by Sue Harrison
Old Woman did not want to see what it might reveal. The smell was too overpowering, but the girl began to cry, so Old Woman carried her to the stern. With two fingers, she pulled aside the otter skin, and she gasped when she saw the man.
At first she thought he was dead, he was so pale, his eyes so sunken. His left arm was propped awkwardly on the edge of the dugout, and the skin had been torn away from wrist to elbow.
The girl pointed to him and said something. A name, Old Woman guessed. The man’s chest moved in a shallow breath, as though in response to the sound of the girl’s voice. Old Woman repeated the word, then laid a hand against the child’s chest. She screwed up her face as though she had been insulted and said a different word. Old Woman repeated it, stroked the girl’s head, then patted her own chest.
“They call me Old Woman,” she said, “though that is not my true name.” She pointed at herself and said, “K’os.”
The girl looked into K’os’s eyes, pointed one small finger at K’os’s face. “K’os,” she said solemnly.
PART TWO
Chapter Ten
Herendeen Bay, Alaska Peninsula
602 B.C.
“K’OS!” YIKAAS HISSED UNDER his breath.
Kuy’aa shushed him, but the name rang out loud in the earthen lodge. Qumalix stopped her story and looked at him, arched her brows in question. Yikaas turned his head and pretended to be interested in something near the curtained alcoves at the side of the lodge, but the girl was not shy, and she called, “Why do you interrupt?”
Yikaas bristled. Had she never been taught the correct way to address a Dzuuggi? She should have said, “There is one here who may desire to speak.” Or better yet, “Sitting here with us is a great storyteller, well-known among the River and the Sea Hunter peoples. Would that one wish to say something?”
The girl treated him as though he were a child. He paused to gather his thoughts and rise above the anger that urged him to address her rudely.
“Honored storyteller of the Sea Hunters,” he said to her, “surely you do not speak to me?”
“Yes, I do.” There was no respect in her words. “We are not Sea Hunters or even Whale Hunters, as the River People call us. We are First Men, the first to come to this land and to live on these beaches.”
That claim had long been disputed by the River People, as the girl obviously knew. Yikaas heard a murmur of protest from the River traders in the lodge, then, like a low growl, the response of the First Men. The power the girl had inadvertently given him brought a rush of joy. He could lead all the River People out of the lodge. They would follow him. He began to stand, but Kuy’aa jabbed him with her elbow and said, “A Dzuuggi defends peace, not discord.”
He sighed and sat down again, heard a release of breath move through the lodge.
“My apologies,” he said to the girl, his voice taut with anger.
She smiled and inclined her head as though bestowing a favor.
Sharp words rushed into his mouth, but he pressed his lips tightly against them, swallowed them whole. They lay in his belly like knives.
“You have heard of K’os?” the girl asked.
“She was a River woman who lived long ago,” Yikaas answered, “though we River have no pride in claiming her.”
“Our stories of K’os begin with Daughter,” Qumalix said, “the little girl whom K’os would name Uuluk. Can you tell us more about K’os?” Qumalix was no longer taunting him, but seemed interested in what he had to say.
Yikaas sighed. Why K’os? There were so many stories about honorable people.
“There are better tales,” he said.
“But K’os seems to belong to both your people and mine.”
“Yes,” he agreed, glad to have her claim the woman. He drew in a long breath, then said, “The first stories we have about K’os tell of three River hunters who attacked her. They injured her so badly that she could never have children. According to those stories, she spent her life seeking revenge.”
Qumalix nodded. “I have heard those stories. The honored woman who sits beside you told them once when we had gathered at the Walrus Hunters’ village.” She lifted her chin toward Kuy’aa, and the old woman murmured a few First Men words that Yikaas did not understand.
