The Yaks talk to each other for a while, then slowly reexamine the rifle. When they finish, Cavendish leans down and makes twelve short marks in the snow. He points to the rifle, then he points to the marks and then to the tent. He makes the same feeding gesture as before.
For a minute, the Yaks say nothing. One of them reaches into his pocket, takes out a pipe, and stuffs and lights it. The other smiles briefly, says something, then bends down and rubs out six of the marks.
Cavendish purses his lips, shakes his head, and then slowly reinscribes the same six marks.
“I won’t be jewed down by no fucking Esquimaux,” he says to Sumner.
The Yaks look displeased. One of them frowns, says something to Cavendish, and then quickly with the toe of his boot rubs out the same six marks again and then rubs out another.
“Shit,” Sumner whispers.
Cavendish laughs scornfully.
“Only five,” he says. “Five fucking seals for a rifle. Do I honestly look like that much of a cunt?”
“If they leave us now, we’ll starve to death,” Sumner reminds him.
“We’ll survive without them,” he says.
“No we fucking won’t.”
The Yaks look back at them indifferently, point down at the five marks on the ground, then hold out the rifle as if well prepared to give it back. Cavendish looks at the rifle steadily but doesn’t reach for it. He shakes his head and spits.
“Gouging ice-nigger bastards,” he says.
*
The Yaks build themselves a small snow house fifty yards away from the tent, then mount the sledge and go back out onto the ice to hunt. It is dark when they return. The black sky is dense with stars and upon its speckled blank the borealis unfurls, bends back, reopens again like a vast and multicolored murmuration. Drax, still in manacles, but left unguarded now since they are all, in effect, imprisoned by the shared calamity, watches them unship their kill. He listens to the throttled grunting of their caveman speech, sniffs, then smells, even through the frigid air, the sour reek of their grease-streaked armature. He weighs them up awhile—their height, their weight, the speed and implication of their various shiftings—then walks towards them, clinking as he goes.
“Ye got two nice fat-looking ones there,” he says, pointing at the two dead seals. “I can help you butcher ’em if you’d like.”
Although they have been out hunting all day, the two men seem as fresh and lively as before. They look at him a moment, then point at his chains and laugh. Drax laughs with them, then rattles the chains and laughs again.
“Them cunts in there don’t trust me, see,” he says. “They think I’m dangerous.” He makes a distended, monster face and claws the air to illustrate his meaning. The Yaks laugh louder still. Drax reaches down and takes one of the dead seals by the tail.
“Let me butcher this one for ye,” he says again, making a cutting gesture along its belly as he does so. “I can do it easy.”
They shake their heads and wave him off. The elder takes a knife, leans down, and quickly cuts open and guts the two seals. He leaves the parti-colored giblets, purple, pink, and gray, steaming in a pile on the snow, then separates the blubber from the meat. Drax watches on. He smells the ferric blood-tang of the innards and feels the drool begin to puddle in his mouth.
“I’ll haul that over for ye if you’d like it,” he says.
The two men ignore him still. The younger takes the meat and blubber over to the tent and gives it to Cavendish. The elder starts swiftly picking through the piles of giblets with his blade. He finds one of the livers, slices off a good-sized piece, and eats it raw.
“Christ alive,” Drax says. “I hant seen that before. I seen plenty, but I hant seen that.”
The man looks up at Drax and grins. His teeth and lips are red with seal blood. He cuts off another piece of the raw liver and offers it to him. Drax considers a moment, then takes it.
“I’ve eaten worse in my day,” he says. “Plenty worse.”
He chews once, then swallows it down and smiles. The elder Yak smiles back and laughs. When the younger one comes back from the tent, they confer for a while and then beckon Drax closer. The elder reaches into the pile of giblets and pulls out a severed eyeball. He pierces its skin with the point of the knife and sucks out the inner jelly. They look at Drax and grin.
“That don’t trouble me none,” Drax says. “I’ve eaten eyeballs before, an eyeball’s easy pickings.”
The elder finds another eyeball, pierces it as before, and gives it to him. Drax sucks out the juice, then puts the rest into his mouth and swallows it down. The Yaks start cackling wildly. Drax opens his mouth wide and sticks out his tongue to show that it’s truly gone.
“I’ll gobble down anything you can give me,” he says, “any fucking thing at all—brains, bollocks, hooves. I int fussy, see.”
The elder Yak points to his chains again, growls and claws the air.
“Aye,” Drax says. “Aye, that’s about the size of it right there.”
*
That night the Yaks feed their dogs with the remains of the rancid walrus meat, tether them to whalebone stakes driven into the gravel, and then crawl inside the snow house and settle down to sleep. They leave again early the next morning but return after dark with no seals to show for their labor. The next day, it is snowing too hard to hunt and they stay inside the snow house all day. Drax hobbles through the blizzard, past the scattered humps of curled-up dogs, to visit them. He gives them each a pinch of tobacco and asks them questions. When they miss his meaning, he repeats himself more loudly and makes signs. In response, they point and laugh and trace out patterns in the air or on the rawhide surface of their reindeer sleeping bags. Occasionally, they slice off a piece of the frozen seal liver and gnaw on it like licorice. There are periods of silence, and periods in which the Yaks talk to each other as though he is not even there. He watches them and listens to what they say, and, after a while, he understands what he must do next. It is not a decision, so much as a slow uncovering. He feels the future gradually show itself. He smells its hot perfume hanging in the arctic air, like a dog smells the rank requirements of a bitch.
When the blizzard abates, the Yaks go out seal hunting again. They kill one seal on the first day, and two more on the next. When they give over the final butchered carcass as agreed, Cavendish shows them the second rifle. He makes five more marks in the snow, but the Yaks shake their heads and point back in the direction they came from.
“They want to go back home,” Sumner says. They are standing outside the tent; the sky is bright and clear, but the air around is bitter cold. Sumner feels its desiccating bluntness press against his face and eyes.
“They can’t go back,” Cavendish says. He points down at the ground again and waves the rifle at them.
The elder one shows him the rifle they already have, then points again to the west.
“Utterpok,” he says. “No trade.”
Cavendish shakes his head and softly curses.
“We have enough meat and blubber now to last a month,” Sumner says. “So long as they come back before the supply runs out, we can survive.”
“If that old bastard goes the other one must stay here with us,” Cavendish says. “If they go off together, we can’t be sure they’re ever coming back.”
“Don’t threaten them,” Sumner warns. “If you press too hard, they’ll be gone for sure.”
“They may have that one rifle but they hant got no balls or powder for it yet,” Cavendish says. “So I reckon I can threaten the bastards all I like if I have a mind to do it.”
He points at the younger man and then at the snow house.
“He stays here,” he says. “You”—pointing at the older man, then gesturing west—“can fuck off if you want to.”
The Yaks shake their heads and smile ruefully, as if they understand the suggestion but find it both foolish and faintly embarrassing.
“No trade,” the older one repeats lightly. “Utterpok.”