I do not remember much of this time, except that many suns rose and set. I thought about what I was going to do now that I was alone. I did not leave the village. Not until I had eaten all of the abalones did I leave and then only to gather more.
Yet I do remember the day that I decided I would never live in the village again.
It was a morning of thick fog and the sound of far-off waves breaking on the shore. I had never noticed before how silent the village was. Fog crept in and out of the empty huts. It made shapes as it drifted and they reminded me of all the people who were dead and those who were gone. The noise of the surf seemed to be their voices speaking.
I sat for a long time, seeing these shapes and hearing the voices, until the sun came out and the fog vanished. Then I made a fire against the wall of the house. When it was burned to the earth I started a fire in another house. Thus, one by one, I destroyed them all so that there were only ashes left to mark the village of Ghalas-at.
There was nothing to take away with me except a basket of food. I therefore travelled fast and before night fell I reached the place where I had decided to live until the ship returned.
This place lay on a headland a half league to the west of Coral Cove. There was a large rock on that headland and two stunted trees. Behind the rock was a clear place about ten steps across, which was sheltered from the wind, from which I could see the harbour and the ocean. A spring of water flowed from a ravine near by.
That night I climbed on to the rock to sleep. It was flat on top and wide enough for me to stretch out. Also it was so high from the ground that I did not need to fear the wild dogs while I was sleeping. I had not seen them again since the day they had killed Ramo, but I was sure they would soon come to my new camp.
The rock was also a safe place to store the food I had brought with me and everything I should gather. Since it was still winter and any day the ship might return, there was no use to store food I would not need. This gave me time to make weapons to protect myself from the dogs, which I felt would sometime attack me, to kill them all, one by one.
I had a club I found in one of the huts, but I needed a bow and arrows and a large spear. The spear which I had taken from the slain dog was too small. It was good for spearing fish and little else.
The laws of Ghalas-at forbade the making of weapons by women of the tribe, so I went out to search for any that might have been left behind. I went first to where the village had been and sifted the ashes for spearheads, and then, finding none, to the place where the canoes were hidden, believing that weapons might have been stored there with the food and water.
I found nothing in the canoes under the cliff. Then, remembering the chest the Alcuts had brought to shore, I set out for Coral Cove. I had seen that chest on the beach during the battle but did not remember that the hunters had taken it with them when they fled.
The beach was empty except for rows of seaweed washed in by the storm. The tide was out and I looked in the place where the chest had lain.
It was just below the ledge Ulape and I had stood on while we watched the battle. The sand was smooth and I dug many small holes with a stick. I dug in a wide circle, thinking that the storm might have covered it with sand.
Near the centre of the circle the stick hit something hard, which I was sure was a rock, but as I dug deeper with my hands I saw it was the black lid of the chest.
All morning I worked, moving the sand away. The chest lay deep from the washing of the waves and I did not try to dig it out, but only so I could raise the lid.
As the sun rose high the tide came rushing up the beach and filled the hole with sand. Each wave covered the chest deeper until it was completely hidden. I stood on the place, bracing myself against the waves, so that I would not have to look for it again. When the tide turned I began to dig with my feet, working them down and down, and then with my hands.
The chest was filled with beads and bracelets and ear-rings of many colours. I forgot about the spearheads I had come for. I held each of the trinkets to the sun, turning them so that they caught the light. I put on the longest string of beads, which were blue, and a pair of blue bracelets, which exactly fitted my wrists, and walked down the shore, admiring myself.
I walked the whole length of the cove. The beads and the bracelets made tinkling sounds. I felt like the bride of a chief as I walked there by the waves.
I came to the foot of the trail where the battle had been fought. Suddenly I remembered those who had died there and the men who had brought the jewels I was wearing. I went back to the chest. For a long time I stood beside it, looking at the bracelets and the beads hanging from my neck, so beautiful and bright in the sun. ‘They do not belong to the Aleuts,’ I said, ‘they belong to me.’ But even as I said this I knew that I never could wear them.
One by one I took them off. I also took the rest of the beads from the chest. Then I walked through the waves and flung them all far away, out into the deep water.
There were no iron spearheads in the chest. I closed the lid and covered it with sand.
I looked along the bottom of the trail, but finding nothing there that I could use, gave up my search.
For many days I did not think of the weapons again, not until the wild dogs came one night and sat under the rock and howled. They were gone at daylight, but not far. During the day I could see them slinking through the brush, watching me.
