My Sister the Moon

by Sue Harrison

  But one afternoon, the sun still high in the sky, Kiin saw a wide beach protected by circling arms of land. At the center of the beach, a narrow stream cut down into the sea.

  “We should s-stop here,” she said to Qakan.

  But Qakan shook his head. “It is a place Raven would look, the beach where men from many villages come to trade during the middle of each summer.”

  But Kiin, seeing the curve of the beach, remembered that she had heard some of the Walrus women speak of this place, of its good water and many birds.

  “Our ik is s-slow,” she said. “If the R-Raven was following us, he would have caught us b-by now. What…what d-does he care? He d-d-does not want m-me. He wants my s-sons, and if the Grandmother and the Aunt convinced him to k-kill one of the children, then perhaps he is glad that I am g-gone.”

  “He does not want you?” Qakan asked. “How do you know?”

  “He t-told m-me,” Kiin answered. “He wants power as a sh-shaman. He thinks my s-sons have p-p-power. But perhaps the Grandmother and the Aunt convinced him…”

  “They are my sons,” Qakan said. “I will not have them taken from me.”

  Kiin shrugged. She and Qakan had argued in such a way each day since they left the village. The first day, Kiin had explained that the babies belonged to Amgigh and Samiq. She had showed Qakan the children, Kiin sure that even Qakan would see that Takha had Samiq’s nose and eyes, his thick dark hair, and that Shuku had Amgigh’s mouth, his long fingers and toes. But Qakan had pointed to the babies’ ears, flat to their heads like Qakan’s ears, like Kiin’s ears, and claimed them as his sons.

  But now Kiin’s spirit warned, “Why argue? Perhaps the children are safer when Qakan believes they are his.”

  So Kiin did not speak about the children, but instead said, “Qakan, we n-need water and perhaps I can dig clams at low t-tide. See the cliffs s-set back…back there? Perhaps I can find m-murre eggs.”

  Qakan lifted his paddle from the water, and sat for a moment looking toward the shore. “Yes,” he finally said. “It is a good beach. We can spend one or two days gathering food.”

  He laid his paddle in the bottom of the ik and motioned for Kiin to guide them into shore.

  Kiin, disgusted at his laziness, opened her mouth to speak, but then decided to say nothing. Who could know what Qakan would do if she made him angry? She had two babies to protect. It was enough that he had said they could stop here, could stay to gather food.

  Together, they pulled the ik up on the beach, then Qakan took his trade goods from the boat and waited while Kiin hauled the ik up over the grassy hills at the back of the beach. Kiin had begun to stake mats and sealskins over the ik when Qakan came, hauling two of his packs with him.

  “Make two shelters,” he said. “I will sleep under the ik with the trade goods. You go far enough away so that I cannot hear the babies cry. If we are going to stay here a few days, I want to be able to sleep.”

  Kiin gritted her teeth. They did not have enough sealskins to make two good shelters. But then her spirit said, “This beach is a sand beach; even some of the hills are sand. Finish Qakan’s shelter, then dig into the back of a hill, cross the paddles over the hole and stake mats over that. It will be enough for you and the babies. At least you will not have to sleep next to Qakan.”

  For a little while, Qakan watched Kiin work, but then he wandered away and did not return until she had finished his shelter and was digging the hole for her own.

  “The ik is well-hidden,” he said, and Kiin nodded.

  Yes, it was well-hidden. Two hills away from the beach. If the Raven did stop at this place, he might not even realize that they were here, especially if they were careful to brush away any tracks they left in the sand. And Kiin’s shelter was even farther from the beach. Well away from the ik. Harder to find than Qakan’s shelter.

  “The river is fresh water,” Qakan said.

  Kiin stopped digging and went to the small pack she had brought from the Raven’s ulaq. She handed Qakan several walrus bladders, and when Qakan scowled, she said, “I want to set bird snares at the cliffs when I am done here. You can do something. It is not difficult to get water.”

  Qakan turned back toward the beach and Kiin called, “Be careful; watch for ikyan on the sea.”

  Qakan trudged away from her. “I am not a child,” he said, his voice a whining in the wind.

