Strong Heart

by Charlie Sheldon

  Tom took back the piece. “This, Sarah, is an atlatl. A spear thrower.”

  Tom held the carved end in his right hand. His hand fit perfectly around the carving. He held it so the piece extended forward parallel to the ground, with the socket-like end furthest from him. Then he swung his hand and arm overhead to stretch behind, also parallel to the ground. The piece was at shoulder level, the socket end behind his hand. He spoke as he demonstrated.

  “These things use darts, a type of arrow. Their shaft might be three, five, even seven feet long, straight, with a stone point at the tip and feathers mounted on the back. You place the dart on the atlatl, feathered end held against the socket behind me, deadly point stretching ahead, balanced. Then you throw, holding the thrower, releasing the dart.” Tom swung the piece, as if throwing, but he held on to the atlatl. “The extra length adds velocity and power to the throw. Something about the physics of the throw causes the dart shaft to bend while in flight, increasing the force. These things can be thrown twice as far as an Olympic javelin. They may look flimsy, but the darts can go through hide, skin, and bone. See how it works?” Tom pretended to throw again. The atlatl extended the length of his arm three feet. William saw how the increased leverage would accelerate the throw. “These have been used for thousands of years, all over the world, since way before bows and arrows. These darts have more penetration power than an arrow shot by a bow. Atlatls were used against the Spanish when they fought the Aztecs in the 1500s. The Aztecs’ shafts went right through the Spanish armor. This is a perfect hunting weapon, capable of killing any game.”

  Sarah took the spear thrower and stood, extending her arm, practicing.

  “How old is this?” Myra asked Tom. “Do you still have that sliver you cut free?”

  “In my desk at home. How old would you guess?”

  “I’m not an archeologist, Tom. I took a few courses in school, that’s all. Bone can fossilize fast in the proper conditions, in a few hundred years. But this could be really old. Thousands of years old.”

  Sarah was practicing. Then she handed the atlatl back to Tom. “People have been living out here that long? Here? Yuk.”

  “Longer, Sarah,” Myra said. “Here in this park they found an old basket melted out under snow up on Lillian Ridge, just above Port Angeles. It was estimated to be 2,500 years old. When they widened the parking lot up at Hurricane Ridge, at over 5,000 feet elevation, they found fire rings, 4,000 years old. People have lived here at least 12 thousand years, ever since the ice age ended and all the big animals died out, mammoths, mastodons, saber tooth cats.”

  Tom took the device back from Sarah. “Myra, I knew it was wrong to take that nick, just as I eventually came to understand it was wrong to take it from Bear Valley over 45 years ago. Whatever else, this spear thrower was one of the last things Bob-Bob touched before he died, and possibly a direct link to his grandfather, Henry David Olsen, if Henry David was the one who found it.” He tied the cloth loosely, slid the spear thrower into the case, and closed the cap. “So, to answer your question, Sarah, we’re going in there to return this piece to that valley and to Bob-Bob. So it can rest with him forever.”

  Myra said to Sarah, “Of course, now this company Buckhorn is going to desecrate that place anyway with its mining.” Myra suddenly paused, then grabbed Tom’s arm. “Of course. The pickup that drove to the trailhead yesterday? You see the doors, Tom?”

  “No, I was cinching my pack.” Tom was confused.

  “Those four guys? That truck? The logo on that truck was a rock with the initials BI over it. Those guys are surveyors for Buckhorn International. If Buckhorn’s surveying your old claim, they’re headed to the same place we are.”

  “Bob-Bob’s,” Tom said. “That was Bob-Bob’s claim, more than 75 years ago.”

  Later, after Sarah and Tom had turned in, Myra and William remained by the fire. The river rushed by. The sky above the meadow was deep cobalt.

  “You were pretty ragged today, dad.”

  “I’m a little out of shape. It’ll pass.”

  “Just be careful, OK? You aren’t 30 anymore.”

  They watched the fire.

  “What was bothering you, Myra, this afternoon, after Sarah drew that bear?”

