by Sue Harrison
“He cannot live,” Dying Seal said. Still he and Hard Rock tied their ikyan together. They pulled the man from the water and laid him across the ikyak decks.
Waxtal drew close, looked, then quickly turned his head aside. No, even with all his chants, with all his prayers, with the powers of the most powerful shaman, Red Feet would not live. What man could live with chest crushed, jaw pulled away, mouth gurgling blood at each breath?
Hard Rock looked up at Waxtal, moved his paddle in an angry slash. “Lead us!” he said.
Waxtal opened his mouth to remind Hard Rock that Red Feet had acted foolishly. He, Waxtal, had warned the men about using seal harpoons against walrus. But there would be time to speak when they were safe again on the Whale Hunters’ island. Who could say whether spirits, watching, seeing their harpoons, might send another wave against them, leave them all in the sea to join the whispering voices that the wind carries to hunters in ikyan? And so he started out through the waves, the paddle heavy and hard in his hands.
CHAPTER 58
KUKUTUX WAS ON THE BEACH when the men returned, Waxtal in the lead, Fish Eater trailing, Hard Rock and Dying Seal with ikyan lashed together, Red Feet lying across the bows.
Kukutux closed her eyes in sorrow when she heard Red Feet’s two young wives begin the mourning chant, and she remembered her own agony when her husband was killed hunting whales.
Then over the mourning song, she heard Waxtal’s voice. His yelling was a rudeness that drowned out the women. “I called the walrus, but told you Whale men not to hunt. Who does not know that walrus are dishonored by seal and sea lion harpoons? What man is so foolish as to dishonor the animal he needs for food?”
Dying Seal came from his ikyak, grasped Waxtal’s shoulders, and squeezed his strong hands until Waxtal’s words faded to a whisper, until the old man’s mouth closed. “Who is so foolish as to dishonor the dead?” Dying Seal asked, then released Waxtal so quickly that the man staggered as though he had been hit.
Hard Rock, Dying Seal, and Fish Eater left the beach, Hard Rock without saying anything. But Waxtal stayed, removed ballast rocks and oil bladders from inside his ikyak, then began to rub oil into the seams as though there were no mourners, as though Red Feet had come back from the hunt alive and walked now on two strong legs like any other man.
Kukutux went back to the ulaq, took food outside to the cooking hearth. She hung a boiling bag over the fire, filled it with water and fresh and smoked fish, then waited for Waxtal.
He came, muttering angry words, but Kukutux pretended she did not hear. The man climbed down into the ulaq and then out again, walking stick in his hand. He swung the stick against rocks and clumps of grass as he walked, but Kukutux ignored him until the stick swept close to her bare feet. Then she stood up and said in a loud voice, “The food I prepare is food I brought in myself. If you want to eat, you will put down your stick.”
But Waxtal swung the stick again, this time slapping the end against Kukutux’s shins, leaving a stinging welt.
In anger Kukutux picked up her woman’s knife. In anger she slashed the blade across Waxtal’s fingers. Waxtal cried out and dropped his walking stick, raised his hand to his mouth to suck at the blood dripping from the cut. Kukutux lunged for the stick, grabbed it just as Waxtal reached for it. Then she raised one knee and broke the stick over it, and poked the broken pieces into the hearth fire, keeping Waxtal away with the blade of her women’s knife until the stick began to smolder and char.
“It was sacred, that stick!” Waxtal screamed at her, but Kukutux only swung a wide arc with her woman’s knife. Waxtal jumped back, and Kukutux stooped down to pick up one of the hearth stones with her left hand. She raised the stone as if to throw it.
Ignoring the pain in her left elbow, the protest of bone and muscle against the weight of the stone, she said, “You, Seal Hunter, do not think you can treat Whale Hunter women as you treat your own Seal women. Do you believe Whale Hunter men are the only ones who gather strength from years of eating whale meat? Do you think none of that power comes to the women? Be glad I broke only your stick.”
