We take the trail we walked with Kol’s parents, on that morning not long ago when the three of us arrived, uninvited, on the Manu’s shore. The day we hiked to the meadow to meet Kol and his brother Pek.
The day I first saw Kol and first learned his name.
We hike in silence, except for the birds that nest in the grass, fluttering into flight as we shuffle by. When we are well away from camp the rising ground levels off, the north wind blows hard against our faces, and the tall grass mixes with wildflowers.
We’ve reached the meadow, and Kol is everywhere.
I imagine I see him as he was on that morning when we first arrived, the morning my heart overflowed with insult and contempt. He stood with Pek, watching us approach, and I felt his assessing gaze.
Or so I thought.
That day, I saw Kol and his whole clan as enemies—enemies of my heart and of my mind. I squint into the wind, and I see him in my memory as if he is standing there now.
How little I understood Kol that day.
Chev hesitates, looks east toward the mountains, and rolls his spear in his hand. Absentmindedly, Seeri does the same.
“Stay alert,” Chev says. But we were all here that day. We all saw the cat I killed, and we all remember the danger.
We turn, following a faint track where feet have crossed into the hills. My eyes scan the sky and I notice fast-moving clouds, blowing down from beyond the snowcapped peaks in the northeast, turning the placid blue into something ominous and wild. I drop my eyes, not wanting to think what kind of sign these clouds might be. Instead, I watch our shadows move over the flowers under our feet—purple, blue, and white—and search their blooms for honeybees.
By the time we reach the gravel path that winds up into the foothills, I haven’t seen a single one. Too cold, I think, as the wind swirls my hair around my shoulders.
We climb, hiking higher as the gravel underfoot turns to stone, then to slabs. The path twists as it winds around tall, jutting walls of rock. We arrive at the boulders that form a gate to the alpine meadow where we found the mammoth herd that day. Looking in, the field is as it was—windswept and lush—and the pool where the two streams meet remains wide and still. At its edge, caribou and elk graze between tall sedges.
But we find no mammoths and no hunting party.
Chev continues up the trail, and we follow without comment. I do not always like to let my brother lead—in fact, I rarely do—but today I’m happy to lag behind. I dread each new step forward, not knowing what might be found around each turn.
I can think of many things that might detain a hunting party. None of them are good.
We climb higher for a while, but then the path turns down, descending to a pass into a narrow canyon—a canyon surrounded on all sides by tall crags of steeply rising rock. The walls soar so high, and the sun in the west sits so low, a blanket of shadow covers the canyon floor. Standing above on the sunlit pass, looking down into the walled canyon, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the contrast. Slowly, shapes separate from shadows, and I recognize what I see.
Inside the canyon, their backs to the towers of stone, stand the members of the hunting party—Arem, Pek . . . Kol. And between the three of them and us, blocking their escape to the pass, stands a herd of mammoths. They hold still, as still as the rocks that rise behind the hunters.
I count ten mammoths in all.
Our vantage point is lit by the sideways beams of the evening sun, stretching our shadows toward the canyon like the fingers of a reaching hand. A hand reaching through the pass that forms the only route of retreat—the only way of escape. The mammoths are all attentive, all threatening, all waiting expectantly for the quick move, the sudden sound, the provocation that will send them surging forward to crush the cornered hunters.
The fingers of our shadows disappear into the gloomy light on the canyon floor, and I wonder if Kol and the others even know we’re here. I don’t dare call Kol’s name or even raise an arm to attract his eye. Seeri and Chev hover beside me, as motionless as the mammoths.
Six humans, ten beasts. Sixteen hearts beating. And yet the only motion is overhead. The clouds race by, and a buzzard, anticipating, circles high in the sky.
The danger of Kol’s situation sets a wide distance between us, so that he feels remote and far off, though in reality he is close enough that I can see his face clearly. The three of them are framed in light above the shade as if they wade in murky water. I notice the angle of Kol’s body, one shoulder pointing in the direction of the pass, ready to block his brother Pek, just a few paces to his right, from an advancing mammoth.
What good could that possibly do? What help could flesh and bones offer against a charging mammoth?
My foot slides as I shift my weight forward. A stone rolls out from beneath my heel and skitters along the gravel of the pass, sending small pebbles tumbling over a steep drop to my right. A long moment of silence is followed by the rattle of rocks against rock far below. The sound echoes against the canyon walls.
I hold my breath. A dark shape traces across the ground—the slanted shadow of the circling bird. He is expectant, ready, as we all are. I listen as the pebbles fall, each one a voice calling No! No! No!
And then the voices hush. Nothing else stirs. The mammoths hold their places like silent sentries.
The shadow of the bird sweeps across me, and I see Kol move.
His head tips back, ever so slightly, and he raises his eyes.
