The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  It was a tree, she was sure. She had reached the spruce woods. In spite of the storm, the snow, the load she was carrying, she had reached the forest. She straightened, felt her daughter lose her grip on her nipple and waited to see if the child would cry. She did not. Perhaps she was asleep.

  Red Leaf was a large woman with heavy breasts, even when she was not feeding a baby. Even during these starving days, she had had plenty of milk for her daughter. She was strong, but in the storm, the caribou pack was heavy on her back, and she would be glad to set it down.

  Her shelter was not far from the edge of the forest, though she knew she was not on the animal path she had followed from the trees to the village. Still, she would stay just inside the windbreak of alder and willow that grew between spruce and tundra. She would walk to the stream that wandered among the trees, follow it to the bend not far from where the fallen spruce lay.

  Red Leaf reached out toward the tree she had run into. Strange that she had missed the underbrush of edge growth, though perhaps the weight of the wet snow had bent the branches low enough for her to walk over them. She shuffled ahead a few steps until she came to the next tree, then suddenly she knew where she was. The knowledge was like a weight that knocked her from her feet, and she sat down in the snow, leaned against the pack on her back.

  She had made a large circle in her walking and returned to the Four Rivers food caches.

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  Anaay lay on his bed. Dii watched him from the corners of her eyes, glancing back now and again to the awl she was using. Twice she had plunged the thing into her fingers, but what was a little blood compared to her husband’s work as he sought the caribou, tried to feel the singing of their legs as they walked south to their winter feeding grounds?

  She was surprised that he even allowed her to stay in the lodge with him. Surely the caribou would sense her presence—a woman now bleeding from two fingertips—and be frightened from Anaay’s calling. But he had asked that she stay, and perhaps it was good that she did. Who would bring Anaay water if she was not here? Who would bring him the urine trough and carry it away so the smell would not offend the caribou?

  Three days they had been in the lodge now. Most of the time, Anaay slept, for when else did caribou visit a man but in his dreams? How else did a man hear caribou songs but when his own spirit was quiet and away from his body, living in that world of sleep?

  “Ah! Ah! Ah!” Anaay called out, and Dii put down her awl, waited to see if he wanted her to do something, but he said nothing more.

  Perhaps in his dreams the caribou were teaching him something. Perhaps now Anaay would know where their hunters should go. Dii wanted to stay and watch, but she decided that there was a chance the caribou would not truly speak to her husband unless she was outside the lodge. She pulled her parka from a peg and crawled out the entrance tunnel. She would stay close enough to the door to hear Anaay if he called her.

  She was surprised to see that it was dark. When had the night come? It was strange, but for all Anaay’s sleeping, it seemed that Dii could not sleep, as though he had stolen her dreams to give himself more, and she was left to wander in a sleepless world.

  “Ah! Ah! Ah!” she heard again, but she did not go back inside.

  She squatted on her haunches, making herself small against the cold. Half the sky was starred, the other half dark, clouds moving in from the north, perhaps snow. Then she heard another sound, something so low and far away that at first she did not hear it with her ears but only in her chest, a rhythm, as though she suddenly had been given another heart to beat alongside her own.

  It came as a pattering, like the first drops of rain against a lodge cover, but gradually spread from her chest to her arms and legs. It became thunderous and traveled up her neck until finally even her ears could hear it. Then she knew what it was, and she had to cover her mouth with her hands to hold back a cry of wonder.

  She ran inside the lodge, expecting to see her husband awake and preparing to tell the hunters what he had heard, what he now knew. But he was asleep, his mouth hanging open, one arm flung up over his eyes, the other lying on his chest, his hand knotted into a fist.

  Of course, she told herself. What else should she expect? She had heard the caribou, had felt the thunder of their hooves, but she did not know where they were, how far from camp, what direction they traveled. There was much more to know, and surely those were the things Anaay was learning as he slept.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  Red Leaf wanted to stay where she was. Perhaps, even in the storm, her clothing would keep her warm enough that she could sleep a little while. She had walked so long and so far. The ache of her empty belly had spread to her whole body, so that it did not seem that she was hungry, only sick. Besides, it would take so much effort to unstrap the caribou skin from her back, to open it and get out food.

