by Sue Harrison
Black Caribou narrowed his eyes as though he had just thought of something. “Does Night Man want a wife?” he asked.
“What man does not want a wife?” Tikaani replied. He did not mention the argument he and Night Man had had about K’os’s slave woman. When Night Man was strong enough to hunt again, then he could throw her away and take another woman, or if she had pleased him, keep her and take a second wife. Night Man had finally agreed, but was still worried that a Sea Hunter woman would change his luck.
A foolish thing to worry about! It would be a good thing if she did. Their family had had nothing but bad luck since Chakliux had convinced Cloud Finder to give the Near Rivers some of his golden-eyed dogs.
Tikaani and Black Caribou left the hunters’ lodge, walked together to Black Caribou’s lodge.
The storm had lasted for three days, but now the sky was the clear high blue that sometimes comes in mid-winter, a cold day when breathing curls the inside of the nose and makes the lungs ache.
“You will go to K’os now?” Black Caribou asked as he ducked into the entrance tunnel.
“Yes.”
Black Caribou shook his head, chuckled deep in his throat.
Tikaani said nothing, but he understood what the man meant. Asking K’os would be the most difficult part. More difficult because he had not visited her for many days. He was too busy, had too many people to hunt for, too many worries. Besides, he had filled her cache that fall, even before he filled his share of the hunters’ cache, before he gave meat to his mother and sister. Why should K’os complain when he had given her so much? But he wondered what it would cost him to win his brother a wife.
K’os threw the scrap of caribou hide at Aqamdax and screamed out her frustration. Her hands ached so badly she could not even grip the needle. Worse, her fingers had begun to turn in on themselves, and now she could not straighten them. They looked like claws, hooked and deformed. She had tried all the medicines she knew, but winter limited her. There were roots and leaves that were best used fresh, and she would not be able to find those until spring.
K’os had thought it would be a good winter. With her husband, Ground Beater, dead, she thought other hunters would be more likely to visit her, but those hunters had not come, not even Tikaani, though he had brought meat. The few men who did visit usually asked for Aqamdax. And if they pretended to want K’os, their eyes still strayed to the Sea Hunter woman. Were they fools? Aqamdax had no power to give them. She was only Sea Hunter, only a slave.
Someone scratched outside the lodge. K’os heard a hunter’s voice. Tikaani. She hid her hands under a hare fur robe, then invited him inside.
He stood before her, and she lowered her eyelids, met his eyes, then looked away quickly, an insult most women learned when they were still young. What else should he expect? He had not come to visit her for a moon of days or longer. She lifted her chin and looked at him, but did not get up to give him food or water, did not offer a place by the hearth fire.
She knew Aqamdax was watching her, saw the indecision in the woman’s eyes. Should she be the one to offer food? Should she fetch water?
“I have come to speak to you about something important, K’os,” Tikaani finally said.
K’os held a smile in her cheek, hid it well behind her teeth. She had forced him to speak first, to break silence rudely and thus give her the advantage of his disrespect.
She sat quietly for a time, enjoyed the discomfort she saw in Tikaani’s eyes, the confusion she felt coming from her slave as Aqamdax waited for K’os’s orders. Finally K’os nodded her head toward the caribou boiling bag where a thick soup of meat, broth and dried berries simmered.
K’os and Tikaani ate in silence, Aqamdax standing behind them. K’os knew the woman would jump at the snap of her fingers, bring water or more food, even hurry outside to fetch firewood. K’os had learned how to control her. Anger and blows did not work with this one, and it had taken a few days of frustration for K’os to finally understand what would, but since then, all things had been easy. Very easy.
“So what is it you want to tell me?” K’os finally said, making sure she asked the question just as Tikaani had lifted the bowl to his lips and filled his mouth.
Again, she held a smile behind her teeth as she watched Tikaani struggle to swallow quickly, then nearly choke on his meat.
“I have come to find my brother Night Man a wife.”
