CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:

Shooshinka

 

            The Wirwiry had been weaned on the cold at the sea’s edge and were much at home. The Kodiak, though wary, were ready, and led, and flanked, and shepherded, the very valuable fishermen of the Wirwiry clan across the frozen sea to it’s very active edge. Volcanic pollution trapped the heat and brought the thaw sooner than normal. Some of the clan fished from the bluffs of ice which soared above the thrashing sea. Others lowered kayaks on long rawhide ropes, then the paddlers went down to insert themselves into the little one man boats that bobbed precariously on the swells. They took with them harpoons for taking seal.

            The Kodiak felt foolish, hardened warriors riding out to the rear and flanks of this wedge of ice overlooking the angry sea, guarding these gentle fishermen against any harm. They felt foolish because they knew that they were the only ones in this forsaken realm of ice and cold. They were, all of them, lost on a frozen sea. The desolation seeped deeper into their bones than did the bitter cold. But suddenly, long wished-for smells began wafting on the wind. When the Kodiak returned to camp, the Wirwiry had fresh fish and seal meat sizzling over crackling fires. After the first day, Tyree dropped the pickets and ordered his Kodiak to fall under Kobbeesh’s command. Since all the Wirwiry were expert fishermen, and the Kodiak were no good at it at all, Kobbeesh put the Kodiak to tasks most important. The elite warriors did not like this new idea.

            Tyree and Konka took their turn alongside their Kodiak brothers cleaning the fish and dead seals placed on the ice at their feet. Other Kodiak warriors ran the baskets back and forth between the sea and the camp. Konka was the most unhappy of all the Kodiak.

            “Is this more of your politics?” he asked of Tyree as they gutted and cleaned a batch of plump tuna. Tyree looked at him inquisitively, so Konka went on. “Us cleaning and gutting fish like old women! You feel we show support for our brothers, the Wirwiry, by doing this. don’t you?”

            “Yes, and more gets done,” was all Tyree said.

            “Well,” Konka snarled, “I like the gutting part.”

            He slashed the small Wirwiry filleting blade through the fat tuna before him and its guts spilled out upon the ice.

            “We’re doing all right,” old Kobbeesh later reported to Tyree, “but we are not taking enough. We can feed but two thousand. And I don’t trust the ice. It’s too warm.”

            Warm? Tyree thought, shivering in his great bear cloak even as he worked the basket brigade.

            “We are still getting fish, but the seals have vanished. When the seals move away, the next collapse is due,” the old fisherman ominously said.

            “Can we withdraw and await the next collapse?” Tyree asked.

            “It could be days!” the old man fretted. “We must get back soon, or all the clans will be no more!”

            Tyree contemplated. To go back now with food for barely two thousand would do more harm than good. They must get more. He squinted into the wind that was blowing in from the sea. He asked the wind to hear his need, to provide an answer. Then he saw something. It was far out in the ocean past the colossal drifting icebergs created by the last collapse. “What is that?” Tyree said, pointing.

            It took several moments for the old fisherman’s eyes to match those of the Kodiak, but see it he did. A spray of water gave away its location.

            “Whale!” the old man whispered.

            “Have the Wirwiry ever taken one?”

            “Of course. But never in waters this cold. Our boats are small. Fall in, and you freeze to death instantly. Still, it would not only give us all the meat we need, its oil can be burned. It can replace the wood we will soon run out of.”

            “Can your boats take this—whale before the next collapse?” Tyree asked.

            “We can attempt to. If we fail, we would have died in time, anyway,” the old fisherman said with crisp logic. “If we succeed, well, then we succeed. Still, I have only nine harpooners and myself.”

            “Then Konka and I shall join your whale hunt.”

            Tyree and Konka could throw a spear better than any in the wilderness. It was negotiating the tricky kayaks that proved to be their downfall. They immediately collided, then Konka got completely turned around before gaining control. Led by Kobbeesh, the other ten kayaks soon outdistanced the two Kodiak.

            “This is embarrassing!” Konka growled, thrashing his paddle to gain on the huge waves.

            “Leaders lead,” Tyree replied above the ocean roar.

            “Lead? We are last!” Konka screamed.

            “It gives them courage,” Tyree explained, “to see those who ask great things of them facing the same perils. Remember that, Konka, if you are ever to lead.”

            “Me? Not me!” Konka shouted. “I am not in the line. I only learned of politics last night. Already, I hate it! And do not be so smug, my life-long friend. I have seen this politics of yours used many times—on me!”

            Kobbeesh and his harpooners paddled expertly up on two sides of the whale that swam at amazing speed just below and just above the surface. It was a great sperm whale, barnacle covered skin oozing under the carbon blue sea then returning some distance ahead. The kayakers paced it. The gargantuan creature was unaware of the deadly intent the creatures tickling its back proposed. At a call from Kobbeesh, all ten kayaks surged ahead, and were waiting when the behemoth rose again. They plunged in their harpoons. The beast went reflexively under, its colossal tail rising at the end, slapping at its tormentors and swamping two of the boats. Five boats were firmly hooked and they played out line. One of the five was Kobbeesh. The lines snapped taut in unison and the five kayaks rode the surface as the whale tried to race away.

