by Sue Harrison
That night, the men built a small hut for Samiq. It was close to Hard Rock’s hut, and when it was completed, Samiq went inside, as Many Whales told him, secluding himself to become the whale, to sicken as the whale must sicken.
It was not an easy thing to become something he was not, an animal he knew little about. Sometimes, Samiq dreamed of being an otter, of sleeping in the sea, wound in kelp, the waves his bed, and once he had dreamed he was in his ikyak and the ikyak had grown legs and tail. In that dream Samiq had truly been otter, but now, his belly ached with hunger and his mouth was parched for water, and in his discomfort he could be nothing but a man.
How long would he be in the hut, one day, two days? How long since he had eaten? Since the day before his ceremony. He should sleep, though sleep seemed elusive, pushed away by his need to become whale.
But perhaps the only way to become whale was in the same way he had become otter—through his dreams.
Samiq, Whale Killer, closed his eyes, let his thoughts go to the cold gray of the sea. He saw the waves, dark as shale, solid, shining like wet rock. But then that image was swallowed by the pain of his hunger until the pain grew into something that stretched beyond himself, and it pulled him down, into the darkness, through the waves, away from the wind. The quietness pressed into his ears, the darkness into his eyes, and he was at peace. But then he heard the deep, hard roaring of other whales, the low voices of blues, the higher calls of the minke, the killer whales, their song the song of a pack, each voice a different pitch so even a few sounded like many.
Something forced him from the depths up to the warmth of the sun, and he suddenly knew the place that held Hard Rock’s spear, felt the pain of poison traveling through his body. With each movement, each twist, the poison slowed his heart, and the pain spread: to his belly, to the joints of his flukes, even to the great muscles that moved his tail.
Safety lay in the deep parts of the sea. He would surface for air, then dive, but with each dive he had less strength until he could not dive at all. The waves moved against him, hurt him as they pressed into his skin, but he had to stay at the top, near the wind, near the wind….
Something cut his lip. A small pain among many pains, but he could not move.
“Whale Killer.”
The rocks gouged into his belly, tore through his skin. There was no water and the weight of his body crushed in on itself. He could not breathe, could not breathe, could not breathe….
“Whale Killer.”
He opened his eyes and looked into Fat Wife’s face.
“Whale Killer, the whale is here. Come. You must eat a hunter’s portion.”
Samiq shook his head trying to understand Fat Wife’s words.
“The whale,” she said. “It is on the beach.”
Samiq stood, and leaning on Fat Wife’s arm, he walked into the brightness of the day. The huge carcass lay on the beach, the whaler’s line still through the upper lip. Already the men had begun to lay the whale open, exposing the thick white layer of blubber under the dark skin.
And for a moment Samiq looked away, unable to bear the sight of the flaying, the cutting of that which he had been.
In the next few days, there were five sightings. Three whales were taken. The beach was slippery with blood, and new storage pits were filled with meat, more new ones dug.
“Never have so many whales been taken,” Many Whales said as he and Samiq watched the women working over the cooking pits. “I have spoken to Hard Rock,” Many Whales continued. “He has agreed that you should be the hunter if another whale is sighted.”
Samiq turned in amazement. “Hard Rock has said this?”
The old man smiled. “Yes. He has also said that there will be no more sightings this summer. He saw that in his last fasting.”
Samiq laughed. During the last fasting, Samiq had requested to go with the retrievers, the men who went after the whale once it had been speared. Many Whales did not want him to go, but Hard Rock had intervened saying that his own power had always brought the whale before; this time would be no different. There was no need for Samiq to fast. Samiq had been allowed to go.
The three retrievers had followed the whale for two days. Samiq’s place was in the second ikyak, and he stayed back as Many Whales had taught him, waiting until the man in the first ikyak, Dying Seal, saw the whale.
“It will make circles,” Many Whales had told Samiq. “And it will cry like a small child cries, a noise like ‘oogh…oogh.’ You must learn to listen for this sound or you will think it is only the sea talking to the mountains.”
