The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

Cen used a stick to knock the ashes from the banked hearth coals, then fed the fire until it blazed. He brought her a water bladder, and she sat up, made a show of swallowing.

  “Yes, that is good,” she told him. She took a long breath, then suddenly doubled over, retching. “Go get K’os, Husband,” she gasped out. “She has medicine…”

  “You think I want that woman in this lodge?” he asked. “There are others in the village who know something about healing.”

  “Bring K’os,” Red Leaf said, forcing tears from her eyes, pleading until finally he went, muttering his disagreement.

  Red Leaf lay still, listened until she was sure he had left the entrance tunnel, then she crept close to the fire, kept her face near the flames until her skin felt tight and swollen from the heat. When she finally heard voices at the lodge entrance, she went back to her bed, lay on her side and moaned.

  Cen came into the lodge, and Red Leaf made herself shake as though she were cold. K’os was with him, as well as Sand Fly and a second old woman—Near Mouse.

  “Near Mouse has medicine, Gheli,” Cen said, and Red Leaf stopped shaking enough to glance at K’os, to see the woman’s almost imperceptible nod.

  Near Mouse squatted in front of the hearth, demanded a cup of water.

  “Hot?” Cen asked.

  The old woman, rude in her sudden importance, answered Cen with a quick slash of one hand. He gave her a water bladder. From a pouch hung at her neck, she withdrew a gnarled and blackened root, bit off a piece and chewed it. When it was pulp, she spat it into the cup and squeezed water over it; she stirred the mixture with one finger and handed the cup to Cen.

  “Make her drink it,” she said.

  Again Red Leaf stopped her shaking long enough to glance at K’os, but this time the woman gave her no sign. What was best? Did Near Mouse know what she was doing? Or was the root some other kind of poison, perhaps even stronger than baneberry? But no, whatever was in the cup could not be poison. Near Mouse would not risk chewing it herself if it was. Of course, K’os might have tricked the woman, slipped in some kind of poison, and with K’os, who could doubt that she would do such a thing?

  Cen helped Red Leaf sit up. He raised the cup to her lips, but Red Leaf took it from his hands, lifted it with trembling fingers. She pressed the cup to her lips, tipped it, then pretended a quick and violent tremor. She dropped the cup, and Near Mouse howled out her disgust, but there was no change in K’os’s face, no dismay, only amusement.

  “I have something that will be easier for her,” K’os said, and took the familiar packet from her medicine bag, untied the four red knots. She picked up the cup, dumped out what remained of Near Mouse’s medicine, ignored the old woman’s tantrums and shook powder into the cup. She filled it with water and handed it to Cen.

  Red Leaf glanced at her, and K’os shifted her eyes to the baby sleeping in her cradleboard. When Cen offered her the cup, Red Leaf drank without protest.

  THE HUNTERS’ SPRING

  “I should have seal oil,” Aqamdax said to Snow Hawk.

  After Take More left her, she set up a lean-to, but the sticks she used for tent poles were those she found in the woods nearest the spring, and the branches were weak and crooked. She thought with longing of the fine, straight poles she had left behind in the Cousin River Village, but then remembered what else was in that village.

  She was afraid to make a fire, afraid the smoke would be seen, but she coaxed Snow Hawk into the lean-to, and they slept together, each giving heat to the other. Oil—burned in a stone lamp in the manner of her own people—would have given more than enough heat to warm her tent, and made little smoke, but where would she get seal oil except by trade, and what did she have to give in exchange?

  At sunrise, she tethered Snow Hawk to a tree near her tent, told the dog to be quiet, then strapped on her snowshoes and went to set loop snares in the animal trails that led to the spring. It was nearly dusk by the time she finished. She squatted beside the last trap and looked up at the branches that patterned the sky.

  She was tired and cold. She asked herself why she should even worry about traps. Would it matter if she caught enough to live for a few more days? If Chakliux was alive, he would come for her soon. She had food to last until then, but if he was dead, why should she live? Better to be with him and her son in death than here alone, far from her own people.

