Ivory and Bone (7 page)

O
n the third morning after your departure, Pek and I are up while it’s still dark, standing on the beach as the sun gradually fills in shadows and reveals the edges of things. Together, we’re loading one of the long, two-man fishing kayaks for Pek’s trip to visit your clan. In three days we’ve collected seven seal pelts, and some of the meat of those kills has been butchered and wrapped
as a gift to your clan, as well. Pek and I pack everything into the hull, filling the space where a second paddler would sit.

All this preparation has been overseen by our father. Though this visit may appear to be the work of one lovesick boy, it is actually part of our father’s larger plan to befriend the Olen. A betrothal between Pek and Seeri would help create a bond between our clans, enabling
us to move south.

“Here, put this with the sealskins, away from the meat,” I say, handing Pek the pelt of the saber-toothed cat you killed,
tightly wrapped to stay dry. Since you left, Pek has watched me work a special tanning solution mixed by Urar into this hide every night, and stretch and pull it every morning—even early on this morning—so it would be ready in time. I explained to Urar that
I feared the Spirit of the cat had not climbed to the Land Above the Sky, but remained among the living as a ghost. Urar then combined ingredients that would give the hide strength while setting the Spirit of the cat free.

The results were worth the effort; the pelt is more soft and supple than any other pelt I’ve ever tanned. I can only hope the Spirit is gone now that the hide is done.

As
Pek takes the pelt from my hand, he hesitates. “Hey, don’t worry about her, all right?”

Why would he say this, I wonder? Do I
appear
to be worried about you?

“You don’t need an ill-tempered girl like Mya, Kol. You’re ill-tempered enough on your own.”

“Thanks,” I say, pushing the pelt into his hands. “Just take care of this until you get it to her. It’s not what you think. I’m not trying to
impress her or earn her affections. I just think she deserves this.”

“Of course,” Pek says. “But while I’m gone, you should take Kesh and Roon and visit the clan camping on the western shore. Maybe among the girls there, you’ll find someone sensible enough to appreciate a gift of honey.”

Why did I tell him that story? Was it to soothe his own feelings of rejection and failure? Whatever my reason,
I regret it now. That should have stayed private between you and me.

“Just try to stay above water, all right? I’d like the pelt to be dry when it reaches her.”

“Nothing to worry about there.” If I meant that last comment as a bit of a dig to Pek’s ego, it has no effect. He smiles broadly. He’s feeling confident, maybe even a bit cocky, this morning. “That pelt will enjoy a comfortable tour
down the coast. It will be clean and pristine when I lay it in Mya’s unappreciative hands myself.”

And that’s it—the last I will speak of you to Pek or anyone else, I think. At least I hope it is the last.

My mother and father come down to the water with more gifts to be loaded into the boat, a few more than I might have expected, but the number and quality of gifts are clearly intended to improve
Pek’s chances of receiving Chev’s welcome. My father puts in several tools to give to Chev—three flint points he flaked himself from a single core just yesterday, another core flaked along one edge to make a fine, fist-sized scraper, and two ivory shafts carved from a tusk of the mammoth your family helped us bring down. My father’s brother, Reeth, our clan’s best carver, has worked on these
shafts since you left our camp. My mother hands in three large cooking bowls of woven slough sedge.

“Enough,” I say. “If you overload the kayak, he won’t be able to maneuver it. Do you want all your gifts in the sea?”

“Don’t speak of that. Don’t wish bad luck on your brother,” my mother says.

Pek climbs into the kayak and ties the sash at his waist. I wade in, coming close enough to speak into
his ear. “The Divine has always shown you favor,” I say, as I grab hold of the kayak’s tail. “She will keep you safe.” Before Pek can give me a reply, I push him out into deep water.

With Pek gone, life in the clan becomes an exercise in waiting. Roon paddles out into the bay at least twice, out to a spot where he can see people fishing on the beach of the western shore. He comes home saying
he thinks he glimpsed a few girls, but a glimpse is all he gets for now. Since he is really just a child, my parents forbid him from making any formal introductions to the clan. That is my father’s role, and while Pek is gone, he refuses. Perhaps he is hoping Pek will return with good news before he has to make that effort. Roon whines and begs him to go, but Father argues that he would not want his
sons marrying into different clans, which I can only agree with—it might mean never seeing one of them again.

