Thomas knows there is a volcano out in the ocean. All the world is changing and the ground is always moving. He feels it, the ocean change, the sea change, shifting life. He is part of it. They all are and he sees Ruth smile at him like she is still the girl he once knew, a beautiful smile full of words.

The morning light is brightening and Thomas wonders when the first sand was created from the wash of water on the mountains, or the first seabird grew feathers and wings, or the first whale with inner legs walked on earth then turned back to the water. He wishes he knew the real name of the world. The beach birds walk away and the water fills their prints and even the poor men who live on the beach feel rich today as if the sea breathes and it is the exhalation of a conquered world and it is being breathed away and the spirit of the place is breathed back in and they are part of it all now, it is part of them.

So now the other men have said they will go to join the other paddling nations. There is the announcement. “Ho, we go to strengthen ourselves, not to kill a whale.”

Thomas walks into the water like his grandfather, pushing a canoe.

The women watch. They are thinking it is a lie. They are waiting to see if the men are really going to kill a whale. There are no weapons to speak of, none that they can see, but they are suspicious now anyway. They wait to see what is the truth. Now, if they want to hunt, the women, even those who had been afraid to speak against their men, will fight them. All the wives and mothers watch and are wary. After all, they are people of the whale and this is history.

Even the man who sells his sometimes crooked homemade chairs to the tourists is on the beach, in the glint of light, watching the men disappear.

The endless vistas of water are shimmering and for a moment Thomas sees the women of Vietnam floating above the streets of the city in their cheongsams. He sees his daughter of flowers, Lin. He sees her surrounded by orchids and lotus blossoms, the sweet perfume of her life, but he doesn’t know how he sees this far.

He doesn’t see the old women in dresses of red with woven grass earrings and hats and shells, but they are there.

They live in a land where even at noon there are shadows. Thomas had been strengthened. Now his arms are firm, his legs are able to push against the side of the canoe, strong and capable. He is teaching the men to paddle. To paddle and to sing their names. He takes them out in the canoe. Men he has known. This time the men are quiet. He thinks they are all humble. But even at noon, they go out without telling anyone their plans. Thomas has a feeling of uncertainty about the endeavor, but he wants to practice paddling, to make a group of men who will go with the other tribes who have avoided them since their hunt, to journey the ocean north and soon to even travel at night by the old astronomy, by stars the old people know. They can stop at all the villages and feast and rest and make friends.