Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  He felt sick as panic grew in him. Mother would not come back! In desperation, he screeched again as he jumped up and down. He thought that he would die of his anguish. If she would trust him, he would clamber up to the summit and find rodents to eat, while she rested. It would not be much, but it would keep Sister happy until Mother was herself again. Then they could all hunt together in the world below.

  Deep within his throat, the sounds that Mother hated were forming. His tongue moved in his mouth. His throat constricted against the deep, pulling need to form a sound that would be more than a screech or a hoot or a howl, but an articulation that would make her understand exactly how he felt. And so, with his face thrust into the wind, he screamed not like a cub, not like a beast ling but like a child; and the scream was more than sound. It was a word a word from out of his dreams ... a word that he had heard long ago, on the wind.

  “Mah .. . nah .. . rah .. . vahk--!”

  But now, as then, the wind took the word and blew it away across the mountain. Mother kept on plodding downward across the stony scree of the mountainside. She did not turn back.

  On the same burnished autumn day, miles from the bog in which the mammoth lay dying, Lonit stopped and stared westward. It was there again, deep in her heart: that terrible nagging sense of loss, that small tender voice calling to her out of time.

  Mother! Where are you, Mother? I am here, waiting. Why have you left me all alone .. . far away .. . lost forever?

  “Manaravak?” She spoke the name of her son and then realized that she had been a fool even to have thought of him. It was four-year-old Umak who had called to her. “Mother! Mother, look!”

  She looked. She saw him, and the sadness left her. What a bright, bold, beautiful little boy he was, looking so much like her, and jumping up and down with Dak in the reeds, pointing with absolute delight as Mahnie’s bola sang overhead.

  Lonit’s eyes followed its flight high across the wind broken, frost-reddened grasses in pursuit of a goose that should not have lingered so long at the edge of the tundral pond to fatten itself further upon the last remaining seed heads and algae of summer. But the need to eat had outweighed the need to fly ... until it heard the sloshing of Eneela and the children in the shallows and was easily flushed into a panicked flight.

  The majority of the goose’s kind had long since left the valley on their seasonal migration southeast. A few birds remained; unbeknownst to the goose that was now about to fly afoul of Mahnie’s bola, more than a few of its kin were now strung through the beak on the carrying thong slung over Lonit’s shoulder. The whirling, stone-weighted thong arms of Mahnie’s bola wrapped themselves around the goose’s neck, snapping its spinal column instantly. The bird plummeted to earth, dead before it landed, to the delighted exclamation of the children and the applause of Lonit and Eneela. Never before had Mahnie made such an exquisite kill with her bola.

  Mahnie was not completely surprised by her achievement. She had been working long and hard under Lonit’s supervision to perfect her skill and had killed many small animals and birds with the bola—but never a bird as fine as this, and never so quickly and with such absolute perfection. There had been something in the way the bola left her hand, a feeling of balance and coordination.. ..

  She should have rejoiced with pride; yet, somehow, Mahnie felt an inexplicable lack of enthusiasm. There was so much to rejoice at in these days: the wonderful valley; the fine, dry, well-stocked encampment within the cave; the success with the bola—at last! And her happiness with Karana---at last! But now that had ended, and as she thought of him, she felt so miserable that she actually forgot for a moment that she had killed the goose at all.. .. “We are what?” His question still rang in her head.

  “I ... we .. . are going to have a child.”

  “A child ...” He had exhaled the words as though she had just told him that he was going to die.

  “”A child, yes. For Mahnie and Karana, at last.”

  “A male child or a female child?”

  She had laughed out loud. “You are the magic man! You must tell me, if you can!”

  He had not been amused. His face had gone as white as that of a corpse. Slowly, he had risen. Slowly, he had shaken his head. “A girl child. I will ask the spirits for a girl child.”

  Puzzled, she had shrugged and smiled, wanting only to please him. “Then

  I will do the same. But whatever comes

  of our love, male or female, it will bring joy to this woman’s heart.”

