The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  The old woman scooped out a bowl of food and brought it to her.

  “That,” K’os said, and lifted her chin toward the hollowed rock, “what is it?”

  “Qignax,” the old woman said. “The Sea Hunters use them to burn seal oil. It is cleaner than a hearth fire, and a good way to use old fat that is too rancid for cooking. My husband was a trader when he was young.” She hummed again, something without words.

  Yes, K’os thought. She remembered that he had bought her favors with a fine necklace of soapstone carved into intricately designed balls.

  “He traded for that fire bow?” K’os asked, looking at the bow hanging among the weapons.

  The old woman laughed. “It is not a fire bow,” she said. “It is a strange kind of spearthrower. He got it from those people who live near the Far Mountains that edge the South Sea.”

  K’os had heard stories of such people. “They are not human, I have been told,” she said.

  The old woman lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “My husband says their language is different and their ways are different. They live in lodges of earth and dead trees. But they respect their ancestors and their children are healthy. He says it is good we do not live close to them. They are warriors, and their weapons would make it difficult for us to survive an attack.”

  “Weapons like that fire bow?” K’os asked. “What does it do?”

  “I cannot touch it,” the old woman said. “Even my husband seldom touches it. We do not take it with us to fish camp or when we follow caribou. We leave it here in the winter camp. It has great power, but he showed me how it works, and I will show you.”

  She brought a small fire bow, settled on her haunches beside K’os and tightened the string until it curved the bow’s wooden back. She handed it to K’os, then crawled over to hunt through her stack of firewood until she found a stick. She notched the end of the stick with her woman’s knife and set the notch into the string, pulled back and let the stick go. It flew across the lodge, stopping with a thud against the caribou hide wall.

  “They do that with spears?” K’os asked.

  “That is what my husband says. Small spears with feathers at the end like our men put on their bone-tipped throwing spears. The shafts are only this long,” she said, and held her hands a shoulder width apart. “The spear points are small also, no longer than a finger, and made thin and light, of bone and slices of chert.”

  “So why would people use a weapon like this?” K’os asked.

  “It is easy to carry. A man can take a handful, two handfuls, of little spears and shoot them quickly, and very far.”

  “Farther than a man throwing a spear with a spearthrower?”

  “Yes,” the old woman said, but she answered slowly, as though not quite sure she was right. “I am trying to think of what my husband told me,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, then looked up at K’os with eyebrows raised. “A weak man is able to send his little spear nearly as far as a strong hunter can. That is the good thing. It helps a boy or an old man bring home meat for his family.”

  “That is good,” K’os said, and raised the food bowl to her lips. The old woman’s stew of meat and roots warmed K’os from her mouth to her belly. She settled her eyes on the bow, caressed it in her thoughts as it hung on the wall. She remembered all the young men she had welcomed into her bed during the past year—boys with thin arms, not yet able to match a grown man strength for strength. With these spear bows, would they be as formidable as older warriors? Was that possible?

  K’os finished her meat, then reached inside her parka to the many necklaces she wore against her skin. The young men were always making them for her. Necklaces were not as good as some things. You could not eat them, and they would not keep you warm, but they had their uses.

  “You have been kind to me,” she said to Song. “Take this and remember my gratitude.”

  For a moment K’os saw a young woman shine through Song’s faded eyes, then one clawed hand reached out for the necklace. K’os stood and draped it over Song’s caribouskin shirt, then closed her ears to the old woman’s pitiful song of praise.

  “You would take a golden-eyed dog?” K’os asked.

  “No,” the old man said. “How can I trade it? It holds my luck. There is nothing you can give me for it, not even a golden-eyed dog. I still hunt, an old man like me. That spear bow keeps my spearthrower and spears strong. This year I have killed a bear. I also took many caribou. Look at my lodge. See the furs; see the baskets of dried meat. My cache is still nearly full. Soon I will have a giveaway. There is too much for my wife and me, so I will share what I have with others. We will feast and eat. I can do that before you leave. Your husband and the hunters from your village will see how much luck I have.”

