by Sue Harrison
Samiq continued to paddle, the movement so often repeated that his arms seemed to move by themselves. He noticed that since Three Fish no longer paddled, his stronger paddling was turning the boats, so he lifted his arms, dipping more shallowly into the water, matching his strokes with Small Knife’s.
He watched the surface of the water for the change in color that would show they were near the island, but the floating ash altered all colors, and the first difference he noticed was the turning of the waves, the swells capping as they sped over shallow seas.
“The water changes,” Small Knife called to him, and Samiq marveled that the boy had noticed.
“We near the island,” Samiq called back. “Three Fish must paddle.”
The woman put her paddle into the water, and Samiq was again able to work more quickly, pulling the ikyak with greater speed.
The south side of the island had a gravel beach and few rocks, so Samiq motioned for Small Knife to turn the craft south, Samiq resting for the few moments it took to make the turn.
The ikyak was near enough for Samiq to see the shape of the shore, and they paddled more slowly, Samiq using his paddle to skim the ash from the top of the water, his eyes scanning for rocks that might rip through the hide coverings of the boats. He saw some movement on the shore, but was too intent on maneuvering his ikyak to worry.
Seals, he thought. We will have meat.
The waves carried the boats, pressing them toward the rocky point that protected the beach. Samiq untied his knife from the top of the ikyak and, steadying the boat with his paddle, called to Small Knife, “I will cut the lashing now.”
The ik lurched away from the ikyak, Small Knife and Three Fish now paddling at opposite sides of the boat. Samiq stayed slightly behind as the ik rounded the point of the cove. It was caught by the waves, and skimmed smoothly toward the beach. Samiq pushed his own craft around the point, easily avoiding the few boulders that stuck above the water. There was little surf, so Samiq used his paddle only to slow the ikyak and avoid the rocks. He looked toward the shore, his eyes again catching movement.
What if it were not seal, he thought. What if it were one of the Whale Hunters? What if they had come after him? They would kill him, he had no doubt. But would Small Knife and Three Fish be safe? Samiq saw Small Knife pull a spear from the bundle of supplies in the center of the ik, and Samiq pushed his paddle deep into the sea, driving his ikyak to a place beside the ik.
“Something behind that rock!” Small Knife called to him and Samiq fixed his eyes on the shore. Something too tall to be seal. A man! Whale Hunters?
The man carried a spear. Samiq untied his harpoon from its lashings on the right side of his ikyak. Small Knife raised his spear in his arms. Three Fish crouched low in the front of the ik. The man on the beach also raised his spear, then drawing back his arm to throw, made a quick sideways run.
The run was suddenly familiar, something Samiq had often seen.
“No! No-o-o-o!” Samiq screamed.
Small Knife hesitated and so did the man on the beach.
“Big Teeth. I am Samiq! I am Samiq!
“It is a friend,” Samiq said to Small Knife. “Put down the spear.”
Then there were others on the beach. First Snow and Gray Bird and Amgigh.
Samiq searched the dim shore beyond the men. Kiin? His mother? Were the women also here?
Then splashing out toward him through the cold water, his parka thrown aside, was Amgigh. Samiq plunged his paddle into the water, bringing the ikyak to his brother’s side.
In the shallows, Samiq unlaced his hatch skirting and jumped from his ikyak. Samiq clasped Amgigh’s shoulders and blinked to hide the tears that stung his eyelids.
“Our mother?” Samiq asked.
“She is well.”
“Kiin?”
But when Samiq asked for Kiin, Amgigh turned away. Samiq’s heart beat quickly, but before he could go after his brother, Big Teeth had grabbed him in a rough embrace and First Snow was ruffling his hair.
“My sister?” Samiq asked First Snow and First Snow grinned.
“She is good and so is our son.”
“We did not know if you would find us,” Big Teeth said. “And soon we must move again. Aka shakes us from this small beach.”
Samiq nodded, seeing that Big Teeth knew what he himself had finally understood while paddling to the island. Aka would destroy anything near.
