Mother Earth Father Sky

by Sue Harrison

  And so, when the ulaq was empty save Man-who-kills’ body and one lamp, Chagak had taken the furs to the top of the cliff and thrown them over, one by one, and Chagak asked the otter spirits to claim them and live again near Shuganan’s beach.

  While she worked, Shuganan had lain beside a fire he had made with dried heather. She heard him chanting, his words something that Chagak did not understand.

  And now she waited for him. He is strong enough, Chagak told herself, but fear pulled at her thoughts. What if Shuganan could not drive Man-who-kills’ spirit from this beach? It was one thing to build another ulaq. Difficult, but possible. But to find another beach? One without people, one with protection of cove and cliff, with rocks for chitons, kelp for otters.

  Chagak shivered and pulled her hands up into the sleeves of her suk. Her work the night before had crowded out worried thoughts, but now the dark moments with Man-who-kills came back to her.

  She wished she had disobeyed her father, had given herself to Seal Stalker. At least she would have some hope that, if a baby grew within her, it would be Seal Stalker’s son and not Man-who-kills’.

  But then her thoughts returned to Shuganan and to the prayers she should be making. She began a chant, and when worries of babies or thoughts about the night before interrupted her praying, Chagak whispered, “I have had greater sorrow than this. This will not kill me,” and continued to pray.

  It must be done, Shuganan told himself as he climbed down into the empty ulaq. He had spent the night speaking to the spirits, clinging to his amulet, making small fires with sweet heather. He wished that he and Chagak were not alone in this thing, wished that he knew more of the art of the shaman. But there was no shaman and Shuganan wondered if he had chosen the best way, if his actions would be stronger than Man-who-kills’ spirit.

  Chagak had done all the work. Shuganan had been too weak to help her. She had taken all their supplies outside while Shuganan waited, bundled in furs, on the leeward side of the ulaq.

  Now the ulaq looked large and bare, a strange place, no longer their home.

  Man-who-kills lay on his face in the center of the ulaq. The blood had begun to settle in the body, and Shuganan could see that the stomach and chest had begun to darken.

  He gripped his knife. He was not strong enough to finish quickly, but he had told Chagak not to worry if he did not finish until night.

  She had asked if she could help him, and there was a fierceness in her eyes. But Shuganan had never heard of a woman doing the ceremony. It was enough that he, a man who was not shaman, would do it. What curse would a woman bring to them? It would be better to do nothing at all.

  Shuganan plunged the knife into Man-who-kills’ body, into the joint between the shoulder and arm. He wanted to follow the tradition of his wife’s people, to sever the body at each joining: shoulder, wrist, hip, ankle. Last of all, head.

  Then Man-who-kills’ spirit would have no power. Then Shuganan and Chagak should be safe.

  PART TWO

  SPRING 7055 BC

  TWENTY-THREE

  KAYUGH TURNED THE BONE NEEDLE in his hand. He had been working for a long time. He had cut a long splinter from a cormorant’s leg bone, shaped the point, then smoothed the needle with sandstone so it would be easy to use. He had made it with a bulge at one end so his wife, White River, could knot a sinew thread around the needle and the thread would not slide off.

  When he had finished, he sat for a moment, waiting to see if Crooked Nose would come to him. Surely it had been long enough for the baby to be born. But then perhaps the child was a girl and the women were afraid to tell him.

  Yes, it would be good to have a son, he thought. What man did not want a son? But he had seen his own mother die in childbirth and since that time any safe delivery had been a relief to him, whether the woman gave boy or girl.

  Kayugh had welcomed the birth of his daughter, Red Berry, three summers before, and though most men would have asked their wives to kill the child and thus eliminate the years of nursing when few babies were conceived, Kayugh chose to keep his daughter.

  He picked up the bone and gouged out another splinter. He would make another needle, bargaining with White River’s spirit. Surely her spirit would not allow White River’s body to leave the earth knowing there were gifts waiting. But the gray of the sky, the heaviness of rain in the air seemed to reflect the foreboding he felt within. It was not a good month. It would have been better if White River’s labor had not started until after the full moon, until after one full month had passed since Red Leg’s death.

