The Tundra Shall Burn!

by Ken Altabef

  Aquppak screamed in agony, the strangled cries like strange music to Vithrok’s mind. Good. There was some life left in this man yet. As soon as the bones were restored, Vithrok went to work on the muscle and flesh. Aquppak struggled against the pain, voicing incoherent threats. Vithrok held him firm.

  When the man was all put back together again, Vithrok withdrew. He wanted this task over and done. He had wasted too much time already.

  “Stand up!”

  Aquppak had passed out from the pain. Vithrok prodded him sharply.

  I can command him to stand, thought Vithrok, but let him do it himself. Let him see.

  Aquppak’s eyes opened again, revealing a man confused and disoriented.

  His body jerked as if startled awake from some horrible nightmare. He flexed his arms. There was no pain. The hunger gone, his limbs healed and strong again.

  “Stand up!” commanded Vithrok.

  Aquppak was happy to comply. He glanced appraisingly at this man of light.

  “You’re a Tunrit?” he asked.

  “I am the Tunrit,” said Vithrok. “The only one. But this world needs only one.”

  Aquppak took a deep breath of the frosty morning air. This could be fair, he thought. There was a balance to it. Alaana the shaman has her patron — the wind spirit, wasn’t it? — so why shouldn’t I have mine? He had never believed all that talk about spirits was real, and still thought maybe it wasn’t. But the renewed strength in his arms was real.

  “I can give you what you want most,” said Vithrok restlessly. “I can give you revenge. You will kill Khahoutek. You will revenge yourself on Guolna. I will make you headman of the Yupikut.”

  The Yupikut. It all suddenly came rushing back to Aquppak as if it had been a frightening dream of a cold, dark night. But it had been no dream. The Yupikut had tortured and nearly killed him. They had humiliated him. Alaana was there. No, not Alaana. Someone else that only looked like her.

  “You will have everything you desire,” said the Tunrit. “Even the woman.”

  Aquppak began brushing the snow from his trousers. He fought the urge to shrink back from the intensity of Vithrok’s presence beside him. The spirit was boiling with impatience.

  “What do you want in return?”

  Vithrok scowled, showing perfect, white teeth. “I’m going to ask you to kill some white men.”

  “I can do that.”

  Aquppak’s knife, the sharpened meteor blade, fell at his feet. He bent to pick it up.

  The Tunrit was gone.

  ***

  Once again, Aquppak needed to locate the wandering Yupikut. His options, though, were severely limited. He had no sled and no dogs, and the isolated fjord where the raiders had left him was far from any known settlement. He must also be wary of traveling far. The authorities among the white men were still after him. They wouldn’t have forgotten the slaughter of McPearson and the two mounties. Aquppak’s face was well-known among the settlements, and he had no allies among the other bands. He was a friendless raider, a killer. He was a Yupikut.

  He ran a hand along his face, noticing that the rough marks of the frost scars had all been wiped away. He was as handsome as he had ever been. The left ear, which had been half frozen off, was also restored. He had once thought it ironic that where Alaana had lost her right ear defending the Anatatook, he had lost his left. But now he had one up on his old friend.

  He had no place to go and, Aquppak realized, no need to travel at all. The crevasse in the fjord was the perfect place for a hide-out, the sort of place the Yupikut would return to again and again. He had only to wait for them. In the rocky crags at the side of the fjord he could make shelter, and if he was unable to catch enough snow hare or fox to keep himself fed, he was no sort of a man at all. It would not be a comfortable wait, but at its end lay sweet revenge.

  CHAPTER 38

  OLD BEA

  Iggy’s legs had grown impossibly heavy. His left hip was on fire. It was a good day for a run, but this was ridiculous.

  “Are you comfortable, dear?” he asked of Tookymingia as she sat on the stanchion.

