by Sue Harrison
“Shuku! Shuku!” Kiin screamed. She ran, not feeling the sharp edges of the grass as it caught at her feet, cutting the skin between her toes.
She dropped to her knees beside her son. His eyes were closed, his face smeared with dirt. Dried blood marked the line of a grass cut across one cheek. She picked him up, and his eyes opened; his mouth widened into a slow smile. He drew a long shuddering breath. Kiin pressed him to her chest, and he wrapped his arms around her neck, then drew back to pat her cheeks with both hands. She stood up and carried him to the supply basket, where she pulled out sealskins, laid him down, and undressed him, proving to herself that his legs and arms were strong, no bones broken.
Then she tucked him under her suk to nurse as she gutted a fish she had caught the day before and ate it raw for her evening meal.
At the end of the third day, Kiin found a good place on the back of a hill, sheltered from the wind and hidden by long grass. She flattened the grass so that Shuku could play while she sewed sealskins into boots to protect her feet from the sharp-edged grass.
She knew if she went straight west, following the path of the sun, she would come to the Walrus People’s bay. The day before, she had seen the bay glistening like blue ice as she topped each hill, so this morning, fearing women who might come into the hills to gather roots or heather, she had walked straight east, farther into the hills, almost to the base of the mountains that guarded the Walrus People’s village. She had decided to spend the next day sewing and finding roots. There were only two pieces of fish left from the salmon camp bay, and who could say how many more days she would have to walk until she reached another beach? But once she got to a beach, she could find sea urchins and chitons, catch pogies and dig for clams.
“I will not starve,” she said, speaking aloud to any spirits who watched. “I have lived before without a hunter.”
She did not make a fire. The warmth would be good, but why take a chance that the smoke, white against a gray sky, would be seen? She held Shuku tightly against herself, wrapping sealskins and her fur seal pelt around them.
That night wolves awakened her, the sounds of their wolf songs, but their voices were distant, so she was not afraid. She had often heard wolves singing when she lived with the Walrus People. She drifted back into sleep, to be awakened again by skies nearly clear, and sun warm enough to remind her of summer.
She sat and sewed, fitting the boots as she worked and using scraps to make another pair of leggings for Shuku. In the Raven’s lodge, Shuku had gone bare-legged and often naked, as most children did, but here in the wind, he needed something to keep him warm, especially when he was strapped outside his mother’s suk. Yesterday he had wet through his leggings, and at the end of the day his legs were red and chapped. Now Kiin could dry one pair as he wore the other. When they came to a stream she could wash one pair out, and if she softened them with chewing and with oil, they would not rub sores into his legs.
When the sun finally set, Kiin put on her new boots, repacked her storage basket, and started walking. After sunset, the Walrus People would be in their lodges or on the beach, and there would be less danger of anyone seeing her as she passed high in the hills beyond their village. Still she was careful to stay below the hilltops so no one outside would see movement and come hoping to find something worth hunting.
The rhythm of Kiin’s walking seemed to soothe Shuku into dreams, and he slept until sunrise. When he awoke, Kiin stopped and rested, peeling and eating some of the roots she had gathered the day before. After Shuku nursed, she stooped to take him by both hands and let him walk a short way himself, Kiin hoping to tire him so he would take a long sleep later. But as the day went on, it seemed he would never sleep. He bounced against her hip when he was in his carrying strap and cried in protest when she tried to sling him under her suk to nurse.
At midday, Kiin allowed herself some of the dried seal meat she had packed, but even that rich meat was not enough to keep her feet moving, and finally she had to stop. She unstrapped the storage basket from her back and squatted beside it. Her thoughts seemed controlled by some troublesome spirit, so that dreams set themselves between her eyes and lids, catching her like a storyteller’s voice and pulling her away from the world of wind and grass. Once her eyes closed long enough to allow Shuku to crawl so far away that Kiin had to stand to see him.
