The Eskimo Invasion (7 page)

 

 

"Soon-soon," Edwardluk's voice kept soothing, and during the afternoon
of the fourth day finally Edwardluk halted the dogs at the foot of a
massive stone promontory. He stared up toward the gigantic ledge. Then
he smiled wanly at Dr. West. "Burned Place up there."

 

 

His small hands becoming clumsy, Edwardluk finally tied the sled to a
boulder at the base of the promontory. Their noses pointed toward the
ledge, the dogs whined. Indecisively Edwardluk picked up his harpoon
and set it down again. "Peterluk has so much power in the -- the Navel
of the World."

 

 

As if he were afraid, Edwardluk made no move to start to climb.

 

 

Clutching his rifle, staring up toward the ledge, Dr. West wondered:
Navel of the World? A pit or crater up there? The navel symbolizes
sexual power to these people, and birth. But this is the Navel of the
World. A focus of power?

 

 

The only focus around here which he could think of was of the Earth's
magnetic lines of force converging at the North Magnetic Pole.
Which
they've never heard of.

 

 

Up in the Earth's ionosphere, the magnetically trapped radiation belts did
dimple inward here, he thought, above the North Magnetic Pole. Looking up,
he half-expected the squat silhouette of Peterluk to appear against the sky.

 

 

Dr. West started climbing. Back in the 1950s when he was born, early space
scientists had been too concerned about the Van Allen belts, he thought.
They'd suggested manned flights should be directed out through this polar
hole in the radiation doughnut.
A center of weakness?
Dr. West grinned,
hearing Edwardluk finally following him up the sloping cliff.

 

 

With his rifle slung over his back, Dr. West scrambled toward the top.
Already he could smell seal oil, dog odors, typical smells of an Eskimo
camp. Breathing harder than necessary, Dr. West thought he'd heard too
many midnight tales of Peterluk's so-called powers.

 

 

As he raised his head, from eye level the ledge appeared to spread out
as immensely as a football field. Oddly, the top of a tent seemed to be
protruding from the solid rock.

 

 

When he stood up on the ledge, Dr. West was looking down into a shallow
gouge or crater in the blackened rock. The tent was squatting at the bottom,
surrounded by fiercely clamoring dogs.

 

 

Seeing they were tied, Dr. West walked down over the charred rocks. Under
his boots crunched small shards like white china. He realized these might
be fragments from the same ceramic material the Eskimos had salvaged to
use as seal oil lamps. Cautiously he walked toward the dogs and the dark
opening in the tent.

 

 

From behind, Edwardluk's hand restrained him.

 

 

"Our hands are empty," Edwardluk shouted at the tent.

 

 

Dr. West felt foolish, standing there clutching his rifle in plain sight.

 

 

"We love you," Edwardluk shouted past the dogs toward the triangular
opening in the tent. Edwardluk repeated his love so interminably that
the bored dogs lay down, whining.

 

 

Dr. West supposed this small crater was the dark spot he and the pilot
had noticed from the air. By airplane flight this rugged promontory had
been only fifteen minutes north of the camp. By dog sled, four days --

 

 

Cautiously, Edwardluk was edging toward the tent's entry, still murmuring
about love and peace. At the last moment he stopped because a harpoon had
poked out against his stomach. As he backed off, a leathery-faced Eskimo
woman emerged, turning the harpoon toward Dr. West.

 

 

"Eevvaalik, do not fear this whiteman," Edwardluk's voice apologized.

 

 

"Who fears? This person knew many whitemen." In bitterly long agglutinative
Eskimo word-phrases she began recalling insulting girlhood experiences with
sickly stingy whitemen, while smiling innocently at Dr. West.

 

 

"He speaks our language!" Edwardluk bleated in belated warning.

 

 

"Good. We understand each other." Her insolent gaze moved downward from
Dr. West's eyes to his rifle.

 

 

"Eevvaalik," Dr. West began awkwardly, "where is your -- husband?"

 

 

She laughed or coughed. "You are afraid to say his name?"

 

 

In her challenging smile, her teeth were brown stubs. Dr. West wondered
how many years she had spent chewing her husband's boots to soften them.
Her hair was streaked with gray. He noticed her parka was beautifully
decorated with white fox tails and expertly sewn, compared with the crude
parkas of the young people back at the camp. Her wrinkled face seemed
sculptured by frostbite and years of freezing winds, in contrast to the
unweathered complexions of the others he had met.