  “Yes, fine.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  What was supposed to have been a quick run over to Old Bea to see Walter Gekko about some guns had degenerated into a grueling test of endurance. First Noona had insisted on coming along. Iggy suspected this was because she wanted to see Gekko; Iggy was a big, sloppy romantic at heart and was certain there was something brewing between those two. Noona was quite insistent, with a distant longing behind her luminous gray eyes that turned Iggy’s resolve to mush. How could he say no?

  But then his wife Tookymingia had insisted on coming along as well, lest the people get the wrong idea. If Iggy should run off with Noona on his sled in summer, people might think they, too, were getting married.

  As if he needed another wife! At forty winters, he already had his hands full with an ever-enlarging brood as it was. He had raised Tikiquatta’s two daughters after her death, and both had now married and provided him with grandchildren. He was also father to Tamuanuaq, Tooky’s daughter by her first husband, and then the two young sons she had subsequently given him.

  The process of leave-taking for even this simple journey, with its many hugs and farewells, had already used up what seemed like half a day.

  Now the dogs were running slow, working hard on the soft trail with the two women aboard. Though Tooky weighed them down very little, the small sled couldn’t possibly hold three people so he’d been relegated to running alongside. Noona had volunteered to walk part of the way while Iggy took a breather on the sled, but that would only overwork the dogs further and slow them down even more.

  At this rate they would be happy to make Old Bea by nightfall. And his hip, where he still carried a bullet meant for Alaana years ago, stabbed at him every step of the way.

  Sir Walter Gekko noticed the sled’s approach from a mile away and had warm tea and biscuits waiting upon its arrival. He was surprised to see both Tooky and Noona on Iggy’s sled and wondered what that might mean, fearing the worst. His fears were allayed when Noona, the first off the sled, ran directly into his waiting embrace.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he asked.

  Noona appeared crestfallen. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  “I am,” said Gekko. “Oh yes, I’m very glad.”

  The hug ended as quickly as it had begun. Gekko thought of his wife, lying abed in distant Europe. So far, far away. Another place, it seemed, another time, even another world.

  “Sir Gekko,” said Iggy.

  The two men shook hands in the Eskimo style, bringing them slowly up to eye level. Gekko thought better of attempting the man’s full name, which he had never been able to pronounce and which he could not quite remember. He settled for the nickname, speaking Inupiat slowly and carefully. “Big Mountain! It’s a pleasure to see you. Come inside and get warm. My man will take care of your dogs.”

  He ushered them all into the post for biscuits and tea. They sat inside the main room, close to the fire. Gekko served the tea. “What brings you?” he asked.

  “It’s your offer of guns,” said Iggy rather shyly.

  “Right,” said Gekko. He tried to look nonchalant but this did not bode well. If the Inuit wanted to arm themselves, he had better find out the reason. “What do you need them for?”

  “A hunt,” explained Iggy. “We need caribou.”

  Iggy was clean-shaven with a big round face and a cheerful manner. In Gekko’s opinion he was the most guileless person among all the Anatatook. But still Gekko wasn’t certain he believed him. If they sought to trick him, who better to send than this overgrown puppy? “What does the shaman have to say about that?”

  “Everything’s changed. It’s something to do with the spirits. I don’t understand all of it.”

  Not good enough, thought Gekko. “The last time I made the offer of guns, Alaana wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Sh
e’s changed her mind,” said Iggy. “She gave permission.”

  “Good enough, then.” Gekko put on a friendly smile. “Have you ever used a rifle before? Do you know how to fire a shot?”

  “I know how to get struck by one,” returned Iggy, patting his hip.

  Gekko smiled wryly. “I know the feeling. How are you with the spear?”

  “I have a good strong arm.”

  “Strength, my friend, has nothing to do with it. Your eye?”

  Iggy’s head twitched modestly upon his thick neck. “Twenty paces, give or take a few.”

  “Right. Give me half a day and I’ll whip you into shape with a Remington. You’ll have to go back and teach the others. I can’t leave here any time soon.”

  He exchanged a glance with Noona, her features slightly downcast.

  “Let me ask you something else,” said Gekko, leaning close to Iggy. “What lies at the North pole?”

