by Sue Harrison
The granddaughter wore her hair twisted into a tight knot at the crown of her head. She had threaded thin slices of bone through holes in her earlobes. Her lodge was well made, nearly as large as Cen’s, and it seemed unusually empty with the men’s weapons and bedding gone.
“My mother lost a husband in this village?” Uutuk asked.
“A young man,” Two-heeled Fish said. “Very young, almost a boy. K’os could have been his mother.” She chuckled. “But he did not act like a son.”
Again the granddaughter’s face darkened in embarrassment, and she fussed with her grandmother’s thin white hair, brushing it away from the old woman’s face until Two-heeled Fish slapped at her hands.
“It’s true. He was always touching her,” Two-heeled Fish said. “I remember that they had a feast in the middle of winter and gave everyone gifts. I still have the shell comb she gave me, and a necklace of fish bone beads. I still have them both.”
Two-heeled Fish was without most of her teeth, and when she paused in her speaking, she moved her jaws as though she were chewing. Spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth, flecked white on her lips.
“She helped me, too, taught me about medicines. Why do you think I have lived so long? She told me how to make teas to heal diseases. Has she taught you?”
“Yes, she has taught me,” Uutuk said. “But there’s much I don’t know, especially about the plants that grow in this place. Everything is so different from the island where I lived.”
“You lived on an island? I did wonder about your name. Uutuk. It’s not River, nae’?”
“First Men.” Then, before Two-heeled Fish could ask another question, Uutuk said, “Tell me what happened to this husband.”
Two-heeled Fish pursed her lips into a tiny circle, shook her head, and said, “It was terrible, something that shouldn’t be talked about, but since she’s your mother, you need to know. He was killed with a knife.”
“Not poison?”
“No,” Two-heeled Fish said, “and that’s why I know your mother didn’t kill him. She knew too much about plants. If you want to kill a young husband like River Ice Dancer and you know about plants, it is easier to kill him with poison.”
“Enough!” the granddaughter yelled. “Enough, Grandmother. You’ll bring curses on us. Be quiet.” She looked across her grandmother’s head at Uutuk and lifted her chin toward the door of the lodge. “Go now. Surely your mother will tell you if you need to know anything else.”
Then Uutuk thanked them and leaned forward to press a yellow puffin feather into the old woman’s hand. “A good protection for you, Grandmother,” she said, and left the lodge.
Uutuk could still hear Two-heeled Fish chuckling as she walked back to Cen’s lodge. River Ice Dancer. Yes, K’os had told her about him. And there was an old man who had been her first husband, she had overheard her talking to Seal about the good gifts he used to give her. Then there was that chief hunter who had died in a fire. K’os had outlived them all.
Uutuk went back to Cen’s lodge. Chakliux was working on the thin, fine blades that River men used to make points for the tiny spears they shot from their fire bow weapons. She had seen those weapons for the first time at the Traders’ Beach, but they were not worth much. None of the First Men wanted them.
K’os was still sitting beside her dead husband, moaning and rocking. There would be a burial ceremony that evening. It would be good to get Seal’s body out of the lodge. It had begun to stink.
The River People put their dead on scaffolds, Ghaden had once told her, or they burned them if there was some curse involved. Most likely Seal would be burned. She worried about his spirit, if it could survive the flames, and she had made prayers for his safe passage to the world of the dead.
She went to K’os, laid a hand on her shoulder, leaned close to whisper, “Mother, tell me again about your young Four Rivers husband.”
Her mother looked up at her, and though K’os had been crying, there was no puffiness in her eyes, no redness. “Why, Uutuk, did someone in the village speak to you about him?”
“The old woman Two-heeled Fish,” Uutuk said quietly.
“Aaa, well, as I told you, he died. Someone in this village stabbed him. I think it was Cen, but I was blamed.”
Uutuk began to shake, and she clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering. “Why would Cen do that?” she asked.
K’os smiled. “He wanted me for himself. But the people of this village thought that since my husband died in such a terrible way, I might curse them all. They made me leave. In the middle of winter, they made me leave.”
Her eyes darkened. “They thought I would die, but I didn’t.” Her words were a whisper.
Uutuk wrapped a fur seal pelt around her shoulders and sat down with a partially completed boot upper in her hands. She tried to sew, but her fingers trembled so much that all she could do was lift prayers for the dead.
The Wilderness Northwest of the Fish Camp
GHELI’S STORY
It did not take them long to catch up to Gheli and Daes and Cries-loud.
Gheli screamed when she saw Cen, and Daes dropped as though she had been taken by a spear, but Cries-loud stood where he was and said, “Is he alive, or are we all in the spirit world?”
“Alive,” Ghaden answered.
Then Gheli dashed away her tears and ran to Cen, flung her arms around him. He did not move to hold her, and finally she pulled away, looked into his face, and said, “Ghaden told you.”
She stepped back. “I will die for what I did to your woman and your son. I deserve that, but please don’t take revenge on my daughters.”
Daes stepped between the two. The girl was as tall as her mother and nearly as wide. She carried a large pack on her back, the tumpline cutting across her forehead, pulling her head back toward the pack. She curled her lips away from her teeth, spoke with words harsh and loud.
