by neetha Napew
The dog whined softly. The lake lapped coldly, hungrily, against its stony banks and the icy wall that held it captive. Even with the sun shining, the glacier’s weather eroded, dust-encrusted surface failed to reflect the blue sky. The lake’s water was thick with silt .. . restless, roiling, white capped by the invisible plucking fingers of the wind that lived upon the mountain. It troubled Karana. He stared, trying to place the source of his worry but failing.
A desolate feeling caused by the age and decay overwhelmed the magic man. Because the entire highland basin was a monstrous, ancient thing of ice that slowly, inexorably moved and shifted and left behind the stony bones of the mountain as rubble, Karana wondered why he was drawn to walk here so often. He turned his steps out onto the arm of the north-canyon glacier, which crawled upward out of the gorge to dam the lake and keep it locked within the broad sprawl of the highland basin. Without the glacier, there would be no lake; the waters would tumble from the heights down through the gorge and inundate the wonderful valley.
The sound of boyish laughter rose up from far below. Umak was swimming in the river after a day of hunting alone. Karana frowned. Why was the youth alone so much? Umak, the dreamer, who had so innocently turned Karana’s world upside down. He missed the friendship he had once shared with Torka’s son. But as Umak’s laughter bubbled up the gorge again, Navahk’s ghost suddenly began to laugh, and the smell of death was strong in Karana’s nostrils.
Whose death? Most assuredly his own.
“Come,” he said to Aar as he began to walk back toward his little shelter. “I have a gift—something that I would have you bring to our band.”
The dog stood patiently while he strapped to its back the pack that he had so lovingly filled: healing herbs, precious oils, and drawings on bark that would show his people how to use the remedies. And as the dog loped away, Karana watched his brother go and wondered if he would ever see him again.
Cheanah’s band found no sign of the great herds, but they came upon remnants of the camps of Ekoh, Bili, and Seteena .. . and of the old fire circles that Torka’s band had raised as they had trekked deeper into the Forbidden Land.
“I thought we’d find their bones drying in the wind,” Ram remarked.
“Do you think they’re all alive out there somewhere?” Weariness, hunger, and grief had etched deep lines into Yanehva’s face. “If we find them, we could hunt with them again. There was always meat in Torka’s camp.”
Cheanah glowered, and his voice sounded strangely hollow. “Torka is our enemy. If we find him, we will take his meat, his fine women, and his shaman, as easily as I once stole his hunting grounds and his camp. But this time I will kill him. Now I know that Torka tricked us when he walked from our camp. He knew that his shaman would follow. And he knew that when Life Giver walked ahead of him, it would take our luck away. As long as that mammoth and Torka live, they will feed upon our luck-their shaman will see to it. We must find them and make them pay for our dead.”
“You will not kill the women?” Mano pressed.
Cheanah looked up at his eldest son. “You and I will enjoy the women.”
“And the girls, and Bili when we find her?”
“We will enjoy her, too. All of the men of this band will enjoy her! And Torka’s girls.”
At last they came to the confluence of two great rivers. Following the trails of Ekoh and Torka, they kept to the wider, easterly course. In the heart of a river-cut valley they sighted a small herd of bison.
Having eaten nothing but the remains of their toddlers, small game, birds, and fish since beginning their journey across the sodden land, they raised the first good camp in many moons. There they hunted and killed and feasted until their bellies could hold no more—all the while praising Cheanah for having had the courage and foresight to lead them out of the starving camp and into good hunting grounds again. Then Zhoonali threw her fortunetelling bones and predicted better days ahead, provided that the people of Cheanah abided by the wisdom of their ancestors.
They rested and ate until all the bison meat was gone. Only after the flies sang in the hollowed skeletons of the bison and the renewed energy of the hunters had been expended in hours of coupling with their women did they wake from glutted slumber, look around, and remember that the Place of Endless Meat had become a starving camp because of just such hunting practices as these. As a result, while the men hunted with circumspection in the days that followed, the women dried meat and stretched sinew.