“You think I will marry a cripple, someone who cannot hunt, who cannot even fish in the summer with the old men?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, K’os realized that Tikaani had not meant her but the slave Aqamdax. In horror she saw the corners of his mouth curl, saw his shoulders shake with silent laughter. When was the last time anyone had laughed at her? Not since she was a girl. Was Tikaani such a fool that he did not know her power? Had he forgotten the sacred weapon she had stolen from old Blue Jay? Had he forgotten the price she had been willing to pay for that?
“You have taught me too well, K’os,” Tikaani said to her. “There is not a man in this village who would dare ask you to be wife.” His words were as smooth as oil.
K’os narrowed her eyes, trying to see through those words, to discern other meanings under what he said.
“Not even you?” she asked him.
“What do I have to offer? I have a sister and mother, two children and a brother to hunt for. Perhaps I will also have to provide for my brother’s wife. How can I ask for a woman like you when I have so little to give?”
K’os pressed her lips together. It would be good to believe him. Perhaps she did believe him, but it would be best if he did not know it.
She crossed her arms over her chest, hid her hands under her sleeves and laughed. Then, still smiling, she said, “The woman has already gathered enough wood for me to last the winter, and I am tired of feeding her. What do you offer me in exchange?”
“What do you want?”
“What I truly want cannot happen until spring. I assume your brother wants the woman before that.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, then,” she said, and looked at Aqamdax, did not miss the shine that had come into the woman’s eyes, “there are several things. Have her make me three more baskets. You have seen her grass baskets?”
“I have seen them.”
“Three of those—large ones. I want wolf pelts. Two. Well-scraped. And you will fill my cache this spring, when the caribou pass through again.”
Tikaani nodded, looked at Aqamdax. “You will make the baskets?” he asked.
“Yes, I will make them.”
“Soon,” K’os said.
“Soon,” Aqamdax repeated.
“I will fill the cache this spring. I have one of the wolf skins. A black one. I will get another.”
“Black is good,” K’os said.
“If I bring it to you now, may I take her?”
K’os turned and looked at Aqamdax, let her eyes linger long on the woman’s face. She was a good slave, a hard worker, but K’os did not like her. She did what she was told, took the men K’os sent her into her bed, had even braved a storm to bring back wood.
She was a beautiful woman, too, although her beauty was almost too strange to appreciate. When the eyes grew accustomed, then it was apparent.
But her spirit was not the spirit of a slave. That was the worst thing, and nothing K’os had done to her had yet changed that. Perhaps it would be best to let her have a sickly husband. Allow her to discover how difficult it was to care for someone who could never hunt or protect her, who could not give status by his deeds.
Of course, there was one thing yet K’os could do, only a small thing really, not close to the threats she had made against those River children, Yaa and Ghaden.
“Well then, if she will go, you can have her.” K’os stood up and turned to face Aqamdax. “You have seen Night Man,” K’os said to her.
“Yes,” Aqamdax said softly, but the flashing in her eyes belied the quietn
ess of her answer.
“He has not recovered from an injury to his shoulder—something my own son did to him, something that lies like stone against my heart. Perhaps by offering you I will repay in part what my son has done. But like all women, you have a choice. Stay here with me if you wish or go if you wish. Either way, I am happy.”
Aqamdax waited before giving her answer. She had lived with K’os long enough to know that the woman did not offer good things without reason, and most often that reason was to rejoice in the disappointment when that gift was taken away. Be wife? Yes, to get out of this lodge, she would be wife to any man, old or young, sick or healthy. From what Tikaani had said, by becoming Night Man’s wife she would live in the same lodge as Ghaden and Yaa. Surely, K’os could see the wanting in her eyes, the hope there. And what gave K’os more pleasure than destroying hope?
Finally she said, “I will be wife to Night Man,” and the image of the man’s thin, white face came to her mind.
For some reason, at the same time, she also saw Chakliux’s face, but she forced that image away. If the man had cared about her, he would have come for her—long before this.
“When do you want me?”