“So you did not know who she was.”
“I did not,” Cen told her.
“Will you kill me for what she did?”
“What blame do you hold? None of this was your fault.”
“Do you still claim me as daughter?”
Cen’s eyes grew soft. “Always, you will be my daughter.”
“A woman may throw away a husband and a man may throw away a wife. Can a daughter throw away a mother?”
“But then who would be your mother?”
“Perhaps that first Daes, who rides so uneasily within my body, sharing her name with me.”
“Perhaps that one,” Cen said quietly.
“I’ll return with you to our village.”
Gheli began to cry soundlessly, tears dripping from her jaw to the fur of her parka.
“Wait,” Cen told Daes.
“You won’t take me with you?”
“You need to know something. You all need to know something.” He looked at Gheli. “Ghaden has married a First Men woman. She and her family came with him to the Four Rivers village. She’s called Uutuk. Her father, Seal, is a trader, but he has died. Ghaden needs to return to the village for the mourning.”
“They know, everything except Seal’s death,” Ghaden said. “And they know that Uutuk’s mother is K’os.”
Gheli choked out a strangled sound. “Don’t trust her,” she said to Cen. “The last time she was in our village, she wanted you as husband.”
The hardness in Cen’s eyes faded, and he wrinkled his brow, studied Gheli’s face. “I remember,” he said.
“She threatened to tell you who I was.” Gheli held her hands out as though to beg for understanding. “I was afraid for my daughter. I thought if you knew who I was, you might kill Daes in revenge.”
“You know me better than that,” said Cen, sadness in his voice.
“I knew how much you loved that woman I killed. I knew how much you cared about your son Ghaden. K’os said she would kill our Daes if I didn’t convince you to take her as wife, and when I could not, she said that I must c
hoose between my own life and Daes’s. She had poison to give me, and I pretended to take it. I pretended to get sick.”
“But by then K’os had River Ice Dancer as husband,” said Cen.
“What problem is that for a woman who kills as easily as K’os? If she could have you, River Ice Dancer would die. If not, he was young and a hunter, good enough to keep her fed through the winter.”
“But she did kill him.”
Gheli shook her head. “I needed to get K’os out of the village. To save my own daughter’s life.” She glanced at Daes, and the girl closed her eyes, hunched her shoulders against her pack.
“You killed him, too?” Cen asked.
“I knew they would blame K’os. How could anyone think I did it? I was sick, nearly dead.”
“I stayed with you that night,” Cen said, as though speaking to himself. “I was awake …”
“You slept. Long enough.”
Daes began to moan, a long cry, as though she were in pain. Cen pulled the tumpline from her forehead, unstrapped her pack, and set it on the ground. She backed up to sit on the pack, and he put an arm around her shoulders, placed a hand under her chin to lift her face toward him. “Whatever your mother did, still she has loved many, including you. Including me. The woman K’os has never loved anyone but herself. Listen to me, Daes. There are terrible things happening in our village. Seal is not the only one who died.
“You heard what your mother said. K’os once tried to poison her. Why not poison the people who blamed her for a murder she did not commit?”
“What about Bird Hand?” Daes asked. She spoke slowly, as if she had been afraid to ask the question.
“He’s alive, but his new wife died.”
Daes rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand, then stood and hefted the pack to her back. “I need to go to him,” she said.
“Wait, we’ll all go,” Cen told her.
“What about her?” Daes asked, pointing at Gheli.
Cen was silent for a long time, and when he raised his eyes, he looked at Ghaden. “She was a good wife and gave me two daughters to make up for a woman I lost, but I can’t stop you if you want to kill her. Your mother died, and you will always carry the scars from Red Leaf’s knife.”
“I’ve spent five days now with her and Cries-loud and Daes,” said Ghaden. “We’ve talked through our anger and our grief. How can I kill a woman who is mother to my sisters, wife to my father? But I don’t think she should return to the Four Rivers village. K’os will tell others about her.” He looked into Cen’s eyes. “Cries-loud had planned to take her and Daes to the next village. He can still do that.”
“Yes, take her,” Cen told Cries-loud. “Perhaps she’ll be safe there.”
Gheli opened her mouth in joy, began to babble out her gratefulness. Cen raised a hand. “You’ve cost us more than you can ever repay. You have supplies and a son willing to take you to another village. I throw you away. Find another husband. My daughter Daes stays with me.”
Gheli began to cry, but silently, her eyes open, her mouth firm. She watched as Daes and Cen walked away from her, then turned to follow Cries-loud.
Chapter Forty-seven
GHELI’S STORY
THEY SLEPT THAT NIGHT on the trail, Cries-loud and Red Leaf, the two speaking of days long ago, of good times and caribou hunts, feasts and celebrations. She asked about Sok and his new wife, his children, and she also asked about Cries-loud’s wife.
Cries-loud tried to tell his mother good things about Yaa, but could think of nothing but that she worked hard, that she always kept his clothing clean and repaired.
“You need another wife,” Red Leaf told him. “It’s good for a man to be loyal to his first wife, but you need sons and daughters to take care of you when you’re old. What would I do if I had no one?” And she dared to lay a hand on his arm.