 

 

"Your husband is named Peterluk," Dr. West stated. "We have not come to
arrest him. We are not with the Guards. We are not with the police. We are
-- friends."

 

 

"You come for fox furs after all these years?" Eevvaalik suggested and
smiled, baring her worn teeth. "You have -- lipstick?"

 

 

"No, but when I return I will bring many things."

 

 

"A
Sony
box with new
Evereadys
?" Eevvaalik parroted in English:
"
Cleaner than Clean. Don't you Know What's Happening, Mr. Jones?
"

 

 

"Is your husband in the tent?"

 

 

" This is the CBC. This baby-man," she laughed contemptuously toward
Edwardluk, "does not even believe voices come out of a box."

 

 

"Where is your husband?" Dr. West repeated, hoping the unseen Peterluk
wasn't squinting at him now along a rifle barrel.

 

 

"All these young people are fools who will starve," she chattered.
"All of this land was my husband's, and now there are so many people there
are no caribou, and all will starve." Her voice drowned in a paroxysm of
coughing. "My husband, sometimes -- he says -- he will kill you."

 

 

Gurgling phlegm, she spat on the dark rocks. As she raised her tortured
face with red saliva hanging from her chin, Dr. West realized this was
the first case of tuberculosis he'd seen in the Sanctuary. Those young
Eskimos didn't even have summer colds.

 

 

"Where are the other old people?" Dr. West gently asked her.

 

 

She wiped her chin. Edwardluk elbowed Dr. West. Pointing with his stubby
nose, Edwardluk was facing the big rocks silhouetted along the other rim
of the crater.

 

 

"We are your friends!" Edwardluk shouted and began walking toward that
hulking rim, spreading his arms like a willing target. "See, this person
is Edwardluk. We love you. Even this powerful whiteman loves you."

 

 

There was no rifle shot as Edwardluk reached the huge rocks. Among them
he disappeared.

 

 

Laughter came down from the rocks. Edwardluk came down with his arm
upon the shoulder of a massive Eskimo. The bushy hair and lowered head
made Dr. West think of a musk-ox. The big hands hung empty. Dr. West
was relieved that Peterluk was not carrying his fabled rifle.

 

 

As Peterluk approached, Dr. West saw his parka was fringed with ermine
tails. As Peterluk raised his broad face, his big teeth gleamed and
muscles bulged on the sides of his massive Eskimo jaw.

 

 

But Peterluk's jutting nose, Dr. West thought cautiously, suggested a Boston
whaling captain in his ancestry. Now Dr. West became uncomfortably aware
of Peterluk's avid glances at his rifle.

 

 

As if initiating a whiteman's handshake, Peterluk extended his
mahogany-colored hand, rough with frost scars. Gripping Dr. West's right
hand, Peterluk lowered his bushy head, his eyes disappearing beneath
all that shaggy black hair as he peeked down. He seemed to be staring
at Dr. West's left leg or rather at Dr. West's rifle which was leaning
against his left leg. Dr. West's left hand involuntarily tightened on
his rifle.

 

 

When Dr. West relaxed his right hand as a hint the handshake was over,
Peterluk's suddenly raised eyes glinted through his shaggy hair. Gently,
irresistibly, he continued holding Dr. West's right hand.

 

 

"Furs-furs," Peterluk's voice murmured in English. "Furs? Peter has furs.
Understand?"

 

 

"Later we will trade," Dr. West replied in Modern Eskimo, tightening
his own grip in defense against Peterluk's tightening grasp.

 

 

Peterluk laughed in amazement. "You understand us."

 

 

"This person is trying to -- " Dr. West laughed in relief, quickly explaining
he was not a Guard or a policeman. "This person is wondering where are the
other strong hunters, the Eskimos who were with you when the whitemen closed
off this land."

 

 

Peterluk peered past Dr. West's arm, probably at Eevvaalik, Dr. West
thought, his own hand beginning to feel numb.

 

 

"Many fine fox furs," Peterluk's voice grunted with exertion.

 

 

Dr. West had to tighten his own grip in self-defense, hardening his whole
arm like a trembling iron bar, trying to harden his hand to protect it from
being crushed.

