The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  Perhaps Gull Wing’s friends had come back for him, or moved him to the rock and placed the blanket over his body.

  She wanted to lift that blanket, to see how the man had rotted, to laugh at the skin and muscles pulling away from the bones, the eyes torn out by ravens, the flesh eaten by foxes. But a part of her hesitated. Who could be sure what was under the blanket? Who could tell what curse might await her?

  Better to find her mother’s basket and leave.

  She walked down the north slope of the hill, then turned toward the black, wet soil where the spruce were thick and tall. She kept her eyes on the ground and finally saw the basket, lying on its side. Her mother would be angry if it was damaged. She picked it up. It was whole; but now she must fill it with spruce roots.

  She stooped, ignoring the spikes of pain that cut in from her lower back, and began to thrust her digging stick into the ground. When she felt the stick catch, she pushed it in sideways and lifted until she brought a root to the surface. Using the stick and her hands, she pulled until she had two armlengths of root above ground, then she cut it off and followed it away from the tree, coiling as she walked, pulling, until the root was thin enough to snap. She moved to another tree, took another root, then a third root. She worked until the coils filled the basket.

  She knew she should leave an offering for the trees. Her mother had insisted she bring dried caribou leaves with her, but she left the leaves in the pouch tied at her waist. The trees had watched the men come, had seen them take her to the Grandfather Rock, but had done nothing to help her. Why should she leave anything for them?

  She started back toward the village, but then decided to return to the Grandfather Rock. She would look under the blanket, and sing songs of praise to the animals that had eaten Gull Wing’s flesh. Halfway up the hill, she smelled the reek of rotting meat. The smell did not come from the rock. She turned off the path and found the heap of bones, the bits of flesh, that had been Gull Wing.

  She stood and laughed, called out to him, lifted her parka, told him to take her body if he thought it was so fine, then still laughing, she continued up toward the Grandfather Rock. If Gull Wing was not under the blanket, she would be foolish to leave it. Why not add it to the blankets she had already set aside for the day she would become wife and have a lodge of her own?

  She set the fishskin basket on the ground beside the rock, and for a moment studied the blanket. It was woven from winter hare furs, each pure white, and it lay in a mound, as though it covered something. She lifted one corner. There was a noise, like a bird chirping. She dropped the blanket, backed away.

  It is nothing but a bird, she told herself in disgust. You can kill it with your digging stick and take it home for the boiling bag. She lifted the stick, ready to strike, then threw back the robe.

  On the rock lay a baby.

  K’os closed her eyes quickly, afraid to see some great deformity in the child. Why else were children left?

  The baby began to cry. K’os wanted to see it, to know what was wrong with it. She opened her eyes only a crack and looked out through the fringe of her lashes.

  The child was whole and plump, a boy, his body long and perfect. K’os squatted beside the rock. Where had he come from? No one she knew had had a baby for at least two moons, and this child was only a day or two old. The scab-like stump of the birth cord still protruded from his belly. Perhaps he was from the Near River People, or one of the bands of Caribou People who traveled, following the herds. She reached down slowly and touched his cheek. He turned his head toward her fingers.

  She remembered Gguzaakk when she was small doing the same, looking for her mother’s milk-filled breast. Too bad K’os’s aunt was not there. She could feed him.

  The baby’s lips were cracked and dry-looking. He needed milk. K’os dropped her stick, spat into the palm of her hand, and rubbed the spittle on his lips. He tried to suck her fingers, but she pulled them away.

  She shook her head. It was too bad someone else had not found him. There were many women who would welcome a son. She did not. Would not. She pressed her hand against her belly. Tomorrow she would go to Old Sister and tell her she had done something foolish. She had slept with one of her mother’s sister’s sons and did not want her father to know. Did Old Sister have something K’os could take? Surely there were medicines …She looked at the baby. He was shivering. His arms and legs jerked in spasms. Yes, too bad.

