William Vollmann - The Atlas

The next evening three figures went poling very slowly out in an aluminum canoe, the nose tipping down almost to water level with every stroke of the tall one, and then they vanished behind a sailing ship in the middle of the harbor. A young woman rode a bike with her baby in the armauti of her parka. Her girlfriend came running after her, laughing. She swung off her bike and walked off beside her friend. Their footsteps were very crisp in the brown sand. That was when the youngest grandson went to the old man and the old man said: Tomorrow.

So it was that on that subsequent morning of excellent weather the old man in old grayish kamiks throttled his Peterhead slowly out of the harbor. The blocky blind-windowed houses grew small. There was one roof that had a rack of caribou antlers on it. These silhouetted themselves into the stalks of some strange weed, blended with the power wires behind them, and vanished. The two fuel towers retracted into the wide low land, and the town became the merest cluster of pastel-colored protrusions. The young boys with dogskin-ruffed parkas lay dozing on the cabin hatch, while the grandson who always got in trouble helped the old man string wire. The old man called him "the bad boy" because his parents had named him with a white man's name and the old man hated to speak English. The bad boy was not so very bad. He used to cut holes in beached boats and smash the windows of shacks, but he was still trying to finish high school and he loved his grandfather very much. He called the younger boys, in ascending order of age, One-Nut, Two-Nuts and Three-Nuts. He was Four-Nuts. He sat down among the bow's rusty chains that resembled guts.

The old man sat on top of the pilothouse, letting his legs hang down and steering with the sole of one foot inside an old grayish kamik. His kamiks were made of sealskin, which is waterproof footwear and not too warm for summer, and the duffel liners rose up above the tie and went almost to his knees. He sat, and you might have thought he was resting, but he was not. His foot was steering, and his eyes were watching for animals and ice, and his hands were busy taping wire with black electrical tape. The young men strung this wire up the mast cables. They saw a seal, but let it go because they were hunting walrus first.

Is this your seventeen magnum? one grandson called to another. — They were loading the rifles now. — Hey, what should I use, a softpoint or a hollowpoint?

Near the boat the sea was as flat as a blue-brown lake, and the sun's white reflection flapped along in it. It was breezeless, but cold, and the grandson who always got in trouble buttoned his collar up to the neck. One of the grown men stood in the hatchway, chewing a mouthful of bannock, working his gloved fingers. The boy who hated white people sat sullenly with his back turned toward me and sighted in his rifle. I was only allowed along because I had paid three hundred dollars. No one else had to pay anything. This boy had threatened to shoot the white construction foreman for no reason, and the foreman, who was big and wise and tough, just told him: Go ahead. I'm ready for you anytime. — The boy who hated white people was very angry at me because I had only paid three hundred dollars and he thought that I should have paid five hundred. As for the old man, he did not dislike me very much, but he never smiled at me or said a word to me. I didn't care; I was used to it. The grandson who always got in trouble liked me well enough and sometimes came to my tent to eat some of my dried meat.

Hey, let me see some of your seventeen bullets, said the grandson who always got in trouble. Then he started to go to the hatchway. He said to me: That's what we do, is sit with the old guy, take turns. Been doin' that ever since we were old enough to know the guy. Kind of a thrill to be sittin' next to him.

But later they were admiring each other's guns, and the old man sat alone, watching ahead and steering with his feet in those old grayish kamiks.

They crossed the floe-edge quickly, sighting through their guns. The old man had said that One-Nut could harpoon the walrus because he was the youngest. One-Nut looked proud and a little anxious, so the grandson who always got in trouble leaned toward him and said: My big sister harpooned a seal herself up by Repulse Bay, so she beat me! I was jealous, but so happy for her. Last time I tried, but then when the seal's head came up I got scared. That's why I've only shot them.

Then he winked at his own fear, and One-Nut giggled.

From a distance the edge of the ice was a series of black speckles in a line like rocks. Presently these resolved into a long slab of turquoise with darker pyramids and trapezoids on it. The young boys sat on the hatchcover, passing a scoped rifle from eye to eye.

Hey, little brother, you want one of my seven-six-twos? — This was the grandson who always got in trouble, who owned a Yugoslavian rifle from which he'd taken the bayonet. One-Nut nodded.

Now they were at the place of sharp ice-islets where it was sunny and cold. The old man sat smiling slightly, steering through them with barely perceptible motions of his foot on the wheel.

In a place where the water was so shallow that they could see the rocks and blackish algae on the green bottom, somebody pointed. There was a piece of brown ice in the distance. A bearded seal might have shed his winter coat there, or walruses might have shat there.

The old man said one word and throttled the motor down. Everyone was standing, looking. Hunters' faces swooped from side to side. They stepped up onto the gunwales and watched. Only the young children moved or talked, and these did so quietly.

Then the old man pulled the throttle open again, and they went on and on in that sunny world of ice-islands.

A seal came up for breath very close, and the grandson who always got in trouble chambered a round and went to the side. But the old man, who could kill a beluga whale in one shot, did not stop, and the seal disappeared.

The water kept getting deeper and shallower. Dripping white blue-shadowed ice-beasts hid their blue bulking underwater. Some ice was low and broad like a crab's back. Some was canted.

There were two grandsons sitting with the old man right then, and suddenly all three fired shots, then stood, rifle-points funning out.

Ee-yah! cried One-Nut.

Two-Nuts's spotted a walrus!

Black shapes sprawled on the ice. The boat ran quietly in the blue-gray water between the floes. Everyone gathered round the old man in old grayish kamiks, who just smiled faintly.

Three walrus!

Where's my seven-six-seven? Gotta start putting my hardpoints in this thing.

Bareheaded like the others, the grandson who always got in trouble fed the dull golden bullets in.

My grandpa don't think they're walrus, said One-Nut. He think they're nothing.

Seal, right there!

Better not shoot it, or the walrus will go underwater.

No. Those aren't walruses, said the grandson who always got in trouble. Just dirty ice. I should shoot it just for looking like that.

Just then a shot pealed over the ice. The boat almost stopped.

Fast bullet, eh?

Why don't you use two twenty-two?

Glaring ahead, they fired almost simultaneously, their barrels dark against the pale water. The boat moved slowly onward.

Get the bullets for my gun, Three-Nuts. In the box.

They fired again, the reports again almost simultaneous. The air smelled like gunpowder. There were three concentric ripples, very close, and the seal's head came up again, then ducked down too quickly, before the animal could draw breath. Again they shot, and the boat ghosted forward; again, and water leaped up around the seal's lurking-place. Suddenly the seal vanished. The boat slowed even more and everyone looked around on all sides.