“How will I sleep?” she asked, speaking aloud, as though there were others nearby to answer her question.
Then she heard the soft whisper of her spirit voice: “You have had worse problems than this.”
And Kiin remembered the kelp line she had brought from Lemming Tail’s ik. Measuring off a length of it, she tied one end to her wrist, the other to Shuku’s ankle. He tugged at the line and screwed up his face to cry, but Kiin handed him a small piece of dried seal meat to chew on and he forgot the rope.
Then Kiin squatted on her haunches, lowered her head to her knees, and slept.
CHAPTER 36
KIIN PASSED THE WALRUS PEOPLE’S VILLAGE at night, her steps guided by the full moon. Her spirit had warned her to go in darkness, before moonrise. Even now as she walked, she heard her inner voice, loud, like the voice of a mother scolding her child: “Hunters will see you! Hunters will see you! You know they watch for caribou on nights of full moon.”
But Kiin answered: “What would be worse—being found by a Walrus hunter and brought back to the village or falling into a sinkhole? The Walrus hunters know why I left. I will tell them I lost the ik in the rocks of the salmon camp bay and decided to walk back to the village.”
Her spirit did not answer, and Kiin continued to walk. She followed a path familiar to her feet, something made over the years by women hunting berries and roots.
She was almost past the village when the wind seemed to bring voices, of women and children, of grandmothers, of hunters, their songs holding the words of both mourning and celebration, as though the sounds of many days had been bound together and brought to her by the night. She was suddenly cold, even with the warmth of her suk against her skin, and she wrapped her arms around herself, around Shuku, and then crouched down in the grass.
“It is no one,” Kiin whispered. “You hear only the wind, only your own heart beating.” But she felt a chill, as though someone were beside her.
“Spirits,” her inner voice said. “The Walrus People have been here a long time. They have given many children to the wind, many old ones to the Dancing Lights, men to the sea, women to childbirth. Is it so strange that spirits live here in the hills above the village?”
Kiin stood up, felt those spirits beside her like curious children, waiting to see what she would do. She wondered what politeness was required. Was it best to pretend you felt nothing? That their hands, cool against your face, were only the wind? That their voices were only the whispers of grass to grass?
Kiin took a long breath and once more began to walk. She looked up at the moon, high now in the east. It had drawn its light back to itself, into a bright haze that circled its face. A storm moon, hunters called it, and kept their ikyan ashore, tightly lashed to ikyak racks. Kiin tightened her arms around Shuku in his carrying strap. She would have to find shelter for them both. A place where they could wait out the rain and wind.
“The storm will not come for two or three days,” Kiin’s spirit whispered.
“Yes,” Kiin said and again looked up at the moon. The wind curled around her face, pressed cold fingers against her eyelids.
These spirits, Kiin thought. They are like the moon’s light, circling.
In all her berry picking, in her root digging, she had never felt their presence. Why were they here tonight?
“Perhaps they, too, circle for a storm,” Kiin’s spirit said. “Perhaps they have come to protect the village.”
“Against what?” Kiin asked.
Her spirit voice did not answer, and Kiin remembered the times the Raven had talked about the safety of the Walrus People’s village site. How the bay protected
against waves and wind. Kiin thought of Aka and Okmok, those sacred mountains. Had their anger spread like reaching fingers until it found this village?
Kiin walked more quickly, but still she felt the spirits press against her.
“You think I am afraid,” Kiin said. “I am not.”
Her own spirit answered, “Perhaps you are not afraid, but remember, these spirits see what you cannot. Their world is not your world.”
Kiin’s heart beat hard in her chest, like a voice that said: “Walk fast, walk fast, walk fast, walk fast.” Kiin made herself stand still, made herself listen. Perhaps one of the spirits needed to speak to her.
Then her own spirit said, “Go. There is nothing you can do. You cannot change paths already taken.”
“There is always something that can be done,” Kiin said. “Some small thing.”
