The Gathering Night

by Margaret Elphinstone

  I was glad to get away; it was hard waiting every day for Basajaun. Amets had often – very often – described how his dog, as well as all the other things he could do, knew how to lead duck straight into a trap. Amets had wished – very often – that I could get a pup from the same litter. There was no chance of that, as Edur’s bitch was the mother. I was happy with the pup I’d chosen, which was one of Sendoa’s. ‘And,’ I said to Amets, ‘I reckon your dog sired this one anyway. It comes to the same thing.’

  ‘In that case,’ Amets had said, ‘my dog can teach yours. If he can get duck to follow him – at least we’ll find out who his father is!’

  ‘If it were that easy, there’d be a lot more angry men in this world!’

  Amets had roared with laughter. But he didn’t forget that my dog and I needed a lesson. So now we were wandering deep into the marsh, our dogs leaping through the water behind us. We brushed through bullrushes and reeds, and waded thigh-deep across creeks and patches of open water. Here and there we came to islets covered with birch and willow scrub growing so thick we couldn’t scramble up to dry land. The reeds thinned out; the bare wetlands were red as an otter pelt, with gleams of water here and there. I gazed, eyes half shut, until I began to make out the rounded shapes of many ducks, thick as leaves in fall, scattered across the floodlands. The rushes round me whispered among themselves while the wind stirred them.

  ‘This way!’

  I followed Amets. We came to a creek that wound across the flats until it lost itself in spreading waters. Amets’ dog stopped on the bank. It watched Amets, ears cocked. My dog looked this way and that, at me, at the other dog, at Amets and at me again.

  Amets pointed to the gap in the rushes where the stream flowed out. He spoke low, close to my ear. ‘We spread the net there, inside the rushes. You take this end. You’ll stay here while I wade across. Then we’ll drag it up.’

  ‘How far?’ I whispered.

  ‘Not far – less than a man’s length. Just enough for the rushes to hide us.’

  ‘And the dogs?’

  ‘Ah!’ Amets held his dog by the muzzle and looked in his eyes. He spoke to him softly. The dog stood poised, tail high, straining to be off.

  I told my dog to follow. I told him – but this part was without words – not to shame me.

  As soon as Amets let go, his dog trotted away. My dog followed. They didn’t follow the creek. Amets’ dog was making a wide curve across the flats, so as to come on the ducks sideways. I had to take my eyes off the dogs to get our trap in place. Amets unrolled the rush netting, and we set it across the creek. Then we crouched, one on each side. I peered through the rushes.

  The dogs, Amets’ dog in front and my dog following, came into sight, trotting up the bank towards us. Every few paces Amets’ dog stopped and lay down. Amets’ dog didn’t glance at the ducks. My dog stood behind him: he never took his eyes off those ducks. I heard him whine. I whistled him to lie down, as loud as I dared. I willed him not to shame me. Slowly my dog lay down. Amets’ dog trotted forward a few paces, and lay down again. Two heartbeats later, my dog followed.

  I saw the ducks. Sure enough, they were swimming after those dogs. They weren’t being driven. They were curious – you listen to what I’m saying, you children – those ducks just wanted to see what happened next. Well, isn’t that about as foolish as you can get? Just tagging along, wanting to know what happens next . . .

  Sure enough, those ducks swam up the creek. They watched those dogs push their way into the rushes. The ducks wanted to see why. They followed. They swam into the rushes. They swam under our net – and then . . . We pulled it tight! Like this!

  Amets can’t say now that I don’t listen to what he says! And I can’t deny that Amets’ dog is clever – almost as clever as Amets says he is!

  Amets and I walked back over the hill next morning, each of us with four plump ducks dangling from his shoulder, and two more in our bellies. We came by the highest hill so Amets could show me all the islands. The Sun climbed as far as he could into the High Sun Sky: now it was Gathering Moon he was starting to get tired. The waves were still chasing each other down Gathering Loch, but they’d lost their white caps. We reached the shore not far from Gathering Camp. The tide was low enough for us to walk along the beach. We came round the rocks and saw two loaded boats paddling towards Gathering Camp. Sunlight sparkled on the water. I shaded my eyes. The boats bobbed up and down so I couldn’t see.

