The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  If the Walrus discovered that Cries-loud was Sok’s son … Laughter bubbled into K’os’s throat. Ah, but why let Sok know about the fine weapon she would take with her on this trading trip? She lowered her head, made herself shudder, then spat out careful insults, hatred bound by cunning.

  Yaa sat outside in the lee of Aqamdax’s lodge and tried to keep her mind on the sinew thread she was making, but with each twist of her hand, her belly also knotted until she could do nothing but stare at the elders’ lodge, sit and wait for Cries-loud to come out. She knew what Chakliux had planned. During the night, she had heard his whispers as he spoke to Aqamdax. Usually she did not listen to their night conversations, those quiet words that often led to the joyous tossing and twisting of the two under their robes, for Aqamdax seldom slept on the women’s side of the lodge.

  Yaa’s brother Ghaden, now with eleven summers, also slept on the men’s side with his old dog, Biter. Yaa and Angax were left to sleep on the women’s side, but Yaa did not mind that. Angax was a good boy with Aqamdax’s round face, Chakliux’s eyes, nose, and mouth. They had given him the name that had belonged to Aqamdax’s first baby—the son that had been fathered and drowned by Night Man. He had five summers and was full of words, talking Yaa to sleep nearly every night. But the night before the elders’ meeting, Angax had fallen asleep quickly. Then Yaa had heard Chakliux speaking to Aqamdax. There had been no teasing in his voice, and though Yaa had turned away from them on her bedding mats, pulled her robe up over her ears, some small part of her still listened. When she heard Cries-loud’s name, she had shamelessly pushed her sleeping robe away so she could hear what Chakliux said.

  She and Cries-loud were promised to one another, and by the end of the late fall caribou hunts, they had had enough hides for a lodge cover. Each day during that long winter, when her other work was completed, Yaa scraped and cleaned those hides. During the coming summer, when she wasn’t cleaning and slicing fish, she would stitch the hides together into a lodge cover so that when she and Cries-loud returned from fish camp, they could live together as husband and wife.

  Cries-loud wanted to give a bride gift for her, though in the Cousin River village, before the Cousin People came to live with the Near Rivers, the custom of bride prices and bride gifts had largely disappeared. With the village destroyed, nearly every lodge burned, with more women left than men, what father would demand a bride price? It was enough to find a hunter willing to take another wife to feed.

  In the village they were already considered husband and wife, for sometimes Cries-loud stayed the night in Aqamdax’s lodge, slept in Yaa’s bed, though they did not do much sleeping. But they had not yet given a feast to celebrate. It would be foolish to do such a thing in the spring. Why consume all that was left in the caches during one day and night of eating? Better to portion it out carefully so the men had the strength they needed to hunt.

  It was enough that when she and Cries-loud were together, he could not keep from touching her, always lifting a hand to brush at her hair, to cup her chin, to squeeze a breast. More than once they had endured the taunting of a group of children who caught them holding one another, or the tittering of an old woman who came upon them in one of the nearby willow brakes.

  But Chakliux had decided that Cries-loud should be one of the young men to take K’os to the Walrus Hunters, to trade her there for whatever they could get.

  Yaa lay in her bed that night, wishing for Cries-loud’s arms around her, for his assurances that no matter what Chakliux wanted, he would stay in the village. Who could trust K’os? Even as a slave she could do damage. They had been with the Near Rivers only a few moons, and already Cries-loud’s old aunt Ligige’ seemed much weaker, and Twisted Stalk, that old woman sharp of tongue, had died, though she had seemed to be healthy and strong in spite of her age.

  Yaa could not help but wonder if K’os, with her plant poisons or her curses, had caused that death. Apparently others felt the same way for the elders had decided K’os must leave. But why did Cries-loud have to be one of those who took her?

  In the morning before the elders met, Yaa found Chakliux with his dogs. He had the best dogs in the village. Most were golden-eyed—those wise dogs long coveted by River men—and most could claim the brave dog Snow Hawk, dead now two summers, as mother or grandmother.

