The Sea Runners

by Ivan Doig

  In stirrings tiny and mighty, the restive great coast was engendering spring.

  ... One meal of deer left. Then beans. Two, three skoffs of those. And biscuit corners, maybe a meal's worth. Already Wennberg is saying his guts think his throat's been cut. An idea there, Braaf tells him, how'd he like help? The tWO of us to hold Wennberg into bridle, it takes....

  The moon reminded Karlsson of ¡111 egg, and his stomach regretted that he had looked up. But the shine on the waves compelled it, a soft dazzle that began to lie gone even as ¡t showed itself; an eye could not help to wonder where that flitting sheen had been borne from.

  Just from the chance at last to do so, stroll a spacious beach in moonlight, Karlsson had wandered south along the silverline of tide to where the file of seastacks anchored into the continent. Out into the water in front of him now the great loaves of stone loomed in succession, until at their outermost a last small whetted formation, like a sentry's spearpoint, struggled with the ocean, defiantly tearing waves to whiteness. Some mad try here at walling the Pacific, all this looked, the line of rock having been fought by the waves, overrun by them, left in gaps, shards, tumbled shapes, but the attempt of the rocks enduring.

  ...Need a hunt again. Anything, deer, goat. Beaver, God's bones, we could learn to think beaver was ¡1 manor lord's feast. Costs time and time to hunt, though. And risk to a gunshot, Christ knows whether there're Koloshes along here. But so's there risk to starving ourselves down. Pull to shore early tomorrow, try a bear milking....

  Back north along the shore Karlsson could see the campfire, even could discern the arc of the canoe, the bumps of form that were Wennberg and Braaf. At first, when the canoe nosed in here for the night, Karlsson could not make himself feel easy about this fresh manner of coast. Three leisured windrows of surf and the beach wide, gentle, full-sanded; a carpet of ease after the stone shores of the past weeks, it ought to have seemed. Yet through dusk and supper a constriction somehow clung to this mild site, an unexpected sense of squeeze which kept with Karlsson even when he strode the length of beach to the seastacks. Maybe it was the surround of land here, after their Vancouver nights of precarious perch. The battled wall of sea rock reared as barrier at this end and the cape the canoemen had rounded wide of after crossing the Strait of Fuca extended considerably into the ocean at that other. Inland the forest stood high—Karlsson had studied and studied that venue for sign of animals; in the weave of evergreen and brush, nothing moved—and behind the north end of the beach the terrain sharpened into a long clay cliff. For all the broad invitation of its sand this particular beach made a kind of sack mouth of the coast, the sort of place where you more-than-half-expected something unpleasant to be scooped ashore at any time.

  ... A man can worry himself ancient. Step them off, the days, that's what we need do. Keep on keeping on, Melander'd say. Earn our way to Astoria yet, we just may....

  The ocean was bringing a constant rumble and within that a hiss, the odd cold sizzle as the tide edge melts into the sand. Left in the air was a smell of emphatic freshness—a tang beyond mint or myrtle, more a sensation than anything the nose could find recipe of. And over and through it all, the surf sound, here so solid it seemed to have corners: the unremitting boom oil the seastacks, a constant crashing noise against the shore northward. The surf. No other energy on the planet approaches it. On any planet? The remorseless hurl of it, impending, collapsing, upbuilding, and its extent even beyond that of thunder, that grave enwrapping beat upon all shores of all continents at once: how is there any foothold left for us? Braaf's wonderment, he recently had confided to Karlsson, was that the power of the ocean didn't rip big chunks from the land all day long, Braaf figured probably in great storms it did just that, which must have been how the islands of their route from New Archangel had been chewed into creation.

  ... A far place now, New Archangel. Far as that moon, it seems. How long's it been? Braaf's calendar will tell. But we're where we are. Last coast, this....

  Near the campfire Wennberg and Braaf were sitting at angle from each other, as if they had a treaty against face-to-face to be honored.

  At Karlsson's approach Wennberg threw on a branch from the firewood pile beside him, sparks rocketing upward. In the heightened light Wennberg looked somehow more thunderous, and Braaf's eyes were higher out into the night than ever, seemed to be appraising the moon.