  He had stared at her long and hard for a moment before turning away. And since that day he had not smiled, nor had he shared her bed skins with her.. ..

  Beside her, Eneela now held her own bola in check as she looked with concern at Mahnie’s suddenly pale face. “What is wrong?”

  Mahnie shook her head. “Nothing ...”

  Eneela smiled knowingly. “We are all three of us carrying babies in our bellies. No doubt your mother has already told you that at this time it is perfectly natural for us to feel sick occasionally.”

  “I am not sick,” Mahnie told her.

  “You look sick,” said Lonit, reaching to touch her brow.

  Mahnie waved her hand away. Ahead of her, Summer Moon and Demmi were screeching with protest as Dak and Umak chased the older girls and made off with the goose and the bola, then circled back to Mahnie. She took her prize and her bola, thinking that yesterday she would have rejoiced at the sight of the children.

  But now, as the boys wheeled away and ran off to harass the girls again, her heart beat slowly and her mouth turned down as her hand strayed to the taut span of her belly. She had not shed a woman’s blood in over two moons now. Her breasts were tight and swelling. But how could she be happy when Karana was not?

  “You must not fret as he frets,” Lonit advised gently. “Karana has always been moody. Be patient with him. Perhaps he needs to commune with Life Giver and with the very forces of Creation to strengthen his magic for the good of us all.” “Do you think so?” Mahnie asked, hope welling within her. Sometimes, when everyone was asleep, she would know that Karana lay awake beside her, brooding and inwardly bleeding over deep thoughts that he would not share with her.

  “Of course I do!” affirmed Lonit, and hugged the small young woman hard before releasing her and holding her close with a hand on each of her slim shoulders. “We all waited so long now for a child to take root in the belly of Mahnie, we nearly gave up hope that it would ever happen. Perhaps it is so with Karana. And now that life is at last to come from the joining of the two of you, he worries about you. It is no easy thing, you know, this bearing of new life.”

  She felt better; Lonit could almost always make her feel better. “Karana has gone far from this camp and from his woman into the upland groves. But you think he is not angry with Mahnie?”

  Eneela’s wide, pretty face split with a grin. “Of course he is angry! Once Mahnie’s belly starts to swell, for a very long while Karana will have no woman to join with in the night. In this small band, it will be the same for Simu and Torka.” Her grin disappeared as she lowered her voice lest the frolicking children overhear. “In some bands—far away in the country out of which Torka has led us—Eneela has heard it said that some men who cannot couple with a woman howl like wolves and rut alone in their bed skins. Sometimes they take up their spears and travel to the camps of other bands to seek out women. And if the men in those camps refuse to share their women, there is killing, and the women are taken against their will, over the corpses of their men and children.”

  Mahnie’s eyes went wide.

  “It is true,” Lonit affirmed, shivering against her memories. “Both lana and this woman were taken captive by such men. lana’s newborn son was killed by them, and Summer Moon would have been had Torka and Karana not come to the rescue ... in time for me, but not for lana.”

  Eneela grimaced and shook herself. “Enough of such bad talk! Let us all be glad that we have left the country of such men. Simu has told thi
s woman that among his people, going without a rut is a thing that a man must endure while his woman makes life.”

  “So it is with all men who care for their women,” added Lonit. “Nevertheless, if a man sometimes grows a little bit restless at such times, a woman must understand—as Mahnie must understand. Besides, Karana will need many things if he is to keep us all well supplied with the special broths that shamans always brew for us in the dark time of winter! It is for the ingredients of this magic that he has no doubt gone from the camp. Mahnie should be glad for this.”

  Mahnie felt such relief that she reached out and hugged Lonit again.

  “You are the sister of my heart, Lonit, woman of Torka!”

  To her surprise, Eneela embraced both of them. “In this good band we are all sisters,” she said, kissing each of them on the cheek before stepping back and eyeing the fat, thickly feathered body of the goose that hung limply by the beak from Mahnie’s hand. “Now let us gather up our children and get back to camp. Perhaps Mahnie will be willing to share this fat and beautiful goose?”

