CHAPTER TWENTY -SEVEN
The sleepy Alaskan fishing village seemed small and quaint
from a distance. But as we drove down the winding gravel road into
the little town of Gilroy, Alaska, population 350, we found it had
burgeoned into some sort of media Mecca, population 1500 plus.
It didn’t take us long to discover that they were all here for
the same reason we were—the anomaly of the gathering of so
many whales.
“You know, it’s odd,” I signed as we wound the car through
the rushing crush of humanity, “that all these people got here before
we did. I didn’t see that many cars on the Alcan.”
My answer was soon to come. As we parked the truck near
the wharf, there came a droning that pervaded the cab and even
struck my deadened sense of sound. Seaplanes by the tens and
twenties moved about in the harbor like a flock of ducks preparing
to take flight. We could have flown here overnight.
Peter stalked the docks in search of a boat to take us to the
Bay of Blue Ice, while I wandered about town with Fred-the-dog in
tow. I eavesdropped from afar with my lip-reading. The snippets of
conversation I gleaned in my walk were eclectic: All the major news
services were here along with all the science cable folk. There were
as many amateur marine biologists as there were professionals.
None of them knew what was going on.
I looked wistfully north and wondered if my friend, Laughter
Ring, was there and if she had found the great Harmony. Come on,
Peter, I thought to myself impatiently, I need to be there now. As
much as I wanted to see my friends I wanted to hear, to feel the
song as it was meant to be sung, by the master singer himself, Har-
mony, the whale who had prophetically called for the Conclave.
Other bits of sneaked conversation read from afar were a bit
disconcerting. Greenpeace and several other conservation splinter
groups had joined forces to form an environmental navy. They were
patrolling the entrance of the bay to prevent the media boats from in-
terfering with this natural phenomenon. The bay itself was open to
the sea, and through these waters paraded this grand procession of
all the singing water mammals. They came, and they continued to
come, until the waters of the Bay of Blue Ice were frothing with life.
They all seemed to be waiting, as were the people who were observ-
ing and trying to understand this phenomenon.
The problem of the environmentalists was twofold: acting
as self-elected marshals, they were attempting to keep the media
boats out of the Bay of Blue Ice, while they, themselves were being
denied entrance, also. Every time they tried to venture into the bay
they were forced back by the gentle giants, the blue whales that
had formed a great log boom of living flesh–a floating, impenetrable
fence. The sandwalker was not welcome here, nor were they soon
to be invited to the festivities.
All of this I related to Peter when he returned, arms loaded
with a variety of odd-shaped packages. “Well,” he signed, “maybe
that’s for the best. There’s not a boat to be had in the town any-
way. The media have them all chartered. I did, however, find a rub-
ber, two-man dinghy at the hardware store.”
“Right,” I signed sarcastically. “And we’re going to inflate this
little raft with our own lung power and then row the five or six miles
up the coast to where first Greenpeace and then the whales are
going to let us through?”
“No,” he said as he dropped his large packages to the
ground. “We’re going to hike the five or six miles and then, yes,
we will inflate the little raft with our lung power and float it into the
bay. But we won’t have to worry about Greenpeace or the guardian
whales at the entrance to the bay. We’re going in over the glacier
itself. In football, this would be called an end around.”
“In the real world, this would be called stupid,” I spat. “Let
us assume that we get to the glacier on foot. It’s three miles long
at its shortest point to the sea. I don’t know about you, but I don’t
ski well on millennium-old ice.”
“We aren’t going to ski,” he grinned. “We’ll use the boat like a
sled. Whoosh! Splash! Right up front in the good seats. Actually
we won’t be in the water, but we’ll slide close enough that we can
launch the rubber raft from where we stop.”
I was doubtful that the plan had any merit, but there was no
other. I helped him gather the packages, and we struggled back to
the truck. “What about Fred?” I signed as the dog happily wagged
his tail, looking from Peter to me expectantly.
“What about Fred?” he retorted. “He’s come this far. I’m sure
he’s ready to go all the way, aren’t you, Fred?”
I could feel his bark, and his excitement was contagious. I
have done crazier things in my life, but this was getting close to
being unique: a Native-American, a black lab, and me–all sledding
on a glacier.
Having packed, we climbed back into the truck and drove
slowly out of town, winding through throngs of people milling about
the streets. W e followed the road through the little town and to the
last vestiges of civilization, where the road itself came to an abrupt
end at the trail’s head. There, as a form of sandwalker farewell, were
several old mattresses, a sofa, some plastic garbage sacks–filled
with who-knows-what–and a variety of beer cans strewn about. I’ve
got to hand it to us humans: if we think we own it, we’ll sure use it.