  She closed her eyes and remembered Gull Wing’s heart, lying in the center of that rock, exactly where the baby lay now.

  Suddenly K’os was very still. She had left the heart as a gift. What if the Grandfather Rock had given her a gift in exchange? There was no sign of that heart, yet here was this child. She bent over him, studied his face. There was something about him that reminded her of Gull Wing. The eyes, the brows? No, that was foolish. Look at the child’s long fingers. Gull Wing’s had been short, thick. The baby’s toes, also, were long and … again, K’os stopped. They were webbed; each of the last three toes was joined to the next.

  Then she knew.

  He was an animal-gift child. Like in the stories. Were not the greatest hunters, the most renowned shamans among her people those who were animal-gift, somehow grown from a clot of blood or a bit of flesh?

  This child was one of them. The Grandfather Rock had shaped a child, perhaps from Gull Wing’s blood, but more likely from animal blood. Now the rock offered the child to her as a gift, to give her power. To bring back her luck.

  She picked up her mother’s root basket, then lifted the baby. She wrapped him in the hare fur blanket and spat into his mouth. She had no milk in her breasts, but she could keep him alive until they got to the village, then her mother could find a woman to nurse him.

  K’os felt her power grow with each step. She could not keep her laughter in her throat. It spilled out of her mouth and danced ahead of them as she carried the animal-gift baby to the village.

  PART ONE

  TWENTY YEARS LATER

  WINTER, 6460 B.C.

  LOOK! WHAT DO I see? Bones cut their feet.

  I spoke this riddle to The People before I left my village. I said these words and told them many stories. I spoke long into the night, and The People heard what I said, but I have little hope that they understood.

  The bones are those of First Salmon, Caribou Walking, Mother Bear, and all animals who return to give themselves year after year so The People might live. The feet belong to people who no longer show the respect those animals deserve.

  The elders whispered among themselves, and I heard their words.

  “See what disrespect has cost us,” they said. “See what happens when people no longer follow ancient ways. The salmon leave our streams. The young men thirst for war.”

  So now I, Chakliux, must turn my thoughts to battle, not a battle of knives and spears, but a battle of the spirit. I go to fight for peace. Why else was I trained as storyteller? Why else was I given to The People as animal-gift?

  Chapter One

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  CHAKLIUX’S THOUGHTS WERE LIKE the bitter taste of willow bark tea, and he shook his head, suddenly impatient with his self-pity. At least she was beautiful. He could console himself with that. If he did not look into her eyes and see the emptiness there. If he did not let himself hear her foolish giggle, her petty complaints.

  What was more important? His happiness or the safety of the people in this village and his own?

  He had seen the storm coming, watched when it was only a shifting of stars, a wisp of cloud, but with each incident—the robbing of a snare trap, the refusal of a bride price—the thunderheads built until now it would take only one small thing to set the hunters at each others’ throats.

  How better to bind the villages than through marriage? What stronger marriage than one between a son set apart as Dzuuggi and the daughter of the Near River shaman?

  The older hunters in his village had envied him. He had smiled at their jokes, at
the longing in their voices when they spoke of her, this beautiful Near River woman. But Chakliux did not want her. How could she compare to his Gguzaakk?

  Gguzaakk had carried her soul in her eyes. Even now, he felt her spirit hovering near him. He was not afraid of her, that she might try to call him into the world of the dead, to follow her and their tiny son. Gguzaakk understood what he had to do, and he could feel her sorrow.

  He reminded himself that Snow-in-her-hair was young. Gguzaakk had had more than four handfuls of summers when she died. Wisdom comes with age. Snow-in-her-hair would grow in wisdom as the years passed.

