The white men's ship did not return that spring or in the summer. But every day, whether I was on the headland or gathering shellfish on the rocks or working on my canoe, I watched for it. I also watched for the red ship of the Aleuts.
I was not sure what I would do if the Aleuts came. I could hide in the cave which I had stored with food and water, for it was surrounded by thick brush and the mouth of the ravine could only be reached from the sea. The Aleuts had not used the spring and did not know about it because there was another one closer to where they had camped. But they might come upon the cave by chance and then I must be ready to flee.
For this reason I worked on the canoe I had abandoned on the spit. I went to the place where the others were hidden, but they were dried out and cracked. Also they were too heavy for a girl to push into the water, even a girl as strong as I was.
The tides had almost buried the canoe, and I laboured many days to dig it out of the sand. Since the weather was warm, I did not go back and forth to my house on the headland, but cooked my meals on the sandspit and at night slept in the canoe, which saved much time.
Even this canoe was too big for me to pull easily in and out of the water, so I set about making it smaller. I did this by loosening all the planks, by cutting the sinews and heating the pitch that bound them together. I then shaped these planks to half their length, using sharp knives made from a black stone which is to be found at one place on the island, and bound them back together with fresh pitch and sinews.
The canoe when I had finished was not so beautiful as it had been before, but I could now lift one end of it and drag it through the waves.
All the time I was working on the canoe, which was most of that summer, Rontu was with me. He was either sleeping in the shade of the canoe or running up and down the sandspit chasing the pelicans that roost there in great numbers because there are numerous fish near by. He never caught any of the birds, yet he would keep trying until his tongue hung out of his mouth.
He had learned his name quickly and many words that meant something to him. Zalwit, for example, which is our word for pelican, and naip which means fish. I talked to him often, using these words and others and many that he did not understand, just as though I were talking to one of my people.
‘Rontu,’ I would say after he had stolen a special fish I had speared for my supper, ‘tell me why it is that you are such a handsome dog and yet such a thief.’
He would put his head on one side and then the other, although he knew only two of the words, and look at me.
Or I would say, ‘It is a beautiful day. I have never seen the ocean so calm and the sky looks like a blue shell. How long do you think these days will last?’
Rontu would look up at me just the same, though he understood none of the words, acting as if he did.
Because of this I was not lonely. I did not know how lonely I had been until I had Rontu to talk to.
When the canoe was finished and the pitch had dried I wanted to find out how it went through the water and if the planks leaked, so we set off on a long voyage around the island. The voyage took all of one day, from dawn until night.
There are many sea caves on the Island of the Blue Dolphins and some of them are large and go far back into the cliffs. One of these was near the headland where my house stood.
The opening was narrow, not much wider than the canoe, but once we were inside, it spread out and was larger than my place on the headland.
The walls were black and smooth and slanted far up over my head. The water was almost as black, except where light came through the opening. Here it was a gold colour and you could see fish swimming around. They were different from the fish on the reefs, having larger eyes and fins that drifted out from their bodies like kelp.
This place opened into another, which was smaller and so dark I could see nothing. It was very silent in there, with no sound of the waves on the shore and only the lapping of the water against the rocky walls. I thought of the god Tumaiyowit who had become angry at Mukat and gone down, down into another world, and I wondered if it were not to such a place as this that he had gone.
Far ahead was a spot of light no larger than my hand, so instead of turning back, which I felt like doing, I drifted towards it around many turnings and came at last to another room much like the first.
Along one side was a wide shelf of rock, which ran out to the sea through a narrow opening. The tide was full and yet the shelf was out of the water. It was a fine place to hide a canoe, which could be lifted out and stored there where no one could find it. The ledge joined the cliff just below my house. All I needed was a trail down to the cave and then the canoe would be close at hand.
‘We have made a great discovery,’ I said to Rontu.
Rontu did not hear me. He was watching a devilfish, just beyond the opening of the cave. This fish has a small head with eyes that bulge and many arms. All day Rontu had been barking — at the cormorants, the gulls, the seals — at everything that moved. Now he was quiet, watching the black thing in the water.
I let the canoe drift along and knelt down out of sight until I could pick up my spear.
The devilfish was in front of us, swimming slowly near the surface, moving all his arms at once. Large devilfish are dangerous if you are in the sea, for their arms are as long as a man, and they can quickly wrap them around you. They also have a big mouth and a sharp beak where their arms join their head. This one was the largest I had ever seen.
Since Rontu was standing in front of me and I could not put the canoe into a better position, I had to lean out to use the spear. As I did so, the devilfish saw my movement and let loose in the water a black cloud of liquid which instantly hid him from view.
I knew that the devilfish would not be in the centre of this cloud, that he had left it behind. I therefore did not aim my spear at it, but picked up the paddle and waited until he appeared. He was now twice the length of the canoe from me and though I paddled fast I could not overtake him.
‘Rontu,’ I said, for he was watching the black cloud in the water, ‘you have much to learn about the devilfish.’
Rontu did not look at me or bark. He put his head to one side and then the other, still puzzled, more so when the cloud disappeared and nothing was left except clear water.
Devilfish is the best food in the seas. The flesh is white and tender and very sweet. But they are difficult to catch without a special kind of spear, which I now decided to make during the winter when I would have much time.
I took the canoe to Coral Cove, not far from the cave, and pulled it up on the shore out of reach of the winter storms. There it would be safe until spring when I would hide it in the cave that Rontu and I had found. It was easy to paddle and did not leak. I was very happy.