            Tyree and Konka stopped their inept paddling and sat to watch the spectacle. White water sprayed out from the bows of the tiny craft as they skidded across the surface, the colossal whale underwater pulling them along like sleds. The whale breeched then plunged under, snapping one of the tethers attached to the harpoons. It dived under an iceberg the size of an island. One boat crashed into the ice. But the remaining three adept Wirwiry kayakers paddled furiously, skirted the iceberg, and held on. The great beast tired. The four kayakers without tethers caught up. The whale rose once more, and received several more harpoons. It spurted black blood from its spout, then rolled onto its side and lie dead, floating on the undulating sea. As Tyree and Konka caught up, Kobbeesh shouted to them, “We must hurry before the sharks come!”

            “Sharks?” Konka blinked. “What are sharks?”

            They moved in shifts, slicing great slabs of whale meat from their prize and transporting it across the bow and stern of their kayaks to the base of the ice cliffs. There it was raised to be smoked over fires in the camp. At other fires, the blubber was rendered into precious whale oil.

            They also raised the bodies of the three Wirwiry kayakers killed during the whale hunt. They were laid to rest, each with their favorite harpoon. The Wirwiry sang a sad song over their dead. The song made the Kodiak uneasy. Like all snomads, the Wirwiry buried their dead in the ice, even though they knew that this ice would soon break away and the sea would claim them. It was, perhaps, fitting that these men of the sea should rest beneath it.

            All day they worked the carcass of the great sperm whale, and continued for some time by torchlight. Then the sharks came. They savaged the remaining carcass in a feeding frenzy that distracted them from the tiny boats that paddled hurriedly away. But the expedition had more smoked whale meat than could be carried on all their pack horses and sleds. They abandoned half their huts to carry more meat, and they filled all but a few of their water casks with whale oil. During the night, the Wirwiry made several huge casks out of the leather coverings from their abandoned huts. These expertly held the last of the whale oil. At dawn, the party struck out inland, making for the camp of their starving clansmen lost upon the sea of ice.

            They had barely gone one view when there came a shudder like none other. Men and even some snow ponies were rocked off their feet. The shudder stabilized and all looked off to see the ice they’d just traversed fall from view to be claimed by the sea. They watched the huge white wave rise up, splash upon the ice, and slide across it to wash against their boots. The party turned and continued their trek, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the deadly sea.

            There was music, laughter, and dancing in the Jallalla expedition’s camp, even though nearly five thousand had died of cold and hunger in the time Tyree was gone. Fifteen thousand were saved. Still, the thaw was approaching and, with Kobbeesh as his expert on it, Tyree ordered all to pack and resume their quest within one day. They migrated due east, attempting to outrun the thaw.

            Every few days, the sound of the shelf’s collapse could be heard getting closer and closer from the south. A day came when the sound of the ice shelf’s collapse came from the north, as well. Tyree led one Kodiak scouting party and Konka another, one north, one south. Each returned to report that the thaw was approaching them from both sides. They packed and migrated as only practiced snomads could and made their last desperate march to the east. After six days they encountered a rise in the ice with brown plants and stunted little evergreens poking out. They had reached solid land! The sea was no longer beneath their feet! Tyree and Shuyah stayed at the base of the rise shepherding their flock off the ice. Almost all but the Kodiak were now on foot. The mounted scooped up as many of those afoot as possible, mostly the children. The ponies of the last of the snomads, their Kodiak rear guard, scrambled onto the land. Some stopped and stood with Tyree and Shuyah to look back at the sea. From the rise, only Kodiak eyes could see the distant arc of ice they had traversed across the depths. Only Kodiak eyes saw the final collapse, as the sea claimed the ice bridge that had led the snomads to a new land.

            As it did to the plains, the thaw encroached upon the new land, driving the snomads southeast as behind them mountains of earth were consumed by the thaw. Winter returned. Still, they kept on. Their supply of whale meat dwindled, as did the whale oil that had kept them warm. More of their number perished. Then plant life grew more abundant. Wood that would burn was found. Hunting parties went out ahead of the clan hoping to find food of any kind. One day, young Valaar saw a deer. The hunting parties began to take game: deer and a curious brown rabbit. It was half the size of the white rabbits common upon the snow, but twice as succulent. There was a strange brown bush hen with a fanned tail that made excellent soup. The sun choose to shine and stayed awhile, melting the snow into rushing rivers where trout and salmon teemed. The fish attracted great golden bears hungry from hibernation. Flowers bloomed. Trees grew green with spring. Still the snomads kept moving. In a lush and sheltered valley, they stopped to rest. Shuyah brought to Tyree the proposition that the clan should stay in the friendly little valley, plant seed and breed horses.

            “Stay, as we did in Verdanta. Grow fruits and vegetables, smoke meat and fish for the winter. Cozy in our huts. That would be nice, would it not?”

            “What if the thaw comes to our huts?”

