Corridor of Storms

by neetha Napew

  But he did not love her enough to stay in the land where they had been so happy.

  He was coming toward her now, his eyes looking at her but not seeing her. He paused, knelt, and focused on the traveling bags and bladder flasks of oil that lay at her side and the objects arrayed upon the traveling skins. He nodded approvingly at the adze and awls and scrapers, the fur comber and antler straightener, and the bow drill of bone and the little bag of dried lichen and moss that would be used for wicking and kindling, then at the multipurpose loops of thong and sinew, the birding nets of braided musk-ox hair, the fishing trident and lures and hooks of bone, the skinning knives, and at the feather shafts filled with dried blood, which could later be liquified with spittle and used as glue.

  He frowned when his eyes fell upon the smaller of her two soapstone lamps. Both were oblong, flat-bottomed vessels for the holding of oil, in which moss wicks were laid and burned. He shook his head. The little lamp had been the first one that he made for her when they had come to the valley and discovered soapstone in the encircling hills.

  Summer Moon had accidentally dropped it, and the little lamp, badly cracked along its right side, had leaked oil ever since. He had assumed that she had tossed it away when he had carved the new one for her.

  “Our journey will be long,” he said. “That lamp is damaged. Leave it. Lonit’s pack will be heavy enough as it is.”

  He reached to take it off the skin, but her hand stayed his. “This was the first tool that Torka made for this woman when we came to this valley. This woman would keep the lamp always.” She hesitated, barely daring to speak the next words. “As she would stay in the Valley of Songs always.”

  “It cannot be. For Aliga, we must go back.”

  Her heart sank. “Yes. It must be so.”

  His hand caught hers and gripped it. “Is Lonit not afraid to stay in this land that walks, where the mountains rain fire?”

  “The land walks, but no one was hurt. We have raised our huts and drying frames again. The mountains rain fire, but far from this valley. Who can say that the land did not also walk to the west, or that mountains did not rain fire there too? In this valley, Torka is headman. The band may be small, but it is strong because Torka is strong. Life is good because Torka is good. For the first time in her life this woman has been completely happy. As long as Torka is beside her, Lonit is not afraid.” She knew from the expression upon his face that she had spoken the wrong words.

  “And when Torka is not beside her? If someday Torka should go from this valley to hunt within the Corridor of Storms and not return .. . ? Would Lonit be afraid then, alone with her children and two other women in this far land, with only an inexperienced youth to protect her?”

  She wanted to lie. She wanted to reply boldly, saying that with her bola and spear she could face any danger, but he would see the truth in her eyes. Without Torka she would be afraid—and not for herself. Were it not for the children, Lonit would have no desire to live without him.

  Or would she?

  The question terrified her. There were worse things to fear than a lonely death—things she could not speak of to her man or admit to the other women. There was the memory of a flame-lit night and of a man in white, more beautiful and mysterious than the night itself, dancing and whirling before her, telling her that she was beautiful, inviting her to turn her back on Torka and join with him at his magic man’s fire.

  And there was the memory of wanting to join with him, of longing to rise and take his hand and walk into the fire-lit night with him and lie with him and never look back.

  Never. Not for Torka. Not for Summer Moon. And that was more frightening than death. Knowing that for one shattering moment she had been close to abandoning all that she loved, all that made her life worth living.

  He nodded at her silence, misunderstanding it. He saw the fear in her eyes and kissed her lightly on the lids. “It is good that Lonit has been brave in this land. As for Torka, he is afraid for all of us, and he will not stop being afraid until we have found protection within another band at the Great Gathering.”

  He held her. He loved to hold her, to smell the sweetness of her skin and the long, fragrant swan-black strands of her hair into which she rubbed the pungent oils of artemisia .. . to feel the full, swelling firmness of her breasts against his chest and the warm sleekness of her elk-skin dress against his palms. She never failed to stir man-need in him, especially when she wore this dress. His hands slipped downward along the bend of her back, enfolded her hips, swept back upward to her shoulders, began to work at the laces of the dress, then paused. The pit huts were down. Aliga, lana, Karana, and the children were watching from where they were assembling their own traveling packs and awaiting his inspection of them.