  ...They've been gnawing back and forth again, what now.... "A silver night," Karlsson offered. "First in a while. Maybe it'll bring sun on us tomorrow."

  Wennberg stared at Karlsson. Then he brought up from behind the firewood the map case, open.

  "Tomorrow, yes, that's what's to be studied on here. Braaf and I want to know of tomorrow. Where the goddamned map of it is, say. Yes, whyn't we start with knowing that."

  ...So it's come....

  Karlsson drew breath, heard the surf contend against the wall of seastacks. Heard his own silence.

  Wennberg's glare to him was joined by a gaze from Braaf. "Karlsson," Braaf said distantly. "Where is it?"

  More silence, silence so strong in Karlsson it covered the surf's crash, lifted him inside his ears back to where he stood numbed by the sentry's query into the New Archangel night...

  "You both know the where of it." His own voice; make it work, silence was testimony for Wennberg. "Back somewhere in New Archangel, where Melander judged it could stay."

  Wennberg stood, faster than such heft should have been able. "Then you don't know fuck-all about where we are! You're running us blind down this coast 1"

  "I know Astoria is ahead. That's enough."

  "Hell take you, it's enough! You think you're too goddamn keen to be among us, Karlsson. You've had that about you since we touched away from that Russian dungpile. Afraid maybe I'll smudge off on you, or long-fingers Braaf here'll pick your pocket, you act like. But play us the fool like this—we're hopeless as Methusaleh's cock, without maps to go by! This coast'll —"

  "Wennberg, I can't have maps when there aren't maps, Melander reckoned we could make our way after the steamship's maps gave out and that's what we're doing."

  "Whyn't you tell us?" Braaf, the question soft. "Melander would've."

  "Because I'm not twin to him, Braaf. Can't he. And what was the gain in telling? To have Wennberg here every hour declaring us dead, might as well have climbed in the grave with Melander? To have you give up, too, maybe? Take a sharp look at telling. Melander held off from telling, when he couldn't lay hand to all the maps."

  "Melander, double-damn Melander!" Wennberg had sidestepped, was clear of the tire now instead of across it from Karlsson. "Melander was so fucking clever he jigged his way in front of a bullet. And you're the whelp of him—I'll finish you, you fucking fox of a Sin a lander—"

  Wennberg rushed.

  Karlsson had an instant to fling up a forearm against the blacksmith's throat, then they were locked. Wei in berg's arms around Karlsson, seeking to crush: Karlsson's forearm in pry against the front of Wennberg's neck. The both, grunting: staggering: Karlsson bending like a sapling to stay upright, Wennberg tipping him, "tipping him: desperately a Karlsson hand exerted to a Wennberg ear, maybe twist will slow...." At its target, the hand came against ... metal? rod, some sort? How could...

  The grip lifted from Karlsson's ribs now, lie and Wennberg stock-still, face to face. But not eye to eye: Wennberg was trying to see around the side of his own head, not to Karlsson's hand which yet was beside his ear as if ready to stroke there, but to Braaf and the rifle.

  The mouth of the rifle barrel stayed firm against Wennberg's ear as Braaf spoke.

  "Not the first one to jig in front of a bullet, Melander wasn't. Or last, maybe."

  "Braaf, wait now." Wennberg labored to suck in breath and spill out words at the same time. "It's Karlsson, played us fools—running us blind down this hell-coast—"

  "'Right fit or not, he's our only fit.' Melander said that once about you, didn't he, Karlsson?"

  Karlsson nodded, tr
ied to think through the ache of his ribs, work out what he ought to be saying. But Braaf was doing saying of his own:

  "Let's think on that, Wennberg. Melander maybe had truth there."

  "Braaf, the bastard's been diddling us along—pretending he knows what the fuck he's doing—"

  "So far, he has," murmured Braaf. "Blacksmith, you only ever had a thimbleful of sense and now you've sneezed into it. Back there, after—Melander. You said it needed be Karlsson to find the way for us. He's done it. How, I don't savvy. I'm not sure he does. But we need let him keep on at it. Else we're dead meat."

  Braaf peered with interest at the side of Wennberg's head, as if concerned that the gun barrel rested comfortably there. "So, blacksmith? Back at New Archangel, you wanted a sleigh ride down this coast. Ready to join us again?"

