Ice Drift (9780547540610) (8 page)

Sulu wasn't convinced. "Did we do something bad to the spirits? Maybe even Kokotah?"

"Not at all, Little One. We've just had awful luck. I think good things will now start happening."

They stayed by the
aglus
another hour, then Alika gave up waiting and they walked several hundred yards to another hole that Jamka selected.

After an hour with no results, they returned to the snowhouse, ate, and went to bed.

A while later, Alika was awakened by a heavy thump and rolled off the sleeping platform onto the hard-packed floor. Jamka had also been awakened by the strange sound and had jumped down to the floor with a growl. Alika felt the husky's tense body a few inches away and asked, "What was that?" Sulu didn't awaken.

If it had been a bear about to attack, Jamka would have acted on instinct and already gone outside. Alika stayed on his hands and knees for a few minutes longer, trying to think of what might have happened. No human could have caused the thump. If something had hit the snowhouse from above, the snow blocks would have caved in.

The thump had to have been caused by grounding or impact with another big floe or maybe even by a berg ramming them from behind. There were no other possibilities.

Alika whispered to Jamka, "Let's go." His heart was pounding. They began to crawl out of the windbreak tunnel, Alika's mouth dry with suspense. He picked up the Maynard.

Outside, the moon was struggling to break through the cloud cover, shining for a few seconds and then disappearing. But in the few shafts of light, Alika saw what had caused the thump: A berg, with sky-reaching shards of ice like grinning teeth, had ridden up alongside the floe, temporarily locking to it. Alika was certain it was the same berg that had rammed them before and broken them from land, a familiar berg that seemed to have a grudge against them.

It had also grounded, probably in shallow water, stopping the drift of their floe. Perhaps they could crawl over it? Maybe it was up against the eastern shore and they could just step off onto land and head for home. Alika had never heard of anyone climbing up the slick surface of a berg, though. If only the in-and-out clouds covering the moon would give him a chance to really see it. But they soon thickened.

Alika stayed outside with Jamka, going closer to the berg, until the wind began to whine. Then they returned to the house for safety.

Alika felt his way inside and climbed back onto the sleeping platform, arranging his body along Jamka's back. He lay there thinking about the berg and this chance, maybe the only chance, to escape.

Perhaps on the other side of the berg, he could carry Sulu on his back and wade ashore. Jamka could swim it, of course. But Alika did not know how far the floe had drifted from Nunatak; whether he could go north and find the village in the blackness. And there were other problems. Many.

He didn't know if he could climb the berg with his sealskin boots, which had little traction and often skidded on the flattest ice. Even if he could reach the top, he'd have to figure out a way to get Sulu and Jamka up there.

As soon as Sulu awakened, Alika said, "A berg hit us while you slept. I think it is the same miserable one that rammed us before. It has grounded. I'm going to try to climb to the top of it and see how close we are to shore. Jamka will stay here and guard you."

"Why can't I go along?" Sulu asked, eyes still heavy with sleep.

"I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself. It will be very slippery going up. If there is not much water on the other side, we might be able to escape."

"When will you do it?"

There was dim light coming through the ice-pane window. The storm had passed, and there was enough moonlight still beaming down to make it possible for Alika to navigate the climb.

"I'll try now."

There was a gaff, a carved whalebone hook, still strapped to the sledge from summer sea-fishing. Alika unwound the rope from the short wooden tool, thinking he could use the pole to pull himself up if needed. Sulu followed his brother and Jamka outside, and on seeing the huge shape plastered with new snow and its shards lit up, ran to Alika and grabbed his legs, saying, "Don't do it; please don't do it..."

"It may be our only chance, Little One. The farther south we drift, the more the strait will open wider and the more the floe will begin to crumble. The winter hunters may not come out this far. I must try. Papa and Mama would want me to try."

"I'm so frightened," said Sulu, his small face tight with alarm. "When you get to the top, you could slide down into the water and I'll never see you again. Never!"

"I promise I'll be careful," Alika replied. "Very careful."

The brothers and the dog advanced on the berg, and the closer Alika walked toward it, the more he felt as if this huge mass of ice were saying to him, "Don't you dare!" The wind had blown the new snow away from some of the crevasses chiseled on its ugly frozen face. It was an ancient berg, Alika knew. Perhaps hundreds of glacier winters old.

Alika stood for a few minutes longer looking at the frowning face and trying to work up the courage to make the climb. He wished he could speak to Inu, ask him to provide a good Inuit spirit to help.

He studied the face, carefully examining the entire front of the berg. The swordlike blades of ice here and there had tips that were knife sharp, probably from the summer melt. If he fell on any of them, he'd likely die.

Both Sulu and Jamka had their eyes focused on him. He couldn't turn back. He said to himself, "I have to be strong."
Nukilik.
He hugged Sulu and said to the dog, "You take care of my brother."

Alika stepped off the floe and onto the berg, holding the whalebone hook in his right hand. As a child during the short Arctic summers, he'd scrambled over big rocks in an area south of the village while playing with other boys, but he had never thought he'd have to climb a berg. He wished the storm wind had blown all the snow off the ice so he could see the best way to go up.

The crevasses might be the answer, and Alika edged toward them, his boots already sliding on the slick surface beneath the snow. The ice in the crevasses, hidden from the sun, would be rock hard.

Reaching the first crevasse, he hooked the gaff and pulled himself up. Anything Papa had made could be trusted. And Alika still had the strength to climb. They'd eaten the last piece of raw seal the night before.

He could hear Sulu shouting from below, "Keep going!" And even Jamka howled. Alika was afraid to turn his head to look at them, so instead he pressed his body against the ice, ready to ascend another five feet.

