by Sue Harrison
“Why?” he asked her. “Why?”
For a moment Blue Shell did not understand his question, but then she felt his hand on the spear.
“No,” she whispered. The pain came again, cut into her body like the blade of a knife. The earth was suddenly soft beneath her, and she clutched for Big Teeth, calling out with all her strength, “The River, the River, the River …”
Then the pain was gone, and the world was a new world, shining, and she opened her eyes wide to see it.
CHAPTER 88
BIG TEETH PICKED UP THE SPEAR. He studied the markings, then, speaking aloud, he said, “Raven.” The word was a whisper, then rose into a shout, a scream: “Raven! Raven! It is not enough that you killed Amgigh? You must also kill my wife?”
He lifted his voice into a long and mournful cry, then he knelt beside Blue Shell, stroked her hair, her face. For a long time he did not move, did not speak. Finally, he covered his face with his hands and wept.
When the sun broke into the eastern sky, a thin line of red over the rise of the land, Big Teeth went to his ikyak and brought back a sealskin from his pack of supplies. He laid it over Blue Shell. He gathered stones from the beach and covered her.
Then he tied Raven’s spear to the deck of his ikyak and pushed the craft into the bay. He paddled toward the Walrus village.
Raven went into his side of Grass Ears’ lodge. The lamp was cold, the oil in it thick and partially congealed. There was no smell of food cooking, no sound of women’s voices. He set his pack on the floor, then called to Grass Ears’ wives, asking them to come and light the oil lamp, to bring food.
One came and with her woman’s knife trimmed the lamp’s wick.
She lit the oil, and her sister brought dried fish and a few fresh sea urchins.
Raven cracked open the sea urchins and used his thumbnail to scoop out the eggs. He opened his mouth to ask for water, but Grass Ears’ wives had already returned to their own side of the lodge. Raven stood, reached up, and pulled down a water skin. It was nearly empty. The other bladders, usually clustered together like small white moons at the top of the lodge, were also empty. Did the women of this village expect their shaman to get his own water?
He untied the bladders and carried them to the women, then, without speaking, returned to his half of the lodge. He would have to get a wife. A man could not live without a woman to sew his parka, to prepare his food, to warm his bed and bring his water.
He opened another sea urchin. But who? There were no beautiful women left in the village. All had husbands of their own. There was the young daughter of Chin Hairs, but she had not yet had her first bleeding. Besides, he wanted a widow. Someone who already knew how best to please a husband. He sighed. The only widows in the village were those of Lemming Tail’s oldest brother. And what woman would marry the man who had killed her husband?
Of course, he had killed Kiin’s husband. … And now, Raven wondered if the woman was alive, back with the one she called Samiq, or if she was dead, lost somewhere in the North Sea. In a few days he would go back to the Ugyuun village. If Kiin was alive, he would find her.
The curtain that separated Raven’s side of the lodge from Grass Ears’ moved, and Raven waited for Grass Ears’ wives to bring in his water. They were slow. A tight feeling of anger began to push its way into his chest. What should he expect? he asked himself. Grass Ears demanded so little from his wives that they had never, learned to serve well.
“You took a long time,” he said without looking up from the sea urchin he was eating.
“I came to return your spear.”
The words were in the First Men language, and the voice was hard. Raven looked up. He curled his lips, ground his teeth. Who was this man who came into his lodge, spoke without politeness?
“Who are you?” Raven demanded. He stood up, and without turning his back on the man, took two quick steps to his weapons corner. He clasped a walrus harpoon with his left hand, a throwing spear with his right.
“I am Big Teeth of the First Men, husband to Blue Shell, the woman you killed with your spear.”
Raven glanced at the spear in the man’s hands, knew it was the spear he had thrown into the grass that early morning. There was blood on the andesite point.
“I did not invite you to my lodge,” Raven said. “I did not kill your wife. I do not even know you. I do not know her.”
Then Ice Hunter was in the lodge, ripping aside the dividing curtain.
