Ivory and Bone

by Julie Eshbaugh

  I have no time to dwell on the guilt of leaving them. The sea demands all my attention. Waves swell on either side of this tiny kayak—a boat whose size seems to shrink as the power of the storm seems to grow. Paddling is all but futile. The water swirls all around me.

  If there is any benefit at all to the power of the waves, it is the speed it gives me. Almost like the current on a river, there is a current on the sea, and for now it takes me in the direction I want to go—out to sea, away from land, south to the rocky point that borders our bay.

  Just stay upright, I tell myself. A capsize now could kill me. Managing a roll in waves like these may prove impossible. I’ve never tried it, and I don’t want to try it today.

  Water hits me from every angle—from left and right, from above and below. Sheets of rain mingle with rising waves until I feel that I am drowning in a mix of rain and seawater. I taste brine in the sheets of water that streak down my face from my hair. Water is everywhere. I whip my head around sharply, trying to clear my face enough to search the shoreline for landmarks, not daring to take a hand from my paddle for even the time it would take to wipe the hair from my eyes. The paddle may be all but useless, but without it I would have no hope at all.

  The shoreline offers me no help either. Where is the point? I seem to have been carried by the waves to another coast entirely, as if the Divine has carried me away and dropped me into a world of water that has no boundaries. I search to my left frantically, seeing nothing but sea to the horizon. My heart burns with panic. Where is the shore?

  This is my last thought as a wave hits me hard from behind, scooping under me and lifting me high into the air. When the wave drops me, I roll hard to my left and plunge headfirst into the sea.

  Under the water or over the water, you have to stay calm. The terror of drowning out here all alone, of my lifeless body strapped into this kayak as it floats out to sea—these thoughts threaten to crowd out all others. But I push them away. I let in the voice of my father instead, teaching me how to right myself in a capsized kayak. You have to stay calm.

  I remember that the kayak is like a garment I am wearing, not a boat I am sitting in. I move my body and the kayak moves with me. With all the strength in me, I strike at the water with my arms, my cupped hands churning the sea into a cloud of bubbles all around me. You’ve capsized so many times before, I remind myself. This time is no different. I shift my legs as far to one side as they will go and twist my hips sharply inside the boat. All at once the edge of the boat flips and my head breaks the surface of the water.

  I’m upright. The rain still falls in cold sheets and the waves still slam into me from all sides, but I can breathe.

  My paddle has drifted away, but I spot it. It’s not far off—carried by the current away to my left.

  My left—the direction I thought was east—the direction I thought was the shore side of the boat. No wonder I couldn’t see the point before I rolled! I wasn’t lost; I was looking the wrong way. The boat must have turned full circle; I was so completely confounded by the storm.

  I beat against the water with my hands until I finally reach the paddle. I know I’m lucky to have retrieved it, I know I’m lucky to have righted the kayak fairly easily and to have had my sense of direction restored, but I cannot keep a creeping dread from taking hold. I am drenched—the apron of the kayak that wraps around my torso, my parka underneath—every part of me above my waist is soaked through with freezing water. I know what can happen if I get too cold. Disorientation. Confusion. Slowed movement and slowed thoughts. I could even lose consciousness.

  The fear taunts me, provokes me to search the shoreline for a sheltered place where I could pull in and wait out the storm. I imagine quitting—abandoning my purpose for coming out here, giving up on the idea of warning your clan—and just saving my own life by getting warm and dry. I can’t believe how strong the pull is.

  I paddle until my arms grow stiff. Even then, even after the muscles burn and strain with every move, I paddle still. I rest when I can, but as soon as I stop moving a shot of cold runs through me and my whole body shudders. And so I press on, still scanning the shore for a place to rest, still dreaming of abandoning my goal, yet knowing all along that I cannot stop as long as my mind stays alert. As long as I remember that I am doing this for you.

  You.