Peter extracted two backpacks from the pick-up and quickly
filled them with our gear. I stripped off my parka to enjoy the early
morning sunshine that warmed and sweetened the air with the smell
of pine and cedar. I started to throw the coat into the truck, but Pe-
ter warned, “It’s warm now, and it will get warmer later. But, sooner
or later, you’re going to need that coat.”
I bowed, conceding the expert’s point. Packed and loaded,
Peter placed the lighter of the two packs on my back. After care-
fully adjusting my straps to ensure that the load wouldn’t slip, he
tossed his pack casually over one shoulder, grabbed my duffel bag,
and with Fred leading the way, we began our trek to the glacier.
The trail was soft, covered in layer after layer of moss, tree
needles and leaves. There was life in the air here, a veritable magic.
There is no way to explain the full impact and the wonder of nature
accepted. She owns all, Nature does; people are but passengers on
her mysterious journey. Our step quickened as we felt the snap and
the thunderous crack of the glacier.
By the time we had walked three or four miles, my pack
seemed a lot heavier, the air a lot warmer. We emerged from the
forest onto the broken rocks and chunks of ice that preceded our
entry onto the glacier itself, and there we rested for a short time.
Peter produced a small camp stove to heat some water, and we had
a cup of beef broth and some trail mix. I think I know why they call
it trail mix, for this particular batch tasted like it had been mixed
with parts of the trail. I think I ate an old shoelace–energy you can
tie up and save for later! Fred refused my offerings of a nut or two,
instead opting to hunt the neighboring woods. He returned in short
order, munching on the remnants of another creature’s kill.
“Fred!” I mouth-spoke. “Drop it.”
“No,” Peter laughed, as he touched my shoulder and turned
me toward him. “Dogs are natural scavengers. He will eat what
the others don’t want, and the others will eat what he doesn’t.
The parts none of them want will be carted off by the insects or
absorbed back into the soil. Those parts will replace the nutrients
removed by the trees, which will be eaten by the squirrels, which will
be eaten by the bears and the scavengers to follow. It’s balanced.
One cleans up after another.”
I sat, absorbing this simple lesson I had taught over and over
as a teaching assistant in college. Lessons memorized are not nec-
essarily lessons learned.
By this time, it was mid afternoon. I questioned the advis-
ability of attacking the glacier this late in the day. Peter laughed
and reminded me that the sun would barely set this summer’s night.
It was June 21, the night of the summer solstice, the longest day
recorded on earth and at this northern part of the planet it would be
light all night long. Using stands of white birch as a dressing room,
we undressed and pulled our dry suits on. The dry suit is the warm-
est of skin-diving gear and should we find ourselves in the water,
would afford the greatest of protection. Peter had no plans to dive
but the rubber raft was small and sure to take on some water and
these were the coldest waters on earth. The dry suit, now under
his clothes, would keep him warm. Satisfied but still cautious,
we repacked our gear and garbage and stowed the packs beneath
some rocks, taking with us only the bare essentials — my air tanks,
face plate and flippers.
With the rolled-up rubber life raft under his arm, Peter led me
onto the glacier. Fred-the-dog was sniffing behind, probably look-
ing for a cute little snow bunny to eat. Nature has a unique way of
balancing beauty with ferocity.
It was difficult to say when we moved from the shifting rocks
to the glacier itself. Glaciers are not pristine and clean as one might
imagine. One minute we were on rocks and dirt, and the next, we
were on rocks and dirt and glacier ice. The outside edge becomes a
collector for the slowly moving monstrosity that claws its way to the
sea. It has spent lifetimes slowly grinding the earth, molding and
moving even mountains.
We angled up and soon entered the smoother ice field itself.
Here, over a period of years, the glacier had eroded. I looked up and
could see a smooth track of avalanche, where tons and tons of snow
had slipped quickly and devastatingly down the glacier. My eyes
followed the smooth track down; the beauty took my breath away.
Below us, the Bay of Blue Ice was wrapped in emerald green,
tinted by blues so blue that words cannot deScribe the depth and
magic of their color. The ice, as it neared the sea, sparkled with
a kaleidoscope of prismatic color and shape. In the bay itself, tiny
dots moved about with the tides. I realized that these were not
dots, some two or three miles away by ice, but the whales, dolphins,
and flipper-fins.
The Conclave.
I turned back to Peter. He, too, was caught in this moment.
