by Sue Harrison
The River hunters opened the door flap of the women’s lodge and threw her inside. She fell on the floor, scraped an elbow against the stones of the cooking hearth. She stood up, straightened her parka, and turned her back on the other women in the lodge. They stared at her in rudeness.
All things had been hers. As wife to Raven she had had honor, a good lodge, the respect of the other women in the village. Then Kiin had come. Kiin and her sons. The woman had been second wife, but her carvings had made her too important. Kiin had received the gifts and honor due Lemming Tail.
Then Kiin died, and again Lemming Tail was the honored one, not as wife to Raven, but for her place as Dyenen’s wife. What were Raven’s powers compared to Dyenen’s? Yet now Kiin reached out from the dead to again take Lemming Tail’s honor and her son Mouse as well. Now because of Kiin she was Utsula’ C’ezghot, a liar, and yet she had done only what her husband had forced her to do.
Lemming Tail scanned the walls of the women’s lodge. There were no weapons, nothing Lemming Tail could use against the men who held her prisoner. The lodge was for women in their bleeding times, so their blood would not curse their husbands’ weapons and clothing.
Today there were three women here—a girl only a few moons past her first bleeding, an old woman who would not have many more summers in this lodge, and a mother nursing a small girl child. Though usually the women in the lodge spoke with much laughter and loudness, now the women were silent.
The noise of the girl child suckling made Lemming Tail’s own milk begin to flow. She slipped her hands into her parka, wiped her breasts, and began to cry. Kiin. Lemming Tail remembered the first time she saw the woman. Kiin’s belly had been big with her unborn sons, her face peeling from the salt of long days in a trader’s ik. Even then, Lemming Tail had known that Kiin brought evil to their village. Grandmother and Aunt, they, too, had known the evil Kiin brought. But where others saw evil, Raven saw power.
Power! Lemming Tail thought. Death!
Who could doubt that Kiin’s evil spirit was here with the River People? Lemming Tail crouched beside the fire, stirred the ashes with a charred stick lying on the hearth stones.
The women watched her now, but tonight they would sleep. Dyenen was an old man. She was stronger than he was. She would take Mouse, and he would not be able to stop her.
Kayugh and Samiq slept that night in the traders’ lodge, with Shuku tucked between them. Samiq pulled the boy close to his side, rejoiced at the heat of the boy’s small body.
Shuku had cried at first, frightened to be alone with them, but when they spoke to him in the First Men language, he seemed to grow calm, and soon he was playing small games with Samiq. Finally, when the sky was dark in the short night, the boy climbed into Samiq’s lap and fell asleep, his head against Samiq’s chest.
“Kiin will be glad,” Kayugh said, and Samiq fell asleep with those words in his heart.
Lemming Tail waited until the other women were asleep, then, creeping on her hands and knees, made her way to the lodge door. She peered outside. The men who had guarded the lodge were gone.
The River People—what fools! Did they think she was stupid, that she would let them take her son?
She kept to the shadows between the lodges, avoided the dogs curled together in front of each lodge door. When she came to Dyenen’s lodge, she stopped. Would Mouse be here, or would one of Dyenen’s wives have him in another lodge? Best to check here first, she thought.
Dyenen’s dogs lifted their heads, growled. Lemming Tail’s heart beat hard. She did not like dogs, but she knew these, had fed them each day since coming to the River village.
She spoke to them in a quiet voice and let the female, mother to most of the others, sniff her hand. The dogs quieted and let her slip past them into the lodge.
Once inside, she dropped to her hands and knees. The lodge was dark except for the glow of red from hearth coals. She saw Dyenen, wrapped in his sleeping robes, then let her eyes follow the curve of the walls as she searched for Mouse. She listened for the small baby sounds that he sometimes made in his sleep.
In the quietness Dyenen said, “You think I would keep the babies here with me?”
The voice coming so suddenly made Lemming Tail jump, and she scooted back toward the door.
“You will not find them,” Dyenen said. “You do not know who has them.”
Lemming Tail took a long breath. “Why let those First Men take Mouse?” she asked. “I have been a good wife to you. I will give you more sons. Perhaps I already carry your son in my belly.”