That night they came back to the headland. I had buried what was left of my supper, but they dug it up, snarling and fighting among themselves over the scraps. Then they began to pace back and forth at the foot of the rock, sniffing the air, for they could smell my tracks and knew that I was somewhere near.
For a long time I lay on the rock while they trotted around below me. The rock was high and they could not climb it, but I was still fearful. As I lay there I wondered what would happen to me if I went against the law of our tribe which forbade the making of weapons by women — if I did not think of it at all and made those things which I must have to protect myself.
Would the four winds blow in from the four directions of the world and smother me as I made the weapons? Or would the earth tremble, as many said, and bury me beneath its falling rocks? Or, as others said, would the sea rise over the island in a terrible flood? Would the weapons break in my hands at the moment when my life was in danger, which is what my father had said?
I thought about these things for two days and on the third night when the wild dogs returned to the rock, I made up my mind that no matter what befell me I would make the weapons. In the morning I set about it, though I felt very fearful.
I wished to use a sea elephant's tusk for the tip of the spear because it is hard and of the right shape. There were many of these animals on the shore near my camp, but I lacked a weapon with which to kill one. Our men usually hunted them with a strong net made of bull kelp, which they threw over an animal while it slept. To do this at least three men were needed, and even then the sea elephant often dragged the net into the sea and got away.
I used instead the root of a tree which I shaped into a point and hardened in the fire. This I bound to a long shaft, with the green sinews of a seal I killed with a rock.
The bow and arrows took more time and caused me great difficulty. I had a bowstring, but wood which could be bent and yet had the proper strength was not easy to find. I searched the ravines for several days before I found it, trees being very scarce on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Wood for the arrows was easier to find, and also the stone for the tips and the feathers for the ends of the shafts.
Gathering these things was not the most of the trouble. I had seen the weapons made, but I knew little about it. I had seen my father sitting in the hut on winter nights scraping the wood for the shafts, chipping the stones for the tips, and tying the feathers, yet I had watched him and really seen nothing. I had watched, but not with the eye of one who would ever do it.
For this reason I took many days and had many failures before I fashioned a bow and arrows that could be used.
Wherever I went now, whether to the shore when I gathered shellfish or to the ravine for water, I carried this weapon in a sling on my back. I practised with it and also with the spear.
The dogs did not come to the camp during the time I was making the weapons, though every night I could hear them howling.
Once, after the weapons were made, I saw the leader of the pack, the one with the grey hair and the yelloweyes, watching me from the brush. I had gone to the ravine for water and he stood on the hill above the spring, looking down at me. He stood very quiet, with only his head showing over the top of a cholla bush. He was too far away for me to reach him with an arrow.
Wherever I went during the day, I felt secure with my new weapons, and I waited patiently for the time when I could use them against the wild dogs that had killed Ramo. I did not go to the cave where they had their lair since I was sure that they would soon come to the camp. Yet every night I climbed on to the rock to sleep.
After the first night I spent there, which was uncomfortable because of the uneven places in the rock, I carried dry seaweed up from the beach and made a bed for myself.
It was a pleasant place to stay, there on the headland. The stars were bright overhead and I lay and counted the ones that I knew and gave names to many that I did not know.
In the morning the gulls flew out from their nests in the crevices of the cliff. They circled down to the tide pools where they stood first on one leg and then the other, splashing water over themselves and combing their feathers with curved beaks. Then they flew off down the shore to look for food. Beyond the kelp beds pelicans were already hunting, soaring high over the clear water, diving straight down, if they sighted a fish, to strike the sea with a great splash that I could hear.
I also watched the otter hunting in the kelp. These shy little animals had come back soon after the Aleuts had left and now there seemed to be as many of them as before. The early morning sun shone like gold on their glossy pelts.
Yet as I lay there on the high rock, looking at the stars, I thought about the ship which belonged to the white men. And at dawn, as light spread across the sea, my first glance was towards the little harbour of Coral Cove. Every morning I would look for the ship there, thinking that it might have come in the night. And each morning I would see nothing except the birds flying over the sea.
When there were people in Ghalas-at I was always up before the sun and busy with many things. But now that there was little to do I did not leave the rock until the sun was high. I would eat and then go to the spring and take a bath in the warm water. Afterwards I went down to the shore where I could gather a few abalones and sometimes spear a fish for my supper. Before darkness fell I climbed on to the rock and watched the sea until it slowly disappeared in the night.
The ship did not come and thus winter passed and the spring.