by C. S. Bills
Before any of the Raven women could react to the threat and start hurling spears or knives, Farnook appeared out of the darkness and into the space between the torches. She was also naked, covered with glowing algae and white body paint, painted in swirls much like the Raven leader’s tattoos had been. She’d painted her face to appear like Kagit’s, as if she were the embodiment of the Raven spirit now.
Attu knew enough of the Raven tongue, and Farnook had explained to them all in detail what she would say and why, so Attu could follow as she called out in a shriek, much like the Raven cry.
“Be afraid! Be very afraid!” she screamed. “I am the ghost of Farnook, come to make you all pay for my death, for the torture you inflicted upon me while I was still alive.”
Farnook gestured with her hands, and even Attu jumped as sparks of blue and orange flew from her hands toward the women, who were now clinging together in groups. The sparks flew only a spear length or so, but their sudden appearance was frightening, as if Farnook had conjured them from some power within herself. Attu knew Farnook had been holding two powders, one in each hand, that when thrown in the air, would ignite. She had thrown half of it, keeping some for her grand departure.
Attu marveled at the show of sparks Rika had created for Farnook to use. And Farnook was just getting started.
“How dare you desecrate Kagit’s totem? I am his now, in the afterworld, and he has sent me to tell you that he is very angry with you!”
Attu had told Farnook about how the women had chopped at the Raven wings on the totem and apparently let their children play up and down its length. She’d been delighted and added it to her tirade.
“Those of you who do not wish to be burned alive in your log houses will take all you possess and flee up the river before sunset tomorrow. As the sun is setting, I am going to burn the log house of your leader. You have desecrated it and may no longer live there!
“Some who hurt me while I walked on this earth in my human body shall be taken before they can flee. The Raven has given me this revenge as a gift for bearing his spirit child.”
A few of the women gasped.
“If any of you do not flee, the Raven Spirit will destroy this entire settlement! Beware! Some of you will disappear even as you prepare to leave. Some will pay for this foul treatment of my spirit with their deaths. The Raven Spirit will take them to himself. Do not search for those whom he takes, for they will be no more. Save yourselves. If you try to thwart the Raven Spirit in this, you will all burn!”
Farnook hooked her thumbs into the loops on wings she had hidden behind her back. She raised her arms, and the wings, made of leaves and a few feathers, also painted to glow in the dark, moved up and out with her arms, making her look at once even more fierce and bird-like.
One woman collapsed at the sight.
Farnook had explained to the others that this was the way Kagit had startled many Clans, appearing out of the darkness dressed like the mighty Raven, attacking and slaughtering most of that Clan’s people before grabbing some of the women and sometimes a few of their men. She knew seeing this again would trigger the fear of Remembering for most of the women. It appeared she had been correct.
Farnook began speaking rapidly then, first in Nukeena, then in Nuvik, switching back and forth, waving her wings and screeching after every few words. It looked like she was working herself into a frenzy, but what she was really doing was relaying a message so fast that one would have to be a native speaker to understand her words. This is what they were all counting on. In between a continuing tirade against the Ravens’ treatment of her when she was ‘alive,’ and a list of what punishments they would incur if they didn’t follow her mandate to flee up river – all spoken in the Raven’s tongue – Farnook interspersed these words in Nukeena: “It’s me, Farnook. I did not die. I have found your men. Tell no one. Act scared. Bring your possessions and your children to the north point through the forest. Sneak out as soon as you can. Tell only those you know wish to escape this Clan that you are going. They are welcome to come, also. If you tell anyone else, the Nukeena hunters with me will be forced to kill them. Be careful. Caanti, your man, Cray, lives. He is with us. Trust me. The hunters will take you and your children away from this place for good. Tonight. Be careful.”
With Farnook’s final words, she threw the rest of the two powders she’d been holding into the air. As they exploded, Attu and the others dipped their torches into the waiting skins of water, held open upon frames like the women used for cooking. The resulting steam rolled like dense fog across the clearing with the wind from the bay. Then all was darkness.