“Take her now,” K’os said, cutting off whatever answer Tikaani would have given. “Do you think I want to feed her longer than I must?”
“I can take you now,” Tikaani said, but Aqamdax could see by the look on his face that he had not intended for her to come with him at that time, and she wondered if he had spoken yet to Night Man. “Come to the hunters’ lodge when you are ready, but do not go inside. Call and I will come out to you.”
Tikaani had already ducked his head into the tunnel when K’os cleared her throat and said, “There is one more thing I would ask.” She paused and smiled at Aqamdax. “There is a dog that comes some nights to my lodge. I believe he even sleeps in my entrance tunnel. I do not want him there. Bring him to me for my cooking bag. I will add his meat to my caribou stew.”
Aqamdax opened her mouth but could find no words. What good would words do anyway? she asked herself. What K’os said was true. The dog slept in the entrance tunnel—something dogs were not supposed to do.
“Do you know who owns him?” Tikaani asked.
“He came with that girl from the Near Rivers.”
“Ah, Ghaden’s dog,” Tikaani said. “He will not want the dog to be killed. It has been trained to protect him. You are sure it is that one? He is a dog who obeys commands. It seems that if Ghaden wanted him to stay home, he …” Tikaani’s words trailed into silence, and he looked at Aqamdax. “So this dog protects others besides Ghaden,” he said.
Aqamdax tried to think of some way to save Biter. Perhaps the only thing she could do was refuse to go as bride. No, K’os would use Aqamdax’s refusal against her, just as she was now using her acceptance. Either way, something would happen to the dog or—perhaps worse—to Ghaden or Yaa.
“Bring me the dog and the first of the wolf pelts, and she is yours … or your brother’s,” K’os said.
“I will be back tonight with both,” Tikaani told her, but Aqamdax stepped forward, held a hand out toward the man, careful not to touch him.
“Not tonight,” she said quietly. “When you came to this lodge, I was just about to tell K’os that I must go to the moon blood lodge.”
K’os hissed. “You might have cursed him had he brought a weapon. How could you be so careless?”
“Among my people, we do not separate ourselves except in first bleeding.”
“Leave us then,” K’os said, flicking her fingers toward Aqamdax.
Aqamdax slipped on her parka and picked up the grass basket she had been working on. The days in the women’s lodge would give her uninterrupted time to finish it.
Tikaani followed her from K’os’s lodge, called to her. He came closer than she thought he would, close enough so she could hear his quiet words.
“You do not bleed,” he said.
She shook her head. “But this will give me five days. Perhaps I can think of some way to save Biter.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “What is a dog? I will give the boy another—a golden-eye.”
“Please let me try.”
Again Tikaani shrugged. “Do what you want. I will tell my brother you will come to him in five days. It is custom among our people for a bride to make something for her husband. Perhaps boots.”
“I have nothing to make them with.”
“I will bring something.”
She watched him walk away from her, then went to the moon blood lodge. It was a good place, a quiet place, and though the women there seldom spoke to her, she did not care. It gave her opportunity to be away from K’os.
She would weave and decide how she might save Biter. She would also make boots for Night Man. She had made several pairs in the manner of the River People. These for Night Man she would also decorate, and in that way show him she was glad to be his wife. Her designs would have to follow those of her own people. A woman did not take another woman’s design. Patterns were passed as gift from mother or grandmother, and so she owned no River People designs, but perhaps Night Man would find there was strength in the designs of the First Men, power that would recall the strength of sea mammals, swimming through long days toward the warmth of summer.
THE FIRST MEN VILLAGE
Chakliux closed his eyes and listened as the old woman began her story. In all the months he had been at the First Men’s village, it was the only time Qung had allowed him to come into her ulax.
It had been a long journey to the First Men Village. After hearing Yaa’s story, he was sure the Walrus Hunters had taken Aqamdax, and so had first stopped at the Walrus Hunter Village. He had little hope that he could arrive in time to stop them if they planned revenge, but if he could not save Aqamdax, perhaps he could find Ghaden. Besides, how could he wait and do nothing?