“I have had enough of your lies,” Dyenen said. “Your lies have cursed this village and brought death to my people.”
Lemming Tail sat back on her heels. She could see Dyenen like a shadow in his bedding of furs. He rose up on one elbow.
“Then tell me where Mouse is and I will leave,” she said to him.
“You cannot leave,” Dyenen said. “I have given you to the traders. You and Shuku.”
Fear grew large in Lemming Tail’s chest. He had given her to the traders! “Let them take Shuku,” she said, “but let me stay here with you and Mouse. I have promised to give you a son. You must allow me to keep that promise.”
“You promised me a son,” Dyenen said. “I have chosen Mouse.”
“He does not belong to you,” Lemming Tail said. “He does not even belong to Raven, though Raven does not know that. Give him to me, and I will take him back to his true father.”
“He is mine,” said Dyenen. “Leave my lodge. Leave my village. I will not try to stop you, but you cannot have Mouse.”
He turned his back to her.
Lemming Tail took long slow breaths and searched the lodge walls for some weapon she could use against the man, something to make him tell her where Mouse was. But all the weapons were behind Dyenen’s sleeping place. Lemming Tail’s eyes filled with tears of anger, and the hearth coals blurred into balls of red and orange. Gritting her teeth, she pulled a caribou skin from the floor, twisted it into a tight roll, then held the end in the coals until it caught fire. She walked slowly to Dyenen’s bed, the twisted skin flaming before her.
The old man sat up, gasped.
“Tell me where Mouse is!” Lemming Tail shouted. She lowered the flame until it was only a handbreadth above his head.
Dyenen moved his eyes to look up at the flame. “In the tall lodge at the far edge of the village. You know the hunter. Gives Meat. His wife is Fish Watcher.”
Lemming Tail hesitated, and Dyenen said, “I do not lie. He is there.”
Lemming Tail meant to throw the caribou skin onto the hearth, into the circle of stones, but as she turned, Dyenen pushed her, shoving hard. She fell on the burning hide. The fire licked at her face and arms, and she rolled, flinging the skin away from herself. It fell on the bedding furs that were wrapped around Dyenen’s legs. Dyenen beat at the flames with his hands.
Lemming Tail jumped to her feet, started toward the old man, then stopped. She watched for a moment, a smile forming slowly on her face, then she ran from the lodge.
She heard Dyenen scream, and she stopped, but then turned toward Fish Watcher’s lodge.
Let the old man burn, she thought. He will never take Mouse away from me.
The noise came first as a part of Samiq’s dreams, but then Kayugh was calling him. Samiq wrapped his son in a sleeping pelt and laid him against the wall of the lodge farthest from the entrance tunnel.
“What is it?” he asked his father and waited as Kayugh crawled outside, waited until he heard Kayugh call him.
“Should I leave the child?”
“No,” Kayugh answered. “There is a fire, several of the lodges. It might spread. Bring water bladders.”
Samiq turned back, gathered Shuku into his arms, pulled the carrying strap from his packs, and fastened it to hold Shuku in place on his back. Then he untied the water bladders from the lodgepoles and followed his father.
In the darkness, the flames seemed too bright
for his eyes. “It is the old man’s lodge,” Kayugh called to him.
But Samiq was watching the other men. Some slapped at the flames with hides, others slit open water bladders and threw them at the base of the fire. Samiq did the same, but the flames seemed to gather strength and spread.
“Is Dyenen safe?” Samiq called out, but no one answered him, and Samiq realized no one understood his First Men words.
“Dyenen! Dyenen!” he cried out, until one of the women pointed at Dyenen’s lodge and spoke, her words mingling with tears.
Then in the flames, Samiq saw someone move. Unfastening Shuku’s carrying strap, he handed the boy to Kayugh. Samiq took a water bladder from a woman standing near, slit it with his sleeve knife, and poured the water over his head and the front of his parka. He ran through the flames, moving quickly, feeling the burn of coals and hot earth on his bare feet. He drew in breath, and it was as though the fire spread its long fingers into his chest. Finally he reached the one in the flames. It was Dyenen, his hair burned from his head, his skin black, the red of raw flesh bright where his charred skin had split.