  Chakliux watched her as she spoke to her mother, as she laughed and flashed her eyes at the young warriors who made one excuse or another to be near her. She wore a hooded parka of white weasel fur, each slender skin sewn so its black-tipped tail hung free. The parka was something to draw away the breath, and Chakliux comforted himself with the hope that Snow-in-her-hair had sewn it herself. He smiled as he remembered how clumsy Gguzaakk had been with awl and needle. But what had it mattered? Gguzaakk understood things of the spirit. She could look into a person’s eyes and know what should be said.

  But, Chakliux told himself, it would be good to have a wife who could sew. How better can a woman honor animals than by creating beauty from their furs and hides?

  Chakliux also wore a special parka. It was made of sea otter skins—bought in trade from the Walrus Hunters—to remind the Near River People of his powers. His mother had made it. She was a woman gifted with a needle and with quickness of fingers. He wore caribou skin leggings but nothing on his feet. He had known the people would want to see his webbed toes, his foot turned on edge, that sign of his otter blood. Who could doubt he was otter when they saw that foot always ready to paddle?

  If it had not been winter, he would have showed them that he could swim.

  Even now, he longed for the quiet cold of the depths, the clear silver light shining down into the water. He wanted to teach others to swim, but they would not try, and each year, children, who might have saved themselves if they knew how, were taken by the river. Even Gguzaakk had been afraid to swim …

  Ah, he could not allow himself to think too much about Gguzaakk. Soon he would have another wife. He must be a good husband to her.

  He turned his thoughts to the lodge, to the caribou hides that were stretched over the lodge poles, to the thick mats on the floor. It was a good winter lodge. It would be a comfortable place to stay, and Snow-in-her-hair’s father seemed to be a wise man. It would not be difficult to live with this family.

  Snow-in-her-hair stood to receive another gift: a willow basket made of roots, split and woven. Inside was a flicker skin. The spotted feathers of that bird—a bird a man might see only once or twice during a whole lifetime—would bring them luck in their marriage.

  He thanked the one who had given it—an old woman he had heard called Ligige’. Her back was humped and bent so he could not look into her face, but he saw the respect others in the lodge gave the woman, the place made for her on the honored side of the fire.

  She mumbled something when he thanked her, then began to turn away. Suddenly she stopped. She stared at his feet, and he felt the heat of her eyes, as though in looking she had kindled a fire. With effort, she straightened, looked into his face, gasped. She said nothing, only averted her gaze, covered her mouth with one hand. But as she walked away, Chakliux felt Gguzaakk’s spirit move like a fitful wind, blowing from all directions.

  Sok watched Snow-in-her-hair, let his eyes caress her long graceful arms, the small mounds of her breasts under her parka. Tonight she would become wife of the Cousin River hunter, the man whose feet belonged to otter. Did he appreciate her beauty? Sok had watched the man carefully, saw no great joy in his eyes when he looked at Snow-in-her-hair. Maybe he was more otter than man. Maybe he wanted a woman like Happy Mouth, who looked like an otter.

  The first time Sok remembered seeing Snow-in-her-hair she had been a child playing in the dirt outside her mother’s lodge. Even then he had recognized her beauty and had stooped to join her play, until one of his hunting partners saw him and laughed, mocking.

  He could have waited ten years, saved a bride price that even a shaman would not refuse, but his loins had burned with need. Even when he hunted, he could think of nothing but women. The animals sensed his disrespect and refused to give themselves to his spears. Finally, even his stepfather noticed and told him to take a wife. Sok had taken Red Leaf, a good woman. She had given him two fine, strong sons, but each time he saw Snow-in-her-hair he wished he had waited.

  He had considered asking for her as second wife, but a man of The People rarely had a second wife unless his first was barren or sickly, and Red Leaf was neither. His only hope was to become chief hunter or a celebrated warrior. Warriors and chief hunters often had two or even three wives. But now there was this otter man. The stink of the Cousin River Village was still on him. Snow-in-her-hair deserved better.

  “Do not let her see him,” Ligige’ told her brother. “At least until after this night, until they have sealed with their bodies what has been said in words, and her father has accepted the man’s gifts.”

