by Sue Harrison
“Still at fish camp,” Daes told her.
“You returned alone?”
“With one of our dogs.”
“You left your mother with the baby and all her fish to carry?” another woman asked.
It was Crane’s mother. Daes wondered if she knew who Crane had been with the night before, and if she worried that Daes would take Bird Hand from her daughter. She should worry, Daes thought.
“I brought most of the fish back with me,” she said. “My mother was concerned that someone might claim our lodge if my father had not yet returned from his trading trip.” She held her hands out, palms up, and added, “You see she was right. He hasn’t yet returned.”
“A trader was here several days ago,” one of the women said. “He had heard that Cen was at Chakliux’s village.”
That was good news. Daes did not want to face a winter without her father in the lodge. She remembered a year he had spent away trading. That hungry winter, her mother had slept both day and night, so Daes had done all the work and felt as if she lived alone like some old woman.
“How many days does it take a man to walk from Chakliux’s village to ours?” she asked.
“A strong man like your father, paddling upriver?” said the chief hunter’s first wife, an older woman, but still with some of the beauty of her youth. “Four days with portages, maybe five.” Then she asked Daes, “Long enough for you to go get your mother?”
The question made Daes uncomfortable. “Perhaps,” she finally said, “but who knows when my father started out? It would not be a good thing for him to come tomorrow and find me gone. Who would welcome him? I can reach my mother in two, three days walking, but with the baby it will take us much longer to return.”
Several women nodded, but Bird Hand’s mother said, “A good daughter would go now. We will watch after your father. You’ve already set up the lodge and brought fish, nae’? Then he has food to eat, and he can always get more from the hearths.”
Daes turned her head as though she were looking back at her lodge, at the job she had done in tying the cover in place, in stacking firewood, but she was really turning so Wing would not see the anger in her eyes. What right did she have to tell Daes what to do? Did she know where her son had been last night? What if Crane got with child, would Wing want Crane for a daughter?
But Daes willed her anger away, and by the time she spoke, her eyes were soft. “I think I’ll take the day to gather wood, and in the morning, if my mother has not yet returned, I’ll go back for her. Though she was the one who told me to come, she’ll most likely be glad for my help. And I’m already lonesome for them, my mother and my sister.”
Then the women at the hearth urged her to eat and eat well, for the journey ahead would be a difficult one, and the journey back even more so, a heavy load of fish on Daes’s back.
So for that day, Daes gathered wood, made large stacks at the sides of the lodge, but stopped often, looked upriver and down, hoping to see her mother coming, so she would not have to go after her; hoping to see her father, his iqyax laden with treasures from the First Men and Walrus Hunters, gifts for a good daughter.
The morning broke cold and dark, the belly of the sky so heavy that Daes knew it would rain. She thought about staying another day, but then saw herself returning with her mother, Daes laden with most of their fish. What man would not want a woman like that, who would do so much for a mother who foolishly stayed too long at fish camp? Why wait because of a little rain?
She was ready by midmorning and left thinking that the day would grow warmer as the sun climbed in the sky, but even by the time she reached the last lodges in the village, the rain had gathered strength and changed to ice, dancing around her feet as she walked.
Jump was by her side, the dog joyous at promised adventure and a light pack. She held him back, slowed her steps, hoping that she might see Bird Hand before she left and have opportunity to tell him what she was doing. But everyone was inside, save a woman here or there, sent out to feed dogs or get wood. These she hailed and told where she was going, in the hope some word of her unselfishness would get back to Bird Hand.
Then she was out of the village, ducking under low-branched spruce to follow a trail that led through the woods. Many women would not consider taking such a journey alone. And though Daes reminded herself that she had just made this same trip safely a few days before, thoughts of wolves and wolverine filled her mind.
She comforted herself with quiet words, saying that surely her mother had left fish camp and that they would meet this day or the next on the trail. At each turn of the path, she expected to see her, at the top of each hill, at the far side of each tundra clearing. But though Daes walked through that whole day and well into the evening, she saw nothing but her own dog and a few hares, one already mottled white, preparing for winter.
Her feet ached, and her shoulders, and even her eyes, for watching so hard. She began to walk in anger, stomping the soles of her caribou hide boots into the orange needles that lay over the path. Next year, she vowed, she would be Bird Hand’s wife. She might even have a belly full of his child. Then it would not matter how foolish her mother was, Daes could leave fish camp when she wanted.
She had brought dried fish with her, so during that day of walking, she had not bothered to hunt, but when Daes finally stopped for the night and built herself a fire, she began to wish for fresh hare. She filled her belly with fish, then pulled grass to make a bed, rolled out a caribou hide to sleep on, but the ground was wet, and her stomach rolled and complained for want of roasted meat. Jump lay close beside her, the smell of his damp fur filling her nose. She dreamed of dogs, of nursing puppies at her breasts, as women must sometimes do to save a dog or two in starving moons of late winter. She awoke hungry, and the next day, as she walked, she watched for hares. Finally she killed one, caught it in the head with a good throw of her walking stick. It was a fine, fat buck, long of ear and still in his brown summer coat.
That night, she and Jump feasted, and Daes slept without dreams.
