Ivory and Bone

by Julie Eshbaugh

  “Who are you to speak to me like that? You—stupid enough to leave two children alone in the dark—”

  “It’s hardly dark—”

  “Who knows what kind of predators are out there—”

  “I left them on a beach. When was the last time you saw a saber-toothed cat attack from the sea?”

  “Do you think that cats are the only hunters out at night? Or that the only dangers are predators? They could climb the cliffs and fall from a ledge. They could take a boat out and get pulled away by the current—”

  “All right, all right,” Kesh says. “You talk like they’re little babies. They’re only a few years younger than I am—”

  “See this?” You shove the left sleeve of your tunic up to your elbow, revealing a jagged scar on the underside of your arm. “I was Lees’s age. My best friend became lost at night. It was late summer—the days were long like they are now—there was the same half-light sky. But half-light is also half-dark, and climbing over rocks searching for her, I fell.

  “I was the same age as my sister—the same age as your brother. Do you think only babies can get hurt?”

  “I never said—”

  “Both of you, stop,” I say. “Look . . .”

  While the two of you argued, we had hiked all the way to the beach. And just as you predicted, a boat is out on the water. A long canoe, its silhouette standing out against the pale blue sky.

  “Lees!” You call to her at the top of your voice, and a head pivots in our direction. While we stand on the sand and watch, powerless to stop her, she gets to her feet and waves her arms. The canoe rocks violently.

  “What’s happening? What’s she doing?” Kesh gasps.

  “She has no experience with canoes,” you spit. “Only kayaks. She’s only ever been in a kayak before. The canoes are only used for traveling great distances—long scouting trips or when we came to visit your clan. That trip was the only time I have ever been in a canoe, and I was amazed by how different it was from a kayak—how much more volatile on the water . . . how much more easily it could tip. She has no idea what she’s doing.”

  Of course she doesn’t. And neither does Roon.

  The boat pitches hard and Roon reaches up, maybe to grab the hem of her parka. A short burst of sound flies from her—something between a squeal and a scream.

  She wobbles, shudders, and for one long, hope-filled moment, she stretches her back, arching over the side, her arm extending toward Roon, her hand almost touching his.

  Then she twists in the air, tumbles, and falls, splashing into the sea.

  Living on the water, taking out kayaks to fish and gather kelp, I know the dangers. When the water is its coldest—in winter when ice thickens in the bay and eventually blocks the harbor—the cold of the water could end your life before you could swim into shore.

  But this is early summer. Most of the big sheets of sea ice have melted. She should have a bit longer than that to save herself. Twice as long before her limbs begin to go numb, maybe? The bigger threat—that the sudden shock of the cold could knock her out and cause her to drown—is just as real a danger in the summer as in the winter.

  I have to do something. I can’t stand on the beach watching while the life is chilled out of your twelve-year-old sister. Two kayaks are stacked against the rocks about thirty paces away. Before I can think, I am pushing one out into the shallow waves and climbing in.

  I hear splashing behind me. I don’t need to look back to know that you have followed me with the other boat.

  Everything seems to slow down as I paddle out—the strength of the current seems to push me back to shore and the water feels as thick as mud. The sky grows ever darker, but what I lack in sight, I make up for in hearing—Lees splashing, Roon yelling, you shouting.

  Then I am almost next to them, just a few boat lengths away. The final, fading gold of the sky reflects off the surface, and everything glows.

  Where’s their paddle? Either they’ve lost it, or they left shore without it. The canoe is simply drifting, and the two of them are at the mercy of the waves.

  Without a paddle to extend to her, Roon takes off his parka and holds it by the hood, leaning over the edge of the boat and casting it out to your sister like a net. I paddle closer, closer, closer as Lees grasps it by the hem and pulls herself alongside the canoe.

  With Lees pulling down, Roon’s weight suddenly shifts, and the side of the canoe tilts sharply toward the surface.

  “Hold on!” Roon calls. “I’ve got you!”

  But he doesn’t have her.

