Broken Rock Bay (Clan of the Ice Mountains Book 3)

by C. S. Bills

  What?

  Just come. You’ll understand once you see him.

  “No, Attu,” Farnook said, clearly frustrated with his repeated questioning. “None will speak of their experience. When I mention it, they look at me like I am committing some sort of evil just by asking. They point to the bodies on the beach and turn away, refusing to talk to me anymore.” She sat back on her heels, balancing easily even with her swelling abdomen.

  Attu knew he’d asked Farnook about the men’s ordeal at least three times already today, but he had an uneasiness growing inside him, and he was afraid it had something to do with these survivors. If they’d been attacked, perhaps they were still being followed. If not by Ravens, then couldn’t another predatory Clan be in these waters?

  Attu had tried to call out to Tingiyok and Keanu as well, but had received no answer. Not knowing what was going on with them was unsettling. Why was Keanu coming to them and bringing others with her?

  “Farnook needs you right now, Suka,” Attu whispered to himself. “And so do I.”

  “What?” Farnook asked.

  Attu held out his hand. Farnook took it and stood. “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance,” he said. “I know you’re doing your best, and we’re all grateful you can communicate with the Nukeena.”

  “Not well enough, obviously,” Farnook said.

  Attu caught the tone of the old Farnook in her voice, the one who’d been beaten and worked so hard. She was tired, and they were asking too much of her. “Come with me and get something to eat, woman of my cousin and friend.” Attu smiled down at the diminutive Nuvik, holding his gaze until she smiled slightly in return. “And then you will rest for a while.”

  Farnook started to protest, but Attu shushed her. “For your baby,” he said.

  Farnook’s eyes softened. “All right. But just for a while.”

  Ubantu and Attu were studying the Nukeenas’ canoes, talking about the damage and how they might be repaired. Yural joined them.

  “Are you all right, Mother?” Attu said. “You still look tired. Did you have your midday rest yet?”

  “Yes,” Yural replied. “I’m following Rika’s orders. You don’t have to keep asking me. And I’m not tired, I’m sad. I came to tell you that one of the men who had fever spirits has gone Between.” Yural slipped her arm around Ubantu and leaned in to him.

  “The one we think may be Caanti’s man?” Ubantu asked.

  Yural shook her head. “No, another one. And there is good news. The one called Soantek, who Farnook spoke with first, is getting better very quickly. The one we thought might be Caanti’s man has won the battle with the fever spirits and is awake. The others are calling him Cray. Farnook spoke with him, and she believes he is Caanti’s man.”

  “Why wasn’t he killed in the attack?” Ubantu asked.

  “All she could understand from him was that they were gone on some sort of hunt, and returned to find their settlement in ashes and the other hunters dead, their women and children gone. Then he began asking her questions about Caanti.”

  “Did she get a chance to ask him about–”

  “He will not speak of their misfortune either.” Yural pulled away from Ubantu as she interrupted Attu. “He just found out his woman is still alive. He needed to know about her. Where is your patience with this?” She glared at her son, and Attu realized his mother had not been truthful with him. She was exhausted. That was the only time her own patience ever deserted her. “And your father told me that Rika had to shake you out of some Between place you slipped into yesterday, while sitting with other hunters in the middle of the day. Now he’s worried about both of us.”

  “Mother, I–”

  “You look tired,” Ubantu interrupted. He frowned at Yural, concern creasing his brow. “Will you not rest now?”

  “I told you I rested already. The other women need my help.” She glared up at Ubantu, much as she had been glaring at Attu a moment ago, and Attu grinned in spite of himself.

  She and Rika are so much alike.

  “Thank you for telling us about the Nukeena man’s death,” Ubantu said. “I know it’s hard for you to see someone you are working to save go Between, even if you don’t know the man.” Ubantu tried to wrap his arms around Yural again, but she pushed him away, her small hands flat on his muscled chest. He let her push as he rested his longer arms around her shoulders.

