Book One Audio Excerpt read by Elke Mayer.
It is the Great Darkness, Tauvikjuag. A storm having passed, Atatoq, known as Inhumataq, the one who thinks, encounters a young Inuit woman outside his ice cellar,
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Night’s vasty dome circled One Who Never Moves above, every star in the accustomed place. The moon and stars reflecting off the snow would light another man abroad four bowshots distant. Yet looking where he will across the silent snow showed Atatoq no sign of living thing. So his spoken name surprised him, and said with more respect than speaks a spirit or a star.
A young woman stood in full caribou skins some few paces distant. Motionless, patient and respectful, she might have waited his arrival. Her parka and leggings were covered with the passed storm’s snow, but she had pushed back her hood. There was no snow on her short, black hair cut like a man’s and without a part. Such dense black in a field of snow lighted by the heavens.
Qaya travels this night alone.
Never so, Inhumataq. She presented her full face to him, the backs of both hands spread toward him beside her cheeks, presenting her face tattoos both knew closely copied from her mother’s mother’s mother, she of such long life.
Atatoq nodded understanding, acknowledging the title of respect, and spoke again. Honor to those come before, their children shown the path. In your time, so too will Qaya.
My joy for the People, Inhumataq. While I live.
Atatoq considered but said, Qaya travels often alone. So say young men
Taunts, Inhumataq. The penis is their pride. Qaya stopped herself, whose eye-path meets his own, and added what both know to be true but of doubtful consequence. In any event, am I promised since my birth to Inuk.
The handsome woman cannot be denied. Atatoq paused and made his eye-path soften when he said, they are young men. Is Qaya any less young woman? And they have many other skills for pride. Certain do your trekkers.
I hunt as well as Inuk, she spit back with a child’s temper. Returned to quiet voice, Qaya bowed her head to mention even his own son. And I hunt as well as Nunutoq. I run faster than Nunutoq, too. This he knows.
So he tells me. Atatoq allowed the corners of his mouth to rise but continued without humor. I know you trained to hunt with great Hikkok. Still, this seems not woman’s work.
Book Two Audio Excerpt read by Elke Mayer.
The students left Prof. De Long’s dig site without approval to follow Qaya’s trail. Having hiked several days across difficult terrain, they approach a stream on a rainy afternoon.
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August 20, 1963, oh-two hundred ZULU
Weather never gave us a break. Cold rain and mist became as much part of the rock plain as rocks, and after hiking all day we were hot and cold at the same time. But with every step the stream grew louder and more distinct, and within its steady rush you heard water breaking over rocks, splashing down on itself. If we were worn out at least we were getting somewhere.
You could finally see the stream up ahead when Gabby and Perry suddenly stopped. From a few steps back I heard the breath catch in their throats and I fumbled for the shotgun. Slung over my shoulder, the strap caught under my pack and I was lucky to get squared away and pump a shell without shooting one of us. Feeling like a jerk, and with a pounding heart that wouldn’t quit, I squinted into the mist.
There was a man, the shape of a man standing in the rain across the stream. It could have been De Long coming after us only that wouldn’t knock the wind out of everybody, and the man was square more than round, too short and stocky for De Long. And he wasn’t coming after us. The scary thing is he wasn’t moving at all—like he never backs down, like he owns this place and you don’t.
Nobody laughed when we realized our man was stone, a stone marker shaped like a man. Nobody moved closer either, and I set the safety without putting up the Remington. Pitched below water sounds, the four of us were breathing in unison trying to make sense of a stone marker that might have escaped from your worst nightmare. Magical thinking gets hold of you sometimes on Ellesmere so this may not sound like me, but I couldn’t help wondering if being in the middle of nowhere with a stone man made us friends.
“Is that it?” Graham spoke in a hush so the stone man wouldn’t hear. “That’s what we came for?”
Gabby pulled out a cigarette, holding it between her teeth and breathing hard. She tried to light up but the match got wet, her hand was shaking with cold, and she threw down the matchstick. Letting go the cigarette too, she whispered back in a hoarse voice: “I don’t know. What is it?”
“An inuksuk.” Perry wasn’t moving closer but his voice was calm: “Eskimos still make these things. Resolute says there’s no Eskimos up here so this one must be awfully old.”
Gabby started to pick up her cigarette. Then she started to pull a new one from the pack. She looked away biting on her lip, then turned toward Perry: “It looks like an idol. It’s watching us.”
“He marks a hunting trail, Gabby, maybe a food cache or supplies. Or else he gives directions. Whatever he looks like to you and me, he’s a very practical little guy. Tunit believe in spirits, not idols; not even totems, like the Indians.”
“I don’t like it. We don’t belong here.”
“This . . . this inuksuk—” Graham had dropped his whisper since Perry knew all about stone men: “Does the Tunit girl make it so she can be followed?”
“If the stone man is a Trek marker at all, he could have been made by any Tunit hunter at any time, even a different century. On the other hand,” Perry said, “anyone coming this way since the Ice Age was bound to come exactly here. Tunit could never imagine someone missing this crossing. And since we’re following our Tunit girl’s directions, it’s a good bet Qaya crosses those rocks.”
“I don’t like it,” Gabby repeated. “Let’s keep going.”