  He put Lonit away from him, suddenly understanding why she had chosen to wear this dress instead of her heavier, more serviceable hunting and traveling clothes. He shook his head as he looked at her with eyes filled with love. “Lonit must change into traveling clothes. This man will not turn away from his purpose. And never will he consent to allow Lonit to go to another man’s bed skins. In this valley, or in the world of men, in the dress of elk skin or out of it, you are Torka’s woman, always and forever.”

  She bowed her head, devastated by the love that she had seen in his eyes, terrified that he would see the indecision and betrayal in hers. If Navahk came to the Great Gathering to join with the other magic men, if he danced before her in the firelight beneath the whirling stars, if he held out his hand to her again and asked her to come with him, she was not certain that she could refuse.

  She was not certain at all.

  Beneath the endless day of the Arctic summer, Torka led his little band out of the Valley of Songs. The terrain did not easily accommodate heavily burdened, sledge-dragging travelers. Their progress was slow, and they walked in silence. The dogs trotted ahead of them, Aar and Sister Dog and three of the older pups carrying side packs, looking back often, as though they could not understand what was taking the men and women of their pack so long.

  They plodded on, deep into the narrows of the valley that opened into the Corridor of Storms, against a wind that seemed determined to shove them back to their encampment.

  “You see?” Karana asked. “The spirits of the wind wish us to stay.”

  “And the spirit of survival tells Torka that it wishes us to continue.”

  On they walked, pausing at last on the other side of the stakes and pit traps that had kept large carnivores from entering their valley. The great, glistening walls of the Mountains That Walk lay before them, silent sentinels flanking the vast, rolling river of grass. Ahead and to the west, the Mountain That Smokes was without its usual plume. Above, the sun watched them, as did the great woolly mammoth, Life Giver.

  Eighteen feet tall at the shoulder, it loomed directly ahead of them, about a mile away at the crest of a broad, tundral rise. Life Giver’s massive, twin-domed head was raised, its ears twitched forward, its tusks were extended, its trunk up curled

  “Look! Big Spirit has come out of the valley,” said Aliga, pointing from where she lay upon the fur-padded sledge of crossed, sinew-bound caribou antlers.

  Karana set down his end of the sledge, and Torka did the same. “The Great Spirit wonders why we are headed out of the valley and into the world of men—men who would hunt him and us, if they had the chance.”

  Torka cuffed the youth hard upon the shoulders. The boy stood firm against it and dared to challenge the man again.

  “They will, you know,” he pressed. “Torka is not like other men; he cannot live within a band. He must lead it. And so other men will always try to bring Torka down or drive him out from among them.” The words of the youth were heavy with a truth that Torka had no wish to acknowledge. “Torka has no desire to challenge the authority of men older and wiser than he. Torka will live within a band again. This time, Torka will walk with caution, lest he cause offense.”

  “Hrmmph! If Navahk is at the
Great Gathering, he will find a way to trip you.”

  “Amid the throng at the Great Gathering Navahk will be only one man among many. This man will not misjudge him again—nor will he fear him. Navahk may be a magic man, Karana, but he is only a man.”

  “He is a very bad man.”

  Torka shook his head, giving up on the conversation. “Come,” he said sharply, annoyed with the youth for having visibly upset Lonit. “Torka has thought much of this, and so he says now to Karana: Just how bad can one man be, after all?”

  They walked until their need for sleep caused them to stop. Beneath the light of the endless day they put down their sledges and packs, ate a light meal of traveling rations, and, except for Karana, slept. With Aar curled and dreaming at his side, he sat with his arms folded around his knees, his back to the wind as he looked back across the miles toward the Valley of Songs.

