At the Midway (41 page)

Hart learned this through a native interpreter, a man who had spent much of his youth at Kivalina, where white men carried on trade with the white whalers.  He was kept busy the rest of the night as the Eskimos and soldiers swapped tales.

The natives laughed when the signalmen told them of the vast deserts they had traversed while stringing wire.  Wastelands they understood.  Anyone who'd hunted in the Chukchi Sea knew about the eternal ice and snow further north.  And there was their own land, in winter.  But a desert of
sand
?  Hart found out that the Eskimos' laughter was their way of calling someone a liar.

But they seemed amused, nonetheless.  So he went on to tell them about the Bering Sea tunnel that had been proposed by an American consortium.  The Americans had been holding concession negotiations with the Czar, who was very keen on the idea.  The tunnel, and the road connecting it to the Siberian Railway, would run three thousand miles, from East Cape to Kansk. The tunnel itself would run forty miles, at a depth of one hundred and seventy feet, and cost around one hundred million dollars.

His story was greeted with amazed silence.  For no reason Hart could readily discern, they believed every word.  It was, in fact, true.  But so were the deserts.  Either they were convinced of the possibility of the tunnel, or the translator had couched it in language that made the idea more plausible.  Then again, perhaps they were simply stunned by a race of men who would even dream up such a scheme.

In the middle of his recital a woman had entered, causing a momentary stir among the men.  Not that women were excluded from the
karigi.
  A number of them had come in to listen to and observe the strangers.  This one was different, though.  Hart had paused, but she lifted her hand, indicating he should continue.  When he was done, several native men turned to her, seeking her opinion.

"She is the
anatquq
," said the translator in a tone that needed no translation.  She was a witch doctor, a medicine woman.  Also, something of an elder and village advisor.  The English
-
speaking native went on to explain that this was a rare occasion indeed.  Their
anatquq
was a cantankerous soul who usually shunned gatherings.  But she needed to know the motives of the strangers, and what they portended.  After listening to Hart she nodded, said nothing, yet peered closely with hard eyes.

"You aren't the first white men she's seen.  There are the Friends."

Hart understood.  The California Yearly Meeting Friends Church had been operating a mission downriver for over ten years, doing their best to combat the influence of tobacco, rifles and
-
-
above all
-
-
liquor among the natives.  White Man had introduced these demons to the area, and the Friends believed only the White Man's God could save the Eskimos from them.  Several Naupaktomiut, including the medicine woman, had visited the Friends' church at Kotzebue.  She was impressed by their words, in particular their sermons against demon rum.  She remembered when it was first brought in by whalers, in 1860.  She had been a small girl then, yet vividly recalled how hunting parties left the village to find food, only to fall in with traders and get drunk instead.  As a result, famine had struck the river villages for many seasons.  Still, the fact that the Friends were every bit as white as the traders who poisoned the hunters bothered her.  She had been brooding on this for some time, now.  The arrival of the Signal Corps had, apparently, signaled the moment to speak out.

Her tone was low, unemotional.  Almost a monotone.  Although she was highly respected, even revered, the men saw no disrespect in talking while she talked.  They were commenting on what she was saying long before she finished.  And the English
-
speaking native maintained a running translation throughout, for the benefit of the signalmen.

And then she said something that brought a profound hush across the room:  "I had a vision of a
tirichiki
.  It was upriver, where the white men are bound."

By the natives' reaction, Hart suspected she was speaking of huge snowdrifts or fierce rapids.  Obviously, something extremely dangerous.

"What's a turkey... well, what's that she said?"

But the translator shrugged helplessly, unable to think of the correct word in English.  "It's a monster, but not a monster.  It's a demon.  Or a pet."

Before Hart could press further, the old woman shifted the flap on her caribou
-
skin parka and continued.  "It was a true dream.  We who live here know the old story.  How the young man Kultuk killed a boy and stole his food.  When the boy's father came home, Kultuk broke the shaft of a spear and stabbed him as he came through the door.  He committed evil, bringing evil on himself
-
-
but in a way he could not guess.

"He went home to his wife and she told him of a fat village near the sea.  He said he would go there and see what he could take.  His wife tried to stop him.  'No one has ever come back from that village,' she said.  But he ignored her.

"He found the village.  In the
karigi
of the village there was a pet
-
-
a huge monster with scaly skin and tentacles.  A
tirichiki
.  Kultuk found a soft spot in its skin and killed it with a spear while it slept.  Then he set out to rob the village.

"The men of the village found that their pet had been killed and began searching for Kultuk.  They had just trapped him when from out of nowhere the
tirichiki
appeared.  Kultuk grabbed each villager in turn and threw him into the monster's mouth.  But Kultuk soon ran out of enemies, and was swallowed himself.

"The stomach of the
tirichiki
was bright red.  It was lined with the faces of its victims.  Kultuk struck the faces, and suddenly everything went dark.  After many days, he saw a light.  It was a hole.  Using his spear, he widened the hole and escaped.

"He found he had killed the
tirichiki
again while cutting his way out.  He looked close to make sure it was dead, then set out again to rob the village.

"But the monster came back, and swallowed him again."

The
anatquq
closed the folds of her robe.

"Kultuk had entered upon an eternal battle.  That was his punishment for killing the boy and his father.  Whenever he thought he had slain the
tirichiki
, it attacked him again.  Yet the
tirichiki
itself was also fooled, for whenever it felt it had killed the man, Kultuk found a way of escaping.  Neither beast nor man could ever be certain.  The people of this village know this story well.  But I had a true dream."