  K’os narrowed her eyes, pulled her lips into a thin, tight line. Blue Jay was a fool. Why did he need luck? He was old.

  “If I decided to give it away,” he said, “I would give it to you. But a man cannot lose his luck. Especially an old man.”

  She heard the pleading in his voice and realized he was like all men, eager to please. She stood. “I understand,” she said. “I will not ask such a thing of you, nor will my husband.”

  The old man smiled, relief in his eyes.

  “You know I have been asked to visit my son’s Near River mother,” K’os said.

  Blue Jay looked down at his hands. “I know you believe your son to be animal-gift,” he said. “Some of us in this village also believe that. Do not let this woman take away your heart.”

  K’os smiled. “Chakliux is animal-gift, but if Day Woman thinks he is her lost son, then perhaps that belief brings her comfort. I will not take away her heart either.”

  “You are kind,” Blue Jay said, then jerked his head toward Song’s parka. “My wife will show you the way.”

  K’os nodded and followed Song from the lodge.

  “He is a good man, worried for everyone,” Song said.

  “Yes,” K’os answered. How sad, she thought, that his luck has run out.

  After Song left them alone, K’os sensed Day Woman’s nervousness. She could not raise her eyes, and her hands trembled when she gave K’os a dish of meat. K’os set the food on the floor beside her.

  Day Woman’s eyes grew large. “There is something else you would rather have?” she asked.

  “I have had enough food,” K’os said. She smiled at the stricken look on Day Woman’s face, then asked, “You are Chakliux’s true mother?”

  She expected no answer from the woman. She had seen such wives before, knew many of them. They lived always trying to please others. She had heard a saying once: “Those who enjoy kicking dogs will find dogs to kick.” Day Woman’s husband was, no doubt, a dog kicker.

  Day Woman’s lodge alone was proof of that. Lodge poles were crooked and small, the bedding furs were old and the smell of mildew was strong. The caribou skins on the floor were well-scraped, but many were falling apart.

  “Yes, I am Chakliux’s mother,” Day Woman said.

  K’os was surprised but pleased with the directness of Day Woman’s answer. She always welcomed a challenge.

  “No,” K’os told her, “you are not his mother. He is animal-gift, given to me. His powers are for the people of my village.”

  Day Woman sat with mouth open, and K’os watched as the woman’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Crying will not change what is true.”

  “I do not cry for what you say,” Day Woman answered, her voice louder than it had been, as though the tears had strengthened her throat. “I mourn the years I was not mother to him, and I thank you for being his mother when I could not.”

  K’os shrugged, then picked up her bowl of food, began to eat. Glancing up, she noticed that Day Woman, seeing her eat, seemed to relax. Hospitality was very important to these Near River People, K’os reminded herself. Even the Near River men who came to her village to trade, and then to her lodge for other reasons, always brought gifts and kind wor
ds, boring K’os with talk of things that did not matter. She had eyes; nothing stopped her from looking outside to see the sky, to know if it rained or did not, if it snowed or was clear. Why did they have to speak of such things as though she depended on their words for knowledge?

  K’os lowered her bowl, looked into Day Woman’s face. Yes, she could see some resemblance to Chakliux, the curve of the mouth, the way the right eye was a little larger than the left. “If you are his mother,” she said slowly, “then you understand how I feel. More than two handfuls of days have passed since he left our village. He was coming here. We found the man he traveled with dead. There is no sign of my son, and your elders say he did not come to this village.” She looked at Day Woman, then up at the top of the lodge. She held her eyes wide open, did not allow herself to blink until the smoke from the lodge hearth burned, then she raised one hand to wipe tears from her cheeks. “I cannot bear to think that he is …”

  Day Woman leaned forward, shaking her head. “Do not cry, Sister. Do not cry.” She crawled on hands and knees to K’os and wrapped her arms around K’os’s shoulders.