  But how foolish to die here, so close to warm lodges and full caches. Of course, she was not going to die. She would sleep, only that. Just a little sleep…

  No! The word was so loud that Red Leaf’s eyes opened wide, and she tried to see through the curtain of snow and darkness to discover who had yelled at her.

  Finally she realized it was her own voice. Death must be close, she thought.

  Leaning forward to grasp one of the cache poles, she pulled herself up, then staggered again out into the storm. The wind was at her back, as it had been when she started out, as it would be if she walked straight. She began, and this time she counted her steps. After each handful, she stopped to be sure the wind stayed behind her.

  She heard a high, thin keening. The wind, she told herself, and took another handful of steps, stopped, checked the direction of the driving snow, walked again, five steps. The keening also continued, until Red Leaf realized it was her daughter. The child had probably not regained her hold on Red Leaf’s breast.

  She stopped and dropped to her knees, pulled off a caribou hide mitten with her teeth, and held it clamped tightly in her mouth so the wind would not take it. She took her arm from the sleeve of her parka and drew it inside to the warmth where her daughter lay, the child naked save for the moss and ground squirrel skins that were bound between her legs. Red Leaf lifted her breast and guided it to the baby’s mouth. She felt the sudden tightness as the baby began to suck and her milk let down.

  Red Leaf got her hand and arm back into her parka sleeve, then put on her mitten. She balanced herself on hands and feet and tried to stand. She could not. Panic gripped her. She tried again, but fell, then rolled to her side, the giant pack pinning her to the ground.

  She wrapped her arms around her daughter and lay still, allowed the snow to cover her. “Eat well, dear one,” she whispered. “Eat long and well.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  AT DAWN, THE SKY was hung with heavy, dark clouds, their bellies so full that Dii could not see the sun. She hurried to the hearths, an east wind tearing at her parka, bringing the smell of snow, sharp tang of winter. She no longer felt the thunder of caribou hooves, and so wondered what Anaay heard as he lay still lost in his dreaming. She ate quickly so she could go back to him, and when she returned to the lodge, he was awake. He greeted her with a scowl and a harsh demand for water, but her heart quickened in gladness with the knowledge that his dreams had brought him what he sought. When he opened his fur robes to show her his need, for the first time she went to his bed in joy.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  Red Leaf awoke to darkness, something too close to her face. She struck out with her arms, flailed wildly until she remembered what she had done. She felt her daughter stir within her parka, and she began to laugh. She had prepared herself for death but had won life. Who could believe such a thing?

  The ache of her legs reminded her how hard she had struggled, even after she fell. She had cut the straps that bound the caribou pack to her back, but even without that weight had been unable to get to her feet. Finally, she had l
ain still, resigned to her death, but her daughter’s suckling had reminded her of her own hunger, and she had decided that she, too, should eat. Why die with an empty stomach when a pack of food lay nearby?

  She had cut the neat cross-stitches that closed the hide over whatever was inside, had scolded herself for the greediness that had made her take the largest pack. She might have been able to go on if the pack had not been so heavy. Perhaps it had been the pack itself that turned her back toward the village. Perhaps it had decided to stay with those people who had filled it with winter food.

  But once she opened it, she could not fault herself for her choice. It was full of fat, the thick hard fat that forms over the haunches of caribou and moose, smaller chunks that come from mountain sheep—a store of fat that would keep a family strong through at least one winter moon, perhaps more.

  She chose a piece of sheep fat, bit into it and felt it crumble in her mouth. It tasted of the mountains, of the wind and the sun, and it spread fire from her mouth to her belly, warming her as if she had swallowed coals from a hearth.

