Strong Heart

by Charlie Sheldon

  Tom called Myra on the radio, reached her down by Camp Wilder. She said she’d return as quickly as possible. Then Tom radioed the rangers. They said they could get a helicopter out by noon the next day.

  They heated water and cleaned Sarah. Her hipbones were sharp. They bandaged her nose. They treated her finger. The cut was clean, no bone exposed, the flesh over the small stump of her finger already healing.

  Sarah wasn’t unconscious, but she wasn’t conscious, either. She mumbled, but made no sense. They got her into dry clothes and tried to make her comfortable in her sleeping bag. She slept.

  Myra appeared two hours later. Sarah woke. Her eyes widened briefly when she saw Myra.

  They tried to feed her. She ate little. She drank. She remained silent. Myra tended Sarah’s nose, hands, and some bad scrapes on her ankles.

  “Where was she?” Myra was carefully wiping Sarah’s torn nose.

  “She appeared right at the height of that thunderstorm. Tom saw her first. He saw her out by our old tent site, thought she was you. So did I.”

  “But where was she all this time, dad? It looks like she fell. Lost a finger.” Myra re-bandaged Sarah’s nose. “Sarah? I don’t know if you hear me, but you’re going to be all right. You banged your head. You’re warm, now. Your cuts are cleaned. You have water, food. We moved the camp under the overhang, out of the rain.”

  Sarah began speaking in a hoarse voice, asking a question.“Kali? Kali? Saar, kali.” She repeated herself twice, mumbled some other words, then fell silent. The recent cut on her forehead was bright, pulsing.

  “Maybe she’s saying, ‘carry, carry, far, carry,’” Myra said. Sarah’s eyes fixed on William and for an instant seemed almost aware. Then, in the afternoon sun, she slept again.

  Later, they moved Sarah into her tent. She slept heavily. Once she cried out.

  “Concussion, probably,” Myra concluded, as they ate dinner. “She’s had that blow on her head several days. The cut has healed. Same with her finger. Where the hell was she? What happened?”

  Tom heated water for tea. “When the helicopter comes we can get her to a hospital. She is malnourished and dehydrated. She didn’t eat much today.”

  They all kept watching Sarah’s tent. William moved her drying boots closer to the heat. “She looks pretty good for someone who went through whatever she went through. Some of those nights were damn cold. She should have died of exposure.”

  “She didn’t look very good to me, ‘Eye. Half starved to death. You should have seen her, Myra, before we cleaned her up.”

  “Who…cleaned….me…. up?” The voice from the tent was hoarse, weak, hesitant, almost as if speaking English for the first time.

  Myra’s smile was huge. “You’re awake, Sarah. Welcome back.” Myra spoke to the tent. “We were afraid you were unconscious. Are you hungry?”

  “Who…cleaned me up?”

  “You were in pretty bad shape, Sarah.”

  “Myra, right? Myra, tell me that was you?”

  “No, Sarah, not me. Tom and my dad. I wasn’t back yet.”

  Sarah, after some groans, emerged from her tent, found a seat on one of the log sections, and stretched her stocking feet toward the coals. She peered at the thick bandage on her finger. Her forehead was terribly bruised, the cut deep. Her nose was bandaged. Her hands were badly torn. William had been surprised at the thickness of the calluses on her palms. She drank some water. Then she ate some dinner, prepared by Tom.

  They said little, giving her time. She sat by the fire, seemingly alert, but somehow remote. At least she could talk, though she seemed to have little to say. They’d already decided not to press her to tell them what had happened. She would speak in her own good time.

  She kept looking around camp, head turning. She gazed up, then west. The sun had set, the sky glowed, and a planet glimmered. She fingered her wool shirt, her long underwear leggings.

  “Where’s my pants?”

  “Burned, Sarah,” William said. “I burned them. They were badly torn.”

  Sarah said nothing. She rubbed her head, careful with her torn hands.

  Myra spoke quietly. “A helicopter will be coming tomorrow to get you.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’m going back to sleep.” She crawled into her tent. Before she closed the front flap she looked back at them. “No helicopter. I walked in here, I’ll walk out.”

  “You should be in a hospital,” Tom said. “You might have a head injury.”

  “How many days was I gone? How many?”

  “Eight days. You were missing for eight days.”

  “You kept looking for me?”

  “We did. Plus a helicopter, rangers, the surveyors.”

  “Where are they? The others?”

  “They called off the search, Sarah. They left. Gave up.”

  Holding the tent flap open, Sarah watched her grandfather. “You didn’t?”

  “I have a stubborn gene, Sarah, as you once told me. William, Myra and me, we all stayed. We thought, though, if we found you, it would be to bury you.”

  “You wish. No helicopter. I’m walking with you guys. If I could last that many days I can walk out of here. Besides I have you guys to carry my pack.” She closed the tent flap decisively.

  “As ornery as ever,” said Tom. “Never thought I’d be glad to see it. But I am.”

  The next day they woke early. Sarah seemed much better and Myra called the rangers, called off the helicopter. They packed up, everything, cleaned the site, and left. Sarah was weak and she moved slowly. So did William. His feet were in bad shape even though he’d lost pounds and pounds.