From the sides of his eyes, Raven could see Grass Ears huddled against the far wall, his wives behind him.
“I called my sons,” Ice Hunter said to Raven in the Walrus tongue. “Who is this man?”
“He says he is of the First Men.”
Ice Hunter, a sleeve knife in one hand, a spear in the other, pointed the knife toward Big Teeth and asked, “The spear? Whose blood?”
“He says I used it to kill his wife,” Raven answered.
Big Teeth, as though he did not see Ice Hunter, as though he did not hear the man’s voice, held the spear up in one hand and asked Raven, “This is your spear?”
Ice Hunter studied the spear. With a quick jerk of his chin he pointed at the markings on the shaft and looked at Raven. “It is yours?” he asked.
“Yes, it is my spear,” Raven said.
“Whose blood?” Ice Hunter said again, then, turning to Big Teeth, asked in the First Men language, “Where was your wife? Why should Raven kill her?”
“I do not know why he killed her,” Big Teeth answered, “but she is dead. I found her this morning with a spear through her back. This spear.”
“You were hunting here or trading?” Ice Hunter asked.
“My woman was stolen and sold as slave. I have been looking for her. She was named Asxahmaagikug.”
“Asxahmaagikug is Chin Hairs’ slave. If someone killed her, perhaps it was Chin Hairs.”
“Is this Chin Hairs’ spear?” Big Teeth asked. “I came to this village, asked the men who were at the ikyak racks whose spear this was and which lodge he lived in. They told me it belonged to a shaman named Raven. They told me this was Raven’s lodge. Did they lie?”
“It is his spear,” said Ice Hunter.
“I did not kill the woman,” Raven said, and his anger at all things in that day came together to make him shout the words. He had thrown the spear at a spirit. But who could say what a spirit would do? Perhaps it changed itself into the woman that Chin Hairs had bought. Perhaps she was someone who would bring harm to the Walrus People. If so, then the best thing had happened. Why blame him?
This First Men hunter would probably expect him to give some kind of payment, probably enough to buy himself another wife. The man was a fool if he thought Raven would use his trade goods to pay for a dead slave.
Then Ice Hunter said, “Stay here and do not kill one another. I will go get Chin Hairs.”
Big Teeth gave a short nod, but did not take his eyes from Raven. The two men waited, each with weapons in his hands, each watching the other, until Ice Hunter returned with Chin Hairs.
“He says Asxahmaagikug was gone this morning,” Ice Hunter said. “He says he has not seen her since last night.”
“I did not kill your slave,” Raven said to Chin Hairs. “I will not pay for her.”
“This man says he is her husband,” Ice Hunter said to Chin Hairs and pointed at Big Teeth.
“Your shaman killed my woman,” Big Teeth said.
“If you did not kill her,” Ice Hunter said to Raven, “why does he have your spear? Why is there blood on the spearpoint?”
“I returned last night from my trip to the River People,” Raven said. “I took my ik ashore, not far from here, to pray, to sing, to ask protection for this village. There was a wolf on the beach. In the darkness I threw my spear. At a wolf. Perhaps you did not truly know your wife. Perhaps she was animal, not woman. If so, it is better that she is dead.”
For a long time, Big Teeth stared at the man. Then finally he lowered Raven�
�s spear, set it against the lodge wall. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “She was not wolf; she was woman.”
“If you killed her, you owe me two seal bellies of oil,” Chin Hairs said to Raven.
Raven pointed at Big Teeth. “If she was stolen from her husband, and you took her as slave,” Raven said to Chin Hairs, “you owe him more than that.”
Chin Hairs said something under his breath, then turned and left the lodge.
“I will give you the oil,” Raven told Big Teeth.
Big Teeth opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head, turned away.
“I do not say that the woman is worth only two seal bellies of oil, but it is better than nothing,” Raven said. “She has children?”
“A daughter,” Big Teeth said.
“Take the oil for her.”
Big Teeth waited as Raven pulled out two seal bellies of oil from his food cache. “You will take them?” Raven asked.
