Soon the stronger fish were swimming over the weaker and splattering across the surface to escape. It did them no good. The wave struck, churned through them, and pounded on, leaving a bloody wake in which the gulls came to feast, while on the shore, other creatures watched and waited.

The old bull filled his belly, and as always in the great bay, the herd fed well. But their hunger was as endless as the sea, and their wave rolled on to the shallows where the last of the fish had fled. Black bodies lunged and whirled in the reddening water. Flashes of panic grew smaller and dimmer. Then came a flash that seemed no more than a moment of moonlight. The old bull turned to chase it, and the movement of his flukes brought the sand swirling from the bottom.

He had led the herd too close to shore and the tide was running out. In the rising turbulence, he could see almost nothing, so he made his sounds, listened for the echoes, and sought to lead the herd toward safety.

But something in the sea or the stars or his own head had betrayed the old bull. He followed his sounds, because that was what he had always done, and swam straight out of the water. The herd followed him, because that was what they had always done, and the black-backed wave broke on a beach between two creeks.

Still something told the old bull that he was going in the right direction. He pounded his flukes to drive himself into one of the creeks. But he did no more than send up great splashes and dig himself deeper into the eelgrass that rimmed the creek.

All around him, black bodies flopped uselessly in the shallows. The sun quickly began to dry their skin. And their own great weight began to crush them.

The old bull heard feeble warning cries, louder pain cries. He felt the feet of a gull prancing on his back. Then new cries, patterned and high-pitched, frightened the gull into the air.

From the line of trees above the beach came strange creatures, moving fast on long legs. They wore skins and furs. They grew hair on their faces. They carried axes that flashed like sunlight.

They were men. And they swarmed among the herd without fear, and drove their axes into the heads of the whales, and brought blood and death cries. And the biggest of them all raised his axe and came toward the old bull.

But before the axe struck, an arrow pierced the man’s neck and came out the other side. Blood and gurgling sounds flowed from his mouth. His eyes opened wide and the axe dropped from his hand.

Now men with painted faces came screaming from the woods. The old bull felt the clashing of the fight and heard sounds of fury unlike any he had known in the sea. Rage swirled around him, stone against iron, arrow against axe, bearded man against painted man. And with his last strength, he tried to escape.

He pounded his flukes but could do no more than roll onto his side, his great bulk burying the axe in the marsh mud beneath him.

Then a bearded man beheaded the painted chieftain and his painted followers fled. The victor lifted the head by the hair and flung it into the sea, but the other bearded men did not celebrate their victory. Instead, they ran off in fear.

For some time, the old bull lay dying on the beach between the creeks. Then the bearded men appeared once more, this time with a woman of their kind.