The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  The dog growled again, and Red Leaf lifted her knife toward him.

  “Tracker says you are the one.”

  “I have nothing except my own supplies.” She patted her chest. “A cilt’ogho of coals, some dried fish. You would take that from me?”

  “I take only what is mine,” he told her, then he shouted at his dog, and before Red Leaf had time to protest, the animal knocked her back into the snow. The trader grasped her knife hand, wrestled away the weapon and held it to her neck until Red Leaf cried out, “Call off your dog and I will give you what I have.”

  He spoke to the animal, the words in a language Red Leaf did not understand. The dog backed away, but his lips were still drawn back from his teeth. Red Leaf began to roll from her back to hands and knees, but the dog growled again, lunged forward.

  “This will not take me long,” the trader told her. “But I would lie still if I were you.”

  He hacked at the crusted snow with a walking stick until he came to the caribou hide. He ran his hands over the lacing.

  “It is mine,” he said.

  “I found it,” she told him. “I was battling the storm and I found the hide. It was partially buried in the snow. It made a good shelter, but it is not mine. If it is yours, take it with my gratitude. It served me well.”

  “What of the fat I had stored inside?”

  Red Leaf shrugged. “The hide was empty when I found it.”

  Again she rolled to her side, tried to stand. Again the dog growled. “I have no weapons,” she said. “Tell your dog—”

  “Tracker!”

  The dog sat back on his haunches, whined, and Red Leaf stood up, backed away.

  “Tracker!” the trader called, and pointed at the snow cave. “Here, dig!”

  Red Leaf began to walk. Perhaps the man, in finding his slabs of fat, would not think it worth following her. She hated to lose the knife. She had only one other, and that was a woman’s knife with a curved blade. But better to save her life than stay hoping he would return the weapon.

  The man called out, but she did not look back, did not slow down. The snow was deep and soft. With each step she sank past her knees, but still she walked. Then she felt a hand grab her hood. She tried to jerk away but could not. She turned to face the trader, and he waved a hand-sized chunk of white fat in her face.

  “What of this?”

  “Where did you find that?” she asked, trying to act as though she were surprised.

  “In the hole you dug.”

  “I wish I would have known,” she said. “I would have feasted during that long storm.”

  He pushed his parka hood back to his ears, and for the first time, Red Leaf saw him clearly. Her chest squeezed tight in surprise.

  He was Cen, the trader who had brought the Sea Hunter woman Daes to the Near River Village. Though Daes had given birth to the boy Ghaden several moons after Cen had left her at their village, most of the Near River women thought he was Ghaden’s father.

  Cen’s face had changed since the last time she had seen him. His nose was crooked, and a scar drew up one side of his mouth, but Red Leaf knew he was Cen. Did she not see his face most nights in her dreams, the man accused of what she had done? But how could Cen be alive? Surely he had died from the beating he received when the people thought he had killed Sok’s grandfather Tsaani, and also Daes.

  “I did not take it. I found it,” she said again.

  “What were you doing out in the storm?” he asked.

  “My husband is a trader of sorts,” she said, mumbling the first thing that came to her mind. How could she tell him her name? He might have already heard that she was the one who killed Daes and Tsaani. If he had cared for the woman, he would want revenge. Even if he had not, surely he would kill her for the wounds his son Ghaden had suffered, and for his own injuries.

  “Your husband is a trader?” he asked, speaking slowly. “Where is he now?”

  “He is lazy. He stayed in our lodge, and I went out to check my traplines. The storm caught me before I could get back.”

  “I have never known a trader who was lazy.”

  “Then you must not know my husband,” Red Leaf said. She turned and started to trudge away, but called back over her shoulder, “I am sorry about the caribou pack being stolen from your cache. It is good I found it for you.”

  She continued to walk, hoping he would stay with his pack, but suddenly his hands were on her shoulders. She lost her balance and fell backward into the snow. Cen knelt beside her, loosened the drawstring at her hood and pulled it back from her face. He stared at her but finally shook his head and said, “I see too many women in my trading.”

