Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh

began working the bone when Pek left, and I packed themin hopes the Spirit of that mammoth might protect me. To throw the darts, I brought my atlatl. Lastly, I carry a lightweight flint ax with a wolf-bone handle that I’ve learned to throw with fairly good accuracy. Only Pek throws better, something he never tired of showing off. I think of all the timesI wished he would stop, and how happy I’ll be the next time he shows up one of my throws.
    In my belt I carry my favorite knife, the same one that cut the ropes that held Pek underwater. This knife knows my secrets, and just having it at my waist makes me feel less alone.
    As the sun rises slowly and reluctantly into the sky, I hike through rolling waves of purple and white flowers that coverhuge swaths of the meadow. By the time I climb into the eastern mountains, following the pass that the bison took until they ceased to return, thirst burns in my throat. Still, even in the promising cool shadows of the rocky slopes, I won’t let myself take a drink. I force myself to wait until I hear the music of running water before I slide my waterskin from my shoulder. Perhaps I’m being overlycautious—I feel fairly certain that I’ll always find water in the hills—but this route is new to me. I’ve never traveled to the other side of these mountains, and though I’ve heard stories, I don’t know what conditions I will find.
    I follow the alpine trail, widened and worn under thehooves of so many bison, as it winds to my right, turning south, hugging the base of a steep slope of sharplyangled rock. High peaks soar overhead, their ice-covered summits casting a deep blue shade across the ground.
    Water trickles along gaps in the rock. In the few places touched by sunlight, scrubby shrubs spring from crevices. The highest peaks are still to the south, and wind from the north gusts behind me.
    Ahead of me are rows of ridges still to climb.
    Eventually, the path widens, and I findmyself standing on a high ledge. The valley below is broader than those I’ve passed through so far. A frozen river—a finger of the Great Ice—fills the eastern end of the valley, silvery blue in the sunlight. West of the ice lies a broad, meltwater lake, hemmed in by tall grass. As I descend, the north wind swoops over the frozen summit behind me, pushing hard against my back and prompting me tocover my head with my hood. But as I drop down farther between the ridge walls, the wind calms. Grasses grow across the gravelly slope, joined by scattered shrubs at the base of the hill.
    As long as I travel along the valley floor, far below the high walls to the north and south, the air is calm and warm. But once I reach the southern slope and the trail rises toward the next rocky peak, thewind picks up. Shrubs thin to grasses and then yield to barren gravel again as I climb.My ears sting with cold. Looking back toward the north from the crest, gusts of wind stir up swirls of sand and dust at my feet.
    From here, the trail turns sharply downhill. A lower, grass-covered ridge blocks my view to the south until the trail bends right and heads lower still, down through a wide gap betweensquat, rolling hills.
    These are the foothills of the southern slopes. The eastern mountains are finally at my back.
    I’m amazed by the change in the landscape, as my eyes sweep over slopes protected from the harsh north winds. My father has told me the story of his own trip south many times, but until now, that’s all it was—just a story.
    My father has told me how the broad shoulders of the easternmountains hold back the north wind. He has described how the high peaks shelter the land south of the mountains from the harsh cold carried down from the Great Ice. Still, it never felt real to me until now—now that I stand here at the foot of the southernmost slopes and see the green land that rolls out in front of me. Protected from the north wind’s punishing cold, exposed to the sun’s warmth,the land that opens south