Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  Demmi cried out, but Lonit was on her hands and knees now, with her back to the wind, grappling with the hides, as Wallah, lana, and Eneela helped her to stand. Together the women dragged the skins to the place where the men were struggling to raise the hut frame.

  “Sit still! Look what you have done! No one will ever be able to untangle this!” fumed Summer Moon, trying to unsnarl the mitten from the thong. “You little baby!”

  “You are not so bigl” declared Demmi.

  “Bigger than you!” The older girl gave Demmi’s mittened hand a nasty jerk. “Soon I will see the passing of six times of light! That is almost grown!”

  “Three summers has this girl see’d. That is old, too!”

  “Three is nothing!”

  The wind was whistling madly now. It was angry, ferocious, and Demmi felt angry and ferocious, too. She preferred to leave her mitten snarled in her mother’s pack-frame thong rather than suffer another moment of her sister’s meanness. She felt like crying; but that would only be one more reason for Summer Moon to call her a baby. She pulled her hand as hard as she could, and to her surprise, although the thong still held the mitten captive, her hand was free. She waved it triumphantly. “Now I go and tell Mother what a mean girl you are!”

  “Oh, no you don’t! Come back here before your hand freezes off!”

  “Will not!” cried the child.

  Propelled forward and half off her feet by the wind, she ran to her mother for sympathy. The women were hunkered in a small circle, hurriedly stitching the hides together and checking to make certain they had the necessary number of extra-heavy leather thongs, which would be used to lash the assembled skins to the bone framework of the hut. They obviously had no wish to be drawn from the task at hand, so the little girl was berated by Lonit, lana, Wallah, Mahnie, and Eneela, not only for disobeying her mother and distracting them from their work but for leaving her mitten behind and risking frostbite.

  “Told you so!” Summer Moon shouted to be heard above the wind as she came to stand beside Demmi. The older girl turned to her mother. “Please, Mother, I am big. I can help.”

  “Fetch your mitten, Demmi, and put it on,” Lonit said shortly. “Summer Moon, give us what assistance you can here.”

  Tears stung Demmi’s eyes. Lest anyone see them she pulled her ruff forward and stuffed her bare hand deep into the warm fur that protected her face as she stalked back to the place where she had left her mitten.

  But Aar was there, eating her mitten! Brother Dog was as big as a wolf, and his teeth were just as sharp. What could she do to stop him?

  “Brother Dog eats meat, not mittens!” she shouted, pointing a finger at him, then she quickly put the finger into her mouth and sucked it. It was already so cold that it hurt! The dog cocked his head. His eyes were slitted against the wind that was combing viciously through his fur. He spat out what was left of the mitten, hacked a few times, and made no move to stop her as she snatched the remnants of what had, only moments before, been a very nicely sewn object.

  It was in shreds and wet from the dog’s saliva, but Demmi put it on anyway, dismayed to discover that the fringes had been chewed off and that her mother’s pack thong was missing. Bending low, she began to look for it, but a gust rose and slapped her so hard that her knees buckled and she sat down heavily next to the dog.

  This girl does not like all this blowing, she thought, hoping the wind could not hear her.

  The dog was big and warm, and his body broke the wind. Demmi looked up at his broad, grizzled, black masked face, and to her surprise, the animal looked down at her. His long, wet tongue landed a sloppy lick inside her ruff on her cheek. The lick tickled; it took away her fear.

  Demmi giggled and pressed closer to the dog. She liked him. He was nicer than Summer Moon. At least he was not angry with her.

  “You stay, Aar. Help Demmi to find the pack thong.” She sat with one arm wrapped about the dog’s forelimb.

  Aar stayed, but not because of the child’s request; something bad was in this wind, something dangerous and terrible. The girl and the dog knew it. Demmi could feel his heartbeat, fast, pounding. The child could sense his nervousness as he lowered his head, pointed his snout into the rising storm, and stared toward where the men were battling to raise the framework of the hut.

