Ice Drift (9780547540610) (12 page)

Teeth chattering, Sulu shivered for more than an hour nestled against Jamka. The dog, seeming to know what his role was—arctic dogs had furnished body heat over many centuries—mostly slept. But Sulu's drawn face still hadn't returned to its brown color.

Alika had quickly made a wooden drying rack out of odd sledge pieces for Sulu's clothing. It would take several days before his brother could dress again, though. The low flame from the cotton-grass wick was steady but not all that hot.

There was enough oil in the walrus bladders to last perhaps a week if they used it sparingly. But Alika knew he'd have to kill a seal within several days, and that meant leaving Sulu alone. Jamka would be needed to find a promising hole quickly.

Sitting on the sleeping ledge beside Sulu, Alika said, "Little One, I have to hunt tomorrow."

"And leave me alone?" Sulu's face showed alarm.

"We won't be that far away."

"Leave Jamka with me."

"No, I need Jamka to do his job."

"Then wait until my clothes are dry."

"I can't, Little One. We need oil and meat every day. You know that."

Sulu didn't answer, turning his head toward the snow-block wall.

Alika knew how quiet, lonely, and shadow-dark the cold snowhouse could be. Once, long ago on a hunt with his papa, he'd gotten sick and had to stay alone in their tiny
iglu
for two days. He'd watched the flickering blue light of the
qulliq
for hours, between sleeps. He remembered his fear of being without a rifle or even a harpoon. What if
nanuk
had smelled him inside there and broken through the blocks?

Weeping softly, and without turning around, Sulu asked the same question he'd asked for months, "Brother, when will this be over?"

Alika had only one answer: "Soon, I hope."

"You keep saying that."

One thing was certain: Before long, their ship of ice would crumble into thousands of pieces, and Alika would need to find one large enough to carry Sulu, Jamka, and himself. If Nuliajuk was indeed looking up from the bottom of the sea, the floe would shatter in the daylight, not at night. Alika had never seen a floe come apart but could imagine the ice splitting in large pieces, one after another, then the large pieces shattering into smaller ones; frightening noises; and then, at last, the shock of being dumped into the water. Alika planned to make a paddle from sledge parts and try to reach shore when that happened. He'd long ago given up thoughts of rescue.

Free-floating pack ice can be wide expanses of flat chunks
or terrifying towers, tumbled blocks, pushed about by
winds or currents. During high winds, the pieces can
make explosive noises crashing against one another.

The gale from the west, driving snow ahead of it, struck Maja when she was near Anami. She got on the lee side of the sledge, huddling with the dogs. Her face was freezing beneath her mask. She was exhausted from trying to control the team. Fights had broken out, and she came near using the rifle on the biggest husky, which had challenged Nattiq for leadership.

The going had been slow in the gale, and Maja, at one point when the dogs were almost totally out of control, flailed them with the whip, weeping shamelessly. Maybe Kussu had been right. She was not strong enough to make this trip alone, though she would never admit that to anyone. Her legs and back ached.

The early March wind roared, and the snow curled over the side of the sledge. Maja's mittened hands pulled the parka hood tighter against her throat; her body was lodged between two dogs, one of them the husky she'd wanted to shoot. She'd felt lonely before while solo trapping on the tundra but never this lonely, this defeated. She finally fell asleep in her caribou bag.

When Maja awakened, she was warm; the curling snow had covered her and the dogs completely. The sun was up and the morning was brilliant. Rested, she felt better, and if the dogs would cooperate, she might make Anami by darkness.

She fed them, and while they ate, she wondered, as she did each day, where the boys were. Just how far south had they drifted down the strait? She steadfastly believed they were still alive.

They are my boys.
No man could understand the strength of bond between a mother and her children. She'd given life to Alika and Sulu in a separate shelter, an
iynivik,
and she'd cut their umbilical cords with a piece of flint. She'd named both of them after recently deceased uncles, both hunters. She'd placed the cords in a pouch in her parka. Then she had settled in an
iglu,
built by Kussu, for three weeks, a time during which women were considered impure and dangerous because of giving birth. The custom was ages old.

Alika and Sulu were her boys, and Maja willed them to live, absolutely willed them to live on their floe.
They must defy death.

Soon she hooked up the dog traces and got under way for Anami. The running was smooth for the next hour, but suddenly there was a muffled sound and the sledge careened on its side, throwing Maja off, causing the dogs to tangle. She knew immediately what had happened. She'd hit an unseen rock. Getting to her feet, she saw that the left runner was torn away from the sledge.

There was a coil of seal rope that Kussu had attached to the frame, but the frozen runner had broken into a half dozen lengths on impact and there was no way to tie them together. She'd have to wait until she got to Anami and see if a villager there would give her a piece of wood or whalebone for a replacement.

Maja would have more difficulty controlling the dogs now that they couldn't run. Fights would break out more easily. The sledge would drag slowly at an angle, and keeping the dogs in fan position would be difficult. She'd walk behind the broken sledge. She'd use the whip and take a piece of ear out of any dog that misbehaved. She had to challenge the dogs, each of them stronger than she was.

 

The dogs spotted the
nanuk
before Maja saw it, and they jerked the tracer line out of her hands, dragging the tumbling sledge with the rifle still attached to it. Maja could only stand and watch as the roaring pack attacked the bear, the pull tracers entangling it.

