by Sue Harrison
Then Raven was asking questions, drawing Dyenen from his thoughts.
“How many people in this village?” he asked.
“Twenty tens in summer,” Dyenen answered, and waited as Raven told the woman Kiin what he had said.
The woman looked at Dyenen, did not hide her eyes in shyness or modesty, but looked into his face and smiled. Dyenen felt the fear in his heart leave as easily as if it were ice melted by sun.
That night they ate together, Dyenen and Lemming Tail and Raven. Raven watched Lemming Tail carefully, caught her eye if she did something considered by the River People to be impolite. Once she almost walked between Dyenen and the hearth fire, but Raven caught her and pulled her outside through the narrow entrance tunnel, saying over his shoulder to Dyenen as they left, “I should have told her the ways of your people. They are different from our own.”
Outside, Lemming Tail turned on him, drew back her lips, showed her teeth. “I am a child that you drag me from the lodge?”
“You have rude ways,” Raven said.
“You should have told me these things before,” Lemming Tail said. “I am not stupid.”
“Would you have listened?”
“Yes. I want to be a good wife to Dyenen.”
“Then listen now,” Raven said. “It is rude to walk between the fire and a man or woman sitting in the lodge.”
“They should keep their cooking fires outside like the Walrus People, like the First Men.”
“Do you listen or do you complain?”
“I listen.”
“Women do not eat the meat of a bear.” Raven waited for Lemming Tail to speak, but she said nothing.
“Women do not touch a man’s weapons.”
“That is no different from Walrus,” Lemming Tail said.
“Good, then remember it. Women eat when a man is finished eating unless invited to eat with him.”
Lemming Tail nodded.
“Women live apart in a separate lodge during their bleeding times.”
“All these things the Walrus People do.”
“Good,” said Raven. “Then remember that the Walrus and the River were once one people. Their difference lies in language and in animals hunted.” He laid one hand over his chest. “In the heart, they are the same.”
Lemming Tail took a long breath. “I will remember.”
“Good. Then come inside and be polite, and if he asks you to carve, remember what I told you. And remember what we have planned when we show him the babies.”
Lemming Tail lifted her chin and made a strange smile, something Raven would remember later that night.
When they had finished eating, Raven motioned for Lemming Tail to clear away the food. “Where are his other wives?” she whispered, but Raven, frowning, motioned for her to be quiet, and when she walked past him, Raven grabbed her ankle and squeezed hard, leaving the marks of his fingernails in her skin.
He and Dyenen spoke of things interesting to men, but as he spoke and listened, Raven watched Lemming Tail from the corners of his eyes, watched as she pawed through storage containers and into the fishskin baskets where food was stored.
Finally Lemming Tail sat quietly in the corner, her parka bulging with both boys. She sat in a manner that would please any husband, hands folded, legs tucked under her. Dyenen, looking at the woman, said to Raven, “So ask her if she will stay with me.”
Raven turned around, said to Lemming Tail, “He asks if you will stay with him.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Say more,” Raven said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
Lemming Tail leaned forward. “Why?”
“For politeness,” Raven said. “The River People speak long in politeness.”
Lemming Tail furrowed her forehead, then lifted one hand toward the poles that shaped the dome of the lodge and said, “All things here are good. The village is large. The food caches are full. The children smile; the women are fat. This lodge is the best of all lodges and all the lodges are good. This man here, Dyenen, is a good man. His face shows the powers the spirits have given him. His eyes show the kindness of his heart. His hands show the years he has spent as hunter. I am honored to be his wife.”
For a moment Raven said nothing. Lemming Tail’s words were such a surprise to him that his tongue seemed captive in his mouth. Then, fighting against a smile, Raven wondered whether this woman’s mother might have been like Lemming Tail herself, sleeping with any man, so that Lemming Tail might be daughter to some River man who came to the Walrus to trade. Who could have spoken better?
So he turned and said to Dyenen what Lemming Tail had said to him, adding what he thought might help, and waiting to hear the old man’s answer.
