by Sue Harrison
“Do you want to stay?” Kayugh asked.
But instead of answering, Samiq said, “You are not my father. Who is my father?”
For a long time Kayugh did not speak. Finally he said, “Your father, husband to your mother, Chagak, was son of Shuganan, the carver.”
Samiq nodded. He had heard the stories of Shuganan. Of his power in the spirit world. His mother had also told him of her village that was destroyed by the Short Ones, and of her mother who was one of Many Whales’ daughters.
“Is Amgigh your true son?” Samiq asked. His heart had moved from its place in his chest, moved like a spirit moves, and he felt it first in his temples, then at his wrists, now pounding at the backs of his knees.
“Yes, he is my son and the son of another wife, not your mother.”
Again, Samiq’s heart moved, now to beat in a quick rhythm at the base of his throat. “We are not brothers, then?”
“When I took your mother as wife, you became brothers and I became your father.”
“You should have told us the truth. From the time we were small children, you should have told us.”
Kayugh cleared his throat, did not look at Samiq. “We thought it would be better to raise you without knowing. What good is gained by speaking of the dead? Who can say what curse, what anger might have come to our ulaq if your mother spoke of your true father, if I spoke of Amgigh’s true mother?”
Samiq closed his eyes, rubbed his fingers across his eyelids. “So Amgigh was not chosen to learn to hunt the whale because he is not grandson to Many Whales,” he said.
“Yes.”
“But if you were the one who could choose, you would have chosen Amgigh….”
For a moment, Kayugh looked up into the sky, and when he looked back at Samiq again, Samiq saw the concern in the man’s eyes. “You would have been my choice because you are the better hunter,” Kayugh said. “You will stay?”
“Yes,” Samiq answered, but in his mind he was already seeing the many times Kayugh had seemed to favor Amgigh over him, the times Samiq had won in races or had brought back the largest fish, but Amgigh had received the praise.
Kayugh nodded. “Then learn to hunt,” he said. “Learn to hunt the whale, and come back to teach Amgigh.”
17
WHEN HIS FATHER AND Samiq went into Many Whales’ ulaq, Amgigh climbed to the top of the ulaq and waited, watching the sea. Many Whales—grandfather to Amgigh’s mother and chief hunter of the Whale Hunters—why had he chosen Samiq over Amgigh? Or had Kayugh been the one to choose? Even so why leave Amgigh outside? What secrets were being told to Samiq that Amgigh could not hear?
Many Whales had visited the First Men’s village before, but he had never seemed like a grandfather. He showed no interest in either Samiq or Amgigh, only giving each boy a nod, perhaps asking if they had taken their first sea lion yet. Let the old man ask now. Amgigh had taken both sea lion and wife.
Three young women walked slowly around Many Whales’ ulaq. Two were almost beautiful, not as beautiful as Kiin, but, Amgigh thought, it would not be terrible to spend a night with one of them. The third woman was as large as a man, her face dirty, her front teeth broken to jagged stumps. She, of the three, spoke the loudest, and when she caught Amgigh’s eyes on her, she took off her otter fur suk, flipped the front of her apron and giggled.
Amgigh waited until the three were behind Many Whales’ ulaq, and then he slipped down the curve of the roof and walked to the beach. Whale Hunter men were repairing ikyan, and women were digging roots at the edge of the beach. Amgigh went to his ikyak, ran his fingers over seams and the sea lion skin patch that his mother had sewn over a thin spot near the keelson. He oiled seams and skins, and when he had finished, he pulled the bundle of knives from inside the ikyak. He found a flat place on the beach and spread out a sealskin, then arranged the knife blades and lance points in a circle, points out, on the skin. He sat down, spread a thick piece of sealskin over his left thigh and wrapped his left hand with a strip of sea lion skin, then took his punch from the basket and began to retouch a dull knife.
He did not look up as the Whale Hunters began to gather; he did not look up to acknowledge their comments or their offers for his blades. Yes, they would give whale oil, furs, nights with their daughters. Let them regret Many Whales’ choice; let them wish the old man had chosen his other grandson, the grandson who could make the most beautiful blades they had ever seen.