Attu knew the sudden sparks of light would have momentarily blinded the Raven women. He’d been careful to look away, and Farnook had surely closed her eyes as well. He heard her run by him in the sand, headed for the skin boats laying just out of sight around the bend in the bay. He raced after her, after tipping over the water and grabbing the torch, water skin, and its holder. One of the Nukeena hunters followed Farnook, erasing her tracks with a small branch, its leaves moving back and forth as he ran backward. Another Nukeena did the same with his own tracks and Attu’s. They’d been careful to walk in a single line, using the edge of the forest for cover as far as they could, so there was little sand to erase.
They reached the forest and Attu, Farnook, and Suka sprinted for their skin boats while the Nukeena raced along the shoreline. The waves were strong this night. No one would hear them running, and their footprints would be washed away in moments.
The spirits are with us in this. I pray it works.
“I saw Caanti!” Cray was beside himself as they gathered around their boats at the point once again. “She made no move or look that would give you away, but she moved her hand up to her ear cuts when you said my name. She understood. She’s coming!” Farnook translated. Cray paced back and forth on the beach. He looked as if at any moment he would dash back down the beach to the longhouses and grab his woman from among the Ravens.
“I know it’s hard for you to wait,” Attu said. Farnook spoke his words to Cray. “But this is the safest way for Caanti to escape from the others. She will bring as many women as will come. Farnook says she thinks at least ten, maybe more. Soon you’ll see her, and we will be gone from this place.”
“Ai,” Cray said, but he continued to pace.
Farnook and the Nukeena stationed themselves along the path to the north, about halfway between the Ravens’ camp and the point where the boats were hidden. Soon after, a woman holding a poolik and the hand of a small boy moved quietly down the path toward them. The boy was chewing on something. Attu thought he recognized the sweet berry mixture staining the boy’s lips as they drew nearer.
Smart woman. She knew how to keep her child quiet while she escaped.
Farnook stepped out into the path as two Nukeena hunters appeared behind the woman, ready to grab her and cover her mouth if she screamed. But the woman was silent.
“Nukeena,” one of the men said. The woman turned, and seeing Soantek, flung herself into his arms, children and all, weeping.
“She is a relative of Soantek,” Farnook explained.
Several other women came down the path as the moon slipped across the sky. Attu helped them to the point, and Farnook explained they needed to pack their things into one of the three canoes and wait quietly for the others to come. Some sat, weeping, some staring into space as if in shock. But all had been silent. They knew the danger if the remaining Raven women discovered them here. All of the women had been captives, taken from other Clans, Farnook said. No native Raven women had come, at least not yet.
Attu lay once again on the ridge rock overlooking the Raven camp. It was a disaster. Children cried, women fought, yelling at one another in the Raven’s guttural tongue. Fires flared, and once in a while a cry would erupt from the midst of the camp as another woman was discovered missing. Attu understood enough of the Raven’s speech to know Farnook’s plan of having the women slip out of camp in th
e middle of this uproar was working beyond their hopes and prayers.
Attu knew this was the part of the plan only Farnook could have concocted, knowing the Ravens as well as she did. Any of Attu’s Clan would have grabbed their few belongings and been far up the river before daylight. But Raven women knew their Raven spirit was a vengeful spirit who also loved glittery things and things of value. They believed the Raven spirit’s plan was to take their things then burn the longhouses anyway. That’s what Ravens did. So they stayed, thinking they had until the next night, and fought over what each would take instead of trying to keep each other safe from the vengeful spirit of Farnook. For a moment, Attu wished they were really going to burn the longhouses.
These women need to realize their beaded necklaces and hair ornaments, carved bowls, and grass weavings are not important, just decoration. But as Attu watched, the women dragged huge bundles of things from the longhouses, struggling to carry what must have been everything they claimed as theirs. Only a few had left, moving slowly up the river, older children carrying younger ones as the women dragged their heavy loads.
