There were other women who didn’t have the courage to join them at the beach, but their hearts were with them. “Join us,” Wilma had begged. However, to appear at their shore would have meant going against their husbands, brothers, or sons. Time and history had reduced their world, maybe even the soul, as easily as a sand castle is washed into the sea. Maybe their absence was why the whale did not hear the few singing women who gazed out past black rocks at the horizon. The three on the beach did not judge the others, even Linda, who was too sensitive to stay in town that day. Linda closed the restaurant and went inland to stay with friends in order to avoid nightmares with blood and her own all-pervading sadness.

Ruth knew there would be consequences against her. Already the anger, the hatred, the fallout from her protest was as alive as if another creature had grown and pervaded the tribe, a monster as in the stories of the past, the cannibal that wanted to eat the people, and she felt that she alone stood in its path. Some saw her as their ruin. They blamed her for the news coverage, the loud protests of the activists, and even the storm that later arrived, as if she had more power than she herself had ever known.

The three women told the whales not to come. But the whales no longer heard their voices or thoughts. Perhaps because this hunt had become a spectacle and not a holy thing. Their voices were drowned out by the sound of speedboats and a helicopter, the pilot spotting the whales so the men wouldn’t have to wait for them or search. This was not the way it had ever been done in the past. This was the first whale hunt since the 1920s. Everyone was there. Reporters, like the one Ruth had called. Newspeople and watchers from outside, from other tribes who swore later that they themselves would never whale, and the many protesters from San Francisco and thereabouts. It was a spectacle. Ruth thought no whale would be near all the commotion. Watching, she also thought how few knew or remembered how to paddle the canoes except Marco. Marco had explained and taught some of the others how to paddle, but still they were a sorry sight.

The women watched as the men moved the two canoes away from land in all the chaos. Long ago, the women used to hold up their skirts and go out into the cold water and ask the whales to offer themselves to the hungry people and to those women with breast milk, to feed their families, all of whom loved the whales with their great breaths rising out of water, their barnacled bodies, their ancient eyes.

Those men strong enough, including Thomas and Marco, pushed the canoes into the water and jumped in with the ones already inside, some of them not strong enough to row. There was chatter as they left, directions. There was food and drink and noise. Marco was surprised. He was given to prayer, as he had been taught.