The band broke camp and trekked eastward. Because their pack frames were heavily loaded, they had left a good deal of the bison meat behind. What they had packed was soon gone. Food remained scarce, and their hunts were few and far between.
Teean died a day before they sighted their first real game in weeks—a broken-legged camel and her calf. Honee rejoiced. Now there was one less man for whom she would have to spread herself, and never again would that bony old Teean pound her in the night while not once succeeding in filling her with the juice that the women said was the thing that put life into a woman.
The beast ling and Sister were happy. They were thriving on the long trek across the new country. Sister was as cautious as the beast ling was curious, but she followed readily now. Mother’s disciplined training served them well. One good meal gave them energy enough for a two or three-day walk. The beasts walked so slowly and noisily that, to the beast ling and Sister’s delight, many small creatures scampered out of the band’s way only to blunder into their path. They lingered on the site of the bison kill for many days. When at last they left it, the beast ling carried bloody hump cuttings in a pouch that he contrived.
Now, after days of following the beasts through country where food was scarce, the smell of old meat drew them on. Soon they were driving off a small pack of wolves from something edible that the beasts had recently left behind.
Sister fell upon the meat at once. The beast ling held back, realizing that the beasts had abandoned one of their own. He touched the hairless skin, then bent closer to smell it. Then he drew back,
appalled. Could it be? Could he be one of them? Was this why he was so fascinated by them and drawn to learn from them? No! He was Mother’s cub!
Sister looked up and held out a piece of mutilated hand. It was like his own hand, pale and hairless and claw less He felt himself blanch and shiver as he refused her offering. He pulled his lions king tighter and turned away, sitting with his back to Sister. Truth lay upon him like a freshly fleshed antelope skin: It felt as if his own skin had been turned inside out and left to bleed and cure in the wind. Moisture as salty as blood seeped from his eyes. He knew now that he was one of them—a beast, not Mother’s cub, after all ... but still and always he would be hers.
“Manaravak ...” He exhaled it as a whisper. “Manaravak!” he shouted in the gathering darkness, beneath the light of the red star. He wept against the exquisite pain of the emotions that assaulted him. When that failed, he once again whispered .. . his own name.
And far across the world, Umak awoke with a start. Dak eyed him and shook his head disparagingly as he sighed and snuggled back under his furs. “Dreams again?”
“No,” replied Umak truthfully. Slowly, he rose and picked his way across the sleeping forms of his people. The dogs looked up and then down again; only Aar followed him to the edge of the cave. Together they stood in the dark, looking across the world and the night at the red star.
“He is out there somewhere,” Umak whispered to the dog. “I can feel him inside me and out there—alive somewhere.”
Aar cocked his head.
Umak hunkered down and slung an arm around the dog’s neck. “I will share a secret with you, old friend: I hope he dies, for I want no brother to shadow me. The sadness of the past has done too much of that already!”
In the last days of autumn, with vast wedges of geese and other waterfowl winging overhead, Ekoh, Bili, and Seteena continued eastward, following the old campsites of Torka, until one day, with the sm
ell of a coming snowfall bitter on the wind, Ekoh looked back and saw the tiny forms of travelers silhouetted against the far horizon.
“The whole cursed band!” he hissed. Then he looked at his little family and smiled. His woman and son looked well and strong. Seteena’s eyes were bright, and he could walk for hours without complaint. “We will leave the trail and allow Cheanah to go on his way. We will find a place to spend the winter and ready a camp for the time of long dark.”
Following the tracks of horses and elk into the hills, careful to leave no tracks of their own, they disappeared into a deep, wind-sheltered canyon.
Long before the sun disappeared into the west, the first storms of winter swept the Forbidden Land. In Torka’s well-provisioned cave, the people knew neither cold nor hunger.
Torka looked up at Summer Moon when she came to stand close to his fire circle. “Do you think he is all right, all alone on the far mountain, Father?”
