“Padre, it’s Matt Henson. You have a minute?”
“Of course, Mr. Henson,” he replied in his accented English. “Do come in.”
Henson entered. Christofferson was sitting crosslegged, several loose sheets of paper stacked together on a small board on his lap. His hair was frost white and his Santa Claus beard reached mid-chest. It was close in here, and the smell of unwashed human body order and raw walrus was overwhelming. The priest was particularly fond of snaking on walrus heart. Henson sat.
“Luke tells me you claim there’s four meteorites.”
The fifty-three year-old clergyman looked at him a moment, then clarity shone behind his blue eyes. “Ah yes, right. I was making a point about God’s wonders.”
“But where did you hear about there being a fourth?’ Henson understood there was probably only one meteorite originally that had broken up, and its pieces had fallen to Earth. Still, a fourth piece would have value. Plus, he would love to see that bastard Leeward’s face if he could be the one to discover it.
“From a fine woman, a convert who is much devout,” Christofferson said proudly. Like Henson, he spoke several Inuit dialects including Nunavut and Greenlandic.
Henson wondered if that was his way of saying he’d taken her as a mistress. He wouldn’t be the first outsider, Bible-thumper notwithstanding. “She say where it fell?”
As an answer, the taller man uncrossed his legs and, crawling out of the igloo, stood up and pointed. Henson followed him. “She knew this story from her childhood. But in her version, it was not the trickster Torngarsuk who threw the Woman, and her Dog and Tent from the sky, but the beneficence of Seqinek. That this was a tear from her daughter who wished only the best for the first people.” The word “Inuit” derived from Inuish, their word for people, as for thousands of years, the Eskimos thought they were the only ones to inhabit the Earth. The ones who had prolonged contact with Americans, Italians and what have you, also referred to themselves as Greenlanders
“The sun goddess you mean?” Henson said to make sure, referring to the Eskimo deity of Seqinek.
“Yes,” the priest confirmed, pointing at a peak aglow with warm white against a terrain of stark white in the near distance. “At Robeson Point.”
Henson considered the information.
As the Hope wouldn’t be setting sail for another two days, Henson arranged for he and Ootah to set off, saying they would like to bring some seal meat along on the voyage. Once out of sight, they circled around to Mount Robeson. Henson had pointedly asked him not to tell his brother Egingwah. The latter was more attached to Peary, and they didn’t want him gossiping if their two-man expedition didn’t pan out. Mount Robeson was less than a half day’s journey by sledge.
The two dismounted and tethered their dog when they reached their destination. To their good fortune, the ruddy-tinged sky was still clear, and for this part of the world, the weather tolerable.
“Did you think it would be lying around for us to see?” Ootah asked. He enjoyed ribbing his friend when he could. He’d also told him he’d never heard this story about the sun goddess. They poked around the base of the mountain for a while. Even looking up its side, there were no gouges or where a meteorite could have made impact.
Henson recalled that when he and Peary met with the museum’s board, a man named Fremont Davis made mention of an astronomer friend at a university. The scientist, Davis had noted, was of the opinion these meteorites would have struck the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago, and any traces would likely be long gone—and yet there were the other three.
Motivated to one-up that cornpone cracker, Henson said, “Let’s keep at it.” But after another hour, ascending some yards up the mountain, no vestiges of iron ore or otherwise was discovered.
“I’m hungry,” Ootah said when they reached level ground again.
“I hear you,” Henson said. Hands on his hips, he walked about, looking at the ground. They were several yards from where their sledges were.
“Hey, wait,” Henson said, trudging over to a spot where he saw a dark streak on the ground. He bent down, touching it with his gloved hand. “Not iron. Must be from another dogsled.” He stood up, and as he began to turn away, the ground gave out under him.
“Matthew,” Ootah yelled, running over. A trench had opened in the frozen ground and, though he was concerned about his companion, the seasoned hunter knew better than to rush to the edge and fall in as well.
Standing as close as he dared to the opening and leaning forward, he could see Henson on his back. But he hadn’t fallen straight down into the exposed subterranean cavern. Rather, he had landed on a pack of hard ice that covered a formation of sloping rock that led to the cavern floor.
“Matthew, can you move?” his friend called out.
Henson moaned, eyes fluttering open. “I think so,” he said weakly.
“I’m coming.” Ootah began navigating the descent, the light fading from lavender to purple to black in the interior. It wasn’t that wide, and his friend had been lucky he’d landed where he did. Below on the floor of the revealed chamber several stalagmites of ice poked upward, some taller than a man. They hadn’t brought a torch, but, having long since gotten used to the half-light of summer, he could make out parts of the interior. He reached
