Strong Heart

by Charlie Sheldon

  Baskets, robes, and paddles floated and drifted in the flooded canoe. Bright Eyes lay in the water, holding a thwart. All of us bailed. The canoe was heavy with water. From the bow, Fat Hair and Thrower tossed over the side some of the razor stone that had slid forward. Water flew from the canoe, throw by throw, and still we could see water in the canoe, little waves, piling to one side or the other as the canoe leaned on the waves.

  “I welcome the strength, the spirit of this great tree who gave herself to be our canoe.” Anger sang as she bailed, kneeling next to me. She sang to the canoe’s spirit, a beautiful song. The wind blew her hair. The rain came again.

  The water level dropped. The canoe grew lighter. My arms were numb but I kept bailing. Weeps a Lot and Weeps a Lot More bailed even faster now than they had before. Cold Eye was to the side, knuckles to her mouth, holding a bucket, bleeding from her brow. Long Braid bailed.

  The ice cliff behind us faded in the rain. Now that we had passed beyond the face, the wind was slightly blocked by the ice, and the seas smaller.

  Pretty Face and Thrower together took the steering oar from Watcher, who was exhausted. Cold Eye and Woman Too Soon began filling seal stomachs with water flowing off the roof of the tent. I helped make Bright Eyes comfortable on top of the wet robes. Rain continued to fall.

  We went thus for many spans of a sun we could not see. Two lookouts always searched for land. The squalls continued. We could not rid the canoe of water, no matter how much we bailed, and we realized we had a leak. We would have to continue bailing until we reached The Place People Were. Perhaps there we could repair the canoe. The lookouts saw no land. All we could see was wave after wave, marching before us.

  The sun broke through the clouds. The red cedar sides of the canoe glowed. Fat Hair’s long raven hair was tangled. Cold Eye’s straw hair caught the light and flashed. Tree Hide and Rock Hide’s hair was the color of the canoe, a dark red.

  Anger began to sing a thanks song, and Tree Hide and Rock Hide joined in. They sang to the sun and the blue sky and the frolicking water, and ahead to The Place People Were.

  Thin Hair stowed and tied the bone pieces at the bow. He turned and gazed at us. When he smiled his teeth were brighter than the sun.

  “We are people,” he cried. “Now we are all of the people.”

  The seas were still high, but to the west all was clear, the ocean bright blue, the whitecaps many. The ice face behind us was distant, white.

  “The Place People Were,” cried Watcher, pointing. As the clouds raced away, two sharp peaks rose ahead, so distant they seemed a dream.

  “They lead us,” cried Long Braid. “They have led us. Their spirits will welcome us when we arrive.”

  “We will arrive this night,” said Thin Hair.

  Bright Eyes, from the bottom of the canoe, had found her drum. She tied the drum to the thwart. “These are good wives we have found,” she cried, pointing at me and the six other captives.

  “Yes.” Thin Hair opened his arms. “You are of the people now.”

  The sun shone. The sky was blue. We dried our robes and clothing on the thwarts and the tent. We even unrolled the bear pelt.

  For the rest of that day we paddled, and bailed. Always, the two mountains grew closer. Now we could see their base, wavering in the light. A channel lay between. On each side, steep slopes rose to high ridges. The channel was narrow and the ridges high. The big easy waves beneath us rose higher and curved as we passed into the channel, but they did not break. The curved waves ran a long way into the channel and I could see the white curl of their break against the trees and rocks along each side, both far from us as we entered the middle, now all paddling.

  The channel stretched east before us, then turned north. By the time we were halfway to the turn the water was flat and there was little wind. As we continued, the walls of the channel closed, steepened. Two ravens passed overhead. High above, I saw an eagle circling. The tops of the ridges held snow and ice. The trees were thick and seemed tall. All along each side of the channel water fell in straight streams, waterfalls from the snow above.