  Iggy’s brow rumpled. He said nothing. Obviously he didn’t understand the word ‘pole.’ There was no term in Inupiat for such a thing so Gekko had senselessly used the English word. The natives’ understanding of geography was limited to knowledge of local landmarks. They had a rough idea of north and south, north being travel in the direction towards colder climes and away from the tree line.

  Gekko tried again. “If you travel north all the way, what would you find?”

  Again Iggy seemed unclear. “Caribou?” he said.

  “If you went to the top?”

  “An eagle,” suggested Iggy.

  “No, my friend. It’s… it’s not a mountain. I guess I mean at the center of the north. What lies there?”

  Iggy thought carefully for a minute, probably thinking this was some kind of humorous guessing game. “Caribou?”

  “Perhaps,” said Gekko, giving up. These people did not realize the Earth was round, so there could be no top. They had no idea that after crossing the pole one would suddenly be traveling south. And why should they? It seemed to him now to be a ridiculously arbitrary convention. These people had no reason to go to the pole, probably could not reach such an inhospitable location even with the best sled and dogs any man could desire, and therefore could not imagine that there might be anything on the other side except for further north.

  Gekko decided he had better shut up before he appeared a total madman. “All right,” he said. “Let’s have a look at my stock of rifles.”

  “What did that big fellow… Iggy… mean about the spirits changing?” asked Gekko.

  Noona walked beside him, her attention fixed on the full moon above.

  “There is a spirit that supplies the caribou to my people, to all people. My mother says that spirit is gone.” She was practicing her English.

  “Gone,” repeated Gekko. “I see. And that’s why you need the weapons all of a sudden.” He still didn’t understand. “Tell me, what was this spirit like? Have you ever seen it?”

  Noona laughed softly. A woman’s laughter, it seemed to him, was remarkably similar whether she be a Parisienne sophisticate or a maiden of the frozen wild. It surprised him every time.

  “Oh, no,” she said, “I don’t ever see such spirits as that. That is only for the shaman. I’m not sure, but I think the great caribou spirit is dead. My mother says many things are changing, spirits fade, white men bring new things up from the south, metal pots, sugar, sharp knives…”

  “Guns…” suggested Gekko. “And do you think it’s a good change?”

  “I don’t think it can be stopped.”

  “Not particularly a ringing endorsement,” he said. He was more than a little embarrassed. He had acted the fool today already with his questions about the pole.

  She said, “Le vieil ordre change, rendant son plact a nouveau.”

  “Your French is perfect,” he observed. “That’s from La Morte d’Arthur. ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to the new.’ Good Lord, where did you pick that up?”

  “You,” she said in English.

  “You don’t say.” He was reminded, once again, that this woman, born in a tent on the tundra, possessed a keen intellect that matched or even surpassed his own. Hell, she was better with languages than he could ever be. Give her a few years and she would be reading Victor Hugo in the pitch-perfect French of a native Parisienne.

  He imagined her brought to Europe, dressed in a fine silk dress with a feathered Sunday hat upon her head. She would strike a pose to rival any Metropolitan beauty, he supposed, but she would also be helplessly out of place. No, that would never do, he thought. She belongs here.

  And so do I.

  The hell with civilization and all the finer things, and to hell with money which was the most useless stuff of all, just a silly delusion. He had come to appreciate the value of a good meal — even just a good cup of tea — as if it were worth more than solid gold. And a warm, loving woman best of all. Here he was a man who had sat in the Royal Opera House amid the swirling melodies of Franz Liszt, well-heeled in topcoat and tails, who had walked the streets of Paris high on fine French Bordeaux, with a sprawling estate in Derbyshire as a guaranteed inheritance, employing both a butler and two maids, and he would gladly throw all of that away to live in a hovel made of snow and stinking of fish heads. And it wouldn’t be cold at all. Not with her.

  “Don’t go back to your camp tomorrow,” he said. “Stay here a while.”

  “What?” She stopped walking, and turned to face him. Her gray eyes searched his own.

