Ice Drift (9780547540610) (11 page)

The next day, there were beautiful crimson clouds to the south, a sign of spring, and Alika killed and dressed another medium-sized seal. "Our luck has changed, you see," he said to Sulu.

The following day, the tops of the southern Greenland mountains were briefly illuminated by the sun and many narwhals swam around, their tusks sometimes projecting over the pack ice.

"That's not good. They scare the seals away," Alika said.

"I remember Papa saying that," Sulu said.

Kussu had begun teaching Sulu about hunting when he was four or five, but Sulu didn't seem very interested. There was no school in Nunatak for the children. Hunting would be what their lives were all about. By the time he was twelve, Alika had gone to the ice by himself to hunt. That was his proud destiny, like his papa's.

"Two more years, when you're twelve, you can go anywhere by yourself," Alika said.

Let his brother think about what was ahead in his life, Alika decided. Let him think about being brave and strong. Let him know how great it would be for all in the village to call him hunter.

The light was changing rapidly. The moon was not quite full, but the light was so strong by midday that even the stars couldn't be seen. Alika said to Sulu, "The sun and the moon are competing to give us light."

One morning Alika and Sulu were watching the light increase on the southern horizon. In not too long a time, the whole orb appeared and stayed above the horizon for a short while, a red ball over the strait to the southwest.

"Every day it will get stronger," Alika said.

Always curious, Sulu asked, "Who makes the light?"

"The sun does, and when the sun disappears, we have dark. You know that."

"Yes, but is there a shaman up in the sky who makes it happen?"

"I don't think so," Alika replied.

"Someone does it," Sulu said.

Alika said, "You ask me questions I can't answer. Ask Papa and Mama when we get home. If they can't answer you, talk to Inu."

"Suppose he doesn't know."

Alika shook his head, saying, "Little One, you're driving me crazy."

In the afternoon, Alika harpooned a seal and butchered it immediately.

Floe ice covers all the surfaces of the bays, inlets,
and straits of the Arctic coast during the winter. It is
usually strong enough to carry hunters and sledges.

Maja stayed two days in Salluk, a village of sixty sod-and-stone huts, sitting out a gale. Lodging with a family of four, she fretted about the time lost. The people had welcomed her, amazed at what she was trying to do.

When she rode into Salluk, there had been a short vicious fight, a tangle not unexpected, between her dogs and the local ones. The fight was Nattiq's fault. He picked it. Maja and the Salluk hunters broke it up. Everyone in the Arctic knew about dogfights. They could be bloody and could end in death. Fighting and toughness were part of sledge-dog life.

The run between Nunatak and Salluk had been uneventful. Nattiq and the team had pulled well, even joyfully. The dogs always preferred to run, day or night, rather than burrow down in the snow to sleep. Their muscles worked as though they were encased in seal oil. Inuit believed huskies were put on Earth precisely to do this work.

The first night, the villagers had crowded into the largest hut to hear Maja's story about Alika and Sulu. They also wanted to learn what was occurring in the larger Nunatak, a settlement they envied. They'd heard about the wrecked
Reliance
and what gifts of wood and other materials it had bestowed. They were jealous.

Villagers in the High Arctic were always curious about any visitor. A visitor could be talked about for winters to come, especially a rarity like Maja, the mother determined to rescue her sons no matter the odds, no matter how dangerous.

"My name is Maja, and I'm the wife of hunter Kussu, who has a broken leg. I was born in Nunatak. My mother died of high fever when I was six; my father was drowned in the strait when I was fourteen," Maja said.

She spoke in a matter-of-fact voice and further told them what she and Kussu thought had happened to Alika and Sulu. No questions were asked. This was the Arctic. What was there to say?

A black-bearded hunter rose and spoke. "Turn back, woman," he said.

Maja simply looked at him and the conversation was over.

When she left the hut, he stepped out of the shadows. "I've been south," he said. "Watch out for snow-covered rocks when you are near the shore. If you break a runner and have no hunter to fix it, you may have to walk a long way to the next settlement."

She thanked him for his good advice, then said, "I've broken a runner before and fixed it myself."

"Do you want me to come with you to Anami?"

Anami was the next village to the south, four sleeps away.

Maja thanked the hunter again but said she didn't want to interrupt his life. She had an idea he had no wife or children. There weren't too many single men in the Arctic. They always needed female companionship—women to cook, make their clothing, and have their children.

He said, "Be careful of whirlpools when you cross the river inlets."

Leftovers of the summer torrents, whirlpools were frozen but the ice was often dangerously weak. It was almost impossible to know where they were,
and Nattiq, out ahead of the sledge, had probably never led a team across a frozen river. Dogs and driver could plunge into the brackish water beneath the ice hole in an instant and die.

"And watch out for the wind," he said.

She knew about the wind simply from growing up in Nunatak, having been blown off her feet in past winters. "I will," she said.

"
Nanuk.
"

She nodded.

"Frostbite!"

Maja's cheeks and nose had been frostbitten when she was in her teens, but the injury to her skin had been minor.

She nodded again. "Thank you."

He said, "Good luck," and faded back into the shadows.

Maja slept soundly, and in the early morning twilight, she thanked the family for housing her, awakened the dogs, and made certain their pulling traces were in good shape and clear of tangles. She mounted the sledge and yelled, "
Huk! Huk! Huk!
" in response to the dogs' loud howls—and was off to Anami.