  Red Leaf, realizing he did not recognize her, tried not to show her relief.

  “I know you took my caribou pack and the fat I had stored. My dog caught your scent on the cache and brought me to you.”

  Red Leaf laughed. “What dog could do that?”

  “This dog can.” Cen tilted his head as he looked at her. “I thought you would be a man. The pack is heavy.”

  “I did not take it,” Red Leaf said again.

  But Cen continued as though she had said nothing at all. “You are a big woman, though. Strong.” He pulled her to her feet, then pushed up one of her parka sleeves, looked at her arm. “You haven’t eaten much lately. Who are you?”

  Why not tell him a good story? Red Leaf thought, and she began to speak, spinning out lies. “For some years,” she said, “until I was almost a woman, I lived in the Near River Village. Then my father died and my mother married a man who did some trading with the Near River and Cousin Villages. That is how we lived. One day he brought a man for me to marry. I became a wife then and had a baby. A daughter.”

  She stopped and realized that Cen was looking at her again, his eyes squinted, and she hoped that her mention of the Near River Village did not suddenly remind him of who she was.

  “So you are going back now to your husband?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He did not want a daughter. He decided to give her to his sister who lives north on the Great River. She has many sons but needs a daughter to care for her in her old age. I have run away so I can keep my baby.”

  Suddenly the child let out a cry, and Red Leaf loosened the drawstring at the neck of her parka so Cen could see the baby.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “There is a spruce forest less than a day’s walk from here. I made a shelter in the roots of a fallen tree.”

  “What is your name?”

  Fear twisted itself into her belly, and she could feel her hands tremble. He did not remember her face, but what if he knew her name? Her daughter seemed to sense Red Leaf’s fear and again cried out, this time in loud, long wails, so that Red Leaf crooned to the child and fussed getting her to accept a breast. She moved slowly, rocking her body and humming a lullaby, all the time thinking of names.

  “Gheli,” she finally said.

  “Gheli?”

  “Yes, my name is Gheli.” Let him think she had been named that, by father or uncle, in honor of what she was. Would a woman named Gheli—good, true—steal from a cache? Would she kill?

  “Gheli,” Cen said, and lifted an arm toward the snow cave. “Repack my caribou hide.”

  She considered refusing, but he had her knife. How could she fight him? Besides, she might have a chance to slip a piece of fat into her parka sleeve.

  She walked back to the pack, pulled it from the snow, then beat it with her hands to loosen the ice that had formed from her breath, crusting the inside. She repacked each piece of fat, watching Cen from the coiners of her eyes, twice pushing fat up the sleeve of her parka. When she finished, she dragged the pack to him.

  “The lacing is cut,” she said.

  Cen pulled a coil of babiche from under his parka and used it to bind the bag, nodding when Red Leaf stooped to help him. She thought he would tell her to carry the hide, but he heaved it to his
own back and began to follow his trail through the snow toward the Four Rivers Village.

  Red Leaf watched for a time, then started in the opposite direction. She had gone only a few steps when she heard him call.

  “Gheli!” he said. “I have a warm lodge, and I need a wife.”

  She turned and looked at him. It would be a dangerous thing to have Cen as husband. Someday he would find out who she was and what she had done, but what chance did she have living alone, with no food? Perhaps she could stay with him long enough to set aside meat and hides, cache them away from the village, so she could survive if she had to leave quickly.

  She made her way toward him. His snowshoes packed the snow so Red Leaf’s feet did not sink so far with each step. And so they walked, Cen, Gheli and the dog, Tracker, to the Four Rivers Village.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  DII HUNG THE BOILING bag from a lodge pole. It was heavy, full of fat and meat from the moose two hunters had taken several days before. She gathered an armful of wooden bowls and filled them. She offered the first to her husband, Anaay, but he waved it away. She gave it instead to Sun Caller, then set another beside Giving Meat. Giving Meat tipped the bowl over, then began to eat the stew with his fingers, scooping it from the floor, smearing it on his face. Dii looked away, pretended not to see. It was like that for an elder sometimes, and only a fool would ridicule. Who could say? She herself might someday be the same way.