  The two stood there for a moment. Attu could feel the unspoken communication between them as Yural fought back her tears. Finally she stopped resisting Ubantu and let him fold her into his embrace. She sighed deeply. “We will need hunters to–”

  “–move the body with the others,” Ubantu finished her thought. “There will be six again.”

  Yural pulled back once more so she could look up at her man. “Six.” She drew in a slow deep breath.

  Six was a special number to the Nuvik. A poolik who lived for six moons usually survived to the age of walking and talking. A hunter tried to always return by the sixth night, for to return with game after that was too long to be gone and too long for his family to go without fresh meat. Shuantuan, the greatest of the trysta spirits, had six fingers on her right hand. The extra one contained fire and the power to control many other spirits. Six was the number of a perfect and complete family, a hunter, his woman, his father and mother, and two children, one boy and one girl.

  “Perhaps the spirits demanded a perfect number of hunters to go Between.” Yural gazed off over the now calm ocean. “One cheated death, so another was taken in his place.” Yural’s eyes grew distant. She took up her spirit necklace and walked away from them up the beach.

  Ubantu moved to follow her, but Attu stopped him. “She’ll walk and sit and pray a while, Father. You know that’s what she does when she’s thinking about the spirits. It will give her a break from caring for the survivors.”

  Ubantu stopped. “You’re right.”

  “Meanwhile,” Attu said, “we’ve set up enough temporary shelters and gathered enough wood and water for the women for the next day or so. They can concentrate on helping Rika and Yural with the Nukeena men.” Attu turned toward his skin boat. “Rika said the best way we can help is to get more fresh meat. These men are eating up all our extra food. She said if we don’t bring home much meat soon, we’ll all be starving.” He grinned at his father.

  Ubantu looked out over the smooth water of the bay. “We’ll move the body near the others, then prepare. It’s a fine day to fly in our skin boats!”

  Attu felt a tug on his spirit at the word “fly.” He saw himself flying over the water in his skin boat, but at the thought of flight his mind moved out from him as if searching for a bird above his imaginary boat, one with which he could truly fly. “No!” Attu whispered forcefully to himself and felt his spirit returning. He stood there, trembling. What is happening to me?

  “What is it my son?” Ubantu grasped Attu’s shoulders, and his touch helped Attu gain the rest of the control he so desperately needed. “Is whatever happened before trying to overtake you again?”

  “I’m all right now. Thank you, Father,” Attu said. “We need food and a chance to talk. I’ll ask some of the hunters to fish the river and the rest to hunt in the woods. You and I can go for seal in our skin boats and talk while we paddle. That way at least one group of us should bring back fresh meat by the end of the day. The spirits may bless us all.”

  “Rika will let you know if there’s a problem while we’re gone?” Ubantu asked. “With the Nukeena men or with Yural?” He still looked worried, but Attu knew a good hunt would take his father’s mind off his helplessness. Attu felt it, too.

  “Yes. There is only so much we can do, Father. Remember what Elder Nuanu would say.”

  “Do what you can,” Ubantu said. “She never believed in people sitting around and worrying when there was work to be done.”

  They set out to ready for the hunt.

  Rika came into the shelter, obviously upset.

  “What is it?
” Attu asked, looking up from the knife he was sharpening. “Is it Mother? Or one of the Nukeena?”

  “Your mother is fine. And all of the Nukeena except Dran are doing well. Dran hasn’t woken yet, and the other Nukeena are worried about him. Dran is their healer. He can’t help himself while he’s unconscious, and Farnook said some of the Nukeena think we don’t know what to do for him. They’re right. I’ve done everything I know to do, but still, he just lies there.

  “The other Nukeena don’t know anything better to do for Dran than I do,” she sighed. “But they’re getting in the way, hovering around us as we take care of him.”

  Attu studied Rika’s face. “But that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?”

  “No.”

  Rika slumped against him. Her whole body was trembling.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m angry with Veshria.”

  “What did she do?” Attu felt his own anger rising in defense of Rika.