“Crazy,” Attu mumbled to himself. He stood and picked his way back down the steep ridge, using his spear to steady himself.
“Caanti has not come yet,” Farnook told Attu as he arrived back at the path where the others waited. “Cray’s getting worried someone or some thing is keeping her from him. It will be daylight soon.”
“I didn’t see anything when I was watching the camp. Do you want me to sneak up on them and see if someone is stopping her from coming?” Attu moved his spear to his other hand, parallel to the ground, ready to move off into the brush under the trees once again.
“No, not yet,” Farnook said.
“I think she’s waiting until everyone else who wants to leave has made it out safely,” Suka said. “Farnook has told me much about Caanti, and it seems to me she would do something like that, save others before herself.”
“Ai?” Cray was beside them, his eyes worried, searching their faces for the meaning of their conversation. Farnook explained.
“Ai, Caanti tova,” Cray said, his voice taking on a tone of pride for his woman.
“Tova?” Suka asked.
“What you said, Suka. It means self-sacrificing, thinking of others, a woman or man of honor,” Farnook said. She turned to Cray. “Ai,” she said. “Tova fuva. Caanti is filled with that quality. It’s why she’s my friend and I want to save her.”
Bushes rustled to the side of the path and the Nukeena hunters on watch moved to investigate. A small woman, carrying a bundle in her arms, stood up from where she’d been crouched.
“Cray!” Her voice was a whisper, but Caanti spoke it with such intensity everyone heard her. She rushed into the arms of her man. The Nukeena enfolded her, tears streaming down both their faces as he lifted her off the ground, careful not to hurt the tiny baby she was holding, but completely engulfing her as if he were a great bear hide blanket and she the one he would keep warm forever now that he was wrapped around her.
Caanti melted into his embrace and the others looked away, as was the Nuvik custom, allowing the two their privacy.
Attu walked to where Suka and Farnook were standing. Farnook was leaning toward Caanti, although she also wasn’t looking at the pair. It was as if her whole body pulled her in the direction of her friend in spite of her trying to not see them.
Heart sister, Attu mind spoke to Farnook.
She grinned back at him.
As soon as Cray released Caanti, Farnook was at her side, reaching out for both her and the baby.
“Your baby is beautiful,” Farnook said to Caanti.
“He is not mine,” Caanti said. She said it again in Nukeena.
Attu watched Cray’s reaction. He looked at first relieved, then concerned. “Ai?” Cray asked.
Caanti spoke again briefly in Nukeena.
“She says she’ll explain later.” Farnook said. “Right now, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Why?”
Caanti rattled something off in the Raven tongue and again in Nukeena. She stumbled over a few words in her native speech, and Attu felt a sudden rush of anger as he realized she probably hadn’t spoken it since Farnook left and probably not much even before that. Something else the Ravens robbed from the women they took.
“She says she’s the last. She tried to sneak out, but she thinks Kagit’s second wife might have seen her leave,” Farnook translated for Attu and Suka.
Second wife? I’d assumed Tuunti, Kagit’s third wife, had killed both her rival wives...
“She’s not as easily fooled as the others,” Farnook said. “She’s a suspicious woman. We need to leave now. If she follows and sees us, she’ll give the cry of alarm and others will attack us. All do her bidding now, Caanti says. She is leader of the Raven Clan.”
“Let her try and stop us,” Suka growled, hefting his spear. The Nukeena raised weapons as well before lowering them again to the running position. They sprinted back to the point, Cray steadying Caanti as she ran with the baby, and Suka and Attu on each side of Farnook, ready to keep her from falling if she tripped.
“I hope it doesn’t come to a fight between us. Attuanin, protect us,” Attu prayed as they ran. “Help us get out into the bay before we’re seen.”
