My Sister the Moon

by Sue Harrison

  So then each time Kiin took eggs, snared birds, dug clams or gathered sea urchins, she left something for Qakan. She had been on her way to his grave, bringing a piece of dried fish, when she first saw Kayugh’s ikyan in the cove. She had hidden in the grass, her lance clasped close to her side. She had made the lance from a long piece of driftwood, smoothed it with lava rock and whittled one end into a point, hardened the point with fire. It was only a boy’s lance, not much better than a child’s toy, but she had speared fish with it. Perhaps it would be some protection if those who came were enemies.

  She had waited, glad she had her sons with her in her suk, that way, if she had to, she could run into the hills, run to the sponge of the tundra behind the hills and up into the rocks of the mountains.

  But then she had recognized Samiq and Kayugh and Amgigh, had come out to meet them. Then she was again with Samiq, able to see him, to hear his voice, watch his face. But Samiq had Three Fish, and Kiin had Amgigh. So each time Kiin’s thoughts drifted to Samiq, she forced her mind to thoughts of Amgigh, to the good things about him. And when the other men finished eating and went to their shelters, Kiin invited Amgigh to her shelter.

  When she had finished nursing their sons, she placed them in their cradles. She was wife; she must make herself ready for Amgigh.

  She oiled her face and smoothed her hair with a comb she had made from a clam shell. Amgigh watched her, and she found pleasure in his watching, found it easier to put Samiq out of her thoughts. Then Kiin took off her suk, rubbed oil on her legs, moving as she remembered Lemming Tail moving, to make Amgigh want her. Then Kiin lay down on her side on the sleeping mats, and waited until Amgigh lay down beside her, but though he cupped his body around hers, he did not remove his apron, did not remove Kiin’s.

  Kiin lay, her eyes staring into the darkness, and wondered if during the year she had been away from her people she had turned ugly, or if her boldness with the men had angered Amgigh. Perhaps he had noticed that she spoke easily now, without the words stumbling and catching in her throat. Perhaps, now that she could speak, she spoke too much. But then hearing Amgigh’s breathing ease into the rhythm of his sleep, a thought came that made Kiin tremble.

  Perhaps Amgigh saw what she could not: the marks of Qakan’s hands upon her body, the curse of his taking like scars on the smooth skin of her breasts and thighs and belly.

  67

  DURING THE NEXT NINE days the women fished and gathered sea urchins. They walked into the hills to pull ryegrass for baskets and to check the crowberry and salmonberry plants. The men hunted the harbor seals swimming near the shore, and when they were not hunting, they helped the women build ulas.

  The first ulaq was for Gray Bird and Blue Shell. Gray Bird asked that his ulaq be finished quickly so that Qakan, his body cut apart, his spirit without power and bound to the beach, would have a place to come, a place to live. And when Gray Bird’s ulaq was finished, they built another larger ulaq where everyone else could stay as the men began work on a third.

  Then the traders came. Men and women, babies, young hunters, their goods piled in iks or tied to ikyan. There were First Men and Walrus People and there were others with bearskins for blankets, with chigadax made out of bear gut. They did not seem disturbed that Kayugh’s people were already there. They greeted the two new ulas with smiles, with nods. “A good place to stay,” Kiin heard one woman say in the Walrus tongue.

  Driftwood and seal bone fires lined the great circle of the beach, and hunters’ lamps were kept burning all night.

  Chagak and Crooked Nose, Red Berry and Kiin hung skins of fish and broth over outside fires. Traders came, giving small things—a bear’s tooth, a chunk of chert, a few shell beads—for a bowl of broth.

  With each new ik or ikyak that came to the beach, Three Fish hurried away, asked the traders if they had heard anything about the Whale Hunter people. And each time Three Fish returned to the First Men’s ulas, there was sadness in her eyes, and she told Kiin that the traders knew nothing, that they spoke of ash and fire and waves that kept them away from the Whale Hunter island. And watching Three Fish, Kiin again felt the ache that had been in her chest when she had been with the Walrus People, when she thought she would never be able to return to the First Men.

