by Sue Harrison
Later, when K’os had finished splitting the sinew and Two Fist had sent her to help at the fish weir, she took time to walk past Gull Beak’s tent, to stop and call quietly. When Gull Beak came out, K’os leaned close to her and whispered, “Vole is sick.”
“Do you have medicine that will help her?”
K’os nodded.
“I will arrange for you to come to my lodge tonight, after the men have eaten.”
K’os walked to the Near River and waded into the water. She gritted her teeth against the cold and lowered her small net. She stood still until the fish thought her legs were nothing more than logs. Finally a salmon swam near, and in one quick movement she lifted the net, bringing the fish up from the water, then heaved it to the shore, where boys were waiting with clubs.
She lowered her net again, and to take her mind from the bone-aching cold of the water, began to plan what she would do to the fine parka Gull Beak was making for Fox Barking. She had told K’os that it would have decorations made in sacred symbols. Circles with eagle feathers at his shoulders, so his vision would be clear; beaver ears sewn to each side of the hood to strengthen his hearing; a strip of fishskin just above the hem ruff to protect him from strange spirits when he traveled far from their village. Across the chest she would sew a band of raven beaks she had bought in trade. Each time Fox Barking wore the parka, the beaks would catch the sun and the feathers would dance in the wind.
But when K’os added her amulets and curses, every time he wore that parka, the beaks would cry to the spirits: Here is a man who steals the joy of young women. The eagle feathers would say: Beware of an elder who has built his power on death and lies.
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
Yaa made herself small in the back corner of Star’s lodge and tried to think only of her sewing. It was not polite to listen to others’ conversations, but Ligige’’s words carried loud through the caribou hide walls. And though Chakliux’s voice was not as strident, it was a storyteller’s voice and, even when he spoke softly, seemed to find its way into a listener’s ears. Yaa thought they must be standing outside, at the back of the lodge.
“You are sure?” Chakliux asked, and Yaa could hear the exasperation in
Ligige’’s words as she said once more, “I am sure. It was Red Leaf. I saw Ghaden’s wounds after she attacked him. I myself helped prepare my own brother’s body for death rites after she—” Ligige’’s voice broke, and for a moment Yaa heard nothing. Then again Chakliux spoke.
“Then, she had a reason for killing, as foolish as that reason might have seemed to us. But why would she kill my mother?”
“To escape!” Ligige’ said.
“So why go to Day Woman’s lodge? Why not just leave the village? If she attacked my mother in her bed, then surely it wasn’t because Day Woman was trying to prevent her escape.”
“Perhaps there was something in the lodge that Red Leaf wanted,” Ligige’ said. “Perhaps she went to steal something and Day Woman woke up.”
“That could be—”
Their voices were fading and Yaa realized that they must be walking away from the lodge even as they spoke. She set down her sewing and looked over at Long Eyes. The old woman was asleep, muttering long strings of words, too jumbled for Yaa to understand. In her dreaming, Long Eyes flung away her rabbit skin blanket, and Yaa went over to cover her again.
“You are safe,” Yaa said, and smoothed back Long Eyes’s hair. She crooned a soft song and thought about Red Leaf. How strange that a woman could live among them like an ordinary person and then become a killer. What would make someone do that?
The men had decided not to follow Red Leaf. Why should they? She and her baby were probably already dead. The smell of Red Leaf’s birth blood and the milk breath of her baby would draw wolves. Yaa shuddered to think of their deaths under sharp, tearing teeth. And what had that little daughter done to deserve a death like that?
Yaa had seen Bird Caller’s tears for that baby, though even Sok had not mourned his little daughter. He told Chakliux he was glad Red Leaf had taken the baby with her. He did not want to raise the girl; she would remind him only of his mother’s death.
Yaa counted out the days on her fingers. Three, now, the village had been in mourning. One more day and they would put Day Woman’s body on the death scaffolds in the sacred woods. Then her small lodge would be burned. A sad waste of caribou hides, but what else could they do? Not even Ligige’ was brave enough to live in a lodge filled with the blood of a death like Day Woman’s. What had her life been but sadness? Better to purge the village of that bad luck than to save a few worn caribou skins.