  There was no snow on the lower slide below Godkin Creek. They stopped for lunch. There, sitting in the sunshine, Sarah began to talk, then stopped. Later, when they rested and camped during their four-day hike out, she said more. She spoke slowly, with long pauses, and refused to answer questions.

  What she told them was impossible.

  I fell into a dark space, sliding on mud, a long way. I hit my head. Then I was on rock, by water. I touched the water, feeling around. The water was hot.

  Time passed. Later there was cold water running down where I had fallen, then draining below me. My leg hurt. I tried calling for help. I heard nothing.

  More time passed. I was not cold, except when the cold water poured down. I could stand only beneath where I fell. I tried to climb back the way I had come, but all I did was slip, again and again. Except for the sound of water dripping, all was quiet. I was very hungry. Then I was not hungry. The dark was so dark I could see light behind my eyes.

  Later, I saw the yellow eyes of a bear. The bear was looking at me. I was not surprised to see the bear. The yellow eyes gave light so I could see.

  I drank the hot water when I became thirsty.

  The bear watched me. We were waiting, together. We waited in the dark, lighted by the bear’s stare.

  I slept. When I woke I was in a strange place, above ground, cold.

  My head hurt. I could see out between lashed, thin sticks. A roof lay close over my head. The roof too was built of sticks. I was on my belly, peering out. I was in a wooden cage, with six others. Like me, they were young, not yet grown, not yet women. Two were crying. I named these two Weeps a Lot and Weeps a Lot More. A third young woman crouched, silent, eyes cold. She I named Cold Eye. The rest stared out, whispering.

  The cage stank. I stank, the others stank. We were crouched in piss. My clothes were rough, torn, and strange. My head ached. I remembered only how I got here. There had been 11 of us at first. I had been the first taken, on the sea of grass, before the new grass grew, when ice still covered puddles and the wind blew cold.

  The first of us who died was the second taken. She fled one morning and our captors chased her down. The animals got to her first. Our fear of the animals kept us from runni
ng. With men guarding us, and a blazing fire, the animals remained distant. Alone, on the run, life was short.

  The second who died stumbled and twisted her ankle. She could not keep up, so she was killed.

  After they captured the last girl, we came to some low hills between mountains that smoked. On the other side of those mountains, we came to a shore. I had been taught that the ocean was the sea of grass but here the ocean was water you could not drink. Our captors lived at this place, among trees.

  They loaded us into a skin-covered boat, all but two of us, the oldest, who remained behind as wives. Two women, Sami and Than, joined us. Their job was to tend to us, and they were kind and helpful.

  The others, the men, treated us like animals, but did not touch us. I named their leader Old Bear because he was the oldest and his hair was ragged and long like a bear.

  We traveled in the skin-covered boat, using the many small islands along the coast for protection from the winds and the animals. The boat could be pulled onto the shore at night. The boat was strong and carried much. We huddled in the bottom while our captors paddled.

  At first I was sick on the boat. We all were. Many times the boat was in big waves and several times we could see no land at all.

  Cold Eye was one of the oldest, 14 or 15 summers, tall, her hair like straw. She hit the smaller girls, but she only hit me once. Her look was always cold. She hated me because I hit her back and hurt her. She was pretty but mean, and she talked much.

  I named the other girls. Woman Too Soon had her first moon time just after we left the land of the skin boat people. She was ugly, her eyes were set too close together, but her body was lithe and strong and she knew it. The men began to use her.

  Weeps A Lot and Weeps A Lot More were stupid, weak, and answered to Cold Eye. They were twin sisters, not much taller than me, and heavy. They had short dark hair and low brows. They had much trouble accepting they would never see their home again.

  Tree Hide and Rock Hide had been taken in the forest after hiding behind a large tree and boulder. Their hair was red and their bones heavy. They were by far the strongest among us. They were not sisters. They talked between themselves and their talking sounded like singing.

  Cold Eye and the twin sisters, the weepers, were taken from the sea of grass, like me. We all had the same legends of ice and grass extending all across the world.

  The others – Woman Too Soon, Tree Hide and Rock Hide – were from lands of trees, hills and mountains, south of the grass.

  I was the smallest and I was the youngest. I knew I was entering my 12th summer.

  We always had to bail, with shells. This kept us warm. As the days passed, and the longest day moon approached, the air grew warmer, though the nights stayed cold.

  We camped on islands. Once, a bear smelled us and swam out, but we saw its head bobbing in the water and we were able to get away. We travelled for many days, always toward the rising sun.

  At first, I could not understand what the skin boat people or my fellow captives were saying, but as we journeyed, I learned much of our captors’ language, as did the other girls. In time, we were able to talk amongst ourselves, in this new, common language, when we dared to. When we reached the headland and the trading place, we waited. We whispered among ourselves in the cage, huddled for warmth, sharing what we had heard.

  “These men who have taken us have done this before,” whispered Rock Hide.

