by Sue Harrison
Then she had no more words, nothing else to say, and she looked into Hard Rock’s eyes, braced herself for the anger she thought she would see there. But his eyes were flat, and Kukutux saw nothing in them, not even the image of her own face.
Finally he spoke. His voice was quiet, the words spaced and clipped as though he spoke to one who was only beginning to understand. “There is a man who might take you as wife,” he said. “There is a man who thinks you are beautiful. He has no woman of his own and will give a good trade for you. But first he asks only to spend the night, to see what kind of woman you are.”
Kukutux’s heart squeezed itself so tightly that for a moment she could not speak. Then she said softly, “All our men have wives.”
“He is one of the traders,” Hard Rock answered.
Kukutux stood, walked away from the man. In rudeness she turned her back on him, in rudeness she crossed her arms over her breasts, stood close to the door of her dead husband’s sleeping place. “I am in mourning,” she said, throwing her words back over her shoulder as though she threw fish innards to a gull.
“Your husband is dead these many months,” Hard Rock said.
Kukutux shrugged. “Can a person put a limit on mourning?” she asked. “Does a wife say, ‘One moon, two moons, sorrow will gnaw my heart, then I will dance, then I will sing’? Is that the way of our people? Perhaps that is the way of this trader. What is he? Caribou People?”
She turned and saw that Hard Rock was standing. “He has asked for you. Tonight,” he said to Kukutux.
“No man in this village is husband, uncle, or father to me. No man has the right to say what I will do with my nights—who will come into my sleeping place or who will not.”
“He has given oil for you.”
Kukutux smiled and bent to pull out the one seal belly of oil left in her food cache. “No,” she said. “This is my oil. I rendered it from seals taken by my husband. It is all I have, and it is mine. No one has given oil for me.”
Hard Rock’s face darkened, and Kukutux said, “Tell him I am in the time of my moon blood. Tell him if he comes to me tonight he will curse his man part. Then perhaps he will let you keep the oil.”
Hard Rock curled his lips to show his strong white teeth, but though Kukutux’s breath quivered in her throat, she did not let herself look away. He stretched his arm out to reach for the fish hanging from the rafters of her ulaq, and Kukutux had to press her lips together to keep from begging him to leave her this small amount of meat. Instead, she took a long breath and said, “If you do not have enough to eat, then take it. I know the pain of an empty belly.”
Hard Rock pulled his hand away without taking the fish and climbed up out of the ulaq.
Then Kukutux squatted beside the oil lamp, took the small bit of raw fish left on the mat, and ate it.
CHAPTER 30
THE SEA WAS EMPTY, no sign of seals or whales, no ruffled water that told of cod swimming. Waxtal lifted his head toward the voice that called him and saw Hard Rock. The man came from one of the smaller ulas in the village. The wind blew against Hard Rock’s suk, raising the feathers of its puffin-skin sleeves.
Waxtal felt his own eyes reach toward that suk in wanting. How much could he get for such a suk? Three, four caribou hides if he traded it to the Caribou People. Their women did not know the secrets of sewing birdskins.
Waxtal slid down the side of the ulaq where he, Owl, and Spotted Egg stayed. The ulaq was small but clean, with good oil lamps and fresh crowberry heather on the floors.
Hard Rock motioned for Waxtal to follow him to the lee side of the ulaq. Both men squatted on their heels. Waxtal glanced at Hard Rock, saw that the man’s face was flushed, his knuckles white.
“I promised you a woman,” Hard Rock said. “She is a young woman, beautiful, without a husband. Perhaps she would come and live in your ulaq to cook and sew, if she got enough pleasure from her night with you.
Waxtal smiled, felt the longing rise again in his loins. A woman without burden of husband, someone who would serve without asking the rights of a wife, what could be better?
But then Hard Rock said, “These next few days she is in moon-blood time.” He shrugged.
Waxtal’s disappointment was like a rock settling into his belly, but he made himself smile and reached out to clap a hand against Hard Rock’s shoulder. “Who can change that?” he asked and laughed. “Women are women.”
For a moment Hard Rock’s face darkened, but then he, too, smiled, laughed.