  “Brother,” she said quietly, and Chakliux, crouching beside one of the dogs, had startled.

  “I didn’t know you had left the lodge,” he said, looking up at her.

  She tossed her head, an insolence not of words. Her parka hood was pushed back to her ears, and the wind caught a strand of her hair, pulled it loose. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Here?” Chakliux asked, and stood to face her, brushing at a blaze of mud a dog’s foot had left on his caribou hide pants.

  “Here is good,” she said. “I know you have to go to the elders’ council.” His eyes were a clear brown, and when Yaa looked at him, she always felt as if she could see into the goodness of his soul. “The council is about K’os, nae’?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “mostly that.”

  “They will kill her?”

  “I owe her my life, you know that,” Chakliux said. “She was mother to me when no one else would be, but I think we are all agreed that she can no longer live in this village.”

  “So you will sell her?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Where?”

  “Not to any River People.”

  “The Walrus,” Yaa said, and, lowering her head, admitted, “I heard you talking to Aqamdax last night.”

  She glanced at him to see what he would say, but the kindness had not left his eyes.

  “Don’t let Cries-loud go,” she said. “K’os will try to do something to him to get back at you and Sok.”

  “Cries-loud is stronger than you think, Yaa,” he said. “You cannot be a good wife to him if you also try to be his mother. Let him make the decision. I will not force him to go.”

  He told her to feed the dogs and left her standing there. Later, she took a chunk of caribou sinew outside and squatted in the lee of the lodge to twist the sinew into thread. When Cries-loud was called to the elders, she was there watching.

  The wait seemed forever, but finally the doorflap of the elders’ lodge was flung open and Cries-loud came outside. Yaa stood, and the movement caught his eye. He motioned, and she hurried to him.

  They walked out of the village, into the trees that overlooked the winter lodges. Cries-loud had grown into a tall man, as big as Sok. When Yaa thought about his mother, Red Leaf, she realized how much Cries-loud looked like her. Red Leaf’s face, with strong features, was more like a man’s than a woman’s. She had been so gifted with needle and awl that people said her parkas could feed a village for a winter, they could bring so much in trade. But where Red Leaf’s heart had been hard and evil, so that killing was nothing to her, Cries-loud was more like his father—though brusque and sometimes thoughtless, a good and fair man.

  Cries-loud found a dry piece of ground, orange with shed spruce needles, and pulled her down to sit beside him.

  “Wife,” he said, “there is something I have to tell you.”

  “You plan to take K’os to the Walrus Hunters’ village,” she answered. The words fell heavy from her mouth. “I heard Chakliux talking to Aqamdax about it. Just you and K’os?”

  “No. Squirrel and Black Stick and Wolf Head will go with us.”

  When she heard Wolf Head’s name, some of her fear lifted. Squirrel and Black Stick were little more than boys, but Wolf Head was an elder still in the strength of his middle years. He would have more wisdom when dealing with someone like K’os. Perhaps, to avenge the death of his son River Ice Dancer, he would even kill K’os before they got to the Walrus village, and then the journey would be only a trading trip.

  “I have always wanted to go to the Walrus village,” Cries-loud said. He didn’t look at her, but gazed out into the forest, as if he could see beyo
nd the trees to the distant beach where the Walrus Hunters lived.

  “K’os will try to trick you, or do something terrible,” Yaa said. “Remember the curses she made against all of us when Chakliux forced her to leave the caribou camp?”

  “I have amulets to protect me, and my weapons.”

  “Don’t eat anything she gives you,” Yaa said.

  “I’m not a fool.”

  His words were tinged with exasperation, like a boy speaking to his mother, and Yaa remembered what Chakliux had told her. She hung her head, angry with herself. Cries-loud reached for her, slipped his hands under her parka, and sought her breasts. He was impatient in his lovemaking, and Yaa had spoken to Aqamdax about that, how his hands were too hard and moved too quickly to bring her much pleasure, and how once he entered her, he worked only for his own satisfaction.

  “Tell him what you want,” Aqamdax said to her, as though she were surprised Yaa had not thought of that herself.