  Water surrounds me, so much that it blends into nothingness. My mind’s eye takes over, and I remember the sight of your face the first time I saw you. I remember the power of your features—so determined, so resolute. I hold that image in my mind—the thought of your sharp eyes and soft mouth, a contradiction on the face of a girl who is a study in contradictions. I think I will tell you that when I reach you. Yes, when I finally arrive at your camp, I think, I will tell you that you are a study in contradictions.

  The image of your face that first time I saw you slips away, as my mind sifts through all the different memories I have of you. Unbidden, it stalls on the moment after you killed the cat—the moment you looked at me with so much condemnation in your eyes. How you must have hated me—a Manu hunter raising his spear, a perfect echo of the Manu hunter who took your mother’s life.

  From that moment forward, every time I’ve seen you, I’ve noticed something guarded in your eyes, a darkness that wraps around you like a shadow. And now I understand it. . . . I understand that you were guarding your heart, making sure that no member of the Manu ever caused you pain again.

  Out here in this kayak, hurrying to your camp, my heart aches at the thought of the day your mother died and your own clan rushed into kayaks and fled our shores. If only I could go back, if only I could stop the hand of Tram’s father, if only I could protect your mother and change the violent history between our clans.

  But I can’t. I can’t change the pain you suffered in the past, but I can do everything possible to prevent the pain you might suffer in the future.

  And so I press on. My arms ache and my shoulders burn with pain, but I press on. I have no other choice. If I stop, I could die.

  If I stop, you could die.

  The starkness of this truth startles me, illuminates an awareness in me of something I could not—or would not—acknowledge before.

  I cannot let you die, because I cannot face a future without you.

  Against a background of blurred pain and fear, this truth stands out so plain, and now that I see it, I cannot divert from the path that leads to you.

  A steady beat taps against my shoulders, my back, the top of my head. Drops of rain have changed to drops of ice. I remember the summer sun just yesterday, the bees I spotted a few days ago. But winter isn’t ready to give in completely, and this ice storm is her way of making that known.

  Focus on warmth, I tell myself. I think of the soft glow inside my family’s hut, the warm look in your eyes as you offered me a gift of your own honey.

  Your honey—I try to remember the texture, the crisp sweetness, the way I could almost taste the heat of the sun in my mouth. My clenched hands ache with cold and blisters burn on my palms, but I push those sensations away and fill my mind with the memory of that taste—the flavor of sunshine and warmth.

  As I let this memory spread through me from the inside out, I notice them for the first time. At first I’m not sure, but then I see movement, splashing, the shape of a raised paddle, the outline of a man’s arm.

  Lo and her people. There they are! Huddled against the shoreline, tucked under overhanging ledges of ice.

  I’ve caught up to them.

  Like me, they searched the shore for a spot to rest. Unlike me, they have nothing to propel them forward, no memory of your face to keep them moving through the worst of circumstances.

  And they are novice kayakers, their clan having shunned the water in favor of hunting on land for the last five years. Many of them may never have kayaked before. I watched their silhouettes glide under clear skies across our calm bay, as they headed from Lo’s camp to mine. The open sea is different, and the
ir newly made kayaks may not be perfectly sound and seaworthy. They may even be taking on water.

  Paddling through the worst of this storm is difficult for me, a seasoned kayaker. How much more difficult must it be for the Bosha? No wonder I caught up to them.

  And now I will pass them. With the memory of your face held in my mind, drawing me ever forward like a signal guard on a cliff with a torch raised high, I will reach you in time to warn you.

  The effort becomes strikingly easy after I pass Lo and her group. Just beyond the icy cliffs where they’ve stopped the coastline changes—the rocky bluffs and overhangs smooth out and flatten as the shoreline bends east and the southern faces of the mountains begin their descent to lower ground.

  Here, the storm abruptly stops. Streaks of sun break through the clouds ahead of me to the south and the wind shifts. Cold gusts still push from behind me, but a warm breeze blows out from shore.

  I allow myself the indulgence of looking over my shoulder, but only for a moment. Checking the sky, I see the reason for the rapid change in weather—the storm has become caught behind the mountains. Dark clouds still haunt the sky just north of my tiny boat, but they are caught—temporarily, I’m sure—behind the peaks that form a gate to the south.