“I have also heard the Chakliux stories. He was the child K’os adopted as her son. We have heard about the fighting between K’os’s River village and a neighboring village, how Chakliux—a man by then and trained as Dzuuggi—tried to bring peace, but K’os tricked the people into war. We have also heard how K’os betrayed her own village, and that Chakliux was able to save many of the people of that village, even after their defeat. We know about the woman Aqamdax. She was one of our own, a great First Men storyteller. She loved Chakliux and became his wife, although she had once been a slave of the River People.”
Qumalix said the last words spitefully, as if what happened long ago were still an insult. Why bring up such a thing? Yikaas wondered. Didn’t First Men storytellers also take on the role of peacemaker?
“We, too, honor the woman Aqamdax,” he said carefully. “Her stories have been passed on, storyteller to storyteller, among the River People, so we will not forget how to forgive.”
When he said this, Yikaas looked boldly into Qumalix’s eyes, and to his surprise, she blushed.
She glanced away, brushed at the feathers of her parka, then squatted on her haunches, feet flat on the floor, arms clasped around her upraised knees. She lifted her chin, as though encouraging him to stand, and said, “Like the River People, we usually tell our stories while sitting, but there are too many in the lodge who would not hear you. Would you tell us more about K’os?”
Yikaas was so surprised at her request that he turned to ask Kuy’aa what he should do. From the corners of his eyes he saw Qumalix smile, and he felt the blood rush to his face. Was he a child who had to ask permission? To hide his embarrassment, he leaned toward the old woman, brushed his cheek against hers, and whispered, “Will I insult anyone by doing this?”
She smiled at him, her teeth no more than nubs above her gums. “Tell your story,” she said.
He made his way to the girl’s side, and with all politeness asked her to translate for him. She stood reluctantly, but Yikaas began his story without apology. She was the one who had asked him to speak. He had not begged for the opportunity.
“My story begins a few years before Daughter’s story, and of course, it begins with K’os,” Yikaas said. He spoke in a storyteller’s voice, pitched deep to reach everyone in the lodge. “The evil in K’os had been there so long that it had rotted its way into her spirit,” he said. “Like the otter meat in Daughter’s boat, it had melded into her flesh.”
A hiss of appreciation rose from the River People, and Yikaas smiled. He paused, and Qumalix spoke, translating his words into her people’s language. The First Men nodded their interest, murmured their approval, and so the story continued, First Men and River words twisting around one another, twining like the weaver strands of a fine grass basket.
The River People’s Village, Near Iliamna Lake, Alaska Early Spring, 6452 B.C.
K’OS’S STORY
K’os stood in front of the elders’ council, held her trembling so tightly within her heart that she could smile in spite of her anger.
“She has been a good slave for you?” Chakliux asked Gull Beak.
Gull Beak shrugged. “She taught me much about plants, but …” The old woman paused.
It seemed to K’os that through the years Gull Beak had come to look even more like a bird, with her small close-set eyes and a nose that hung nearly to her chin. Her back had narrowed and sprouted a hump, and her arms and legs, always too large for her body, seemed grotesquely so.
“But?” Chakliux asked.
“But it is sometimes frightening when a slave knows more than you do.”
He gestured toward K’os’s hands. They were misshapen, the knuckles swollen, fingers bent like claws. “Is she still
able to sew?” he asked.
“Yes. She makes beautiful parkas.”
K’os locked her eyes onto Chakliux’s face. Sometime during this discussion he would look at her. She conjured tears to soften her gaze.
“I’m not a man who condones slavery,” Chakliux said. “I think it is better for us that we own no slaves.”
There was a murmur of protest from two of the elders: Gull Beak herself and the stuttering Sun Caller.
Wolf Head stood. He was tall; the thick thatch of his black and gray hair nearly brushed the domed caribou hide roof. “You would set her free?” he asked. “You can’t trust her. Remember what she did to that young man whom I once called son? She bewitched him into taking her as wife, then made him steal everything from my cache. Now he is dead, as she should be.”
K’os opened her mouth to protest. Was it her fault that men wanted her? Who could have guessed that the boy would steal a bride price from his father? Who could have guessed that someone would kill him so soon after he became her husband?
