you and your sister. “You’ll meet them soon enough,” I say. I step up the pace a bit. I feel an urgency to return to the kill, and I need a break from questions about what happened on the hunt.
When we finally come to the head of the rocky trail, everything I’ve described stretches out before us—the dead mammoth, the cat, my father, and Pek in the company of three hunters who were all but strangers before today. Kesh and Roon drop the travois they’ve been pulling and race each other across the grass, leaving me and the butchers to bring the three sleds the rest of the way.
The butchers set immediately to work, moving with such practiced precision they hardly need to speak. One uses an ax to divide the carcass into sections, separating the limbs from the torso. The other two employ sharp knives that remove meat from bone. The process is like a dance to the three of them—no one calls out the steps; experience has taught them to anticipate each other’s moves. My brothers busy themselves with collecting the cut portions and securing them to the sleds with long cords made from the stalks of fireweed and stinging nettle, while you, Pek, and Seeri truss up the cat. My father and Chev stand off to the side, speaking in low tones like old friends, only looking up from time to time to call out some instructions.
With so many hands set to the task, I feel unneeded, superfluous. What could I possibly contribute? I would only get in the way. So I let myself wander, roaming to a spot just down the hill, a remote stretch of tall grass drenched in sunlight. I lie down and close my eyes, focus my ears, try to relax—try to catch that distinct whir of honeybee wings—but my thoughts thrum too loudly in my mind. Voices mix in—Roon’s high buzz overlapping with Kesh’s lower hum. I try to block them out, but it’s useless—the longer they work, the louder they become.
After a while, I stop trying and sit up.
Before me, the valley the mammoths fled to opens at the bottom of a gentle slope, and from the angle where I sit the wide expanse of undulating meadow gives me the same odd sensation of movement I feel when I sit at the edge of the bay. The land rolls out from me unbroken, the wind rippling the sea of grass like waves upon the water.
It’s then that I spot you—kneeling in the grass at the base of the hill, you and your sister Seeri. Are you gathering? Your heads are bent, your focus on the ground. I hurry over to ask if you will need help carrying what you’ve collected. As I approach, I catch the sound of your voices trailing off, words spoken in unison. Seeri gets to her feet, but you remain kneeling in the grass, your head bowed, your fingers tying a cord around your neck. There are no roots or greens to be gathered up.
When Seeri sees me she flinches briefly, then color blooms in her cheeks. Have I interrupted something private?
“I wanted to see if you needed help. . . . I’m sorry,” I say. Seeri glances at you, but you keep your head bent away from the sound of my voice. The air stretches taut with tension, like the skin of a drum. I continue. “I thought you were gathering. . . .”
Seeri offers a dim, melancholy smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “What we left behind can’t be seen; what we gathered can’t be carried.” She says this without looking directly at me, as if she’s speaking to someone unseen who’s just beyond my shoulder.
I’m not sure what to make of this—is it a quote of some kind? A few words of a prayer or chant to the Divine? I think of the words I heard you speak in unison. . . . Before I can ask, Seeri strides away, leaving me alone with you.
I stand there, hovering over the place where you sit, for long enough that I begin to think I will either have to speak or walk away. Thankfully, just at the moment I feel I will need to decide between the two, you silently get to your feet. You shoot me the briefest of glances—not really a look, but rather a means of determining where you don’t intend to look—before dropping your eyes to the grass and pinning them there.