“I am glad,” Dyenen said—simple words, spoken as though Dyenen were Walrus, not River. “I will take her, but first I must see the babies, and I want to watch her carve. Then she will be my wife.”
CHAPTER 76
The Ugyuun People
The Alaska Peninsula
“I TOLD KIIN I WOULD TAKE HER to her husband.” Eagle spoke loudly so he could be heard above the babble of voices in the chief’s ulaq.
“She would be dead if you had not found her,” the chief said. “Both she and the child. Why risk the husband’s anger that the child is gone? Surely he thinks both are dead.”
“She says her husband will give me oil and meat, many sealskins.”
“What does a woman know of a man’s ways?”
A quiet voice came from the back, a woman’s voice, and as though surprised that a woman would speak, the men were suddenly quiet. “If you do not take her back, she will go back herself. I know her. She will not stay. She is a strong woman. What woman could survive what she has survived, alone with only spirits on strange beaches?”
“What if she is cursed?” one of the men asked. “What if her own people threw her away and in finding her, Eagle brought her curse to us?”
“If she is cursed, it is better that she go back to the Traders’ Beach. Then we will not have to worry.”
“Small Plant Woman is right,” said her husband. “I told you I will take her back, and I will. My wife and I will go together with ik and ikyak. It is better that way.”
Several people nodded, but Small Plant Woman’s father stood, looked at his daughter, and raised his voice in many doubts, one question following another. Small Plant Woman’s answers were firm and strong, until the old man had no more reasons for his daughter and her husband to stay. “Go if you must,” he said. “It will be better to have her away from us.”
Then Eagle and Small Plant Woman left the ulaq, returned to their own ulaq, to Kiin, who waited for them, her hands clasped tight against her lap.
“Tomorrow, we leave—if the sky is good,” Eagle said. “Sleep now, both of you. You will be tired after days of paddling.”
Kiin could not sleep. Her thoughts were filled with longing for Shuku and Takha, and with fear that Raven had gone to the Traders’ Beach. She left her sleeping place and found her carving tools. Taking a piece of wood, she carved a murre, something to give to Small Plant Woman in gratitude for her kindness. For who does not know that the murre in losing one egg lays another, giving herself another chance for a bird child?
When Kiin had finished the murre, she went back to her sleeping place, and she finally did sleep, but her dreams were strange, of her mother, of Kayugh and Samiq living with the Raven. She woke herself with cries of protest, and when morning came, she felt weary.
She worked hard to pack food and supplies for travel, but once they had launched ik and ikyak and paddled out beyond the pull of shore waves, Kiin’s eyes seemed to dim, and her thoughts twisted themselves into the paddling songs Eagle sang. With each stroke of her paddle, Kiin told herself she was moving closer to Samiq, closer to Takha, and so she kept herself awake.
They went slowly, stopping early and starting late, and Kiin’s impatience grew as the days passed. Near the end of the third day, they came to the mou
th of the Traders’ Bay. If she had been alone, Kiin would have continued even in the dark toward her people’s village, but Eagle spoke of rest, and the need to wait, to spend a night in quietness as preparation for again seeing husband and son.
“You will need the clear head that comes with morning,” Eagle said. “And you will need patience to answer their many questions.”
Kiin agreed with him, but her spirit voice whispered: “Is the man afraid? Does he think Samiq will challenge him with knife or spear because of the loss of Shuku?” And the most disturbing question: “Do you think the Raven is there, on the Traders’ Beach?”
He is not there, Kiin told himself. If he went to claim Takha or challenge Samiq, the fight would be over. The Raven would have returned to his own people. There will be no one on the Traders’ Beach but my own people, my mother and father, my husband and his wife Three Fish. My son Takha.
During the journey from the Ugyuun village, Kiin had tried not to think of her sons, but when she was so close to the Traders’ Beach, how could she keep her thoughts from Takha? She saw Takha as a baby, one who had not grown since the time she had left him, and that made her wonder whether or not he was alive. Was he in the Dancing Lights, still an infant, no longer growing as a child on earth grows?