  Red Leg had been Kayugh’s first wife, a good woman, though old. Before Kayugh took her as wife, she had been a widow and childless, unwanted, a woman who in winter might have given herself to the mountains, to the winter spirits. Why should she take a share of food when she had no husband to sew for, no children to raise? There were others in the village who deserved the food more.

  But Kayugh saw Red Leg as a strong woman, one who knew many plants for healing and who could sew fine, straight seams. Who could deny that it was Red Leg’s chigadax that had saved her brother’s life when he tipped his ikyak and could not right himself? What other chigadax could last so long in water, all seams keeping out the sea, keeping a man’s parka dry so when the ikyak was righted the man was not cold or wet?

  Kayugh, seeing the value of the woman, had asked her to be his wife and left his parents when he was young to build a ulaq of his own.

  She had been a good wife. She came to his bed whenever he wanted, filled the food caches with dried fish and roots, kept his parka and boots in good repair. But when, after two years, she had given him no children Red Leg had come to him and asked that he take a second wife. She needed help with the work of the ulaq, she said. Then Kayugh had found White River.

  White River belonged to a family from another village. She was a beautiful woman and, unlike most women, tall. Her skin was light, and her eyes were rounder than the eyes of women in Kayugh’s village.

  He had seen her on a trading trip and had traded a pack of furs and his fine ikyak to get her. But Kayugh had wanted her, and so had suffered the taunts of the other men when, without ikyak, he had used a woman’s ik to bring his bride home.

  And she, too, had been a good wife, though not so gifted at sewing and cooking as Red Leg.

  But Red Leg had been dead now ten days. She had fallen from her ik while cutting limpets from rocks, and though Kayugh had gone after her and had dragged her to shore, water spirits had sucked away her breath before he could get her to the beach.

  There was no burial ulaq, so they left her at the edge of a beach, rocks piled over her body. But often in the days that followed, Kayugh had felt her spirit close to him, and though he knew Red Leg’s spirit would not hurt him, he wondered if perhaps she were seeking a companion, or knew that death would soon take one of them so waited for that one instead of making the trip to the Dancing Lights alone.

  But then perhaps it was not White River who would die but one of the others. Kayugh thought of the people who made up his small group. He, through no spoken word but only on his abilities as a hunter, was leader. The others waited for his decisions. Eight adults: three men, five women. Two children. No, thought Kayugh, four women now Red Leg is dead. And, of the four remaining, were there any he would not grieve for?

  Kayugh rested his arms across his upraised knees and stared out toward the sea. It was early summer. They needed to take seals, to put aside something for the winter. How else would they live?

  Then the thought came, sudden and unexpected: Why should we live? Kayugh rubbed his hands across his eyes. He was tired, worried. He had lost one wife and feared the loss of another. That was all. There was no spirit enticing him to join the men and women of his tribe who had climbed the mountain, refusing to eat, and waited for death after the great wave destroyed their village.

  The wave had taken Kayugh’s father, three brothers, a sister. Who had lost more than that? But how could a hunter de
cide it was time to die when he was still young? Others needed his skills to bring food and to help them find a safe beach.

  So he had led the people west, but he crossed to the beaches of the north sea rather than the south. The winters were harder, but the hunters who spent time there said there were fewer large waves—waves that came during the night, destroying villages, killing people.

  “Less for the women to gather, less eggs, less roots,” Gray Bird had said. But Kayugh seldom listened to Gray Bird. He was a small man, not strong, and his spirit, too, was small and weak.

  But though Gray Bird had argued with Kayugh, Big Teeth had agreed. Big Teeth was a good man, full of laughter and the telling of jokes, and content to let others speak of his hunting success. Kayugh valued his judgment.

  Kayugh could see Big Teeth from where he sat. The man was repairing his ikyak. The craft was turned on its belly and Big Teeth was rubbing fat into the seams.

