Ivory and Bone

by Julie Eshbaugh

  I only dare lift my eyes from the ground right in front of my feet a few times, but even so, it doesn’t take long for me to realize my kayak is gone. The spot where I pulled the boat up onto the shore is empty, marked by a telltale rut in the sand leading back to the water’s edge.

  Of course they would take it. Without it, I have no way to pursue them across the bay.

  Out on the water, I see the black silhouettes of Lo’s followers as they head east toward the sun, toward the eastern shore, toward my own clan’s camp.

  The overland route that I hiked with Lo yesterday is to my left. It will take me much longer than the water route, but I have no choice. I scan the edge of the trees that conceal the trail up the mountains. My empty hand twitches—I think of my spear, tucked inside my kayak’s hull.

  I allow myself one last glance at the silhouettes receding across the bay before sprinting off toward the trees.

  Cloudless, the sky is the clear smooth blue that appears only in summer, somehow closer than the remote gray of winter. The sun throws white light all around, but still, the brightness hinders more than helps. Trees cast splotchy shade on the trail, making it difficult to see roots and other hazards as I run. I make it only to the first bend in the path before the toe of my boot catches on a jagged rock jutting out of the dirt. I find myself sprawled out on the ground before I know what happened, the palms of both hands scraped and dirty.

  I sit up and allow myself just one moment to examine my hands, to study the blood soaking into the thin layer of dirt, turning it sticky and black. A moment later I am on my feet, wiping my bloody palms against my pants and running hard again.

  I pass the places Lo and I passed yesterday—the fallen tree where Lo sat, the ferns where we stretched out beside each other. My feet move faster and my legs pump harder. The extra effort makes my chest ache, but I welcome the pain.

  I try to imagine what will happen when Lo’s people find that you and your family have gone. Will they pursue you to the south? Or will they return to Lo and tell her the opportunity was missed?

  And what will she do then?

  The higher I climb, the crisper the air around me grows, like I’m climbing backward in time, back into the spring, before leaves sprouted and insects hatched. Turning a blind corner around a cluster of dense trunks and naked, twisted branches, I startle as something small races into the low brush—a hare or maybe a fox. My feet lose their rhythm and my left foot stubs against a root.

  I catch myself before I fall, but not before my ankle turns. With the next step, pain shoots up into my knee and down into my foot. Now I fall, clutching the ankle as I roll onto my back.

  To the count of ten, I tell myself. You can lie here to the count of ten, but then you have to be up and moving again. By the count of three, I remind myself to breathe. By six, I unclench my jaw. By nine, I rotate my ankle once in the air. At the count of ten I’m upright, testing my weight on my left foot. Painful, but bearable.

  I hobble at first, then shuffle, until finally, nearing the summit, I run. I wince with every step, but still, I run.

  As I reach the crest of the hill—the spot that marks the halfway point in the trail—the sight of the sky confuses me. Dark gray clouds move surprisingly quickly across the bright blue sky. They roll and puff like storm clouds, and at first I think I sense it—the fresh cool wetness on the breeze that precedes a storm. But another scent overwhelms the coolness—a stinging sharp scent that burns my throat.

  Smoke.

  Half running, half sliding on loose gravel underfoot, I speed down the trail that now descends sharply before it makes its first switchback since the summit. From here, I get my first view of my camp. The neat circle of huts, each one glowing with red and orange flames. Each one emitting a plume of black into the sky.

  The ring of huts has become a ring of fire.

  Wind sweeps across the valley floor and rises up the steep face of the cliff at my feet. It carries with it the heavy, oily scent of burning hides. A strong gust rattles the still-bare branches, speckled with pale green buds, and smoke mixes into my hair. Another blast hits me hard in the face, my eyes stinging and swelling, blurred by thick tears that streak down the sides of my nose. My lips dry and swell like blisters.

  A shadow passes over my head—a large bird is circling, a buzzard—and I startle out of a trance I’d fallen into. How long have I been standing in this spot, riveted by the horror of the scene at my feet? I can do no good standing here. I drag my eyes away and force myself to keep moving.