Suddenly, Samiq had seen the black hump of the whale’s back, and he watched Dying Seal, the man maneuvering with his paddle in one hand, his other hand on his throwing board, fingers wrapped tightly over the board, his arm partially cocked. The spear was attached to the ikyak with a long coil of braided kelp, and Samiq saw that Dying Seal had not bound the stone tip to the shaft, thus leaving the weapon blunted, to be used as a tester to see if the whale still lived.
After watching the whale for some time, Dying Seal raised his arm over his head, and pulling his arm back nearly to the stern of the ikyak he had hurled the spear. On impact, the blunted weapon hit the whale and fell into the sea, then Dying Seal pulled the spear back through the water, coiling the line as he pulled.
The whale did not move.
Dying Seal fitted the spear shaft into his throwing board and threw once more. Again the whale did not move.
“He is dead!” Dying Seal shouted, and Samiq moved his ikyak closer, watching as Dying Seal slit the animal’s lip and strung a braided kelp cord through it, the cord as thick as Samiq’s wrist. Dying Seal held the line in his hand and threw it to Samiq. Samiq turned his ikyak back toward shore and attached the line to his stern, then threw the excess line to the third retriever, Crooked Bird.
Crooked Bird missed the first toss, and the line slipped down the side of the ikyak into the sea. Bending to grab it, Crooked Bird upset his ikyak, floated upside down in the water. Samiq suppressed a smile and pulled the line back in, coiling it to throw again, waiting until Crooked Bird righted himself, his chigadax wet, his lashes dripping water to his cheeks. Dying Seal did not laugh, but Samiq had seen a smile on the man’s face when Crooked Bird was still in the water.
Again Samiq threw the line and Crooked Bird caught it with one hand, steadying his ikyak with the blade of his paddle. They pulled together, hauling the whale through the water, singing as they paddled, honor to the whale, honor to the hunter, honor to the Whale Hunters. Who could match them in skill? Who could match them in bravery?
When they reached the shore, Many Babies brought Hard Rock from his hut. The days without food and water had drawn his face, making him look like an old man, and Samiq wondered if he, too, had appeared feeble and old after the days he spent in the hut, if perhaps to become a whale, a man gave not only a few days of dreams, but also years of his life.
The people stood and watched as Hard Rock cut the harpoon from the side of the whale. He cut out a large portion of meat also, the swelling caused by the wound. Hard Rock cut deeply, then he took the chunk of flesh up the beach to bury it. The poison that killed whales was also able to kill men.
28
“NO,” MANY WHALES SAID to Samiq.
Samiq paced from one side of Many Whales’ ulaq to the other then stopped to squat in front of his grandfather. “Only a trading trip,” Samiq said. “Only that. To trade oil and meat. We have more than we need.” He did not say what he truly wanted, to return to Kayugh and his mother, to Amgigh and perhaps be given another night with Kiin. He was now a man, felt the strength of that manhood, wanted Kayugh to see what he had become, wanted Kiin…wanted Kiin…wanted Kiin….
“You are one of us, now,” Many Whales said. “Perhaps next summer we will make a trading trip. Next summer or the summer after that. Perhaps then we will go to trade. Or perhaps Kayugh and your brother will come here.”
“You promised that I would be here am
ong you for a year,” Samiq said and felt his heart beating hard, pushing heat into his ears, throbbing against his eardrums. “Then I would go back to teach my people.”
Anger snapped from Many Whales’ eyes, and he replied, “They are not your people! You belong to us. You will stay with us. Perhaps at times you will visit to trade. That is all. And then, in many years, when you have become a skilled hunter, then you will be told the secrets of our poisons, the manner in which we call the whales to our shores.
“Already you have sat in the alananasika’s hut. How many other young hunters have done so? Only you.”
Many Whales leaned forward and rudely pointed at Samiq with two long and bony fingers. “What is the first thing a hunter learns?” he asked. “What is the thing even boys know? A hunter must wait, must be patient.”
