Lindsey Godfrey Eccles: WHEN MOUNTAINS WERE PEOPLE • Cleaver Magazine

Fiction by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles
WHEN MOUNTAINS WERE PEOPLE

Long ago when mountains were people there were two sisters, each so tall her forehead touched the sky, and each so beautiful that anyone who saw her stared in wonder. Between the sisters lay a sea that was sheltered from the open ocean by a peninsula, the seat of the younger sister. The older sister sat on the mainland to the east. The two sisters were vain, proud, and cranky. When the wind kissed the cheeks of one, the other threw rock and flame from her eyes and ears. If Beaver or Trout praised the sweetness of one’s waters, the other shat an avalanche. The two sisters had no parents to discipline them, but every day their brother the Sun paid a visit, first to the mainland sister, then to the peninsular sister. And every day they quarreled over who he liked better, and whose brow he painted in the most beautiful shades of persimmon and orchid and blue.

In the waters between the seats of the sisters swam Orca, wisest and most magical of whales. She was a person too, like all animals before the world changed. Whales were good advisors, but they had an idiosyncratic sense of humor, and it was important to be careful in one’s dealings with them. The peninsular sister saw Orca spyhopping in the waters below and called out to her, O Grandmother, O Whale, if only I had a husband who could scratch the itches in my valleys, I would be happy and at peace. And Orca said, Of course, it is done. The first man was tall as a fir and very handsome, and he loved to bury his nose in the blossoms of the peninsular sister and lift his face to her waterfalls. He dug roots from her riverbeds and plucked berries from her bushes and slept curled like a nestling in her grasses, and this pleased the peninsular sister, but he didn’t quite feel like a husband.

The older sister saw this from the other side of the inland sea and grew jealous. Why should my little sister, she wanted to know, get a husband, a fine young man to tickle her belly, while I get nothing? She called out to Orca in a voice of thunder, O Grandmother, O Whale, if only I had a band of warriors to lie upon my cheek and gaze with me upon my brothers the stars. Orca blew bubbles in the sea and said, Of course my dear, it is done. And a dozen warriors sprang up from the forest between the mainland sister’s thighs. They were as handsome and strong as if each of them had been carved in one piece from a great red cedar, and indeed that is how they were made. Notching arrows to their bows they mounted her hips, frowning at everything they saw. They were no doubt magnificent, but not quite as delighted by the cheeky gurgling of her streams and the heady fragrance of her meadows as she would have liked them to be.

Now the sister on the west side of the water grew jealous of the mainland sister and her warriors and cried out to Orca in a voice that shook the roots of the peninsula on which she sat, O Grandmother, O Whale, give me a village of men to gaze upon my face and drink my waters and harvest the fruits of my grassy inclines. Orca performed a back flip from the crest of the tidal wave that had been stirred up by the quaking of the peninsular sister’s voice and said, Of course. It is done. And a village of men poured from the peninsular sister’s navel and spilled up to the rocky plain of her waist. When the village of men encountered the peninsular sister’s first husband they trampled him to death. Shame, she said. And forgot all about him.

Now the mainland sister looked across the water and saw the fires and heard the singing from the many encampments freckling the peninsular sister’s high white breast and cried out, O Whale, O Grandmother, I must have countless men, tireless and insatiable men, a kingdom of men to revere me and worship me for all time. Orca hesitated only a moment. It is done, she said. But there were not enough of the old cedars left to make a kingdom of men for the mainland sister, so she swam out into the ocean and sent a call to faraway lands. Men heard her and came in ship after ship after ship. They were not beautiful and bold like the first men, but they were numerous. They were also small and clever with their hands. But they did not use those hands to pleasure the mainland sister as she wished. Instead they used their hands to draw the power of her rivers into their machines, to harvest and burn her forests, to slaughter the animal people who lived on her flanks for food and for sport, and everything that was good they kept for themselves.

Orca, she said. I do not like these men so well. But the mainland sister’s voice was not loud enough to reach Orca in the deep waters of the ocean.

And the mainland sister heard her younger sister laughing from across the water.

Now the kingdom of men grew more numerous, more clever with their hands, and the charms of the mainland sister were no longer enough for them. Bored, they marched around the south side of the inland sea and began to tickle the feet of the peninsular sister in a way she did not like at all. The peninsular sister wished for a kingdom of men of her own that might subdue her sister’s kingdom of men and punish them for displeasing her. Orca! she cried, and her rocky heart boiled. Orca! she cried, and smoke billowed from her ears. Orca! she cried, and her rivers ran so hot they cooked the fish that were swimming there. But Orca did not hear.

Meanwhile the sisters were not as beautiful as they once had been. The industries of the kingdom of men had dirtied their snows, choked their waters, blackened their forests, and driven off most of the animal people who had survived the frenzies of killing. But still the sisters were greedy for more. More men, better men, men to pleasure them, men to worship them. They cried out to Orca again and again until finally one morning their squalling was so loud that she did hear from the ocean swell where she lay bobbing with her grandson, teaching him to catch salmon.

Orca sighed and dove deep. It is done, she said. And the ocean poured into the inland sea, and together the saltwaters rose and rose until they swamped the armpits and chins and eyeballs of the two sisters, scattering the kingdom of men like ants. A few found refuge on faraway peaks, but most drowned. Just one, the leader of the band of warriors carved each in one piece from the last of the great red cedars, managed to climb to the very top of the inland sister. There he found Elk, Badger, Squirrel, Jackrabbit, Wolf, Raccoon, Cougar, and Porcupine milling about and shaking their heads in disgust. He crept into a cave where occasionally Squirrel, a kindhearted creature, would bring him a handful of nuts. Mostly he huddled from the cold and wet in a very unwarriorlike fashion.

In time the ocean went back to its bed, and the Sun dried his sisters’ tears, for he loved them despite their flaws, as he loved all things on this Earth. Orca returned to the inland sea and brought along her grandson, for though he was grown now, he still loved to hunt with his grandmother and listen to her tales. The sisters’ shoulders ran with rivulets like cloaks of diamond, grasses sprouted on their flanks, and their bellies erupted in wildflowers. They sunned their cheeks in their brother’s warmth, and for now, at least, their hearts were cool. We are too old for husbands, they whispered to one another, giggling pebbles.

But what of the last of the red cedar warriors? Did he find the courage to peek from his hideout as the seas fell, and did he descend the limbs of the mainland sister, all the way down to her stony toes? And did he cry out to the pale waves, begging for a mate? Did Orca hear, and grant his wish? Did she bring him another man of cedar, or a woman? And did the last warrior and his mate make a home in the ancient sisters’ young meadows, honoring them for what they were and not for what might be gotten out of them?

Perhaps so; perhaps not.

Only Orca and her grandson know for sure.

In loving memory of Granny, aka J-2, wisest of whales

Lindsey Godfrey Eccles lives on an island near Seattle, spending as much time as she can on the water and occasionally practicing law. Her fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter, Monkeybicycle, Hobart Pulp, and elsewhere. You can find her at lindseygodfreyeccles.com or @LGEccles.