  K’os stiffened against the woman’s touch but forced herself to be still. Day Woman smoothed K’os’s hair as though she were a child.

  “The elders are afraid of the young warriors in your village,” Day Woman said. “They are afraid the Cousin River hunters will think Chakliux stole golden-eyed dogs for us.” Again she stroked K’os’s hair, then rocked on her knees. “Hush, now. Chakliux is alive. Do not worry over him. Even now he is on his way to the Walrus Hunters. Even now he is safe, he and his brother, my son, Sok.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE SCREAMING WOKE YAA, and at first she thought it was Ghaden. When she realized he was asleep, she reached out for him. He was startled at her touch. Yaa gathered him into her arms, and he winced as she hugged him too tightly.

  “What is it? What is the matter?” Brown Water called.

  “Something outside,” Happy Mouth said.

  In the half-light of early morning, Yaa saw Brown Water roll from her sleeping mats, wrap herself in a hare fur blanket and duck out through the entrance tunnel.

  “Yaa, Ghaden, you are awake?” Yaa’s mother asked.

  “Yes. We are awake,” Yaa answered.

  “Put on your boots but stay in your beds,” said Happy Mouth.

  Brown Water stuck her head back inside and said, “There is a fire. Song’s lodge.”

  Yaa sucked in her breath. When a fire started, it spread rapidly, lodge top to lodge top, the greased caribou skins burning so quickly people were often trapped inside.

  That was one of the reasons the women did most of their cooking outside, keeping only a small hearth fire in the lodge for warmth in winter and to drive away mosquitoes and gnats in summer. It was one of the first things Yaa had been taught, how to tend the fire, to keep it small.

  Song’s lodge, Brown Water had said. Fires often seemed to start in an old woman’s lodge.

  Yaa pulled Ghaden’s parka on over his head, finished putting on his boots, then dragged him to the entrance tunnel. The puppy yawned, waddled to the tunnel and raised his leg, almost tipping himself over to urinate on the side of the lodge.

  “Bad!” Yaa yelled at him, but had no time to do anything more. She took Brown Water’s sewing basket and her mother’s pouch of knives and skinning tools and set them beside Ghaden.

  “Stay here until I come for you,” she said to him. “Do not go back to your bed.” Then pulling on her own parka and fetching their three largest wooden bowls, she went outside. Her mother and Brown Water were packing snow up against the lodge. Yaa gave them each a bowl, scooped her bowl full of wet, heavy snow and packed it against the caribouskin walls.

  “My husband,” K’os sobbed. “He tried to stop it. You have to get him out. You have to. Song is there and her husband. They are all inside.” She made her voice rise into a scream, then she saw Tikaani and flung herself at him; she sank to her knees, clasping him around the legs. “Ground Beater, my husband, Ground Beater!” she cried.

  Tikaani pulled her to her feet. “K’os, be still. They will get him out. I will get him out.” He took a step away from her, toward the burning lodge, but she lunged for him, grabbed him so he had to stop. He called for someone to take her. An old man came, one of the Near River elders. He pulled away her hands, held them firmly.

  The flames leapt from Song’s lodge to the one beside it. The wind was not strong, so there was little chance the whole village would burn. Sad, K’os thought.

  She smoothed back her hair. Her face and parka were full of soot, her hands also. She watched as Tikaani ducked in through the entrance tunnel. She held her breath, hoping he would not be hurt. She did not want to make the trip back to her village without him, and she did not want to remain in the Near River Village any longer than she must. It would be bad enough to be here through mourning, though perhaps they would not expect her to stay the whole moon, but only until her husband was wrapped and placed on a burial platform.

  The people had the fire almost out in the next lodge. Only a portion of the caribouhide covering was burned away. Even the lodge poles seemed intact. Others in the village had begun mourning chants. K’os lifted her voice to join them.