Chapter 15
The other women cried out as they saw Caanti and the baby. She spoke to them in the Raven tongue, and Farnook added a few words that sounded like an order. The women grabbed up their children and climbed into the boats. They moved swiftly, even the small children, and Attu realized they’d been used to traveling in the Raven’s large canoes for many moons as they’d headed north with the Ravens. Everyone seemed to have worked out a space in advance, and within moments they were ready.
Attu and Suka helped the Nukeena hunters push the three large canoes off the sandy bottom near the shore. The boats rode low in the water but seemed steady enough, even as the Nukeena men pulled themselves over the sides and took up their positions to paddle. Nine women had come from the Raven camp: the three Nukeena women and six others. All had at least one child with them. Some had two. They all sat still in the bottom of the boats, the children clinging to their mothers, eyes wide, as the shadows faded with the dawn. One woman had brought her almost grown son, another, an older daughter. The older girl and boy held younger ones on their laps, and they all kept vigilant watch of the increasingly visible shoreline as the boats moved out into the deeper water.
Attu knew they must be afraid they’d still be caught. Such a long time with the Ravens would’ve made them think it was impossible to escape. Yet still, they’d tried. He marveled at their bravery. These Nukeena men were rescuing worthy women, worthy children. It made him feel certain the risk had been justified, just as he’d thought it would be.
Attu and Suka turned back to their skin boats, where Farnook waited, watching the forest, also. As Attu bent to pick up his paddle, he heard a whooshing sound over his head, and a spear fell into the water past his skin boat. The alarm call of the Raven’s blowing shell pierced the still air, then cut off.
Farnook screamed.
Attu spun around to see Suka’s spear sprouting from the chest of the Raven woman who’d tried to kill him. The woman standing next to her had been the one blowing a deafening alarm on the huge shell at her lips, but now, stunned motionless, she watched as her companion dropped in the path. The shell fell from the other woman’s hands as she stared for a moment at the dead woman beside her. Then she turned and fled.
“Don’t let her get away!” Farnook said. “I know her. I think she’ll come with us if I can explain.”
Suka ran after the fleeing woman, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to himself. When she tried to bite him, he spun her around, pulled her arms behind her, and held them with one hand, his other arm holding her back firmly against his chest. He dragged her the few steps back to the clearing as the woman kicked and screamed.
“What do I do
now?” Suka yelled.
Farnook cried out to the woman in Raven as she continued to struggle.
The woman didn’t seem to hear Farnook. In her desperation, she was screaming and twisting so hard to get away, it looked to Attu that she must be hurting herself. Suka stood stoically against her fighting, simply holding her in place.
Suddenly, the woman’s eyes grew wide and she stopped fighting. Her legs gave out, and Suka had to support her to keep the woman from collapsing on the ground. She was looking at Farnook in disbelief, as if she were still seeing the ghost Farnook had pretended to be. Then she looked out over the water and saw the other women with their children in the two canoes. One of the women called to her, and she seemed to regain some strength, standing again, but no longer struggling.
Farnook climbed out of the skin boat and walked to where Suka stood holding the woman. She spoke to her, resting her hand on the woman’s shoulder. Attu could tell that this time the woman heard her. Farnook said something that made the woman shake her head in disbelief as tears sprang to her eyes. She dropped her head as if in shame. Farnook put her finger under the woman’s chin, lifting it as she spoke gently again, and as the woman studied first Farnook, then the other women out in the canoes with their children, Attu saw an expression of wonder cross her face.
Farnook smiled reassuringly at Suka. “Let her go,” she said. “This is Hartik, and I think she now understands that we’re rescuing these women and children, not abducting them,” Farnook said. “That is her cousin in the canoe.”
Suka let go of Hartik, and she rubbed her wrists, then reached to her throat, where a curious tight necklace lay. She worked her fingers under it and ripped it off, leaving behind an angry skin burn. She seemed not to notice, but instead, Hartik grinned and called something out to the woman in the canoe.
The woman answered her. Hartik nodded, her expression now eager. She spoke to Farnook in an intense whisper and Farnook nodded.