  ‘Amets, they must be from Loch Island Camp!’ My voice sounded hoarse and strained. ‘No one else could have got here so soon after the gale.’

  ‘Where are your wits, Kemen? For all we know they’re from Bloodstone Island, or even further out. They could have camped anywhere between here and Flint Camp while they sat out the storm.’

  I knew better. I broke into a run, slipping and sliding over the wet rock. The boats were well ahead. They reached Gathering Camp beach before I did. Amets shouted at me to wait. I couldn’t.

  I arrived all out of breath. They were pulling up the empty boats. Their gear was piled on the beach. The men turned the boat over and laid it down. They stood up and turned away. I saw my brother.

  ‘Basajaun!’

  He ran towards me. I held him to my heart. We stood, holding each other by the elbows, searching each other’s faces.

  Basajaun, my brother!

  He hadn’t changed. The lines from nose to upper lip had hardened – were familiar – only it was my father who had deep lines like that, not Basajaun. My brother’s eyes were the same, the colour of hazels in fall, green turning to brown. I looked into them. I couldn’t read his heart. He had changed. His beard was cut close to the skin, in the manner of the Auk People. His lynx-skin cloak was worn and sea-stained – all the fur rubbed off the collar – he still wore it the Lynx way, fastened on the right shoulder with a pin of polished antler. A picture flashed across my mind: our mother’s hearth in Fishing Camp – the smell of root-cakes baking – my mother turning them with her digging stick, burying them in the ashes – and Basajaun sitting on an upturned log, shaping and polishing that very pin. And now – now I wore deerskins sewn by an Auk woman, fastened at the neck with a rawhide string. That same woman had threaded my necklace, made from the teeth and claws of the bear I’d not yet killed when last I saw my brother. Osané had also plaited my hair for Gathering Camp – in the Auk way. I looked at my brother and saw how I had changed.

  Nekané said:

  More People had come to Gathering Camp than usual, because, in all the places where Auk People hunt, the Animals were refusing to give themselves. Now the Hunt was delayed because of the gale. Soon there wouldn’t be enough food at Gathering Camp for so many. Everyone knew the crisis would come when the Go-Betweens spoke to the Animals about the Hunt. Either the rightness of things would be restored, or the Auk spirits would change sides and destroy us.

  I walked on the edge of a precipice. I trod slowly, step by step. Between each step I gazed into the chasm below me. If I fell I was lost for ever. None of you realised that. You knew I was taking risks. You knew that this Gathering Camp would either see everything lost, or everything healed. You had some idea of the task that lay before me. What you didn’t know was that my very name was in danger.

  Some People thought that the wrong had been done when I went Go-Between. We all know there’s only one way to get rid of a Go-Between: their name must die. I’d seen men – and some women too – making signs as I passed. Not just signs to keep away bad spirits, but signs that threatened me directly. No spirit had heeded those signs, but People’s wishes have great power, and if these enemies of mine had known what to do they could easily have bound a weak spirit to work against me. Everyone knows – I’m not giving anything away here – that even a weak spirit can cut the thin thread between a journeying Go-Between and their sleeping body. If that happens, the Go-Between can’t get back into the world. I didn’t let myself think about that. Luckily only another Go-Between would know how to bind a
spirit in such a way, and it hadn’t taken me long to realise that even if my fellow Go-Betweens didn’t love me, they wouldn’t betray me either.

  I was already shaken by grief. At Loch Island Camp, when Hodei and I made Kemen’s cousin show us where his soul had journeyed, I saw at last why my Dolphin had been waiting for my call. I didn’t yet see how the wrong had happened, but I saw who’d caused it. I saw enough to tear my heart in two. When we came back to our bodies, Hodei and I agreed we’d both been right. He’d picked up my strand of the story, and I’d picked up his. Now we were able to twine the two strands together. We tested the rope we’d made. We made it rise up straight so we could climb to the top. It bore our weight; we found no weakness in it. Until then we had been – not enemies – but not friends. We’d circled around one another like two wary dogs who meet when their families come together, not knowing – because dogs’ memories are short – that they were born of the same mother not so many Moons ago.