 

 

"Eh-eh, you are a strong man," Peterluk laughed excitedly.

 

 

Straining there, Dr. West didn't know what to do. Peterluk was smiling
like a friend.

 

 

"We are friends," Dr. West said hopefully. "You are a man who understands.
You are a strong man who understands where all these young Eskimos come
from -- "

 

 

"Eskimos?
Innuit?
"

 

 

"Yes, did they come from the north?"

 

 

"Eh-eh, from the north," Peterluk laughed derisively as if he didn't care
what he said. "From the north."

 

 

"But these people have a legend they were born here on the Boothia Peninsula."

 

 

"Humpback monster-man split open," Peterluk began insolently.

 

 

"No, not that old legend. Tell me how these young people came to the
Boothia Peninsula."

 

 

Like an animal's hard jaw, Peterluk's grip tightened. "All lies! There is
no Grandfather Bear coming down from the sky. You and me don't believe
ignorant things like that!"

 

 

"Then why are you," Dr. West resisted, "camped here in the Burned Place?"

 

 

"Old woman, close your mouth," Peterluk bellowed, as if he thought Eevvaalik
had said something. "She lies. No star fell here."

 

 

"A star? If a star fell here years ago, where is the iron?" Dr. West was
thinking of a meteorite.

 

 

"No star. Bad candles made my navel of power," Peterluk laughed defiantly
at Dr. West's face. "Iron box of bad candles."

 

 

"This crater was not made by sticks of dynamite," Dr. West retorted,
trying to twist his hand free --

 

 

"You think this person lies?" Peterluk shouted like a madman. "Then you don't
believe the Egg of God fell here. You don't believe a whitemen's ship poked
up its eye on a stick. Like a whale with many whitemen but this person was
stronger than -- you!"

 

 

Peterluk lunged against Dr. West, his other hand seizing the barrel
of Dr. West's rifle. As Dr. West strained backward, struggling to free
his rifle, Peterluk's head slammed his chest, ramming him backward off
balance. Peterluk's massive head with an upward heave like an uppercut
struck Dr. West's jaw. Staggering back, Dr. West still managed to cling
to his rifle with his left hand. Peterluk was crushing his right hand
as they struggled, and Dr. West gasped at Edwardluk: "Help -- "

 

 

He glimpsed Edwardluk simply standing there with a worried expression
like a pacifist. He glimpsed Eevvaalik stepping forward, raising the harpoon.

 

 

With that jolt of adrenal fear, Dr. West violently twisted, trying to
turn Peterluk for a shield against her harpoon. Both men fell to their
knees. Dr. West bounced up so quickly his other knee struck Peterluk's
rising face. With new strength in his left arm, he yanked his rifle up,
slamming it down at Peterluk's ducking face. Its steel receiver clanged
against Peterluk's forehead. Peterluk sank to his knees like a wounded
musk-ox.

 

 

His rifle freed, Dr. West whirled to face Eevvaalik, who already was
running away. Her harpoon had vanished.

 

 

Warned by Edwardluk's shout, Dr. West looked down at Peterluk rising
with blood streaming over his forehead and into one eye. His huge face
lurched straight at the rifle's muzzle, and Dr. West stepped back.

 

 

His face contorted, Peterluk took one forward step. With a howl of rage
like an injured child, Peterluk whirled, running away toward the rocks
from which he had emerged.

 

 

Edwardluk was running after him, shrilly shouting: "Father, don't do it.
Grandfather Bear does not allow -- "

 

 

Edwardluk ran back as if shielding Dr. West. "Run, because his rifle is
louder then yours -- "

 

 

Dr. West raised his rifle, looking at the silhouetted rocks along the rim.
He didn't want to shoot Peterluk, who was the one person who seemed to know
what had happened on the Boothia Peninsula. If Peterluk really had a rifle
which still operated, he would have the advantage of firing from cover.
Dr. West ran, overtaking Edwardluk. He could feel a cold .30 caliber spot
on the back of his neck as he ran toward the cliff. Over the edge, they
went sliding down toward the tiny sled below. With instant efficiency,
Edwardluk freed the sled. Looking up over the sights of his rifle,
Dr. West saw no movement or sign of Peterluk against the sky.