The Last Tide

The morning chill stung her face. The branches hung unnaturally still, a sharp reminder of how alone she was. Lalik was acutely aware that the broken branch grove was an unlikely choice of place to meet. It wasn’t safe to be alone in a land where predators roam. Her stomach churned; yet if she hadn’t come, she would lose her only chance to meet him alone.

She felt a vibration in the air, an energy emanating from the birds in the branches, before he appeared. Abruptly, he burst out, full of impatience. Tight muscles rippled around sharp, bony shoulders, and he approached quickly, kicking at the frost-hard ground and sizing her up.

At thirty-two, she must look ancient to him. The hard work of living here was etched into her face.

“Grandma…” he mumbled, “I’m happy you came.”

“Klak, you grow taller every day,” she said, flattering him.

Her grandson, Klak, had a handsome face, one that could make young women swoon like his father’s once had. But Klak was still young, far too impatient for courting, or listening to anyone or anything but the fluttering of the desires of his own heart.

“Why meet here?”

“I couldn’t give you this in front of the others.” He pulled out a rabbit, and gave it to her.

She nodded, accepting it. Food was always welcome. “Now, do you have anything to say to me?”

He shrank a few inches, cowering. She stared him down, not giving him another inch to retreat to.

“I’m sorry,” he said and then fumbled over his words. “I’m sorry, for calling you…“ The terrible names she called him the day before hurt, but she wouldn’t let it show.

She stood even taller. “Klak, all you care about is scurrying around and putting your rock carvings everywhere for people to see,” she snapped. “You need to learn to worship the spirit of the glacier and respect your tribe.”

Unexpectedly, Klak's body relaxed. Perhaps he had heard her speech before.

“The glacier doesn’t feed us, Grandma. The mastodon do. And there’s plenty of mastodon, always are and always will be.”

Lalik began to circle him, in the manner of a plains lion. He stood perfectly still, not circling back as a rival would.

“You don’t follow the tradition of the old days!”

In the distance, the white wall of ice shimmered under the morning sun, shedding meltwater in glittering streams. They lived below the glacier, collecting gems the ice spat out and filling animal skins with its clean, cold water. More importantly, the animals of the south were blocked by the glacier were easy to hunt. Because of this, other tribes had moved close to their land. It only took a few things for conflict to bloom.

Klak stealing a rabbit from their land was clearly one of those things.

“Are you hiding anything from me?”

“No!” he shouted back, his face burning red.

Fair enough. She had secrets of her own. Some could destroy their tribe, and must never be known. Keeping secrets was a burden of leadership.

The ground shook. They heard the glacier groan and crack. It had calved a mile high tower of ice onto the grassy plain. In the summer the glacier crumbled, and in the winter it grew back. Legend said it had stood for ten thousand years, forming the edge of their world.

“Good,” Lalik replied. “I will make you a fine rabbit stew tonight, Klak.”

The boy was so rash, yet sometimes, he could be armed with an incredible will.

That night as she watched him eat ravenously, and it felt like a dream that only a dozen summers ago he had been an infant held at the breast of her daughter. For a little while, the fire crackled peacefully and Lalik felt the old warmth of a grandmother and grandson between them.

“You’re the only one who still knows the Festival of the Tides,” Lalik told him quietly. “I taught you the steps when you were small. The chants. The way we move like water.”

“I’ve forgotten it!” Klak laughed, looking confident and back to his usual defiance. “It’s stupid. No one here has seen the sea. The young people of both tribes laugh at it. The Nolar already hate us. A dance won’t change that.”

Lalik accused him of forgetting who they were. Klak accused her of living in the past. Finally, he stormed off into the gathering dusk..

He did not come back that night.

Lalik reminded herself of how a daily routine, food, work, taking care of our elderly relatives, can make one forget their most essential duty. Nourishing their spiritual soul.

Klak returned the next morning, limping, eye swollen shut, lip split. Three Nolar hunters had caught him in their pastures. They told him the land near the glacier was theirs alone now. No more sharing. It would be a disaster for Lalik’s tribe.

Seeing the sight of his blood, she recoiled, and he must have sensed it.

So much human conflict is caused by a misbalance of wants. Klak wanted vengeance and to show his strength to the young women of our tribe. Lalik wanted safety for her great-grandchildren. She must tame this wild energy of Klak to make him a valuable member of the tribe.

Lalik cleaned his wounds with melted snow. When she finally spoke, her voice was tired.

“The Festival of the Tides is in three days. I will hold it whether the Nolar come or not. I am the last soul who remembers every movement, every song. After me, it dies.”

Klak stared at the fire. “They won’t come. They’ll probably attack us instead.”

“We must do this for the spirit of your father, your uncle Gep, your older brother…” The list of men who had died early in her village was long.

Klak bowed his head at the memory of the men who taught him to hunt, and to fight.

“The earth remembers what we forget,” Lalik said, gazing out toward the hillock where they were all buried.

On the third evening, her small tribe gathered warily at the foot of a long grassy slope that ended at a sheer drop, the hunting cliff. The glacier loomed above them like a silent witness.

A while later the Nolar arrived, greater in numbers and grumbling about being summoned.

A cold wind descended from the glacier, making everyone shiver.

Lalik walked alone into the open space between the groups. She carried nothing but a bundle of feathers and a small drum made of stretched hide. She looked tiny against the white wall of ice.

She began to sing.

It was an old, old song—half chant, half animal cry. She moved like water: slow, then rushing, then pulling back. Her feet traced the ancient crossing of the Bering Sea, the way her ancestors had walked when the world was younger and the ice had opened a path. She danced the struggle against currents, the relief of new land, the gratitude to whatever powers had let them survive.

At first, the Nolar sneered. Some of Klak’s own people looked embarrassed.

But Lalik kept singing. Her voice cracked, yet did not stop.

Klak watched her. Small, stubborn, thirty-two years old and carrying ten thousand years on her back. Something in his chest hurt. He stepped forward and joined her.

His movements were clumsy at first. He had not practiced in years. But the rhythm was still in his bones. One by one, others followed.

The Nolar elders watched. One old woman with gray braids finally stood and walked forward. Then her grandson. Then another. Soon, both tribes moved together in the same circling, flowing pattern.

A deep groan arose from the glacier. A section of the white wall calved, not violently, but beautifully, sending a cascade of ice into a meltwater pool below. The sound echoed like a drum. Mist rose and for a moment the shapes in the fog looked like people walking, hundreds of them, crossing an ancient frozen sea.

“The earth remembers what we forget,” Lalik called out, voice ringing.

The dancing slowed. Enemies stood shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard, staring at the glacier as if seeing it for the first time.

The Nolar chief stepped forward. He looked at Lalik for a long time, then at the cliff.

“We will share the land again,” he said gruffly. “And the water. But only if you teach our young ones the dance before you leave this world.”

Lalik smiled, exhausted yet radiant. The Festival of the Tides had worked once more.