He worked the gaff out of the berg's grasp and hooked it again, another five feet higher, then rested a moment. He kept thinking that if the berg was close to the shore on the other side, it would act as a bridge, even if they had to wade a little. He didn't know how far south the floe had traveled, but being anywhere onshore would be better than continuing to ride it.

Alika took several deep breaths and once more pulled himself up. Sulu shouted, "Don't fall!" Alika decided to go over to the next crevasse, which was wider and sloped more deeply inward.

Five feet at a time, resting after each pull, it took Alika almost half an hour to reach the fortresslike top of the berg. When he looked down the other side, he tried not to weep, but failed. The shore was at least two hundred feet away, an impossible distance to wade. Even if he succeeded, he'd be soaked, and there'd be no way to dry off.

As he stood on top of the berg, the wind dried his tears. He realized it was a useless mission. Any plan for hauling Sulu and Jamka up the icy wall would not have worked. He didn't have even enough strength left to climb it again himself.

He looked around. To the west was endless tundra, no sign of human life; to the east, across the strait, the white mountains of Greenland were outlined in the moonlight.

He stayed atop the berg for a few minutes, then used the gaff to help himself slide down. Finally feeling the floe with his boots, he heard Sulu ask, "Can we go ashore?"

Alika shook his head. "There's too much water on the other side. We're stuck here, Little One."

"I was afraid of that," Sulu said.

"I've got to kill a seal right away," Alika said. The day before he'd seen that Sulu trembled as he walked, from lack of food.

Moonlight was now their only hope.

 

The next two days, a light wind blew from the northwest, good for hunting, chasing the clouds. The moon was again shining down, and a most beautiful halo encircled it, as bright as Tatkret himself. Horizontal and vertical rays extended from it to form a perfect cross.

Alika had instructed Sulu to stay in the
iglu
and conserve his energy. Meanwhile, Alika spent hours at two different seal holes that Jamka had chosen. At last, on the third night—when Alika had to crawl, because of weakness, to the hole selected by Jamka—a seal rose to the surface for a quick breath, and Alika used the last of his strength to drive the harpoon into its thin skull. Then he found new energy to widen the hole and pull the animal out onto the snow, where it died.

Alika and Jamka teamed to drag the carcass to the snowhouse, Alika shouting, "Sulu, come out here and look at what we have!"

Sulu soon appeared, grinning widely. "I knew you'd do it, big brother."

This time Alika had no freshwater with which to anoint the lips of the seal, and he prayed to the animal's fleeing spirit to allow him this error. He promised he'd never do it again.

Inside the
iglu,
away from any bear's snooping nostrils, he began to use the woman's knife to butcher the seal, saving every drop of warm blood that he could for Sulu, Jamka, and himself. They needed it badly and drank it greedily. In the faint shaft of the moon's light through the ice pane, provided at a lucky angle, Alika skillfully cut the seal, first saving every ounce of the blubber so that he could light the
qulliq.
Later he would boil the meat as needed. But now they ate it raw, slicing the delicious liver into three pieces.

After filling their stomachs, which soon ached from being so stuffed, they went to sleep, Alika and Sulu thanked the seal and the moon for saving them. There was enough food to last four weeks if they ate very little of it at a time.

In the morning, Alika chopped some ice out of the berg, melted it, and filled the pair of walrus intestines with the freshwater. It could still be obtained on the surface of the floe, but the frozen snow-coated pools of it were difficult to locate.

A week later, a strong gale from the northwest ripped the grounded berg loose from the bottom, and Alika heard the ice cracking and felt the floe move, too. With the wind driving it, the berg would sail on south at a much faster rate than the floe.

 

It was now late December. They'd managed to survive since mid-October. Alika knew that the sun would faintly return late the next month. Until then the almost constant night would remain.

But this day there was about an hour of twilight at noon. Alika, Sulu, and Jamka stood outside to celebrate. The winter darkness was always bad at home, but there on the drifting ice, it seemed much worse. Any thin sign of light was celebrated.

Then they returned inside and climbed up onto the sleeping platform, and Sulu said, "Tell me about the places where there is day and night during the winter. I want to go there."

"So do I," Alika replied. "But maybe Jamka wouldn't want to come with us."

Sulu laughed and said, "How do we get there?"

"It is too far for our kayaks."

"Tell me about those places anyway," Sulu demanded.

"The year you were born, Papa took me to where the ship was waiting to go to the North Pole," Alika said. "One of us from the village of Iqaluit, far to the south, had been to the places where there was night and day during the winter. He took care of the ship's sledge dogs. He told Papa about warm waters and trees that were called palms. People swam in the warm waters and soaked up the sun on sandy beaches."

Sulu said, "Brother Alika, take me there someday."

"I'll take you there, I promise," Alika answered.

From time to time over the weeks that passed, Alika had thought how lucky he was to have Sulu with him. Now and then, Sulu had pestered him, but Alika couldn't imagine being stranded on the floe without someone to talk to, someone he knew and loved. He loved Jamka, too, and realized that without the husky they already would have died, but having someone to talk to who could talk back was critical.

From time to time on sleepless nights, Alika had thought about old Miak surviving on the drifting ice with no human or dog around. Miak should have gone crazy, should not have survived. But he had killed a bear, Alika remembered, with his harpoon, and the
nanuk
meat had kept him alive for four months. Alika had a dream about old Miak one night, saw him moving around his
iglu,
talking to himself.

Only in the Arctic could humans be trapped on a great mass of ice, drifting on a sea that had no mercy. Yet Miak had been rescued by hunters. Maybe he and Sulu and Jamka would have the same luck.