  The farther I descend into the valley, the thicker the smoke becomes. Cinders fly by in the breeze—pieces of charred hide and tiny flecks of wood, glowing red-hot as they spin through the air. As I run, a few sear the skin of my face and hands, but I brush them away and keep moving.

  I emerge from the trees at the foot of the trail and walk right into a wall of heat. Sweat pools at my neck and runs down my back. The air is so thick I fear it will choke me.

  I allow myself to turn my face to the water for three breaths—just three breaths. No more. As I gulp in cool air, I notice that the beach and bay are empty—there’s not a single sign of Lo’s clanspeople or their boats. I fill my lungs once, twice, three times. Then I turn and run up the path to the camp that from here is visible only as a red glow at the top of the rise.

  As I move closer to camp, voices reach my ears—voices vibrating with panic and fear. The roar of flames drowns out words, but I manage to pick out shouts from my father. He is calling for everyone to move away and head for the water.

  Yet no one is listening. Alongside each hut, dangerously close to the flames that dance across the surface of the hide coverings, people are moving—digging, scooping up dirt and throwing it at the fire, frantically trying to extinguish the blaze. My uncle Reeth and his family work to save the kitchen. My brothers and mother use broad flat stones from the hearth to fling dirt at our own hut. Even my father, still shouting for people to give up the fight and retreat to the beach, is helping Kara, the widow whose hut stands next to ours.

  I have never seen—never even imagined—so much flame. A spark from the hearth sometimes spreads to a pelt, a wall of the kitchen once caught fire, but never have I seen flames like these. My aunt Ama and her sons run by, carrying full waterskins from the beach, but all the water they can carry has little effect. The trip to the beach is too far. By the time they fetch more, the flames have only grown.

  All around me, shouts are punctuated by coughs as people choke on the smoke that swirls and circles, coating and covering everything, rising high above our heads. I look up, my eyes drawn to a darkening pillar of smoke that stretches to the sky, when I realize with a start that it isn’t a pillar of smoke at all.

  It’s a storm cloud. A dark storm cloud rolling in quickly from the north.

  The scent of an approaching storm . . . I had noticed it on the peak but then had all but forgotten it. If only it were closer. But watching the clouds roll in, I know they won’t come in time. At the rate the fire is burning, the camp will be nothing but cinders before the rain reaches it.

  A hand grabs my shoulder. I turn to see my brother Roon beside me, his face bright red and his hair soaked with so much sweat it appears he’s been swimming. “Help me,” he says. He tugs on my parka like a child. “Come with me to the beach.”

  His eyes are wide. Is he panicking? I want to help him, but my head spins around as I take in the image of my family and friends, each one desperately working. It might all be in vain, but I know I have to help them. “I can’t,” I say. “You go and rest. I’ll be there soon.”

  “No!” Roon’s eyes blink rapidly. He grabs my shoulders with both hands and shouts into my ear, “I have an idea to put out the fire, but I can’t do it alone.”

  I pull back and study his face when cold water drips from his hair onto my hands. Icy rivulets run down his face. His parka is soaked.

  What I’d thought was sweat is seawater. He’s been in the sea.

  “
I have an idea!” he says again, gripping my shoulders even tighter.

  I nod, and without another word he turns and runs. It’s all I can do to keep up as he races to the water.

  There, half submerged and half resting on the gravel beach, is a two-man kayak. When I get close enough I see that it is filled with water.

  He’s trying to bring all this water—more than a hundred waterskins—to the fire.

  “Yes,” I say. “This can work.” I wrap my hands around the front edge of the boat and pull, but I can’t move it. Even when Roon wades into the water and pushes from the back, there’s too much weight. “We need to dump some out—”

  “We need all of it. Let’s drag it—”

  “The hull will rip—”

  “Fine! Just . . .” He trails off. We’re already tipping the boat, turning it ever so slowly, letting just enough water run out that the back end begins to float up and Roon lifts it above the surface.