Then looking at the men, Samiq realized that his father was not among them. “Our father?” he asked Amgigh and was suddenly afraid. There was so much he needed to tell Kayugh about hunting the whale.
“With your mother. He will be glad to see you.”
Then Big Teeth stepped forward. He cleared his throat, placed a hand on Samiq’s shoulder. “We have lost two,” he said quietly. “Neither to Aka. And Qakan is trading with the Walrus People.”
“Two?” Samiq said, knowing one was Big Teeth’s son, knowing and yet unable to tell Big Teeth he knew. How did a man tell another that he had desecrated his son’s grave?
“My son,” Big Teeth said, lowering his head. “To some spirit. We do not know what. He would not eat and there were lumps in his neck. His belly bloated, and finally he died.”
“I am sorry, Big Teeth,” Samiq said, but could not meet Big Teeth’s eyes, afraid of seeing the sorrow there, afraid also of what Big Teeth would tell him next.
“Kiin is dead, Samiq,” Big Teeth said.
“My beautiful daughter,” said Gray Bird, the words high and wavering like the beginning of some woman’s mourning cry.
Samiq could not breathe, could not speak. Kiin. Kiin. How could Kiin be dead? She still came so often into his dreams. Could the dead do that?
“No,” Samiq said, and spoke quietly as if refusing some morsel of food, as if telling his baby sister Wren to stay away from his weapons. He looked at Amgigh. “No, Amgigh,” he said.
Amgigh did not turn away, did not try to hide his eyes. Samiq saw the anguish there, the sorrow of a man for his woman and so knew that Big Teeth spoke the truth.
“Amgigh, I am sorry,” Samiq said.
“It was when I was with you at the Whale Hunters,” Amgigh said. “She went fishing….” His voice broke and he looked down. “The sea took her.”
For a moment, silence, then Samiq knew if he did not speak, he would cry, cry for another man’s wife, cry like a child, and so he said the first words that came to him, nothing about Kiin, nothing about Aka: “I have learned to hunt the whale. I have come back to teach you. To teach all the First Men.”
Amgigh looked up, smiled, but the sorrow was still in his eyes, and then Samiq noticed something more, something he had seen before. The look Amgigh had had as a boy whenever Samiq beat him in a race, whenever Samiq had thrown rocks farther or harder. Anger. Sorrow, yes, but why anger?
53
THEN SAMIQ HAD NO words nothing to say. His need for Kiin was an emptiness in his chest that pressed his heart and lungs up into his throat. Each breath was pain. Each heartbeat.
The men had begun to ask questions, but their voices were only a babble of sounds, like the croaks and chatter of cliff murres.
What would his life be without Kiin? He would rather be dead himself. Then he could be with her at the Dancing Lights, but he did not have that choice. He was father and husband. His life belonged to those who depended on him. Besides, he had promised to teach Kayugh to hunt the whale. He had promised to teach Amgigh and Big Teeth.
He heard Small Knife’s voice above the babble, clear and high above the men’s voices. He stood with Three Fish beside the ik, the boy shifting from one foot to the other, Three Fish tugging at her suk.
“I have brought someone with me,” Samiq said, interrupting the men.
“Come here!” he called to Small Knife and Three Fish.
They came quietly, skirting the group of men gathered around Samiq, but Samiq pulled Small Knife to his side and said loudly, “Small Knife, my son.” Big Teeth grinned, and S
amiq was glad that he had brought the boy. It was always good to give a son, and how much more a son who was nearly a man, ready to be a hunter.
“He will be a good man,” Amgigh said quietly.
Samiq nodded. “He is already a man.”
Samiq turned to Three Fish. She stood with her head lowered. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him. “She is called Three Fish,” Samiq said to the men. “She is my wife.”
He saw a look of dismay on Amgigh’s face, a smirk on Gray Bird’s lips. “She is a good worker,” Samiq said defensively and hoped she would not smile and show her broken teeth.
For a time, no one spoke, and Samiq looked away, wished that Three Fish had stayed with Dying Seal. Then Three Fish giggled, and Samiq saw with horror that she purposely smoothed her hands over the front of her suk, molding the garment over her breasts, her eyes on Big Teeth’s face.
