Free Afterlands by Steven Heighton Page A

in wait, it seems, for the ice pan to drift nearer, as it appears to be doing, if slowly. Breezes riffle the wolf-fur fringing of his hood. Kruger’s forefinger starts to prickle with the cold. There’s a sharp report and the four deputy hunters open fire and continue shooting as quickly as their fingers can lever and jam the trapdoor-breeches with rounds. The ice pan disintegrates in a fountain of snow and its passenger lurches or falls off with a splash, merging into the black sea. Habn wir’s erwischt? asks Jamka—but Ebierbing is not leaping into his kayak to retrieve any seal. In fact, he is staring over his shoulder at the men. His brown face, fringed with the hood’s grey-white fur, shows surprise veering toward exasperation, even disgust—a frankness of anger completely untypical of him.
    Have we a seal to our breakfast then? asks Herron as he rushes toward Ebierbing, who without a word gets up nimbly and seems stanced to dodge out of the way should Herron try to embrace him—Herron’s custom with everyone—thus possibly propelling both men into the sea. Now Jamka with his strong accent bellows, WE HAVE WAITED UNTIL YOU HAVE FIRST FIRED!—and though Ebierbing usually just shrugs and grins whenever Jamka tries to address him, he now says curtly, I never fire my Spencer. You hear the ice break. I wait for this seal be much more closer—seal gives a hunter just one shot!
    In silence Kruger and the others study their sealskin boots. After some seconds Ebierbing seems to chuckle and Kruger looks up: the man is shaking his head, laughing broadly, stub teeth under his long Mongol moustaches. Kruger offers gruff apologies while Herron, as if wishing to make reparations, starts gesturing upwind. Look! I believe it’s a walrus, something big! All turn: another dark shape on the edge of what seems a much larger piece of ice, looming. Herron and Jamka seem keen to start blasting away at it. Ebierbing raises his hand. After a few seconds of level study he says calmly, By golly, boys, it’s the boat.
    The rest of the party soon gathers with them while the larger floe, with the lost boat aboard, glides toward them, as if conjured and hauled in by their collective will. Herron and a few of the men cheer—a small, hollow sound in the face of the floe’s vast and silent approach. Hurrah. They cheer on, Kruger now, too, as if this were the ship returning, the Polaris whose mainsail they still spy in every passing berg. But there is no one to cheer back.
    Thank God, says Tyson, his face taut with emotion.
    That evening in the big communal snowhut Tyson stands as straight as he can under the dome and says that tomorrow they will re-establish themselves on the large floe. With the five hundred pounds of biscuit recovered with the boat, he says, they now have about 2,400 pounds of provisions, but, considerable as that may sound, they will have to commence rationing tomorrow. Meyer, Kruger and the others grudgingly consent to the necessity, but Anthing, Jamka, and Lindermann grumble. (The Esquimaux remain silent—unconsulted, and, it seems, unconcerned.) Anthing: Surely the Polaris must soon come for us, or we will arrive at the shore? Tyson stares at him without a word and Anthing can find no more words of his own, at least in English, although he does mutter something in German to Jamka, his bulbous eyes scanning the other men’s faces. Kruger can’t make out the words. An uneasy silence follows.
    Still, for the first time since the stranding there is some cheer in their camp. They eat a last, large meal of pemmican stewed with biscuit, then canned apples, then coffee and chocolate, all prepared in cleaned pemmican tins by Tukulito and Jackson. After dinner the men play euchre while Ebierbing tells the children a story in their language, deftly animating it with hand-shadows on the snowhut dome. At one point Kruger makes out a dancing fox, then a large bear rearing over the card players’ bowed heads. Tyson and Meyer are