“A trade is a trade,” Hard Rock said. “I will get her for you when she can come.”
“Good,” Waxtal said and started to turn away, to climb again to the top of the ulaq so he could watch the sea.
“A trade is a trade,” Hard Rock said again. “I will bring you someone else for tonight. You have my harpoon head?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Waxtal. He drew the ivory point from a packet at his waist and laid it on the palm of his hand.
“Where is my oil?” Hard Rock asked.
“You have the other harpoon heads?”
Hard Rock reached inside the neck of his suk, drew out a pouch, and handed it to Waxtal.
Waxtal opened the pouch, shook out the harpoon heads. He nodded.
“Three bellies of oil,” Hard Rock said.
“Three bellies?” The voice made Hard Rock turn. Owl and Spotted Egg stood behind him. “For that?” Spotted Egg asked.
Waxtal’s face burned. “Two bellies,” he said to the traders, and then said to Hard Rock, “I have not told them about our trade.”
Hard Rock frowned, narrowed his eyes.
“Tomorrow morning,” Waxtal said. “I will bring your oil then.”
He waited until Hard Rock nodded, until the man turned back toward his own ulaq, then Waxtal strode down toward the beach.
Hard Rock pulled off his suk and threw it down beside Many Babies. She looked up. The end of a sinew thread was softening in her mouth, and she held a birdbone needle in her left hand.
“I talked to Kukutux,” Hard Rock said.
“She lies,” mumbled Many Babies, the sinew thread clamped between her front teeth. She pulled the thread from her mouth, twisted the wet end, and tied it around her needle. She guided the needle and thread through several awl holes in the sealskin she was sewing. “She lies,” Many Babies said again.
“Kukutux caught the fish,” Hard Rock said. “Why did you claim it? You have enough to eat. She is starving.”
Many Babies set down her sewing and stood up. “I will not have enough to eat if you take her as fifth wife,” Many Babies said. “You think you bring in enough with your hunting to feed five women and our children? Your hunting is cursed. It has been cursed since you allowed that Seal Hunter boy to live in this village and learn our secrets.”
“What could I do?” Hard Rock said. “I was not chief then, and he was the old man’s grandson. Who would believe he had the power to curse us, even in his death?”
“What is done is done,” Many Babies said. “But do not make it worse for us by taking another wife.”
“If I want her I will take her,” Hard Rock said. “Do not tell me who I can or cannot have as wife.”
“If you had listened to me before, you would have stood up to the old man. You would have made him send his grandson away.” She sat down again and picked up her sewing.
“I have traded you for the night,” Hard Rock said. “To the chief trader. He needs a good woman.”
Many Babies looked up at Hard Rock, opened her mouth to speak. Slowly Hard Rock pulled his hunter’s knife from its arm sheath, slowly he tapped it against his fingers. “Do not tell me no,” he said.
Many Babies tilted her head, lowered her eyelids, and stared at him from slitted eyes. “Good,” she said. “I will be glad to go. It has been a long time since I had a man between my legs.”
Waxtal scooped up a handful of stones from the beach and threw them at the gulls fighting over a rotting fish at the high-tide l
ine. They skittered away, screeching, then circled and settled again on the beach.
“Where are the harpoon heads?” Owl asked.
Waxtal turned and handed him the pouch.
“Two of them are broken!” Spotted Egg said. He looked down his long nose at Owl and said, “He traded three seal bellies of oil for broken harpoon heads. He ate our food all winter and now he does this to repay us.”
“Two bellies of oil,” Waxtal said and stooped to pick up more stones. He looked from the corners of his eyes at Owl. Owl seldom spoke, but sometimes during the winter when food was scarce, Owl had been the one who stood up for Waxtal, the one who pointed out Waxtal’s strengths when Spotted Egg could only criticize. But Owl only shook his head.
“Who will want them?” said Spotted Egg and threw the harpoon heads to the ground.
“Hard Rock probably promised him a woman,” said Owl.
