the tendon at Nashhwonk’s right heel when he would have killed Longknife. But a few moments ago Longknife came to talk with me when all the others slept, and he told me it would be better for me if I were to leave the camp. “Otherwise,” he said, “someone—probably one of the women—will kill you when food is scarce, enchanted or not.”

  I said that I did not think they would do such a thing.

  “Do you know Crookedleg? He whose leg Nashhwonk injured?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think that was his name. Wasn’t it Firerock?”

  “Crookedleg it will be when his wound mends. Would it be lawful to kill and eat him?”

  “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Unlawful. The people of the Great Sleigh do not agree, but by our ancient law, every meat may be eaten but man’s meat. But if Crookedleg is not strong before the next time of hunger, he will probably be slain. The great law is hunger—those who break it die. Those who break the other law are punished by sickness and the withholding of game; but sometimes forgiveness comes, and sometimes it may be bought.”

  “I see.”

  “You are not a man. Hair grows on your face, and you must cut it off—I followed you tonight. I think that you are cousin to Ketin.”

  “I have never seen him.”

  “You remember nothing—why should you not forget your cousinship? Like you, he leaps very far, though he is big and you small. And hair grows from his face also.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Leave us tomorrow. A share of Nashhwonk’s meat is yours. I will give it to you, and you may use the sledge we built today to carry it. The wood has not yet seen the fire.”

  “May I have the sail?”

  Longknife shook his head. “That is too valuable.”

  “I will give you all of Nashhwonk’s meat that is mine for the sail.”

  He laughed. “Then you will have no need of the sledge to carry it.”

  “I will kill more meat when I have gone. I will give you all of Nashhwonk’s for the sail.”

  “Done.” He reached into his parka and took out the bundle of leather. “The sheets are in the clews. You need only lash it to the yard as we did today.”

  When he was gone, I wondered how much truth there was in what he said. I thought of sleeping with my knife open in my hand; but there was plenty of meat now, and I felt certain I was in no immediate danger.

  The fourth day. This morning I found the sledge at the edge of the village. It was intact, as Longknife had promised, with the yard still hanging from the mast. I went to Longknife’s hut, where he and Red Kluy were making their morning meal, and returned the clubbow Red Kluy had loaned me. I had hoped they would tell me to keep it, but they did not, although they invited me to share their breakfast. Then I went to the hut where Crookedleg lay and wished him well. He kept his dagger in his hand while we spoke, and so I suppo
se what Longknife told me last night is true. I would have liked to have Crookedleg’s bow, but I had nothing to offer him for it.

  When I had said good-bye to him, there was nothing more to do. I went back to the sledge, lashed the sail to the yard, and rigged the sheets. The wind had slackened since yesterday, but it still blew from the west, which meant that I could sail to the track of the Great Sleigh without much difficulty, though I might have to pull my sledge when I reached it.

  With so much less of a load than it had had yesterday, the sledge rode easily over the soft snow, only twice having to be helped up a steep slope. I found it extremely exhilarating to sail; and when I learned to trim properly I found I could go quite fast. I was already worried about food, but there was no point in stopping to look for snow monkeys, since I had nothing to kill them with if I found some. My best chance seemed to be to try to catch up to the Great Sleigh as quickly as possible, rather than lingering to try to glean food from the wild.

  As nearly as I could tell from what I had learned, the Great Sleigh was about sixty hours ahead of me; but it was said to move slowly, and it had stopped for the better part of a day with Longknife’s people. Thus I felt that if I made all speed, it was conceivable that I might catch up with it today—I have not—or tomorrow, which I still believe to be possible.

  When I reached the track, I pulled the sledge until I reached the summit of the first hill, the one I had seen in the distance when we hunted Nashhwonk. Then I climbed aboard it (feeling very glad to do so) and rode it down the slope, which was nearly as good as sailing—so pleasant, in fact, that I decided to try to sail a little despite the contrary wind, by angling the sledge across the hundred-meter-wide track. This turned out to be much faster than walking and pulling the sledge; and after a little practice I learned to turn the sledge at the end of these diagonal passes, using the impetus I gained by running a part of the way up the bank at the edge.

  After an hour or more of this crisscross sailing, I realized that it would be possible to lighten the sledge substantially by removing some of the floor poles—these had been needed to carry Nashhwonk’s meat, but now only added unnecessary weight. I untied them, and this gave me some extra thongs, which I used to steady the mast, stretching one from the top of the forward tip of each runner. Now my speed was improved considerably—and to my delight the wind began to shift toward the north—until soon I could go skimming along at a terrific rate. I began to look for the Great Sleigh each time I crested a rise.

  I continued to sail like this until dark, and even after sundown-though I was nearly frozen—for as long as either moon was in the sky. But when they had both set, I found I could no longer see the track; I grew afraid that some accident in turning would confuse me so much that I would set off in the wrong direction, and so lose what I had gained. About midnight I pulled the sledge out of the track. About half a kilometer from it (though it may have been less—I am very tired), I found this dense growth of small trees. Here I have dug a hole for myself in the snow to keep out the wind.

  The fifth day. When I woke this morning—but I think I almost did not—my legs were so cold I could not move them, and I had to exercise them with my hands and pound them before life returned to them. I could touch my face with my rough gloves and feel nothing. All that saved me, I think, was the warmth of my coveralls, and the night being already half over when I lay down. I know, now, that I must never do again what I did last night—I must have better shelter, and a fire, and I must clear away the snow where I lie.