She began to walk, and as she walked, she lifted prayers for the people in the Walrus village, for each man, each woman. Her steps were firm against the earth, as though her feet drew strength from rock, soil, grass. In her praying, Kiin began to sing, her own songs, celebrations of all things—the heat of the sun, the gray of beach gravel, the voices of birds. And as her songs continued, Kiin felt the spirits move, as though the words from her mouth pushed them back to their places around the village, as though the words she sang were what they had needed.
CHAPTER 37
The Whale Hunters
Yunaska Island, the Aleutian Chain
KUKUTUX GESTURED toward a pad of fur seal skin near the oil lamp, and She Cries sat down. The woman cleared her throat, but said nothing.
She Cries was tiny, so when she was bundled against the wind or rain in her suk, someone might think she was a child. But her eyes did not hold the clear honesty of a child’s eyes, and since Kukutux’s brother had died, She Cries had aged. Lines scored her forehead and made a pinched place between her eyes.
Kukutux squatted on her haunches, tucked her hands around her knees, and said to She Cries, “Would you like water? It is fresh this morning.”
For a moment She Cries said nothing, and Kukutux was sure the woman would ask for food, but She Cries only said, “Yes, water would be good.”
Kukutux brought a water bladder and waited as the woman drank, then she hung the bladder on its peg above their heads.
“I have something important to ask you,” She Cries said.
Kukutux squatted beside her and waited, but the woman was silent, staring into the lamp flame. Kukutux was patient. It would be rude to deny the woman time to order her thoughts. But Kukutux knew She Cries well enough to understand that her silence was a way of gathering importance to herself. So finally she stood and went to her basket corner, upturned an old basket, set it on her basket pole, and began to repair the bottom.
“I told you I have something important to ask you,” She Cries said, her voice rising into a whine.
Kukutux shrugged. “I listen,” she said. “Ask me.”
She Cries clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, like a mother angry with a child. “Hard Rock wants to know what you think about the traders. He wants to know if you think they are good men.
Kukutux laughed. “Hard Rock wants me to give hospitality. I will have the honor of working for the traders, and they will give him oil. Hard Rock is not my father. What right does he have to take oil that I earn? He has food enough. His wives do not starve. But perhaps he needs oil for Many Babies. The oil she uses on her hair is so old it smells. Perhaps Hard Rock is tired of the stink of it in his sleeping place.”
She Cries made small sputtering noises in her mouth.
Kukutux raised her eyes from her basket and looked across the ulaq into She Cries’ face. “And you,” Kukutux asked, “will you get some of the oil if you persuade me to go to the traders?”
She Cries opened her mouth, and Kukutux waited, but no words came out. The woman’s face reddened, and for a moment Kukutux thought of saying some politeness that would take the edge from her words, but then Kukutux saw the roundness of She Cries’ arms, the fullness of her cheeks. It had not been easy for She Cries—for anyone in the Whale Hunter village—but the woman was not starving, nor were her children.
“What right do you have to take oil for something I do?” Kukutux asked. “I did not offer you food today. This was not in rudeness, but because I have nothing to offer. Yet, you ask me to give myself to a man I do not know, with no husband or brother to protect me. You ask me so that you can have more.”
She Cries raised her eyes, looked hard into Kukutux’s face. “You think you are the only one in this village who has suffered?” She Cries asked. “You think you are the only one to lose husband or son? I know that you do not have enough to eat, that you need oil, but what can I do? Should I let my second husband’s child starve so I can feed my first husband’s sister? What wife could do such a thing?”
“You cannot share a bit of oil, welcome me to your ulaq, offer a small amount of food—in politeness?” Kukutux asked.
She Cries went on as though Kukutux had not spoken. “You think I do this for myself? No. I see that your mourning is eating away your life. You need someone to care for. You might think men do not want you because of your arm, but that is not true. You can paddle; you can sew; you can fish. Men see the pain on your face, the sorrow for a man now dead. They are not stupid. They know what will happen if they look at you too long. Your pain will come in through their eyes, push down into their chests. What man is a good hunter when pain presses against his heart?