  Big Teeth was a man with narrow shoulders, wide hips. His arms were long, and he of all the hunters of the village was able to throw his spear the farthest.

  First Snow, Big Teeth’s son, worked beside him. The boy had nearly eight winters. Soon he would be a hunter. Big Teeth was not blood father to the boy but had taken him as his own when, years before, another wave destroyed their village. That wave had taken Big Teeth’s own son and drowned First Snow’s parents. Unlike Big Teeth, the boy was short and stocky, powerful even for a boy. But though built differently, First Snow mimicked Big Teeth’s swinging walk, his voice and the way he watched a man through squinted eyes.

  Seeing the two together made Kayugh’s hope for a son stronger, but then his small daughter skipped out to the edge of the water. Kayugh stood and called to her, and when she came, he sat cross-legged in the sand and pulled her to his lap.

  She leaned back against him, and her tangled hair smelled of the wind. It would not be terrible to have another daughter, Kayugh thought. And then he saw the woman Crooked Nose walking from the sheltered place the women had found between two hills, and seeing a smile on her face, hope for a son again rose within him.

  But when Crooked Nose came to him, Kayugh’s first thoughts were of White River. “My wife?” he asked, leaving the words hanging between them.

  “She is good,” Crooked Nose said and squatted beside him.

  Crooked Nose, one of Big Teeth’s wives, was not a beautiful woman. She had been named for her nose, which was thick and bent like a puffin’s bill. Her small brown eyes were set close together, and her lips were thin. But her hands were long-boned and beautiful, swift with awl or needle. Perhaps she wove spells with those hands, for often when she worked the men would gather around her, speaking to her as if she were another man, gifted with the wisdom of a man.

  Crooked Nose reached out to run a finger under Red Berry’s chin. “We had some trouble. White River was bleeding….”

  “It stopped?”

  “Yes.”

  “The child?”

  Crooked Nose smiled. “A son,” she said.

  “A son,” Kayugh repeated, and for a moment he sat still.

  Crooked Nose smiled, but then glanced down at her hands. “She named him.”

  Kayugh was not surprised. It was a custom in White River’s family; something that was to give strength in hunting.

  “What did she call him?” he asked.

  “She whispered the name to the baby but will not tell us until she has told you.”

  Kayugh nodded. “A son,” he said. A bubble of laughter seemed to rise up from his spirit, and as it grew, it pulled Kayugh to his feet. He hoisted Red Berry to his shoulders, and after giving Crooked Nose a hug, he called to Big Teeth, “I have a son.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE PAIN IN HER BACK woke Chagak. For the past three days it had grown steadily worse, and this morning it was so intense that even her jaws and teeth ached.

  She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, then sat back on her haunches, one hand under her belly.

  She crawled out into the ulaq and lit the oil lamps from the one that had burned through the night. She picked up the clay-lined basket that held her night wastes and climbed from the ulaq to empty the basket outside.

  The wind cut cold and sharp from the beach, and clouds lay heavy enough to see even in the darkness of early morning.

  “It will rain tonight,” some spirit whispered and Chagak thought it was the voice of a sea otter spirit, a voice she had often heard since Man-who-kills’ death.

  But she did not answer as she emptied the basket a distance from the ulaq, then walked toward the beach to rinse the basket in a tidal pool.

  “It will rain tonight,” the otter said again. “Hard.”

  “Yes,” said Chagak, as she squatted beside the pool. She rested her arms on the tops of her knees before washing out the basket.

  “You will have your baby today,” the otter said, and the spirit voice was calm as though still speaking of the rain.

  Chagak closed her eyes. “Not today,” she said aloud.

  “Do you think you can be pregnant forever?”

  “It is better than death.”

  “You have never feared death.”

  “Who will care for Shuganan if I die?”

  “You will not die.”

  “Many women die giving birth.”

  “You will not die.”

  “The baby? Will it die?”

  “How can I say?” replied the otter. “That is your choice.”