  Torka was waiting to greet them as they returned from their birding. At least one hunter always accompanied the women and children when they left camp to set snares, dig for tubers, gather the last of the season’s rapidly dwindling frost-and-wind-dried berries, or hunt with their bolas. Although they usually took Brother Dog on these expeditions to alert them to danger, a hunter nevertheless always checked the area for signs of predators before leaving them to their gossip, games, and female ways of hunting. But even when he left them, he remained close, watching from a nearby rise so they would be safe at all times.

  “Father!”

  Torka grinned when he caught sight of Umak and Dak racing toward him, well ahead of his daughters. The boys were both strong, lean little striplings, bright eyed and shiny faced with surplus energy. Soon they would be hunting big game with their fathers, but now they were still young enough to assist the females of the band. Umak did not quite manage to beat the older Dak up the hill from the marsh pond. They stopped before Torka to report that it had been a good day and that the women had done well.

  “Despite the girls.” Umak stated his opinion of his sisters’ interference as Dak muttered that they were always in the way—just in time for the girls to come up behind them.

  Demmi took a poke at Umak. He jumped forward but did not quite manage to avoid the blow. At seven, Demmi was still small, but she was taller than her brother and as fast on her feet as a well-thrown spear; if she had failed to outrun the boys, it was only because she had not tried. Summer Moon looked down her nose and turned up her chin as though such child’s play was below her dignity.

  Torka smiled down at his three children and Dak with love and pride as Lonit came walking up with Eneela and Mahnie. Although his woman boasted more of Mahnie’s prowess than of her own, he saw at once that Lonit’s shoulder thong held more birds. Karana’s woman’s face blushed a deep red, and her lips moved upward into a smile. Torka was glad to see that the day of birding had lifted her spirits.

  “I heard Aar barking a little while ago. I think that Karana may be back from the groves,” he told her.

  She nearly cried out with delight as she hurried off.

  “What about that goose?” called Eneela. “I thought that we were going to share it!” But Mahnie was oblivious to the protests. Simu’s woman chuckled even though her own shoulder thong was devoid of birds. “Why do I suspect that this fine, fat goose is not going to be singed or roasted this night at all?”

  Torka’s brow shadowed his eyes as he slung an arm around Lonit’s shoulder. “Karana should be singed and roasted if he doesn’t start treating Mahnie with a little more concern.”

  “And when has he ever done that?” asked the woman of Simu, falling into step with Torka and Lonit as they began to herd the children back across the foothills toward the cave.

  “It had been good between them for more than two moons,” reminded Lonit. “Just in the last few days has life soured at their fire circle.”

  Eneela sighed. “I know that you call him Son and Brother, and I know that we owe our lives to his spirit powers, but I would not trade my Simu for him .. . not even if he is a most handsome magic man!”

  Summer Moon took Torka’s hand and proclaimed so all would hear: “Magic Man will be my man someday.” She spoke confidently, as though her future were already decided.

  “Surely, Daughter, it is far too early for you to think of this!” Lonit exclaimed, clearly startled.

  Torka looked down at his older daughter and was dismayed to realize that it was not too early. Summer Moon was nine now. Nine! How could so many autumns have passed? Summer Moon was growing up and would need a man to take her to his fire circle. He frowned, annoyed with himself for not thinking of this before. Had he imagined that his daughters would remain little girls forever?

  There was silence in the camp of Cheanah as Mano, Yanehva, and Ank stood before their father. The older two had respectfully stated their intent: Mano wanted to go back to retrieve the flesh, bones, and tusks of the mammoth; Yanehva did not.

  Arms crossed over his chest, Cheanah stood tall before them in the posture of a man who was ready to listen and talk. He had listened, but instead of talking, he frowned and stared at them. Zhoonali, standing at his right, was certain that she would drown in her impatience with his silence.

  Cheanah’s frown became a scowl. “The meat of mammoth is an acquired taste,” he said at last. “I, for one, have never acquired it. And my sons should not have been hunting so far to the north.”