Even Fred-the-dog sat on the ice and did nothing but look down on
this awesome sight. Peter snapped his head around to force himself
to the task at hand–inflating the raft. I watched as he huffed and
puffed, and slowly the raft began to take shape. It seemed pitifully
small in contrast to the glacier now looming monstrously tall.
“Are you sure,” I signed, “that this is going to work?”
“As sure as I am that my middle name is Abraham,” Peter said
confidently. “Look, we’ll stop near the bottom of the ice, and then
re-launch into the water. It’s a no-brainer.” He resumed his blowing,
and soon the small raft was totally inflated. He stood back to admire
his handiwork. Then, with a flourish, he waved his arm and gallantly
motioned that I was to have the place of honor–the front.
I swallowed hard, put my duffel bag in the very front, and, af-
ter taking a deep breath, stepped into the boat. Peter followed and,
placing his legs on either side of me, wrapped his arms around my
waist. With one hand, he cumbersomely signed, “Sorry about the
intimacy, Doc, but it’s a small boat.”
I didn’t mind. In fact, in a different situation, I might have re-
turned the embrace in kind, but this situation was beyond different,
nearing bizarre. I wanted to sit there for a moment, taking it all in
and allowing a moment to steel my resolve. But my wishful thinking
was for naught as a black bundle of fur leaped into my lap, setting
the sled in motion. Fred quickly faced forward, sitting between
my legs and the duffel, as we slowly began to slide down the ice.
I mouth-spoke loudly so Peter could hear me over the crunching
snow and ice, “Your middle name is Abraham?”
“Are you kidding?” he signed, “With a last name of Twofin? I
don’t have a middle name.” So much for confidence.
Slow became fast became faster became out-of-control, as
our rubber toboggan bumped over the ice.
Concerned, I asked, “What happens if the glacier doesn’t
beach with the water? What happens if there is a sheer cliff and
a big drop?” If he answered, I wasn’t able to hear anyway, but the
answer was soon to come. The raft listed, and then turned and
spun around so we could behold all those places we had been. We
had covered nearly all the distance down the glacier when we spun
again and I found the answer to my question. We were airborne!
The boat sailed off the ice like an errant Frisbee and main-
tained a form of aerodynamics as it spun crazily out over the sea.
As quickly as our adventure had begun, it ended. Splashdown! I
was thrown forward by the abrupt plunge in the water, but with Fred
cushioning my head, I was uninjured. I sat up and looked around.
You did not have to be a hearing person to feel the silence that
spread like a blanket over this inlet, this bay.
The water was as still as glass and inky in its appearance,
although it was very clear. In the water around us were dolphins,
whales, flipper-fins, and some other creatures that I never would
have thought of as singers of the Song of the Sea.
Peter urgently tapped on my shoulder, and I spun in the tiny
boat. His face was as white as a ghost. “What is this?” he mouthed.
“What are they all doing here?”
I signed, “So much for ‘I believe in you.’ Peter, this is what
I have been talking about. This is the first time since the begin-
ning of time that the Conclave has ever been called. It can only be
called when a species feels threatened by extinction. It had nearly
been called over the extinction of some whales. At one point, the
Narwhal of the Horn tried to call a Conclave, fearing their own ex-
tinction, but never has it actually been called before.”
I waved my arm around the bay, which was ringed by the blue
ice of the glacier and filled to silent-still capacity with thousands of
thinking creatures–a veritable seething maelstrom of life. “This is . .
Conclave!”
The whales and the dolphins stared at us with baleful eyes
but did nothing. Time seemed to freeze in space as we sat looking
at them, and they at us. The impasse was broken when we were
rushed from behind by a large Orca, who swam through the satin
waters and brushed the boat. His wake caused us to rock precari-
ously, and Fred, still held in my arms, began to bark angrily, warning
all to stay back. The hackles on the back of his neck were raised,
and I could feel him growl–deep and menacing.
The little boat floated still in the water. Two Orcas swam
quickly toward us from opposite directions, again tossing the little
boat about in the water. The bone in my inner ear began to ring
with the vibration of the low tones of one, then two, then ten, then
a hundred voices softly chanting together, “Conclave . . . Conclave .
. . Conclave.” As suddenly as it had begun, it stopped, and my inner
ear was silent once again.
I twisted my head, felt another tingling, and sensed a new
sound. This was quieter. I turned this way and that, trying to home
in on the vibration.
“What is it?” furtively signed Peter.
I froze him with a wave and tensed again, seeking the source
of the sound. It was getting louder. It seemed to be one or two
voices intently calling, “Sandwalker. Sandwalker.” I spun my head,
and there, not fifty feet away, was one of the Orcas that had brushed
the boat. He called again, “Sandwalker. Sandwalker.”