She saw the bear's paw strike Nattiq as he led the attack, knocking the dog aside in a flurry of blood. It was the wildest dog-bear fight she'd ever seen. The eight dogs sank their teeth into the enraged bear's back and belly. She ran forward and wrested the rifle off the sledge frame, moving toward the melee to get a clean shot at the
nanuk.

She got close to the bear, which was still upright, with the dogs tearing at his flesh, and took aim at his head. She fired at an ear and the bear toppled over. Maja collapsed in the bloodred snow, weak-kneed from fright. On her back, panting in terror,
she watched as the dogs, muttering and growling, ripped through the bear's thick coat to get at his hot meat. Her heart pounded.

They ate as savagely as they had fought, and Maja made no attempt to stop them. When they'd had their fill, she took her
ulu
and cut a chunk of meat for herself, her face getting bloody from the goodness of the bear. Then she untangled the traces and dragged the carcass to the sledge, strapping it to the frame for the villagers of Anami.

After the delay, she was under way again, hoping to reach the village without further trouble.

 

As the moon shone down, Maja arrived safely in Anami just before midnight. The village dogs set up a din and awakened everyone. Anami was smaller than Salluk, only forty families living there. Most came out because visitors were few and far between at any time of day. The villagers welcomed the woman who brought the gift of a bear carcass.

What men were there and not out hunting took care of the dogs, and Maja soon went to sleep in the house of Kuukittsaq.

In the morning, after she told them of her search,
the oldest and most traveled hunter, Aku, shook his head and said, "Woman, do you want to die and never see your children again?"

Maja answered steadily, "I am capable of going south." There was defiance in her voice. She was tired of men trying to tell her what to do.

His laugh was harsh. "Even I wouldn't try it. There are no settlements below here for hundreds of sleeps. I've traveled south for days, and there is nothing but foxes and wolves and bears and snow and bad ice. No people."

Maja said, "I must go on."

Aku, whose face was tattooed like a woman's, thin black lines around his cheeks and chin, said, "There are inlets and rivers that are frozen now, but soon the ice will begin to melt and you will risk your life trying to cross them. And shortly after that, the river water will be rushing out to sea. Woman, there is no safe traveling between here and the end of Ellesmere. The inlets are like
nanuk
teeth."

Maja said, "I must go on," but her voice was wavering and weakening.

"Woman, if your sons are still alive, they will get off the floe and get ashore without your help. Go back to Nunatak. I will fix your sledge. Go home, foolish woman, still alive."

For two days, Maja thought about what Aku had said, knowing that he spoke the truth. For two sleepless nights, she rolled back and forth in her caribou bag. During the day, she talked to Kuukittsaq, who had two children. For every hour that she was defiant of the elements, she spent another hour thinking. They talked about what could happen during the hundreds of sleeps to the end of Ellesmere; then the crossing to what the
kabloonas
called Devon; and below that the place called Baffin Island, where Miak had been rescued. Kuukittsaq said, "Don't go."

Finally, Maja gave up and decided to return home. The men of the village had already fixed her sledge. At least she had tried, and if she ever saw Alika and Sulu again, she could tell them about her short journey and why she had turned back. She hoped they'd understand, but she remained angry at herself—and at the bearded hunter at Salluk and this man with the tattooed face, both of whom had robbed her with their warning words, played on her unspoken fear.

She arrived back at Nunatak in four sleeps,
barely stopping to eat, pushing Nattiq and his team like they'd never been driven before. Defeat rode with her every mile.

She fell into Kussu's arms and said, "I failed; I'm sorry..." They wept together, and an exhausted Maja soon went to sleep. She'd wait until the next day to tell him what had happened.

There could te thousands of small ice floes in the strait,
bobbing up and down, rubbing against one another
in round shapes or triangles or uneven squares.
They often freeze together, forming a new surface
as rough as newly plowed earth.

Frustrated, Alika returned home from the seal holes empty-handed after another all-day watch. The ones that Jamka had chosen had not delivered a single shiny head. He estimated they had enough food for seven days.

Sulu had begun to wheeze and cough, the certain delayed result of falling into the water. Alika felt his forehead. It was hot and feverish, and Sulu's eyes were watery. He had awakened that morning saying he didn't feel well. "I'm sick, Alika. I hurt all over."

"I'll fix you some tea," Alika said. He had no other remedy.

Papa had put some leaves from the wild-growing Labrador plant on the sledge. The leaves had been plucked from the summer tundra. The hot tea had been used for hundreds of winters as a curing drink. Shamans did the best they could with herbs.

"It's no time for you to get sick, Sulu."

"I know."

Alika was as healthy as a young musk ox. The cold weather kept most Inuit healthy. He could remember being sick only that one time when they'd been hunting, but he could remember many days when his little brother had to stay inside on the platform.

Alika boiled water for the tea and fixed supper. "You have to eat something," he said.

Sulu wasn't interested in eating. Restless, he coughed all night.

In the morning, Alika was frightened when he discovered his brother had an even higher fever. His forehead was burning. Beyond giving him more tea, Alika had no idea how to treat him. He did remember that the one time Sulu had had a high fever, Mama had kept putting ice-cold towels on his forehead and throat. The cold had seemed to bring the fever down.