Sequoia Coast oil teeth

gnashing teeth; reddening water. chakliux and his son cut the chosen seal from the others and set to the breathless slaughter in a glinter of waves and salt.
his son was a shark who cut down among the shafts of light and struck, hard. the seal hunter was impressed, adding his strength to the ribbons of flesh cut in the side of the blubbered animal.
the sea reddened, color deepening unto that of birth-ochre and first-breath.
at last chakliux knew with father's instinct he could no longer stay beneath, and in trepidation he let himself float upward, to air and sky, slicing frigid surface with a great gasp.
dripping, he crouched beside the ice and watched.
once! raiyuk raised in glorious splashing crimson, and their eyes met with a fierce and confident light.
and then all at once chakliux was whooping in joy, dancing around the downed form of the seal and the panting sides of his boy, the new-made man of the seal hunters.
"my son is a man!" he shouted to the ends of the sea ice and the broken floes, to the glaciers, to grandfather white bear and the wheeling terns; "my son is a seal hunter!"