  "Braaf, I ... you ... yes, put the damned gun off, I—I'll let the bastard be."

  Braaf stepped back carefully, the rifle yet in Wennberg's direction.

  ... Saved my skin, Braaf, But there'll be Wennberg at me again, first chance, unless ...

  "Wennberg. Hear me out." Karlsson made himself stride to within a step of the burly man, with effort stood steady there. "This is our last job of coast, all the others up there north behind us. We've been making the miles without maps. We can make as many more as we need."

  ... Careful with this now, make it warn but not taunt, ...

  "Wennberg, maybe I chose wrong, not telling about the maps. Maybe so, maybe not. But turn it either way, I've got us this far, all the corners still on us. They say it takes God and his brother to kill a Smålander. So far I haven't met up with either on this coast."

  Wennberg rubbed his car, spoke nothing. Somehow, a very loud nothing. Then scowled from Karlsson to Braaf, and back again. His eyes seemed empty of fury now but neither man could tell just what else dwelt in them, acceptance or biding. In the fireshine Wennberg looked more than ever like a bear with a beard, and who can read the thoughts of a bear?

  Wennberg shook his head one time. Again, billing or acceptance, it could have been either or neither. Then turned and aimed himself off down the beach toward the's east acts • The other two watched his bulky outline shamble away in the moonlight.

  "There goes a fool of a man," Braaf said.

  "Before we've done," said Karlsson, "we may be wishing Mister Blacksmith is nothing worse than fool."

  He picked up the map case, out of habit tied it snug, tossed it into the canoe. "We won't load the rifles tonight. And unload that one."

  Braaf once more was a spectator of the moon. "It's not loaded. There wasn't time."

  Karlsson woke to rain sound. Except for the triple windrows of surf the day's colors were all grays, sea and sky nearly the same, rocks and forest darker. The tint in it all was fog. The big cape to the north was obscured.

  Wennberg this morning looked as if he was trying to pick the bones out of everything said by Karlsson or Braaf. lie offered no words of his own, however, until past breakfast, and then turned loudly weather-angry. "I'issing down rain again!"

  Braaf slurped tea, gazed to the grayness. "Could be worse, blacksmith,"

  "Worse? How's that, worse?"

  "Could be raining down piss."

  ***

  Again now, that wait to see when the fickle weather would lift itself from them.

  After a few hours of Wennberg squinting resentfully into it and Braaf putting wandering glances up at it and Karlsson calculating whether the gray of it was as gray as an instant before, the murk was agreed to be thinning a bit.

  They pushed off from the beach sand, paddled carefully out around the end of the seastack wall, and had a moment when they could sec more seastacks along the coast ahead. Then the rain took the shoreline from them.

  "This's like having our heads in a bucket," Wennberg complained nervously.

  "The high rocks will steer us," Karlsson said with more calm than he felt. "They're near shore all along here. Pass just outside them and we're keeping to the coast."

  There was no midday stop. No visible ledge of shore on which to make one. Karlsson divvied the last of the dried meat and they took turns to eat, one man doing so while the other two kept paddling.

  Sometime in the afternoon—the hours of this day, gray strung on gray, were impossible to separate—a timbered island some hundreds of yards long loomed out on their left.

  Karlsson steered along its outer edge, with intention to turn to shore beyond the island. But then at its end, through the rain haze rocks bulking in the water between island and coast could be made out, stone knuckles everywhere.

  "The island," Karlsson chose, and gratefully they aimed to shore on its inland side.

  After the sopping day, a sopping camp.

  The canoemen had come in near the south reach of the island, where several high humps of boulder weighted the shore. Into this rough outwall of rocks they lodged an end of the mast shelter and so kept that corner of the weather out. But others got in, this rain evidently willing to probe toward humankind for however long it took to find some. The Swedes managed to coax a choking fire long enough to heat beans and tea, then gave up on the evening.

  Surprise it was, then, when Karlsson woke sometime later and saw that the sky now held stars.

  ... One gain, Wennberg's a mute these mornings. No knowing what's prowling in his head, but at least it's not jumping out his mouth....

