Ootah’s father had been perched in the cabin’s shadows, and as his mate of fifty years passed into the land beyond, he vented his sorrow with a gut-wrenching wail. In all his life, Ootah had never seen Nakusiak lose control like this. Yet his cries of grief were short-lived; all too soon he regained his composure and somberly initiated the burial procedures.
Hardly a word was spoken between them as they wrapped the still-warm corpse in a shroud of sealskin.
According to Inuit custom, a stout line was wrapped around her shoulders and the body thusly dragged headfirst out of the cabin. Nakusiak had prepared a shallow grave in a nearby ravine. Here the body was deposited, along with a variety of objects that the deceased would need in the afterlife. These included a soapstone lamp, some flints, a variety of cooking utensils, and some dried caribou meat. Only after the corpse was subsequently covered by a thick mantle of loose stones, to protect it from marauding animals, did Ootah’s father directly address him.
“What is the identity of this stranger that stands before me? Surely it’s not the same son who crawled from the loins of the proud woman we just buried.”
Suddenly aware of his alien costume, Ootah blushed with shame, and tears fell from his eyes.
Sensing his discomfort, Nakusiak continued, this time a bit more compassionately.
“Though you may have tried to cover it with the clothing of the white man, I sense that the blood of the limit still flows inside you. Never again try to hide this fact, or eternal disgrace shall be your reward.”
Ootah humbly nodded.
“I have shamed the family enough for one life, Father. When I first entered the cabin and Mother set her eyes on me, I thought it was her illness that prevented her from identifying me. But now I know differently.”
Ripping off the nylon ski jacket he was wearing, Ootah added.
“I have been gone too long. The white man’s ways have indeed blinded me. Is it too late for me to return to the path of the people?”
A wise grin turned the corners of Nakusiak’s cracked lips as he answered.
“If your heart is pure, of course it isn’t, my son. So come, join me around the fire-circle, and we’ll discuss your homecoming.”
The two talked long into the night, and as a result of this meeting of souls, a plan was formulated. With Nakusiak’s invaluable assistance, Ootah would return to Arctic Bay. Here he would gather together his wife and son, and as soon as the first opportunity presented itself, free them from the alien world of the white man.
The scheme worked perfectly, and nine months ago, Ootah and his family returned to the ways of their ancestors. Gratefully, Ootah accepted his father into his camp. Together with a team of powerful huskies, they lived off the land.
The summer just passed had been a bountiful one.
The caribou herds ran full, and ducks and hare were abundant just as they had been in the old days. Taking this as a good omen, they moved back into Baffin Island’s rugged Brodeur Peninsula to await the winter.
It was at the beginning of the last moon cycle that Nakusiak took ill with a deep cough that brought blood to his lips. Powhuktuk the shaman was called in. Yet even the miracle worker’s most potent spells failed to slake the fiery fever that burned in Nakusiak’s brow.
Without his father’s help, Ootah was forced to go on the hunt by himself. Since the caribou had long since migrated to the south, seal was the meat that would now fill their bellies.
At first Ootah met with some success; a pair of fat ringed seals fell to his harpoon. Yet now that Tornarsuk had returned, their cache was empty, and would continue to be so until the demon was exorcised. Well aware that his father’s rapidly weakening condition was only that much more aggravated by lack of nourishment, Ootah projected his voice in renewed prayer.
Utilizing the blunt end of his harpoon to crack the ice that had gathered at the pool’s edges, he returned his ponderings to the hunt. Oblivious to the howling wind, he once again turned his back to the furious, demonic gusts and approached the open water. New purpose filled his being as he directed his chants to the spirit of the seal.
“To you, whose sweet flesh fills the stomachs of hungry babies, I call. Ascend from the icy depths and surrender your life-giving essence to those in need. I implore you, spirit of the seal, do not forsake us!”
With one hand still holding the ivory-tipped harpoon, Ootah reached into his parka’s central pouch and pulled out a large eider feather. Bending down at the pool’s edge, he then dropped this object into the deep blue water.
Ootah’s eyes were glued to the floating feather as he cocked his harpoon above his right ear and cried out passionately.
“Begone with you, Tornarsuk, you who cause mothers to weep and babies to go to bed hungry! Return to the black abyss from which you crawled and bother us no more with your evil presence.”
This forceful petition was met by an angry gust of frigid wind, and for one fleeing second Ootah doubted his prayer’s effectiveness. Yet this moment of uncertainty was followed by a sudden, unexpected drop in the wind’s velocity. Able to stand fully erect now without fear of being blown over, Ootah watched as a series of bubbles burst onto the pool’s surface.
Expecting the feather to next fly upward as a result of a seal’s exhalation, he readied himself to plunge the tip of the harpoon downward. More bubbles reached the surface, and when a seal still failed to show itself, Ootah’s voice muttered to the wind.
“Come on, brother seal don’t be afraid to show yourself.”
When another series of even larger bubbles broke on top of the pool, the Inuit spoke out excitedly.
“Perhaps what we have down below is not a seal after all. Could it be that your cousin the whale will soon be making an appearance?”
Stirred by such a thought, Ootah prepared himself to greet this unexpected visitor. A whale would definitely be more difficult to fatally wound, yet its abundant flesh would feed his family for weeks on end.
Turning to his right, he bent down and reached out for the coil of sinew rope that lay beside him. With one end of this line already firmly attached to an inflated walrus-bladder float, Ootah tied its free end to his harpoon’s hilt. If the whale wasn’t too large, this crude but effective system would hopefully keep the beast from sinking to the depths once it was speared.
Returning to the pool, Ootah once again cocked the harpoon above his right ear. The bubbles were breaking the surface with a furious regularity now, and peering intently downward to find their source, the Inuit imagined that he could just view a massive, black object ascending with a vengeance.
Though he was well prepared to strike out at the creature regardless of its size, Ootah never had the chance. For before he could make good his attack, the thick pack ice beneath him shattered with an earsplitting concussion that sent him reeling to the icy ground. He struck the ice with such force that for an agonizing moment he had the breath knocked out of him. Struggling merely to breathe, he impotently looked on as the pack ice beneath him violently shook to yet another rumbling, bone-shattering blow.
Well aware that no earthly animal was responsible for such an intense disturbance, Ootah dared to think of the true nature of the one responsible. He had heard the tales of the elders, in which Tornarsuk, the devil, took the form of a frightening sea monster that swallowed both men and kayaks whole. Surely the evil one had taken on such an incarnation. And since it was only a matter of time before the great beast was able to crack the pack ice and get to him, Ootah valiantly struggled to regain his breath and stand.
His lungs were burning with pain as he scrambled to his knees. Unable to fully stand erect because of his trembling limbs, he turned from the ever-widening pool and crawled off on all fours like a terrified infant who had yet to learn to walk. Daring not to look back, he managed to reach his dogsled; he had left it behind a nearby hummock.