Big Teeth nodded.
“Tell the daughter the woman was a wolf. I had no choice.”
“I will tell her,” Big teeth said.
Raven handed him the oil, and Big Teeth tucked one belly under each arm. The First Men hunter closed his eyes. When he opened them, Raven saw his tears.
“Take this,” said Raven. From his own neck, he took a rope of round, hollow beads made from salmon spine bones. He slipped it over Big Teeth’s head. “It was given to me by a shaman of the River People. I was there learning from him. The necklace has power.”
Then Big Teeth left the lodge. Ice Hunter walked with him to the edge of the water, helped him tie the bellies of oil inside his ikyak.
“I am sorry about all things,” Ice Hunter said to Big Teeth.
Big Teeth cleared his throat, leaned over to stroke his ikyak, then, looking up at Ice Hunter, he said, “There was another woman, also sold as slave. She does not belong to me, but her father once came to our village looking for her. She had two sons. Her name is Kiin.”
Ice Hunter closed his eyes, rubbed one hand over his face. “I am sorry,” he said. “She also is dead, and her sons. She was out in her ik. Something happened. She drowned.”
“If I see her father,” Big Teeth said, “I will tell him.” He lifted his hand to the necklace Raven had given him.
“Raven is a shaman,” Ice Hunter said. “He cares much about power. My sons say he traded his wife Lemming Tail and her son Mouse to the River People shaman so the man would teach him. The necklace is worth more than it looks.”
Big Teeth did not answer. He pushed his ikyak into the water and settled himself inside, then paddled away. He went back to where he had left Blue Shell’s body, to the grave of stones. “The boy is gone,” he whispered to her. “Ice Hunter says he is dead.”
For a long time Big Teeth sat beside the grave, but finally he walked to his ikyak. Then he turned, took off the necklace Raven had given him, and carried it back to the grave. He dropped it among the stones that covered his wife’s body.
He was in his ikyak, almost to the mouth of the bay, when the wind spoke—one word, Blue Shell’s last word, “River.”
CHAPTER 89
The River People
The Kuskokwim River, Alaska
“YOU DO NOT CARVE, DO YOU?” Dyenen asked the woman.
She smiled and lifted her apron, spread her legs, and held her arms out to him.
“I am an old man. You think you can make me forget by luring me into sleeping robes? I have four other wives who please me more than you do.”
The woman thrust out her lower lip. “I carve,” she said and with a wide sweep of her hand indicated the pieces of wood and ivory that were lined along one wall of the lodge. “Look, animals,” she said. “Wolves and seals and sea lions. Two walruses and four birds.”
“You did not carve them,” Dyenen answered and left the lodge.
He walked the paths of his village. In the tall lodge, the one owned by Two Hands’ woman, there had been death: a new girl baby and a three-summers boy. The infant had had her breath stolen in the night, the boy had died from choking on meat.
Two Hands did not blame Dyenen. Both children were dead when brought to the shaman. What could he have done?
In the next lodge, an old man had died. Once he had been a great-hunter. He had been strong even in old age, but a sudden flying pain in his shoulder had weakened him, and in six, seven days he had died. Dyenen’s chants could not hold death away.
In a lodge at the edge of the village a young mother had died. No one knew why. She was repairing a fish trap in the river, then she was dead. Her sister had died also, only three days later, a pain in her side growing so strong that she could not bear to stay in the world of the sun. Her husband said he had heard her dead sister calling her in the night.
Dyenen could not remember so many unexplainable deaths in such a short time. What good was a shaman if he could not protect his people? No one was starving, no one was breaking taboos, yet people were dying. And what had changed in the village; what new thing had come that might cause that dying? Nothing except the woman Kiin.
A small voice, like one of the voices Dyenen kept in his throat, came into his mind. It spoke from the far corner of his thoughts in the thin voice of a child. “Raven lied. The woman he gave you is not Kiin. The children he gave you are not Kiin’s children. You traded the safety of this village for the hope of a son. For yourself. Your own selfishness. You have had all things in life—good wives, a strong village, a good lodge, enough food, beautiful daughters, the respect of men in your own village and in villages far from the river. You have had all things except a son. Yet you could not be happy with what you had.”