And if he was alive, what would Samiq and Three Fish say about Shuku? If Samiq and Three Fish had kept Takha strong for her, what would Samiq think when he found that she had lost Shuku to the Raven?
The night was long, and again Kiin did not sleep, her thoughts like those of a woman dreaming, mixing together all the pieces of her life. But when the first light of the sun came after the short night, once she and Small Plant Woman were again in the ik, Kiin suddenly felt strong—stronger than she had felt since she had fallen on the bird cliffs.
Why think all things will be terrible? she asked herself. Why not believe Samiq and Three Fish will be glad to see me, that they will help me get Shuku back? So Kiin paddled with strength, and a song floated from her lips, keeping rhythm with her paddle until she saw the first smudge of smoke from her people’s ulas. She smelled seal oil burning, and finally she lifted her paddle, pointed with the blade toward the mounds barely visible from the bay.
“The village,” she said. She put all her strength into her eyes, watching the beach, scanning the ulas. Someone was there, near the water, a man with spear and spear thrower in his hand.
She watched for a time before she knew, then she shouted out to Small Plant Woman, “It is Samiq! It is Samiq!” And the words were like a burst of joy in Kiin’s heart, like something light and good and bright.
Then Kiin leaned forward, pressed her feet against the bottom of the ik, as though she could make it come more quickly to the shore. She lifted her voice and called out, “Samiq! Samiq! Samiq!”
CHAPTER 77
The First Men
Herendeen Bay, the Alaska Peninsula
SLOWLY SAMIQ TURNED. He lifted one hand to shade his eyes, and he stood completely still, as though he were a carving that had come from Kiin’s knife. Finally he shouted Kiin’s name. He dropped his spear, pulled the spear thrower from his hand, and ran out into the water.
Then his arms were around Kiin, holding her to him, pressing her against his chest. He murmured her name, again and again, like a chant, like a prayer. Kiin felt the strong, hard beat of his heart through the layers of their parkas. This is real, she thought. It is not a dream. I am here with Samiq. The Raven did not kill him.
Kiin smoothed Samiq’s hair back from his face and pushed him away to say, “You must let go or we will not be able to bring the ik ashore.”
And so he released her to haul in the ik, waited until the women were out, then pulled it far up on the sand. Once again his arms were around Kiin, and Kiin did not care who saw—her father or mother, Kayugh or Big Teeth. She did not care what Eagle or Small Plant Woman thought. After a long time, Samiq lifted his face from the softness of Kiin’s dark hair and said to Eagle, “She is my wife.”
Eagle laughed, then motioned Small Plant Woman to his side and said, “My wife.”
Samiq drew away from Kiin. “You and I, we are fortunate,” he said to the Ugyuun man. He looked down at Kiin, and she saw the joy in his eyes, and the questions.
“How did you get here?” he asked. “How did you escape from the Walrus village?”
“I walked,” Kiin answered.
“And Raven?” Samiq asked. “Is he dead?”
“No, but perhaps he thinks I am.” Her heart again pounding, fear creeping into her throat, Kiin asked in a small voice, “Takha?”
Before Samiq could answer, there were many people on the beach—Big Teeth and Kayugh and First Snow; Crooked Nose and Blue Shell, Chagak and Red Berry. All were crowding around Kiin, all laughing, the women crying, Blue Shell and Kiin, mother and daughter, clasped tightly in each other’s arms.
Samiq watched as Blue Shell explained Waxtal’s banishment from the village, listened as Kiin tried to answer the many questions about her journey to the Traders’ Beach.
Samiq saw Three Fish at the edge of the group, the woman with Many Whales strapped to her back, Takha slung on her hip. Samiq saw the uncertainty in her face, something like fear in her eyes. He went to her side, put one arm around her wide body. “You know you are always my wife,” he said softly.
Three Fish looked up at him, and for a moment Samiq thought he saw the shine of tears in her eyes, but then he thought, no, for her eyes were clear and her lips were smiling.
“She will want to see Takha,” Three Fish said.