  Kiin sat back on her heels. The pit was deep enough, although it was only as wide as her arms stretched out and long enough for her to lay down in, full-length. She must cover it well with skins and mats. She did not want it to fill with water if it rained. She laid paddles across the hole, then layered sealskins in the bottom of the pit and curled them up the sides, sewing them with large, quick stitches to the mats and skins she laid over the crossed paddles. She left a hole at the bottom edge of the pit so she could crawl in and out. She went to Qakan’s ik. He was lying inside the shelter, his eyes closed.

  “I-I came for the w-water,” she said, “and my sleeping mats.”

  Qakan did not open his eyes, merely pointed to the place where he had put the water bladders. He had filled only two and Kiin picked up both. The basket with her sleeping mats was beside them. Kiin took the basket and left.

  At her own shelter, she hung the water skins from the crossed paddles, spread her sleeping mats over the sealskins, then the furs. She took the babies from her suk, tucked skins over them and sang softly until they both slept. Then she unpacked a roll of kelp twine from her pack and wound long strands of it around each of her wrists. When she was sure the babies were asleep, she left the shelter.

  The climb to the base of the cliffs was difficult. The dark sand shifted under her feet and twice she cut her toes on sharp edges of beach grass. She brought a walking stick with her, not a good stick, carved to fit the hand, but only a stout piece of driftwood she had found on the beach. It helped her keep her balance as she climbed, and she did not stop until she found a place where she could see the entrances of murrelet burrows. She tied her twine into nettings that would cover a hole entrance, leaving a slipknot in the center so the twine strands would act like a noose when the bird flew out. Then she tied the netting into place over each entrance. She had enough twine for five traps. That evening when the birds left their burrows, her traps should catch two or three.

  When she returned from the cliffs, she made her way past a long sloping ledge where black and white murres stood as stiff and straight as basket poles over their nests. Usually murres chose ledges that were difficult to reach, but this ledge, a dark gray outcropping of rock thrusting from the side of a grassy hill, was not.

  Kiin knew that the murres’ eggs—one egg per nest, sometimes two—would lie on the bare stone, perhaps with a scuffling of dirt or a few stems of grass around them. Kiin slapped her walking stick against the grass above the ledge until the murres, bleating and croaking, left their eggs. Then Kiin took six eggs.

  It is good, Kiin thought. Tonight we have eggs, and in the morning I will cook birds. Then perhaps Qakan will decide we can stay an extra day, can trap more birds, gather more eggs.

  That night, Kiin woke often. Since they had left the Walrus People’s village, she had not let herself sleep too deeply. Why take the chance that Qakan would sneak from his shelter to hers? Why take the chance that he would attack her again, use her like a wife? But so far he had made no move toward her, treated her almost as though she were another man, allowing her a fair share of the food and doing at least some of the work.

  But still she was uneasy. Qakan was Qakan, lazy and selfish and often foolish, sometimes putting his wants above his safety, unable, it seemed, to look ahead and see that what he did this moment might hurt him later. He would try to trade her, probably before they reached any First Men’s villages, and now that they were far from the Raven’s village, perhaps the best thing would be to leave him. Kiin needed only a short time to launch the ik, to paddle far enough into the sea so that Qakan could not wade out and ca
tch her.

  Kiin’s heart beat quickly at the thought of it: returning to her village with her sons and an ik full of trade goods. She smiled in the darkness. Her father would be furious and Qakan would hate her forever.

  “He has always hated you,” Kiin’s spirit whispered. “Samiq and Amgigh would protect you. You are strong enough to escape. It would not be easy, but you could do it. There are ways, ways it could be done. You have a knife. You are not tied….”

  Yes, Kiin thought, Yes. There are ways. And she planned until the sky showed a thin line of white to mark the dawn.

  Qakan slept hard. His dreams were good dreams, dreams of Yellow-hair, a good Yellow-hair, as fine a woman as her dancing had promised she would be. They had his sons and other sons in a ulaq so large that it took a row of lamps to light it. Qakan dreamt his hands were stroking Yellow-hair’s soft round breasts, the long, firm muscles of her thighs. And Kiin was there, too, her belly again bulging with babies. She was weaving baskets and smiling, smiling while Qakan took Yellow-hair, Kiin smiling and singing, smiling and singing, while Yellow-hair groaned and writhed under Qakan’s hands.