  During the second day of the trading, Kiin slipped away from the cooking fires to watch. Most of the traders displayed their goods on grass mats or on sealskins dyed red with ochre. Even after being with Qakan, it was hard for Kiin to believe there could be so many things in the world. One trader had wooden dishes filled with bear claws and another had a basket of whale teeth that were as long and nearly as thick as Kiin’s hand. One man had twists of rope made from coarse reddish-brown hair. Another had baskets, some finely woven of ryegrass fibers, some coarse, made of grass stalks and roots, of willow or of seal gut. Two traders had large pieces of chert, red jasper and greenstone, and another had harpoonheads made of whale jawbone with obsidian points. There were piles of bitterroot, hammerstones, bolas made with walrus tusk weights instead of stones, sea lion stomachs filled with dried halibut, rolls of dried seal intestine for chigadax, bundles of furs and skins. Others had grass mats, fur parkas and sealskin boots. Another had baskets full of rosy finch feathers, curls of orange and yellow puffin feathers and fragile disk beads cut from shells.

  And everything Kiin saw, she wanted. Her eyes filled with the wanting, and when the wanting grew too large for her eyes, it slipped into her chest and pushed her spirit into a small corner of her body, leaving an ache that would not go away until she pulled her thoughts from the things she saw and instead walked up into the hills, instead thought of heather and sea birds and of the wide grayness of the sky.

  Gray Bird was the first of Kayugh’s people to trade. He took a few furs, a few of his carvings to the traders and came back to the ulas with bear claws and a whale’s tooth.

  “To carve,” he said to Blue Shell and Blue Shell nodded, then quickly lowered her head.

  But Crooked Nose spoke, loud enough for Gray Bird to hear, “So, he will carve this winter even if we do not have enough furs for parkas, enough food to eat. It is good to know that Gray Bird will carve!”

  But Kiin stared in amazement. She had a basket full of the carvings she had made since Qakan’s death. She had carved murres and cormorants, eagles and terns, harbor seals with great round eyes. She had made things that were important to her: carvings of her people’s ulas on Tugix’s island, things to help her remember what had been lost to her, to show Shuku and Takha what they should know about their fathers and about their true people.

  Kiin opened her mouth to speak, to say something to Crooked Nose and Chagak, to tell them about the carvings she might be able to trade, but then her spirit said: “Will they think you are boasting? You think your carvings are better than your father’s, but perhaps they are not. You know they are not as good as Shuganan’s, cannot compare to his. Perhaps you will take them to trade and the traders will laugh at you, a woman, trying to trade small misshapen animals for food, for oil, for furs. Wait, wait, think about it, wait.”

  So Kiin continued to chop fish and stir the soup, to ladle out food to traders who brought beads or small bits of chert in exchange for what the women prepared. And she made herself stay near the ulas until she had grown used to the idea of trading, until it settled more deeply into her spirit and she knew the gleam of it would no longer show in her eyes. Then, she stood and stretched and left the cooking skins. She passed by her father, chortling over his treasures as he sat at the top of his ulaq. Kiin stood for a moment to watch Big Teeth and Kayugh working on a third ulaq, a place for Big Teeth and First Snow and their families. Then she went into the large ulaq where she and Amgigh lived.

  She shook out the furs and straightened the mats in Amgigh’s sleeping place. He still had not come to her sleeping place, and Kiin had begun to feel herself again drawn to Samiq, so that she knew she must keep her eyes and her thoughts away from him for fear everyone would see how she fe
lt, for fear she would bring shame to Amgigh. But she also held her thoughts away from Amgigh, from worrying about why he shunned her, why he would not claim her again as true wife. Her sons were safe. That was enough. She would ask nothing more.

  She went into her own sleeping place, then taking Shuku and Takha from their carrying straps, she set them into their cradles. “I will be back soon,” she whispered, laying a hand on each baby’s head. “Sleep, sleep.”

  Then she picked up a basket of her carvings, tucked it under her suk and left the ulaq.

