The canoe ran silent. I looked at the mountains south. Several notches that looked promising on the way up the lake now had blue ranges piled behind. None offered escape.
Getting up Lake Ka to the Western Mountains would be difficult not just because of the guards at the logging camp. I had learned slave will betray slave rather than see them escape. Besides, how could the Children survive that climb? And for those who did, life on the Western Coast? Dried riverbeds, desert, the insane sun spinning across a brazen sky….
The Salt Men had come from the north, down the valley under Grave Mountain. Kalik would search there first. Even if we escaped successfully, life amongst the Salt People? Exchange one bloody society for another?
Grave Mountain cut off escape to the east. Kalik had talked about the Cold Hills to the south-east. Grim country. Whichever way we went, the Children must have a chance of surviving.
“We’ll have a look at Lake Weah,” Kalik said. “Where the swans went.”
We crossed our lake to its northern side, climbed the cliffs on to the shoulder of a spur. Lake Weah lay below, surprisingly close. Mountains crammed its upper length. It was too near Lake Ka.
We descended and paddled on. There were Chak, Kimi, and the smaller children to consider. Two older girls, Kitimah and Sheenah, were pregnant. Then there were the sick. Far easier to take only the fit…. As well escape on my own! Was that what I wanted? Survival without the Children would be a mean, pinched thing. Escape meant taking them all. Again I looked at the mountains south.
Kalik shook a trickle of water off his arm. “You’re thinking of mountains,” he said.
I looked over his shoulder toward Grave Mountain. “There’s a lot of smoke rising.”
“After rain, you’ll often see steam or smoke along the top.” More smoke rose, cupped white against the perpetual black cloud walling the sky. “You told Lutha there was no way across the mountains from the Land of the White Bear. But from this side there must be a way up to the crater.”
I grunted, “What makes you think that?”
“An old story of a shaman,” said Kalik, “who climbed Grave Mountain. Food and sex were forbidden on the sacred mountain but, once on the summit, he ate meat and lay with one of his slaves. White stuff fell out of the sky, covered the ground, and froze. The shaman must die of the cold. He cut the slave’s throat, prayed for warmth. His god sent fire under the sea from the North Land. It burst out of the mountain. The white stuff melted to a pool of hot water in which the shaman recovered his strength. He climbed down the mountain, but the roar of the fire had left him deaf.”
“What about the other slaves?”
“The white stuff froze them; the fire ate their bodies.” Kalik laughed. “Isn’t it interesting, Ish? The story says ‘white stuff’. He turned, looked at me. “Whoever first told that story couldn’t have known what snow was.”
I mumbled agreement but was seeing the people perish on top of Grave Mountain.
“Lutha’s old women know that story,” said Kalik, “but she says Hekkat forbids anyone to set foot on the mountain top. I have heard of men who tried to get up.”
“Yes?”
“The stories always say the mountain opened and swallowed them.” He chuckled. Kalik’s laugh was joyous, made me want to join in, but too often he was laughing at something cruel. Evil was deep in his nature. He would not change – perhaps could not. Yet I still found him attractive.
“Opened and swallowed them!” Kalik chuckled again. “More likely they fell. Whatever happened, the cold would kill them, if the fires on top didn’t. Look!”
Six black swans swept past, necks straight as spears tipped with red beaks. The creak of wings, the white flash as they wheeled a great broken ring above the lake. I kept seeing the flash as their wingbeat carried them south.
The white flash became confused in my mind with the snow that fell on Grave Mountain. And another image came to mind: the story of a young man who sailed home with a black sail. His father saw it, and threw himself off a cliff. The young man had forgotten he had promised to hoist a white sail if he came home alive.
“Black and white,” said Kalik. “They build huge untidy nests. The eggs are good eating. And the flappers.”
“Flappers?”
“Fat young birds without their full feathers. All they can do is flap across the water. Fast, but you can catch them. Like the geese when they’re moulting.” And he laughed again.
“If they only come here occasionally, do they spend the rest of their time on Lake Weah?”
“There might be another lake to the south,” Kalik said. “But if there is, it must be a long way off. That’s what one of the old stories says. ‘A long hard journey over mountains. Down a long valley, by a savage river.’ I can’t remember how it goes now. You know what those stories are like. Somebody looking for a place of their own.”
“A place of their own!”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve heard stories like that.”
“They’re all the same.” Kalik laughed. I thought you’d had enough of journeying, Ish? Besides, Lutha wouldn’t let you go. You’re her good luck sign – returning under the mountain, bringing her father back.”
“I’ve done enough travelling,” I said. “Deserts, mountains, ice, snow. The sea. But nowhere as beautiful as Lake Ka. And food! The vegetables you’ve got here! And fruit! In the Whykatto there were a couple of green-leaved plants we could eat, but the sun shrivelled and killed them. And I remember an apple tree on an island. Getting enough to eat was always a problem.