  She laid her head on her arms and sat until the long shadows faded into winter twilight. The cold had nearly lulled her into sleep when something hit solidly against her side. She screamed and jumped to her feet. It was Snow Hawk, trailing a chewed line, the dog wiggling like a puppy, curling herself around Aqamdax’s legs.

  Like all village dogs, Snow Hawk was as wild as she was tame, kept in her place with threats and blows, a tether and the promise of food. What had made her come to find Aqamdax when she had won her freedom?

  Aqamdax stood and with stiff fingers took a knife from its scabbard at her waist. She cut the tether tied around Snow Hawk’s neck. “You belong to yourself now,” she told the dog. “If you hope to live, you will have to hunt. Keep away from the village. There is no place for you there, at least until Chakliux returns. Stay with me if you want.”

  Aqamdax did not allow herself regret when Snow Hawk ran away through the trees, nor did she shed the tears that pressed into the corners of her eyes when she found Snow Hawk at her tent waiting for her.

  CHAKLIUX’S CAMP

  Sok lived in the confusion brought by his grief, so that during his fast he forgot he was in a small shelter with his brother, his vision bound by the darkness of its walls.

  In his thoughts, he was again in Snow-in-her-hair’s bed, then with Aqamdax in those long-ago days when he had won her as wife by trickery. Someone offered him broth, hot and full of the sweet smell of caribou. Red Leaf? Did her hands cup that bowl? He slapped her away. Then the bowl was gone, and the smell of meat.

  His dreams moved him to a lodge where he was knapping a spearhead. He made his chips straight and narrow across the breadth of the blade. But why was the blade shaped with blunt base and straight sides? Would the caribou honor a spearhead like that? He threw the stone away in disgust, and someone laid it back on his lap.

  “It is wrong!” Sok said, his voice angling into the high scream of a child. “What man would use it? What caribou would honor it?” Then he saw again the close walls of his brother’s hunting tent, the coals white with ash, hiding heat like a heartbeat at the center of the hearth.

  He looked up and saw that Chakliux stood beside him. “What do we hunt?” Sok asked.

  “Caribou,” he heard Chakliux say.

  “We hunt caribou?”

  This time Sok heard no answer. He reached out for his brother, and his hand closed over nothing. He began to wail, and the sound of his own voice woke him.

  He sat up in his bedding furs, reached for the bowl of broth thrust at him, reached not for the food but toward the one who offered it, closed his hand around his brother’s arm.

  THE HUNTERS’ SPRING

  The next day Aqamdax’s traps took their first hare. She cut the flesh into thin strips, and she and Snow Hawk ate some raw, then she hung the rest to freeze and dry at the top of her lean-to. By then, she and the dog had begun to learn the woods that surrounded the spring.

  The trees were spread in the shape of a tear, the rounded end south, the pointed end north, as though to show the way to the Cousin River Village. The spring was set at the center of the point, protected on the east by a ridge that boasted a few spruce and a gathering of cottonwoods.

  Even after the coldest night, the springwater still bubbled, and the steam of its breath formed a cloud in the air. Ice webbed the edges of the pool only where the water flowed back into the earth. Berry thickets crowded close to the west side, black currant and highbush cranberry. Aqamdax filled a caribou bladder with berries, withered and sweetened by the cold.

  She found eight more animal trails and set traps in each, and once dared
to leave the protection of the woods for the tundra, where she scared up ptarmigan from their tiny snow caves and took them with her bola as they began their flight, wings slowed by the remains of their sleep.

  She promised herself she would return to hunt again, and in the summer would find the hollow-sounding places that told of mouse food caches. Like the River children, she would dig out the small tubers the mice had stored for winter. Then, with a sudden catch of her breath, she reminded herself that she would not be in this place that long. By then Chakliux would have found her.

  Even yet today, he might be back at the village. Then Take More would tell him that she was alive, here, waiting for him at the Hunters’ Spring.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

  “I HAVE ENOUGH FOOD for both of us,” Dii said to her aunt, her voice soft as she strove to keep the fear from her words.

  “Near River food,” Twisted Stalk spat out. “You think I would take meat from them? Why not ask me to eat my own children, boil the bones of my grandsons!”

  “First Eagle will take me as wife,” Dii said softly, but she already knew her aunt’s reply.