  Myra poked the fire with a stick. Coals lay black on one side, red on the other. Myra took a breath. “Dad, you and Tom think Sarah saw a black bear but drew some of the details wrong.” Myra turned to William, touched his arm. “She doesn’t know it but she’s an extraordinary artist. She drew exactly what she saw.”

  “What did she draw, then?”

  “The largest bear that ever lived, dad. Ever.” Myra’s hand tightened. “I remember from graduate school. A short face bear. That’s what she drew. And, dad?” Myra hesitated. “Short face bears have been extinct since the end of the last ice age. Almost 12 thousand years.”

  William turned his head and studied Myra. He saw that his scientifically trained, degreed daughter was dead serious. “Then she must have seen a drawing in a book somewhere, Myra.”

  Minutes passed.

  “And, dad? Sarah wasn’t frightened. Look, she’s sleeping in her tent. If that had been me, Sarah’s age, I’d have been by this fire all night.” Myra paused. “It’s almost as if that bear befriended her.” Myra huddled closer to her father.

  William put his arm over her shoulders. He pictured Sarah’s drawing. “What did you say to Sarah back at Tom’s house, Myra? After she said this peninsula was the end of the earth?” Myra was silent. He hugged her shoulder. “You told her, this is a land of magic....”

  Myra sat straight, remembering. “A land of magic, history, and legend.” She gazed over toward the tents. William felt her shift against him. Sarah had drawn what she had seen, yet what she had seen no longer walked this earth. His feet ached, throbbing with the beat of his heart. The night sky blazed with stars. He wondered if the star positions were different in the time of great ice and great bears.

  “Myra, we think we brought Sarah on this trip, but maybe it is she, who is taking us.”

  He faintly heard Tom’s snores, rising and falling. They sat for a long time.

  The next day they hiked 10 miles up the Elwha to Camp Wilder near Godkin Creek. William knew they were deep into the park. He had never been in this far. He saw that Camp Wilder lay on a shelf near the Elwha, a few hundred feet from the main trail. There was a small shelter sagging with age. Myra took Sarah off to wash in the river. They disappeared downstream. Tom and William heard shrieks and laughter. When they came back, Tom and William took their turn. They took longer to wash, and swore instead of shrieked. The water was damn cold.

  Clouds came in from the south, gathering and twisting over the high ridges. William tied a light plastic tarp over where they would sit eating their food. If it rained, they would stay dry. Their packs and gear were in the old shelter. The tents were pitched nearby.

  They ate silently. William noticed nobody dared mention Sarah’s bear sighting from the day before. Tom didn’t believe Sarah had seen such a bear, Sarah was furious he didn’t believe her, and William and Myra didn’t know what to think. Rain fell that night for an hour. In the morning a pale sun rose. William got the fire going and Tom heated water for oatmeal.

  Tom said they had all day to find their way into Godkin Valley. William was glad to hear it wasn’t far. Mist rose across the river. They decided to dry their tents in the sun before departing.

  “So were those ice ages here?” Sarah asked Tom. “Did those big animals live here, then?”

  Tom was holding his tea with both hands. He inclined his head to Myra.

  “Yes, they did live here,” Myra said. “During the last ice age.”

  “Last ice age? There’s been more than one ice age?”

  “Sarah, we live in a warm time, which began about 10 thousand years ago, since the last ice age. The earth has had man
y ice ages in its history. We’re still in the latest ice age period, which began about two million years ago. There’s been an ice advance and retreat about every 100 thousand years during those two million years.”

  “Every 100 thousand years? So there have been, let’s see, 20 ice ages?”

  “Yes. But during each ice age, even though colder than today, there were many ice advances and retreats, warmings and coolings. There was so much water locked up in the ice that ocean levels dropped by as much as 400 feet. Then, for about 10 thousand years, sometimes longer, the earth warmed, much of the ice would melt, and the oceans would rise. We live in such a warm time now.”

  “If it’s been 10 thousand years already, is it going to get cold again? In school they talked about how the earth is heating up.”