  Tikaani came out of Song’s lodge pulling a body. It was Ground Beater. K’os took a long breath, let out a high screaming cry and broke away from the old man who held her. At that moment the lodge poles collapsed inward, carrying the flames with them. The fire roared, consuming the contents of the lodge.

  K’os threw herself over her husband’s body, ignoring the stench of burned flesh. She drew a woman’s knife from her sleeve, slashed her forearm with the blade. The blood dripped dark red on Ground Beater’s charred face.

  For five days, K’os stayed with the Near River People, crying, mourning. She gave one of the golden-eyed dogs to Song’s oldest son, another to the elders. She shook her head over the miracle that she was alive, nodded her gratitude to those who loaded a sled with gifts and food, and turned down offers from Near River hunters to accompany her to her village.

  The Near River People promised they would honor Ground Beater, dissuading her with stories of wolves when she pleaded to take the body back with her.

  On the sixth day, she rose early, finished packing, then excused herself to go to the women’s place at the edge of the village.

  Yaa lay just outside the animal den, a hindquarters of hot roasted hare in her hands. She had stolen it from one of the old women at the cooking hearths, half a hare, lean and tough from winter, but good. She had wrapped most of it in a piece of caribou hide to take back to Ghaden, to give him when they were alone, but she had been unable to wait to eat her own piece.

  She lay on her belly, propped up with her elbows, peeking out from the low-lying branches of the black spruce that hid the den. It was good to be there. She had not had a chance to visit the place since Ghaden had returned to their lodge. He was worth it, though, and soon he would be strong enough to come with her. It was a fine hiding place.

  She especially liked being in the den during early morning, when the women walked the path to the place where they relieved themselves. It was still very early, and only a few of the women—those whose turn it was to start the village cooking fires and the pregnant women whose big bellies forced them early from their beds—were on the path. Yaa sunk her teeth into the hare and pulled away a mouthful of meat.

  When she saw the boots, she knew it was the Cousin River woman. They made their boots wrong, with seams too high on the foot. Yaa pulled herself forward with her elbows and peered out, watching her. Brown Water said the woman had slashed her arm in mourning, but her hair was still long, uncut. She was leaving today, River Ice Dancer had told her, then hit her several times in payment for his information.

  Good, I have seen her, Yaa thought, and looked forward to telling her friends.

  Yaa set her meat on the mat of dead spruce needles that littered the hardened s
now and pulled herself closer to the path. Catching a spruce branch with one hand, she pulled it down to hide her face. Soon the woman was walking the path again. Yaa watched her feet, trying to see the details of the woman’s boots so she could tell her mother. Her mother made the best boots in the village, warm and dry with the seams in the right places so they did not rub blisters into toes.

  When the woman was well down the path, Yaa scooted out from under the tree, reaching back to grab her meat. She had lost food through carelessness before. Small animals came quickly. The path twisted behind a thick growth of willow, then dipped down toward the village, so by the time Yaa was standing, she had lost sight of the woman, but Yaa fixed her eyes where she would emerge from the bushes. Yaa waited a long time, then she saw something.

  It was the woman, yes, and the two young hunters who had come with her. They had only one dog. One of the other two now belonged to Camp Maker. The other had been given to Song’s oldest son.

  So the woman would not return to the village. She must have come up in modesty to relieve herself. River Ice Dancer had said that it would take them three, maybe four days to return to the Cousin River Village. There would be enough times, on open land, that the poor woman would have to squat in front of those hunters, and they were not even her sons. Yaa hated it when they were following caribou and there was no place for privacy, though at least the girls went as a group together. The boys—ha!—they cared about nothing. Some of them stopped and went right on the trail. Of course it was easier for them.

  Yaa took a bite of meat, watching as the young hunters greeted the woman. She gave something to one of the men. A fire bow, Yaa decided, then shook her head, no. It was too long for a fire bow. Ah, she knew what it was. That strange weapon from the Not-People. Something sacred that had belonged to old Blue Jay. He must have given it to her before the fire. She was lucky she was able to get it out. It might have burned.