  But as Cries-loud laid her back on the ground, as he pulled at the drawstring of her pants, she decided this was not the time to tell him. She had been mother enough for one day.

  Chapter Eleven

  SOK SHOUTED OUT HIS news as soon as he came into the lodge, his voice raised to be heard above the baby’s cries. “I have taken another wife.”

  Dii, their baby squalling in her arms, was arguing with Sok’s son Carries Much about feeding the dogs. She turned her back on Carries Much and stared at Sok.

  “Without talking to me about it?” she said, her voice so low and controlled that at first Sok did not realize she was angry.

  As a child, she had been taught to show politeness, to close her mouth over hasty retorts and sharp words. So now, as usually happened when she was upset, tears scalded her eyes, and she turned her anger in at herself. How foolish! Why did she always allow tears to close her throat over what needed to be said?

  “Who?” Carries Much asked, and stood with his arms crossed, legs spread in imitation of his father.

  The lodge was suddenly quiet; even the baby was still, as though he were listening to hear the name of the one his father had chosen. The hearth fire popped and sent a circle of sparks up toward the smokehole. Sok pulled the moosehide mitts from his hands and strode to his weapons corner, pulled out a throwing lance as well as several arrow shafts, his back to Dii and Carries Much as though he had not heard the question.

  “Your son asked you something,” Dii said, and her voice was steady.

  “Gull Beak,” Sok answered, his back still to them.

  He set two shafts back into place but kept the others in his hands. He turned to face Dii and said again, “Gull Beak.”

  “Gull Beak?” Dii repeated stupidly, and her anger drained as quickly as it had come.

  “Which one is Gull Beak?” Carries Much asked.

  “The old woman who lives at the edge of the village, not far from the river,” Dii told him. She raised a hand to her face, gestured the shape of Gull Beak’s nose.

  Carries Much hooted out a laugh, but then, with a quick look at his father, clamped his lips together and said solemnly, “She’s a good woman for a wife.”

  The compliment, usually given to a young woman by an elder, seemed strange coming from a little boy’s mouth, and Dii had the sudden urge to laugh. But for fear of insulting Sok, she did not. One thing she knew, Sok would have a good reason for making Gull Beak his wife. He might be a strict husband, little given to jokes or teasing, but he was not foolish.

  “A gifted seamstress,” Dii said, and she smiled ruefully at the parka her husband now wore—warm but with no skill in the seams or cut, the amulet charms awkward in placement.

  “She will make a new parka for you? For me, too, and for Cries-loud?” Carries Much asked, always concerned about his older brother.

  “Yes,” said Sok, his voice gruff. “Have you fed the dogs? They’re barking.”

  “He was just leaving to do that,” Dii said, and raised her eyebrows at the boy.

  He scuffed a foot against the floor mats, gave an exaggerated sigh, and put on his boots. The baby had begun to fuss again, and Dii raised her caribou hide shirt, lifted a breast until he had the nipple in his mouth, then sat down near the hearth fire, batting at the smoke sucked toward her when Carries Much opened the doorflap.

  “An extra fish for the white female!” Sok called after his son, then said to Dii, “She’s pregnant again.”

  Dii knew, but pretended surprise. “Perhaps she’ll give you more golden-eyed dogs,” she said.

  Sok shrugged. “Her pups are usually strong and healthy,” he told her. “I have men who want them, no matter what color their eyes.”

  Dii raised her chin, pursed her lips into a firm line. She wanted him to know that she was not totally pleased, that at least he owed her an explanation. “Why?” she asked him. “Other than for the parkas.”

  “I don’t want another wife,” Sok said to her. He crouched on his haunches, set down his arrows, and leaned forward to stroke the side of her face.

  She turned her head away from his touch, saw him frown.

  “I had no choice,” he said. “Chakliux wants K’os out of the village.”

  “It would be better for all of us if she were dead.”

  “And what man would kill her?” Sok asked, his words too loud.