Waxtal opened his mouth, snarled, but Kukutux, strong with stone and knife, was not afraid. Then she heard a voice calling and carefully moved her eyes from Waxtal to see Hard Rock coming toward them. Waxtal’s voice changed to whining, and when Hard Rock drew close enough to hear, Waxtal pointed at Kukutux and at his walking stick now burning with bright yellow flames in the hearth fire.
“She used my walking stick to feed her cooking fire,” Waxtal said, his voice quiet, like the voice of a man considered wise, sought for his good counsel.
Kukutux dropped the stone back into its place and wiped her hand on her suk. “He hit me with it,” she said.
Hard Rock frowned. “With his stick?”
Kukutux nodded.
“You believe a woman?” Waxtal asked.
“Yes,” Hard Rock said.
Waxtal’s face pulled itself into a smile. “What man does not at times have to teach wisdom with a stick?”
Anger knotted tight in Kukutux’s chest. She opened her mouth to speak, but Hard Rock waved her to silence. “It seems whatever happened,” Hard Rock said, “Kukutux has been able to take care of herself. Now you must come with me to my ulaq. The hunters want to talk to you.”
Waxtal walked with Hard Rock back to his ulaq. Kukutux watched them leave. Hard Rock’s steps were heavy, his weight settling first on his heels, but Waxtal walked so lightly that even grass crushed under his feet sprang back quickly into place.
When the two men were inside Hard Rock’s ulaq, Kukutux used a forked stick to carry a burning coal to her own ulaq, now empty and dark. Her feet felt their way down the climbing log and then to each oil lamp. Two of the four lamps had enough oil so the wicks remained burning, then Kukutux laid the coal in one of the empty lamps and went back to the hearth fire. She used two strong sticks to take the boiling skin from the driftwood tripod that held it over the fire. Carefully she carried it, not to the traders’ ulaq, but back to her own ulaq, and hung it from the rafters over one of the burning lamps.
She made three trips to the traders’ ulaq. She took all things that were hers: sleeping furs, mats, basket grass and baskets, bellies of oil and dried meat, water bladders. And she brought them back to her own ulaq. Then she went into her dead husband’s sleeping place, found the few weapons he had not taken with him to the Dancing Lights. A broken harpoon head. A crooked bird spear shaft. A gaff to land fish. A boy’s spear. She laid these things at her side, then ladled herself a bowl of broth and meat from the boiling skin. If Waxtal came for her, she was ready to fight.
“What more could I do?” Waxtal asked. “I called the walrus. I brought them to your hunters. I told you not to hunt them with seal harpoons. Do you think whales are the only animals hunters must honor with careful taboos?” He made a rude noise with his lips, and blew out air from between his buttocks.
Hard Rock wrinkled his nose at the stink, and Waxtal said, “The walrus, they still smell the stink of your foolishness.” Waxtal stood and looked at the men. When he had come as a young man to help these Whale Hunters against the Short Ones, there had been so many hunters in this village that they could not all fit into one ulaq. Now, how many? He let his eyes move from one man to another, eight, ten, and many of them old. He pointed rudely at Hard Rock. “The curse that came to you from the man Samiq is still here.”
Hard Rock pulled in a quick, harsh breath. “The man is dead. Do you wish to bring another curse on us by using his name?”
“There are things I know that you do not know, things the spirits reveal to one who honors them,” Waxtal said. “I have brought you walrus—good for meat, hides, and oil. I have lived with the Walrus People. My daughter is wife to a Walrus People shaman. I know how they hunt; I know what honors a walrus. I have brought you meat and you accuse me of bringing a curse. The curse you have is Samiq’s curse. You think his curse will leave you? You say his spirit will go the way of all
spirits—to the Dancing Lights? You know nothing, and when one who can help comes to you, you turn him away.”
There was a rising murmur among the men. In one corner of the ulaq, Red Feet’s brother and father raised their voices in anger. In another corner, Crooked Bird, husband to Speckled Basket, raised hands in a plea for understanding. But Waxtal ignored them all. He turned his back to them and climbed to the ulaq roof hole. At the top of the climbing log, he looked down at them. “You do not need to live with the curse. I know how to lift it. I gave you the walrus and asked nothing in return. Yet when one of your hunters breaks taboos, you blame me for his death. I will give away nothing more.