  The mammoth was still there, far away now, grazing alone at the base of the tundral rise that stood before the neck of the canyon that led into the valley. Karana could not have said what motivated him to rise, waking Aar, and to move toward the animal, but it seemed that the warmth of the sun was rising in him, blinding him to all but the mammoth.

  Well away from his sleeping fellow travelers, he broke into a lope. With Aar bounding at his side, he ran through molten gold—the gold sun above and golden grasses all around. Karana ran until the miles that lay between him and the great mammoth ceased to exist.

  The mammoth raised its head, watching him come. The creature swayed restlessly, raised its huge tusks so high that they seemed to touch the sun. Karana stopped less than a spear-throw’s distance away. But he had come unarmed and stood with his arms hanging loose at his sides, his heart pounding and his breath coming in deep, even rasps.

  The mammoth lowered its great, twin-domed head and fixed the youth with its ancient eyes.

  Karana stared back. He was so close he could clearly see the discolored tips of the mammoth’s tusks and the crooked scar high on its shoulder where Torka’s projectile point had struck it so many years ago. Karana could see the jagged tip of the spear shaft that the mammoth had broken off, extending from the animal’s tough hide.

  Beside him, Aar looked up, curious. His blue eyes moved from Karana to the mammoth. The dog saw the animal through the tall golden grasses, a towering, mountainous form. He smelled the beast and knew through its scent that there was no threat in it—as long as Karana stayed where he was.

  But slowly, raising his arms, the youth began to move forward. He softly whispered for the dog to stay, and Aar, trembling in confusion and frustration, reluctantly obeyed.

  Karana was warmed by the sun. Its light filled him as, across the golden land, he walked entranced, his mind as wide as the sea of grass, as free and light as the spirit wind that whispered within his head. “I will come back!” he shouted to the mammoth, to the land, and to the surrounding mountains. The wind took his voice and sent it rushing on, on, back into the Valley of Songs, where it caressed the familiar hills and pools and rushing stream.

  Behind him Aar whimpered and hunkered back, tail tucked, hair bristling. Karana seemed a stranger to him in this moment—no longer a youth, but aman ... a man of power a magic man, a man without fear.

  The mammoth was moving toward him, but Karana stood unflinching. As his arms were raised, so, too, was the trunk of the mammoth raised. And in the golden light of the sun, his body aflame with the spirit wind, Karana reached, touched, set his splayed hands upon the tips of the great tusks, and named the mammoth Brother. “I will come back!” he vowed again. “And in the land of men I will raise no spear against your kind, nor eat of your flesh, nor drink of your blood. You are totem to me. Life Giver, forever!”

  For a thousand miles the wind moaned across the land, and the people of Navahk moaned with it. Although tradition forbade it, the magic man was also headman now. He had won that right when he had walked into camp wearing the skin of the wind spirit, explaining that Supnah’s arm and head had vanished and that the former headman would never be reborn into the band. Navahk had not explained how a spirit had come to have a skin or earthly form, but no one had asked for an explanation; Navahk’s power was incontestable in this world and the next.

  His face and arms upraised to the sun, he stood now clothed only in ornamental feathers: the white owl feather that adorned the forelock of his knee-length hair; the headman’s circlet of eagle, hawk, and tera torn feathers about his brow, wrists, and ankles; and the broad downy collar that had once been Supnah’s, with its grotesque fringe of taloned claws draping his shoulders and chest.

  His people sat around him, making a song of their moaning, slapping their hands upon their thighs in a slow, desultory rhythm that matched the low, resonant hum of the flies buzzing around the drying frames that held wind-stiffened ribbons of meat, fish, and whole, gutted, un feathered fowl.

  It was the time of year called time when the caribou change hair, long past the time when the caribou came to familiar crossings en route to northern calving grounds from winters spent to the south and east.