“I know as much about this woman as anyone,” Chakliux said, “the evil she has done. My own wife was her slave, but there is one thing I cannot forget. Without her, I would be dead, sent to the spirit world as a baby because of my foot. I owe her a life.”
“Chakliux,” K’os murmured, extended her hands in supplication, blinked so the tears she had been holding in her eyes would fall. “What mother could love a son more than I love you?”
“Don’t listen to her, brother,” the man named Sok called out. “She has nothing in her heart but hatred.”
Sok and Chakliux were full brothers by blood, but they did not look alike. Sok’s face was wide-boned, thick-featured, while Chakliux’s was narrow, refined. Sok’s dark eyes slanted down at the outside corners and Chakliux’s slanted up. Only now and again in the tilt of the head, in a full-throated laugh, could K’os see much likeness between them. For a moment, her thoughts went to that day when she had killed their father. With satisfaction she remembered the knife entering his heart, the surprise in his eyes. But that death was not nearly enough to pay for what he and his friends had done to her, what they had taken from her.
He had been a large man, and Sok was even larger, larger by far than Chakliux, wide of shoulder and as strong as any man K’os had ever known. But Chakliux was strong also, and his strength was that of the spirit, something that K’os in all her years of raising him had not been able to break. She had killed his first wife and their baby, had rejoiced when she heard of the death of his second wife. Now he had the Sea Hunter woman Aqamdax. Together they had made a son—a fine, healthy boy—and though K’os spoke curses against all three of them each day, some greater power seemed to protect them.
“You do not really know me, Sok,” K’os said. “You have heard from others that I am evil, but I am not. As Chakliux said, I saved his life. His mother—your mother—didn’t want him. He would have died on the Grandfather Rock where she left him as an infant if I had not decided to take him as my own son.
“It seems you will not listen to your own brother. Listen then to those people in this village who have benefited from my medicines. Would an evil woman heal people who keep her as slave?”
“Be quiet,” Chakliux told her, and there was no softness in his voice.
She tried to force tears again, but anger had dried her eyes, and she had to clench her teeth to keep curses from spilling out in words she might regret.
“My wife and I do not want to live in the same village as K’os,” Sok said.
A murmur spun through the circle of elders.
Sok had more power than he deserved, K’os thought. Now that he and Chakliux had decided to return to this village, Sok was considered the people’s chief hunter, though many of the Near River men coveted that honor. The Near River People had endured too many starving winters after the fighting. Though they had been the victors over the Cousin River People, many of their young men had died, and there were not enough hunters to feed everyone.
As a slave, K’os dreaded the deep cold of midwinter. She had fish to fill her belly, but fish is never enough to keep the cold from eating a woman’s bones. Each night K’os could hardly sleep with the shivering that racked her body, and if dreams finally came, they were filled with the taste of caribou meat, dripping fat.
When Sok and Chakliux and the Cousin River men had visited the Near River village at the end of the winter just passed, they seemed to bring luck with them. It was the starving time of the year, yet the hunters took caribou and bear and even a moose. Then the people allowed their bellies to think for them, and they asked Chakliux and his people to live in their village. They began to call Sok their chief hunter, to honor him even above their own men.
Who wanted to live among a people so foolish that they could not think beyond a full cache and a boiling bag of meat?
“Set me free, and I will go,” she said to the elders. “You will not see me again.”
Sok shook his head, and Chakliux raised a hand toward K’os in warning. “I told you to be quiet,” he said.
Then Gull Beak cleared her throat and said, “I’m an old woman, a widow without a husband. How can I survive without my slave to help me fish and gather wood?”
For a long time Sok and Chakliux whispered together, and though K’os could hear some of Sok’s words, she could make no sense of them. He seemed to be talking about his wife. What foolishness! As if he must consider a young woman during a council of the elders.