“Yes, but he will not know her.”
“Soon he will understand.”
“Three Fish …”
She raised one hand, pressed her fingers lightly against Samiq’s mouth. “Nothing has changed,” she said. “Kiin has always been with us.” Then Samiq watched as Three Fish pushed through the people around Kiin and stood with the babies.
“Takha,” Kiin said softly, and her voice caught on tears.
Takha turned his head away, hid his face in the fur of Three Fish’s parka, but Three Fish bent her head over the child, laid her face against his dark hair. “It is your mama,” she said quietly. “Your mama. She wants to see you.” Three Fish untied the sling that held Takha to her side, and Kiin clasped the child to her breast.
Three Fish went to stand beside Samiq, both listening as Kiin, swaying to rock Takha, continued to speak of her journey to the Traders’ Beach.
Then Three Fish whispered to Samiq the question that had not yet come into his mind: “Where is Shuku?”
“I could give you all things I own,” said Samiq, spreading his arms out in the circle of his ulaq. “But still it would not be enough for the return of my wife.”
Eagle shook his head. “Your woman is a good woman. I do not ask what she is worth, and I am only sorry that I could not bring your son as well.”
Samiq raised a bowl of broth to his lips, looked over the rim at the Ugyuun man who sat before him. He carried the unhealthy whiteness of the Ugyuun People, the look of someone recovering from sickness. Did the man speak the truth? Had Raven and the woman with him taken Shuku only by chance; or had the child been traded? Kiin believed Eagle. Samiq had only to look into her eyes to know that. But even if Eagle had traded Shuku, he had brought Kiin. Raven would have given much for Kiin, so the Ugyuun man was probably telling the truth. But why, having Shuku, had Raven not come to the Traders’ Beach to seek Kiin? Unless he believed Kiin was dead.
The Ugyuun wife said Raven had not seen Kiin and had probably stolen the child because he did not want the Ugyuun baby that was first traded to him.
Then, as though the Ugyuun woman heard the doubt in Samiq’s thoughts, she said, “It was by my carelessness that your son is lost. I left him alone for a few moments, and when I came back, Broken Tooth’s son was there on the ulaq roof instead of Shuku.” As she spoke, she moved in small steps toward her husband, until her legs were pressed up against his back. Kiin, too, came to
stand next to Samiq, though Three Fish remained beside the food cache, chopping hardened fat into dried berries.
“We should take nothing,” the woman said.
But the Ugyuun man quickly said, “Only what your wife ate when she was with us.”
“Mostly she was sick. Mostly she ate nothing,” said the woman. “Besides, she has already given me a carving.” She pulled at a thong around her neck and held up the murre carving that hung from the cord.
The Ugyuun man’s face darkened, but he looked up at Samiq and said, “I ask nothing, only food and lodging for my wife and me for this night.”
Then Samiq also believed what the man and his wife said. Why would a man who had traded away a baby ask nothing for the return of a wife?
“You will have oil and meat and fur seal skins,” Samiq said. “You will have knives and baskets and floor mats. Every time you come this way, past the Traders’ Beach, you will have a place to stay, you and those who come with you. In returning Kiin to us, you have become our brothers. If you will accept me as brother …”
The Ugyuun man smiled, and his woman also. “Brothers,” he said, and, raising his bowl to his lips, he drank long.
In all the talking, the laughter, in the crowd of people that filled his ulaq, even through the pain Samiq felt over losing Shuku, Kiin was in his mind, her name like a song in his thoughts: Kiin in his arms, Kiin in his sleeping place.
He could see the signs of her illness. Her arms were thin, her face drawn, her hair dull. The scars from her fall on the egg cliffs were bright pink, her torn fingernails still not grown out, but he wanted to hold her, to allow his own strength to flow into her body. Yet how could he do anything but stay here with all these people, pretending to listen to what they said, trying to answer questions?
“You are happy?” It was his mother Chagak, her hands and arms cradling bowls of dried fish, smoked fish, and fresh sea urchins, shells cracked, spines knocked off.