            “We have outrun the thaw, Tyree,” Shuyah said. She panned an arm over the lush valley. “Let your Kodiak eyes teach you. This valley has never been touched by the thaw.”

            Without a good answer, Tyree turned away.

            “This is what you’ve feared isn’t it?” she went on, moving to hug him warmly from behind. “Permanence. You accuse Konka of it, but it worries you, too. You fear we will take root in this paradise, and the snomads will migrate no more.”

            “You know better these things,” he admitted.

            They planted and harvested, and took much game from the forests on either side of their pleasant valley. Many children were born the next spring, and the health and morale of all the snomads greatly improved. Members of different clans had begun to intermarry. Tyree and Shuyah’s experiment had produced a single vibrant clan—one that had found a valley paradise in a new land. But Tyree was not happy. He thought that their valley was dangerous. He didn’t like having the heights on either side that might be exploited by an enemy.

            A wave of longing slowly consumed Tyree. His thoughts began to dwell on the life he’d lost, of challenges upon the plains with the wind in his face and the enemy under his sword. Tyree, the believer in peace, found he missed the challenge, missed using his senses to track men, not rabbits, and missed training warriors to fight, not to be farmers. I have led us to the ordinary, he said to himself.

            The coming age of ice at last touched the little valley. Winter was terribly harsh, but for snomads, bearable. Fires flickered inside the five thousand snow covered huts that housed the fourteen thousand survivors of the trek to the sun. The extremely long winter waned, spring came, and foals were born to nearly every mare in the snow pony pens. Shuyah and Tyree had a second son, whom they named Little Tyree.

            Three winters came and went, each more brutal than the last, but between them came brief periods of fair weather and sunny skies which brought blooming flowers and healthy trees. One spring day, Tyree took four-year-old Little Tyree on his first hunting expedition. Tyree’s other son, Valaar, now fifteen, and Konka, joined them. The four rode their snow ponies up the southeast side of the valley. Tyree had already done this several times, exploring what lie beyond their friendly little basin. Tyree’s hunting party crested the ridge and looked out over great forests bathing in the sun. Trees, so sparse and stunted on the plains of snow where Tyree was born, here were magnificence. As he looked out over the beautiful country, he wondered if he had found Jallalla, or was it really Shooshinka—heaven?

            Tyree was beginning to believe it was heaven when he heard something down in the forest beyond the ridge. He gave the Kodiak hand signal for quiet, and even the snow ponies obeyed. Tyree slipped noiselessly from his saddle and melted down into the woods. He seemed to have been gone an eternity when Valaar slid from his saddle and crept into the woods after his father. Konka decided to stay and protect his friend’s youngest boy. Perhaps what Tyree heard was one of the huge golden bears they’d been killing. They had claws like spear tips, and teeth like knives. The clan began to call these most efficient killers Kodiaks, after the warriors who relished the challenge of hunting them.

            Valaar crept forward as his father had taught him and had been taught by his grandfather. Young Valaar was only half Kodiak, but he was in the line, and determined to be military commander some day. Young Valaar was half Kodiak, but Koleefus’ mastery of Kodiak skills proved that even a full Tranca could learn them. Young Valaar was half Kodiak. He would be even better at it.

            Dried leaves left by winter crunched under Valaar’s feet. He froze. He listened to see if his misstep had been heard. There came a distant clatter somewhere ahead. Valaar held up his hand to read the wind. Slowly, the feeling of many bloods filled his hand. His nostrils strained to make out their nature. He smelled horses and men.

            Suddenly, a hand clamped over Valaar’s astonished mouth and he was pulled down into the underbrush by the strong arms of his father. Tyree gestured ahead then he parted the tall ferns in which they had concealed themselves. Through the trees, they saw a great army pass. There were mounted warriors, all in armor and bristling with weapons. They rode brown horses and wore the skins of the same great golden bears that snomad hunting parties had been killing. Then came their supply units, horses pulling strange wooden boxes with circular wooden attachments that rolled the huge boxes along the ground with ease. Wheels were unfamiliar to Tyree and Valaar. Sleds with runners had been all that they knew.

            Tyree’s quick mind suggested that this strange army was patrolling the outer edges of a vast domain that they had carved for themselves in the Land of the Sun. The snomads were suddenly trespassers, and enormously outnumbered.

            Tyree’s mind raced far faster than the army of thousands which marched slowly past his eyes. His thoughts were of his people. There would be a new need for the training of warriors, old warriors would be pressed back into service, young novices schooled in the art of battle. Tyree and Shuyah would have to build a new army from the remnants of a clan that but five winters ago were dying upon the sea of ice. The entire clan must recall the old ways, and be prepared to move in a heartbeat. They would need food supplies, weapons, horses, and well trained warriors before they could in any way approach this new military menace. It would take two, perhaps three winters to be ready. In ten winters, all the children Little Tyree’s age would be warriors. Then, they would be a force to consider. Tyree’s greatest hope was that, in that time, their comfortable little valley—the snomads’ tenuous foothold in the Land of the Sun—would not be discovered.

 

 

THE END