He frowned. He had been thinking of the magic man a great deal these past dark days. “Karana can take care of himself. He has chosen his life.”
Seated beside Torka with Swan in her lap, Lonit shook her head sadly. “No, the spirits have chosen it for him. They have not been kind. And yet Karana sent us a gift of his healing magic so we would not be without it in the winter dark.”
“We were without it when our son died.” Torka’s voice was hard and unforgiving.
“Karana is our son,” she reminded softly.
“No, he is not our son.” The headman was relieved to be drawn from his brooding when Swan beamed at him, reached out with her pudgy little hands, and laughed.
Torka smiled as he lifted his daughter and held her high. “Leave it to a swan to lighten my heart. What do you think, little girl? If the weather continues as it has, shall your father set out across the valley and ask Karana to come home?”
“yes!”
The word came not from the little girl but from everyone in the cave.
Torka nodded. “So be it, then.”
Soon after, with Grek and Mahnie at his side, he set out with Aar.
Summer Moon, meanwhile, sat pouting at Simu’s fire.
“You are my woman now. You will stay.”
“I do not want to stay! Mahnie goes!”
“Mahnie is Karana’s woman!” Simu retorted. “But I make him happy. I would give him sons. If I were at his side, he would lie with me and be happy.”
Eneela was angry. “You have been raised as Karana’s sister and have no place at Karana’s fire or in his heart.”
“It was not as brother that he lay with me!”
Simu glowered at the girl, but it was Demmi who overheard and said:
“You can make no one happy, Summer Moon. How can you, when all you do is think about yourself!”
Torka, Grek, and Mahnie walked until the need to rest became too strong, and then they stopped, raised a lean-to, and sat by the little fire that Mahnie kindled while the dog ran ahead.
Torka, chewing on the berry-impregnated wedges of pounded fat that Mahnie handed out, watched the wolflike form disappear into the falling snow.
The next morning they entered the pass and made their way up the gorge. Travel was slow in the cold and dark; in places they lit the torches that they had brought and walked on under a cloud of their own smoke and oily light.
At last they reached the ridge. The torches were exhausted. Three more bundlings of oil-saturated sticks, lichens, and skins remained in their traveling packs; these they would save for the return trip. They went on, drawn by the scent of Karana’s fire.
He and Aar watched them coming for hours, lights threading upward through the gorge, flickering in the misting snow and darkness.
So much darkness. Even for a magic man there could be too much darkness. It was inside him now, a living thing.
It spoke: “Now .. . they come for you now.”
He cocked his head, listening.
“Hear the voices. You knew they would come!”
“Mahnie?”
‘”Yes, Mahnie. Soft and loving Mahnie.” The darkness whispered on the wind all around him. He knew its voice as well as he knew his own. It was Navahk’s. “Now you will go back with them. Now I will be reborn!”
“No!” he shouted. “Never!”
The dog growled. He lowered his head, put back his ear, and began to back away. Aar was brother to Karana, but he did not recognize the man who stood on the ridge before him now.
They stopped when they saw him.
“Go back,” he warned. His voice was as flat and cold as the wind that moved down from the heights.
Torka’s heart sank. “Too long have you been on the mountain, my son.
It is time for you to come back to your people.”
“I am not your son. I have no people. They are dead, beyond the Corridor of Storms, long ago.”
“You are Karana. Grek and Wallah and Mahnie are survivors of your band. And you are my son and the magic man of Torka’s band.”
“I am Karana, son of Navahk! Grek and Wallah and Mahnie are of Torka’s band now. They have no need of me. They have Torka for their magic.”
“That is not enough.” He wanted to say more, to speak his heart, to beg forgiveness from one to whom he had shown no forgiveness, but his grief was too great. What he saw in the face of Karana was almost more than he could bear: It was madness.
“This man has sent the gift of healing into the valley. Has Torka not
received it? Have Torka’s women failed to understand the meaning of
the drawings—“
“They understand! I have received. But—“
“Then you have no need of Karana. Go.”