The chance is small, of course—a bride generally joins her husband’s clan—unless she is the oldest child of the High Elder. Then she would be presumed to be the next
High Elder herself, and her husband would go to her and her family.

As long as Pek is pursuing Seeri—as long as the Manu
are pursuing an alliance with the Olen clan—Roon will have to wait. My father will not take the chance that one of his sons might meet the daughter of another High Elder while he still has hope of moving our clan south.

I head to the meadow every morning to search for honeybees, but I have little patience to lie still and listen for the sounds of their wings. Lying in the grass, my mind always
turns to you and your clan and my brother Pek, and I end up on my feet, pacing. On the seventh day without news from Pek, I reach the meadow and find I don’t need to hunt for bees anymore; they are everywhere. They crawl on every flower. Before the sun is high in the sky, I have located the first hive.

That afternoon, I return to camp and find my mother standing on the shore, watching the water.
Her eyes are rimmed in red and she chews on the inside of her cheek. “I’m worried, too,” I say. “In the morning, I’ll set off to find him.”

“You can’t go on foot,” my mother says.

I squat on the ground outside the door to the kitchen, prepping my pack for the journey by the dim glow that comes just before sunrise, though at this time of year, as
the days grow longer and warmer, the night sky
never goes completely black. Instead it darkens to a deep blue—as blue as the sea that reaches up to meet it at the horizon.

I went in early last night, hoping to store up on sound sleep, but my night was punctuated by bad dreams. I saw the Spirit cat, running hard toward me, its bloodstained claws tearing the grass, leaving a bright red trail. It flew at me, its curved teeth coming so close
I felt the cat’s breath, as hot as flame, against my throat. Other times my dreams were visited by Pek, his body inverted, his hands clutching wildly but unable to reach me, his face hidden by his floating hair.

Morning couldn’t come soon enough.

“I’m not taking that kayak, Mother.” My personal boat is too small and volatile for the open sea, and our clan has only one other large kayak. They’ll
need it to fish while I’m gone.

“It won’t be an easy trip overland.”

We both jump at the sound of my father’s voice. Neither of us had heard him approach—we’d thought we were completely alone. My mother’s head whips around at his words.

“What are you doing sneaking up like that?”

“But it won’t be as difficult as it might have been before we learned where the Olen clan camp,” my father says,
without acknowledging my mother’s question. He hasn’t come as close as I’d thought—he stands just a few paces
beyond the door of our hut—but even speaking low, his voice carries. At this hour, the air of the meeting place is still and silent. “We know it’s a day’s walk from here—”

“A day from first light to last,” my mother interjects, “which in summer is a very long day. He will tire—”

“The
sky is clear,” my father continues. “You shouldn’t encounter any storms.” He hesitates, knowing that he will anger his wife if he lets me reject the kayak, but also knowing how much the clan may depend on that kayak for food with both Pek and me gone. Since the kill we had with your family, we’ve seen no sign of the rest of the mammoth herd.

“Let him go, and let him leave us the kayak. The Divine
will watch over him as she makes her slow trek across the summer sky, helping him arrive before last light. When he gets to Chev’s clan, he can return with Pek in the kayak he left in.”

There is an extended silence, and I know that my mother and father are thinking of Pek and hoping that I find him well when I arrive in your camp. I never told them what happened on that first seal hunt. It doesn’t
matter. They both know how dangerous the sea can be.

We all know.

When I leave, loaded down with weapons to the same extent that Pek was loaded down with gifts, my brothers and my parents each give me a kiss on the cheek. We did not do this with Pek, and I know that we all wish we had.

In my pack I carry provisions for several days, since I know the general direction and the approximate distance,
but there’s no way to be certain I won’t become lost. If I don’t find your camp within two days, I’ll have no choice but to turn around and come back.

I leave with an assortment of dried foods—berries and roots and some dried meat, all chosen for their lightness. Among the dried rations, I also carry my pouch of honey. A small amount will give me the strength to keep going when I have eaten all
my allotted food for the day. I also carry a healing salve of oils and medicinal plants mixed by Urar and stored in a bull kelp bulb. If I become injured, the oils will soothe the pain and the herbs will return strength to the wound.