  Zhoonali began to speak in defense of her grandsons, but Mano replied boldly: “It was the spirit of the circling tera torn that spoke to me, my father, and told me to lead my brothers into the marsh so that we might find the mammoth mired in the bog. We saw or heard no sign of the wanawut. But we saw the mammoth lying there, just waiting to be fleshed! Its long bones make the best spears, and from its great tusks we can make—“

  “Mano had no idea what lay under the shadow of the condor before he ran off into the marsh country,” Yanehva countered.

  Zhoonali’s mouth worked over what was left of her teeth. Her two older grandsons were quick and combative. No man would ever be able to fool either of them.

  They were born to lead others. It was not so with their hesitant father. Cheanah did not know what to do, and his people could see that .. . his people were chafing against that.

  Frustration and resentment toward Cheanah stirred deep within her withered breast. Of all my sons, why is it that only the most dull witted survived? Her old head shook on the ten doned stalk of her neck. It did no good to ask such questions; there were no answers for them.

  Now, beside him, she stood as tall as she could within her ankle-length dress of white-feathered owl skins. It did not matter how many hours of stalking and snaring and meticulous workmanship had been involved in the accumulation, curing, and sewing of this garment. What mattered was that the dress set her apart from all other females. It made the mother of Cheanah special, and so it made him seem special, too. The dress affirmed her status; no longer was Zhoonali merely a midwife, wise woman, and mother of the headman—she was a magic woman, as well. This was an illusion that she fostered for the good of her son, the people of the band, and her own survival. Even in the worst of times, when the sick and old were the first to be sent away to walk the wind forever, a magic man or woman was needed to interpret the signs and omens, the one power that mere mortals possessed that might mean the difference between their lives and their deaths.

  Zhoonali took out a badger-skin bag of dry, weather whitened bone fragments and teeth gleaned from every type of animal that the band had killed and eaten ever since Karana had followed Torka out of the Place of Endless Meat and she had recognized her opportunity to become irreplaceable.

  “If Cheanah wishes, this woman, who draws her power from his strength, will cast the bones for her people to determine what the spirits say.”

/>   And so the bones were cast, with Cheanah shadowing her and looking for all the world as though he, and not the scrawny woman in owl feathers, were in control of the moment.

  As Zhoonali’s old hands fingered the bones, she reminded herself: This camp does not need the meat. But nowhere in this camp are there the long bones of mammoth. The hunters would be pleased if their headman led them to such bones, for it is true when Mono says that they make the best of spears. And its great tusks! What frame posts they would make for a new council hut for a headman.

  Her hands rested atop the bones. Kneeling, her body curled over them. She needed time to think, to analyze. The words of this woman must cause the people to remember that they are Cheanah’s band forever, with their own traditions and totems and taboos. It is time for them to set themselves forever apart from Torka by breaking with his totem, by committing themselves forever to the ways of Cheanah and their own ancestors!

  “Speak, Zhoonali! Tell us what the bones want us to do!” pressed old Teean.

  Zhoonali’s mouth puckered with annoyance. Teean’s age gave him a false sense of worth and authority. The bones see nothing, old man! It is what you believe that you see in the bones that matters.

  “Perhaps ...” she began in a soft, well-practiced croak, which imitated what bones might sound like if they had spoken through a human body. “Perhaps ... if the forces of Creation have caused the bull mammoth to become entrapped within a bog .. . perhaps if the great tera torn spirit led Mano to discover it ... perhaps for the people of Cheanah not to take of its flesh and bones and tusks would be an affront to the great mammoth spirit and to those spirits who have given to the hunters of this band the gift of its life? ...”

  She drew back from the bones and remained hunkered on her haunches. Her face was set, but inside she was smiling. She had made no statement that might later be used against her; she had merely posed a question. How her people chose to answer it was up to them. But for brave men who knew the value of freshly taken mammoth bones and who believed implicitly in the power of spirits to speak through living beings, she had left them no response but one.