“Karana? My magic man?” Mahnie’s voice broke as she took a step forward, reaching out to him with all of the love in her heart.
“No! You will not come to me! Never! Never again!”
As Torka and Grek watched, appalled, the young woman put her arms around Karana only to be hurled to the ground as he turned and fled into the night.
For a long while Grek and Torka searched for him while Mahnie stayed on the ridge with Aar. Snow fell quietly at first, but when the wind changed, it took on the sting of the impending storm. She sat very still, watching it accumulate in her lap while the dog lay beside her. At length the two men returned.
“We’ve looked everywhere we could think to look!” Grek reported. “In his shelter ... up around the lake .. . down toward the north-canyon glacier. There’s no sign of him, the crazy fool. We’ll never find him unless he wishes it; he knows the mountain too well.”
“He has been alone too long,” Torka said.
“Yes,” Mahnie agreed. “But no longer. I am his woman. I will stay with him.”
“No!” Grek was emphatic.
“I will stay, Father. It is my place to stay. A woman needs a man. And this man needs his woman! Did you see the way he looked? You will see: He will be better soon. When the coming storm is over, we will come, from the mountain together. You must go before the weather closes in. Kiss Naya for me. Tell her I will try to be home with her father soon.”
The two hunters stood in stunned silence. Mahnie’s resolve made her seem taller and mature beyond her years. Torka understood her heart;
Lonit would do the same for him.
“His shelter isn’t much, but it seems to be adequately provisioned. There’s a little bit of kindling and a stash of lichens and wood set by. You will be warm there until he returns. Come, I will show you.”
Grek worried for his daughter, sputtered in fatherly confusion, but he knew that Torka was right. Mahnie had been wasting away with unhappiness without Karana. He thought about what he would be like without his Wallah. Empty. Yes. And that was what he had seen in the magic man’s eyes: emptiness .. . loneliness .. . such terrible, black, aching despair. But to leave Mahnie here with Karana in the state he was in? “I don’t like it,” he muttered. “If the weather closes in, you may not be able to come off this m
ountain until the return of the time of light. And if ice should block the gorge, we may not be able to come up to you if you need us!”
“Nevertheless, I will stay.” She moved to hold him in a loving embrace. She reached to push back the thickly furred projection of his ruff so she could kiss him and exhale the essence of her love onto each side of his broad face. “Go now, Father. Give this kiss to my mother and to Naya, and tell them both not to worry, even if I am here until spring! I will be with my magic man. Karana will keep me safe.”
But Karana was not upon the mountain. Someone else walked in and out of his skin. He hid upon the heights and watched the torches disappear into the depths of the snow driven gorge. Two figures, only two! Male by their dress.
She had stayed behind!
Go to her .. . lie with her .. . love her. Yes, think of her warm body .. . of her mouth .. . of her breasts .. . of her soft thighs, and you between them. You will be one with her in the endless winter dark as I pour my life into her through you .. . and live again .. . yes. You would not have the courage to deny me life if she held me, all newborn and tender, in her hands. She would hate you and protect me against you if you did that.. ..
“Yes ...”
As the storm came down, Navahk whispered to him in the wind. But he would not listen. He was back in his own skin. He put his hands above his head and pressed upon his ears, and when the voice of Navahk rose from within, he howled defiantly into the night and the cold until he could not hear it. He walked and walked until exhaustion dropped him.
“Mahnie, I will not come to you. I cannot!”
He stayed where he was until he was stiff with cold and his body ached and his mind felt drained of life. Hunger drove him back toward his shelter .. . until he smelled the fire that she had made and the meat that she was roasting.
“No, I will not come to you.”
He turned and stumbled away, back into the storm and the night and the wind. He made a new shelter out of snow in a new place and like a caribou lived on lichens. He waited out the storm—and all the long, bitter storms that followed. He had never known such cold.
