Ivory and Bone

by Julie Eshbaugh

  “You need butchers?” My youngest brother, twelve-year-old Roon, rough-hewn and awkward like an unfinished stone tool, moves toward the front of the kitchen, clambering over seated figures. Kesh, lean and lanky at fifteen, follows right behind. “We’ll come—”

  “We have butchers,” my mother says, as Ness, Mol, and Svana climb stiffly to their feet from the dimly lit center of the tent. These three are all siblings—cousins of my father who are experienced and wise with regard to butchering a kill. Still, they don’t move with the energy and speed of my brothers.

  “Let them come along, Mother, please. They’ll be needed to help load the meat and pull it back to camp.”

  So the six of us go, pulling three empty travoises—overland sleds made of poles of birch and mammoth bone. I lead the way, enduring my brothers’ relentless questions about you and your sister. “You’ll meet them soon enough,” I say. I step up the pace a bit. I feel an urgency to return to the kill, and I need a break from questions about what happened on the hunt.

  When we finally come to the head of the rocky trail, everything I’ve described stretches out before us—the dead mammoth, the cat, my father, and Pek in the company of three hunters who were all but strangers before today. Kesh and Roon drop the travois they’ve been pulling and race each other across the grass, leaving me and the butchers to bring the three sleds the rest of the way.

  The butchers set immediately to work, moving with such practiced precision they hardly need to speak. One uses an ax to divide the carcass into sections, separating the limbs from the torso. The other two employ sharp knives that remove meat from bone. The process is like a dance to the three of them—no one calls out the steps; experience has taught them to anticipate each other’s moves. My brothers busy themselves with collecting the cut portions and securing them to the sleds with long cords made from the stalks of fireweed and stinging nettle, while you, Pek, and Seeri truss up the cat. My father and Chev stand off to the side, speaking in low tones like old friends, only looking up from time to time to call out some instructions.

  With so many hands set to the task, I feel unneeded, superfluous. What could I possibly contribute? I would only get in the way. So I let myself wander, roaming to a spot just down the hill, a remote stretch of tall grass drenched in sunlight. I lie down and close my eyes, focus my ears, try to relax—try to catch that distinct whir of honeybee wings—but my thoughts thrum too loudly in my mind. Voices mix in—Roon’s high buzz overlapping with Kesh’s lower hum. I try to block them out, but it’s useless—the longer they work, the louder they become.

  After a while, I stop trying and sit up.

  Before me, the valley the mammoths fled to opens at the bottom of a gentle slope, and from the angle where I sit the wide expanse of undulating meadow gives me the same odd sensation of movement I feel when I sit at the edge of the bay. The land rolls out from me unbroken, the wind rippling the sea of grass like waves upon the water.

  It’s then that I spot you—kneeling in the grass at the base of the hill, you and your sister Seeri. Are you gathering? Your heads are bent, your focus on the ground. I hurry over to ask if you will need help carrying what you’ve collected. As I approach, I catch the sound of your voices trailing off, words spoken in unison. Seeri gets to her feet, but you remain kneeling in the grass, your head bowed, your fingers tying a cord around your neck. There are no roots or greens to be gathered up.

  When Seeri sees me she flinches briefly, then color blooms in her cheeks. Have I interrupted something private?

  “I wanted to see if you needed help. . . . I’m sorry,” I say. Seeri glances at you, but you keep your head bent away from the sound of my voice. The air stretches taut with tension, like the skin of a drum. I continue. “I thought you were gathering. . . .”

  Seeri offers a dim, melancholy smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “What we left behind can’t be seen; what we gathered can’t be carried.” She says this without looking directly at me, as if she’s speaking to someone unseen who’s just beyond my shoulder.

  I’m not sure what to make of this—is it a quote of some kind? A few words of a prayer or chant to the Divine? I think of the words I heard you speak in unison. . . . Before I can ask, Seeri strides away, leaving me alone with you.