  “That’s what a lot of people think. But, during the cold times the land was very different. A huge ice sheet two miles thick covered much of North America and all of Canada. The ice filled all of Puget Sound and most of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The ice sheet never got into this park, because it was blocked by the Olympic mountains. Scientists think the strip of land west of the park out to the Pacific Ocean was never covered with ice, and was a refuge for plants and animals.”

  “And these animals?”

  “They were big. Mammoths were the size of elephants. Mastodons, bigger than a huge steer. The American lion was bigger than African lions. Dire wolves stood almost as tall as you at the shoulder. Saber-toothed cats had teeth up to 11 inches long. Bears weighed over two thousand pounds. All these animals disappeared 11 or 12 thousand years ago. No one is sure why. Maybe human hunters, maybe because it got warm and the vegetation patterns changed.”

  “They didn’t disappear after the weather changed during an earlier ice age, did they? Or didn’t it get as hot between ice ages before?”

  “The warm time before this one, called the Eemian, ran from about 130 to 120 thousand years ago, and was hotter than today. The sea level was almost 20 feet higher than today. And yes, you are correct, the big animals survived the earlier warm times.” As Sarah started another question Myra raised a hand. “You have now totally exhausted everything I know about ice ages. No more questions.”

  “William?”

  “Sarah, my daughter here received all the formal schooling in my family. I only know some old legends. The only archeologists I know are Myra, here…”

  “I am by no means an archeologist,” Myra interjected.

  “…and this Russian, a Koryak, I got to know in Kamchatka who has a serious hobby collecting mammoth tusks.”

  “What’s a Koryak?” Sarah asked.

  “A people who live in Kamchatka. A native people, like Myra and I are native people. I met him the first time our ship landed there, and we became friends. His son Sergei’s a genetic scientist. They’ve both been invited to this conference in Port Angeles.”

  “Time to get going,” Tom said.

  The tents were dry.

  “Who put these things on my pack?”

  “I did, Sarah.” Tom stood with his hands on his hips. “You can carry more weight and these are only the tent flies. The tents still go with me and ‘Eye.”

  “You’re a slave driver.”

  At Godkin Creek they turned and left the trail. They worked uphill, keeping the noise of the creek to their right, until Tom found the game trail, which rose, cresting a steep slope, then leveled off. Occasionally they saw patches of snow on the north side of gullies. They hiked through hemlock, fir and spruce, passing rhododendron, twisting branches not yet filled with buds of shiny green. They found evidence of the party ahead of them: boot prints, a cigarette butt, the torn corner from a plastic wrapper.

  Two hours later they crossed a slide area about 150 yards wide. High to the left they could see rock and scree. Heavy snow, pocked with twigs and needles, filled the slope, which dropped to the creek far below on their right. Ahead, the creek burst over a ledge to drop in falls to the foot of the slope. They had to pick across carefully.

  Tom led, kicking steps.

  Sarah stopped, halfway across. “This look like you remember?”

  “Been a long time, Sarah. I remember this gulley, except when Bob-Bob and I were here the snow was long gone.”

  William sat on an uprooted log emerging from the snow. North, the way they’d come, the Elwha Valley stretched miles and miles. His legs and hips hurt.

  A few minutes later they left the slope, entered forest, and met Godkin Creek. The water was clear, icy, and high from melted snow. A gravel bar lay in the sun. The sun felt hot.

  “We’ll have lunch here.” Tom dropped his pack.

  Sarah found a depression in the gravel and sat, leaning against her pack, face in the sun. Myra wandered ahead and peered into a pool. Tom pulled out the stove. He filtered some water from the stream. He started a pot to boil. William sat by his pack.

  After lunch they followed the creek. The walking was easier along gravel bars beside the creek than through the trees. Around a sharp bend they discovered two tents pitched on a wide flat area, wood stacked by a circle of stones, water bag hanging from a nearby tree. Four empty camp chairs surrounded the fire pit. Smoke rose.

  “They must be off surveying,” said Tom.

  William could see four sets of boot prints headed upstream.

  Sarah wandered close to the smoldering fire.

  They left the creek. Tom led the way, moving through the trees to the base of the saddle leading up to Bear Valley. The slope was thick with alder and brush. They kept the sound of Bear Creek to their right as they climbed, thrashing through alder.