  Dii lowered her head. It was a question no one could answer. Who would doubt that K’os, even dead, could still be a threat? Surely her spirit would avenge her death, destroy those who had destroyed her. They might be able to bring a shaman from another village, buy songs of protection, even cut her body apart at each joint so the spirit would be bound to the gravesite, but as evil as K’os was, who could be certain that all those things would be enough?

  “Chakliux wants to take her to the Walrus village, sell her there as slave.”

  “Will you go?” she asked, and she held her breath until he told her no.

  “The only problem is Gull Beak,” Sok said. “She needs someone to fish for her, to carry wood. You know who her husband was and how little he did for his wives. He couldn’t even give them sons.”

  His eyes rested for a moment on the baby at Dii’s breast.

  “Some husbands are better that way,” Dii said, and smiled at him. She did not regret that Fox Barking—the husband she and Gull Beak once shared—had not left her with a baby. What if the child had turned out to be like his father, lazy and cruel? But she knew Gull Beak had mourned her whole life for want of a son or even a daughter. What joy did an old woman have in living without children or grandchildren?

  “She did not want K’os to be sold?” Dii asked.

  “No. So I did what had to be done. Gull Beak will stay in her own lodge; she will sew, and in return I will hunt for her, as will our sons, and we will see she has enough wood and fish. She still keeps a trapline. Not even Ligige’ does that anymore.”

  “And it will not be too much, to hunt for two old women?” Dii asked. Chakliux and Sok supplied meat not only for their own families but also for their aunt, Ligige’.

  “It won’t be easy, but Cries-loud is a man now, and Carries Much already has six summers. His strength will grow as Gull Beak’s diminishes. And even that one,” he pointed with his chin at the baby, “he will soon be hunting.” He grinned at her. “Maybe by then I will have given you a daughter to help you with your work.”

  “I would be glad for a daughter,” Dii said.

  “As would I.” Sok leaned forward, rubbed his cheek against hers, cupped a hand over the baby’s dark head, then picked up his arrow shafts.

  “Is Chakliux going?” she asked as he started toward the door to the entrance tunnel.

  “Where?”

  “With K’os to the Walrus Hunters’ village.”

  “No, not Chakliux,” he said, and something in his voice made Dii’s heart press into her ribs.

  “Not Chakliux,” she said softly.

  The doorflap settled down behind Sok, let a gust of new air
into the smoke of the lodge. She clasped the baby to her chest with one hand and went after Sok, crawling and stumbling. She pulled aside the inner doorflap, called to him just as he was leaving the entrance tunnel.

  “Who?” she asked and continued after him, standing up in the snow and mud at the entrance of the lodge, her caribou shirt rucked up over the baby, her side and belly bare to the wind.

  “Who, Sok?” she called, her voice strong enough to make him turn.

  “Squirrel,” he said, “and his brother Black Stick, and Wolf Head.”

  He paused, and she said, “Who else?” But she knew, she knew even before he told her.

  “You have heard?” Yaa said. She came into Aqamdax’s lodge, and the condition of her parka told Aqamdax what Yaa and Cries-loud had been doing.

  “About K’os and Cries-loud?” Aqamdax said, answering question with question. “I knew last night. Turn around. You have spruce needles all over the back of your parka.”

  Yaa turned and waited as Aqamdax picked off the needles and scattered them into the hearth fire.

  “Why did you let Chakliux choose Cries-loud?” Yaa asked.

  “You think Cries-loud is not strong enough to stand against K’os?”

  Yaa did not answer.

  Aqamdax clasped Yaa’s arms and stared hard into her face, then spoke to her as though Yaa were still a child. “A man will not allow himself to truly belong to a woman unless that woman is ready to let him be a man. Chakliux did not force Cries-loud to take K’os. He gave him a choice. Honor that choice, Yaa.”

  Yaa opened her mouth to speak, but began to cry. “He will never be content in this village,” she said, the words coming broken from her mouth. “He’ll always be looking for his mother. That’s why he wants to go to the Walrus village. He thinks she’s still alive.”

  “Then pray that he finds her,” Aqamdax said, “and that if he does, he’s wise enough to realize what kind of a woman she is.”