The Mantooth Part 35

And the boat was horribly slow to tack, or even move to counter the wind. This concerned Kalus more than anything. For at the meeting of the Broad River and the River of the North---in the wide water-tract of the delta---the southward flow of the latter would try to carry them away from their destination, and out into the open sea. He had cut the hulls as sharply as possible in lieu of a keel, and even leaned them slightly outward at the girl's suggestion. But rudderless, keelless, this was not enough. The best he could manage with the now deployed steering oar was a straight line eastward, by precious yards slowly gaining the center of the stream. How he would hold it at the meeting of the two rivers and the open sea he could not imagine, though he exhausted his mind in trying. His fear and sense of helplessness grew with each pa.s.sing moment.

Strange to say, Sylviana's impressions at this early stage of their journey were nearly the opposite. To her the waters had a soothing, almost hypnotic effect. Kalus had not told her the possible complications of the voyage, being uncertain himself; and for reasons all her own she felt a naive (and perhaps misguided) a.s.surance that all would be well. The river was broad and quiet and tranquil. The sun shone bright in an open sky lightly touched with cirrus, and a great adventure was at hand. Everything was so wide open and free: alive, still young, and in the future. The world of her past seemed to slip behind with the running coast, so easily, leaving hardly a trace of memory. But for the presence of Kalus and the pup, she would almost have believed all the tribulations of the War and the Valley to have been nothing more than a bad dream, from which she was finally waking.

But the sight of Kalus brought her back: the look of worried consternation, his desperate struggle as he wrestled with the steering oar. She watched him for a time, unwilling, and it all came back.

Only once, on the first day she hunted with him, had she witnessed this kind of ruthless determination, and through it, felt the harshness of the world that had shaped such creatures: what he had called the hungry, haunted look of a predator. So severe were his efforts, so wholly single-minded, that despite her resolve to face the crossing bravely, his unspoken fears began to rub off on her. And the rising walls to either side of them, the quickening current they now entered, turned the world ominous and forbidding once more. Almost she resented him for it, as if his actions had somehow changed the very nature of the stream.

As for Kalus, he had said his prayer, and now set out with every weapon at his disposal to make it unnecessary. Self-reliance remained the golden rule of his existence, and he knew that all their lives were in his hands. The hands of the Nameless, if they existed at all, were a thing beyond his (or any man's) control.

But there was no more time for such thoughts. The Broad River was broad no longer, its sh.o.r.e no longer peaceful and forested. Great cliffs rose up on their right, the last reaches of the granite ridge. To the north the gray rock was not as steep, but its effect on the river was the same. All its wide and lazy waters now issued with great force through a deep, narrow channel scarcely sixty yards wide, falling nearly twice that distance in less than a mile. The result was a horrific, white-water chute, now drawing them swiftly to itself. Kalus' harsh voice cut through the growing roar.

'Tie down the cub,' he commanded, 'And then yourself. Take solid hold of the paddle; we've got to keep the boat running straight. And for anything short of death, DON'T LET GO OF THE PADDLE.

Now!'

Half stunned, hardly knowing where she was, Sylviana obeyed him. She made the whimpering pup lie down, and bound her securely. Then with shaking hands she tied the waist-rope about herself. She straightened and took hold of the shaft, both knuckles and face turning coldly white.

She glimpsed at Kalus, who nodded gravely. This danger they both understood.

Several times through the roar and spray of their pa.s.sage, the boat tried to whip about and dash itself against the rocks, or turn sideways to be rolled and lost. But each time, one of the rowers would pull forward with desperate strength while the other steered or slapped back at the water till the blade finally dug in against the fume: straight ahead, blocking out the screaming fear, determined.

And when the smoking mists cleared and the chaos died away, as the tract broadened and the waters smoothed again just as swiftly, their craft remained, unbroken and undaunted. Kalus gave a cry and shook his fist at the sky, while the girl wept. Another obstacle had failed to defeat them.

But Kalus was given no time for celebration, and he knew it. Soon they would enter the delta, and the meeting with the more voluminous North River. Immediately he threw down the paddle and took up the longer, stouter steering oar. The sail was heavy and wet, bunched unevenly along the yard; but with supreme, unyielding effort he tried to angle the craft into the wind, which to his dismay now turned nearly straight from the North.

The mast gave a troubled groan; the right hull and stern sank dangerously low in the water. But that was all. He could change the direction of the prow but not their course. The hulls' edges simply would not bite and drive them forward.

For all his cursing the craft barely held center. And soon the North River would be upon them. Sylviana raised her dripping face, her chest heaving both with oxygen and emotion. And for all her trauma, she felt a swift and stark moment of recognition. Creeping feelers of memory had been pushing at her consciousness for weeks, since they came to the cove and she caught her first glimpse of the Island in the distance. Now their message hammered through.

The island that lay before them, broad and flat across the muddy waters of the delta. . .was the ruin of once proud New York City. The river to the north was the Hudson.

She gazed at it in a stupor of disbelief. Not a single sc.r.a.per touched the skies of Manhattan, only mangled upheavals of stone and steel. The City had been stripped to a foundation of jagged, broken teeth, then left to endure ten thousand years of weathering.

NEW YORK! All this time, feeling at the ends of the earth, she had been less than twenty miles from the place of her birth. It was too incredible to accept, too unlikely to be anything but the truth. Her spirit swooned at the sight of it.

But whatever the Christian name of the river they now encountered, to Kalus it might as well have been the Finger of Satan. The two currents merged into an uneasy bay, lapping slowly but steadily south-eastward.