  Through a rising haze of wind-driven dust and ground snow, Demmi could see that they were not doing very well. The hut was going to be very large—if they ever managed to raise it. They had already hacked out the post holes and were inserting the long, multi branched caribou antlers and the rib and long bones of large grazing animals that had formed the support frames of their packs. But no sooner was a long bone lodged into a hole and steadied to be cross-braced with sinew against another than the wind rose, eddied violently, and toppled the bone posts that were already secured. Shouts of frustration from the men joined the groans of dismay from the women.

  Demmi was worried. She knew that the bones would not hold steady until the skin covering was laid across them, lashed tight, staked deep into the earth, and weighted down with sods. She also knew that since time beyond beginning men and women were forbidden to work together on tent raising. The erection of the bone framework was men’s work, while the spreading of the skin covering was women’s work. But if the men and women did not work together at these tasks, neither chore was going to be accomplished and the storm would be upon them before they had raised a shelter.

  Shelter. Suddenly the reality of that word took on a totally new meaning. As she watched in terror and amazement, a great gust of wind blasted the earth so hard that she and the dog were both knocked backward. It was a cold, black wind that roared like a thousand lions gone mad with hunger. Demmi had to wrap her arms around Aar’s neck in order not to be blown away. But she was being blown away, the dog with her! Head over heels Aar and she went. She could feel him grappling for footing. He snarled, not at her but at the wind, as he fought to right himself. Then he deliberately positioned himself between her and the wind.

  “Aar!” she cried his name in terror as she buried her face in his neck and fought at the dog’s side to help him to hold his footing, and her own, against the wind. Although she tried to dig into the frozen surface of the tundra with her heels, she was still being shoved backward. Try as she might, she could neither get to her feet nor stop her backward motion.

  The hand slung around Aar’s neck was the one with the shredded mitten. She could no longer feel her fingers, but she knew that she was losing her grip. Looking back toward her people again, she saw Simu knocked flat on his face while Grek, Torka, and Karana fell to their knees amid collapsing bones. As Wallah, Eneela, and lana clung to one another, Lonit reached for Summer Moon just as several of the larger hides went flying. One hit Lonit hard, causing her to fall, as a screaming Summer Moon was swept away .. . away across the world toward Demmi.

  Disbelieving, Demmi stared wide-eyed as her sister’s fur-clad form rolled along the ground toward her, until they collided. Together with the dog, they rolled over and over in the black, choking wind, off the edge of the world.. ..

  Torka did not know that it was possible for a man to fly, but the wind had taken control of his children, and so, on the stroking power of fringed, feather less arms, he flew. No wings could have served him better. With the wind howling at his back and attempting to beat him into’ the ground, he launched himself upward from his knees into a run.

  “Demmi! Summer Moon!” he cried.

  Bending low, he felt the power of pure strength of will surging through his limbs as he ran forward. But the power of the wind was greater. It knocked him down and sent the children and the dog tumbling beyond his reach.

  Pain flared in his knees and across the palms of his hands as he stumbled forward, barely managing to break his fall; but the ache in his heart was a deeper discomfort when he thought of his little ones helpless in the invisible, malevolent grip of this monstrous gale. The pain quickly became anger, and that anger was fed by t
he dark fire of resolve.

  And so again, Torka launched himself into a run, this time with so much power that he closed rapidly on the tumbling, jumbled clot of tangled arms, legs, and fur. The wind rose and shrieked as though in anger. It poured over him, pressed and pummeled and would have struck him down had he not in that moment uttered a defiant shriek of his own, hurling himself up and out and onto its back.

  He felt himself being thrust forward in an arc of pure intent like a well-aimed spear, and for an instant, he thought with amazement, This is what it is like to soar . as an eaglle ... as a hawk ... as a tertorn As he lifted, the wind tried to smash him down and break him. When at last he fell, he landed lightly, as though his bones were as hollow as an eagle’s, and his wings as broad. He came down splayed wide across his little ones and the dog. He held them fast beneath the protective span of his body while the wind suddenly veered and stopped.

  “It will rise again,” portended Wallah. “Look! Even now the clouds grow darker and thicker!”

  Lonit embraced her little ones within a protective circle of women and checked for bruises and broken bones.