“Go back to the ik!” Samiq said to her. Three Fish looked up at him and giggled again, then walked slowly to the ik, glancing back over her shoulder at the men as she walked.
“She is mother to Small Knife?” Amgigh asked.
“No,” said Samiq. His anger made his words harsh. “She is mother to no one. I did not take her willingly.”
“Perhaps she should go back.”
Samiq looked at his brother in amazement. “She cannot go back. If Aka did not kill her, the sea would.”
“She is a big woman,” First Snow said. “She will help the other women carrying.”
Yes, Samiq thought, she is big. There is at least that.
“I will show you where the women stay,” Amgigh said to Samiq. “Our mother and father will want to see you.”
“I will stay here with Three Fish,” Big Teeth said. “Do not worry about her.” Then he turned to First Snow and said, “Take Small Knife to the stream. Show him the ikyak you are building.” And Big Teeth said to Samiq, “It is good you brought the boy.”
The boy, not the woman, Samiq thought, but he said nothing.
“Our shelter is up in the rocks,” Amgigh explained as they walked. “My father was afraid that a camp nearer the sea might be swept away.”
Samiq nodded but did not reply, his mind still on Three Fish’s behavior. At least our mother will not have to sew my chigadax, Samiq thought, and she will have another daughter to help her gather eggs and berries, to tend the cooking pits and trim the oil lamp wicks.
He shook his head, wanting to forget his embarrassment, to forget the pity he had seen in Amgigh’s eyes. His brother had changed in many small ways. He was more certain of his words and seemed to plant his feet more firmly when he walked. Perhaps his time as husband to Kiin had given him the confidence he needed; perhaps his time away from Samiq had made him more sure of his own skills.
When they reached higher ground, Amgigh stopped and motioned toward an outcropping of rock. Sealskins hung from the rock and two women stood beside a cooking pit.
One of the women coughed, and even from a distance, Samiq knew it was Chagak, the one beside her, Blue Shell. Chagak seemed smaller than Samiq remembered her, and he saw that her hair now had several streaks of gray.
She looked up at them as they approached, her eyes suddenly wide. She pressed her hands to her chest and Samiq ran to her, not caring what the others thought, hugging her as Big Teeth had hugged him, stroking her hair, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
Laughing and crying, Chagak pointed toward a pile of skins and Samiq saw the small, round face of a little girl smiling up at him.
“Wren?” Samiq asked.
Chagak nodded.
The child looked at him, one finger in her mouth, and Samiq lifted her from the mound of skins, seeing the features of his mother and of Kayugh blended on the tiny face.
“Sister!” he said and swung her up into the air, the girl laughing as she clutched at his hair.
He settled Wren on his shoulder and turned to face Blue Shell, but he could not bring himself to look into Blue Shell’s eyes.
“I am sorry about your daughter,” he said and had to stop, the words he wanted to say caught in his throat.
Blue Shell mumbled some reply Samiq could not hear.
Samiq nodded as though he understood then said, “Gray Bird says your son is on a trading trip.”
“Yes,” Blue Shell said. “Yes. He is a trader now.”
“You found your ikyak?” Chagak asked.
Samiq set his sister back on the pile of skins and said, “Yes, we would not be here if we had not found the ikyak.”
“Your father was the one who left it there for you,” she said.
His father. No, not his father. Kayugh. And Samiq remembered the bones he had found in the death ulaq, the small bones of hands and feet scattered as if a trader had rattled them together, cast them out in a game of chance.
The sealskin curtains moved and Crooked Nose joined Chagak at the cooking pit. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Samiq, and in a whispered voice she asked Chagak, “He is not a ghost?”
Samiq laughed and strode over to her, placed a strong hand on each of her shoulders. “Not a ghost,” he said.
Crooked Nose laughed, too, but through her laughter Samiq saw the shine of tears, and Crooked Nose had to turn away, wipe an arm across her eyes.
Then Chagak called, “Red Berry, I need you!”