Chapter Thirty-seven
ON THE MIDDLE OF the third day, when Daes came to her mother’s fish camp, it looked as it had when she left. Fish still hung on drying racks, the lean-to tent was in place, and her mother sat beneath a tree with Duckling on her lap. The baby cooed and reached out a hand when she saw Daes, but Daes could only stare. Finally she ripped the pack from her back and called her mother all the vile names that came into her head. When she had screamed out all her anger, she bent, chest heaving, and tried to remove Jump’s dog packs. But he backed away until she stomped her feet in frustration.
Gheli rose, careful to keep a firm hold on Duckling. “I decided to stay a little longer,” she said.
Daes stretched her mouth into a firm line and closed her eyes against the sight of her mother and the fish camp.
“I thought you might need help carrying the rest of the fish,” she said slowly, as though she were speaking to a child who was not quite old enough to understand. “We need to leave soon. I don’t want to travel in snow.”
“Has your father returned?” Gheli asked.
“People say that he is at Chakliux’s village. Or he was a few days ago. By now he may already be home.”
“Was he traveling alone?”
Daes opened her eyes and flung back her head, clenched her hands at the stupidity of her mother’s question. “How should I know?”
“I thought, well, I thought they might have …”
Daes sighed. Her mother’s gentle response made her suddenly ashamed of herself. She took one of Gheli’s hands in her own, smoothed her fingers over the roughened skin. She felt her throat close a little. Her mother’s hands were dry and lined like an old woman’s.
“We will leave tomorrow morning,” Daes told her. “Help me pack everything.”
They worked together that afternoon. Daes took the last of the fish from the drying racks, put them into caribou hide packs, and made heaps of all the goods,
one for each of the three dogs, another for herself, and one for her mother. Last of all, in the morning, she would take down the lean-to, add its caribou hides to her pack. Then there would be only the drying racks to show where they had spent the summer.
But when morning came, a bright day, full of the sun, Gheli was again sitting outside the lean-to, Duckling in her lap. “I think I need to stay one more day,” she told Daes, and because Daes was ashamed of the curses she had shouted at her mother the day before, she agreed to wait.
She followed animal trails into the forest, killed three hares with her throwing stick, then took them back to the fish camp, where she spitted them to roast over hearth coals. During the afternoon she went out to search for mouse caches—the little tunnels in the tundra sod where mice store seeds and bulbs for winter. She dug up several small caches and one that was large, filled a waistpack with what she found. She parched the seeds on a flat stone heated in the fire, ate more than her share that night, and said little to her mother.
She did not sleep well, as though she knew through her dreams that her mother would do the same thing the next morning. So when Daes found Gheli again sitting outside, she only pursed her lips and spent another morning hunting. She came back with nothing, and that afternoon lay on the bedding in the lean-to. She fell asleep, slept hard, and woke to a meal of fresh fish that her mother had cooked.
Daes ate, but that night when Gheli was asleep Daes sneaked from the tent, took the dogs to the edge of the woods, and strapped on their packs. Then she returned to the lean-to where Duckling was asleep in her cradleboard. Daes strapped the board to her belly, hefted her pack to her back, then quietly slipped away.
She kept a lead line on each dog, but they carried so much weight that she had little trouble with them. Mostly they seemed glad to leave the fish camp, and when one sat on his haunches and turned back, as though to wait for Gheli, Daes, said, “She will come. You think she’d let me take this daughter of hers, knowing I have no milk to feed her?”
But though Daes walked slowly all that day, sure that her mother would catch up with them, by night they were still alone, the baby wailing for want of food, the dogs whining under the loads they carried.
Daes considered returning to the fish camp. How long could a child live without its mother’s milk? But Duckling sucked water from Daes’s fingers, and later the baby managed to choke down broth from a bowl, snorting it out her nose, coughing it from her throat, but swallowing at least half of what Daes gave her.
Then Daes decided to continue the journey, decided to set a faster pace. Better to get back to the village before bad weather set in, before the men left on the fall caribou hunts, before the baby grew weak from lack of milk.
After two and a half more days, Daes came to the Four Rivers village. She unloaded her packs and those of the dogs, then left everything at the entrance of the lodge to take her sister to a woman who had a baby of her own. By the time Duckling was sucking at the woman’s breast, several women—including Wing, Bird Hand’s mother—had gathered at the lodge.
Daes, in the hardship of walking, had not thought ahead to what she would say. Should she tell them Gheli had foolishly refused to leave the fish camp? Would that justify Daes taking Duckling? Surely any woman could see that the baby’s eyes were sunken, her little belly swollen with hunger.
“Has someone died?” one of the older women asked, and Daes knew she was afraid to say Gheli’s name, afraid of bringing her ghost to them.
Daes squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that tears beaded in the corners. Then she looked at the old woman, addressed her politely, saying, “Grandmother, no one knows what has happened, but I waited as long as I could, went out looking for her, called for her, found only my sister and our dogs and packs there, and finally decided to bring back as much as I could carry. I hope that my father has returned, and that he and I might go out and look for her.”
Then all eyes were downcast, and Daes felt a sudden catch of fear. She pulled in a long breath and said, “Something has happened.”