  I revel in the smallest benefits of the break from the storm—my face dries in the breeze, my hands warm enough to get a more comfortable grip on the paddle. Other things are just as awful as ever—my soaked clothes still cling to my soaked skin—but I focus on the small things.

  Now is the time to make progress. I paddle hard, scanning the shore to the east. With the sun’s light, I can see well—better than I have all day. I remember these features. They form the shoreline just north of your camp.

  I am almost there.

  I paddle on. I will myself to move faster, but my arms slow as if I’ve grown old in one day. I watch the coastline—an inlet, a rocky bluff, another inlet . . . Could it be that I wasn’t as close as I’d thought? The sun still breaks through clouds to the south, but the rays are slanting sharply from the west. How long have I been out on the sea? If the sun were to set as the rain caught up with me again, I would be swallowed up by darkness.

  Clouds roll over me, shadowing the water and shadowing my thoughts. Ideas toss around in my head like tiny boats on the waves.

  I have to get to you—to get out of the water, out of the rain, out of the cold. It seems like it should be easy, but despite the fact that I can understand the goal, I can’t think of how to accomplish it.

  Paddle, I tell myself. Paddle.

  I dig deep into the waves, but my muscles won’t cooperate. I dig again and again, but with each stroke, the thought of you slips further and further away.

  Darkness closes in at the corners of my vision. The dark calls to me, promising warmth. For a moment, I’m tempted. It would be so easy to stop trying.

  I close my eyes and darkness falls fast and heavy, cutting me off from the water, the cold, the waves.

  I want to welcome the dark. I open my mind to it, to the possibility of letting go of the pain in my shoulders, the shiver in my chest, the numbness in my fingers. I suck in a deep breath of darkness, letting it fill me.

  Yes, I will let go. I will slump into darkness’s warm embrace. I will open my eyes one last time, take one final look at the cold sun, and let go.

  My eyelids flip open, and something at the water’s edge catches my attention.

  Movement.

  Among low cliffs of gray rock something flashes—light slides in front of dark before disappearing into the shadows. An elk, maybe? I know you have herds of elk in your range, and there are few other animals that would graze on such steep footing. I slow my boat and let my gaze sweep over the ledges. I watch but see nothing. . . .

  Nothing.

  Gray on gray, shadow on shadow.

  The sun stabs one final ray through the thickening gloom, and there it is again. The flash of movement. The glint of light.

  My eyes shift involuntarily to the same rocky ledge they’d searched just a moment before.

  And there you are.

  TWENTY-SIX

  You wave your arms. . . . I can see that you are calling to me. I bend toward your words, but before your voice reaches me it breaks into little pieces that scatter on the wind.

  It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you’re saying. I only care that I’ve found you.

  Deep within my core, in a part of me that’s been numb with cold since I first set out on this trip, my heart begins to race. Panic wills my eyes to stay open. I need to do this last thing . . . this last thing. But what is this thing I need to do? My paddle rests across my lap. I know I need to use it, but I’m not certain that I can.

  Holding the paddle feels strange, as if I’m holding it in a dream. It is both heavy and weightless at the same time. My fingers tense and release, tense and release.

  Maybe, I think, I’ve found you too late.

  My eyelids fall shut. Letting go feels so good. I loosen my grip, let my fingers go limp. It feels so good, so good.

  Forgive me. . . . The words echo through my head, hover on my lips, yet I’m not sure who they are meant for.

  Just as I let the shaft of the paddle slide from my fingers, a cold drizzle begins to fall. Drops beat against my forehead and trickle down my nose. Unbidden, focus returns to my mind.

  No. I don’t want to try. I don’t want to have to try anymore.

  I open my eyes and watch the tiny dents the rain makes in the surface of the sea, each one a stabbing pinprick. They dot the surface on every side of the paddle. I watch it float away, carried by the waves to the edge of my vision. I hate that paddle. My hands ache and my palms burn with the contempt I feel for it. I tip my head, watching it float to the edge of my reach. I hate that paddle. Soon it will be gone, unable to hurt me anymore.