The Walrus had not welcomed him, but neither did they seem to blame him for what had happened with Aqamdax. He had spent three days with them, asking hunters, women, even children about Aqamdax and Ghaden. They all claimed to know nothing, but late one night Sun Beater, a son of the dead shaman, came to him, spoke to him about the First Men hunters who had passed their village only a few days before Chakliux had arrived.
They had not stopped to trade, Sun Beater claimed, an unusual thing for First Men, and so he had taken out his iqyax, had followed them. He said he did not get close, but thought he saw a woman in one of the iqyan, perhaps a woman in each. He had not been sure.
Almost, then, Chakliux had returned to his own village. If Aqamdax’s own people had come to get her, what chance was there that she would want him? But since he had come such a distance toward the First Men Village, why not go on? Why not see if she was willing to be his wife? If she would not return to the Near River Village with him, perhaps the First Men would allow him to live in their village. They had welcomed him as trader, why not husband?
If he did not find Aqamdax, or if she refused him, he could at least stay with them for the winter, trading caribou hides from summer kills for meat and a place in a First Men ulax. He had battled autumn storms, spent days hunkered under the iqyax, trying to escape rain and wind, but finally he had come to the wide inlet that led to the First Men Village. They had welcomed him as trader, surprised to have him come so near winter. His queries about Aqamdax had brought the storyteller Qung and several other women to him the first day.
Qung had asked about Aqamdax, soon managed to find out that Sok had thrown her away as wife and that Chakliux was seeking her. The other women had begun a mourning song, but Qung had quieted them with dark looks and angry words. Also that first day, Tut had greeted Chakliux as friend and invited him to live with her family.
For most of the winter, Qung had avoided him and had, through Tut, told Chakliux he was not welcome in her ulax, not even during storytelling evenings.
This evening the village was celebrating a feast of ancient hunters and warriors, of peo
ple long dead. To Chakliux’s surprise, Qung had asked him to come. As storyteller, Chakliux had accepted the invitation, though Tut had warned that Qung might plan some way to embarrass him.
“I have been embarrassed before, Aunt,” Chakliux had told her, speaking in the First Men tongue, earning a smile from Tut.
“You know you cannot sit with the men. You are not a Sea Hunter.”
“So then, Aunt, will you be embarrassed if I sit with you?”
“I will not be embarrassed,” Tut had said, and now they sat together in the women’s row in Qung’s ulax.
Qung’s climbing log had been strung with lines of seal bladders, blown full of air and tied to cover each step. He had known what to expect when he saw a crowd of children gathered on the roof, hiding their giggles behind their hands. Aqamdax had told him about this trick, and that the best thing was to laugh also, enjoy the joke, even if it made you fall.
He looked down into the ulax, feigned surprise and broke into a garbled combination of First Men and River languages. Finally he asked the children what he should do.
They told him he must climb down. He planted his feet firmly, popping two bladders before deciding he could make a good act of slipping off the log to the floor. The children’s voices floated down to him as he lay looking up, unhurt and able, after catching his breath, to join them in laughter. He glanced at Qung, whose face was impassive, almost stern, but then she lifted her chin slightly at him, acknowledging his performance.
When the storytelling began, Qung’s voice, as strong as if she were a young woman, filled the ulax, and now, many stories later, she still spoke, giving herself a rest only now and again to allow the chief hunter to tell of hunts, those recent and some remembered from the past.
She had said nothing derogatory about Chakliux, nothing in anger about the River People, though one story mentioned a River People child raised by the First Men who taught them to hunt land animals, a skill they had forgotten when they lived on islands far to the west.
Suddenly, Qung looked at him, and even in the dimly lit ulax, he could see the fire in her eyes. “There is another storyteller here,” she said, “though he calls himself a trader. Storytellers always recognize one another. We are a people of too many words. We make our living by theft, taking ideas from everyone around us, pulling stories from other people’s lives. You admit to such thievery, River Man?” she asked.