  Navahk’s band had wintered at such a crossing, but they had still been the people of Supnah then, and now they knew that it was Supnah’s fault that the caribou had not come. Navahk had assured them of that; he had told them that the spirits had not favored Supnah for a long time—that

  was why they had sent the wind spirit to kill him and had sent the spear of the magic man flying wide so that they might commune with Navahk now, as he stood naked beneath the sun, listening expressionlessly as his people’s songs of adoration droned around him as atonally as the flies droned around the meat.

  They sang of Navahk, story-chanting, as was their way at festive occasions. They sang of how he had returned from the mountain of the wanawut wearing the skin of the spirit that had killed his beloved brother. They sang of how he had kept the mandatory five-day death watch for Supnah and of how, to prove his merit as a hunter to his people, he had led them to hunt successfully once again. They sang of finding the smaller herds of caribou that broke off from the main thrust of the migration to forage until signs of the impending time of the long dark called the small groups into a single river of life, and together they walked southeastward into the face of the rising sun.

  The rhythm of their chant quickened. The men boasted of following Navahk from one hunting camp to another, of killing caribou until there were no more. They did not add to their song that their kills were small, a cluster of cows and calves here, another cluster there, not once equaling the great kills on which Supnah had so often led them, kills that enabled them to stay in one camp for months on end and sometimes for an entire season. The chant did not ask the spirits why the great herds of caribou had not returned to this portion of the tundra. They did not ask the forces of Creation why the spirits of bison and elk and ox grazed not upon the grass where the band might find and hunt them. Instead they praised the spirits of the caribou, without embellishing their songs with the information that by late in the season the animals were fly bitten, their valuable winter pelage long since replaced with the stiffer, shorter hair of summer, suitable only for making boots and pouches. Instead they sang of how, at any time of year, men were grateful for meat and for magic men who led them to it. They praised the changing season that had brought two of their girls to womanhood and chanted to the spirits of the owls, ptarmigans, hares, and foxes, which had completely shed their coats of winter white, exchanging them for less conspicuous tones of brown and gray. The rhythm of the chant grew faster still, the words more boastful, warning the creatures of the tundra that their new hiding coats would make no difference. Navahk was headman of this band! The animals of the tundra must be wary, or the magic man would call them forth to die within the snares and nets and upon the spears of his people. No animal or spirit could refuse the command of Navahk. Not even the wanawut!

  And certainly not the new women, Pet and Ketti, who now waited within the blue smokes of the hut of first bl
ood, which the women of the band had raised for them. Within it they had passed their first time of blood. The hut would be burned at the end of this day’s ritual, during which both new women would be ritually deflowered by their magic man, whose port endings would determine their new status within the band.

  Mahnie was afraid. She sat beside her mother on the women’s side of the circle and watched as Ketti and Pet were led stiff-legged with fear from the hut of first blood to stand before the magic man. Across from her the faces of the men of the band were rapt, strangely hungry eyed, as though they were viewing game instead of girls. Their chanting was strident now, tensely drawn, like their faces. One would think that they had never seen a naked female before.

  Mahnie licked her lips and felt the sun’s heat beating upon the top of her head, rousing a dull ache. She reached to rest an open palm protectively upon her head and was startled to feel how hot her hair was. She was equally startled when Wallah grabbed her wrist and forcefully returned her hand to her thigh. She looked up at her mother, saw a warning in dark eyes that communicated the need for self-control, and felt afraid again as she forced herself to clap and chant with the others.

  Mahnie did not like the chant; it reeked of insincerity, and the men had all the words. The females merely accented them in low, tedious sucks and exhalations of air, rather like dull-witted animals giving birth. Beneath the thin, lightweight buckskin of her skirt, her thighs were growing numb from the repeated slapping of her palms against them. Still the chanting went on and on.

  And still the magic man stood motionless in the center of the circle, his body greased to prevent biting flies from piercing his skin, his head back, the paraphernalia that he would soon use arrayed at his feet upon the terrible skin of the wanawut. He stood so still that had she not seen the pulse beat at his throat and the subtle, throbbing movement of his engorged, erect penis, she might have taken him to be dead and stretched upon an invisible drying frame.