  The traders were noisy with stories and small arguments. For a time, Kiin only watched, listened. A man coming to trade talked first of the sky, perhaps the sea or sun, then small politenesses about rain and fog, perhaps a few jokes about other traders. The women did not trade, but sat silently beside their men, some laying out furs, stroking a hand against the nap of the fur as her man spoke of many days spent hunting for the animal, of the fur’s unusual color, unusual thickness. And Kiin saw that if Chagak had furs to spare, she could have traded easily for many things. Chagak’s skins were finer than any Kiin saw here. Amgigh’s spearheads were better than most here, and whale oil was very precious since the traders lived so far from the beaches of the Whale Hunters.

  At first Kiin wanted to go back to the ulaq, to hide her carvings. “Who will want them?” some spirit seemed to whisper. “The men will laugh at a woman who tries to trade.” And it seemed that the bulge of the basket under her suk would tell everyone of her foolishness. But then she thought of the long winter ahead of them, of Shuku and Takha without food, of her milk drying up because she had nothing to eat, of Wren lying still and white, Kayugh and Chagak having nothing to feed her. And so she made herself stay to watch the traders, to decide what her people needed, and to see which trader had oil, who had fish, who had skins.

  Then pulling a deep breath of air into her lungs, Kiin went to a man and woman who had baskets of kelp twine and seal stomachs of dried halibut. Kiin spoke first to the woman.

  “Will you trade with me?” Kiin asked, forgetting in her nervousness to talk about the weather, about the sea and sky.

  The woman’s eyes widened and she pulled at her husband’s sleeve, spoke to him in the Walrus tongue, quiet words, and she pointed all the while at Kiin.

  The man stared at her, and Kiin, speaking in the Walrus language, said to him, “I want to trade for fish.”

  Almost, he laughed. Kiin could see the laughter. Though he kept it tucked behind his teeth, hidden in his cheeks, it came out in the crinkles beside his eyes, in the quivering of his chin. But Kiin, knowing how she must look, a woman, only a woman, with nothing in her hands, understood the reason for the laughter and smiled at him, for she could see herself through his eyes as something funny, something a trader did not often see, a woman with nothing to trade, asking to trade.

  “What do you offer me?” he finally said. “I have a good woman. I do not need your hospitality for the night.”

  Kiin felt the sudden burning of her face, and knew the trader would see the redness there so she quickly reached into her suk for the basket of carvings.

  She reached in, brought out a small gray walrus. The animal, carved in smooth lines from a piece of driftwood, was nearly as long as her hand. Its tusks were small white points carved from birdbone.

  Kiin held the carving on the flat of her hand, and as she looked, she saw flaws in the work. The lines were not quite what she had wanted, not quite what she had seen before she started carving. But then she looked at the trader, at his woman; both were staring, eyes wide, at the walrus.

  “Where did you get it?” the man asked.

  “I made it,” Kiin answered, and the trader shook his head and this time laughed out loud. “Women do not carve,” he said.

  But Kiin held in her anger and shrugged. Let him believe what he wanted. She knew the truth. “It is mine to trade,” she said.

  He looked into her eyes and for a long time said nothing, but then he whispered to his wife. She stood up, went to their ik and pulled out two seal stomachs of fish.

  “Two,” the trader said.

  Kiin’s heart beat hard in her chest. Two seal bellies of fish for a carving she thought had no value. But then something from within made her shake her head no, made her put the walrus back in her basket. Perhaps because the trader did not believe she had carved it. There were others who had fish.

  “Three,” the man said.

  Kiin stepped around the man, her basket tucked tightly under her arm, and opened one of the containers. She pulled out a piece of fish, bit into it. It was firm and dry, the flavor good, no taste of mold.

  “Three,” Kiin said. She handed the walrus to the trader and she and the wife pulled the seal stomachs from the ik.

  “You will keep them here for me?” Kiin asked. “I can carry only one at a time.”

  “They will be safe,” the trader said.

  But then Samiq was beside her, his hands over her hands, hoisting two of the seal stomachs, one to each of his shoulders. “I watched,” he said.

  Kiin looked up at him, saw the approval in his eyes.

  “Leave the other. I will come back for it.”

  Kiin walked with him to the ulas, lowered her head as they passed the women, as Samiq called out to Blue Shell, “Your daughter is a good trader.”

  Gray Bird, his face drawn, eyes squinting, answered, “So she will bring traders into her husband’s ulaq tonight. How much room does she have in her sleeping place?”