  A dark wave crashes over her head, pushing her down and hiding her from sight. Roon’s arm reaches over the side. For a moment, his open hand dangles above the empty sea.

  Then, all at once, Lees’s hand reaches up, her head and shoulders reemerge from the wave, and their arms clasp. He pulls hard, braced against the side of the canoe. The boat tips, rocking wildly. I am certain that Roon will fall forward into the water.

  But the canoe rocks back, and Roon rights himself. The breathless moments of struggle come to an end as a dripping, shivering child swings her legs up and climbs back into the canoe.

  By the time I pull my kayak alongside their boat, Roon and Lees are huddling together in the hull, shivering and laughing like it’s all a wonderful joke.

  I take off my parka and toss it into the boat. It falls across a waterskin I assume contains the stolen mead. “Wrap yourselves in this,” I say. “That ought to keep you warm.”

  I throw a quick look toward shore. You’ve already turned your kayak and have made it nearly halfway back to the beach.

  Tying the tow rope around my waist, I dig hard with the blades of my paddle, dragging the two most impulsive twelve-year-olds back to land.

  You do not speak to me when they climb out of the canoe. You don’t speak to Roon or to Kesh. Instead, you yank your little sister by the arm and whisper something into her ear. Then, without another word, you drag Lees up the path and out of sight.

  My new parka lies discarded in the bottom of the canoe. It’s wet and dirty, but still, I shrug it on and lead my brothers back to camp.

  “I understand now,” Kesh says, as we trudge up the path, out of the dunes and back into the eerie darkness under the trees.

  I look at him, wondering what great mystery this dreadful evening has clarified for him.

  “I couldn’t make sense of why you were against Mya. I noticed that you didn’t like her, but I couldn’t understand why.”

  I catch myself. I was about to say that I do like you. I was about to say that if circumstances were different, I might actually like you very much.

  Water sloshes in my boots as we reach the clearing—I wasn’t dressed for wading. My pant legs are soaked through with ice water from the knees down.

  We catch up with you in time to see you drag Lees into a hut, without a word of thanks or even a glance back.

  I turn toward the hut where I’ve been sleeping—your hut—and I remember waking to find you there. I’d been naive enough to assume that you were worried about me—that you were there out of concern instead of duty.

  But in so many ways, you’ve shown me your true feelings. The return of the pelt I’d sent you as a gift. Your ungracious behavior now that Roon and Lees are safe.

  It couldn’t be more obvious that you have no concern for me at all.

  Which is fitting, since after today, I have none for you.

  TWELVE

  A terrible evening fades into a terrible night. Despite the softness of the pelts I lie on, enough salt water splashed on the cuts on my back to cause them to ache and throb. For a long time I toss restlessly, and just when I resign myself to lie awake all night I fall asleep and become lost in a nightmare.

  In the dream I’m running up and down the bank of a river, pursued by a cat I never see, one that casts a shadow three times the size of the one I killed. I run and run, but I can’t escape it—it’s always right over my shoulder. Finally, I feel its hot
breath on my neck and I turn and throw my spear with all my strength.

  But as I turn, I find that the cat is not there. Instead, I’ve struck you with the spear; it juts out at me from a gaping wound just below your collarbone. Your eyes dim, and you crumple at my feet. I turn in place, calling for anyone to come help me try to save you. But when I bend to pull out the spear, it isn’t you lying in a pool of blood. It’s the mammoth, the one that haunts me, still staring at me with that look of defeat, still silently beckoning me to throw myself into the dark hole that opens up in its eye.

  When I wake in the daylight, the back of my neck drenched in sweat, I thank the Divine that the final night in your camp is behind me.

  My family emerges from our borrowed huts before the morning meal, but Chev meets us with a basket loaded with dried berries—many I’ve never seen before—as well as several parcels of salmon, cooked and wrapped to be eaten on the journey.

  No one else greets us from your family. Only your brother and the oarsmen who will row us back to our own camp are outside, as the covered meeting space buzzes with quiet preparation. The rest of your camp is silent and still.