  When the babies woke, Kiin nursed them and cleaned them, smoothed seal oil over their fine, soft skin. She nursed them again until they slept, then left them in the shelter while she went to check the bird snares.

  When she reached the bird holes, she found that three of her five traps held murrelets, the birds dead, trap strings wound tightly around their necks. She dismantled the traps and used one of the trap strings to tie the birds together, then carried them back to the shelter.

  When she reached the shelter, the babies were both crying. She laid the birds down then pulled the babies to her, removed the soiled grass that lined their sealskin wraps and put in fresh grass. She raised her suk and put each baby in his carrying strap, pressing her right nipple into Takha’s mouth, the left into Shuku’s. Then she went outside and cleaned the birds.

  Qakan stretched out his arms and yawned. He was hungry. Kiin should have food ready by now. She better have after leaving the babies so early in the morning. They had begun to cry, first one then the other, making so much noise, Qakan, two hills away, had been pulled from his dreams. He had not gone to them. He had walked past Kiin’s shelter, then went a short distance into the hills, relieved himself, stayed there until the crying stopped, then picked a few handfuls of crowberry heather, good for starting a fire.

  When he returned to Kiin’s shelter, she was cleaning birds outside. He threw down the heather. “I am hungry,” he said. “Build a fire.” And he continued past her, down to his own shelter, a place to be out of the wind while he waited for her to fix the food. She was slow, always slow, and if he stayed at Kiin’s shelter, prodding her to work more quickly, she would think of something for him to do. Bring water; hold the babies.

  Yes, the babies were his sons, but what man took care of a baby? And also it made him uncomfortable to see the thick thatch of hair on the one called Takha. The hair was too much like Samiq’s hair. But, of course, the child could not belong to Samiq. Samiq had never even had Kiin in his bed.

  Qakan thought again of the babies’ ears, the round shape of their faces. They were his sons. How could Kiin even question it? He had proven his manhood on Kiin, had proven that he was as much man as Amgigh, even if he had never taken a seal. And now he had two sons. He wished his father knew.

  Never in all the stories Qakan had heard as a child, had there been one about a man who fathered two sons at the same time. And Qakan had taken other women, not just Kiin, but women from First Men’s villages. Then he had Yellow-hair. But what man could beget a son on her? She never came to a man’s bed without demanding some gift.

  Sometimes a man had to make a choice. What was more valuable, a wife who could not keep a ulaq clean, who never cooked, never sewed, never came to his bed—or his trade goods? He was not a fool.

  He had not meant to kill her, but what man would not have killed her seeing what she had done?

  Qakan knelt beside his packs. The middle pack contained a seal belly of dried fish. He took several fish and hoped Kiin would not notice they were gone. She was always scolding him about how much he ate. What did she expect? He was a man, not some woman, small and weak, who needed little. He pushed the seal belly back into place and set the sealskin that held Amgigh’s knives on top. Suddenly, he stopped.

  He had tied each package of trade goods differently, a certain number of knots for knives, another for chopping stones, another for ivory, different knots for each thing he traded. He had tied the pack of knives with three knots, one after another. Now it was tied with two knots. Qakan opened the pack, counted out the knives. He had had five left, now there were four.

  Kiin had taken a knife, not just one of the greenstone knives, but the beautiful obsidian blade Qakan had taken from Amgigh’s weapons corner.

  But why should he be surprised? Kiin had always been greedy. Why think she would ever change?

  Perhaps it was time to show her what a knife was for. He unwrapped the largest of Amgigh’s greenstone knives. The blade was perfect, the edge so sharp that Qakan had accidently sliced his fingers on it when he wrapped it. True, if he scarred Kiin, he could not sell her as a wife, only as a slave, but even slaves brought good prices, and he would trade the babies separately, making sure his sons were given to strong hunters, raised to honor their father. And each year in his trading he would stop to see them, would bring gifts, would let others know that they were his sons.

  Qakan heard shuffling footsteps in the sand behind him. Kiin, Qakan thought. Qakan gripped the knife in his hand and stood up. Yes, he would show Kiin she could not steal from him.