Dyenen, walking between the lodges, answered the voice in anger “Is it wrong for a man to want a son? A son hunts. He brings meat for the village and children are fed. Is a man terrible because he longs for a son? Besides, I have powers. I have learned much. I need someone to teach so the knowledge I have gathered will not be forgotten.”
“You have taught someone already,” the voice said, and it spoke in the Walrus language, in the harsh and strange sounds of that tongue.
“He learned little. He did not understand what was important,” Dyenen said.
“Then you did not choose wisely.”
“How can a man know what is in the heart of another man?”
“Your son would be different?”
“He would have my blood.”
Then the voice was silent. But Dyenen’s anger grew until his chest ached with the fullness of it. He went back to the lodge, found his new wife there feeding one of the babies. The ivory bird was lying beside her, no closer to being finished than it had been the day before.
A man sees what he wants to see, Dyenen told himself.
“Do not lie to me,” Dyenen said. “I have ways of knowing the truth. You have heard me speak to spirits. You have seen them move this lodge. You have heard their voices. If you do not tell me the truth, I will call all the spirits here tonight. They will stay with you. I cannot say what they will do to you while I am gone.”
The woman’s face blanched, and she held her hands out to him like a child asking to be held.
“Who are you?” Dyenen asked.
“I am Kiin,” she said, but her voice was small.
“Who are you?” Dyenen asked again. “Kiin.”
“You lie!”
“I am Kiin!”
“No! Take your babies and leave our village. Go back to Saghani.”
“I do not know the way,” the woman said. She wrapped her arms around the boy in her lap.
“You cannot stay unless you tell me who you are,” Dyenen said.
Finally the woman said, “Kiin is dead. When Raven promised her to you, he did not know she was dead. I was his other wife.” She lifted her chin, set her lips into a hard, thin line, then said, “I was his first wife—more important than Kiin—so he gave me instead.”
“And these boys, are either of these her sons?” Dyenen asked.
He pointed at Mouse and Shuku.
For a long moment, the woman looked at the boys, Mouse nursing at her breast, the older, stronger Shuku standing, taking quick steps from one side of the lodge to the other. “One of her sons is dead,” she said. “I told you that before. The other boy Raven brought you.” She lifted her chin toward Shuku. “He is my son. This,” she said and lifted Mouse from her breast, “is Kiin’s son. He is the one who should be trained as shaman. He carries his mother’s powers.” She fingered the ivory ikyak carving that was sewn on the baby’s parka. “See? His amulet is one of his mother’s carvings.”
“Mouse looks like you,” said Dyenen. “He looks as if he is your son.”
“Kiin was my younger sister,” the woman said. “I look like her; she looked like me.”
It is possible, Dyenen thought. Men often marry sisters. Besides, the boys were his now. They had found a place inside his heart. He did not want to give them up, and the woman seemed to be a good mother to them.
Dyenen thought about his village, about the lies Raven had told him. The woman was not Kiin, and yet they had called her Kiin, and so had misused the power of that name. They had insulted a woman who was a gifted carver, had called the anger of her spirits—the spirit of her soul, the spirit of her name. It was no wonder people had died.
If he fasted and prayed, if he told the dead Kiin he would honor her with chants and songs, he would honor her son and her sister, in that way he might be able to lift the curse from his village and still keep the two boys.
“What do they call you?” he asked the woman.
“I am Lemming Tail,” she answered.
“Lemming Tail,” Dyenen said. “I will keep you as wife, and I will keep your sons.”
CHAPTER 90
The Whale Hunters
The Alaska Peninsula
KUKUTUX WATCHED AS THE IKYAN TURNED toward shore. “The men go in,” she told the other women. Suddenly the iks were full of shuffling as women retied packs, pulled up fishlines.