  As soon as they reached the top of the rise they crossed another big avalanche chute filled with deep snow, branches, and entire trees. This was a wider slide than the one they’d crossed below. William could see, a mile ahead, an even wider slide, toward the head of the small valley. They crossed the piled snow and headed up the valley. They walked for 20 minutes. They were on a bench that followed Bear Creek.

  “About here,” Tom said. They dropped their packs.

  They were in a grove of firs, tall and straight, mixed with birches not yet budded. William could see the creek below the bench, 200 feet away, turning toward the ridge opposite, south. North, behind them, a vertical cliff rose like a pillar, framed with trees growing on both sides. The face of the cliff was streaked with water and tiny plants. At the base of the cliff boulders lay scattered, tilted, piled one on another. Beneath the cliff’s overhang the ground was more open, filled with brush, warm in the sun. Many fallen trees lay across the bench, each with a root ball at its base.

  “This is it, right?” Sarah sounded hopeful.

  William watched an eagle circling, high above.

  “This is where Bob-Bob and I camped.” Tom pointed to a circle of stones, half buried in cedar fronds. He walked over to a fallen tree and root ball. Young trees grew from the depression left by the roots when they’d pulled free years before. The shallow hole was filled with leaves, ferns and moss. An old ax-cut was notched in a thick, moss-covered log stretching into the forest. The notch was smooth and clean. “This is where he died. Right here.”

  “Where is Bob-Bob buried?” asked Sarah.

  “West, back the way we came in. Not too far.” Tom led the way. They followed him. Several fallen trees lay clustered together. “Here.” Tom was standing by a large tree, one of six that had come down, opening the forest to light and sun. Maple and birch grew in the open area. The root ball of the fallen tree had left a hole. A mound of stones rose from the center. Tom dropped into the hole and brushed leaves and brush from the stones. “I made a cross with big forked sticks, mounted it on the grave.”

  “He’s shaded by the maples in summer,” said Myra. “Falling leaves insulate him in the winter.”

  Some of the stones from the mound were scattered.

  “We�
��ll just place more stones here tomorrow, neaten it up, make it nice,” Tom said.

  Sarah walked to another fallen tree some distance away. She reappeared with a big stone in her arms and walked back, both arms around the stone, staggering. She dropped the stone with a thump by the edge of the hole. Then she headed away.

  “She thinks the sooner we get more stones placed, the sooner we can leave.”

  “She’s helping, Tom,” Myra said.

  Myra and William, then Tom, joined Sarah. They gathered more stones: white, mottled, black with veins of white quartz, many covered with moss. In a short time, they had enough to cover the grave the next day.

  Before dinner, William washed in the creek around a bend from the camp. The water here was even colder than the Elwha. William was glad to get back in front of the fire.

  The first insects of the season were swirling, catching the sunlight. Myra was braiding her hair. Sketchpad on her lap, Sarah drew a spider web slung between the branches of a low bush. Tom had water on the little stove for tea.

  When Sarah finished the spider web she rose and walked over to Tom. “Can I see the thrower?”

  “Sure.” Tom untied the tube from his pack and removed and unwrapped the atlatl, handing it to Sarah. She touched the marks on the shaft.

  “Where will you put this? In Bob-Bob’s grave?”

  “I haven’t decided. Tomorrow we’ll pick a place, how about that? Not in his grave, though. Leave him in peace.”

  “You think he knew he was going to die? He was pretty old. Was he sick?”

  “When you’re 13, Sarah, 74 is old. When you’re almost 70, like me, suddenly it’s not so old. He wasn’t sick that I know of. He’d had a lot of injuries over the years; logging does that to you. I’m not sure, maybe he did know he might die. I never thought of it. He was peaceful when I found him.”

  Sarah inspected the spear thrower.

  “You’re really going to leave this spear thrower here?” Myra asked.

  “You’re the one who yelled at me the other day,” Tom said. “‘This is an artifact,’ you said. ‘How could I do it?’ Remember?”