  Pek carries my bag to spare my back as we head down the trail to the beach, and following this path this morning fills me with an echo of the fear I felt last night. Roon runs ahead of me. Even this morning he overflows with a sense of adventure. It’s odd, I think, how the thing you love most in a person can also be the thing you sometimes wish you could change.

  The path seems to have doubled in length while we slept. I don’t remember passing under so many trees before reaching the water. The soil underfoot becomes sandy and the trees more scraggly. Just as we come to the spot where the trees give way to shrubs and grass, I hear a voice calling my name. I turn, but I see no one.

  I hesitate. Last night’s nightmare is still too clear in my mind, I think. My senses are tricking me. Scanning the trail just once, I turn again to follow my family, who have all gone ahead of me and are probably loading the boats, wondering where I am.

  I emerge from the trees and suck in a breath; the strip of rocky beach looks so different in the daylight. Even low in the sky at our backs, the rising sun has burned away the horrors of mist and shadow that were so perfectly illuminated by the setting sun last night. The briny scent in the air is a welcome sign that we are heading home and I can leave the bad memories I’ve made in your camp behind.

  I’m within just a few steps of the rocks when I hear it again—a voice calling my name.

  I turn, and this time the source is clear. This is not a voice from my nightmare, but the voice of your youngest sister, Lees. She runs hard down the trail from camp, waving her arms to catch my attention.

  When she reaches me, she stops and looks into my face with the expression I’d seen at last night’s meal—the expression I’d mistaken for innocence. I know better now. It’s far from innocence. It’s more an expression of cunning.

  “Did you run all the way here to say good-bye?” I ask.

  “To say good-bye, yes, but also to say I’m sorry. I caused a lot of trouble last night—”

  “You did—”

  “But I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry for everything.”

  Just then, Roon calls her name from the water, but when we both turn, we see Kesh grab him by the arm. They are already seated in a boat and I can see Kesh isn’t risking any wild behavior from Roon. Maybe Lees and Roon had hoped for a more personal farewell—perhaps even an embrace—but they’ll have to make do with a vigorous wave.

  “Kol!” my mother calls. “Everyone’s set to go.”

  “Good-bye, Lees. Try to stay out of trouble,” I say. She smiles that cunning smile and I begin to turn away.

  But before I can turn, she grabs me by the shoulder. I’m caught off guard, and I spin my head around to face her. As I do, she pushes up on her toes and presses a soft kiss against my cheek.

  I step back. “Was that a thank-you for helping you last night?”

  “No,” she says. She lowers her voice, as if she is about to bestow upon me some rare secret. “That wasn’t from me; it was from her.” She turns and looks up the trail and right there—right at the place where the last trees cast a blanket of morning shade—you stand.

  You raise your arm and wave. Such a small gesture, but the simple movement of your hand fans a flame inside me that I’ve tried again and again to smother out.

  Without thinking, I raise my hand and wave back. I want to jog up the trail and speak to you, but I’m not sure what I want to say.

  “Kol!” Now it’s the voice of my father. “What’s wrong?”

  “Be safe,” your little sister says, “and come back soon.”

  I want to ask Lees if this message, like the kiss, was sent by you, but my father calls my name one more time, so I turn and hurry to the water’s edge. Wading out to where the water reaches my knees and my feet ooze into the silt of low tide, I climb into the long canoe and we are off.

  When I look back over the beach, Lees still stands waving, but you are gone.

  As soon as we push into your bay, we head out beyond the pull of the tide to deeper, calmer water. From here, the coast is a long swath of green—an unbroken line of trees soaring above rocky gray cliffs. At places, the cliffs tower high over the sea and at others, they bend so close to meet it that they are no longer cliffs at all, but low bluffs that wrap around cozy inlets.