  Now Hodei and I worked together. In spite of my fears I felt strong. At Gathering Camp Zigor and Aitor listened to what we had to say. I sat with them. We roasted spirit-mushrooms on the hot stones of our hearths. We waited until everyone had gathered. Daylight faded into twilight. Hearth fires flickered. The smell of food hung over the clearing. The Evening Star shone like a white pebble in the dusky sky.

  I was Go-Between, but because I was a woman I had no part in speaking to the Animals about the Hunt. I knew how men muttered among themselves, saying that I couldn’t really be Go-Between because whoever heard of a Go-Between that didn’t speak to the Animals about the Hunt? Nothing had been said openly. But now we had to answer that question, because the answers to the other questions were wrapped up inside it. That was why it was I, not Hodei or Zigor or Aitor, who first took up the Drum. That was why I called on the women.

  ‘Come, you women!’ I cried as I drummed. ‘Stand up, you women! Now the Dance is for you! This Year you women are making the Dance! Come, you women! Come! Come! Come!’

  All around the Go-Betweens’ mound, the women hung back, glancing at one another. At every hearth women looked round at their men. The men dropped their eyes and said nothing. However angry, or puzzled, or fearful those men were, what could they say? I had three strong Go-Betweens at my back, silently watching everything I did.

  ‘Come, you women! Come! Come! Come!’

  My sister Sorné got slowly to her feet – she was old, like me – and shuffled into the empty clearing below us. Haizea jumped up beside her. I might have known it: that daughter of mine has such courage! They clasped hands and walked slowly towards the mound.

  Aitor, Zigor and Hodei had been standing behind me, in front of the Go-Betweens’ fires. Now they moved back into the shadows. From the foot of the mound the Go-Betweens’ fires must have looked longer than usual. Only the four Go-Betweens on the mound could see why that was: there were no longer three linked hearths, but four. Four fires blazed into flame, fed by sticky pine branches. The crowd whispered like aspens in a breeze. Now they realised what had changed. Their sighs and mutters were like the wind whistling to itself in a high corrie.

  Ten heartbeats passed.

  My niece Itsaso ran forward from her new family at one of the far hearths. Hilargi leaned on Sendoa as she heaved herself to her feet. Sendoa gave her his hand as she stepped over her basket into the clearing. Esti left her mother’s side and ran to join her aunty. I was amazed when Zigor’s niece Zorioné came from the other side of the clearing, pulling her two sisters with her.

  Osané stood up – even in the midst of my drumming I felt the wave of courage that swept her on – and seized Alaia’s hand. One hand cradling her bulging belly, Osané dragged Alaia forward. The women clapped as I drummed. The dance rippled round the forming circle.

  My Drum quickened. It beat a path. All the women were on their feet. My Drum gave them no choice. I glimpsed Arantxa’s terrified face in the flickering firelight. My Drum searched out the way as it went. This dance had been done before, but not in the present life of anyone here. This dance was a tale passed down from the Ancestors along with stories of trouble, fear and want from a past so distant it had crumbled away, leaving no more trace than the bones of the People laid lovingly to rest on their platforms among the hills.

  But the song had stayed alive. When I began to sing, my voice came echoing back from many throats. It grew like the wind. Every woman of the Auk People knows that song. We sing it whenever a girl becomes a woman so that it never dies. No man in that gathering had heard it since he was a little boy. If any of the men remembered, it could only have been like a fragment of a dream.

  Where clouds gather

  On Grandmother Mountain

  Water springs from her breasts

  Water streams from her caves

  Water flows to the sea

  Where clouds gather

  I am your daughter

  Grandmother Mountain

  I am your daughter

  Grandmother Mountain

  Where clouds gather . . .