  “The shelter must be raised now! Come! It will take all hands—men and women working together,” Torka said.

  Lonit looked up. Torka stood between the women and the men, with Karana kneeling at his side, examining Brother Dog for injury.

  “Yes! We must hurry!” Grek agreed, scanning the sky, noting that the wind was already rising. “You are the most experienced of the females,” he said to Wallah. “Lead the others in the assembling of the skins, and when we men have raised and secured the bones, you will work

  together—“

  “No!” Torka interrupted. “The bone framework must go up as the hides are stretched over it. Male and female must work together, for every hand will be needed to secure the lashings as we—“

  Lonit saw young Simu stiffen. “The women cannot touch the bones before they are ‘fully secured into the post holes and cross-braced at the right of the—“

  “They will be secured from under the hides,” Torka cut in. “The skins will break the wind and keep the bone framework stable until the final knots are tied.”

  “It is forbidden!” protested the younger hunter. Grek nodded and lowered his head. “It is forbidden in the far country. Among the bands it was—“

  “This is not the far country!” Torka retorted sharply. “This is a new and unknown land! And in new and unknown situations, if men are to survive, they must learn new ways!”

  Lonit felt her heart beating very fast. Little Umak was stirring at her breast, stretching and making unhappy sounds as both Summer Moon and Demmi pressed close inside the protective curl of her arms. Her eyes took in the faces of the hunters and their women. How lost they looked, and how frightened. But a great storm was coming, and Lonit knew, as did everyone else, that the little band had no hope of surviving without shelter. Slowly and with great determination she rose and stood tall. With a hand on the head of each of her daughters, she looked at her man, and then at her people.

  “Come. All of you,” she said evenly, as if standing before a fully assembled pit hut beneath a calm sky and a sweet sun. “You have chosen to walk with Torka as the forces of Creation have led us into this new land. The great mammoth spirit walks ahead of us. If we must work together in new ways, then it must be because the spirits wish it. This black wind is a predator, and we will be its prey if we cannot raise a shelter. Come. We are people of the open tundra and have seen our share of storms. Lonit will work with Torka, side by side, woman with man. At his side, in his way, always and forever, Lonit is not afraid.”

  They worked together to raise the pit hut. Before the last of the bones were raised and the hides lashed down, the wind was screaming again, and dust and blowing ground snow whirled in the air.

  “Brother Dog kept this girl warm,” said Demmi, calling out from the hut to Torka as he worked frantically with the other members of the band to make certain that no belongings were inadvertently left outside. “May Aar share our big new hut?”

  No one objected to the girl’s request—except the dog.

  Karana called to him, “Come, my brother. You are welcome to share the shelter of your man pack during this storm.”

  The dog looked at him long and hard before disdaining the invitation and trotting off to curl up out of the wind at the base of a tall, age-old pyramid of tussock grass.

  “Not exactly a vote of confidence in our hut-raising practices,” Grek remarked drolly.

  No one was amused by the older man’s attempt at humor. They had all endured storms before, and not one of them had ever lost the protection of a well-secured hut. But there were storms and there were storms, and they all had heard tales of winds that had blown so hard that entire bands of people were swept over the edge of the world as the rising winds of this storm had very nearly swept away the girls and Aar.

  They huddled together in silence, listening to the growing power of the storm. All knew that they had broken the traditions of their ancestors when they had elected to raise the hut, men and women working together. And all knew that at the breast of Lonit was a child who had been born beneath a burning sky and upon a trembling earth.. ..

  But the storm was upon them, and it would do no good to think of that now.

  “Chant!” commanded Torka. “Chant loudly and boldly and with great respect! The people need a magic man to drive back their fears of this storm!”

  Karana winced. Brooding pensively on the men’s side of the fire pit, which the women had just completed digging in the center of the floor, the magic man looked up with sad and speculative eyes. Torka’s tone had been imperative, but the sound of the storm all but drowned out his words.

  “Chant!” commanded Torka again.

