by Sue Harrison
“You do not need to be afraid,” First Eagle said, and there was a softness in his voice that surprised Ghaden. “We have come to get our wives. That is all.”
Ghaden swallowed down his fear, willed away his tears. “If they do not want to go with you,” he said in a quiet voice, “Sok and Chakliux will not make them.”
An old man joined them, then more Near River hunters. Ghaden had seen them all before. The old man was Fox Barking. He was a lazy one and often rude, but now he seemed to be telling the others what to do.
They began to talk. Most were angry, but First Eagle seemed only sad. No one was looking at Ghaden. He dropped to hands and knees and crawled out between their legs. Fox Barking caught him by his parka hood and lifted him up.
“Stay here!” Fox Barking said. “Do you think you are Cousin River now? Have you forgotten that you once lived with us?”
He set Ghaden down and thumped the dull end of his spear against Ghaden’s back. Ghaden slumped down, sat on his haunches until the men were ready to continue toward the camp. Most had argued against fighting, but others joked about killing the rest of the Cousin River People, being rid of them once and for all.
When they started walking, Fox Barking kept one hand twisted into Ghaden’s parka hood. Ghaden loosened the drawstring, but Fox Barking merely tightened his grip until Ghaden felt as though someone were choking him, but still he found enough air to say, “My sister, Yaa, is there in the Cousin camp.”
“Who?” Fox Barking asked.
“Yaa, my sister.” Ghaden tried to turn his head to see if Fox Barking understood, but the man’s grip was too tight. “She is not Cousin. Do not kill her.”
Chakliux had asked three of the newly returned Cousin women to stay near the brush fence and call out if they saw one of the boys sent as watchers. A foolish decision, Chakliux told himself when the first woman screamed that she had seen Near River hunters. The other two began to cry, one falling to the ground and sobbing so hard that all the Cousin men came running from one of the tents, spears in their hands.
“They have attacked?” Sok asked.
Chakliux blew out his breath in disgust and tilted his head toward the three women. “No, but they saw something.”
“Probably a ground squirrel,” Take More said.
“No,” said Sok. “Look. Near River men.”
The Near River men walked openly, without trying to hide themselves or their weapons. As they drew close, Fox Barking pushed his way from the center of the group, and Chakliux could see he had Ghaden.
“Ghaden,” Sok said, lifting his chin toward the boy. “But what about Cries-loud and Black Stick?”
“Say nothing,” Chakliux told him. “The women do not need to worry about their sons.”
Then he heard the sharp intake of a breath, saw that Black Stick’s mother was peering over a low spot in the fence. Chakliux waited for an explosion of tears and mourning cries, but she straightened, held her head high, as though she herself were a warrior, and stood waiting, one hand clasping the woman’s knife that hung from a sheath around her neck.
The Near River men stopped a few paces from the brush fence, and Fox Barking called out, “You see, I have one of your boys. He says he’s a Cousin warrior, though he tells me that his sister is Near River.”
Ghaden heard the ridicule in the man’s voice, and he struggled against Fox Barking’s hold, but the man twisted his fist more tightly into the hood so that Ghaden could scarcely breathe.
“You have our wives?”
Chakliux looked at Sok, and Sok said, “Speak for us.”
Sky Watcher nodded his agreement, but Night Man averted his eyes.
“Each woman here is sister or mother, daughter or cousin,” Chakliux said. “None is wife.”
The Near River hunter Many Words stepped forward, raised a throwing lance over his head. “You lie, Chakliux,” he said. “I thought Dzuuggi were forbidden to lie. My wife, Owl Catcher, is there with you.”
“Any man who calls my brother a liar is a fool,” Sok said.
Many Words continued his insults, but Chakliux cut him off. “The women in this camp are here by choice. Are Near River women no longer allowed to throw away their husbands?”
“There is one who is not wife but slave,” Fox Barking said. “Perhaps she has not told you that.”
“Which one?” Chakliux asked, though he knew.
“The woman K’os.”
“We are lucky that only K’os is slave,” Chakliux told the Cousin men. “I thought there might be more.”
“You see,” Fox Barking called, “I have found a small slave of my own.”