  I stand there, hovering over the place where you sit, for long enough that I begin to think I will either have to speak or walk away. Thankfully, just at the moment I feel I will need to decide between the two, you silently get to your feet. You shoot me the briefest of glances—not really a look, but rather a means of determining where you don’t intend to look—before dropping your eyes to the grass and pinning them there. Your hands move to the pendant that hangs from the cord at your throat, tucking it into the collar of your parka as you step around me.

  “Wait,” I say. “I’d like to talk to you. There’s something I need to say.”

  You keep moving until your shoulder comes alongside mine.

  “Mya, wait. I owe you an apology.”

  You stop. You don’t answer, but you don’t walk away, either, so I take this as a sign that you’re at least willing to listen. I pivot toward you but you won’t even turn your face in my direction—so stubborn—so I’m forced to speak to your profile—your shoulder, your sleeve, the ear you’ve tucked your hair behind.

  “I know that you’re upset with me about what happened, but I never would have thrown at you—you were never in any danger. I wanted to tell you that, and I wanted to ask you to forgive me.” It feels ridiculous to say these words to your left ear. I take a few steps until I’m standing right in front of you. Your head stays lowered, though, leaving me no choice but to speak to the straight line that parts your jet-black hair. “Mya?” The next words are not easy to say, as if each one is a heavy weight I have to push uphill to reach your ears. Still, I will be the next High Elder, and selflessness and peacemaking are the defining traits of a clan leader. I take a deep breath and continue. “Mya, will you please forgive me?”

  You remain silent so long . . . I have the chance to imagine a myriad of possible responses, each one more full of condemnation than the last. Finally you raise your head. Your eyes sweep over my face as if you are seeing me for the first time. “You don’t know, do you?”

  Of all the replies I was anticipating, this question was not among them.

  I take this unexpected question and combine it with the cryptic words of your sister—none of it makes sense. My eyes dart from your face to the spot where you and Seeri had knelt in the grass. My mind races to piece things together, to give shape to this formless confusion. In the end I can only be honest. “I don’t understand.”

  You regard me suspiciously, as if you aren’t quite sure that I’m someone you can trust with the truth. “Five years ago,” you start, “our two clans nearly went to war—”

  “Yes, I know. Of course I know—”

  “But do you know why?”

  Do I? I always thought that I knew the reason why. I was young when it happened, but as I’ve gotten older somebody must’ve told me. “There was a misunderstanding. . . .” I fumble through my memory. Could it be that I’ve never learned the reason? “Something happened that led to violence—”

  “Something happened?”

  Once again I find myself standing in front of you, grasping vainly for the right words to say. “I’m sorry. That’s all I know.”

  Your eyes narrow; you are assessing me. And it’s clear by your tight lips that the assessment is not favorable.

  Maybe you’re right to judge me harshly. Maybe I should know more about the history between our clans.

  “Thank you for your apology.”

  You walk away, as if there is nothing more to say.

  FOUR

  What help I failed to lend during the hunt I try to make up for when it’s time to drag the travoises back to camp laden with hides, ivory tusks, and enough meat to ensure the twenty-four members of our clan will not fear hunger for at least a little while
. The loads are heavy, but we have a saying that bringing food back to camp is never a burden. My mother meets us on the trail just outside camp. She beams. “Fish for midday, but mammoth for the evening meal.”

  Everyone sits in the square at the center of camp, and Urar, our clan’s healer, offers a chant of thanksgiving for the Spirit of the mammoth who gave up life so our clan might eat and endure. People crowd around to meet you—the slayer of the cat—and to feast on fish, clams, and greens, but Pek and I take our meals and offer our apologies. Our father has requested that we work through the meal to erect a hut for our guests.

  “A hut?” I ask. “They’ll be staying long, then?”

  “They may be frequent visitors. They may not. In any event, we will treat them like members of this clan. They will sleep in their own hut.”

  And so you will.