  “He is Near River! What if he was the one who killed your brothers? How could you give a son to a man like that? What if your father’s spirit came to that son and demanded that he take First Eagle’s life? Could you deny your father his vengeance?”

  “Let me go to Take More or Sky Watcher,” Dii said.

  “Take More is old and already has three wives,” Twisted Stalk told her. “Sky Watcher hunts for too many of the elders. Who, except me, does not claim him as nephew?”

  “Aunt…”

  “I do not hear you,” Twisted Stalk said, and raised her hands to cover her ears. “I promised, and you will go. He expects you now in the lodge where he lives. You are wife. Show your gratitude.”

  THE HUNTERS’ SPRING

  Aqamdax walked to the south end of the woods. There, a flat, marshy area was enclosed by the trees. Even now, in winter, the grass stood golden above the snow, still and stiff on this day without wind. She clutched Take More’s spear in her right hand, a cluster of sticks, each sharpened to a point, in her left. The weapon Take More had given her felt awkward, the stone point heavy and out of balance with the slender shaft. She had seen many spears but, being a woman, had held only those made as a child’s practice toy: sticks with fire-hardened points. Take More’s spear was made in the manner of the River People, the spearhead knapped from quartz, one of the stones the River People considered sacred. She knew he had given it to her only because a large chip of stone was broken from one side of the head.

  She thrust the butt end of the spear into the snow, so the weapon could watch her as she practiced. She called Snow Hawk to her side so the dog would not stray into the paths of her sharpened sticks, and then she began to throw, marking as her target a twist of grass the wind had bent in upon itself. Her first throw was poor, without enough strength for the stick to reach the grass, but her second and third were closer, and finally she was throwing with enough force, though each of her tries fell to the left of her target.

  Snow Hawk had curled herself into a ball, face covered by her tail, but as Aqamdax prepared to throw her last stick, the dog raised her head and whined.

  “You think I cannot learn to do this?” Aqamdax asked her. “What is so difficult about throwing a spear? Remember the men who have learned to do it—Fox Barking, Night Man, even boys no older than Ghaden.”

  Speaking her brother’s name aloud brought a sudden catch to Aqamdax’s throat, and she gritted her teeth, picked up the last of the sticks. She could not waste time on tears if she was to survive until Chakliux came for her. There had been moose tracks twice now at the spring. For a moment she allowed herself to imagine a bull moose, still fat during this early winter. What made stronger boots than moose hide? What tasted better than a stew of moose meat? She hefted the stick, found the place on the shaft where it lay balanced in her hand, raised her arm and threw. It hit her target, stood quivering in the twisted grass.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  Throughout the day Red Leaf lay on her bed, clutching her belly. K’os came again just before dark, gave Red Leaf more of the powder, this time mixed into a tea flavored by a few dried berries.

  “You did not feed the baby?” K’os asked.

  “I have not,” Red Leaf told her.

  “I asked old Brown Foot’s wife to come and feed her for you,” K’os said.

  Red Leaf grimaced. “You think that old woman would risk coming into this lodge when I am sick? She is afraid when she hears a dilk’ahoo cry. Everything to her is a curse.”

  “Who, then?” K’os snapped. “Sand Fly?”

  “I have heard she still nurses children.”

  “That old one, she will expect payment. She does nothing without wanting something in return.”

  Red Leaf wrapped her arms around her belly and moaned, but did not take her eyes from K’os. “Get her. My daughter needs to be fed.”

  K’os, grumbling her complaints, left the lodge, and when she was gone, Red Leaf sat up. “Do not ask for my sympathy, K’os,” Red Leaf whispered. “Like me, you have made your own troubles.”

  In the evening, when the sun had set, K’os brought several old women to Red Leaf’s lodge. Sand Fly was among them, and she nursed the baby during her visit, making a show of the thin blue milk she still carried in her shriveled breasts. Red Leaf stayed on her bed, moaning out her gratitude in broken words and tears, sure in her thanks to mention K’os and her medicines, especially her kindness to Cen, and when Sand Fly finally made excuses for the women to leave, Red Leaf saw that they watched K’os from the corners of their eyes, were careful not to touch her or look into her face.

