But I--I raised my voice
with the wind and the storm, and lived.
'We dwelt in Akatan--' 'Where?' asked Malemute Kid.
'Akatan, which is in the Aleutians; Akatan, beyond Chignik,
beyond Kardalak, beyond Unimak. As I say, we dwelt in Akatan,
which lies in the midst of the sea on the edge of the world. We
farmed the salt seas for the fish, the seal, and the otter; and
our homes shouldered about one another on the rocky strip between
the rim of the forest and the yellow beach where our kayaks lay.
We were not many, and the world was very small. There were
strange lands to the east--islands like Akatan; so we thought all
the world was islands and did not mind.
'I was different from my people. In the sands of the beach were
the crooked timbers and wave-warped planks of a boat such as my
people never built; and I remember on the point of the island
which overlooked the ocean three ways there stood a pine tree
which never grew there, smooth and straight and tall. It is said
the two men came to that spot, turn about, through many days, and
watched with the passing of the light. These two men came from
out of the sea in the boat which lay in pieces on the beach.
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