“Decide what you have to trade. If it is a good trade, I will tell you how to lift the curse.” He raised one hand and held it out toward Red Feet’s father. “Decide now,” Waxtal said, “before this becomes a village of women and children.”
That night, Kukutux saw it as she slept, saw it large and rolling in the surf, and woke with a start from her dream. The vision carried the fullness of life, but she was not sure what she had seen. Another man, dead?
She sat up and shook her head. “It was not a man,” she whispered and fought to remember the image that had filled her mind. No, what man had the shape of a fish? What man had skin the color of mountain cranberries?
She lay down again and turned her cheek into the soft fur seal pelt she had arranged under her head. She patted the spear lying beside her.
You are safe, she told herself. Go back to sleep.
CHAPTER 59
AFTER HER DREAM, Kukutux could not stay away from the sea. It was as though some voice called her, and the pain that had been with her since the deaths of her husband and son seemed to deepen.
“Why are you here?” she asked herself, moving her head so the words would flow out with the wind and be carried above the hearing of the men who squatted in the lee of the ikyak racks, the women who waded out in the shallow ebb tide to pry chitons from rocks. “Why are you here when there is much for you to do in your ulaq?”
She reminded herself of the crowberry heather, now, under the long days of summer, growing quickly on the hills. It was time to throw out the old heather that lay on the ulaq floors, replace it with new. She thought of fish she could catch, of the suk she was making. She should walk down the beach, gather chitons from rocks farther from the village, leave these close rocks for the old women and children. She might even find a few sea urchins left by the sea otters that now crowded the kelp beds just offshore.
But something kept her on the beach, watching, as though she could see beyond water and sky to understand the dream she had been given.
Finally she made herself turn, made herself walk back to her ulaq. It had been four days since Hard Rock and Dying Seal had brought the dead Red Feet to the village, four days of mourning. They had made the burial, piled the rocks over Red Feet and what remained of his ikyak, but hunters still spoke in soft voices, as though afraid to attract the attention of spirits. Who could say? One of them might be the next man killed during a hunt.
The women followed their husbands with fear-filled eyes, finding excuse to watch beach and sea from the tops of their ulas, even in cold, even in wind, as though by watching they could keep away those spirits that might bring death.
Perhaps it is only what I feel from those around me, Kukutux thought. Perhaps it is their fear, their worry, that brings me to this beach.
The images of her dream returned—something red in the sea. A man’s body? Another Whale Hunter killed? Some worrying voice entered her mind, wailed out against fears too large to be contained by words.
At the top of the ulaq, Waxtal yawned and stretched. He had meant to get up and greet the sun with the Whale Hunters, but his bedding furs were warm, and for some reason his bladder had not pulled him early from his sleep as it often did. He blinked in the brightness of the day, in the white fog lifting from the beach. He scraped the grit from the corners of his eyes with a fingernail and flicked it into the wind, then shivered and ducked back into the ulaq to get his suk.
The wind was cold, too cold for a man to wash in the stream, but without a woman in the ulaq, he did not want to use a night basket for his urine, did not want the bother of emptying it every day or storing urine as the Walrus People did so it would ripen and could be used to wash oil from fur and grease from hair or set dye colors so they would not run or fade.
He scratched his belly, then slipped on his suk and went back outside. He scanned the beach, saw Kukutux walking toward the ulas. Then she stopped and looked toward the sea, her face like a mask, set, unmoving.
He followed her gaze and saw nothing. He remembered what Hard Rock had told him about her, that Kukutux’s eyes were like the eyes of an eagle, seeing farther than most people could see, that even as a child she had always been first to see hunters returning, had always given first warning of storms on the far horizon, or schools of fish swimming towards the Whale Hunters’ beach.
So he waited, his eyes on the sea as were Kukutux’s, and then he, too, saw something in the surf, rolling and bumping, so at first he thought it was a log brought as driftwood to the beach. Then he saw the red color, felt the quick beating of his heart—a man? Owl or Spotted Egg, their ik overturned? The currents might bring them here to this beach.