  She ate until she was no longer hungry, until the warmed fat leaked from her mouth to coat her lips. She softened a chunk in her hands, then rubbed it over her face to soothe the burn left by wind and snow.

  While she ate, she had used the stuffed caribou hide as a windbreak. When she finished, she noticed that a drift had formed over her and the hide. Suddenly an idea came, and it was so strange that it nearly made her laugh. She lunged into the snow under her, scooped it out with wide sweeps of her hands. She made the hole as long as the caribou pack and twice as wide.

  When she reached the sedges and grass of the tundra, she stopped, and unpacked the hide, piling the slabs of fat neatly at the windward side of the hole, then packed snow over them. She spread the empty caribou hide in the other side of the hole, the opening toward the pile of fat, and crawled inside. Now and again she stuck her arm up through the snow, clearing it away so she would not smother.

  Finally she could no longer stay awake. If I die, I die, she told herself. It is what my husband wanted. At least in dying, I will please him.

  But now she was awake and alive, perhaps in some spirit world, but she did not think so. Would she still be inside the caribou hide if she had gone to a spirit world? Would her daughter be suckling at her breast?

  She raised her arm broke through the snow easily. A rush of cold air flooded the caribou hide, and a shaft of light. The wind had died. The storm had passed. She decided she would eat first, then repack the caribou hide and carry it to her shelter.

  She pried out a wedge of fat. It tasted of spruce—acrid, bitter—so she knew it came from a bull moose in rut. She grimaced but continued to eat. Though not nearly as good as the sweet sheep fat, it would give her the strength she needed to walk back to her shelter.

  She was sucking the last of the fat from her fingertips when a small cascade of snow showered in on her. She raised her arm and cleared her airhole, then heard a high-pitched whine, felt the rapid scraping of clawed feet against the hide.

  Wolves, she thought, and her heart beat so hard that she could feel the pulse of it at her throat. She unsheathed her sleeve knife.

  At least one of them would die before they took her.

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  Dii went to Sun Caller first, then Giving Meat, the two male elders, besides Anaay, who were left in the Near River Village after the fighting. She brought them to the lodge where Anaay waited. He was dressed in his most elaborate parka, wore all his necklaces and amulets. They made a mound around his neck, and with his hood thrown back, his head looked too small for his body, as though it would slip down and become lost in the fur and beads.

  He stared for a moment at the two men sitting near his fire—Sun Caller small but straight, rolling and unrolling a caribou hide mitten in nervous fingers, and Giving Meat, drooling like a child, his eyes wandering as though he did not know where he was—then Anaay told Dii to bring the other hunters as well, even the oldest boys. What he had to say was so important that every man, not just the elders, should be told.

  It had taken all her courage to bring the two elders to her lodge. Now to go and get the hunters… Why would they listen to her, a woman just recently a slave?

  “There are so many hunters, Husband,” she said quietly, “and I am new in the village. What if I miss someone? Should I get Gull Beak to help me?”

  He frowned at her, and she quickly added, “With two of us, they will come more quickly, and Gull Beak can help me with the food.”

  He tipped his head up toward the top of the lodge, as though considering her words, then said, “Yes. That is best. Get Gull Beak.”

  So Dii stopped to get Gull Beak, who put K’os to work filling cooking bags, then they stopped at each hunter’s lodge, scratched at the doorflap and called. Most of the men, busy preparing weapons for the caribou hunt, frowned at them, turned their heads away as the women spoke.

  But Dii and Gull Beak told each of them what Anaay had said, explained that the caribou had sung their wandering into Anaay’s bones and he knew where the Near River men must hunt.

  K’os crouched in the entrance tunnel of Gull Beak’s lodge and watched the men. Ah, for the power to turn herself into flea or mouse and listen to what Fox Barking had to say. Surely, it was something to do with caribou hunting. What else did the men think of these days? With the freedom Gull Beak now gave her to gather plants and roots, K’os had begun to offer herself to hunters. There were quiet places in woods and willow thickets where wives did not see. Their generosity had allowed her to fill her sewing bag with beads and feathers, shells and teeth.