Waxtal’s face burned. “I did not ask for a woman,” he said. He turned toward the water, then, looking back over his shoulder, said to Owl, “You and your brother, you have had women each night since we came. I have been carving—speaking to spirits and carving—while you have been playing. How much of our trade goods have you given for those women? How many necklaces? How much oil? And for something you will not get back, something that you cannot trade to someone else.”
Waxtal held up the largest harpoon heads. “Look, think about this,” he said. “It is a Whale Hunter harpoon head.” He pressed his thumb against a broken barb. “It has been used to hunt whales. What men have more power than those who hunt whales? You think I am foolish enough to believe that men will want this for a weapon? What is a weapon worth? An otter skin for a crooked knife. Two bellies of oil for a hunter’s knife.” He turned and held the harpoon head toward the sea, looked out toward the east where night had begun to gray the edge of the horizon. “It is not a weapon; it is an amulet. It is power. What will a man give for power? His very soul.”
Waxtal lowered his head, but remained standing with his back to Owl and Spotted Egg. For a long time there was no noise but birds and waves, the occasional rise of a woman’s voice coming from the outside cooking hearths near the ulas.
Finally Spotted Egg said, “These people have no power. They are cursed.”
“You do not know what they were,” Waxtal said. He turned and looked at Spotted Egg, at Owl, who was squatting on his heels. “You do not know what they were, and those people we trade with this summer, those people out there in villages far from here”—he smiled and shook his head—“they do not know what the Whale Hunters have become.” He moved to stand beside Spotted Egg, leaned so his face was close to Spotted Egg’s face. “Do they?” Waxtal said, his words nearly a whisper.
“You want us to offer curses?” Spotted Egg asked, his voice also a whisper, but edged with anger, so that Waxtal could feel a spray of spit coming from the man’s mouth.
“The oil Waxtal traded was his,” said Owl. “He killed the seals; he rendered the oil.”
Spotted Egg looked at his brother, snorted. “Everything Waxtal has is ours. He would be dead if we had not found him.”
“Perhaps I would be dead,” Waxtal said. “Perhaps the oil is yours, but you have no claim on my carvings. I have traded for them in the world of spirits, and you have never been there.”
“Do not tell me about your spirit powers,” said Spotted Egg. “If you have such great powers, why did you bring us here to this cursed village?”
Waxtal opened his mouth to speak, but Owl stood up, put one hand on Waxtal’s arm. “Be still, say nothing,” he said, moving his head to point toward the ulas.
Waxtal looked and saw Hard Rock walking toward them. Spotted Egg nodded and raised his hands in greeting.
“I have a woman for you,” Hard Rock said.
Slowly Owl looked at Waxtal, slowly he turned away. “You did not ask for a woman,” he whispered, and he laughed, a soft laugh, but cold; like wind over ice.
Spotted Egg also laughed, anger in the laughter, and Hard Rock raised his eyebrows at Waxtal.
Waxtal’s hands were suddenly too cold, his face too hot. “I did not ask for a woman,” he said, saying the words loud enough so that Owl and Spotted Egg would hear as they walked away.
For a moment, Hard Rock turned to watch the brothers. “They are angry,” he said.
Waxtal snorted.
“They have had women every night,” Hard Rock said, his voice rising with the words as though he asked a question.
“They are boys,” Waxtal said. “They cannot see beyond the curse of this village to the power that lies within.”
Hard Rock’s lips closed over his teeth, and the muscles of his jaw tightened.
“But I know what is true,” Waxtal continued. “I will be glad to have your woman for the night. It will be the last time I have a woman for many nights. I must go up into the hills, speak to the spirits. I have carving to do.”
“Yes, I had forgotten,” Hard Rock said. “You carve.”
“Bring the woman to my ulaq and I will show you my work,” Waxtal said.
Hard Rock nodded, then turned and walked back toward the ulas.
CHAPTER 31
Goodnews Bay, Alaska
KIIN PADDLED NORTH to the large bay less than a day’s travel from the Walrus People’s village. There the water was calm, and she skirted the shore to the river that flowed into the back of the bay. She positioned Lemming Tail’s ik parallel to the shore and climbed out, then pulled the boat up on the dark silty sand of the tide flats. Each summer the Walrus People made their salmon camp above the mouth of the river. Circles, dug a handlength into the ground and edged with stones, marked where they pitched their walrus skin tents.