  Gull Beak and K’os came to the lodge carrying more cooking bags. They hung them near the door and began to help Dii. Anaay stood, and Dii watched her husband in pride, her eyes caressing the new parka he wore, her hands remembering the warmth of his skin when she had joined him in his bed that morning.

  She felt a glow in her belly and wondered if they had begun a child this day. She had been drinking the tea made from raspberry-leaves K’os gave her. It would, K’os promised, strengthen her womb. What a wondrous child she and Anaay would have, conceived while the sound of caribou still shook his parents’ bones.

  Anaay began to speak, and his voice filled the lodge. “I have dreamed caribou songs,” he said.

  Several of the youngest hunters lowered their bowls and lifted their voices in a quick hunting chant, a cry that made Dii shiver in joy. She had not wanted to come to this village, had not wanted to belong to Anaay. Life had been easier living with her mother and father, with her brothers and uncle. But now she was a wife, and what more could she ask than to be the wife of Anaay, a man who dreamed caribou?

  “I called the animals, and they come to us. We must leave our village and prepare to meet them.”

  As Anaay spoke, the men continued to eat, and soon the meat stew was gone. Gull Beak nodded toward the entrance tunnel so Dii knew the woman wanted her to go to the hearths and get more food. Dii had hoped to be in the lodge when Anaay explained where the caribou were. Like Anaay, she carried the knowledge in her bones, and it quivered inside her, needing to be told.

  But Gull Beak was first wife, and Dii must do as she asked. Sighing, she left the lodge. If she hurried, perhaps she would not miss much of what her husband had to say.

  K’os watched in satisfaction as each of the men ate the stew. This night they would get little sleep. She tucked her laughter inside her mouth and passed a water bladder to one of the younger hunters. She had pleasured him twice during the past moon, before preparations had begun for the caribou hunt. He was named River Ice Dancer, and he was a young man full of himself. During their coupling, he had pretended he knew what he was doing, but his touch was rough and his attempts to enter her were fumbling and unsure. K’os blinked her eyes at him, and he puffed out his chest.

  Little boy, I have had nearly every man in this lodge, K’os thought. But she smiled at him and let him believe in his own importance.

  Dii came back with a boiling bag of hare meat and ptarmigan. Gull Wing took the bag from her as she crawled into the lodge, but few hunters asked for more food. Most were intent on what Anaay was saying. Bowls, some still partially full, lay forgotten on the floor.

  Anaay chanted a song that his dreams had brought him, and the words came to Dii in the rhythm of caribou hooves. Then he was suddenly quiet, and everyone in the lodge waited, hands still, eyes watching.

  Finally he said, “This I have heard in my caribou dreams. Three days we travel north, then two days toward the east.”

  The men let out their breath, and the noise was like a sigh, the sound of water rushing over sand. The old hunters began to sing, and the young hunters joined them.

  Anaay lifted his eyes to his wives and K’os, at the back of the lodge. He frowned and motioned for them to leave. There were plans and chants a woman should not hear.

  When they went outside, Dii stood in the lee of her lodge, watched Gull Beak and K’os walk away. Gull Beak was a thin, awkward woman. Her bones seemed too large for her skin, but K’os walked gracefully, her furred parka moving with her as though she were an animal in its own pelt.

  Dii wanted to stay close to the lodge, to see if Anaay’s voice carried through the caribou hide walls, but what wife would risk cursing her husband in such a way? Instead, she walked to a rock she had found at the river side of the village. It was a sheltered place, open to sun but shut away from the wind by trees that grew on either side. She climbed to the top, drew her knees up under her chin.

