Chapter 18
It was with great excitement that the three young explorers,
feeling like grown up proficient oarsmen, set out on a bright morning in 'state
of the art' sea kayaks, waterproof jackets and seal skin shorts. My role
was to also pull a canoe full of provisions. Yewdis was at the front, and
I made up the rear. We planned to paddle until the light from the sun
dipped below the tree line, and find a hidden place to camp, just as we had
done coming down the fiord. Dried fish and herbs was to be our staple,
with Yewdis reminding us at each meal, framed by a wonderfully positive grin,
that this was his favourite. The nights were beginning to get nippy, and
we knew that the weather would only give us one chance to get to my family
before it decided our fate for us. There were very few people about which was a
blessing. It felt ironic that we were much safer on our own than mixing with
people. Bears and wolves were nothing to the risk posed by other human beings. The
inexplicable cruelty inflicted on those whose differences seem so minor to the
outsider. I have seen cubs killed and thrown over cliffs by intruding
hostile male bears. And again, robins fighting each other almost to the death.
These birds look identical, and they don't touch any other bird in the
world except one that is their mirror image. Although, like the
fisherfolk, most humans might well have been loving and merciful, the ones who
were not spoilt it for everyone else.
In the evening Honya, Yewdis and I would sit by the edge of the
sea, just at the tree line, with our backs resting against each other, and just
relax, feeling the nip of the wind, notice the owl stretching it's wing, and
see the black wobbling flutter of bats, racing around invisible tracks. Then we
would hear Yewdis sigh, and Honya and I would hug him, and Honya would break
out into gabbling chatter, and we would wonder how our sister Kinti was doing,
and remark with surprise that Baralard could actually be nice to us. Sleeping
was more difficult, because since our separation from Roti, a deep dread had
entered our nights, with visions of terrors, lucking in shadows, and playing
with our minds. I'm not sure what Roti did to free us from this in the
past. Every night I looked up into the sky, observing the clouds and
stars, but knowing my insignificant self did have meaning, a reason to hope,
and enough breath for today. And together we asked for protection,
firstly from the shadows of the night, and secondly from the deep sea beneath
the skins of our boats. And we received the hope in our hearts that we
would make it through.
One day as we rounded a headland, I heard Yewdis exclaim. He
looked back at me with an alarmed expression. "Water" he called
out. "I'm getting wet." As I drew alongside I noticed that I
had just missed an upward pointing finger of a submerged tree branch. Down in
the dark recesses of the waters was a sunken tree. The swell was gentle here,
but occasionally with violence, the branch protruded suddenly above the
surface. "You've been holed" I said. "Let's get into
shore." By now Yewdis was swimming and his boat was fully submerged.
With Honya, we limped to the shore, each of us, quite exhausted.
Yewdis took off his wet clothes, and got to work making a fire, while I
inspected the damage. The fisherfolk, thinking of all eventualities, had
trained us all in kayak repairs. This was a nasty gash, and I thought we might
need to spend a day at least, with needle and thread. Yewdis disappeared to
look for wood, and check out the safety of our position. I got to work
sorting out our things, placing them, like military provisions neatly in front
of me. Honya went down to the sea with her fishing tackle. If anyone
could catch fish, it was Honya. She was good at picking things up,
whatever the skill.
After some time, with Yewdis not returned, I suddenly felt uneasy.
Way off, I heard a dog bark, and dogs usually mean hunters. A dog
could find us in seconds. I put down my sewing kit, and looked at the
mass of objects before me. For some reason I settled on the money bag and
some scraps of dried fish. I took off with an increasing sense of
urgency, heading inland, not really knowing which way to go. The
sound of barking came again, and I headed towards this. I'm not sure how
far I'd got when I saw the fur hat of a hunter bobbing in the distance.
His dog detected me, and suddenly became very lively, alerting his master.
I followed my first instinct which was to shin up a tree, no good for
bears, but perfect for wolves and dogs. From here I saw Yewdis struggling
under the arm of a massive man. Blood was dripping from his head.
It was a heart stopping sight. The man had not yet spotted me up
high as I was. Remembering how to distract a bear by throwing meat, I
took our precious bag of money and threw the contents in a stream of gold,
glinting in a rainbow arc, away from me. It worked. The man, suddenly
mesmerised, dropped Yewdis, who was off and gone in an instant, and raced over
to pick up this treasure. The dried fish in the same way worked for his dog,
and I was off, like a rabbit. Back at the shore Honya had been hard at
work. She had made the repairs, skilfully using the glues and
waterproofing we had been taught to use. We hurriedly loaded our kayaks, and
put out to sea. Like the eider ducks, we knew that the cold sea is heaven
to the hunted and hell to the hunter. Yewdis explained the blow to his head. As
the man had picked him up, he had landed him a vicious bite on his upper arm
which had been repaid with a clonk on the head with the head of the hunters
axe. The hunter clearly hoped to subdue rather than maim his quarry. I
explained about the money, and Honya agreed that it had been well spent saving
Yewdis skin. We never knew how rich we had once been.
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