  “Is it boy or girl?” Chagak asked, though she had asked many times before and the otter had never answered.

  “Boy,” said the otter, and the suddenness of the answer seemed to bring a pain that tightened and pulled from Chagak’s breastbone to her spine.

  When the pain ended, Chagak said, “A boy.”

  “You wanted a girl.”

  “Yes,” Chagak said. What had her mother told her? A girl carries the spirit of her mother, a boy the spirit of his father. Chagak had no husband to make her kill a girl child. She could keep a daughter if she wished, but if she had a boy, how could she keep him? How could she keep a child who might grow to hate and kill like his father? Yet she dreaded the thought of killing the baby.

  “Perhaps Shuganan will kill it for you,” said the otter.

  “Perhaps you are wrong and I carry a daughter,” said Chagak, suddenly angry with the otter spirit, as if it were the one that had chosen whether the child was boy or girl.

  Another pain took her and Chagak lowered her head to her arms.

  “Walk,” said the otter. “You must walk. The child will come more quickly.”

  “I must tell Shuganan first,” Chagak said. “And prepare him food.”

  Chagak went back to the ulaq. She climbed carefully down the climbing log, her muscles tense as she waited for the next pain. She wished she remembered more of childbirth. She had still been in her year of first bleeding when Pup was born, so she had not been allowed to help her mother in the birthing, but she had stayed at the top of the ulaq, asking questions of every woman who entered or left. Her mother had been a strong woman and even near the end of the labor had not cried out, but Chagak had heard other women in labor, crying, screaming.

  The thought made Chagak shudder, and she tried to think of other things, tried to keep her thoughts to the preparation of fish and dried seal meat. She even tried to start another conversation with the otter spirit, but this time the otter said nothing, and finally, as she worked, Chagak realized that her hands were shaking, her knees trembling. She had a sudden need for her mother and, like a little child, Chagak began to cry, huge, hard sobs that pulled away her breath.

  “Chagak?” Shuganan crawled from his sleeping place. “What is the matter?”

  Chagak held in her tears and tried to smile, but some spirit seemed to control the corners of her mouth, to twist her face. “I am all right,” she said, her voice thin. “I am all right.” Then quickly, “The birth pains have started.”

  “Goo
d,” he said, but Chagak saw the quick widening of his eyes, a flash of fear.

  “Have a son,” he said. “I will teach him to hunt.”

  Chagak tried to smile, but the thought of a son brought her no joy. She set out a mat and layered it with fish and seal meat.

  Shuganan ate, using only his right hand, his left arm still weak. It had seemed to heal well, but the arm’s broken bone had attracted the spirits that stiffen joints, and both elbow and shoulder were swollen so that Shuganan could barely move the arm.

  When he had finished eating, Chagak put away the remaining fish and meat.

  “You must eat, too,” Shuganan said.

  “No,” she answered.” I am not hungry. I need to be outside. It is too hot in here. It is too dark.”

  Shuganan watched Chagak during that long day. She paced the length of the beach, a small, dark figure, hands under her suk, supporting her large belly. As the sun neared the northwestern horizon, the rain clouds grew darker, heavier. Chagak walked more slowly, and Shuganan moved from the roof of the ulaq. He would bring her back now. He could tell by the stiffness of her steps that the pains were coming often.

  She needs a woman, Shuganan thought, and in the years since his wife’s death he had never felt a greater need for her wisdom.

  As he approached Chagak, Shuganan saw that she was walking with her eyes closed, breathing deeply, her cheeks puffing out with each pain, like a child blowing up a seal bladder.

  She stopped when she saw him and crouched on her heels in the sand.

  “Come back to the ulaq,” Shuganan said to her.

  “The pain is not bad,” she answered. “I need to be in the wind. I need to be by the sea.”

  Shuganan nodded and squatted beside her.

  They sat in silence for a time, but then Shuganan noticed that Chagak’s cheeks were wet with tears.

  “Why do you cry?” he asked. “Is the pain so great?”

  She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “No,” she said, then murmured, “I am afraid.”