“In the Land of the White Bear, there was meat. A few green leaves in spring. Berries in autumn. Then just meat again all winter. Meat and fish.” I thought of the feasts. The rare meats we ate, frozen, boiled, raw. The sweetness of seal liver hot and running blood. There was no point in telling Kalik about it. I wanted him to believe me when I said Lake Ka was a place of rich abundance, that I was happy there.
And paddling down it that day, light meshing the ripples in a shimmering net, it looked a paradise. Kalik laughed and sang old songs of war and love. Killing and betrayal. Life around the charmed lake.
“That old story,” he said, “about a southern lake, it says the track to it goes through the hills there.” He raised his paddle and pointed. A trickle ran down the handle, down his arm, shoulder, back. He wriggled at its touch, and his muscles separated from each other a moment, then relaxed smooth. His body was beautiful, like the lake. And, like the lake, there was a darker Kalik below the skin.
“I thought that was the way your track goes, to the Cold Hills and the Iron People?”
“It swings more that way,” he pointed again. “South then east. But, if there was a track to a southern lake, somebody would have seen it. Somebody hunting. You can be sure of that!”
“Look at the smoke! It’s coming up thick now!” I drew Kalik’s attention away. “I noticed while we were up at the timber workings, there’s another range higher than the one where the smoke’s rising. Further back again. Where the black cloud rises.”
“Yes?”
“Well, from the other side, from the Land of the White Bear, I saw range after range of mountain tops like that. We can only see the first from here. Just Grave Mountain and that bit of the range behind. There must be rows and rows of mountains you’d have to cross.”
“I’ve thought about that,” said Kalik. “How to carry enough food and keep warm. You’d have to take enough slaves. Kill and eat them as you go. Meat on the hoof!” He chuckled.
Nothing was beyond Kalik’s idea of the possible. Not even using people as pack animals, the way the Salt Men of the North Land used their slaves. But even they did not use them as food for the journey.
Back at the Headland, the basket of red tote chips we carried was taken by the Maidens who sang, danced, and carried them up to the Roundhouse. Lutha just nodded at sight of us. We were in the way. Kalik grinned, amused, but I remembered what Lutha had done to Raka.
When at last Lutha sent for me, Kalik was already with her beside the Roundhouse. The Maidens glowering.
“What did you think of the timber workings?” Lutha was brisk.
“I was surprised to see the hills cleared.”
“We use much timber.”
“Shouldn’t you replant?”
“Why?”
“For the future.”
Lutha laughed scornfully. “There will always be more trees than we need.”
“Think of another generation,” I said. “How about planting some of the hills nearer the Headland. Where the trees can be slid down into the lake. Easier and handier. And trees are your best protection if the sun gets hotter here.”
Kalik smiled. “You’re obsessed with deserts, Ish,” Lutha said. She signalled. Two of the Maidens led Kalik and me away.
“Don’t look back,” Kalik said. “Best avoid the Roundhouse the next few days.”
I wanted to ask why, but he was busy examining the work done in his absence. Alterations to the fighting platforms over the gates. Rebuilding of a collapsed hut. The daily bow and spear practice. Kalik was everywhere, praising, encouraging. A sense of vigour went with him. Just his presence made difficult jobs seem easier. People worked harder, joined in his gay laughter.
The Children welcomed, drew me inside their hut. Excited, several stood by the walls with bits of charcoal. “Are you watching? Watch me? Look, Ish!” And they wrote the names of the five friends beside their drawings on the walls. They had memorised the written words – from the times I had written them. But they understood the need for secrecy. They rubbed them off again.
They had cooked their food, looked after each other, done their work around the Headland. They had managed so well, I felt a twinge like jealousy but knew, in the end, the Children must make their own way.
That evening, they wanted to hear their favourite story again. I did not mention the deaths of the two Salt Men on the skids. Already the Children carried too great a burden. Chak and Kimi crawled on to my lap as I began. The others surrounded us, leaning against each other, the smallest in the middle. And there on the edge of the group – still not touching anyone else, but drawn in with the others – were Tama and Puli, the boy and girl I had given up.
They listened to the story, leaning against each other for support. Great dark eyes staring out of pale faces. Emaciated. But alive! I had stumbled on a way to help them, something so obvious I might have worked it out before.
The timber rafts arrived some days afterwards. The Maidens carried the other baskets of chips up to the Roundhouse, surrounded the tote log, and sang it songs of welcome. The whole settlement helped drag it up the beach.
Fresh guards were chosen. Without warning, Kalik inspected the Salt Children and selected several older boys. Some I hadn’t got to know so well, but one of them was Wirrem, the gardener. I had to watch with Kalik as the guards slashed the tendons in one leg of each boy and threw him in a canoe with the older Salt Men. I still remember Wirrem’s look as they drew out from the shore.
“Never forget they are only slaves,” Kalik laughed merrily. The canoe headed up Lake Ka to where the wind and the sun and the rain were drying and rotting what was left on the skids.