He sees me. I am revealed to him. Here, in this moment of held breath, of balance between life and death. I stand in the sharp light of the sun’s clarifying rays, in my ornate tunic, my stiff, new pants, my dark braids woven with ivory beads.
He sees me, and I am known to him.
My heartbeat trips on the thought, but before it can tumble out of control, something in Kol’s gaze catches me and sets me right again.
It’s not that he smiles, though he does smile. But it’s more than that. Something passes over his face—the opposite of the wildness of the fast-moving clouds and the ominous shade cast by the bird. Something like peace passes over his face, where there was nothing but wariness there before.
And that peace, just for a moment, comes back to me. For just a moment, it crowds out dread and fear.
I shudder. What would be worse? I ask myself. We’ve seen each other, and we’ve understood. Would it have been better to have never been seen at all?
As the sun drops lower and lower behind us, the wait—this painful, dread-laden wait—goes on. The darkness on the canyon floor deepens. Perception shifts. My eyes become unsure. Is that movement? Yes, yes. Pek, closest to the pass, has slid, almost imperceptibly, nearer. A step. A step. He comes closer, his feet pressing down softly on the gravel beneath them, his body rising higher, out of the shade and into the slanting light.
He is almost in the pass. If he were to run, he might make it out before they had him under their feet.
My gaze floats over the mammoths. There is movement there, too—the swish of a tail, the flick of an ear. A huge dark head tilts sideways, and an eye turns toward Pek before returning to the two gray shapes against the gray rock wall—Kol and his father.
At the back of the herd—closer to the pass, closer to Pek—a trunk rises. Then another. The sun catches two bright white tusks tilted toward the sky. Two spears in the light. The other mammoths listen, their ears alert. Will there be a signal? Is this the moment?
The tusks dip back into shadow. Not yet, the mammoth seems to say. But stay vigilant.
When my focus returns to Kol, he has moved.
He’s come closer.
Cloaked in that moment of unbearable frailty, he took a chance. When the slightest shift might have sent the balance crashing into pieces, he let fear and danger serve him as a distraction.
Like Pek, he has reached the bottom slope of the pass. He’s climbed high enough that his shoulders are now in the sunlight, his dark eyes squinting over a restless, tense smile—a smile sprung from the satisfaction of having achieved this small victory. He has gained a degree of safety, and yet the posture of the mammoths has not changed. Not yet.
But as I watch, changes take shape. Slowly, slowly. There are subtle shifts—the angle of a broad back, the turn of a head, the stomp of a foot.
Movement—small but meaningful movement—ripples across the herd. A few feet shuffle under the strain. Not a strain of fatigue, but of impatience—an impatience born out of inaction. Mammoths are active. Though these stand still, they are full of action. Ponderous, potential action.
My eyes shift to Kol’s face. If a moment ago he felt a bit of satisfaction at his progress, that satisfaction is already gone. His teeth clench. His gaze presses on his father, and his hand rises, as he slowly, carefully, fans the air in a circle in front of his chest, bidding his father to come.
Come on, I think. Follow your sons. Move toward the pass.
He takes the first step, his first tenuous step toward escape. A slow slide of his foot.
I do not raise my eyes to the clouds. I do not look for the shadow of the buzzard. I do not need to. I know.
Everything—on the ground, in the air, far away beyond the camp in the bay—everything is still. The clouds could not possibly roll, the waves on the sea could not possibly stir while Kol’s father edges his foot toward the pass. The sun does not sink. The wind does not blow. I do not breathe.
But then one mammoth takes a step—a hurried, urgent step forward—and motion returns. The clouds shiver in the sky, the buzzard swoops low, diving into the canyon, and I draw a deep breath. One mammoth tramples the rock beneath his feet, and nine mammoths watch him, the hides of their backs twitching.
My eyes go to Kol’s father. He knows that the rules have changed. Motion has broken through, and he will make it his tool. In short even steps, he advances. He is steady, unwavering, full of authority. The mammoth whose feet had shown such impatience a moment ago reverts to his rigid posture. All eyes—ours and theirs—fix on Arem as he takes certain, measured strides.
The soft hides of his boots crush the gravel underfoot, and a low whisper of assent rises from the ground. Yes, yes, yes. Twilight sends the shade of the canyon ever higher up the walls, but he is rising, too. Soon he has climbed to the foot of the gravel pass. Thin streaks of evening sun touch the top of his head, glowing blue in his black hair. He walks with his back to us—keeping his eyes on the mammoths as he draws away from them and moves closer to his sons—but as he climbs he throws a quick glance over his shoulder and meets Kol’s eyes.
And something happens.
Beyond Arem, down in the canyon, the mammoth at the front of the herd lifts his tusks, spreads his ears, and lunges forward. A burst of sound flies from his raised trunk.
Stillness reigns as the echo grows and fades. And then everything moves.
Everything moves.
And everything . . .
Everything . . .
Everything changes.