  We move farther north, and the wind grows cooler as the trees grow thinner. Here, the rocky shore is interrupted by frozen waterfalls that plunge to the edge of the sea. These rivers of ice run down from the ice-covered peaks of the coastal mountains. They are as cold as they are beautiful, but still my heart warms as they come into sight. We’ve reached a boundary, a sort of gateway to the north. I’m reminded of the moment on my hike south on the inland trail when I realized the mountains were all at once behind me, holding back the north wind, protecting the south from the chill that blows constantly down over the Great Ice.

  Out here on the water, I know those mountains aren’t far. Soon, the north wind will blow hard against my face again. Soon, the trees on the shoreline will disappear. Already they’ve diminished to a broken line of scrubby, tangled patches where there is still sufficient shelter to the north. Just ahead the line of land bends west. When we reach that bend, the mountains, still white bumps against the sky that could pass as low clouds, will rise up to welcome us.

  My mother sits in front of me. She turns and smiles. “You look hungry,” she says, misreading only slightly the look of longing she sees on my face. She unwraps slabs of fish and passes them to me, my father, and the two oarsmen who wordlessly paddle this boat—one at the head and one at the rear.

  Out on the water ahead of us, my brother Pek leads our group in the kayak he used to come to your camp, while another oarsman from your clan paddles from the rear seat. Pek had argued that he could handle the boat by himself, but considering the distance, it was decided the presence of an extra paddler made more sense than my prideful brother paddling alone with the second seat empty. Behind us, a second canoe similar to this one but a bit smaller in size—a boat I suspect may be the exact canoe Roon and Lees took out last night—carries Roon and Kesh as well as two more oarsmen from your clan. Roon is almost finished with his piece of fish—that boy is always hungry.

  I pivot in my seat again, turning my back to the shore and facing west, allowing myself a long moment to look out at the horizon—ever constant despite the changing coastline. I linger over a few deep breaths, reveling in the familiar scent of the sea and the whisper of the paddles as they cut the surface. So familiar . . . I let my eyes close and I almost feel that I’m home. I open them again and imagine that the sea beside me is the sea that stretches from our bay.

  It’s then that I notice them—distant shadows moving across the gray sea.

  Boats.

  Far away toward the line that separates surface from sky they glide along, hardly more distinct than the shadows of
seabirds or the breaks in waves, but yet distinct enough. Three in all: I can make out the point at the front of each boat, cutting through the spray, and the rhythm of the strokes that propel them forward almost in time with us. Almost, but not quite in time. A beat or so slower, they gradually fall behind. I turn in my seat to watch them recede, wondering what clan might have boats out on these waters—halfway between your camp and mine. Could it be that Chev sent rowers to follow us to ensure our safety? It seems unlikely, considering five of his clansmen are escorting us home.

  Could these be the spies Chev wondered about, on the morning Roon discovered the clan on our western shore? I remember your brother’s speculation as you hurried to leave our camp.

  By the time they disappear, I suspect, as Chev did, that these were not spies but something else—Spirits sent by the Divine—perhaps to aid or even impede us. Not knowing which, and not wanting to cause a stir, I keep my thoughts to myself and say nothing. Before long, my eyes tiring from the sight of water rolling out in every direction, I decide they were never there at all, but rode the waves only in my mind.

  The sun slides west and the wind picks up. Other than these small signs, everything suggests that time has stopped. Surrounded by circles—the circle of the paddles, the circle of the waves—I wonder if the day itself has closed into a circle, an endless loop rather than a line leading to an end.

  But then the coast turns westward and the trees that have lined the land for most of the day abruptly stop. The snowcapped peaks of the eastern mountains seem to spring from out of nowhere, and my father calls out and stretches his arms in front of him as if to embrace them.

  We’ve made it home.

  On the other side of those peaks are the meltwater streams, the wildflower fields, and the windswept grasses. The paddles quicken and we pick up speed, pulling closer and closer to shore. We round the point that juts out over the sea at the foot of the tallest peaks, and we are officially in our bay. Nothing—not fatigue, not my throbbing wounds, not the prickly memory of the Spirit paddlers I’d seen along the way—can diminish the joy I feel at the sight of our land.