Once in the sea he was mobile enough, paddling with his hands and kicking with his good leg. He visited the families as usual, and set a shark-watch so that the tribe could scatter along the outer shore to forage. There was never a lot of food there, but they’d fed well the previous night and didn’t complain.
Next day, though, stomachs were empty. People had drunk the fresh water they needed and the shore was picked bare. It was time to move, but the next good feeding-ground was a long swim north and included a land-trip across the neck of a headland whose sheer cliffs gave swimmers nowhere to climb to if sharks were sighted. Presh knew his leg wasn’t yet up to it and gave no signal for a move. By noon the tribe were restless and by evening they were angry. If there’d been a single alternative leader he’d have taken the chance to confront Presh, who’d have had no answer, and the tribe would have started north whether he wanted to or not. Tong and Kerif began a series of challenge and counter-challenge, but night came before they could settle the matter one way or the other.
Li slept badly. Her anxiety had increased with the tension in the tribe. She felt herself to be bound to Presh, as leader, by ties like those which bound her to Ma-ma. To the others in the tribe his weakness, and Kerif’s confrontation with Tong, and the almost inevitable change of leadership, were simply events to be accepted as they accepted most things within their experience, like a poor tide at the shrimping beach, something beyond their power to alter. But Li, just as she had at the shark-hunt, could see what needed to be done. The one possible solution was clear in her mind. The dolphins must bring another shoal of fish.
She lay in the dark, calling to them in her mind, silent Come heres and Helps. And then, still thinking these calls, she tried to make them in the way the dolphins would understand, their own calls which she’d heard when she danced with them in the water. In silence she re-made their song, the long wailings that died and recovered and wavered, and the clicks, and the pauses which were like the ghosts of sounds. She filled her inward dark with the song of the dolphins until the cave around her seemed to whisper it aloud. She cried to them for help. Without words she prayed to them.
No answer came, but at first light she swam to the bar and peered through the dazzle of the rising sun for dark backs arching from the sea. She lowered herself into the water and listened, but heard only the slap and slither of ripple on rock. She climbed up to stare out to sea, saw nothing and dipped again below to listen for the first whisper of the song.
So in, so out, as the sun climbed. Tong and Kerif were starting their struggle in the bay, but she didn’t look round, only glancing at times to check that Presh was still nearby, lolling in the water and pretending not to have noticed the confrontation, though if he’d had his full strength he’d long ago have intervened to suppress such impertinence.
She heard them first, but waited till she was sure that the sound was coming nearer. Then she climbed and stood tiptoe on the rocks, gazing east. Dark flecks rose from the long slope of a wave. She turned, plunged into the bay and swam to Presh and tugged at his arm, calling Come. He stared at her. For a child, even Li, to try to command the leader . . . Come she called and tugged harder, and now, knowing his need of her, he allowed himself to be persuaded up on to the rocks where he sat and looked along the line of her pointing arm.
The dolphins were nearing now, spread into their hunting formation. The driven shoal puckered the water before them. Presh knew these signs – he’d seen two hunts from the cave mouth. He grabbed Li’s shoulder, almost forcing her to her knees as he hauled himself up to stand on his good leg. He bellowed to the tribe over his shoulder. A few heads turned, but before anyone had time to react the fore-runners of the shoal came streaming over the bar.
Only Rawi, who was always hanging around somewhere near Presh, both understood what was happening and had time to get to the bar and grab a couple of fish, and then the whole shoal had swept through and the bay was full of people trying to catch them, keeping them at the pitch of panic, breaking the shoal into scattered groups which rushed to and fro until a group found the gap again and headed out. By then Presh, still using Li for support, bellowing and gesturing to force his authority through the tumult, had organized a dozen adults to be waiting ready in the shallows.
They found it easy hunting. The whole tribe saw the silver bodies arching through the air to flop on to the rocks. Now they understood what was needed they spread out across the bay, rounded up the rest of the shoal and drove it all together to the entrance, where it met the earlier group which the waiting dolphins had already headed back. The shallows frothed with fish and people. Fish streamed through the air. The cliffs echoed with hunt-yells.
There was a pause while the shoal broke free until the dolphins rounded them up and headed them back again, and Presh took the chance to organize a ring of people inside the bar, others poised on the rocks ready to grab the harvest from the shallows, and yet others to dive in outside and help the dolphins block the escape. The shoal came. He bellowed for action. The tribe screamed. The water all around the bar was white foam and shining dark bodies, people and dolphins together, while the children rushed squealing round the rocks, dodging the hail of fish.
Then it was over, and the rocks were silvered with shining bodies. The haul was immense, beyond experience. Presh stood punching the air with his free hand, bellowing and triumphing, lord of the hunt, until Li managed to attract his attention. His first thought was to lift her high to share in the triumph, but as soon as he let go of her shoulder he staggered and half fell. She helped him down, and when he tried to rise again she backed away and called Come, and pointed seaward. He looked puzzled. She picked up a fish and threw it to a passing dolphin. Come-help, she called.
Now he understood and hunkered across, picking up a fish as he came. A dolphin came cruising through the clear water and he tossed the fish to it, then laughed with triumph as it rose and took the gift. Kerif was standing close by, chewing meat he’d bitten from the fish in his hand. Presh gestured to him and barked Do it, but Kerif stood baffled till another dolphin swam by and Presh barked and gestured again. Reluctantly Kerif threw the fish to it, but his feelings seemed to change as the dolphin rose and took it, and he too laughed and spread his arms wide and punched the air.
These signals made sense. Though the people often squabbled over small prey, when a hunter found something large enough to be shared he increased his prestige by doling out bits of it to allies and rivals. This was a vital part of the pattern of gestures and calls which kept the tribe whole and orderly, understanding each other’s needs, helping each other survive. Now the other seniors lined the rock to give back a proper share of this immense treasure of food, and the dolphins thronged below to take it. Li watched for a while, laughing and triumphing with the others. Then she took Presh by the arm and persuaded him down into the water and out to wait until the dolphins had had their fill, making signs to him to keep still when she saw them turning from the rock.
They came nosing past close enough for her to stroke a flank, and she thought that was all, but they wheeled and returned and the dance began.
Presh didn’t try to swim with them, but stayed still and became a fixed point in the dolphins’ to-and-fro weavings, letting them slide past him with long caressing movements while the broken sunlight rippled off their backs and the sea was full of their song. The tribe were in the water now, shadowy watchers, but when some of the males swam nearer Presh gestured Go away and they retreated, obedient as children. Still he didn’t question Li’s right to be there, joining as best she could in the pattern the dolphins made and sharing as she did so in his glory. He knew what she had done. He was a wise leader. While Kerif and Tong had been confronting each other in the bay and he’d been pretending not to notice, he had all the time been aware of Li, out on the rocks, waiting, staring seaward. The triumph was his, indisputable, but he knew it was Li who had caused it to happen. She was the one who could call the dolphins.