He lifted Ghaden by his parka hood. The boy flailed out with feet and fists, finally landing a kick that made Fox Barking drop him. Ghaden scrambled to his feet and ran toward the brush fence. Fox Barking drew back his spear and threw it, butt first. It slammed into the center of Ghaden’s back. He cried out and fell to the ground.
Several Cousin men raised voices in anger, but Fox Barking merely smiled, and the scar that marked his face drew one side of his lips high to show his teeth.
Then Chakliux heard a scream, and before he could stop her, Star had torn her way through the brush fence. Aqamdax went after her, knelt with her beside Ghaden. Then Chakliux, too, began to break through the fence, but Sok caught him by the shoulders, shouted at him until Chakliux was still.
“They might not harm a woman,” Sok said, “but you…”
“Would the Near Rivers have survived the first Cousin attack if I had not told them what to do?” Chakliux asked. “Each man out there owes me his life. You know that.”
“I know that,” Sok said, “but anger makes a man forget his debts. And his honor.”
Sok gestured toward Sky Watcher and Man Laughing, Take More and Night Man. Each stood ready, spears and throwing boards in their hands.
Then Chakliux and Sok also lifted their weapons. Chakliux took in deep breaths to keep his hands from shaking as he set the notched end of a spear into the chip of ivory that held it in place on his spear thrower.
Aqamdax raised her head, looked at Fox Barking. He was a coward, full of fear and of hatred, angry with those who showed wisdom or courage and disdaining any he considered weaker than himself. She could feel the reassuring beat of Ghaden’s heart under the tips of her fingers. Fox Barking’s spear had knocked the wind from the boy. She prayed it had not broken his spine. She leaned down, saw Ghaden’s eyelids flicker.
“You are all right?” she asked.
Star had been screaming since she saw Ghaden fall, cursing Fox Barking and the Near River men. But Aqamdax was able to capture one of her hands, to hold her fingers to a pulse point at the side of Ghaden’s neck. The woman’s eyes widened, and she stopped screaming, though tears still coursed down her face.
“He is not dead. He is not even hurt,” Fox Barking said. “But do not try to take him. I caught him. He is my slave—to do with as I wish.”
“You would enslave a boy from your own village?” Aqamdax asked. She looked into his face, then in insult cut her eyes quickly away. “This man leads you?” Aqamdax said to the other River hunters. “I was with your people only a few moons, but still I remember that he often stayed home when others were hunting. I remember that his second wife’s lodge was falling apart, yet he could not keep his eyes or hands from the young girls.” She shook her head. “And he leads you?”
Fox Barking pulled a short, thrusting lance from the sheath slung on his back.
Aqamdax wondered if he would risk killing her. Who was she to speak in such a way to hunters? Why should they listen to a woman, especially one who did not even carry River blood? But she knew Fox Barking was a coward. Surely he would realize that Cousin men had spears ready. She waited for his ridicule, his insults, but when he spoke, he said, “I am Anaay, Caribou Singer. I lead these people. Our village is large and strong. We defeated the Cousin warriors. What are they to you? We heard you were only a slave here.”
“It
is true, I came as slave, but now I am wife, and as wife I have chosen to stay. This boy does not belong to you, as slave or by his choice. He is Cousin.”
“He was Near River before he was Cousin, and that is something you cannot change.”
“He is my brother by blood, through our mother, who was killed in your village. If he cannot be Cousin because first he was Near River, then it must be true that he cannot be Near River because first he was Sea Hunter.”
Fox Barking’s eyes narrowed, and his face reddened. “He knows nothing of Sea Hunters. How can he be something he has never seen? You are foolish—”
One of the other Near River men interrupted, speaking softly so that Aqamdax could make out only a few words, but Star whispered, “He tells Fox Barking that there are more important things to think about than Ghaden.”
Aqamdax nodded, leaned down to ask Ghaden if he could move. “I’m not hurt,” he said, and Aqamdax could hear the impatience in his voice. “I’m sorry I got caught.”
He raised himself to hands and knees, arched his back then got to his feet. When Fox Barking saw him, he let out a roar.