Samiq looked toward the sealskin curtains and waited for his sister. When she came, Samiq smiled. She was again pregnant, the bulge of her belly beginning to curve over her apron, her faced lighted with the glow that was the beauty of pregnancy. There would be jokes among the men, Samiq knew. Two babies so close together. When did First Snow have time to hunt?
Red Berry gave a small screech, and then, unlike Crooked Nose, did not try to hide her tears. And though, being sister, she could not reach out to him, could not hold him, she clasped her hands over her growing belly and rocked herself from one side to the other until her tears had stopped, and she could finally say, “I am glad you are home.”
“I, too,” Samiq said, and he looked at the rocks and the shelter beneath the rocks. Home, he thought. Yes, home.
Then Amgigh, stepping forward, watching as Chagak peeled back the layer of mats that covered the top of the cooking pit, asked, “Where is my father?”
Chagak looked up, surprise in her eyes. “He was not on the beach with you?” she asked Amgigh. “Does he know Samiq has returned?”
“No,” Amgigh said. “I thought he was here with you.”
Crooked Nose reached down into the pit with a long forked stick and drew out a piece of meat.
By the smell, Samiq knew it was harbor seal meat, the animals abundant near the island.
“Seal meat,” Chagak said quietly. “Thank you for the whale meat you sent us. Your father has your spearhead.”
“You did not eat the poison,” Samiq said.
“Big Teeth knew. He cut it out,” said Crooked Nose. “The oil was enough for much of the winter. Kayugh says you are a great hunter, providing for two villages.”
Samiq’s face reddened at the praise, and wanting to draw attention away from himself, he asked, “Where is Little Duck?”
There was a quick sadness in the eyes of those around him, and Chagak said, “Her son died, and since then Little Duck does not speak, seldom eats. For a time, she walked when she was told to walk, worked when she was told to work, but now she is so weak, she only waits to die.”
Samiq closed his eyes.
“I will talk to her,” he offered.
“It will do no good. She listens to no one. No one can help her,” Crooked Nose said.
“She is in the shelter?” Samiq asked.
“Yes.”
“Go to her now, Samiq,” Amgigh said. “Maybe seeing you will help. Who can say? I will find my father.”
Samiq looked at his mother and she nodded, saying to Red Berry, “Go with him.”
Red Berry smiled sadly as they entered the shelter, then whispered, “She is very thin.”
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Grass mats covered the entire floor area of the overhang, and the ground sloped up to a small cavelike shelter. Sleeping skins were scattered over the mats and Samiq stepped around them as he followed Red Berry. A movement drew Samiq’s eyes toward a pile of mats.
“Little Duck,” Red Berry called softly. An oil lamp burned beside the mats, and as Samiq’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Little Duck. He stepped closer and shivered in disbelief. Little Duck’s skin stretched over her bones like the covering of an ikyak over its skeleton of wood.
“Little Duck,” Red Berry called again.
This time the woman lifted her head, and in the shrunken face Samiq recognized Little Duck’s eyes. Her skin fell in folds from her chin to her shoulders, and her hands shook as she raised them toward Samiq.
“Samiq?” the woman said. “You are not dead?”
Samiq knelt beside her. “No, Little Duck, I am not dead. I am here. I have come back to my own people.”
“We thought you were dead,” Little Duck said. “Aka…when Aka…We thought you were killed.”
“I am alive,” said Samiq.
“My son is dead,” the woman said, her voice quivering.
“I am sorry.”
“Soon I will be dead, too. Then I will be with my son.”
“You must eat,” Samiq said, bending closer as the woman lowered her head to the mat.
“There is no reason to eat.”
“Big Teeth needs you.”
“He has Crooked Nose.”
“You could have another child.”
“No. There are no more children in me.”
“It is no use,” Red Berry said quietly. “There is nothing that can be done.”
“I will stay with her a little while,” Samiq said.
“There is no need,” Red Berry answered. “She only sleeps. She will not even know you are here.”
“I will know I am here,” Samiq replied.
Red Berry stood beside him as he squatted on his heels. He took Little Duck’s hand in his own and watched in quietness.