Samiq’s anger made his words thick and hard in his throat and he said, “I ask only to fulfill the promise given to my father. Among the First Men words spoken are promises to be kept.” Samiq waited, watching his grandfather’s face for the telling signs of anger: the rapid pulse at neck or temple, the subtle coloring of jaw and cheek. But the anger had faded from the old man’s eyes and now he looked small, shrunken, as if the argument had taken a portion of his life.
And Samiq wondered if this man, a man who could not be trusted, was truly his grandfather. How had his mother, Chagak, conceived a child from the spirit of these people? And Samiq closed his eyes against the uncleanness he suddenly felt within himself.
“Words are only words,” the old man said softly. “What is in the heart is what is true. All men know that promises may be of the heart, or not. The one who hears is the one who must decide. The words I spoke were the best way for me to bring my grandson home to his true people. The truth was in my heart. Perhaps Kayugh knew that. Perhaps I saw the truth in his heart also. Perhaps he is willing to wait many years to learn to hunt the whale. Perhaps, he would give you to me for only the hope of learning. Perhaps that is Kayugh’s truth.
“You know that Kayugh is not your true father, that he came to the Seal Hunters after your father’s death. Amgigh is his son, not you. Does it seem so strange that he is willing to trade one who is not true son for the hope of learning to hunt the whale?
“What is the truth in your own heart? Where do you belong? Will you go back to Kayugh unable to teach him? Will you return to the Seal Hunters to weave baskets? Or will you stay here and become alananasika, learn the poisons and the chants?”
The old man’s words pounded against Samiq like the waves pound the cliffs of the First Men’s beach. The ache was so deep that he could give no answer and he finally stood and walked to his sleeping place, but as he reached his curtains, he heard Fat Wife’s words, nearly gentle: “There is too much meat for us. We have enough for two, three winters. Ask the hunters to trade with the First Men. Tell them to trade generously.”
“Perhaps a trading trip,” the old man mumbled. “I will speak to the other hunters. But Whale Killer stays here. I do not want him to go back. It is too soon.”
Anger burned, clogged Samiq’s throat with its heat. So, in spite of the ceremony, in spite of the whales his spirit had brought in, he was man, but not man, his opinions amounting to nothing.
How many seals did it take to give enough oil for one man for a year? Twenty-five, thirty? Without Samiq’s hunting, and with Qakan useless, his people would have trouble bringing in enough seals. If the Whale Hunters would be willing to trade whale oil for knives, for caribou sinew….
Samiq saw Fat Wife glance toward him, but Samiq looked away and quickly entered his sleeping place. He picked up the basket in which he kept his spearheads. Running his hands against the basket’s smoothly woven sides, he thought of his mother’s hands also touching the basket, and he thought of what Many Whales had said about Kayugh. Kayugh was not his father. But was not a man who raised a boy, fed him, taught him to hunt, a true father?
Samiq pulled on his parka, not the new one Fat Wife had made him, but the one his mother had sewn him from puffin skins. He walked from his sleeping place to the climbing log without looking at Fat Wife or Many Whales, left the ulaq without speaking to them.
He cut up the side of the hill that rose above Hard Rock’s ulaq and through the long ryegrass that grew chest high from the edge of the beach until the grass gave way to crowberry heather and the first mosses that crowded the rocky hillsides.
He heard the whisper before he saw the hand, heard the hiss of words, “Be quiet,” before the hand grasped his wrist and pulled him down into the grass. Then he was looking into Speckled Basket’s dark eyes.
She was naked, her apron folded and laying on the grass beside her, her suk under her like a sleeping mat. Her mouth was curled into a smile.
“Usually I wait for Crooked Bird,” she said, “but he did not come today.”
Samiq jerked his hand away from her grasp, stood, but Speckled Basket looked up at him through her eyelashes, pursed her lips into a pout.
“You are a man now,” she said and brushed her fingertips against her chin. “You have hunted whales. Are you afraid of women?”
Yes, he was a man, Samiq thought. No matter what Many Whales thought. He was a man. Samiq squatted beside Speckled Basket, reached out to cup one of her small breasts in his hand. She reached up under his parka, began to stroke the insides of his thighs. He almost stood, almost pushed away. His inside voice whispered, “What will you do if Many Whales finds out?”