  Three days north, her husband had said, and two days toward the sun. She had felt the hooves of the caribou. She had even heard the clicking of their joints—a sacred rhythm The People had learned and imitated with their hoof rattlers and drums. And by morning, she had known the sound came from the west, and it was close, not nearly a five-day walk.

  She held her mind still for a time, scarcely taking a breath, waiting to see if she would hear them again, those caribou. But her head was filled with the sounds of the village, women’s voices, children playing, and the noise of the Near River as it flowed between its banks.

  But, of course, Anaay was right. How foolish to think she would hear the caribou. She was a woman, and not even from this village. No wonder she had heard all things wrong.

  THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

  “If the day is good,” Chakliux said, “we will go tomorrow.”

  Aqamdax shivered when she heard the words, though she had known as much before he spoke.

  She and Chakliux were sitting together at the place they had come to call Black Rock. Almost every day they found time to meet there. Sometimes they discussed the problems of their village; sometimes they followed the First Men custom and sat in silence.

  “How many will go?” Aqamdax asked.

  “Those of us who are hunters: Sok and I, Sky Watcher, Take More and Man Laughing. Sok will bring Cries-loud and Snow-in-her-hair. Sky Watcher will bring Bird Caller. Star has said she does not want to go, so Ligige’ will come.”

  “It will be a hard trip for Ligige’.”

  “She is strong, and she has a good dog.”

  “Night Man says we will stay.”

  “I know. I asked him if I might take you, since Star does not want to leave her mother.”

  Aqamdax caught her breath. “You asked if you could take me?”

  Chakliux lowered his head, combed his fingers through the fur ruff at the bottom of his parka. “I told him I would not expect the rights of hunting partner.”

  Aqamdax felt her cheeks burn. Hunting partners sometimes shared wives, especially on long trips when one wife went along to help butcher and the other stayed behind to watch over children too young or elders too weak to go.

  Aqamdax waited to see if Chakliux would say anything else, but he did not. She closed her eyes and let herself imagine what it would be like to follow Chakliux to the caribou. She had never been on a caribou hunt, but when she had lived in the Near River Village, the women had told her of the long days of walking, of building rock and brush fences to direct the animals to an enclosure where the men would kill them with strong birch-shaf
ted spears. Then the butchering would begin, and the packing of meat.

  Sometimes, if they were far from the village and the weather was warm so fresh meat would not freeze, they would stay where they were. The men would make racks, and the women would slice the meat thin to dry, but usually nights were cold enough to freeze the meat, and they would return to the village, laden with heavy packs.

  Each hunter owned a caribou hide lean-to. Aqamdax thought of herself sleeping in such a shelter with Chakliux, a fire at the open side to hold in their warmth. She imagined him next to her in the night, and felt the dangerous need that had driven her to many men’s beds when she had lived in the First Men Village.

  That was after her father drowned and her mother ran away with the River trader Cen. Aqamdax had had no one, and only when she was warm and close in a hunter’s arms could she feel safe.

  After Qung took her in, taught her to tell stories, the emptiness left her, had not returned even when Sok tried to trade her to the Walrus shaman, even when he threw her away. During all the moons she had lived among the Cousin River People, first as a slave, then as a wife, the emptiness had not returned. But now, with her baby dead and her hatred for Night Man growing, she felt as though her heart had become small, leaving a great empty space in her chest.

  Suddenly she was afraid to be alone with Chakliux. “I am going now,” she told him, but then leaned close to whisper. “I wish I could go with you. I wish you were Night Man’s hunting partner.”

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  That night the hunters woke with pains that twisted from belly to anus. They called first for Blue Flower, who sang her songs. When her singing did not stop their pain, they asked for Gull Beak and K’os, who gave them teas of salmonberry root. But Dii slept without knowing what had happened.

  Anaay, anxious to tell the men of his dreams, had eaten after everyone left, and by then only the hare and ptarmigan stew from the village hearths remained. He grumbled some, scolded Dii for not saving a portion of the moose meat for him. Didn’t she remember that moose stew was his favorite? What kind of wife was she to forget such a thing?