  “Can you stay here,” he asked, “with me, when the Big Mountain and his wife go back?”

  She looked incredulous. Or was she insulted? He couldn’t tell. What were her notions of honor and propriety exactly? Had he offended?

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly. “There’s a room off the storehouse you could sleep in. It has a stove, it’s warm…”

  Now she really looked confused. “Sleep alone?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “That’s not warm,” she said. Was she refusing him? No, he thought. She’s smiling.

  She turned away. “What will my mother say?”

  Gekko sighed forcefully. “I don’t give a toss what she says or what any of them say.”

  She turned back, just in time to catch the fire in his eyes.

  “Anyway, she likes me. She wouldn’t turn me into a newt or anything?”

  The English word ‘newt’ didn’t go over very well so he shaped a thin, squirming figure with his fingers. “A newt?”

  She giggled, probably taking the figure for a spider.

  He wasn’t going to correct her.

  “My mother can see into a man’s soul,” she said.

  “Oh?” As a matter of record, he now considered Alaana the worst possible mother-in-law in the history of the world.

  “She doesn’t know what to make of you,” she added. “Sometimes you deceive others, sometimes you are true.”

  “My world is pretty complicated. Maybe she just doesn’t understand me. Maybe she hasn’t given me a fair chance.”

  “She can see your soul,” she repeated firmly.

  Worst mother-in-law of all time, thought Gekko again. “I do what’s right for my people just as she does.”

  “I know.”

  “And I’ve never lied to you.”

  “I know. But you have lied to others.”

  Damn, thought Gekko. How much does that woman see?

  Noona gazed deeply into Gekko’s eyes. She felt as if she stood at last upon the precipice. She desired this man, she adored him, but could she trust him? She was delighted at the interest he showed in her, but now that it came down to it she was unwilling to take such a chance. Such a big chance.

  The Moon Maid’s reassurances that she would one day find love lifted her hopes, but on the other side lay all the heaviness of years of disappointment and hurt. If one side cancelled the other, she was still left unsure what to do.

  How could she trust Gekko? She knew so little about him.

&
nbsp; Gekko took the point of her chin firmly in his hand. Then gently he raised it.

  “Bugger all with this rubbing of noses,” he said. He kissed her firmly and passionately on the mouth.

  Noona melted into his arms. Her heart pounding, the beat rushing in her temples, a warm fire spreading from her cheeks and neck down along her entire body. Of one thing she was certain: this was no lie.

  Then the kiss broke off, leaving her gasping for a breath of the cool night air.

  “That’s how we do it where I’m from,” he said.

  CHAPTER 39

  A RACE THROUGH WORLDS

  Alaana closed her eyes against the screams.

  On the opposite bank of the river her brother Maguan directed the hunt with consummate skill. The kayakers herded the caribou into the middle of the Silver Tongue where they had only a limited ability to turn or flee.

  But ever since the death of their guardian there was no calm resignation in these beasts. They thrashed madly in the water. The spears of the kayakers were useless against such wildly panicked animals. One of the kayaks went over, smashed to bits by caribou antler tines.

  The men in the water faced too much risk from stray gunshots, so Maguan ordered them all to pull back to shore. A handful of gunners on the bank aimed and fired. The Anatatook were still poor marksmen. Even now, with the caribou floundering in the river, the shooters missed easy targets. They fired again and again.

  Alaana sat near shore in the company of Old Higilak and Nunavik. As each gunshot hit its mark, it struck also her heart. She felt sorry for the caribou — now hopeless, helpless — paddling about in confusion with no guardian spirit to soothe them, pleading with her as they were slaughtered.

  She clapped her hands to her ears. “I can’t bear the sound of it.”

  “I hear it too,” said Nunavik. “They don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “I don’t understand, either,” said Alaana, shaking her head.

  “I keep expecting Tekkeitsertok to appear and wreak vengeance upon us,” said the walrus. He scanned the skies for thunder and lightning that would never come. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this.”