  Then Samiq, speaking quietly, said to Kiin, “Do you have more carvings?”

  “Many,” Kiin said. “But they are not good.”

  “You do not see what others see,” he answered. “There is a spirit in each carving, something more than what is carved. Go back. Trade again. We have not been able to hunt much this summer. You must be our hunter.”

  68

  THE MAN WAS TALL, with dark skin; his hair, clipped back with an ivory ornament, was like woman’s hair—black, straight, hanging to his waist. A black blanket of feathered puffin skins was slung around his shoulders, and as he walked, the blanket swung, making each of his steps seem larger than they were, making others move from his path to give him room. The man stopped at a trader’s ik and Amgigh moved closer. Yes, Amgigh was sure now. This was Raven.

  His skin was not as dark as it appeared. Bands of tattoo across his cheeks blackened his face, and it looked like he had rubbed soot over his eyelids.

  A quivering began in Amgigh’s stomach, something that numbed his hands and made his feet and legs seem slow and clumsy.

  Raven stopped suddenly, and Amgigh heard the man’s words, the full clicking sounds of the Walrus tongue. Raven reached out and grabbed something from a trader’s ochre sealskin. The trader lunged toward Raven, hands clasping Raven’s hands, and Amgigh saw that Raven held the driftwood walrus that Kiin had traded for three seal stomachs of fish. Raven released the walrus, backed away smiling, hands out toward the trader. He spoke, a question, again in the Walrus language, and the trader, the walrus held close to his chest, answered.

  Amgigh had been amazed at what Kiin was given for the carving. After that first trade, Samiq had come to him, then they both went with Kiin, to help her as she traded other carvings for oil, fish, for furs and sealskins.

  He had been proud that his wife’s carvings were worth so much to others, and puzzled that the traders would see something more than the smooth lines of knife on wood, that they would see some power in what she had made. Everyone knew the power of Shuganan’s carvings, but Shuganan was shaman, more spirit than man, even Gray Bird admitted that. And what was Kiin but a woman, a wife? What power could she give?

  She was a good wife, yes, and at that thought Amgigh lifted his eyes again to Raven, saw for the first time that the ivory ornament in his hair was carved, a walrus at the top. Kiin’s work, he was sure. Kiin’s work. So even a shaman such as Raven would wear Kiin’s carvings. Even a shaman saw power in her work.

/>   Amgigh passed his hands up over his face, pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. Why did he not see what others saw? Her carvings were good, yes, but…Perhaps his eyes were blinded by his own hurts, by his own doubt. The first night they had come to this beach, he went to her shelter. He had watched her smooth oil over her legs, had lain beside her. He had meant to take her, but when he looked at her, he saw not only Kiin, but the face of Qakan floating like a ghost above her, and even an image of Samiq, strong and alive.

  And overhead, sleeping in their cradles, were the babies. One his son, yes, but the other Samiq’s son. The two would grow up together as he and Samiq had—rivals in all things. And would his son Shuku always be the loser, always catch less fish, the smaller seal, never run as fast, never be the best at anything?

  If so, he, Amgigh, had done that to Shuku, had allowed Samiq to take Kiin, to put Takha in her.

  And even with Kiin beside him, with her hair smelling of seal oil and wind, her breath soft like the seed puffs of a fireweed plant, Amgigh had felt little desire for her body. But now, seeing Raven, Amgigh felt a sudden longing for Kiin. He needed to feel her pressed against him in the night, to know when he woke in the morning, she would be laying out food, and in the evening she would be sewing or weaving in his ulaq.

  He turned, walked quickly away from the beach, back to the ulas. His mother and Crooked Nose were outside, scraping a sealskin. “Where’s Kiin?” he asked.

  Crooked Nose turned, pointed with her chin. Amgigh walked past the two finished ulas to the place that would be Big Teeth’s ulaq. Red Berry, Three Fish and Kiin were dumping gravel and crushed shells on the floor. Driftwood rafters rose from chest-high rock walls. Amgigh watched as Kiin smoothed the gravel into the clay floor with a flat shale blade.

  Her hair was mussed, falling over her eyes and into her face. She and Three Fish squatted with heads bent together, Three Fish speaking, Kiin laughing.