He redoubled his efforts with both sail and paddle, striking furiously at the water till the veins of his forehead seemed ready to burst. But he could not fight the devilish pull.

Away! It carried them away! With all Sylviana's help, he could draw no closer to the Island. The SEA lay beyond, nothing but the sea! Dear G.o.d, it was slow, certain death that awaited them! In the final measure he had failed, miserably and utterly. He tore down the Judas sail and fell forward and surrendered to despair.

They were lost.

Chapter 36

But in his despair and hopeless fear of it, Kalus had forgotten (or never knew) that the Sea could also be benevolent. The Sea, which has ways and currents of its own, and to whom the incoming waters were hardly a ripple of sand in the Sahara. The fresh water currents subsided, and the waves of the Atlantic took over. Subtler, more profound, at worst they would have cast them back upon the mainland.

But by a distance no greater than the trunk of a fallen tree, he had set their craft far enough east to be held by the confines of a far greater stream. Sweeping northward along the whole coast of America, washing even the pebbles of Nova Scotia before turning eastward toward Britain and the European main: the subtly altered, and miraculous Gulf Stream.

For a long time it seemed the boat moved not at all. And lost in sorrow and dark reverie, none of its pa.s.sengers stirred. Only the cub seemed alive, whimpering in the wet bottom of the sh.e.l.l until the woman untied her. At length Kalus rose, to apologize with broken heart for killing them all.

But the words were never spoken. Somehow the boat had turned about, and no longer faced southward. For a time he wasn't sure, afraid of some trick..... Yes! If the vessel moved at all it was north and a little east. They had missed the southwest facet of the Island, but if they paddled with strength and good hope, perhaps they might still affect a landing on its more easterly sh.o.r.es. He was no sailor: he had neither the skill nor the vessel for sailing. But strength still lived in his arms, and fires still burned in his heart. He turned to Sylviana.

'Have you any strength left?' he asked her. 'The current no longer bears us ill, but I think we must still approach the Island on our own.'

'I'm exhausted, Kalus. I feel half drowned..... Can I rest a while first?'

'Yes. If you can steer just a little, I will try to row for both of us.' The woman-child set her paddle listlessly in the water, steering with it as best she could, until pride and returning stamina enjoined her to paddle on her own.

They continued on in this way for several hours, resting at intervals, gradually, so gradually drawing nearer the rocky shoals of the great island. Kalus now began to search for a less dangerous strip of beach, confident that if such could be found, by hook or by crook they would reach it, and effect some kind of landing.

So engrossed was he in searching the coast. . .that for a long while he did not notice the great fin that had risen to starboard, and began to parallel their course at a distance neither great nor small, cunning with the patience of a predator. It was not until it turned and began to bore in on them, as the girl caught her breath and froze in terror, that he saw it.

But once seen there was no forgetting. Black and straight as an ebon keel, it cut through the swells with effortless grace, a torpedoing, half-defined shadow beneath it. No small, Child-bearing female this, but a magnificent bull fully thirty feet long, its knifing dorsal as tall as a man.

And then the blackened knife, like a periscope, sank beneath the level of the waves, and did not reappear. Kalus unfastened his spear, moved forward and stood up in the bow---awed, but fiercely determined to defend his own. All was quiet and still.

Then suddenly (or so it seemed, for the motion was not performed in haste) a great head appeared in front of them, rising perpendicular out of the water, lightly touched by the lapping swells. Above patches of white, dark eyes studied them darkly. The orca seemed to be asking himself, almost casually, were they worth the trouble? Aboard the suddenly diminished craft, the cub set loose a peal of frightened barking, while Kalus showed the whale clearly the point of his spear.

Without haste the creature returned to a swimming posture, and with a rough spout somewhere between laughter and a sneer, began a last, intimidating circle---though whether it intended to attack was not clear, since it drew no closer.

Then to the bewilderment of the company another, smaller fin appeared, as if to join in the kill. But it was not so. Coming between the bull and the tiny ship, the female nudged him almost angrily, then b.u.t.ted him outright in the side. The male at last relented. The two swam off, leaving behind them a riddle that only seemed complicated, because of its simplicity.

Perhaps nowhere else in Nature was the difference between male and female more p.r.o.nounced, or more in harmony with their world. They were a mated pair: the bull nearly twice her size, aggressive and indomitable. And the female: more subtle, more compa.s.sionate (if that is the right word), strong and sure enough to act on both convictions.

Either one alone could be powerful and self-sufficient. Together, nothing could withstand them, true champions of the Sea.

It was Sylviana who spoke first, feeling more acutely the need to talk that comes after tension and danger. Kalus, conversely, remained with his jaw set, trembling and pale, but with the spear clasped firmly in his hand. He did not at first seem to hear her.

'I was never so scared in my life,' she said. No reply.

'Kalus?'

He turned to her, not seeming to know who she was, then answered with half his attention, perhaps a bit coldly. 'Not even before the giant spider?'

.. 'No. Not really. Then I didn't believe what was happening..... Are you all right?' At last his eyes and mind focused, and he too felt the need.

'I have been better. How many shocks am I supposed to be able to face in one day? I feel I've lived a year in just these few hours.' He released a sigh, almost a groan, laying aside for a time his resolve to keep an emotional distance from her. . .until she decided. 'I'm sorry for what I said about the spider. It was thoughtless.'

'It's all right. You're allowed to be human, you know.'