  Wennberg was fussing the breakfast fire to life. The weather seemed to have cleansed itself the day before, was bright as a widow's new window today. Karlsson wanted the canoe to be on the water by now but for once he had overslept, Wennberg's fire was proving a damp and balky proposition, Braaf had drifted off north saying he would check the ocean horizon for lurking storm—dawdle eats hours and Karlsson decided all three of them were feeding it more than enough this morning.

  "You've about found fire"—an oblique urging sometimes would lodge in Wennberg—"so I'd better fetch Braaf." Karlsson started away toward the north end of the island.

  "If I'd arms for three paddles y'could leave the little bastard there and yourself with him."

  ... Coming awake, is he? Count on Wennberg, hammer for a tongue and the world his anvil....

  Just then Braaf arrived to sight. Running, bent low.

  Past Karlsson he raced, toward the squatting Wennberg. The careful stack of sticks Wennberg just had managed to puff into blaze, Braaf kicked to flinders.

  Wennberg gaped, sputtered. "Braaf, I'll braid your guts—"

  "Koloshes," panted Braaf. "Whole village. Across there."

  Karlsson grabbed the spyglass out of the canoe and followed Braaf back around the beach rocks.

  A high round little island, like a kettle turned down, sat upcoast perhaps a half a mile from where Karlsson and Braaf and Wennberg crouched now behind a boulder on their own island, and just inshore from the kettle island, gray and low under the coastal ridge of forest the longhouses Were ranked.

  Karlsson flung a look along their own beach to be certain sure: the canoe and camp were from sight behind the tumble of rock. Then with the glass Karlsson counted. Fifteen of the almost flat-roofed structures. If these Koloshes lived as many to a longhouse as the Sitkans, families all the way out to Adam...

  "People on those roofs," Karlsson reported in puzzlement. "Children, looks like."

  "Upside down bastards anyway, these goddamn Koloshes," Wennberg stated. "What're they squatting up therefor?"

  Karlsson studied further. "Watching the sea, seem to be. They—"

  Just then commotion erupted atop the roofs. Its reason already was found by Braaf, pointing into the stretch of ocean they'd paddled through in yesterday's cloud.

  Craft were coming in there, a line of them. Blade forms on the water. But all aimed the same, one after another, straight as straight, toward the kettle island.

  The glass ratified what was in the minds of the three Swedes. "Canoes," Karlsson reported. Braaf and Wennberg were tranced beside him, watching the flotilla. "S
everal paddlers each."

  The way the canoes stayed a steady space from each other ... Karlsson puzzled at the pattern. As if they were strung into place. Or harnessed—

  "Something in tow, there."

  The tiny tunnel of sight brought it then to Karlsson.

  ... Melander, Melander, this you ought've seen. Fishers of monsters...

  "Whale."

  The news did not register on Braaf and Wennberg. Karlsson repeated.

  "They're towing a whale."

  "Whale? Whale, my ass," Any manner of doubt not known to Wennberg had not bo en invented yet. "Whei'e'd they get a whale? You've come down with the vapors, Karlsson, hand me that glass—"

  Wennberg focused in turn and the same marvel traveled the tube of the glass to him. The canoe fleet was bringing behind it a glistening length, buoyed with floats that looked like puffed-up seals.

  "Working like Finns at it," observed Braaf. "Digging paddles that deep, you'd think their arms'd pull off."

  Wennberg, still not wanting to accept: "But how in Judas—M"

  Karlsson had plucked the glass back from him and was studying again. "Laying up over the prows there. Harpoons. They paddle out and kill whales."

  ... And small fish we'd be for them. Holy Ghost and any of the others, what'll we...

  Karlsson felt a dry clot form hard at the top of his throat as he watched the long canoes—five, six, seven all together. Six paddlers at work in each and two further men, a steersman aft and likely the harpooner forward, to scan the ocean like fish hawks.

  Rare for him, Braaf was openly perturbed; his right leg jigged lightly in place, as if testing for run. Wennberg sought to look stolid, but Karlsson noticed him swallow at his own throat-pebble of fear.

  In the next hour or so the canoe procession angled between the three watchers and the kettle island, closing slowly on the beach in front of the village. A strenuous chant—"bastards sound like hell let loose," Wennberg appraised—could be heard now from the whalemen. Braaf was first to see what was intended: they would employ high tide to beach their sea creature.