Besides my fire starter, I carry a bit of dry kindling in case I walk into bad weather and everything gets soaked. Still, there are no dark clouds, and if I’m fortunate
enough to cover the distance and find your camp’s fires by nightfall, I won’t need to make one of my own. This is the prayer I chant to the Divine, creating a rhythm for my steps as I start on my journey.

I carry my spear in my hand, but slung by a strap across my back I carry another, just in case the first gets lost or broken. I also packed a trio of darts I carved from a shinbone of the mammoth
killed on the hunt with your family. I began working the bone when Pek left, and I packed them
in hopes the Spirit of that mammoth might protect me. To throw the darts, I brought my atlatl. Lastly, I carry a lightweight flint ax with a wolf-bone handle that I’ve learned to throw with fairly good accuracy. Only Pek throws better, something he never tired of showing off. I think of all the times
I wished he would stop, and how happy I’ll be the next time he shows up one of my throws.

In my belt I carry my favorite knife, the same one that cut the ropes that held Pek underwater. This knife knows my secrets, and just having it at my waist makes me feel less alone.

As the sun rises slowly and reluctantly into the sky, I hike through rolling waves of purple and white flowers that cover
huge swaths of the meadow. By the time I climb into the eastern mountains, following the pass that the bison took until they ceased to return, thirst burns in my throat. Still, even in the promising cool shadows of the rocky slopes, I won’t let myself take a drink. I force myself to wait until I hear the music of running water before I slide my waterskin from my shoulder. Perhaps I’m being overly
cautious—I feel fairly certain that I’ll always find water in the hills—but this route is new to me. I’ve never traveled to the other side of these mountains, and though I’ve heard stories, I don’t know what conditions I will find.

I follow the alpine trail, widened and worn under the
hooves of so many bison, as it winds to my right, turning south, hugging the base of a steep slope of sharply
angled rock. High peaks soar overhead, their ice-covered summits casting a deep blue shade across the ground.

Water trickles along gaps in the rock. In the few places touched by sunlight, scrubby shrubs spring from crevices. The highest peaks are still to the south, and wind from the north gusts behind me.

Ahead of me are rows of ridges still to climb.

Eventually, the path widens, and I find
myself standing on a high ledge. The valley below is broader than those I’ve passed through so far. A frozen river—a finger of the Great Ice—fills the eastern end of the valley, silvery blue in the sunlight. West of the ice lies a broad, meltwater lake, hemmed in by tall grass. As I descend, the north wind swoops over the frozen summit behind me, pushing hard against my back and prompting me to
cover my head with my hood. But as I drop down farther between the ridge walls, the wind calms. Grasses grow across the gravelly slope, joined by scattered shrubs at the base of the hill.

As long as I travel along the valley floor, far below the high walls to the north and south, the air is calm and warm. But once I reach the southern slope and the trail rises toward the next rocky peak, the
wind picks up. Shrubs thin to grasses and then yield to barren gravel again as I climb.
My ears sting with cold. Looking back toward the north from the crest, gusts of wind stir up swirls of sand and dust at my feet.

From here, the trail turns sharply downhill. A lower, grass-covered ridge blocks my view to the south until the trail bends right and heads lower still, down through a wide gap between
squat, rolling hills.

These are the foothills of the southern slopes. The eastern mountains are finally at my back.

I’m amazed by the change in the landscape, as my eyes sweep over slopes protected from the harsh north winds. My father has told me the story of his own trip south many times, but until now, that’s all it was—just a story.

My father has told me how the broad shoulders of the eastern
mountains hold back the north wind. He has described how the high peaks shelter the land south of the mountains from the harsh cold carried down from the Great Ice. Still, it never felt real to me until now—now that I stand here at the foot of the southernmost slopes and see the green land that rolls out in front of me. Protected from the north wind’s punishing cold, exposed to the sun’s warmth,
the land that opens south of the mountains is remarkably different from the land to their north. All around me, shrubs and thickets blanket the ground. As I descend lower into the valley, trees spring up, growing as high as my shoulder, their trunks as wide as my waist. The sun heats my face with a
strength I’ve never felt before.