Then, behind me, I heard another and spun to that sound.
He, too, called, “Sandwalker. Sandwalker.” And then faintly I could
discern, “He who walks on spindly fins on the dryside. He who
holds dominion over the song sung in the sea.”
Peter spun me to him, “What is going on? Are we in danger?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound good. But it’s hard to hear
clearly without the resonance and the amplification of the water.” I
turned back around, my brows knit and my head cocked slightly in
concentration.
There was a moment of silence, and then, almost in chorus,
the other Orca took up the ominous chant, “Sandwalker. Sandwalk-
er. The creature that left the sea and returns only to kill the breth-
ren. Sandwalker!”
Suddenly a new voice — like ice itself — joined this duet. The
sound cut me through to the heart. It was whispered, yet loud. It
was sweet, but bittersweet. It was an icicle, sharp and deadly the
vibration like fingernails down a blackboard. It ended its speech in
diphthong, as if it was a question, but sarcastic of nature, “Sand-
walker?” the voice called. “Sandwalker?” I spun to the side and
gripped Fred for fear he would leap into the water and attack. Not
ten feet from the boat silkily breached an alabaster-skinned Narwhal
of the Horn.
“Ahh, the Sandwalker,” he whispered silkily, “he who came to
us in the water in shells. The creature to whom we tried in vain to
teach the Song of the Sea. He who, to reward the song, killed the
singer of the song and ripped from his head . . . his horn.”
Softly, but with great intensity, the water seemed to boil with
sound as the creatures of the Conclave chanted in response, “This
was not good!”
The Narwhal continued in his hypnotic, icy tone, “With the
bloody horn, the sandwalker killed another, and then he had two
horns. He coveted the horns as prize. He did not eat the meat,
violating all that is holy in the sea and the simplest rule of All That
Is Right in the World.”
The water danced electric snapping blue, silver, and green iri-
descence just at the surface. In unison, they again cried, “And this
was not good!”
The two Orcas, overlooked by the chanting of the Narwhal,
suddenly charged the little boat again, rocking it perilously. Peter
and I grabbed the sides to steady the craft against the wake of these
two fleshy torpedoes. Fred snapped his head to and fro, seeking an
enemy worthy of his jaws.
A maniacal laugh came from the Narwhal, and then he began
again. “We, the Narwhal, were forced to hide. We, the Narwhal,
alone carried the message, warning the others of the sandwalk-
er’s lack of soul and spirit. We hid in the icy corridors and palac-
es where our reflections in crystal strengthened our resolve. We
sought others to teach them the story. And they came. And they
listened. And they changed the Song of the Sea forever.”
In powerful harmony, the bay rippled with, “And this was good!”
The vibration stopped, and time seemed to freeze like the
blue ice that surrounded this bay of decision and change. “We have
died for the sandwalker in a thousand deaths. We have cast our-
selves in protest to the dryside, there to become one with the end .
. . the beginning. There to rot and demonstrate to the sandwalker
that he does not hold dominion over the sea. There to send a mes-
sage to the sandwalker that we control our own destiny. We can, we
will, and we did call upon our own deaths and a return to the end . .
. the beginning.”
So loud now that my inner ear ached, they chanted, “And
this is good!” From this forceful vibration, I could read in Peter’s
face that he, too, at strong intervals, could hear, although he did not
understand what the vibrations meant.
Breaking the stillness, two angry voices, in counterpoint
in front and behind, intoned by whispered vibration, “Sandwalker.
Sandwalker.”
They started and then stopped, “Sandwalker. Sandwalker.”
“Sandwalker! Sandwalker!”
Again and again, they started and stopped and stopped and
started. The result was terrifying. I kept turning back and forth as
each one called out, “Sandwalker! Sandwalker!” Never in all of my
life have I been so frightened, for the whispering carried an unspo-
ken message: “We’re coming–we’re coming.”
Peter was watching my face and realized that something was
about to happen. It obviously wasn’t going to be a matinee at the ma-
rina with dolphins and whales leaping to the delight of the audience.
Abruptly, there was a surge in the water like a bulge, a mon-
strous ripple moving forward. I looked behind, and there was an-
other doing the same. The two Orcas smashed into the boat and as
they struck they screamed with a force of vibration that chilled my
blood and froze me in place.
“Sandwalker!!”