  Karana turned his eyes back to the fire pit. Wallah’s bow drill whirled amid grasses and carefully arranged pieces of dung, which now began to crackle and spit sparks. Lined with small stones and banked with sods cut from the surface of the permafrost, the pit was a shallow well in which light and heat were being meticulously kindled as Wallah worked to nurture a fire that was already sending back the shadows of the storm’s gathering darkness.

  Beyond the walls of the hut, the shrieking wind was rising to the same force that had nearly blown Brother Dog and the daughters of Torka away. Karana did not want to hear it or think of it, for when Torka had leaped into the storm to save his young ones, Karana had crawled to his beloved Mahnie. He had held her close as she had begged him to will the wind away. He had tried. He had honestly tried. He had hurled his voice into the gale, imploring it to pity his people. But the storm wind had blown on, and only Torka’s daring selflessness had stunned it into momentary breathlessness.

  Bitterness and contempt filled him. Why does Torka ask me to chant? It is his magic that has driven back the spirits of this storm. Surely he must realize this! Karana deliberately kept his gaze focused on Wallah’s ritual movements as, kneeling close to the circular embankment of sods cut from the permafrost, she added small bones one at a time, one across the other, while shielding herself from rising sparks with a hide apron. After her bow drill gave birth to the fire, the kindling grasses were quickly spent. Reduced almost instantly to white-hot filaments, they settled into ash over the glowing dung and stones, but not before igniting the bones. When the fire began to smoke, Wallah wafted the apron skin gently back and forth; then suddenly, as she drew the skin away and let it settle onto her broad lap, the dung and bones exploded into bright, hot, cleanly burning little flames. The corners of her mouth betrayed the pleasure she found in her success. She was the eldest female in the band; the spirits of fire could not trick Wallah.

  Behind her, the women and girls murmured their appreciation of her skill as they worked to arrange their belongings along the inside radius of the hut to further baffle the intensifying cold of the storm. From the men’s side of the fire, Grek made a sound of approval, and Wallah, reacting to it, settled back
on her heels and beamed at him with pride.

  Karana saw their look of pleasure vanish. Beyond the hut, the shrieking wind was hurling snow against the layered outer skins with such ferocity that it sounded as if a large predator were throwing itself against the walls. The thong lashes tugged at the stakes, and their untied ends flapped madly. A vicious gust struck the shelter, and the entire dome leaned away from the wind. It shook so violently that for a moment Karana was certain that the stakes were going to wrench from the earth and the entire hut was going to fly away into the storm, taking the band off the edge of the world.

  Then the moment passed. The stakes held. The hide covering remained in place. The sinew joinings creaked and rubbed, but although the bone framework trembled, it stayed intact. The wind stopped.

  Karana listened, waiting. On the women’s side of the fire pit, no one moved. The little girls, gathered into Lonit’s embrace, were crying. On the men’s side, Grek and Simu were holding their breath; Torka was sitting cross-legged, his face and body tense. Then, slowly, the wind began to rise again, as if the clouds were drawing in a great breath.

  “Make it stop!” sobbed Summer Moon, her face buried in her mother’s lap.

  But it did not stop. Karana could feel the air being sucked from the hut. Outside there were strange snapping sounds as the fire guttered, then flared. Beyond the hut, the wind rushed forward .. . out of the belly of the storm.

  The people cried out as air again filled their lungs, and the wind struck the hut harder than before, screaming like a monstrous, invisible beast that raged above the world, spitting snow and dust, hungry to make meat of all the earth’s living children, whether they were men huddling in tents or animals sheltering in burrows. Karana had never heard such a wind as this. Never.

  Something went crashing and tumbling by outside, close to the hut, and suddenly a snow-encrusted Aar forced his way inside by nosing and shouldering through the entry flap. Karana welcomed the dog, reached to close the flap, and then urged Aar to lie by his side. He felt a stab of guilt, for until this moment, he had all but forgotten the animal’s existence. Brother Dog shook himself, and snow flew, but no one objected. Then their brother whined and lay close to Karana, snout tucked deep beneath the magic man’s thigh, as if ashamed to admit that a brave, weather spurning animal had been forced to take shelter with his not-so-weather-resistant man pack.