  Out of the wind the sun was hot. We had not been hot for a long time. The water was smooth like fresh ice on a pond. As we took a stroke and brought the paddles back for the next stroke, the water draining off the blades splatted against the water passing beneath. First, the thunk of the blades entering the water, a sucking sound as we pulled, then the draining drops off the paddles. Again and again.

  Bright Eyes’ drum had dried, and she struck a beat.

  “Hut-hut-hut.”

  We ghosted toward the turn. Anger sang and Tree Hide and Rock Hide joined in. Their song echoed off the walls of the channel. The channel was filled with harmony, and the ravens joined in, croaking.

  We made the turn to the left. The sun had been behind us, west, and as we turned we came into cool shadow. Here the channel was narrow, 10 canoe lengths wide, but the ridges were still high, and steep. Here the waterfalls were louder. Here the trees came down to the shore, branches even drooping into the water, hiding big rocks and ledges.

  We followed the channel, now turning to the right. The channel widened, and the slopes were less steep. The channel made one slight final turn to the left. As we came around this turn we faced a gentle beach. Beyond the beach lay an open meadow. Behind that, slopes rose gently to a low ridge. Beyond that ridge, I saw one more ridge, then peaks and ice. To the right of the beach, many seals lay, sunning on rocks. They raised their heads as they heard us approach.

  We came slowly toward the beach. The men placed their paddles aside and climbed higher on the thwarts. We were again in the sun. Here the trees were tall and thick at the base. Their branches spread and hung like long fingers, touching the ground.

  Bright Eyes had stopped drumming. The remaining paddlers lifted their paddles and the canoe drifted. The valley was silent and the air still, except for the distant sound of falling water. There was no wind. Beyond the gray and white beach lay the meadow. On the meadow I saw some fallen logs, white with age. The meadow was empty of life. We saw no deer, no smaller animals, nothing.

  In the tallest tree, to the left, many ravens perched, silent, watching us.

  “The Place People Were,” Bright Eyes whispered.

  We drifted toward the beach, watching, silent. Some insects buzzed in the canoe. The ravens rose as one and flew away, croaking, loud. An eagle flew down and perched atop another tree, watching us.

  We came to the beach. Watcher and Fat Hair left the canoe and waded to shore, then climbed the beach to the meadow. They carried their throwers and darts. Together they wandered across the meadow and vanished in the trees.

  The rest of us waited. The sun was bright and strong. To the right a stream emptied into the bay. At the end of the meadow, to the right, a deer poked its head from foliage and peered. Thrower slid from the side of the canoe and crept toward the deer, crouched below the slope of the beach. He moved quickly and quietly. The deer emerged from the trees, ears pricked, cautious.

  Thrower rose and threw, all in a single smooth motion. The dart flew at the deer, striking just behind the front legs. The deer leapt once and fell, dead. Thrower retrieved his dart and carried the deer back to the canoe.

  The deer was soon cleaned and hanging from the canoe’s mast. When Watcher and Fat Hair returned, they trotted across the meadow and waved us in.

  We jumped from the canoe, landing in the water, shin deep. We pulled the canoe to the beach, as far as we could, and unloaded everything. We pulled the canoe all the way to the meadow and rolled it on its side, braced.

  While Anger, Long Braid and I gathered wood, Thin Hair started a fire. Weeps a Lot, Weeps a Lot More, Woman Too Soon and Watcher took the buckets and filled them in the stream and then sloshed out the interior of the canoe. This they did for a long time. The canoe was big and the canoe stank. Then three others and I took flat
stones from the beach and scrubbed the inside of the canoe, spot by spot, then rinsed the canoe with water from the stream. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing this while the others built two lean-to shelters, one for the men, the other for the women. The shelters were not far apart. In ones and twos we went to the stream and washed in the cold water. We also washed our clothes. I could see everyone’s ribs, even Anger’s. We were all thin.

  Once we’d lifted Bright Eyes from the canoe, she was able to stand. She took a few steps, leaning on Watcher’s arm. Finally, she released his arm and limped further on her own.

  “I now will be able to run free of your attention,” she cried to Watcher, laughing.