The old man clutched an empty water bladder. The stink of his burned skin curled through the smoke into Samiq’s nostrils, but he picked him up, closed his ears to Dyenen’s groans as he carried him out of the flames.
Someone spread out a soft furred blanket, and Samiq laid Dyenen on it. Samiq moved his arms away carefully, but even so, the old man’s skin pulled from his body, clinging to Samiq’s parka. Samiq walked away and retched. When his stomach was empty and he had caught his breath, he went back to Dyenen, pushed his way past the circle of hunters who surrounded him, the women who already lifted voices in mourning cries. Kayugh was also in the circle of men, the boy Shuku clinging to him.
One of the River men spoke and pointed. In the distance Samiq heard a woman scream, once, then many times. Finally the screaming stopped, and from blackened lips Dyenen spoke to Kayugh. Kayugh answered, speaking in the Walrus language, then gestured for Samiq to come.
“Dyenen says the woman Lemming Tail started the fire,” Kayugh said. “The screams you just heard were her screams. Dyenen said the River men killed her. He is sorry we will not have her for trade. He wants us to take Mouse. He says his people will kill the boy if he stays here.”
“We will take him,” Samiq said.
Dyenen called out, speaking in the River language, and those gathered near moved away, making room for five women. Beside the women was a girl of perhaps seven summers, and in her arms was a baby, new.
“His daughters,” Kayugh said. He stood, but Dyenen reached out for him, and Kayugh leaned close, Shuku in his arms.
Dyenen spoke, his voice a whisper.
Kayugh turned to Samiq. “He says he has no sons,” Kayugh said.
“Tell him he has two sons,” Samiq said. “Tell him we will raise both boys as his.”
Kayugh made the promise, speaking in the Walrus tongue, then Dyenen spoke to one of his daughters. She came to Kayugh, lifted her hands, and placed something over the baby’s head. Samiq looked down, saw it was the cord of a shaman’s amulet, blackened by fire. The girl spoke, but the words were River. Then she called to another woman. The woman brought Mouse, put the crying child into Samiq’s arms, and gestured for the men to leave.
They went back to the traders’ lodge, gathered their supplies, chewed meat until it was soft, and fed the children. Then with Mouse strapped to Kayugh’s back, Shuku to Samiq’s, they went to the river, walking in a wide circle around the mourners.
Finally they were in their ikyan, sliding over the forming ice to the center of the river, where the water was cold and clean. The wind blew the smoke from their eyes. And when they had cleared the rough waters where river joined sea, Samiq let himself reach back to pat Shuku’s head, let himself rejoice in his son.
CHAPTER 95
FOUR PEOPLE DIED THAT NIGHT. The great shaman Dyenen. The child Cub, son of Makes Rain. The old woman Greets Dawn. And the Walrus woman Dyenen had named Utsula’ C’ezghot.
Her death was in payment. Since she had come to their village, too many had died. She had set the fire that killed Dyenen. Makes Rain himself had seen her.
Now that their shaman was gone, how would the village live? Who would call the caribou when it was time for the hunt? Who would call the salmon to come into the rivers? Who knew how to speak to spirits when someone was sick?
When the four days of mourning had ended, when Dyenen’s knowing spirit had left the village and was on its journey to the Above World, Stick Walking called the men to his lodge. Stick Walking was an old man, older even than Dyenen. He claimed no spirit powers, but he was known for his wisdom. What more did a man ask for in old age than that? What more than wisdom and the respect of his children and his children’s children?
Stick Walking called four men to his lodge, four men, each with a special gift from the spirits—carver, storyteller, dancer, singer.
The men sat for a time without speaking. There was no woman to bring food, no hospitality of small words and laughter. Finally Stick Walking said, “We have lost our shaman. I am thinking that his power was taken by Saghani, that shaman of the Walrus. I am thinking that with his own power gone, our shaman could not protect himself against the Walrus woman.”