“We are going back inside our camp,” Aqamdax said.
“Prove that he is Sea Hunter!” Fox Barking demanded. “If he is, I will let him go!”
Aqamdax caught her lip in her teeth. How could she prove such a thing?
Ghaden turned to Fox Barking and, holding himself very straight, said, “Tutxakuxtxin hi? Unangax uting.”
Aqamdax covered her mouth in surprise. Who had taught Ghaden First Men words? Their mother?
“What did he say?” Fox Barking asked.
“He speaks the language of our people, the First Men,” Aqamdax answered. “The ones you call Sea Hunters. He asks, ‘Can you hear?’ Then he tells you he is of the First Men.”
Fox Barking stood with his mouth open in surprise, and Aqamdax pushed Ghaden ahead of her through the brush fence. She did not see Star pick up Fox Barking’s spear, but looked back as she heard the man cry out. It was a beautiful spear, the birch shaft fletched with dark feathers and capped with a walrus ivory foreshaft, a heavy chert point. It was banded in the black and white of a Near River weapon but also carried Fox Barking’s ownership marks of blue and yellow.
Star raised her head and looked into Fox Barking’s eyes. She drew the chert point across her arm, smiled as she cursed the spear with woman’s blood.
Chapter Twenty-nine
AFTER ARGUMENTS AND DISCUSSION, the Cousin River men finally agreed that the Near Rivers could speak to those women who had been their wives. They met just outside the brush fence, and Chakliux or Sok stood beside each of the women, pressing a hand to sheathed knives hung at their waists when any man tried to force a woman to come with him.
Three wives decided to go back with their husbands. Each of those women had no close family members still alive among the Cousin River People, and one was pregnant with her Near River husband’s child. The other women chose to stay, and to Chakliux’s surprise, one of the Near River men, First Eagle, asked permission to join his wife, Awl, in the Cousin camp.
Night Man and Sky Watcher voiced their disagreement, but Sok said First Eagle was a good hunter and praised him for his courage. Awl was his first wife, a niece to Twisted Stalk. They could not doubt that she was a strong woman. She had managed the walk to the Cousin camp in spite of broken ribs.
Besides, Sok said, they needed another hunter in their village, many more hunters. Chakliux, Man Laughing and Take More agreed with Sok, and so First Eagle was allowed to stay. Then there was only Fox Barking and his demands to have K’os returned to him as slave.
“She is not wife,” he called out.
Who could disagree? And who among the Cousin River People truly wanted K’os back with them?
“She is your mother, you must decide,” Sok told Chakliux.
“I will speak to him,” K’os said. “I’m not afraid. I will tell him I belong to my son, Chakliux.”
Chakliux looked down at K’os, at her beautiful face. A man who only glanced at that face, and at K’os’s lithe body, would believe she was young, but when a man looked into her eyes could he think she was anything but evil?
She pushed back her parka hood, pulled her hair out of the pins that held it in place behind her head. Glistening black, it fell past her waist, as shining as obsidian. She looked over her shoulder at the men standing around Chakliux.
“Perhaps there is one here who would be my husband,” she said. Sok laughed, and Sky Watcher shook his head, but Take More narrowed his eyes, seemed to consider her offer.
“There are few among us who want to die as your husbands have died,” Chakliux said.
Take More’s eyes widened, and Chakliux hoped he was remembering the stories of Name Giver’s slow death, the disease that seemed to eat his belly until he could do nothing but vomit blood. And who would want to burn as Ground Beater had in a stranger’s lodge?
Then Take More, too, turned away, and the softness in K’os’s face turned to hatred.
“You, Chakliux,” she snarled, “I cannot believe I call you son! Any other man would have arranged to buy his mother’s freedom. Have you forgotten that you owe me your life?”
“That debt was paid by Gguzaakk and our son,” Chakliux told her, his words bitter and edged with grief.
He thought he saw a flicker of fear in K’os’s eyes, but it left so quickly he was not sure. Could she be afraid of Gguzaakk’s spirit? Did she feel Gguzaakk’s presence, as he sometimes did? Or was she truly afraid that he would not stand with her against Fox Barking and the Near River men?
