“You’re right!” Barney shouted, then raised his voice even louder. “Over here—this way!”
Dallas shouted too, the foghorn forgotten for the moment as a dark shape loomed out of the fog over the sea.
“It’s the boat,” Dallas said, “the one they had slung on deck.”
They called and waved as a sudden rift opened in the mist, giving them a clear view of the craft and its occupants.
The boat was made of some kind of dark skins and the three men in it were wearing fur parkas with the hoods thrown back, uncovering their long black hair.
“They’re not Vikings,” Tex said, waving his arm so that his black poncho flapped. “Who are they?”
When he did this the two men in the rear dug their round paddles into the water, but the man who was kneeling in the front whipped his arm forward and something flashed through the air towards Dallas.
“They got me!” Dallas shouted and fell over on his back with a spear sticking up out of his chest. The foghorn hit the beach next to him and the valve opened and the sound blared, roaring out across the water. When it did the men in the boat reversed their paddling with vigor and within a few strokes had vanished again into the fog.
Only a few seconds had passed from the time they appeared until the instant they vanished, and Barney stood, stunned by the impact, deafened by the wave of sound. It made thinking difficult and he had to stop it before he turned to Dallas, who still lay, unmoving, on his back, looking as dead as a kipper.
“Pull this thing out, will you?” Dallas said in a calm voice.
“I’ll hurt you—kill you—I can’t…”
“It’s not as bad as it looks. But make sure you pull up and don’t push down.”
Barney gingerly tugged on the wooden handle of the spear and it came up easily enough, but it caught in Dallas’s clothing so that he finally had to brace his feet and pull hard with both hands. It came free and tore a great strip of rubberized cloth from the poncho. Dallas sat up and lifted the poncho and ripped open his jacket and shirt.
“Look at that,” he said, pointing to a red scratch on his ribs. “Another couple of inches to the right and it would have ventilated me. That hook was digging into me when I moved and felt a lot worse than it looks now, let me tell you.” He touched the sharp barb that projected from the ivory head of the spear.
“What happened?” Amory called out, running down the slope from the truck. “What’s that? Wasn’t there a boat?”
Dallas stood and tucked his shirt back in. “We have been contacted by the locals,” he said. “Looks like the Indians or the Eskimos or somebody got here before the Vikings.”
“Are you hurt bad?”
“Not fatal. This spearhead didn’t have my name on it.” He chuckled and looked closely at the weapon. “Nice job of carving and good balance.”
“I don’t like this,” Barney said, groping out a damp cigarette. “Didn’t I have enough trouble as it was? I just hope they don’t find the Viking ship.”
“I hope they do,” Dallas said with relish. “I don’t think they would give Ottar much trouble.”
“What I wanted to tell you,” Amory said, “from up there in the truck you can see the fog breaking up, and the sun coming through in patches.”
“And about time,” Barney said, dragging deeply on the cigarette so that it fizzled and crackled.
Once the sun began burning away the mist it cleared quickly, helped by the west wind that blew steadily in their faces. Within a half hour it had lifted completely and there, clearly visible about a mile offshore, was Ottar’s knorr.
Barney almost smiled. “Give them a blast on that thing,” he said. “Once they look this way they’ll see the truck.”
Dallas kept triggering the CO2 cylinder until it finally squawked and died, and it had the desired effect. They could see the big sail narrow, then widen again as it was pushed around, and the white bone of foam appeared at the bow as the ship gathered way. There was no sign of the skin boat, which seemed to have vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
A few yards offshore the knorr turned and hove to, sail flapping, rocking in the gentle swell. There was a great deal of arm waving and incomprehensible shouting.
“Come on,” Barney shouted. “Come ashore. Why don’t you beach that thing?”
“They must have their reasons,” Amory said. “The kind of shore here or something.”
“Well how do they expect me go get out there?”
“Swim maybe,” Dallas suggested.
“Bright boy. Maybe you ought to dog-paddle over and give them a message.”
“Look,” Amory pointed, “they’ve got a second boat aboard.” The knorr’s own boat, a twenty-foot-long miniature of the mother ship, was still visible on deck, but a smaller boat was being dropped over the side.
“Something familiar about that thing,” Dallas said.
Barney squinted at it. “You’re dead right. It looks just like the one the redskins had.”
Two men climbed into the bobbing craft and began to row toward the shore. Ottar was in the bow, waving his paddle at them, and a few moments later he and his companions beached the skin boat and splashed ashore.
“Welcome to Vinland,” Barney said. “How was the trip?”
“Coast here no good, no grass for the animals, trees no good,” Ottar said. “Did you find a good place?”
“The best, down the coast a few miles, just what you asked for. Any trouble on the crossing from Greenland?”
“Wind the wrong way, very slow. Plenty of floating ice and seal and we saw two skrælling.[17] They were killing seals and tried to row away but we went after them, and when they threw spears we killed them. Ate their seals. Took their boat.”
“I know what you mean, we just met some of their relatives.”
“Where’s this good place you found?”
“Right down the coast, around the headland and past the islands—you can’t miss it. Here, take Amory back in the ship with you, he’ll show you the place.”
“Not me,” Amory said, raising his hands and backing away. “I just look at boats and I get green. My stomach would be turned inside out and I’d be dead three minutes after I left the shore.”
With the regular soldier’s innate capacity to avoid an unpleasant task, Dallas was already on his way up the slope when Barney turned toward him. “I’m a truck driver,” Dallas said. “I’ll be waiting in the cab.”
“All employees, loyal and true,” Barney said coldly. “I get the message, boys, don’t repeat it. All right, Amory, tell the truck driver to get to the camp. We’ll come in the ship as fast as we can and get Ottar’s people ashore, and maybe someday soon we can start making a movie again. Wake up Gino and tell him to get up on the hill, that spot we picked out, and shoot the ship when it comes in. And make sure those tire tracks along the beach are smoothed over.”
“Right, Barney, just as you say. I wish I could go in your place, but me and ships…”
“Yes, sure. Get going.”
Barney got soaked getting into the boat, and the water was so cold it felt as though his legs had been amputated below the knees. The boat, just seal skins stretched over a bent-wood frame, was wobbly and skittered over the water like a great bug and he had to squat in the bottom and hold onto the sides for support. When they reached the knorr he couldn’t get out of the lurching craft and over the high side of the ship until strong hands reached down and hauled him up like a sack of grain.
“Hananu! Sidustu handartökin,”[18] Ottar roared, and his men shouted back happily as they ran to swing the ship about for the last leg of her voyage. Barney retreated to the aft deck so he wouldn’t be trampled in the rush of activity. The seamen were shifting the beitass pole and the women screamed as they scattered out of the way, while the tethered sheep could only protest noisily when they were kicked aside. The crowded deck area resembled a seething farmyard, with the torn-open bundles of fodder and frightened livestock. In the middle of all the hubbub one of the women was hunkered over milking a cow into a wooden bucket. When the ship turned, the wind carried the odor of the bilges to Barney and the barnyard resemblance was even more apparent.