approached as she unwrapped the jacket to reveal what looked to him like a gnarly piece of black driftwood attached to a rock.
“It’s a mammoth tooth,” she said. “Look here, these sharp things are the roots, this smooth rounded part here the molar. Feel this chewing surface. Funny, isn’t it?”
John ran his hand over the bumpy surface. He leaned down close and tapped his fingernail against the rock-hard enamel. It was an enormous tooth. The biggest he’d ever seen.
“Here,” she said, “heft it. At first I thought it was just a piece of dirty driftwood, but then when I pulled it up from the mud, then Iknew it was a mammoth tooth. I’ve found a couple others, but this one is in the best condition yet. I can’t believe these roots, they’re like T. Rex teeth.” She handed John the tooth and he nearly dropped it.
“Whoa. I wasn’t expecting it to weigh so much!” John turned the tooth over and over in his hands. “This is amazing! You just found this along the river?”
“Down past all this erosion protection. I started looking where the river is cutting into the bank. People have been finding tusks and bones of mammoths and other ancient creatures there for years. Nights like these I like to imagine what it must have been like when those critters ruled this land. Mammoths, dire wolves, sabre-tooth tigers. These used to be their stomping grounds. Amazing eh?”
The woman took the tooth from him and wrapped the jacket back around it.
“That’s quite the going-away present,” John said.
“I’ll pass the torch of treasure hunting to you,” she said, starting up the grass slope. “If I could give you some advice about living here I’d say this. Don’t just teach and go home at night and hole up in front of the TV like most people do. Get out and learn about life here. This place will teach you more than you’ll ever teach your students.”
“Thanks,” John said, sitting down on one of the boulders. “Good luck getting that thing through security.”
The woman crested the slope and disappeared. John turned back to the river and sat for a while. He crawled over the rocks and found a spot where he could sit with his hand touching the cool surface. He splashed the water and wiped his wet fingers across his face, the rich soil from the mammoth tooth gritty and cold against his skin.
AS SOON AS THE GIRL was well enough, the questions started. She usually waited until night. Sometimes asking them while her fingers danced between the lengths of dried yellow grass she pulled from the thick bundle she carried, or when her fingers were too cold to weavethe grass strands together the questions would come from the depths of his wife’s old sleeping bag. He wondered if she spent the whole day holding them in her head, thinking of different things to ask, just so that they could talk about something at night when they tried to sleep.
Her questions passed the time, especially when their stomachs cried out, almost in response to the nightly howling of the few packs of sled dogs that had been turned loose or managed to escape and had so quickly remembered the instinct of their wolf cousins. Avoid man. The dogs avoided being seen just as he avoided most of her questions. But still, the questions lurked, especially the ones he ignored.
Some he would answer, the ones that didn’t burn. The ones that made sense. The ones that didn’t require a lie. Or a half-truth.
“Why didn’t we get sick, too?”
That was one of those questions that loped around his mind at night. He’d been asking himself. Until the question didn’t really matter any more. Any speculation, about his background, his life before moving to the village, any previous sickness or exposure, presented few possible answers. What traits or characteristics did he share with a blind Yup’ik girl? She was at least ten years younger and had never even travelled beyond the broad tundra plain of the Kuskokwim River Delta. Once he started
“It’s a mammoth tooth,” she said. “Look here, these sharp things are the roots, this smooth rounded part here the molar. Feel this chewing surface. Funny, isn’t it?”
John ran his hand over the bumpy surface. He leaned down close and tapped his fingernail against the rock-hard enamel. It was an enormous tooth. The biggest he’d ever seen.
“Here,” she said, “heft it. At first I thought it was just a piece of dirty driftwood, but then when I pulled it up from the mud, then Iknew it was a mammoth tooth. I’ve found a couple others, but this one is in the best condition yet. I can’t believe these roots, they’re like T. Rex teeth.” She handed John the tooth and he nearly dropped it.
“Whoa. I wasn’t expecting it to weigh so much!” John turned the tooth over and over in his hands. “This is amazing! You just found this along the river?”
“Down past all this erosion protection. I started looking where the river is cutting into the bank. People have been finding tusks and bones of mammoths and other ancient creatures there for years. Nights like these I like to imagine what it must have been like when those critters ruled this land. Mammoths, dire wolves, sabre-tooth tigers. These used to be their stomping grounds. Amazing eh?”
The woman took the tooth from him and wrapped the jacket back around it.
“That’s quite the going-away present,” John said.
“I’ll pass the torch of treasure hunting to you,” she said, starting up the grass slope. “If I could give you some advice about living here I’d say this. Don’t just teach and go home at night and hole up in front of the TV like most people do. Get out and learn about life here. This place will teach you more than you’ll ever teach your students.”
“Thanks,” John said, sitting down on one of the boulders. “Good luck getting that thing through security.”
The woman crested the slope and disappeared. John turned back to the river and sat for a while. He crawled over the rocks and found a spot where he could sit with his hand touching the cool surface. He splashed the water and wiped his wet fingers across his face, the rich soil from the mammoth tooth gritty and cold against his skin.
AS SOON AS THE GIRL was well enough, the questions started. She usually waited until night. Sometimes asking them while her fingers danced between the lengths of dried yellow grass she pulled from the thick bundle she carried, or when her fingers were too cold to weavethe grass strands together the questions would come from the depths of his wife’s old sleeping bag. He wondered if she spent the whole day holding them in her head, thinking of different things to ask, just so that they could talk about something at night when they tried to sleep.
Her questions passed the time, especially when their stomachs cried out, almost in response to the nightly howling of the few packs of sled dogs that had been turned loose or managed to escape and had so quickly remembered the instinct of their wolf cousins. Avoid man. The dogs avoided being seen just as he avoided most of her questions. But still, the questions lurked, especially the ones he ignored.
Some he would answer, the ones that didn’t burn. The ones that made sense. The ones that didn’t require a lie. Or a half-truth.
“Why didn’t we get sick, too?”
That was one of those questions that loped around his mind at night. He’d been asking himself. Until the question didn’t really matter any more. Any speculation, about his background, his life before moving to the village, any previous sickness or exposure, presented few possible answers. What traits or characteristics did he share with a blind Yup’ik girl? She was at least ten years younger and had never even travelled beyond the broad tundra plain of the Kuskokwim River Delta. Once he started
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