“We go now,” he said, grasping a spear in his left hand. He lifted his chin toward the dog K’os had brought with her, told her to bring him.
When she opened her mouth to protest, Chakliux said, “You are afraid I will offer a trade for the dog and not you?”
Then K’os was quiet and followed him from the camp, through the brush fence to the Near River men.
Anaay tensed when he saw Chakliux. His best spear lay tainted on the ground, and though he had others, it was not good for a man to fight without his strongest weapon. K’os followed Chakliux leading the golden-eyed dog she had stolen.
A riddle came to his mind, and Anaay laughed at his own cunning.
“Look! What do I see?” he called. “Three dogs.” He frowned when Chakliux showed no reaction to the insult. Then he said, “You have brought her back to me. Or perhaps you want to buy her for yourself.” He laughed, long, hard. “What do you offer?” he finally said. “She is worth a caribou just for a night in your bed.”
“I would give that for her,” River Ice Dancer said.
Anaay flicked his fingers at him in insult.
“Of course, being her son,” Anaay said to Chakliux, “you have probably not enjoyed her that way.” But he stuck his tongue into his cheek, implying otherwise. Several of the Near River men laughed.
“I do not want her,” Chakliux said.
K’os screamed out a curse.
Chakliux said, “Two caribou for the dog.”
“No,” Anaay answered.
But Least Weasel stepped forward. He was a tall, thin man, his face like a hawk’s face, with small round eyes and a hooked nose. He looked down at Anaay, pushed past him to Chakliux. “The dog is my father’s,” he said. “We did not have a good hunt this year, Chakliux. I will take three caribou for him, with the hides.”
“Our women have already butchered and boned the caribou. I will give you the meat of three, the intestines of one, stuffed with fat and dried berries, plus two hides.”
“And two bladders, scraped for use as water carriers.”
“Done,” Chakliux said.
He left K’os, went back through the brush fence, then he, Sok and Sky Watcher came out carrying the meat and hides he had promised. When he brought the last of the meat, Anaay stepped forward and took K’os’s arm, began to pull her away.
K’os spit at Chakliux and hissed, “I wis
h I had left you on the Grandfather Rock. You need to be dead.”
Then Chakliux said, “The same price for K’os that I gave for the dog.”
Anaay looked at Chakliux, then at K’os. Suddenly in the dark centers of her eyes he saw himself again as a young man lying between her legs, thrusting into her until the blood flowed. He released his clasp on her arm so quickly that she nearly fell.
“I will take the caribou,” he said.
When Chakliux returned with K’os, the men in the camp would not look at him. Even Sok turned away, muttering insults about women like K’os.
“Go help Aqamdax,” Chakliux told K’os. “There is much to do.” He turned his back on her, stood looking out through the brush fence as the Near River men left carrying the meat Chakliux had given.
“Do you have any men or women injured?” K’os asked, standing beside him. Then she drew in her breath, pointed at movement in the alders near the river.
Chakliux squinted, then one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile as Cries-loud and Black Stick darted through the hole in the brush fence. He called out for Snow-in-her-hair and Black Stick’s mother. They greeted the boys with tears.
“In this camp today,” Chakliux told K’os, “you will help the women.”
“I am your mother. Do not consider yourself my owner,” K’os said.
“My mother is dead,” Chakliux replied. “Today, you are slave and will help the women. Tomorrow, you are free. You will leave us in the morning.” Chakliux clasped the front of her parka, gripped tightly. “For Gguzaakk, for my son, I should have killed you long ago. Take the freedom I give you and be grateful.”
He released his grip on her, and she hissed out, “You have given me death!”
“I know you better than that, K’os,” he said. He lifted his chin toward a storage lean-to beside his tent. “You can clean that out. It is shelter enough for one night. In the morning, you will leave.”
She turned her back on him, and he took the golden-eyed dog, tied it at the side of his lean-to, then he went from tent to tent, looking at all the dogs in the camp. At Sok’s lean-to, he stopped, stood for a moment considering. He jumped when Sok, who had come up to stand behind him, began to speak.