This time, they didn’t skim by. This time, the full force of
their fury tipped the boat almost onto its side. Try though I might,
I could not hold on. Every muscle in my body was frozen by the
horrible, intoned death-keen of the Orca. I hit the water, and even
the shock of its coldness didn’t break the spell. I simply couldn’t
move. Straight ahead and slightly below me under fifteen feet of wa-
ter were the two Orcas. Mouths open with long, ivory-colored teeth
forming an unconscious smile, they floated, waiting and watching.
A moment, an hour, I know not which, went by before I could con-
trol myself again.
I had just begun to kick myself to the surface when they
intoned again, “Sandwalker–Sandwalker!” The vibrations now un-
encumbered by the dryside, the force was unbelievable, and again I
was frozen.
The sultry vibration of the Narwhal of the Horn called to the
Orca, “Take them now, my sweets. Take them now to the end . . .
the beginning. Take them to All That Is Right in the World.”
A movement in the water caused me to look up, breaking the
reverie of the eerie call. What at first looked like a rippling shadow
on the surface turned into the full form of a man leaping headfirst
into the water. It was Peter. Surrounded by the silver bubbles of the
dryside that followed him on his erratic dive, he saw the Orca first,
then turned and spied me. He swam in hard strokes, reached down,
and grabbed my swirling hair. With all his might, he yanked me to
the surface and now was between my attackers and me.
What happened next was simultaneous and confusing. He
grabbed me by the back of my now anchor-weight parka, and, with
Herculean strength, threw me into the boat. Still paralyzed but
beginning to feel sensation, I laid there with my feet stiffly pointing
off the side. What struck me most was as he pushed me from the
water, I had felt the greatest of all the calls when the two Orcas, in
concert, bellowed their death call, “SANDWALKER!!!!!”
Peter, who up to this point had felt a bit of the vibration and
its gentle subtleties, took this one full force. I could feel, even as
I was being pushed from the water, that his muscles went slack in re-
sponse to the death call. I sprawled there, helpless in the bottom of
the boat, trying to will my body back to action, but it was as if I had
been severed from my conduit of reality and control.
A grating sensation wiped my face from jaw to forehead like
wet sandpaper. Over and over again, it ground across my face. It
was an anchor of feeling, and I responded slowly to the release of
the nerve blockage. I could feel again, and with the feeling came
nerve and muscle control. I swung my legs around and sat upright
in the boat, dazed by all that had happened.
The swipe of a very rough, wet tongue snapped me back to
reality–the bay, the Conclave, and Fred-the-dog. I hugged him and
then remembered how I had come to be in the boat. “Oh, my God!
Peter!” I cried. I flopped over and leaned across the round, rubber
side of the boat, peering down into the crystal waters below. At first,
I saw nothing, and then I saw all.
Five feet below the surface, slowly spinning, was Peter, his
eyes frozen open by the paralyzing call. Then, almost in slow
motion, one of the Orcas turned sideways and grabbed Peter full-
mouthed by the hip and thigh. The water swirled in a cloud of
pink. I fell back into the boat unable to move, frozen by the horror
of watching someone, who just moments before had saved my life,
die in my stead. I watched over and over in brief memory flashes as
the man I loved but had never told shut his eyes in pain when those
powerful jaws of death closed around him.
I lay in the sloshing water on the bottom of the boat, my
tears mingling with the waters of life. I couldn’t just lie there. Peter
deserved a better memorial. I sat up again and looked out over the
now-still waters that were misted in a swirling, red cloud.
From nowhere, a form arched from the water like a missile
being fired from below. My first thought was that the Orcas were
breaching–to fall on the boat and reclaim the other sandwalker for
the Song of the Sea. But the form was not an Orca; it was the body
of Peter Twofin being thrown from the sea. In a low arc, he flopped
into the boat. I was sure he was dead–but this corpse began to
cough. He was alive!
As he pulled great gasps of breath into his lungs, I tended to
the wounds. I took off my coat and yanked the nylon cord free that
acted as a drawstring on the hood. I wrapped this around Peter’s
leg just above the wound in his thigh, twisting it around and around
to form a tourniquet and stem the flow of blood. The wound in his
hip was a deep cut that appeared superficial, although it probably
would need stitches later.
“Well, Doc,” he groaned, “welcome to Water Whirled of the
Northern Pacific, home of dolphins and whales who will tell you
tales that they will rip your heart out. Literally.” He laughed, then,
winced as I twisted the tourniquet tight.
He looked at me quizzically, “How did I get out of the water?
Last thing I remember is feeling like a frozen filet of cod, and then
suddenly I am flying back into the boat.”
Almost in answer, a form threw itself at the side of the boat.
The whales were back! I threw myself across Peter to protect him
from what appeared to be yet another attack.