But then he heard his father’s voice and Samiq’s. Samiq broke through the Whale Hunter men to stand beside Amgigh, Samiq’s hand possessively on Amgigh’s shoulder. Amgigh looked up at Samiq. He paused to toss the wrapped obsidian knife into Samiq’s hands, and he smiled as Samiq unwrapped the knife, as Samiq held it up for the Whale Hunter men to see.
Then Samiq squatted down beside him, laid his hand on Amgigh’s arm. “It is too beautiful. It should belong to you, not me,” Samiq said.
“I have one like it,” Amgigh replied, but he could not meet his brother’s eyes. Then Amgigh turned to the Whale Hunters. “Otter furs and necklaces,” he said. “I will trade my blades for otter furs and necklaces.” And looking at Samiq from the corners of his eyes, Amgigh said, “I need gifts to take back to my beautiful wife.”
18
KIIN WOKE EARLY AND went out to the kelp rocks to fish for pogy. She caught three, each as long as her forearm, wrist to elbow. She cleaned and split them then took them to Chagak’s cooking stone. She had started a fire under the stone before she went fishing, and now the stone was hot. She laid the fish, skin side down and watched as the heat turned the fishes’ green inner flesh flaky and white.
Still squatting beside the cooking stone, Kiin ate one fish then took the other two back for Chagak and Wren, then she left the ulaq to watch the sea. Who could say when Amgigh and Kayugh would return? Perhaps today.
Kiin sighed and looked out toward the water. It was still early, but she saw that Crooked Nose had already been out in her ik and was now coming in, her small open-topped skin boat filled with cod. Kiin smiled and hurried down to the beach to help Crooked Nose pull the boat ashore.
“Have you b-been fishing all n-night?” Kiin asked when she saw the many white-bellied fish in the bow of the boat.
Crooked Nose laughed. “No. But the spirits favored me.”
Under a rock at the edge of the ikyan racks, Kiin saw Crooked Nose’s carrying net. She ran over and got it, then brought it back to Crooked Nose.
The net was a circle. When it was spread flat on the ground, it was as wide as the length of a tall man. Crooked Nose loosened the gathering cord and she and Kiin held opposite sides, flipping fish from the boat into the net. Then together, they carried the full net to the place where the women cleaned fish. There, during low tide, the waves would not reach them, but at high tide, the sea would reclaim the fish innards.
They set down the net and Kiin reached under her suk to the pocket in her apron where she kept her woman’s knife. The flint blade was slightly curved, the straight back edge blunted to fit easily into Kiin’s hand. She grabbed a fish from the pile and slit it from gills to tail, then reached in and with two quick slices detached the innards at top and bottom and pulled them out with her hand. Crooked Nose had brought drying sticks—short ones, the width of Kiin’s hand, to place inside the fish and hold them open for quicker drying, and long ones to string ten, fifteen fish through mouth and gills and hang them over drying racks.
Kiin inserted a short stick, embedding the ends in the flesh, then laid the fish on a piece of old ikyak cover that Crooked Nose had laid out.
“Your suk is beautiful,” Crooked Nose said, slicing into another fish.
Kiin grimaced at the slime that was clinging to one of her sleeves. “I sh-should be-be wearing m-my old one,” Kiin said.
“Go and get it. The fish will wait.”
Kiin lowered her head and pretended to test the sharpness of her knife blade against her thumb. “I-I left it in m-my father’s ulaq.”
Crooked Nose snorted. “I will get it for you,” she said and left before Kiin could stop her.
“Do n-not s-s-say that I wanted it,” Kiin called after her, but was not sure that Crooked Nose heard her.
Kiin knew that Crooked Nose was not afraid of her father. Gray Bird was a small man, and Crooked Nose was taller, perhaps even stronger.
Kiin pulled several fish from the net and gutted them, then she looked toward the ulas. Crooked Nose was coming toward her, Kiin’s old cormorant suk in her hands. “Your father sends his greetings,” she called to Kiin.
Kiin’s eyes widened and then she began to laugh. She could never remember her father sending his greetings to anyone, especially her.
“Oh, s-so n-now I am wife, he-he has decided I am w-worth greeting?” Kiin said, trying to make her words light.
Crooked Nose smiled and said, “Go and wash your hands before you change your suk.”