  “Go!” he shouts, and without a moment to draw in a breath, we take off, carrying this huge vessel of water as fast as we can without letting it all splash out along the way.

  Once we get back to camp, Roon shouts and waves, trying to get everyone’s attention, but no one notices him. Finally, he takes off his already dripping parka, dunks it into the kayak until it is soaked with water, and beats it against the flames racing across the surface of my family’s hut. The burning hides beneath Roon’s coat hiss and smoke as the fire sputters, sizzles, and finally goes out.

  Everyone sees, and everyone follows Roon’s lead. My mother grabs a mammoth pelt that hangs from a post beside the kitchen door—a tool she uses for sweeping out dirt and scraps from the floor—and practically throws herself into the opening in the kayak. Pulling the dripping hide from the water, she flings it onto the wall of her sister’s hut. When the flames sizzle and smolder, my aunt drops to her knees, tears running down her cheeks. My young cousins—just nine and ten years old—throw down their waterskins and add their own drenched parkas to the mammoth pelt. A few more hurried trips to the kayak and their hut is saved.

  All around the camp, voices go up in cheers. Roon, my incredibly brilliant brother, works harder than anyone. Progress is slow and many hides are lost, but if not for Roon, our camp would have ended in ashes. When the last flame is out, he collapses in the center of the meeting place, his face framed by singed hair, his chest, face, and neck flushed with heat. Blisters form on his hands, still dripping with icy water. He presses his palms to his cheeks and his teeth chatter.

  “You’ll get sick. You need to get warm.” Our mother stays shockingly calm while soot and cinders swirl around her like swarming insects. She bends over him and wraps him in a hide that was pulled from his own bed. It smells of smoke but is otherwise undamaged. Stroking his hair, she whispers to him, “Roon. My youngest, my most overlooked. I promise you will never be overlooked again.”

  “I’m all right,” says Roon. “Take care of Pek and Kesh. They need you more.”

  I raise my eyes to my mother’s face, confused. Why do Pek and Kesh need her more than Roon? It’s clear from the heavy look in her eyes that there’s something I haven’t been told.

  “What’s wrong with Pek and Kesh?”

  Our mother slides a hand under Roon’s back ever so gently, her fingers barely touching his skin, but still, he flinches. His teeth clamp together as he sucks in a sharp breath.

  “Mother, what’s wrong—”

  “Shh! Don’t upset your brother.” When she finally gets her arm around his back she manages to lift him to his feet, each small movement accompanied by a gasp. Once he’s upright, I notice a cluster of angry red burns, broken and oozing, at his waist.

  The sight sends a wave of sickness through me, starting in my stomach and emanating outward.

  “Pek and Kesh—are they worse—”

  My mother looks at me behind Roon’s back, and the message in her hard glare is clear—they are definitely worse. “Urar is with them,” she says, shooting a quick glance in the direction of the sea. “Just now he led them and several others to the beach.”

  As my mother helps Roon hobble into the kitchen, I turn and race to the shore.

  As I get closer, sobs and groans reach me and my legs grow strangely heavy. I slow my steps, listening. Has someone died? The last time I heard people cry together like this was at my grandfather’s burial, when I was just a little boy.

  But as the line of people at the edge of the sand comes into view, I see that no one has died—at least not yet. These aren’t cries of mourning; they’re cries of pain.

  Lying across the rocky soil of the beach are a half-dozen members of my clan: my twin cousins, only eleven years old, two women who are close friends of my mother, and my brothers Kesh and Pek. All of them have at least one limb exposed, some two or three—arms and legs cut free of their garments, lying bare against the dark sand like recently caught fish. But each body part, sticking out at odd angles to be examined by the healer, is mottled by bright red burns. Each face is gray and tight with pain. My aunt and uncle and a third person—the daughter of one of the burned women—help tend to the injured. They hurry back and forth as Urar calls out instructions.

  Pek calls to me through clenched teeth. Urar, leaning over Pek’s blistered arm, lifts his eyes for only a moment, just long enough to point to an empty bowl and order me to fill it from the sea. I hurry to do as I’m told, returning quickly to Pek’s side. “The Bosha clan. They were searching for Chev,” Pek says. He pauses, sucking in a quick gasp of breath. “They thought we were hiding him, so they set fire to the huts.”

