People of the Sea(17)
“What are they doing?” Oxbalm blurted in terror and awe.
The domes of the mammoths’ heads vanished, and Oxbalm went rigid with fear. Huge bodies began to bob to the surface. “Oh, no, Blessed Mother Ocean …”
Tusks gleamed, some jagged and broken, spearing the sand as the dead animals near shore rocked with the force of the water. Somewhere out in the blackness, a calf bawled. Oxbalm could see it struggling, trying to swim alongside a dead cow, its long auburn hair sparkling in the starlight. It went down, came up, and went down again. Farther out, two old bulls swam with all their might, heading westward, due west. Three younger bulls followed behind them, their trunks up, their massive heads tipped back so far that their tusks thrust straight up at Brother Sky. The lead bull let out a deep, anguished roar when the waves began to drag him under. The other bulls floundered and cried when the lead
bull sank. They swam in circles, bellowing, whimpering, then tried to turn back toward the shore, but they’d swum out so far….
Sumac pressed a hand to her throat, clutching it as if in pain. Some of the villagers gathered around them. Silent. Wary. No one had seen a herd so large in cycles. Reverential murmurs eddied through the crowd. The dogs had gone slinking back into the village, their tails between their legs, and now they stood close by their masters, watching with their ears pricked.
“I … I don’t understand.” Oxbalm strained to get the words through his constricted throat. Tears stung his eyes. Why would mammoths, their numbers already so decimated by human hunters, drown themselves? He shook his head. Then awe slackened his face as comprehension dawned. “It’s the sign, Sumac! This is why Mother Ocean called me out tonight!”
“Sign of what?”
He started forward, but Sumac’s hand closed on his wrist, halting him. Her fingers trembled. “Don’t go,” she whispered. “I’m frightened.”
“So am I. Something’s happened. “Something terrible. Mammoth Above is trying to warn us.” He removed her hand, patted it gently and hobbled across the sand on his rickety legs.
Sumac hurried after him, calling, “Wait! Oxbalm—”
“Find young Horseweed!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Send him to Brushnut Village. Tell him to bring Sunchaser back, at the point of a dart if necessary! Sunchaser is the only one who will know how to make sense of this.”
Kestrel clenched her teeth as another contraction left her gasping. The pain seemed to twist her inside out. Her water had broken just before dawn, warm fluid draining down the insides of her thighs, and the contractions had started coming
closer together. Breathlessly, she whispered, “A moon early. No, Above-Old-Man, please. How can I run with a newborn baby? Lambkill will find us both!”
She braced her hands against the yellow-brown limestone and bit back her cries. She stood in a narrow cleft, rock-filled, clotted with duff and weathered sticks that had been deposited by the rain runoff. The cleft sliced a V into the bluff that overlooked the Big Spoonwood River. Two hundred hands below, muddy water rushed along, whole trees tumbling in the swift current. Across the vast expanse of water, she could make out the caves that pocked the bluff on the opposite side. Did this side have similar caves? Should she chance finding shelter in one of them?
Kestrel wrung some of the water from her long hair, and as she looked down, she saw a white chert flake reflecting beneath the shallow flow of water. She bent to pick it up. As big as the palm of her hand and very sharp, it might come in useful—perhaps to cut reeds with to build a raft—but the rain was falling more heavily, too heavily to think of trying to cross the river today.
Though dozens of crevices cracked the bluff, only this narrow cut had appeared to lead down to the water, and it was becoming steeper as she progressed. On either side of her, weathered walls rose like dark, uplifted wings, reaching so high that they brushed the ominous clouds packing the morning sky.
A series of jagged knobs jutted from the rim of the cleft, reminding her of the ragged wing tips of Crow. Her chest ached with longing. If only she could climb onto Crow’s back and sail high above the world. Here, in this crack in the ground leading to the river, she could feel the footfalls of her husband in her heart. Fear took every bit of her strength.
The pain built again. A moan escaped her lips and she gasped, “Stay quiet! Keep moving. You must… keep moving.”
When the agony eased, Kestrel inched her hands forward over the wet stone, descending the cleft slowly. The shower
soaked her to the bone. Ankle-deep trickles of water drenched her moccasins and froze her swollen feet. She’d haphazardly tied the torn front of her dress together, but it provided scant protection from the bitter gusts of wind. Like icicles, they penetrated the soaked antelope hide and stabbed at her breasts and belly.