Just as there had been no trail from Nunatak to Salluk, only animal-tracked snow and ice, there was no trail to Anami. She hoped that there'd be
inuksuk,
piles of guiding rocks sometimes resembling humans. These were usually built to mark routes along the coast. She hoped there would be no cloud cover to hide the sun, and no gales to blow and force her to stop during the next twenty hours.

Halfway to Anami, Maja fed the dogs, and herself, with seal meat from home, then rested them. The dogs burrowed down in the snow, and Maja lay down on the sledge. It was past midnight. The sky was clear, and a three-quarter moon was out. The run so far had again been without event. It had been so easy that her hidden doubts and fears had almost vanished. She was awake for a while, thinking of the boys, then of Kussu.

Over the past tortured months, she'd made herself imagine Alika as a fully grown experienced hunter, not the squealing red seal that had come from between her legs, not the always hungry
atertok
she'd nursed for two years, but a man now almost as capable as Kussu. She'd pictured him moving around on the floe doing everything that an adult hunter should do, as well as taking care of Sulu.

Looking at the moon in the windless silence so deep that it seemed a falling snowflake would make a noise, she thought of her husband, thought again of the bitter words they'd had just before she'd departed, wounding words they'd never before said to each other. She realized again she was destroying his pride as a man, a hunter. No matter what happened on her search, however long it took before she returned to Nunatak, she knew that their marriage might never recover. She had done the worst thing that could be done to any man, and Kussu was, above all, a
piosuriyok,
a brave man in every muscle of his body. She loved him dearly. With their two boys in hand, she'd beg for forgiveness when they met again.

Maja also knew he might divorce her during her year's absence from their bed. The ceremony was traditional. She would lie on her back in the sleeping space of a good friend, her knees drawn up, a cord around her head. Kisanqua, a close neighbor, would stand over her, holding the cord in her hands, uttering a chant, frequently changing the tone and measure, at intervals pulling the cord and raising Maja's head. The ritual, which Kussu could not attend, would continue for two hours, blaming Maja. Then she would be divorced but could hope to remarry Kussu at a later date.

She willed herself to sleep.

It was nearing dawn when she awakened, and the calm weather hadn't changed. She relieved herself, ate some snow, and woke up Nattiq and the dogs from their burrowed warmth. Less than one sleep to Anami—another easy run.

The Arctic coast is actually warmer than many places
to the south during winter. The record low is sixty-three
degrees below zero. Although the windblown snowdrifts
can he twenty feet deep, the usual ground cover is only
a few inches. Wind is the deciding factor.

Midweek in early March, with days and nights of equal length, Alika was unhappily watching a seal hole on the west edge of the floe, hundreds of feet from the snowhouse. Sulu and Jamka were perched beside him. The day before, the sun had stayed out until three o'clock, bringing good spirits. One huge, scary berg had come so close that it made a dark shadow on the floe, but it did not hit them.

Two days before, there had been another high wind, keeping them inside, sweeping the snow off the ice, leaving a glassy surface. And the previous night had been terrifying. They'd again listened to the cracking, splitting, and groaning noises of the ice and the hollow sounds of rolling chunks of it beneath the floe. Alika had tried to calm Sulu, but he, too, had been anxious. Alika believed it was only a matter of a week or two until their floe would break up into pieces of free-floating ice.

Although the sun was now dimly out most of the day, the cold was penetrating, and Sulu said, "I'm going back to the house."

Standing up he lost his balance, flailing his arms and sliding down the ice into the water, letting out a panic-laden scream, hitting the back of his head against the hard crust.

Jamka dove in behind him, grabbing him by the parka hood, keeping him from floating away. He treaded water as Sulu yelled, "Help us, Alika!"

It was all Alika could do to keep from also sliding in on his knees as he grasped Jamka's harness. The dog helped with his front paws, hooking them over the ice.

Sulu was rasping from shock, water seeping through the narrow space between his throat and the parka collar. His mouth was wide open as he tried to catch his breath.

"We'll get you out!" Alika shouted.

Straining to tug both his brother and Jamka up over the rim, Alika shouted, "Help us, Sulu!"

But Sulu's brown face was already turning white, and his eyes had enlarged like those of a caribou about to be attacked by wolves. Paralyzed, the Little One couldn't help.

It took the strength of both Alika and Jamka to pull him out of the water and up onto the floe surface. Alika's heart was hammering, and Jamka shook himself, letting the droplets fly.

They dragged the dripping Sulu to the house, leaving a water streak in the snow behind them, finally pulling him through the entry tunnel. He was breathing heavily and shivering, murmuring, "Oh, oh, oh."

Alika quickly stripped him naked and piled the caribou sleeping-robes on top of him, then started a fire in the
qulliq.
He had Sulu sip some warm water.

"We'll get you dry and warm, Little One."

Alika remembered how his mama had dried and warmed him after he'd fallen through lake ice and had been rescued by Jamka. She'd used a
Reliance
towel, then tucked him into his sleeping bag. She'd rubbed Jamka dry, too, and put his warm body against Alika's.

He would do the same for Sulu. Then he'd rub Jamka dry with a polar-bear square and insert him into Sulu's sleeping bag. After that was accomplished, he'd begin to dry Sulu's clothes over the
qulliq
flame.
But it would not be as easy in the snowhouse as it had been in the timber-and-sod house in Nunatak. Almost all the hunters had fallen into sea or lake water at one time or another. None knew how to swim or had any desire to learn. Water was as hostile as a
nanuk.
The hunters knew what to do when they took a plunge, but some died.