  Something crashed in the Go-Betweens’ hearths. Black smoke billowed upwards. The footsteps of the Animals drummed behind me. They had no dance in them. They were rock falling. They were Aurochs charging. They were the sea sweeping over the land. Hooded shapes leaped from behind the mound and tore through the dancers. The drums banged without speaking to each other. The song broke into separate drops like a River going over a precipice. The dance stumbled. It lay dead on the trampled ground. The order of things fell to pieces.

  The women fled, leaving a clear space before the mound. The men rushed forward, then stopped in their tracks. They could go no further. The dance had drawn a line round the clearing. The People felt where the line was. They gathered, men and women together, in a ring behind it. Only the four Go-Betweens on the mound stood inside the circle. The hooded Animals had gone. The four Go-Betweens stood side by side – not in our usual place behind the Go-Betweens’ fires, but in front of them. Moonlight fell on the faces of the People. Our faces were in shadow. There was nowhere for anyone to hide.

  We waited until the silence began to hurt. A log crackled in the fire behind us. Then Aitor raised his voice in lament:

  ‘The rightness of things has fallen to pieces! The Hunt is broken! The Animals refuse to speak to us about the Hunt! The Animals aren’t listening to the Hunters. They listen to the women. The spirits won’t come to the men of the Auk People. A great wrong has been done, and the spirits refuse to come to us.

  ‘We men are no good! Our women asked the spirits to come. Our women had to do that because our men are no good! The spirits listened to the women. The spirits have come! The spirits are listening to us now! Our women are better than we are!

  ‘We men are shamed! Can our women speak to the Animals about the Hunt? No! No woman can do that! We men must put things right with the spirits! We must put things right before the Moon sets tonight!’

  The People all turned towards the Moon with a soft sound like a breath let go. In two days Gathering Moon would be full. She’d just come clear of the hills between the Morning Sun Sky and the High Sun Sky. The stars turned pale. The dark fled and hid under the trees as the Moon rose higher. In the clearing it was as light as day.

  ‘Before the Moon sets tonight, that wrong must be put right! Before that Moon sets, your Go-Betweens must speak to the Animals about the Hunt! If the Auk People are to live another Year, that wrong must be put right!’

  Now Hodei was calling on them: ‘You think first of your families, as People do. You think about your sons, your fathers, your brothers, your nephews, your cousins. That’s the right order of things, when all things are right. Now there is a great wrong, which threatens not just your own family, but the whole of the Auk People. A great wrong has come among us! Now you must think of the Auk People, not just of your own family! If anyone has anything to speak, speak now!’

  The spirits came into the Drums and beat our cry into the hearts of all the People: �
�If anyone has anything to speak, speak now! Speak now!

  The People took up the chant: ‘Speak now! Speak now! Speak now!’

  Three men leaped into the clearing. They jumped up on to the Healing Place halfway up the mound. Their heads were level with the four hearths. The firelight fell on their faces. Osané’s brothers, Koldo, Oroitz and Itzal, stood before us.

  The drumming died away. Only the heartbeats of the People carried the beat: speak now! speak now! speak now!

  Zigor cried out so everyone could hear: ‘Koldo! Oroitz! Itzal! Speak now!’

  The eldest spoke for them all. Koldo hadn’t the voice of a Go-Between. He sounded sullen. I could hardly hear him. ‘The men of the Lynx People brought this wrong. We three know. One of them stole our sister. Edur brought the other two to us. We know they did great wrong from things that were said when they were with us. We saw when the Go-Betweens spoke to the spirits at Loch Island Camp. These men were cursed when they came to us. Their People did great wrongs and the spirits washed their land away. Now they’ve brought those bad spirits here. Those bad spirits want to kill us!’

  We Go-Betweens know there is no such thing as a bad spirit. We know there is no such thing as a wholly good man either. Itzal understood this better than Koldo. I saw that he was trembling. Oroitz didn’t meet our eyes. Only Koldo was quite sure that everything he said was true. I beckoned to Itzal. ‘Come here, Itzal!’

  Itzal glanced at his brothers. He climbed slowly up to us. He looked at the four hearths and his eyes widened. ‘Come here, Itzal!’

  Hidden between the cloaks of the four Go-Betweens, Itzal knelt at our feet, shaking like a leaf about to fall.