But no, it was too large to be a man.
As Waxtal watched, he suddenly knew what it was, and as though he were again young, he ran to Hard Rock’s ulaq, and up to the roof hole.
He took a long breath and called down.
“I am Waxtal. Is Hard Rock here?”
Hard Rock himself answered, his words mumbled as though he had something in his mouth. He came to the climbing log, looked up at Waxtal. One of Hard Rock’s cheeks bulged with whatever he was eating, and for a moment the man chewed, then finally in rudeness asked, “What?”
Waxtal smiled and said, “The Whale Hunters have been good to me. I have decided to give you a gift. In these last four days of mourning I have been calling something to this beach. It will be here soon. Use it as you wish.”
Then he went to stand beside Kukutux, who still stared out at the water, she and the other women who were on the beach.
“I called it,” Waxtal said, his words soft as he moved his mouth close to Kukutux’s ear. “I called it.”
She took a step away from him, and then another. “Why?” she asked. “What is it?”
“The walrus,” Waxtal said.
“Red Feet’s?” Kukutux asked, then clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Do not worry,” Waxtal said. “I will not let his spirit harm you.”
“You called it?” Kukutux said, her brows drawn together, her lips tight. “Why?”
“A hunter should have his last kill—to give to his family,” Waxtal said. He shrugged his shoulders. “You think it will not lift his wives’ sorrow to know that their hunter still cares enough about them to send meat?”
Two women left their gathering bags and called the men at the ikyak rack, then Hard Rock was beside Kukutux and Waxtal.
“It is the walrus,” Waxtal said and watched as the men waded into the water. Three of them carried sharpened fish gaffs, another a walking stick, others ikyak paddles.
“They can touch it?” Hard Rock asked.
“To bring it ashore,” Waxtal answered, “but someone must pray over it and say the proper Walrus chants before it is butchered and divided.”
“You know the chants?” Hard Rock asked Waxtal.
“Yes.”
Waxtal watched the men drag the animal ashore, then turned to Kukutux. “Go to that ulaq where the people mourn. Tell them to come here, to see what the spirits have given them.”
Kukutux climbed up the ulaq, called down into the smoky interior. There was no answer, so she called again, waited until she heard a soft voice, then looked down into the wrinkled face of Most Hands, mother of that one who had died. “There is something on the beach you should see, Mother,” Kukutux
said gently, using words of politeness to show her concern.
But the old woman answered in a harsh voice. “How can I be mother,” she asked, “with all my children at the Dancing Lights?” She turned from the climbing log and moved back into the shadows of the ulaq. “I will not go to the beach. Let me stay here. Perhaps the spirits will have pity and let me die.”
Again Kukutux heard the soft murmur, no doubt the voice of Pogy, Red Feet’s first wife, mother of his little son. Or perhaps that of Fish Catcher, Red Feet’s second wife.
“Even if one of your children sent you a gift, even if now that gift is on the beach, you will not come?” Kukutux asked. She knelt so she could press her face down into the roof hole, so her words would carry to all the people there.
The old woman turned slowly, and in the dark Kukutux could see the red of the woman’s eyes, the lines that tears had left on her cheeks.
“From Red Feet?” the old woman asked, and Kukutux heard a quick shushing, a plea against the use of the dead man’s name. But the old woman looked away from the roof hole and said in loud, sharp-edged words, “What do I care if he comes back? What do I care if he takes all of us to the Dancing Lights?”
The soft voice answered, “My son is young. He needs years to hunt. He needs summers in an ikyak, winters to learn the stories of our people.”
“What do you know?” the old woman said. “You were only his wife.” She climbed to the roof hole. Kukutux offered both hands to help the woman from log to roof. Pogy also came, her son in a carrying strap slung at her side, and Fish Catcher, her belly big in pregnancy. They followed Kukutux to the beach, the old woman last, clinging with one hand to the back of Fish Catcher’s suk.