Yaa returned to her sewing and pushed the thoughts of death and killing from her mind. She was making Ghaden a pair of leggings and did not want to stitch sadness or bad luck into the seams. Instead she thought of hawks and lemmings. What better animals to give Ghaden skill and good luck in his hunting?
Aqamdax was careful. She never lifted heavy loads. She walked slowly and kept her thoughts to good things. She sang songs of patience to the son she carried in her belly, and she prayed that he would not be born early. Boy children were weaker than girls, the old women said, with less fat under their skin to keep them alive.
But the second day after Day Woman’s mourning had ended, Aqamdax awakened to pain.
She was sitting on her bedding furs, her hands over her belly, when Star woke up and began to scream. “Leave! Leave my lodge! If my baby comes early because of you, I will kill your child!”
Her yelling woke Chakliux. He pulled Star from her bed and walked her outside. Then Night Man also was awake. He rubbed his eyes and asked, “The pains have begun again?”
“They are not strong,” Aqamdax told him.
“It is best that you leave.”
She waited for him to promise prayers for her safety, for her life and the child’s, but he did not. Star had told her that Night Man was afraid the baby did not belong to him, and Aqamdax could see that fear in his eyes.
She had had a moon blood time before she became Night Man’s wife, and K’os had not given her to any man after that. The child had to be Night Man’s. She had told him that, but he ignored her, as though she had said nothing at all.
Aqamdax gathered her things, birth amulets and supplies for the baby. She had not made a cradle in the tradition of the First Men—a square frame of wood, hung from lodge rafters, that held a hammock where the baby slept—but instead, to please her husband, had fashioned a stiff cradleboard with a spruce wood back and a lacing of rawhide that would hold the baby’s head up, as though the child were standing in place.
During the two days after Day Woman’s mourning, Aqamdax had made herself a birth shelter of woven mats and willow poles. It was small, but Ligige’ had loaned her a scraped caribou skin to wrap around the peak, and Aqamdax had built it under a large white spruce in the hope that the tree would offer a shelter from rain and wind.
As she left Star’s lodge, Aqamdax called for Yaa to bring several water bladders and a pouch of dried fish. Yaa scrambled from her bed to follow Aqamdax from the lodge, turned to scold her brother Ghaden when he tried to hold her back.
Biter, Ghaden’s dog, followed Yaa, and Ghaden let out another protest, until Night Man glared at him and said, “Act like a man. You are not a baby like the one about to be born.”
Then Ghaden was quiet, and when he thought Night Man was not looking, he stuck his thumb in his mouth, drew his head down under a hare fur blanket and pretended to go back to sleep.
When Star and Chakliux returned to the lodge, Star was quiet, and Ghaden, peeking out from his blankets, could see that there was a calmness in her eyes. Even without Yaa in the lodge, it might be a good day.
He got up from his bed, went outside to the edge of the river and relieved himself. He took several fish from one of the drying racks and stuffed them up his parka sleeves. Like all the boys in the village, he would spend part of the day guarding the racks from foxes and ravens who trie
d to sneak in and steal meat.
At first the guarding had not been difficult. A raised stick, a yell, would drive them away, but with each successful theft, the foxes grew more bold, and now would growl at him when he came close. Squirrel had told Ghaden about a fox that had grabbed the end of his stick and tried to pull it from his hands. Finally, Squirrel’s older brother saw what was happening and chased the fox away by throwing stones.
After hearing Squirrel’s story, Ghaden had asked Yaa to make him a small pouch. Now he stooped at the riverbank and filled the pouch with stones, then he walked back to the lodge.
He had shared Chakliux’s mourning for Day Woman, remembered his own sorrow when his mother, Daes, had died, though that had been long ago. Now he could barely remember her face, mostly just her smile. Each day he repeated in his mind the Sea Hunter words she had taught him so he would not forget them as well. When they were gone, what would be left of her?
Sometimes he spoke to his sister, Aqamdax, about her, but when he did, Aqamdax always looked sad. Someday he would surprise her with his Sea Hunter words, then perhaps she would be happy. He was glad Aqamdax lived in their lodge and didn’t belong to K’os anymore. K’os had been mean to Aqamdax, had made her stay out in the entrance tunnel to sleep, even in the middle of winter.