  He gasps again, takes two quick breaths. “A boy lit a torch from the hearth. He hesitated at first, only lighting our own family’s hut. Then the kitchen. He demanded we offer up Chev and his sisters to save the camp. When he realized they had gone, he set more and more huts on fire, threatening anyone who came close.

  “Then, when everything was ablaze, Lo came.”

  My heart sputters at the sound of her name. Lo? She couldn’t have been here. I’d left her in her own camp when I came back.

  They must’ve left her a kayak. She must’ve followed her people over the bay when I was safely out of the way, running the land route.

  “When she learned that Chev wasn’t here, she flew into a rage. She went around the camp ignoring the flames, peering into burning huts, screaming Chev’s and Mya’s names.

  “Then, calling for the Divine to curse our clan, she ran to the shore. She called them all to the boats and they left.”

  “To go south,” I say, more to myself than to my brother.

  The healer leans over Pek and drips a steady stream of cold water onto his arm from the shell of a long, thin clam. Pek flinches and squeezes my hand. The healer refills the shell and repeats the process farther down his arm. My brother’s eyes bulge over sunken cheeks, yet through it all he stares into my eyes.

  “Go to them,” he grunts. “To Seeri and her family. To Mya.” The healer drapes a soaking hide across Pek’s burned arm and a high, bright cry bursts through his lips.

  I clasp his other arm—the whole and unharmed arm that appears to belong to a different man—and lean down to speak directly into his ear.

  “Rest now,” I whisper. “And don’t worry. I can stop Lo, and I will.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  All at once the beach goes dark as if the sun has set, though it’s not even midday. The storm clouds I’d seen from the ridge—storm clouds that had seemed so far off—have already arrived. With the loss of the sun, the air chills rapidly; the summer morning has been chased away by something that feels more like an autumn afternoon. Wind blows down from the north, sending burned scraps and cinders billowing through the air like snow.

  But it’s not snow that is coming. It’s rain.

  I hear it before I feel it—the thrumming of huge drops against the parched ground. The skies above the beach open abruptly, and cold, hard rain falls with the power of a wave on the sea.

/>   Two of the injured are well enough to stand—one of my cousins and one of the women. They climb to their feet and are helped to a sheltering spot among the brush that grows beyond the dune grass. Urar calls out for help in carrying the others to cover.

  I try to help, responding to the healer’s shouted instructions from behind me, but in front of me, still lying at my feet, Pek screams at me, too. At first I think he’s screaming in pain, his open wounds exposed to the cold hard slap of water. But it’s not that. He is surely in pain, but he is screaming at me out of anger. Anger at me for not heading south as fast as I can.

  “Leave us!” he seethes, his body twisting on the ground. Watching him, every instinct in me screams with a voice as loud as Pek’s to stay. “There are plenty who can help us.” He stretches and straightens his body, reaching for me, fighting the pain in order to look me in the face. “There is no one else who can warn them.”

  No one else who can warn them . . . No one else who can warn you.

  He’s right—I know he’s right.

  I close my eyes tight and think back on everything my clan has suffered at Lo’s hands—the fire, the panic, the pain. I imagine the same scene playing out at your camp.

  Pek’s right—I have to stop it.

  It’s almost suicide to take a kayak out in a storm this strong—I know it; Pek knows it. But I can’t worry about the risks now. I just need to leave quickly.

  I nod at Pek, whose hands have wrapped around my ankles. He releases me. Without another word—without a mention of the dangers I’m running into—I turn and run down the waterfront to the spot where my clan’s kayaks are stored. The assault of the pounding rain slows me slightly, as I struggle to keep the inside of the kayak dry while climbing in, pulling the straps over each shoulder, and tying the sash securely around my waist. Once I am in, though, I get away surprisingly easily. No one is watching the sea. No one is looking for me. There is damage to repair and injured to tend to.