  Lately, though, most of the men had been too busy for her. They must stay away from women, purify themselves for the caribou, they told her. So as she prepared the meat stews that Gull Beak had requested, she added a generous portion of dried yellow violets ground into powder. She wondered how Anaay would explain the men’s stomach cramps and diarrhea. Perhaps then they would realize that he did not have the powers he claimed. At least their sickness would delay the start of any hunt, give K’os time to finish her work on Anaay’s parka.

  For every charm Gull Beak had sewn to seams, on furs and in beads and feathers, K’os had added a curse. Tufts of lynx fur to make Anaay’s joints stiff; the barbs from kingfisher feathers sewn with cunning stitches into the seams under each arm to enhance his carelessness; the dried fox eye tacked under the circled eagle feathers to twist Anaay’s sight; thin strips of flycatcher skin sewn under the hood ruff to draw a lingering death.

  She had yet to slit the beaver ears that Gull Wing had sewn on the parka hood. K’os would make only the tiniest cuts, just wide enough to slip cod ear bones, flat and white, delicate as snowflakes, inside those beaver ears. She would use the finest wisp of sinew to tack each cut closed, then crush each bone as it lay inside its beaver ear. And Anaay’s hearing would be brittle and broken.

  Perhaps after a few moons, Anaay would realize that his new parka brought him only bad luck, but surely the blame would fall on Gull Beak. Not that K’os had any dispute with Gull Beak. The woman treated her more like a sister-wife than a slave. But she was in the way. How good that she was old. Old people always died during hard winters. At least she would die quickly, a death that Fox Barking would one day envy.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  Red Leaf burst up through the snow, stabbing with her knife, screaming. One of the wolves yelped in pain, then Red Leaf heard the surprised voice of a man. She stopped, planted her feet firmly over the pile of snow that had sheltered her and faced him with the knife in her hand. She moved the blade toward a growl that came from her left, then saw that it was only a dog, gray and black. A slash at the top of the animal’s head bubbled blood.

  “Tracker!” the man yelled at the animal. “Be still.”

  The hunter held his hands palms out. “I will not hurt you,” he said, and Red Leaf nearly laughed. He stood without a knife. His spear and a fire bow
weapon—like the ones the Cousin River People had used against her village—hung on his back. His hood was pulled far forward, shielding his eyes from the sun on the snow, so she could not see his face.

  “I thought your dog was a wolf,” Red Leaf said. “Get him away from me.”

  The man lifted his chin at the mound of snow. “You slept there?” he asked.

  “The storm caught me. What choice did I have?”

  “You are not from the Four Rivers Village.”

  Red Leaf almost said she was Near River, but there were always those who considered people from one village or another as enemy. Why say something that could be used against her?

  “You are Four Rivers?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “This winter I am.”

  “You should see to your dog. The cut still bleeds.”

  “Head wounds bleed much,” he told her, but he walked over to the dog, used his gloved hand to stanch the flow, then wiped the blood on the snow.

  “There is somewhere you need to go?” he asked her. “I can help you.”

  “My lodge is not far,” she said. “I can travel by myself.”

  “You have no snowshoes?”

  “When I left my lodge there was no snow,” she said, and tried to smile, but her lips stretched and cracked until she could taste blood. “Go wherever it is you are going. I have a few supplies to gather.”

  She stooped as though to crawl back into her snow cave, but he did not move.

  “Someone took food from my cache,” he said. “A full caribou hide packed with fat. I am a trader. I need that fat. What I do not eat this winter, I will trade in spring.”

  She kept her back toward him, but he continued to talk.

  “It might surprise you what people will give in those starving moons for a taste of fat. Parkas heavy with embroidery, burial moccasins with beaded soles, such things are not of much value to an empty belly.”

  She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. “Then you best go quickly and catch that one who took it.”