It was better for Aqamdax now that she was wife to Night Man, even though Night Man was usually cross with her, often yelling, though it was Star who almost always caused any problems. What other woman in the village always ruined the clothing she was trying to make or allowed the cooking bag to catch fire? Who else burned the meat she was roasting?
Though Chakliux had given Star enough caribou hides to build a new lodge, and Chakliux, Ghaden and even Night Man had dug a circle into the ground for the lodge, had cut poles and carried stones, Star had yet to begin sewing the lodge cover.
It would be easier to have Star in a different lodge, though Ghaden was not sure if he and Yaa would stay with Night Man and Aqamdax or go with Star and Chakliux. Night Man did not like Chakliux, though Chakliux was a good husband to Star, always giving her small gifts like bird feathers and fox tails.
Ghaden slipped back into the lodge, was quiet as he skirted Long Eyes’s bed. The old woman was still asleep. Star was doing something to whatever was in the cooking bag, and soon she left the lodge, perhaps to bring back more food, Ghaden thought, but most likely to wander the village, doing nothing at all.
Ghaden got two bowls of meat, handed one to Night Man, the other to Chakliux. Chakliux raised his eyebrows at Ghaden, lifted the bowl as he did so, but Ghaden shook his head and pulled a fish from his sleeve. Chakliux grinned at him and began to eat.
Ghaden hunkered down in his bed. He wished Yaa would not have taken Biter. He liked to have his dog with him.
At least Red Leaf was gone from the village. Ghaden knew she was the one who had killed his mother. She had also stabbed him, and the places where the knife had cut still ached sometimes, especially when it was cold outside.
He tried not to think of the night it had happened, tried not to remember that it was his fault. He had seen Red Leaf, dressed like a man, like a hunter, and thought that she was his father, the trader Cen. He had run from the safety of their lodge entrance to Red Leaf, and his mother had followed him. If he had stayed with his mother, Red Leaf would have never known they were there, waiting until his mother’s sister-wife went to sleep and they could sneak back into the lodge. Why they had to do that each time they visited Cen in his trader’s lodge, Ghaden still did not understand, nor did he understand why they did not live with his father. But there were many things in the world he did not understand, things that even Yaa seemed puzzled about.
But now Red Leaf was gone. She would soon die, the people said, living away from the village with a baby to care for. That was too bad, Ghaden reflected. He had wanted her to live until he was a man so he could kill her himself.
Aqamdax squatted at the entrance of the birth lodge. She had built the lodge so the door faced east, to honor the light. Since she left Star’s lodge, dawn had spread up over the sky, chasing away the stars, pinching them out one by one. Pain gripped her, and she took long, deep breaths until it passed. The pains were not terrible, not nearly as hard as those that had taken her the first time she went into labor. She was not worried. Ligige’’s tea had stopped her pains before. It would again.
As a child, she had often seen women in the First Men Village walking out labor pains. She smiled as she remembered the whispers among the women and the stern faces of the men, each pretending he did not know a baby was about to be born.
Even here among the River People most women in labor walked to speed their deliveries, but Aqamdax stayed still. It was best if the baby was not yet born, if he waited a few more days.
Soon Yaa brought Ligige’, and the old woman began fussing over Aqamdax, ordering Yaa to bring wood, start a fire, fetch water. Ligige’ had brought a tripod from her own hearth, and when the flames died down, she set it over the coals. She seemed worried about something, and finally Aqamdax said, “You are well?” Ligige’ nodded, and Aqamdax asked, “Is everyone in the village all right?”
“Everyone is all right, but there is some spirit of mischief at work. My dog chewed himself loose last night, and by the time I found him early this morning, my hearth coals had grown cold.”
She continued to mutter about dogs and hearth coals. Aqamdax, in her relief, tried to keep her mouth from showing any kind of smile. It was always an embarrassment when a woman’s hearth coals went out, especially for an old woman who had no children to watch, who had nothing to tend except her own lodge.