The ground was still wet from recently melted winter snow, but she could cut grass and make a thick pad to protect their bedding skins, then haul the ik up from the tide flats and tie it in place so she and Shuku could sleep under it that night.
She took her supply basket from the ik and carried it to the high slanting beach that stretched up from the tide flats, then pulled Shuku from his carrying sling, took off his leggings and the sealskin wastecloth, and set him down on his short, strong legs. He stood for a moment then sat down hard. Kiin watched as he pushed himself up to his hands and feet, then slowly stood erect, took three steps, and fell again. His mouth curled down in a quivering frown, but Kiin clapped her hands and praised him, then pointed up at a gull that was circling them. Shuku smiled, the slow half-smile of his father Amgigh. Kiin’s chest tightened with a sudden stab of pain, but she closed her mind to her sorrow, picked up Shuku, and went back to the ik. She set Shuku inside, then grabbed the bow of the ik and pulled, thrusting her weight against it until it was high up in the ryegrass beyond the beach.
Using the woman’s knife she wore in a packet at her waist, Kiin cut a handful of grass and carried it back to where she had left Shuku’s clothes. She used the grass to wipe Shuku’s bottom and legs, then cleaned the sealskin wastecloth. She rinsed the sealskin in the river and wrapped it around her suk sleeve to dry, tying it in place with a length of kelp twine. She pulled a dry sealskin strip from her carrying basket, rolled it between her palms to soften it, padded it with fireweed fluff from her storage basket, and wrapped it around Shuku, then put his footed leggings back on. He fussed and kicked against the leggings, but stopped when Kiin slipped him under her suk. He pushed himself up to her left breast and sucked the nipple into his mouth.
Kiin squatted down and looked out at the sea. She had been fortunate. The winds had been gentle as she paddled, but the day in Lemming Tail’s ik had made her realize how difficult it would be to return to the First Men.
The earth, her people said, was mother, the sky father, but both were so immense, and she and Shuku were so small.
She thought back to the many evenings during the past winter when the Raven had spoken to White Fox and Bird Sings about their journey to the River People village.
Sometimes, the Raven burn
ed a willow stick into a charred point and used it to draw an outline of the land—beaches, bays, and rivers—from the Walrus People’s bay to the River People’s village. Always, he included the salmon camp bay—a good place to stop, coming and going, between the Walrus and River villages. Each time he had done this, Kiin found some reason to come from her corner and offer water or food, so she had opportunity to see what the Raven drew.
Now, holding Shuku in one arm, she stood and walked toward the beach. She stopped at the edge of the sand, pulled up a stem of grass, and, crouching down, used the hard stalk to draw the point of land that extended from the River People’s village out into the North Sea. She drew in the land that separated the Walrus People’s small bay from the River People’s village, and then drew the bay where she was now.
From this beach, she would turn south. Mountains pushed down close to the bay, but she could follow river valleys and cut behind the Walrus People’s village. Then she would follow the seashore south and west to the Traders’ Beach. She hoped the day’s travel in the ik—going north, away from the Traders’ Beach—would be worth the time spent, making the Raven and the Walrus People truly believe she was traveling to the River People’s village.
Kiin sighed and stood up. The drawing helped. For some reason, now the sky and sea seemed smaller, her journey not so frightening. She gathered the few bits of driftwood that were scattered above the high-tide mark, then carried the wood to the salmon camp and piled it into a circle of blackened stones, the hearth where the women prepared food for everyone in the camp. She went back for her storage basket and the seal stomach of oil, brought them both to the camp. She dug into her storage basket, found the bundle of fireweed fluff she used for Shuku, and pulled out a handful. She wiped the fluff over the sides of the seal-stomach oil container, then took her firestones from their pouch at her waist. She wedged the oily fluff between two of the driest pieces of wood and snapped the stones together until a spark caught in the fluff. She blew gently on the fire, coaxing it into the wood, sighing her relief when the wood caught.