But then he let his eyes follow his hands, and he smelled the warm woman smell of Speckled Basket as she spread her knees. Why should he care what Many Whales thought? Did the old man care about him?
29
WHEN THEY HAD ARGUED, Samiq had known the hardness of the man who was his grandfather. And now, before the hunters of the village, he again felt the man’s stubbornness, a hardness covered by persuasive words.
“We trade then?” Many Whales asked.
No one answered, and Samiq thought that everyone agreed. Some of the men had already gotten to their feet, eyes scanning the horizon, watching the sea, testing the sky. But then, Hard Rock stood, several men standing close to him, and Samiq, watching Many Whales, saw the old man stiffen, a sadness in his eyes.
“You are wrong,” Hard Rock said. His words were low and soft, but forceful, and Samiq felt the thrust of them even where he stood at the back of the circle of men.
“The women must work harder, drying the meat and storing oil so we will eat for many months. Perhaps next year there will be no more whales.”
But Many Whales answered quietly, “We will trade meat for meat. Seal for whale.”
“There is no argument in that,” Hard Rock continued, “but what of the oil? Seal oil is nothing. Or will you trade bird grease for our whale oil?”
Samiq felt the beginning of defeat in the argument and waited, his breath tight in his chest. His people needed the meat. The oil even more.
“Will you take baskets?” came the insult.
Many Whales did not answer.
“Whale Killer,” Hard Rock called, and Samiq raised his eyes to meet Hard Rock’s stare. “What can your people trade for oil?”
Samiq looked at Many Whales, but there was no answer in the old man’s eyes, and Samiq knew he must give his own answer. “The First Men have always been traders,” he began slowly. “You have traded with them. I do not need to remind you about the things stored in their ulas. I do not need to tell you about the sealskins packed with fish. Sinew of caribou, strong and fine as woman’s hair. Seal oil and meat. Baskets. Healing roots.” He shrugged. “Ivory, obsidian as well. My brother makes fine knives.” He drew the knife Amgigh had given him from the scabbard at his waist and held it up so the men could see the long black obsidian blade.
An intake of breath, silence, then the sudden babble of many voices.
But once again Hard Rock spoke. His words were harsh, and Samiq suddenly realized that the argument was not over the trading. The Whale Hunters did n
ot need so much whale meat, and to trade with the First Men was a time for celebration and feasting. The argument was over whose voice would rule the people. Many Whales was once a great hunter, but now he could no longer take whales. His value was in teaching his skills, sharing his wisdom. But Hard Rock was a hunter, now bringing more whales than any other hunter ever had. He was the rightful chief.
Samiq studied his grandfather’s face. The old man’s eyes were closed, his hands clasped loosely in his lap.
Hard Rock still stood, and now he looked at the men gathered around him. Some of the men stared out toward the sea; others sifted the beach gravel between their fingers.
They do not want the choice, Samiq thought. It is too difficult.
“I will not trade,” Hard Rock finally said. “My portions will stay in the village. But each man must choose for himself. I will not decide for anyone but myself.”
This is the fair thing, Samiq thought. Each man must decide what he will do. And he felt a greater respect for Hard Rock, and he understood why Many Whales had closed his eyes, understood that Hard Rock was worthy to be leader.
The men left, some walking to the stream, others gathering at the edge of the sea. Samiq watched his grandfather, waited as Many Whales sat with eyes still closed.
Images of Speckled Basket as she lay beside him in the grass suddenly crowded in to fill Samiq’s mind, to cloud his thinking.
When Samiq had returned to the ulaq, Fat Wife had squinted her eyes at him and told him Many Whales had gone to speak to the men, that Samiq should join them, but before Samiq was able to leave, Fat Wife circled him, chortling as she brushed bits of grass from the feathers of Samiq’s parka.
She said nothing, but Samiq felt his cheeks begin to burn, and as Samiq climbed from the ulaq, Fat Wife called after him, “Next time have Speckled Basket pick the grass from your parka, then Many Whales will never know.”