Kiin went to the edge of the stream and squatted to scour her hands with gravel. She used wet sand to remove the slime and fish blood from the sleeve of her suk, then pulled the garment off over her head. The wind was cold against her breasts and she shielded herself with the suk as she walked back to Crooked Nose.
The woman pointed with her chin to the place she had laid Kiin’s old feather suk and Kiin slipped it on over her head and smoothed it down over her apron.
The women worked in silence for a time and then Crooked Nose asked, “Do you feel different, now you are a wife?”
Kiin pursed her lips and finally said, “It is m-more be-because I have a soul than because I am a w-wife.” She held a fist against her breast. “It is g-good to feel a sp-spirit m-moving in here.”
“Your father should have named you long ago,” Crooked Nose said. “But at least your mother did what she could for you.”
Kiin was surprised by Crooked Nose’s words. What had her mother done for her? Even Kiin’s new suk had been made by Chagak. Blue Shell would not defy her husband to honor the daughter he hated. How many times had Blue Shell only watched, crying but doing nothing to stop him, while Gray Bird beat Kiin?
“I w-would never allow my husband to b-beat one of my children,” Kiin answered. “He could b-b-beat m-me instead.”
“I am not saying that all your mother did was right,” Crooked Nose answered. “But you must realize that your father’s anger at you is because you are not a son. There is no other reason. You are a beautiful woman. He often boasts of your beauty. Big Teeth has told me.”
Kiin’s surprise kept her words in her throat. Her father considered her beautiful? “But m-my mother…” she finally said.
“Should have stopped him?” Crooked Nose said. “Yes, at least she should have tried. But you must remember what she did for you.”
Kiin frowned and Crooked Nose said, “Your father wanted to kill you after you were born.”
Kiin nodded. “Qakan has t-told me that many t-times.”
“Kayugh forced your father to let you live by promising Amgigh as husband for you. Your father took his revenge in not giving you a name. That way Kayugh could not keep his promise, could not give you to Amgigh. How could he ask Amgigh to give up all hope of having sons? Or to chance that you would steal Amgigh’s soul?”
“I would never steal a man’s soul.”
Crooked Nose shrugged. “But your mother, she could have given you to the wind. She could have let you die. Then there would be no arguments, no anger in our village.”
“But Kayugh might have been angry….” Kiin began.
But again Crooked Nose shrugged. “There are many ways for a new baby to die. It is easy for someone to smother a child and say it died sleeping.
“Your mother had to watch you all the time. She never left you alone. Even when she went out to fish, she bound you to her back. And think how simple it would have been for her to obey your father, to smother you some night and tell no one what had truly happened and so bring peace back to your father’s ulaq.”
Crooked Nose stopped speaking, but Kiin did not say anything. It had been so easy to resent everyone in her family, to hold her loneliness and fear around her so closely that the joys of life could not get through.
“Do you understand what I am telling you?” Crooked Nose asked.
Kiin looked up and met the woman’s eyes. “Yes,” she said.
Crooked Nose smiled and stood up. She grabbed a stringing pole, and she and Kiin began to thread the gutted fish on the stick. When the first stick was full, they carried it up the beach to a flat rocky place in the lee of the cliffs. There the men had set up drying racks. With the rise of the cliffs at the back, the racks were more protected from the birds, and one woman watching could keep gulls and ravens away.
Each driftwood rack had wide, forked supports, and each support was braced in an upright position by piles of rock and beach gravel. Each support held three poles, one in the fork at the top, two in niches carved in the sides. Kiin and Crooked Nose laid the pole of fish in the forked niche of the nearest supports.
“You guard,” Crooked Nose said and handed her a long stick to keep birds away. “I will go back and string another pole.”
Kiin crouched beside the rack. Gulls were wheeling, calling to each other, skirmishing for position in the sky above the racks. Kiin stood, swung the long stick in a circle over her head. The gulls retreated, swooped away toward the pile of fish innards that she and Crooked Nose had left for the tide. Kiin crouched again beside the racks.
“Do you need help?” a voice asked.
Kiin, startled, looked up. It was Qakan.
“Crooked Nose is d-down on the b-beach. Help her c-carry poles.”
“I would rather help you,” Qakan said.