“I plan to get another wife. Soon,” he said.
He did not try to explain how each time, when he had a woman chosen, that somehow he waited too long to ask her, so another man claimed her before he had a chance. He told himself that it was because he didn’t need another woman playing mother to him, telling him what to do. Planning his life. He didn’t tell her about those nights when he lay awake, still holding Yaa after their love-making, his heart so filled with her that he doubted he had enough room for another woman. Or how after he returned from a hunting trip, all he wanted was to see Yaa, to talk to her, to take her to his bed. How could he explain those things to his mother when he did not understand them himself?
“Yes,” he finally said. “This time, when I return to Chakliux’s village, I’ll find a young woman to be my wife. You’re right. I need a son or daughter to take care of me when I’m old.”
Then, though the sky still held a little edge of the day’s light, he wrapped himself in his bedding furs and escaped into sleep.
Each day as they walked, Red Leaf talked about Cries-loud’s childhood and all the joys she could remember from that time. Each night as they sat near their small fire, she studied his face as though to help herself remember him.
The walking took longer than they had thought, nearly three handfuls of days, but finally they saw the smoke from the village, rising above the tag alders that bordered the trail they followed.
Then Red Leaf told him, “I had a dream in the night, and it said that I should go into the village alone, that a woman will be welcomed with less suspicion than a man and woman together.”
He began to protest, but she laid a hand across his mouth.
“This is what I want.”
Her stubbornness reminded Cries-loud of Yaa, so he knew there was little chance she would change her mind.
“Let me stay here at least for the day,” he said. “Then if they won’t take you in, you can come back to me, and we’ll go somewhere else, to another village, until we find a place for you.”
She considered what he said, finally agreed. “That’s good. Do that. If I’m not back by tomorrow morning, then return without me to the Four Rivers village, and be sure that Cen has told the people I’m dead.” She clasped her hands into fists, clenched and unclenched her fingers.
“They will mourn you,” Cries-loud said, “and I will join that mourning.” He looked away when Red Leaf’s eyes filled with tears.
“Someday, bring Duckling and Daes to see me.”
Cries-loud thought of the many days walking, too much of a summer lost in traveling, but he said, “I’ll bring them. Watch for us.”
Then Red Leaf smiled, looked into his eyes one last time, and left him.
UUTUK’S STORY
By the time Cen, Daes, and Ghaden returned to the village, three more people had died, but no one else had become sick. The rest had recovered and were weak, but it seemed that they would live. Ghaden found his wife in Two-heeled Fish’s lodge, grinding boneset root for medicine.
“Did you find Cen’s wife?” she asked.
“It’s not good what we found,” Ghaden told her, then, noticing that Two-heeled Fish was listening, he said, “Cen’s wife is dead.”
“From the sickness?” Uutuk asked.
“No, wolves,” Ghaden told her.
The old woman began to croon something that he assumed was a death song. He pulled Uutuk to her feet and made excuses to Two-heeled Fish, led Uutuk from the lodge.
“You know the scars I carry on my back,” he said to her, his voice low so anyone passing could not hear what he said.
“I know.”
She ran quick fingers over his shoulder, and the heat of her hand made him realize how much he needed her. But first he wanted to tell her what had happened. They found a place near the river, in the lee of trees that cut the wind. There he told her about Red Leaf. As he spoke, she covered her mouth with both hands and made small cries of sadness.
“Uutuk,” Ghaden said quietly, “you know that Chakliux stayed here because he thinks your mother did this to the village. Red Leaf also told us that K’os tried to poiso
n her.”
“Do you believe my mother would do that?”
“Did she say anything to you about eating the food here in this village?”
Uutuk’s eyes grew wide.
“She told me that the taboos of the Four Rivers village were very different. That women here eat things that might make my children sick or cursed. We’ve eaten only from our own boiling bag since we came.”
Ghaden moved to kneel in front of her. “Don’t you see, Uutuk?”
Then Uutuk leaned forward to put her arms around his neck, and she wept.
“I have this question, Brother,” Uutuk said. She and Chakliux were just outside Cen’s lodge, the two of them. K’os was inside, where she had stayed since Chakliux had come to the village. He did not even allow her to go to the women’s place to relieve herself. Instead she used a watertight salmon skin basket, and complained of Chakliux’s foolishness.
“Ask,” Chakliux told Uutuk.
“Why is she still alive? If she has done all the things you say, or even some of them, why have you not killed her?”
“I owed her a life,” he said.
“You paid that when she killed your son.” Uutuk’s words were loud, but she spoke in the First Men language, which they both understood, though the people of the Four Rivers village did not.
He shook his head. “Each time I decided that she should die, something happened to change my decision.”
“You are afraid of her,” Uutuk told him. “She is a woman who curses everyone she knows. If she has this much power in life, think what she would be able to do in death, especially to the family of the one who kills her. But we could cut her bones apart, like men do when they take a powerful animal. That will keep her from coming after us.”
Her words shocked Chakliux, and he had no answer for her.
“Do the River People not also believe that the cutting of joints protects the killer?”
“Sometimes we do that, but the best protection comes through prayers and chants and amulets.”