  My hands fall loose at my sides and the water stings my palms like I’ve dropped them into flames. All at once I remember . . . the flames, the pain they caused. I remember Pek, straining through the pain, demanding that I come here and warn your clan.

  I remember now. I came to warn you.

  I hate that paddle, but it’s the only hope I have of reaching you. I watch it move upon the waves. It rises and falls, rises and falls, one moment beyond my reach, the next tauntingly close. At the last moment possible, I lunge for it.

  My fingers fight to grasp the wood; my shoulders throb with the effort. Seawater splashes up in protest, as if the water has already claimed the paddle and is willing to struggle to keep it. One last fight I need to win. As I pull the paddle in, the vengeful sea throws saltwater in my eyes, leaving the whole world a blur of gray on gray. Dropping the paddle across my lap, I swipe furiously at my eyes, desperate to bring the world back into focus.

  I look up. I see enough to know that a straight line separates me from you—a short, straight line.

  It’s almost over, I tell myself. One way or another, it will all end soon.

  The paddle strikes the sea once, twice, three times. Again, again, again . . . Each strike sends a shock through my body as if I am striking rock. Again, again, again . . .

  Perhaps I can push forward four more times, perhaps only three. I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve lost track anyway. How many times has this paddle struck this unyielding surface? Again, again, again . . .

  Again, again, again . . .

  Ten more times . . . eight more times . . . six more times . . . I lose count and start over. Eight? Six? Again, again . . . when all at once a wave of pain ripples through my arms and back as this wretched paddle digs into sand.

  I look up. The front of the kayak rests on the beach.

  And right in front of me, a girl is wading into the sea, reaching for my hand. A girl with hard eyes and a soft mouth.

  I don’t remember getting out of the boat. I don’t remember climbing up the rock. I must have fallen at least once, though, because when I come to myself in this dimly lit cave, my head pounding an
d my eyes nearly blind, I discover my palms and elbows are sticky with blood.

  “Where . . .” It’s all I can manage to push through my lips.

  “Lie still,” you say. Your voice comes from my right and I turn toward it. Between me and the curtain of rain that falls across the mouth of the cave, a shadow moves before a sputtering glow. “I told you to stop trying to talk.”

  Have I tried to talk before now?

  I close my eyes and concentrate. A large pelt is wrapped around me—a pelt of long, thick fur. Mammoth. A warm and soft mammoth pelt is draped around me, covering the entire length of my skin.

  The length of my skin . . . My clothes are gone. You’ve taken my clothes.

  Could that have been when I tried to talk?

  Where are we? That’s all I want to say. I manage to push the word where through my lips once more, but the rest of the question is bitten off by uncontrollable chattering. A shudder ripples through my chest and up through my throat, escaping my body as a deep moan.

  A warm hand touches my face, triggering another full-body shudder.

  “Can you move any closer to the fire? Kol, can you move closer?”

  I sweep my eyes around this small space. Is that the fire? A flickering light dances orange and red against a background of gray. It’s lovely, but I feel no heat from it at all.

  My eyes fall closed again, and shimmering light ripples like water on the backs of my eyelids. The ground beneath me moves as if I’m still on the sea.

  I lick my lips. They’re cracked and salty. I force my eyes to open but I don’t see you. “You were right,” I say. I wait but you don’t answer, leaving me to wonder if I really said the words out loud. “You have to go—warn your family. Lo’s coming for you.”

  The effort of saying so much exhausts me. I roll onto my side, retracting into the pelt and into myself. The rushing of the rain rings in my ears. I listen hard, trying to hear you.

  “Mya?” Beyond the reach of the firelight, I hear something like the soft shuffle of your boots against the rocky floor. Your breath comes in quick, shallow gasps. I remember you standing in the rain, pulling me from the kayak. Your clothes were drenched, and ice water ran down your face. “Mya? Are you cold?”