“I would have had this tea ready for you much sooner if all those things had not happened to me.”
Aqamdax, bracing herself against another pain, said nothing.
Ligige’ stopped to watch her. “The pains are not as bad?” she asked.
“No,” Aqamdax said, “and not so close together.”
“Good. Perhaps then it will not matter how late I am making this tea.”
With a wooden bowl, Ligige’ scooped water from the boiling bag, added a piece of balsam poplar root to steep, removed the root and handed the bowl to Aqamdax. “Drink it quickly, before another pain comes.”
Aqamdax took a sip. It was too hot, but she drank it anyway. It burned a path to her stomach, and she prayed it would stop her pains.
“You have been walking?” Ligige’ asked.
“I thought it was better if I did not.”
“Good, stay still. Yaa, go back to your lodge. Get Aqamdax something to keep her hands busy.”
“My basket,” Aqamdax told Yaa, and the girl ran off.
“It will keep your thoughts away from the baby. Maybe when he realizes no one is thinking about him, he will decide to wait and come out another day.”
Yaa ducked into the lodge. Biter had returned with her, and he leaped over Ghaden, making the boy laugh. Night Man and Chakliux were eating. She said nothing to them, waiting, as was polite, for Night Man to ask about his wife. Finally she fetched the basket, walking purposely close to him, but when he spoke he said, “Come back when you can. Long Eyes will soon be awake, and Star is not here.”
“Your wife…” she began, but Night Man turned his head away.
“How is Aqamdax?” Chakliux finally asked.
Night Man set his mouth into a frown, but Yaa answered, “Ligige’ has given her medicine again to stop the baby from coming.”
She stood for a moment to see if they had more questions, but neither man spoke, so Yaa told Ghaden to roll his bedding mats and gather firewood. He made a face at her, but she knew he would do what she asked.
“Do not forget Long Eyes,” Night Man said as she left the lodge.
* * *
Chakliux sat with Night Man, waiting for him to begin prayers or chants. Some husbands even fasted when a wife was in labor, but Night Man did none of these things. Chakliux stayed, thinking Night Man might want someone to talk
to. But Night Man acted as though he were alone in the lodge, and Chakliux wondered if he should leave. He wanted to make his own prayers, voice his own chants, a protection for Aqamdax and her child.
He decided to wait until Yaa returned. She could tell him one more time how Aqamdax was doing. Finally the doorflap opened, and Yaa stepped inside. At the same moment, Long Eyes awoke, the old woman peering around the lodge, screeching when she saw Chakliux, then calming again when she noticed Night Man beside him. Night Man helped Yaa get Long Eyes out of bed, told the girl to take her to the woman’s place, then bring her back and feed her. Yaa got Long Eyes into a summer parka, laced boots on her feet, then she and Night Man helped the woman outside.
Chakliux could hear Yaa and Night Man speaking but could not decipher their words. When Night Man came back, Chakliux asked him about Aqamdax, but Night Man shrugged.
“Really, I do not care,” he said. He dipped his bowl into the cooking bag. “You want more?” he asked, but Chakliux suddenly found himself unable to eat.
He watched as Night Man lifted the bowl to his lips, swallowed several mouthfuls of meat.
“You do not care,” Chakliux said.
Night Man lowered his bowl. “I did not choose her for myself. She is not of our people, but she is not a terrible wife, and so I will keep her. What other woman would have me?” He nodded at his useless arm. “I do not want her to die, but the baby means nothing.”
“Even if it is a son?”
“I’m sure it is not mine.”
Chakliux felt his face flush, first in disbelief, then in anger. “You think she has slept with another man?”
“Not since she became my wife. But she was a slave before that. K’os made her sleep with men, then took their gifts for herself. The child could belong to some warrior now dead, killed by the Near Rivers in the fighting.”
“It would still be yours—a daughter to care for you in your old age, a son to bring meat….”
“What if the true father’s spirit comes back to see this child, to watch him grow into a man, and finds that I have claimed him as my own? Do you think he would be glad to see his son raised by a man who laid in his bed and did nothing while the Near Rivers killed everyone and stole our women?”