  After I had worked life into my limbs again, I knew that I would have to eat soon, though I felt no hunger. It was possible that the Great Sleigh was no more than a few kilometers off. But if it were not, night would find me too weak to live until the next day. I built a fire, and, remembering the plants the women had gathered, I began scrabbling in the snow.

  For as long as I remained in the thicket I found nothing, but after a few minutes I recalled that the women had chosen an open slope, facing south. A similar spot was not far off, and when I dug there, I found plants I recognized from having eaten them with Longknife’s people. I soon had an armload, which I took back to the fire.

  Red Kluy and the other women had cooked by dropping hot stones into a leather bag of snow. I had no leather bag, but after some experiments I was able to do the same thing by digging a hole in the frozen ground with my knife. The meal, when I had it, was large but not very satisfying. I found that I longed for meat, and particularly for fat.

  I had just finished and was preparing to leave when I heard noises from the direction of the hillside where I had found my herbs. Keeping behind the low green growth that had sheltered me during the night, I peered out toward the hill and saw that there were more than a dozen people, men and women and children, on the slope now. Some seemed to be examining the disturbance I had made in the snow, while others looked for food. I was struck by how short and stocky they appeared, and by the fact that there were children of all ages among them—Red Kluy had explained to me that children were born at a certain time of year when there would be food for them, and had reached adolescence before the next generation came.

  The wind was in gusts from the north, and I was anxious to be sailing again, but it seemed impossible that I could reach my sledge on the south side of the thicket without being seen. Then the gusts turned to random puffs, so that the snow, which had been flowing and drifting uniformly before, seemed to dance in the air in pallid columns like ghosts. It would have been very pretty, I think, if there had been sun on it to make it shine, but the sky was growing darker all the time—so much so that I remember thinking that when it was darker still I would make a run for it and hope that the strange people on the hillside would not see me in the gloom until it was too late.

  It was already too late for me. Just as I was nearly ready to go, the whole group stiffened and turned toward me; and, a moment later, four trotted in my direction, waving the implements with which they had been digging in the snow, short-handled tools with heavy, curved blades.

  I was certain I could get away if I chose to run, but equally certain that I would have to leave the sledge behind; the short, stocky men moved surprisingly fast, and there would be no hope of shaking out the sail and escaping from them in the sledge, over irregular snow, in this unreliable wind. Meeting peacefully with them seemed a better alternative. I stepped out of the trees with my hands extended, resolved to make a dash for it if they looked as though they were going to attack me.

  It worked. The four of them stopped about five meters away, and though they continued to grip their crooked-handled tools as if ready to fight, they seemed more surprised than belligerent.

  They are strikingly ugly. Their faces are nearly as round as if they had been drawn with a compass, and heavily jowled; their eyes are small and hidden under heavy brows, and their noses are flat and upturned, so that their nostrils appear as circles. I said: “I come in friendship. I do not want to fight with you.”

  The oldest (he was silver-haired) and tallest said, “Nor do we wish to fight you.”

  “Then let me go in peace.”

  “I would rather that you would teach us your wisdom.” He walked toward me and extended, handle first, the curve-bladed hoe he carried.

  I accepted it, since it was clearly a ritual gesture of some kind, and then, seeing that he expected it, returned it to him.

  “Will you teach wisdom?”

  “I must go.” I was suddenly conscious that the wind had died away. It was snowing harder.

  “It will be ill to travel soon.”

  For a moment I wondered if he had read my mind. “Yes,” I said.

  “Come to our lodge. We will give you food. When the snow ends, you will travel the stronger.”

  I hesitated, but the memory of the cold to which I had awakened a few hours before was still vivid. I nodded, and quite suddenly all the short, ugly men smiled (they were less ugly, I found, when they smiled) and relaxed. Half a minute later, as w
e walked up the slope through the falling snow to join the women and children, they were all around me, snuffling at my strange clothing, and jostling one another, as it seemed, for sport.

  The people are not nearly so well clothed as Longknife’s tribe. They go barefoot in the snow, and the arms of most are bare to the elbows. The children are almost entirely naked but are covered with downy hair that seems to change to scattered bristles in the adults.

  The oldest and tallest, whose name is Eggseeker, is half a head shorter than I; but all of them are broad-shouldered, and their arms and legs are corded with muscle. With the women and children in the middle, and Eggseeker and one of the other men leading while two others brought up the rear, they took me to their lodge, where I am now.

  (I am somewhat worried about the sledge, particularly since I did not take the sail from the yard when I halted last night; but it does not seem likely that anyone or anything will be out in the blizzard that is blowing tonight, and the snow should have concealed it, in any event, long ago.)

  The lodge is made of brush and seems to me to be a less satisfactory shelter than the round skin tents. A pole about seven meters long is slung from two trees, with bushes and young trees leaning against it to form a triangular interior and hold back the snow. More brush closes one end; the other is left open for a door, and the smoke from the little fire in the center escapes as best it can from a spot above it where the heat has melted a hole in the snowcover and withered the foliage. The whole place reeks of woodsmoke and of the strong, somehow salt, body odor of the people, who call themselves the Pamigaka.

  When we reached this lodge, and the women had brought in wood and stirred up the fire, I was offered a meal of roots and greens; and then, as a kind of dessert, a mixture of small game was brought out and divided—as nearly as I could judge—by rank or standing. I got the largest of all, a short-faced, burrowing animal of some kind. Eggseeker took the next largest for himself, gave out the three next best to the other three men, then distributed the rest, down to little mouselike creatures, to favorites among the women and children. I noticed that one particularly ragged woman was given nothing at all. Her name is Bloody-face-in-the-morning, and she seems to represent the bottom of the social order, almost a pariah.