Ice Drift (9780547540610) Read Free Page A

keep going!..."
    She shouted back her agreement.
    Four hours later, they still had not sighted the suspected floe in the brilliant moonlight. The muscles in their arms could no longer guide the kayaks away from the random ice impacts. The current had carried them south, but they finally made it safely back to shore, perhaps six miles downstream. They were exhausted.
    Like most hunters, they knew what to do. They crawled down into their kayaks, pulling the sealskin aprons over the cockpits, and sadly went to sleep.
    Kussu awakened after about six hours, relieved himself, and tapped on Maja's kayak. She soon pushed her cockpit cover open with one foot, crawled out saying "I'm hungry," and stretched.
    "So am I," said Kussu. They hadn't brought any food along.
    Looking out at the sea was useless, but Maja shouted, "Alika! Sulu!"
    Defeated, Kussu said, "Let's go."
    They began walking north, carrying their kayaks on their shoulders. They had to cross several creeks and inlets, and one river, hoping the ice had frozen enough to bear their weight. If it cracked, they would do what all kayakers did—put their boats down and slide them with their mitts until the ice was safe.
    They reached Nunatak about noon and reported to the anxious women who greeted them that they had failed to find their sons. The floe might have already passed the village, or it might have grounded up to the north, not close enough for the boys to walk ashore.
    Kussu said tiredly, "We must trust Alika to bring both of them back here safely." His face was grave. Maja's was as well. She lived for her sons.
    There were solemn nods from all those encircling the parents. But everyone knew Alika was only fourteen, and Sulu only ten. They also knew the weather and the ice were heartless and unforgiving, and the season of darkness could be so cold that even the wolves would stop hunting.
    Old Miak said, "I'm sure Alika built an
iglu
to stay in last night."
    Kussu agreed. "He is a smart boy."
    The shaman Inu had come out of his house, the big raven Punna on his shoulder. He said, "I will send a message to them."
    The villagers nodded.
    Maja and Kussu then borrowed a sledge and hooked their dog team to it to search the coast to the north in hopes that the floe had hung up there. Their kayaks were on the sledge, as well as a skin bag of dried char.
    Both of them had traveled north before while hunting, and they took the same general route near the shore, exchanging places riding the sledge and running behind it every several miles. The moonlight reflected down, white as caribou milk.
    Nattiq and the other dogs, happy to be on the trail, were performing well, and the alabaster of the land provided enough illumination so they could see any snow-covered rocks. Nattiq was likely to steer around them, anyway.
    Finally, they reached the area where Alika had probably hunted. There was no sign of their sons. But there was a scar of ice on the bank where the floe had been. In the dimness, it stretched out of sight. Their sons were adrift in the Greenland Strait, without doubt.
    Kussu said, "That floe must be four or five miles long." He wrapped his arms around Maja, who was silently weeping. They slowly began their return journey to Nunatak, sitting on the sledge together.
    En route, Kussu studied the Milky Way—that faintly luminous band, stretching across the heavens, composed of innumerable stars too distant to be seen clearly—as if an answer might be found there. The Milky Way was the track made by the Raven's snowshoes. According to the Inuit, the Raven had created Earth.

    The largest bergs usually broke off
from the Greenland glaciers, drifting south or east in the
currents, some flowing along the Canadian shore. Some
then traveled into the North Atlantic Ocean and sank
skips. Usually, only roosting birds were passengers.

3
    The night sky had cleared as the clouds advanced toward Greenland, and the floe moved steadily south, under the moonlight.
    The moon,