The translator was still relaying the story when the old woman got up and left.  Whatever conclusions the white men wanted to draw from her story would be their own.  Had the Naupaktomiut incurred eternal enmity from a
tirichiki
by allowing the whites into their village?  Or was the story directed at the white men, a warning to go no farther?  Hart was interested by the variation on the Sisyphus theme.  He wondered how many more stories the
anatquq
had in her.  Seeing the rapid accumulation of the products of civilization in their camps and villages, it was apparent the Eskimo way of life was being drastically altered.  Someone should put the woman's stories in writing, so that the old ways and tales would not be forgotten.

Hart's men found the subject tedious, and were glad when their hosts turned from mythical monsters to more risqué adventures.  For the rest of the night the
karigi
rocked with laughter as stories were exchanged on a subject even more ancient than monsters.

Later, of course, it dawned on Hart that the
anatquq
had not been trying to overawe them with native lore.  She'd had, as she'd put it, a true dream.  A fact that haunted Hart almost as much as the attack itself.

Struggling back downriver, alone, he eventually stumbled into the village.  The Naupaktomiut were not glad to see him this time.

They had helped him as much as they could, yet they did not offer to escort him to his people.  Catastrophe had struck twice.  The day after Hart's men had passed through on their way upriver, again three weeks later.  All told, seven men had vanished.  Survivors spoke of something vast and dark, moving, and Hart's story confirmed them.  They equated his earlier arrival with the first appearance of the beasts, and were afraid if he stayed much longer they would return.  He was the forerunner of death.  Nor could they offer him a bidarki, since too many boats had already been lost when the fishermen vanished.

Still, Hart's memory of the villagers supplied him with a warm inner glow over the tortuous weeks it took him to reach the mouth of the river.  The weather was clement, and the nights not unreasonably cold.  There were berries and fish to eat, if barely enough to stave starvation.  Yet Hart's world was now twisted beyond recognition.  He was not even sure he wanted to return to white civilization.  The Army would strip him of rank, civilians would look at him askance, and Hart himself would face mirrors with uncertainty.  When he finally stumbled into Kotzebue, his hunger was as much of the soul as of the body.

He had believed the creatures were born of the vast unexplored Alaskan interior. How else to explain their absence from the bestiary?  Yet here they were, at Midway.  The same creatures, no doubt.  Thousands of miles from the Kiltik.  Still, his fear was moderated by an odd elation.  Perhaps his luck was not awful, but spectacularly good.  He was, after all, being presented a miraculous second chance.

Even after he was relieved from the fork and spoon telegraph and he fell asleep on a pillow of sand, his mind refused to rest.  He did not dream of monsters, however.  The embellishments of his imagination fed his fear, yet also somehow transported him beyond horror.  He dreamed of things floating, high up and over the horizon, where he was greeted by Abraham.

2200 Hours

Private Lieber, on the other hand, dreamed of nothing but monsters.  Before Sergeant Ziolkowski nudged him awake, the terrors from the sea ranged far and wide over the vistas of his subconscious.  They consumed everything in sight, including the land itself.  One of them wore a mask of the Kaiser and charged with a guttural roar, while donkeys ran in panic, braying in an all too familiar voice.  His own.

"Ach!" Lieber's eyes popped open.

"Your shift on the mouth-gram."  Which was what Ziolkowski called the fork and spoon.

Lieber could just make out the sergeant's outline in the dark.  "Am I awake?"

"Hell, I think so.  What kind of question is that?  Get down to the bunker."

"I can't see."

"Follow the ropes."

"Ach, where are
they
?"

"Take my hand."

Lieber allowed himself to be led to one of the guide ropes Anthony had laced the compound with.  "Follow this one in," came the gunnery sergeant's command as he secured Lieber's fingers to the rope.  The private shivered.  He had seen Ziolkowski just before nightfall.  The Top was still alive, no question about that.  Yet darkness disembodied him.  His voice floated down from the infinite.  From the realm of the dead.  It reinforced the feeling--shared by most of the others--that they were dragging their feet in their graves.

A troglodytic existence might extend their lives a month or so.  It was preferable to standing out in the open and waiting for the end, but not by much.  The situation was hopeless
-
-
and for a handful of them, dreary, even boring.  Had the creatures not shown a proclivity for sinking small boats, they would have rowed away no matter what the risk because it was simply something to do.

Lieber was not one of these.  He was intensely interested in the creatures.  How could puny man destroy such beings?  His imagination ran rampant with death
-
dealing prospects.

Taking up his post in the bunker, he carefully wiped the saliva off the utensils as the marine he was spelling rose up.

"Semper Fidelis," Depoy whispered sarcastically.

"Shemper F-eeus," Lieber responded, the fork and spoon already in his mouth.

Settling in, he found he was not in the least bored by this duty.  It summoned all the patience he used while awaiting the approach of a shark--knowing all the while he might lose a hand, a foot or his life in the upcoming battle.  Lieber enjoyed a good shark steak, yes.  But more, when he killed a shark, he felt he had achieved a small victory over evil.  The big fish did not always win.

Something so magnificent it could not be killed....  It stirred Lieber's soul.  With their pluck, intelligence and courage the marines on Midway should have been able to kill any creature on the planet.  With cost, perhaps, but with a carcass or head for a trophy in the end.  Not so now. There was a new master of the earth.

It seemed oddly appropriate, to be crouched in inky blackness contemplating an indestructible god. 
The men hunkered around him seemed like bedraggled survivors of a destroyed civilization.  The objects in their mouths caused them to hiss and drool as they breathed.  The early morning hours lumbered past like ancient freighters.  Every so often the man next to Lieber would begin to snore, inciting a kick from him.  Once, the sleepy marine murmured, "Aw hell, it don't work.  Even if it did work, it don't."