“These traders are not bad men. The younger ones are strong and their faces are good to look at. The oldest one, Waxtal, he is small and weak, but Hard Rock says he has spirit powers, and also he is a carver. Think what will be yours if you live with the traders—oil, food, necklaces, all things that traders have in abundance. Perhaps they will decide to keep you as wife, or take you to a village that has many hunters and let you choose a husband there. Is it selfishness that I want these things for you?”
She Cries took a long breath and stood. She walked over to Kukutux, laid one hand on her head. “You want what you cannot have,” she said. “Your husband, your son, they cannot come back to you. Do not forget, my sister, someday you will go to them. Will you go proudly, knowing you have left sons for the Whale Hunter people? Or will you have to tell them that you gave no help to those still living?”
When she finished speaking, She Cries left the ulaq. For a long time, Kukutux sat, hands on her basket, doing nothing.
CHAPTER 38
WAXTAL CRADLED THE CARVED TUSK in his lap. It was cold against his legs. All things were cold—wind, ground, grass. He held his hands over his hunter’s lamp, but even when he lowered his fingers into the tongues of flame, he could feel no heat.
I am like some spirit, he thought. I long for heat, but am unable to enjoy it. Then as though the thought had given him new eyes, he asked: What if I am dead? Could this cold, this hunger, have pulled away my life?
He began to shake. Again, he held his hands over the oil-lamp flame. Again, he felt no heat. Perhaps those spirits who in his first day of fasting had added their carving to his tusk had taken his life in trade for their work. Waxtal’s throat tightened, and his chest shuddered with the full hard beating of his heart.
But then he thought, What man, dead, feels his heart beat? And suddenly he knew he was not caught in the world of the dead, but in some vision.
Why fear what I have been praying for? he asked himself. The spirits have granted what I asked.
He had planned to fast for four days and nights—four, the sacred number of the earth, of the four winds. He had brought four water bladders—one for each day. Two were empty. He picked up the third and drank, and as he drank, he asked himself, What spirit drinks?
He pulled his carving knife from its packet and held the blade over the tusk.
What better time to carve then during a vision?
He closed his eyes and let his thoughts go free. He carved as
his mind filled with pictures of many things—a fine, large traders’ ik, a cormorant feather cape, a necklace of bear claws, a mask carved from wood and painted in bright colors, a large ulaq with food caches full of meat and oil.
“So,” Hard Rock told her, “say what you came to say.” He did not look at Kukutux, but used his sleeve knife to chop up a piece of dried seal meat and crumble it into a bowl half filled with oil.
For a moment Kukutux could not take her eyes from the meat. Her stomach twisted, knotting so close to her throat that she was afraid she would not be able to speak. She had gone out for sea urchins this morning, but there were none, and she had heard the men speaking about several families of otters living in the kelp beds near shore. She had felt the rise of despair. What woman had any chance of finding sea urchins when too many otters lived near?
I will dig roots, Kukutux said to herself, ignoring a voice within that told her she would starve. What would taste better with the pogy she was sure to catch that afternoon? And at low tide, she would dig clams.
But she had caught nothing, and had found only a few clams. Even roots were hard to find, since the ash had killed so many plants. No wonder the Seal Hunters had moved to another beach. How much better for the Whale Hunters if they had done the same.
But Seal Hunters could find seals on almost any island. How could Whale Hunters leave this island and still catch whales? This island was the place where the whales passed as they moved spring and fall between the North and South seas.
Hard Rock belched, and Kukutux said, “I have decided to do as you ask.”
Hard Rock looked up at her, his eyebrows raised. He patted the floor beside him. “Sit, have food,” he said. He handed her the bowl of oil and seal meat. Kukutux lifted the edge of the bowl to her lips and pushed meat into her mouth. She gave the bowl back to him and wiped her chin with her fingers.