  When Cen came to the lodge that night, his mouth was pinched with worry. From her bed, Red Leaf held out her hand. He knelt beside her, and she whispered, “Please, Husband, I need K’os to stay with me tonight.”

  Cen shook his head. “What can she do that I cannot?” he asked.

  “She has medicine,” Red Leaf said. Suddenly she stiffened, jerked, began to cry. “Please,” she said, and begged until Cen agreed.

  He went to K’os, and Red Leaf stretched herself out on her bed, easing the muscles that had cramped in her legs. She smiled, closed her eyes and waited.

  CHAKLIUX’S CAMP

  Chakliux added more sticks to their fire. For two days Sok had slept, waking once to go outside and relieve himself, but even then he had moved as if he were asleep, and he had not responded to Chakliux’s questions.

  Chakliux wondered if Snow-in-her-hair, unable to take her husband with a storm, had come into Sok’s sleep, called him instead through his dreams. But then Chakliux told himself that his brother only needed to rest. If Snow-in-her-hair had sent the storms, the violence of their wind and ice, her dreams would also carry her anger. Would Sok be lying quietly if Snow had lured him into sleep?

  Chakliux calmed his mind by telling stories. His words circled the small shelter, warmed the walls and spread themselves over Sok like a blanket. Perhaps those stories would be strong enough to push Snow-in-her-hair back into the spirit world, he thought. Perhaps the words would remind Sok that he was a hunter, that he had two sons still here in this world of the living.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  Red Leaf opened her eyes in the darkness and sat up. Cen and K’os were asleep on opposite sides of the lodge, and Sand Fly had taken the baby for the night. Red Leaf packed blankets and mats under a sleeping robe to make it look as if she were still in her bed, then she crept to the peg where she kept her parka and leggings. She took her clothing into the entrance tunnel, dressed and slipped out into the night.

  The wind cut through the village, lifting loose snow into drifts. Another storm? she wondered. She moved from lodge to lodge, taking slow steps, staying away from the places dogs were tied. She tucked herself into the darkness at the side of K’os’s entrance tunnel,
waited, listening. It had not been so long ago that she had done the same thing in the Near River Village, but then she had planned to kill an old man. She had known she could overpower him if he fought her.

  This would be more difficult. River Ice Dancer was strong. She would have to act quickly.

  She slipped into the entrance tunnel. Waited until her heart slowed. If they found her now, she would act confused, would say she had come for more medicine. The thought gave her courage.

  She pulled off boots, leggings and parka, untied her hair so it hung loose behind her ears, then she listened at the inner doorflap. There was no sound other than a man’s snores. Red Leaf patted the knife that hung in its scabbard at her waist and crawled into the lodge. She waited again to see if the cold that had come with her from the entrance tunnel would wake River Ice Dancer. It would be more difficult to explain why she was here now, nearly naked, though perhaps she could pretend madness.

  River Ice Dancer moaned, and Red Leaf’s heart seemed to move into her throat, blocking her breath, but then he was quiet. She stood to pull one of K’os’s parkas from its peg, draped it over her arm, then moved to the hearth fire. She sighed her relief when she saw Ko’s’s knife on one of the hearth stones. It was a sleeve knife, made like a man’s, and K’os usually left it there, but Red Leaf had been afraid she would take it with her to Cen’s lodge. How much better to use that knife than her own.

  Red Leaf picked up the knife and went to River Ice Dancer’s bed. She slipped her left hand in under his hare fur blankets, ran her fingers up his legs until she found his penis, flaccid in his sleep.

  He startled, then gave a short laugh. Red Leaf lowered her head to his, pressed close, brushing her hair forward so he would think she was K’os.

  “Sh-h,” she whispered, and began to stroke him.

  She got into his bed, climbed up to straddle him. Then she took the parka and, trying to imitate K’os’s laugh, shoved it down over his face. He began to protest, and, with her left hand, Red Leaf pushed a corner of the parka into his open mouth. He bit down, but it was a gentle biting, and she knew he thought K’os was teasing him. He heaved against her, but she pulled her hand from his mouth, raised it to clasp his hair, then slid the knife into his throat.