  Not long ago, our clan was far more mobile than it is now. When I was a boy, maybe six or seven years ago, we followed the bison from place to place, ranging between the northwestern hills in the summer to the mountains in the southeast in the winter. The bison were plentiful then, and our huts were more like tents, easy to put up and take down and light to carry.

  But one winter, the bison crossed through the mountains to the east and headed south in the direction of your current home. This was the first winter after you had visited us, and our two clans were not on good terms. The elders decided that we could winter without the bison herd, since the mammoths didn’t migrate nearly as far and stayed within our hunting range all winter. We all trusted the elders—a council of ten men and women chosen by my father, the High Elder, for their wisdom and selfless contributions to the clan. So our tents became heavier huts, beams of mammoth bone anchored to the ground near the shore to give us easy access to the sea, at least until we were iced in for the hardest part of the season. We had always used kayaks to fish, but my mother’s sister and her family became adept at hunting seals.

  When most of the bison failed to return from the south two springs later, few people worried. We had become settled in this camp, remaining here nearly year-round. Mammoths were still plentiful, and following the bison herds no longer seemed practical. Instead, we made seasonal trips to hunt and gather, always returning home to this place. Our huts were sturdy and covered with thick hides. They were warm and comfortable, lit by seal oil we burned in lamps of concave stone.

  Despite our new comforts, putting up a hut for you and your siblings now makes me yearn for the days of light and portable tents. Our father has instructed us to build you a hut of generous proportions. This one will be wide enough to separate into two rooms by draping hides from the ceiling, like the one my own family lives in.

  Pek holds a post made of the chiseled thighbone of a mammoth as I dig a furrow to place it in. The post is thick and the cold ground is stubborn. I hack at the earth with the sharpened edge of a heavy flint stone lashed to a handle I cut from a poplar branch. The handle is rough and the skin of my palms splits from the effort.

  “Let me take a turn,” Pek says.

  I wave him off. “You brought down the kill; I’ll put up the hut.” Still, bloody hands are slippery hands, and my progress slows. Pek leaves me struggling and returns with a second ax, borrowed from the butchers. Eventually, we force the ground to yield and dig out a trough wide enough for the support beam. We dig a second, then a third. The process becomes routine and my mind drifts to you.

  “Pek, do you know what happened between our clan and the Olen clan five years ago?”

  “I know someone from their clan killed someone from ours—”

  “Killed someone? Who—”

  “Tram’s father.”

  Tram’s father. I remember his death, of course. “He died during a hunt.” As a child, I’d been fascinated by the burial—the spear laid in the grave, the bison horn in the dead man’s hand. A hunter’s burial.

  We’ve just wedged the upright beams into place when the next question forms in my mind—why would a hunting accident almost lead to war? Before I can ask, Kesh and Roon join us, carrying hides for the covering.

  “If this is for the girls, we want to help,” says Roon. He is the adventurer among us, always talking about traveling out onto the sea in a boat and what he might find if he did. When the rest of us would complain or worry about the lack of girls in our clan, Roon would develop elaborate plans for trips down the coast or west across the hills. Often he would sneak out of camp early in the morning or late at night, hoping to spot smoke rising from another clan’s fire.

  He never did, but he never gave up.

  “This is for the girls as well as their brother,” Pek says. “And neither of these girls is young enough for you.”

  “Maybe not, but there are other girls in their clan.”

  “How would you know?” I shake out a coarse bearskin and drape it over the frame of the hut. A musky scent fills my nostrils. The fissures in my palms have stopped bleeding, so I’m able to grip the edge of the hide tight while Kesh binds it to the support beam using a cord made of mammoth sinew. We stretch it taut from beam to beam, creating the bottom layer of the new hut’s roof.

  “I asked them.”

  Leave it to Roon to be direct. Why wonder if you can just ask?