  “Is that wise?” her brother asked. “Truth cannot be changed.”

  “This marriage gives hope for peace. You know our young hunters seek any excuse to fight against the Cousin River Village. They foul their own traplines to give reason.”

  Tsaani nodded. His sister was right. And it would not be the first time there had been fighting between this village of The People and the Cousin River Village. With only a two- or three-day walk between winter villages and less between summer fish camps, the people saw each other too often, thought of too many reasons to hold anger against one another, especially since the salmon runs had been poor in the past few years.

  But only the few who were oldest in this village—his sister Ligige’, Blue-head Duck and he, himself—could remember the last fighting. Words were not strong enough to explain the horror: young men killed, days of mourning, and hard winters with too few hunters in both villages to keep the very old and the very young alive.

  To prevent more killing, he and Ligige’ must keep this secret, especially from Day Woman.

  Tsaani had heard the Cousin River People boast of their animal-gift son, but for some reason he had thought him to be a child yet. Even Near River People had come back to tell stories of his ability to swim. A person who could swim? How could anyone bear the cold waters of The People’s rivers? But Tsaani reminded himself that his own daughter had no fear of water, and it was said that their family carried Sea Hunter blood. Those island people claimed to be brothers of the sea otter. Perhaps the man’s talents were no more than that—a remembrance of grandfathers long dead.

  If so, then Ligige’ was right. The young man who had come to marry their shaman’s daughter was no animal-gift, but only Day Woman’s child, found before he died on the Grandfather Rock.

  THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

  K’os stretched her arms above her head and curled her toes. She lay on her sleeping mats and watched as Bear Finder adjusted his breechcloth and retied his leggings. She was an old woman, they said. She laughed. Bear Finder looked at her, tilted his head.

  “You are happy?” he asked.

  “I am happy,” she said.

  Old, yes. Old, but as smooth-skinned and flat-bellied as a girl. Seven handfuls of summers and still like a girl. Her hair was black, without a strand of white, and her face was smooth, her teeth strong. Only her hands betrayed the years, but men did not look at her hands. She had other things they would rather see.

  Bear Finder crouched in the entrance tunnel and cautiously moved the doorflap aside.

  K’os snorted her disgust. “If you are afraid of my husband, you should not come here at all,” she told him.

  He crept back from the tunnel, pulled on his parka. She could see the burn of red on his cheeks, but he said nothing. He would return. They always did. And wh
at could Ground Beater do? Throw her out? Kill them? He was an old man. She could tell him anything, and he would believe her. Especially now that her son, Chakliux, was gone. Why worry?

  Chakliux. She wondered how he was doing in the Near River Village. She smiled. Had they figured out who he was? Probably not. The Near River People were not known for their quick minds. She was glad he was gone, but she missed him. He was so very wise. He could keep her laughing—or thinking. His riddles! Whose were better?

  But he also frightened her. He knew what she was, had probably known since he was a child. But then she knew his secrets also, things he did not even know about himself. Things no one in this village knew.

  Gguzaakk had claimed his heart, but she had been no match for K’os. What wife could replace a mother? Especially a wife who had so unfortunately died in childbirth.

  Ah well, Chakliux was at the Near River Village now. The shaman’s daughter was said to be beautiful. He would soon forget his round, plain Gguzaakk.

  Chakliux’s powers were great, but they were like the powers of the owl. You did not want to see Chakliux’s eyes turned toward you. He did not carry good luck with him. No one was safe. Not even his mother. Not even his wife.

  K’os threw back her head and laughed. Let the Near River Village live with Chakliux’s luck.

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  The years had weakened Tsaani’s legs. He still hunted, but everything he did, he did slowly. Now, as he walked to his daughter’s lodge, he planted each foot carefully on the packed snow paths. Mud bled through the ice in the center of the path, and the wet earth smell of it filled Tsaani’s nostrils. In that great battle between the sun and night, winter was being defeated once again.