  “Meavu said Veshria left the Nukeena camp holding her right cheek. Meavu could tell her tooth was hurting. She returned later and seemed fine. Meavu says she thinks Veshria used the root again for her tooth. I haven’t given her any other remedy, and a toothache like that usually doesn’t go away by itself.”

  “Why would she take such a chance? That’s crazy.” Attu reached for Rika, holding her close as a sudden need to protect his woman overwhelmed him.

  I’ll get the truth out of Veshria and take those roots away from her.

  Rika heard his thoughts. “No, Attu. Yural’s going to talk with her. I just don’t know why Veshria won’t let me help her with another, safer remedy.” Rika buried her face in Attu’s chest, and he pushed his own anger at Veshria’s recklessness aside as he smoothed Rika’s hair, praying to Attuanin for his woman and the challenges she was facing as healer.

  Attu’s people were gathered together on the other side of the beach near dusk, opposite where the dead Nukeena still lay. There were six dead in all now, since the man the other Nukeena were calling “Shool” had awakened, and the man with the fever had died. Farnook had told them all of Cray’s delight in hearing his woman was still alive. He’d fallen asleep soon after, however, still exhausted from the ordeal and the attack of the fever spirits. The conversation had shifted away from him to the man Nuka had terrified when he’d awoken among the dead.

  “The others say he is ‘Shool,’” Farnook said, “which apparently is not his real name, but one the Nukeena started calling him after they found out he’d been placed with the dead, then came back to the living.”

  “What does ‘Shool’ mean?” Rika asked. “And I noticed the others reaching out to touch him as he walked by. Why?”

  Even in the firelight, Attu could see Farnook was exhausted. She needed sleep, but had insisted on coming to the fire tonight. Farnook had paused only to eat before going back to the Nukeena. Attu knew she felt responsible for them because of Caanti, but Farnook was pushing herself too hard.

  And I feel guilty for letting her. But she is a stubborn one, Suka.

  Attu knew it was silly to talk to Suka in his head, but he missed his friend, and talking as if Suka were here eased Attu’s worry about how the men were doing and whether or not they’d found Keanu and the others.

  “As I’ve been telling everyone all day, I can’t speak Nukeena that well,” Farnook said. She sounded frustrated. “But from what I can tell, ‘Shool’ means either, ‘the one who escaped death,’ or ‘the one who saw death and lived.’ But the way some of the men are saying it to him, I think they are also teasing him; he laughed with them at first, but now he seems angry about it.”

  “I saw that,” Meavu said. “They’re grinning at him and making this noise with their tongues, like a clicking sound. It startled me at first because it reminded me of the Ravens’ clicks and throat noises. But this is different.”

  “Yes. And if it’s what I’ve heard Caanti do, it’s meant to be sarcastic,” Farnook said, remembering. “Caanti used to make that sound in front of the Raven women, then smile and tell them it meant she was pleased with something they’d said or did. But I knew differently. I knew she was ridiculing them to their faces and getting away with it. Caanti even did it in front of the other two Nukeena women. They’d smile as well. They never told the others what it really meant. I guess it was a way they could get a small revenge.”

  Farnook made a loud clicking noise.

  “That’s it,” Meavu said. “How did you make it?”

  “Like this.” Farnook made the sound again. “It’s tricky to learn.” She worked her face up, deliberately exaggerating how hard it was to do, pursing her lips, then widening them. Her throat bulged for a moment, and when she parted her lips slightly, she made a frighteningly loud click again.

  Several of the Clan jumped.

  “She clicks as loudly as you belch, Ubantu,” Elder Nuka said.

  Everyone laughed, Ubantu the loudest. A few popped their lips, trying to make sounds as loud as Farnook’s click. The smaller children ran up to each other, laughing, as rude noises filling the air. None, however, could imitate Farnook.

  After a while the children grew tired of making noises and settled off to the side of the group to play the bone tossing game.

  “Now that we know that no other Nukeena will awake from the dead, the bodies are to be burned on the water,” Farnook said.