  “I hope our parents didn’t hear you,” I say. Our mother would think a question like that was too forward. Still, I’m pleased to know that my baby brother took the initiative. I doubt he would have had a moment of sleep tonight if he’d been forced to go to bed wondering. Something about knowing that there are other girls in your clan drains a bit of tension from me, as well. Between Seeri’s clear interest in Pek and your even more obvious disdain for me, I had already given up hope of finding someone from within your clan.

  Of course, if all the girls in your clan are as arrogant and rude as you are, I would rather be alone forever.

  When the hut is finished, our mother comes to fill it from wall to wall with fur pelts—bison, bear, elk, and mammoth for the floor; saber-toothed cat, caribou, and sealskin for blankets. You will sleep warmly tonight.

  The sun is already moving into the western sky as we tie the final knots. “Go clean yourselves,” our mother says. “And put on clothing reserved for feasts. When we sit down to eat the evening meal with our guests, I hope you will no longer smell like the game we are dining on.” She smiles at me. “And be sure you speak to Mya,” she whispers as my brothers shuffle toward our family hut. “The other clearly has eyes for your brother, but Mya, like you, is the oldest. Her eyes are like yours—as dark as the night sky—but there is a sharpness to her gaze that complements the warmth in yours. You two would make a strong match, I think.”

  The smile of impending success on my mother’s lips is so endearing, I can’t tell her how wrong she is. She sighs and I hear a note of contentment in her voice I haven’t heard in a long time. No, I can’t take that from her, not just yet. I simply nod and let her walk away.

  FIVE

  The sun has burned into the shade of gold it reserves for evenings in early summer, when it hangs low in the sky, refusing to set, stretching out hours of pale yellow light, painting long deep shadows on the ground. This is when the drums begin to send their rhythm through the ring of huts.

  My brother Kesh is one of the musicians, and I catch the tone of his flute as it pierces the evening air, dancing above the beating of the drums. Not the oldest or the youngest, not the most gifted with a spear, Kesh found himself in music. He was offered a place among the musicians four years ago, when he was only eleven years old and causing constant mischief. He hid handfuls of snails, earthworms, and finally a dead vole in the music leader’s bed, until she offered him a flute in exchange for a promise to stop. She had a flute of her own that he envied, and she meticulously copied it, carving the thighbone of a wolf to just the right length and carefully drilling each hole. The day he received it was like the day he was born, and that flute has been the focus of his life ever since.

  Pek and Roon left
the hut long before the shadow of the kitchen tent stretched to our door, but I wait it out as long as possible. I lie down, but I can’t relax. My mother borrowed pelts from each of our beds to make up yours. The difference is slight—my bed is almost as thick and lush as it was before—but even this small change in our home unsettles me. I think of Pek’s prediction that you and Seeri will change our lives.

  Maybe I’m not ready for change.

  The music grows louder, and I can’t stay behind any longer. I head out to the open-air gathering place in the center of camp where our clan shares all its meals.

  I spot you almost as soon as I step through the door of our hut. I wish I could ignore you, but it’s impossible—my eyes are drawn to you the way they are drawn to a flash of light. You’ve changed into a tunic made of supple hides cut in a much more feminine style than your shapeless hunting parka. The hair around your face is wound into three thin braids that are gathered at the crown of your head, but otherwise your hair is down like it was this morning. You stand beside your brother, Chev, who is speaking to my father. I take just one step in your direction before you look up at me, almost as if you’ve been waiting for me to show, though I know better. As soon as you see me approaching you turn your head, and I change my mind about joining the three of you. I turn toward my brother Kesh, instead, and congratulate him on the solo he played during the gathering music. Lil, the music leader, interrupts. “A circle! A circle, everyone!”

  The first song of the evening is about to be sung.

  I move to a place near my brother Pek, and I notice Seeri beside him, smiling but clearly confused. It occurs to me for the first time that your clan might not follow all the same customs that we do. Do you not sing the same songs? Taking her by the elbow, Pek guides her to a place within the circle right between the two of us. She gives me a weak smile and shrugs.