‘There are more chests on the ship,’ said the Russian.
‘Then bring them to the shore,’ my father said. ‘You have one hundred and five bales of otter on the ship. There are fifteen here in the cove. You will need three more chests of this size.’
Captain Orlov said something to his Aleuts that I could not understand, but its meaning was soon clear. There were many hunters in the cove and as soon as he spoke they began to carry the otter pelts to the boat.
Beside me Ulape was scarcely breathing. ‘Do you think that he will give us the other chests?’ she whispered.
‘I do not trust him.’
‘When he gets the pelts to the ship he may leave.’
‘It is possible.’
The hunters had to pass my father to reach the boat, and when the first one approached him, he stepped in his path.
‘The rest of the pelts must stay here,’ he said, facing Captain Orlov, ‘until the chests are brought.’
The Russian drew himself up stiffly and pointed to the clouds that were blowing in towards the island.
‘I load the ship before the storm arrives,’ he said.
‘Give us the other chests. Then I will help you with our canoes,’ my father replied.
Captain Orlov was silent. His gaze moved slowly around the cove. He looked at our men standing on the ledge of rock a dozen paces away. He looked upward towards the cliff and back at my father. Then he spoke to his Aleuts.
I do not know what happened first, whether it was my father who raised his hand against the hunter whose path he barred, whether it was this man who stepped forward with a bale of pelts on his back and shoved my father aside. It all happened so quickly that I could not tell one act from the other. But as I jumped to my feet and Ulape screamed and other cries sounded along the cliff, I saw a figure lying on the rocks. It was my father and blood was on his face. Slowly he got to his feet.
With their spears raised our men rushed down across the ledge. A puff of white smoke came from the deck of the ship. A loud noise echoed against the cliff. Five of our warriors fell and lay quiet.
Ulape screamed again and flung a rock into the cove. It fell harmlessly beside Captain Orlov. Rocks showered into the cove from many places along the cliff, striking several of the hunters. Then our warriors rushed in upon them and it was hard to tell one from the other.
Ulape and I stood on the cliff, and watched helplessly, afraid to use the rocks we held lest we injure our own men.
The Aleuts had dropped the bales of otter. They drew knives from their belts and as our warriors rushed upon them the two lines surged back and forth along the beach. Men fell to the sand and rose to fight again. Others fell and did not get up. My father was one of these.
For a long time it seemed that we would win the battle. But Captain Orlov, who had rowed off to the ship when the battle started, returned with more of his Aleuts.
Our warriors were forced backward to the cliffs. There were few of them left, yet they fought at the foot of the trail and would not retreat.
The wind began to blow. Suddenly Captain Orlov and his Aleuts turned and ran to the boat. Our men did not pursue them. The hunters reached the ship, the red sails went up, and that ship moved slowly between the two rocks that guard the cove.
Once more before it disappeared a white puff of smoke rose from the deck. As Ulape and I ran along the cliff a whirring sound like a great bird in flight passed above our heads.
5
That night was the most terrible time in all the memory of Ghalas-at. When the fateful day had dawned the tribe numbered forty-two men, counting those who were too old to fight. When night came and the women had carried back to the village those who had died on the beach of Coral Cove, there remained only fifteen. Of these, seven were old men.
There was no woman who had not lost a father or a husband, a brother or a son.
The storm lasted two days and the third day we buried our dead on the south headland. The Aleuts who had fallen on the beach, we burned.
For many days after that the village was quiet. People went out only to gather food and came back to eat in silence. Some wished to leave and go in their canoes to the island called Santa Catalina, which lies far off to the east, but others said that there was little water on that island. In the end a council was held and it was decided to stay at Ghalas-at.
The council also chose a new chief to take my father's place. His name was Kimki. He was very old, but he had been a good man in his youth and a good hunter. The night he was chosen to be chief, he called everyone together, saying:
‘Most of those who snared fowl and found fish in the deep water and built canoes are gone. The women, who were never asked to do more than stay at home, cook food, and make clothing, now must take the place of the men and face the dangers which abound beyond the village. There will be grumbling in Ghalas-at because of this. There will be shirkers. These will be punished, for without the help of all, all must perish.’
Kimki portioned work for each one in the tribe, giving Ulape and me the task of gathering abalones. This shellfish grew on the rocks along the shore and was plentiful. We gathered them at low tide in baskets and carried them to the mesa where we cut the dark red flesh from the shell and placed it on flat rocks to dry in the sun.
Ramo had the task of keeping the abalones safe from the gulls and especially the wild dogs. Dozens of our animals, which had left the village when their owners had died, joined the wild pack that roamed the island. They soon grew as fierce as the wild ones and only came back to the village to steal food. Each day towards evening Ulape and I helped Ramo put the abalones in baskets and carry them to the village for safekeeping.
During this time other women were gathering the scarlet apples that grow on the cactus bushes and are called tunas. Fish were caught and many birds were netted. So hard did the women work that we really fared better than before when the hunting was done by the men.
Life in the village should have been peaceful, but it was not. The men said that the women had taken the tasks that rightfully were theirs and now that they had become hunters the men looked down upon them. There was much trouble over this until Kimki decreed that the work would again be divided — henceforth the men would hunt and the women harvest. Since there was already ample food to last through the winter, it no longer mattered who hunted.
But this was not the real reason why autumn and winter were unpeaceful in Ghalas-at. Those who had died at Coral Cove were still with us. Everywhere we went on the island or on the sea, whether we were fishing or eating or sitting by the fires at night, they were with us. We all remembered someone and I remembered my father, so tall and strong and kind. A few years ago my mother had died and since then Ulape and I had tried to do the tasks she had done, Ulape even more than I, being older. Now that my father was gone, it was not easy to look after Ramo, who was always into some mischief.
It was the same in the other houses of Ghalas-at, but more than the burdens which had fallen upon us all, it was the memory of those who had gone that burdened our hearts.
After food had been stored in autumn and the baskets were full in every house, there was more time to think about them, so that a sort of sickness came over the village and people sat and did not speak, nor ever laughed.
In the spring, Kimki called the tribe together. He had been thinking, he said, during the winter and had decided that he would take a canoe and go to the east to a country which was there and which he had once been to when he was a boy. It lay many days across the sea, but he would go there and make a place for us. He would go alone, because he could not spare more of our men for the voyage, and he would return.
The day that Kimki left was fair. We all went to the cove and watched him launch the big canoe. It held two baskets of water and enough tunas and dried abalone to last many days.
We watched while Kimki paddled through the narrow opening in the rocks. Slowly he went through the kelp
