Stories of how he’d trained a fine son to take his place as High Elder.
This morning the camp is silent, except for the waves in the bay. Called by the sound of the sea rushing to the sand, I follow the trail from the ring of huts to the beach.
As I draw closer—the cold gray surface reflecting clouds of soft gold—I catch the sound of voices. At the water’s edge, Mala’s sister, Ama, and her sons are prepping the boats to fish. They see me. Their heads lift in turn. Someone has pointed me out.
“Mya!” Ama waves to me, and I find myself hurrying forward to greet her. She stands in ankle-deep water loading a boat, but she wades onto shore as I reach the sand. “You’re up early,” she says.
Kol’s cousins wind rope and fold nets, stacking them onto the deck of a double kayak that floats in the shallow waves of low tide. Ama stands with a spear in her left hand and a pack propped against her knee. The hide of the pack is almost black from the many layers of oil rubbed in to protect it from water. Her tunic has the same dark sheen. “I came to help,” I say, and the words surprise me more than they seem to surprise her.
Ama’s eyes sweep over my clothing—I’m still dressed in my betrothal clothes, not really best for fishing—but still she smiles. “Have you ever hunted with these?” She unties something like a sash from around her waist—a strip of hide worked thin and supple, about as wide as her palm and about as long as her arm. She hands it to me, then stoops to pull large chunks of walrus ivory out of her pack.
“A sling?” I ask.
“Yes.” She smiles like my mother used to when I correctly identified an edible plant. “So you’ve used one before?”
“I’ve used one, yes. But not exactly like this.” I take the strip of hide from her hand. It’s soft and lightweight, like the hides used to wrap infants in summer. The ivory pieces are scuffed and marked—these have brought in their share of game. “I’ve used something similar,” I say. “But the ones we use are woven from strips of sinew to make a sort of flexible basket with a long tail. We use them to hurl rocks, not chunks of ivory—”
“You use them on land?”
I nod. “To hunt grouse,” I say.
“Ah, yes. We hunt grouse here, too. But these are for seabirds, so for these we use walrus ivory.”
Of course, I think. A weapon for the sea should come from the sea. The Spirits know their own.
Ama nods at the sling in my hand. “But you’ve used this type of weapon to hunt birds?”
“I have—”
“Good. Then I have a hunting partner.”
With a quick flash of a smile, she picks up the pack and moves to prep a second double kayak with the efficiency of someone who lives more on the sea than on the land. “Tie that sling around your own waist. I have another one for me.” She turns away briefly to instruct her boys, but they move even before she speaks; they are so skilled at the task of launching out to fish.
“I know not to hunt out at sea alone,” she says. “It’s too dangerous without a partner, even for me, and I can’t take the boys away from their fishing. I would’ve asked someone, but . . . not today. Not on a day like today.” Her voice falters, and she presses her lips between her teeth. She turns her shoulders away from me, letting her eyes trace the horizon, and when she turns back again, her composure has returned. “You were sent by the Divine this morning, I think,” she says, forcing her mouth into a thin smile. “You and I will bring in good food and good blessings to this clan on this day. The Divine brought you here to help me.”
Could this be true? I wonder. Could it be the Divine’s will that I am here with Ama this morning, to bring some good to Kol’s clan?
To the clan that will soon be my own clan?
I say nothing, but I follow Ama to the boat. She offers me the rear seat. “We’re heading out to a rocky island outside the mouth of the bay. A colony of black shags nests there every summer—hundreds of them. Just to the south beyond the point.”
Once we are out on the water, my head clears of every thought that doesn’t concern action. I focus on the movement of my paddle. I look ahead to the hunt, rehearsing in my mind the motion of my arm as I swing the sling, the feel of my fingers as I release it at just the right moment.
Two long rocky ridges enclose the bay like two cupped hands. As we paddle out we hug the ridge to our left—the one that forms the southeast boundary. Beyond it lies the open sea. I look up at the rocky cliff—gray stone worked smooth by the wind, crisscrossed by floes of ice—and I notice people walking high up along the crest. They carry tools—long poles and axes—tools for digging a grave. My eyes drift over the figures, and among them I recognize Kol’s brothers Roon and Pek. At the front I see Kol, walking alongside Urar.
I think of the gashes across Kol’s knee. I hope he showed them to Urar as he planned, and that the healer has treated them and offered chanted prayers.
The tide is coming back in, and the crash of the waves against this cliff creates a steady rhythm that ripples through me. My hair stirs on my shoulders. The wind swirls across the fur of my tunic.
Ama digs harder and faster at the water, and I match her strokes, pushing the kayak farther out to sea and leaving Kol behind.
For the first time since Arem died, I don’t see his bleeding body when I let my eyes fall closed. Instead, I see a cloud of birds with broad black wings—the game I will help bring in for Kol’s extended family. When I open my eyes again, Ama is slowing. We pull within sight of a flat, bare rock that wriggles with black shapes like a giant hill of ants. These are the birds we’ve come to hunt. Before we draw close enough for them to sense our presence, Ama twists in her seat, signaling me to stop.
“You’ve never hunted shags?” she asks.
I shake my head, squinting against the icy spray that pricks at my cheeks and eyes.
“They’re nice big birds—lots of meat on each one—and this island is covered with them. Since they’re nesting, we can bring the boat right up on the beach. They won’t fly away. But many will take off and hover over our heads. Those will be our targets.” She swivels in her seat and points with the paddle to the island’s western shore, where the rocky surface crumbles into a pebbly beach. I follow her lead, paddling until the water beneath us is shallow enough to allow us to jump out. My sealskin boots keep my skin dry, but still, the cold cuts through to my feet and ankles. The bright knife it sends to my mind clears out all my lingering, murky thoughts, and I’m grateful for it. Dragging the kayak ashore, we gather up our supplies. Ama and I each untie the slings wrapped at our waists. She pulls six heavy chunks of ivory from her pack and hands me three.
Before us, dotting the ground from one edge of the island to the other, are rows and rows of birds squatting on mound-like nests. As we approach, they honk and squawk, and those closest to us take off. Just as Ama promised, though, they don’t fly away; they won’t desert their chicks.