“Get him,” said several of the women. Two left, and Bird Hand’s mother bent over Daes. With tears close under her words, she whispered, “We had to stop our celebration …”
“She probably doesn’t know about the celebration,” one of the others said.
“Aaa,” agreed Bird Hand’s mother. She brushed at a tangle of hair that had come loose from her braids and said, “My son’s marriage to Crane. You knew about that, nae’?”
For a moment Daes sat without speaking, then she realized that her mouth was hanging open like the mouth of some old woman who has spoken all her words before using up her life. “I knew,” she said, and closed her mouth with a snap.
“See,” said Bird Hand’s mother. She drew her brows into a frown and told Daes, “A man came from Chakliux’s village. He told us he was looking for your mother. He said that her husband had drowned in a storm somewhere.”
“Aaaaeeee,” Daes murmured, a soft mourning cry, but also a denial. “Aaaaeeee.” How could her father be dead? He was a strong man. He had traveled the North Sea nearly to the ice edge of the world. Once he had even walked over the mountains to the South Sea. She looked into Wing’s eyes, suddenly remembered that Bird Hand had taken Crane as wife. Anger wove itself through her sorrow, and she spat out words as sharp as bird darts.
“You are wrong,” she said. “My father is alive.”
Wing did not try to convince her.
“If he is dead,” Daes said softly, “what will I tell my mother?”
The oldest woman in the group leaned close. “You said you couldn’t find her.” She stared into Daes’s face, blinking rheumy eyes.
“I did not say she wouldn’t come back,” said Daes.
“Perhaps you did not look hard enough,” the old woman told her.
Daes held her breath, waiting for questions from the others, but though they glanced at her from the corners of their eyes, they said nothing, and when the women returned with the man from Chakliux’s village, all but Wing and the eldest of them left. That old one closed her eyes, began a soft chant, something to protect the village.
Daes played the part of politeness, her eyes downcast as the young man spoke.
“I am named Cries-loud,” he told her.
His voice was low, as though he spoke from sorrow.
“You’ve come to tell me that my father drowned in a storm,” Daes said, and met his eyes as though her boldness would be strong enough to make him deny the death.
He lifted a hand, brushed it nervously against his cheek, and Daes found herself staring at him, saw that Wing also stared. What was there about this man that seemed so familiar?
“Yes,” he said. “I need to find your mother and tell her.”
Wing poked her head between Daes and Cries-loud. “She is also dead,” Wing said.
The grandmother stopped her chant and hissed at her. “We do not know that!” she said. She clasped an amulet, dark with age, as protection against Wing’s words.
“You said …” Wing began.
“I said I couldn’t find her,” Daes shouted. “Only that. Not that she’s dead!”
Cries-loud lifted a hand as though to calm the women, and it seemed as though Daes were looking into still water at her own face. She shook her head, noticed that Wing was doing the same.
She looked at Cries-loud. “I have wood for a fire and food in my lodge,” she said. “Come and tell me about my father and the storm that took him.”
They left the grandmother and Wing behind, left the mourning chant that the old woman had wound around them, and somehow Daes knew without seeing that Cries-loud followed her, so it was not until she reached the lodge that she looked back, and then only to hold the doorflap open for him to go inside.
CRIES-LOUD’S STORY
Cries-loud followed his sister to a fine, large lodge. At least it seemed that Cen had treated his mother well, that in taking her as wife, he had given her a good life. And thi
s sister of his, she was strong and healthy, a large woman, with wide hips, good for babies. He had been careful with his questions since he came to the village, had asked cautiously—only as messenger—about his mother, and always called her by the name Gheli. He had said nothing about his sisters, and it was nearly a day before someone mentioned Daes by name. Even then he sensed some hesitation, as though there might be something wrong with her, so he was relieved to see that she looked normal and seemed to do all things as a woman should, quickly starting a fire, offering him water, and dragging in the packs that were set in the entrance tunnel.
“They say you just returned from fish camp,” Cries-loud said. “It’s late in the year for that.”
Daes shrugged. “My mother wanted to stay. She doesn’t like to come back to the village too soon. She says we miss too many fish doing that.”
He nodded, then asked, “Where is your sister?”
“They told you about my sister?”
“I’ve been waiting for you and your mother three days. A man can learn much in three days.”
Daes hung a boiling bag from the lodge poles, poured in several bladders of water, and added dried fish.
“Did you see the baby in that lodge where we were?” she asked. “That’s my sister. I brought her back from fish camp. I couldn’t find my mother. She was gone a long time. She went to pick berries or gather plants.” Daes stopped, passed a hand over her face.
There was something wrong about what she was telling him. Berries? Plants?
“You looked for her?” he asked.
“I spent a whole day looking for her, my sister crying in hunger,” Daes said. She began stirring the fish in the boiling bag, then with no explanation hurried into the entrance tunnel.
Cries-loud sat there thinking she had left the lodge, and wondered whether he should leave as well or wait for her return.
She came back with a handful of lovage, thrust it toward him as though it were something important. “She was looking for lovage. We dry it for winter to add flavor to our boiling bag.”