  He turned. It was not Kiin.

  Qakan’s heart pulsed so suddenly that it caught, with his breath, tight in his throat. For a moment he could not think, could not react, but finally he smiled and, holding the knife in one hand, he laughed then said, “Raven, you frightened me. Do you wish to make another trade before I reach the villages of the First Men?”

  Raven drew back his lips. His breath hissed through his teeth. He held the missing knife in his right hand.

  “You brought Yellow-hair?” Qakan asked, fear pushing the words from his mouth before he could think about what he was saying. “I did not bring her with me because she did not want to come.”

  “Where are my sons?” Raven asked, his voice louder than the roar of wind or waves, even louder than the beating of Qakan’s heart.

  “I do not have your sons,” Qakan said and pointed at the heap of packs behind him. “Look, I have only the goods I need to make trades.”

  “You took Kiin, you took my sons, you traded them. Where are they? Which village? Which hunters?” For a moment Raven’s eyes were on the packs, then he said, “You killed Yellow-hair.”

  A trembling began in Qakan’s hands and it moved up his arms to make the walls of his chest quiver. “I killed no one,” Qakan answered, his voice a high squeak, like the voice of a boy. “I killed no one. Perhaps your wife Kiin killed Yellow-hair. Perhaps she left on her own. Why blame me because you cannot control your own wife?”

  Raven kicked at Qakan’s packs, scattering Amgigh’s knives.

  Qakan did not turn his head, but watched Raven from the corners of his eyes. Raven, Qakan thought, the man was not a hunter. He said he was a shaman, but in all the months Qakan had lived with the Walrus People, he had not seen Raven speak to any spirits, heal any sicknesses.

  Raven is nothing, Qakan thought. He has no power. And Qakan repeated the words in his mind until the trembling in his hands stopped, until he could once again hold his knees still.

  Raven knelt, pulled more packs from the ik. Now, Qakan told himself. Now, before he can fight back. With a quickness Qakan knew even Samiq would envy, he spun and plunged his knife through Raven’s parka, through the seam where the hood joined the shoulder and into Raven’s neck.

  But Raven turned as fast as Qakan had turned, and thrusting out with his arms,
knocked Qakan to the ground.

  Then with a sickness that spread from Qakan’s stomach up into his mouth, Qakan saw that his knife was caught in the hood of Raven’s parka and the cut on the man’s neck was only deep enough to make a fine beading of blood.

  Then Raven was kneeling on Qakan’s chest, the blade of the obsidian knife thrust under Qakan’s chin. “You killed Yellow-hair,” he said, then raised his voice to scream it on the wind. “You killed Yellow-hair. Where are my sons?”

  “I killed no one,” Qakan said, the knife so tight against his skin that he had to mumble his words so the blade did not bite into his flesh.

  “You traded my sons,” Raven said.

  “Kiin…Kiin did it. She killed Yellow-hair. She took your sons. It was Kiin….”

  Kiin crouched at the top of the nearest hill, her arms clasped tightly around the babies under her suk. She had heard Qakan’s pleas, his voice rising into shrieks, and hurried from the shelter to the top of the hill, but when she saw the Raven, she dropped to her hands and knees and hid herself in the tall ryegrass.

  She watched the Raven thrust the knife into Qakan’s throat, heard the gurgle of her brother’s last words. She watched while the Raven went through Qakan’s packs, while he took Amgigh’s knives, took furs and a seal belly of dried fish, a lidded basket of hooks.

  She waited while the Raven stood over Qakan’s body, while he cut the head away, sliced all the joints so Qakan’s spirit could not take revenge. She waited while he smashed Qakan’s ik, as he cut the sea lion covering to shreds and scattered the shreds in the wind. Even after the Raven had tied Qakan’s packs to his ikyak, after the Raven had paddled far enough away so that Kiin could not see the dark line of his ikyak on the water, she waited.

  And finally, when the sun was setting, she took her babies back to her shelter then went down to Qakan. She did not let herself look at what was left of him, but using a flat piece of rock dug a shallow grave in the sand next to where he lay, and again using the rock, she pushed him in, trying to keep her hands from being marked by his blood.