There was a mumble of agreement, then the carver asked, “Her carvings have been destroyed? All things that held her power?”
“All things,” Stick Walking said. “Even her clothes. Even her bed furs.”
“But still the son of Makes Rain died,” said the storyteller. “Still the old woman died.”
“Who knows why they died?” the singer said. “It might not be from the power of the Walrus.”
But no other man spoke to agree with him. Instead the storyteller said, “Saghani is a man of lies. We should not have allowed our shaman to keep the woman. Our shaman traded a medicine skin. Makes Rain saw Saghani with it. No one should do such a thing. The spirits give powers to the ones they choose. Not even a shaman should trade a medicine skin.
“By now Saghani has his children back, and if we had not killed the woman, those two who called themselves traders, they would have stolen her also.”
“They told us they were First Men,” the singer said.
“Have you ever seen First Men dressed as they were dressed, with Walrus parkas? With caribou skin leggings?” asked the storyteller.
“They wore seal flipper boots.”
The storyteller made a sound of rudeness through his nose. “So they went to a First Men village, bought the boots in trade.”
The dancer, a quiet man, placed several sticks into the hearth fire at the center of the lodge, then looked up at the others. “They claimed to be traders, yet came in sheathed boats like sea hunters,” he said. “They claimed to be First Men, but how often has any man in this village seen a First Men trader? They stay in their own islands. They do not come to us.”
“The young one,” said Stick Walking, “his knife was something any man would want.”
“I saw it,” said the carver. “The blade is obsidian. First Men’s spearheads, even the points on their harpoons, are obsidian, but it was too good, the craftsmanship too fine, to have been made by the First Men.”
The singer lifted his hands and said nothing more.
Then Stick Walking stood. Speaking with the authority earned by living many years, he said, “I am thinking that the two men are not traders. They are hunters. They are not First Men. They belong to the Walrus. They were sent by Saghani to bring back the babies and the woman, especially the boy with the carving on his parka. Did you not see that the younger Walrus hunter also carried such a carving?”
“But why, if these children had special powers, would Saghani bring them?” asked the singer. “Why not bring others who had no spirit gifts?”
“He wanted the spirit powers our shaman had promised him,” said the storyteller. “You think our shaman would not know if the wrong children had been given?”
“But if he would know about the children,” replied the singer, “he should also know that the men Saghani sent were lying.”
“By then our shaman had traded away his power,” said the dancer.
“The women say he gave the children to them, those First Men or Walrus, whatever they are,” said the singer. “The women said the young man promised to raise the boys knowing our shaman as father, honoring the ways of the River People.”
“Women hear what they want to hear,” said the storyteller. “The man had a good face, a strong body. The women did not look beyond that.”
Then the carver asked, “What then should we do? Is it best to offer prayers? Is it best to fast and burn meat? Or should we go to the Walrus and kill Saghani?”
A hiss seemed to circle the fire, as though each man breathed in the idea of killing.
“Kill,” said the storyteller quietly.
“Kill,” said the carver.
“If it means our village will be safe …” said the singer.
The dancer looked long at Stick Walking. “What do you say we should do?” he asked.
“Nothing good has come from this man Saghani,” said Stick Walking. “I am thinking we must be sure he does not return to our village.”
“How many hunters in this village would go?” asked the dancer.
“Five would go, we know this,” said the carver.
“Eight tens of hunters we have,” said Stick Walking, “but each man must decide for himself. Go each of you, talk to those hunters who are not so old, not so young. Tell them we will go to the Walrus and destroy as Saghani has destroyed.”
CHAPTER 96
The First Men
The Alaska Peninsula
“WE LOOKED FOR ONE SON and brought back two,” Kayugh said. He handed the boy called Mouse to Chagak. Her hands, from long years of holding babies, knew what to do, and so she took the child, settled him against her side. But her eyes were on Kiin and Samiq, on Three Fish and Small Knife, the four of them standing together with arms around each other, Shuku and Takha and Many Whales at the center of the circle, a family complete. She watched as Shuku and Takha reached for each other. With baby fingers they poked at each other’s face, Takha clinging to his father, Shuku to his mother.