  “I will chase you.”

  “I hope you will.” Bright Eyes practiced walking.

  Watcher and Fat Hair had seen deer sign, small animal sign, but no sign of the big animals. They had found no heavy tracks, or piles of dung, or scratch marks against the trunks of trees, always a sure sign of big cats or the great bears. The forest was quiet and still. The sun finally dropped beneath the ridge where the bay turned. The sky turned pink. We posted two people on watch, each with a small fire of their own, closer to the trees, away from the canoe and our shelters.

  We ate well. A long time had passed since we had eaten our fill. The deer was sweet.

  “We will need more meat,” Cold Eye was sitting beside Thin Hair.

  “Tomorrow we will gather meat and smoke it.” Thin Hair gazed across the water toward the rocks and the seals. Their barking started when the sun fell. They splashed into the water, seeking fish. “If we cannot gather deer, we will take seal.”

  That evening Thrower showed me how to hold a spear thrower.

  That night, we women all stayed in our shelter. For those who were women their flow would begin as the moon came full the next night. Cold Eye was not yet a woman and I knew she wanted to be, and she waited in hopes her time had come. Long Braid and Bright Eyes were hoping this moon time to know for sure they were each carrying a journey child.

  “Tell us of our new home,” I said to Long Braid. “These people which we now are.”

  “This is a long and dangerous journey, this journey,” Long Braid said. “When we take you at the headland you are not of the people, but you are people. You are our cousins, but you do not know that. By the time we return to our home you are of our people. This journey makes you so. You learn our way of talking, our ways of work and thought, our anger and humor. We come to know each of you as well, your good points, your weaknesses.”

  “Are there no other people where you live?”

  “We have seen none, ever, not in our land, Strong Heart. Now and then one of our people cannot live among us and he or she is banished. Once, in distant memory, a small band left us, choosing to find a new home, and they crossed the flat barren plain and the great river south of us to the mountains beyond the razor stone. Perhaps they have made new homes somewhere, but never has anyone come and visited us. I think they have all died. The animals are many and terrible, everywhere.”

  “Including where we are going?”

  “Everywhere, Strong Heart. We are careful. The animals avoid us when we are gathered, with fires.”

  “The animal that took Heavy did not avoid us.”

  “That animal would have never attacked me had I not thrown a brand against its fur.” Bright Eyes was rubbing her calf. “The fire made it mad with terror. It was my fault Heavy died.”

  “Heavy was taken before you threw that brand,” Anger said from the other end of the shelter.

  Long Braid added a log to the fire. Not far away I heard the men laughing in their shelter. They were telling stories. “When we come to our home we will meet all together at the salmon time, welcome you, and then we choose one from among you to go into the mountains, to our special place, to greet the fall equal day. Mark your arrival in our Marking Place, where we keep our traditions and honor our world with ceremony and drawing. Once this has been done, then you will be fully with us. Just as Bright Eyes here and Anger are with us.”

  “When is your starving time?” asked Weeps a Lot. She was from the sea of grass and expected a starving time because on the sea of grass there was always a starving time. Tree Hide nodded, and that told me there was always a starving time in the forest and mountains also.

  “We rarely have such a time,” Long Braid said. All we future wives, from the sea of grass and the forest and mountains, were startled. “In our land we have salmon, and elk, and deer, and plants we can eat in the lowlands. Fruits and berries we gather in the summer up high. We have places that are open and filled with grasses where deer and elk graze. We rarely starve because we always have food from the sea, seals, walrus, sea lion, whale, fish, and shellfish. We do not understand how people survive away from the sea. This is a mystery to us.” Long Braid paused, then asked, “Where you are from, your life is difficult, am I right?”

  We nodded.

  “That is true here, also. We have wolves, lions, cats, and bears. We have years without summer. We have mountains that throw their hearts into the sky. Great floods suddenly sweep to our south over the great river, the water deeper than many canoes are long. We have legends of times when the ocean runs away to hide, then rushes back and covers the earth. We have long dry summers and sometimes great and terrible fires, the sky black with smoke. These are all things that keep our numbers small, force us to travel far for wives and new blood. The oldest among us remember when we found no wives time after time and we dwindled to very few. Those were dark times.”