  “Old Bear has made this journey five times,” Tree Hide said. “Every five summers, they travel east to the headland with women and bone tools to meet the razor stone people. Sometimes when they went east the razor stone people were not there. Then they had to return, empty-handed. But other times they could trade wives and tools for black razor stone.”

  Woman Too Soon was lying on my other side. “Sami and Than say such trading has been going on since the dark time, the time of no summer, no sun. The razor stone people come this difficult way for wives. They come in canoes formed from great trees.”

  “We are to be wives to these people,” Cold Eye whispered. “This journey will be long.”

  “At least they feed us,” Rock Hide said. Rock Hide and Tree Hide liked to eat.

  “That is because we are what they trade for this razor stone they so love,” I said. “That is why they give us robes for warmth, and why they don’t use us. Except you, Woman Too Soon, because you are now a woman.”

  “You will be woman soon enough,” said Woman Too Soon. She did not like me.

  “They must be in a great hurry,” Weeps a Lot said. “Some days we travel all night.”

  “We travel at night when the wind is calm and the moon bright,” said Cold Eye. “Than told me after we left the land of smoking mountains that we must reach the trading place before the longest day moon.”

  When I awoke in that cage, I had only the memory of the journey there. I could remember none of my life before. From hearing the others whisper, I knew I had been part of a small band living on the sea of grass, following herds. The bands gathered every summer for talk, trade and weddings. Except for this gathering, the bands fought each other. Always, we lived with the fear of the big animals, which would take us, in ones and twos, all year.

  The longest day moon brought the woman moon time. During this time, the women stayed apart from the men. The men collected seal and smoked meat for the trip back to their home. The women repaired clothing and made tying straps from the tendons of seals.

  The skin boat people were afraid of the razor stone people, and only their desire for the razor stone overcame this fear. The skin boat people talked of a time in the deep past when they tried to follow the razor stone people back to their home. They followed them south along the shore to where the ice rose on the mountains and there they learned that their skin boat could not survive the waters and winds. The razor stone people, using a big one-log canoe, continued.

  Sami told of legends of the razor stone people coming all the way to the land of smoking mountains and even to the sea of grass. These were ancient myths and dreams, told to children in the night to frighten and teach. These tales were not so different than stories I knew from the sea of grass, of singing brutes and people not quite people who once roamed the earth.

  The razor stone people arrived with the sun three days after the longest day moon. Their dark canoe glided to shore, striking the pebbled beach. They were nine. Two men were old, but not as old as Old Bear. Another was over 30 summers, old, but younger than the first two. Of the other two men, one was pretty and one not much older than me; he was not yet a man. Two of the women seemed to be wives. The last two were not wives of men, but of each other. Our captors welcomed them with hand signs and simple speech. The men all shared hot seal flesh. The women who had come in the one-log canoe talked as they could with Sami and Than.

  We were led from our cage and stood in a line. The two oldest razor stone men opened our mouths, pulled our teeth, and checked our skin, our bodies, all of us. Then they stepped back and began to speak to Old Bear. They spoke before a fire made with branches from the small trees at the base of the headland.

  The new people brought the razor stone from their canoe to the fire. Our captors brought fresh bone pieces and piled them by the razor stone, then gestured at us, the seven captive girls. Then shouting began.

  The razor stone people were unhappy we were only seven. They were displeased and becoming angry. The three younger men cast longing looks at those of us girls who were older and knew how to glance at a man like a woman. Cold Eye, Woman Too Soon, and Tree Hide smiled back at the men.

  Old Bear shouted and put us back into the log cage. Sami and Than retrieved the bone tools from near the pile of razor stone.

  Seeing this, one of the two older razor stone men, with a long braid, grabbed Sami and Than together. The razor stone women fell on Old Bear. The three younger visitors reached in their canoe,
pulling out spears and throwers. Before our captors could reach their weapons, the razor stone men threw. Two of the skin boat people escaped over a ridge toward the headland. The others died. Old Bear’s throat was cut. Sami and Than’s skulls were crushed.

  Blood ran over the stones before us. One of the skin boat people, impaled through the chest, made sucking sounds. Bodies sprawled on the ground. The razor stone women took knives and slashed the skin boat. Three razor stone men ran after the escaped captors.

  By the time the men who had chased the fleeing captors returned, laughing, the sun was low in the sky. The razor stone people dragged the dead bodies into the water and pushed them away. They picked through the stores and food of the skin boat people, finding some food, knives, and rope made of bark. Everything else was thrown into the fire – robes, spare clothing, everything.

  We spent one more night in the cage. In the morning we were loaded in the big canoe. The razor stone was stacked in the middle of the canoe. We seven were made to sit on slats and furs between the thwarts. The bone pieces were placed in the canoe toward the bow.

  After our new journey started I named our captors. The leader, one of the two older men, I named Thin Hair. I could see his scalp when the wind blew. I knew he hated this thing about himself, and the others pretended they could not see it. Thin Hair was not the tallest but he was very strong. His eyes were black and piercing.

  The second older man I named Fat Hair. His hair grew thick and was long enough to braid, and he was vain about this. He was very tall and his flesh was in places soft, like a woman. He had a small mouth and small eyes.