  Attu’s eyes were drawn to the six dark mounds on the other side of the beach, outlined against the sand in the last light of dusk. He’d checked the bodies again just before coming to the fire. None of these men were coming back...

  “I asked Shool, and he explained by taking some sticks and placing them together like a flat boat,” Farnook continued. “He took a piece of dried meat and set it on the boat, pointing to the bodies at the same time. He made the motions of paddling, before taking a stick from the fire and setting the dried meat and sticks below it on fire.”

  “Oh.” The collective sound moved through the group.

  “All right. Good,” Ubantu said. “Now that we know what to do, tomorrow, at first light, we will build this flat boat and have Shool and any other Nukeena who are strong enough help us take care of their dead.”

  A look of relief passed over the others.

  “If they bury their dead in the water, why didn’t they do it while they were still out in the ocean instead of bringing them all back with them?” Yural asked.

  “It’s the fire,” Farnook answered. “This I know from Caanti. Fire is sacred to the Nukeena as it is to us, but in a different way. They believe they are born from fire and water spirits and must return to them when they die.”

  “Interesting,” said Meavu. Others nodded.

  “And they needed all their canoes. They were packed into them. Six are dead, but there are twelve still living,” Rovek added. “They couldn’t burn one of their own canoes. They had to bring the bodies back to land with them.”

  “I think many were alive almost to the end,” Rika said, her voice thick with emotion. “They were trying to rescue their fellow hunters. I’m sure the survivors were shocked when they found out how many didn’t make it.”

  The Clan grew quiet. Small children, sensing their parents’ sadness, climbed into laps and were held. The fire popped and crackled for a while, and the trees rustled behind them. The smoke from their fire, with its scent of burning pine, rose up into the darkening sky, mixing with the smoke from the Nukeena’s fire on the other side of the beach, where two women were attending the survivors. Only three Nukeena hunters were strong enough to begin taking care of their own, but they were still severely sunburned and in pain. The horror the Nukeena had been through seemed to dull their grief, and they mostly stared into the flames, their eyes blank with the shock of what they had endured. Now, as the silence lengthened, Attu felt the spirits of his people uniting with the spirits of the grieving Nukeena.

  “We are one,” Meavu said quietly to Rika and Attu as she sat beside them, holdi
ng Rovek’s hand in her own. “All of Nuvikuan-na is filled with one people. And the people are one with Nuvikuan-na, her water, her land, her animals, her people. All one.”

  “Like the Great Spirit of the Seers?”

  “I don’t understand it quite that way, but there is unity in our world. There is oneness, which is Nuvikuan-na. If only we could all see it, all would live in peace.”

  “You speak great wisdom, my sister,” Attu said.

  Meavu flashed a look at him as if expecting his words were meant to tease her, but when he smiled with respect at her and bowed his head slightly, she smiled and returned his gesture.

  “If the Nukeena need fire and water so their spirits may travel to the next life, we will honor it,” Ubantu said.

  Everyone seemed to agree, and the moment passed. Several new conversations began among the groups seated around the fire.

  “Did you speak with Veshria?” Attu asked his mother, keeping his voice low since Veshria was sitting across the fire from them.

  “Yes. She said she hasn’t used the root, but I don’t believe her.” Yural shook her head. “I encouraged her to see Rika and to give me the roots she still had. She acted like she’d take my advice and see Rika. But I’m not sure she will. She did say she’d let Rika know if she had any complications with her pregnancy, but she doesn’t expect there to be any. Veshria says she is doing fine right now, just like she did with her other three.”

  “Did she give you the roots?”

  “She gave me some, but Meavu says there were many more in the pouch when Veshria tried to convince her to use it. So either she’s used more since then, or she didn’t give me all of them.”

  “I’m worried about her. And not just because of the roots.” Attu told his mother of the conversation he’d had with Veshria about Keanu.

  “It’s hard to know what to believe,” Yural said. “We’ll have to wait until Tingiyok returns with Keanu. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on Veshria.” Yural sat back.

  Farnook sighed, and Attu turned to see she was studying the fire, looking worried.