Kiin’s thoughts went back to the night before she became wife to Amgigh. She and Qakan had been alone in their father’s ulaq, Kiin weaving mats, Qakan leaning against a heap of sealskins stuffed with goose feathers.
“Do you think I will be a good husband?” Qakan had asked, then he had pulled back the flap of his apron to show her the man part of him.
“N-n-no,” Kiin had said in disgust. “You-you w-w-would not have the strength to make s-s-sons.”
She had run then, up the climbing log and outside, and Qakan had been too lazy to follow her. She had waited outside the ulaq until her mother returned from gathering sea urchins, but since then, until this day, Qakan had not spoken to her.
A sudden burst of joy filled Kiin’s chest. It is good, she thought, to be away from my father’s ulaq, to be safe from Qakan.
“Kiin!” Crooked Nose called, and Kiin looked down the beach to see that Crooked Nose had two more poles of fish. She rose to help, but Qakan hurried to Crooked Nose’s side and took one of the poles.
They carried the poles to the rack and set them on supports at the same time so the rack would not tip one way or the other.
“You can stay with the rack,” Crooked Nose said to Kiin. “I told Chagak to come to my husband’s ulaq. Little Duck and I plan to work on baskets.”
After Crooked Nose returned to Big Teeth’s ulaq, Kiin squatted on her heels and pulled her suk down over her knees. Qakan crouched beside her.
“I will be leaving soon,” Qakan said.
Kiin looked at him, raised her eyebrows.
“To trade,” he said. “I am a trader,” he added, the words belligerent as if he expected Kiin to disagree with him.
Kiin stood up, swung the bird stick over the rack.
“I need more things to trade,” Qakan said. “Have you finished any more mats or baskets? If you give them to me, I will bring you something good for them.”
Kiin looked at Qakan, smiled a slow smile. “I have t-two berry bags,” she said. “S-someone gave them to me.” She saw the red creep into Qakan’s face. “They are in Kayugh’s ulaq. B-but I c-cannot leave the racks now.”
“I will go,” Qakan said.
Kiin shrugged. Qakan pushed himself to his feet. “I will bring you something good,” he said again.
Kiin turned her back to Qakan, swung her stick again toward the gulls. Qakan will be gone, she thought, perhaps for the whole summer. What could be better?
Then she remembered what Crooked Nose had told her. Blue Shell had wanted Kiin, had, in her own way, protected Kiin. A hardness that had long been in her heart seemed to lift itself out of her chest.
And Kayugh had promised his son Amgigh as husband to save her life. She could never allow herself to wish for Samiq as husband. She was alive because of Amgigh.
But how could she forget the times Amgigh turned his head in embarrassment at her bruises? Samiq, not Amgigh, had sat beside her, comforting her with gentle words until her thoughts were pulled away from the ache of her muscles, the pulsing wounds on her back and arms.
Once, when her father had beaten her so hard that Kiin could not remember how she had made her way from his ulaq to Kayugh’s, Chagak had made a bed for her in the large central ulaq room, near the warmth of several oil lamps. Then Samiq had taken her hand, had said he wanted her to be his wife, said that he would pay the bride price, whatever her father demanded.
“I want you as wife,” he had said.
Kiin had studied Samiq’s face, the wide, strong forehead, the high, slanting cheekbones. Then her eyes seemed to be caught and held by the power of Samiq’s eyes.
“I promise you,” Samiq had said, running a finger down the curve of her cheek, “someday you will be my wife, and I will keep you safe.”
But the promise had been the promise of a boy, something Samiq could not keep. So Amgigh was her husband and he was a good husband. Perhaps already she carried his child. Kiin reached up to adjust one of the fish racks and in reaching she heard her spirit whisper, as though it spoke softly to something inside Kiin, as though Kiin were not supposed to hear, “Or perhaps you carry Samiq’s child.”
Kiin stroked the whale tooth shell at her side. No, she thought, Samiq was with the Whale Hunters, would take a Whale Hunter wife.
She remembered the whale that had washed up on the First Men’s beach several years before: meat, bones for ulaq rafters, and oil, smokeless and clean, for lamps. It was good that Samiq would learn to hunt the whale. Good for Samiq and for the First Men.