  Long Braid raised a hand, then lowered it.

  “Our legends also say there were much darker times. There were others like us but not us. Some could sing, like the killer whale can sing. Others could hunt, plan, but remember little, like the bear. When these two joined as man and woman, in the dark time, their children were different. These new people became us. We could sing, and remember our stories with song, and this is what made us people. Even though we were very few, in that time, now before memory, it is said we traveled far, and some remained, becoming you.” Long Braid stopped talking, took a breath. “When we became so few, we had to become like the salmon. Salmon grow in our rivers and then leave for the world, every year, and later return to our rivers to lay their eggs. Now we, like the salmon, must leave for the world to find wives.”

  We fed the fire and the coals glowed. The shelter was warm, the night clear. Stars filled the sky. I could see, over by the trees, the light from the two watcher fires, glowing against the underside of nearby branches. I saw the forms of the watchers, crouched by the fire, heads turning, watching.

  I slept.

  We stayed six days at The Place People Were. During this time we cleaned the canoe, again, then wiped the hull with seal oil. Watcher found a type of moss in the forest, which he brought back and mixed with seal fat. He rolled the moss into short ropes, which he then drove into the crack in the canoe where water had leaked. When wet, the moss and seal fat swelled and blocked the leak. At the same time Watcher went over the rest of the canoe and added moss in places damaged from striking ice.

  We fixed our clothing. We washed and dried everything. Anger and Watcher fixed the broken paddles. We took sections of cedar bark from the trees and rewove the sail. Weeps a Lot, Weeps a Lot More and Cold Eye braided new ropes.

  Thrower, Fat Hair and Thin Hair took several deer the first day. We cut the meat into strips and hung the strips over the fire.

  We made many darts. We cut stone points from the razor stone we had not thrown from the canoe during the storm.

  Always we watched the forest.

  Thin Hair made a seaweed target and Thrower taught some of us to throw. Tree Hide and Rock Hide had done this before, using a different type of thrower, and they learned easily.

  At first everyone laughed when I threw. I was smallest, but I soon learned that if I us
ed a shorter dart the balance was right. I was determined and I practiced. I kept practicing when the others turned to doing other things. I would throw several darts, then walk to the target, find the darts, and retrieve them. At first I could not hit the target. Eventually I hit the target once in three times. By the second day, I was hitting the target every time.

  Thrower gave one of his big smiles and walked me a few paces further away from the target. Once again I missed.

  “Learn to place your hand behind you in the same place every time. Line up the point ahead of you the same way, too. Learn as you throw how this looks, and then adjust how you aim.” Thrower was helpful and patient.

  I practiced every day. I practiced alone.

  My shoulder became sore. My throwing hand blistered. Thin Hair watched me. I would aim, and throw, five or six darts, again and again. By the third day I was walking several paces from the target. Still I could strike it.

  Long Braid and Bright Eyes were now certain they carried journey children. Cold Eye became a woman. Only Cold Eye, Woman Too Soon and Anger remained in the woman shelter during the day. Along with the others who did not yet have their moon time, I worked in camp, drying meat, making rope, and cleaning and drying. Every afternoon, I threw.

  Now Thin Hair, Fat Hair, and Watcher did not laugh at me. Pretty Face ridiculed my practice but he was alone. The others would look to see if I was still throwing, and I always was. They would shake their heads, and smile.

  Thrower helped me, when I asked for help. By the fourth day I was many paces distant, using the longer darts, and still I could hit the target. The dart would streak ahead, whistling, wobbling, then strike, and pass all the way through the target.

  On the fifth day Thin Hair called a contest, and all of us threw. Thrower as always defeated everyone. He was the most accurate, and most consistent. Thin Hair and Bright Eyes made Thrower do his best.