Finally Sok raised his head, nodded at Gull Beak. “Many people have told me that you are a hard worker. They say there is no laziness in you. As you know, my wife is young, and I have three sons, one nearly grown and ready to take a wife of his own, but the other two …” He stopped and smiled. “Who, in passing my lodge, does not hear Carries Much complaining about the work he has to do? Who does not hear our baby crying most of the day? Would you consider being my second wife?”
The shock of the question shone in Gull Beak’s eyes but did not still her tongue. “Could I keep my lodge?” she asked.
“If you are willing to sew for me,” Sok said, and looked down at the parka he was wearing. The caribou skins were well-scraped and soft, but there was no beauty in the seamwork. “My wife has many gifts, but she has something yet to learn about sewing.”
Gull Beak smiled, the smile of a woman suddenly worth something, and bile rose into K’os’s throat, nearly choked her. Who in this whole village was better with needle and awl than she? Even Gull Beak’s fine parkas could not begin to compare with what K’os could make, and everyone knew that.
As though Chakliux could hear the bitter thoughts in her mind, he stared at her until she lowered her eyes.
“Then there is no reason to wait,” he said. “The sooner we get this settled, the sooner we can leave the winter village for our fish camps.”
When the Cousin River People had agreed to come and live in the Near River village, they claimed and repaired empty lodges or lived with Near River families until they could make their own. They came with laden travois, with caribou fat and moose meat, dried fish and birds bagged whole in grease. Even their dogs were fat, and their children’s faces were bright and round. The Near Rivers welcomed them into their warm, well-made lodges, and once again village caches were full.
But come spring, the people had decided to keep to their own traditions, to return to their own fish camps, though K’os had heard the council of elders encourage the men to visit one another, so friendships forged during winter would not die.
K’os shook her head at the marvel Chakliux had wrought in bringing the two villages together. Where did he get his power, her son Chakliux? Not from his worthless father, or the sniveling woman who had given him birth, not even from the man who raised him, K’os’s dead husband, Ground Beater. Ground Beater had valued peace, but he had been a coward. Perhaps Chakliux had taken his power from K’os, his courage also, and the need for peace from Ground Beater. Why not? Most chi
ldren hold some part of each parent in their faces—the eyes of a mother, the smile of a father—why not also a portion of the spirits of those who have raised them?
Chakliux left his place in the elders’ circle and pulled aside the doorflap, but Sok followed him, whispered something into his ear. K’os hid her right hand within her left and signed curses against Sok’s tongue.
Chakliux clasped Sok’s arm as though in reassurance, and called out from the lodge. The young man, Cries-loud, came inside. If it had been some other boy, K’os might have hoped that they had decided to give her a husband, but Cries-loud was Sok’s son.
“My son and his friends will take you to the Walrus Hunters’ village and trade you as slave,” Sok said to her.
“The Walrus?” K’os said stupidly, and stuttered on the name as though Sun Caller’s broken voice had invaded her throat.
“If they do not want you,” he said, “they can give you to the Sea Hunters.”
The contents of K’os’s stomach rose into her throat. She had heard stories about those Sea Hunters, how women and slaves spent days, months, tucked inside hide-covered boats to travel to their villages. How could she bear to stay within the close sealskin walls of a Sea Hunter’s boat, tossed by waves, ever fearful of sea animals? What would happen to her spirit if she drowned? Would she live forever in the sea, never find her way back to the River People?
Fear brought anger, but then a soft voice came to her, a reminder of stories she had heard years before. Something had happened with the Walrus Hunters. Sok had stolen … no, killed … What was it? Then, suddenly pushing down from the smokehole, wind filled the lodge, brought with it the gift of remembrance. Again K’os heard Aqamdax’s story voice. It came to her from the past, a day when Aqamdax had spun tales at some celebration.
She had told the people that she, Sok, and Chakliux had stopped at the Walrus Hunters’ village, and while they were there, the Walrus’s great shaman Yehl had died. The people had blamed Sok, Aqamdax as well, but Chakliux had worked his magic to bring them safely home to the River Village.
