People of the Sea(15)

Oxbalm shivered and rubbed his left knee. It ached all the time. “Mother Ocean,” he called. He had no teeth left, and his voice always sounded a little slurred. “I felt you tugging at my soul. I got up out of my warm hides and came. Tell me what you need. Send me a sign.”

Sumac said nothing, letting him talk to the Mother alone. But she squeezed his fingers more tightly and cast a brief glance over her shoulder toward their lodge in the village. She was worried about their three grandchildren, the two boys and the little girl. Saber-toothed cats had been prowling close to the village in the past cold moon, hoping to catch a child to eat. Mountain Lake, Balsam and Horseweed had been living with them since the death of their mother in the fever two cycles ago. Singing Moss had been Oxbalm and Sumac’s last living child, and grief over her had almost killed Sumac.

Oxbalm squeezed Sumac’s hand in return and focused his faded eyes on the black expanse of water. He knew the Mother. He’d canoed out into her far reaches, Singing to her, studying her many colors. She resembled a patched old hide,



rubbed thin and transparent in places; in other places, darkened almost black from lying close to the bodies of the Earth Spirits on cold, stormy nights. When Oxbalm had been filled with the brashness of youth, he’d canoed out so far that he couldn’t see land at all. The Mother played tricks on mea so bold. Sunlight rippled off the surface of the water and formed islands that didn’t exist, or spun golden whirlwinds from the fog. She spoke to such men, her voice soft and muted. And if it pleased her, she guided them back to land. Often it did not please her, Oxbalm had lost many friends to Mother Ocean.

But a man never forgot the sound of her voice once he had heard it. And the Mother had started speaking to him at sunset yesterday, calling to him, demanding that he come sit beside her.

The fermenting scents of kelp and fish grew stronger as morning neared. Oxbalm filled his lungs and sighed, “I’m tired, Sumac.”

“Just a little longer,” she responded. “If the Mother hasn’t sent you a sign by dawn, we’ll go back.” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you think it has to do with Sunchaser?”

“I don’t know.”

Oxbalm put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Long tresses of her gray hair tumbled down the front of his hide jacket. She’d turned fifty-five last cycle, but she wore the bitter winters better than Oxbalm did. Though wrinkles incised her high forehead, her long, straight nose and pointed chin looked as perfect as they had on the day he’d met her. Her full lips had sunken, like his had, as her teeth had fallen out. But he didn’t mind. She was still beautiful to him.

Sumac’s gray brows drew together. “The Mammoth Spirit Dance starts day after tomorrow and Sunchaser isn’t here yet. This will be the fourth Dance he’s missed this cycle. Why has he stopped coming? All the surrounding villages will be here. His absence will frighten people. It’s as though he’s lost faith in the Dance himself. He started it. How could that happen?”



“I don’t think he’s lost faith, Sumac. He still Sings for the mammoths. Five moons ago he told me he’d been Dreaming every day. You know how hard that is. Keep your faith in him. He’s the last great Dreamer left to the sea peoples.”

The breeze stung Oxbalm’s tired eyes. He rubbed them hard.

Legend spoke of a time when camels and mastodons had covered the hills as thickly as the spring grasses. But now a man considered himself lucky if he saw a few tens of tens in his entire lifetime. The cheetahs had become so rare that Oxbalm could barely remember what they looked like. And the giant short-faced bears had almost vanished-though, Oxbalm had to admit, he wasn’t sorry to see them go. Terrifying animals, they ran with the fleetness and speed of Horse, possessed the ferociousness of an enraged lion and stood as tall as a man at the shoulder.

Sunchaser said that all of the big animals, from mastodons to cheetahs, had heard their deaths Sung on the wind and had climbed onto the wings of the Thunderbeings to fly across the sea to the Land of the Dead—to punish humans for over hunting them. The dwindling supply of big meat animals had turned the four-legged hunters bold. Often they sneaked close to the village to grab a child, or a doddering elder. What kind of sign was it when hunter turned on hunter?

Sumac shifted to resettle herself on the sand so as to face him. “But we have other Dreamers. Not as great as Sunchaser, it’s true. Catchstraw—”

“Isn’t much of a Dreamer…” Oxbalm finished “.. . for all that he lounges around his lodge day in and day out claiming to be Dreaming. He never helps around the village. Have you ever seen him hunt? No. Fish? On rare occasions, when he can’t pay somebody else to fish for him. Has he ever gone on a war raid? I remember one raid I led when Catchstraw was seventeen summers. All the other young men had readied themselves, but Catchstraw ran and hid in his mother’s lodge, shrieking.” Oxbalm grunted. “He’s not much of a man.”